Dear People                       Whom God Loves,

January 17, 2010

Dear People Whom God Loves,

GOD'S INTERACTION WITH THE WORLD

This is the first in a series of columns based on the book of the same title by John Polkinghorne. He is a professional scientist. Later in life, he became an Anglican priest interested in theology. He is knowledgeable but not a professional theologian. He is neither a conservative or liberal theologian. He calls science and theology cousins in the search for truth.

The basic insights are his. They are filtered by my own thoughts. I, not he, bear the responsibility for what these columns say. This is a way of helping us to get a further insight into the Incarnation that we celebrate every Christmas.

This is the way I frame the discussion:

1) This God of the Bible interacts actively with this world. The word theism refers to such an image of God. Of course, as we learn more of what the universe is like through science, we will adjust our understanding of the manner of this interaction. As Christians, we believe that God is active in our world.

2) A vastly different image of God is that of a remote powerful being who set the world in motion and then left it on its own. A metaphor commonly used is that of a watchmaker who makes a watch, winds it up, and lets it go and is not connected to it anymore. The word Deism refers to this image of God. As an aside, our nation is not a Christian nation. Our founders were mostly Deists and drew much of their thinking from this image.

More next time.

Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay

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