Wait a second!!!!

From here...in 2008

Campbell also argues that when God “sent the flood, this was simply a matter of God withdrawing his providential hand and letting nature revert back toward its pre-creational state of chaos (Gen. 1:2). And when God called down fire to incinerate Sodom and Gomorrah, this was simply a matter of God withdrawing his protecting hand and allowing Satan and/or natural disasters to consume this city.

He seems to like that take.  Now, watch this from here...from "Are You An Annihilationist..and if so, Why?"

4) Peter specifically cites the total destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as a pattern of how God judges the wicked. The Lord turned the inhabitants of these cities “to ashes” and “condemned them to extinction” thus making “them an example of what is coming to the ungodly…” (2 Pet. 2:6). Conversely, the Lord’s rescue of Lot sets a pattern for how the Lord will “rescue the godly from trial” (2 Pet. 2:9).

5) Throughout the Old Testament the Lord threatens the wicked with annihilation. about the wicked Moses says God will “blot out their names from under heaven” (Deut. 29:20). God will destroy them “like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah…which the Lord destroyed in his fierce anger…’” (Deut. 29:23).

So, on ONE hand, Sodom and Gomorrah was merely God LETTING Satan have his way.  But in an annihilationist argument, it is GOD HIMSELF doing the "blotting" out.

Stop the merry-go-round.  I want OFF!   

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/24/2012 1:45:14 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/25/2012 10:18:09 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Similitude) : 2/25/2012 11:22:26 AM (GMT-6)

---------------------

7. THE ANGELS

Athenagoras' theological doctrine also contains "a host of angels and ministers whom God, the Creator of the world, set in their places through the Logos coming from Him, commanding them to be concerned with the planets, the heavens, and the world with what is in it, and with the good order of all." Our faith in angels as heavenly beings, serving God and caring for the creation, is an inseparable part of the common faith. After his defense about the accusation of Atheism, he adds "But our knowledge about theology does not stop here, as we believe in a multitude of angels and servants whom God, Maker and Artificer of the universe, set in their place by means of His Word and appointed severally to be in charge of the elements and the heavens and the universe and all it contains and its good order."

Athenagoras strongly emphasizes the place and function of angels within the divine providence. While God has a general and creative providence over everything the angels have a providence over each part of the creation.

"While God had the general and creative providence over all, these angels set over each part were to have providence over that part. And just as with men who have power to choose good or evil - for you would not honor the virtuous and punish evildoers if vice and virtue were not within their free choice - some are found zealous for what they are entrusted with by you, and others remiss, so it is with these angels too: some remained at the task for which they were created and to which they were appointed by God (for they had received free will from God), while others acted wantonly towards their own nature and their charge, that is, the ruler of this realm of matter and of the forms that are in it, and others that were in charge of the first firmament. Pray, realize that we tell of nothing without evidence, but expound what the prophets have declared. Well then, these angels fell a - lusting after maidens and yielded to fleshly desires, and he, the chief of them, became heed less and wicked in the administration of his charge... Earthly wisdom differs from that of the prophets as a likely tale does from the truth; the one is earthbound and under the ruler of matter, the other is from heaven."

Athenagoras, like St. Justin, has more to say about the existence and activity of evil angels than that of the good angels. He believes that the angels were originally created good and, like humans, had received free-will from God. Unfortunately, some angelic administrators included a spirit who was opposed to God, therefore was untrustworthy. However this spirit, whom Athenagoras does not call the devil; nor any other name, became heedless and wicked in the administration of his charge and took to guiding and directing the material world in opposition to the goodness of God. As "prince of matter," he operated wickedly when governing the material world, while subordinates lusted after virgins and succumbed to the flesh.

Athenagoras, in support of this theory of the fall of the angels, appeals to the witness of the prophets, no doubt by this meaning Gen. 6.2-5 which says that the sons of God came in to the daughters of men. The LXX originally rendered "sons of God" by (angelio tou theou) and so a tradition grew up in Greek Judaism that it was the union of angels with men which produced giants, whose souls are "the demons who wander about the world."

