The Parachute Of Paradox

Men and the games that they play. I say men because I’m dealing with a time 2,000 years ago when patriarchy was running wild, especially when it came to religious games. When one reads some of the things attributed to Paul (he has to be rolling over in his spiritual realm) that he’s accused of saying about women, one has to shake their head in amazement. But there are many other things that we humanoids have come up with that are of equal or greater amazement.

Unless you believe that the New Testament fell out of the skies or came from the “pen of God“, you have to wonder how and where we’ve come up with so many facts or concepts about God that’s really impossible to know. Well, part of the answer is that the New Testament came from the Greco-Roman community, thinking, and logic.

So many of the theological concepts that people hold dear today do NOT come from the Bible but mans LOGIC (and I’m being kind with that last word).

When concepts like the ABSOLUTE FOREKNOWLEDGE and or FUTURE DETERMINISM (can you say predestination?) gets thrown into a religious conversation and one begins to ask, “How does that work in regards to the FREE WILL on man?”, the usual answer is that it’s a MYSTERY. Or, becoming a bit more intellectual sounding, one writes it off as a PARADOX. There it is folks, the old paradox parachute that allows us to slowly and comfortably settle back down to reality without having to answer the question(s).

Example!

God apparently appoints Saul as King though hesitantly and not his choice at the time. He offers Saul promises (knowing that he would fail?). ABSOLUTE (and that’s a defining and critical word) foreknowledge says that God knows David is waiting in the wings. So, did God DIRECTLY get involved in creating a scenario that would result in the destruction of Saul? Isn’t Saul’s failure here a necessary prerequisite to David’s eventual enthronement?

Is free will just an illusion? Was there no redemptive purpose for Saul?

I know the answer! It’s just one of those MYSTERIES of life and a PARADOX. What did we do before we came up with that word and concept? And that my friend is the topic of my message tonight (which you an listen to on the podcast sometime this weekend.