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JET
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Posted 7/4/2007 4:17 PM (GMT -6)

Does anybody see irony in this statement (quoted above) from John Hicks:

...sentient nature supports and serves its human apex [] by helping to constitute an independent natural order to which man is organically related and within which he exists at an epistemic distance from which he may freely come to God who has thus bestowed upon him the autonomous status of a person... from the point of view of the divine purpose of soul-making, animal life is linked with human life as the latter's natural origin and setting, an origin and setting that contribute to the 'epistemic distance' by which man is enabled to exist as a free and responsible creature...

Hicks not only sees evolution as consistent with soul-making, but actually sees evolution as playing an important role in the divine purpose of soul-making.

Animal suffering is one aspect of a natural order characterized by the spontaneity necessary to avoid "ugly determinism". At the same time, evolution and animal suffering is part of the 'epistemic distance' that is so critical to human freedom and soul-making.

?????

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/4/2007 6:37 PM (GMT -6)

Tom said...
Why would the benevolent God create a context for human becoming that was capable of such violence if, as Greg argues, God didn't HAVE to do this? Greg will want to argue that the possibilty of nature's becoming this violent WAS a necessary part of the free context required of human becoming.

Like....Yeah.

(o)

Similitude
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Posted 7/4/2007 9:34 PM (GMT -6)

I don't see what Hicks is saying at all. How does it help human soul-making to have animal suffering going on hundreds of millions of years prior to human existence? Why not just create that same order with carnivory, etc just prior to creating/evolving humans if it's just about occasioning certain conditions for human soul-making?

JET
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Posted 7/4/2007 11:14 PM (GMT -6)

Jeff: I don't see what Hicks is saying at all. How does it help human soul-making to have animal suffering going on hundreds of millions of years prior to human existence? Why not just create that same order with carnivory, etc just prior to creating/evolving humans if it's just about occasioning certain conditions for human soul-making?

Earl: First, perhaps millions of years is just how long it takes. Perhaps God just has to allow for a long time for humans to evolve given the amount of freedom and spontaneity God wants in creation.

But, if understand correctly, Hicks would say that conditions for human soul-making require humans to be able to see themselves as part of an independent natural order (thus contributing to the necessary epistemic distance). Its not the predation and carnivory itself that has soul-making properties. Rather, its the context in which it occurs -- a natural order in which we find beauty (which can point us to God) in the midst of ambiguity (which allows us room to learn to relate to God as 'free and responsible creatures'). Or something like that.

Similitude
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Posted 7/5/2007 6:11 AM (GMT -6)

Yeah. I see what you mean, now, reading it that way, Earl. But Hicks is making my point (and Greg's), from that perspective. Namely, those historical views which posit origins of suffering that have nothing to do with creaturely volition entail GREATER epistemic distance. This is exactly the point I was making to Tom earlier--I've never heard anyone say that that view of the origin of suffering makes it easier to see that the creator is best recognized in the incarnated person and life of Jesus Christ. Almost all people see natural evil as more difficult to explain in terms of a creator who supposedly is interested in us like a father--especially given the supposed fact that when God burst into the scene (in the incarnation), he went about, according to Acts, doing good to those "oppressed by the devil." "Which of you give your son/daughter a snake when asked for a fish?"

Tom
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Posted 7/5/2007 7:45 AM (GMT -6)

I build a stage. And then I send my son (and our dog Daisy) on a trip across the stage. But I litter the stage with booby traps that go off, naturally so to speak--when they're stepped on, when trip wires are violated, etc. Some traps slightly would. Some mame. Some kill. And I do this to toughen my son up?

Tom

JET
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Posted 7/5/2007 10:53 AM (GMT -6)

Many:

JET:

I've seen a lot of references to Hick's theodicy over time (and I've always been impressed), but I've never actually read Hick's classic, "Evil and the God of Love". I probably need to stop talking about Hick's theodicy until I read it--something I intend to do.

Unison,

I'm guessing you've probably read "Evil and the God of Love".

