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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/5/2005 1:25 PM (GMT -6) |   | Question:
Ok. I just watched this show on the National Geographic Channel called "Naked Science"
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel/programs/index.html?program=science
I just watched 3 of those shows. They talked about supervolcanoes, mega-asteroids, and earthquakes respectively. They pretty much detailed how supervolcanoes and mega-asteroid impacts have happened on the earth before with extinction level amounts of power. (End of the dinosaurs, etc). And there was discussion about huge tsunamis created by huge earthquakes in the past.
Question:
Do you believe that God actively prevents the human race from any type of natural extinction level event (ie. eruption of supervolcano, earth being hit by mega-asteroid, etc)?
Side question: Did God have ANYTHING to do with the recent tsunami...really??
I'm interested.
PS: Did you guys know that we have been able to witness a mega-asteroid colliding with Jupiter? Uh, let's just say that it was veeery eyeopening to see the pictures.
http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/sl9/sl9.html | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/6/2005 10:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Discovery Channel: Pompeii
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/pompeii/interactive/interactive.html
or...
And NEITHER of these were even super-volcanoes!
And...
Again,
Does God do this? Did God use a huge asteroid to "judge" the earth and recreate it? (This is Doc's hypothesis going along with his restoration theory idea...sheesh...) Does God protect us from meteors that are TOO big? Is God protect us from supervolcanoes that could extinguish life on the planet...but allows "little" ones like the one on Monserrat or the one that destroyed Pompeii? Does God have anything to do with ANY of this at all?
This silence is deafening, people! Christians, speak up!
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary." --Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 3/6/2005 12:48 PM (GMT -6) | | I believe it's possible that God destroyed the earth and recreated it somehow. Whether by a huge astroid or something like that, I haven't a clue.
Sure God protects against other astroids, supervolcanoes, bad theology, possible evils, aliens, and even getting "f's" in seminary!
What more do you want to know? The Tsunami? Possibly could have been worse - maybe God prevented it from going further.
Not to quote scripture or anything, but that's what comes to mind: Psalm 91:14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name. 15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them. 16 With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.
selah
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.Post Edited (Selah) : 3/6/2005 12:51:04 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/6/2005 10:33 PM (GMT -6) | | ATW:
Well what are your speculations???
Would you say sin is a major extinction event in delayed form???? Or do you mean only "natural" disaster issues???
I think it's difficult to answer because you have been someone who seems fairly settled on these issues in the past, looks more like you have an angle. If that's COMPLETELY not true forgive me for reading into it incorrectly man, and I'll be happy to delete this post.
I don't think it's that difficult to answer. I just wanted to get various perspectives on this. My perspective is this: any discussion of divine providence has to deal with Creation by necessity for the sake of theodicy, particularly those aspects of Creation that deal with how God protects and interacts with human beings. It ties in with the idea of God's sovereignty over all things...even under the delegated authority of free-willed creatures. Now I'm willing to bet that many of the biblical authors didn't know things about outer space, other planets, comets, and asteroids. I'd also rather doubt that they knew things about pyroclastic flows and things like that too. But we understand that these things exist. So, I've been wondering how we integrate this information into our ideas about God's sovereignty.
For example, it would seem to me that a theistic determinist would have to say that God eternally planned the Shoemaker Levy 9 comet's collision with Jupiter on July 1994. And that God brought down the comet that caused the Barringer and Wolf Creed meteor collisions on the Earth. Why? Simply because EDF exists and God ordains and controls all things.
Likewise, it would seem to me that open view theists would have to have some type of idea about how God deals with these things. Perhaps God allows the angels to deal with these things. Or perhaps God does act upon these things. Maybe there was divine activity that precipitated the July 1994 collision with Jupiter. It would lie within the scope of God's providence.
