I thought you might appreciate this recent comment from one of my readers which was posted during a discussion about God’s sovereignty and free will. This particular reader was responding to my insistence that God is in control of everything that happens.
Appreciate your good and gracious spirit, Steven. I might opt to exercise my free will in not reading your next post on free will, and I have to wonder if that would be God exercising his will and forcing me not to understand what you think is His will about free will. Ha!
Love it. Always grateful for the injection of a little humour into a debate that for some people can seem quite confusing and abstract!
May I take this opportunity to wish you all a peaceful and blessed weekend. Of course, whether or not you actually have a peaceful and blessed weekend will depend entirely upon the sovereign will of God, but let’s not go there right now…
Perfect Chaos 
10 responses to “A Bit of Humour”
Funny indeed
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Steven,
Funny, but I’m just not very good at jokes myself, so I’ll get to the point.
In philosophical terms is your point of view more Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism, or something else? I have two objections to Determinism by the way, the first being causality. If every action is a response of an action before hand, every action is contingent. If every action is contingent there could be no creation of the world or time because that begin the necessary action that precludes any such action. Furthermore, an infinite regress even in way contradicts Determinism. By the sheer act of being in the first principles of non contradiction- Determinism is contradicted and therefore could not be correct.
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Hi Philip,
I don’t believe the future is determined by the past. I don’t believe in a kind of clockwork universe. I believe in an eternal present moment, where God (who is not separate from creation) is unfolding everything that happens.
If you are genuinely interested in my perspective, and haven’t already, may I suggest you read my essay entitled An Almighty Predicament (free download on my Essays page here) as that sets out my arguments in favour of God’s omnipresence and all of the implications of that understanding for the Christian worldview.
Incidentally, in the essay I also set out arguments in favour of the Christian worldview, and why I continue to find them in some ways very compelling. If you read that essay (it’s not too long), you should understand my position pretty well.
God bless and peace be with you.
Steven
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So do you explain in the essay how it’s different than Determinism? I ask because I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that something unfolding is not determined by a past action I suppose.
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Hi again Philip,
If you ask the question – what is God doing right now? And ponder that deeply, that’s a good starting point. God is not detached from the world. He is causing our hearts to beat, our blood to circulate, the planets to move, the trees to grow, and everything else. He is the animator of all there is.
If you observe a puppet show, it doesn’t unfold according to a set of rules, all the characters in the show play out their parts because they are being animated by an animator. I believe the same is true of God and His creation.
That’s my position, and if it still isn’t clear, I once again refer you to my essay.
Best wishes!
Steven
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I’ll definitely take a look. It’s fascinating
position. I suppose most determinist that I’m aware of are atheist, so the idea of God is void from their philosophy. However, in reflection, much of how you set up the foundation of your thought resembles Thomistic philosophy—God is Existence—except Aquinas still believed in Free Will. I also saw a post on your site on Calvin, so I’ll have to read that as well. I hope both are addressed in the essay.
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Hi Philip. Thank you for engaging with me on this and considering my point of view. If after you read the essay (or perhaps some of my other posts) you would like me to clarify anything, I would be very happy to do so.
God bless.
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I’m interested because your position is a bit unique if it doesn’t claim some adherent to Determinism, it’s something I’ve been rattling around in my brain the last couple of days.
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hahaha thank you for the laugh Steven, laughter is a blessing :):)
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It is indeed, Margaret! 🙂
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