|
Does God
Travel
at the
Speed of
Light?
by
David R. Larson, Brian
McCorkle, Irvin
Kuhn,
Burns
Mclean, John B. Wong and John Elder
David R.
Larson:
An
article entitled "God at Risk" in the March 5, 2001 issue of Christianity
Today perplexes me. It is an interview of Royce Gordon Gruenler,
Professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South
Hamilton, Massachusetts, by Wendy Murray Zoba, one of his former students
who is now a Senior Writer for the evangelical journal. The topic of
the interview is process theology and recent expressions of classical
free-will theism. The second of these is sometimes known as "the
openness of God" movement, an expression that reaches back to the
title Richard Rice, a theologian now at Loma Linda University, chose for
his influential book on this subject a number of years ago.
Among
other things, Gruenler faults process theology for holding that
"There's a risk. He's a God at risk. And he's been
disappointed. The Fall was a risk and a disappointment for
him." Gruenler is
right, at least partly. Gruenler
also states that process theology's view of God has negative
"implications for prophecy, especially when it comes to Christ's
coming and dying....By denying that there can be prophecy, you're
eliminating a lot of Scripture."
This
is one of the things that distinguishes prophecy from prediction. In
principle, even if not now in fact, a prediction can foretell the future
with total accuracy. A prophecy, on the other hand, anticipates what
will happen only if living beings act in specific ways, something Jonah
took a while and a very strange journey to understand and appreciate!
According to process theology, Gruenler states, "God only truly has
your past. He has only fossils to work with. That's a pretty
big loss. And so God is very limited." In
light of linguistically possible readings of Romans 8 and other passages
of Scripture, can't at least some evangelicals agree?
When
Gruenler says that classical free-will theists, or what he calls
"openness theologians," hold that "God, of his own will,
has given up his ability to see the future so that he might have genuine
relations with us," he does pinpoint a fork in the road where they
and process theologians often diverge.
Like
the members of the jury who found it difficult not to think about pink
elephants once they had been instructed not to do so, it might be
difficult even for God not to know something God has chosen not to know!
Agreed. However, I can't recall anything in the process theology
that I have read that leaves me worried about this alleged problem. My
greatest difficulty is that Gruenler's objection strikes me as
presupposing that God is one place, that everything that is not God is
some other place, and that the speed of light is too slow to allow God to
interact with all the others in the manner that process theology depicts.
Although this way of portraying the relationships between God and
the universe is so unusual for Jewish, Christian and Muslim thinkers that
I hesitate to attribute it to Gruenler, this is what I gather from what he
has said. I hope I have missed something.
Don't process and evangelical theology agree that God is omnipresent, that
changes in our locations in space/time do not alter our proximity to God
because God is everywhere? If so, God is not "constrained to
move" anywhere at any speed because God is already here, there and
everywhere.
If
I understand them correctly, Gruenler's remarks do not distinguish process
and evangelical theology as sharply as they demarcate process theology
from that form of evangelical theology that attributes all features of all
occurrences wholly and solely to the immediate and direct determination of
divine sovereignty, with or without the additional conviction that such
divine determinations are compatible with creaturely freedom.
Brian McCorkle:
I
believe that God can know the future in ALL of its intricacies. God
can prophesy with exactness, already knowing whether the parties involved
will be compliant, and thus give the sure results of a conditional
prophesy.
I
have agreed that God's prophecies are conditional and thus the future is
contingent on conditions lived up to by the human population. But I
believe that God can know even that, all the while trying to woo the
participants unto Himself.
So, I can't see any circumstances in which God cannot know the future with
complete detail and exactness! But this can only be based on the
premise that God holds nothing higher than an individual's freedom of
choice.
Irvin Kuhn:
In a nutshell, I tend to think that God does know all of the future but
that, like freedom of choice, He does not allow His knowledge of the
future to tip the scales in His favor.
If as A. Graham Maxwell states, supported by Scripture and the writings of
Ellen G. White, the devil accused (es) God of being "arbitrary,
capricious, etc," then for God to take "unfair??" advantage
of His foreknowledge would lend credence to the devil's charge before all
the universe.
A
somewhat similar risk applies when we ask God to intervene. I think that
on some occasions He does intervene; however, it is always with the risk
of supplying ammunition to the devil's argument.
