The Goodness of God

The Bible celebrates the fact that God is Good (Psalm 135:3). To state that God is good is to also acknowledge at the same time that God is the summum bonum, the Highest Good. His goodness is absolute in Himself, for He is perfect. His goodness is also towards us, in relation.

• God is Good in His Being
• God is Good in His Character
• God is Good in His Acts

To the rich young ruler, Jesus declared that only God is good (Matt.19:17), i.e. in the sense of being the absolute good and perfect Teacher who alone can absolutely declare the truth that leads to eternal life. Sadly, the rich young ruler could not accept Jesus as the Good Master, refusing to follow Him. In his eyes, the world and its possessions were the more immediate good.

There are at least four crisis-situations in relation to our attitude towards God's goodness.

1. Doubt Regarding the Selflessness of God's Goodness

This was the situation that Eve faced in the garden of Eden when the devil deceived her to doubt that God's goodness is selfless. He tried to make her think that God had some selfishness in keeping the forbidden tree's fruit from humans; He knew if they ate of it they would become like gods. The devil attempted to severe "goodness" from God's goodness. As a result, when Eve was deceived and sought the good apart from God, the forbidden fruit and tree appeared to be "good" in relation to her desire.

It is important to trust in God's goodness as being selfless and impartial. He makes the sun to shine on both the just and the unjust. He is not good because of anything or anyone. He is good in Himself and is the ground of all that is good.

2. Fear Regarding the Surety of God's Goodness

In Psalm 27, we find David assert that even if he is surrounded by enemies on all sides, he will not fear because God is with him. When we become afraid if God's goodness would hold towards us and we are terrorized by uncertainty and anxiety about the future, we begin to lose hope. But, David asserts: I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.  "Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!" (Psa 27:13-14 NKJ). 

The Scripture promises us: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (Rom 8:28 NKJ)

3. Vexation Regarding the Significance of God's Goodness

In Psalm 73, Asaph, a priest in the Temple of Solomon is vexed and frustrated because He knows that God is good (Psalm 73), but fails to see how God's Goodness has any significance for him. He looks at the wicked and sees them prosper and asks if he has cleansed his heart in vain (Psalm 73:13). This turns him bitter, though he doesn't show his inner struggle to people. But, then when he enters God's sanctuary, where he beholds God's goodness and beauty, he finds the solution to his problem. He has to learn that God's goodness is not something about things and possessions in this world; God Himself is Good, and the heart that this Summum Bonum needs nothing else. One doesn't find any true and lasting meaning in life unless one finds satisfaction in God alone. He writes:

Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For indeed, those who are far from You shall perish; You have destroyed all those who desert You for harlotry.
But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, That I may declare all Your works. (Psa 73:25-28 NKJ)

He has understood that good is not about things, heaven is no heaven without God; for God alone is good and it is good to be near God alone.

4. Confusion Regarding the Sensitiveness of God's Goodness

Job is a great paragon of patience in the Bible. However, there was a time he was confused too, because he knew that God is good and perfect, He is blessed; but, he was unable to see if God really cared for him. The devil wanted to prove that the just served God, or were just, for material or personal benefits alone. But, Job proved the devil false. That is the difference between true faith and utilitarian faith. Job stood through the test. Yet, Job felt darkness and confusion cover him. He cries out in anguish: "If I cry out concerning wrong, I am not heard. If I cry aloud, there is no justice. (Job 19:7 NKJ). But, God answer him from chapters 38-41 and shows how God cares for the universe; how much more for Job. In chapter 42, Job breaks down saying "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes."  (Job 42:5-6 NKJ)

God cares for the sparrows of the air and the lilies of the field; how much more for us..

His goodness is selfless, sure, significant, and sensitive. He is all-giving, all-trustworthy, all-satisfying, and all-caring.

Is God Temporal or Timeless?

The rationalists would answer that God is timeless; the empiricists, that God is temporal. So, what is the truth?

I think we must first begin by admitting our limitations. If we are yet having difficulty understanding metaphysics, theology is even a more impossible arena, unless, of course, God intervenes to reveal Himself. However, we also know that He only reveals to us in the limits and the terms that are understandable to us. More importantly, the Bible emphasizes on knowing God personally through a loving and obedient faith. But, it doesn't mean that if a question regarding the nature of God arises, we are not required to give an answer. I wish to present some thoughts here.

