Meditation 1156
The theology that makes no sense.
by: John Tyrrell
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“God knew before the beginning of time that we would face this time.” -- Wendy Alec
I really don't understand the theology of some some Christians. Well probably it would be more correct to say I don't understand the theology of any Christians, but my point is that the theology of some Christians is more incomprehensible to me than the theology of others.
There's a simple reason: The theology makes absolutely no sense.
The opening quotation from a Wendy Alec,* part owner of God TV, one of the world's leading Christian broadcasting networks, was made during a program in which she advised viewers that her husband had left her for another woman. Essentially she's saying her god knew this would happen before he created the universe, the Earth, Heaven, and everything.
There's two versions of the omniscient god - the one who knows everything as it happens (and so can be surprised), and the one that knows everything including the past, present and future and always has. The former one seems more like the one in the Old Testament, while the latter - well, if anything, he's the one featured in Revelation who is going to kill most of us in accordance with his foreknowledge.
And that latter one the god that Wendy Alec believes in - the god that knew from before the beginning of time that her husband was going to leave her.
And he did absolutely nothing about it!
He knew it at every step of creation as described in Genesis 1 - and most of the steps are followed by a statement that God saw that it was good - good in spite of the fact that eventually Rory Alec would walk out on poor Wendy. And to make the point totally clear, in in the concluding verse of Genesis 1, we read "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."
Now you might think that if God created everything knowing this tragic event would happen to Wendy Alec, he might have made some minor change in creation to prevent it. And you might think that as God failed to make what would surely be a minor adjustment, Wendy Alec would consequently blame God.
But no. She blamed the other woman calling her a Jezebel. She blamed Satan. And she said: "The princes of hell designed a perfect strategy through that seductive Jezebel spirit. It was a real strategic attack against his mind.”
It's that cunning plan by the princes of hell that is the cause of her heartbreak.
But Satan and the princes of hell didn't come along until after creation started. There couldn't be a Fall until after Heaven was created in Genesis 1:8.
So if God knew beforehand that Satan and the princes of hell were going to come up with their cunning plan, then God knowingly arranged things so they would come into existence and make that plan. It was God's plan from before the beginning of time, not theirs. God could have done things differently if he wanted it to be different.
Christians such as Wendy Alec like to place the problem of evil firmly on Adam and Eve, and their eating of the forbidden fruit. Because of their sin, evil entered the world - eventually leading to Rory Alec abandoning his wife.
But their God supposedly knew this would all happen before he started - still and he went ahead and made the universe and everything in such a way that events would inevitably unfold that way. And as he made it, he saw that it was good. For God, evil built into the universe from the very beginning was very good.
When you give your god the degree of omniscience that Wendy Alec gives her god, then there is no escaping his full responsibility for everything that happens - good or evil. If the god knew from the beginning everything that would happen as a result of his actions, then god is solely responsible. He knowingly set it in motion.
(Unless perhaps that god is no more than a mindless automaton running a fixed program with no decision points to change direction. And then you have to ask, "Who wrote the program?")
But as it stands, a creator god with omnipotence and total omniscience, past present and future, an omniscience which preceded creation, is totally responsible. Blaming Adam and Eve, blaming Satan, blaming the princes of hell, blaming Jezebel - all of whom were the preordained outcome of creation - makes no sense.
Throw away the incomprehensible theology - and it might be possible for Wendy Alec to look at the two people in the marriage - the two she seems to hold entirely blameless - for the cause of the marriage breakdown.
Note:
* I don't particularly want to pick on this woman, and I sympathize with the difficulty of dealing publicly with a marital breakdown. But I am criticizing her religious beliefs - which she is in the business of selling to her viewers. That makes those views fair game.
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