The Foreordained Plan of God is the Unifying Law of Everything in the Universe

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

To God be the glory, great things He has done. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

141. WE ALREADY HAVE THE ANSWER, SO WHAT IS THE QUESTION?

What part of "designed plan" can we not understand?

"Oh, I know. The answer is Christ. Christ is the answer for everything. Right?"

The answer is in Christ -- within Christ, or through Christ, or by means of Christ. But Christ is also part of the bigger plan, and the plan was carried out by Him and is still being carried out through Him. The coming of Jesus Christ and all He did on earth was a means to an end. This was all necessary to accomplish something that had been foreordained. Christ came with a job to do, and what He did was part of the plan of the Father.

"Well, then, the answer is the gospel, the "good news.". The world has to be saved. We need to be evangelical and missional and conversional."

Conversional? Hey, you just made that up. Look, we've got enough confusion from tossing the first two theobuzzowords around without adding another one. And be fully committed and intentional about it, too. The "good news" is not the answer, per se, but the gospel describes the answer.

Something really big happened, and it was before everything that we know about -- before matter, before physical energy, before heat, before time, before a big bang of whatever that involved. It was before. It wasn't "the land before time" because there was neither land nor time. It was before creation. Because it happened first, it affects, effects, directs, explains, and gives purpose to everything that followed. Everything that occupies dimensional space and has a component of time submits to what happened before these physical and temporal things ever got started. There is nothing that is random; everything has purpose because what happens in space and time is according to the initial designated direction and master plan.

Go ahead and do all the experiments on providence or randomness. Do the statistics. run the paradigms. Apply the formulas and the theorems. Go ahead, wear yourself out. Get a grant. It has already been revealed, so your experiments are irrelevant. Finite humans in the physical realm may think it appears random and without prior design, but they just don't know, because it is revealed in the scriptures. The real problem comes when Christians don't have a clue, either; and that sustained lack of knowledge promotes actions out of the fleshly human nature, which go in direct opposition to the plan. And when Christians get together and pool their human doctrine and call that a church, they protect what they have created rather than work for what God designed for His creation to do.

The creation came from the mind of God and was effected though Christ. God had a plan, a design, an ultimate goal that everything in the creation would head toward. The way the plan would work was predestined before creation of the physical universe, in which the plan would be carried out. It was foreordained. Everything, everything must fit into that predestined plan in order to be properly understood. Misunderstanding, pride, rebellion, flesh, and sin all go together.

A logical path of the working of God's plan is found both in the physical creation, studied by science, and in the increasing revelation of the plan in the scripture. His plan went through physical persons operating out of their intrinsic human nature; that didn't work (Adam and Eve -- and don't think God was surprised by that). God's plan was increasingly revealed through the people He had chosen. the Israelites, predestined to develop the religious, civil, and generational aspects of the plan. They developed religious humanism to its best, but it wasn't good enough (and don't think God was surprised by that). Then, Jesus Christ came to complete the plan so that the final dimension could be effected on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all people. Jesus Christ didn't have to come to bail out a plan gone sour in the Garden of Eden -- the plan foiled by a serpent. God had foreordained everything. The final phase, the last days, the age of spiritual evolution began on Pentecost. Now the plan was fully revealed, and the body of Christ on earth was left with the responsibility to carry out the plan, demonstrating its wisdom and success to the world.

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

That is the plan, made for our glory before time began (1 Cor. 2:7), and hidden as a mystery until it could be revealed through Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25), that we would be chosen in Christ (Eph. 1:11; Col.1:27, 3:12; 1 Thess. 1:4) for godliness (1 Tim. 3:15). We were chosen to be adopted (Eph .1:5) from the beginning (2 Thess. 2:13), so that by the foreknowledge of God (1 Pet. 1:2) we should participate in the divine nature of God (2 Pet. 1:4).

Eph. 1:9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

If Christ was part of the answer before the creation of time, and if it is through Christ that all things were made (Col.1:16), there was a process planned that involved reconciliation with God, redemption through Christ, and our creation to be like God that was foreknown. The events (so-called "fall" of man) in the Garden describe what God had foreordained would happen as a part of the designed plan. Why would the mission of Christ be foreknown if God didn't know man would sin? The physical, intellectual, social, and religious evolution of mankind was predestined by God to occur until that process was sufficiently fulfilled that Christ could come to earth and do His work; and Christ knew exactly what His mission was.

Through Christ and His completed work, the Holy Spirit could be poured out on Pentecost (Acts 2:33) and the love of God into our hearts (Rom. 5:5), as the DNA of God, coding for the righteous life and behavior of Jesus Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God (Col. 1:19). Thus, in the new creation, we were created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24), in the image of the Creator (Col. 3:10).

Once this mystery had been fully revealed in Christ and empowered by His Spirit, the church was formed to reveal this wisdom of God to the world and to powers in the heavenly realms (Eph. 3:9-11). Thus, the church is the transmitter of the eternal wisdom of God, as Christians testify of the love of the Father by their unity (John 17:23) in Christ.

So, how has the church been doing with that one over the past 2000 years? What direction is the church going now? Is the church growing into unity of the Son of God, into the perfection of the full knowledge of Christ (Eph. 4:13)?

Since this plan was made before the creation of the world, then everything since has been by design, by intent, by foreknowledge, and by predestination. But, there is this matter of choice, and this has also been incorporated into the plan. So, does predestination mean every breath of every person through all of time? Did God predestine dinosaur A to bite dinosaur B, and for Walt Disney to make a movie about it 300 million years later?

So, what is the answer to any question? The preordained plan of God, formed before the creation of the world. Everything must be evaluated in the light of the purpose for creation in accordance with the predestined design of God -- every Biblical interpretation, every decision, every formation of doctrine, every sermon, every conversation, every captive thought. This is continued in more detail on the companion web site, www.intheimageofthecreator.com.

Monday, November 18, 2013

147. THE PLAN OF GOD, PREDESTINED BEFORE TIME BEGAN, IS BIGGER THAN REDEMPTION

Many years ago, J.B. Phillips wrote a book, "Your God Is Too Small." Perhaps another book is needed -- "Your Plan Is Too Limited." We limit ourselves by our finite human comprehension. While we claim to operate by faith, we functionally operate only by what we can understand and explain. By doing so, we place our human intellect above faith and restrict the channel for the Spirit to reveal the mind of God.

We are in the last days, the last phase of the plan of God, created before time began and extending beyond the point when time ends. We are in the culmination of 16.3 billion years of preparation. We have more revelation of God than at any time before. The Holy Spirit of God has indwelled the church for almost 2000 years. What are we doing with this power and where are we headed? Are we being faithful stewards with what God has given to us?

A rescue

Edward Fudge makes a good observation in his GraceMail of Nov. 17, 2013. "Today, Christian theologians from all over are calling for a 'big picture' story that takes the spotlight off us and shines it directly on God's enormous plan to redeem the whole world!" Edward then recommends his book "The Divine Rescue" -- which Max Lucado calls "the 'sweetest of stories' -- God's relentless pursuit of his fallen people" -- which addresses the need for a big picture in a Biblically accurate and readable story that "unfolds the drama of the salvation story from Adam and Eve to the open gates of eternity."

I highly recommend and endorse Edward's book. I bought two copies-- gave one away and kept one for myself. It is written by a scholar of great study and experience, and it provides a depth of theological discernment into the scripture. So, thank you, Edward, for contributing this work.

Why a rescue?