Does Many's quote, above, seem to you like a good characterization of the way Hick deals with natural evil?

callie
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Posted 7/5/2007 12:16 PM (GMT -6)

Ok......
As a new person here, can anyone give me the lowdown, the 411 on this "Greg" person?
I checked out the link to the blog, is he a poster here?
I am asking because his profile on the blog says that he is a former atheist and I would be interested to read how he went from being atheist to Christian.
It would be a good background for the rest of his writings.

thx

callie

Tom
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Posted 7/5/2007 12:36 PM (GMT -6)

Hi Callie-

Greg Boyd. Princeton & Yale grad. Now pastors a church in St. Paul. He used to hang out here a lot but no longer does. Pretty busy.

Tom

callie
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Posted 7/5/2007 1:43 PM (GMT -6)

Thank you Tom for answering this. I appreciate your taking the time to do so.

Since I now know that is a former member, I am assuming that I will be able to find his old posts to get some background on him!!

callie

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 11:08 AM (GMT -6)

Unison: How is God related to the "eschatological essence" of a sheep liver fluke?
Being quite serious.

Jeff: D., could you flesh this out a bit? What are you getting at here, and how does it relate to "natural evil."

I would assume that Greg would want to say that God grounds all "eschatological essences" of all created things. ALL created things. He has to say this because of his metaphysic. This would include that of the sheep liver fluke. (or the candiru fish...the parasite that swims up an human's orifices [the penis, even.] ) Now, looking at how these parasites work, we have to ask ourselves the question: HOW are their parasitic behaviors of parasites related to the "eschatological essences" given to them by God? In short, were they MADE to be this way...and if so...WHO did that? Greg wants to say that the devil did it. But this is the problem that I've had with Greg's view of natural evil for some time. If God is the ultimate person who determines and shapes all "eschatological essences"...and eschatological essences set the pattern for HOW a being behave the way it behaves...and animals are NOT enough of a "self" to fall into despair...then how could Satan be blamed for the emergence of parasites like the sheep liver fluke or the candiru fish? In order to do so, we'd have to say that any parasitic animals are direct creations of Satan. We'd have to say that Satan just uses the raw idea of carbon-based life and brings not only carnivorousness, but also parasitism...and the VARIETIES of carnivorousness and parasitism that we see. That God has NOTHING TO DO with it...even though he sustains it at all times...

[Digression: If God doesn't create parasitic creatures, what about the BACTERIA that line our large intestines? You know, the one's that HELP OUR BODIES process waste? The SAME bacteria that can cause a person to die, if internal bleeding occurs? Hmmm... ]

Basically, I want to know who Greg thinks "created" the sheep liver fluke and candiru fish: God or Satan?

To heighten the tension, the Scriptures say that without the Son nothing was made that has been made. Someone could think that means ALL ANIMAL LIFE. Parasites do antedate human beings, after all. Hmmm...

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be One, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be One as we are One— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete UNIty. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to SONship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/6/2007 11:22:13 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 11:11 AM (GMT -6)

JET:
Does Many's quote, above, seem to you like a good characterization of the way Hick deals with natural evil?

Perhaps this will help. From John Hick's article "Soul-Making Theodicy" in Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings. Pages 290-291.

To summarize thus far:

(1) The divine intention in relation to humankind, according to our hypothesis, is to create perfect finite personal beings in filial relationship with their Maker.

(2) It is logically impossible for humans to be created already in this perfect state, because in its spiritual aspect it involves coming freely to an uncoerced consciousness of God from a situation of epistemic distance, and in its moral aspect, freely choosing the good in preference to evil.

(3) Accordingly the human being was initially created through the evolutionary process, as a spiritually and morally immature creature, and as part of the world which is both religiously ambiguous and ethically demanding.

(4) Thus that one is morally imperfect (i.e that there is moral evil) and that the world is a challenging and even dangerous environment (i.e. that there is natural evil), are necessary aspects of the present stage of the process through which God is gradually creating perfected finite persons.

From my standpoint, it's a situation of "if you want an omellette, you've gotta break some eggs." Hick himself, however, truly recognizes how emotionally unsatisfying this answer can be, even though it's intellectually tenable.

