God

God Moves in a Mysterious Way
by William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

An agnostic dyslexic insomniac is someone who stays awake all night wondering if there really is a dog.

Once or twice--well, no, not a god, actually, but a responsive spider. 1. sitting on the ground with her (then)lover, Ted, in some afternoon-filtered sunshine. Late late autumn in a part of the world where winter barely arrives --the sun is still strong on on skin and clothes are still light weight. Ted is leaving soon and they are uncertain of when they will see each other again. Ted sees a tiny spider walking on the leg of his jeans. He says to the spider, »Tie me to Belle--c'mon, I'll give you a quarter.«
Immediately, like a close up slo-motion sequence from a PBS science special: the spider launches a gossamer web thread into the air, with a kind of shower of crystal almost-sparks, the thread sails across the gap between the lovers and connects at Belle's knee. The spider walks across.

'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

I have always felt that the differences between Native American beliefs and Christianity are only in the way the Story is told. I have long believed that the Great Spirit and God are one in the same. After all, God tells us that there is only One God for all peoples, no matter what we call him.

I am not a Native American, my ancestors come from England and Germany. I was raised in a Congregational church where they taught me about God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Trinity. As an adult, I became disenchanted with organized religion and sought a more personal relationship with Him. For many years I took Him for granted, I knew He was there because He said so. I just didn't feel any special closeness at that time. I was in church choir, and attended Sunday school. I even taught little ones for a time.

After I finished high school, I went for 2 years to Junior College and then I worked in a department store for awhile. While working at the store, I the man that I marrried. He was not a Christian, he was divorced and had 5 kids. Soon, we added our own little one to the family. I used to tell the kids about Jesus. I would buy the story books and Children's Bibles to share with them. Still, the closeness wasn't really there, not that I could feel anyway. We had temporary custody of his kids for the first three years of our marriage and then his exwife came and got them.

I went to church off and on over the years. I took my daughter to Sunday School and for many years she was in the children's choir. Jim, even though he hadn't been saved, never objected to our going, but as the years went by, we drifted away from church. The final straw was when, after my husband died, we sought counselling through the pastor for my daughter and he told her that I didn't need the additional expense of professional help to guide her through her grief. (She was only 13 years old) He told her to just give her pain to the Lord and she would be fine.

It was in 1976, when Jim became ill with Cancer. By this time, we had been blessed with three children of our own. Tracy, a son, in 1969, and John,in 1974. He was a man with many flaws, but he loved his children with passion. He was good to the kids (and to me) but alcohol was his personal demon. He was never physicall abusive but the alcohol gave him a mean mouth at times and he could be very argumentative.

In November of '76, he had his first bout with the cancer. He was rushed to the hospital via ambulance. This was when I had my first encounter with an angel (I'm sure that is who he was). Everyone was asking me how I was getting to the hospital, I replied that I would drive there. A man stepped out from behind our friend and said: »No, I am here to take you there.« He put me in his car, drove me to the hospital, and stayed until my mother-in-law got there. Then he dissapeared, no one saw him leave and no one saw him again. No one knew who he was.

Jim was in and out of the hospital for the next month, he was in terrible pain the whole time. Our neighbor, a lay pastor from a Christian Reformed church, tried many times to see him. Jim always refused him. On December 18 or 19, Mr. Buikema was preparing for his evening services when he heard a voice tell him to go to Jim, that he would be ready to see him. (Mr. B told me this later) All of Jim's family was gathered at the hospital when Mr. B arrived. We were all concerned about Jim's reaction to his presence, so I took the doctor aside and asked him to go in the room with Mr. B. Normally, he wouldn't do that, he said, but because he'd known me since I was a child, he would. When we came out of the room across from Jim's, Mr. B. was already coming out of his room. His family was in tears, and his brother, who didn't believe in anything, reached out, shook Mr. B's hand, and through his tears thanked him for what he had done. Mr. B motioned for me to go on in and said he would see me at home later. I went in the room, Jim was resting comfortably for the first time. There was such a look of peace on his face. Mr. B. told me later, that Jim had become as a child, they prayed together, and Jim asked for forgiveness and accepted Jesus into his heart.

