Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Predestination, free will, 6000, 14 billion, or all of the above?

I was reading about the theory that the large hadron collider may be sabotaging itself from the future, which is an interesting thing. Also this week I had a conversation with a guy who has a kind of deliverance/prayer ministry. This person prays with people about their past, and invites Jesus into the memories, he believes that since Jesus is Lord over time he not only can heal the memory but also can actually change the past. This is also an interesting thought. Lately I have also been struggling with what I believe in regards to the age of the universe and how to see the Bible as infallible while also not neglecting the realities of creation. Don't ask me why, but these questions have been troubling me.

It may seem unrelated but I'll try later to explain why its not. I've also always been struggling and praying for God to reveal to me more clearly the relationship between how the Bible clearly teaches that while God has predestined before time began those who would be saved, it is also clear that each person make a choice to repent and come to him in faith through the hearing of the Gospel (which is also an act of will on the part of those who bring the word). How can this obvious act of choice and free will also be an act of sovereign predestination? Clearly both principles are taught in scripture, scripture cannot be in conflict with itself, so the only logical conclusion is that both things are true, and I don't understand it, and I want to. Anyway this conflict is similar to the conflict I feel regarding the seeming paradox between the scriptural and scientific accounts of the age of the universe.

It is hard to read the Biblical creation account, the work done on Biblical Geneology, and not come to the conclusion that the earth and universe are not more than 6000-8000 years old. However, when confronted with God's creation I am presented with scientific evidence (laws of physics that God has also ordained) that the universe is upwards of 14 billion years old. It would seem that there is a great conflict here between the Biblical and scientific record. Why would God say one thing in scripture and present another in reality? He cannot be trying to deceive us, because He is God, so clearly I lack wisdom in how to understand this apparent paradox.

In my struggle with this I've been flip-flopping between being and old earth creationist, to a young earth creationist, to considering what is real and not about evolution, and really I've just been praying that God would give me wisdom, because I've not been able to hang onto a firm belief. I've really been double minded on this issue like the guy in James 1, and I'm praying and believing that God will reveal to me the wisdom to understand these questions. It's important to me for a couple of reasons: One, I don't want to be double minded and inconsistent on an issue of scripture, and two, because I want to know how to direct my family in our homeschooling especially when it comes to this subject. It seems you can go one of three ways with the material that is out there, old earth creationism, young earth creationism, and synchronistic evolution (ie God used evolution to create). What should I teach my children?

The story of the Large Hadron collider got me to thinking about time travel, and the nature of time. The guy with the deliverance ministry got me to thinking about the ramifications of Jesus actually being Lord over ALL, the ALPHA and OMEGA, the beginning and the end, and what that really meant in terms of forgiveness and healing. My struggle with reconciling predestination with free will helped me to accept (albeit without understanding) that Biblical contradictions do not exist and that if two opposing ideas are presented as truth in scripture then somehow they both must be true, and this idea then lead me to apply this way of thinking to the paradox presented in the age of the universe. The answer suddenly hit me that the universe is both 14 billion years old and 6000 years old at the same time.

Some ideas floating around in quantum physics and string theory are that there are multiple or parallel universes all happening simultaneously. Take in to consideration the ramifications of this statement: Romans 1:24 "Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves," It says that "God gave them up", this was an action taken upon people by the creator of the universe who, when He spoke, all that we know was created. Something big happened here. How can God maintain His perfect will while people are simultaneously living in direct opposition to it? I'm proposing that when "God gave them up" it created an alternate reality such as what is described in string theory. A reality that is no less real than the reality which is in God's will, but at the same time in direct opposition to God's will. For God to be able to allow for his creation to rebel against His will He would need to create a reality in which His will was not, however He would still have to remain ultimately sovereign over that reality.

