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Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 7/24/2007 10:39 PM (GMT -6) |   |
Hi, I haven’t posted in a long time but Semeia and I happened to wander across Greg Boyd’s latest blogging regarding “natural” evil. After a number of discussions I thought I would write up our thoughts and throw them out for feedback.
Greg’s blog can be found at www.gregboyd.blogspot.com
Greg
In the beginning God’s creation was non-violent.
Iconoclast
It seems to me that to even begin to discuss the truth of this statement one has to first come to grips with whether scientific evidence will be allowed into the debate or not. If one decides that the Bible is the only authoritative source on this subject then I have a hard time seeing how any sort of useful discussion can take place. Or, at least, I am not very interested in such a discussion because I think it is pretty easy to make up all kinds of fanciful notions in this area and support them with whatever interesting scriptures one can find. I do not believe that the Biblical authors really intended to sort out the whole question of “natural” evil for us. I do believe that the Bible is definitive on whether God loves us unconditionally. The Bible answers that question very clearly but, I believe, leaves it up to us to sort out just about everything else.
Thus, all my comments presume that we can only have a reasonably fruitful discussion in this area by presuming that the scientific evidence for such things as how long this universe has been in existence and so on is definitive and any notion in the Bible that appears to contradict the scientific evidence must be looked at more closely to determine its deeper (most likely metaphorical) meaning.
If one looks at the scientific evidence this statement seems to be patently false. The scientific evidence suggests that on “day” one when God said, “Let there be light” creation was called into existence in what we call “The Big Bang.” It doesn’t get more “violent” than that.
www.dictionary.com:
violent: adjective caused by force
Moreover the scientific record shows that the animal kingdom has been “red in tooth and claw” from time immemorial. There is no evidence whatsoever that there ever was a period of time that this was not true. Nor is it really even imaginable how this material universe could even exist without the reality of birth and death. Birth and death are an intrinsic part of this universe. In fact, there would be no life on earth if stars did not die. More specifically stars must die very violently (nova or supernova) in order for heavier elements to be created and cast into interstellar space where they can then be gathered together on some planet in order to support life.
Birth and death are integral to our universe because our universe is a universe of entropy. Entropy is simply the notion that all things (in total) go from a state of higher order to lower order. Entropy can be understood scientifically as a measure of information loss.
The only way I can think that Greg’s statement can be true is if God first created some other (non-entropic) universe (The Garden of Eden) and then when man fell he wiped that universe out and created our universe. One then only has to believe that he put Adam and Eve in a 15 billion year stasis and then put them on earth some 6000 years ago.
I don’t really think this is plausible.
Greg
So the scenario I at present tentatively envision is something like this. Evolutionary history reflects God’s advancing his creational objectives, despite the corrupting influence of diabolic cosmic forces. This is why evolutionary history -- and nature and the animal kingdom today -- reflect both the marvelous creativity of God as well as the ugly corrupting influence of demonic powers.
Iconoclast
My understanding here is that Greg is saying that demonic forces began corrupting God’s creation during and throughout the creation process. I struggle with this for the following reasons:
1. The Biblical text shows God calling his creation “good” at the end of each day and “very good” (literally “of a unified order”) on the last day (after creating man). It seems to me that if there were corrupting forces that caused Tyrannosaurus Rex to arise and start eating everything in sight against what God wanted then God would definitely not call it “good.” And you can’t say that all the corrupting happened just before man was created in the story because God called the whole creation “very good” after man was created. Why would God call the whole creation “very good” – “of a unified order” if demonic corrupting forces had been at work for 15 billion years? Certainly one can’t argue that the dinosaur age wasn’t major league “red in tooth and claw” and that lasted how many millions upon millions of years?
The only way I can think of to overcome this objection is to argue that the scientific evidence is incorrect - that “young earth creation” is really true. At which point I guess you can say just about anything.
2. God would presumably know that demonic forces were corrupting his creation. So, before he created man why would he not abort that particular creation and find a way to create a universe without that corrupting influence? It absolutely stretches credulity with me to say that God is now handicapped in all of his creational desires because he happened to create some free will agents eons ago that he did not have the foresight to restrict enough such that they could not interfere with everything he might want to create in the future.
