God's Big thinkers

'Tis certain with me that the world exists anew every moment, that the existence of things every moment ceases and is every moment renewed. For instance, in the existence of bodies, for there to be resistance, or tendency to some place; 'tis not numerically the same resistance that exists the next moment, 'tis evident, because this existence may be in different places. But yet this existence is continued so far, that there is respect had to it in all the future existences; 'tis evident in all things continually. Now past existence can't be continued so that respect should be had to it, otherwise than mentally. If the world this moment should be annihilated, so that nothing should really and actually exist any more; the existence of the world could not be continued so that, if another world after a time should be created, that world should exist after this or that manner from respect to the manner of the existence of this, or should be so only because this had been thus or thus. Indeed, we every moment see the same proof of a God as we should have seen, if we had seen [him] create the world at first. Revelation 4:11, "For thy pleasure they are and were created." ~Jonathan Edwards, Miscellanies No. 125

I believe Edwards was contemplating the eternality of God as immanent in creation. He describes this in relation to time and space in the way we talk about “never stepping into the same river twice”. A river body remains and is identifiable “in different places” but it isn’t the same physically or molecularly or in “resistance” in time. Then I think Edwards is talking about the passage of time. “But yet this existence is continued so far, that there is respect had to it in all the future existences; 'tis evident in all things continually.” Here perhaps it’s helpful to think of how we look at one river and think of it’s origin in the mountains (the past) and how we know we where this same river is going (in the future) to a delta or another river. But then Edwards changes the paradigm for the reason to contemplate time and space—creation or a river. “Now past existence can't be continued so that respect should be had to it, otherwise than mentally.” He’s saying the past (origins) can’t exist simply to reflect on. The river isn’t just a river. Why is it there? Then he conjectures about the reason for the world’s existence. Why should some prior existence or time be the template for a future? Or why should a future time and world exist in the manner of a former? There is NO reason other than God has pleased to order the creation as we perceive it in time, with our senses, as it is displayed. We know the world won’t go forever. It draws us to wonder into His eternity, which beats in the present moment. He makes all things hold together because He is immanent in creation. This reminds me of two things A.W. Tozer said. "The value of the cleansed imagination in the sphere of religion lies in its power to perceive in natural things shadows of things spiritual. It enables the reverent man to "See the World in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour." And, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. ...Thought and speech are God's gifts to creatures made in His image; these are intimately associated with Him and impossible apart from Him.” (Born After Midnight. Knowledge of the Holy.)

"Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." ~Chesterton

the church, Christ-followers, the world, Jesus

Does the church act triumphalistically, or treat its people arrogantly? Is it an agent for the suppression of human needs and aspirations? Does it foster intolerance and small-mindedness? Does the church proclaim a gospel of success and offer Jesus as a better business partner? Does it encourage an ethos of prosperity
to the neglect of the earth’s good, or an individualistic spirituality to the neglect of the world’s needy? Are its leaders corrupt and coercive? Such distortions of Christianity can find no harsher critic, no more radical rejecter, than the Jesus found only in the pages of the New Testament, the Jesus who was himself emptied out for others and called his followers to do the same. The Jesus to whom Saint Francis of Assisi appealed in his call for a poor and giving rather than a powerful and grasping church was not the Historical Jesus but the Jesus of the Gospels. One must only wonder why this Jesus is not also the “real Jesus” for those who declare a desire for religious truth, and theological integrity,
and honest history.
~Luke Timothy Johnson

A story in English

I was thinking while showering how incredibly many thoughts I have. If I told them all to you, which is impossible, it might resemble a plater the size of New York and heaps and heaps of serpentine thoughts sauced and tasting of raw Italian parmesan. ...that's a bit of introspection to digest. So, I won't tell you what I think of Barack Obama, and I won't tell you about the differences in doing a job and believing in what you do. It doesn't matter. I will tell you one thing. Introspection is worth something, but thoughtfulness on true story is better, fiction or non-fiction. It doesn't matter. It's the moral of the story. Make it make sense, and it’s of far greater worth. If we delve into me..well that may be interesting, perhaps even upsetting. But if I take you with me to explore the world around me, and with imagination; you will probably know me better then if I had ever intended to describe myself to you over pasta. I am something true, but God's world...which I fit in, is even truer. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer.17:9)

I'm talking about variations on theme. "Even in literature or art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed." ~C.S. Lewis-