If God...

If God leaves things for us to do, then why does he resist the proud?

Absolute Power and Absolute Knowledge

This might be tough, please try to follow.


If God foreknows everything and God is all powerful, then, it follows that everything that occurs, occurs as a result of the following reason.


1. God plans it and is actively subduing the results
2. God plans against it, and is actively subduing the results
3. God allows it and is neither actively planning it nor actively restraining it, however he IS actively restraining his power/right to control it


In all cases, God must actively plan an action, or choose a course of action; even if that action is a planned inaction. Since he cannot be surprised and neither can his mind be stimulated with new information, in effect he plans to do nothing, he plans to do something, he plans to allow something by actively acting or actively restraining his power for his foreknown disposition.


The only thing that this theorem cannot account for at this time is if there is anything that God can passively not care about. Is such a thing possible when you know everything and everything is in submission to your power?


My view is that God is the first cause of all things. It doesn't seem possible for God to be uninvolved in anything.

Practice This Says Luther...

Practice this knowledge and fortify yourself against despair, particularly in the last hour, when the memory of past sins assails the conscience. Say with confidence: "Christ, the Son of God, was given not for the righteous, but for sinners. If I had no sin I should not need Christ. No, Satan, you cannot delude me into thinking I am holy. The truth is, I am all sin. My sins are not imaginary transgressions, but sins against the first table, unbelief, doubt, despair, contempt, hatred, ignorance of God, ingratitude towards Him, misuse of His name, neglect of His Word, etc.; and sins against the second table, dishonor of parents, disobedience of government, coveting of another's possessions, etc. Granted that I have not committed murder, adultery, theft, and similar sins in deed, nevertheless I have committed them in the heart, and therefore I am a transgressor of all the commandments of God.

Third Day's New Single Lift Up Your Face

The Rule of First Cause, Cause and Effect and Links In a Bicycle Chain

After lunch today I was doing a brisk walk to start building up my stamina and hopefully beginning what will be a semi-permanent routine of exercise right after lunch to get my system going. I suffer from extremely bad acid reflux, brought on I believe, by super-stresses in my life. I hope this to aid in a resolution.


As I was walking I was considering the cause of my reasoning and desire to continue to consider the Sovereignty of God. It seems impolite to keep visiting a subject that you grasp, even if not fully.


But as I considered I voiced my reasoning "God, it's because it's everywhere!" Then started considering why others, perhaps, don't see it. As I was walking I saw a field of corn and here's where we'll end the narrative and begin the discourse.
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You see a field of corn just as I do; you consider the implications of doing nothing and that cause having an effect that is measurable and repeatable. You also consider the cause of doing something to the corn and in likewise manner you consider your influence on such a thing. You consider that because you have done thus, it must be so that insofar as we can see, or perceive, our influence is both measurable and discernible, thus it exists, therefore it is real. And if real, doesn't my sentient soul tell me that I so decided to thus and it was done?


I can even apply the rule of first cause and say that I am the first cause of the planting and the reaping of this corn. And so too, you might be right. This thinking however is akin to a bicycle chain link, if it could talk, as it arrived at the first tooth in the sprocket it might say, "because I am thus, this bicycle will be propelled forward". And so it is true, that because the link is thus, hard, steel, and positionally in place to drive the bicycle forward, it is so. However, what this prideful and arrogant thinking will never consider is, how did you get there to be thus? How is it that you cannot consider links in the fore or aft of your position? How is that you've lost sight of what caused you to be thus and did such a thing occur? It cannot!


So too is the mind set on the flesh. God is the first cause of all things and there is no secondary cause. Likewise in the chain link example, we have limited if any, discernment of why we are thus, or what links precede or follow us as such, or positionally where we are in his plan. Yet, as the builder of all things, he causes his sheep to follow him and to do the works he's preordained, and those whom are goats, he causes to be rejected and to stumble and to be jealous and to remain condemned.


For the scripture says;
Isaiah 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.


Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.


Isaiah 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.


A link of all the verses about God's sovereignty

Compare Your Experience With Dominoes & God's Sovereignty

I often grow frustrated with the sentiment that God has created us with a free, morally unimpeded, will of near absolute effectiveness. The most common resulting conclusion is the appeal to pity, not scripture, that God is not a puppet master, or a rapist, or neither has he created automatons with no independent thought or provocation of their own.

I grow indignant with the utter lack of experiential, or thoughtful comparisons in our own life, that we fail to apply fully to God in our desires, but rather fully in our limitations; we inadequately try to describe God. We use our own lack of comprehension, or omniscience to describe God's, or our own lack of omnipotence to describe Gods. How stupid and foolish!

