The ordinary life of a matchbook

This is about freewill, resting on this analogy:
Man is to matchbook as
God is to His Creation.

Imperfect, to be sure, but helpful I hope for a Facebook discussion of free will.

There is a matchbook on my stove. It’s there because the electronic igniter has malfunctioned. It’s a bit less than one quarter used. I know that the matches have been used to light burners (THE PAST.) I know, with a pretty high degree of certainty, that most of the rest of the matches will also be used for lighting burners (THE FUTURE). Suppose I’m standing with a recently extinguished match smoking in my fingers—that’s THE PRESENT. Even allowing for my finitude, I know a lot about the matchbook.
God, infinitely greater than his creation, knows everything that has ever happened (“Nothing is hidden from his sight"), all that is now happening (“I know your rising up and your sitting down”) and all that will (“Where can I go from your presence? If I go to the highest Heaven, You are there. If I hide myself in the depths of the sea, You are there.”) The psalmist is speaking of spatial infinity, but an infinite God also extends unbroken into the Past and the Future. Nothing changes with him. The future is now. A long time ago someone told me about the eternal present, which doubtless got me thinking on this. It certainly wasn’t a Philosophy Professor—I’m not sure I’ve even met one, much less studied with one.

Now, I haven’t touched on free will, but it doesn’t limit God’s infinity. He knows all that has ever happened and ever will. Yet there is clear language describing our choices and our responsibilities. I’d much rather live with that paradox than to impinge in any way on God’s infinity or sovereignty.

A Fathers Day Poem

“Always Looking Back”

by Kirsten, 9th Grade (see note)

“Can we go to the park” the little girl asked.
Not today, today daddy has to work.

Daddy, tomorrow can we go to the park?”
Maybe tomorrow, but today daddy has to work.

So the little girl grew up and parks were the thing of the past.
She no longer went to the movies with her kin,
and holding hands was practically a sin.
Spending time with her parents was now put last.

As she grew, she always wondered whether she would
ever have just one more day in that park.
Just one more chance to share an ice cream in a dish
or be carried because she was just too tired.
To look up at a shooting star and make just one more innocent wish.
Just one more chance to say “I'm It!”
or dance and sing as if no one was watching.
She just wanted one more chance to go back to that time
when the most important thing
was the newest crayons and dimes.
And now she knows she has to let go of the past
because she knows it will never last.

I just re-discovered this while cleaning out a closet! I'm so blessed: I worked from home for all but two years when this adorable little girl wanted to go to the park. We did so, many times, but never enough...

So today,

if your son or daughter wants to go to the park

GO! You'll look back,

and never regret it!

Since I didn't throw away the fundraising letter...

...I thought I would read it. It was interesting, and I think it was from a good group (a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.) The premise was that God did NOT promise prosperity to believers in the New Testament, and it used wars and persecution throughout history as detailed examples

Your latest fund-raising letter seems to assume that the majority of Christians in Hitler's Germany were evangelicals. While hard to measure, this is very unlikely, given the weak response of most of the church to Hitler's takeover of the state church as part of the Nazi movement. A vigorous, but unsuccessful, response was the Theological Declaration of Barmen and the Confessing Church movement. Even among those who did align themselves with the Confessing Church, some were theological liberals like Rudolf Bultmann. He was a legitimate scholar, to be sure, and some of his articles still appear in reference works used by evangelicals and others. But he had no belief in the divine inspiration of Scripture, and treated the New Testament as a human document that he could reshape according to his highly dubious theories of “authenticity.”
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Perhaps your letter should've clearly stated that the persecution of Christians in WWII was at the hand of the German government, not allied bombers. I am concerned that some might read it and confuse those persecuted for their faith and those who died indiscriminately in wars. The WWII bombing raids, tragic as they were, constituted just punishment for a nation, including relatives of my mother, that started a war of conquest, enslavement, and outright murder. Hitler's party never won a majority in a free election, and yet the majority didn't do enough to stop him.
May God bless you in your efforts to spread the Gospel

