nikolai_42
Well-known member
Thanks, that was a slip. But in some senses it wasn't because freedom does imply some sort of dominion over something (or rather freedom from total restraint of another). The question I see is where God's freedom and our freedom collides. And if it doesn't happen all the time, then why? And when it does, who "wins"? Since God's Sovereignty is utter (there is no one above Him) then how can we talk about Him having any constraints?
God's constraints are only self-imposed. The only constraints He has are not to act against His nature. By definition, we assume that all He does is in perfect accord with who He is. Other constraints are artificial. If He can raise up descendants to Abraham from rocks (and build them into that same genealogy) then it implies our understanding of constraints is too anthropomorphic. To your Hitchiker's reference, God absolutely can do both (build the bypass and not have earth destroyed). His nature isn't violated if He were to find a solution wherein both conditions are met. We are absolutely incapable of doing anything like what God can (and does?) do. His ways are not our ways nor His thoughts our thoughts. His ways are so much higher than our ways. Our constraints are far greater than anything that constrains God. Maybe ironically, we reflect that fact by acting according to our nature as well. And outside of Him, that is utterly without eternal merit.
If God is subject to the same constraints we are, then He is not God. He is not far above us.
Who (not what) constrains God? If it is a mutual self-constraint, it can't be God Himself...
God, then, becomes a "victim" of His own choices and annihilation a way to make sure there is no inconsistency. But there are scriptures that speak of something other than annihilation. Even though it seems viable in a logical sense, it is hard to uphold given all of scripture. I won't say it's impossible (I've considered it myself) but it doesn't seem to me to leave room for God's infinitely fine and discerning judgments to be assessed. As I said, God is judging far more broadly and deeply than "what I have done" or even "my intentions".
The problem with trying to dig through the details of our experience is that to solve the problems associated with libertarian free choice vs. God's Sovereignty requires a vantage point we simply don't have. Our answers will ultimately be unsatisfactory and incomplete. And so we have to take God's Word for things that seem paradoxical to our own experience.
Consider this scripture :
Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.
Psalm 76:10
It implies something of man's freedom (such as it is) and God's Sovereignty. Man is free to react according to His nature. Without God, that is not a good thing. But God knows all and sees all ahead of time and determines the boundaries of all things (not just physical boundaries either...)
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Acts 17:24-27
But the question really comes down to where these things collide. And that verse (and others, I believe) strongly imply that where they do come into conflict, God's will always wins. No matter what. No freedom being unduly impinged upon.
The contention with determinism is that everything, then, is a contest of God's will and man's will and so God's will wins - every femtosecond of every day in every molecule in the universe. The dualism of deterministic existence and bound freedom found in the electron cloud is the closest I've come to being able to express how I think that might work. It is a mystery in many ways. But when the argument, then, is advanced that this means God can't truly be worshipped, I am reminded of this scripture :
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:9-11
Which is a NT restatement of Isaiah's prophecy :
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
Isaiah 45:22-23
There is certainly pretense for universalism there, but if one takes it in context of all scripture, that's a hard case to prove. But I don't think that is necessary. For the worship due God is given - and none grudgingly. None are bowing the knee out of empty duty but rather because of God's nature - because God's worthiness of all worship. Because it is demanded by His holiness, His pure character. Isaiah himself experienced it before being commissioned :
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Isaiah 6:1-5
That worship is because of God's nature, not because of any choice or free will decision to bow. So I can't see determinism as being a violation of the freedom that free will theology wants to claim is violated.