He held that these fallen angels dwell about the earth and sky, and so cannot stretch upwards into the regions above the heavens "stationed at the first firmament." They harass and drag men hither and thither even though each man has the same rational principle within. In particular the evil spirits are responsible for the vagaries of idol worship usurping the names of men and working through images and statues. Polytheism and idolatry alike are delusions.

However, in Athenagoras' view, the activity of evil spirits is terrible yet they are not beyond control. Man, in origin and in himself, is a well-ordered being with a rational nature possessed of a mental disposition (diathesis) which was not intended to transgress its own law. And there remains a host of good angels who have not fallen.

His approach is more philosophical and represents a rational attempt to explain the origin of evil. Yet Athenagoras, as with the other early Christian Fathers, really believes that the evil spirits are everywhere actively urging men to work against nature. He speaks of the artifices of the demons, saying:

... the demons who hover about matter, greedy of sacrificial odours and the blood of victims, and ever ready to lead men into error, avail themselves of these delusive movements of the souls of the multitude; and, taking possession of their thoughts, cause to flow into the mind empty visions as if coming from the idols and the statues; and when, too, a soul of itself, as being immortal, moves comfortably to reason, either predicting the future or healing the present, the demons claim the glory of themselves.

However he is even more sure that God's providence is ultimately in control of the universe in spite of the fact that some angels and men have abused the freedom given to them by God.

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/25/2012 12:09:28 PM (GMT-6)

D: So, let me guess. Satan had FUN making carnivorous dinosaurs in the first place and THEN had fun bringing about their cataclysmic extinction?

J: Yeah. THat's a perfect example of how we can't imagine a motive or motives that account(s) for BOTH. That's not to say it's impossible. But plausible? Not seeing it.

And in the meanwhile, there seem to be necessary and sufficient conditions of material behavior that causes effects that count as what we call futility AND just ordinary events. What's the odds it's not just NATURAL? And by "natural," I'm counting any regularities of event sequences even if creatio continua is true. IOW, it just seems implausible to see all these things as caused volitionally by CREATURES. Thus, what's the big deal about the OT, by comparison?

This is what I never understood about Greg's problem with the OT. On the one hand, he defers to scientists about speculative, non-explanatory hypotheses that are, consequently, untestable, and on the other hand, he questions scientists right where they truly SEEM to know what they're talking about, empirically. I don't get it. Because those scientists use PARSIMONY/ANALOGY/BREADTH OF EXPLANATION to weigh competing EXPLANATORY hypotheses. That's either legitimate or it's not. Can't have one's cake and eat it too.

Post Edited (Similitude) : 2/25/2012 1:01:37 PM (GMT-6)

He takes on all of Athenagorus' position...

7. THE ANGELS

Athenagoras' theological doctrine also contains "a host of angels and ministers whom God, the Creator of the world, set in their places through the Logos coming from Him, commanding them to be concerned with the planets, the heavens, and the world with what is in it, and with the good order of all." Our faith in angels as heavenly beings, serving God and caring for the creation, is an inseparable part of the common faith. After his defense about the accusation of Atheism, he adds "But our knowledge about theology does not stop here, as we believe in a multitude of angels and servants whom God, Maker and Artificer of the universe, set in their place by means of His Word and appointed severally to be in charge of the elements and the heavens and the universe and all it contains and its good order."

Athenagoras strongly emphasizes the place and function of angels within the divine providence. While God has a general and creative providence over everything the angels have a providence over each part of the creation.

