Review of The Advent of Time
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Alice Glover
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Review of The Advent of Time
[Following is a volunteer review of "The Advent of Time" by Indignus Servus.]
The Advent of Time by Indignus Servus tells us that until Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden, they had lived in a timeless state, enjoying a loving relationship with God and having dominion over the material world. There was no pain or death. However, their sin initiated the countdown to their demise. Their children, Cain, Abel, and Seth, would also suffer pain and death, even though they were born perfectly innocent into God’s altered creation.
The problem of pain is what this book tries to analyze. Many people, including theologians, think that is the great flaw in Christian doctrine. If God is all-powerful, then why does he allow pain and suffering to exist, and why do innocents suffer? If he cannot do anything about pain, then he is not omnipotent. He is not omnibenevolent if he decides to do nothing to alleviate the suffering of innocent people.
However, this book argues that God created man in His own image, endowing some of His power to His creation. Man was granted dominion over all living creatures. He was, in effect, a deity as well. But he fell because his wife, Eve, succumbed to the wiles of a smooth-talking serpent in the Garden of Eden and convinced her husband to sin as well. When Adam sinned, he became repellent to God, just as the fallen angel Lucifer, once with beauty like the morning star, became repellent because sin is repulsive to God. Later, He even turned away from His Son on the cross when Jesus struggled under the burden of the sins of man.
If God had valued justice more, He would have ended man’s creation right then and there when Adam betrayed Him in the Garden of Eden. “Cursed is the ground because of you,” He tells Adam. But as Jesus would later teach, the commandment to love is the greatest of all God's commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The second most important is: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God still wanted man to experience love, so He allowed mankind to keep free will, which is one of the three prerequisites of love, as the author outlines in the book. But as God drove Lucifer from heaven, He now drives man from the garden. Both broke an unbreakable divine law and were unable to remain in the spiritual realms.
I awarded this book five stars out of five. It is a well-edited, thoughtful book that addresses some of the most compelling questions about Christianity and reaches reasonable conclusions. In the debate involving faith and good works, the author tells us that your works may be burned in the final cleansing fire on the day of judgment, but your faith will lead you to heaven. The only thing I didn’t like about the book is that the theological questions are complex, making it tiring to try to grasp them all at once. But the book was worth the effort, and I recommend it to Christians, of course, but also to anyone else who’s ever pondered the problem of evil or wondered about the existence of a divine power.
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The Advent of Time
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
The Advent of Time by Indignus Servus tells us that until Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden, they had lived in a timeless state, enjoying a loving relationship with God and having dominion over the material world. There was no pain or death. However, their sin initiated the countdown to their demise. Their children, Cain, Abel, and Seth, would also suffer pain and death, even though they were born perfectly innocent into God’s altered creation.
The problem of pain is what this book tries to analyze. Many people, including theologians, think that is the great flaw in Christian doctrine. If God is all-powerful, then why does he allow pain and suffering to exist, and why do innocents suffer? If he cannot do anything about pain, then he is not omnipotent. He is not omnibenevolent if he decides to do nothing to alleviate the suffering of innocent people.
However, this book argues that God created man in His own image, endowing some of His power to His creation. Man was granted dominion over all living creatures. He was, in effect, a deity as well. But he fell because his wife, Eve, succumbed to the wiles of a smooth-talking serpent in the Garden of Eden and convinced her husband to sin as well. When Adam sinned, he became repellent to God, just as the fallen angel Lucifer, once with beauty like the morning star, became repellent because sin is repulsive to God. Later, He even turned away from His Son on the cross when Jesus struggled under the burden of the sins of man.
If God had valued justice more, He would have ended man’s creation right then and there when Adam betrayed Him in the Garden of Eden. “Cursed is the ground because of you,” He tells Adam. But as Jesus would later teach, the commandment to love is the greatest of all God's commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The second most important is: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God still wanted man to experience love, so He allowed mankind to keep free will, which is one of the three prerequisites of love, as the author outlines in the book. But as God drove Lucifer from heaven, He now drives man from the garden. Both broke an unbreakable divine law and were unable to remain in the spiritual realms.
I awarded this book five stars out of five. It is a well-edited, thoughtful book that addresses some of the most compelling questions about Christianity and reaches reasonable conclusions. In the debate involving faith and good works, the author tells us that your works may be burned in the final cleansing fire on the day of judgment, but your faith will lead you to heaven. The only thing I didn’t like about the book is that the theological questions are complex, making it tiring to try to grasp them all at once. But the book was worth the effort, and I recommend it to Christians, of course, but also to anyone else who’s ever pondered the problem of evil or wondered about the existence of a divine power.
******
The Advent of Time
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: The Advent of Time by Indignus Servus
