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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > Epistemic Distance Entails Entropy | Forum Quick Jump
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 8/30/2003 7:51 AM (GMT -6) |   | | | |
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 9/3/2003 5:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc
What I do not yet see is
* why our epistemic distance from God requires ENTROPY in nature.
Iconoclast
Nature is the context that we live in. It is what we experience. If nature did not have epistemic distance from God then through nature we would directly experience God. Thus for us to have epistemic distance from God nature must have epistemic distance from God. One way to understand this is that light is limited in its speed. Light has been slowed down and can “only” travel so fast thus it cannot carry perfect information.
If nature has epistemic distance from God then by definition it operates with information loss. This information loss it operates with IS the very definition of entropy. Entropy IS a measure of information loss in the system.
Another way to understand how epistemic distance IS entropy is that to not have entropy EVERY particle in the universe would need to operate directly out of knowledge of God’s specific will for it. Or, EVERY particle would need to know exactly what states it needs to be in from moment to moment. Or, EVERY particle would need to know its design goal and what EVERY other particle that could possibly affect it now or in the future was doing and what its design goal is. Without this perfect knowledge, or rather with this epistemic distance, we end up with dispositions and probabilistic behavior. And once we have chance (probabilistic behavior) we get entropy. This is basic physics. Fortunately, because the universe does not really operate according to any sort of field theory (continuous functions) but really operates in discrete, quantum steps, probabilistic behavior can give rise to negative entropy (higher order) within a local area. Overall ANY higher order that is created can be shown to be offset by a greater amount of disorder that is required to “bring it about.” Thus, overall entropy ALWAYS rules.
An eagle eats mice. Mice eat plants. Plants eat (consume) microbial matter. Microbial matter eats (consumes) bacteria. And on and on and on.
What we see is that there is an ENORMOUS abundance of “lower” level life for the “higher” level life to consume. The “higher” level life cannot live without the “lower” level life to sustain it.
One could argue that the universe is SO large because God had to put so much initial energy into it in order to get life out of it with these kind of entropic processes.
What I am trying to say here is that epistemically distant life MUST consume MASSIVE amounts of ENERGY in the form of LIFE ORDER or HIGHLY CONDENSED INFORMATION that itself has come about from consuming massive amounts of energy and THIS is simply what it takes for life to exist in an epistemically distant universe. What is fundamentally built in to epistemically distant life is the need for higher orders of life to consume lower levels of life. Thus, physical “death” is fundamentally built in to epistemically distant life. You cannot have one without the other.
You cannot have a plant that does not consume lower levels of life. You cannot have an animal that does not consume lower levels of life. An animal that consumes a plant is fundamentally no different than an animal that consumes another animals. An eagle cannot be said to be the result of the fall. An eagle is the result of epistemic distance and it is a beautiful and majestic creature to behold. It is beautiful and majestic precisely BECAUSE it is built to be an amazingly skilled predator of other animals. If it was not built to be so skilled it would not have talons. It would not have such piercing eyesight. It would not have such a powerful beak. It would not soar above the earth in high and graceful arcs. It would, in short, be an ostrich or a chicken.
Epistemic distance means that the creation is to a certain extent separate from God. Being in disunion from God is the definition of “spiritual death”. Physical death comes about from entropy which comes from epistemic distance which IS a level of separation from God. It is no wonder that physical death is a good metaphor for spiritual death.
“In the day you eat … you shall surely die.” Adam and Eve knew what death was. They saw animals die, they saw insects die, they saw plants die. When they ate of the fruit they did not physically die that day. They spiritually died that day because they became disunited spiritually from God. To physically die for an Imago Dei (spiritual) being is nothing more than to end this epistemic distance and come into the direct experience of God.
Doc
* why you think blaming spiritual forces for natural evil is part of the "legal view," when blaming physical forces for moral evil is not.
Iconoclast
It is not that blaming spiritual forces for natural evil is part of the “legal view.” It is rather presupposing that natural evil is indeed evil and thus needs to be blamed on someone that I consider to be part of the “legal view.”
I do not consider entropy or its effects to be evil.
To me this is like saying that the fact that love must be chosen is evil and that we should find someone to blame for that.
What do you mean when you say that “blaming physical forces for moral evil is not [part of the ‘legal view’]?”
Doc
* how your view squares with Jesus' unform assessment that diseases etc... (all part of entropy) were the result of demonic forces.
