Corey

I think the notion of "the tree of life" is important. Whatever it was, however metaphorical it may be, (disclaimer, disclaimer...), it points to some provision by God that we are prevented access to, as a result of sin. So, my picture is that there indeed was entropy from the beginning, but God also had intended a provision to counter its negative effects.

Iconoclast

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called “Creation and Fall” where he talks at length about the creation story. First and foremost he interprets it as a story with deep meaning - not in any way as a literal historical account.

In his interpretation the Tree of Life which stands at the center of the Garden means that God is the center of our life. When we were barred from the Garden it means that we no longer have direct access to our center. I further interpret this to mean that we “now” have epistemic distance. I put “now” in quotes to head off any confusion about the story being a literal sequence of events that happened that explain our current predicament. Again, it is not a literal sequence of events or a historical record or anything like that. It is a big and complex metaphor that I believe is intended to convey deep meaning about what is going on.

In my view the “Fall” was not some historic event that happened long ago. Rather, it is a metaphorical concept that carries multiple layers of meanings.

One meaning is one that is happening right here and right now. Each of us is living this story again and again. The story of the Fall in this meaning is not about one particular event long ago but rather about what is happening to us right here and right now. Each of us is the serpent (our unconscious) asking “Did God say…”. Each of us is Eve entertaining the notion that God is keeping something from us, holding us back, preventing us from becoming wise. Each of is Adam choosing to make the judgment that God is not as good as He should be. And we do this over and over and over again…

Another meaning is a more global one that the Fall is itself an aspect of the creation. Creation itself is “Fallen” in the sense that it exists in epistemic distance from God. The actual creation does not have the Tree of Life in it. There is no Garden of Eden in the actual creation – the actual universe that God created – nor was there ever. Again, the story of Adam and Eve is neither an historical account nor a literal sequence. There are two creation stories: the seven days and the Garden of Eden. They do not overlap in any time sequence. To even try and make them overlap in this way lead to all sort of machinations like the Gap Theory and so on.

Think about this. Is it possible that we might not have “Fallen”? That every person from Adam on would never commit any “sin”? Notice how we would all agree that everyone has fallen. Is it because the first guy screwed up and oops there we all go? Notice how we get wrapped around the axle regarding this question and its implications?

There is a simple way out of all of this line of thinking. The “Fall” is simply the basic description of what it means to be in epistemic distance from God. The very ability to truly choose means that we are “Fallen”. We, of course, ask the question “Did God say…” Is it possible to NOT ask this question? Can any of us control our thoughts to never let this enter? Has there ever been anyone (other than God Himself of course) who did not at some point in their life answer it in such a way as to separate him or herself from God? But wait a second. If we are already separated from God through epistemic distance isn’t this the natural thought pattern? Once we gained consciousness and thus the ability to judge didn’t we naturally do this? I would say yes.

Of course, death entered our world through the Fall. The Fall is nothing but epistemic distance which is nothing but entropy.

But the “Fall” is also a metaphor for what is possible. It is a metaphor that implies we “fell” from “something” which implies that we can “get back”. Again, watch out for the literal entanglements – it doesn’t necessarily imply that we ACTUALY were once there. It does imply that we can become “un-Fallen”. It implies that there is hope.

The hope is to “regain” our center – to regain the Tree of Life – but not through the Garden of Eden – that way is barred – we cannot simply storm the Tree of Life. But rather, through the giving up of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – by the giving up of judgment which can only be given up by eternally choosing to love. Love is the opposite of judgment.

thanks,

Iconoclast

PLANIS

5) So my question—why are we looking for either/or answers? We are we asking either/or questions? That is, why are we assuming (as it seems we are) that EITHER entropy is a part of God’s good creation and so ALL natural evil can be accounted for by appealing to the impersonal machinations of entropy and evolution OR entropy is Satanic and that explains ALL natural evil? Why can’t it be that entropy is a part of God’s good creation, that some suffering and pain is to be expected, AND that Satan and fallen angelic agents have some influence upon the created order? I don’t see that that’s so impossible a view. Why posit it? Because a) there’s good reason to posit the existence of such beings but b) no reason to think that if they exist they're impotent and without causal connection to the creation order.

Iconoclast

My quick answer to this would be to say that once you entertain the notion that the Biblical language regarding demons and angels is metaphorical and seek to understand what that language could then possibly mean many insights tend to come your way.

For myself it was quite a struggle to actually entertain this notion. I was brought up believing in the literal existence of Satan and demons and angels and the like. But once I fully entertained this notion so much more of the Bible suddenly started to make sense – a lot of sense.

My only real argument along these lines to try and convince someone to really give this a shot is to suggest that once all humans understood our world in terms of demons and angels and such that were the real controlling forces that we could not explain. Over time we learned that there were natural forces at work. We learned that epilepsy was not a demonic problem it was a synapse problem and so on. As we learned this we gained more effectiveness in our world. In fact, Isaac Newton’s work basically ushered in the industrial revolution and we now have orders of magnitude more control over our lives for the good. We now know how to build economies that can end extreme poverty. We have much longer life spans than 200 years ago and so on. In my view, our job is to fight this entropy thing through learning, understanding and perseverance. It is, in short, to make our neighbors lives better than they otherwise could have been. This is true in terms of economies as well as in terms of spiritual understanding.

In my view while the spiritual warfare view is certainly better than the Calvanist’s “everything is God’s will” view it still leaves much to be desired – very much. It still puts the fundamental problem outside of ourselves – Satan is the bad guy – not us.