For a pure rationalist, ultimately, time itself is illusory, as all experience is (as in monism and non-dualism). For a rationalist who accepts divine revelation and the validity of empirical knowledge, God is atemporal or timeless; He is beyond time; He is transcendent to time: however, at the same time, God is also temporal; He is immanent in time as the God who acts in time. Now, by the temporality of God we do not mean the temporality that the theory of relativity talks of; God is Spirit, not matter. By the temporality of God we only mean that our phenomenal talk of God’s acts in the universe are always temporal (Is there any other way to account for events? Yes, there is the tenseless theory of time which implies that God created the whole set of events which are just there—Wait! No, God and the events are all just there (for “God created” assumes the tensed-theory: evidently, the tenseless theory is theologically untenable). At the same time, we will not say that both these concepts of timelessness and temporality define the reality of God. We only say that as far as our rational and empirical understanding (and their limits) is concerned, and as far as the revelation of God is concerned, we cannot but think that God is timeless in His being and also temporal in relation to acts that He does. In that sense, to even say that God created time (conceptual, not the physical time which is relative to created things individually) assumes that He created time in time. But, is it not contradictory to think of divine timelessness and divine temporality at the same time? I think it is not impossible to find an analogy in our experience. For instance, we know that the statement “The sun rises in the east” is true and very practical: people can know where is east by looking where the sun is rising in the morning. Of course, a compass will help us to have more accurate understanding of North or South. But, nevertheless, the idea that the sun rises in the east is not also false, phenomenally speaking. However, in “reality”, the case is that the sun doesn’t rise; it is the earth that rotates on its axis; the sun is static (timeless?), though relatively. And, this knowledge is also useful. Yet, still, there are further theories to explain the earth-sun relationship and our solar system’s relation to the universe. But until this juncture, the statements “The sun rises in the east” and “The sun doesn’t move, but the earth moves” are both true in phenomenal terms. I think that talk of divine temporality is something akin to this (that is with reference to how far our rational-empirical sense is concerned).

Again, we know that God is Spirit, which also means that the laws of relativity don’t have any significance for Him and are external to His being. The empirical view cannot find the timeless view of God intelligible in any empirical terms. There is nothing in experience analogous to atemporality of being. Of course, there are the laws of logic that are considered to be atemporal; however, God is not “laws of logic” or a set of necessary-universal-immutable-atemporal a priori propositions. But, Scriptures tell us that He is Logos who existed in the beginning, the Personal-Creator Logos; thus, conjoining both the idea of personhood and the idea of necessity in Him. I think this could be a good way of talking about Him, though, I must confess, in our present experience, we are still limited in our understanding of God as Spirit. We think that we got some objectivity when we discovered that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. But, we know that is only like a second-level objectivity. So, it is safe to conclude that as far as our rational understanding can accept, God is timeless, and as far as our empirical categories permit, God is temporal; yet, we know that God is beyond all this and the perfect vision is still to come; that cannot be without the resurrection.

Still, however, one must be careful to not fall prey to the lure of pragmatic theology.[See Article]. The Bible clearly speaks of God as the Eternal One. The Bible also tells us that God is unchanging and all-knowing (His knowledge of the future being perfect). However, our phenomenal talk of God’s acts in the universe are always temporal.

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Pertinent Discussions
Steve Bishop, God, Time, and Eternity
William Lane Craig, God, Time, and Eternity

Last updated on March 8, 2016

Alexander Pruss' Responses to Objections to a Necessary Being

The first objection is that only propositions can be necessary; for instance, "Bachelors are unmarried men" is a proposition having necessary value: it would be self-contradictory to assert that "Bachelors are married men". The proposition is necessary. However, can this be said about beings?

Pruss answers in the affirmative: Yes, because the statement "God is a necessary being" can be claimed to be a necessary proposition (as in the ontological argument).

But, it is often claimed, the notion of a necessary being is absurd. For it is propositions that are necessary, not beings, and hence talk of a necessary being is a category mistake. However, this is an uncharitable argument, since the claim that A is a necessary being can be translated into the claim that the proposition ∃x(x=A) is necessarily true, or perhaps that there is some individual essence E of A that is a property that only A can have and that is such that ∃x(x has E) is necessarily true. Talk of necessary and contingent beings will henceforth usually be understood in this way, though there is also a Thomistic model on which a necessary being is one whose esse and essentia are identical.¹

The second objection proceeds from conceivability. If one can conceive anything to exist, one can also conceive the same to not exist. However, Pruss counters this by raising the fact that there are propositions which are necessarily true, and their veracity implies their existence.

