July 9, 2006

Cawson St. Church of Christ

Hopewell, Virginia

Mural Worthey

 

Traits That Distinguish God--#2

 

Introduction

 

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  (Gen.1:1.)  The Bible begins with this foundational truth.  All theology is based upon it.  We are discussing today matters that pertain to God, his existence and the traits that distinguish him from all other beings.

 

#1:   His Existence Affects Everyone and Everything

 

God’s existence matters.  If He does not exist, that is profound and earth shaking.  If He does exist, his existence affects each person and everything.  This is a trait that distinguishes God from all other beings.  My existence does not affect everyone.  It does not affect anyone’s view of the world and eternity.  But God’s existence or non-existence defines one’s world view.  Either God is all in all, or He is not God at all.  That is the very nature of God.

 

No rational person should live his life without considering seriously the reality of God.  If you try to avoid dealing with the question, then you must live always looking down and never look up toward the sky.  You will busy yourself with trivial, momentary things, but avoid considering eternal and significant matters.  Paul said, “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth . . . seeing he gives to all life and breath and all things . . . that they should seek after him, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from everyone of us.  For in him we live and move and have our being.  As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are his offspring.”  (Acts 17:24, 27-28.)

Man is different from the beasts of the field, fish and birds in that we can consider our existence and meditate upon its meaning.  Further, we should not only acknowledge God as our Creator, but also as our Father.  We must not behave as the non-rational beings who know not God.  There is more to life than just existing physically.

 

#2: God Must Reveal Himself; We Cannot Hide Ourselves

 

We noted this morning that God is Spirit.  (John 4:24.)  Man is a physical being with flesh and bone.  Jesus noted this difference to the two disciples from Emmaus. (Luke 24:39.)  This is one of the great dilemmas concerning God—if we cannot relate to Him with our five senses, then how are we to really believe in Him?  If he then becomes a being that we can see, will we believe that He is really God?  When Jesus said that he was God in the flesh, some said that he was mad and had a devil.

 

How then do we prove that God is?  Historically, philosophers have presented three classic proofs for God’s existence.  My purpose here is not to discuss those proofs, but to look at the role that they have played in trying to establish the reality of God’s existence.  The three proofs are called ontological (God is a necessary being), cosmological (God is the First Cause or Prime Mover of the universe), and teleological (Design proves the existence of God).  (See Philosophy of Religion, edited by Louis P. Pojman, 2-89, especially note page 77.)  Both believers and unbelievers have questioned the value of those so-called proofs.  Whether we convince non-believers by offering those proofs, we should appreciate the value of considering God’s existence.  If we have caused people to think about the rationality of believing in God, then there is value in those arguments.  Non-believers try to convince people that it is not rational to possess faith in an unseen Spirit being.

 

As stated above, one of the traits that distinguishes God from man is that God must reveal himself if he is to be seen and man cannot hide himself.  Instead of leaving it up to man to prove God’s existence, what if God revealed himself to man?  What if God came down to us?  Then we would not need to prove his existence.  I would present to an unbeliever three powerful reasons for believing in God: 1) God has revealed himself to us by means of the creation (Rom. 1:19-20, Psalm 19:1), 2) God has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ (John 1:14), and 3) God has revealed himself to us by means of Scripture (Deut. 29:29, John 5:39, 2 Peter 1:16-21).

 

Non-believers seek to put believers on the defensive by placing the burden of proof on us.  This is just a debate tactic.  While we accept the responsibility of showing the rationality of faith in God, we do not accept the idea that God must be proved by man.  God has revealed himself.  I need not prove that he exists.  That demand is equivalent to proving that the sun exists.

 

We are discussing the uniqueness of God.  But unbelievers do not want God to be unique or different from man.  Through the ages unbelievers have sought to deny God out of existence or to bring God down to the level of animals and man.

 

#3:  God Is Not Bound As We Are

 

Paul wrote about being in prison: “Wherein I suffer trouble as an evil doer, even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound.”  (2 Tim. 2:9.)  If his Word is not bound, neither is God bound.  Can you imagine God being bound by anything?  Is He bound by his own creation, by time, by future events not yet unfolded?  Of course not.  Yet some have God bound by time which God created.  The Bible speaks of eternity in contrast to time.

 

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy.  I dwell in the high and holy place.”  (Isa. 57:15.)

“The eternal God is your dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms.”  (Deut. 33:27.)  Moses wrote, “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”  (Psalm 90:2.)  “As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”  (2 Cor. 4:18.)

 

Consider another aspect of our created world, gravity and space.  We live under the power and blessing of gravity, but just a few miles away from earth there is weightlessness.  Should we think that God is bound by gravity as we are?  Is He not outside of and beyond gravity?  So also does God exist in reference to time.

 

God existed prior to the creation of this world and time as we experience it.  If God is bound within time as we are, then God can know only the present and the past, but not the future.  Some so limit God and rob him of foreknowledge.  They limit God to what we can know.  We should be suspicious of any description of God that makes him like man.  Samuel said to Saul, “He [God] is not a man that he should repent.”  (1 Sam. 15:29.)

 

Stephen Davis states three possibilities of time in relation to God: 1) Time has always existed alongside God.  Therefore, time is not a contingent, created thing as the earth.  2) Time was created by God and will cease to exist one day.  3)  Time has always existed, but there was no way to measure it until the creation of the sun and moon.  Thus, non-measurable time always exists.  (Philosophy of Religion, “Timeless Eternity,” 205.)  Davis argues that “the doctrine of divine temporal eternity is greatly preferable to timeless eternity.”  (Ibid, 206.)

 

Why is all of this important to us?  It is significant as it relates to the knowledge of God, especially his foreknowledge.  The Bible teaches that God foreknows.  (Acts 2:23, Rom. 8:29, 30.)  The Greek word is prognosis, which is made from two words, gnosis and pro.  The word means to know before.  We use it primarily as a medical term today.  If God is within time, or bound by time, then He cannot know the future.  This denies all the Bible says about foreknowledge.  The word does occur in Scripture.  God does have foreknowledge.

 

 

The view that God experiences time along with man is sometimes called open Deism by philosophers.  Open Deists believe that freewill is possible only if foreknowledge is limited by time.  But is there a conflict between freewill of man and the foreknowledge of God?  No, because God can simply foreknow what will happen without causing the event to occur.  This is an imagined or produced conflict in order to limit the traits of God.

 

#4:  The Transcendence of God

 

With God, there are almost always two traits that are must be considered together.  For example, Paul wrote about the goodness and severity of God. (Rom. 11:22.)   These two traits seem contradictory, but they are not.  God’s goodness is expressed to those who do his will; his severity is expressed to those who fell.  These two attributes are not expressed to the same people.  If so, then a conflict would exist.  Another example is God’s nearness and transcendence.  Paul preached that God is not far any one of us.  (Acts 17:27.)  There is a sense in which God is immanent or near, but also that God is holy and set apart from this world.  God does not live on earth, but in heaven.  (Eccl. 5:2.)

 

God knows and cares when even a sparrow falls to the ground.  How much more when a human being created in his image suffers.  God need not be bound by time in order to be near us.  God is Spirit.  God sees from heaven and acts within time and within our lives.