3. The entire argument fails Occam’s Razor in a big way. It is like a Rube-Goldberg scheme – a hundred moving parts when all you really need is a simple flyswatter:
Greg
So, if we accept that God is the Creator of nature, and if it's true that nature sometimes (often!) makes animals suffer, then it seems we have to either:
a) hold that God is responsible for animal suffering, hence not all good;
b) hold that God is all good, but animal suffering is necessary; or
c) hold that free agents are responsible for animal suffering.
Option (a) obviously isn't viable for people who believe God is all good. Option (b) is a possibility, but I've frankly never found it argued convincingly. (This denial will of course have to be further developed). So, we're left with option (c). This is the option we presuppose when we hold humans culpable for inflicting suffering on animals. But when no human is involved, who are we to hold responsible?
Iconoclast
The answer is (b) – animal suffering is a necessary consequence of an entropic universe.
In short the simple (“flyswatter”) answer to “natural” evil is as follows:
1. “Natural” evil is a necessary consequence of entropy.
2. Entropy is a necessary consequence of “epistemic distance.”
3. “Epistemic distance” is a necessary consequence of free will.
4. Free will is a necessary consequence of God’s desire to create beings who can choose to Love.
Greg has already argued persuasively that since love must be chosen people must have free will. But to truly have free will one must not be overly influenced. The Bible says that when all people come before God that every knee shall bow. I believe that in order for us to truly choose to love we must have some separation from God. That is, we cannot be in total unity with God’s mind and know all that God knows else we would be “compelled” to be “in alignment” with God. Any other alternative would simply not be a real alternative. Thus free will necessarily implies that we have some “epistemic distance” from God. Which means that we cannot have complete access to all the information that God has. Which further means that we live in a reality that has epistemic distance from God. That is, the material world also experiences an information gap. The most basic carrier of information in our material universe is light. The speed of light is the uppermost limit of information flow in our universe. For God to say, “Let there be light” implicitly creates a reality with a built-in information gap.
The next connection to make is that epistemic distance implies information loss. Because I do not know everything going on around me I make decisions with incomplete information. Which means I make errors. The notion of information loss is equivalent to the notion of entropy. In fact, entropy is in essence a measure of loss of information – a measure of how much something becomes more disordered or more random. Entropy is the great destroyer of our universe. It is the key force or property of this universe that will ultimately cause the death of the universe. Entropy is death. If entropy did not exist there would be no (physical) death.
Sidenote: Notice that God tells Adam that “in the day you eat … you shall surely die.” But Adam did not physically die that very day. Furthermore, how could Adam even know what “die” meant unless he experienced things that died. So, we must presume that Adam “died” on that very day in the sense that he became less connected to God or some such thing – he “fell.” Bonhoeffer makes this point in a very compelling way and then goes on to say that physical death is nothing but dying from this “death” which means life.
Now how does this epistemic distance or information loss result in animal suffering?
At the simplest level since animals do not have complete awareness of everything happening in their environment they must at least have some signaling mechanisms to tell them if they are in trouble or not. The most critical signal is pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain are the critical sense mechanisms that tell us if we are getting into trouble or are doing ok. Without these we could not survive in an entropic universe. When an animal feels the pain of hunger they seek food. If they did not have this sense mechanism they would starve to death. So pain is an integral aspect of survival in an entropic universe.
But why do we need predators?
Since rabbits do not have complete knowledge of their environment they do not know to stop breeding when the food supply can no longer support them. This, again, is a consequence of epistemic distance or information loss / entropy. If there were no predators then rabbits would simply breed until they ate up the entire landscape and then they would all die en-masse ultimately leaving a barren landscape. Predators, foxes for example, keep the rabbit population in check. The rabbit population keeps the fox population in check. And both of these ultimately keep the landscape from becoming a barren waste. Basically, the whole food chain from the lowliest bacteria to the most incredibly magnificent predators are what is now known as a Complex Adaptive System which dynamically gives rise to order from disorder. It is the great (local) entropy slayer. I say “local” because in the overall universe entropy ALWAYS increases. In fact, complex adaptive systems ultimately get their energy (or order) from the sun. The sun is what allows us to locally overcome entropy and build order. But that is not an easy battle. Nature is an absolutely amazing engine of diversity creation through the unbelievably subtle and complex “magic” of complex adaptive systems processes.