It should be noted that he says that his whole thing presupposes an eschatological fulfillment of eventual universal reconciliation. His words, page 293. (Emphasis mine)

"Thus if the unity of humankind in God's presence is ever to be realized it will have to be in some sphere of existence other than our earth. In short, the fulfillment of the divine purpose, as it is postulated in the Irenaean type of theodicy, presupposes each person's survival, in some form, of bodily death, and further living and growing towards that end state. Without such an eschatological fulfillment, this theodicy would collapse.

If I'm not mistaking, I believe that David Ray Griffin (a process theist who holds to subjective immortality) says essentially the same thing.

Does this help?

Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/6/2007 11:22:42 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 11:28 AM (GMT -6)

What's interesting is that Greg doesn't see how his view could easily be taken to the level of the Demiurge. He ends up given Satan a LOOOOOT of power in SATPOE. So much so, that practically speaking, Satan WOULD be the Demiurge. Think about it. From SATPOE, page 301. Bold emphasis Greg's. Underlined emphasis mine.

"The problem of evil is not a problem of occasional bad things happening on the otherwise pristine stage of God's creation, as it is frequently portrayed. Rather, evil permeates the structure of the stage itself, for the one given authority over the structure (Satan) has become corrupt."

The only way that Satan's fall can do what Greg says it does is for Greg to actually believe that Satan is the "prince of matter." How is this NOT the Demiurge concept, essentially?

Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/6/2007 11:36:28 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 7/6/2007 12:23 PM (GMT -6)

D, I asked Greg about how God relates to the eschatological aim of a sheep liver virus. He said he didn't think God had eschatological aims for them.

I don't suppose you like that answer very much. I'll check in with him again.

By the way, we just spent the morning with John Polkinghorne. Very interesting. Very sweet and humble and EXTREEEEMLY brilliant man.

Tom

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 12:38 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
D, I asked Greg about how God relates to the eschatological aim of a sheep liver virus. He said he didn't think God had eschatological aims for them. I don't suppose you like that answer very much. I'll check in with him again.

Oh my freaking goodness! icon_smile_shock

I'll make it very simple for him. Ask him this: From a dispositional point of view, is the sheep liver virus (and candiru fish) grounded in God in ANY way? Is there any "divine ground" of the sheep liver virus or candiru fish that grounds the "unique actualization" of it's "non-divine reality"???

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 12:41 PM (GMT -6)

God's Relationship to Non-Divine Reality

The disposition of God to create a non-divine reality--which is itself a contingent feature of God's necessary disposition to be God is thus a disposition to create experiential centers of, and contributors to, non-divine beauty. It is a disposition to create a matrix of relations with ordinal centers, each of which enjoys and/or contributes to an approximation of divine beauty. The divine disposition "diffuses itself" (Edwards) into a multiplicity of dispositions which "aim at" a unique actualization, a unique perspective on reality, which is defined either as an contribution to, and/or an experience of, beauty.

It is at this point of this "diffusion" that the distinction between God and the non-divine world occurs. The multiplicity of dispositions towards non-divine realities are themselves non-divine in their concrescence. The "termini" of God's creative act is not (as with Neville) the creature act itself, but the beginning of the (not wholly determined) disposition of the creature which shall act. The non-divine disposition arises out of God--it is an aspect of God's self-disposition to delight in Godself--and results in what is not God.

As with Edwards, we can in this way assert that God's creativity is, in one sense,"the substance of bodies", the "ens entium" of all things, without thereby endorsing pantheism. But this in our scheme carried through more consistently than was possible in Edwards because we have not held that this creativity toward non-divine realities is in any sense necessary. The relative autonomy of the non-divine dispositions is manifested in their autonomous--viz. not divinely determined--creativity, though their relative dependence is manifested in their tie to the primordial disposition of God as the ground of their creativity. The divine ground defines the parameters within which the preordained role of the entity within the matrix of being can be played, through exactly how this creativity is in particular actualized is their own doing. The divine ground thus defines the essence of the non-divine creature without thereby undermining the autonomous integrity of the creature: indeed, it is the divine ground of the creature's essence which allows the creature space to be autonomous.

WTF????