In my view Satan is us.

thanks,

Iconoclast

Iconoclast: My definition of love, which I got from Greg, is to act on another’s behalf at cost to oneself. Implicit in the notion of love is that it is chosen. I think we would all agree that if someone is forced to act on another’s behalf at cost to themselves we would not call that love.

Jeff: Yes. We all agree that love is volitional. But it is not clear to me that it necessarily involves cost. Love is willing and able to suffer long. But I'm not sure any and every act of love necessarily entails suffering. I would say that to love is to volitionally, positively, and ultimately affect another's sentient satisfaction. I say "ultimately" to rule out short-range satisfaction that actually undermines the greater long-range satisfaction.

Iconoclast: The difficulty then, I believe, is not that God’s love is non-volitional but rather that we do not know how to extend the notion of choice or volition to the concept of eternity. We only know of time. To us choice implies time - a time before something was chosen and a time after something was chosen; the choice taking place somewhere between these two.

Jeff: This is only a difficulty if we say love entails suffering. I don't think it does. Hence, I have no problem conceiving of God performing loving acts throughout an infinite past. D. and Tom don't seem to believe that God consciously suffers at all. So I don't think they could define love as entailing suffering, either. But I'll let them clarify once again for me. It's interesting you say that Greg believes love requires cost. Because Tom and D. say they get their unsurpassably satisfied deity from Greg's metaphysics. In any case, without love necessarily entailing suffering, your syllogism doesn't work, to my mind.

Iconoclast: This is, in essence, the same problem that early philosophers and mathematicians had with the concept of motion. Zeno’s paradox is all about the philosophical difficulties with motion. The paradox, and thus the mathematics of motion, was completely resolved when Isaac Newton invented the infinitesimal calculus - the idea that one can add up an infinite number of infinitesimal amounts to arrive at a finite number - the core concept being the notion of a limit. A simple example of this is the mathematics behind the equivalence of the number 1 and the number .99999… (an infinite number of 9’s).

Jeff: Zeno's paradox is bizarre, indeed. I think the way it has been addressed here is that time and space are not beings. And that numbers, lengths, points, etc. are abstractions--not beings. Given that, we start with the idea that motion, by definition, entails a continuous change of location with respect to time. I.e., in x amount of time, entity E moves from p1 to p2. So if motion is not an illusion, finite distances are traversed in finite times. We can abstract from any finite distance an infinite set of halves, etc. But these halves don't exist, per se, such that they need to be traversed separately as objects or goals of motion. Motion simply occurs. We, in turn, abstract an infinite set of halves, thirds, etc. from the finite distance of that traversal. It is important to remember that we don't actually even abstract an infinite set of halves. No human mind can actually abstract an infinite anything. Rather, we abstract a rule which we know could theoretically be applied without limit--assuming there's a being that can do such a thing (I don't know that there is).

Iconoclast: Likewise, I believe, it is perfectly coherent to extend the notion of choice such that it can still operate in an infinite or eternal setting. I simply call this “eternal choice”. God is Love. God eternally chooses love. He always has and He always will.

There was a rather lengthy discussion about all this some years ago on this board. So, I won’t go into it at length.

Jeff: All I can say, then, is that the notion seems perfectly unintelligible to me, for the very reasons you state above--the whole before-and-after-a-choice thang. To my mind, volition entails choice, and choice implies an event in time.

Iconoclast: We, also, I believe, will ultimately make an “eternal choice” to love or not to love (which I presume means to no longer exist).

Jeff: This "eternal choice," then, would entail the impossibiltity of subsequent loving choices, right? Because there would no longer be epistemic distance or suffering, right? Although this doesn't seem necessary, to my mind, it is at least conceivable to me in a way that an eternally past, costing love of God is not.

Related to this, D. brings up the question of Creatio Continua. By which I assume he means that God is performing a continual creation in the form of sustaining contingent existence. If this is so, would this Creatio Continua after we make our eternal choice be considered Love Continua? I could see how some might see it that way. What word, other than "love," would you use to denote acting on another's behalf without cost? Does the definition of the greek word "agape" entail necessary cost?

Post Edited (jefscott) : 8/4/2007 10:04:15 AM (GMT-5)

Theoria

This pretty much has to be Greg's position, for him to say everything that he wants to say. That Satan has control over ALL energy/matter and formation (and reformation) of all energy/matter. Which means that he must have had this power from the beginning of Creation!

So, who was REALLY the Creator of the Universe?

Not only that, but how does this square with Creatio Continua? Does this mean that SATAN is actually the one holding all creation in existence at every moment through HIS power? I mean if God COULD NOT remove Satan's power as being the creative and reshaping force of all matter/energy, then it would stand that Satan STILL HAS this power...right? Hmmmm...

Iconoclast

Wow – great argument Theoria. I think this is really the crux of the matter in many ways. If Satan is the author of entropy then he must be the author of the entire material universe we live in.

This part of what you quoted from Greg’s blog also really struck me:

From Greg's blog...(bold emphasis is Greg's)
------------------------------

Reflecting the basic vision of the early Church, Athenagorus concluded that everything in nature that obviously looks contrary to God’s character appears that way because it is contrary to God.

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

What hits me here is the presumption that we can judge God’s creation according to what “obviously looks contrary to God’s character”. It seems to me that God slapped Job and his “friends” down pretty hard for presuming to do this. In my view this presumption is what is at the heart of the problem. This is judgment based on our own knowledge of good and evil. Rather than simply seeing what is and acting to make it more whole and more alive this notion leads us to condemn and destroy that which we perceive, out of our knowledge of good and evil, to be evil.

