The human imagination is a great thing. We are especially good at imagining god the way we want him/her/it/them (delete as appropriate) to be. This imaginative quality plays right into our present relativistic worldview, or perhaps that should be worldviews!
How do I know that the God/god I know is the true God? How can I ever say that what anyone else calls god is not the true God? Is it even possible to think of such a question?
The true God has made himself known. If he had not made himself known no human would ever be able to imagine him as he is.
While in Peru in 2004 I heard the story of an Inca chief just a few years before the Spanish arrived who went for three days alone to an island in the midst of a mountain lake. On his return he told his head men that he had watched the sun, whom they worshipped, rising and setting in the same places each day for three days. And he concluded that if the sun were the great god he would chose to exercise greater freedom, so there must be a greater God than the sun and he wanted to get to know him.
This, I think, is exactly what I mean by general revelation, or what is the main point of Romans 1. Into the fabric of creation the true God has built in evidence of his existence and his nature. Not a full revelation, but sufficient for us to know there is a God and something of his power and divinity.
To this God has added the special revelation which is Scripture, the 66 writings of the Old and New Testaments. In these writings, and in no others, had the true God specially made himself known. One of the best definitions of Scripture I know is, 'Scripture is the gracious self-revelation of God.'
In current debates, certianly within the Church of Scotland, there is much heat generated on the subject of the 'authority' of Scripture. It is, in my opinion, much more important to grasp what the nature of Scripture is. Once we see that Scripture is God making himself known, the 'authority' of Scripture becomes at the same time both clear and subordinate. Any authority Scripture has is a function of God who is revealing himself in Scripture.
I've also come to recognise that starting any kind of Christian theology with Scripture is unhelpful. We need to start with God and come to Scripture as a sub-set of our thinking about God. In this the Scots Confession of 1560 is to be prefered to the Westminster Confession of 1647.
5 comments:
"On his return he told his head men that he had watched the sun, whom they worshipped, rising and setting in the same places each day for three days. And he concluded that if the sun were the great god he would chose to exercise greater freedom."
The logic is cute, but of course the Sun is travelling around the Milky Way at nearly 50,000 miles per hour so where it rises on Earth is academic (and does change with the seasons anyway).
Perhaps the Biblcal God narrative makes more sense. But if you look at the science, it is quite clear that the energy of our lives is recycled Sunlight and that the matter of our world is recyled stardust.
I think that is was a jealous Church that decreed Sun worship to be primitive and ignorant rather than scientific discovery. Perhaps we should re-examine the idea of our Sun as a conscious being with divine status.
Gregory Sams, author of "Sun of gOd"
Thanks for your comment, Gregory. I wasn't aware of your book but have found your site on the web.
If we were to take seriously the claim that the sun is 'a conscious being with divine status' we would first need to agree what these terms might mean. How would we measure or assess the consciousness of the sun?
I have no intention or desire to defend the church for her wicked treatment of sun worshippers encountered, for example, in Peru.
However, biblical Christianity does not requier me to do that. My point in this post simply was that the natural order of the universe suggests a design, and/or designer. The bible describes this as general revelation of the God of the bible.
Thanks for your response which prompts me to ask in return…how would you measure or define the consciousness of a biblical God? We don't have the tools.
It is just that when we examine the science it would indicate that the Sun is not some accidental ball of gas but a life form, and one that appears to be of a much higher order than ourselves. And yet it is self-organized from a cloud of cosmic dust.
"Sun of gOd" offers an alternative to both the biblical view of creation by an outside agent and the Darwinian view of an accidental world with no intent or purpose.
Wherever we look, from our brain cells to a weather system, from a termite mound to a galaxy, we find matter self-organizing into form and structure. Could it be that a universal consciousness is itself built from the bottom up, bringing us a Universe filled with intelligence and design, but one which needs no Intelligent Designer?
This would require that at the most fundamental level matter itself is imbued with consciousness, an idea not at odds with the ideas of quantum mechanics.
Gregory, I really can not see how you can argue that "science would indicate that the Sun is not some accidental ball of gas but a life form".
It seems to me that this is something that you have made up.
I'm sorry if that seems harsh but otherwise all discussion degenarates into nonsense.
Alan,
For a moment, can we rewind to the pre-Old Testament headset that, in most places, saw the Sun as a living celestial being, then look at the science. The science tells us about the Sun's seven distinct levels performing different functions. Some solar behaviour is predictable and regular and some variable. One of its functions produces the Heliosphere, a protective magnetic field that stops the planets being bombarded by damaging cosmic rays. The Sun itself is the source of the light that we recycle into the energy of our existence - the light of our life. The Sun's magnetic field interacts with the magnetic fields of every planet, creating dancing displays of coloured lights in the sky. There is a distinct magnetic portal connecting Sun and Earth through which tons of charged particles are transferred every eight minutes http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30oct_ftes/.
Now, going back to that hypothetical rewind, would your Egyptian Sun priest absorb the above information and think "Oh yes, it must just be some accidental pointless ball of gas" or would he think the science supported the idea that the Sun was a conscious entity playing a part in its existence and that of the solar system.
In closing, I must point out that consciousness is the least understood part of our own existence, yet we think we know enough about it to be sure nothing else can experience it. Arrogant?
Gregory Sams, author "Sun of gOd"
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