Religion blog post Feb 19, 2016

The biblical reading that stood out to me the most was Psalm 139. In Psalm we see a demonstration of how god is omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. However something that I found to be interesting is that the text did not link Omni science with omnipotence. By this I mean that they did not Link the idea of power and knowing. This could mean that while God know the path that we are on that he does not determine it. Or perhaps that how’s every choice we will make but without influencing it. This writing reminds me a lot about emanation theory. Emanation theory says that all secondary things flow from the more primary thing. For example, we all flow from god so we all have part of god within us and our mind and soul. With this theory in mind he could have great knowledge and power to know what we will do or intend to do without defining our path. With being apart of us he does become part of our decisions but the question still lies within whether we have free will. He presents emanation theory in a lot of ways, asking questions like, “ where can I go from your spirit” (Psalm 139:7). Asking these questions helps to understand the vastness of God but does not tell us his influence on our decisions. While this reading suggests that God is omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence I don’t see this reading as clear argument for determinism but rather one for compatibilist. This is because while the Psalm will show us how god is one within us and in everything around us, it does not express the impact that God has on our decisions. Stemming mostly from an emanation theory prospective I would argue compatibilist because that would imply that god is within all of us and that we all see the one (God) meaning that we strive to be what is most good.  However, we are also allowed to move farther away from the one becoming less good. We see a better example of this in Mark with the story of the rich man. In this story the rich man is given the ultimate decision to sell all his things and give it to the poor or not to. In other words, he can chose to move closer to what is most virtuous and good or he can move farther away from what is good. This is a better representation of compatibilist in the sense that he is given a decision but knows the path that he should take. In both cases, I would argue that they are drawn to making decisions that they believe to be good, but in the end have the free will to make a decision.