What I want to do is build upon the story described in "The Divine Rescue." In our human minds, God's plan started in the Garden with Adam and Eve, because that's the start of our natural comprehension. Adam and Eve failed in the obedience test, and sin, with its consequence of death, entered into the world. Because of that sin and separation from God, He had to redeem us to "get us back." That's a "sweet story" -- using human terms. Although this story content may be accurate, is the scope of the story still too limited? Our plans can go sour; God's plan does not. God's plan didn't start in the Garden; and the Garden wasn't a failed experiment in a phase called, "God's plan goes bad -- Oh my, now what?"

Paul clearly says that God's plan did not start with the Garden and that the plan did not start with creation or the beginning of time. God's plan started in the spiritual realm before the physical universe was formed (1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:9-12, 2:6-10, 3:3-6, 3:9-11; Rom. 8:28-30; 2 Thess. 2:13-14). God's plan begins before time, continues from the big bang to the end of everything, and does not stop with the gates of eternity, but proceeds on. God's plan is not limited to our human experience, to our recorded history, to our physical perception or understanding. God's plan began in the heavenly realms, it travels through time and space, and it returns to God. Just like Jesus did. Among all of the eternally important things that were accomplished by Jesus Christ the Son, the eternal plan of God was modeled for us within a period of time that we can relate to (33 years) and in a 3-dimensional space we can relate to (a human body). The mystery of God's plan was revealed though Christ, and the power for the spiritual growth phase of the plan was administered on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out (Acts 2:33). God's plan came to earth in real time and real space (John 1:1-4). Men didn't comprehend it because they couldn't get their own flesh out of the way. Nothing has changed.

The limiting problem with a phrase such as "the rescue" is that it implies something went wrong -- something got off track -- something got itself in a mess so bad that it couldn't get itself out. Therefore, only God could do the rescue. While that is true, a rescue depends on the prior occurrence of a mistake, mishap, or accident. A rescue is a response to a goof-up and its consequences-- maybe somebody's fault or maybe just out-of-control circumstances. Did the eternal plan of God include a phase of goof-up from which a component (human) of the created had to be extracted? Was man's sin planned before the creation of the world? Was sin just foreknown to be extremely likely to happen? Or does "rescue" imply a humanly limited understanding of the eternal plan of God?

When did "sin" enter the world? Was it when the human creation had sufficiently developed so that it could comprehend the necessity to seek after a divine being, so that they were accountable for their actions? What is "sin" anyway? Did God create "sin," or is "sin" a term used in scripture to describe being under the control of the human, physical, animal (if you will) nature instead of the nature that was created in the image of God? Sin is the difference between our human "righteous rags" and the true righteousness of God. Jesus coming to snatch us from the mouth of hell is true, but it is not mature thinking. Jesus came so I don't have to worry about that and can spend full energy growing to be like Him. Carefully defining what hell is and what hell is not does not make me more like God, because that is where God is not. That is an elementary subject that we are supposed to leave behind as we grow into the fullness of Christ (Heb. 6:1).

So much of our theology regarding the plan of God centers around recorded historical facts without considering the many scriptures that suggest something is beyond both ends of the limits of time. We do a better job of imagining "heaven" than we do with imagining what God's plan was before creation. We tend to equate "salvation" with "redemption" and being "safe" from hell and living in the house Jesus has provided -- all those concepts that start with "the fall of man." But the scripture doesn't limit salvation to redemption from "a fall." Redemption is for what reason -- for what purpose? To be obedient? To bring glory to Jesus? To spread the gospel to the world? All these are involved, but are working components of a larger plan. All of the above components are limited to time and space which we compress to fit our finite understanding. A universe age of 16.3 billion years and an earth age of 5 or so billion years is much harder to conceive of than Bishop Ussher's Young Earth calculation of 6000 years. And the picture of God intentionally creating everything like a wizard fits with our preconceptions from Bible school better than an evolution from chemicals to amoebae to fish to monkeys to humans in a way that is not distinguishable from random -- at least from a limited human perspective. While these subjects may seem very important in isolation, but when one understands the eternal plan of God, these types of subjects limited to time and space become secondary by comparison.

So, are we redeemed? Is Christ the Redeemer? Were we bought back with a price that we could never pay ourselves? Does that make us justified, declared righteous and holy, with continual forgiveness of sin? Sure -- all of this is correct. But, it presents the question, "Why?" So that we could be free of all earthly entanglements to overcome our human nature with the nature and character of God -- so we can be like God in an eternity of heavenly fellowship. Of course we interpret the scripture from a human perspective, because that's all we have available. Even revelation from the Holy Spirit passes through a human filter. That's why the words of prophets are subject to other prophets (1 Cor. 14: 29-33). But we should also ask if our human perspective of dimension and time could limit our understanding of the eternal plan of God, and if we might be missing something because of that.

The traditionally accepted explanation of Gen. 1-3 is that the creation, and Adam and Eve, were created perfect -- which is an interpretation of being created "in our likeness" or "in our image" (Gen. 1:26, 27). In spite of long-established tradition, can we admit that we really don't know exactly what that means? Created perfect sets up the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the doctrine of "the fall of man" comes from Gen. 3. To have "a fall," you have to start off at some point of higher elevation -- as though gravity is sin and the rocks at the bottom of the ravine are the consequences? This sin now sets up the inevitable failure of the human nature to please God, so creating the need for Christ, the Redeemer, so that we can be "bought back" and again placed in the position of Adam, with final perfection coming at the Second Coming of Christ.

From human perspective, looking backwards in time and trying to understand what has already happened, this looks like pretty rocky terrain for a plan to unfold -- perfect, then sin, then slowly developing a called people, then a law to point out sin, then a law that cannot be kept, then a law that represents condenmation, then a law that represents such a coating of legalism that the original intent is missed, then a Savior -- a Redeemer, the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb of God -- sets us back in the grace of God. What if the line of progression were not up and down and jagged depending on circumstances of the time -- what if the line was more linear. Linear or straight, as though the line described the path of a plan -- made beforehand rather than following almost random-appearing reactions to changing circumstances. Said another way, what has been in charge -- have the circumstances developed according to a predetermined plan, or has the plan had to adjust according to human response or failure or other natural circumstances?

The doctrine of "the fall" does not appear as such in scripture -- it is a traditional interpretation of the meaning of Gen. 3. That doesn't automatically mean the interpretation is wrong, but it should not be that the doctrine is above question or investigation.

So, what would be a plan that is bigger than redemption, bigger than rescue, bigger than evangelism, even bigger than creation, itself? A plan into which all of these important concepts find place and function. A plan that targets us but centers on God, as we are drawn to Him. A plan that is so big and so important that it overshadows all human based endeavors. A plan that is the reason why the universe was made, why we are here, and what we are supposed to be doing. A plan that is the center of everything. A plan that ties everything together, physical and spiritual, because "in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:17). A plan that calls for the church to show the manifold wisdom of God to the authorities in the heavenly realms (Eph. 3:10).The plan is so simple -- actually, it was included in the above discussion. Did you catch it? We miss the plan's importance when we impose the limits of our human understanding of time and space upon it and miss the continuity on either side of time. When we miss the plan, we place it lower than our ideas, interpretations, developments, and doctrines. Our methods of achieving the plan (as we understand it) for God takes precedence over the plan, itself. The one sovereign plan of God brings unity; our variations of human "wisdom," elevated above the plan, bring division. The extent to which there is division in the body of Christ is the extent to which the plan of God is misunderstood, and vice versa. So, how are we doing?

The plan: we are to grow to be like God.

