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Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. “I feel the way that I think Newton once said. I feel like a snail on the side of a great ocean and the idea that I can understand a notion like God or humans can as if we’re expecting a snail to understand the motion of the tides through calculus and physics…
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“I feel the way that I think Newton once said. I feel like a snail on the side of a great ocean and the idea that I can understand a notion like God or humans can as if we’re expecting a snail to understand the motion of the tides through calculus and physics… “That’s not possible. So I see the same kind of intellectual gap in the capacity of humans to understand in any deep sense about theology of God as for a snail to figure out how the tides work. “I’m not at all an atheist. I mean, of all the possible theologies, atheism is the least plausible. I mean, you’ve got to explain the existence of the universe, and to assume it invented itself or created itself is rather odd. I mean, the only important question, the most important question is why is there or can there be anything, and how can there be consciousness? Atheism is not an answer that is plausible in any way to me.” That in mind, he also said that he doesn’t embrace the “accepted accounts” — that is the theological structures that have been advanced. “There was once a philosopher who said, ‘I don’t believe in God, but I fear him greatly.’ That’s about where I am…I’ve had a fairly difficult and complicated notion of the deity.”
Spirituality through the Ages I. Transcendent Principles II. Spirituality by Dispensation III. Review/Conclusion
Spirituality through the Ages I. Transcendent Principles II. Spirituality by Dispensation III. Review/Conclusion
“The ruling factor which God used to govern man during the first dispensation was an unconfirmed favorable disposition. Before man fell, he was favorably disposed toward God. Adam and Eve fellowshipped with God. They obeyed God by cultivating the Garden of Eden in accordance with His will. They did not run and hide from Him when He approached them. These things indicate that man originally had a disposition which was favorably oriented toward God. “It should be noted, however, that this favorable disposition was unconfirmed. This means that man was not locked into it forever. He could lose it by his own choice. “Man’s favorable disposition toward God was unconfirmed because man had not chosen it for himself. It had been given to him by God at the time of his creation. When God created Adam, He gave him this type of disposition in accordance with His own sovereign choice… “The only way that man’s favorable disposition could become confirmed was for man to be confronted with an alternative to being favorably disposed toward God and then for him to choose to remain favorably disposed… “Man’s responsibility during the first dispensation was to obey God on the basis of his unconfirmed favorable disposition toward Him. This responsibility subjected man to the following test: Would man obey God on the basis of his unconfirmed favorable disposition?”
Dispensation of Innocence • Man was created & existed in a state of uninterrupted innocence and fellowship with God whereby he lived in righteous liberty. • Man did not derive his righteousness by works or obedience to any righteous standards; he faced only the loss of spiritual life and righteousness through the disobedience to one command. • Nevertheless, man, by created nature as a rational being with free will, even in innocence, was vulnerable to temptation. God created us in His image, including a measured degree of independence whereby we may truly respond to and toward Him in mutual relationship. His desire and provision is that we align with His standards for that relationship, but we may resist and reject.