What is funny is that according to Greg eagles and lions must be demonically inspired creatures. Yet, they are universally symbols of honor and courage. In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series Aslan is a lion. How could C.S. Lewis (successfully) cast Christ as a lion if lions are demonically inspired creatures?

thanks,

Iconoclast

Theoria: This pretty much has to be Greg's position, for him to say everything that he wants to say. That Satan has control over ALL energy/matter and formation (and reformation) of all energy/matter. Which means that he must have had this power from the beginning of Creation! So, who was REALLY the Creator of the Universe?

Not only that, but how does this square with Creatio Continua? Does this mean that SATAN is actually the one holding all creation in existence at every moment through HIS power? I mean if God COULD NOT remove Satan's power as being the creative and reshaping force of all matter/energy, then it would stand that Satan STILL HAS this power...right?

Tom: Not necessarily. Just as you hold that God holds us, our reality, in existence while we determine ourselves contrary to the will and purposes of God, Greg could just as easily argue God holds the universe and Satan in existence while Satan makes something of the universe that is contrary to the will and purposes of God. I’m not agreeing with Greg. I’m just saying you haven’t presented an argument against his view that can’t be avoided by appealing to arguments you appeal to in support of your own view.

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

Iconoclast: What hits me here [about Greg’s post] is the presumption that we can judge God’s creation according to what “obviously looks contrary to God’s character”. It seems to me that God slapped Job and his “friends” down pretty hard for presuming to do this. In my view this presumption is what is at the heart of the problem. This is judgment based on our own knowledge of good and evil. Rather than simply seeing what is and acting to make it more whole and more alive this notion leads us to condemn and destroy that which we perceive, out of our knowledge of good and evil, to be evil.

Jeff: I'm not sure I follow you, here. You seem to be saying we are not to act or think based on what seems to be good and evil (by which I assume you mean pleasure-producing or pain-producing), but rather we are to act or think based on what makes us more whole and/or more alive. If we are already whole or alive to some extent, by what criteria would we judge a person to be more whole or alive other than something like degrees of sentient pleasure/pain?

Tom: I’ll have to agree with Jeff here. I don’t see—just in terms of the logic of your argument—how you, Iconoclast, do not commit the same presumption you accuse Greg of. I very much like the idea that the tree/fruit and Fall represent a fundamental appropriation on our part to ‘judge’ for ourselves what it best and right instead of trusting God. But I’ve never felt comfortable about how this got played out years ago when it was the hot topic on the board here. Nobody was able to unpack the “how to” of such an utter rejection of making judgments about the value/goodness of choices, states of affairs, etc. As Jeff points out, you want us to abstain from “making judgments based on our knowledge of good and evil” but encourage us instead to “simply see what is and act to make it more alive.” I don’t see how these are really different. How, in a world as fallen and conflicted as ours is, does one so simply “know/see” what course of action will make others more alive without evaluating/judging relative goods giving our finite perspective?

I mean, how are you not, as is Greg, judging/evaluating/measuring based on your own intelligence/perceptions/intuitions what is most appropriate with respect to entropy and possible worlds? You judge entropic worlds to be the only possible contexts in which God can have creaturely becoming. How do you KNOW this to be the case? You look at our universe as it is (with respect to entropy) and make the judgment that this is just how it's always been and HAD to be. I don't see how that's any different (or superior methodologically I guess) from Greg's looking at Christ and reasoning abductively from the overarching purposes of God that this or that aspect of our present universe is, theologically speaking, foreign and contrary to God's purposes. I don't know how either of you is going to come up with a sufficiently objective methodology for determining how to adjudicate what the best beginning assumptions are. Personally I'm MUCH MORE comfortable beginning with Christ (as the incarnation of divine love and BEST representation of the heart, aims, and purposes of God for creation) and then moving on from there (as opposed to just assuming that the way our material universe behaves is how God created it to behave and THEN incorporating this commitment into theological questions).

Tom

Post Edited (PLANIS) : 8/4/2007 1:18:34 PM (GMT-5)

Theoria

I don't think it's about when the subjection came (whether at creation's beginning or at some point later). As I see it, no matter how you take things, you still have God being the fundamental originator of Creation's subjection to "futility" and the "bondage to decay", not Satan. It seems that if anyone can be said to be behind the actual, sustained existence of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, it would be God, not Satan.  But, from what I'm getting, Greg wants to say that SATAN is ultimately behind all of the  "decay" and "futility" that we see in Creation (Satan being the "prince of matter/energy")

I see an issue.

Does this thinking sound right?

Iconoclast

Totally. And it all makes complete sense if it is true that in order for contingent beings to eternally choose love then epistemic distance is required. If it is true that there is no other way to create beings who can love then it is clearly a loving thing to do to “subject creation to futility” in order to create hope. In other words, there is no possibility of hope (beings who can love) without the “bondage to decay”. Love entails epistemic distance which entails entropy which is death, decay, futility.

This is another example of how something that at first seems quite mysterious is actually a very simple and straightforward implication of the “flyswatter” approach to understanding this.

thanks,

Iconoclast

PLANIS

Another thing...

Some of us are critical of Greg's overbearing "F" (Feeler) and want him to be more rational and consistent. But at the same time we're bemoaning rationalistic limitations on theology and arguing that REAL theology is felt/perceived in non-rationalisitc ways. What if Greg just claimed that his approach is a mystical one and most likely to be true because it helps him LIVE in and ENGAGE the world more lovingly and passionately?

