Theodicy Soteriology, Hermeneutics

SOTERIOLOGY : M. M. NINAN
"Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the
prophets." (Amos 3:7)
The purpose of prophecy is to declare the will of God and to call all men unto repentance and
to salvation. Every human being has a part in the creation of the future and God plans it and
directs it without ever infringing on the freedom of his creation. And that is no mean feat.
or dates the Father has set by his own authority.
7.It for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.
8.But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
For God is at work in us and not out of us.
PROJECT AND ITS WORKING OUT
The plans belongs to God. But its working out belongs to mankind.
Ps. 33: 11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all
generations.
Pro. 16:1 To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the reply of the
tongue.
If future does not exist, it is being created every present. It is created by the response of both
animate and inanimate and all forms of consciousness present in the cosmos. Fall from the
basic nature of Love was because of the free choice of conscious creation. So long as God
do not want to take away this freedom of choice and reduce mankind (in fact all fallen
consciouness in the cosmos) to mere robots, the redemption has to be worked out through
these cosciounesses. God. The creator could have anihilated all mankind and recreated
programmed robots and saved all the troubles. That is certainly a choice. He could have
selected some robots and put on them golden chains and called them glorious ones. But they
would still be robots no better than the rusty, crumbling ones.
So God planned for the redemption of all cosmos. It is a long term plan, because it involves
people - people who are given autonomy and free will. The plan sets up several stages and
each operation is given a time schedule. This time schedule may have to be rescheduled
depending on the resources and human resources available. Thus the execution of the plan
is existential. You can see the markers and events that are planned coming in place as time
286