Post by Lee on Jul 4, 2014 0:58:38 GMT
GOD “WONDERING.”—J. B.—How are we to understand the Deity “wondering” at the absence of a Saviour (Isa. 59:16; 63:5). Does it not seem inconsistent with the attribute of omniscience?
ANSWER.—It is not possible for us to conceive the mental methods and operations of the Deity. We can only learn them in manifestation as we learn the ways of nature. The metaphysicians have given us a mechanical theory of omniscience and some other things which creates needless difficulties in the way of receiving what we so learn. As a matter of fact, there are two states or aspects of things in what we might call the divine carrying on of the universe—the discrimination of which, one from the other, leaves the way clear for all the facts—two lines of rails, as we might say, and no collisions.
The one is the machinery he has set a going which has power of automatic action without the interposition of His will—such as the germinating power of seed. Keep the corn in the sack, and there is no further crop; put it in the field, and it sprouts and brings other corn. The sprouting is the automatic result of the conditions, and not of the will of God acting specifically. A thousand such things will suggest themselves.
—The other department consist of what God may purpose and what requires the interposition of His direct organising will before it will or can come to pass—such as the opening of the Red Sea or the resurrection of Christ, or, finally, the glorification of the redeemed upon earth. Between these two departments of Divine operation, there is such a radical difference that there is scope for Divine surprise in the one and none in the other. There can be no “wondering” as to a state of things he has expressly contrived, any more than a man wonders at the carrying out of a programme he has arranged. But in the evolution of the mechanical automisms He has established, it may be quite otherwise. He has placed upon the earth a race of rational beings who mechanically propagate themselves, and whose activities and developments are in a measure independent of His will. He may reasonably expect them to act in a certain line, and they may take quite another, so causing “wonder.” The fact that God takes pleasure in certain kinds of men and their ways, and experiences pain and anger at others, is a proof that His relation to the universe is not of the mechanical order supposed by the metaphysicians. The pleasure which He takes in His works would scarcely be conceivably possible if every automatically-working detail were foreseen in the sense they have imagined. But there, we must call a halt.
1894 Christadelphian, 31(electronic ed.), 390–391.
ANSWER.—It is not possible for us to conceive the mental methods and operations of the Deity. We can only learn them in manifestation as we learn the ways of nature. The metaphysicians have given us a mechanical theory of omniscience and some other things which creates needless difficulties in the way of receiving what we so learn. As a matter of fact, there are two states or aspects of things in what we might call the divine carrying on of the universe—the discrimination of which, one from the other, leaves the way clear for all the facts—two lines of rails, as we might say, and no collisions.
The one is the machinery he has set a going which has power of automatic action without the interposition of His will—such as the germinating power of seed. Keep the corn in the sack, and there is no further crop; put it in the field, and it sprouts and brings other corn. The sprouting is the automatic result of the conditions, and not of the will of God acting specifically. A thousand such things will suggest themselves.
—The other department consist of what God may purpose and what requires the interposition of His direct organising will before it will or can come to pass—such as the opening of the Red Sea or the resurrection of Christ, or, finally, the glorification of the redeemed upon earth. Between these two departments of Divine operation, there is such a radical difference that there is scope for Divine surprise in the one and none in the other. There can be no “wondering” as to a state of things he has expressly contrived, any more than a man wonders at the carrying out of a programme he has arranged. But in the evolution of the mechanical automisms He has established, it may be quite otherwise. He has placed upon the earth a race of rational beings who mechanically propagate themselves, and whose activities and developments are in a measure independent of His will. He may reasonably expect them to act in a certain line, and they may take quite another, so causing “wonder.” The fact that God takes pleasure in certain kinds of men and their ways, and experiences pain and anger at others, is a proof that His relation to the universe is not of the mechanical order supposed by the metaphysicians. The pleasure which He takes in His works would scarcely be conceivably possible if every automatically-working detail were foreseen in the sense they have imagined. But there, we must call a halt.
1894 Christadelphian, 31(electronic ed.), 390–391.