Eph. 4:24

"...to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

Why does Eph. 4:24 give the plan; why is it so important; and why are we missing it? Those questions are the subject of the two web sites below, written under the pseudonym of "drtheophilus."

http://www.createdtobelikegod.com

http://www.intheimageofthecreator.com

These sites are comprised of a somewhat tortuous collection of around half a million words -- somewhere between "scratch notes put together" and a "rough draft" of some sort of "real" publication. In spite of the sometimes random presentation of the logic, these sites are dedicated to trying to explain something beyond (at least my) human comprehension -- the eternal plan of God to which everything in heaven and earth submits, fully revealed through the Lord Jesus Christ.

God loved us so much that He saves us, but God saves us so that we can be like Him in true righteousness and holiness. The ultimate salvation is when He comes for His called and elect -- recognized because they are His family who resemble Him, the Father.

How we execute the plan in the kingdom of God on earth is how we will live the plan with joy in the kingdom of God in heaven.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

148. NO CONFLICT BETWEEN THE FOREORDAINED PLAN OF GOD AND EVOLUTION

Regarding evolution, science, and the Bible, I have turned 180 degrees twice, a complete 360 -- and that only describes the rotation in 2 dimensions. Sixty plus years ago, I was told in Sunday school that the earth was 6000 years old, created in 4004 BC, during six 24 hour periods of time. That was my final answer, and I was sticking to it. Everything in Genesis 1-3 was literal down to each word -- as well as the Tower of Babel and Noah's Ark and various other literal interpretations. Attending a Christian college and then pharmacy school, I didn't have to worry much about successful contradictions to my creationist ideas -- one doesn't get much evolutionary science in pharmacy school except in freshman biology, which I had taken at a Christian college anyway. You don't have to worry too much about monkeys in a pharmacy counting pills by the five'ses, except there was one customer who would bring his pet monkey in on his shoulder. But graduate school was outside of that range of protection. I began to recognize overwhelming evidence for evolutionary origins, which didn't fit with the 6 day theory. For years, studying John Clayton materials and other similar publications, I tried to fit evolutionary ages with the sequence in Genesis. The Big Bang was the Big Bad, but there sure was a lot of time scrunched into those first 3 days. I read Desmond Morris' book, "The Naked Ape," and thought what it proposed was just terrible, but then I read the description of the natural man in Romans 7-8 and Galatians 5 and recognized those verses did characterize someone who behaved a lot like an ape. Then the explanation was "the God of the gaps"; then it was more of a theistic evolution. But it seemed that I was always trying to take what sounded like an allegorical biblical story and transform it into objective data that might coincide with conclusions from science -- coming from a million times that much data. There was always this uneasy cease-fire in my mind between scientific data and the old Sunday school engrams of an instant creation.

So, the Bible tells the Who and the Why in the spiritual realm, and science tells the When and the How in the physical realm. Okay, but one still has this urge to at least put the edges together for a seamless fit between the Bible and science. And being perfectly honest, there is an interface between the spiritual and physical realms that necessarily involves harmonious overlap which is difficult to obtain, so many people just either deny the spiritual realm exists at all or claim that the most of the scientific discoveries in the physical realm are invalid. Because the questions still exist, a problem is created called "How to make up something that is out of your territory after you have declared the real answer to be non-existent."

One source of my concern was that the Biblical account was always having to be interpreted around scientific evidence. Well, maybe "day" didn't mean "day" as in 24 hours; maybe "light" in verse 3 meant something different than "light" in verse 16; maybe there was a little micro-evolution going on in these periods of time described as "days." Then, there were discoveries of relativity and time warp and multiple universes and strings and the search for the Theory of Everything (Unified Field Theory) to explain and give meaning to everything in the universe. How would a few verses about creation fit into that? Time warp the scripture? What a conundrum!

But, now, I have been freed from all of that. Because it really doesn't matter. In fact, if worrying about "origins" becomes too much of a focus and obsession, it can become idolatrous.

My revelation (or "epiphany" for cessationists - which I also was years ago) came only recently while studying the foreordained plan of God, formed before creation and time, with a predestined outcome, held in mystery until the coming of Jesus Christ and fulfilled as the promise of the Father on the Day of Pentecost for all of those who would follow in the last days. We are in those days, and we as Christians and as the church have expectations and responsibilities to do in response to being called into the kingdom of light as the elect and children of God and called according to His purpose.

The more I read and studied and compared the many scriptures concerning the plan of God and the developments that followed in the effecting of this plan, the more I came to certain new realizations.

[1] God foreordained before creation that we, in these days, would be transformed into the character of Jesus Christ and into the glory of God, because we were created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24). There is nothing in heaven or on earth, past, present, or future, that is more important for the pinnacle of God's physical creation - humankind - to understand and submit to than the plan of God. At the coming of the Lord, we will all understand the importance of this sovereign plan.

[2] Everything in the Bible points to the effecting, or carrying out, of God's plan. God's plan was that we should be declared sin-free by the blood of Jesus so that we could receive His genes, the same spiritual DNA given to Jesus Christ in the flesh, who modeled what the plan should look like in its perfection. Jesus, Himself, was an author of the plan before time began, and He came to fulfill and to bring the plan into its final phase, which occurred on the Day of Pentecost when Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon all flesh (Acts 2:33). The promise to Abraham, carried through the ages and prophesied about over the centuries, was brought about by Jesus, but the promise of the Father was the Holy Spirit, and the gift of the Holy Spirit being the genes of God to transform us into His likeness. This occurs at the baptism within the Holy Spirit (Spirit Holy in the Greek) and the new birth of the New Creation in Christ.

[3] This plan of God is the Unifying Law of Everything. God's plan was made before creation, therefore, it preempts creation, time, and everything. Therefore, the physical universe since time began fits into God's plan, not the other way around. God's plan is the reason the universe was made and everything in it. Everything in the Bible and everything in science - all discoveries past, present, future - submit to God's plan.

[4] The plan is why the universe exists, why physical cosmic and earthly developments occurred as they did over whatever number of years, why humans exist and why we are here, what we are supposed to be doing, and what the organization of Christians called the body of Christ, the church, is supposed to be doing. The plan also reveals how God expects that we should prepare for eternity.

[5] The word of God trumps any discovery of man - in science (all disciplines) as well as theology and religion (any and all). But watch out and don't be too fast to run with that one. Human discovery is not limited to science, but it also applies to human interpretation of the message that the words translated by humans in human hands, and how these words reveal of the mind of God. The word of God is inerrant, but my opinion about and my interpretation of the printed words on the page of the Bible are not inerrant. We say we understand that, but then we pridefully act as though we don't. There are many, many golden calves of "accepted" interpretation of what the scripture says and of what God "means to say," and every one of those idols must be melted down. Better that we should melt them as a sacrifice of ourselves on the alter of God than God melt them down when our work is tested on the final day of the Lord.

[6] The Unifying Law of Everything in the Universe is the Who and the Why, and compared to that, the importance of the How and the When is insignificant. If I gain all the arguments about evolution or Young Earth Creationism, if I publish books and videos, if I debate everyone else into the ground, if I win all the arguments on comment sections on blogs about theistic this or that, what has it gained me, unless it transforms me into the righteousness and holiness of God at the fastest possible rate. Realize that the difference between my little measly rate of transformation while I argue about origins compared to the rate of transformation I could be attaining by the works of service God has prepared in advance for me to do, that difference is sin. Thank God for His grace, but His grace frees me to become like Him and not to keep on inflating my prideful interpretations of what I think He said back in Sunday school or in my doctrinally prejudiced seminary.

[7] If you haven't caught the idea by the increasing temperature of the developing rhetoric, we should feel a sense of urgency, just like those in the first century, when the writer said "as you see the day approaching." We must lay aside those things that entangle us -- one of which is the pride of interpretation.