To me this explains A LOT! This means that faith does more than move mountains. It actually causes you to exist in a new reality where even history is and always has been according to the will of God. So after our rebellion in Eden God created a schism in time. In one fork of that schism there exists a universe where the reality of God being absent is present, in that reality the lusts of man are what define truth (Because God has given us up in our lusts) and as of now the truth is that the universe is 14 billion years old. And in the other fork of the schism the universe is 6000 years old, God is the sole standard for truth, and people find their joy living within His will. The forks of the schism don't diverge from one another, but by God's grace they overlap, so that both are clearly evident, giving the people lost in the Godless schism an opportunity to make the transition to the "Kingdom of God" which is the domain of reality in which God has established His will. It is a matter of faith which determines which reality you exist in. Both are real, both are true, we can experience the consequences of each one, however one reality is going to last for all of eternity, and one reality will "pass away" (read Rev 21:1)

Think about this, when you repent, God says he remembers your sin no more, puts them as far as the east is from the west, etc. How can God do this? Because our sin occurred outside his will, when we repent we move inside His will. What is outside the will of God is not even in the same universe as what is inside his will! When you are saved you clearly make a choice to live in the reality inside of God's will. In that reality you were always saved, however, in the reality outside of God's will you were always damned. So see how it can be both? One thing happens in one reality, one happens in the other, they both happen to you, both are real and both are true.

When God "gave us up" to our lust, when he kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden, it was not just a change in Geography and Relationship, it was a change in REALITY. We went from living in a reality that was within the will of God to living in a reality that was outside the will of God. Each one as real as the other, but the reality outside the will of God only being perpetuated in existence by the Grace of God (or by the Word of His power, Hebrews 1:3), for the purpose of saving those who He loved that still exist in that reality (John 3:16). At some point the reality outside the will of God will pass away only leaving the reality that is within God's will.

Here are some quick verses to think about along these lines:

1 Cor 13:9, For we know in part and we prophesy in part,10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. (The reality outside of Gods will will pass away, and we will be left only with the perfect)

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (Moving from one reality to the other)

Rev 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (I'm saying that the old heaven and earth are passing away while the new heaven and earth are appearing, and they overlap in a time of Grace)

Mathew 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (possibly talking about how consequences from the sinful reality rippling through to the redeemed reality, such as a marriage to an unbeliever, a child born out of wedlock).

Daniel 2:44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, (Kingdoms being rebellious realities that are in opposition to Gods will, God's will being all that will last)

Mathew 3:2 Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Right now we can repent and have the ability to move in to God's will, this will not always be the case, the kingdom of heaven will not always be accessible or knowable by those living outside the will of God).

John 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world. (Hmm, the king of the universe is saying that he is not in his kingdom? This really leans toward a dual reality in my mind.)

Romans 14:23b ...For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. (it is by faith we live in God's kingdom, and it is by will that we live in opposition to His, these are the 2 realities.)

[UPDATE]I was sent this article by John Piper (who I am a great fan of) about the "two wills of God".


Just reading through the Piper article (and I've read this line of thinking of the two wills before) and still it sits wrong with me. God has one will but allows things that are against his will to come to pass? The reason it sounds like double talk is because it is. The Bible clearly teaches that God's will is never frustrated. So we are left with a problem. That there is evil in the world that some how we must not attribute to God, while maintaining that it was not against his will that it happened. That's because we are obsessed with trying to discover what is "true" and what is "false", when it is possible that we should also be seeking what is "sin" and what is "righteousness". And in doing so we may find that there are cases where 2 mutually exclusive facts are in fact "true" however one is sin and one is not.

We are faced with paradoxes of free will vs sovereignty, 6000 vs 14 billion, is God a watchmaker or is he totally sovereign, could it be all of the above? The only way to reconcile these things is if we are currently experiencing more than one reality (ie the two wills of God). I don't think this violates scripture at all, in fact I believe it affirms scripture all the more, taking many of the verses we take as metaphorical and making them very literal (for instance, "new heavens and new earth", "this age is coming to nothing", "being born again", "behold I make all things new", etc). If there are (at least) two realities, then stuff starts making sense for me.

