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Questioner
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/21/2004 6:37 AM (GMT -6) |   | Iconclast,
It is VERY unclear to me how literally you take the Creation stories. In one turn, you seem to hold it as mainly as mythic (story, but conveying truth) as seen in the way you demythologize the serpent. In another turn, you appear to take it as more literal (talking about what the Adamic couple ate in the garden). I'm confused. What's your position on the Creation Stories?
Q
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Questioner
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/21/2004 6:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Dr. Boyd:
"In keeping with this reading, we may suppose that over billions of years the original creation came under bondage to destructive spirits, some of whom perhaps had been agents originally entrusted by the Creator with caring for it. These guardians joined Satan’s rebellion, however, and began exercising their domain of influence in an anti-creational manner. In this sense, the restoration view is similar to the previously discussed evolutionary warfare perspective. In so far as these fallen spirits were able (viz. in so far as they possessed irrevocable authority), they twisted the laws of nature which governed the cosmos in a destructive direction. They perverted earth’s animal inhabi-tants, perhaps infiltrating the evolutionary process (if such a process was indeed present). Perhaps in a manner remotely analogous to the way deformed hybrid creatures were produced by the mixture of demonic and human natures prior to the flood (Gen. 6:1–4), the mingling of demonic influences with the good creative "life-force" (N. P. Williams) of God produced hybrid crea-tures in this world which no longer perfectly reflected the glory of their original Creator.
Nature became hostile, creatures became vicious, and the whole planet became subject to God’s enemy and was no longer fit for the purposes for which it was originally created. "
Look out for those demonic carnivorous plants! Plants that eat crawling things? Damnable hellspawn! Terrible freakish hybrid! Prima facie evidence for the warfare worldview!
LOOK! There's one now! Run away! Run awaaaaaaaay!
(Tossing holy water at it...)
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/21/2004 7:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Questioner,
quote:
Be that as it may, we nevertheless have to reconcile the view that nature is corrupted by fallen angels with the Genesis 1 creation account in which God pronounced everything "good" prior to the fall. In what follows I shall consider three viable interpretations of Genesis 1 and attempt to show how the trinitarian warfare theodicy might be rendered compatible with each one.
We don't HAVE to assume fallen angels corrupted creation. As I said earlier, God is responsible for MUCH natural evil, though it was DUE to misuse of volition. This is all a theodicy requires.
quote:
A Creationist Reading. For both biblical and scientific reasons, many scholars reject the theory of evolution and/or the mythic reading of Genesis 1.
This is true; macro-evolutionary theory has EXTREME scientific problems, as does the Big Bang, continental drift, and cosmological physics.
quote:
One could argue that God was involved in this "cursing," as the Genesis account says, in the sense that he was the one who gave permission to Satan to take over the dominion intended for humans.
On the contrary, it is the most perspicuous reading that GOD is the one who cursed, NOT SATAN.
quote:
But, regardless of how much leeway we ascribe to the genealogies of Genesis 1 through 5, it must have happened rather quickly, especially in comparison to the time allowed for in the evolution-ary view.
Not if we assume the gaps in the genealogies allow for millions of years. And on what grounds can we rule it out? Since we have good reason to assume that it was the physical effects of the Flood that changed the life-spans and reproductive-ages immediately, it might just as well be possible that the subsequent changes in life-spans were due to physical changes in the earth that occurred over a VERY LONG time span. I.e., both are due to physical changes in the earth.
quote:
The Restoration Reading. While it is not incompatible with the trinitarian warfare view of "natural" evil, the creationist reading of Genesis 1 problematic. Among other things, this view contradicts the nearly unanimous consensus of geologists that the earth is bil-lions of years old, as well as the nearly unanimous consensus of paleontologists that animals were devouring one another millions of years before humans arrived on the scene. If creationists are right, one has to accept that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time and that the original Tyrannasurs Rex was vegetarian!
If LONG time spans are implied in the Genesis genealogies, the carnivory in the fossil record could be post-flood as Gen. 1-11 seems to imply.
quote:
There is a third view that may avoid the difficulties of both the first and second readings of Genesis 1 and may be the most compatible with the warfare understanding of "natural" evil. It is called the "restoration" or "gap" theory of creation. In this view, Genesis 1:1 describes the original creation while Genesis 1:2 describes this creation after it had been corrupted by demonic influences, torn apart by a spiritual war and come under God’s judgment. Genesis 1:3–31 then describes (in literal or non-literal terms) God’s work of restoring the earth by refashioning it out of the materials of the previous creation.
