Category: Theory

When Does Creation Begin?

How free is God? I would say God is free to do anything which does not violate His own character. Therefore, if God wants to create a certain kind of universe, there is nothing to stop Him from doing so as long as it aligns with His own character, or nature. This, of course, creates problems when looking at the fall of man and the will of man.

True or False: If God did not want the fall of man to happen, and it was possible to give humans their own free will which would not necessarily lead to a fall, then there would never have been a fall since God could have, and would have, created that universe.

Does human free will necessarily lead to a fall? If you say no, then I have to ask: Then why did the fall happen? And if you answer: Because of free will, then I have to ask: Does human free will necessarily lead to a fall?

You can only say that human free will does not necessarily lead to a fall if you believe God does not know the future. However, if God knows the future, He knows if a fall will happen or not. If God does not want a fall, and He wants humans to have their own will, and He sees He can indeed create a universe where humans have free will and there is no fall, then He will create that universe. It’s the one He wants. But, we obviously do not live in that universe. Therefore, either (A) God positively wanted the fall to happen, or (B) He was forced negatively to allow the fall to happen as there was no other option since He wanted humans to have free will, and human free will would always lead to a fall.

Option A seriously calls God’s goodness into question. Why would a good God want a fall and all the evil which accompanies it? Option B calls into question God’s power and freedom. Who decided that God couldn’t create a universe in which humans had free will and never fall?

But wait, Christianity teaches that after the resurrection, after sin and death and the effects of the fall have been completely removed from existence, there will never be another fall, and humans will have free will. So, it turns out that God can indeed create a universe in which humans have free will and yet not fall.

When, exactly, does this creation begin?

If She Buys You a Man Crate…

I want this guy to punch himself in the face

If she buys you a Man Crate, she either doesn’t know what a man is, or she does but doesn’t consider you one. And if you’re happy to get the Man Crate, she may be right. Boys play with toys which resemble the real things they will do as men. Man Crates are toys created for adult men in a society which has become so speciously safe and comfortable, the practical strengths of men become nothing more than a pathetic caricature of something that once was, but is now spiralling away out of memory. Picture a woman pretending to be a man, with her baseball hat on sideways, her baggy plaid shirt, and her saying, “yo” and “dude” a lot — this is the Man Crate.

Imagine a “Woman Crate”. What would that look like? A make-up crate? A cooking crate? A busy business woman crate? Breast feeding crate? Adult women already do those kinds of things as part of their normal lives. So when we have to buy men toys so that they can pretend to do manly things, what does that say about what men are doing in their normal lives?

Let’s consider one of the Man Crate products: The Knife Making Kit. Firstly, some Man Crates actually come in a wooden box which has to be pried open with a little crow bar. Aside from being a pointless waste of time, I wonder how much that unnecessarily adds to the cost?

The knife kit comes with a pre-made knife which simply needs the handle glued on and shaped. So you’re not actually making a knife. You’re only given some cheap tools to assemble a factory made one.

Look at the product description…

Ask any honest farmhand, Japanese chef, or the two most dangerous ninja turtles, and they'll tell you a sharp blade is the most virtuous and versatile tool a man can wield. A trusty, fixed blade won't bend, break, or stray from its owner's side; when the going gets tough, the tough get cut.

Ninja turtles? Come on. The tough get cut? What does that mean? The tough cut themselves? 

But unlike men and Socialist paychecks, not all knives are created equal. We've found that the knives guys trust the most are ones they make themselves. The Knife Making Project Kit gives every guy the opportunity to design, craft, and perfect his new best friend.

I’m not sure what the odd reference to Socialist paychecks is doing here, but I am sure Man Crate knives are indeed created equal — factory precision uniform equality. You can be sure you will not be designing anything here. But at least your knife can be your new little buddy.

A dependable knife should instill fear and apprehension into its foes, not its handler, so we've included all the tools needed to rid it of stray splinters and extraneous wood.

No man assembling this knife has “foes”. And a few splinters could probably do him some good.

Well, I should probably just relax and not be so critical. If a loved one bought one of these things for me, I’m not going to get angry at them about it. I might even be dumb enough to buy their Personalized Pint Ammo Can, but hopefully not.

Save the Man Crate Knife for your twelve year old son — that’s who toys are for. You need to go and forge your own knife like a grown up.

The Fallacy of Theodicy

Theodicy: a defence of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil

We ought to reject all attempts at theodicy. God did not need sin, death, and evil to bring about His plan for creation. Sin, death, and evil did happen, but not at God’s command or decree. And, we take comfort in the fact that God hates sin, death, and evil, and He will redeem His creation from it all.

Excerpt from an article written by David B. Hart titled Tsunami and Theodicy….

“Christians often find it hard to adopt the spiritual idiom of the New Testament—to think in terms, that is, of a cosmic struggle between good and evil, of Christ’s triumph over the principalities of this world, of the overthrow of hell. All Christians know, of course, that it is through God’s self-outpouring upon the cross that we are saved, and that we are made able by grace to participate in Christ’s suffering; but this should not obscure that other truth revealed at Easter: that the incarnate God enters ‘this cosmos’ not simply to disclose its immanent rationality, but to break the boundaries of fallen nature asunder, and to refashion creation after its ancient beauty—wherein neither sin nor death had any place. Christian thought has traditionally, of necessity, defined evil as a privation of the good, possessing no essence or nature of its own, a purely parasitic corruption of reality; hence it can have no positive role to play in God’s determination of Himself or purpose for His creatures (even if by economy God can bring good from evil); it can in no way supply any imagined deficiency in God’s or creation’s goodness. Being infinitely sufficient in Himself, God had no need of a passage through sin and death to manifest His glory in His creatures or to join them perfectly to Himself. This is why it is misleading (however soothing it may be) to say that the drama of fall and redemption will make the final state of things more glorious than it might otherwise have been. No less metaphysically incoherent—though immeasurably more vile—is the suggestion that God requires suffering and death to reveal certain of his attributes (capricious cruelty, perhaps? morbid indifference? a twisted sense of humor?). It is precisely sin, suffering, and death that blind us to God’s true nature.”

Read DBH’s full article by clicking here.