Finally,
we are captive as human beings in the cocoons of present and future.
Therefore, we are unable, or perhaps almost unable, to consider how
actions could possibly be neutral (in the Great Controversy model taken
together with the freedom of choice) if the future is known. Whether,
therefore, God is limited by the speed of light is irrelevant. He is, can
and will be there, but He acts as though He isn't. Thanks for the
stimulus.
Burns Mclean:
The
biggest problem I can see with this view is that it seems to be saying
that our current scientific worldview is complete. Any scientist
will tell you that it isn't. To think that God is bound by the laws
of physics is not an entirely unreasonable proposition (although it has
some fairly big problems), but to think that God is bound by our current
understanding of the laws of physics is just plain silly.
Science fiction writers have been writing about faster-than-light travel
or many years. Now, it may well be impossible to travel faster than
light, or to travel to distant parts of the universe through a
"wormhole", but to think that we know all that there is to know
about it is wrong. After all, people thought that Jules Verne was
mad when he wrote about a rocket trip to the moon.
John B.
Wong:
I
would say that God can move at any speed. He is not only omnipotent,
He is also the freest of all free beings. There is no possibility,
probability or actuality He is not free to be involved with or to know
about.
Logically speaking, there are a few things God is not free to do. God
cannot will Himself out of existence, to be God and not-God, to do evil,
to be illogical and absurd, to be anything contrary to His character as we
know it from His revelations.
God is free to limit His power and in so doing He need impinge on neither
His omniscience nor the creaturely freedom with which He has gifted us. As
long as God refrains from interference or imposing any kind of control,
direct or indirect, His knowledge of the future alone would not compromise
human freedom, which at most, however one defines it, is a limited
freedom.
God can choose to be in time, with time, or out of time. Physics and
cosmology tell us that time is relative to the observer. At the speed of
light, time stands still. In instances where the velocity of light
is exceeded, time reverses. Events would be seen like a reverse playback
of a video.
Surely God is capable of traveling faster than the speed of light.
Dr. Nick Herbert, who earned his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford
University, lists fourteen things that move faster than light that are
observable even here on earth!
For theology to make sense in our life and thought, it ultimately has to
come down to a personal and existential level. Sure, we picture God
and His attributes in anthropomorphic terms. But how else can we do it?
Between the extreme of a "process theism" God whose being and
fulfillment are dependent on a material world of some sort (though not
necessarily our world), which to me is not the God portrayed in the Bible,
and the opposite extreme of a God who has ordained and predestined every
event in the physical world, as well as every detail of the lives of His
created beings, thus making history just a forward replay of His finished
product, where do we find the significant human freedom that we cherish?
Somewhere in human history and in our own lives we find the markings of
God’s dynamic interactions with us. Deep down in our existential
struggles, in the face of the evil and sufferings of this world, our souls
cry out for a God who, we can be confident, has the power, will and
goodness to vanquish evil with certainty. Any God less than that is
too effete.
Made in the image of this God, here and now, we want the gift of genuine
creaturely freedom to be authenticated. In the interim, a relentless
push toward any form or degree of determinism, indeterminism,
self-determinism, absolute divine sovereignty, human freedom, and degrees
of openness of God and reality lands us in the realm of mystery.
This perhaps is the most exciting place where one’s theology should
linger this side of heaven!
David R.
Larson:
It
now looks as though I do differ from Brian, Irvin and John on the matter
before us, and perhaps even with Burns! But wherein lies this
difference? I think it has less to do with our respective
understandings of God and more to do with our understandings of the
inherent nature of contingencies.
All five
of us hold with equal conviction and intensity that God is omniscient.
By this we mean that God knows everything that is inherently capable of
being known, everything without a single exception. If there is
anything God does not know, this lack of divine knowledge points not to a
defect or limit on God's part but to these on the part the potential
objects of divine knowledge.
Without a hint of hesitation or equivocation, we all agree that God
knows to-be-so all that which is so and not-to-be-so all that which is
not. We also all agree that God does not know- to-be-so anything
that actually isn't just as God does not know-not-to-be-so anything that
actually is.
