great question! my short answer is “no.” if you say “yes” then there’s too much argue’n over who gets to say what God hates and why. plus if you believe in an all powerful creator, if HE hates something, wouldn’t HE remove it? free will be buggered as HE is too powerful for that crap.
if answer is yes, then who gets to determine this… scripture? prayer? divine intervention? social darwinism? white hetero males?
this always brings into play the question of GOD'S WILL.
Does everything happen in this world because of God's will, or due to free will? I don't see this as an either/or senario, rather a "both/and" dealie. Process Theology states that the universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will. Self-determination characterizes everything in the universe, not just human beings. God cannot totally control any series of events or any individual, but God influences the creaturely exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities. To say it another way, God has a will in everything, but not everything that occurs is God's will.
So where am i heading with this, or what caused me to write this? well, our condo did. we tried to sell it for a year, didn't sell. that's understandable, cause we bought at the peak and are trying to sell in a valley. so we tried to rent... we had a perfect couple but due to a death in the family couldn't make the first lease signing. we put it off for a month, holding it specifically for them, only to get a voicemail message (on our home number none-the-less after we already drove 2.5 hours to g-town) saying that the couple broke up and will not be signing the lease today or ever.
seriously... WTF?! is this the will of God, to go around PWN'n peeps? infuriating them to an annoying level?!
is this your idea of a good time God?so i'm trying to see what the WILL of GOD is in all of this... then i realize something... this is like if i went up to you, dear reader, and socked you in the noodle. you'd be all like, "dude, why did you just punch my lights out" (after you woke up in a different zip code, cause i got mad ninja skills) and i'd say "you figure it out." if this is how God chooses to relay messages to our earthly selves, then i'm having no part and dropping out of seminary immediately. God is MUCH smarter than that and when God communicates, God communicates it so you get the message! you may choose to ignore it or not understand it fully, but it's swimming in your brain. i must now come to terms that sometimes shit happens. sometimes the world IS random. sometimes chaos wins over order. or following Oprah's THE SECRET, i've attracted this because i expected it.. which is a load of crap.
here are somethings i've learned besides that Due to Our Condo NOT Selling or Renting:
+ no one died or is suffering or will starve because of this
+ no one is oppressing or being oppressed
+ some people are homeless, we're blessed with an over-abundance
+ God is not in the real estate market.. God's son was a carpenter who (possibly) BUILT houses, not sold them.
+ life is annoying at times but blessed most all the time
+ patience is a virtue, but it's hell learning it
keep our housing woes in your prayers, but not too far up, there are other more deserving prayers that need attention before ours (natural disaster victims, people dealing with cancer treatments and recovering in ICU for a start) but just remember it towards the end.
thanks!
3 comments:
If a deity is not omnipotent, how is that the same God testified to by the Christian tradition, the totality of which has said that he is? Indeed how is it God at all?
To say that God "cannot" is an entirely different kettle of fish from saying "chooses not to".
Moreover how is process not the same position of modernist theology, in the sense that both whored out Christian theology to the fashionable philosophical trends of the moment?
You know that I am all in favor of dialogue between Christianity and postmodernism and Christian engagement with postmodernity -- and that personally I have found Lyotard to be interesting and influential. But it seems to me that process has gone too far in selling out the witness of the Christian church.
yeah.. God cannot is limiting.. and that should read more like "God won't" or some such... shows what happens when you just cut and paste from wiki. it's possible ;-)
i like some precepts of Process, but not all. such is the problem with systems and the divine. i agree with your critique of process but i wouldn't say they've sold out christianity... they're not big enough to do that. i'd say the fundies have done that WAY before process ever came around.
I guess I am a fan of process theology - without even knowing it. I think life has leassons to be learned and selling a condo is not the end all be all of the world - and in essence - as long as you do things in an ethical manner concerning it - what more can truly be said.
I have realized, and this is my personal experience with this faith and the teachings, hate is not something we are to 'live by'. I pointed out to Joshua about this very fact - but the hard headed never learn - 66 times love is mentioned in the gospels - hate is taught on once (and even then it is not hate as in 'I hate you'). Hate is outright taught against by Jesus - hate in the sense of acting upon on it.
Hate, to me, gets nothing productive done. I can hate sin ar aspects of sin - but so what? What does that actually really do...except maybe help me define what I do not want to do? But that's about it for the usefulness - after that - acting upon it gets scary. To me, the hate argument is more about what we do with the idea than if God actually does hate - and I can see Him hating immorality - but there's not much I can do about that (except teach others morality).
I like process theology - I must do more reading on this.
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