Isn't the PROOF in the pudding, D?

Iconoclast

Yes. However, “PROOF in the pudding” means that the actions one takes based on the belief determine whether the belief is more or less useful. My argument is that the implications of his belief, while they may help him feel better, do not lead to the most helpful sets of actions – they do not help him choose the most loving actions in specific areas.

If one believes that demonic forces are what is really at work with someone who has bipolar disorder and they then prescribe a set of actions that do not include taking lithium but rather seek to exorcise the demons through prayer then I do not believe that is the most helpful action. What is more effective with bipolar disorder - prayer or lithium? How about blocked arteries - prayer or bypass surgery?

As long as we posit that some of our maladies come from demonic forces then we can always just “fall back” to the notion that all we can do is pray rather than be forced to seek a deeper understanding whereby we can actually do something to help.

Imagine if humankind just always attributed all sickness to demonic forces? Would we have penicillin? I believe that the people who discovered penicillin presumed that illness was not caused by demonic forces but rather natural forces that they could discover and then perhaps actually do something about.

I totally agree that the “proof is in the pudding”. In fact, I fundamentally base what I am saying on exactly that. If a belief leads to actions that are less helpful than more then I seriously question that belief because it is not doing anybody any good.

thanks,

Iconoclast

Jeff

Yes. We all agree that love is volitional. But it is not clear to me that it necessarily involves cost. Love is willing and able to suffer long. But I'm not sure any and every act of love necessarily entails suffering.

…

This is only a difficulty if we say love entails suffering. I don't think it does.

Iconoclast

I agree – I don’t think it does either. I did not mean to imply that “at cost to oneself” means suffering. I was just trying to get across that notion that love implies action that does not have entanglements – that it is not a tit for tat sort of thing or something that I am really doing in order to gain benefit for myself. Perhaps a better way to say that would be “an action to help someone without consideration for the cost or benefit to oneself.” I believe that if one jumped into a raging river to save someone from drowning, was successful, and then was given a million dollar reward we would still say that was a loving action even though no suffering was involved as long as they didn’t do it for the purpose of trying to get that million dollar reward.

Jeff

 All I can say, then, is that the notion seems perfectly unintelligible to me, for the very reasons you state above--the whole before-and-after-a-choice thang. To my mind, volition entails choice, and choice implies an event in time.

Iconoclast

If you agree that love entails choice but insist that choice implies a point in time where the choice was made then do you posit that there was a time when God did NOT love but then chose to love?

In my view God has always loved. There was no time that He did not. But since love entails choice then there must be a valid notion of “eternal choice”. Again, there was much discussion surrounding the implication of that notion which led, I believe, to some interesting thoughts about the nature of existence itself. I think this is the thread: http://www.opentheismboard.org/default.aspx?f=5&m=39304

Again, this is no different than motion. Since we know that motion does actually happen (Zeno would even agree with this) then there must be a valid notion of an infinite number of infinitesimal things adding up to a finite number. And sure enough there was – we call this the infinitesimal calculus and it was an absolutely amazing discovery that is part of the foundation of our technologically-based economy. Zeno’s paradox was really a thought puzzle that any valid notion of motion would have to be able to address – it was also, in fact, a powerful pointer to the solution.

thanks,

Iconoclast

Post Edited (Iconoclast) : 8/4/2007 2:33:44 PM (GMT-5)

Iconoclast: Yes. However, “PROOF in the pudding” means that the actions one takes based on the belief determine whether the belief is more or less useful.

Tom: Right.

Iconoclast: My argument is that the implications of his belief, while they may help him feel better, do not lead to the most helpful sets of actions – they do not help him choose the most loving actions in specific areas.

Tom: How is this not the sort of judgment you’re arguing we not make? I mean, how do you know what is “most loving” in the case of someone suffering from bipolar disorder? I’m just wondering. Do you know this based on your metaphorical hermeneutics? Based on the belief that Satan is not a personal being? Based on what? Just the belief that physical maladies must have ONLY physical reasons and remedies? Well, why believe that?

Iconoclast: If one believes that demonic forces are what is really at work with someone who has bipolar disorder and they then prescribe a set of actions that do not include taking lithium but rather seek to exorcise the demons through prayer then I do not believe that is the most helpful action. What is more effective with bipolar disorder - prayer or lithium? How about blocked arteries - prayer or bypass surgery?

Tom: Iconoclast, why are you thinking in such either/or terms? Why assume that Greg could not proscribe lithium for someone who is bipolar and be consistent with his view? His views do not, so far as I can see, limit him to exorcisms and a disdain for the medical treatment.

Iconoclast: As long as we posit that some of our maladies come from demonic forces then we can always just “fall back” to the notion that all we can do is pray rather than be forced to seek a deeper understanding whereby we can actually do something to help.

Tom: Why doesn’t prayer count as “doing something”? I guess that's another issue. But anyhow, Greg’s view does not limit one to supernatural remedies for all physical maladies by any means.

Iconoclast: Imagine if humankind just always attributed all sickness to demonic forces? Would we have penicillin? I believe that the people who discovered penicillin presumed that illness was not caused by demonic forces but rather natural forces that they could discover and then perhaps actually do something about.

