Does God have a future?

[Ron Davis]

Comments anyone?

http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060118/OPINIONS/601180308/1006/OPINIONS

[Sharon Isley]

God is God...and He is eternal. The concept of who He is and what He is like may shift, but that is a problem with humanity's ability to grasp who He really is.

[Mark Metcalfe]

Revelation 4:8

And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

[Mark Metcalfe]

The author of the posted article concludes: Yes, "God" has a future — although the God we serve today may well not have a future. Only so long as a god has believers will he influence society.

What is true about his article is that everyone has an idea about God,
and that some ideas are "new".

What is not true about his article is whether our ideas about God
throughout History have change who God is or rather that we simply
have a particular perspective of Him.

If we start by allowing God to be Who He is (I AM that I AM), and by that
allow God to reveal Himself to us, then perhaps we can have the proper
perspective. God has a future because God IS. Our ideas about God are
what gets tested over the centuries.

Mark

Reminds me of the blind men and the elephant illustration. Ever hear it?

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

For example, the Protestant God did not exist before the 16th century. He was conceived and born along with Protestantism. The Roman Catholic God was very different — and still is.

That's a pretty big statement to make with absolutely nothing to back it.

[Billy Cox]

I can just imagine the writer of the article responding that 'dead' religions of the past had their own sacred texts affirming that their 'god' was eternal...and yet those religions are dead nevertheless. So...quoting the Bible doesn't refute anything the writer said.

There, I said it.

The primary weakness of the writer's argument is that he equates god with religion. For example, he said that "the Protestant God" has only existed since the 16th century. By this rationale, the God of Abraham didn't exist...well, before Abraham came along.

I don't think there is much else to say. If the underlying premise is flawed, then the entire argument falls apart. Ultimately, if God is the Creator, his revelation transcends religious shortcomings.

[Mark Metcalfe]

I can just imagine the writer of the article responding that 'dead' religions of the past had their own sacred texts affirming that their 'god' was eternal...and yet those religions are dead nevertheless. So...quoting the Bible doesn't refute anything the writer said.

Yeah, I know. And I don't care.
Our religion has a sacred text, and we see too little of it these days.

Mark

[Ron Davis]

The author was a member of the Jesus Seminar that went through the gospels and voted on each saying of Jesus. They identified passages that they determined he didn't say, passages that he might have said, and some that he definitely said. They eliminated most of the passages as being made up by the writers.

The curious thing is that he teaches a Sunday School class at a local Baptist church.

In case you missed it he is also Professor of Religious Studies at Missouri State University.

[Billy Cox]

Not all Baptists are Southern (fundamentalist) Baptist.

[Ron Davis]

Not all Baptists are Southern (fundamentalist) Baptist.

This Baptist church happens to be a Southern Baptist.

[Mark Metcalfe]

The author was a member of the Jesus Seminar that went through the gospels and voted on each saying of Jesus. They identified passages that they determined he didn't say, passages that he might have said, and some that he definitely said. They eliminated most of the passages as being made up by the writers.

It hasn't been very long that the Bible was the unquestioned Word of God,
interpreted to us by church priests, and later made available to the common
person. In our Information Age, we now have probably scores of Bible
versions of which many consider adequate to tell the truth of the gospel.
Few are there who still support the King James Version as the best source
for Scriptural integrity. Historians, scholars, and theologians (in this
Information Age) have combined to change in a few years what often
takes decades or centuries of debate about such things.

Are we in the process of invalidating the Bible as an authority of the
gospel? Of the revelation of God to humanity?

Mark

[Ron Davis]

Are we in the process of invalidating the Bible as an authority of the
gospel? Of the revelation of God to humanity?

Mark

Maybe! When I began teaching teenagers over 20 years ago the approach was to teach the Bible. With sufficient knowledge of what the Bible says they would then choose to be obedient or not.

Today when I teach them, the teenagers will challenge what it says. They will openly disagree with what the Bible teaches and even claim at times that the Bible is wrong on a specific point. They aren't challenging my intrepretation. They don't disagree that the Bible takes a specific stand. They just believe at times that the stand is wrong.