A better argument against the existence of a necessary being is that by a principle of Hume, anything that can coherently be thought to exist can also be thought not to exist. This by itself does not yield a satisfactory argument, however. It is not obvious that the totality of all existing things can be thought not to exist, that it could have been that there is nothing in existence. Moreover, this would imply that propositions, mathematical objects, and properties have merely contingent existence, an implication that may well be thought to be absurd since the proposition that 2+2=4 would be true no matter what, and it could not be true unless it existed, as nonexistent things lack properties, even properties such as truth. Moreover the proposition that there is a solution to the equation 3x²+x−7=0 is also necessarily true.²

Pruss, of course, notes that this only established the existence of abstract objects, not the nonabstract God.

Of course, even mathematical propositions cannot be co-eternal with God if the doctrine of divine aseity is to be maintained; they are only true with respect to the world we are in and are contingently related to it, in which sense they don't possess necessity in the absolute sense of existing "necessarily", even abstractly. In fact, they have no existence or being of themselves. We find very conflicting results when we attempt to overstretch mathematical tools to understand reality (cf. Zeno's paradoxes vs. Pythagoreanism,  Kantian antinomies), proving their epistemic limits of applicability.  A rival cosmology would be Platonism that believes in the existence of eternal, immutable, plural ideas, which Christian theologians do not at all find to be compatible with the Biblical doctrine of creation.

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¹Alexander R. Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.84
²Ibid, p.84

Modified Feb 20, 2016

God is Our Father

God is our Father.
1. A Caring Father (Mat.6:32)
2. A Chastening Father (Heb.12:6)
3. A Comforting Father (2Cor.1:3)....

Is God the Author of Sin?

Forthcoming in ChristianTrends

The answer, obviously, is “No!” God is not the author of sin. However, it is not an answer as easily agreed upon as stated.

Answering the Calvinist

The extreme Calvinists that are committed to the once-saved-forever-saved doctrine of eternal security, for instance, maintain that it was God Himself who ordained the sin and fall of Adam. In his The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (1932), Loraine Boettner wrote: “Even the fall of Adam, and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God.” And again, “we hold that God fore-planned and fore-saw the fall; that it in no sense came as a surprise to Him.” Likewise, Edwin H. Palmer, in his The Five Points of Calvinism, argued: “Even sin - the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam, and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history, including the worst sin of all, Judas’ betrayal of Christ - is included in the eternal decree of our holy God.” This conclusion became necessary for these theologians who considered any event that violates the will of God to be a threat to the sovereignty of God. God was sovereign, so according to them, anything that happens in this world could not be against God. Also, it was insisted that if God had not ordained the fall of Adam, redemption through Christ would have not been possible. Thus, Boettner asks, “And unless the fall was in the plan of God, what becomes of our redemption through Christ? Was that only a makeshift arrangement which God resorted to in order to offset the rebellion of man?” Therefore, the reality of sin had to be explained by interpreting it as an act of God. In other words, according to Calvinism, ultimately, God is the author of sin.

Of course, Boettner doesn’t think that his view of God foreordaining Adam’s fall implies that God is the author of sin. Thus, he contends:

Yet God in no way compelled man to fall. He simply withheld that undeserved constraining grace with which Adam would infallibly not have fallen, which grace He was under no obligation to bestow. In respect to himself, Adam might have stood had he so chosen; but in respect to God it was certain that he would fall. He acted as freely as if there had been no decree, and yet as infallibly as if there had been no liberty…. God was pleased to permit our first parents to be tempted and to fall, and then to overrule their sin for His own glory. Yet this permission and overruling of sin does not make Him the author of it.

But, Boettner fails to see that this necessitating of the fall and the method of withdrawing grace only directly condemns God. It is equal to the sin of David who arranged to put Uriah in an inevitably fatal position and commanded his men to withdraw in the heat of the battle, in order to let Uriah get killed. That directly incriminated David and made him guilty of murder. The Genesis 3 episode, however, doesn’t indicate in any way that God had actually withdrawn constraining grace from Adam in order to make it inevitable for him to fall into sin. God cannot be held responsible for sin in the world. He is not the author of sin.

The rational man cannot accept God to be the author of sin. How could God, who is the embodiment of good, be the author of evil? Over 2,500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato, in his The Republic, concluded that “the good is to be attributed to God alone; of the evils the causes are to be sought elsewhere, and not in Him.” But, the Calvinist would object that to search for the cause of evils elsewhere is to expect that there was or were forces, other than God, in control of the universe; but, this is impossible, for God is sovereign, they would say. However, the fact that God is sovereign has nothing to do with the fact that sin is possible in a system of free creatures. The sovereignty of a nation doesn’t mean that free citizens of it will not violate its laws; however, its sovereignty does give it its authority to administer justice in the system by means of reward and punishment. Similarly, God’s sovereignty doesn’t mean that free creatures have been restricted from exercising their will in opposition to the will of God. The very exercise of this free will is what creates the possibility of a moral universe.

