Friday, June 20
Re: MJ Book 5 on Will
(June 7th)
"But it seems like evil could come out of God giving us a will..."
Without evil can good exist? Imagine light without darkness, we wouldn't know what light was if we weren't ever without it. So I think more good comes from God allowing us to choose than would ever exist if we were all good all the time.
Why did God create the world... he doesn't need us, he was ALL... Is there more love now that we are here?
Re: Kristi on MJ on Will
(June 8th)
The nature of God's foreknowledge came up a lot last year in my OT and NT seminars. Does God plan each and every part of the entire actual history of man, so that our lives are simply like a movie? Or does he set down the big things, and force people not to interfere with those things? Or does he simply know what is going to happen (and therefore prophesy is true, not because he is making it true, but because the people in the world are going to make all the decisions that will bring about that prophesy) because he knows the creator's (his) nature and the creator made all people? This last option allows will. Just because God knows what IS going too happen, doesn't mean that he is forcing it to happen.
Also some of our problems with Will are created by the way we tend to think of God... as a Big Guy Somewhere Up in The Clouds looking down on us. But he is different... He doesn't exist in time (except when Jesus was incarnate) He is the Beginning and the End... he is both places in time and all others from eternity to eternity. (I know Kristi already said this, but I have to keep saying it to myself, and even when I do, I keep slipping back to the Big Guy in the Sky idea of God)
Re: MJ 3 Divisions of Theology continued
June 14
What you put in natural and civil theology sounds like what I have been thinking along these lines: Ok... now I am redeemed, since I can't just kill myself and go to be with God now... what do I do? Nothing we do is FOR redemption... but because of the redemption we do good. We can have rules and stuff to guide us through life, as long as we are always talking to God. Sometimes God talks to us through the law. But sometimes we say "OK God... I got it from here" and we start paying attention to the law instead of God. So all of Paul's passages that sound like laws are just good ideas that we should do. But we shouldn't get caught up in doing them. Always pay attention to Natural theology. And constantly strive to improve civil theology w/o thinking that perfect civil theology is even obtainable or can bring salvation.
Progress
This internet thing might start working soon... sorry about the delay I will try to catch up soon...
catch you latter
