Again, God’s sovereignty over the will/heart of the king is seen in his determination to turn that will or to direct the king’s choices in accordance with whatever God pleases. Can he frustrate the will of a person whose determination is to do evil and thereby prevent sin from happening? Does he exert absolute control over these events in nature, such that he could, if he willed to do so, prevent them from happening or redirect their course and minimize the extent of damage they incur? So, by meditating on Jesus’ life with Mary’s help, we seek to grow closer and closer to Christ. Many are ready to concede that God is sovereign over the beginning of life but they do not like the idea that God is sovereign over the time and manner of its end. Catholic scholars make various arguments in support of the idea that this policy is not in contradiction with the previous edicts. Like Smith, then, Asad asks scholars to shift their attention to the concept religion and to recognize that assumptions baked into the concept have distorted our grasp of the historical realities.

In the New Kingdom, religious speculation among Amon’s priests led to the concept of Amon as part of a triad (with Ptah and Re) or as a single god of whom all the other gods, even Ptah and Re, were manifestations. As part of European colonial projects, the concept has been imposed on people who lacked it and did not consider anything in their society “their religion”. Many theologians today, whatever their church tradition, are developing what is called a “social Trinity,” which is very similar to Mormonism in seeing the Trinity as a society of persons rather than a single immaterial substance defined by a set of internal relations. Each child in the family is represented by an ear of corn on the mkeka (if there’s more than one ear, the group is called a mihindi). One who adores and remembers Shri Hanuman. When the Assyrians populated Samaria with foreigners, 2 Kings 17:25 says, “Therefore the LORD sent lions among them which killed some of them.” And who can forget the words of Daniel in the lions’ den: “My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths” (Dan.

14:6,15,20; 2 Sam. 17:14; 1 Kings 12:15; 20:28-29; 2 Chron. For this, see Genesis 16:2; 29:31; 1 Sam. And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? Then it says, “God meant it for good.” The word “it” is a feminine singular suffix that can only agree with the antecedent feminine singular noun, “evil.” And the verb “meant” is the same past tense in both cases. “You meant evil against me.” Evil is a feminine singular noun. You meant evil against me in the past, as you were doing it. And God meant that very evil, not as evil, but as good in the past as you were doing it. God did not find him there owing to evil choices, and then try to make something good come of it. Is God truly sovereign over everything, including calamity, natural disasters, death, and demons, or is his sovereign control restricted to those things we typically regard as good, such as material blessing, family welfare, personal salvation, and good health? In such dualistic models, the primary deity usually represents good, and the death god embodies evil.

He is also regarded as the patron deity of deceased children and aborted fetuses and the savior of hell-beings. These are the questions that find their answer in Scripture. Snail mail responses to my questions were irregular. “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief. Does this mean that God can put a halt to the destructive path of a tornado or redirect its trajectory, or that he can stop the waves of a tsunami? Yes. The sucking can help avoid ear pain and the howling that results. Some converts admit that the conversion is a political choice to reorganize themselves, as conversion could help them to no longer be classified by the caste system. Monopolies eliminate competition, which means the economy is no longer in its natural state. Is God sovereign over natural evil? These qualities could also motivate our creativity as we seek to make things better than what they are and feel that we can reach beyond the natural. “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.