So you were converted by changing churches?
Perhaps we are using the same word to mean different things.
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Perhaps we are using the same word to mean different things.
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To the question of why things exist, there can be no other or deeper answer than God willed it. The usual next question is, “Why did God will it?” Augustine answered such as question (see City of God, XX1, 8): “…he is asking for something that is greater than the will of God, but nothing greater can be found.” Generally speaking, this is the position of the Christian church and Christian theology. That said, there is room here for the question. “What moved God to create, that is, what goal did God have for creating?”
Some have answered that God created the world not from some need but out of goodness, not for Himself but for human beings. Augustine went so far as to claim (see Literal Meaning of Genesis, IV,16): “If {God} were not able to make good things, he would possess no power at all; if, however, he were able but did not, then there would be great blame.” Humanistic thinking along these same lines attempted to place man in the foreground, from which doctrines of natural law, natural morality, and natural religion made man autonomous and independent from God. Men like Leibnitz came along and argued that God was morally obligated to choose the best of many possible worlds. Kant’s practical reason demanded that God supply man eternal life in the hereafter because man’s virtue entitled him to it. This eighteenth century rationalism made man his own end, with God but the means.
In fact, we see this even today, with thinking that teaches God must create, for otherwise He would be selfish and not the highest love. These same thinkers will say that because God is good, He certainly does not want to be blessed by Himself alone, so God creates a kingdom of love and pursues the blessedness of His creatures, which for God is the ultimate goal.
Orthodox Christianity rejects such man-centered perspectives. Yes, God’s goodness also is manifested in creation, as Scripture asserts. Yet, it is doctrinal error to claim that God’s goodness requires creation or else God would be selfish. God is the all-good Being, perfect love, total blessedness within Himself, therefore in no need of creating to bring His goodness or love to maturity, no more so than He needs to create to achieve self-consciousness and personality. Man exists for the sake of God, and not the reverse.
Indeed, scripture points in a very different direction for the goal of creation. All of nature is a revelation of God’s attributes and a proclamation of His praise (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:19). Man was created after God’s image and for God’s glory (Genesis 1:26; Isaiah 43:7). God glorified Himself in Pharaoh (Exodus 14:17), the man born blind (John 9:3), the wicked for the day of trouble (Proverbs 16:4; Romans 9:22), in the incarnation (John 17:4), and bestows the benefits of grace for His own name’s sake: redemption, forgiveness, sanctification, etc. (Psalm 105:8; 78:9 and forward; Isaiah 43:25; Isaiah 48:11; Isaiah 60:21; Isaiah 61:3; Romans 9:23; Ephesians 1:6 and forward). In short, God gives glory to no other (Isaiah 42:8).
Now some will claim, since God seeks honor, He really needs His creatures after all. Since the instrument of God’s glorification is the world, there must be something lacking in His perfection and blessedness. Therefore creation meets a need in God, contributing to His perfection. To counter, we need only look to the analogy of human labor for clarification of God’s creative activity.
At the bottom rung of the labor chain, humans labor because they have to, compelled by need or force. But as we move further up the chain, where the work becomes more refined, we find there less room for need or coercion. Consider the painter who creates his work of art, not out of need or coercion, rather he is impelled by the free impulses of his genius. The devout person serves God out of free flowing love, not out of coercion or hope for reward. Likewise, there is a delight in God that is infinitely superior to need or force, poverty or riches, that embodies His artistic ideas in creation and finds intense pleasure in it. What in the case of man is merely a weak analogy is present in God in absolute originality. (Obviously, a created artist has no independence apart from, and in opposition to, God.) Therefore, God never seeks out a creature as if the creature were able to give Him something He lacks or could take from Him something He possesses. God is and always remains His own end. God’s striving is always—also in and through His creatures—total self-enjoyment, perfect bliss.
EDIT: a prologue to the above, regarding the independence of God, can be found in the latter portion of my post here.
AMR
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welcome to TOL
as you can see it is easy to get off topic
as you can see it is easy to get off topic
Son of Jack
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Son of Jack
New member
Do you believe that man could have experienced God's love in perfect expression before the Fall?
But, the if is key in distinguishing our positions, no?
Explain how something that is inescapable is avoidable, please.
:think:Hmmmm...I think I'm off to Starbuck's to enjoy a hot beverage and a few good books myself.:cheers:
lain: :shocked: You ate Mr Radish???? :shocked: I seriously doubt that...
He wasn't the tastiest..
lain:
Welcome to TOL.
All Calvinists are worse than Adolf Hitler.
God made me say that.
All Calvinists are worse than Adolf Hitler.
God made me say that.
Welcome to TOL.
All Calvinists are worse than Adolf Hitler.
God made me say that.
:rotfl:
Perfect relative to what could be, yes. Perfect in terms of its greatest limit, no. Not if the greatest love is the sacrifice of self, life. For that God became flesh. That is to say, we're actually talking about degrees or kinds of a perfect expression. God's love was perfect absent man. His love was perfectly expressed through His relation with man.
lain:Practically inescapable. Does a man sin every time the impulse comes to him? No. Then the same means (will) that avoided the one can avoid the many. BUT, man is selfish and will eventually, as a practical observation, trade his knowledge of what is right for what is expediently beneficial. So we are justly condemned for that which could have been resisted. The law is just, though no man keeps it. Christ in part demonstrated the justice of the law as well as the love of God in sacrifice to meet its requirement.
Huzzah! :e4e:
Son of Jack
New member
Yes.
Yes, again, I agree.
What are your thoughts about God's immutability?
Right!!
Okay. Position clarified and understood and agreed with.:thumb: For if God loved imperfectly or there was any lack in His expression of it, then there was/is a lack in God's nature.
lain:....(I'm pretty good at staring contests).........aaawwwwwwww!!!!!Agreed.
Again, agreed.
I guess this brings us to the ontological make-up of mankind and how one understands the Fall. So I guess my question is, how do you interpret Genesis 1-3? I, personally, am inclined to believe that it is mythological in nature, but the myth is rooted in an actual historical event. So, Genesis 1-3 may not be a recounting the event, but simply what the event was like.
No questions about this. We are in total agreement here.
I rather enjoyed myself.
spencerahayes
New member
This was a whole process. God saved me when i was 17 in a church that was mostly family (the leadership anyway) the church was about 230 people, and the youth about 30 when i started going. My christian philosophy for the first 2 years was that of Creflo Dollar, John Hagee, Joseph Prince, and Kenneth Copelend. Not that I agreed with everything they said, It was just what was taught at the church basically. Now im the type to always question everything, but I was not exposed to any contrary theology. I was just taught that God wants everyone healed, everyone to have perfect health, everyone walks in total victory in every situation, God's will for everyone is to be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. When I did question things like predestination, free will, and other things, I never got an answer it was always "these are very minor things" or "all these matters do is cause arguments and quarrels" or "This life is about getting souls saved." I just never got any type of legitimate answer. I started listening to guys like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and Matt Chandler which really opened me up to Calvinism, and started studying briefly about 9 months ago and have recently been pretty adament about studying it.
A couple months ago my youth pastor was fired because God called him to plant a church and let the head Pastor (his uncle) know he was called to do this here and now (in the same city) Now Justin (the youth pastor) has the same personality as me we challenge everything and the same thing was going on with him on the whole questioning thing. Any way the vision of the church split somewhere along the line, the youth ministry had outgrown the main church and a whole bunch of things, so its not necessarily that i started going to a different church, just a church split. There is a lot more then just this. Im willing to talk more about it just ask.
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