>From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
> Polkinghorne writes:
>
> "An Oxford theologian, Austin Farrar, once asked himself what was God's
> will in the Lisbon earthquake? This terrible disaster took place on All
> Saints Day in 1755. The churches were full and they all collapsed, killing
> 50 thousand people. It was a most bitter example of natural evil. Farrar's
> answer was hard but true. God's will was that the elements of the earth's
> crust should behave in accordance with their nature. In other words, they
> are allowed to be in their own way, just as we are allowed to be in ours."
I like Farrar's answer, as far as it goes. But perhaps this is more than a
matter of God (presumed to be omnipotent) merely _allowing_ things to be "in
their own way." Maybe it is necessary that things (creatures) must be in
their own way. Perhaps it is in the nature of God and of the God/world
relationship that the being of no creature is ever coercively overpowered.
If God could have intervened to prevent human suffering and death in Lisbon,
or in Afghanistan, but chose not to, then is not God still culpable? Does
voluntary self-limitation actually eliminate culpability? Seems too facile
to me.
The problem may well be in the traditional (and humanly crafted) doctrine of
divine omnipotence -- ascribing to God the power to do essentially
_anything_, including overpowering creaturely action. Not all theological
systems incorporate omnipotence in their portrait of God. Here's a sample
from a system that does not:
Our rejection of omnipotence will be attacked by the charge, "So, you dare
to limit the power of God?" Not so, I impose no such limit if this means, as
it seems to imply, that Godıs power fails to live up to some genuine ideal.
All I have said is that omnipotence as usually conceived is a false and
absurd ideal, which in truth limits God, denies to him any world worth
talking about: a world of living, that is to say, significant
decision-making, agents. It is the tradition which did indeed terribly limit
divine power, the power to foster creativity even to the least of the
creatures.
No worse falsehood was ever perpetrated than the traditional concept of
omnipotence. It is a piece of unconscious blasphemy, condemning God to a
dead world, probably not distinguishable from no world at all.
The root of all evil, suffering, misfortune, wickedness, is the same as the
root of all good, joy, happiness, and that is freedom, decision making.
Life is not and cannot be other than a mixture of the two.
Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes, p. 17, 18.
Howard Van Till
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