Opus 2025-465: Molding Ideas of Sovereignty

I still am wandering down the path, a narrow path.  It is called the sovereignty of God.  I’m still not sure where I’m going to end up, but this is possibly one of those things where the joy is in the journey not in the arriving.  On one side of the narrow path, there is the danger of falling into the mire of determinism; we are just robots under God‘s control.  Step up when your number is called and find out if you get a winning ticket.  Need not be present to win.  

On the other side, the danger is falling into self deification.  I am the peak of evolution and all I need to do is develop my destiny.  I will work hard and pass everyone else on the escalator.  Only the first ten percent make it through the gates.

Somewhere between these two extremes is reality.

I find myself wondering why people fall into the trap of defining the sovereignty of God by removing free will from humans.  Genesis clearly states that we were created in the image of God.  You can debate what that means, but I would insist that part of that is that we have responsibility for our actions.  That is the only way that accountability can be an honest result.  Why do some people insist on the straight jacket of predestination?  They seem to want to neutralize the sovereignty of God by defining it in their terms instead of His.

I’m thinking that one of the problems is that too many people live in big cities.  They live in areas where there is some kind of control to which everybody looks for direction, protection, and nowadays even sustenance.  They look for big government to tell them what to do and how to do it.  I think this is probably true to some degree back through history.  Most great theologians and scholars are tied to universities or large monasteries.  The universities are usually planted in the major cities of the world.  Think about where universities first developed:  London, Paris, Bologna.  I believe, even if you go back to Augustine, you find that he was in one of the major cities in North Africa.  That tends to mold you’re thinking about where power comes from and you forget the real source.

I think that people most in touch with reality are the ones who live out in the country.  They know the power that God demonstrates through nature.  They know how a storm can level their crops and lightning can burn their house.  Because of that they tend to be more aware of what they need to do to make sure that they get through these rough times.  They live in more of a partnership, shall we say, with God.  I don’t know that the Bible says it, but one of the great bits of wisdom for farmers is, “Don’t eat your seed corn”.  When you violate bits of wisdom like that, there’s not a lot that God can do for you and I doubt if the city is going to come to save you.

I find it much easier to picture the majesty of God sitting in my front porch, gazing at the stars and the lights on the horizon.  I’m much more in tune with His power as the sun begins to rise and light up the world.  I can still touch Him in my room, in my recliner, with the walls all around me, but it is much harder.  Move your mind to the countryside.  Picture yourself out on the porch.  Think of the majesty of God and his sovereignty.  Understand that He reaches out to you as a creature created in his image.

He is sovereign no matter how you define it.

homo unius libri