JET
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Posted 7/6/2007 12:58 PM (GMT -6)

Fyi, Hick's "Evil and the God of Love" has been reissued with a new preface by the author and a foreword by Marilyn McCord Adams and a publishing date of July 28, 2007.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780230522008&itm=1

Evil and the God of Love: With a Foreword by Marilyn McCord Adams
by John Hick

Pub. Date: July 28, 2007

Online Price: $19.96 Save 20%
Members Pay: $17.96

When first published, Evil and the God of Love instantly became recognized as a modern theological classic, widely viewed as the most important work on the problem of evil to appear in English for more than a generation. It has continued to be at the centre of discussions ever since. Alongside a new preface by the author, this reissue of the work includes a foreword by Marilyn McCord Adams.

Pre-order today!

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 1:06 PM (GMT -6)

Thanks for that, JET! Good info. biggrin

And Tom. Ask Doc to go ahead and respond to me, if he's got some time. (ONLY if he has time. No imposition here! ) I understand he's really busy...but if I'm screwed up here, I want to know it from the horse's mouth, as it were. I don't want to be "brazen" or anything... icon_brows2

Tom
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Posted 7/6/2007 1:09 PM (GMT -6)

I thought the same thing. BUT...interpreting Greg as charitably as possible (and having had the conversation with him in the room at the time), what I understood his point to be was that the actual manner in which an entity disposes itself is not necessarily an expression of God's subjective aims. Creation can dispose away from those aims. Forget candiru fish and deadly bacteria. Just take Satan as the supreme example. We CAN say (and I think Greg would agree) that God has subjective aims for Satan. But that's not to say that everything Satan does is an expression of this subjective aim. So it's entirely possible to look at the created order and, given certain commitments to loving providence, created freedom, the existence of evil agents, and (finally) the inseparable inter-relatedness of ALL these factors in the created order, conclude that this or that natural evil is a privation of God's eschatological aims. And given the causal agency of demons and Satan within the created order, there's no way to RULE out natural evil as essentially a manifestation of privation upon God's subjective aim for the created order (and some good reasons to conclude that this IS what such privation is).

I think what Greg was saying was that there's no divine subjective aim manifested in privation per se. And I think you'd totally agree, because subjective aims ARE substantial and significant, whereas privation is not. So what of the candiru fish? I don't see why it's impossible, given Greg's work, to say this form and manner in which this fish exists in the world is manifestly privated. Is there a subjective aim that defines how the candiru fish, duely redeemed in the resurrection, would actualize beauty in its own unique way? Sure (assumming fish survive in the New Creation, let's assume they do). Let's say the same thing about Satan. But Satan looks to me to be as privated a created being as can possibly be. How does God relate to the subject aim of Satan (on these assumptions)? Well, I would say that God relates to this subjective aim by a) willing the continued existence of Satan, and by b) extending the possibilities of God-ward becoming to Satan. Same thing for the candiru fish.

But none of this precludes viewing natural evil as an effect in the created order of privated wills. If God can be a causal agent in the created order, and if humans can be agents within the same order, why can't fallen angels (and unfallen angels) be causal agents in that order? Greg argues essentially that if this is true, then why WOULDN'T we assume that some/much/all (?) of the natural evil we observe is an effect of evil agents? That doesn't mean that Satan has to be a creator ON PAR with God. It just means that to the extent to which the natural order is privated (maybe THAT itself is the point of contention), to that extent it fails to manifest God's subjective aims for the created order.

I would disagree with Greg if he felt that there was absolutely nothing God could imagine for a candiru fish's 'becoming' that was beautiful. If that's the case, then we have the irrevocably closed dispositional reality that we said COULD NOT be. We have the existence of pure privation. And THAT, I think, is theologically impossible. I want to say it's logically impossible too, but I'm not that good a logician. But I certainly have no theological category for such a thing.

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 7/6/2007 1:23:46 PM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/6/2007 1:12 PM (GMT -6)

MANY said...
By the way, we just spent the morning with John Polkinghorne. Very interesting. Very sweet and humble and EXTREEEEMLY brilliant man.

Tom, can you then comment on THIS from Wikipedia? I'd appreciate it. One first blush it looks pretty EO! (Like John of Damascus.)