In one reality man is given into his own will, this happened at the fall of man in Genesis. This new reality HAD to happen because "God's will is never frustrated", so it would be impossible for man to have fallen and then continue to live in a reality where God will is not frustrated. Impossible unless it was God's will for there to be a time and place where we were allowed to live in opposition to God's will, a reality that God willed to be directed by man's will. Everything about the reality of man's will is sin. God is still sovereign over it because he created it, allowed for it, and in the end he will destroy it. However, during his time of grace (being allowed to live while in opposition to his will), he reveals Christ to us. While he allows man to live in opposition to his will, He still obviously intercedes where he sees fit in what we would call "miracles" and "providence". Simultaneously there is the reality that is the will of God. It will last for eternity, and it's most commonly referred to as "the Kingdom of Heaven". There are no miracles in the kingdom of Heaven, or you could as easily say that there are ONLY miracles in the kingdom of Heaven, miracles being defined as the physical manifestation of God's will.

Since God is who He is, it would be unfathomable to consider that a sinner could enter into his glory. Not even a former sinner, because any sin (even past sin) against an infinitely righteous being would be worthy of infinite punishment in order for God to be called just. Hence our desperate need for the work of Christ, in that he entered into the reality of man's will for the purpose of creating a way for sinful men to enter into the reality of God's will. When we claim the blood of Christ we are "born again" into the new reality. Since no sinner can ever live in the presence of God the history of God's reality is that we never sinned, we were elect from before time began, and God alone is the author of our salvation, so now, by the blood of Christ (who, don't forget is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end) we are made a new creation, literally, new from the beginning of time. While the physical consequences of our sin may continue after our rebirth (for instance damage to the body from abuse of drugs or alcohol), at death, or upon the return of Christ, we will diverge from the reality of man's will and we will be left only with what God wills for our bodies, our lives and this earth to be.

For those that reject Christ there cannot be any evil attributed to God. He allowed them to live in a reality where they were free to live by their own will. This in and of it self is an act of Grace that is beyond comprehension, a travesty of Justice that demands the work of the Cross in order to be reconciled. The fact that people rejected God is on them, no blame can be placed upon God because his Kingdom was evident, even to those living by their own will instead of by faith. They chose to stay in the reality where man's will determined truth. They were, as scripture teaches, created from the beginning of time for destruction, just as the elect were created from the beginning of time for God's Glory. Why? Because it would be an equally outrageous travesty of justice to allow a sinner into God's Glory, as it would be to allow a saint to be destroyed in hell. The logical conclusion of a reality where man's will is the ultimate standard for truth is death, because even though God gave us over to our own lusts (rom 1:24) he did not give our lusts power over death. So from the sinners perspective, the choice is theirs now to decide whether or not they are elect from the beginning of time, or similarly damned. But from God's perspective, and because of Christ, he only sees in what reality we exist in now, and when the two realities diverge, either by death or by Christ's return, then our course is set (and will have always been set) for all of eternity. This gives a new meaning to the phrase "once saved always saved", meaning you were always saved, from the beginning of time, not just from the beginning of repentance.

I like this idea of two realities. I'll leave it, if I can see in scripture where it cannot be true, but I think this idea neatly affirms scripture (using scripture as the standard), while also explaining the apparent paradoxes we are so often confronted with. It also helps to explain election to me, and makes it clear that while sin and evil are never God's will, it is by God's will that they are allowed to happen so that man can be saved. So we can very clearly see that no evil comes from God, but instead, even the evil that does come, comes because of God's goodness and because of His love for us (the alternative being that he could have just wiped us out instead of allowing us to live in sin for any amount of time at all).

Saturday, October 17, 2009

German, Google, and Jesus

German praises, Google translator, and Jesus:

Jesus is my joy,
My heart's comfort, the source of it's beat.
He sustains and keeps me,
He is my life force,
My eye's pleasure and light,
He's the treasure of my soul and gladness;
So I will not let Jesus from my heart and face.
It is well for me that I have Jesus,
oh, how strong I hold to him.
He gave me my heart,when I had fallen.
Now I will never relent to keep by his side.
It was Jesus who first loved me,
and He who gave me all that I am,
oh if not for Jesus,
I would not be but a dead and broken heart.