I myself have seen this attitude if not as forceful as the calling for the killing of one’s enemies but one in which some tribal nationalistic god is worshipped with a false humility attached to it (for example, a sense of satisfaction at the death of say Osama bin Laden--how does a general sense of “righteous indignation” differ from Christ’s admonition to love our enemies? What is significantly different between say Christians who have a right to feel morally indignant (rightfully so?) towards Osama bin Laden’s death and non-Christians who feel the same? What sets them apart where it REALLY counts? As “primal religion” from a false one?

Sometimes that line isn’t always neatly drawn which is where I begin to have some reservations about that which Reitan is suggesting. This seems to work both ways. Let me put it like this:

•  First, Reitan says that the cosmos is “oriented toward the good.” God is a good loving God which is the bottomline. God “created something other than Himself (a finite reality, like our material world) and loved it for what it is.”
• Second, Reitan says that God may be metaphysically constrained in such a way that to “create something other than Himself an infinite God would need to forge a space of finitude in which God is absent” such that “our existence as individual selves apart from God REQUIRES God’s absence; but that absence also makes it possible for earthly suffering to rise to the level of affliction.”
• Third, God “could (and presumably would) engulf horrors with the “over-whelming goodness of the beatific vision. But horrors demand more. They cry out for DEFEAT. How is God to defeat them?…God defeats the horrors we endure by becoming human and enduring them along with us. Horrors thereby become a pathway to solidarity with God.”
• Fourth, it seems, as a result of these premises, that any “evil” recorded in the Bible that is attributed to God really isn’t a result God’s doing. It may be more reasonable to assume that the writers were mistaken and wrote within their particular historical context/worldview, etc.

I think the fourth point is correct for various reasons (some more obvious than others) ie., it is seems pretty obvious that not every instance of evil that occurs is something that we could say has a "God endorsement" behind it. Some of it may very well mistakingly attribute to God some evil or another. However, I don’t know if this is true for EVERY recorded instance in the Bible.

I’ll come right out and say it. If evil cries out for defeat and not merely “absorption” as Kelly James Clark posits, how would this defeat look? Does defeat look similar to evil that Reitan doesn’t want to posit to God but in fact could be posited to God? If defeating evil/horrors by “becoming human and enduring them with us” and these evils are “a pathway to solidarity with God” would that not also include something as horrendous as a crucifixion?

I think I would agree with Reitan that “my imagination is far too limited for me to move from ‘This is the only way **I** can see for God to defeat horror,’ to ‘There is no other way for God to defeat horror.’” Socially, these theological abstractions may ask, “Is the cross not violent? Were there not times in Christ’s life in which coercion/violence occurred to defeat horrors? How would this translate into public policy, ie., systemic evil? It seems that one would have to do away with most if not all instances of violence and coercion recorded in the Bible for the sake of a particular ideological claim.

Brandon is absolutely correct when he says...

"It seems that one would have to do away with most if not all instances of violence and coercion recorded in the Bible for the sake of a particular ideological claim."

Once we do that...we have NO reason to believe that God even encountered Moses or Abraham AT ALL.  Why?  Because supposedly a truly non-evil God would NOT have done the things to Moses and Abram in the encounters above. 

Then what?

(And we ain't even TALKED about Ananias and Sapphira!)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/28/2011 11:27:37 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/28/2011 12:17:14 PM (GMT-5)

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit (OF JESUS!)and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.

 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord (JESUS)? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

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

I think I've mentioned this before.  The whole "Nanny McPhee" idea is actually a retooling of the much more ancient Buddhist idea of Upaya or SKILLFUL MEANS.

In employing skillful means, it becomes theoretically possible that many seemingly proscribed practices, such as violence, theft, and sexuality could be seen as use of skillful means. The use of harsh violence to one's disciples has occasionally been used as a way of opening their eyes to the nature of self and suffering; an example is the story of a Zen priest who ended a conversation with a disciple by slamming shut a door on the disciple's leg, fracturing the leg and, according to the story, causing a deep insight in the disciple. There are a number of other stories of Buddhist saints and bodhisattvas taking part in fairly eccentric and unusual behaviors in the practice of skillful means.

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/28/2011 12:54:58 PM (GMT-5)

I'm not talking about Greg and Reitan have the same views on O.T. genocide.  I'm speaking with regard to the general problem of evil itself.  For both of them, the "cosmos is oriented toward the good."  God is not responsible for evil.  To say that there is a "Nanny McPhee" idea at play, well that really doesn't seem to be all that different then what D has said for years now--that any particular evil COULD BE A JUDGEMENT from God.  By the way, let's not forget the Is 53 passage as D pointed out in the "On the 'Glory' variable of Creation" thread here, (D's first response).

¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

I said in my note on facebook:

"I’ll come right out and say it. If evil cries out for defeat and not merely “absorption” as Kelly James Clark posits, how would this defeat look? Does defeat look similar to evil that Reitan doesn’t want to posit to God but in fact could be posited to God? If defeating evil/horrors by “becoming human and enduring them with us” and these evils are “a pathway to solidarity with God” would that not also include something as **horrendous** as a crucifixion?"

D said on that thread:

"With #1, I think that you are trying to preserve the cash value of the theodicy idea, that is attempting to exonerate God for particular evils. And understandably so. If it is admitted that God CAN design some type of "ugliness" as PREDESTINED in his plan, we would not know whether of not WHICH PARTICULAR EVENT was the product of this action. What this would seem to compromise is the "God always being for us" idea...and the idea that "evil" PRIMARILY emerges from creation. But, Doc, for this to work out, we're gonna have to do some compromising.
Let me use this example: THE CRUCIFIXION. As I recall, we had SOME time with saying how the crucifixion of Jesus Christ could have been a predestined event. Some people wanted to say that merely the DEATH was predestined and not the method. But I personally found that idea problematic. But, EVEN IF that were the case, that doesn't change the fact that PAINFUL DEATH was the case here...and it was PREDESTINED. Why? Because it's been consistently admitted here that God's knowledge of humans falling was NOT merely an "improbable possibility" like Sanders said...but an INEVITABILITY that God knew about. Thus, OVTers are willing to say that the Cross was God's decisive action about what to do BEFORE creation. Some will want to say that because it was for a "greater good" that the "ugliness" is diminished in light of it. But that's mot really true. THE CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF CHRIST BY THE HANDS OF OTHER HUMANS IS UGLY...and it was predestined by God. It was an ugly, dirty, nasty, sinful act...that God had planned. Let's just say for a moment that Jesus really thought of himself as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. What would he have thought?"

And remember, this was in response to Greg's:

"The mistake I think Edwards and other Calvinists make is in thinking that one has to accept that EVERY FEATURE of the whole is part of its beauty. I would rather argue that an essential aspect of the beauty of the whole is the "free play" that takes place within it. But just this "free play" allows for the possibility of there being aspects of the whole that are NOT beautiful. Of course, like an ingenious artist, God can weave ugly aspects of the whole into the beauty of the whole if the clay cooperates with him (Jer. 18). But this is not to say that he himself designs the ugliness, or that the ugliness is itself a hidden beauty."

If Greg is not essentially saying here that God is not ultimately responsible for evil or any particular evil, I don't know WHAT he is saying.  In Reitan's book, he essentially says the same thing Greg is saying with regard to evil emerging from creation from the space that God gives us.

Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 10/28/2011 8:37:42 PM (GMT-5)