"DEAR GOD, YOU SURE DON'T ACT LIKE YOU'RE ALIVE" - Day 11

Day 11 – active

The Bible presents God always as the prime mover. The God who parts the waters of the Red Sea and thunders from Mount Sinai is the One who appears in the world to take the part of the refugee, to defend the defenseless, to come alongside those who suffer and make their cause his own.  –FLEMING RUTLEDGE

Over the past few decades there has been a famine of tragic proportions in some areas of the continent of Africa. Thousands of people have died of malnourishment. Humanitarian aid has arrived from secular and religious groups, but it has been too sporadic to turn the tide in the direction of health. Surprisingly, the governing rulers of the nations in distress have often hampered the benevolent efforts. Possessing the power to expedite delivery of relief to their people, they have placed politics ahead of compassion, blocking the movement of food and medical supplies inland.

Our own national news is occasionally focused on similar examples of individuals in power refusing to use it. The policeman who turns his back on a crime, the mother who chooses to feed her addiction instead of her child, the doctor who turns away a patient because of inability to pay for services, and the athlete who sits out a season due to contract problems all can be grouped together as people with power to act who have made a decision to do otherwise. Rather than arrest the criminal, feed the child, treat the patient, or play the game, they have chosen to remain passive. Though endowed with the power to make a positive difference, they have elected to reserve such power for another day.

For the purpose of our discussion, the examples above reveal a common truth: the powerful must act if their power is to be displayed. Those who choose to withhold their power are none the less powerful than those who use it. The only difference is that the latter have acted and the former have not.

That God is omnipotent we have already surmised. That He is Creator of the universe, its Designer and Organizer, we have likewise asserted. That He is both means that He is the Activity behind the power, a third divine attribute that can be gleaned from the Argument from Design. If God never acted, our world would never have been created. Its very existence means that He must have unleashed His power in creative activity, bringing the universe into existence and giving it sustaining energy.

I am aware of the claim by deists that God long ago created the world, wound it up as one would wind a clock, then let it run its course, refusing to assert His power thereafter. They claim that God today is distant, passive, uninvolved. Even these deists, however, believe that the universe came into existence because God “in the beginning” acted on the power He possessed. And while they claim that He once and for all “wound up” our world, they must agree with me that His creative power and activity remain on display today. They must admit that the universal “clock” still ticks. 

To sum up Days 9-11, God is the Active Omnipotent Creator. He has acted via His power to create the universe.

Daily Quotation

Fleming Rutledge, Help My Unbelief (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), 17,19.