“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.” — Isaiah 55:8–9
I’ve got a lot of questions. The creator being outside of time raises more than a few troubling issues. If truth itself created the universe, why is there evil? What happens to free will if God sees the future? What happens to responsibility?
Woah, slow down there, partner. We gotta take these one at a time. It’s good that you have a lot of questions. You just listed three of the classics. Let’s start with the first one—why is there evil? This classic version is worded something like, “If God is good and all powerful, why do bad things happen?”
Yeah, that sounds about right. This universe definitely doesn’t look like something an all-powerful, all-knowing, good God would create. Go ahead; make sense out of that one.
Excellent. And, remember, a God with dominion over time has every imaginable reset-rewind power. He can undo any mistake, and it never even happened.
Take a moment to ponder how powerful this is. Give me dominion over time and a Swiss army knife, and I can defeat every army that ever marched. When you have dominion over time, you can really sneak up on people.
J.B. Phillips wrote a popular book titled, “Your God Is Too Small.” It’s a wondrous contribution to the body of Christian literature, but that title can be misunderstood. Phillips wasn’t referring to physical size.
Rather, he explains how we imagine a God based on our preconceived notions. This “God in a box” is vastly inferior to the real thing.
This is part of why idols are so wrong. Nothing we can make out of created things could even begin to represent the truth.
So, we are, again, humbled by our inability to conceive of God.
So what? You haven’t answered the question.
Yeah, and I’m not done making it worse either. This God, whose powers exceed our imagination, didn’t just create a universe that’s tough on us; He created a universe that’s tough on Him.
The whole Christian bit about incarnation and crucifixion cannot be God fixing a mistake. It has to have been the plan from the get-go.
Then what in tarnation is He up to?
The short answer is—His glory.
Obviously that needs explaining. How could this mess possibly glorify its creator?
Good question, and the answer isn’t simple. To even begin to think about this, you have to try to think like the creator.
Oh, sure. That should be easy—not.
Stay with me here. Consider what it means to create. Let’s say I make a chair out of wood. Why? What’s the purpose? How might that chair glorify me?
By being a good chair, but this universe is flawed.
Hang on. What makes a chair good?
If it’s comfortable—and, I suppose, sturdy.
Yeah, but what about the wood? Does it matter how I treat the wood. Do I need to be nice to the wood?
No. What’s your point?
The purpose of the chair is external to the chair itself. The chair is for the user. You don’t make a chair out of wood for the wood’s sake. The chair is for sitting on and whether it’s good or not depends on how it sits. As they say, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
This applies to anything you make. Its purpose is external. When we wonder how this universe might glorify God, we have to look outside the universe itself.
How can we do that? Are we stuck again?
No, we’re not totally stuck. But before I get into how we might be able to expand our perspective, let’s be clear that the problems we see with this universe, from our perspective inside the universe, are not the key to whether it glorifies God.
Okay, I see that. But you’ve still got nothing on the positive side. How can this universe glorify God?
Well, it turns out that there’s a magnificent clue in the Bible.
That’s the next lesson. See you tomorrow.
