This weeks Quantum of Solas is a wee bit different – we cover only one topic – Creationism…enjoy, think, question, pass on….and as usual, let us know what you think…
http://www.solas-cpc.org/wp/2015/03/quantum-of-solas-22/
See also this further development – http://freechurch.org/news/scotlands-science-minister-no-need-for-ban-on-creationism-in-schools
And this post
So David, just to be clear; prior to God’s creation of the universe, did anything exist, including time?
Was God omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent? His existence was the definition of pertection?
No idea what if anything existed before the universe…..but yes God has always been omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent?
Perfection, unlike my typing!
If God’s pre-existent nature was one of perfection, what was his purpose for creating the universe and particularly mankind?
Jon – love and because he loved creating! Why do you need to know his purpose anyway? Can you sit in judgement upon God?
If his purpose was love, then whence comes sin? God could not have desired his creation to obey any set of rules or achieve any set aims, as a perfect God couldn’t have had any such desires. By definition – he was perfect.
Jon – Not sure you are grasping what is being said. If God’s purpose was love, and love involves freedom which in turn includes freedom to choose, by definition you cannot have choice unless there is something to choose. Sin comes from the absence of good, from the desire to live without God….its expression is seen in the kind of irrationality and arrogance which are so often displayed in the atheist comments on this blog!
No David. God cannot have wanted mankind to have a choice, he cannot have wanted anything as he was perfect. All he could do was create via grace; because it was his nature to do so.
Christians have chosen an utterly incoherrent, self contradictory set of qualities for their God but aren’t prepared to accept the consequences when it’s pointed out to them.
Jon – that is one of the funniest posts I have read in a long time! You cannot ‘want’ anything if you are perfect? Why not? Why can you not perfectly want/will something? Gods will is perfect. It is Gods nature to want what is good. You obviously think you are clever and someone with brilliant logic but you need to take a long hard look in the mirror if you think you can refute Christianity with such a silly post! If you mean ‘want’ as in ‘need’ then you would be correct because God does not need anything. If you mean want as in ‘will’ (he wanted to) which is the obvious and logical meaning of what I wrote, then is not wonderful that God delighted to create. Our God is a singing, creating, joyful being.
Prior to God’s creation, his existence was perfection, a state of flawlessness.
There could be no state that he could desire, or even conceive of, greater than that which already existed. Yet his creation is an intentional action for which he must have had a desire.
It is not the fact that his creation is less perfect than his existence, it is simply that he had a desire to create at all – he wanted something that wasn’t already in existence and this simply contradicts with his ontological perfection.
Jon – you are trying to be clever and it is not working. You are missing the simple logical things – for example why could it not be that God in his perfection, perfectly willed to create time, space, the universe etc. Why does that necessarily mean that there is a lack within him? Do we always create out of a lack? Do we not sometimes create out of fullness rather than a lack?
David
Yes, God can create out of fullness – but only as an act of grace. He cannot do it because he desires to bring about something that does not yet exist. As soon as he does that, then he is creating out of lack.
So you can have creation, but not one for which God has a purpose. That purpose would be a desire on his part.
Jon, fascinating that you still think you are so omniscient that you can tell God what he can and cannot do! Your arrogance and pride seems unlimited! To say that a perfect God can have no desires because such desires would imply a lack, misses the fairly obvious point that a perfect God could have perfect desires.