In
short, God knows everything that is knowable as it actually is, was or may
be. In more formal language, God is omniscient. On this, we are in
total agreement.
It
looks like a majority of us believe that contingencies can be known with
certainty. This is what I doubt. This may boil down to
different understandings of what a contingency is.
By
way of definition, I would offer something like this: A contingency
is an event that might or might not actually occur. As such, a
contingency is inherently uncertain.
Given this definition, others may find it easier to understand why
it is difficult for me to imagine that God knows the future in complete
detail. If I believed that, I would have to say something like this:
"God is certain about that which is by definition inherently
uncertain." I would rather not say such things.
My
reason for drawing this out is not to pressure others into seeing things
my way but to pinpoint as precisely as possible the spot at which our
views begin to diverge. If I am correct, this spot has less to do
with the nature of God and more to do with the nature of contingencies.
All of this concerns the idea of divine omniscience. Nevertheless,
what struck me as most puzzling about Gruenler's comments about process
theology is that they seemed to me to be insufficiently sensitive to the
idea of divine omnipresence.
Again, if God is always everywhere, as most Jews, Christians and Muslims
believe, there is no need for God to "travel" anywhere at
the speed of light or any other speed. Likewise, there is no need
for information to be conveyed from some place where God isn't to some
other place where God is.
No
matter where we are, God is always "here, there and everywhere."
To
me, the idea of divine omnipresence is not the arid insistence of
offensive theological pedantry. Instead, it is the good news that no
matter where life takes me and others, and no matter where I and others
take life, God is present as the influence that works for good in each
moment of each being.
I
am convinced from what I have studied and from what I have experienced
that we can count on this positive divine influence, even when all else
seems lost.
On this we do agree! Thanks again!!
John Elder:
The belief in divine omniscience makes certain other demands on the nature
of God. It requires God's omnipresence. Otherwise, God is limited by the
uncertainty principle, not being able to know both the velocity and the
position of fundamental particles. He must know all things by direct
experience, rather than simply by "knowing about" them.
"Knowing about" implies the transfer of information and this is
limited. (Working from the best scientific models we have available.)
Proclaiming the
Immanence of Deity is not a pantheistic statement. While it does agree
with pantheism, it goes beyond pantheism, which sees God as the sum total
of the universe. The Immanence of God is a statement of panentheism,
the view that the God who is beyond all things also participates and
partakes of all things by direct presence and experience.
In
chaos theory, we find examples of "strange attractors," for
example, if we swing a pendulum over a number of magnets. If we
consistently release the pendulum at exactly the same point, it will
always come to rest above the same magnet. There exists, however, a region
of chaos. In this region, if you pick a point at which the pendulum will
end up with magnet "A", you may draw a circle around that point,
and make the radius of that circle as small as you like, even
subatomically small. Within that circle will lie a starting point for the
pendulum from which the pendulum will end up at a different magnet. As the
radius of the circle gets increasingly small, the uncertainty principle
makes it impossible to predict where that pendulum will end up.
Only
a panentheistic Deity, only one who is present to know the precise
location of the pendulum, could ever predict where the pendulum will end
up. But these are deterministic questions. Perhaps somebody who knows more
about nuclear physics can answer the following:
In order to truly generate random numbers, radioactive decay can be used.
To the best of my knowledge, this is not a deterministic process, rather
it is a statistical process. In the famous Schroedinger's Cat thought
experiment, would the outcome surprise God?
Perhaps a different phrasing is better--is the outcome knowable
beforehand? If not, how could God possibly know the outcome? If so, then
all events are fixed in time, and free choice is but an illusion.
I will chuckle just a bit, and remind us all, that this is merely a human
construct. Sometimes I wonder how much God/dess laughs as we speak with
such clear logic and authority about His/Her/Their/Vehkwameir
characteristics, as if we were arguing about how a frog on the dissection
table works. If Kabir could join us from across the centuries, he'd say:
"Friends,
seek for the Guest, while you are alive, Leap
into the Experience, while you are alive, Think
and think, while you are alive; Salvation
belongs to This time, before death ....If
you make love to the Divine now, in
the next life you will wear the face of satisfied desire."