To really get at the root of the problem of animal suffering I think we have to say that the sense of pain is the fundamental problem. If animals did not feel pain then there would be no suffering. Sure, they would die, but they would not feel pain. They would not “suffer.” But look at this. Any animal born without the ability to feel pain would die rather quickly. In fact, when a human loses the ability to feel pain it is a debilitating and often fatal condition. I don’t believe we would wish this on our worst enemy, or even the worst sort of animal (except moles, of course, they tend to rip up your yard and are very hard to get rid of).
So, clearly we can’t get rid of pain unless we get rid of the need for pain. But the only way to get rid of the need for pain is to either become immortal and “unhurtable” or to have complete and total access to all required information and have the clarity and will to act appropriately on it.
It seems to me that these are the key issues that one really has to grapple with regarding animal suffering or indeed “natural” evil. Greg’s view seems to suggest that there is some sort of a possible utopian material universe that somehow doesn’t have entropy or animals feeling pain or death and what not. More specifically he seems to suggest that this material universe was “corrupted” – that is that it was changed in slight ways to make it go bad. But entropy is absolutely fundamental to the very foundations of what it even means to be “material.” I challenge anyone to come up with a material universe and what it would be like where there would be no need for animals to feel pain. Well, more specifically, I challenge anyone to come up with a specific vision that does not just look like some spirit world where everything and everyone lives forever and cannot be harmed in any way. The problem is that we already know there is a spirit world like this, but that God created a material world that is clearly NOT the spirit world. So, you would have to come up with what exactly is the difference between a spirit world and a not-spirit world. I would suggest that the only thing that can define that difference is epistemic distance, information loss, entropy and thus animal suffering and “natural” evil.
Anything else is simply a utopian vision. And we all know where that leads…
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/29/2007 9:02 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Iconoclast: In short the simple (“flyswatter”) answer to “natural” evil is as follows:
1. “Natural” evil is a necessary consequence of entropy.
2. Entropy is a necessary consequence of “epistemic distance.”
3. “Epistemic distance” is a necessary consequence of free will.
4. Free will is a necessary consequence of God’s desire to create beings who can choose to Love.
Jeff: The definition of love is, indeed, the source of the problem. According to John, Christ said that the Father loved him before the foundation of the world. I accept this as true. Therefore, assuming that God's love for the Son, sans creation, is not fundamentally different from what we mean by love in other contexts, your syllogism would mean that the Father's love is either non-volitional or that it required epistemic distance. If the former, volition is not necessary for love. If the latter, God is not omniscient at all times. The syllogism would also imply that suffering and epistemic distance analogous to that which is currently caused in the "natural" order must continue into the infinite future if we, ourselves, are to love forever. Are we to cease loving at some time?
Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/29/2007 9:16:56 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/29/2007 10:44 PM (GMT -6) | | |
A few things:
1) I’m not sure that any of us is knowledgeable enough to say just what sort of creations (entropic or non-entropic) it is within God’s power to create or not. I can appreciate Greg’s pointing out (as he often does) that we ought to hesitate to just assume that the way our world is is how God wished our world to be. We ought at least to try to ‘imagine’ things differently. In other words, I’m sympathetic to Greg’s view in this regard—I do envision a material eternal state that is free of pain, suffering, violence, and death. Where will entropy be in that universe? I don’t know. But I can and do hope for a world at least free of suffering, violence, and death. I think that’s the biblical hope.
2) For the time being, I do agree that entropy was God’s “good” idea. It’s was makes possible the reproducing of plants, for example, “after their own kind.” Seeds have to fall into the ground and “die” in order for new life to come. At least that’s how our world works, and it seems that this was part of the “good” design before the Fall.
3) But granting entropy itself doesn’t mean we have to open up the door completely to all manner of violence as equally necessary along with entropy. I don’t know where to draw the line, except to say that whatever part lions eating lambs (necessary or not) have in our present world, I have reason to believe such predatory feeding will not be a part of the eternal state. I’m less concerned with why it is the way it is and more concerned with the character and content of a biblically informed hope.
4) I grant the existence of Satan and demons (and angelic beings who serve God) as personal agents at work in the world which, if I remember correctly, Iconoclast denies. That in itself means we’ll come out explaining things a bit differently. He has no Satan and demons. I do. Those of us who do posit them will posit some activity of theirs in the world. My point is, if we grant a personal God as a causal agent in the world along with human beings as causal agents in the world, it seems strange to posit angelic beings (both good and evil) who are not also causal agents in the world. The thing is, once you posit a personal Satan and demons as causal agents in the world, in principle it’s impossible to say just what events in the material world are effects of their causation. What makes little or no sense is to posit such angelic beings but then say they have no causal effects upon creation.