Iconoclast
I disagree that Jesus had a uniform assessment that diseases etc… were the result of demonic forces. Jesus did not cast a demon out of the man when He rubbed mud on the man’s eyes to make him see. Jesus did not cast demons out of people when it was clearly understood that the affliction was some physical issue.
A ‘demonic force’ can be understood two different ways:
1. Simply an “unseen agent” like epilepsy or any affliction that exhibited entity-like behavior.
2. The ‘demonic force’ was the force of accusation and the adversary within the person. Most psychological afflictions can be understood this way. Multiple personality disorder comes about because a person is trying to cope with accusation and guilt from terrible abuse. The man with “legion” demons can be understood this way – actually I think the text of the story is understood more clearly with this re-frame.
Doc
* how your view squares with Scriptures teaching that Satan is the lord of death (Heb 2:14) -- since death is just entropy.
Iconoclast
Hbr 2:14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
Hbr 2:15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.
Jesus destroyed the power of SPIRITUAL death which is disunity from God. Satan is the power of spiritual death because Satan is the accuser within or the judge within that arises from epistemic distance. Epistemic distance means that we do not have complete information. Without complete information we tend to accuse, blame, condemn and judge others for the forces of entropy that are acting upon us (disorder / pain that we label “evil”). When we do this – when we become the accuser, the judge (krinos – separate) we disunite from God and each other. We are in essence choosing AGAINST love and thus, we spiritually die.
Jesus physical death destroys the power of the accuser because now we have the information (if we but believe) that Entropy (pain, physical death) is NOT the enemy but rather the “fear of death”, the fear of Entropy and the accusation that arises out of it IS the enemy. Epistemic distance does NOT mean that God is our enemy. Jesus proves that. Jesus proves that He Himself is willing to suffer Entropy because love is worth it. Entropy is really just a part of the huge gift that God has given us. Without entropy there could be no epistemic distance which means there could be no ability to choose love which means there could be no possibility of joy – no possibility of loving union with God.
Jesus coming in the flesh (subjecting Himself to entropy) and dying on the cross (subjecting Himself to our accusation) proves BOTH that God unconditionally loves us (which kills the Satan within if we but believe) AND that Entropy is NOT the enemy – it is not to be feared – it is to be endured and it CAN be endured - out of, and for the purpose of, love.
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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GregBoyd
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| Posted 9/7/2003 10:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Seems like its just you and me over hear good buddy.
Thanks for the thoughtful – and thought provoking – post. I can’t do it justice right now because I really should try to get to sleep. But I wanted you to know I read it, appreciated it, and will get back to it.
Right now there’s just two puzzles/ questions I’ll mention.
1) It seems to me that in your definition of epistemic distance, it is equivalent to INDIVIDUATION. If there are two beings who are distinct and must communicate through a medium, there is INFORMATION LOSS. And this would seem to force the conclusion that the ultimate SOLUTION to epistemic distance is the annihilation of individuation. I don’t see how it would be conceivable in your view that there would be individuals who would be non-identical with each other and God yet who would not experience loss of information. Even in heaven we will need to COMMUNICATE, would we not?
2) Even if I agreed with you that any creation distinct from God would involve information/energy loss, I don’t yet see why it would have to involve PAIN. I can conceive of a cosmos that included glorious eagle-like creatures but which didn’t have any creatures destroying other creatures to preserve their life.
Okay, you gave a lot to think about, and my thinker needs to stop thinking.
Blessings
Doc
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 9/8/2003 7:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc
It seems to me that in your definition of epistemic distance, it is equivalent to INDIVIDUATION. If there are two beings who are distinct and must communicate through a medium, there is INFORMATION LOSS. And this would seem to force the conclusion that the ultimate SOLUTION to epistemic distance is the annihilation of individuation. I don’t see how it would be conceivable in your view that there would be individuals who would be non-identical with each other and God yet who would not experience loss of information. Even in heaven we will need to COMMUNICATE, would we not?
Iconoclast
Two things come to mind:
1. We are called to be transparent.
2. We are called to be "one". "That they may be one as we are one." We will be "in" Him and He "in" us.
Jesus always perfectly knew the will of the Father because the Father was "in" Him and He was "in" the Father.
This suggests to me that we can have individuation without information loss as long as we are "in" each other. Sort of a perfect transparency.