[8] Since my faith is in Christ and in the power of God that is transforming me into His likeness and since my faith is not in my past interpretations of scripture, I am free to let these interpretations go rather than having to defend them. To say that the creation story and the Garden and Adam and Eve may be allegorical stories, along with the Towel of Babel and the Flood and Noah's Ark and maybe even Jonah and the fish, and Job and parts of Daniel may be apocalyptic would once have really messed with my head, but not now, because my faith is no longer in my previous interpretations. That frees me to look past my previous interpretations, which I considered to be literal, conservative, and fundamental, to new and deeper meanings of these scriptures -- meanings that reveal the carrying out of the plan of God. I cannot afford to get all upset over evidence for or against a world wide flood, because getting focused on that debate does not make me to be more like God. And to focus and be consumed on something in the past takes away time and energy from my becoming like God in the future. That is sin.

[9] I used to think (a) that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired word of God that contained everything for salvation, (b) that the Bible was to be interpreted literally and in doing so, I was a conservative, fundamentalist who was dedicated to restoring New Testament Christianity. That expressed view of myself is unchanged -- but what I have now are different definitions of these words, and I understand differently the meanings of these words. I am free from the legalistic chains that have bound me to the traditional interpretations of the English translation of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, so now I can consider more carefully how the readers of the time might have interpreted either the writing to them of the events as they were recorded. For example, I used to struggle with the idea of God in the O.T. getting angry and busting people, or threatening to wipe the Israelites out unless Moses interceded. I now do not have a problem with God allowing these verses to have been written from a human perspective of thinking that God must have been angry when something bad happened. Or even that the conversation of Moses talking God out of trashing the Israelites was included as a representation of Christ. "You mean it really didn't happen that way?" It happened that way, but I may have misinterpreted the meaning of the scripture by making the words English literal instead of context literal. I don't have a problem with it either way, but now I am free to consider a wider range of options that might better fit into the development of the plan of God. Because scriptures no longer stand on their own, or even stand within a micro-context. The highest level of interpretation of all scripture should be how it relates to the development of the plan of God at that time.

[10] God's plan was effected in three major ages, eons, or stages -- (1) physical creation and development, (2) creation of social structure and order and development of religious thinking, and (3) the New Creation and spiritual development (transformation, sanctification, renewal). In physical creation, humankind was formed with intelligence that could sufficiently comprehend God, right and wrong, obedience, submission, and authority in order to proceed to the development of social and interactive skills. Social development occurred throughout the Old Testament record, as God helped people to have higher and higher accountability in their submission to Him and in their treatment of one another as facilitated by the development of their political structures. Their political structures eventually became corrupt because human effort alone is destined to follow the path of entropy. When the time had fully come, Christ came and accomplished, fulfilled, modeled, taught, and brought about everything in perfection that was necessary for the final phase of the plan to be effected. The final phase was initiated on the Day of Pentecost, when the plan of our "creation to be like God" was fully revealed.

[11] Each of these three phases involved a gradual change that could be called an "evolution." Thus, there was physical evolution, social/religious/political evolution, and spiritual evolution. Humanism reigned until the Day of Pentecost -- then the genes of God became available for the evolution into new heights never possible before -- to be like God. We do not evolve retrogradely, or backwards. We do not return to Adam "before sin." The doctrines of original sin, the "Fall of Man," and "once saved always saved" are erroneous and do not fit with the revealed plan of God. God did not plan that man would fail. Jesus did not come to redeem a plan gone awry. The plan was made to be continually progressive, and it was.

[12] Each of these three phases involves a change from something more simple to something more complex. There is an increase in complexity and ability of function over time, and the increase is gradual and accumulative. Each of the phases starts where the previous one fully matured, or completed its development. Each phase didn't stop; it kept going like a baton handed off in a relay. The next phase was only superimposed over the previous phase and surpassed it in development. So, each phase involved starting simple and going more complex, which continued until a time of completion or "perfection" when sufficient development had occurred for a higher phase to start. The transition of the physical evolution phase occurred in Genesis as depicted by the creation story and the Garden of Eden. Mankind was ready for a social evolution for development of a society with increasing complexity and knowledge of religion and national organization. This evolution had matured sufficiently that the "fullness of time had come" for Christ, who was the transition between the humanistic social/religious/political phase to the spiritual phase which preempts everything that came before. We are evolving -- changing -- transforming -- toward perfection and maturity -- the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:14-16) and the righteousness and holiness of God (Eph. 4:24).

Everything since the beginning of time has pointed toward this age. What are we doing with it?

God is unchanging -- the same before the creation of the world, the same during time, and the same after. Every revelation we have of the method of God is described as a gradual process from simple to complex. There is no precedent or revelation in scripture that is consistent with a sudden six 24 hour days in which everything just gets zapped into existence. The plan of God as revealed in the scripture does not support Young Earth Creationism. It does support an evolutionary process, even one that is seemingly indistinguishable from the natural. What appears random to us is by design from God.

There is no conflict between Genesis 1-3 and evolution or any other scientific discovery; no conflict with a 16.3 billion year universe or with a 4.5 billion year earth; no conflict with an evolution of mankind. Conflict is due to our faulty interpretations. We need to stop trying to make a conflict where there is none and instead show the world what it looks like to be growing to be like God. Because we can't do both.

So, how should Gen 1-3 be interpreted if not as a physical creation? See books by John Walton and Peter Enns about the Garden of Eden describing a view of a temple of God in which He lives and over which Adam was caretaker.

There are many posts on this site (createdtobeliegod), as well as the companion site (intheimageofthecreator), that go into more detail about various aspects of the summary here. This is just another attempt to begin to explain the incomprehensible.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

082. GOD (by Intelligent Design) CREATED (by supernatural power) THE UNIVERSE (and the earth and all life) THROUGH AN EVOLUTIONARY (so-called “natural”) MECHANISM

A misplaced battle

A problem was presented in the previous post. People get embroiled over the apparent conflict between the Genesis account of creation and the science account of evolution, and this conflict produces a number of consequences, none of which are good for the witness of the church.

First, people on both sides of the issue get their eyes on one another and become so argument-focused that they overextend the evidence for their position and discredit themselves by making unjustifiable conclusions and rhetorical statements. Atheists who do this don’t have much to lose, but the church places the credibility of its witness to the world at stake. It appears that it is more important to discredit the opposing view than it is to find the real truth.

Second, a lot of resources are consumed trying to win a battle which is unwinnable, because, while we are convinced that we must wage a battle for righteousness and the honor of God and the scriptures, we are opposing ourselves by fighting more from human pride against a straw man of our own creation. In this state of self-induced chaos, each time a new discovery in science is made and evidence against God is (falsely) claimed, Christians act as though their faith has been threatened. The defensive response is to get on the offensive and somehow find flaws in the science or discredit the validity of the results so that the conclusions can be disregarded. But this is like fighting an enemy on his own territory, using his own rules, and using his methods and implements after we have left our superior weapons back in the garage. Some act as though they don’t realize these resources even exist.

Opposing views are actually parallel, not head-on

The first line, separate, but in parallel with the second line. So, we have people who use discoveries of the natural universe to say that God is not needed to explain how the universe and life came about and to say that anyone who believes in a God is unreasoning and superstitious. But, by making these assertions, they show the gaps in their own evidence against a role of God, mainly [1] from where did the original energy/matter come to start the “big bang,” and [2] how can the formation of the universe after the big bang and the formation of life on the earth come about by a random process when the statistically probability is ridiculously finite that such a complicated chain of event could happen within the age of the universe? Are these gaps in evidence indicative that evolution is fiction and that the earth is 6000 years old or that people are limiting an explanation to the bounds of their own human comprehension?

