I don’t normally comment on John Loftus anymore. Every few
weeks I glance at DC. It’s always a rehash of stuff that Loftus has said 50
times before.
Since, however, a recent post of his has generated
controversy among his fellow infidels, I’ll venture a comment. He said:
When I was in the throes of doubt in the early 90's I bought nearly a dozen poster pictures of galaxies, stars, various nebula, and the solar system itself. I hung them on the walls of my office. I was astounded by our universe and it's massive size. I read a few astronomy books too. Science tells us so much about our universe it was quite surprising as well.I remember thinking to myself how God could be omnipresent in such a universe, how he could be a personal agent without a center for his personality in it, how he could be omniscient knowing what was going on at the far reaches of it, and how he could be omnipotent such that he could create and maintain it. I also wondered how he could care about life on this pale blue dot of ours that exists on one spiral arm in the Milky Way galaxy. What kind of God could exist given this universe? How could he interact with parts of it several billions of light years away when a light year is a measurement of both time and distance?
Notice that his operating assumption involves a physical
concept of God, as if he thought “omnipresence” meant God was like an eye drop
of ink dispersed in water. The problem is how God can stretch himself to reach
the far-flung reaches of the universe. Is there enough God stuff to go around?
Enough God particles per billion to close the gap?
Even as a nominal Christian pastor and apologist, Loftus was
operating with a very crude, materialistic, quasi-heathen conception of God.
Unfortunately true. :(
ReplyDeleteI thought he was quitting some time ago.
ReplyDeleteIf one only starts with autonomous man (Christian or otherwise) he will never understand anything larger than himself. We are time-space bound creatures and he is the distinct Creator. Loft-y-us is starting in the opposite place than the ancient church (who faced all kinds of strange naturalistic mythologies).
ReplyDelete"Charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith" (I Timothy 1:3-4).
Their (i.e., the Ancient Church's) starting point with the Greeks around them was "I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth..."
"This I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." (Acts 17:23-25).
In the Lamb