Tag Archives: philosophy

God Is Great

Proclaim the power of God, whose majesty is over Israel, 

whose power is in the heavens. 

You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary; 

the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.  

Praise be to God! 

(Psalm 68:34-35)

What does it mean to say God is “great”?

I have already affirmed Anselm’s definition of God as the being that no greater can be conceived.  The term omnipotent may be used,which means that God is all powerful. Only an omnipotent being could have created the universe from nothing beyond his own resources. This alone qualifies God as great. We could also say that God is great means his glory is above all else. He is worthy because of what he has done, and for who and what he is. We are wise to recognize him and revere him and praise him. 

So, we could stop right there. God is great. However, as you are aware, there is a problem. What about the evil and apparent imperfections of our world. If God is all powerful, then why couldn’t he create a better world? If God is good, then why wouldn’t he create a perfect world? Why is there so much suffering and evil? This why some have said God is not great, and others have said God must not exist at all.

What Omnipotence Cannot Do

The title above may seem contradictory, but we need to understand what is meant by “all powerful.” Let’s look at some quotes concerning God’s omnipotence.

“Omnipotence means to be able to do all that is intrinsically possible.” (C. S. Lewis in The Problem with Pain)

“Nothing that implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God.”  (Thomas of Aquinas)

“But I know very well that if it is self-contradictory it is absolutely impossible.” 

“You may attribute miracles to him (God) but not nonsense…. It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but non-entities.” (C. S. Lewis)

The word intrinsic (used by C. S. Lewis above) means what is related to the essential nature of something or someone. God can do what is humanly impossible, but some things are intrinsically impossible, which means they are “in themselves” impossible. God cannot make a red green thing. Since color is actually the reflection of a certain band of light on the electromagnetic spectrum, permit me to to clarify: God cannot make an infra-red ultra-violet thing. Why? Infra-red and ultra-violet exist at opposite extremes on the electromagnetic spectrum. One cannot be the same as the other.

In a world of genuinely free creatures it would seem to be intrinsically impossible for God to force persons to do what he wills when they choose to do otherwise. Thus, it is intrinsically impossible for God to force free people to love him. Forced love would not be love at all, but a monstrous mockery of it. Love is intrinsically free, so it must come from a person with free will. This opens up a very complex subject: Determinism vs. Freedom.

Can God make a rock so heavy he cannot lift it?

If you answer yes to the question above, then you agree implicitly that God may be limited by his creation. If you answer in the negative, then you affirm God is not omnipotent, since there is indeed something His power is incapable of. This dilemma is intended to stump those of us who affirm that God is all powerful. The resolution I offer will serve to prove both God’s omnipotence and give insight into his character.

My answer to the question is, yes God can—and has—created such a “rock.” The rock in this case is the human will. You and I can resist the will of God for our lives. We are even capable of choosing not to believe in His existence! God’s power is such that he is capable of limiting himself for a greater good. His character is such that he has created beings in his image, persons with a free will who may choose to love and live with Him forever, or reject Him and go their own way. The former is heaven, the latter is hell. Without human free will in rebellion against God there would be no hell.

The capability and willingness (courage!) to create beings with free will who inhabit a world where that will may be genuinely actualized demonstrates God’s greatness. Systems of theology or thought that downgrade or eliminate human free will in an effort to elevate the sovereignty of God ultimately fail to give God the glory he is due. The world is imperfect because of human rebellion against God. The world remains in its fallen state (for now) in order that rebellious humans may experience life without God, and its consequences.

The Incarnation

The pre-eminent example of God’s capacity and willingness to limit himself is the incarnation of His one and only Son. Jesus of Nazareth affirmed, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). The Apostle Paul proclaimed “For in him all the fullness of deity lives bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Jesus continued to be God and to have the nature of God, but chose to lay aside his divine power and privileges to take on the limitations of a human nature. The baby born in a manger “grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man,” and remained in unbroken communion with, and dependence upon, God the Father, throughout his time on earth. This Jesus was and is one with the God of the universe. However, the Son of God didn’t just pretend to be human, he became one of us. A popular songwriter from a previous decade asked:

What if God was one of us?

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryin’ to make his way home? 

Jesus Christ became just that. He took every bit of our humanity upon himself. As one early theologian put it, “What is is un-assumed is unhealed” (St. Gregory of Nazianzus). This means the Son of God had to take on the fullness of humanity in order to take away all of our sin. On the cross Jesus assumed all of our sin and selfishness and sickness and then died the death we deserve. 

“He who knew no sin became our sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He came and died and rose from death so that we may be saved from this corrupt world, and have the hope of eternal life in a new and perfect world. 

