Re: Shedd on Concursus

Apologies for my careless reading.

"Ongoing providential support of the created order" avoids - as I suggested earlier - an avoidance of the ideas that God utilizes creatures as secondary causes. This is more characteristic of Reformed than of Lutheran or RC treatments.

Schmid (Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church) begins his discussion of the problem of evil by saying:

"The most difficult problem in the science of theology is that of exhibiting the method of the divine concurrence in the evil actions of men, without at the same time in any wise throwing the blame of the evil upon the first cause, i.e., upon God. The Dogmaticians apply for this purpose two formulae: God concurs in producing the effect, not the defect; God concurs as to the materials, not as to the form." (The 2 formulae cited are from, respectively, Quenstedt and Hollaz).

Unfortunately many discussions of the theodicy problem are primarily philosophical & of little use. An theodicy that isn't grounded in the cross is of little value.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Rich Blinne
  To: 'George Murphy' ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 6:47 PM
  Subject: RE: Shedd on Concursus

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
  Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 4:38 PM
  To: Rich Blinne; asa@calvin.edu
  Subject: Re: Shedd on Concursus

  Rich -

      I must be missing something, for I see in the extract you've posted only discussion of creatio ex nihilo & none (at least explicitly) of concursus.

  The following was buried in the quote:

  But Descartes added a definition of created or secondary substance as "that which requires the concurrence (concursus) of God, for its existence."

      BTW, I think that the term "cooperation" is preferable to "concurrence," for the latter term is open to the understanding that God "accompanies" creatures but that creatures do not act as genuine causes.

  The P&R version of Shedd added a glossary and had the following definition of concursus.

  concursus God's ongoing providential support of the created order. Shedd worries about this in the context of God's providential support of evil. Shedd is quite clear that God permits evil, and God's concursus in this case extends to his maintaining the sinner and the sinner's will as to its existence and ability to function sinfully. On the other hand, Shedd regards the sinful element itself as entirely self-actuated or self-moved and not in any way so moved by God. See also decree, permissive and decree, efficient.
Received on Sun Dec 26 19:37:50 2004