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In Romans 1:20, Paul states that, \u201csince the creation of the world, God\u2019s invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.\u201d
What are the aspects of our world that point us to God and show his divine nature?<\/p>\n
I immediately think of a majestic sunset, and the beautiful flowers we have seen in Spring; they show our world is too wonderful to be a random accident, the reality of beauty reveals the glory of our creator.<\/p>\n
And ancient Greek writings confirm Paul\u2019s claim.
The philosopher Plato thought our world pointed to the reality of ideal types or forms which explain what we see, and one of these was beauty.<\/p>\n
Another of Plato\u2019s transcendent realities was Truth.
To people who believe our world is a random chaotic mess, this is an unbelievable claim.
But the existence of universal and verifiable truth shows our world to be built with meaning, reflecting God\u2019s infinite wisdom.
And that provides the basis for scientific inquiry.
Without the reality of truth, you could never confidently board a plane, or even turn on a light switch.<\/p>\n
From the bible, we know Plato\u2019s ideal forms are just some of God\u2019s many attributes, they have their source in God.<\/p>\n
I think the third ideal form of Plato is the most convincing in pointing us to God.
Plato called it goodness, and its existence means there is a real difference between good and evil.
It gives meaning to the terms \u201cought\u201d and \u201cought not\u201d, and to the choices we make in life, and its source is God\u2019s perfect righteousness and holiness.
Without it, concepts like right and wrong, and justice and mercy, have no real meaning.<\/p>\n
This perfect goodness of God was part of mankind, being created in the image of God, but it was lost when man chose to sin and separate himself from God, causing all sorts of strife and decay, and death.
It left a deep gap in our being, with a hunger that nothing of this world can satisfy.<\/p>\n
But Jesus said in Matthew 5:6, \u201cBlessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Lord\u2019s Table now we celebrate how Jesus has fulfilled that promise through his sacrifice on the cross.
As he was without sin, he became our substitute, and took the penalty of death for our sin upon himself, that we may be forgiven and declared righteous before God.
Romans 3:22 tells us, \u201cThis righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe\u201d, who are justified freely by God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n
The righteousness of God gives meaning and hope to our world, which even Plato recognised.<\/p>\n
And it is given to us freely through Jesus, who alone truly satisfies our deepest hunger and thirst.<\/p>\n
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In Romans 1:20, Paul states that, \u201csince the creation of the world, God\u2019s invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.\u201dWhat are the aspects of our world that point us to God and show his divine nature? I immediately think of a majestic sunset, and the beautiful flowers we have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26846"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26850,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846\/revisions\/26850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}