Theological Journal - May 8: Why God is Not in Control - And It's a Good Thing Too! (8)

I read this yesterday after posting here on fixed goals and open routes. Adam Johnson in Atonement: A Guide for the Perplexed deepens that insight and the pathos attending it:


“By creating free and rational creatures out of nothing, God bound himself to his creation, vesting himself fully (TD, 174) in this enterprise, that his creatures might reflect his glory through knowledge and worship. But failure in the creative project, failure on the part of the creature’s understanding and reverence, sully the glory of God, in addition to its consequences for the creature. What does it mean for God to have free and rational creatures failing to know and delight in him? This failure transcends

disappointment, or jealousy. If God has bound his purpose to himself and his purpose is failing, then God is failing; our failure to know and worship God is for God to fail to be who he has set out to be, to fail to be worshipped by us. This is why God was so concerned about the reaction of the Egyptians (Ex. 32:12), and why the problem of our misdirected worship (Rom. 1:25) is first and foremost the Creator God’s concern: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The failure of the creature is the failure of the Creator whose creature this is.” 

That puts things in a different light, doesn’t it?

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