Second line, separate, but in parallel with the first line. So, we have people who apply their interpretations of the Genesis account of creation to say that God had to create the universe, the earth, and all life within a period of 6 x 24 hour periods of time, that matter or life represented by each day suddenly sprang into existence independent from the previous days, that the earth has to be 6000 years old and made to look 6 billion years old by God for some unknown reason, that scientific data that cannot be made to fit with this interpretation has to be wrong, and that anyone who disagrees has, at a minimum, streaks of atheism. But, by making these assertions, they show the gaps in their own methodology and the narrowness of their thinking by insisting that their interpretation of Genesis is the only correct one. With that view, a distortion of scientific evidence to fit a particular interpretation is easy to justify. But, by doing this, don't the proponents of this interpretation signal that they are limiting the acts of God to the bounds of their own human comprehension?

Why make this proposal?

This is a proposal directed toward believers, and it assumes that those who might give it favorable consideration will not be viewing and evaluating it through a Godless filter. Just to make sure this presupposition is obvious and up-front, this proposal starts with an admitted particular foundation, stated as follows --

God exists as the Creator;

God is the definition of all love, righteousness, and holiness, that the relationships between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are divine, supernatural, and given to us an example of the fellowship God wants with all of His creation, particularly that part, Man, created in His own image;

God through supernatural power created the universe, the world, the earth, and everything in it, including all life, including humankind;

God, Himself, has no limitations or constraints that are imposed upon His creation, such as time or spatial dimensional;

God is of infinite power and intelligence, that He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and that His ways are beyond our understanding;

God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to be fully human as well as fully divine, to show us the true and final revelation of the character of God, to die and pay the price for our sins so that we can be declared perfect even as we grow into perfection, to be resurrected in power so that sin and death would be defeated and that we might be also resurrected in a new spiritual body that will reside with God forever, just as God resides within us and within His church today but with much greater fellowship in heaven,

God sent His Holy Spirit, poured out by the Lord Jesus Christ first on the Day of Pentecost, to dwell within our hearts and within the church, transforming us into the likeness of God with the church growing into the fullness of Jesus Christ our Lord;

God through supernatural intervention caused his Logos Word to be recorded and preserved so that we may know of His revelation and of His will for us, that this scripture is inspired and without error -- although our human interpretations of the scripture will be imperfect and prone to error;

The Holy Spirit, who was poured out by Jesus, reminds us and teaches us of God’s word and leads us into all truth;

As the redeemed elect of God, we have the right to approach the throne of God and ask for understanding, wisdom, and our own revelation into the mind of God as He has revealed it to us in his word and in His creation;

We, as being created in God’s own image, are to bring glory to Him by showing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives and by showing the love of God, the peace of Christ, and the unity of the Spirit in the relationships we have one with another in the church;

We, as the body of Christ, are to be a witness to the world of the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord by our love for one another, by our extension of forgiveness and reconciliation and peace, and by our oneness in the body of Christ that resembles the unity between the Son and the Father (John 17).

It is for the above reasons; it for the sake of the testimony of the church to the world; and it is for the very survival of the candlestick of the church as we know it in America that the following proposal is made:

A Design by God Appears Random only from a Human Perspective

Surely someone had this idea long ago, because it is actually so simple. We need to stop creating God in our human image by limiting how He had done, and does, and by conforming His works to something that we can think of and comprehend. Unbelievers might have an excuse for doing this, because they don’t know anything greater than themselves. But what excuse does the Christian have, unless he or she also has unbelief -- in the power of God or in His Spirit at work.

What does it mean that “God laid the foundations of the world” (1 Sam. 2:8; Job 38:4; Ps. 102:25, 104:5; Prov. 3:19, 8:29; Isa. 48:13, 51:13, 51:16; Jer.31:37; Mic. 6:2; Heb. 1:10)? What about God setting in motion from the beginning all the natural laws so that changes between energy and matter and in the formation of the earth and of life and Man in His image were predestined to occur? We have enough trouble fathoming the expanse of the universe from the guessed outer limits to the calculations of string theory. What must be the intelligence of the divine being that planned all of this and set the inevitable in motion 13.6 billion years ago? What different would that amount of time, be it more or less, make to an eternal God not limited by time?

In the beginning, God provided the starting material for the big bang, and, from our humanly limited perspective, it was “out of nothing.” God made the foundations of the universe and set them into motion so that everything would occur as He predestined. We know from scripture there are times when God displays power from somewhere out of the physical realm, according to our understanding this is called “supernatural.” God may have done this type of intervention at times during the 13.6 billion years of universe/earth/life/human formation, or there may be “natural” processes following the “natural” laws God set in place that we have not yet discovered. This intentional and purposeful intervention of God’s power would improve the probability of change so that seemingly random processes would indeed occur within the time of formation of the universe (and "probability" could be called "certainty").

Cycles

How did God do this? I have yet another suggestion that will be developed sometime in future posts. I believe God created the universe, set the laws of the universe in place to be followed according to God’s design of order and time, and allowed the design to be played out according to His purpose by using cycles. The entire universe and everything in it operates according to the laws set out by cycles -- from the most dominant master cycle, which is said to originate from out of our known universe, down to strings, which are the smallest component of all matter. Cycles rule the physical realm by laws, which we (and the church) subject ourselves to when we operate out of the sinful nature instead out of the Spirit.

Who do we think we are?

Back in Galileo’s day, it was thought that the earth was the center of the universe. We know better now (although the church gave a rough time to those people who first presented the contrary evidence). So, since we know about the corrected physical evidence, let us not repeat the same mistake. Let us not act conceptually as though we think the explanation for the universe, and it’s origin (God), revolves around our human capacity to understand. We are not in control. This is a different type of application of the saying, “Let go and let God.”

Is this saying that God designed everything that happened throughout 13.6 billion years ahead of time and set it all in motion knowing what would happen -- all the way from the big bang to the evolutionary formation of Man to the coming of Christ to us today? All of this designed and predestined to happen beforehand? That is the proposal. How much more glory does this give to the phenomenal power of a omnipotent Creator of this universe– to do something absolutely out of our world?

This is so unfathomably huge that it is inconceivable to us. And that’s why we didn’t conceive of it. God did. The best we can do is come up with a name for it – it’s called Intelligent Design.

There is a book recently published on the subject of Intelligent Design (Harry Lee Poe and Jimmy H. Davis, “God and the Cosmos: Divine Activity in Space, Time and History”) which was reviewed on Jesus Creed (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/04/26/god-and-the-cosmos-rjs/). People are struggling with these concepts, trying to resolve our understanding with the actions of a sovereign God.

One point that the book, and review, make is that there seems to be a general assumption that if we can understand something, it takes it out of the supernatural realm and therefore out of the domain of God. But, in reality, nothing is out of God’s domain, and the physical realm came from out of the spiritual realm; so, the physical realm contains the design of God. That’s what Romans 1 says. This idea of God’s Design through what is called “natural means,” including evolution, actually blurs the interface between the physical and spiritual realms and the meaning of natural and supernatural. It is all from out of a supernatural source, and, once again, calling something “natural” or “supernatural” is from our human perspective. That also impacts our definition of a “miracle,” which is a subject for another time. We humans are the ones who tend to mistakenly label things “miracle” or “supernatural” and “natural.” That is a study of scripture for another time.

