"A Journey Shared - Part 3 "Free Will - Choose Your Path Wisely".

I expect objections, and they will come from evolutionists, secular humanists, moral relativists and atheists.

We are currently witnessing an attack on Christianity from aggressive atheists, on the one hand - lead by Richard Dawkins and his ilk, and on the other hand those who seek to dumb down Christianity. Those who wish to make some of the more challenging teachings of Jesus more acceptable to how 'The Word' fits in with what they would rather believe.
Liberal Theology, Secular Humanism and Moral Relativism is a real threat to Christianity, and it comes in many a disguise and you will find it all over Facebook, mostly based on completely false teaching without any truth whatever.
False prophets abound!
There are also those who seek to 'disprove' Christianity by Science.

I find this difficult to digest. As far as I know Science is involved in the physical, observable and reasoned world - not the spiritual.

"Christians believe that God created the universe and that science is the systemic study of the physical and natural realm through observations and experiments. Science is about acquiring knowledge and understanding of how things work, not about why they exist". (Patrick Sookhdeo - The New Civic Religion. Humanism and the Future of Christianity)

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV)

In my last Blog I touched on the question of why God allows pain and suffering in this world.

Tozer and Lewis say it thus:

"THE BLESSEDNESS OF POSSESSING NOTHING" (The Persuit of God AW Tozer)
"Before the Lord made man upon the earth he first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the Creation these are simply called 'things'. They were made for man's uses, but they were always meant to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. within him was God, without, a thousand gifts which God had showered on him.
Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and 'things' were allowed to enter. Within the human heart 'things' have taken over and men have now, by nature, no peace in their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne".

"C. S. LEWIS - MERE CHRISTIANITY"
"What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could 'be like gods' - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery, racism - the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God that will make him happy.
The reason it can never succeed is this God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on fuel, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is no use asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion, God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing".

(Further reading: The Problem of Pain C S Lewis)

There is no such thing as forced love and God therefore in his infinite wisdom gave us free will.
We cannot choose 'our way' and blame God when we try and live apart from Him.

Read Romans Chapters 1 & 2.

Romans Chapter 1

Romans Chapter 2


One, of the many issues, I have sometimes come to terms or had some difficulty with on my Journey is Prayer.

Some thoughts on that next time.