I still say this view has more scientific problems than a literal Genesis with LOTS of time implied in the post-Flood genealogies. Where is the evidence of this RE-CREATION and a year-long Flood in the near past?
quote:
In keeping with his universal design to exercise his sover-eign Lordship through morally responsible administrators, God created humans after his own image to be responsible stewards and guardians of this new world.
The primary responsibility of humans was to preserve and perhaps expand God’s "con-quest of an evil being who had penetrated into creation" as Franz Delizsch describes it. They were thus instructed and empow-ered to "subdue" the earth (Gen. 1:28) and to guard the garden (2:15). They were to exercise a loving lordship over the whole animal kingdom, as rep-resented by Adam’s charge to name all the animals (Gen. 2:19–20). They were to glorify God by being his viceroys* upon the earth.
How do mere humans guard the earth/garden from Satan and angels? I can't even imagine what that means.
quote:
Within a few more thousand years they live for scarcely more than a century. In time, the global average would be less than a half a century.
This would imply that the Flood was VERY recent. Glenn R. Morton, a Christian geophycist/evolutionist/Big Banger, has rightly argued that any Mid-Eastern Flood in the last few thousand years that was large enough to last ONE YEAR would have left OVERWHELMING geological evidence. We find NO such evidence. Greg is simply knaive to suppose his view has no scientific problems.
quote:
A number of things can be said in favor of this view. Its integration of the cre-ation-conflict accounts of the Old Testa-ment is a strong point in its favor which the other views lack. It explains why angels are not included in the list of things created in Genesis 1, though their existence seems to be presupposed in the first person plural of verse 26. It also explains how an evil serpent could appear out of nowhere in Genesis 3, and why the Lord commanded Adam and Eve to "subdue" the earth (1:28) and guard the garden (2:15) even though the world itself had been pronounced good.
These all have just as reasonable explanations in the literal, but OLD earth, view of Genesis.
quote:
And it does not require us to reject the consensus of geologists and paleontologists regarding the duration and violent nature of the earth before humans arrived on the scene.
Whether he realizes it or not, Greg already DOES reject the consensus of geologists in advocating a recent RECONSTRUCTION and year-long Mid-East Flood.
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 8/21/2004 8:02 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Kublai Khan
Iconoclast, would you say that Eve, for example, chose to eat of the tree herself, out of her own desires and appetites, but projected part of her responsibility onto an "other", that being satan?
"the serpent tempted me"; isn't that the original cop-out?
Yes. That is exactly what I would say. Adam then did the exact same thing by then blaming Eve.
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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Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 8/21/2004 8:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Questioner
Evolution and Genesis 1 as Myth. The most common interpretation of Genesis 1 by scholars today is that it is a poetic myth that expresses theologi-cal truth. Contrary to all the pagan views of its neighbors, this creation account expresses Israel’s conviction that the whole creation comes from Yahweh. He is completely sovereign over it and it is essentially good. In this view, the details of this inspired mythic poetry cannot be used to dis-pute the prevailing scientific view that the earth is five bil-lion years old, that all species have evolved from lower species, and that suf-fering has been a part of the evolutionary process for millions of years.
If this interpretation of Genesis 1 is accepted, there is little difficulty reconciling this passage with the trinitarian warfare theodicy. At some point in the prehistoric past, the evolutionary defender of the warfare theodicy could argue, Satan and his angels rebelled. As part of their assault on the Creator, they assailed his work of creation, perhaps by perverting the responsibility they had as guardians over aspects of this creation. Hence, long before humans existed—perhaps at the beginning of the evolutionary process itself—these agents exercised a corrupting influence on the creation. Insofar as it was within their authority as guardians to do so, they twisted the laws of nature and cor-rupted the evolutionary process to reflect something of their perverse nature rather than the benevolent nature of the Creator. Hence the animal kingdom and all of nature reflects both the wisdom of the Creator and the violence of his opponents.
Iconoclast
The only problem I have reconciling this view with the trinitarian warfare theodicy is that it does not account for Doc’s specific view of “natural evil”. Doc does not agree that death (animals eating animals) is part of the creation that God called “very good” (literally: a unified order). Greg sees the eagle not as a majestic creature but rather as being demon twisted in the sense that it gets its life from preying on and eating other animals.
