But the Bible does tell us much about the nature of God. The problem is
that what I see in his creation is not matching up with what the Bible
says is the everlasting and unchanging nature of God. The literary
forms used in the Bible require us to sift through much of Genesis and
determine many things for ourselves. Was the author speaking from the
worldview of their time (circular disk of land with ocean above)? Is a
passage metaphor, hyperbole, etc...
So where does the sifting end? Has anyone found any fossils of
prehistoric thorns or thistles? Or have they always been around and the
curse simply states that when man works the soil thorns and thistles
will increase his labor? If we were specially created, why the DNA
mutation link to orangutans and chimps? Or did that mean that we were
created to hold a special place in his creation? Was there ever a
Garden of Eden or was this simply another part of the world view at the
time? Has man always been fallen because there never seems to be a time
at which the world has been in any other non-fallen state? For that
matter what is a FALLEN state if this is the way God has designed
everything from the beginning?
Has this whole creation and even the evil in it simply been a means to
an end... the end being believers being "drawn up into Him and being
'like' him?" Was evil necessary for this?
If a lion was designed to be a predator and the wildebeest designed to
be prey, yet this design is not what it should be because in the end
they will lay down together in peace... why not be that way from the
start? Then again... Would God start out with a lesser design so that
by sending his son as a sacrifice that this lesser design might reach a
fullness that it never could on its own? Without God sending a part of
himself to become one with his creation... has that allowed us to be
elevated us to a place we could have never reached by any other means of
his creative power?
For that matter... if in the end there will be no evil... and evil is
simply anything not of God's will... will there be free will in the end?
Will we be unable to choose anything other than God's will? Or will
evil always be present because we will always have choices to make? In
Genesis it says that we have "become like one of us (God) knowing good
and evil."... how could we have not eventually known evil if Lucifer was
here long before we were? How could we not know evil in such a creation
as this where our nature and instincts are survival of the fit enough?
Im really getting frustrated because there are people in my life that I
NEED to witness to but all I have to offer at this moment is my own
frustrations... the blind tring to lead the deaf and blind I guess you
could say. Before I can proclaim to know the Truth... wouldn't it be
better if I understood the Truth? "Honest, everything in here is the
TRUTH... but you have to be a PhD in Biology, Physics, Ancient
Linguistics, Anthropology, History, Sociology, Geology, Archeology and
it wouldn't hurt if you brushed up on your Logic and Philosophy if you
are TRULY going to understand."
The fact is, I do believe in God and simply because of the way he has
worked in my life and the lives of Christians around me. The signs have
been many and I have felt the firey tingling of his touch when I pray or
when he has revealled something to me in Scripture or science for that
matter. I feel the conviction of the spirit when I reflect on my life.
It is my faith in these things keeps me from giving up on trying to
understand who I am, who I am suppose to be... but nothing makes sense
when it comes to where I came from and why my nature is so far from what
He wants... why is is so difficult to go against that nature and the
guilt I feel for not always being able to "overcome" as he requires.
Even when I'm completely sick and tired of picking myself up out of the
dustcloud my fall creates it is the faith that He is there and that this
walk is leading me to the salvation I want so desparately to get to. I
really trust the Mapmaker... its the Map and my understanding of it that
I question.
You are here --> *
Ryan