On freewill and free process
Polkinghorne regards the problem of evil as the most serious intellectual objection to the existence of God. He believes that "The well-known free will defence in relation to moral evil asserts that a world with a possibility of sinful people is better than one with perfectly programmed machines. The tale of human evil is such that one cannot make that assertion without a quiver, but I believe that it is true nevertheless. I have added to it the free-process defence, that a world allowed to make itself is better than a puppet theatre with a Cosmic Tyrant. I think that these two defences are opposite sides of the same coin, that our nature is inextricably linked with that of the physical world which has given us birth."^[14]

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/6/2007 1:13 PM (GMT -6)

MANY said...
D, I asked Greg about how God relates to the eschatological aim of a sheep liver virus. He said he didn't think God had eschatological aims for them.

Works for me.

(o)

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 1:23 PM (GMT -6)

Tom
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Posted 7/6/2007 1:31 PM (GMT -6)

Yeah, that's JP's basic argument, POW. Greg's natural evil thing fits into that. Interestingly, Greg asked JP about this. Greg gave a Lukan passage where some evil (a sickness, demonization or something) was attributed by Christ to a personal evil agent, Satan, and then Greg asked about the possibility of anti-God agents working within the created order. JP said he'd be careful not to assume that NT language of "demons" necessarily signified the objective existence of such beings; Jesus after all was speaking as a full member of his own culture and thought in terms of that culture's science and worldview. OK, so? And then JP immediately followed that with, "But you know, sometimes evil is just SO evil, so intensely concentrated, that I have no way to account for it other than to suppose there are real, fallen, evil agents working in the world" and he gave the Hallocaust as an example.

How's that for a straight answer?

Tom

One Love
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Posted 7/6/2007 1:47 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
And then JP immediately followed that with, "But you know, sometimes evil is just SO evil, so intensely concentrated, that I have no way to account for it other than to suppose there are real, fallen, evil agents working in the world" and he gave the Hallocaust as an example.

That's interesting. He gave an example of moral evil in the context of talking about natural evil. I'd like to know what JP thinks about something like a tyrannosaurus rex...or a candiru fish. Oh well.

Just so that we are clear, no one is saying that it's impossible for spiritual beings like angels to affect matter, either positively or negatively. What little that human beings can do with matter testifies to this. My issue has been the EXTENT to which Greg takes things (which you caught). Don't you remember how Iconoclast was talking about this long time ago, too? Greg has to end up saying that ANY and ALL instances of carnivorousness, predatory behaviour and parasitism that we see in the dispositional becoming of any non-God reality IS essentially demonically-influenced. (Remember, Greg said about the 2nd Law of Themodynamics and it's relationship to Satan?)

I wonder how JP would feel about that!

Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/6/2007 1:50:14 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 7/6/2007 2:10 PM (GMT -6)

Yeah. I don't know how far to take it. JP did say one thing about the God working within the created order. He said there's NO WAY to disentangle the different contributions so that we can say, "Here's God's distinct influence, and there's Satan's, and there's Tom's neurons, and there's Tom's dispositional freedom, etc." We can't do that. So it's hard to say what sort of physical laws would govern a glorifed new creation. It IS embodied createion. So I assume it'll be governed by laws. What about the 2nd law of thermodynamics or entropy? I don't know.

On Satan's behavior in the natural order, Greg offers:

* It's within the parameters of Satan's created essence to become so evil he delights in pain and destruction of all sorts
* Its within the parameters of Satan's created essence that he has x amount of say-so over matter
* he uses his say-so over matter to corrupt God's good designs...
* so parasites partly reflect the design of God, but also partly the design of Satan.
---> I'd say the same thing about humans and dogs and especially CATS.

What's the problem?????

-------

So if they partly reflect the design of God, they partly instantiate his subjective aims. To EXIST at all is to do that much. I hope that helps.

I wanna be careful in posting stuff from emails Greg sends me. Since the NY Times article I think he wants to be very careful about what he says in public. People may want to misconstrue what he says. But what I just posted from him is already said in his books. Nuttin new.

Peace,
T

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