Taking God's Sovereignty Too Far?

Today in our Sunday school class, the teacher spoke on the subject "What every Christian should know about SIN".  Naturally, the subject of evil, it's origin, and effect on creation was high on his list of discussion topics.

The teacher, coming from a strongly Calvinistic viewpoint, emphasized the soverignty of God while maintaining that God allowed sin, but did not originate sin.  From this perspective, there really is no reason sin must exist, except to create a problem for which there is only one solution: Jesus Christ.

This is obviously (at least to me) a pretty weak argument, and I suspect most who hold to it would recognize this.  That's why the age-old fall back of "mystery" is so often peddled as the stop-gap between our common sense and the weaknesses of a particular theological position.

During the Q&A portion of the class, someone brought up the solution to this problem I think is most viable: That evil is the result of God's choice to give us the ability to sin; Evil exists in the world because a world without freedom is a world without love. We were created by God to love him, and true love cannot be forced.

The response from the teacher was something about being cautious that we don't undermine God's sovereignty, and the mystery of the balance between God's control over everything (including our choices) and the fact that God holds us responsible for our choices.

Why is it so horrible to suggest that God might choose to limit himself, specifically that he might limit his power over our own choices?

It's not like there isn't any biblical precident:  The doctrince of divine kenosis (self-limiting) in the person of Jesus is well known and accepted.  Why is it so scandalous to suggest that God would choose to limit himself in other ways?  Isn't that the story of Adam and Eve; That God gives them the REAL choice to obey or not?  Haven't we distorted this story into something else in order to defend the soverignty of God?

And I won't even mention open theology. (oh, wait... I just did)

Am I missing something, or is it plainly obvious that God's choice to limit himself does not diminish his sovereignty in any way?

What's the big deal?

What Did Jesus Know? And Why Should I Care?

I've had a significant bout of what might be best described as "theology disillusionment" lately (similar to this experience described by Stephen over at Undeception). But a recent post by Internet Monk is relevant to my last post, so I thought I'd comment.

In my last post, I discussed Jesus' (seemingly failed) prediction of his own imminent return, and briefly touched on the suggestion that Jesus may not have known when he would return. At the time I didn't even consider it a possibility, but after some thought have allowed it a spot next to the other possible solutions to the problem.

Anyone raising the question "What did Jesus know, and when?" is bound to receive a thousand different answers, some backed up by proof texts and others more emotionally derived. What is common in this discussion (at least among lay-Christians) is the general attitude that the subject of Jesus' knowledge (or lack of it) is interesting, but unimportant.

I'd like to suggest that the issue is more relevant than most would allow. If Jesus truly did not know when he would return, then the expectation of a future (to us) return of Christ is reasonable. But if Jesus' prediction of his own return is to be regarded as authoritative, then it seems more likely that this prophesy was fulfilled around 70AD during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (and the temple) by the Roman army.

This, in turn, is relevant because it affects how we view the future. Can we look forward to Jesus returning and fixing all the ills of the world? Or are we responsible for affecting this change ourselves? Do we go out and win as many souls as possible, or do we work to end poverty and oppression? So in the end, the answer to these questions lies, in part, in our answer to the question that is the title of this post.

In my Baptist church, both of the options above are heretical to some degree, so again I ask myself: What did I just step in?