That is the epitome of love, and it required self limitation.

“who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”  (Philippians 2:6–9, ESV).

“He who knew no sin became our sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”  (2 Corinthians 5:21).

However, Christ didn’t remain dead. “Ain’t no grave can hold my body down!” The Author of Life rose from the grave on the third day, and now He always lives to provide salvation for any who will put their faith in Him. 

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).

Is it any wonder the Apostle Paul would write a paean to this Great God:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33–36, ESV).

God’s true greatness is about more than possession of raw power and incomprehensible intellect to make things and people as he wants them to be. The limitless God can limit himself if he chooses. God has created beings in his image with free will. God has limited himself by permitting the independent exercise of free will, even when it opposes his own. God also limited himself by becoming one of us, so that the destructive exercise of human free will may be atoned for and corrected. God has chosen to limit himself in order to achieve the ultimate purpose of his glorious will to raise up a people who have freely chosen to love him, and who have decided to follow their Lord, who said, “not my will, but thy will be done.” He is in the process of calling people to be his own, who will freely align their wills with God’s without coercion or fear of punishment.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

God is very great indeed.

God Is.

Let’s begin with a little thought experiment. When you reach the end of this sentence close your eyes and think of nothing for a moment or two…

How did it go? Did you really think of nothing? What was your “nothing” like: darkness, static, silence? Each of those experiences is actually something. I’d argue that it’s actually impossible think of nothing. Sure, you can try to blank your mind and refuse to allow images or words to be there, but something is still there: you, the perceiver of this supposed nothing. If you think about it, even the concept nothing is something! Yet I asked you to think of nothing, NO THING at all. The human mind has as difficult a time grasping nothing as it does infinity. 

Something Has Always Existed

Nothing means non-existence. Nothing cannot produce something. Non-existence cannot produce existence of any kind. Some thinkers have stated it like this: “From nothing, nothing comes.” Therefore, something has always existed. 

Some ancient Greek philosophers believed matter to be eternal. For much of recorded history it was widely accepted that the universe always existed. However, beginning early in the 20th century, theory and mounting evidence contradicted this belief. At the time of this writing scientific consensus holds that our universe began to exist around 14 billion years ago with an event called the Big Bang. The universe had a beginning. Everything that has a beginning, has a cause for its existence. So, where did the universe come from? What caused the cosmos? 

There are both scientists and theologians who hold that the universe came from nothing, but each group has its own set of assumptions about the nature of that nothing. For the scientist nothing is actually something. It has been called a “spontaneous fluctuation of the energy contained in the sub-atomic vacuum.” Now that is something! The theologian who affirms that God created the universe ex-nihilo (Latin for “from nothing”) is not saying it came into existence from nothing on it’s own, but that it was created from the infinite resources of an omnipotent God.

The speculation of cosmologists (those who theorize about the origin of the cosmos) as to what existed prior to our universe cannot be grounded in the same hard science which has continued to validate the Big Bang. Science is inherently naturalistic because the scientific method only works when applied to the study of the natural world. There must be matter and energy to measure, and causation and the consistency of the nature must be established, or objective scientific inquiry is rendered powerless. Prior to the Big Bang, there was no space or time that anyone can measure or verify. There was no natural order to be observed or measured, no laws of physics and no way of knowing if causation operated as we trust it does in nature. So, cosmologists rely on speculation about reality without hard evidence. Their theories are dependent upon their own philosophies and beliefs concerning nature and what might exist beyond the material universe.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the multiverse in popular movies, broadcast programs and literature. This is a theoretical notion, which does not have hard evidence to back it up. The multiverse is the speculation of naturalists (those who reject the supernatural) who wish to revive or reinforce the belief that the cosmos in some form is eternal. Carl Sagan famously stated at the beginning of his television show Cosmos, “The cosmos is all that was, and all that is, and all that ever will be.” If the universe has always existed in some form, then we aren’t forced to grapple with where it came from, even if we might still ask why it exists. It has been observed that belief in the multiverse only moves the question of origin back. Where did the multiverse come from? What caused these myriad universes?

If a cosmologist is a materialist and/or a naturalist, then she looks for answers that conform to her expectations that there can be nothing supernatural—or perhaps we could say supra-natural (above nature). This is a limiting bias, especially when studying phenomena that are by definition beyond the natural order and outside our material universe. 

In an interview with NPR, philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who authored a book about science and religion titled Where the Conflict Really Lies, said: “Science is absolutely wonderful but it’s a limited endeavor. It doesn’t cover the whole of the knowledge enterprise, you might say.” One must employ methods and tools that fit the field of inquiry. When seeking answers beyond the natural order it would seem wise to enlist the ancient disciplines of philosophy and theology.