And this is why Doc tentatively holds to the restorationist or “Gap theory”. This is the only one consistent with his view of natural evil.
In my view animals eating animals is a necessary consequent of Epistemic Distance which is a necessary consequent of Love needing to be chosen. Thus, it is not “evil” at all. Yes, God’s very good “unified order” has been under assault ever since the fall, and yes, things would be a lot better today if man had never fallen, but I do not believe physical death would be out of the picture. I do not believe there would be no tornadoes or people stubbing their toes.
As long as we need epistemic distance in order to choose love, then entropy is a fact of life.
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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1Heart
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128
| Posted 8/21/2004 9:30 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Questioner
God At War, Page 211-212
"We may regard death as 'a natural part of life,' but for Jesus and other apocalypticists it was not so. Indeed, throughout the New Testament, death is treated as "the last enemy to be destroyed" (1 Cor 15:26). It reigns as a foreign invader, given access to God's children by their sin (Romn 5:12-17; 1 Cor 15:21; Jas 1:15; cf Gen 2:216-17; 3:19-23). The one who holds the 'power of death' is 'the devil' (Heb 2:14), the one who has been 'a murderer from the beginning' (Jn 8:44). Hence there is in this worldview nothing 'natural' about death. At least as we presently experience it, death was never part of God's design for creation. It is, rather, the ultimate 'scourge' of the evil one."
"In any event, it is clear that death as we now experience it is seen in the New Testament as an evil consequence of Satan's tyranny over the earth. Hence it is not surprising to find that freedom from death (immortality) was seen as being one of the central aspects of the early church's vision for the eternal kingdom."
Q
Khan said:
"Entropy could have been part of the original plan with so much more offsetting input than is currently in existence.
One could say that something is offsetting the input needed to stave off the entropy that has always meant to be here."
So, you are saying that entropy (in part, the tendency for decay) was always a part of God's divine plan...but just a lot less of it? Let's go with that for a minute. What's the "something" that's been offsetting it for that last 6 billion years? Demons?
And, if you look at all of this from a calvinist's perspective (I've been a little of that myself), all of this sin, and death, and tyranny could have been avoided; if the Father knew it all, and had the power to prevent it all - why didn't He? How could he allow the coming destruction. It would all have been so simple if he had not created that one angel....hmmmm. Or did He know? This is where the open view makes more sense to me...or one of the places.
Jo-Anne
"Sometimes all we can do is go back to the character of God, and drop anchor there."
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1Heart
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128
| Posted 8/21/2004 9:35 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by billzbob
quote:
Originally posted by Questioner
More about death...
Death and deterioration, it would seem, follows from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
It would seem that to 1) agree with Greg's warfare worldview and 2) agree with the Biblical axioms I've mentioned above...
One would HAVE to say that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics was
--NOT planned by God originally
and...
--is fundamentally product of demonic influence!
I'm finding this harder and harder to believe by the moment.
Help?
Q
I wouldn't believe that either.
The East didn't have a notion such as Augustine's the Adam and Eve had such maturity and perfection when they sinned. But held that they would MATURE. And with that we can notice two things: (1) The calling and task of being "microcosm" and "mediator" between the sensible and the intelligable creation (St. Maximus the Confessor) remains, and will remain; but (2) the intended goal of humanity is to become less bound by the material, and become more spiritual. (Read C.S.Lewis' "The Great Divorce.") Think of Christ's glorified body that could BOTH walk through doors AND eat!
I think it is a mistake to think of all "natural evil" as being evil. A wood rotting on the forest floor is creational and good. Though our joining it is a result of sin.
BTW -- I disagree with Boyd on this, as you can see, but the two things in your initial post seem stock Eastern Orthodox. And Boyd is significantly different from them in several respects.
I'm in way over my head on this thread...but ("choke, sputter"...) am refusing to leave. 
I'm wondering if this isn't an example of isogesis, and how it can be problematic, instead of reading scripture from the perspecitive of narrative theology.
Oh help... BRANDON !!!!
Jo-Anne 
"Sometimes all we can do is go back to the character of God, and drop anchor there."
