What Next?

The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · December 4, 1879

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 54, No. 23

The following from the Christian at Work needs no comment:—

What a strange Being some people make of God! Some little time ago we noticed the appearance of a book taking the ground that God did not and could not know everything that should come to pass, because, if he did, it would do away with human causation and free-will—about as absurd a conclusion as was ever deduced from an untenable premise. Rev. George M. Steele, D. D., and Prof. Wm. North Rice, both of the Methodist Episcopal Church, are discussing the same question in the columns of Zion’s Herald, the Professor holding that God possesses all prescience, and Dr. Steele taking the opposite view. Of course, if Dr. Steele is right, man can surprise God, take him unawares—for aught we can say to the contrary, daze and bewilder the Almighty. And then, if God is not omniscient, he is not omnipotent; for omnipotence must be able to anticipate future exigencies, as well as overcome present obstacles. And if God is not omniscient and omnipotent, neither can he be all-wise. At this rate, it will not be long before we shall make the Almighty altogether such an one as ourselves. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh;” it seems as if the set time for giving force to that declaration had already come. It strikes us there is better work to be done than that of proving the Lord an Almighty who isn’t almighty at all, but a Deity of finiteness and limitations.