Christian: n,

A person who believes in Jesus Christ, God incarnate who came to Earth and became flesh to die on the cross, sinless for our redemption.

libertarian: n,

"A person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Putting God in His Place

If God was all powerful, He could make a stone so big that He Himself couldn't lift it, but if He can't lift it then He can't be all powerful. Gee, that was original. How many times have we heard people try to describe God in our limited little human terms? The logic problem above is a matter of physics, having to do with gravitational forces on mass and the energy required to increase the the altitude of said mass, blah, blah, blah... So, is God lifting this stone from the Earth, the moon, Pluto??? What if the stone's so big that when God flexes, the stone remains stationary and the place where God is standing moves? Does that still count? It's all rather silly if you think about it. Before any human ever even considered the laws of physics, God had created them. Physics and the laws of nature simply did not exist before God called them into being. And yet, we think we can think God out of existence with our applied ignorance.

Our concept of eternity seems pretty limited as well. As human beings, our experience teaches us that everything has a start and an end. Therefore, the concept of eternity can be difficult to comprehend. Here again, we must understand that time, as we know it, was also a creation of God. Eternity isn't an unending continuation of time, but a complete lack of time altogether. We must be able to imagine existing in a state where the progression of time as we know it, simply doesn't exist.

I wouldn't say that using logic is a bad thing, but that trying to bind God and His abilities to the laws of physics, human logic or understanding can lead to an inability to know God.

What started me on this post was this article;

http://www.newwest.net/citjo/article/strange_bedfellows_libertarians_and_conservative_christians/C33/L33/

Putting it in a nutshell with apologies to the author if I mutilate it, his perspective is that libertarian Christian is an oxymoron. His assertion is that to be libertarian one must believe in free will and that to be a Christian one must believe that everything is preordained by God which means we can't have free will. This "either, or" requirement is human logic which simply cannot be used as a yardstick for determining what is or isn't possible for God. Can God know everything that will happen for eternity and/or even be directing those actions while still allowing for those actions to be performed by each individual's conscience choices? Absolutely. I don't understand how, but my lack of understanding doesn't automatically negate the possibility.

My humble advice; Don't limit your understanding of God by limiting Him to your understanding.

2 comments:

  1. Well timed and profoundly said.

    Thank you, Bryan

    May God continue to bless your thought-provoking ministry.

    Merry Christmas Bryan!

    Will

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  2. Strange bedfellows? Oxymoron? I think the author missed the entire point of Christianity. God created man in His image and GAVE him free will. Free will was our gift from our Creator. If we did not have free will, we would be a race of robots. True, it was man's free will that allowed him to be deceived and led him to original sin. So now we live in a sinful world, but still retain that free will. We should still embrace our gift of free will. We have free will to turn to Christ as our personal Saviour. Without libertarian freedom, we loose the right to practice our religion and help others find their path to Christ. Strange bedfellows? This guy cant have his cake and eat it too!

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