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Romans 1:28 says that God's judgement on the world is just to hand them over to do their wickedness. God's judgment is not necessarily causing bad stuff to happen to bad people, but is actually leaving the world in its mess and letting people do all kinds of horrible things to each other.

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Yes, this is true as well, but there is no doubt that Annaias and Sappy type judgments still occur. And, in my opinion, this is where I want to be careful (and clear) about whether I call God's judgment...BAD STUFF. In my opinion, God's judgments are not "BAD" OR evil, whether direct or indirect.

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But I still think it's important to see evil as Satanic.

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Again, we need to be very clear as to what we are saying here. Judgments of God are not evil. In some sense I believe something like "Double Effect" as mentioned on the "Ethics" thread, (end of page) is possibly occurring.

www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1270&whichpage=17&ARCHIVE=

Yes, there is evil, but I don't think I would call every "bad" thing we see as "evil." I think, D.E. may go far to help Empiress understand why all these "atrocities" that she sees in the O.T., in a very real way, are not really "evil"...from a divine perspective.

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Only good stuff comes from God. Yet this doesn't mean that evil is never also a judgement from God. For example, Judah being chucked out of the promised land. It was God's judgment on the nation, and he was, on a big scale, in charge of it. Yet the nation was responsible for its own sin, and God punnished them too (even though he did use them).

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Again, note the above.

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I reckon that whether 9/11 was God's judgement or not is not relevant. Jesus certainly doesn't try to pin the blame. But our response should be repentance. And (although easy for me to say from the other side of the Atlantic), as far as I can see, the US hasn't responded with repentance. It hasn't tried to see what would cause there to be so much anti-Americanism around the world, but instead tried immediately to get revenge.

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Well, yes, Meph points that out. In one sense it is irrelevant whether 9/11 was God's judgment or not. We will NEVER know. So in that sense it is irrelevant. So what do we do? As Meph said:

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So, to me, the easiest thing would be to 1) stem the evil as best as we can and 2) go to God during our trials. What else needs to be done, right?

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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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Also, I don't think that I would necessarily go the route that Meph Man seems to say (or strongly imply) and that is, that God is not good (?) because we may see some atrocious act/deed because of his decree (unilateral involvement). Again, I would refer to the "judgment" as to what I referred to on the "Ethics" thread as "Double Effect." For i.e. a Dr. will try to save the life of the mother by killing the fetus or do surgery to get rid of cancer. Now, to someone who just so happens upon the scene (much like Greg's chess analogy), say someone from another time, before the technological advances that we have today--they may think that what is being done is "atrocious," but in reality, the Dr's. judgment is just and right. And so the same thing on a cosmic scale. God's judgments are actually "good," though he would rather not have to go that way. As a matter of fact, because of the "state of reality," God has no other option but to do "surgery."

So, when Greg asks, "What does love look like?" It is quite possible that even in instances of "evil," (which are actually God's judgments and therefore are not evil) we may actually see a loving God at work. We should not assume that all "evil" is Satanic. It could very well be a judgment of God! I think we need to be quite clear on how we define certain "acts" on both a human and cosmic scale as ethical or unethical. The question seems to hinge on ethics in a very real way.

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Ok. I wasn't trying to say that God wasn't good. There's nothing wrong with the "double effect" idea. This is just an implication of the "greater good" thing, right? That sometimes the BEST THING that needs to happen can entail something that seems bad to us. I'd been mentioning this. No biggie.


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Brandon:

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Lastly, even though I could buy into what I have just stated, I still don't see why I should buy into God overriding our freewill, hence, I could still accept the position that Greg espouses (as Pinnock and Brow do).

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Hmmmm...sorry. I'm NOT letting this one go. This is what's occurred. When we look at the case of Jesus PREDICTING Peter's 3 fold denial before the rooster crows, he is doing so in an UNCONDITIONAL manner. Almost LIKE a Cassandra type thing. Jesus WASN'T guessing...and he WASN'T making an conditional prophecy. And the question becomes evident: HOW could Jesus have done this? There are any number of things that COULD HAVE happened TO Peter that would have changed this? What if Peter only denied Jesus ONCE before he was arrested? What if Peter slipped on some animal dung, broke his neck, and didn't get to deny Jesus AT ALL? See what I mean? It would appear that the ONLY ways that Jesus could have done this, within the open view lookout, would be possibly a COMBINATION of...