I'm being VERY serious with all this. I think that these are questions that have to be asked and answered. Tsunamis are tough enough to deal with. When we thrown in volcanoes like Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Vesuvious...or asteroid impacts like that of the Yucatan peninsula (that presumably caused the extinction of the dinosaurs)...this poses serious things to consider for God's providence.
This is where the unverifiability of the whole theodicy process really bothers me. Wherever a tragedy can happen (like the recent tsunami that killed over 100,000 people), it can ALWAYS be said that "things could have been worse"...basically postulating a "God in the gaps" of possible damage. A meteor hits the earth destroying all of the dinosaurs making things very conducive for the rise of mammals? Hey, it must have been God getting the earth ready for Adam! I know it may sound crazy...but that's what some people could say!
Anyways, I want this stuff to get a little more practical when it comes to this stuff. Do we REALLY BELIEVE that God is providentially protecting human beings from things? That God is really trying to minimize all evil and suffering for the apex of God's creation, human beings? Wouldn't this include God protecting human beings from mass exinction via asteroid collision or super-volcano? It would seem so. My thoughts anyways.
I surely hope that people are taking this seriously and will engage with this seriously.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 3/7/2005 5:44 AM (GMT -6) | | MephEternal said...... I'm being VERY serious with all this. I think that these are questions that have to be asked and answered. Tsunamis are tough enough to deal with. When we thrown in volcanoes like Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Vesuvious...or asteroid impacts like that of the Yucatan peninsula (that presumably caused the extinction of the dinosaurs)...this poses serious things to consider for God's providence. This is where the unverifiability of the whole theodicy process really bothers me. Wherever a tragedy can happen (like the recent tsunami that killed over 100,000 people), it can ALWAYS be said that "things could have been worse"...basically postulating a "God in the gaps" of possible damage. A meteor hits the earth destroying all of the dinosaurs making things very conducive for the rise of mammals? Hey, it must have been God getting the earth ready for Adam! I know it may sound crazy...but that's what some people could say! Anyways, I want this stuff to get a little more practical when it comes to this stuff. Do we REALLY BELIEVE that God is providentially protecting human beings from things? That God is really trying to minimize all evil and suffering for the apex of God's creation, human beings? Wouldn't this include God protecting human beings from mass exinction via asteroid collision or super-volcano? It would seem so. My thoughts anyways. I surely hope that people are taking this seriously and will engage with this seriously.
OK. Sorry for not being serious Meph. I can't really get why being serious is helpful. Consider this. What would you think if I told you I prayed that our winter would be mild this year? It's my daughter's first year driving and i was nervous because she had to drive 20 miles to school every day with my son in the back seat...so I prayed "hold back the snow please." Do you think God would answer such a prayer? Can God actually hold back snow in answer to one person's prayer?
That's just crazy!!!
I honestly can't see you saying YEP I can see a personal God acting in such a way...
So why speculate, really?
love,
selah
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/7/2005 10:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
I can't really get why being serious is helpful. Consider this. What would you think if I told you I prayed that our winter would be mild this year? It's my daughter's first year driving and i was nervous because she had to drive 20 miles to school every day with my son in the back seat...so I prayed "hold back the snow please." Do you think God would answer such a prayer? Can God actually hold back snow in answer to one person's prayer?
That's just crazy!!!
I honestly can't see you saying YEP I can see a personal God acting in such a way...
You know what? You're right. It is crazy. I mean, really. The very idea of a lone person praying for something some natural phenomena like THAT to happen. Utter nonsense. Yeah.
Joshua 10
Now Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had taken Ai and totally destroyed it, doing to Ai and its king as he had done to Jericho and its king, and that the people of Gibeon had made a treaty of peace with Israel and were living near them. He and his people were very much alarmed at this, because Gibeon was an important city, like one of the royal cities; it was larger than Ai, and all its men were good fighters. So Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem appealed to Hoham king of Hebron, Piram king of Jarmuth, Japhia king of Lachish and Debir king of Eglon. "Come up and help me attack Gibeon," he said, "because it has made peace with Joshua and the Israelites."