Who should understand this role of God any more than Christians who have the Spirit of God in them? Christians should be the leaders in the full use of God’s bandwidth, leaders in expanding the interface of human knowledge about the creation and the Creator, leaders in understanding the significance and role of the body of Christ on the earth. But, aren’t we instead squandering too many of our resources trying to pit one source of God’s revelation against another source -- God revealed in the scripture and God revealed in the things He has made? Fighting an enemy on their turf when it’s really ourselves? It is reminiscent of the scene in Star War IV (first one released) when Luke went out to meet Darth Vader. Luke said, “I’m not afraid.” Yoda said, “You will be. You will be.” Luke met Darth Vader and took of Vader’s mask only to see an image of himself. Had Luke been fighting himself?

Open questions – don’t know the answers

There are questions that a “Design by Evolution” idea raises. How does the Garden of Eden fit into this? How about Adam and Eve? How about the sin and the serpent? When during the course of evolution did God say, “Okay, Mr. Hominid, your brain grew enough between yesterday and today that now its big enough for Me to breathe into you My breath of life?” Or what other means was used?

First of all, I don’t know those answers. But, if we would spend less time and resources on questions that have already been answered and we just haven’t perceived it yet, we would have more time and resources to devote to questions that we really do not know.

Let’s not be prideful, like Job

God “dresses down” Job in Job chapter 38, mainly because of Job’s pride in thinking that he had God all figured out. God tells Job that not only does he not understand, but Job didn’t design and create the physical realm in the first place, “so just who do you think you are?”

Job 38: (God speaks to Job)

02 Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?

18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.

19 What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?

20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

21 Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!

33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

Job 41: (God continues)

11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

Job 42: (Job responds)

2 I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.

3 You asked, “Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?” Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

God working beyond our human capacity to understand should be no surprise to the Christian

Of all people, a Christian has the evidence that God works in ways beyond human comprehension. Do we read verses such as the following and think, “Oh, yeah! Paul addresses those atheists and scientists and academicians who think they’re so smart that they don’t need God, and does he tells them a thing or two!”

That’s true, but maybe Paul message also speaks to us -- that we aren’t so smart either when we tell God what Genesis 1 means and how He did or didn’t create the universe.

1 Cor. 3:18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours,

“All things are yours.” Stretching that verse somewhat, “You have the maximum bandwidth to God’s revelation, why are you messing around with this self-deceptive trivia?”

There are numerous verses that indicate a blurry barrier between the spiritual and physical realms. All things – earth and heaven – were created for and by Christ, and all things were reconciled through His blood. The physical and spiritual are intertwined. The presence of God permeates through all of the physical realm as well as the spiritual.

Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

God has predestined (planned, designed) before the creation of the world

God had a plan, an Intelligent Design, before the creation of the world. – and that includes the physical world, not just the spiritual world. God’s will was in place that we would be adoptied as His children even before the big bang occurred. How can a Christian not think that God was anything other than involved in all of the creation process – and what does it even matter what physical substrate God used for the process – 6 x 24 hour days or 13.7 billion years? Let’s just go with the preponderance of the data and get on with the important work, like showing the power of the love of Christ to the world by the way we love and serve one another in the body of Christ, the church. Not by the way we argue.

Eph 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—

Eph. 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Why should the Christian be surprised that God works in ways beyond our comprehension? Do we think this only applies to understanding the spiritual realm? No, it applies to the formation of the universe as well.

Eph. 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

So, how do we argue this point to the atheists who quote their findings to say there is no God?

We don’t argue. That’s ineffective.

We will continue to convince no one and continue to get nowhere by trying to argue against evolution or someone else’s data. As we will see when we finally get to discussing the psychology of human morality, people are convinced primarily by what they experience and only to a very small extent by what they reason. That includes even the New Atheists who say they uphold reason.

We will not convince anyone by spending time, effort, and resources arguing about their reasoning behind their points. They had their beliefs before they did the experiments. We will convey the message of the love of Christ by showing to the world how the truths we believe make a Spirit-led difference our lives and in the relationship of members of the body of Christ, the church. Then the world will observe something that they need, because they recognize it is better than what they have. And they will come and ask, “What are you doing?” They will not ask, “What are you arguing?”

Christians should take the lead in "casting out the log" of hypocrisy. We should "get our own act together" before thinking that we are helping someone get their act together. If the others do not recognize they have a problem, our "helping" can be received as "interfering" or "meddling."

No longer need to feel threatened

Let’s say that someone discovers a well-preserved 100,000 year old fossil, which is named Homoafricanis missinglinkicus. Atheists jump up and down in delight because …. well…. because of why? Because they finally have evidence for a natural process between apes and human? What’s my response going to be?

Choice 1:

“Oh, no! What will I do! My faith is threatened because it is wrapped up in a certain Biblical interpretation that just can’t be wrong because I learned it a long time ago. I must defend my faith (no, I mean, the faith). God just couldn’t have done it that way. I must find something wrong with their data so their conclusions can be invalidated.”

Choice 2:

“Ho-hum! So what? That’s not news. We already knew God did it that way. What changes? Nothing changes, that’s what! We know that God used what we call “natural” means to bring about this universe because He designed it that way. Good job, you guys! Hope you discover some more, because the more you discover, the more that is revealed about God.” Then leave them with their mouths open as we go back to what we were created to do – serve others, show the love of Jesus Christ, maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace – preach the good news and heal the blind, lame, sick in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord for the glory of God.

Man was created in the image of God and given the authority of choice. We can choose the control of the Spirit for life or choose the control by the sinful man and reap the physical consequences of the laws of nature that God set into place as the foundations of the earth. One path leads to transformation into the likeness of God; the other to entropy.

We were created to be like God. Let’s choose wisely.

Monday, April 30, 2012

083. A ‘NEW’ THEORY OF EVOLUTION AS THE OVERALL PLAN OF GOD FOR THE PHYSICAL, SOCIAL, AND SPIRITUAL PROGRESSION OF MAN*, WHO WAS “CREATED TO BE LIKE GOD IN TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS” (Eph. 4:24)

*Note gender neutrality: Man = human = mankind = Homo sapiens = humanity = male & female inclusive

[This is a continued discussion of some new concepts, at least new to me as a scientist and a Christian, which I am trying to comprehend and get comfortable with myself, even as I organize and express the ideas in writing. “This is not your father’s theory of evolution.”]

A physical, social, and spiritual evolution

The previous post presented a case for God creating the universe through what we would scientifically characterize as a “natural” mechanism played out through 13.6 billion years of cosmic change, 4.5 billion years of material change and biological evolution of life on earth from amino acids and proteins to forms of increasingly complexity from single organisms through the phylogenetic scale –fish—amphibians—reptiles—primates—to around 100,000 years of human evolution. It was suggested that the creation force was placed into a divinely orchestrated order at the beginning by the laws that God set in place utilizing cycles as the basic foundation. Cycles are still the foundation holding the universe together today. God predestined everything in the spiritual and physical realms to occur because of the founding laws governing these realms when they were first created. Therefore, the words “created,” “evolved,” Intelligent Design,” “natural,” “God,” and “human” were all used in a context together in previous posts because they described various ways to view the same process.

An advantage of such a global-sized theory is that it brings together a lot of seemingly diverse processes. A disadvantage of such a theory is that it necessarily involves such a large expanse of assumptions that it almost ensures everyone will find something to disagree with. But any idea could have some merit if it brought together some concepts of God and creation and scientific data into a more compatible framework when there has been and continues to be such debate, divergence, and division over current interpretations. That is the spirit in which this idea is offered.

Assumptions and outcomes

A key assumption in the theory that God created everything through an evolutionary mechanism addresses the “randomness” problem. What appears to be a random process (evolution) from our perspective, from retrospectively assembling together a relatively few pieces of information into a history that is billions of years old, is actually a process of planning, design, and predestination from the perspective of God. God’s intelligence is so much greater than our human abilities. We might understand more of God’s perspective one day or we might never understand it, at least not when we ourselves are confined to the limits of the creation – limits of space and time.

