Re: [asa] God as cause

Bill -

Now you're moving from the topic of divine action to that of the knowledge of God. They are, indeed, related. E.g., ID proponents are, whether they intend to or not, arguing for the validity of some type of natural theology.

On your comments below -

What happens in the world should indeed be seen as a joint action of God and creatures. We see God's action but not God. The creatures with & through which God works are not only God's "instruments" but also, in Luther's phrase "the masks of God of God behind which he wishes to remain hidden and do all things."

Romans 1 does say that people should be able to know God from the creation, but his whole point is that they don't. It is indeed sin that is the fundamental problem. We can recognize the presence & activity of God in the world only in the light of that God's historical revelation.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Bill Green
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 12:39 PM
  Subject: [asa] God as cause

  If natural processes are caused by God in any real sense, as the Bible suggests (See Ps. 104 and Ps. 147, for example), then when we see nature, we are seeing God's action. Of course, we may not recognize or aknowlege it as such, to our detriment (Rom 1:21, 28), but it is there for the observing.

  "The heavens declare the Glory of God (Psalm 19)."

   "Ask the beasts and let them teach you...the hand of the Lord has done all this (Job 12:7-10)."

  "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse (Rom 1:20)."

  It would appear that God is obvious, or at least should be, after all, it is the fool who says in his heart, "there is no God." What else could these verses mean?

  It may be that it must be observed through the eyes of faith (Heb 4:2, 11:3), but in that case, the problem is not that it is not evident, but that our hearts are hard, our minds blinded and our faith weak.

  I am not suggesting that there is what amounts to a logical proof of God in nature, but I am suggesting that He must be sufficiently evident in nature to convict the unbeliever.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels
  in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Jan 18 20:42:41 2007