Revelation: 22 Studies for Individuals and Groups (N. T. Wright for Everyone Bible Study Guides)

by Tom Wright

THE CREATOR Revelation 4 Scientists and anthropologists have often asked themselves, “What is it that humans can do that computers can’t do?” The writer David Lodge wrote a powerful novel on this theme, entitled Thinks . . . The heroine eventually discovers the answer: humans can weep; and humans can forgive. Those are two very powerful and central human activities. They take place in quite a different dimension from anything a computer can do. A similar question is often posed: “What can humans do that animals can’t do?” Again, some scientists have tried to insist that we humans are simply “naked apes,” a more sophisticated version, perhaps, but still within the same continuum. This is a trickier question than the one about computers, but to get straight to the point: the main difference, as twenty-four elders in Revelation 4 demonstrate, is that humans can say the word because. In particular, they can say it about God himself. Open