Monday, May 03, 2010

The incoherence of Word of Faith theology with respect to God's creation

The god of Word of Faith (WoF) theology is said to have, when he created the heavens and the earth, spoken "faith-filled words", exercising his well-developed command of the force of faith, and thus caused the heavens and earth and universe to be created.  It was through the exercise of faith that the WoF god created.

Kenneth Copeland explains:

God framed the worlds by faith. Everything God made, He made by faith. Everything He does, He does by faith.  For you and me, it’s no different. What works for God will work for us...We receive divine health and supernatural healing by faith. We receive our spouses, our children, our homes, our food—all our earthly needs and desires—by faith. Our faith is an opening through which God can save us, deliver us, baptize us in His Spirit, anoint us for ministry...So faith comes by hearing the Word of God—and when it is released from our hearts with our mouths, it brings the fulfillment of God’s promises. 
Notice that "when it is released, it brings..."  You release faith by speaking it, just like the WoF god did. It's just that he's achieved a very high level and understanding of the principle of faith, and so can speak things into existence with more frequency and quality than most of us can.  But with practice, you can get better at it, more like the WoF god!

Copeland continues:

Again, looking to God as our Guide, we find in the book of Genesis that faith is released with words. Faith words demand results of whatever they say...The reason God released all that Word into the earth was to give substance for when the time came for Jesus—the ultimate Word given by God—to appear in the flesh. He brought Jesus into the earth by His Word!
What was that substance? Faith...Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is the heavenly materiality, or tangibility, of those things for which you and I hope...Remember, “God said...and it was so.” God’s act of speaking released faith, or heavenly materiality, to that which He believed. When He said, Light be! He fully expected light to be. His faith took action. It spoke.
Examples like this could be multiplied, but the summary is that the WoF god had faith in his faith, and used the principle of faith to speak the universe into existence.
WoF teachers unwisely claim to hold the Bible as their foremost authority, though it's probably better for them that they do, given that most evanjellyfish don't bother to read their own Bibles very closely either.  In the long-run, a cost-benefit analysis would lead the shrewd WoF teacher to go ahead and pretend the Bible is their authority rather than lose access to the evanjellyfish market and thus cost themselves $millions.  However, the Bible gives us an excellent reason to leg-drop the WoF doctrine of positive confession and the principle of faith.

The WoF god brings the universe into existence by speaking faith-filled words, invoking the power and substance of faith to make it happen.  The principle of faith and positive confession is an eternal principle; obviously, since the WoF god made use of it to make the creation happen.  So, did he create the principle of faith or has it always existed?

If he created it, how did he do so without speaking in faith?
If the latter, how is Colossians 1:15-16 correct?

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
It says that the God of the Bible created all things.  If the WoF god is the God of the Bible, how is the principle of faith, which is clearly extraneous from the WoF god and of which he makes use to create and to do anything, not part of the WoF god's creation?

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