Another connection I make is Chris Argyris work regarding how organizational dysfunction comes about through lack of transparent communication. Now this lack of transparent communication has two sides. The first side is when we simply do not divulge what we are thinking to other people. We keep our attributions of them hidden because we do not want to upset them. The second side of this is when we divulge our untestable and thus accusatory attributions of other people. Either situation results in organizational dysfunction (organizational entropy) because it prevents accurate communication.
These two sides go hand in hand - they are of the same piece and ultimately come about because we are disconnected or disunited from each other. We presuppose that we are not "in" each other.
When we KNOW and are IN FACT "in" each other. When we know that we love each other and want the best for each other, when we are prefectly transparent about our thoughts without accusation, one might suppose that our communication will be able to overcome information loss and we will be able to work and create together without entropy. Or, perhaps, our communication will be such that our ability to detect and correct error (entropy) in our communication will be very high.
This seems reasonable to me because even with this organizational entropy us humans are able to overcome entropy to some extent. Putting a man on the moon is testimony to this fact.
On the other side of this it does seem that God is prioritizing individuation OVER the possibility of entropy. One could even surmise that the possibility and fact of entropy IS something that gives our individuated lives and our relationships meaning. It is, in effect, part of the ground of what it means to build, to create together.
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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| Posted 9/9/2003 5:57 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc
Even if I agreed with you that any creation distinct from God would involve information/energy loss, I don’t yet see why it would have to involve PAIN.
…
Pain in nature came as part of the curse of the fall.
Iconoclast
Gen 3:16 To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
The text says that her pain will greatly multiply implying that she had some pain before but that now it would be MUCH greater.
What is “pain”? Much could be said about this but let me suggest one thought. Pain can be understood as simply an indicator of something going wrong with our physical body that needs our attention to deal with. It can be understood as entropy happening to us that needs to be dealt with. It is an attention getter that is critical to our survival.
Pain is not the same as suffering.
Animals feel pain but I think most would agree that they do not feel pain anything like us humans do. They do not suffer the way we do. Why? I think this directly relates to the fall, the nature of consciousness, the nature of desire and our being disunited with God and each other.
1. Consciousness. One could argue that the fall greatly increased our consciousness and that much of human suffering comes from our consciousness of pain rather than the pain itself. If you are in serious physical pain one way to greatly reduce it is to fully imagine (in a way you actually believe) that there is a tiger under your bed and that it is about to rip you apart. To the extent that you can associate into this thought you will suddenly not be conscious of your physical pain.
One could also argue our consciousness is located in our frontal lobes and that the size of our frontal lobes is what causes such great pain in childbirth.
Both of these thoughts suggest that consciousness is a key aspect of why pain is experienced as suffering.
2. Desire. Another aspect of why us humans experience pain as suffering is the nature of desire. We experience frustrated desire as pain or suffering. We actually confuse some desire we have as a major pain indicator and then feel like our survival is at stake. We seek life through our desires, through acquisition, and when we are frustrated we feel like our life is threatened.
3. Disunity with God and each other. When through a pain indicator, be it physical or psychological based on a desire, we feel like our life is threatened what we actually experience is NOT that we will ultimately be OK because we are in unity with God and each other but rather we fear the unknown abyss that we think we are falling into. And our minds are pretty good at concocting all sort of horrors related to this. The young child does not fear that there is a monster in the closet – they are convinced that there is a monster in the closet that will do all sort of horrible things to them. And so do we. This comes about from disunity.
My point is that while entropy results in pain (in a healthy person) it does not necessarily result in OUR current experience of pain which is great suffering. This great suffering comes about because of the fall.
Another aspect of pain is that it is entangled with pleasure. We cannot have pleasure without pain and we cannot have pain without pleasure. As Bonhoeffer has observed, the pain in pleasure is that it will end and the pleasure in pain is that it too will end. Moreover, pain and pleasure are not absolute qualities. They are relational qualities. We know that when we are experiencing great pain a measurable relief of that pain is experienced as pleasure. When you are hitting your toe with a hammer to stop feels really good. And when you are having a mountain top spiritual experience of being one with God and all of His creation to come back to earth is painful.
I would like to suggest that this experience of pain and pleasure when we are in unity with God and each other is joy. And this same experience of pain and pleasure when we are in disunity with God and each other is despair.
