The Sci-Fi Christian – 10/09/11 “The Sci-Fi Christian: The Divine Titme Machine” featuring Matt Anderson and Ben De Bono
Episode 33: The Divine Time Machine
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I have to take issue with Ben’s knocking the Nook Color over the iPad. I personally have a nook color, and have it rooted (or modified) into an Android tablet, basically like a Galaxy Tab, except at a third of the cost. It’s nice having an iPad-like device for a whopping $200 that does everything that an iPad can do. Not to mention that my original nook is an e-ink reader, and is still my favorite way to read.
Good discussion, guys (and how appropriate that your time-travel episode has some “timey-wimeyness” all its own, with an interview from the past brought into the present). I do hope we’ll get some of those new thoughts on the topic sometime!
Here’s one, maybe: Granted that the “Can God make a rock so heavy…” argument is nonsensical, it does occur to me that we flirt with theological trouble when we speculate about what God can and can’t do. Who would have said, for example, that God could have become incarnate in a first-century wandering rabbi crucified as a common criminal? While I generally think that God abides by the laws of logic and nature that God built into the world at creation—else the world would be extremely chaotic and, after all, God “did not say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in chaos’ (Isa. 45.19)!—we always have to leave room for God to surprise and confound our expectations.
Couldn’t God’s creation of such a rock be seen as a self-limitation on God’s part? The Incarnation establishes that God is fully capable of such a self-limitation, without ceasing to be God. So, I suppose, if our salvation somehow depended upon God creating a rock so heavy God couldn’t lift it…? (Yeah, I’m kind of surprised I’m making a case for this, too!)
I had no idea “Real Steel” was based on that old Matheson story! It’s one of the “Twilight Zone” episodes I still haven’t seen, but I’m familiar with it. Can’t believe I didn’t make the connection. Now I will have to check it out asap. I have to say, the movie actually looks like it could be kind of cool. (I love Matt’s idea of a series of interconnected “Twilight Zone” movies, by the way—from your lips to Nolan’s ears!)