If God is present in all times and places, how ought we to respond to the
World in which God's presence is so wounded? If God is present in the
beautiful balanced ecosystem of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, what
must be the Christian response to a man who suggests that we drill holes
and pollute and build roads and disrupt that ecosystem so that more money
can flow into the pockets of corporate stockholders? Yes, God is present
in the money. Yes, God is present in the oil. But is this new arrangement
divine or diabolical?
Irvin Kuhn:
I
don't think that what I am about to say is a cop-out, but it may be. It is
difficult for us humans to consider the omnipresence of God because we
have nothing by which to illustrate it in the full sense.
We can think of air as everywhere, and yet the molecules making up my air
are not everywhere and do not make up your air. The same is true of water
or light. Each has been dissected by science into photons, waves or
individual molecules of H2O with impurities thrown in.
How, then, can I imagine God to be everywhere at once without attributing
to HIM, in my mind only, some kind of molecular composition or wave-like
identity composed of a stream of electrons, photons, gamma rays, etc?
I'm not sure that we humans can in this world understand
"omnipresence" without dropping off into the crevasse of
absurdity. I think it is also true that I cannot shake off my
limited human perspective of the nature of things when I try to think of
God as being able to know the future.
Upon what do I start to build, on what basis do I begin to understand
(create a picture?) of how to know all of the future of everything all of
the time? For now at least, I'm comfortable saying, "it could
be." I have no tools with which to construct an argument
that it isn't.
John B.
Wong:
A contingency,
philosophically speaking, is neither an impossibility nor a necessity. This
means that a contingency is a possibility. A necessary condition,
being or proposition is one which depends on nothing else for its effects.
By contrast, a contingent condition or being is one which is dependent on
something or someone, as yet uncertain, for its effects to occur.
Thus, God is a necessity. Our world, humans, the future are all
contingencies, because they all might not have been or might not have
occurred, from our human viewpoint.
Using David Larson's definition, a contingency is an event that might or
might not actually occur. As such, contingencies are inherently uncertain.
From this point of view, future events are contingent because it is
uncertain whether they will or will not occur.
As
brought out in the discussion, we all believe that God is omniscient.
I tend to think that there is nothing that is uncertain to God. This is
contrary to the Whiteheadian and Hartshornian views that the future
cannot be known in detail even by God. The uncertainty is with us.
Even Heisenberg’s uncertainties are known by God's omniscience.
Mathematicians, it is said, can use calculus, high math, and computers to
map out the exact pattern a certain drunk will walk, taking into
consideration millions of facts (such as the thickness of the heels of his
shoes, the thousand minute variations of the surface of the road, the
direction of the wind, the condition of his hip joints, etc, etc).
If
there are one trillion possibilities that might shape a certain event, God
knows them all. If there are ten trillion, trillion, trillion
possibilities as how an event might turn out, He knows them well.
Let that number take the infinite regress or progress, and He is on top of
all of them.
Nonetheless,
even if certain events or choices will lead to tragedy, individually or
globally, God may or may not interfere (He also knows when He will or will
not interfere) because of His respect for our creaturely freedom. He
knows who is going to respond to His grace and who will reject His love.
I’ve come to think that He knows who will be saved. We are the
ones who do not know.
With
this belief, I finally came to a solution (satisfactory to me at least) as
to whether those who lived before Christ’s incarnation will be saved, or
whether those infants or children who died before the age of decision will
be. Love and justice demand that salvation be equally offered to
everyone who might want to accept it. Thus, those born before Christ
will be judged according to the light they had in their circumstances.
God knows how they would have responded if they had been presented with
the truth and the gospel. Based on that knowledge, salvation is either
granted to them or not.
Of
course, all of us in this discussion are familiar with Ellen
G. White’s
view on this matter, which is that these children will be as if they had
never been (creational error, aberration??--that’s my question).
Well, that is certainly one way to deal with the problem. I think
mine portrays God as having a more personal and caring touch with His
creation.
Now
getting back to the Whiteheadian view, one of my questions is this:
If contingent future events are outside the purview of God’s
omniscience, and therefore outside His power to plan and cope for
particular events in advance (sure, some will say He is able to cope once
the event has occurred—like the mop-up job once a bomb has exploded),
does that uncertainty not control God?
