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Again the MAIN reason that I bring all this up is because of the propensity for people to think they KNOW things and, even subconsciously, push OTHER EXPLANATIONS out the window. "Oh, I KNOW this is God. Oh, I KNOOOOW this ain't God." That type of thing. Just like some of the religious leaders KNEW Jesus wasn't really of God, right?? Stay open. God has surprised us on more than a couple occasions. From what I understand, healthy recognition of ambiguity goes a long way in maintaining a sense of openness to reality.

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But now, here's a question. If I'm witnessing a little girl being tortured and a voice tells me it is God's doing, should I not assume it THE DEVIL?

I can readily grant my ambiguity about why God could not prevent it. But I cannot readily grant that it is in any sense his doing.

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Cool. If you were to hear a voice that tells you that it was God's doing, assume it the devil. You have good rights to do that. After all, the devil does try to deceive, yes? If it's God, you'll deal with the ramifications later, right? HOPEFULLY, though, as Modes wonderfully keeps stating, if we condition our ears to be CONSTANTLY familiar to the voice of God, we will have less and less problems discerning God's voice from that of others. It's strongly a matter of relationship and being OPEN and RECEPTIVE to the voice of the Shepherd.


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Doc:

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Meph, If I continue to blame all evil as being the direct or indirect results of free wills other than God... do you think that is (what was your word)... hubris?

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Hmmm... Check it, Doc. If that's what you wish to do and how you wish to interpret things, fine. Knock yourself out. I would just simply ask that none of us get on national T.V. or any public forum and act like we have a direct line to God about EXACTLY HOW God is involved in any particular national and/or personal tragedies...if that line ain't there. To me, Robert Schuller get just as bad as Jerry Falwell with this. There is an important distinction, I believe, between sharing one theological perspectives on things and basically acting as God's personal interpreter of historical events. Former? Cool. Latter? Hubris. Mad hubris. (Hey, at least it's not calling it "brazen", riiiight? )

I love you so much, Doc! You know that, don't you?

Holla,

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Everything I know about God in Christ, and in my experience, screams against the very idea that he would WANT atrocities.

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Perhaps that will always be our diverging point. Everything that I know about God in Christ, and MY experience, tells me that God can surprise the bejeezus out of your with wierd stuff that strong borders on, in not crosses the TSE idea. Everything I know about God in Christ by the Word as WELL as personal (HARSH) experience shows that God loves us infinitely as the Jesus Christ GRACIOUSLY illustrates, but will sometimes allow things BEYOND our moral comprehension to further a goal that ONLY HE knows about. But hey, that's MY experience. But then again, that's why I don't have a moral problem with God. I just thank him for Jesus, take the blows as they come, and keep following the Voice of the Shepherd as best I can. Again, MY experience with "God".

[Digression: At this point, when I tell people about EXACTLY what I've been through, lock, stock and barrel, they automatically want to say "Hmmm...were you SURE that was God? That sure doesn't sound like the God I know..." To which I would say: "Oh, I don't know. Probably just as sure as that missionary girl was in Doc's "God of the Possible" who couldn't deny HER experience. So NOW what you sayin', 'brother'???"

Holla,


Edited by - Mephi2K on 10/02/2002 08:59:20 AM

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That's why, frankly, this whole discussion hasn't gripped me existentially. It's just out of my theological and existential orbit.

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Hmmm...maybe you ought to try another galaxy?

I'm so totally with the Meph Man on this one (which causes me to start to think about other issues, such as anthropomorphisms ). It seems the LAST THING our modern ears want to hear is that God could have been responsible for 9/11 for whatever reason. And I think Greg, if you honestly look at what M&M is saying (that is, be open to your own modern suppositions), you can see that what he is trying to convey "fills in the gaps" of the "explanatory power" of your theodicy.



Brandon
"Sharing a prison cell unites you much more powerfully than sharing a conference table."--Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War

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And I think Greg, if you honestly look at what M&M is saying (that is, be open to your own modern suppositions), you can see that what he is trying to convey "fills in the gaps" of the "explanatory power" of your theodicy.

