Re: Dembski theodicy

Dembski's view requires not only that God, foreseeing Adam's sin, allowed suffering and death in the world prior to the fall but that God created a world in which suffering and death, "natural evil," is necessary - & that in several ways. The 2d law of thermodynamics means that there will be a tendency for machinery, including biological machinery, to run down. The physical nature of a planet like the earth means that there will be earthquakes, volcanoes, thunderstorms &c with some resulting loss of life. If organisms like insects were around for millions of years without ever dying then the earth would be awash in them. And if natural selection is an important component of the evolutionary process (even if not the only one) then death & extinction are part of the way in which new species, including humanity, developed.

This means that the whole nature of the physical world would have been different if Adam had not sinned - or, to put it the other way around, the whole nature of the physical world is a result of sin. In that case it is very difficult to see how to make sense of the claim that God's creation is "very good" or of a verse like I Tim.4:4.
This view is "tantamount to heresy" - in particular, to the Manichean heresy. In less formal terms, it's a crock.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Keith Miller
  To: American Scientific Affiliation
  Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 12:27 AM
  Subject: Dembski theodicy

  I just ran across an article by Dembski on natural evil. I found it interesting because I am convinced that the problem of natural evil is one of the primary issues that drives the anti-evolution movement -- whether YEC or ID.
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Received on Wed May 10 10:49:36 2006