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1Heart
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128
| Posted 8/21/2004 10:04 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Questioner
I honestly don't see how, at least from a Pauline perspective, that any evangelical could say that physical death is to be seen as a God-blessed, natural aspect of human life. At best, given the Creation stories, given we take them a certain way, it would seem that physical death was an ACCOMODATION to a sorry situation...Gen 3:22-23...
In any event PHYSICAL death ended up being the result of sin. And not ultimately intended by God. And part of the hope of the early church was freedom from the tyranny of PHYSICAL death and decay in Christ.
As a  I've watched people die slow, agonizing deaths (sorry to be so graphic here), and not just people suffering from illness, or disease - but those who die of natural causes; old age. I can't believe that was part of the original plan. I think original glory included paradise; the garden. Maybe that is just what I believe the Father would desire ultimately for his children. I don't believe he created Adam and Eve to watch them die slow, agonizing deaths. They were created to share in the perfect community of Father, Son and Spirit.
Our original address was paradise.
Jo-Anne 
"Sometimes all we can do is go back to the character of God, and drop anchor there."
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1Heart
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128
| Posted 8/21/2004 10:15 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Questioner
So, is Bill right? Am I now a heretic if this sound-minded person is me? Would I be better off just believing Paul's teachings because it's Holy Scripture…and forget about how it just doesn't square with other things. Would I be better off taking Dr. Boyd's creative, yet ultimately implausible "streeeeetches" just to stay in the boat with the other taffy-pulling theologians?
Or maybe...
I should I be honest with myself and my faith…and just say that there is theological diversity in the Bible such that some views may be outright inconsistent with other views. And some views just may not square with what we know and be wrong in that way. But that doesn't stop the Bible from being the collection of books that Judeo-Christian faith uses to live and relive it's past, present, and future relationship with God through Christ. The Bible is NOT inerrant OR infallible in the evangelical sense, but neither were the people that God has ever used in history! It is still useful for faith and life. It still hold transformational power and truth. It is still God's Word to us.
What do YOU think?
Q
Since when is it heresy to question? If it was, everyone here would be heretical. And as for the other "taffy pulling theologians" - they won't even let me in the boat!  Sorry for the inordinate amount of posting on this thread, but I am fast to try and catch up, and find this thread fascinating. Dr Boyd's TWT makes the most sense to me. I'm sure that none of us have found just the right "view" to lay the problem of evil to rest...but to me, the closest view is the one that most resembles the character of the Father that we see in Jesus Christ. The view needs to fit with that as well.
God Bless,
Jo-Anne (almost caught up)
"Sometimes all we can do is go back to the character of God, and drop anchor there."
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billzbob
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 8/21/2004 10:48 AM (GMT -6) | | I was not and did not call anyone a heretic. But it is heresy to believe or teach that the Scriptures are false.
No, JoAnne, question is good -- we agree there!
But we should not be measures unto our selves either. We are not "popes" of a congregation of one. Sola Scriptura is bad enough -- politically born, and not doing what it says it does. But when individuals or groups decide that they are going to make up their own truth, indipendent of the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led Church of Jesus Christ, then you see sheep wandering after their own voices. Not their Master's.
I though Q was KIDDING!
Isn't it ego to try to master the highest thing possible.
Theology must be done with humility. And its proper domain is the realm of revelation in the economy. Not speculation about God.
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/21/2004 2:20 PM (GMT -6) | | ICONOCLAST,
quote:
originally posted by Iconoclast
Doc does not agree that death (animals eating animals) is part of the creation that God called “very good” (literally: a unified order). Greg sees the eagle not as a majestic creature but rather as being demon twisted in the sense that it gets its life from preying on and eating other animals.
And this is why Doc tentatively holds to the restorationist or “Gap theory”. This is the only one consistent with his view of natural evil.
The eagle can be majestic AND "evil" in the sense of being predatory. They are not mutually conclusive. I'm suspect Greg sees it that way. His exact argument was:
A number of things can be said in favor of this view. Its integration of the cre-ation-conflict accounts of the Old Testa-ment is a strong point in its favor which the other views lack. It explains why angels are not included in the list of things created in Genesis 1, though their existence seems to be presupposed in the first person plural of verse 26. It also explains how an evil serpent could appear out of nowhere in Genesis 3, and why the Lord commanded Adam and Eve to "subdue" the earth (1:28) and guard the garden (2:15) even though the world itself had been pronounced good. And it does not require us to reject the consensus of geologists and paleontologists regarding the duration and violent nature of the earth before humans arrived on the scene. It thus need not postulate vegetarian dinosaurs contemporary with humans, as does the creationist account. But neither is its coherence undermined if one decides on other grounds that evolutionary theory is implausible.
