Subscribe to feedPicked this up from Desiring God. Decided to take the challenge. Below is an argument for God’s existence from the Miscellanies of Jonathan Edwards. Following that is my attempt to explain what Edwards means, along with an illustration of his meaning.
‘Tis certain with me that the world exists anew every moment, that the existence of things every moment ceases and is every moment renewed. For instance, in the existence of bodies, for there to be resistance, or tendency to some place; ’tis not numerically the same resistance that exists the next moment, ’tis evident, because this existence may be in different places. But yet this existence is continued so far, that there is respect had to it in all the future existences; ’tis evident in all things continually. Now past existence can’t be continued so that respect should be had to it, otherwise than mentally. If the world this moment should be annihilated, so that nothing should really and actually exist any more; the existence of the world could not be continued so that, if another world after a time should be created, that world should exist after this or that manner from respect to the manner of the existence of this, or should be so only because this had been thus or thus. Indeed, we every moment see the same proof of a God as we should have seen, if we had seen [him] create the world at first. Revelation 4:11, “For thy pleasure they are and were created.”
‘Tis only this way that respect can be had to existence distant as to place as well as time, but as much respect is had to distant existence in one sense, as in another.
Explanation:
Edwards believes that creation, our existence, does not have within it sustaining power. Each moment exists then ceases to exist with no inherent connection to moments before or after it. The limited existence of moments is demonstrated by the fact that things change. The world of a moment ago no longer exists. In the words of Heraclitus, you cannot step twice into the same river. New moments of time come into existence through God’s creative power, similar to God’s initial creation of the world in Genesis 1. If new moments simply popped into existence without the hand of God, they would bear no resemblance to previous moments in time. Since our moments exist in a continuous sequence, there must be a God who creates those moments and connects them to each other.
Illustration:
The world is like a movie reel. A movie is a series of pictures printed on individual frames, similar to the individual moments of our existence. The frames are created by a studio, held together on a movie reel, and displayed in a consistent sequence by a projector. If not for the work of the studio to create and the reel to hold together, the frames would all be blank or would have no relation to each other. But because there is someone who creates each frame and holds them together in a continuous sequence, we have movies. So it is with God who creates each of our moments and holds them together.
What do you think he means?