This forces me to teach from a different perspective. I can't go into the classroom assuming everyone agrees that the Bible is authoritative. Definitely more challenging.

[Mark Metcalfe]

I cannot tell you how alarmed I am by this, Ron.
(Not you personally, but the very idea that we are inthe process of
invalidating the Bible as an authority.)

God help us.

(P.S. Welcome to the Unitarian Universalists!)

[Hans Deventer]

Today when I teach them, the teenagers will challenge what it says. They will openly disagree with what the Bible teaches and even claim at times that the Bible is wrong on a specific point. They aren't challenging my intrepretation. They don't disagree that the Bible takes a specific stand. They just believe at times that the stand is wrong.

This forces me to teach from a different perspective. I can't go into the classroom assuming everyone agrees that the Bible is authoritative. Definitely more challenging.

That's probably an understatement. :basic03
But thankfully, we don't have to deny that the Bible is wrong in certain points according to our Articles of Faith, and more importantly, our faith is not rooted in the authority of the words of Scripture, but in the Holy Spirit that inspired them and brings them to life again today. That is the crucial process.

I don't believe in the Bible, I believe in the God, revealed in the Bible. That difference may sound subtle but it quite crucial. Ultimately, I'm not living with a book so much as with a living Lord.

[Ron Davis]

But its so much easier to teach that this is what the Bible says, so do it.

[Billy Cox]

Sure... As long as we are pretty sure that we know what it says.

Case in point: "Turn the other cheek" Taken at face value this and some of the other teachings from the Sermon on the Mount comprise the core of 'doormat theology'. Is that really what the Bible means?

[Mark Metcalfe]

Sure... As long as we are pretty sure that we know what it says.

I don't have a problem with this (at all) because it says the Bible does
have authority. Divining what it says is perfectly legitimate.

(Of course, this begs the question as to whether Gutenberg should have
put it in the hands of the masses, since we probably cannot trust the
Bible in the hands of people who take it too literally. :fav03 )

[Doug Ward]

Yes, God has a future, and must have a future if He is to participate with His creation in any meaningful way. I know this is not the best forum, but let me give you 3 quick reasons why God has a future.

1. God perfectly existed in Jesus Christ. If Jesus was fully man then He had a future as we do. He was fully bound in time, and limited by the boundaries of humanity.

2. If God granted humanity free agency then there is no static future, it is something that is being created every moment of the present. The future cannot exist as something to be fully known, or something to merely exist in. Rather God dynamically moves with His people within the future that our free decisions create. Yet within any future, God works to accomplish His purposes. Yet our decisions, obedience, and rebellion do create a future for God.

3. If God does not have a future, then how can we be said to have any future as well, for God has then predetermined our every step and decision. If this is the case, then what we have is not a future, but merely the great unfolding from God's long ago past.

I think we have a future. My past does not condemn my future. I have a God who walks with me into the future. It is not a place that has been predetermined, but it is a place that is blessed by His presence, for God has a future as well.

Doug

[Hans Deventer]

But its so much easier to teach that this is what the Bible says, so do it.

Yes? And? What is the relation between "truth" and "easy"?

[Ron Davis]

How do you respond to his assertion that in other times people were just as convinced and believed just as vervently in Apollo and Zeus as we do today in God?

[Billy Cox]

If God is real, then there will always be people who recognize him and serve him. The religious trimmings may be different, but that doesn't change God.

[Ron Davis]

If God is real, then there will always be people who recognize him and serve him. The religious trimmings may be different, but that doesn't change God.

I agree with what you say but that doesn't answer the question. Beyond my original question you could include modern day Muslims that are just as dedicated and just as convinced that Allah is the one true God and we are infidels as many Christians that are convinced that Muslims are all going to hell.

[Billy Cox]

My response to the question is that God is not religion. A religion is effectively dead when there are no longer followers. That much I can accept.

To say that God would effectively cease to exist without any followers seems to be based on humanistic assumptions that I do not accept.