On these grounds I am inclined, however tentatively, to accept the restoration interpretation of Genesis.
But Greg's view has significant scientific problems and at least one, I think, philosophical problem. How do we explain why God would allow the suffering of animals for hundreds of millions of years per the restoration view of natural evil? Was it a probationary period for the angels to see if they would join the fallen angels? I guess this could be an explanation, but it seems like a bit of a stretch. For why would angels leave God just to tinker with animals - where is the glory or temptation in that?
quote:
originally posted by Iconoclast
In my view animals eating animals is a necessary consequent of Epistemic Distance which is a necessary consequent of Love needing to be chosen. Thus, it is not “evil” at all. Yes, God’s very good “unified order” has been under assault ever since the fall, and yes, things would be a lot better today if man had never fallen, but I do not believe physical death would be out of the picture. I do not believe there would be no tornadoes or people stubbing their toes.
As long as we need epistemic distance in order to choose love, then entropy is a fact of life.
How do you explain the hundreds of millions of years of animal suffering by epistemic distance? I thought you didn't believe there were any spiritual beings or humans at that time to love. Am I misunderstanding your view?
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JEE
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 8/21/2004 11:34 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Greg sees the eagle not as a majestic creature but rather as being demon twisted in the sense that it gets its life from preying on and eating other animals.
I must say that I find the idea that a predator such as the eagle is a demon-twisted creature, and the idea that all animals originally were created to be plant eaters, to be patently ludicrous.
God himself sanctioned human consumption of animal flesh:
Gen 9:1 God said to Noah and his sons: I am giving you my blessing. Have a lot of children and grandchildren, so people will live everywhere on this earth.
2 All animals, birds, reptiles, and fish will be afraid of you. I have placed them under your control,
3 and I have given them to you for food. From now on, you may eat them, as well as the green plants that you have always eaten.
4 But life is in the blood, and you must not eat any meat that still has blood in it. CEV
God commanded the Israelis to consume the Passover lamb:
Exo 12:3 Tell the people of Israel that on the tenth day of this month the head of each family must choose a lamb or a young goat for his family to eat.
4 If any family is too small to eat the whole animal, they must share it with their next-door neighbors. Choose either a sheep or a goat, but it must be a one-year-old male that has nothing wrong with it. And it must be large enough for everyone to have some of the meat.
God showed Peter that those meats which had formerly been unclean under the Old Covenant were no longer to be considered unclean under the New Covenant:
Act 10:11 And he saw the heaven opened and a certain vessel like a sheet coming down to him, being bound at the four corners and let down to the earth;
12 in which were all the four-footed animals of the earth, and the wild beasts, and the reptiles, and the birds of the heaven.
13 And a voice came to him, saying, Rise, Peter! Kill and eat!
14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.
15 And the voice spoke to him again the second time, What God has made clean, you do not call common.
16 This happened three times, and the vessel was received up again into the heaven.
Paul prophesied of those who would view carnivorousness as somehow wrong:
1Ti 4:1 The Spirit says clearly that in later times some believers will desert the Christian faith. They will follow spirits that deceive, and they will believe the teachings of demons.
2 These people will speak lies disguised as truth. Their consciences have been scarred as if branded by a red-hot iron.
3 They will try to stop others from getting married and from eating certain foods. God created food to be received with prayers of thanks by those who believe and know the truth.
4 Everything God created is good. Nothing should be rejected if it is received with prayers of thanks.
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Questioner
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/22/2004 3:11 AM (GMT -6) | | JEE,
quote:
I must say that I find the idea that a predator such as the eagle is a demon-twisted creature, and the idea that all animals originally were created to be plant eaters, to be patently ludicrous.
God himself sanctioned human consumption of animal flesh
Everything that you cited happens AFTER the "fall". It's Dr. Boyd's view that after the fall, death and carnivorousness began to take place. But BEFORE the fall, everything was vegetarian. You've read "Satan and the Problem of Evil", right?
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