Michael Horton from his book, Introducing Covenant Theology:

People don’t know how to relate God to the world he has made. Some banish God from his own domain, as in deism, in which adherents acknowledge God’s existence but deny his personal involvement in the world. God is thus often perceived as an impersonal force or abstract principle. Others simply identify God with the world, as if the difference between God and humans were merely quantitative (God as greater, larger, more impressive, intelligent, and powerful) rather than qualitative (different from that which he has made). Ironically, in either case, God is rendered irrelevant: either by being too distant from us or by being absorbed into us—our will, our intellect, our emotions, our experience. The point of idolatry is to maintain our own autonomy (i.e., sovereignty) over God, either by banishment or absorption. In the one case, we ignore the reality of God; in the other, we use God as a projection for our own felt needs and make him serve our own ends. As we will see, the biblical understanding of God’s relationship to the world as covenantal is both a bridge that deism ignores and a bar to any confusion of the Creator with his creation. ((Michael Horton. Introducing Covenant Theology (p. 15). Kindle Edition.))

And fifteen pages later:

In pagan religions and philosophies, human beings were often seen, at least in their spiritual or intellectual aspect, as a spark of the divine essence. Quite often a particular race was identified with the divinity, and the king was seen as an incarnation of a divine figure. The case was, of course, quite different for Israel. The sovereign God, creator and lord of all, was utterly distinct from his creation. No part of God’s nature or knowledge coincided with the creature at any point. That is to say, God is transcendent. Therefore, any relationship that one might have with this God would have to be something other than a natural relationship—that is, the relationship could not be explained in terms of, say, a common spiritual essence shared by the Creator and a creature. According to the Bible, that relationship—a covenant—is established by God in his freedom. We are not related to God by virtue of a common aspect of our being, but by virtue of a pact that he himself makes with us to be our God.

In distinction from pagan mythology, the denial of any natural connection between the Creator and creature establishes the biblical emphasis on God’s transcendence (his incomprehensible majesty). However, the fact that God has chosen to enter into a personal relationship with us by means of covenant underscores his immanence (or nearness). It is not surprising then that God adapted the international treaty as the template for his relationship to creatures. That relationship really is a matter of “foreign relations”. The creature, even the one made in his image, is never divine or semidivine, but is always other than God. Although there may be similarities between the creature and the Creator, there are always greater differences. In other words, God not only differs quantitatively (i.e., possessing greater degrees of being, wisdom, omnipotence, etc.) but qualitatively. . . . “Covenant” is exactly the right concept for such “foreign relations.” ((Michael Horton. Introducing Covenant Theology (pp. 29–30). Kindle Edition.))

I’m evidently behind the times, but autonomous quadcopters are apparently quite the rage in University robotics research these days. The quadcopters in the following videos were designed and programmed by the GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zürich. According to Wikipedia, MIT’s Aerospace Controls Lab has also engaged in similar research.

If you like these, hit the link at the bottom of this post for more information and more videos from the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich.

More info and videos at the Flying Machine Arena website ›

John Piper on C. S. Lewis on praise:

Lewis says that as he was beginning to believe in God, a great stumbling block was the presence of demands scattered through the Psalms that he should praise God. He did not see the point in all this; besides, it seemed to picture God as craving “for our worship like a vain woman who wants compliments.” He goes on to show why he was wrong:

“But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. . . . The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game. . . .

“My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.

“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” ((C. S. Lewis (1958). Reflections on the Psalms (pp. 94–95). Harcourt, Brace & World.)) ((Piper, John (2011). Desiring God, Revised Edition: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (Kindle Locations 253–264). Random House, Inc. Kindle Edition.))

J. C. Ryle on sins committed in ignorance:

But I do think it necessary in these times to remind my readers that a man may commit sin and yet be ignorant of it and fancy himself innocent when he is guilty. I fail to see any scriptural warrant for the modern assertion that: ‘Sin is not sin to us until we discern it and are conscious of it.’ On the contrary, in the fourth and fifth chapters of that unduly neglected book, Leviticus, and in the fifteenth of Numbers, I find Israel distinctly taught that there were sins of ignorance which rendered people unclean and needed atonement (Leviticus 4:1–35; 5:14–19; Numbers 15:25–29). And I find our Lord expressly teaching that ‘the servant who knew not his master’s will and did it not’, was not excused on account of his ignorance, but was ‘beaten’ or punished (Luke 12:48). We shall do well to remember that, when we make our own miserably imperfect knowledge and consciousness the measure of our sinfulness, we are on very dangerous ground. A deeper study of Leviticus might do us much good. ((Ryle, J. C. (1952). Holiness (Kindle Locations 331-338). Heritage Bible Fellowship. Kindle Edition.))