I am not saying that we MUST experience pain. I am saying that to experience pleasure entails experiencing pain. I do believe that there is also a state of neither pain nor pleasure that is simply “repose” in unity with God. One would suppose that God sans creation experiences this simple loving unity. However, with creation God then also experiences pain and pleasure but experiences it as joy. We know that God grieves. We know that Jesus entered into pain and pleasure with this creation. And we know He did this for the joy that was set before Him.
Epistemic distance entails entropy which entails pleasure and pain. Both for us and for God. But in unity with God this pleasure and pain is what brings about and thus IS joy. They are inseparable.
Doc
I can conceive of a cosmos that included glorious eagle-like creatures but which didn’t have any creatures destroying other creatures to preserve their life.
Iconoclast
I have a difficult time conceiving of this. The eagle is eagle-like because of its attributes related to procuring its life. Why do we have this intuitive sense of the majestic nature of the great predators? Why is the lion seen as majestic but the cow is not? Why is the eagle majestic but the pigeon is not?
What is your conceptualization of a majestic creature like an eagle or a lion where its attributes are not related in any way to being a great predator?
Also, why is the killer predatory virus not seen at all as majestic but rather as the lowest form of life-sucking, scavenging parasite?
My suggestion is that the great predators are seen as majestic because they are overcoming entropy with a higher form of life – they are creating enthalpy (negative entropy) or more order. Whereas a virus is a terribly low form of life with extremely low order or greater entropy that is destroying a higher form of life and thus causing even greater entropy.
My suggestion is that our intuitive sense is that we are to be overcoming entropy by creating enthalpy. That the lion and the eagle are God’s creatures and are part of His “good” / “unified order” in that they represent higher forms of life that God has caused to be brought about.
Moreover, the lion and the eagle actually create MORE order “underneath” them within the animal populations that they live off of. Without the predators managing the prey populations these populations grow out of control and thus become at risk of total extinction.
In the same way us humans as the highest form of life are expected to exercise dominion over the creation and thus provide a similar role as the lion and the eagle but over all the resources of this planet.
When man becomes a predator out of the desire to accumulate rather than the need to procure his own physical life then the unified order is broken and we no longer perform our role of supporting other life.
When the lion kills and eats a gazelle to support its life it is also supporting the life of the gazelle population. And THIS is the “unified order” that God created and called good. It is the necessary order required by epistemic distance and entropy.
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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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/10/2003 6:54 AM (GMT -6) | | Combination of the Lion King's "circle of life" and the "food chain", huh?
So, how about when a species of beings of "higher order" than us comes along? That'll be fun. | | Back to Top | | |
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Springs
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| Posted 9/10/2003 10:58 AM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast"My suggestion is that the great predators are seen as majestic because they are overcoming entropy with a higher form of life – they are creating enthalpy (negative entropy) or more order."
Springs
Ps 8:5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings..." NIV
If heavingely beings are real entities, and fallen ones are demons, then demonization would be a good thing? 
-S | | Back to Top | | |
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Springs
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| Posted 9/24/2003 5:24 PM (GMT -6) | | LOL.
You do get bonus points for being consistent!
This is an interesting thread. I resurrected it cause I think there is still a lot to discuss, and I dont' want to see it buried just yet.
-S | | Back to Top | | |
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Magneton
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| Posted 9/26/2003 8:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Springs, I agree it would be sad to see this thread buried. (Since the topic is entropy, I suppose the proper metaphor would be in letting entropy take its natural course, leading to thermal death – don’t want to se that either.) 
Iconoclast, I really like the model you've put together, though I’ve been too busy lately to study it carefully. The origin and meaning of entropy is an interesting topic. I agree with you that it is not something to necessarily blame the evil one for. The Big Bang is evidence of a universe that was entropic from the start. (I don't have a problem, however, with God's choice of an entropic universe being a result of an angelic Fall, and thereby an alternative to an eternal creation. As Doc argued in another thread, the "new heaven and new earth" that God will construct at a later time could just as well have been created at the Beginning.) Further, I agree with you that life as we know it depends on irreversible and therefore entropic processes. Besides the food chain examples you give, even respiration is a process that depends on increased entropy of the air molecules that enter our lungs.
I am more interested in the microscopic rather than macroscopic or cosmic aspects of entropy, although they are not unrelated. Concerning the origin of entropy, I rather like the approach of the late Ilya Prigogine, in The End of Certainty, which resolves a number of thorny issues. His novel approach has attracted some vehement opposition from other prominent scientists, however, so I don't presume to be able to call his the definitive answer. (Heck, I don't even presume to understand what he's saying!) Dueling Nobel Prize winners make for some interesting fireworks (Murray Gell-Mann is one example of the opposing camp).
