The greatest heresy facing the modern evangelical Protestant church is that concept which believes that God's grace is unlimited to all people, no matter their moral condition.
Having been trained in the art of scientific writing where virtually every thought has some sort of conditional qualifier, notice there are not any perhaps, possibilities, or indications in the statement above. God's infinite grace, is only infinite to those who through their choice (under God's sovereignty) accept it. That grace (common and specific), in some aspects is extended to all people. But it does not reach infinite proportions except to those who by faith seek the righteousness of Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice for their justification before a Holy God.
In that strict literal interpretation, the Calvinist's are right. God's grace is irresistible only to those who accept it. Those who do not accept God's grace on God's terms, are left in their sin and will one day die in that unrepentant state. "Amazing Grace," is amazing only to those who seek it by faith. It is not amazing, but just a forgone conclusion to our egalitarian society.
Some time ago, I had an opportunity to meet with a man promoting a gold mine, who claimed to be a retired chairman of the Physics Department of the University of Washington. During his informal presentation of this opportunity, he digressed into the way gold became deposited in this particular location. Beginning with the Big Bang and advocating his learned theories (correctly sited as such) he proceeded to enlighten the rest gathered in his presence, into his understanding of the cosmology of the universe.
While I was not really in disagreement with most of what he had to say, he was the one who was so into the correctness of his theories. Into such a well defined universe, I thought it my obligation to point out to him that since he was the one who had started down this road himself, "Your physics really rest completely on the truth of your underlying metaphysics. If your metaphysics are untrue, then there is no basis by which to judge the truthfulness of the rest of your 'scientific' conclusions."
Shocked that someone would challenge him in the underlying principles of his previous career, he however acknowledged this universal truth of philosophy. He later had a real problem however, with the fact that my microscopist, without even lifting his eyes from his microscope, told him that his particle physics were not lying. My microscopist challenged the physicist when he told us that the sample of the placer had not been altered, even though it contained only particles of a small uniform size distribution, which is not found in nature. This, I suppose proves one of the maxims of true evangelism, "If they won't accept grace, give them a good dose of law."
Only God was there at the beginning of time, and we only have what He says in those first few chapters of the Book of Genesis, by which we must understand the creation of the cosmos. Put another way, if God would have thought that the Big Bang was an appropriate way to create the universe, then He could have done it that way. However, since he doesn't mention this phenomenon, either that is not the event(s) He used, was not at all important, or the Big Bang is just an attempt by man to invent an idol in the likeness of God, to placate man's rejection of God's grace.
Since the Big Bang theory is a twentieth century Nobel prize invention, it either proves that the whole of mankind is evolving to a higher level of philosophical and cosmological enlightenment, or we are succumbing to the forces of the entropy of Forrest Gump, "Mama says, 'Stupid is, as stupid does.'" These are really the two choices. Your metaphysics does however determine the truth of your eventual physics and the potential truth of your understanding of nature, or creation around you.
In that regard, let us look at the Big Bang as the One-Singularity from which we all have evolved and see how it matches up with the attributes of God we looked at last week. In that light, we can tell if it truly is a manifestation of God, or just a figment of the minds of some very "bright" men.
Last week our Bible Dictionary list included the following attributes of God: spirituality, infinity, eternity, immutability, self-sufficiency, perfection, freedom, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, justice, truth, love, mercy, and grace. To that I added the potential aspect of an infinite sense of humor, perhaps as a composite personality trait.
The One-Singularity is essentially a means to explain nature without the need of a supreme God. Since God is spirit then by definition the One-Singularity, must be the anti-spirit. But since both God and the One-Singularly existed before the time of man, they must be accepted by faith as truth. All would generally recognize that faith is a spiritual attribute of man. Therefore we must be dealing with a spiritual attribute in some fashion, either evolutionary or Divine
Now we could systematically follow through the rest of the attributes of God, and to some extent we shall see that this great singular event, is really a huge but somewhat limited version of what Christians and Jews call God. That is, until we come to the attributes of God that you could consider personal qualities. The One-Singularity does not possess any virtues of personality. Freedom, justice, truth, love, mercy, and grace, really are not something we could inherit from the Big Bang.
Now the typical Christian argument could be, "Where do these attributes, unique to mankind among all life forms, come from?" This of course is similar to the natural discussion of where there is evidence of design there must be a designer. Both of these are sound, logical, and compelling arguments for the existence of God, but notice they stem from man's understanding and reasoning.
None of the listed attributes of God indicate the presence of faith. Hence reason is not the battle ground on which believers in God can stand, fight, and win against the "scientific truth" of evolutionary dogma. Put another way, reason is reasonable to he (or she) who reasons. Reason is relative and is therefore not an absolute.
It is the religious argument primarily by which the One-Singularity, One-God choice must be made. One is Absolute, one is not. From one One, flows the absolutes of personality, and hence hope, individual and community. From the other one, flows nothing but chaos and despair except in the faith of evolution, which is by definition directed by chance.
This brings us back to where we began. Cosmology is not science but philosophy. Grace is not grace if you are not willing to accept it. In all these cases not only is grace limited in applicability it is also limited in duration, which of course points to the source and attributes of justice, truth, love, mercy, and grace. They flow from God alone into the lives of those who accept them through faith by grace.
They also flow from the sacrifice of Christ alone, by grace alone, by faith alone, and to God's glory alone. This truth is not found in studying nature or creation, even though it may point you toward that God. The specific understanding of this is found only in the Revelation of the Personality of God revealed in the pages of the Bible.
Therefore the next time you are persecuted for being a stupid evangelical Christian, depending on the circumstances you can either:
1. Keep your mouth shut, knowing that the truth has set you free, and pray for that enlightenment in your accuser.
2. Reply, "Mama says, 'Stupid is, as stupid does.'"
3. Respond, "I can see from your hostile attitude, that there is something within your being that is threatened by the grace, by which I live. Let me therefore tell you why my cosmology is not based on evolutionary dogma, but on the Bible and the specific redemptive freedom found in Jesus Christ.
Last week I mentioned that I felt that things had changed and indeed they definitely seemed to. While the above article is somewhat enhanced for literary(?) purposes I can not remember a week when I faced so much hostility for just trying to be a nice guy. But really most of that animosity really wasn't directed personally at me, it was related to an unspoken:
"You for some reason threaten many of the tenets by which I control my life, without that control I create, all is impossible, but don't tell me any God stuff, its all right for you but, I don't want to hear anything that will change my (mis)conception of my reality!"
Please intercede that this week that I can move beyond those situations and attitudes into some tenets that can broaden the basis of this ministry. For lack of a better thought, that this ministry could be so effective in its stand for absolutes and the eternal truth of God's word that it would be impossible to be offended by just a few controlling personalities. That ability requires still the influx of capital and the need for others who understand it is not "he who has the gold who makes the rules," but "He who made the gold, makes the rules."
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