I agree that it is futile to spend the present and waste the future trying to measure God’s past. But, what we do have to deal with is a beginning point, and a present middle point and a potential future that is unfolding. That is measurable! We use clocks and calendars, inches, meters and cubits based on the physical universe to do so. Apparently God does as well … how else can He relate to His creation?
Yes, God creates Ex Nihio. What exists now didn’t exist before. You can say that God ‘always new (or just knows) it would eventually exist’ and I would ask ‘that matters how?’ Now that the pot exists, God must recognize its physical existence or ‘ex-create’ it … eradicate it … so that it no longer exists. We are created like pots but with one remarkable difference … the gift of life, living souls, spirit, personhood, His image. I see nothing in Genesis 1 or Colossians 1 that tells us that God created ‘only pots’ that are not free to exercise their freedom in living in or apart from acknowledging their creator. “Pots” do not exercise dominion over anything. We do! So back to the Genesis account, how do you define dominion? As impotent? Is the dominion God granted to mankind impotent or just limited? Is it an illusion or real? Of course God owns it all. The question is does He give man any charge, power, authority, control, say-so over what He actually created and owns .. over His stuff. Does God ever actually GIVE anything?
Will (can) any Calvinist please define 'dominion' and fit it into the settled view for me?
Philetus