Prigogine claims to solve the paradox of probability and reversibility in both classical and quantum mechanics. In traditional classical mechanics, individual collisions between particles are considered reversible and deterministic. Irreversibility and probabilistic behavior arise only in an ensemble of a large number of particles, as described by statistical mechanics. That is, entropy emerges in the ensemble. In traditional quantum mechanics, a reversible and deterministic wave function characterizes a system, until measurement forces a "collapse" of the wave function, an irreversible process with probabilistic behavior. Thus both classical and quantum mechanics are plagued by a dualism arising from underlying processes which are deterministic and reversible (with no arrow of time), giving way at some point to probabilistic and irreversible behavior (with an arrow of time).
In Prigogine's view, truly reversible processes are much rarer than normally thought, and confined to very transient and highly isolated systems. Rather than say probabilistic behavior emerges only in an ensemble of particles, or with a quantum measurement, he says that even individual collisions of particles are usually irreversible processes, with a probabilistic nature that derives from interactions with the rest of the universe. To Iconoclast: although he didn't reference him, this reminded me of the connectedness your friend Bohm talks about. I may be interpreting this wrong, but it’s ironic that connectedness and mutual interactions can be an argument for uncertainty as well as determinism.
One of the key presuppositions that Prigogine attacks is that probability or uncertainty is a concept that resides in the human mind (a presupposition that finds its way into many of the interpretations of quantum theory). He argues that it is inherent even in fundamental processes.
I’m sure I haven’t done justice to Prigogine’s work, but thought this was a good place to throw this in. Iconoclast, I have a few questions about the concepts you describe, but I’ll save those for another post.
Magneton
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.- Henri Poincaré. | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 10/2/2003 7:58 AM (GMT -6) | | [6 thoughts
#1 : However "one" we are, I can’t conceive of communication between agents who remain ontologically distinct from one another that is without information loss. E.g. however transparent I am to you, YOU can’t know EXACTLY what I’m experiencing, so my communication to you of what I’m experiencing must involve information loss. The sheer fact that you’re YOU and I’m ME ensures this. Even in heaven. Which means that entropy will exist in heaven, but without (I think) pain. Pain is not necessary to creation.
#2: Even if I were to grant that pain and pleasure AS WE EXPERIENCE THEM NOW are inseparable, I can conceive of pleasure without pain. As you seem to concede, wouldn’t God’s pleasure san creation be such a state? Must there be pain in heaven?
#3: I find the objection by Meph and Springs to be very relevant. Jesus is AGAINST spiritual forces FEEDING OFF us – as in demonization, etc… So with the whole "god of this age" (2 Cor 4:4) dominating us. The fact that we are in the "image of God" doesn’t mean that we are at the top of the cosmic "pecking order." This argues against the idea that "higher order" creations preserving themselves at the expense of "lower orders" is intriniscally good, or necessary.
#4. While I can make sense of the distinction between pain and suffering – and would even be willing to go so far as to agree that stubbing one’s toe in paradise, before the fall, might "hurt" but would not entail "suffering" – I think there is a limit to how far this can be pushed.
A baby born without enough skin is in extreme pain, and we’d agree , I think, that this is not God’s will. It is "evil." In a creation created by an all good God, it should not happen. Yet a new born baby has less self-consciousness (I’m told) than an adult Chimpazee. I don’t know how far down the food chain to push this, but it intuitively seems to me that pain among sentient beings is bad, and we can conceive of a creation without it.
#5. So, even if I were to grant that SOME KIND of entropy – of the sort Magnaton speaks of – was necessary for any creation, I don’t think it follows that entropy that involves pain among sentient beings is necessary. Or, even if there had to be some pain (as in stubbing a toe and learning to be more careful), I don’t see that it would have to be built into the very fabric of creation.
To preserve MY order, I must destroy the order of weaker beings. And so on down the pecking order. To me, this seems so antithetical to the kenotic God of love who does the opposite. I have no trouble with vegetables being eaten. But when I see a pack of hyenas ripping a helpless antelope to threads, I cannot see the God of Calvary in this.
Call me a sentimental animal lover. But here I stand, I can do no other.