Answering the Non-theist

Among philosophers, it is usually held that the idea of God’s existence as a perfect being is not compatible with the fact of sin and evil in the world. The Scottish philosopher David Hume argued that it is better to theorize that this world was created by different, finite beings (let’s say, the gods of polytheism) than to believe in an imperfect world full of sin and violence having been created by a perfect God. However, such a view doesn’t answer the question of how these finite beings came into existence; for, anything finite is limited by space and time. But, if there is an infinite being, that infinite being can only be one, not many (in the same way that if there were an infinite ocean, there couldn’t be other infinite oceans). Dualists, on the other hand, think that evil is as essential to the world as is good; the world is composed of two eternally opposite forces. But, again, two eternally opposite forces that are infinite in themselves would not complement but cancel each other. For instance, infinite light, materially speaking, leaves no room for darkness.

But, then, one would ask, “If God is good, how come there is evil?” The answer is because God is not the universe (as in pantheism), but the Creator of it. If God were the universe, then the universe would be perfectly good and there wouldn’t be any room for evil, for there wouldn’t be “wills” of other beings involved. However, that is not the case. But, at the same time, it is important to state that the finitude of the universe is not what necessitates evil; for, if that was the case then God who created the finite world would also be the creator of evil, which is not so.

However, the very idea of contingency (that the finite world is dependent upon the infinite God) implies that a creation that is cut off from the Creator has lost its wholeness (well-being). Therefore, a sin-stricken and evil-stricken world only indicates a God-separated world that has gone chaotic and wild without its Driver; in which every part of the mechanism has become its own god and director, and the universe as a whole (especially, in relation to the moral universe) has both lost harmony and order. To state that God must not have permitted this to happen (since He is the perfect Driver) is to forget the fact that the problem of sin concerns a moral (not a mechanical) universe; as such, it would not have been consistent for God Himself to have created a moral universe and not have given freedom to its moral entities—the freedom to choose between good and evil.

As such, it is not God who is the author of sin, but man himself to whom the world was meant to be subject (Gen.1:28) that is responsible for the entry of sin, chaos, and disorder in the universe.

…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned- (Rom 5:12 NIV)

…the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Rom 8:20-21 NIV)

In addition, one must understand evil, not as a positive reality, but as the negation and violation of truth. One only knows evil because one sees it as the defective aspect of the good; for instance, one only knows darkness because it is seen as the absence of light. Therefore, it is important to reaffirm that it is not God who created sin, but that when man violated the command of God and negated God, this act of negation constituted sin; thus, making man guilty of sin entering the world.

Conclusion

Usually, it is misunderstandings regarding the sovereignty and the perfectness of God that raise doubts whether God is the author of sin or not. However, we have examined the main views to see if really these doubts or conclusions are true, and if their logic is valid. The sovereignty of God doesn’t imply that the universe cannot have rebellious elements; however, it does assert that these elements cannot efface the righteousness of God. Secondly, the contingency of the created world and its givenness to humans for morally right dominion implies that the world falls with the fall of man into sin. Man is not a programmed robot (for if that was so then both sin and self-reflection, as in this essay, would have been impossible). Man is a moral creature; therefore, the primary cause of sin in this world, as also stated in Romans 5:12 is disobedient man himself.

Why Believe God? - Illustration

There are many reasons that a man may give for believing in God. But, I think one of the most personal is the rationale of meaningfulness. Belief in God helps us to make a right sense of the world and helps us to live life better. Now, this may not appeal to all; but, it is true. Somebody said that God is like the sun; you cannot look at it, but without it you cannot look at anything else. We may take the example of a man who has sight problems and tries different lenses before he finally understands which lens helps him to read the letters properly. He may use the lens of deism and it fails short of divine involvement in the universe; he may use the lens of polytheism and it fails short of divine infinitude and sovereignty; he may use the lens of atheism and it fails short of meaningfulness and moral value; but, only in the Trinitarian view of belief in God does one find an answer to the meaning of life; for it talks of divine infinitude, divine unity, divine relation in community, divine love, justice, and purity.

The Exclusivity of God - A Dialogue

“God is everywhere, God is in everything; therefore, everything is sacred, everything is God.”

“Is God also in dung?”

“No!”

“Why?”

“Because dung is unclean.”

“But, then you said that God is in everything.”

“But, how can God be in what is unclean?”

“Why not?”

