tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2432110196880601678.post8890997920699643..comments2023-10-20T01:31:31.589-07:00Comments on Sincerity & Sarcasm: Is God really Omnipresent?Matt Brennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00008937435490936540noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2432110196880601678.post-12393125684517619012018-10-20T08:47:49.709-07:002018-10-20T08:47:49.709-07:00To be clear, I'm not saying that we can't ...To be clear, I'm not saying that we can't find truth in poetry. I'm simply saying it's of a different nature, less precise. If I say that I'm as hungry as a horse, everyone knows I'm not really implying that I know the degree of a horse's hunger, but you can clearly infer that I am very hungry.<br /><br />Also, I'm not offering free will as a proof - it's just part of my speculation. My main point is that I don't find convincing evidence for omnipresence provided by the Bible.Matt Brennanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00008937435490936540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2432110196880601678.post-1321804739891114282018-10-20T08:23:48.150-07:002018-10-20T08:23:48.150-07:00Seems this is dangerous "play" with the ...Seems this is dangerous "play" with the character of God...besides the possible errors in other doctrines. The premise that God is not omnipresent because of free will may be flawed. Consider the possibility that we don't have free will. We were given free will in creation, but we lost it when sin came into the world. Now we are bound to sin (both slaves to it and must do it). We cannot free ourselves. We cannot choose God. He chooses us. He comes to us. He plucks us out of death. And then we must deal with the paradoxes. Calvinist believe grace cannot be resisted. I do not (hence, I am not a Calvinist). While I cannot choose God, I do resist God. That is the nature into which I am born. In some mysterious paradox, God chose me. In some mysterious paradox the unsaved are not so because God did not choose them. (Again, I am not Calvinist. Pure Calvinists believe God chooses some and God damns some. I am also not Arminian believing that I can in some way choose God thereby helping God with my salvation.) My will is bound until it is set free by God, and even then it is not set free to choose God but to accept His gifts. So then, if we in reality do not have free will (except to decide those things in our temporal life), free will cannot be an argument against the omnipresence of God. The other premise, that of theology from poetry, seems weak, also. To suggest we can't find truth in poetry just because poetry is filled with figurative language is to suggest we are not able to distinguish figurative language from that which is not. Granted, this is part of the joy of language study, but then we would have to say we cannot find truth in prose either since there is also figurative language in prose. And thanks for the challenge. You do raise interesting questions worth exploring. Christian Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15411446601217761137noreply@blogger.com