The Tulip Driven Life

This is a slight modification of a blog post I put on Facebook about a year and a half ago. This was based on seeing the first two Twilight films. I never saw the third one. I am considering seeing the fourth to write another blog post, since, in this film, Bella and Edward get married as I understand. I want to see how Stephanie Meyer, being a Mormon, handles that.  The author of The Twilight Saga, Stephenie Meyers, is a practicing Mormon (but she does drink diet coke). I've done a little bit of research on her and in one of her interviews she says that Twilight is about free will, that we all have choices to make, we have the power to choose the actions we take.  In one article Meyers said: "It's about keeping yourself free of addictions," she explains, sitting on a huge couch in her living room. "We have free will, which is a huge gift from God. If you tie that up with something like, I don't know, cocaine, then you don't really have a lot of ...

The final draft. Enjoy.                Reformation Bible College God Gives Permission? The Error of Permissive Will Theological Prolegomena By Thomas Booher Sanford, Florida December, 2011 Where is God when natural disasters occur, taking so many lives? What about when seemingly innocent people are robbed or raped or murdered? Does God permit or plan that? The permissive will of God is a doctrine to which many Reformed theologians adhere. Reformed theologians believe that God is not under any obligation to give man freedom to act apart from His plan, and thus permits sin for His own good purposes. This permission falls within His sovereignty, since God could choose to stop man from sinning, but instead chooses to not restrain the sinfulness of man, leaving man to his own devices. The permissive will exposited by many Reformed theologians, however, undermines rather than affirms God’s sovereignty.   ...

Chapter 2: Free Will- The Master’s Master Plan? I was always taught from my Christian school that God gave man a choice to either obey God or disobey Him in the Garden of Eden. That was God’s master plan, to plant a tree that was forbidden for them to eat of, to test them. It was never really said if God knew what would or would not happen beforehand. The school believed that God was all knowing, so they would have claimed that God knew man would fall if they were pressed, I would assume, but they never addressed that issue. I, and most of the other students, never thought   that issue through either. It was an answer we were given, and in my shallow understanding of things, it worked. I was isolated in a Christian bubble, sealed off from the “real world” full of unbelievers and believers with different interpretations, counter-arguments, and rebuttals. In fact, I thought this was the only interpretation for the Christian. I took the school at its word, and thought little more ...

Chapter 1- Shortchanging Jesus                                 Talk to a typical Christian in the United States, and you will soon realize that, despite their claims to loving God and desiring to see others saved for Jesus, they don’t know a whole lot about the Bible. If you asked them how a loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful God could allow evil and possibly be considered good, you are sure to get a glazed-over look on many faces, because most American Christians have never even considered such a question before. They may appeal to the free will of man, but the question remains, “How can a supposedly loving God, who is all powerful and knows all things, allow evil?” God made man with a free will, thus allowing the entrance of sin into the world. How can God do that? With that, I have just stumped the vast majority of American Christi...