Tom: I think you may be trying to get Greg to say something Greg would not agree to given his own views. It doesn’t follow that if Satan is ultimately behind the fallen effects that impact the material world that the material world cannot yield remedies to many of the maladies we suffer, or that that those who view Satan as a causal agent in the material world cannot justifiably employ science in the attempt to discover such scientific remedies as may exist.

And D, remember that if we go with some form of idealism in which matter is just waves of information-bearing energy, then the whole materialistic assumption that there are "physical" remedies vs "spiritual" remedies evaporates.

Iconoclast: I totally agree that the “proof is in the pudding”. In fact, I fundamentally base what I am saying on exactly that. If a belief leads to actions that are less helpful than more then I seriously question that belief because it is not doing anybody any good.

Tom: My point, Iconoclast, is this--how do you "know," on what basis do you "make the judgment," that this or that approach or view is "less helpful" than another? Has lithium helped bipolar folks? Absolutely. Has prayer helped bipolar folks and others suffering from physical ailements? Absolutely. So why not do ALL WE CAN in addition to listening for the voice of the Spirit? Greg only two weeks ago advocated this. Go with naturalistic explanations and remedies where those are sufficient. He just disputes that they are always sufficient or that that one ought to adopt a philosophy that always expects them to be.

Gotta run!

Tom

Post Edited (PLANIS) : 8/4/2007 7:33:05 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (PLANIS) : 8/5/2007 11:10:33 AM (GMT-5)

Tom

How is this not the sort of judgment you’re arguing we not make? I mean, how do you know what is “most loving” in the case of someone suffering from bipolar disorder? I’m just wondering.

Iconoclast

There are two kinds of judgment. One is condemnation the other is action. When I speak of judgment I am speaking of condemnation / separation - when one says that something is of Satan this mostly leads to condemnation / separation. The other kind of judgment is always an action based on convergent evidence – based on our best understanding at the time that action is required.

The convergent evidence is overwhelming when it comes to something like bipolar disorder. Lithium has been shown to help with bipolar disorder. Anyone who reviews the convergent evidence would agree with that – excepting, of course, those folks who still believe that the earth is flat. There is no convergent evidence that I am aware of for prayer making any difference with bipolar disorder.

Tom

Do you know this based on your metaphorical hermeneutics? Based on the belief that Satan is not a personal being? Based on what? Just the belief that physical maladies must have ONLY physical reasons and remedies? Well, why believe that?

Iconoclast

Show me some evidence to the contrary. And no, I do not give anecdotes a lot of weight. Also, I would consider something like conversion disorder to be a physical cause. Maladies brought about because of thinking disorders I would categorize as “physical” in this discussion. I say this because I presume you are suggesting that some physical maladies are caused by supernatural beings which I am denying.

My evidence for this denial is that this has been studied and studied and there is absolutely zero evidence for it. Likewise I deny that aliens have ever visited our planet and taken people to study them or anything like that. Yes, there are people who insist that happened to them but again there is no convergent evidence for it.

The ONLY real evidence I have seen for any truly psychical phenomenon (and NOT in the sense of conversion disorder here) is a meta-study for such things as telepathy and so on. This meta-study which I found to be relatively convincing shows that something that should have a 50% probability of happening ended up with an actual 51% occurrence. The actual statistical sample was SO large that this result cannot be explained by chance. So, if there is such a thing as psychical phenomenon then it is a very small effect.

There are no studies that I am aware of that show prayer making any statistical differences. Now, one might argue that God simply will not be tempted with this sort of thing and thus when we try to measure the effect of prayer then he makes sure that it isn’t effective. Of course, one might argue back that this is very capricious of Him to do so and why wouldn’t He want us to have some evidence that prayer really works. Maybe then we would all do it more often.

Also, if prayer is an effective action in order to heal maladies why didn’t Jesus include something like this in The Lord’s Prayer? It seems to me that prayer is a lot more about getting ourselves in alignment with God and helping us to take effective action to help others. Now, telling someone that you are praying for them is itself an action that is helpful. Also, notice that Jesus didn’t pray for someone to be healed, He healed them. He took action. Imagine praying for someone but never taking any actual action to help them. What is the point?

Of course, Greg would do both. Greg understands the notion of convergent evidence and operates accordingly. However, not all spiritual warfare folk do likewise.

My fundamental argument here is that the notion that prayer is an effective weapon in this spiritual warfare takes away, to some extent, the drive to gain deeper knowledge which would lead to more effective action. For some folks this is a lot for some folks this is a little according to how much any one person really believes in the efficacy of prayer as a “weapon.” I mean, to the extent that someone believe that prayer is really effective they would be doing that much more than doing anything else to help. But doing so ignores the convergent evidence to the contrary.

For example, imagine someone truly believing that spiritual warfare prayer is so effective that they dedicate a large proportion of their energy to it. I would argue that their time would be better spent volunteering at a soup kitchen or researching the malaria cycle and coming up with practical interventions that could be applied in poor communities.

My standard for determining more helpful versus less helpful action is convergent evidence.

thanks,

Iconoclast

Post Edited (jefscott) : 8/4/2007 9:57:55 PM (GMT-5)

Tom

and D and Iconoclast (= we know all there is to know about entropy so far as this discussion is concerned, and that is that entropy is good and can't possibly be behind any of the suffering that occurs in the natural order). I'm asking, Why the either/or?

Iconoclast

I am not saying that entropy is good. Nor am I saying that it can’t possibly be behind any of the suffering that occurs in the natural order – quite the contrary.

