Friday, August 6, 2010

The fabric of our lives

Nope, not cotton.
It's been part of my thinking for awhile that morality is woven into our universe in a similar way to the laws of physics. So that a thing is wrong not because God or someone else arbitrarily decides so or we reach it by consensus, but because it's part of the character, the reality of the universe. If God created it, then that would make sense--whatever is in harmony with who he is is in harmony with life and reality.
I don't really know a lot about the laws of physics, but I think have a pretty good handle on gravity (some days better than others, heh heh). So just like a person can't jump off a building without certain consequences, a moral or immoral act has positive or negative ripple effects in the person's life, their relationships, and the universe as a whole.
I've never really had "chapter and verse" evidence for this thought biblically, but it's kind of a sense that I get.*
So it was nice to read that Randy Alcorn** sees things similarly. "A holy God made the universe in such a way that actions true to his character...are always rewarded," and vice versa. But "that doesn't mean God always intervenes directly...When a careless driver speeds on an icy mountain pass, loses control, and plunges his car off a cliff, God doesn't suddenly invent gravity to punish the driver's carelessness. Gravity is already in place." (my emphasis).
As he says, the punishment is built into the sin--so that a pornography addict receives "shame, degradation and warping of the personality as a matter of course."
This just highlights the goodness of God. He's not arbitrarily handing down rules. He knows the way life works (cause he made it all), and he wants us to live it happily and abundantly. And Jesus willingly received the consequences in his body for our sin so that we could do just that.
*Randy does argue for this from Proverbs and Matt. 7:24-27
**in The Purity Principle

2 comments:

  1. Amazing perspective... how much of our lives we'd like to think are random and given to "chance", but not so.. I love the picture of God woven through the fabric of time; already there, already present, alknowing. It doesn't "bother me", it gives me the ability to lean on Him more as he was, and is, and always will be. Thanks for sharing this!

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  2. I love this...you put into words thoughts of mine too. It is something that is just understood being a Christian..."morality woven into the universe"...the tension of good and evil is ever present in our world. Knowing this helps me to survive the evil part. I stand amazed at the eloquence of our God.

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