Then the five kings of the Amorites-the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon-joined forces. They moved up with all their troops and took up positions against Gibeon and attacked it.
The Gibeonites then sent word to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal: "Do not abandon your servants. Come up to us quickly and save us! Help us, because all the Amorite kings from the hill country have joined forces against us."
So Joshua marched up from Gilgal with his entire army, including all the best fighting men. The LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you."
After an all-night march from Gilgal, Joshua took them by surprise. The LORD threw them into confusion before Israel, who defeated them in a great victory at Gibeon. Israel pursued them along the road going up to Beth Horon and cut them down all the way to Azekah and Makkedah. As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.
On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel:
"O sun, stand still over Gibeon,
O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!
Then Joshua returned with all Israel to the camp at Gilgal.
Man! To think that some people could believe that a personal God would actually do something that would affect the ENTIRE PLANET based on one man's prayer. No friggin way. Totally crazy. Right, Selah?
and...
Mark 4:35-41
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Absolutely STUPID. Ludicrous. And I didn't even talk about the fire that supposedly destroyed Sodom and Gommorah...or the opening and closing of the earth that swallowed Korah and his family (this would LITERALLY have to be a localized EARTHQUAKE!!!)...or the lightning that Elijah prayed for in 1 Kings to set the offering on fire. Stupid. I can't believe anyone would believe this.
Here's the deal. I don't think it's fair for people to ask me to believe in stuff like this...that God has the capacity to do THESE type of manipulations of natural phenomena...but THEN on the other hand, tell me that contemplating that God would intervene with supervolcanoes and mega-asteroids (which HAVE and DO happen) is ludicrous.
If I'm denying the God deals with super-asteroid, I don't see why I should accept the idea of God's "stopping the sun" and stuff.
Thoughts?
I do want to thank you for engagin' this. Hopefully, you now see why I think it's so important. 
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 3/7/2005 10:12:37 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 3/7/2005 11:46 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph said: Do you believe that God actively prevents the human race from any type of natural extinction level event (ie. eruption of supervolcano, earth being hit by mega-asteroid, etc)?
Yes, I believe he does, for the time being, prevent humanity from total catastrophe/extinction. Hebrews 1 says that the universe is held together by the power of his word.
Side question: Did God have ANYTHING to do with the recent tsunami...really??
As I mentioned in a thread here just after the tsunami, apart from a specific revelation from God as to the tsunami, I don't know how we can definitively say one way or the other. Even with what we believe to be a divine revelation on the matter, we could of course be wrong in thinking God has spoken to us at all (bolded portion edited). The tsunami could be simply the result of natural processes in the earth, tectonic plate shifts, etc. But, as you note in some of the examples you gave, the writers of scripture seem to have no problem with attributing at least SOME natural disasters to the direct action of God.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
JohnE
http://revivaltheology.netPost Edited (JEE) : 3/7/2005 11:48:40 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 3/7/2005 12:44 PM (GMT -6) | |
JEE said...Meph said: Do you believe that God actively prevents the human race from any type of natural extinction level event (ie. eruption of supervolcano, earth being hit by mega-asteroid, etc)?
Yes, I believe he does, for the time being, prevent humanity from total catastrophe/extinction. Hebrews 1 says that the universe is held together by the power of his word.
Side question: Did God have ANYTHING to do with the recent tsunami...really??
As I mentioned in a thread here just after the tsunami, I honestly can't say one way or the other. It could be simply the result of natural processes in the earth, tectonic plate shifts, etc. But, as you note in some of the examples you gave, the writers of scripture seem to have no problem with attributing at least SOME natural disasters to the direct action of God. I'm in agreement with JEE. I think that ELE's are incompatible with God's telos for humanity. However, localized catastrophies are more opaque to our analysis. | | Back to Top | | |
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AtTheWell
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 133
| Posted 3/7/2005 1:02 PM (GMT -6) | | | Meph:
Perhaps God allows the angels to deal with these things.
