The Biblical Exegesis for the Absoluteness of God: And Speculation on Why Armstrongists Reject Divine Absoluteness

 

Quartz Polyhedral: The Absoluteness of Geometric Patterns 

(Fair Use)

 

The Biblical Exegesis for the Absoluteness of God

And Speculation on Why Armstrongists Reject Divine Absoluteness

By Scout

“Nowhere in the Bible is God described as "absolute". Nowhere does God say of Himself "I am absolute". I am absolutely certain of that. So where does that idea even come from? . . . God does not need or require us to rely on human philosophy to understand Him. Quite the opposite, He condemns human philosophy as idolatry.” – Comment from the “Banned by HWA” blog in response to the article “The Absoluteness of God” by Ranger.

One of the oddest characteristics of Armstrongism is its insistence on a limited God. If you observe to an Armstrongist that there are qualities of God that transcend the Armstrongist model, the reaction typically is anger. I am not certain of the source of this anger but I have a couple of speculations. First, anything that contravenes the word of Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA), no matter how reasonable, evokes anger among his followers. Second, the theory that HWA put forward that humans would become God-as-God-is-God portrays a limited God.

Biblical terminology describes God as relative. He is more powerful than anything we know in the human realm so he is therefore almighty. But this is a yardstick comparison. It just says that God is greater, by the yardstick, than anything that we know. He is not essentially different from us. He just happens to be the biggest kid on the block. This is an important supporting belief for the theory of God-as-God-is-God. It makes the condition and state of being God appear attainable. And if we do our exercises and eat right, maybe one day we will be just as big as the biggest kid.

But God is absolute. He is not relative. He transcends all relative measures. We are in the image of God and this makes God intelligible to us but we are not in his category. He is absolute and we are not and never will be. And we know that he is absolute because it states that he is in the Bible. Absoluteness is directly deduced from the fact that God is Creator. And he creates “ex nihilo” or out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3). He can call (we don’t have a verb for it) things into existence. He is the creator of existence itself. And existence is not relative. It is non-evolutionary. It is absolute. In the human realm, we are fabricators from pre-existing materials. We can make things that can get out of control. We make things out of stuff and forces that we don’t understand. God transcends that. He has complete ownership and mastery of what he creates at the very existential level.

God is the Creator and we are not. We belong to a different category. Our role is to rejoice in what God creates – forever. It says in Isaiah:

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create:” (KJV, Isaiah 65:17-18)

This is not vain, human philosophy. It is not a Hellenistic view as one blog commenter asserted. It is simply understanding the ramifications of what the Bible states. Absoluteness is a direct deduction from creatio ex nihilo. The word “absolute” does not have to occur in scripture for its meaning to be present. God creates ex nihilo. Nowhere does the Bible ever suggest that humans will ever create ex nihilo. That I know of, HWA never claimed that resurrected humans would create ex nihilo. He typically spoke of humans terraforming already existing planets. Which means the sound bite concept of God-as-God-is-God collapses. Because God is uncreated and absolute. We are among the created. And in this we can duly rejoice. 

This COG Splinter Now Charging For All Literature And Refuses To Send It To Prisons

While the United Church of God is taking its message to prisons, the House of Yahweh is charging for all of its literature AND will not send it to those in prison. They found an easy way of getting around doing that by using FedEx to deliver their literature, not that anyone there was ts to read it.

Never fear though, you can buy the so-called Bible they print for $272.00 on Amazon.

The Yahwehist Bible

UCG Now Taking Their So-called Gospel To The Prisons

 

Bob Thiel got left behind again! Instead of taking his "vitally important" message to those in prisons, he spends money translating books into languages that no one is ever going to read. UCG now takes its message to those locked up. I don't know whether to think of it as continued punishment or what.

New Initiative to Reach those Incarcerated 

On April 19 of this year, Media and Communications Services began airing Beyond Today television in over 420 U.S. prisons through the Edovo app. 

 

Edovo is a non-profit organization providing educational, vocational and rehabilitative curriculums and content to incarcerated people. While the Church pays for this service, it is available at no cost to the incarcerated learners. Edovo’s goal is to create rehabilitative-focused correctional environments that lower recidivism and increase safety inside and outside correctional walls—all to drive positive outcomes for incarcerated people and their families. 

 

More than 300,000 incarcerated learners view content on the Edovo platform daily, and more than 30 million hours of content has been viewed. 

 

Our initial contract with Edovo allowed us to upload 20 Beyond Today programs. Every three months we can upload 20 more. Since April 19 (less than a month ago) our content has been watched in 340 different prisons, with 3,746 unique program starts and 2,197 unique program completions. So, 59 percent of the programs were viewed to the very end, which is a very good percentage. 

 

The most-watched programs so far are: 

 

Globalism and Prophecy 

Russia and Bible Prophecy

Have the Ancient Gods Returned?

Hell Unleashed: The Spirit Behind the Hamas Attack

You Become What You Think 

 

Please pray that preaching the gospel of the Kingdom to those serving in hundreds of prisons across the United States will have a positive impact on those persons’ lives, and that the Father will call to salvation those whom He will.