It is clear that man
attributes to God his greatest needs:
God as Creator (answers the need to know where the universe came from);
God as Designer (answers the question where the order of things come from); God
the Defender (fills the basic human need for security); God the Healer (the one
to call upon in ill-health); God the Controller (answers man’s need for a tie
to a source of control); God the Eternal (answers man’s need for significance
and meaning); God the Savior (answers
the need for redemption from missteps and error). Man continues to need all these aspects of
God. But for the 21st century
I would add another: God the Experimenter.
This answers the need to understand flux and change over time. This attribute would seem at first glance to undermine
God the all-knowing. If God knew all the
answers, he would not need to experiment—to undergo a process of discovery
through sometimes trial and error.
However, we simply must confront the facts of universal change and (for
life on earth) evolution. The key
concept in evolution is not survival of the fittest, but the necessity for
trial and error in development of life on earth. This does not rule out that man was made in
God’s own image. It simply means that getting
there involved a process of iterations and change. The capacity to perform beneficial experiments
is one of the greatest attributes of man; but it is limited. There is ample room left and need for the
human mind to appreciate the Ultimate Experimenter who through iterations and
change accomplishes his divine will over time.
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