“Because God is holy. Don’t we keep our holy places clean?”

“Then, it means that there are certain things God is not present in.”

“Yes.”

“It means that God is not in everything, or everywhere.”

“Yes.”

“It also means that everything is not God.”

“Yes.”

“What about man? Can we say that the human spirit is God, especially when it is evident that there are also evil men as well as good men?”

“In that sense, we cannot say that the human spirit that is prone to evil is divine. But, what if we say that the human spirit which is divine has fallen into disillusion and has missed to be what it was meant to be?”

“But, is that possible with God?”

“Why not?”

“Because God is perfect, and if God were not perfect then He would not be God, but be slave to circumstances and disillusioning powers greater than Him.”

“Yes. Then, it is not possible for God to err.”

“Which means that the human spirit cannot be divine.”

“Yes.”

“It also means that if human spirits in general cannot be divine, no human spirit can claim to be divine in particular.”

“But, don’t we see that great souls exist? Those who have enormous powers and have deep spiritual knowledge.”

“Yet, all these ones are subject to experiences of suffering, aging, and death like any other humans.”

“Yes.”

“And, there is a difference between having stronger power and being all-powerful, between having deeper understanding and being all-knowing.”

“Yes.”

“So, these are neither omnipotent nor omniscient.”

“Yes.”

“Which means they are not divine.”

“Seems so. Though they do claim to be divine and encourage their worship.”

“Either they are divine or their claims are false.”

“Yes, either.”

“So, if they are not divine, their claims are false.”

“Yes.”

I AM THAT I AM

"I AM THAT I AM" is the Name by which God introduced Himself to Moses. The exact passage is:

And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you. (Ex.3:13,14)

This is the Name by which only God can introduce Himself.

If somebody asked me who I am, I might answer by telling that I am the son of so and so, or that my profession is such and such, or that I work at such and such, etc. My identity is dependent on a host of other things. The technical term is “contingency”. My identity is contingent upon a number of other factors.

However, God’s identity is not dependent on anything else. He is who He is! As Ravi Zacharias said, “God is the only being in existence, the reason for whose existence lies within himself.” God’s identity is absolute, independent, and final – He is the Beginning and End of all things. In the ultimate sense, in fact, it is from Him that all things derive their particular identity.

“For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

He is self-sufficient, self-contained, and self-satisfied eternally – in need of nothing. He is the great I AM!

God's Will

God's will is His desire, intent, and purpose.

Five Aspects of God's Will
1. God's Personal Will - The will of God that He accomplishes and which is uneffected by what any volitional beings do (Ps.115:3; Heb.6:17,18).
2. God's Prescriptive Will - The will that God prescribes for us to follow (1Jn.2:17; 1Thess.4:3). This includes both God's mandatory and prohibitory will (things that He commands us to do and things that He prohibits us to do).
3. God's Preferred Will - The will of God that prefers something over another (1Tim.2:1; Rom.12:2)
4. God's Permissive Will - The will of God that permits certain things, though they are not preferred by Him (Acts 14:16).
5. God's Pliable Will - The will of God that can be changed through human responses (Gen.18:23ff; Exo.32:11-13,14; Jonah 3:10)

How we can abide in God's will
1. Seeking God (Prov.28:5)
2. Seeking Discernment (Prov.2:3,4,5; Col.1:9; James 1:5)
3. Repenting from sin (2Cor.3:16; 1Jn.1:6-8)
4. Obeying God's Word - His Written Will (1Jn.2:17)
5. Renewing the mind (Rom.12:2)
6. Being Spiritually minded (1Cor.2:14)
7. Praying in the Spirit (Rom.8:27)

I AM THAT I AM (Ex. 3:14)

This is the Name by which God introduced Himself to Moses. The exact passage is:

And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you. (Ex.3:13,14)

This is the Name by which only God can introduce Himself.

If somebody asked me who I am, I might answer by telling that I am the son of so and so, or that my profession is such and such, or that I work at such and such, etc. My identity is dependent on a host of other things. The technical term is "contingency". My identity is contingent upon a number of other factors.

However, God's identity is not dependent on anything else. He is who He is! As Ravi Zacharias said, "God is the only being in existence, the reason for whose existence lies within himself." God's identity is absolute, independent, and final - He is the Beginning and End of all things. In the ultimate sense, in fact, it is from Him that all things derive their particular identity.

"For in him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28)

He is self-sufficient, self-contained, and self-satisfied eternally - in need of nothing. He is the great I AM!

