I tried to describe God's relationship with nature, likening it a man who
makes a wave machine and then letting it run vs. a man who must personally
move each element of the machine, thus personally making each wave.
Terry responded.
>But of course, God is standing in the office; God is omnipresent,
>omnipotent, omnicient. I that sometimes in our discussions we forget the
>fundamental Creator/creature distinctions.
I did not mean by my analogy to imply that God was not omniscient or not
omnipresent. But I see no reason why God must move each rock I throw
according to the same formula. In my analogy of the man who created the wave
tank, God sustains the universe by not pulling the electric cord. He plugged
the cord in and He can pull it out whenever he wishes. But he does not need
to stand in the office moving the wave tank personally.
Terry wrote:
>Glenn has raised the problem of evil question and this has come up before
>and no doubt this is a great philosophical and theological problem. But it
>seems to me (and to historic Calvinism in general) that the Bible doesn't
>flinch over this. God is holy and altogether good, but in some mysterious
>way he purposes (without authoring in the classic Reformed formulations)
>evil and accomplishes his will and glory through it and in spite of it.
I actually agree with your point about God ultimately having to have
mysteriously (oh I had to phrase it this way it will get me into so much
trouble)
created Satan and his evil. As the only self-existent being, there is no way
to logically avoid the conclusion that God made everything including evil.
But that does not mean that God participates actively in every act of
evil by personally guiding the bullet from a robber's gun to the beating
heart of the store clerk. This is the view I am arguing against. God can
create evil as a potential but not as an acatualization.
(I am in trouble now. The water is way over my head and I am not
swimming very well out here. I like solid observational data; not the waters
of the philosophical ocean. I probably won't try very hard to defend this
position, cause I can see the dorsal fins of the philosophers and
theologians moving closer and closer.... glub, bubble, bubble...)
glenn