Like so many philosophical/ spiritual questions, this one has a false premise built into it. Let’s reframe your important question. I’ll agree that God created nature, the Earth, sun, moon and the galaxies. But He made it “good”, not perfect. He delegated governing authority to mankind, with a mandate to add tremendous value to the Creation, with one clear stipulation: man was never to partake of a particular tree which would activate his power to choose.
As long as man took strategic direction from his Creator, all would be well. Once his willpower was activated, all hell broke loose. Man believed he had the reasoning ability and clarity of moral adjudication that only the Lord retained. Man now evaluated right and wrong through the limits of experience and mental/emotional faculties. We call it morality today. But…we were designed and intended to evaluate good and evil through spiritual filters, not through human reasoning. Political battles today are a prime example of two parties advocating radically different positions because of deeply held moral beliefs.
Eventually, man perverted the Creation to the point where he did evil continuously. (You think stuff is bad today? It was remarkably worse before the Flood.) Nearly the entire human race was wiped out in an orchestrated, worldwide flood. Geologic evidence of this catastrophic event is still witnessed today. Mankind 2.0 began about 4,000 years ago.
Nature is not responsible for any evil that you observe, my friend. Man is responsible. Yes, God created all of it, but Nature was perverted by man, not the Lord. Thankfully there is an incredible redemption strategy available to us. I’ll leave that for another discussion.
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Like so many philosophical/ spiritual questions, this one has a false premise built into it. Let’s reframe your important question. I’ll agree that God created nature, the Earth, sun, moon and the galaxies. But He made it “good”, not perfect. He delegated governing authority to mankind, with a mandate to
While not claiming to speak for all non-believers (although I used to be one), I believe that many such people are actually searching for deep truths. They are continuously and severely disappointed by “religious” people who repetitively quote banal phrases while claiming to have profound beliefs. In other words, there
In ancient mythology, Ulysses needed to navigate the passageway between Italy and Sicily, the strait guarded by two deadly, intimidating threats — Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side lay rocky shoals — certain to rip the hull out of one’s ship. These rocks were guarded by a terrible, six-headed
In considering the merits of various economic systems, we run the risk of arguing from man’s history back to God’s intent. We may even be caught examining our historical abuse and religious mismodeling of God’s intentions and then demanding legal protection from our own foolishness. This would be deductive reasoning
As you continue to explore your identity as a spiritual father, be willing to press deeper, to the true, biblical meaning of the term. We can colloquially say you are “fathering” certain individuals, but be willing to challenge yourself: is it really fathering, or perhaps discipling, or maybe just training?
I did, although I would prefer to exchange the phrase “religious person” for “spiritual believer.” Religion is man’s attempt to prove himself to God. It separates and objectifies others. It controls adherents by requiring ritualized performance. Religion is a ‘Tower of Babel’ attempt to justify ourselves to God. But what