An Eternally Caring God (Deut.33:27)

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27, NIV)

THE ETERNALITY of God demonstrates His unfailing power of self-existence and self-sustenance. He is both invincible and indestructible. Therefore, He is our best refuge. Earthly shelters and shields have their bounds against bruises but God is a sure refuge of all those who trust in Him. The promise of the Scripture not only tells us that God is our refuge but also that this security is undergirded by His everlasting arms, which speak of at least three things:

1.  Care. His everlasting arms underneath us speak about His love and care towards us. As a mother holds her child in her arms, so does He hold us in His everlasting arms.  Someone said that the four letter word LOVE can also be spelt as CARE. For if we don’t care for someone then we don’t even love that person. But God demonstrated His care and love towards us so much as to send His beloved Son to die for us.

2. Comfort. “When the cares of my heart are many,” said David “Thy consolations cheer my soul” (Psalm 94: 19, RSV). The Bible doesn’t ask us to deny the anxieties and cares of our heart; instead, it exhorts us to roll our burdens on Jesus because He cares for us.  It is when we rest assuredly in His arms of comfort that we find rests for our souls. The God of all comfort holds us with His everlasting arms; and this awareness itself brings great peace to the heart of the believer.

3. Covering. His strong arms are our shield. No bullet can penetrate it; neither can any destruction prevail against it. Man-made bullet proofs and bomb-shields may fail but faith secures us everlastingly in the bosom of God. It is only when man becomes haughty and strolls away from the domain of God that he becomes victim to the darts of the enemy. But He is a safe haven to those who trust and live by His name. Man’s search for true love, peace, and security can only find fulfillment in God. Evidently, that has to be that way since our life and existence has its source in Him. One can peacefully nestle in the arms of God despite of all that is occurring outside. We can rest confidently in Him for He holds us with His everlasting arms.

Prayer: Lord, I commit myself into your strong and loving arms. I acknowledge you in all my ways. May your guidance be my protection, my comfort, and my peace. Thank you for reaching out to me. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

God Sees Only Black and White

"Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad." ~ Jer. 24:3

We live in a colorful world; and, the colors confuse us. But, God sees things black and white. Please don't mistake me: I only speak metaphorically, I speak in relation to discernment between good and evil, between the true and the false...

We now have color televisions, past color photography: and what else - beyond 16 million colors? How confused is our generation! We dally with shades and play with prisms, and stay all the while between the black and the white. How dreamy is our fascination! We can no longer tell the difference between the wrong and the right.

Faith and confidence are virtues of the barbarians, they say. To claim the truth is an offence against reason, the highest treason. Only the uncouth and uncultured see the world in black and white: but, we live in every imaginable shade, and does imagination have an end?

Let me borrow this description from T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Speaking of the Arabian tribes whom he had led during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomon Turks (1916-1918), he had written:

Semites had no half-tones in their register of vision. They were a people of primary colours, or rather of black and white, who saw the world always in contour. They were a dogmatic people, despising doubt, our modern crown of thorns. They did not understand our metaphysical difficulties, our introspective questionings. They knew only truth and untruth, belief and unbelief, without our hesitating retinue of finer shades.This people was black and white....

That doesn't imply that I comply with the Arab world-view: I only desire to sample the "barbarian" perspective. This example is enough. It stands in contrast to our world of flowers and butterflies. How pale is their cave of shadows compared to ours! But, God is also a caveman. He also sees the world as black and white. He warned the Laodicean Church to either be hot or cold - lukewarmness was the abhorrent mid-shade that God despised. So, they hurl at Him accusations. They say He's archaic, outdated, and narrow-minded. Who's broad-minded then? Well, the man who is confused and got no answers; because answers regarding right or wrong only narrow up things - and, we despise constrictions: we hate the black and white. We don't need answers; only, more questions -- how wise!

So be it, then, until the end. Sooner we will realize that the purgatory was a deception. We got no middle ground: either to the left or to the right -- the goats on the left, the sheep on the right. We will then have many stories, so colorful that colors will blush in shame; but, He will just have one answer: "To the left" or "To the right", 'cos God doesn't see colors, you know, He sees only black and white.

Domenic Marbaniang, Dec. 15, 2010.

The Unchanging God

The Unchanging God

Domenic Marbaniang

Feb 5, 2007 

Introduction

A newly commissioned Navy captain took great pride in his first assignment to be in command of a battleship. One stormy night the captain saw a light moving steadily in their direction. He ordered the signalman to send the following message: "Change your course ten degrees to the south." The reply came back: "Change your course ten degrees to the north."

