"..Only thing you can't do is override anyone's free will..... so he has another interview with God who explains that 'people don't need Us to intervene in their lives. They have the power to answer their needs and problems themselves. We just have to help them see how.'"
Let's see. We don't really need God? We can do it ourselves if we just figure out how??? God is a self help fellow up in heaven hoping people make themselves live forever, solve their own problems, and become their own little gods? (Psalm 82:6-7).
Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran church wrote an entire book called, The Bondage of the Will. He wrote against the views of the Roman Catholic scholar Erasmus who believed in free will. In that book, Luther says:
Therefore, it is not irreligious, curious, or superfluous, but essentially wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know, whether or not the will does any thing in those things which pertain unto Salvation. Nay, let me tell you, this is the very hinge upon which our discussion turns. It is the very heart of our subject. For our object is this: to inquire what "Free-will" can do, in what it is passive, and how it stands with reference to the grace of God. If we know nothing of these things, we shall know nothing whatever of Christian matters, and shall be far behind all People upon the earth. He that does not feel this, let him confess that he is no Christian. And he that despises and laughs at it, let him know that he is the Christian's greatest enemy. For, if I know not how much I can do myself, how far my ability extends, and what I can do God-wards; I shall be equally uncertain and ignorant how much God is to do, how far His ability is to extend, and what He is to do toward me: whereas it is "God that worketh all in all." (1 Corinthians 12:6.) But if I know not the distinction between our working and the power of God, I know not God Himself. And if I know not God, I cannot worship Him, praise Him, give Him thanks, nor serve Him; for I shall not know how much I ought to ascribe unto myself, and how much unto God. It is necessary, therefore, to hold the most certain distinction, between the power of God and our power, the working of God and our working, if we would live in His fear.
In another place in the book, Luther states without any ambiguity that the sovereignty of God overrides free will:
Sect. 9.—THIS, therefore, is also essentially necessary and wholesome for Christians to know: That God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces. Those, therefore, who would assert "Free-will," must either deny this thunderbolt, or pretend not to see it, or push it from them.
The two movies, Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty, are so blasphemous that I do not know how any Christian could endorse either movie. I have not seen Evan Almighty but I did see Bruce Almighty on cable. The idea that we can become God is closer to Mormonism than to biblical Christianity. The incommunicable attributes of God can never be possessed by any sinful human being. Only Jesus possessed the incommunicable attributes of God and even He voluntarily submitted Himself to the Father's will by not exercising them except occasionally and for the purpose of authenticating the Gospel message.
Exactly what are the "incommunicable attributes" of God. They are the very essence of who and what God is by His very nature. God is eternally self-existent and has no beginning or end in linear time. We call this His aseity. God is omnipotent or all powerful. God is omniscient or all knowing. God is omnipresent or everywhere present. To call a mere man who is also a sinner Almighty is to commit blasphemy. The Athanasian Creed says that God is Almighty. The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty and the Holy Spirit is Almighty but there are not three Almighties but only one Almighty. Anyone who has ever said the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday knows that calling any man Almighty other than Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity is blasphemy.
"You shall have no other gods before me. 4 "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:3-6 ESV)
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV)
Moreover, the idea that men have free will is a return to pelagianism. Pelagianism is the idea that men are not born sinful but only become sinners by following Adam's example of rebellion. But Scripture clearly says that men are corrupt from birth (Psalm 58:3; Psalm 51:3-5; Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:23). The desire for man to have the incommunicable attributes of God--not merely magical powers which are transferrable--goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:4-5). Incommunicable means that God cannot communicate to a mere creature the nature, essence or attributes of an infinitely powerful and wise Deity. To do so would mean God is not really the ultimate Being after all. The entire premise of both movies would mean that God is not one God but two since there is God and there is Bruce Almighty. In the sequel we have yet another blasphemous god called Evan Almighty. In both cases the absurdity of it all renders the entire premise of both movies as being so ridiculous that no genuine Christian could possibly suspend their disbelief long enough to see the movie. While I did watch Bruce Almighty on cable, I thought the movie was so utterly ridiculous and so void of any entertainment value that I wondered how any Christian could endorse it?
In Christ,
Charlie
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost;
Answer. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without end. Amen.
Answer. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without end. Amen.
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1 comment:
It does not surprise me that the guy who wrote this movie is a Roman Catholic. His speculation does not even come close to the Roman Catholic view, much less the Protestant view. This movie does nothing more than confuse people even more about who God is and how we are to relate to Him.
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