God unfolds |
According to the standard theology of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. I find these philosophy-based formulations of God to be incoherent, having unintended (and ignored) side effects.
For example, regarding omnipotence: God is all-powerful and can do anything. He is therefore capable of ending slavery, for example, but he doesn't do it.
But since God is both omnipotent and loving, he should not allow human suffering. (It is unloving to have the power to help someone in need, but to not do it.) So therefore, you have to choose between God being omnipotent and God being loving.
I choose "God is love".
So, what kind of theology of a good loving God is possible in which he does allow pain, suffering, death, and evil, but doesn't intervene to correct these problems?
Also, a side-effect of God as omnipresent and omnipotent is: since he is present everywhere and is all-powerful, he must be involved with every tiniest detail of everything. But why would God even want to micromanage his creation, and how does he do this without violating our free-will?
. . . . .
I propose another way of viewing God's nature and his interaction with his creation and the creatures he created.
My solution: God unfolds along with the events of the creation, all the while interacting with the souls of those who inhabit it.
Christians seem unaware of this kind of conception of God. But it perfectly matches the Bible:
The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. (Genesis 6:6)
So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (Exodus 32:14)
When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it. (Jonah 3:10)
And the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel. (1 Samuel 15:35b)
In these verses above, God changes his plan and purpose based on the actions of people. It makes no sense to interpret these as meaning that God foresaw that he would change his plans because he foresaw the actions people would take.
In Genesis 18, God planned to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham convinced him to do this conditionally.
Another possible objection: that a God who unfolds doesn't interact with humans at all.
But we do interact with God often, for example, during our experiences of awe, and during our recognition of things as being good and beautiful. These appear at moments when our individual conscious experience merges temporarily into God's sublime divine nature.
God must be something like this.