Monday, June 8, 2009

Quotes from The Doctrine of God

A few quotes from the chapters Human Responsibility and Freedom and The Problem of Evil:
  • To feel responsible is to affirm for ourselves the purpose for which God has made us. To feel significant is to recognize that God has give each of us an important role in history, and that he has arranged everything in the universe to be consistent with that role. (152)
  • So when God "permits" creatures to do things contrary to his will, it is because he intends for them to do those things. This is the same as if he explicitly brought those things to pass. (154)
  • Quoting Calvin in Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God: But how it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man's future was without God being implicated as associate in the fault as the author and approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance. (177)
  • Permission, then, is a form of ordination, a form a causation. (178)
  • The transcendence of God plays a significant role in biblical responses to the problem of evil. Because God is who he is, the covenant Lord, he is not required to defend himself against charges of injustice. He is the judge, not we...God is not subject to the ignorant evaluations of his creatures. (180-1)

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