Oh boy. Here we go...catch the wave!

Tom

Who wants to go first?

I admit I am unschooled in the details of the warfare view, though I think I would agree with it simply because I believe there are real fallen angels out there who have power to screw things up.

Couple of questions:

1) How does warfare have anything to do with tsunamis, hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes, volcanos, etc? How much power do fallen angels have anyway? Can they really affect plate techtonics? Do they have that much domain over mother nature? Even if it is admitted they do have some power over mother nature, does warfare really explain most natural evil?

Post Edited (Sahid) : 4/15/2005 5:08:32 PM (GMT-5)

Matt: 1) How does warfare have anything to do with tsunamis, hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes, volcanos, etc? How much power do fallen angels have anyway? Can they really affect plate techtonics? Do they have that much domain over mother nature? Even if it is admitted they do have some power over mother nature, does warfare really explain most natural evil?

Tom: If you’re Greg Boyd, then there is not ‘natural evil’. So-called natural evil is moral evil because there are moral (fallen) angelic beings behind tsunamis and volcanoes.

Here’s the thing. If you posit an all-loving God who has the muscle to stop hurricanes and tsunamis, presumably he’d want to do so. But he doesn’t do so. So either he ‘can but doesn’t want to’ or he ‘wants to but can’t’. That’s the problem with natural evil. You can’t say God’s not getting involved because he has to respect human free will. There’s no human free will around a tsunami. Greg posits angelic free wills that God respects under the conditions he designed for creation. So “can’t” in the latter option is not the “can’t” of a lack of power. It’s the ‘can’t’ of covenant, which is a “can’t” of having committed one’s self to something, not a “can’t” of lacking the power to do something. God created the world under certain conditions and God honors those conditions—even when things go wrong.

Matt: 2) A bigger question is why did God have to curse the earth in the first place? Why is that necessary or even relvent to justly punishing Adam/Eve and to begin a remedy and reconciliation process?

Tom: Sin has consequences. Doc’s warfare worldview argues that a screwed up creation is one of the consequences of sin.

Sahid: 2. Hebrew expert needed. NIV says, "Cursed is the ground because of you." It seems here that Adam is the one who cursed the ground.

Tom: The “you” is Adam. Adam’s being addressed. That makes Adam the ‘reason’ for why the ground is cursed. So it’s difficult to see how Adam can also be doing the cursing.

Tom

Matt: All very mind blowing...never thought to blame old Satan for the tsunami...but perhaps that is the problem...everyone looks to God instead of looking to Satan.

Tom: If you’re Greg Boyd, then there is not ‘natural evil’. So-called natural evil is moral evil because there are moral (fallen) angelic beings behind tsunamis and volcanoes.

Matt: Again, this is a new concept. I guess, after I catch my breath I could generally agree, and blame most so called natural evil/mother nature on demons. However, I would still want to leave room for at least some chance/randomness (Eccl 9:11) and some acts of God (Sodom, etc).

Post Edited (jefscott) : 4/15/2005 7:01:54 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Starkman) : 4/16/2005 5:13:08 PM (GMT-5)

 Thanks Jeff, for helping establish that God cursed the ground.  My question is did he have too?  Genesis 3:7 (KJV) 

    “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”  Some translations say they felt shame.  Regardless, they became somewhat dynamistic, their innocence was lost; something seemed to overcome them, a sort of transformation before God even found them.  Due to sin, did they become infected, contaminated with the disease of death and more? Was there some law that that God had to abide by that left him no choice but to quarantine them to a cursed world?  

 Genesis 3:24 (NRSV) 

    "He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life."

Was the flaming sword put in place to punish man or to protect everlasting life from the disease of death?

Great discussion folks.

Thanks,

Mark

P.S.

Some compelling stuff you posted, Starkman.   John E. might need to respond.

Post Edited (sparknheart) : 4/17/2005 1:06:34 AM (GMT-5)

So is the implication that if God actively cursed the ground that all subsequent natural evil/natural disasters were/are God's 'intent' upon the present creation? Whereas if God passively allowed it to occur as a result of free will, sin, and his redemptive aims, that we can say natural evil is not his 'intent'?