As I read "Theology" by Vincent Cheung, I'm struck with this very human experience that entirely explains, in my opinion, what it must be like to be utterly in control of the object you desire, while it operates under your control, to perform a task which you've prescribed, without defect to the manner in which you prescribed it. And that, being perfect and good.

If ever you've played with dominoes, you've likely set them up in ornate rows, long columns of white ivory, or ceramic, all with the intent of one final goal. To knock them over. They serve many purposes, but apart from your hand and imagination they can do no other. Certainly they may be different in appearance, and some have slight variations in weight, but their differences do not impede your control over them in any way. It's a likely scenario that you enjoy and delight in the purpose that you have for them. In fact they serve you entirely. Your singular purpose is your enjoyment and to that end you've completely arranged them. And when you knock them over, do you enjoy the domino effect breaking down and ending what would have been a marvelous conclusion to all of our predetermined joy? Surely you do not enjoy the failure of your plan? Surely if it be in your control you would not let it fail for this would diminish your joy and the process must start again. OR, do you find the most joy when, in complete agreement with your predetermined desire for joy with your creation, the creation performs exactly as it was designed, planned and intended to. Yet surely there are minor imperfections in each domino and in each tip that falls the next piece...yet, the final goal is not deterred and you being fully in control, accomplish that which you set out to do. This is exactly what God's sovereignty looks like in practice.

One minor exception I would draw to be as complete as this author can be, God DID create you, specifically with your imperfections, and planned each fall, so that you, his child would ultimately come to realize his joy in a life in service to him, adopted as children, invited to be partakers, a chosen race, a holy nation, royal priesthood. Certainly a God, worthy of all of that, would have the sense to make sure his planned cannot be foiled or even delayed by the mindless and ignorant 'choices' of men.

Compatibilism - It's like bookends without knowledge

The mind is a maze and many of us will never fully map all the ideas that we have. There are probably some propositions we have that we'll never honestly consider on any other level than a superficial one....perhaps.

One of ideas that engages me so richly is this idea of compatibilism. It's a term, in theological circles, that describes the idea that contradictory theological positions can be rectified by the unifying bond of love, peace and harmony. And that differences of theological precision, even on essential doctrine are not important and probably not necessary for salvation. It doesn't state that all ideas are the same, or equal, in a sense, but in another sense it certainly under-girds that principle in it's practice. That is to say, that by words we assert that mutually exclusive ideas like predestination and free will are certainly not the same, but a salvific belief does not consider doctrine rather a belief in God as a primary and perhaps unilaterally effective position. True as this may be in a sense,  this idea reduces the beautiful sophistication and clear scriptural design of salvation written of in the Bible to simply a belief in God's existence, or more appropriately, his son, Christ. I find most commonly that those who are suffering from the disastrous effects of compatibilism have been led astray, taught not to read their bibles or search for knowledge of God but rather to blindly accept deep theological positions based on the quaint, easy to digest slogans of the pulpit and media outlets. Probably the most common, or obvious is "judge not". An easy test would be to ask them who created evil.

I think this idea is allowed to exist, at least in part, because people have not been taught to think thoroughly through who God says he really is. His word teaches clearly who He is, but for various reasons, we're afraid to share what that is. So, you train a person in the way they will go and in all their lifetime they may never depart from it. This gives rise to conversations where a person with their own mouth can say, "I believe that God is in control of everything"...to which the reasonable reply might be, "does that include your ability to sin?" and they follow, "well no. God doesn't create evil".

How Interesting! It seems that in their mind God IS in fact in control of everything, but then they run across this, seemingly contradictory, information about the attributes of God, to which they must deny the validity of their original proposition, thus revealing the premise of their understanding of who God is. For if he has control over your sin, then, isn't he sinning himself? God doesn't sin! And on both bookends of this propositional logic, they are correct, God IS in control of everything and he does NOT sin.

This person has neither thought fully through what it means to be literally in control of everything, especially considering the reality that God is all knowing, all powerful and ever-present, furthermore, probably has not fully read all of the attributes of God. For certainly if they had, they would know that they[the attributes] do not contradict each other. And what are they left with?

I would liken this condition to a set of bookends with no books in-between. A blind person could easily believe he had a fortune of knowledge in books, if he merely felt the bookends alone. He may even be proud of how often he thinks about those bookends, and tells other people about how beautiful they are. How often he wonders about, but never investigates, all the knowledge that must be contained between them. Or perhaps how often he might tell his friends in a tough situation that they should investigate the deep library of wisdom in between those bookends; contented himself in the knowledge of merely their existence.

This is what it's like to not read the entire Bible. This is what it's like to not make loving and knowing God your first and most important duty in this temporal life. It's like believing you have books in-between your bookends, or worse, being convinced of it.