Characterization of God.

[bigsplit]

I am intersted in peoples opinion on this.

YEC - God is a Magician....he just snaps his fingers and its there.

OEC - God is a Magician and a Scientist, he snaps his fingers at different times and makes things happen.

TE - God is a Scientist and his work can be understood through science.

This is how I view the way these groups characterize God, with several variations within each discipline. I think furthermore it shows a maturation process from YEC - OEC -TE, I know this is certainly how I progressed in my beliefs. I went agnostic somewhere between YEC and OEC and recovered through a wise man's lesson on the nature of faith. I was just wondering if anyone else traveled this same path and if others see this as a progression of maturing faith?

I also wonder if more TEs must be careful when debating with YECs and OECs, because the maturation process is very dangerous and many of them ignore the command "to seek and ye shall find". TE is a very sophisticated form of faith that is itself incomplete. If a person does not have a strong grasp of science, literature and scripture, it is almost impossible to teach.

[Jack777]

I understand what you are saying. I would not agree with any of those characterizations, but the question is very important to me. I think as you suggest that making decisions about these things is important to some people.

One thing I would say is that Jesus said to seek the Kingdom of God first and His Righteousness first...then all these things will be given to us.

It is accepting God's wisdom, His understanding, His knowledge before any of the questions posed can begin to be answered. He will characterize Himself to you. He will reveal Himself to you.

[George Murphy]

I am intersted in peoples opinion on this.

YEC - God is a Magician....he just snaps his fingers and its there.

OEC - God is a Magician and a Scientist, he snaps his fingers at different times and makes things happen.

TE - God is a Scientist and his work can be understood through science.
God's work in creation can be understood through science, but describing God as a "Scientist" makes it sound as if God's actions are on the same ontological level as natural processes. But divine action isn't just one class of actions among all the processes that take place. Instead, God acts with and through all of the natural processes that happen in the world. In scholastic language, God is the primary cause who acts through creatures as secondary causes.

Put it another way: If natural processes are the "instruments" with which God works, then science studies those instruments but not the Worker who makes use of them. Those processes thus hide God from our direct observation even as God makes use of them. (In Luther's phrase they are "masks of God.")

& the fact that God is hidden even as he acts in the world points to a deeper characterization of God. His fullest revelation is in the cross of Christ, which is paradoxically where God is also most hidden - because a man dying on a cross is totally unlike what we expect God to be.

Shalom,
George