Or perhaps are we talking about whether natural evil is a means or an end, specifically whether it is rehabilitative or punitive?

“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.

To the woman:

“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for (or "against") your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”

And to the man:

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

There is little value in an inductive punitive conclusion; it simply doesn't address the bigger picture to attribute gastronomical problems as punishment to the serpent, gynecological problems in child bearing as punishment to the woman, and ecological malfunctions in crop raising as punishment to the man. Something else must first be addressed to deal with what's going on here and with the issue of evil—natural as well as intentional evil—in this chapter. As I see it, there are two items to note:

Evil was already present on earth; all the intentional (and potential) evil that could be imagined. Satan himself, the archtypical illustrative representation (for purposes of destroying relationship between God and mankind) of all evil was already there to stare Adam and Eve and the world in the face. The minute Adam and Eve make the move to listen to Satan, they are, in essence, declaring, via their free-will decision, that they choose to find out for themselves what can be discovered apart from God.

That's the issue: apart from God. What can be found without the necessity of God's sustaining provisions...provisions in every single area that defines life, both physical and spiritual? The fact is, nothing can be meaningfully sustained outside of God's provisional presence. At the Fall, the reality hits Adam and Eve in regard to what it means to be thrust into a sphere of existence that is self-defined, self sustained and self-provisioned.

The curse of the serpent, particularly in first order, is meaningless just for punitive purposes. It is, in actuality, a declaration to the serpent that he got his way, but he will only be able to live in his "way" as one who is presented to the world as the most desperate, the most helpless, the most crushed and the least able to make provision.

The woman is next. She represents the one from whom humanity proceeds and continues; however, she will now be at odds with her own child birth and offspring! She will also be at odds with her husband. Her sphere of existence cannot find provision, not without the constant reminder that her provision is one of conflict and not blessing. God is there, but he farther than near. He is not of their world, of their domain, of their definition of life. He is not of their provisional ways.

Finally, the man turns toward God to receive the reality of his provisional disburbance. That God curses is to say that God is also there, but, again, farther away than near. "Because you have listened to your wife . . ." It is not Satan Adam heeded, but his wife. That is why he is now in conflict with the deepest of his provisions: tilling the ground. He is in conflict with sustaining life itself. His wife is not cursed with regard to the same ecological disturbances; she is not the one who would have offered food for all under the auspices of God's blessings. By nature, and before the Fall, Adam would have tended to the garden in loving provision for his wife and family. Now, after the Fall, the very element of meaning for him—providing for his family—which would have been splashed across the universe as his own glory, under the shadow of God's glory, is now in great conflict; he cannot produce without reminders of his absolute inability to make meaningfulness out of crops. Weeds will be the reminder, and sweat will water the weeds. He is to find himself in conflict with the one aspect of provision he was meant most to enjoy: tilling the ground.

And he will live only so long with his abilities. He will find that "all is vain" when it's said and done. He is outside the very essence and meaning of what it means to be in right relationship with himself, with his family and with God. 

Everything hinges on an understanding of the why of verse 15 (I'm not going the direction of the traditional "first messianic prophecy")

I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

It is not to Eve or Adam to whom war is declared; it is to the pre-existence evil one who is now occupying the place in which God only can occupy...if purpose and relationship is to have any meaning and sense at all. "Enmity between you and the woman." Between. Between whom (two parties)? Not the serpent and the man, but the serpent and..the woman, from whom life proceeds, from whom the sphere of this horrible evil existence is perpetuated. Though death will come to the man and woman, as a reminder of their inability to produce true, meaningful life, they can know, as can the serpent, that this sphere is not permanent, that they did not, in fact, eat from the Tree of Life.

The point I want to make is in regard to an understanding the aspect of God's cursing. It is not punitive, it is declarational; of the shift in relationships, the conflict that emerges because of this and the reality that life will never be found in this sphere. How natural evil fits into this is for another thread (I HAVE to go now!)

Starkman