"While God had the general and creative providence over all, these angels set over each part were to have providence over that part. And just as with men who have power to choose good or evil - for you would not honor the virtuous and punish evildoers if vice and virtue were not within their free choice - some are found zealous for what they are entrusted with by you, and others remiss, so it is with these angels too: some remained at the task for which they were created and to which they were appointed by God (for they had received free will from God), while others acted wantonly towards their own nature and their charge, that is, the ruler of this realm of matter and of the forms that are in it, and others that were in charge of the first firmament. Pray, realize that we tell of nothing without evidence, but expound what the prophets have declared. Well then, these angels fell a - lusting after maidens and yielded to fleshly desires, and he, the chief of them, became heed less and wicked in the administration of his charge... Earthly wisdom differs from that of the prophets as a likely tale does from the truth; the one is earthbound and under the ruler of matter, the other is from heaven."

Athenagoras, like St. Justin, has more to say about the existence and activity of evil angels than that of the good angels. He believes that the angels were originally created good and, like humans, had received free-will from God. Unfortunately, some angelic administrators included a spirit who was opposed to God, therefore was untrustworthy. However this spirit, whom Athenagoras does not call the devil; nor any other name, became heedless and wicked in the administration of his charge and took to guiding and directing the material world in opposition to the goodness of God. As "prince of matter," he operated wickedly when governing the material world, while subordinates lusted after virgins and succumbed to the flesh.

Athenagoras, in support of this theory of the fall of the angels, appeals to the witness of the prophets, no doubt by this meaning Gen. 6.2-5 which says that the sons of God came in to the daughters of men. The LXX originally rendered "sons of God" by (angelio tou theou) and so a tradition grew up in Greek Judaism that it was the union of angels with men which produced giants, whose souls are "the demons who wander about the world."

He held that these fallen angels dwell about the earth and sky, and so cannot stretch upwards into the regions above the heavens "stationed at the first firmament." They harass and drag men hither and thither even though each man has the same rational principle within. In particular the evil spirits are responsible for the vagaries of idol worship usurping the names of men and working through images and statues. Polytheism and idolatry alike are delusions.

However, in Athenagoras' view, the activity of evil spirits is terrible yet they are not beyond control. Man, in origin and in himself, is a well-ordered being with a rational nature possessed of a mental disposition (diathesis) which was not intended to transgress its own law. And there remains a host of good angels who have not fallen.

His approach is more philosophical and represents a rational attempt to explain the origin of evil. Yet Athenagoras, as with the other early Christian Fathers, really believes that the evil spirits are everywhere actively urging men to work against nature. He speaks of the artifices of the demons, saying:

... the demons who hover about matter, greedy of sacrificial odours and the blood of victims, and ever ready to lead men into error, avail themselves of these delusive movements of the souls of the multitude; and, taking possession of their thoughts, cause to flow into the mind empty visions as if coming from the idols and the statues; and when, too, a soul of itself, as being immortal, moves comfortably to reason, either predicting the future or healing the present, the demons claim the glory of themselves.

However he is even more sure that God's providence is ultimately in control of the universe in spite of the fact that some angels and men have abused the freedom given to them by God.

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/26/2012 9:05:06 AM (GMT-6)

Who?

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/26/2012 9:06:13 AM (GMT-6)

Italics Greg.

"This second-century identification of Satan with 'the spirit about matter' who is in control of 'matter and the forms of matter' constitutes a profound development of the biblical warfare worldview.  Evil is not simply something that happens within the (otherwise pristine) cosmos; it rather is a force that corrupts the cosmos itself!  There is something hostile to God that has affected creation to the core, and God must fight it."

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/26/2012 9:29:12 AM (GMT-6)

And I feel this motif fits right what you're saying, right Jeff?

But how is God fighting it? Obviously God has the sheer power to just win outright (OL's Note: Just like any grown adult parent has over a younger, weaker child!). So what about His nature CONSTRAINS His modes of warfare such that He can't yet just WIN? Isn't it more rational to say that it's not a war at all? But that, rather, God is working out a strategy of SUBJECTION of insubordinate creatures that most satisfies His Son and, as a side effect, Himself and His creatures? Isn't this why God suffers long and not because He's just not QUITE able, given the constraints of His nature, to beat Satan etal yet?

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/26/2012 4:03:56 PM (GMT-6)