1)Compatibilism with Peter

and...

2) INTENSE MICROMANAGEMENT of the environment around Peter

In either case, this gives God a VERY HIGH level of divine providential power that makes the problem of evil almost unbearable. (Same thing, I believe, with the Judas thing)

Now, as I recall, the way Doc dealt with this was to ADMIT to the possible existence of compatibilistic effect. (Remember, Doc?) And I then brought up the point that, ONCE YOU GRANT THIS as a possibility, you have to say that God MAY have done this in MORE THAN ONE instance. You cannot in priniciple say that God did this here...but DIDN't do this with Zosia..or the Holocaust...or anything else. See what I'm saying?

Oh, and let's not forget that Doc holds to the "could but would not" idea of Jesus' impeccability. He held that BECAUSE Jesus didn't know about his impeccability, that his temptations (and love for God) were genuine. Fine. Then I would take that line with ANY OTHER event where compatibilism could have been a part. As long as persons didn't KNOW that they were metaphysically limited in their choices, THINKING that they had more choices than they actually had, then THEIR choices should be seen as genuine too. Yep...

In any case, we HAVE to deal with the compatibilism and/or micromanagment thing. No getting away from that.


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Tim:

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I reckon that whether 9/11 was God's judgement or not is not relevant. Jesus certainly doesn't try to pin the blame. But our response should be repentance. And (although easy for me to say from the other side of the Atlantic), as far as I can see, the US hasn't responded with repentance. It hasn't tried to see what would cause there to be so much anti-Americanism around the world, but instead tried immediately to get revenge.

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Now, darnit, this is the BEST TAKE THAT I'VE SEEN of this! PREACH IT, YO! Stop trying to figure out WHERE it came from. and JUST respond properly to the situation by self-analysis and turning to God. A-friggin-MEN!!!!!!!


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Ok. Same event. But 1 Chr says that SATAN rose up the incited David. Let's not even go the route of touting biblical contradictions, ok? Let's try to reconcile this. Since God has been known to use evil spirits in his employ (the "lying spirit" in 1 Kings) and ALLOW Satan to have his way with people (Job), it seems like a good hypothesis to say that God decided to LET Satan do his dirty work FOR him. Right? But either way, God doesn't look like too good of a guy, now does He?

But hey, God would NEVER have anything to do with making Peter sin...or any atrocity like Sept. 11th...right? Hmmm...

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: Hypothetically, its hard to disagree with this. But I’m wondering what function such speculation would have. Jesus seems to prohibit it (Lk 13:1-5; Jn 9:1-5). So does the book of Job. Moreover, everything about Jesus healing and deliverance ministry sets the precedent for seeing afflictions as ultimately derived from the devil. My worry is that, even in saying, "perhaps it’s a judgment," we undermine the evil of the evil. Hence we may not be as aggressive as we ought in confronting it.

This worry is NOT hypothetical. It justified slavery for centuries ("the curse of Ham") and was operative in church history and the Nazi movement against the Jews (they get what they deserve for crucifying Christ).

Even beyond this, however, we need to note that when God judges nations or people, its IN RESPONSE to something he did NOT will, often (if not usually) USING agents who were not in accordance with his will (as when he uses the evil of Assyria to punish the evil of Israel).

Finally, most of the judgments in the Old Testament are toward Israel and/or carried out by Israel, set within a particualr context of a national covenant of blessing and reward. Not only this, but the Lord DECLARES what he’s doing. It is thus unwarranted to universalize this modus operandi and engage in speculative guess work about God possibly punishing people with collapsing towers and massacres (the very activities Jesus addresses in his refutation of this speculative activity, Lk 13).

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1) This is a more pragmatic argument than anything else. But as I've said before, it is easy for us to combat the evil WHILE understanding the ambiguity.

2) Remember. My problem is not people trying to blame God directly for tragedy. My problem is that people DON'T EVEN CONSIDER it as a possibility...thereby not looking at the FULL ambiguity of the situation. Remember those Sept 11th speechs I railed against?


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Doc:

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Is there any biblical precedent for this agnostic conclusion? Would we say the same thing about those on whom the tower fell or who were massacred by Pilot or who had deformities and infirmities in Jesus’ day?

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There is no direct biblical precedent for labeling ALL evil as demonic...ESPECIALLY if we are looking from ALL accounts in BOTH testaments.