Another necessary assumption is that God injected “supernatural” power or energy into the “natural” evolutionary process to increase the probability (perhaps to a certainty) that particular events would occur, because the calculations of the time for such complicated reactions to happen indicate the time required would be too great for the process to have occurred by chance. That raises new questions. If God injected energy into the universe from an outside source, what does that say about calculations of entropy from the second law of thermodynamics? Also, when does God choose to introduce new power into the universe today?

One outcome of this idea is that the separation between the spiritual and the physical realms becomes somewhat blurred; and an implication can be made that the interface between them is rather fluid in nature. This view would necessitate a review of the concepts of “spiritual” and “natural,” of “heavenly” and “earthly,” of “Spirit control” and “control of the flesh,” “of the will of God” and “sin” or “sinful nature,” of “miracles” and the “power of the Holy Spirit,” and many other similar things.

Therefore, searching and making discoveries are components of the continued evolutionary process.

Another outcome of this blurred interface between the spiritual and physical realms is when something new about the universe or about nature is discovered by humans, it does not “de-deify” those data because the “mysteriousness” of the mechanism has been identified and can now be understood by the human mind. The mind, power, design, and purpose of God behind that physical discovery are the same. Everything is a testimony of God; it isn’t removed from the spiritual realm and placed into the natural realm just because we find out about it. It has been in the natural realm all along, because that is where God designed it to be. A little bit of God doesn’t cease to exist whenever we make a new discovery. And just because we discover something new about nature, why should that imply that humans will one day know everything there is to know about nature, so God will not be necessary? That self-inflated view requires a lot more faith in an imaginary world than I can muster. I must choose the more reasonable explanation – the one put forward by Francis Collins, Head of the National Institutes of Health – when we make a discovery, we learn something that was previously known only in the mind of God.

Does God leave when humans step in?

At one time, the mechanism for neural control of voluntary movement of the limbs was not understood as well as it is today. Let’s say, just as an example, that the mystery of movement was considered to be something that was done by God (or by whatever divine being recognized at the time). Then neurons and neural networks were shown to exist, only a few hundred years ago because the action of volatile anesthetics such as ether could not be explained by the body “humors” of Aristotle. Then it was discovered that neurons could be stimulated with electricity, and localized muscle movements were elicited in areas associated with a somatotopically functional map of the motor cortex. When this phenomenon was discovered, did the scientists say that, since they had experimentally reproduced neuronally controlled movement in the body, God could not have made the neuron-muscle network? Did this discovery change the motor control of the musculature from the category of “miraculous and not understood” to “understood and therefore not miraculous?” Either it was always miraculous or it never was. Either way, the existence of God or His handiwork doesn’t change because of a change in our human perception or knowledge. God is the creator of it both ways. Once again, this illustrates a blend between the domains of the physical and spiritual realms.

There are many observed phenomena which have been attributed to a supernatural action of God which have been later studied and duplicated (supposedly) in a laboratory. Examples are glossalia (speaking in tongues), after death experiences, feelings of a divine presence, dreams and messages from God, etc. The conclusions from these studies are usually that if humans can “duplicate” the experience, then it must be a natural phenomenon and not from God; so, once again, God isn’t necessary. But, again, if some, or even all, of a process can be duplicated “in the natural,” so what?? God created the mechanism and placed it there, and if humans can duplicate part or all of the process, so what??

This type of “if we can duplicate it, then it can’t be of God” thinking is nothing new. In Exodus 7:8-13, the magicians of Egypt threw down their rods and they became snakes just like Aaron’s rod had done. Even though the staff of Aaron and Moses consumed the magicians’ staffs, Pharaoh had seen enough duplication for him to conclude they humans had the same power as the Hebrew God. So, was Pharaoh right? No, but Pharaoh continued to be stubborn against God’s authority until he walked into God’s judgment at the Red Sea (Exodus 14).

Our attitudes about ourselves may fill our own personal finite universe, but they don’t fill God’s infinite universe. We need to keep ourselves in perspective in relation to God and to one another (Phil. 2:3-4).

All things have been foreordained by God and placed under the authority of Christ (Col. 1:9-23)

God predestined everything spiritual and physical within this universe. Before the beginning of creation, the material composing the “big bang,” God had foreordained that man would be physically created (evolved) from basic raw materials (dust of the earth), that man would be created (formed) in His own image, that man would fall from fellowship with the glory of God because of a choice to sin, that God would make covenants and promises with Man, that God would send His Son Jesus Christ to save the world, that the Holy Spirit would come and God would live in and among His people in fellowship, that the human nature would be transformed into God’s divine nature by the power of the Spirit, and that Man would be resurrected from physical death in a new spiritual body that would eternally have fellowship with God. This implies there would be integrated processes of physical, social, and spiritual evolution as part of the overall plan of God. As said in a previous post, evolution means “change” with an implication that the environmental pressure produces a differentiation between a change toward or away from a better adaptation to those surrounding circumstances.

The continual phases of evolution

Ever since Man was sufficiently developed so as to be able to record his own history, all three types of evolution have occurred. Physical evolution has continued to occur within species – bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, viruses develop new strains and evade methods of prevention or eradication, cancerous cells develop, etc. Man has produced genetic changes and modifications in both plants and animals to suit a special purpose, and a new field of bioethics has evolved socially to deal with the moral control and responsible use of this recent ability to alter nature. Humans have physically changed also. Over 50 years ago, my orthodontist told me the reason that wisdom teeth needed to be extracted was that the jawbone had evolved to be shorter because humans didn’t hunt and chow down on raw meet like they used to 30 thousand years ago. At the time, I thought that explanation was somewhat amusing since it was so undignified and almost ludicrous.

Approximate fit with Biblical history?

One could speculate that physical, cosmic, and biological evolution (macro-evolution), to and including the formation of Man (human), might correspond to about the first three chapters of Genesis. The documentation of social evolution began when Adam and Eve (or whoever they represent) left the Garden of Eden and began to populate the earth with humanity. God progressively revealed more and more of His divine nature to the patriarchs of tribal communities. Small tribes then evolved socially from aggregates of tribes into a race of people (Hebrews), then to an organized nation of people, still preserving tribal identities (sons of Israel), and then to a kingdom of people organized under a governmental authority of a ruling king. God then allowed the disruption of that evolved human government through external conquest by the Medes, Persians, and Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. Throughout all of this, God preserved a spiritual remnant of His people within which to continue the evolution of religion to sufficient maturity to eventually receive the complete revelation of the nature of God. In the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4), human physical, social, and religious evolution had sufficiently progressed so that Jesus Christ could come into the world being in the fullness of God (Col. 1:19, 2:9) and in the image of God (Col. 1:15). God proved that He had predestined this event by having Old Testament writers record prophecies to be fulfilled in detail thousands of years later, telling of specific events that would occur at the time and during the life of Christ. By God’s design, every prophecy was fulfilled in exactness and completeness. Jesus completed the plan of God for the redemption of His creation; the Holy Spirit of God came and took up dwelling in Man, who had been created to be like God (Eph. 4:24), and in His church, who would build itself up into the fullness of the knowledge of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Thus, the final phase of evolution began on the Day of Pentecost, when the power to be transformed into the likeness of God was poured out upon all people (Acts 2:17, 33), and received by those who accepted the gospel of Jesus (Acts 2:41, 47; 4:12; 5:32).

