“Many Christians seem to believe that God’s relationship with the universe is deterministic, that God has already filmed the future in his mind, and what we’re seeing unfold in history is the showing of a movie that’s already ‘in the can’ so to speak. I don’t believe that. I believe God’s relationship with creation—including us—is interactive. God gives us warnings, which are an invitation to change our ways. God gives us promises, which are an invitation to persevere when the going gets tough.” -Brian McLaren
I found this quote on my RSS feed to Emergent Village
I met Brian this last November, and have had a chance to speak with him on a few instances recently, - a ride in the car, eating breakfast together with others at a conference, and hobnobbing around Harvard Divinity and Gordon College students. I decidedly enjoyed being around him, but here I truly like his thinking!
I am surely showing my heretical bias. This flies in the face of the likes of Calvin, and Augustine, but who the heck really cares besides a few of you who have theological cramps. (smile, smile - avoiding emoticon use here for the sake of being hyper-cool)
A little reading up on the God and Time theories of William Lane Craig will give you a sense of where I am coming from. A little sense. Craig is still a devoted reformed theologian, and I am not coming from that perspective, but he outlines what I believe is an element of theology, which gives the kind of guidelines necessary for Brian to make his comments above.
Now I do not know if Brian believes in Simple or A Time, which states that the present is all that exists - the past and the future can not be accessed, because they are not real things. The past is gone, and the future does not exist because it has not yet come into being. Sorry if this messes up your time travel theory, and your belief that God dwells in both the past and the future as He dwells in the present.
I believe that an undetermined future in which God actively relates to us in the present necessitates Simple Time as it is so nicely outlined by William Lane Craig. I felt this way long before I read Craig's stuff, but he's got the pedigree and brains to really say it, so I'll let him speak more deeply on that subject for now. My point is I was really glad to see this quote - Go Brian!