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.
Don’t posit their existence if you don’t wish to. But don’t posit them and then refuse to attribute causal powers to them. That’s equivalent to not positing their existence at all. And if you attribute causal powers to them, expect them to exercise their powers in the worst possible ways.
Tom
Post Edited (PLANIS) : 7/29/2007 10:47:51 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/30/2007 6:10 AM (GMT -6) | | | I have no problem with the scriptural idea that spiritual beings cause suffering. On the other hand, scripture also seems to clearly suggest that evil spirits/angels are constrained by God to some extent at least. We see the devil asking for permission to harm Job. He wanted to sift Peter like wheat, if my memory serves me. Some fallen angels were supposedly imprisoned after the flood. And so on. So I think Greg needs to come up with a way to explain why he is so sure that it wasn't God that made animals predators after the Fall, and so on. Why would God be any more evil for making animals predators after the Flood than judging people for their works?
God DOES cause suffering. We don't say He's evil for that. We say He would be evil for causing suffering if it was vain and futile. So for all I know, it makes as much sense to say that God caused women to have pain in child birth, etc. as it does to say He allowed angels to do it. But whether it was God directly or God indirectly (by permitting angels), I think Greg is right that the scriptural idea is that certain kinds of suffering of humans and animals are due to the sinful state of creation. Like Greg, I can't see how to metaphorically work my way beyond that. To do so would be to make much of the gospels, even, unintelligible to me.
One thing is for sure. ALL views on this matter have really huge evidentiary problems. E.g., to say that humans can only exist if stars die violently begs really huge questions. No one has seen life form from star dust. No one even has a clue how it could happen. No one has any idea how the first generation of stars came into being without supernovas or other stars to facilitate their formation. HUGE evidentiary problems all around. Making bald assertions gets us nowhere.
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/30/2007 6:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
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.
You may need to talk with Greg about this. It seems to me that he's the one that collapses the two by saying that all entropy is demonically originated. Functionally, Satan is the Demiurge, remember? You cool with that?
"Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began."
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/30/2007 7:10 AM (GMT -6) | | From Greg's blog...(bold emphasis is Greg's)
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Following the teachings of the New Testament, these early theologians all understood that the leader of the rebel army that ravaged nature was Satan. In the words of Athenagorus, Satan was “the spirit” originally entrusted with “the control of matter and the forms of matter” (A Plea, 24). The entire material creation was to be administrated by this highest ranking angel, according to this theologian! Unfortunately, this “spirit” used its free will to rebel against God. He now exercises his tremendous authority over material creation against God. He abuses “the government entrusted to [him].” Given the nature of moral responsibility, God could not simply revoke Satan’s sphere of influence. Hence, Athenagorus argued, “the prince of matter exercises a control and management contrary to the good that is in God”(A Plea, 25).
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. It didn’t arise from the omni-benevolent hand of the Creator (as the atheists of his day and ours object) but was rather due to the activity of an evil “ruling prince” and “the demons his followers" (A Plea, 25).
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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...
"Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began."
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/30/2007 9:31 AM (GMT -6) | | Without getting into ch. 8 (I haven't done so for some time), I'm guessing most people would interpret it as God subjecting nature to decay in response to the Fall. Should this be equated with "entropy"? Dunno. Whatever it is, it does seem pejorative. I mean, the "decay" is "futility" and spoken of as a "bondage." Not the "good" we see in creation in Gen. 1, right? So something's UP here that's a foreign element so to speak, an intrusion of sorts into God's good purposes. If entropy is necessary to God's good purposes, then the "bondage" of decay and futility can't be that per se. But if not that, what?
My guess is that the "one who subjects" is God, not Adam. But is this act of subjugation to be equated with the act of creation, so that they're essentially the same? Or is it God's response to human sin in Gen. 3? Again, the language ("futility" and "bondage") lead me to think Paul was not thinking of the act of creation per se. What reason is there to think Paul would have taken this attitude toward the created realm? On the contrary, creation was still a good thing, God's handiwork, and a reflection of his wisdom and power. I don't think he could have described creation "as created by God" as "in bondage." "Bondage" to decay, whatever it is, seems to be something that "happened" to creation.