The captain was determined not to give way to another vessel, and so he sent a counter message. "Alter your direction ten degrees. I am the captain." The answer flashed back promptly: "Alter your direction. I am the lighthouse."

Flux and flicker are characteristic of the world we live in. Kingdoms rise and fall, fashions come and go, facts are proven and unproven, and desires are created and killed.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus preached that All is Change. His words were “There is nothing permanent except change.”

Genghis Khan, the 13th century Mongol conqueror, asked his philosophers to come up with a truth that would always be unchangeable. Thinking about it for awhile, they came to their leader with this quote: "It too shall pass." Solomon exclaims in Eccl. Everything is a vapor, there is nothing permanent, just a repetitious circle of events leading nowhere.

The experience of an incessantly changing world takes hold of our consciousness to shift our focus from things eternal and unchangeable to things transitory and ephemeral. As a result the man who was supposed to triumph over the world by the strength of reason becomes the slave of his circumstances.

The inter-flow and inter-change of information in the past decades has brought to front several counter-belief systems. This has resulted in a skeptic approach to knowledge claims, to the extent that if anyone claimed to possess knowledge of truth, he is immediately labeled as arrogant, fanatical, or anachronistic. Disbelief in absolute truth is directly connected with disbelief in an Absolute God.

Yet, in the midst of all such conflicting opposites and confusing waves, stands the immutable figure of Almighty God, the Eternal I AM, the Unchanging One, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, to whom belongs all glory and honor forever and ever Amen.

·         If there is anything unchanging it must necessarily be founded on the very constant nature of God.

Nothing unchangeable can be founded on something changeable. No solid house can be built on loose soil. All unchangeables, therefore, must be seen as founded in the unchangeable nature of God and in nothing else.

The Bible clearly proclaims that our God is an unchanging God. Metaphors like Rock, Standard, and Shield tell us the eternal and constant nature of our God. He is the sure foundation- the eternal rock against the massive winds, tumultuous waves, and shifting sands of time.

1 Sam 15. 29; Mal. 3.6;

Shadows change and flee being relatively real. God is constant and absolutely real.

1. God is Unchanging in His Being (What He is) (Jas. 1.17)

I AM THAT I AM

Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Change

Can God become not-God? Intrinsic Change

Hindu Philosophy: Yes, gnostically, i.e., the deity dreams itself as non-deity. They deny the essential metamorphosis of God. But how can the deity change gnostically without it being imperfect.

Xtn Theology: God is perfect and cannot change in His very essence.

Incarnation: How can the Creator become the Created, the eternal become temporal? How can the transcendent enter the spatial? The Word became flesh ≠ the divine became human, it means the divine took on, came in a human form, essence; the word ginomai has been translated as came or come c. 142 xms. Thus, the human nature is added to in a way that the divine and the human remain distinct and unmixed in Christ. There is no intrinsic change whatsoever in the divine Godhead.)

St. Athanasius: The sun’s rays are not made impure by contact with the dust of the earth. Why? Because He is intrinsically pure and unchangeable.

2. God is Unchanging in His Purpose

The Teleological Argument doesn’t tell us the purpose.

It can only be known by revelation.

2 Kinds of Purposes

            (a) Eternal Purpose (Eph. 3.11, Hb. 6. 17)

Eph 1.9-12:    (i) The Praise of His Glory (v. 12; Rev. 4: 11)

(ii) The Consummation of all things in Christ, the Alpha and Omega (v.10).

Predestination is in accordance to the purpose, not the purpose

(b) Temporal Purpose (Isa 14.24-27; 46.8-11)

Even Moses could not stop the hand of God against the Israelites.

Not all the strategies of the world could keep Joseph from being blessed.

3. God is Unchanging in His Promises

            God cannot lie. Because He is truth. He hates lying (Prov. 6. 17)

            His word is unchangeable (Isa 55. 10, 11)

(a)    Promise of Eternal Life (1 Jn. 2. 25; Titus 1.2)

(b)   Promise of Eternal Inheritance (Hb. 9. 15)

Application

1. When God becomes the foundation of our lives, we stand unshaken. (His Words, Right relationship with Him).


2. The Purpose and Promises of God are only available to us in Christ as we abide in Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (2 Cor 1.20). Our abiding is crucial to our bearing fruit.


3. Our lives must be governed by His unchanging absolutes that He revealed to us. Like the captain had to obey the signal of the lighthouse, we must obey the voice of our God.

            

The Unchanging God

The Unchanging God

Domenic Marbaniang

Feb 5, 2007 

Introduction

A newly commissioned Navy captain took great pride in his first assignment to be in command of a battleship. One stormy night the captain saw a light moving steadily in their direction. He ordered the signalman to send the following message: "Change your course ten degrees to the south." The reply came back: "Change your course ten degrees to the north."

