It seems we can learn something about God by viewing him as like the author of a novel, and we are his characters in his created world. But as much as we are like God, we are not God and our character only has the capacity to be like is. It isn’t his. What this means is, be careful projecting human images (like that of a literary author) back onto God. You can come up with some bad theology.<\/p>\n
Whatever we may think of the possibilities of direct divine intervention \t\tin the affairs of the universe, it is quite evident that the writer can-and \t\toften does – intervene at any moment in the development of his own story; he is \t\tabsolute master, able to perform any miracle he likes.<\/p>\n
I do not mean that he \t\tcan invent undiscovered planets or people the world with monsters unknown to \t\tnatural history-that kind of thing is a tale about marvels, not a tale abruptly \t\tmodified by marvels. I mean simply that he can twist either character or plot \t\tfrom the course of its nature by an exertion of arbitrary power. He can slay \t\tinconvenient characters, effect abrupt conversions, or bring about accidents or \t\tconvulsions of nature to rescue the characters from the consequences of their \t\town conduct.<\/p>\n
He can, in fact, behave exactly as, in our more egotistical and \t\tunenlightened petitions, we try to persuade God to behave. Whether we mock at \t\tmiracles or demand miracles, this is the kind of miracle we usually mean<\/strong>. We \t\tmean that the judgment of natural law is to be abrogated by some power \t\textraneous to the persons and circumstances.<\/p>\n
-Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, Ch.5<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems we can learn something about God by viewing him as like the author of a novel, and we are his characters in his created world. But as much as we are like God, we are not God and our character only has the capacity to be like is. It isn’t his. What this … <\/p>\n