Quote:
Originally Posted by Timotheist
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, you foolish person, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does the potter not have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one object for honorable use, and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon objects of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory. posted without comment... |
Paul here is echoing what God said to Job. From one angle this is undeniably true: the creator can do anything he likes with his creation. A puppet-maker can make a dummy with fixed eyes that only look at the ventriloquist. This is TRUE. I AGREE TOTALLY! I WILL NOT DENY THIS! IT IS VERY TRUE THAT I, A FRAIL AND HUMBLE MAN (WELL, IN THEORY, ANYWAY) HAVE NO RIGHT, NO BUSINESS ARGUING WITH MY MAKER. So I agree with Paul here. TOTALLY.
However ... with Christ living in us, we are eternal, we are his children. We can think, speak, argue. Shakespeare understood this. His puppet, Hamlet, stated it well: "What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals."
So there's two sides to this coin, you see? Show me side A and I am silenced, like Job in chapter 40-41. Show me side B and I am Jacob, wrestling with GOD, wrestling Him to a draw, by George.
Hamlet, by the way, saw this two-sidedness as well. He ended that above quote with "And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"