For
example, if the uncertain future is forever out of God’s grasp, what
guarantees against and coping mechanisms are there for the possibility of
second or third rebellions against God? Given the
millions of saved with their freedom exercised over infinite stretches of
time or eternity, the possibility of a repetition of Adam's Fall cannot be
ruled out.
I myself would not like to relive the saga of The Great Controversy
Between Good and Evil and all the pain and suffering of humankind.
Given my concepts of God’s omniscience and omnipotence, I do have an
answer regarding the possibility of second or third rebellions against
God, should they occur.
Well, I will conclude with what I said before: any relentless push toward
any form of determinism, indeterminism, self-determinism, absolute divine
sovereignty, human freedom, and degrees of openness of God and reality,
God’s omniscience and foreknowledge, lands us in the realm of mystery.
This perhaps is the most exciting place where one’s theology should
linger this side of Heaven!
David R. Larson:
One of my friends is hesitating to let me publish on the Internet some
good things he has written partly because he is perfecting his remarks and
partly because he says that posting them would make him feel
"exposed!" I know the feeling!
Burns Mclean, who participates in our conversation from Australia,
honors me by requesting that I comment on the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle. Alas, even though I did some reading on it last night, I
am not yet ready to accept his invitation!
I
don't think I grasp the question this formula answers and therefore I
don't understand the full nature of its contribution to physics and then
to theology. I shall keep studying! Meanwhile, I am glad that
both John Elder and John Wong addressed it, albeit from their different
points of view. I would be happy to post anything further that they
or others would like to say about this.
I
have more complete views regarding one of the issues John Wong addresses.
"If God is limited in any way," he as it were asks, "how
can we be sure that in the end good will vanquish evil?" This
question is an important one, both theoretically and practically. I
shall therefore "expose" my current thoughts and feelings on
this matter, something for which I feel more adequately prepared.
It
might be helpful to begin with some options. If we start by thinking
of evil as the deliberate imposition of any type of pain or suffering that
is not justified by its benefits for the one on whom the discomfort is
imposed, we can identify at least three primary alternatives. One of
these is the view that eventually God will rid the universe of evil by an
overwhelming exercise of divine coercive power.
A
second view is that in principle evil will always be a possibility, but
hopefully the time will come when free moral agents will freely choose no
longer to actualize it because, as it were, they "have been there,
done that and had enough."
This second approach can have many versions. Process theologians
tend to say that no matter when evil emerges God deals with it by working
to overcome it with good in ways that respect and foster creaturely
freedom. Seventh-day Adventist theologians have sometimes said that,
if evil were to arise again after the conclusion of what we Adventists
call "The Great Controversy Between Good and Evil," at that
point, not now but only then, because no one would then doubt God's
fairness in doing so, God could and would destroy evil and all evil doers
by exercising unilateral coercive power.
A
third approach is frankly dualistic. It holds that good and evil are
equally basic principles and powers throughout the universe and neither
will ever wholly triumph over the other. Of course, there are many
other options, each with a drawer full of variations. But these
three basic ones may be enough to get us started.
Some
form of the second alternative makes most sense to me at this time.
On the one hand, I do not think that our universe is caught in an unending
struggle between equally potent forces of good and evil. On the
other hand, all the evidence we have suggests to me that God rarely acts
in coercive ways.
I
think it wise "never to say never" about such things; however, I
don't think it an exaggeration to say that God's characteristic way of
dealing with evil is to overcome it persuasively with good. Hence I
think it likely that evil will always be a possibility, but that it need
not always be an actuality.
At
least two additional considerations nudge me toward some form of the
second alternative. One of these is that, if at some point in the
future God were to rid the universe of all evil by exercising overwhelming
unilateral coercive power, creaturely freedom would then be compromised,
if not destroyed. So perhaps evil must always remain a possibility,
though not an actuality, such that, when free moral agents no longer
choose to actualize it, this will be so not because they can't but because
they won't.
This is a point at which I think S.D.A. theology and process theology
converge. Each in its own fashion, both say that God finds
ways to triumph over evil without violating creaturely freedom.
Process theologians tend to say that God never exercises unilateral
coercive power. S.D.A. theologians tend to say that God will do this only
when truly authorized to do so by all competent, free and informed beings,
an authorization that must be granted even by the evil ones who would then
be destroyed by God's sovereign power at their own request.
