Almighty In Authority, part one

I have been excited over the past few weeks to share this chapter with you on my blog, because it changed the way I look at God, and why He decides to do certain things in my life. I am completely positive that if I have any readers now, I probably won't after this chapter has been entirely posted. It's very surprising, and even quite unpleasant- it was for me the first time I read it, and I was looking at it from a Reformed viewpoint. Most of you are probably coming from a Baptist, or Pentecostal or what-have-you viewpoint so I'll understand if you get mad at me. But please, read it anyway. Even if you don't believe it, God may show you something else you didn't know before. You can never hear a bad sermon (or read a book in this case) because even the bad sermons cause you to do some research on your own. Make the best of it, and ask God to give you eyes and ears of understanding. That is my prayer for you, dear reader.

Now, the book is called "Almighty Over All" by R. C. Sproul Jr and the chapter I've been referring to is Chapter 3, Almighty in Authority, "Who Dunit?". Sproul Jr. is a little more "Hyper-Calvinist" than his father, R. C. Sproul, but both are highly recommendable authors and preachers. This chapter in particular focuses on the motivation and cause behind the Fall. Intrigued yet? I hope enough so to read along the next few days. And we begin...

Everybody loves a good mystery story. At least everybody should love a good mystery story. okay, I love a good mystery story. My wife, as a gift for our first Saint Valentine's Day after we were married, gave me, in one volume, the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I didn't devour the book; I savored it. Each night before going to sleep I would read one story, and one story only. As is common in most mystery tales, each story had a few simple elements. A crime is committed. A list of suspects is introduced, and then slowly that list is narrowed until the culprit is found. With careful logic Holmes investigates who had a motive, who had opportunity, and who had the means.

Though Holmes rarely worked this way, it is not uncommon in a mystery story for all the suspects to be confined to a small area. the same storm which apparently knocked out the lights before the murder forces the guests at the manor on the island to stay put. We find that young Master Conrad, the playboy nephew, is about to be cut from the old man's will. We learn that Jeeves the butler is about to be fired because the master learned of his secret wife and family living in the slums of London.

In theology, mysteries are not so different. We must work with facts we know and seek to reason out the best possible answer. In the previous chapter, we tried to understand creation by affirming both that God is eternal and that the material world is not. Some people are too comfortable with mysteries. Any time there is a little puzzle, these folks throw up their hands and gladly declare "Mystery," thereby avoiding the labor of unraveling it. Such false humility has the added advantage of seeming pious. The problem is that when we give up our search for understanding too early, we miss out on opportunities to know better who God is and what He has done. If, because I don't understand how a light bulb works, I merely declare its operation a mystery too grand for me, then when the bulb burns out, I won't know that by replacing the bulb I can have light again. I'm afraid I'd be more silly than pious sitting in a dark room.

Perhaps no mystery had puzzled theologians more than the problem of evil.

The two theologians whose thought I know and admire the most--men who are loathe to cry mystery--when asked where evil comes from (and they are asked often), give the same unsatisfactory answer: they shrug their shoulders.

They're not alone in being puzzled. The problem of evil has vexed the greatest minds of history, inside and out of the Christian church. By the problem of evil I do not mean how we explain why bad things happen to people. That's not such a big problem once you come to recognize that all men are sinners and deserve only death. The difficult question is how men came to be sinners in the first place. Remember that there once was God and nothing else. Now there is not only God and the universe but also evil. Where did it come from?

To chip away at this problem, we will approach it like detectives solving a mystery.

To be continued...

The above quote was copied from the book
Almighty Over All, Understanding the Sovereignty of God
by R. C. Sproul Jr
Published by Baker Books