My Grandma always told me that thunder was just the angels bowling.....  
Peace, ATW | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 3/7/2005 7:59 PM (GMT -6) | | "MephEternal:
You know what? You're right. It is crazy. I mean, really. The very idea of a lone person praying for something some natural phenomena like THAT to happen. Utter nonsense. Yeah.
...
Man! To think that some people could believe that a personal God would actually do something that would affect the ENTIRE PLANET based on one man's prayer. No friggin way. Totally crazy. Right, Selah?
selah Meph, you're great!! You walked right into that one though.... I have to admit I was hoping you'd respond the way you did (though I didn't expect you to!) and quoting scripture to back up your comments was a bonus. You made this topic more interesting to me than it was. Really, isn't it strange that we don't grow in faith through reading about events like these? IF there's anywhere GB and I part, it's somewhere in this area. (maybe we don't part, you tell me) I'm not even sure how to put it to words exactly, but it has something to do with aligning the variables in a chaotic warfilled world in such a way that we still experience ANSWERED prayer AND God as faithful. What are the odds? Further, iif we really consider how many variables there are, what are the chances of experiencing God as faithful CONTINUALLY! (we'd have to walk in a "luck" zone with God ...remember when I brought this up in class?) I'm still puzzled.
mephi
Mark 4:35-41
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Absolutely STUPID. Ludicrous. And I didn't even talk about the fire that supposedly destroyed Sodom and Gommorah...or the opening and closing of the earth that swallowed Korah and his family (this would LITERALLY have to be a localized EARTHQUAKE!!!)...or the lightning that Elijah prayed for in 1 Kings to set the offering on fire. Stupid. I can't believe anyone would believe this.
Here's the deal. I don't think it's fair for people to ask me to believe in stuff like this...that God has the capacity to do THESE type of manipulations of natural phenomena...but THEN on the other hand, tell me that contemplating that God would intervene with supervolcanoes and mega-asteroids (which HAVE and DO happen) is ludicrous.
If I'm denying the God deals with super-asteroid, I don't see why I should accept the idea of God's "stopping the sun" and stuff.
selah Right. Good point! Kind of like the way I think it's ludicrous to believe in a God who speaks and acts in the world but can't seem to hold a book (the bible) together in order to have it communicate (to the common person) what He wants it to communicate!
I hear ya.
love
selah
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.Post Edited (Selah) : 3/10/2005 5:52:27 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/9/2005 11:00 AM (GMT -6) | | For those of you who think it's a joke...
In today's BBCNews...
Experts weigh super-volcano risks
By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4326987.stm
Geologists have called for a taskforce to be set up to consider emergency management in the event of a massive volcanic eruption, or super-eruption.
The recommendation comes in a report timed to coincide with a BBC TV drama that depicts a fictional super-eruption at Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, US.
Experts say such an event would have a colossal impact on a global scale.
A super-eruption is also five to 10 times more likely to happen than an asteroid impact, the report claims.
************
"We don't want to be sensationalist about this, but it's going to happen"
Prof Stephen Self, Open University
**************************
The authors want to highlight the issue, which they feel is being ignored by governments. They emphasise that while catastrophic eruptions of this kind are rare in terms of a human lifetime, they are surprisingly common on a geological scale.
The effects, say the authors, "could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilisation" - putting events such as the Asian tsunami into the shade.
The fallout from a super-eruption could cause a "volcanic winter", devastating global agriculture and causing mass starvation.
High frequency
It would have a similar effect to a 1.5km-diameter space rock striking Earth, they claim.
But while impacts of this type are estimated to occur once every 400-500,000 years, the frequency of equivalent super-eruptions is about once every 100,000 years.
"These are minimum estimates. Super-eruptions could be even more frequent; we just don't know," said Professor Stephen Self, a geologist at the Open University in Milton Keynes and a member of the working group that produced the report.