In response to the Presbytery of Boston's trivializing of the words to "The Church's One Foundation"

1.
This church's new foundation:
the Spirit of Today
A newer "New Creation"
the old one's tired and gray.
Of Heav'n we now are thought-less
the world is our concern
Good deeds and nice behavior
are all we need to learn.
2.
Elect from every nation,
yet of the Truth bereft
The symbols of religion
are all that we've got left.
One rule is all important
the other nine are wrong:
The worship of good feelings
this "freedom" is our song!
3.
We're "free" from that old Bible
we're "free" from all the Law
We're "free" in sexual matters
we're "free" from "Ma and Pa"
Free from our basest passions
our errors and our sin?
We'll hide our disappointment
we've just been "taken in."

You will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.
I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
...but if we gaze intently into the PERFECT LAW that gives FREEDOM...

Jim Wallis of Sojourners and G.K.Chesterton

Jim Wallis quoted G.K.Chesterton in his thought-provoking column on the BP oil spill.
http://blog.sojo.net/2010/06/03/a-time-for-moral-reckoning/#disqus_thread
When asked by a newspaper to describe “what's wrong with the world” Chesterton simply replied: “I am”
We have all fallen short. Have any of us voluntarily minimized our oil consumption and carbon footprint? For the few that may have, you've not done it in a way that significant numbers have emulated. This reminds me of another Chesterton quote:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried”

“Modern” Christians are not re-examining the Ten Commandments to understand them more deeply. Instead, they know exactly what they say about idolatry and sexuality, and are trying to change them in the name of “Progress.” From the “German Christian” movement during the 1930's, to the ecumenical movement, to “Open and Affirming” churches, we are trying to alter our allegiances to fit in with the spirit of the age. This is wrong, and far from bringing in the Kingdom of God by our own (idolatrous) efforts, we are actually working for the Enemy of Our Souls.

What's wrong? I am. I need to repent, and in such a way that others will follow Jesus, not the Spirit of the Age.

Rand Paul

No, he's not named after Ayn Rand, but I wondered myself. What about his comments on the Federal Government intervening in the matter of service at lunch counters?

The Boston Globe gets it right, almost

Thank you for your comments, AtheistHindu, explaining your faith regarding what must be "EARNED!"
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/25/separate_truths/?comments=all&plckCurrentPage=3
One thing most, if not all, religions share is good works: earning something (by your own efforts, as you clearly explained in your post.) Indeed, the definition of religion I use most often is “a human effort to find god, as you define god”
(Granted, Christianity is often practiced as such, especially as perceived by non-Christians and sometimes even in the minds of Christian believers.) But Christianity is NOT a religion; it's not what humans do, it's what God has already done, in Christ. It makes no sense to beg for a gift (salvation) that has already been earned by Jesus, and only has to be accepted, humbly. It is perhaps this humility, and sorrow for sins committed, that seems like begging to you. I certainly don't know your experience of Christianity and have no desire to judge those experiences, or you. But I wanted to correct this common misconception.
Other readers have mentioned Harvey Cox; what he's describing is not Christianity, and it's nothing new, it's merely syncretistic religion: offering sacrifices to all the gods in the hope of offending none of them.
Thank you, Professor Prothero, for an excellent and thought provoking column. I do hope none of your readers came to the conclusion that the Holocaust had anything to do with orthodox Christian practice: Jesus' last words were “Father, forgive them...” not “Followers of mine, avenge me.” The Holocaust was a hideously unchristian act, and it is no coincidence that it occurred in a country (and a continent) that had largely abandoned the historic Christian faith in favor of an intellectual, modernistic distortion. For the self-styled “German Christians” human reason had supplanted God's revelation through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and through Christ himself, a Jewish man who spoke words of forgiveness from the Cross. I deeply regret that these words were not followed by too many that used, and dishonored, the name of Christ.