Something has always existed. If not the universe in some form (ie. matter and energy), then what? Throughout recorded history, most human beings have believed that the world was created by a divine being or beings. The Greek philosopher Aristotle spoke of an Uncaused Cause. This Cause must have existed prior to the universe and be itself uncaused. Could such a causal force or entity be God? 

Perhaps we should pause and ask what is meant, or to whom to we think we refer, when using the term God? Without getting into a great theological or philosophical debate, I will simply agree with St. Anselm, the Medieval scholar who formulated the Ontological Argument for God’s existence. Anselm famously stated that what we mean by God is “a being that which nothing greater can be thought.” Anselm reasoned that something which does not exist cannot fit the definition because what exists is self-evidently greater than a mere idea. Therefore, if God really is a being that which no greater can be conceived he must possess the quality of existence. This may or may not be a persuasive argument, but I think we can agree with Anselm’s basic definition of God, which I will clarify further. God is the Being above which nothing greater may be conceived. God is indeed the Supreme Being.

As the cause of the universe God would have to be powerful, but also intelligent. As an uncaused cause, it stands to reason that God could be personal. In fact, personal beings possess a will to freely choose apart from prior causes. So, God is the Supreme Being: personal, powerful and intelligent.

Another Medieval scholar, St. Thomas of Aquinas called God the Necessary Being, meaning God is not dependent upon anything else. God is self-existent, unlike the universe, which is caused by and dependent upon something else for its existence. The universe is contingent, not necessary, not self-existent. . St. Thomas also taught that God is “the ground of all being.” In other words, God is the basis for all existence. God is the Necessary Being upon whom all contingent beings rely for their existence

Perhaps you’ve heard the question (or perhaps even asked it yourself): “Where did God come from?” Or, similarly, “Who created God?” These questions equate God with the material universe, and thereby misunderstand even the idea of God altogether. A self-existent being is uncreated, and by definition has no cause. Something has to fit that description because nothing cannot produce something: non-existence cannot cause existence. Something has always existed. The material universe, by nature, cannot fit that description. God by definition can.

The Bible begins with the following words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The existence of a powerful, intelligent, personal creator for the universe is assumed. In the Bible’s book of Exodus, God speaks to Moses on Mount Sinai and reveals his personal name for the first time.

“Moses said to God, ‘If I go to the Israelites and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?”—what should I say to them? God said to Moses, ‘I am that I am.’ And he said, ‘You must say this to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.””” (Exodus 3:13–14, NET)

The God of the Bible has a personal name that refers both to self-existence and eternal existence. God simply is. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 4:8). 

Something has always existed, and that something is a Someone who created the universe ex-nihilo (from nothing but his own supernatural resources). God is. If there were no God, there would be nothing else: not you, not me, and not the universe. Absolutely nothing. 

There are good reasons and evidence for such a belief, but it is also what philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls “properly basic” or self-evident. Belief in God is instinctive and intuitive for most people. Such a belief is the first step to knowledge and wisdom.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10).

Belief in God’s existence is not “blind faith.” It is reasonable and necessary to hold that the universe has been created by an omnipotent, personal intelligence. This still requires faith. However, so does any other alternative. 

Male or Female Is Reality

You may not realize it, but the current controversy concerning gender, which has expressed itself as a debate over what bathroom a person should be permitted to use, is actually a philosophical and theological issue. In fact, scientific fact is proving to have impact only if interpreted with a subjective bias. It is a fact that someone born with XY chromosomes is male, and a person with XX chromosomes is female. The subjective bias enters when we attempt to look at exceptional cases and apply them as a general rule for everyone. As many as one in one-thousand persons are born with a degree of genetic abnormality, which rarely affects physical characteristics but may arguably impact some behavioral traits. The case is made by LGBT advocates that this is evidence of gender fluidity, and is applied to everyone. The result is, the puzzling separation of gender identity and physical sexual characteristics. In other words, a male who believes he is a female as we’ve seen showcased by the media in Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner. The LGBT lobby is promoting this concept successfully.

Philosophically this is an ontological issue. Ontology is the study of reality. What is real, and what is the fundamental nature of the real? It is also an issue that concerns epistemology, which is the study of how we know what we (think) we know. More recent philosophy has shown no interest in ontology, preferring to make the case that everything is limited by our epistemology in any case. In fact, since Wittgenstein many have simply given philosophy up as little more than word games. That is to say, if we cannot really know anything for certain, how can we talk about what is real? Everything is what I or we say it is? We tell stories to make sense of reality. These stories are called metanarratives. There is no truth, at least in the traditional sense of absolute truth. There are just stories. When a community agrees to a particular metanarrative, then that story becomes their truth. Do you see why I’m making the case that the current controversy over gender is philosophical?