"We still have a lot of unassessed regions of the world. The US is the place where we see the largest number of super-eruptions. But that may be because more work has been done there."
One past super-eruption struck at Toba in Sumatra 74,000 years ago and is thought by some to have driven the human race to the edge of extinction. Signs from DNA suggest human numbers could have dropped to about 10,000, probably as a result of the effects of climate change.
The TV drama, called Supervolcano, sticks closely to scientific understanding of these events.
The plot revolves around a series of violent eruptions at Yellowstone in Wyoming that send thousands of cubic metres of rock, gas and ash spiralling up in cloud that rains down over three-quarters of the United States.
Contingency plans
Highways become blocked with cars as millions flee the unfolding disaster, and as the chain of eruptions unzips Yellowstone's volcanic crater, hundreds of thousands are killed as the ash swamps whole towns and cities.
America's food-producing regions are devastated, communications are knocked out and planes are forced out of the sky.
Sulphuric acid droplets form in the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight, and causing global temperatures to plummet.
Professor Stephen Sparks, of Bristol University, an author on the new report, said civil contingency plans would need to be similar to those for a nuclear war.
"You would need contingencies for food and shelter. But you would need to put a serious amount of resources into any effort to cope with an event on this scale, so it poses a dilemma," he said.
The volcanic winter resulting from a super-eruption could last several years or decades, depending on the scale of an eruption, and according to recent computer models, could cause cooling on a global scale of 5-10C.
Damage limitation
Ailsa Orr, producer of Supervolcano, said that when the programme team presented the scenario to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the agency admitted it had given little thought to such an event happening on American soil.
"We don't want to be sensationalist about this, but it's going to happen. We just can't say exactly when," said Professor Self.
"But we have just had a natural disaster affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Now is the time to be thinking about this."
Yellowstone is the largest volcanic system in North America. The area's cauldrons of bubbling mud and roaring geysers attract nearly three million visitors each year.
It was an obvious choice for the programme makers as the site of their super-eruption because of its location on a highly populated continent and because it has already had three of these events, which have occurred roughly 600,000 years apart from each other.
The crater from the last super-eruption, 640,000 years ago, is large enough to fit Tokyo - the world's biggest city - inside it.
The report, released by The Geological Society in the UK, identifies at least 31 sites where super-eruptions have occurred in the past. They include Lake Taupo in New Zealand and the Phlegrean Fields near Naples, Italy.
********************
These volcanoes happen a LOT and kill a LOT of people. Christians and Non-Christians. Just like tsunamis.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/9/2005 11:21 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 3/9/2005 12:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Meph,
I watched a show on the Discovery Channel a few years ago that discussed Yellowstone, Toba, supervolcanoes, the near extinction of the human race, etc. It was quite sobering, to say the least. Such an event would certainly qualify in my book as apocalyptic.
John
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
JohnE
http://revivaltheology.net | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 3/9/2005 7:20 PM (GMT -6) | | HEy, I was serious little devil man,
look:
selah Meph, you're great!! You walked right into that one though.... I have to admit I was hoping you'd respond the way you did (though I didn't expect you to!) and quoting scripture to back up your comments was a bonus. You made this topic more interesting to me than it was. Really, isn't it strange that we don't grow in faith through reading about events like these? IF there's anywhere GB and I part, it's somewhere in this area. (maybe we don't part, you tell me) I'm not even sure how to put it to words exactly, but it has something to do with aligning the variables in a chaotic warfilled world in such a way that we still experience ANSWERED prayer AND God as faithful. What are the odds? Further, iif we really consider how many variables there are, what are the chances of experiencing God as faithful CONTINUALLY! (we'd have to walk in a "luck" zone with God ...remember when I brought this up in class?) I'm still puzzled.
See, I got on the boat and now your pushing me off... gee. what a rip. 
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. | | Back to Top | | |
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