#6. I still haven’t seen an answer to my point that Jesus uniformly diagnosed suffering and death as ultimately coming from the devil, and sometimes more directly from demons. His ministry was both a reminding display of God’s original kingdom vision and a proleptic display of the kingdom that shall come…. And it involved healing and resurrection – AGAINST the work of the devil (1 Jn 3:8; cf. Ac 10:38).
Later
Greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 10/6/2003 7:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc
I still haven’t seen an answer to my point that Jesus uniformly diagnosed suffering and death as ultimately coming from the devil, and sometimes more directly from demons. His ministry was both a reminding display of God’s original kingdom vision and a proleptic display of the kingdom that shall come…. And it involved healing and resurrection – AGAINST the work of the devil (1 Jn 3:8; cf. Ac 10:38).
Iconoclast
I posted the following earlier:
>>>>>>>>
I disagree that Jesus had a uniform assessment that diseases etc… were the result of demonic forces. Jesus did not cast a demon out of the man when He rubbed mud on the man’s eyes to make him see. Jesus did not cast demons out of people when it was clearly understood that the affliction was some physical issue.
A ‘demonic force’ can be understood two different ways:
1. Simply an “unseen agent” like epilepsy or any affliction that exhibited entity-like behavior.
2. The ‘demonic force’ was the force of accusation and the adversary within the person. Most psychological afflictions can be understood this way. Multiple personality disorder comes about because a person is trying to cope with accusation and guilt from terrible abuse. The man with “legion” demons can be understood this way – actually I think the text of the story is understood more clearly with this re-frame.
<<<<<<<<<
And how about the man who was born blind? Did Jesus say that it was the work of the devil? Methinks your “uniform assessment” is not completely uniform.
Acts 10:38
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
This verse does not say that everyone that Jesus healed was oppressed of the devil. It is not an "if and only if" statement.
1 John 3:8
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
It doesn't say here that all bad things happening are the "works of the devil." It is talking about sin. Why wouldn't we assume that sin is the "works of the devil" and that Jesus is coming here to destroy sin. Sin comes from our separation from God and each other - from our accuser within. Jesus came to show us that He loves us by healing us and forgiving us which, to the extent we believe Him, destroys the accuser within us.
Doc
Which means that entropy will exist in heaven, but without (I think) pain. Pain is not necessary to creation.
Iconoclast
Would you agree that pain IS necessary or at least inevitable when creating free-agents who can choose to go astray? God grieves in heaven for his lost children.
Doc
Even if I were to grant that pain and pleasure AS WE EXPERIENCE THEM NOW are inseparable, I can conceive of pleasure without pain.
Iconoclast
How is this different than saying that you can conceive of mountains without valleys in heaven?
Doc
I find the objection by Meph and Springs to be very relevant. Jesus is AGAINST spiritual forces FEEDING OFF us – as in demonization, etc… So with the whole "god of this age" (2 Cor 4:4) dominating us. The fact that we are in the "image of God" doesn’t mean that we are at the top of the cosmic "pecking order." This argues against the idea that "higher order" creations preserving themselves at the expense of "lower orders" is intriniscally good, or necessary.
Iconoclast
I never said that it was intrinsically good. I think we can only say that about the Father.  I just said that it was a necessary consequence of epistemic distance.
Doc
To preserve MY order, I must destroy the order of weaker beings. And so on down the pecking order. To me, this seems so antithetical to the kenotic God of love who does the opposite. I have no trouble with vegetables being eaten. But when I see a pack of hyenas ripping a helpless antelope to threads, I cannot see the God of Calvary in this.
Call me a sentimental animal lover. But here I stand, I can do no other.
Iconoclast
Sentimental animal love OR hater of vegetables! You hate broccoli so you have no trouble with people steaming it to death and then eating it? That’s cold.
One thing I don’t get in your view is exactly when you think the fall happened. Clearly there were dinosaurs killing each other long before man even appeared on the scene. For your view to make sense you would either have to deny the fossil record or say that the fall of man happened before animal life appeared on earth.
How do you explain that God created animal life and called it “good” before He created man? Do you deny that animals killed and ate each other before God created man?
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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Springs
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636
| Posted 10/29/2003 11:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey Mags,
Thanks for the post. I would love to hear your other thoughts... questions.
quote:
Originally posted by Iconoclast
In response to Doc:
One thing I don’t get in your view is exactly when you think the fall happened. Clearly there were dinosaurs killing each other long before man even appeared on the scene. For your view to make sense you would either have to deny the fossil record or say that the fall of man happened before animal life appeared on earth.