Tom
Post Edited (PLANIS) : 7/30/2007 9:36:13 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/30/2007 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | | Romans 8
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 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, [i] Father." 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17 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. [This mention of ‘suffering’ introduces vv. 18ff]
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
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One Love
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| Posted 7/30/2007 10:06 AM (GMT -6) | | | 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?
"Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began."
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." Post Edited (Theoria) : 7/30/2007 10:09:19 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/30/2007 10:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Do we have any other biblical examples of divinely orchestrated subjection in the hope of a greater experienced freedom?
Hmmmm...
Take a stab at it.
(Hint: "As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." ) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 7/30/2007 11:49 AM (GMT -6) | | 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.
So, I agree with Piper or whoever that it was God who originated entropy; it has a good telos. However, the story doesn't end there. It may be that angelic beings were intended to be God's servants in administering an ordering influence over creation. As some of them abandoned their post, entropy runs wild.
I don't think this makes Lucifer into the "Creator" (he didn't originate the "stuff" of the universe) but he may have originally been charged with the responsibility to help bring order to the chaos, a responsibility in which he became delinquent. He was charged to bring Light, Beauty, etc. (Isn't this his orginal name?) Post Edited (Corey) : 7/30/2007 12:00:23 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/30/2007 3:58 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/30/2007 6:55 PM (GMT -6) | | I'm not as concerned about who did what with respect to natural evil as I am WHY. I'm also interested in the fundamental nature of love. If love truly requires suffering and epistemic distance, are we to believe that God, sans creation, was incapable of loving His "beloved" Son while He enjoyed perspective and bliss? If so, I'm fine with it. But I want to know what Jesus meant when he said the Father loved him "before the foundation of the world." Was he really saying the Father was not enjoying perspective and bliss at that time? And, given that definition of love, are we to continue perpetually in suffering and love, or are we to cease suffering and loving?
If creation was subjected to vanity ON HOPE, does that hope have anything to do with the hope of the current "groanings and travailings" being eliminated from our experience? Isn't it plausible that Paul in Romans 8, having just talked about death entering the world via the sin of Adam, is meaning by the fact that God subjected the creation to vanity ON HOPE, that said subjection was not going to hinder Him from obtaining His original pre-Fall purpose? Isn't that what the promised seed indicated? IOW, the hope of redemption from the curse, etc. was stated at the very time of the subjection. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. God's purpose can not be trumped by sin. Sin only causes there to be a change in the means to that end.
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 8/4/2007 12:28 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Jeff
The definition of love is, indeed, the source of the problem. According to John, Christ said that the Father loved him before the foundation of the world. I accept this as true. Therefore, assuming that God's love for the Son, sans creation, is not fundamentally different from what we mean by love in other contexts, your syllogism would mean that the Father's love is either non-volitional or that it required epistemic distance. If the former, volition is not necessary for love. If the latter, God is not omniscient at all times. The syllogism would also imply that suffering and epistemic distance analogous to that which is currently caused in the "natural" order must continue into the infinite future if we, ourselves, are to love forever. Are we to cease loving at some time?
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.
In my mind the notion of “un-chosen love” or “non-volitional love” is analogous to “married bachelor”. There simply is no such notion as it is a contradiction in terms.
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.
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).
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.
We, also, I believe, will ultimately make an “eternal choice” to love or not to love (which I presume means to no longer exist). Once made, I do not believe that epistemic distance is required. I do believe that the ability to make an eternal choice requires epistemic distance. I believe that if there were no epistemic distance we would not have the chance to make an eternal choice.
Jeff
According to John, Christ said that the Father loved him before the foundation of the world. I accept this as true.
Iconoclast
I do as well. But I believe that Chist is God and always has been. That God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and always has been - that these three aspects of God are fundamentally metaphysical in the sense of Charles Sanders Peirce’s metaphysical categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. Or, rather, these metaphysical categories are a coherent description of what it means for something to exist.
God’s eternal choice to love did not require epistemic distance because then we would have to ask, “epistemic distance from what?” I believe that existence itself is fundamentally wrapped up in the notion of the eternal choice to love. Without love, without the eternal choice to love, there would be no existence.
God is Love.
Love has no meaning (it is not Love) if it is not volitional and relational.
God is eternal, He has always existed.
God is triune, He is internally relational.
God eternally chooses to Love.
He is existence.
We did not create ourselves.
We cannot exist on our own.
We were called into a form of existence already in relation to the one who exists in and of Himself.
We were given the ability to eternally choose to love.
I believe this requires epistemic distance.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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