The Rest of the Old, Old Story

I’m returning to blogging as well as categorizing many articles on my new site, www.paulfpavao.com. If I don’t know where to categorize something, I’ll put it here and let it run, then fade into probable oblivion. If I do know where to categorize it, off to paulfpavao.com it will go. (Don’t miss the “f” or you’ll wind up at interesting but odd old site of mine that I haven’t maintained in years.)

I have read two trilogies by atheist authors attempting to promote atheism that I believe failed miserably because they are blind and can’t understand God even though he is plainly revealed in the creation and his Spirit is always convicting the hearts of men; also because we Christians misrepresent him.

The two trilogies are The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman and Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I think the latter is actually four books now, but I only read two because my son told me about the third one and destroyed my interest.

In Golden Compass, Pullman has God grow old and die, and he turns out to be Lucifer himself. The whole idea of the series, which is incredibly interesting until the third book (too dark), is that the church and its god are not good but evil. How do the heroes of the series find out? They find out by a long series of obviously controlled and guided events.

The same is true of Christopher Paolini’s series. In Eldest, the second book, an elf gives a long explanation of why a God cannot exist. Yet he also says that some unnamed controlling force made sure there was a relationship between elves and dragons. Some unknown controlling force, that Christopher wants us to assume is an impersonal “destiny,” made sure that the one remaining dragon egg would appear near the only predestined dragon rider left on earth.

An impersonal controlling force contrived a plan to randomly predesting dragon riders, set up a system to link dragons with their riders, and then arrange for a randomly sent last dragon egg to show up with a blast just yards from the last destiny-chosen dragon rider?

Uh, sure.

It is true there are a lot of false gods, masquerading as the infinite creator of a hundred billion galaxies or more in the one universe we know about, though there may be others. That true God, though, the Creator of all, never ceases to exist because of the lesser false gods worshipped by other religions and sometimes (often?) accidentally by Christians.

The true, infinite, unsearchable, and all-wise God, however, is greater than all the petty competition. His plans are far above us and beyond our petty squabbles. He is unmoved by those, and he proceeds inexorably toward the end in which his Son appears to reveal himself as the King who conquers and destroys all other governing authorities, raises the dead, judges everyone, and sends the devil and his angels and those who followed them to be destroyed forever in the lake of fire.

Some will open their eyes and see the God in whom we all live and move and have our being. Others will remain blind, seeing only coincidences, spontaneous remissions, and the impossible thought of an impersonal destiny.

Let’s have eyes to see, for the God who is above all things, who hides himself, can be found anywhere you are.