How do you explain that God created animal life and called it “good” before He created man? Do you deny that animals killed and ate each other before God created man?
thanks,
Iconoclast
DOC? Any response to this one? | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 10/30/2003 9:15 PM (GMT -6) | | Here's a little exert from Satan and the Problem of Evil that addresses the issue Mag and Springs raise:
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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.
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.
A defender of this interpretation could further argue that despite this satanic counter-influence, God providentially achieved his aim in creating beings in his image. Unlike any of the previous animals, humanity was empowered with morally responsible free will and empowered by the Creator to enter into a loving relationship with him and to participate in his fight against the anti-creational forces to regain lordship of the earth.
Unfortunately, we freely allowed ourselves to be co-opted by the very power we were commis-sioned to overthrow. We have thus come under the same bondage as the rest of creation. Through the work of the cross God has sought to defeat his opponents and restore humans to their original place as guardians of the earth.
A Creationist Reading. For both biblical and scientific reasons, many scholars reject the theory of evolution and/or the mythic reading of Genesis 1. Some of these rather interpret the Genesis 1 account as a mostly literal picture of creation. Such an interpretation clearly eliminates the view that Satan and his fol-lowers exercised a corrupting influence on the laws of nature and the ani-mal kingdom before the fall of humanity. But it is not necessarily incom-patible with the warfare theodicy on this account.
One could argue that, whenever the angels fell, they did not begin their pro-cess of corrupting the world until after Satan successfully co-opted the origi-nal parents into his rebellion. When Adam and Eve fell, they sur-rendered to Satan the authority over the earth that they and their descendents were supposed to have. Once established as "ruler" and "god" of the world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4), Satan immediately began to exercise his own "dominion over the earth." And, in keeping with his character—one of his names is Apolyon ("destroyer," Rev. 9:11, cf. John 10:10)—this dominion was decidedly destruc-tive.
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. It was, after all, the Creator who established the cosmos as a place within which morally responsible agents can affect others for better or for worse. God created the world such that when morally responsible agents fall, everything they are morally responsible for will become adversely affected. This, we have argued (ch. V), is part of the meaning of moral responsi-bility.
Hence, there is no contradiction in saying that God cursed the earth because of Adam’s fall and that Satan and his legions also plague the earth because of Adam’s fall.
All other facets of the trinitarian warfare worldview could be considered in the same way as the previously discussed evolutionary view, except that on this interpretation all of the corrupting influence occurs after the creation and fall of human-ity. It was at this point that the laws of nature became twisted and ani-mals became predatorial. This radical alteration need not have happened all at once: the gradual shortening of human life in the Genesis record perhaps suggests the corrupting influence took time to satu-rate the creation. 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.
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!
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.
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.
Eventually God waged war against his foes who now significantly controlled the world. It is perhaps this battle that is echoed throughout the many creation-conflict passages of the Old Testament. Using mythological imagery familiar to Ancient Near Eastern people, inspired writers depicted and celebrated Yahweh’s battle with and victory over malevolent forces such as "the raging sea," "the deep," "Leviathan" the many headed dragon, and "Rahab" along with her cohorts. And, as each of these passages proclaim, it was out of this battle that the world we presently inhabit was created. It’s not that Satan was destroyed or the entire universe was permanently cleansed from demonic influences. But the forces that had seized this earth had been subdued, at least tem-porarily.
Similar to God’s decision to start over with humanity in the days of Noah, God judged and mostly destroyed the previous demon-inhabited war-torn world. As a result of this judgment, and perhaps as a result of the cosmic battle itself, the earth was reduced to the "formless void" we find in Genesis 1:2. Since the concept of "the deep" (tehom) was a way of expressing threatening chaos in the Ancient Near East, we may interpret the reference to the Spirit (or wind, ruach) of God brooding over this abyss in this verse as the author’s way of expressing God’s on-going control of his foes. He had set a guard against "the Sea" and "the Dragon" (Job 7:12). He had assigned the rebel waters "a boundary that they may not pass" (Ps. 104:9).
And then, as he did after Noah’s flood and as he shall do once again when he purges the earth at the end of this age (2 Pet 3:10, 12; Rev. 21:1), God began the process of restoring the earth by refashioning it out of the remains of the old one. Keeping the forces of evil at bay, and apparently working at a highly accelerated rate (if we take the Genesis 1 record more literally), God refashioned a new animal kingdom devoid of the meat-eating monsters (e.g. carnivorous dinosaurs) which had evolved in the previous one. 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.