The differences between process theology and S.D.A. theology are otherwise
so great in style and substance that it is easy to miss their common
conviction that, however we explain it, God successfully deals with evil
without violating creaturely freedom. This emphasis upon the
continuing presence and value of at least some measure of something like
freedom in all those who are not God is one conviction that process
theology and S.D.A. theology share, or so I believe.
The
self-destructive tendencies of evil and evil doers is the second
consideration that nudges me toward some variation of option number two.
Properly interpreted, Augustine was right: "evil is
nothing." This does not mean that nothing is evil, far from it!
It does mean that evil derives its measure of power not from itself but
from good. If this is true, and I believe it is, ethical dualism is
false.
Because evil does not have its own basis for being, and because it cuts
itself off from the only true Source of Being, in the long run it will
exhaust and cannibalize itself. Although this is a somber basis for
hope, it might be worth considering!
John Elder, Irvin Kuhn and John Wong remind us of how inadequate all our
reflections about such things are because of our finitude and fallibility.
How right they are! In view of our limits and failures, perhaps we
should be more agnostic about these matters, perhaps we should take more
of a "let's wait and see" attitude.
I
would be comfortable with such a stance if everyone, or at least a large
number of theological teachers, took it. As I see it, the difficulty
is that some express views that leave God looking like a despotic tyrant
who is hostile to creaturely freedom. As long as this is the case, I
think those of us who have different convictions do well to articulate
them as well as possible and to share them as widely as we can.
John B.
Wong:
I
would feel uneasy about leaving my destiny in the hands of these so-called
free moral agents over stretches of time and eternity, never sure that one
of these might not abuse the agential freedom again and again and again!
I would rather put my trust in the goodness, justice and love of an
omnipotent Creator. I know that deep down in me (I can only speak
for myself), there is that longing for closure--personal and cosmic.
Might
it not be unnecessary for God to act should rebellion be repeated?
I'd like to think that we, the veterans of sin, suffering and redemption,
would be assigned the roles of judge, jury and penal administrator for
anyone involved in the second, third or any subsequent rebellion against
God. As David Larson said, at that point we would "have been
there, done that and had enough."
We could play
the "videos" of human history, individual and corporate. I
am absolutely certain that we would have a sure verdict for that
"wayward" member, one without a reasonable doubt.
No
coercive force need be employed. That wayward member would beg for a
state of non-being after marshaling any kinds of evidences and being
granted any witnesses and testimonies he or she desired. The trials
could last as long as necessary while the effects of the rebellion are
contained.
God
would just "sit there" and enjoy the whole scene. That,
perhaps, would be His crowning glory: to see free, moral
beings deciding on what is best for them without any of His help.
In
deep satisfaction, the Trinity could then univocally sigh, "Ah, our
creation was not in vain, as we have known all along! We knew
it when we first decided to create free beings. We know it
now."
David R. Larson:
Although others might be struck by our differences, which are real, I am
impressed by how much John Wong and I have in common, particularly if we
can penetrate the form of what we are each saying deeply enough to discern
the substance.
We both reject the idea that God will eventually banish evil by a
unilateral exercise of overwhelming coercive power. Also, we both
deny that good and evil are equally basic principles and powers that are
caught in an eternal embrace and struggle.
This means that we both prefer some way of indicating that God overcomes
evil without violating the measure of freedom possessed by all those who
are not God. In short, we both prefer what I earlier described as
"a second alternative."
This second alternative has many versions. It turns out, however,
that John Wong prefers one of the two I mentioned and I prefer the other.
My suggestion is that, even though evil always remains a possibility, the
time hopefully will come when free moral agents will freely choose no
longer to actualize it. As I understand it, Doctor Wong's view is
that, if rebellion against God were to erupt again, God could then destroy
it and those who actualize it without violating creaturely freedom
because, at that point, though not now, all free moral agents, including
those who would then be destroyed by God, would freely choose to authorize
God so to act.
People vary in their reactions to "narrative theology" of this
sort. Instead of writing a summary of Christian doctrine, Ellen G.
White, the most influential writer other than those in Scripture in the
Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Christian denomination to which both
John Wong and I belong, wrote a series of books that narrate the story of
humanity from beginning to end with an emphasis upon the "The
Great Controversy Between Good and Evil." Those who have an
appetite for narration appreciate this way of expounding theology,
those who prefer theology that is more discursive don't.
"I ask you a question and you tell me a story!" exclaim some in
frustration. Others would have nothing else!
One very important implication of Doctor Wong's narration of what might
happen if evil erupted yet again after the conclusion of what others
call the "present cosmic epoch" is that even then God would
overcome it without violating the measure of freedom enjoyed by all those
who are not God.
In the mode of discursive theology, I say that the possibility but not the
actuality of evil is permanent. In the mode of narrative theology,
Doctor Wong tells a story about how God could destroy evil and evil doers
without violating the free and informed consent of everyone, including
those who would then be destroyed.
A very high priority in both of our responses is the presence, continuing
value and decisive significance of creaturely freedom.
Thus, although I had not thought of it before this exchange with John
Wong, there is a sense in which both of our suggestions to a considerable
degree make the eradication of evil, as previously defined, a matter of
the exercise of free moral choice on the part of God's creatures. On
the one hand, I suggest that the possibility but not necessarily the
actuality of evil is permanent, a view of things that places much
responsibility upon all those who are not God. Doctor Wong's
eschatological expectations picture God destroying evil and evil doers
only when authorized by all other free moral agents to do so, something
that at least in theory they could decline to do because they are
genuinely free.
Either way, not God's sovereign coercive power but the limited but genuine
freedom of God's creatures ultimately settles the matter.
"Let those who have ears, hear!"
John B.
Wong:
For
the redeemed, the will to enforce a collective aspiration for a universe
at peace and in harmony would find its grounding in the law of Heaven set
up and subscribed to by all heavenly inhabitants. This enforcement
of a commonly shared will would not be coercive to the wayward who, by
virtue of their membership in the heavenly abode, would have
personally sworn to uphold the "heavenly constitution."
One's freedom, when encroaching upon another's freedom, is in itself a
passive form of coercion. I want to retain my freedom to be what I
want to be, to live in peace and harmony and perfect relationship with God
and His created order. I have the freedom not to be robbed of this
freedom or not to have it disrupted by someone else's abuse of freedom.
Should disagreement and unresolved issues come up as is often the case
among free beings, we can always refer them to the "Living
Constitution," and its unerring interpretation, whose name is God.
**Note: In my book
The Resurrected Body--Y2K and Beyond, I
define "reality" as THAT which IS, that which cannot be
dreamed away, or set apart by arguments or dismissed through clever
manipulation of "intellectual processes," that which is not
ultimately defeasible by physical destruction, that which is independent
of appearances, phenomenological perceptions or whatever our minds can
conjure.
Walter
Rogers:
Does God move at
the speed of light?
First, there are stars in this Universe that are millions and millions of
light years away. Now suppose God, who I believe has created the
Universe, is somewhere in the outer regions of the Universe conversing
with other created beings and then decides to come back to earth to pay us
a visit. If He were limited to the speed of light, it would take Him
millions of years to make the trip. By the time He got here the
human race would have gone extinct and have been replaced by a highly
evolved race of cockroaches!
Second, light has very specific properties.
It has the properties of a wave with a spectrum (...Ultraviolet-visible-
infrared...) and can be refracted and reflected. Light is also a
particle with a measurable mass and is affected by gravity (check your
science textbooks). God is infinite, immeasurable and cannot be
created by a Maglight, manipulated by a magnifying glass or filtered out
with a Oakley shades. If He shares none of these properties with
light, why would He share light's property of speed of approximately
3x10exp8 m/s?
The obvious fact is that God doesn't have the
time to spend millions or even billions of years trudging around the
Universe from one edge to the other at the speed of light. Relative to the
size of the Universe, light is pathetically slow. If God is on one
edge of His creation and suddenly a prayer from Sally reaches Him about
her dying dog, to drop everything and race to her at the speed of light is
hopeless.
Since God and light are not comparable ideas and God cannot be limited to
such a slow speed, God does not move at the speed of light. But what
about Sally's dog? Since God is omnipresent, He doesn't have to drop
anything or race anywhere. He's already there. In fact, God
doesn't travel at all because He doesn't have to.
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