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Questioner
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Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 5:50 AM (GMT -6) |   | After reading "Satan and the Problem of Evil", I seem to notice some things. It seems to me that critical support beams for the ENTIRE theodicy and worldview are the following:
1) The Gap Theory about Creation
2) Greg Boyd's explanation of "natural" evil
In other words, one cannot consistently hold Dr. Boyd's Warfare Worldview without WHOLLY accepting these ideas. I think it's important to say that. I've heard so many people say that they agree with almost everything about Greg's views...except the natural evil explanation or the gap theory of Creation. Too speculative or fanciful, they say. This seems short-sighted, to say that least. The entire theodicy hangs on both these things. ALL of the TWTs play themselves out in these two things. Taking Greg's view without these two ideas are like trying to bake a chocolate cake without chocolate and flour. It just won't work.
But perhaps we need to explore more of why these views are so important to the whole things. These two things are arrived at, I believe, because of two crucial theological axioms of Judeo-Christian thought:
1) Death is ULTIMATELY the product of SIN.
2) Death is an ENEMY of God.
If we don't get anthing from the Creation story, Jesus's own ministry, AND Paul's assertions...it would be these axioms. Now, the most consistent way to affirm the axioms above, given all the things we believe about "nature", is to say the cosmic deterioration and permeation of evil is ULTIMATELY the product of angelic sin (ie fallen angels like Satan). In this way, I would say that, from an evangelical standpoint, Dr. Boyd's theodicy is the most comprehensive and consistent with the crucial theological axioms.
Let me be clear why this is so important. If someone were to assert things like...
-Death is NOT the enemy of God, but a natural (in the true sense) state of affairs that accompanies temporal life.
-Death is NOT ultimately the product of sin, but planned into the life process by God
...then that person would be effectively saying that plain, clear theological axioms of Judeo-Christian thought are wrong.
That person would effectively have to say that important assertions of the Bible were fundamentally wrong on a THEOLOGICAL issue. This goes beyond the old inerrancy/infallibility discussion. You are talking about saying that the Bible may be in serious error.
Now, what if you are a Christian who believes the following things...
--the Gap Theory is highly improbable and speculative
--Greg's "natural" evil explanation is interesting, but ultimately ludicrous
--Death, deterioration, and carnivorousness (A supposed product of demonic influence) are part of the NATURAL order of God-ordained temporal life
...WHERE does that leave you?
Should you admit that the Bible is WRONG (or at best INCONSISTENT) on theological matters of faith and life?
Q
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Tom
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| Posted 8/20/2004 6:27 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Questioner
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 6:40 AM (GMT -6) | | This is a section from Satan and the Problem of Evil, page 318. I've highlighted an important part...
"While there are a number of variables that must be considered for a comprehensive understanding of such terrible occurances, [of evil] their ultimate explanation must lie in the volition of evil agents who abuse their God-given authority. In short, Satan and his legions are directly or indirectly behind all forms of "natural" evil. Satan turns the neutral medium of the natural order into a weapon just as human agents sometimes use rocks, sticks, or water as weapons when they choose to do so. ***This conclusion is the only one entirely consistent with the Bible and the only one that adequately accounts for all the data in need of explanation***"
Do you see the axioms in operation?
Q
Tom, what happens "next week"? | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 6:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Page 302
"To be sure, according to Scripture the creation was originally created good, and the glory of God is still evident in it (Gen 1; Rom 1:20). But something else--something frightfully wicked--is evident in it as well. Of their own free will, Satan and other spiritual beings rebelled against God in the primordial past and now abuse their God-given authority over aspects of creation. The one who 'holds the power of DEATH--that is, the devil' (Heb 2:14) exercises a pervasive structural, diabolical influence to the point that the entire creation is in 'bondage to decay' (Rom 8:21). If this scenario is correct, then the pain-ridden, bloodthirsty, sinister and hostile character of nature makes sense. If not, then dispite the valid constributions of a number of thinkers on 'natural' evil, the demonic character of nature must remain largely inexplicable."
Satan holds the power of death and destruction. Death, like Satan, is seen as the enemy, Scripturally speaking.
All this comes from the origin of sin (ie the fall of angels)
See the axioms in play?
See the "restorationist" view in play?
To say that death (and carnivorousness, while we are at it) is a natural, God-given process of temporal biological existence is to counter ALL of this. To say it is to strongly counter Scripture.
Takers?
Q | | Back to Top | | |
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billzbob
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Total Posts : 82
| Posted 8/20/2004 7:23 AM (GMT -6) | | I don't buy Greg's postulation that tornados are of the devil.
St. Gregory Naz. (or was it Basil?) divided the issue regarding Christ into three sections. Hunger was assumed, and is natural. Temptation was taken on himself voluntarily. But sin was never present.
