He makes a few subtle leaps to make specific points he already believes in. Does God exert direct control over everything? No. Does he exert control over everything? Yes. In the indirect sense. This is the problem - our author compares God to a parent(rightly so), in this way -
Yet responsible parents are willing to take the risk and endure the pain of watching their children make bad decisions. There will be times when the parents weep as they watch their children do things that they know will have disastrous consequences.Does God do this? Yes. But he has indirect control over what happens, because "Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of your father
( ... )
We are not puppets. We are creatures with free will. That fact alone necessitates a limited God.
That is to say, that if God allows other creatures to have a free will, that will is necessarily apart from his. It's not. Jesus' prayer was one that the church would be one with him as he and the father are one. And if two do not agree, how can they walk together?
Our will becomes one with him in eternity - the author is right in that for a short time, God has allowed himself to be limited. That doesn't mean that God isn't in control. It means he has limited himself to indirect control rather than direct.
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Yet responsible parents are willing to take the risk and endure the pain of watching their children make bad decisions. There will be times when the parents weep as they watch their children do things that they know will have disastrous consequences.Does God do this? Yes. But he has indirect control over what happens, because "Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of your father ( ... )
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That is to say, that if God allows other creatures to have a free will, that will is necessarily apart from his. It's not. Jesus' prayer was one that the church would be one with him as he and the father are one. And if two do not agree, how can they walk together?
Our will becomes one with him in eternity - the author is right in that for a short time, God has allowed himself to be limited. That doesn't mean that God isn't in control. It means he has limited himself to indirect control rather than direct.
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