Not only this, but judging from what later transpired through Christ (already foreshadowed in Gen. 3:15), it is possible that one of God’s original agendas in recreating the earth and establishing humanity as stewards over it was to ultimately employ these earthly guardians in a strategy for overthrowing the rival kingdom once and for all. This was accomplished by the God-man Jesus Christ allowing himself to be crucified by the spiritual "rulers of this age" and by rising victori-ous on the third day (Col. 2:13–15, cf. John 12:31; 1 Pet. 3:21–22). Empowered by the Spirit of our con-quering head, the Church is now to fulfill the role of original humanity: reclaiming the earth from the kingdom of darkness as the domain in which the Creator is King.
In any event, the refashioned paradise apparently did not last long. As soon as he was able, the enemy sought to recapture the earth by deceiving its human rulers and bringing them under his domain of influence. We of course don’t know how long Eden lasted, but we do know that at some point the enemy discovered a strategy that worked. The viceroys of God and intended stewards of the earth surrendered their authority over the earth to the enemy (Luke 4:6) and joined the satanic rebellion. In doing so they exposed the earth once again to the same corrupting forces of evil that had perverted it in the previous age.
As the refashioning of nature had been carried out by God at an acceler-ated speed, so was its re-corruption, it seems. With the lord of death and destruction enthroned once again (Heb. 2:14) humans began to die within a millennium. 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.
We can imagine nature and the animal kingdom undergoing the same accelerated process of corruption. Having come once again under the influence of its previous evil anti-creator, the laws of nature once again became twisted, the animal kingdom once again became violent, and humans who were originally commissioned to rule the whole planet with the love and power of God became the subjects of the very forces they were supposed to control.
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. Though the plausibility of the trinitarian warfare theodicy doesn’t hang on this, I believe that this interpretation accommodates this theodicy best. Nevertheless, I have attempted to demonstrate that whatever view of Genesis 1 one adopts, it is possible to integrate a warfare understanding of "natural" evil into it.
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For further and more in depth literary analysis of Gen. 1 leading to the "restorationist" interpretation, see God at War, ch. 3.
peace and out
Doc
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 11/4/2003 6:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc
On these grounds I am inclined, however tentatively, to accept the restoration interpretation of Genesis.
Iconoclast
I find all these views to be really big strrreeettchhhees to try and fit the text into a world view. The very large stretches that they are strongly suggests that there is something amiss in the worldview.
My first problem with the "gap" or "restoration" theory is that it seems obvious to me that the author had absolutely no intention to convey such an enormous notion with this text.
My second problem is that I still don't see how this view solves the issue of God seeing every thing that he had made at the end of the 6th day and calling it VERY good.
Gen 1:31
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Creation was done. Everything was created. Dinosaurs eating dinosaurs and all - and God saw it - and God called it VERY good.
Yes God is at war. He is at war with US. Or, rather, WE are at war with Him. God has completely reconciled Himself with us. God's "war" with us is a "war" of influence. It is a "war" to influence us to believe that He is NOT at war with us but rather that He totally forgives us for being at war with Him and He totally and unconditionally loves us.
The serpent is not some outside evil agent. The serpent is a part of the creation that God just called "very good" or of a "unified order" as some translations would have. The story seems clear on this point.
Now, there are two ways to understand this "serpent." It is either an actual part of the creation - a "creature" if you will - or it is an emergent aspect of the "unified order" that embodies the power of choice to go against the "unified order."
If it is a creature then it must be "very good".
If it is an emergent aspect then the possibility of this aspect emerging is "very good" - it is part and parcel of the "unified order" - but the CHOICE by a free agent to actualize this possibility and thus fragment the "unified order" is not good.
I believe that this emergent aspect - this possibility to go against the unified order and thus the possibility to freely CHOOSE to enter into and fully support this unified order is the whole point of what this creation is all about. And it can only come about through epistemic distance from the Creator. Which, of course, entails entropy and therefore what we call "natural evil."
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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Questioner
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2004
Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/20/2004 11:16 AM (GMT -6) | | | this just got recommended to me...for dealing with the death/epistemic entropy thing. Greg's on this one! | | Back to Top | | |
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