All right, it’s as I feared, no one guessed. Chickens. All of you. 

 

So the question from yesterday was: Who, in a more real way (or as real a way) than Luke, himself, caused Luke to turn on his light saber. My answer is: George Lucas*, when he wrote the words in the screenplay of the movie: “. . . and Luke turns on his light saber and attacks Darth Vader”

So someone might ask – who do you think is more responsible for the light saber coming on, Luke or George? And sir, I answer, they were both 100 percent responsible in completely different frames of reference.

It is like this with our actions and God. God causes our actions 100 percent, and we choose our Actions 100 percent. With an infinite God, causation of Human Response is not a zero sum game.

You say, that doesn’t make sense or that doesn’t seem fair or that is contradictory, but I suggest this then: show me the Bible Verse with which my paradigm conflicts.

My friend Barth commented thusly to one of my earlier blogs. I edited the ending of it so as to not let it act as a spoiler, but I will fix that now. Here is his comment:

So… four friends were sitting around chatting about Lord of the Rings… they had been fans long before it was a fad movie, and would be long after the movie had faded into obscurity.

They got on to the topic of Gollum, after finally stealing the ring from Frodo, falling into the lava of Mount Doom…

“I’ve always sort of wondered about what’s going on here…” comments one.
“Why? Its pretty obvious. Gollum, who had been so consumed by the ring, finally re-possesses it, right at the center of its power… he was taken over by the the emotion of the moment and just fell… It makes complete sense.”

“Sure, but I think there is more to it than that. I think that in some way, the will of the Ring played a role here. It was holding Gollum responsible for the vow to obey the master of the ring, back in Two Towers. Remember, even then, that Frodo had warned Gollum that the Ring was devious, and would hold Gollum to his promise… Which it does, even to its own destruction. It is the nature of the vow at play here.”

The third friend shakes his head… “No, the real reason that Gollum fell into the lava was Tolkien wanted him to.”

  

*Yes, I know, George didn’t actually write the screenplay for Episode VI. Work with me on this one.