OK, so today I want to run through an item I mentioned yesterday as something I wanted to take back. That is, the idea that Christians believe that there is a truly random element intrinsic to the human spirit. This is something I mentioned in a previous blog.

Before I get to it. I want to point out that I'm not 100% comfortable flat-out rejecting the idea. I think that the spiritual world may very well operate on a different set of rules which allow for a separate scope of action, which may as well be, with respect to the rules that govern the physical world, random, and which have some effect on the physical world. I don't know, and I wouldn't want to die for any answer one way or another on that.

On a similar note, angels and demons may do things that we would call supernatural, because they don't abide by the physical laws that we understand, but those angels and demons are still creatures, (that is, they are created things). As such, they are limited, and so must act according to their limited nature. Only God can be called unlimited, but even God cannot act against His perfect character, and so is limited only by His own will. So, with the exception of actions done by God directly, there is nothing supernatural; we can only say only that spiritual things may be supersensible to us. At the same time, in a way of speaking, everything is supernatural in that it is all created, planned, dictated and allowed by God. </tangent>

So the problem with any "true" randomness is that it necessitates against God's sovereignty as I understand it.The Bible is very clear that God knows the future, (examples include every single prophesy in the Bible). If anything is truly random, then by definition nobody is allowed to know the result of it until that result is produced.

This is related to a number of other issues. The Bible is also clear that God created the whole world, owns it and maintains it (see the last few chapters of Job). The Bible also says pretty directly that those who are saved are predestined (Romans 8). People often seem to respond to this with, "Does that mean that God predestined some people to hell, and others to heaven?". Paul anticipated this, and answers it in Romans 9:21. The point is, God planned and purposed everything from before the world began.

This means that God created the world knowing that all this evil stuff would happen. Indeed, He could have created the world in a different way, but He didn't. God therefore planned for evil things to happen, and the Bible is also clear that God does so for His own glory. The Bible is full of examples where God raises up wicked nations and allows them to be wicked, in order to demonstrate His power (Egypt), in order to carry out His justice (Bablyon), and in order to execute His plans for salvation (those who crucified Christ). What it comes down to is this: Either God has purposed everything for good, or all the wickedness in the world is gratuitous and without purpose. Either God planned it, or God's plans were defeated by it. Either God planned it and wanted it to happen, or God didn't want it to happen, and so has set up a system wherein things happen that are not a part of his plan, and he doesn't know what's going to happen, and he's therefore powerless to stop the devil.

That makes people uncomfortable, but the Bible doesn't give us what we want to hear. It gives us what we need. The Gospel doesn't give us health and wealth on earth, nor physical comfort. It gives us the peace that surpasses all understanding, which guards the hearts and minds of those who are in Christ Jesus.

Finally, the topic relates to God's position with respect to time. I feel like I often hear the assertion that God is outside of time, because how else would he be able to know and predict the future. Well, I don't think that eternality and foreknowledge are enough to draw that conclusion; God could simply have instantiated a system with only one possible outcome. We need Biblical support to accept this. Another thing I've heard before is that creation being ex nihilo means that creating time was a part of the creation of earth. I would accept this except that I'm not convinced that the spiritual world is outside of time. Also, the fact that the spiritual world is as it is indicates that something existed before the creation of the world -- perhaps nothing material existed, but I'm not sure that the Bible is conclusive on that point. All we know is that the "heavens" and "earth" were created from nothing in the beginning (I'm lead to believe that "from nothing" is an implication derived from the Greek).

Here, I'm going to reach a little bit to make my point. I've got a few verses off the top of my head that I'm going to use to formulate a brief opinion. Jesus says, "Before Abraham was born, I AM" (John 8:58). Here is God saying that he "is" in reference to a past time. So, one might be able to draw from this that God is outside of time, experiencing a sort of eternal "now". However, in the OT we have written that God is not a man, nor is He a son of man (Numbers 23:19); which is a negative statement, concerning characteristics which God lacked, and that human nature was appended to God at the moment of the incarnation (John 1). So, God is able to add to himself a new nature, and his emotions can vary, and those changes take place at points which can be measured with reference to time, but his being and character are eternally constant (God cannot make himself to be not-God). We know that the spiritual world does experience time, I think, because of what I see in Revelation 6:9-11, the 5th seal opens and spirits of dead people are asked to "wait a little longer". So when we die we don't fall out of the time-continuum. So God is not restricted or subjected to time, but He seems to at least have a certain nature which is subject to time -- some kind of appendage that reaches into our scope of understanding, and I don't suppose that we will ever quite escape time. We might be able, eventually, to manipulate our standing with respect to time, but I think all signs point to an idea that "eternal life" implies that we'll be time-bound forever.

And~~~~~~~ that's all for this post. I think I've gone in about enough depth here for now.

"Most of that is present knowledge."