--Omnipotence means God can do anything. And the most obvious thing God ever did was to bring this universe and everything in it into existence from nothing, including even the laws of nature.
--When we say God is the Creator, that’s what we mean.
--But there’s a very important second word Christians use for God in addition to Creator: Sustainer.
--See, there are two ideas about God as a Creator.
--The first is that God made this world, and it now runs on its own power and design, so to speak apart from God’s continual activity. This is sometimes called Deism.
--The second is that God made this world, but that it continually requires Him to be guiding and overseeing it on a moment-by-moment basis.
--This is the Christian concept of God as Sustainer.
--And the reason it’s important is because it means that the world has no ability to exist apart from God or independent of His constant Willing that it continue.
--On the first view, God would have to come in and destroy the world for it to stop. On the second view, God could merely stop doing what He has always done and it would go away on its own.
--The alternate view would be some form of Deism, in which God made the world and now it goes along basically without Him, unless He actively intervenes.
--Although this is a terrible analogy, one might say that this world is like a program on television. If the broadcast or the electricity stops happening, there’s nothing left. Similarly, God is always essentially necessary for there to be a world and life and everything we see around us including the natural laws that shape most of our experience of the world.
--This is one reason that for God to perform a miracle requires no more particular effort than for Him to keep things going as they were. Either way, He’s doing it all.
--It’s not as though God has to somehow “fight against” or “overcome” the laws of nature which themselves emanate directly from Him at any moment.
--When we say God is the Creator, that’s what we mean.
--But there’s a very important second word Christians use for God in addition to Creator: Sustainer.
--See, there are two ideas about God as a Creator.
--The first is that God made this world, and it now runs on its own power and design, so to speak apart from God’s continual activity. This is sometimes called Deism.
--The second is that God made this world, but that it continually requires Him to be guiding and overseeing it on a moment-by-moment basis.
--This is the Christian concept of God as Sustainer.
--And the reason it’s important is because it means that the world has no ability to exist apart from God or independent of His constant Willing that it continue.
--On the first view, God would have to come in and destroy the world for it to stop. On the second view, God could merely stop doing what He has always done and it would go away on its own.
--The alternate view would be some form of Deism, in which God made the world and now it goes along basically without Him, unless He actively intervenes.
--Although this is a terrible analogy, one might say that this world is like a program on television. If the broadcast or the electricity stops happening, there’s nothing left. Similarly, God is always essentially necessary for there to be a world and life and everything we see around us including the natural laws that shape most of our experience of the world.
--This is one reason that for God to perform a miracle requires no more particular effort than for Him to keep things going as they were. Either way, He’s doing it all.
--It’s not as though God has to somehow “fight against” or “overcome” the laws of nature which themselves emanate directly from Him at any moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment