The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
(2 Peter 3:9) KJV
Water is the essence of free will which is why God used it as the raw material for the universe. God’s goal was to create sentient life that had the ability to accept or reject Him as creator based on the testimony of the creation itself.
Which brings us to this question: If God made the Red Sea stand like a wall on either side of the Israelites, for instance, and given that we’re more water than anything else, could God control us? And, if He could, why doesn’t He?
This is the kind of argument that people like to use to prove to themselves that there’s no God. It’s a similar sentiment to the idea that: if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then why can’t he just prove himself to me? The conclusion is: because he doesn’t exist. We had an exchange with someone who made the following attempt to rationalize God out of existence:
Rationalizing God
- If there were a god as you described, he would know I’m unconvinced.
- If he loved me and didn’t want to torture me for eternity, he would make me know he exists.
- Couldn’t Yahweh have just forgiven us without the need for a sacrifice? That would have been better proof of his loving nature.
This demonstrates a poor understanding of all the issues mentioned. It’s an example of superficial theology, where understanding isn’t desired, but rather an excuse to dismiss the issues. A problem for the folk for whom this is a prevailing attitude is that they don’t understand the purpose of creation.
The purpose of creation is to bring about the permanent physical separation of light from darkness, day from night, good from evil.
– The Purpose of Creation
If they only knew WHY God created the universe, then this state of mind would be resolved. Here’s how the three statements may be resolved:
Resolving God
- You’re convinced that you don’t want there to be a God, so you’ve rejected Him,
- You could simply choose to not be tortured for eternity,
- Proof of love is the sacrifice he made for us.
God created the universe so that each of us could have life with free will in such a way that we can choose whether or not we want to live in eternity with God.
Why did God create the universe?
The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything:God created the universe so that sentient beings with free will could make a choice between light or darkness, life or death.
– The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything
It’s ironic and sad that many people express such naked contempt for Christians that they will say things like:
“If heaven is going to be full of people like you then I would choose hell.”
Sadly, this is exactly the choice that they’re making. Hopefully if WE Christians understand WHY God created the universe then we’ll have a chance of reaching these folk. Unfortunately it seems that Christianity went off the rails a long time ago, and the concept of WHY God created the universe isn’t even on the radar. Instead they’re supporting people like Donald Trump. We need to bring this front and center. There’s a reason for WHY God created the universe. Hell is real but God isn’t being mean by sending people there.
January 10th – Logos: Λόγος – a Word
We tie together four loose ends and see that they weren’t loose ends at all, they’re a whole.
Matty's Paradigm 