Night and Day

There is darkness, there is light. I find it interesting that God first created the heavens and the earth, and then on the second day got around to creating light, separating the two and making day and night. So there is always darkness before light. Ignorance before enlightenment. Chaos before civility. In the womb our eyes are closed. I can think of one instance where there is light before darkness: when a camera flash goes off in your eyes. Very bright. Then you can't see straight. Gradually vision returns. One sees the heavens and the earth again. They didn't go anywhere.

Of course the 800 pound gorilla in the room on this topic is evil. When was there evil in the world? At first there was no law. All was natural. God saw that it was very good and rested on the seventh day.

I believe we have a propensity toward evil since those days in the Garden of Eden. We know what is right but we choose to do otherwise for a multitude of reasons. Eventually we don't even know what is right. What is right becomes what is expedient. Your actions follow your beliefs. Life becomes one narrow and selfish series of events. When things are all relative, then there is no vision. Without vision a person perishes. Darkness prevales.

After darkness is light though. It is a lie that one should abandon all hope when one enters the darkness. Here is a tiny candle for you, Dante Alighieri.

My Free Will

There were waves made recently when a travelling minister came to our church and said that God was not all-knowing, not omniscient. He claimed God was moving through time with us, which is why we truly have free-will.

It's an interesting idea, but so outrageous that I have to comment on it.

The first thing that comes to mind is how we can have prophets if there is no known future to predict? Did Jesus just hope he would be raised from the dead on the third day?

More serious, studious students of scripture do not question the omnipotence of God, but rather that beings have free will.

If I am given two options A & B and God is all-knowing, God knows I will choose A, God cannot be wrong. So if I cannot choose B, how do I have free will?

This argument is true in that:

-I can freely choose between A & B

-God is all-knowing

-God knows I will choose A

-God cannot be wrong

But the next statement does not follow. Just because God has knowledge of something does not mean that He makes it so. For instance, I love horses. If I am travelling in a car and someone notices and comments that there is a horse out in a field, I have a choice to look or not look. It is my free will. But God knows and everyone else who knows me knows that I will snap my attention to try to see that horse.

Free will and omniscience are compatible.

By the way, God invented time, that He would lower himself to be limited by this construct does not follow.

Birds

We spend too much money feeding wild birds, but they are so cute, we can't help ourselves. These are finches I think.

Found Poem

Here, try this one:

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002

I love this!