So, in this dispensational age, we are the final phase of evolution, when the complete revelation of the nature of God has been given (John 20:30-31). Just because God has been revealed doesn’t mean that we comprehend all of God. But, by the nature of the “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17) and the Holy Spirit within us (1 Cor. 6:19-20), we can have fellowship with God (2 Pet. 1:4; 1 John 1:5-7) even as we continue to grow into His likeness. We prepare for an eternal relationship with God by working “in the laboratories of God” [posts 39, 40, 41] in which we experience his Divine nature – revealed in the church and the marriage relationship and the natural creation.

Genesis 1-3

Therefore, the first three chapters of Genesis should not be expected to contain a literal scientific account of the physical details of Creation, and those who force that eisegesis upon the passages do a great disservice to the inspiration of the scripture and to the knowledge that God intends for us to have about His plan. Rather than an account of science, Genesis tells of the beginning of the redemptive and ordained plan of God as it was initially transferred from the mind of God into the formation of this universe and of His highest creation, man and woman.

We are that highest form of creation; let us be good stewards with that privilege. There are some parables that Jesus taught that may have relevance to God’s expectations of our stewardship -- of the physical earth, of forming a helpful and beneficial society, and of spiritually developing the character of God. Some of the standards seem pretty high. Maybe we should get all our eggs into one basket instead of throwing them at one another.

Speculation city?

Very admittedly, this idea of continued evolution in both the physical and spiritual realms is hypothetical, speculative, assumptive, imaginative, and just about every other “…cal” and “…tive” one could think of.

But it does made sense that the Creator would have an orderly and consistent design in His plan for those who have been “created in the image of God.”

This is the reason why Christians should understand that they have the widest bandwidth to the revelation of God. We, of all people, should understand that it is all available through the Logos of God, while others have chosen to put filters on their frequencies so they receive only a narrow band.

The widest, most open, and least restrictive method for receiving the most complete revelation of God comes when the universal body of Christ is maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3). How are we doing with that?

Friday, May 4, 2012

084. THE PREDESTINED DESIGN FOR OUR EVOLUTION INTO THE LIKENESS OF GOD

“If God says it’s okay, it’s okay.” Acts 10: 15 (The Message)

It was proposed in the previous several posts that God had a plan for us before the big bang ever happened -- a plan of supernatural design of evolution that included creation, physical formation, and spiritual transformation. The entire creation has, as a whole, gone through this. Now, each person goes through the same steps in their creation (conception), physical formation (development, physical birth, physical growth, mental growth, social maturation), and spiritual transformation (new spiritual birth, indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to transform the human spirit into the likeness of God).

Ephesians 1: (underlining and italics mine for particular emphasis)

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

God is the Creator of all things, in heaven and on earth, meaning everything in the universe. God's plan for us was brought to completion through Jesus Christ. Just as Adam and Eve did in the Garden, we can choose God's plan or our own plan. The search for Truth using God's plan involves both the physical and spiritual realms. Alternatively, people can choose to search for the Truth using their own human plan and even denying God's plan exists. Although they search for the same Truth, their human-only methodology is incomplete, so they are destined to find only a part of the Truth.

Christians, and the church as the body of believers, should show, by their own behavior and from their own search for the Truth, what the results of a search using all methods -- physical and spiritual -- should look like. The discoveries involving the universe made by those who deny God are not invalid -- in fact, the results are to be considered important and vital in the search for Truth. But these data must be interpreted in the light of a larger picture that Christians have because of their acceptance of the full revelation of God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, Christians have the leading of the Holy Spirit into the full knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Too many Christians today seem to be unaware of their responsibility as well as all the truth-searching methods given by God for their use. Some Christians use the methods in a prideful way, which produces a poor witness to the world. Some get on their own path and justify their choice by distorting the interpretations of both the Genesis account of creation and the results of scientific studies regarding evolutionary mechanisms -- all to fit their preformed conclusions. This is a common method of humanistic origin, and it's outcome is often used by the enemy to bring discredit to the church.

Therefore, it’s not a truth competition between the Bible and science. It’s not a matter of creation or evolution. It’s not a problem of monkeys and apes and humans, of billions of years, of random chance and spontaneous generation or Intelligent Design, of the supernatural or the natural. The answer is “E. All of the above.” It is all a part of God. It is all an unfolding sequence of God’s eternal plan. God owns it all, and God has designed the universe and the spiritual realm so that we can be a part of the plan.

God is the author of Intelligent Design and set the fundamental laws in place by which the control of cosmic, chemical, biological, human evolution took place over billions of years.

From examining the remnants of the past universe, much of what has physically transpired appears to be spontaneous and random. But this is a view by humans of finite capabilities looking retrospectively at a very fragmented picture of the outcome of actions of divine intelligence of infinite magnitude. What appears random to us is a predestined certainty to God.

God planned and foreknew before the creation of the world (the big bang) that humans would be created in the image of God, that they would sin and be separated from Him in fellowship, and that Jesus Christ would come and redeem the creation from the consequences of sin and death.

Part of God’s design was to use a slow, gradual process for change according to natural law to create a physical substrate (human), who would learn social skills of survival and self-betterment through group interactions. Through continued maturation of both an individual and a collective understanding of God as the author and focus for life and the development of disciplined religious approaches to God as sovereign and divine, righteous, and holy, worthy of all obedience, praise, and worship, mankind finally had socially and religiously evolved enough for the final phase of God’s plan.

The final revelation of the nature of God was given through the coming of Jesus Christ, who not only revealed God but also provided the way that God’s highest form of creation could grow and change into the likeness of the character of God, Himself. Empowered by the Holy Spirit of God with a source of energy from outside the physical realm, man and woman, individually, man and woman joined by marriage, and men and women comprising the body of believers in Jesus Christ, could reach past their own humanity and take on the very nature of God, as taught and modeled by Jesus Christ in the flesh on earth.

This final phase of evolution (change, transformation, growth) into the character of God began on the Day of Pentecost AD 30 (or 33, depending on the calendar used) and continues today.

This 13+ billion year process of evolution according to God’s plan for us to be like Him can be summarized as three major phases, each one providing a means of growing toward God at a faster rate than the rate of the previous phase.

Although this plan for a completed evolutionary change is God’s plan for us, He does not force us to get on the bus. It is our choice. From the perspective of the lesson of the Garden of Eden, humans can either bask in their self-glory because they have been allowed to usurp the control of their own destiny, or they can choose to grow into the knowledge of the Creator. The human choice was symbolized in the Garden by Adam and Eve deciding to follow their own desires rather than the command of God, and consequently being denied fellowship with God or the opportunity to have access to the tree of life through Him.

Thus, the divergent path in the Garden illustrated the basic choice -- to follow either the plan that God designed that leads to spiritual life or the plan of natural course of the universe, also designed by God, which is destined to follow the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. Adam and Eve made the latter choice by elevating themselves to the place of God in using their own human wisdom to determine what they thought was right and wrong. This was rebellion toward God. Adam and Eve made the first decision recorded in scripture using humanistic thinking, although they did not deny that God existed.

We have the same choice – to exercise human wisdom in the natural knowledge of good and evil or to exercise the option of obedience to God and acceptance of the plan He designed before the creation of the world and revealed through Jesus Christ. The first option is symbolized in the Garden by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (using the standards of human wisdom on the earth); the second option is symbolized by the tree of life which is experienced throughout eternity and guaranteed now by the Holy Spirit. Understanding the different outcomes that accompany each of the different choices requires spiritual discernment using the Spirit of God. Those without the Spirit of God think the path toward God is foolish, and they cannot understand it (1 Cor. 2:13-14).

The proposal being made, that God is the author of all evolution, physical and spiritual, is summarized in the diagram below. A lot of detail, removed for simplicity, may be added back to a diagram in a future post.