The captain was determined not to give way to another vessel, and so he sent a counter message. "Alter your direction ten degrees. I am the captain." The answer flashed back promptly: "Alter your direction. I am the lighthouse."

Flux and flicker are characteristic of the world we live in. Kingdoms rise and fall, fashions come and go, facts are proven and unproven, and desires are created and killed.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus preached that All is Change. His words were “There is nothing permanent except change.”

Genghis Khan, the 13th century Mongol conqueror, asked his philosophers to come up with a truth that would always be unchangeable. Thinking about it for awhile, they came to their leader with this quote: "It too shall pass." Solomon exclaims in Eccl. Everything is a vapor, there is nothing permanent, just a repetitious circle of events leading nowhere.

The experience of an incessantly changing world takes hold of our consciousness to shift our focus from things eternal and unchangeable to things transitory and ephemeral. As a result the man who was supposed to triumph over the world by the strength of reason becomes the slave of his circumstances.

The inter-flow and inter-change of information in the past decades has brought to front several counter-belief systems. This has resulted in a skeptic approach to knowledge claims, to the extent that if anyone claimed to possess knowledge of truth, he is immediately labeled as arrogant, fanatical, or anachronistic. Disbelief in absolute truth is directly connected with disbelief in an Absolute God.

Yet, in the midst of all such conflicting opposites and confusing waves, stands the immutable figure of Almighty God, the Eternal I AM, the Unchanging One, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, to whom belongs all glory and honor forever and ever Amen.

·         If there is anything unchanging it must necessarily be founded on the very constant nature of God.

Nothing unchangeable can be founded on something changeable. No solid house can be built on loose soil. All unchangeables, therefore, must be seen as founded in the unchangeable nature of God and in nothing else.

The Bible clearly proclaims that our God is an unchanging God. Metaphors like Rock, Standard, and Shield tell us the eternal and constant nature of our God. He is the sure foundation- the eternal rock against the massive winds, tumultuous waves, and shifting sands of time.

1 Sam 15. 29; Mal. 3.6;

Shadows change and flee being relatively real. God is constant and absolutely real.

1. God is Unchanging in His Being (What He is) (Jas. 1.17)

I AM THAT I AM

Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Change

Can God become not-God? Intrinsic Change

Hindu Philosophy: Yes, gnostically, i.e., the deity dreams itself as non-deity. They deny the essential metamorphosis of God. But how can the deity change gnostically without it being imperfect.

Xtn Theology: God is perfect and cannot change in His very essence.

Incarnation: How can the Creator become the Created, the eternal become temporal? How can the transcendent enter the spatial? The Word became flesh ≠ the divine became human, it means the divine took on, came in a human form, essence; the word ginomai has been translated as came or come c. 142 xms. Thus, the human nature is added to in a way that the divine and the human remain distinct and unmixed in Christ. There is no intrinsic change whatsoever in the divine Godhead.)

St. Athanasius: The sun’s rays are not made impure by contact with the dust of the earth. Why? Because He is intrinsically pure and unchangeable.

2. God is Unchanging in His Purpose

The Teleological Argument doesn’t tell us the purpose.

It can only be known by revelation.

2 Kinds of Purposes

            (a) Eternal Purpose (Eph. 3.11, Hb. 6. 17)

Eph 1.9-12:    (i) The Praise of His Glory (v. 12; Rev. 4: 11)

(ii) The Consummation of all things in Christ, the Alpha and Omega (v.10).

Predestination is in accordance to the purpose, not the purpose

(b) Temporal Purpose (Isa 14.24-27; 46.8-11)

Even Moses could not stop the hand of God against the Israelites.

Not all the strategies of the world could keep Joseph from being blessed.

3. God is Unchanging in His Promises

            God cannot lie. Because He is truth. He hates lying (Prov. 6. 17)

            His word is unchangeable (Isa 55. 10, 11)

(a)    Promise of Eternal Life (1 Jn. 2. 25; Titus 1.2)

(b)   Promise of Eternal Inheritance (Hb. 9. 15)

Application

1. When God becomes the foundation of our lives, we stand unshaken. (His Words, Right relationship with Him).


2. The Purpose and Promises of God are only available to us in Christ as we abide in Him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (2 Cor 1.20). Our abiding is crucial to our bearing fruit.


3. Our lives must be governed by His unchanging absolutes that He revealed to us. Like the captain had to obey the signal of the lighthouse, we must obey the voice of our God.