The next day, Monday, the doctor said that Jim might not make it through Christmas. I went and prayed. I asked that He take Jim Home that night and to please take the pain away first. That day, Jim refused any thing to eat or drink and later, that night, he shed his pajamas and would not put them back on. He then went to sleep for awhile. I also went to sleep (they had brought a roll away bed in for me). Jim's sister stayed there with me that night.

I slept for 2 or 3 hours when I was awakened by a male voice calling my name. Jim was the only man in the room, and he was to weak to even whisper, let alone call out. I feel, in my heart, that it was the voice of the one who brought me to the hospital that day, the same voice, perhaps that told Mr. B. that Jim was ready. When I went to his bedside, I could see that the pain was gone, his breathing was somewhat labored, and the end was near. Jim died that morning, December 21, 1976, quietly, free from pain and full of the Love of Jesus. I know that I will see him again.

I know that this is a very long letter, but I wanted to share just ONE of the miracles the Lord has given to my family. There are two more major ones that He has blessed this family with. Some day I would like to share those with you too. I look back and see so many things that He has done to Bless my life with and I am in awe. HE REALLY DOES LOVE ME !

Love and Peace, Your sister in Christ, Barb

Aged three, I was spotted with my mouth open as my revered five-year old cousin (just back from Scripture class in kindergarten) told me in lordly fashion »God is everywhere, you know, he is even in that wheelbarrow...«. No doubt the reason why one is nearer God's heart (and backside, sitting in that wheelbarrow) in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

Wait a minute. Before we get to Jesus, I just realized a problem with the whole idea of God Himself. You tell me that God is all-powerful and I know you believe He's good. But then, what about evil? An all-powerful and all‑good God wouldn't permit evil to exist, and even if it did exist temporarily, He would destroy it. If God exists—the God you believe in-then why is there evil?
That's a good question. Actually, Jesus has a lot to do with our answer to this problem. But for the moment, let's handle it just on the logical level.

What we Christians must show is that the proposition »God exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good« is logically compatible with the proposition »There is evil in the world.« One way to do this is to show that there is some third proposition that is compatible with the first and that implies the second. In other words, we can show that A is compatible with B, no matter how incompatible they at first appear, if we can show that C is compatible with A and implies B.

What I'd like to suggest as that third statement is, »It would be morally better for God to create a world containing morally free beings than for Him to create a world without them.«


I don't see how that ties the first two together at all.

I don't blame you. It isn't immediately apparent how this works. Let's look into this proposition, »It would be morally better for God to create a world containing morally free beings than for Him to create a world without them,« and see just what is implied in it.

The key question is, 'What is a morally free being?" The answer is that a morally free being is a being that is free to do either good or evil at any given time—nothing forces him to do one thing or the other. This means it is always possible for a morally free being to do evil.


So, if it is truly better for God to create a world with morally free beings, then it is better for God to create a world with the possibility of evil than a world without that possibility.


Okay, but why is it better to be morally free than not?


You tell me. You're morally free. That means people can praise you for doing good and blame you for doing evil. A hammer isn't morally free. If someone uses it to do something evil, no one condemns the hammer; if someone uses it to do something good, no one praises the hammer, either. Now, which would you prefer: to be yourself, capable of right and wrong and so susceptible to praise or blame, or to be the hammer, capable of neither right nor wrong, and so susceptible to neither praise nor blame?


Okay, I’d rather be myself than a hammer. I’ll grant it's better to be morally free than not.

Good. Now, if God is morally good, and if it is better to create a world with morally free beings than without them, then if God creates anything He should create a world with morally free beings. But such a world is a world in which evil is possible. That means that our first proposition (Gods exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good) is compatible with a third (It is better to create a world with morally free beings than without them) which entails at least the possibility of our second proposition (There is evil in the world). This means God's existence and the reality of evil are not logically contradictory to each other. They are compatible.