I make no judgment regarding entropy. It is neither good nor bad. It just is. I do believe that it is an entailment of epistemic distance which is an entailment of contingent beings being able to choose love. Thus, it makes sense to me why we live in the world that we do.

I think that entropy is the fundamental force behind all the suffering that occurs in the natural order. “Natural evil” = entropy.

Why the either/or? Because I believe that natural evil is completely explained by my simple “flyswatter” logic. The goal is clear (ability to choose love) and the entailments are straightforward. There is a ton of evidence that all “natural evil” can be explained by physical phenomenon and there is no evidence of any supernatural beings doing anything – other than God, of course, but His direct intervention is very limited which makes perfect sense given His goal and the resulting entailments.

Moreover, I am saying that to the extent that one believes in demonic forces as causal agents and to the extent that one believes one’s energy should be channeled into somehow mitigating these demonic forces is the extent to which they are not channeling their energy into more effective helpful action.

I believe the logic and the convergent evidence points strongly to this conclusion.

That is why the either/or.

thanks,

Iconoclast

Jeff

The verse in the OT reveals what I think is the key. It says that in the future the lamb will lay down with the lion BECAUSE the land will be FILLED with the knowledge of God.

Iconoclast

When the land is FILLED with the knowledge of God then there will no longer be epistemic distance which means there will no longer be entropy which means lions will no longer have to eat lambs to stay alive.

thanks,

Iconoclast

Jeff

You talk about Christ healing people. What evidence do you have of that other than the evidence that the gospel writers weren't making up stories out of thin air.

Iconoclast

There is a set of evidentiary standards for historical accounts. They are such things as multiple writers writing about the same thing. They even include the fact that if the multiple accounts are exact then something is fishy because multiple accounts are never exact and so on. Greg preaches a very compelling sermon about these evidentiary standards and they really show the Gospel accounts as giving us solid convergent evidence for what happened.

Jeff

But then that's the evidence that there was, in the past at least, such a thing as demon possession. If the accounts of demon possession are to be seen metaphorically, why not the healing accounts, too? Why not the whole life of Christ? What grammatical evidence grounds the literary distinction in the different accounts? It's not enough, per your need of evidence, to simply assert that one group of accounts is metaphorical while another isn't.

Iconoclast

Literary analysis is pretty good at determining whether some account is fictional/metaphorical or historical. For example, talking snakes, magical trees and such are strong indicators of a metaphorical story intended to convey deep meaning rather than an historical account.

I see the Gospel stories as mostly historical accounts. However, some particular aspect of an historical account may use metaphorical language to describe what is happening. A simple example is when someone says that their “relationship is at a dead end”. This is a metaphor that describes what is happening in their relationship. It comes from the physical experience of running into a dead end street and having to turn around and go back. When the story says that Jesus healed someone of leprosy I take that as literal. When the story says that Jesus healed someone of demon possession I don’t doubt that some significant change took place in that person but I do question what “demon possession” actually means in that account. For example, epilepsy was commonly believed to be “demon possession”. Today we know that it is not. Remember when the disciples told Jesus that they had difficulty curing one case of demon possession and Jesus said something about that particular kind being very difficult to cure? I take that to mean that it was more of an epilepsy or OCD sort of brain/synaptic disorder rather than something like multiple-personality disorder or a thinking-based disorder. Synaptic-based disorders are very difficult to cure because the synapses have to be re-wired (this is clearly true with OCD) whereas thinking-based disorders tend to be much easier to cure – basic ones like fear of heights can sometimes be cured in 15 minutes given the right strategic interventions. When I read the details on some of those supposed demon-possessions they tend to look a lot more like thinking-based personality disorders than some actual demon.

The record of the 20^th century is pretty strong on taking what used to be considered demon possession or magical phenomenon and showing through convergent evidence that they all have physical causes. Some we can do more about than others currently but that is changing all the time. And the force at work changing it is not spiritual warfare prayer but good old hard research and innovation.

thanks,

Iconoclast

Why is the belief in Satan as a volitional being or as a metaphor an either/ or proposition? Why can’t it be both?

For me this is a question of reason’s relationship to faith, which I believe should never be severed or even stretched. In fact, whenever faith is disentangled from reason the result is religion, and all the fanaticism and futility that humans can conjur out of a utopian view of how the world ought to be, as opposed to how it is.

For some, mine is an immediately untenable position, because God is a deep unknowable mystery who requires hanging one’s brain up at the door to worship, and for whom one must be ready to do unspeakable things out of obedience – ala Abraham and Isaac. Clearly nothing I say could divert the convictions of such a person, and I shall not try.

However, many people see themselves as having a faith that is compatible with reason, and yet still want to say that it is possible to believe in something that is less well-thought-out than your average B science fiction movie, along the lines of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Before you start throwing tomatoes at me (there will be plenty of time for that later, and probably well-deserved since I failed to resist having a little fun here at pretty much everyone else’s expense – a hypocritical yet human failure to love), at least give me a shot to back this up with an analysis of what we actually know about Satan.

Ha-satan literally translated means the accuser. God, or perhaps Satan’s mother, must have had some kind of heads up premonition right off the bat to give the future ruler of the world a name that so well captured his eternal future hobby/avocation/obsession as the destroyer of all that is good. Or maybe it is just a nickname that he picked up after millennia of murder and mayhem. But what is interesting about the name is that it refers to something that in itself is not a seemingly violent act: to accuse. It seems that if Satan were busy murdering and torturing and raping and altering the very fabric of creation from the big bang onward, that his name would have a more WWF ring to it – the Dark Destroyer or some such thing. But to accuse – that is so small, and so human. It is in fact the foundation of self righteous thought, to try to take the speck out of one’s brother’s eye, to find fault, to accuse.

