I was told recently, that I don't make a very good "Calvinist", because I questioned whether God really chooses to know everything that happens on this earth... Now, don't get me wrong, I believe God has the power, the capability, of knowing all that will and does happen, but does he truly exercise that power? I believe God created man for community, for fellowship with Him, but he also desired man to want to fellowship with him, therefore he created man with a free will, with the ability to choose to fellowship with God. Now, if we are to truly exercise a free will, then God knew there had to be choice, for without choice there is no free will. God did not create sin, or evil, but he did create an environment where, if man chose not to choose God, and good, then the flip side could be the creation of sin, or evil, not from God, but out of man's choice to disobey God's directives.
Yet, if God knows all, and sees all, and exercises this power, then we can assume that God knew man would choose to disobey, and therefore man was created to fall. This is so contrary to the perfect nature of God, that he would intentionally create an imperfect creation. And, taking this line of reasoning a step further, if God knows all and sees all then he knows before we decide what we will choose. This then, would mean we really don't have a free will at all, for if he knows our choices before we choose then we really aren't choosing at all; we are merely playing out a preordained order of events.
I believe God has such power to know, but is big enough to intentionally restrict himself from knowing, so that we can choose according to the free will that he created in us. His desire is that we come to him willingly, that we desire His fellowship, and that cannot happen for him if we do not have the free will to choose. The key to God's perfect community was, and is, free will. The key to man's fall, to sin, and evil, is free will. It is the choice that had to be possible for God to achieve his community with man as he so desired.
Why then, is this such a stumbling block among believers? I propose that it is much easier to have a God who knows all, sees all, and controls all, for when things don't go as we might wish we can defer blame from the true source to God. You see, if we have free will, then the responsibility for bad things does not rest on God; rather we must look at ourselves, and our decisions as the possible cause. We must look at those around us, and the manner in which their free will decisions ripple on our life, and see if they aid or cause of our pain. And we must consider the free will of those in the spiritual realm, (angels and demons) and consider how their wills may impact our life. If we are to believe the Scriptures are the holy and inspired word of God then we must believe that God has instilled in us a free will, and further, He does not impose his will on us, rather he waits patiently and lovingly for us to return to him.
So the question is, "How big is your God?" Is he big enough not to know your decisions before you make them? Is he big enough to intentionally restrict himself to allow you to grow or fall on your own, based on your free will decisions, or does he have to be in total control, running everything all the time, as you just live out our pre-orchestrated path to whatever fate awaits you? What really scares me about that line of thinking is that, for some, who don't know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, for those who don't have a personal relationship with God now, for some of those there is no hope of heaven, no hope of being redeemed for eternity, for they are merely living out a preordained path which will take them to hell... Now what kind of merciful, loving, all-powerful, perfect God could ever do such a thing to one of his createds? Food for thought...
3 comments:
How big is our God? Uncle Buddy, this one took a lot of thought to write out so thanks for the challenge. I don't like to settle on either of your options: the God who preordains everything, or the God who choses to not know. Both, I feel make God out to be smaller than the infinite God that I have come to believe he is.
notion of free will, which is a very present experience.
On the other side, you have the God who chooses to subdue his power for our sake. So does this make the infinite dependent and subservient to the finite? Or does it make the infinite confined merely to our time scale? If he restricts his power to our free will, he is not further ahead in time or as present in the past.
The way I feel is that there is not a way that we can really talk about God's choosing, planning, knowledge, etc. unless we abandon our finite ways of talking about it. A God that is bigger is simply infinite. In that sense, his presense is infinite in this moment, in this choice. It is no more or less yesterday, today, or tomorrow. It cannot be less or more because it is infinite. There is no bounds. I feel like the only way to understand ourselves is to know that our existance, our time, our choices, only exist and are made into reality because they exist within God. There is no other way.
So does he preordain things? No... he exists infinitely in all choices and events. Did he know that they were going to happen? Not like we would know them. Clearly, they happen differently to him than they do us. Does he limit himself so that we can have choices? I doubt it, because I don't know that infinity can be limited on finite terms (true Christ came and did that, but that was indeed a miracle). What do know, though, is that God himself is infinitely present in and through my choices. My free will may ignore that presence and deny it, but it doesn't change God's presence there.
I don't know how much of this makes sense, but your post got me thinking. The two options of seeing God are both very finite interpretations of how God makes decisions. I don't know that they are fair to God. I have thought through all this before and I am pretty familiar with both camps so my response is more to those camps than to you personally. God is bigger than any of our definitions and limits we put on him.
Have a great day,
NAte
I better add another since it seems that my second paragraph got deleted. Second paragraph goes like this:
On one side you have a God who preordains everything ahead of time. This seems to make God out to be a really, really big mind who did most of the work at the beginning of time and then set it into motion. In this sense, he has more power over the current moment a long time ago rather than right now. It sets an infinite God into our time table and it takes his infinite presence out of our [notion of free will, which is a very present experience.]
Thanks for your thoughts Nate, and, for the record, I don't disagree with you or the general direction of your thoughts. It's possible that we might squabble or semantics, but the reality is the same; our hearts share very similar sentiments. My purpose for writing this wasn't so much to propose two, and only two options, but to possibly stimulate the thought process beyond that "God knows and controls everything" mindset, to get someone to start to think beyond only one possibility... Secondly, it was written as a hope that some may stop blaming God when things don't go as they wish and perhaps consider other causes for their misfortunes... Our God is a loving God; we must view things in light of what is true to his nature...
Thanks for reading, and writing! Keep the faith.
Bud
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