Bob,
I read with interest your comments on Polkinghorne's free-process defence.
Many have criticised the tentative and underdeveloped nature of it, and
others, with some justification, have seen it as justifying evil rather then
God!
My concern is that it is *largely* unnecessary! The distinction
Polkinghorne (and many others) make between moral and natural evil is too
marked. Many, if not all, natural evils can be traced back to moral evils.
Many cancers can now be traced back to pollutants which in turn can be
traced back to human misuse of creation. There is also a strong correlation
between childhood leukaemia and the proximity of overhead powercables.
Floods in Bangladesh can be traced back to human mismanagement of the
environment, be it deforestation or the escalating greenhouse effect. The
flu virus that killed millions after World War I was a direct consequence of
the use of mustard gas during the war. The mustard gas mutated the flu
virus and thus it was unknown to the human immune system.
One exception may well be volcanoes and earthquakes.
God is not responsible for natural evils, it is largely human mismanagement
of the stewardship of creation. As R. E. D. Clark has aptly pointed out:
"If we are injured by a car, we do not blame the makers of cars; if we cut
ourselves with a knife we feel no malice towards the workmen who made it ...
"
Steve
Bob wrote:
<snip>
> The question, and Howard's response, with which I fully agree, brought
>to mind John Polkinghorne's thoughts on the question of theodicy, which
>turns Don's question inside out: "why does God not intervene to save people
>from the sufferings brought on by natural disasters?" I think this is a
>better way to look at the situation, rather than to frame it in the notion
>that God intervenes by means of a natural disaster.
<snip>
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 28 2002 - 10:24:38 EST