"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
-isaiah 55:8-9
I've been reading and hearing quite a bit of debate lately regarding God's ability to accomplish things and His motives for doing so. Sometimes, I think we over-debate issues in a way that complicates them. The concept of God's sovereignty is one such issue.
Believe it or not, there are Christians out there who believe that God needs us in order to do anything here on earth. What?!? Seriously?!?
The Bible I read pretty much establishes that God doesn't need any of us in order to act on His will. He stands apart from His creation, even though He can also be in it. How could the creator limit his own power to the whims of His creation?
Look, we just don't have the mental equipment to even begin to conceptualize the most basic aspects of God's experience or thought process. We have been given the senses we need to make sense of our environment but that doesn't mean that we experience the world in the same way that God does, or that He needs us in order to move in it.
Let's say, for a moment, that people exist in four humanly-perceivable dimensions: Length, width, depth and time. Because we can percieve these dimensions, we can conceptualize and internalize the information they give us. We can draw conclusions about how they are arranged and how they interact. We can speculate what things might be like if any one of them were missing.
We can control the first three: length, width and depth. That is, we can choose to move forward, sideways or up and down. Yet, we helplessly move in one direction through the fourth dimension: time. We have no control over it. We steadily move toward the its end, but we can not choose to go backward or forward to any specific point. We can not even see where it goes. No, we must experience life one moment at a time, in succession. Yes, we can sense amd conceptualize time, but we are still just passengers on a ship that never makes turns; never stops for fuel; never pulls in to port.
This is not the case for God. God can be every-when. Its His system. He made it. I don't pretend to know How He can do it, but He is not bridled by time. He likely exists in every point in time, simultaneously in addition to also existing outside of the boundries of time. He has control over the fourth dimension. His ways are higher than our ways, remember? Just how much higher His ways are is His business alone.
I believe that this idea is how predestiny and free will can have a pleasant picnic in the park together. God knows everything you are going to do because, to Him, you have already done it...and...you also have yet to do it. We are the ones who must suffer the consequences of causality, not God. Too often, we project our ability to understand things on to God. Come on, He made the universe. That includes every detail, every dimension, every particle and every dynamic in it that we have not discovered yet.
I mean, should we really believe that just because we perceive four dimensions that those are the only ones in God's existence. Should we further assume that those additional dimensions necessarily be spatial or physically tangible? Think about it for a moment.
No, God doesn't need us. But, He does choose to use us to reach others. He allows us to operate our free will as we choose. The right question to ask is: Does God choose us? The answer is yes.
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
-isaiah 55:8-9
I've been reading and hearing quite a bit of debate lately regarding God's ability to accomplish things and His motives for doing so. Sometimes, I think we over-debate issues in a way that complicates them. The concept of God's sovereignty is one such issue.
Believe it or not, there are Christians out there who believe that God needs us in order to do anything here on earth. What?!? Seriously?!?
The Bible I read pretty much establishes that God doesn't need any of us in order to act on His will. He stands apart from His creation, even though He can also be in it. How could the creator limit his own power to the whims of His creation?
Look, we just don't have the mental equipment to even begin to conceptualize the most basic aspects of God's experience or thought process. We have been given the senses we need to make sense of our environment but that doesn't mean that we experience the world in the same way that God does, or that He needs us in order to move in it.
Let's say, for a moment, that people exist in four humanly-perceivable dimensions: Length, width, depth and time. Because we can percieve these dimensions, we can conceptualize and internalize the information they give us. We can draw conclusions about how they are arranged and how they interact. We can speculate what things might be like if any one of them were missing.
We can control the first three: length, width and depth. That is, we can choose to move forward, sideways or up and down. Yet, we helplessly move in one direction through the fourth dimension: time. We have no control over it. We steadily move toward the its end, but we can not choose to go backward or forward to any specific point. We can not even see where it goes. No, we must experience life one moment at a time, in succession. Yes, we can sense amd conceptualize time, but we are still just passengers on a ship that never makes turns; never stops for fuel; never pulls in to port.
This is not the case for God. God can be every-when. Its His system. He made it. I don't pretend to know How He can do it, but He is not bridled by time. He likely exists in every point in time, simultaneously in addition to also existing outside of the boundries of time. He has control over the fourth dimension. His ways are higher than our ways, remember? Just how much higher His ways are is His business alone.
I believe that this idea is how predestiny and free will can have a pleasant picnic in the park together. God knows everything you are going to do because, to Him, you have already done it...and...you also have yet to do it. We are the ones who must suffer the consequences of causality, not God. Too often, we project our ability to understand things on to God. Come on, He made the universe. That includes every detail, every dimension, every particle and every dynamic in it that we have not discovered yet.
I mean, should we really believe that just because we perceive four dimensions that those are the only ones in God's existence. Should we further assume that those additional dimensions necessarily be spatial or physically tangible? Think about it for a moment.
No, God doesn't need us. But, He does choose to use us to reach others. He allows us to operate our free will as we choose. The right question to ask is: Does God choose us? The answer is yes.