What did you, Q., mean by "natural evil": What domain is it, in this scenerio of Docs or yours? | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 7:55 AM (GMT -6) | | 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 | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 8:05 AM (GMT -6) | | For pictures of demon-infested, fallen-angel-orchestrated plant life
http://www.acps.org.au/
Some demon must have been working overtime for this one...
For more on the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
http://www.2ndlaw.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 8:39 AM (GMT -6) | | 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? | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 9:04 AM (GMT -6) | | Khan said:
"Let's say God planned two processes for life:
1. naturally occurring entropy
2. fresh input that offsets entropy allowing life
It's a system that, despite having an entropic component, overall is in perpetual statis. It deteriorates and renews at a steady equilibrium.
Now something comes along that offsets the fresh input, sending the system into a steady decline. There's still deterioration and renewal, it's just that they aren't equal anymore. one step forward and two steps back
Under this idea, entropy is natural but the offsetting renewal is obstructed by something else."
I'm going with that idea. WHAT is the "something else?" | | Back to Top | | |
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billzbob
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 8/20/2004 9:05 AM (GMT -6) | | 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.
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Questioner
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Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 9:13 AM (GMT -6) | | Khan:
"Demons?
Epistemic distance"
Epistemic distance won't do it. Dr. Boyd already dealt with that aspect in Satan and the Problem of evil. For one thing, the "epistemic distance" thing alone wouldn't answer the BIBLICAL question of how death is ultimately a product of sin.
It all ends up going back to the demons.
Are you really willing to buy that???
Q | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 9:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Khan,
Are willing to say that carnivorous plants are ULTIMATELY demonically engineered creatures? Or are they a product of epistemic distance too?
Q
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Questioner
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Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 9:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Oh, and bill...
It would seem that a "wood rotting on the forest floor" would be an example of what I'm growing to call "demonic tinkering" with the way Creation was supposed to work. So was the formation of flesh-rending incisors, fangs, and talons.
The activity of "rotting" would be that "bondage to decay" that creation had that Paul was speaking against...and his hope for the "incorruptible"
All this stuff is feeling more and more nonsensical the more I think about it. All of it.
Q | | Back to Top | | |
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billzbob
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 8/20/2004 9:53 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Questioner
Oh, and bill...
It would seem that a "wood rotting on the forest floor" would be an example of what I'm growing to call "demonic tinkering" with the way Creation was supposed to work. So was the formation of flesh-rending incisors, fangs, and talons.
The activity of "rotting" would be that "bondage to decay" that creation had that Paul was speaking against...and his hope for the "incorruptible"
All this stuff is feeling more and more nonsensical the more I think about it. All of it.
Q
A forester would differ. Where would all the dead wood go. No trees die? Where would the new trees get light without holes in the upper canopee? Whole species would perish. Microbes out of work!
Earwigs are not demons! | | Back to Top | | |
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billzbob
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 8/20/2004 9:58 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by billzbob
Earwigs are not demons!
They don't even look like demons!
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billzbob
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 8/20/2004 10:30 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Iconoclast
Iconoclast
Just as there are two kinds of judgment there are also two kinds of death. There is physical death and there is spiritual death. Spiritual death is separation from God and IS sin itself. Physical death is really the mercy of God. It is death from this death which is nothing but life.
Icon, I wish you could EITHER make that sound less like Hinduism (and ancient pagan greek reincarnational religions! They think of death as escape, and subsuming into emptiness), or sound more that way.
In contrast, the Heidelberg Confession of the 1500s says:
42 Q. Since Christ has died for us,
why do we still have to die?
A. Our death does not pay the debt of our sins.^1
Rather, it puts an end to our sinning
and is our entrance into eternal life.^2
quote:
Originally posted by Iconoclast
Iconoclast
God said that "in the day" that we eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil we shall surely die. The serpent denied this and when Eve ate she did not die.
What can this mean except that in the day they ate of the fruit they died spiritually - they lost their origin - they lost their connection with God. But they did not die physically. Thus, there are two kinds of death. And what is the death of this spiritual death except for life? God grants us the mercy of death from this spiritual death - this is why Jesus says that we must die to live.
There too I have to disagree. They BEGAN to die. You're right, that their death did not conclude that day. But it did begin. God did not say "they day you eat of it, that day I will kill you. But he did say, "the day you eat of it, that day (it will become true) 'you shall die." (which was not true prior).
Spiritual death is a good point. But the physical death BEGAN immediately.
And we see the marked and symbolically (though true too) literary shortening of life longevity in the number of hundreds of years people lived.
Real death is part of this too.
Also see: http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.10.en.original_sin_according_to_st._paul.01.htm
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billzbob
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Total Posts : 82
| Posted 8/20/2004 10:51 AM (GMT -6) | | BTW, Icon, I'm done on this thread. Q. probably wants to know more of what you think, since it is both similar and different from Greg.
bye | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 11:52 AM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast,
What is your view of Scripture? Is it possible for there to be theological errors in Scripture? Meaning, is it possible for Paul or Jesus to be wrong in something that they claim about the nature of spiritual reality?
Q
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