But why doesn't God destroy all evil and prevent its returning?

He could, of course, but in so doing He would be destroying morally free creatures. And God could have created a world in which evil was impossible; but then He would have to have created a world without morally free creatures. The only alternative to a morally good world that contains evil is not a morally good world that contains no evil but a morally neutral world that contains neither good nor evil. Such a world, of course, wouldn't contain us. So which do you prefer: a world that contains you, or a world that doesn't?

A world that contains me. I see your point. I guess God and evil are compatible. But just why would God have permitted evil? What purpose is there in it?

First of course it was the only way to create a morally good world. But what was His purpose for evil? Christians believe evil serves a number of purposes, all consistent with God's plan for the world and, especially, for individual people.

One purpose is to occasion certain moral goods that could never come about without evil. One can never forgive someone without someone's doing something evil, right? Forgiveness is one of the highest moral goods, but it is a moral good that could never come about without evil. One could not have mercy without someone's doing something evil that deserved punishment. One cannot have compassion for those who suffer without someone's suffering, and compassion is also a very high virtue. These and other goods all depend for their existence and expression on the existence of evil. So God permits evil in part so that greater goods can occur than could ever occur without it.


Christianity says there is one even higher good that could never have occurred without evil: God's voluntary sacrifice of Himself to bear punishment for us. Think what kind of act gets the highest praise among men. Isn't it when someone voluntarily sacrifices his life in order to save the lives of others? Such self‑sacrifice is a tremendous good. The greatest such sacrifice was when God sacrificed His life in the Person of Jesus Christ to save the lives of all who believe in Jesus.


This doesn't make sense to me. Why was such a sacrifice necessary? What do you mean by God's having saved the lives of those who believe in Jesus? What did they need to be saved from?

They needed to be saved from two kinds of evil: sin and suffering. Christianity says all men are sinners-we all do evil. The possibility of our doing evil is entailed in our being morally free. The reality of it we see in our own lives and in the lives of others.

Justice requires that evil be punished. Punishment involves suffering. But suffering is a kind of evil—an evil of one kind brought on by another. So the problem for God was how to satisfy the demands of His justice and, at the same time, to deliver people from suffering His punishment upon evil. This He did by becoming man in Jesus and then suffering for our sins in our place.

Is it significant that a back-to-front dog becomes God, while a slightly more contorted cat becomes act (probably with a small 'a')?? Must have a word with Sirius (which reminds me, on behalf of all cats, why is there no cat-star?)

»Can God make an object that's so heavy He can't move it?« I paused, lifted an eyebrow, cleared my throat.

»For God's sake, shut that rubbish,« he opined.

You're talking about creation, but didn't evolution disprove that?
Let's leave evolution for later, if you don't mind. We're not talking about how all things got to their present form; we're only talking about how the material universe came into existence in the first place. In that sense, yes, we're talking about creation.

This isn't contrary to the idea of evolution, and it isn't contrary to science. One of the leading astronomers of our age, for instance, Robert Jastrow, says that scientific research about the universe has led to one extremely important conclusion: "... I am an agnostic in religious matters. However, I am fascinated by some strange developments going on in astronomy‑partly because of their religious implications and partly because of the peculiar reactions of my colleagues.


"The essence of the strange developments is that the Universe had, in some sense, a beginning—that it began at a certain moment in time ... for the astronomical evidence proves that the Universe was created ... in a fiery explosion...


»Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the Universe had a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset. Their reactions provide an interesting demonstration of the response of the scientific mind—supposedly, a very objective mind-when evidence uncovered by science itself leads to a conflict with the articles of faith in our profession. It turns out that the scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs are in conflict with the evidence. We become irritated, we pretend the conflict does not exist or we paper it over with meaningless phrases. « (Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, New York: Warner Books, 1984, pp. 11-16.)