The answer to how is God’s authentic omnipotence, the most important part of which is a power over oneself. Theology which rips this power away from God in order to retain it for itself to dictate who and what God must be, is a theology which seeks to enslave God. Thus discarding such hubris leads to the realization that God is quite capable of limiting Himself and giving power to something else, in this case the mathematical structure of space-time. This is the foundation of free will, which is the very essence of the phenomenon of life. Obviously, someone obsessed with power and control would never do such a thing – but that is a difference between God and some theologians.
He did that in the incarnation, totally. You seem to have some kind of axe to grind, and an earthbound idea of a craftsman and the independence of his workmanship with respect to God’s sustenance of the universe.
It’s kind of like air. We are not independent of it – if it went away, so would we.
Exactly. Thus showing that God is totally able and willing. God showed that unlike the religionist feeding their egos off their idea of a god who must control everything, He values love and freedom more than power and control.
And I think it is just the religionists who want things this way. This way when they enslave God with their theology, they effectively elevate themselves to the sustenance of the universe.
The reality is that God did go away (it is called the fall of man) and people kept on breathing just as before because God made all of that work by natural law. Of course, there were negative consequences. Man was never meant to navigate the moral landscape without God. And there is no eternal life without God also. It was not good, but the inability to physically breathe wasn’t one of the problems.
I have to smile - is this a semantic version of the ‘Mitchell theorem (MT)?’
Giving power to the MT! Just how is power given if not exercised by the giver. I get the impression that your home spun theologizing may be something like the theology you rile against, In any event I note:
For thine is the kingdom,
The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever. Amen.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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We have natural law and spiritual law. I am really more concerned about spiritual law which governs how humans relate with each other and God. If God is independent from natural law, how does God exercise spiritual law? .
Exactly! Power given is an exercise of power. It is not a cessation of omnipotence but an expression of omnipotence. Do we not create machines powered by generators. To be sure they require some maintenance but they don’t just disappear if we stop thinking about them. God not only can and did the same in the creation but did even better than this. I don’t think the laws of nature require any maintenance but I am sure there were a few tweaks in evolution and even more in human history to keep things going according to His providence of salvation.
We discover these natural laws in the mathematical structure of space-time by the objective methodology of science and does this lead to God? It does not. Has the discovery of the ways of nature EVER demonstrated the existence of God? It has not. Some have the expectation that it will. I do not. Why? Because I think God is a true creator of something real apart from Himself and not just a dreamer who has to uphold it because it is no more than a thought in His head. God is not just the kid down the block who can dream just like anybody else. God can really create things and do so with competence so they stand on their own by their own laws and structure. The power and glory to God for ever and ever! Amen.
What then of Hebrews 1:3. When I say that God created the universe to stand on its own, this does not change the fact that He created it for a relationship. I do not mean that God is not intimately involved in the universe – nothing like that. So God certainly does intervene to make sure His will is accomplished in the universe. I simply disagree with this idea of a dreamer God which has the universe existing only in God’s mind and in no way apart from Him as you find in panentheism.
Amen to that as well. But think these two are very different. While the laws of nature are mathematical and stand on their own – they are mathematical precisely because they HAVE to stand their own. The spiritual law is not and does not. Some of the spiritual stands on its own by the simple logic of desire and happiness, but it ultimately leads to God because only an infinite God can be the source of life which is eternal.
Incorrect. I learn from the example of the divine craftsman whose work can be clearly seen in the created universe.
Yes. It is my theology with absolutely no delusion whatsoever that I speak for God Himself!!! It is the way I myself make sense of science and Christianity with my own brain and my own mind and rationality with absolutely no pretention to anything else!!! It is the product of hard sincere thinking rather than some desire to lord it over others with assumed authority… because I need to make of sense of things for myself and I really care less what any of you or anybody else for that matter thinks of it. It is indeed for me. Spit on it if you must. I don’t care!
OR… is this about education? homespun as in without any educational background so that I don’t even know what other people have said? Well in that case you would be wrong. I have a masters of divinity from theological seminary in addition to my MS in physics from university. In that case, do I still qualify for your “home spun” description? Please tell me I do. I hope so. If not… let me down gently. LOL
Oh and I decided to click on these… and guess what I found!
Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’
When you continue reading, you see that it is not saying we are inside of Him but that we are His children and thus we live and move and exist in the same way as children have their life and existence from their parents.
I didn’t even click on the second. For that is already answered in my post above. I in no say meant to imply that God is not omnipresent in His creation or intimately involved in events. No indeed! But God’s intervention and miracles ARE intervention and miracles and this is ONLY because the universe stands on its own and works just fine according to natural law without God’s involvement.
No spitting has taken place. I agree that we all need to think for ourselves and our conscience is the place to start all of that.
However, you often make statements about some others (theologians from the sound of it) that offend you in some way. I have tried to find out who they are or what doctrine offends you, with little success.
As to your (independent) laws of the Universe that appear to operate in some way independent of God, well I am still trying to understand such a notion,
As to the rest of your soapbox performance: Yes, we pray to our Father who is in heaven and in the name of Christ. I cannot see a problem with this.
It is hard to tell WHAT your “home spun” comment was about. Looked at least a little like spit, but maybe it was a little random saliva splatter. You certainly haven’t explain whether I still qualify for whatever it is you meant by that comment.
Does that means “homespun” was a compliment then?
That is your addition to my posts – I certainly never said anything of the sort. Do you always add things like that to text? I disagree with them. That is all.
So… removing your added drama… you don’t know who I might disagree with? So you have no notion of anyone who has a different understanding of scripture and Christianity than mine. Despite the snide comments, everything I have said sounds just like everything you have heard before. Color me skeptical but… ok… if so that certainly doesn’t bother me.
Oh… you are Eastern Orthodox aren’t you. The EO kind of equate theologians with saints, don’t they. Well I am not talking about any of your saints, if that is what you are hung up about. Not that I would agree with them just because your church has decided to call them saints. But I certainly didn’t have any of them in mind.
Yeah just because God created them doesn’t mean they require God to enforce them or keep them going. They are not like human laws or Biblical commandments. They are the very space-time structure of the physical universe. It is the mathematical nature of them which tells us this. It just like when we make a machine. It does what we made it to do, by itself, because that is how we made it.
Don’t have any idea what this is in reference to… Amen?
do you argue for God being a necromancer casting spells with magic words?
Or is this more of a comparison of God to emperors and kings giving orders to his angels to carry out the task of challenging living organisms in the universe to grow and learn according to they fullest potential. I have no problem with that.
But the necromancer and dreamer gods I give a big ixnay on those. I don’t believe any of that nonsense.
You want to take this literally but not the passage about a flat earth. I got it. Not interested.
Yes, we understand your position, but that does not really address my question, and the flat earth analogy hardly applies to the theological and ontological statement cited from Hebrews.
This is beginning to be pointless harassment and simply trying to pick a fight. Let’s stop boring people out of their mind with these endless repetitions.
Frankly the image which the passage brings to my mind is that of Atlas. And Paul is merely getting some one-up-man-ship on the Greek myth to say it is Jesus who upholds the universe. You can choose to take such an image literally if you want, but that will never be anything but metaphorical to me.