The progressive/liberal/left believes in and supports the type of thinking I’ve outlined above, which has been labelled “postmodernism”. When I was a young person in church, this was called “relativism,” but we applied it to morality. Now it is being applied to all of reality. In the case of the gender issue, many of those who support transgenderism fail to recognize that a person is fundamentally male or female. Rather, the person is what they say they are. In so doing, they ignore biological reality in favor of personal choice and subjective perception. Now, when I say “they” I am not referring to a person who presents a genuine exception to the biological norm. As mentioned earlier, there are persons who are born with genetic, and even more rarely with physical, abnormalities. Those born with both male and female physical traits are now called “intersex.” These persons must discover for themselves whether male or female best describes them, and how they wish to proceed with their public lives. However, the LGBT community, and those who support their political ideology, promote the idea that this is the case for everyone.

The exception is not the rule. There is actually a fallacy of logic on full display here. My introductory logic text from college, written by Dr. William Kilgore, calls it “Converse Accident.” It is illogical to make the exceptional case into the rule. The left commits this fallacy regularly.

It is a titanic expression of egotism to presume that there is no reality other than the one I, or my community defines and describes. It is arrogance on the highest level to make reality as your community has defined it the rule for everyone else. This is precisely what is occurring in the United States today under the influence and political control of the left. It was reported today that President Obama will mandate all public schools permit a child to use the restroom or locker room of their choice, depending upon their self-identified gender. Nobody else gets a say in this. That is not democracy.

There is an essential reality, though. When a person or community lives in accord with reality, they are healthy and sane. The alternative is what we see increasingly on display in the United States today, unhealthy thinking and moral insanity. There is irony in the rationale used by leaders like President Obama, or the U.S. Supreme Court, when issuing undemocratic directives. They appear to truly believe that they are upholding the civil rights of minority groups. Many people have been persuaded that this is the case, and that is why the normalization of lifestyles and behaviors once considered abnormal, even immoral, continues unabated. However, framing this as a civil rights issue doesn’t change reality. From birth a person is either male or female, regardless of personal feelings, identity or lifestyle choices. This is a scientific, biological reality for the overwhelming majority of persons.

There is also a spiritual reality, which underlies the material one. This is where theology becomes important to this debate. God created persons male or female. That is true even for those who have been born with some degree of biological abnormality. In this life, you are created and born male or female, and you are destined to be either a woman or a man.

Jesus Christ responded to a question about divorce with the following reinforcement of the creation account found in Genesis of the Bible’s Old Testament.
“But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”” (Mark 10:6–9, ESV)
From the beginning of creation God made them male and female. That is to say from the beginning of the creation of humankind, but it also applies to your creation as a person in the image of God. You are either male or female. This doesn’t depend upon how you feel about yourself. It doesn’t depend upon whether you enjoy activities that our society or culture has typically associated with men or women. It doesn’t depend upon physical characteristics such as body hair or muscular size. You are a man, or you are a woman. God created you to take on that special role and responsibility. I’ve written and spoken about this extensively elsewhere. Here’s a link to a recent Mother’s Day message about what it means to be a woman. How Women Are Like God

There is a great deal of concern expressed over the high suicide rate among the transgendered (and rightly so). Suicide and bullying of transgendered persons are often cited as important reasons for changing our policies and attitudes toward this population of persons. Public acceptance of the transgendered person, it is presumed, would limit suicidal behavior. That is possible. It woudl certainly seem to limit bullying. However, I would like to make the case that the transgendered person is struggling with something deep within themselves: their own identity. For a person born with normal chromosomal and sexual characteristics who feels strongly that they are actually supposed to be the opposite gender, there will always be an internal conflict. This is cognitive dissonance, an ongoing war between what this person is in reality, and what this person is striving to be by choice. That war will not end with surgery, hormonal therapy, or public acceptance. It will not end until the person embraces who they really are biologically and spiritually: a man, or a woman.

There is a way things are supposed to be. However, we are living in a broken world in rebellion against God and his created order. The only way to find health and sanity is to agree with God as he has revealed himself in his inspired book, the Bible. The only way to find life and fulfillment, the only way to discover whom you have been created to be, is to believe in and follow the One who called himself Son of Man, Jesus Christ. He is the perfect human; all that God intends for us to be is found in Jesus.
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12, ESV).
Receive (believe in, fully embrace) Jesus the Son of God and Son of Man, and be what you were created to be.