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So when I tell the skeptic that God exists, and he responds very graciously by saying that perhaps I am right since nobody knows what is in the "Beyond," he is virtually saying that I am wrong in my "hypothesis." He is obviously thinking of such a God as could comfortably live in the realm of Chance. But the God of Scripture cannot live in the realm of Chance.

Amen. Either/or. Chance or God. One or the other 100%.

I'm way behind on this thread, but your excellent post via Van Til caught my eye.

The most amazing thing I've learned about God's sovereignty in all things is that this awareness has grown exponentially in my mind. And this through no intention of my own. It just has taken over my brain more and more each day. Where once I saw God occasionally, now I see Him everywhere.

When I first began to think there might be some things God controlled, I still held to the notion there were many things God either chose not to or was incapable of controlling. But this equivocation ultimately left much of life to "chance" and to the vagaries of the created world.

Gradually I saw this proposition denied God entirely. If there is a God, then nothing is outside His determining influence, and chance does not exist. At the moment of creation, God knew everything that would ever occur and His thoughts could not include "chance" by definition. What could possibly surprise God?

Instead God's thoughts are absolute in their substance and purpose. What God "thought" is what has become. And nothing came before God's creative foreknowledge such as men's good or bad actions, or else existence would not be of God first, but of men first and then God reacting to men and their actions.

In some peculiar melding of time and space, we are living out the thoughts and purpose of God. That's just how it is. And Christians should rejoice in this knowledge. We have been named as members of His family from before the foundation of the world for no other reason than that's just how God wants it to be.

But the God of Scripture cannot live in the realm of Chance.

Amen. So some of us say "prove to me what's in the dark closet and I'll believe it." And some of us are happy with and grateful for the God-given, Scriptural understanding that God created the closet, the darkness, and the light outside the closet by which we see the cat when God opens the door.

Amen to your most excellent post. Like you I'm way behind on this thread.

When I first began to think there might be some things God controlled, I still held to the notion there were many things God either chose not to or was incapable of controlling.

Actually, and surprising, I thought that all Christians truly believed that God controls all things. I always did. However, I just didn't think this concept through; that God controls ALL things. It was like a big "DUH" to me, but I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

Beautifully said, thank you.

Your post reminds me of something from the great Reformed theologian, Herman Bavinck.

A dogma is not based on the results of any historical-critical research but only on the witness of God, on the self-testimony of Holy Scripture. A Christian believes, not because everything in life reveals the love of God, but rather despite everything that raises doubt.
In scripture too there is much that raises doubt. All believers know from experience that this is true. Those who engage in biblical criticism frequently talk as if simple church people know nothing about the objections that are advanced against Scripture and are insensitive to the difficulty of continuing to believe in Scripture. But that is a false picture. Certainly, simple Christians do not know all the obstacles that science raises to belief in Scripture. But they do to a greater or lesser degree know the hard struggle fought both in head and heart against Scripture.
There is not a single Christian who has not in his or her own way learned to know the antithesis between the “wisdom of the world” and “the foolishness of God.” It is one and the same battle, an ever-continuing battle, which has to be waged by all Christians, learned or unlearned, to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
Here on earth no one ever rises above that Battle. Throughout the whole domain of faith, there remain “crosses” (cruces) that have to be overcome. There is no faith without struggle. To believe is to struggle, to struggle against the appearance of things. As long as people still believe in anything, their belief is challenged from all directions. No modern believer is spared from this either. Thus for those who in childlike faith subject themselves to Scripture, there still remain more than enough objections. These need not be disguised.
Their are intellectual problems (cruces) in Scripture that cannot be ignored and that will probably never be resolved. But these difficulties, which Scripture itself presents against its own inspiration, are in large part not recent discoveries of our century. They have been known at all times. Nevertheless, Jesus and the apostles, Athanasius and Augustine, Thomas and Bonaventure, Luther and Calvin, and Christians of all churches have down the centuries confessed and recognized Scripture as the word of God. Those who want to delay belief in Scripture till all the objections have been cleared up and all the contradictions have been resolved will never arrive at faith. “For who hopes for what he sees?” [Rom. 8:24]. Jesus calls blessed those who have not seen and yet believe [John 20:29].