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and...

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To me, this "debate" has, in its essence, boiled down to the plausibility/possibility distinction. It seems that Doc [grudgingly?] acknowledges the possibility, however remote, that bad stuff could be God participating in a lesser evil for a greater good. He chooses, however, to focus on the implausibility of strikingly bad stuff (e.g., Zosia, 9/11, etc.) having anything to do with God. He doesn't find it existentially healthy or practical to dwell on these remote possibilities. Instead, just take the default position that bad stuff is completely separated from God's action, unless one can find direct and glaring evidence that it is God's action.

I agree with this, and I think Mephi does, too. What doesn't make sense to me is that some here seem to deny even the possibility, which is inconsistent with the spiritual warfare motif as I understand it.

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Brett, if I had a million dollars to give away for getting my position, you'd win it. Hands down. yes, yes, and YES! Thanks for saying this!


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Doc:

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: But that’s just the problem Meph. Susanne WAS sure God "set her up" for her disastrous marriage on the basis of her forknowledge. That was her "experience." She was able to work through it only when she came to believe that the theology that informed her experience was mistaken. God can REGRET how things turned out, because the way they turned out was not his goal when he directed her into the marriage.

And this just goes to show, as we already know, that we can testify on the basis of experience, but we can’t ARGUE on the basis of experience, for experience is not self-interpreting. By appealing to my experience with God, I was simply testifying as to why the discussion about God wanting atrocities didn’t grip me existentially.

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You may be missing my point. You were testifying as to why this discussion didn't grip you existentially. I was testifying to why this discussion doesnt existentially bother ME. My experience with God SPEAKING and ACTING goes along with what I've said about God. It's one thing for you to INTERPRET actions of God using your theology. It's another thing for God to TELL you something and remove the ambiguity! (Recall my "What's Your Story" contribution.) The latter is what happened to me. My experience with God has grounded my understanding of God's love THOROUGHLY in Christ to the extent that ALL OTHER divine actions (including his OT activities) are RELATIVIZED to that INFINITE act of divine mercy and grace. I don't reinterpret the occasions in light of Christ. I say that because of the Christ Act, THEY ARE NEGLIGIBLE. The mauling of the 42 kids, the Plagues, Job's torment...ALL of that. Because of this, the problem of evil with respect to DIVINE ACTIVITY really doesn't bother me that much. (The only thing about the problem of evil that troubled me was how evil human beings can be!) As such, this discussion grips me existentially, but doesn't bother me. And I believe that it's possible that it doesn't grip you but doesn't bother me...is because of the differences of our experiences with God.

And about the woman. I was specifically talking about her VERY ARDENT belief that God wanted her to marry that man. You never denied the validity of that experience to her in that book. Like she basically told you "Hey, if this WASN'T God, then I don't know HOW to tell God from not God!" I feel the same way about my experience. That's all I was saying.

Mad love in return,

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Brett, if I had a million dollars to give away for getting my position, you'd win it. Hands down. yes, yes, and YES! Thanks for saying this!

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Hey, if that money ever comes in, let me know.

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

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Even beyond this, I have to grant that God sometimes CAUSES suffering for a greater good, as when (for example) he commands the righteous Israelites to put those Israelites who wouldn't side with Moses to death. But I would argue that cases such as this are not EVIL, though they are NON-IDEAL. I'm sure God wishes the Israelites were not rebellious, and thus wishes that he did not have to protect the good of the nation as a whole by putting them to death. But GIVEN that they are, of their own free will, rebellious and evil, God is willing to do this "for the greater good."

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Doc: I give my take on this and let BBB respond for himself. I think that God ALLOWS a lesser evil for a greater good in the sense that

a) he allows all evil to originate for the good of free will (but not for the SPECIFIC EVIL THINGS any given free agent does)

b) he sometimes doesn't prevent a specific evil he could prevent for a greater good (e.g. Paul's thorn in the flesh from Satan).

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SOMETIMES God's purposes and Satan's purposes coincide. What the enemy intends for evil, God intends for good (Gen 50:7 I believe).

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