The common worldview holds that there are several causes or influences driving our experience—that at any time some impelling force can manifest itself to our detriment. We can wake up one morning and be led to think a hereditary disease has decided to make an appearance. Or we can walk into the office and find that “downsizing” has deprived us of a job. Or we can learn that a cherished relationship that seemed “unshakable” has suddenly lost its footing.
What it all boils down to is that from the human viewpoint, there is a pervading sense that our lives are not under control. There does not seem to be one overriding causal influence “running the show” as it were. There does not appear to be an infinite God with a totally embracing pervasive influence.
But this verdict contrasts markedly with God’s dictum in Genesis: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (1:26). To our sense of things that dominion just does not appear to be part of our experience.