It is interesting that a literal interpretation causes one to look outward, at something outside oneself, outside of one’s control, whereas a figurative interpretation points inward toward inherent human limitations that hinder our ability to make progress and help people. If the name itself is a pointer to the problem – accusation – then the problem is ours to work on. If the name points to a literal spiritual being that is mucking around with the world, we are left with spiritual warfare, which is nothing but prayer and incantation, begging God to please do something about that canon he let loose before the beginning of the universe. And whatever one wants to say about prayer, one has to admit that it didn’t prevent the holocaust, or the killing fields, or Darfur today, or the crusades, or even so much as hold up a single bridge over the Mississippi. Which is not to say I am against prayer, only that the idea of prayer as warfare against an enemy seems to me to be so misguided as to distract millions of people from acting to solve the very real causes of such disasters locally and globally. To me, prayer that is focused on spiritual warfare against “satan” is like taking Xanax for anxiety – it may change the way one feels but it does nothing to act on the underlying root causes.

But back to Satan. Who is he – what makes him tick? If Barbara Walters could interview him, what kind of tree would he say he was most like? (A fig tree, perhaps?) But seriously – we know why volcanoes erupt, we know why humans murder and abuse other humans – most physical processes and human behavior have causes which we discover. But if we are to believe the spiritual warfare model, Satan is in the background at creation itself, bringing death, disease, predators, tsunamis, dinosaurs, holocausts, genocide, rapes, and anything that makes earth different from an imagined Eden. What does he get out of it? What is he? Does he float through the universe or is he everywhere at once like God? If he is not everywhere at once, which rapes are his doing? If he covers the world with his demon helpers, do they get together once in a while and have conferences about how well they are doing at spreading the evil around and infecting humans and nature with their bad ideas? And what if they succeed too well, and humans cave in to demonic pressure and blow the world up with nuclear bombs, or destroy it with SUVs and refrigerators, haven’t they put themselves out of business?

The only reason spiritual warfare discussions don’t devolve into this kind of nonsense is because spiritual warriors never ask themselves what they are really fighting: what it really is – what it really looks like. Instead, spiritual warriors talk about all the ills of the world, from man to nature, and say that that is what they are fighting against. But it is so misguided. If you want to find out why a bridge falls down, you need to study the problem as an engineering, physics, mathematical, human communication and natural forces problem.

One thing spiritual warriors often say is that without prayer things would have been worse – more people would have died in the holocaust/ World War 2, more people would have died in the bridge disaster, etcetera. To me, this is deeply disturbing and a view of God that is repugnant. First of all, thirty million people died in WWII. Thirty million. But if people hadn’t prayed it would have been sixty million? Six million Jews murdered, but it could have been worse? Because God needs us to be hopping around in church asking him specifically to save people, or he is powerless against Satan to prevent murder on an unfathomable scale? If praying to God to interfere with Satan’s goals is a worthwhile activity, then there should be some evidence that in Christian evangelical communities where this takes place that there is less disaster and disease and divorce and all that we lay at Satan’s feet. But there is no evidence whatsoever that Christians suffer less of the world’s ills. If we are rational people we have to question why we do what we do, and ask if it is effective, and measure the results.

The weakest argument for the existence of Satan as an actual being (or for natural evil being caused by Satan) is the notion that since all ancient people (and early church fathers) believed something of the sort that it must be true. By that logic, the fact that all early people thought the earth was flat is evidence that, against all science and experience, the earth is flat. We laugh at that, but only because the question of whether or not the earth is flat is a testable hypothesis. Somehow it is taken seriously that there is a big bogeyman in the dark, waiting to jump out of the closet at us.

Throughout the history of humankind on the planet, humans have always struggled to make sense of nature. An eclipse was the sign of an angry god, an epileptic seizure was the work of demons. But in an age of science we don’t have to turn to a religious text to answer such questions. When Christians offer the Bible as evidence for how nature works, they cannot have it both ways. Science isn’t something you paint on the surface – science is a tool for discovering what things are made of and how they work. Nothing in science points to anything like a Satan. Nothing about the Bible suggests that it is in any way a “scientific” document meant to explain in any real way the workings of the universe. To cut and paste scripture in order to place Satan not only in the universe, but as a major shaper of the universe, is completely at odds with science and is not a legitimate approach. If one wants to say, well the Bible talks about Satan and demons so I believe in Satan and demons, fine. But don’t say that it is in any way compatible with science, or a rational view based on any facts outside of scripture, because it is nothing at all but an argument based on authority – in this case the Bible. And if you’re going to go that route, to be consistent you would need to hold to young earth creationism (and then just insist that God planted millions of years of the fossil record to test the weak in faith).

Yes, science can yield remedies through scientific methods – but only by seeking the actual, factually based causes of our ills. If Satan is the cause, then we might as well hang it up now, because what good does it do to make our bridges stronger if Satan is the cause of the very foundational physics of the universe? How ridiculous is that – Satan is pretty much the creator of the universe (since everything in the universe results from entropy and the life and death cycle), but we are going to be busy little ants putting band-aids on everything even though God himself cannot stop Satan, but yet he wants us to gather in groups and pray for power against Satan?

I’m sorry, but if I had to believe anything so ridiculous I would have ceased being a Christian a long time ago. The idea of Satan and demons and angels being actual beings is for me in the category of the belief that if one martyrs themselves there will be lots of virgins waiting for them in heaven.

