Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

This past autumn, I was cutting down annual plants which had finished producing and placing them on top of the soil to eventually decompose.  I was rejoicing that this decomposition process would improve the soil. I thought to myself "Decomposition into existing soil improves it so that it is much better than soil that has never been used."  This struck a memory for me of a quote from C.S. Lewis: "For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been..." - C.S. Lewis, Miracles 1947, in Chapter 14 "The Grand Miracle". In other words, C.S. Lewis believed that man who is redeemed through the death of Jesus is somehow intrinsically better than unfallen man. I found it a bit easier to see this viewpoint using the gardening analogy. It's not a great analogy, but it was concrete enough to help me. Soil that has never been used is never going to be as good ...

On my third time reading the Bible all the way through, I noticed that there is some description of where the Garden of Eden was located. Due to the fact that Adam and Eve were sent away from the Garden of Eden, it's not something we would be able to find if we went looking for it. However, it's certainly interesting to find out generally where it was located. Let's examine what the Bible has to say about this: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx ...

One beautiful day this summer, I was walking on a trail with my oldest son (aged 5).  It was so great to be outside and see the beautiful trees and flowers. This captivating sight led me to pose the question: "What does our world tell us about our Creator?"  First, to clarify, I'm posing this question from the believer's point of view.  I've already written a post saying that merely observing our surroundings will not, on its own, tell us whether or not we have a Creator .  However, if there is a Creator, then there is something we can infer about this Creator by observing our surroundings: Our Creator sees beauty and delight in non-uniformity, at least in the natural world. However, it is difficult for us to know which things appear are as the Creator originally wanted them, and which are a consequence of the Fall. Let's expand on these two points: 1. Our Creator sees beauty and delight in non-uniformity Trees have irregular shaped branc...

Christians believe that this earth (and outer space) are created by God.  In addition to this universe we have managed to detect using physical measurements, there is another Universe, which contains basically everything else that isn't here, such as angels and Heaven.  Our universe is nested within the other Universe. We are a universe within a Universe.  This is not a surprise to Christians, but some atheists find it hard to believe. The difference between the universes: Our universe is enemy-occupied territory (Satan has considerable, but still limited, power on Earth).  Our universe is ephemeral and will not last forever (a really long time, but not forever).  In contrast, the outer Universe is permanent and out there somewhere in it there is a big battle between various heavenly beings over each of our souls (yes, a battle is being fought over us, strange as it may seem).   Some secular themed examples of the concept: This concept of a univ...

I am now on my second time around reading the Bible from beginning to end.  I was wondering if I would discover new things that I didn't notice the first time.  This was indeed the case! This time around, the first thing I noticed was that Adam and Eve appeared to be in different states before and after the fall, and I spent some time thinking about this. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were in a more innocent state than we know today: Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. Genesis 2:25 However, Adam and Eve were capable of understanding directions and of choosing to obey or disobey.  In fact, the serpent was able to tempt Eve into eating the fruit of the tree.  Eve knew that this was against God's command: The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" Genesis 3: 2...

We live in a post-Fall existence.  We therefore cannot truly imagine what the Garden of Eden must have looked like before the Fall.  However, it must have been a beautiful, comfortable, and low-maintenance place to live.  There were no weeds or thistles, no poisonous plants.  Tending to the plants and obtaining nutrition from these plants was a straightforward business. Adam and Eve had never seen a weed or an unwanted, undesirable plant in their lives. All the plants there were beautiful and/or useful: The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2: 9 Unlike Adam and Eve at that point, we on the other hand, are all too familiar with  weeds.  They spring up much faster than the plants we are trying to cultivate, and will choke their growth and spread their seed quickly. ...

With all the bad things happening in the world, plenty of people find themselves drawn to ask why God created a Universe that can become so chaotic (for example, where volcanos or tsunamis can happen). The answer to that is due to the consequences of Adam and Eve disobeying God and losing the Garden of Eden: To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17-19 Thus, some of the difficulties of nature that we have to deal with (such as thorns, thistles, weeds) are a direct result of Adam and Eve disobeying God and therefore having...

One of the more difficult theological questions is: Why did God make Adam and Eve knowing that they would fall? Reading the Bible helped me get a little more information on God and on how free will was really important to Him (click here for my earlier post on that topic). But, this is where it got tricky. If God knows everything, then why did he make Adam and Eve, knowing that they would lead themselves into temptation at great cost to them and to the rest of humanity? C.S. Lewis's theological writings offer an excellent perspective on this. He believes that man redeemed through the death of Jesus is somehow intrinsically better than unfallen man . "For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity would have been..." - C.S. Lewis, Miracles 1947, in Chapter 14 "The Grand Miracle". This viewpoint falls in line with two Biblical readings: So He told them this parabl...