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Doc:

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With JET, I don’t see what is problematic about supposing that God knew that Peters character was such that under the conditions he will be placed in the next nine hours he would deny Christ? It may be that God would have to do something to cause someone to notice Peter (but recall, he was a very public figure in Jesus’ ministry) or to not notice Peter (after the third denial, so as not to have four). But whatever "tweaking" God had to do, it wouldn’t need to involve overriding Peter’s free will to make him sin!

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Um...I don't know if "tweaking" is a good word to use for this. MICROMANAGEMENT is much more appropriate. There are TONS of things that could have happened to render Jesus' word of knowledge INACCURATE. But God obviously didn't allow for that to happen. And do you agree with JET about the issues that are raised in THEODICY when this level of providential ability is posited? This problem just AIN'T goin' away. I just don't think that it is...


Back in a sec,

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And do you agree with JET about the issues that are raised in THEODICY when this level of providential ability is posited? This problem just AIN'T goin' away. I just don't think that it is...

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Well, boys and girls, this is all I need, and I think we know that. As I said before, once it is stated that compatibilism of some type IS POSSIBLE in the open view, then one cannot in principle say when it IS or ISN'T used. Why? Because the "in certain contexts, under certain conditions" is a vague term which includes (if I'm not mistaken) the glorification idea. This goes for certain events of EVIL as well...like the Zosia case...right? So, what I'm hearing here is that it is IN THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY that God COULD HAVE "in this certain context, under certain conditions" rendered the Zosia thing by compatibilism of some type. That's all I wanted acknowledged.

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Although there is much in the Old Testament that leaves us scratching our heads, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have a distinct lack of ambiguity.

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"...stratching our heads"? Can we say understatement of the decade? Did you read some of the things that that rabbi on the PBS website said about some of the OT stuff? And, trust me, there is stuff in the NEW Testament about JESUS that's the same way. Check out this link.

http://www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=7&ARCHIVEVIEW=&TOPIC_ID=676

THIS is page 7 of the thread "Problems with the Old Testament" where I brought up some things about Jesus, to which SEC responded. Then Modes came on with some kick-tail stuff that help illumine what I was trying to show. This is part of the reason why I have a hard time seeing this "nice" Jesus that y'all keep talking about. Does any of this preclude what Jesus did for us? Nope.


In short, you DON'T know for certain WHAT God did providentially in Sept. 11th. You DON'T know if there was a "greater good" thing going on. You DON'T know that God wasn't orchestrating or allowing this tragedy at all. Neither do I. So let's ALL face that.

Again, LOVE ya.


Holla,


Edited by - Mephi2K on 09/10/2002 08:37:44 AM

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Your third question hits on the weakness as stated. The argument as I stated it initially simply said we cannot change the past and we cannot be responsible for that which we cannot change. You are right to point out that this would entail the denial of the very thing I want to here affirm -- namely, Peter's responsibility.

So I need to modify this point. Even though Peter can't now change the past, and thus can't render it false that, given such and such circumstances he will certainly deny Christ (circumstances that God is going to make sure occur so as to sqeeze out this ugliness from Peter) -- even though this is true, I want to say Peter is yet responsible for his future denials, for he's responsible for the character that renders them certain.

So, I should perhaps revise my argument to read:
We are not responsible for what we cannot, or could not ever have, changed.

With this modification I think the argument still works. Since I cannot and could not ever have changed a fact 500 years ago, I cannot be responsible for it. But I could have changed the character I now have, and thus could have avoided the behavior that may now compatibilistically flow from it -- even if I can't now change it. Hence I'm still responsible for my behavior. (Extreme example: an addict may be unable to refrain from cocaine -- but once could have, so is yet responsible for the fact that they now can't).

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Now, let's use this. It is possible that God KNOWING the Nazi soldier's COMPATIBILISTIC nature, allowed the beautiful eyed-girl to come into contact with said soldier for purposes that WE can't understand. So God would be "squeezing" the evil out of this man using the context of Zosia JUST LIKE you say that God used the context of the questioners to "squeeze out" the true nature of Peter...right?

So, do you get what I'm saying? No matter WHAT TYPE of compatibilism you posit, there is still some interesting possibilities that cause problems in theodicy.



Edited by - Mephi2K on 09/10/2002 08:59:42 AM