In the years since the scientific revolution the world has experience explosive growth of knowledge, vast improvements in the lives of people touched by technological advance (although some areas of the world have been left behind), great advances in medicine and psychology and industry and lifestyle, etcetera, and yet through all of that not one little demon has been found, or a trace or a shadow of Satan has been glimpsed.

What is the benefit of a belief in a literal Satan? What is the remedy? I see none. Spiritual warfare – what does that even mean? God is love, but he is at war, with a creature he created, who somehow messed up an entire universe that otherwise would have been Eden, if other creatures would have minded better (as in not sinned ever), in an earth populated by animals of Satan’s design – doesn’t anyone here have a problem with this scenario?

And Satan is around screwing things up for fifteen billion years, plus he’s got his hand in every tsunami or forest fire or cat catching a mouse?

This is called myth – and whatever truth there is to be found is NOT literal, and cannot be blended with science.

In my universe, God gets the credit for the eagles and the lions and the pythons and every living thing. Science is the tool for understanding how the world works. Prayer is the meditative state to open myself to God. God is not at war. Satan is nothing but an ancient metaphor, for whatever tugs at us, pulling us away from God – which is almost always consciousness itself, asking, “Did God say…?”

All that ails the world is a temporary mystery – and just as we now know much about epilepsy, soon we will know why the bridge fell, and what causes cancer and poverty and violent weather. People will seek the answers, and those answers won’t resemble a B movie or a cartoon – they will resemble the non-denominational, testable, boring, scientific papers that made possible both the skyscrapers and the planes that took them down. Religion did not bring us air conditioning or airplanes or the agricultural revolution or psychology or computers or any victory of the modern age. Science brought us those things. Religion can bring us closer to God if we let it – but it cannot bring us a hair’s breadth closer to understanding the natural world – it has always been much more likely to bring us the Dark Ages.

If there were one iota of evidence that Satan was a real being who had any real affect on the world, I would get in line with everyone else to do my part to fight him. But until then I’ll go for progress that is measurable. I couldn’t care less about utopia – I prefer the real world – I like the imperfect people who are in it. And I prefer cats to bunnies, even when the cats sometimes eat the bunnies. The idea that the natural world (the world!) is fallen – and that Satan gets the credit for everything from tsunamis to clouded leopards – well, let’s just say that if I were God I would be pissed.

Thanks,

Semeia

Tom

I’ll have to agree with Jeff here. I don’t see—just in terms of the logic of your argument—how you, Iconoclast, do not commit the same presumption you accuse Greg of. I very much like the idea that the tree/fruit and Fall represent a fundamental appropriation on our part to ‘judge’ for ourselves what it best and right instead of trusting God. But I’ve never felt comfortable about how this got played out years ago when it was the hot topic on the board here. Nobody was able to unpack the “how to” of such an utter rejection of making judgments about the value/goodness of choices, states of affairs, etc. As Jeff points out, you want us to abstain from “making judgments based on our knowledge of good and evil” but encourage us instead to “simply see what is and act to make it more alive.” I don’t see how these are really different. How, in a world as fallen and conflicted as ours is, does one so simply “know/see” what course of action will make others more alive without evaluating/judging relative goods giving our finite perspective?

Iconoclast

Let me see if I can clarify this distinction in the two kinds of judgment. First let me take your statement:

“Nobody was able to unpack the ‘how to’ of such an utter rejection of making judgments about the value/goodness of choices, states of affairs, etc.”

First it is not about a rejection of making judgments about the value/goodness of choices, states of affairs, etc. per se. It is about what you are making these judgments in order to do.

In its very simplest form the distinction is between making such a judgment for the purpose of putting yourself over and above someone else or for the purpose of actually helping someone else. This is the distinction of condemnation versus helpful action.

Jesus said He did not come to condemn the world but to save the world.

The fundamental judgment that Adam and Eve made was that God was holding out on them – that God was not good and they therefore had to take matters into their own hands. They basically condemned God in order to raise themselves above Him. The actually judgment was a presumption about God’s character. This kind of judgment / condemnation always separates us from other people - they are bad we are good.

So, again, in its simplest form, the “how to” of not making judgments out of our own knowledge of good and evil is simply to never condemn other people as though we are better but to always seek to take helpful action. Notice that this says nothing directly about using our faculties to their utmost in terms of seeking to determine what is more or less helpful. But also notice that it does take a determination of “good” and “evil” out of the equation. Nothing is always good and nothing is always evil – things are just more or less helpful in a given situation. This is what Solomon meant when he said that there is a time for everything under the sun.

Furthermore, this implicitly calls for a particular process for how we go about making decisions. I will say decisions rather than judgments to try and be clear. A decision being some choice of action that we believe will be more than less helpful and a judgment being some condemnation. I won’t go into the specifics of the process except to point out that a key reason for a different process is that judgments tend to have little to do with external evidentiary standards and the specifics regarding any particular situation and much more to do with an internal desire to be ok. We all tend to fall into this trap and thus seeking a more rigorous scientific process for making determinations and becoming more skilled at it is critical if we want to stop operating out of our own knowledge of good and evil.

I did not accuse Greg of any such presumption. I was specifically pointing out that the author he quoted was basing his ability to determine if something within creation was good or evil based on his ability to discern “God’s character”. I think this falls smack dab into using our own knowledge of good and evil and does not in any way use an evidentiary-based process.