The Force be with you. Is God personal?

There are really only two possible choices for origins. Either the universe created itself or it didn't. Now you have every right to believe that the Universe created itself, that kind of thing is what freedom of choice is all about.  But if you do so believe, please don't ridicule me for believing that it didn't. The point is, as I pointed out in my early blog entries,  your position is every bit as much a  faith position as is mine. It is of course a different faith position.

If you choose (and in the end it is a choice) to believe that the universe did not create itself, then you are in fact positing some form of god. But at this point, the god you choose, could still be a long way from the God of the Hebrew Christian Scriptures. But lets take one step closer. Once we have come to the place where we choose to believe that there is some form of creator, the next question is surly is "Is he/she/it  personal or impersonal"? Francis Schaeffer has an illustration that I want to share with you.

Suppose that you were asked to determine the source of two lakes in adjacent valleys,  and you saw that the level was dropping in one, and rising in the other. If the level of the that was dropping was higher than the one that was rising, it would make sense to ask if the one in which the level was dropping was draining into the other one.  However if the level of the water continued to rise after they had reached the same level, you would surely dismiss this theory.

So the question to ask next is “Is mankind personal?” Modern man (and woman) without a Bible is is inclined to answer no. I believe this is because he/she knows (but will not admit) that this is a loaded question. I have to ask myself if this is not simply denial. The point is that if we are personal, then surely the source of who we are is personal too.  We may intellectually say (and many do) that we are nothing more than a collection of molecules, but we cannot live meaningful lives that way. And this is one of the problems of our modern society, we no longer know who we are. And because we no longer know who we are, we try to find ourselves in what we do, in success, in the abundance of our possessions, in sex, in drugs and the like. Does it work?  You tell me!

I remember years ago now, taking to a young man who was studding Nietzsche, and finding himself lost in the process. I suggested we went to my office to pray. “Its come to this God”, he prayed, “You are my last hope”. 'But what a hope' I interjected, and the Lord used that thought to turn him round. So often God is our last resource, but what a resource! Is Christianity a crutch? My own experience is that  He is far more like a brand new pair of legs! I see a lot of limpers out there!