"Howard J. Van Till" wrote:
> >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.
>
One (but not the only) problem with this approach is that the
same fundamental physical processes are involved in actions that result
in good as well as evil. If God acts by persuasion, or co-operation, or
concurrence, or whatever, in fusion reactions in the sun that provide
solar energy so that we can live, in seems very difficult to argue that
God isn't involved in the same way in the fusion reactions in a an
H-bomb detonated over a city. Examples could be multiplied.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 28 2002 - 14:29:18 EST