Natural Law is God's ordinance

Reference: Jeremiah 31:35, 36; 33:25 NKJV

What is Natural Law? What is its role in God's participation in His relationship with His people?

Natural Laws are what the New King James Bible calls "ordinances". These are physical or metaphysical routines or behavior that have been ordained and established by God. Gravity is one example. The orbit of planets in the solar system and the exact distances between celestial bodies so that there is very little, if ever, possibility of collision between the planets are another example.

Other examples are consequences of events. For example, heavy rain clouds mean the high probability of rain. If the temperatures were at freezing point or below, we would have falling snow or hail instead. Two cars driving directly into each others way will collide head-on.

Less obvious examples are consequences of behavior. Too much refined sugar or high-fructose corn syrup in one's regular diet would lead to diabetes or other metabolic syndrome diseases like hypertension or even arthritis. An overdose of aspirin, sleeping pills and alcohol could lead to death.

Now, you may ask, what is the point of discussing the above and others like them?

The answer is a key to understanding the biblical perspective on answered prayers and rejected prayers.

Prayer is a petition to the God who ordains these natural laws or these divine ordinances, to intervene into the natural course of events as he originally ordained and, by such intervention, to change the course of events into something that is favorable to the petitioner. It is obvious that petitional prayers or prayers of supplication seek to change the mind of God either by altering His natural law or by simply changing the natural course of events had He left things alone as He originally ordained them.

This is such an important concept to bear in mind of a Christian who claims to have a real relationship with God. The petitioner needs to know if he is requesting something that would please God and honor Him, or is the petition tantamount to tempting or testing God in a negative sense.

Let me explain. Does God give us privilege to seek healing for a man born blind? or for a leper? or for a demon-possessed person? or for a child bitten by a venomous snake either due to the child's carelessness or adult negligence? In most cases, I would tend to think so, and I believe that the petitioner is in a strong position with the loving God to expect a favorable response.

On the other hand, similar to the Israelites continually tempting God in the wilderness during the Exodus years, does a Christian have the right to ask God for strong lungs if he is a habitual smoker? Can he petition for a healthy liver and kidney if he is a drunkard? Can a Christian who overdoses on alcohol and sleeping pills ask for a long life? More subtly, can a Christian who habitually stuffs herself with refined sugar diets and high fructose corn syrup juices have the right to ask God to heal her from diabetes?

In such cases, I think that these are patterns for prayers that will be rejected by God. In the same way that God wants us to reckon ourselves dead to sin in order to be alive to God, the above scenarios require a drastic lifestyle change before God can even begin to deliberate on the petitioner's case!

It is important for a Christian in relationship with God to realize the strength of his petitions based on what he has been doing with or against the natural laws of God before he even begins to make request for divine intervention. Christians who continually and stubbornly defy these ordinances, e.g., the cult where they play with poisonous snakes in their rituals should not expect any response from God at all. These are all part of "turn from their wicked ways" before God can "hear from heaven and heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14). This could be another angle in understanding what it is to pray "according to His will".

On the other hand, we must realize that natural law is something we NEVER have to pray for. Gravity will be gravity without our prayers. A man jumping from the top of the empire state building does not need to pray to God in order to land somewhere down below. We never need to pray that the planets in our solar system will not collide. They just won't until God decides to end everything. We don't need to pray that the ground gets wet when it rains.

Hence, petitional prayer is essentially a request for divine intervention for God to change the natural course of events in our favor.

...to be continued...

Other related topics:

• God's "Trial-and-Error" Attempts to Create a People of Faith for His Kingdom
• Covenant-Relationship Theology in a Nutshell
• Relational Theology Makes Prayer Meaningful
• Relational Prayer that gets Answers vs. the Vending Machine God
• Prayer that God does NOT answer, NORMALLY
• The concept of Faith from a Relational/Biblical Perspective
• Relational Theology Makes Evangelism Meaningful and Critical
• Relational Theology Makes Finding God's Will a Meaningful and Useful Experience

OmniCompetence- the Divine Attribute that distinguishes the Judeo-Christian God from the Pagan gods

Omni-Competence is a term introduced to me by the Open theist John Sanders. Although I do not subscribe to open theism as foundational, I have found out that the beliefs of open theism are a natural result from the foundations of Relational Theology.

I believe that I have explained this thoroughly in my earlier blogs. Basically, God showed that He can limit the exercise of His sovereignty by the example of the Incarnate Christ. And if indeed, He has that capability of limiting His sovereignty at least temporarily out of His love, then it opens up so many possibilities including locking Himself out of much of the future except for those which He has specifically and explicitly pre-ordained and documented in Scripture.

Omni-competence is that attribute of God which is clearly superior to omnipotence as a divine quality for the following reasons:

Whereas omnipotence eliminates the concept of risk entirely by total control, omnicompetence conquers risks by demonstrating that an all-wise God can chose and effect the best options or alternatives under any circumstance to achieve His objectives in a scenario of risk or after a risk has been taken even with His hands "tied behind His back (so to speak!)".

A good example of this is the creation and fall of man. God took a risk by creating man in His image thus making Him an independent creature intellectually, emotionally, volitionally because He created a being with free will. God therefore "risked" making a creature who had the independent capability to rebel against Him or even curse Him. In the light of such risk, however, the Bibilical record clearly shows how He devised, outlined, communicated and implemented THE ONLY redemption plan thus achieving victory after taking a risk.

Sure, the risk He took would cost millions of souls condemned to hell but it would also set apart a people of GENUINE faith who would use their distinct individual independence to yield themselves willingly back to the God who created them. He would be achieving His goal of populating heaven with ONLY kingdom-minded individuals who desire and treasure personal relationship with God the same way God sought it and courted man to get His end. This, after all, is really God's grand objective in creation and defines his role in history (See God's "Trial-and-Error" Attempts to Create a People of Faith for His Kingdom  for a more thorough discussion.).

Omni-competence would have its main application in the exciting way God would respond to the prayers of His people and children as well as in the way He brings adventure to the way He works out and brings to fruition His earthbound will of each of His children while they live on earth, e.g., career, marriage, relationships, choices, etc. as well as, of course, our gradual conforming to the image of Christ which is His will for ALL His children.

As a follow-up clarification note, God's omni-competence does NOT in any way negate His omnipotence. In fact, it even magnifies omnipotence. Nevertheless, all throughout Scripture, there is more of God exercising omni-competence instead of sheer omnipotence. A practical conclusion of such revelation is that although God is truly omni-potent, He has CLEARLY revealed and shown that He practices omni-competence in His dealings with man and His dealings with history. The more a Bible student accepts this premise the more he begins to see exciting things in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, of how God deals with the prototype of his Kingdom.