Re: Dembski theodicy

I think we need to look at Dembski's statement in the light of
traditional fundamentalist/evangelical (not as in ELCA) views. If I
understand Dembski correctly, all evil is produced by the Fall, the sin
of Eve and Adam. Of course, God acted in anticipation. But, if the Fall
is the start, then there would not have been a tempter because the fall
of Lucifer would have occurred later than the human Fall. Of course, in
anticipation and preparation for the Fall, God could have created an evil
spirit, making him the true author of evil. This negates the f/e
interpretation of Isaiah 12:14ff, requiring Dembski to present a new view
that is acceptable to the group. Anybody want to try a theodicy on such
terms?
Dave

On Wed, 10 May 2006 11:32:39 -0400 "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
writes:
> For one thing, the fall of "Lucifer" in Is.14:3ff isn't about the
> fall of
> Satan at all. It's a Canaanite myth about the attempt of the
> younger gods
> to overthrow their elders which has been "broken" by the biblical
> writer to
> speak about the fall of the king of Babylon. See Brevard Childs,
> _Myth and
> Reality in the Old Testament_ (Alec R. Allenson, Napierville IL,
> 1960),
> pp.67-70.
>
> I know that some here will go ballistic at the suggestion of "myth"
> in the
> OT. But in fact it's the people who want to read this text as an
> account of
> a pre-mundane fall of Satan who "remythologizing" a text which is in
> fact a
> non-mythic (or again, to use Childs' term, a "broken myth") taunt
> song about
> the fall of Babylon.
>
> The idea of a fall of angelic powers needn't be rejected entirely:
> I
> referred to this as a possibility in _The Trademark of God_. But
> the
> biblical material which refers to this is quite fragmentary & does
> not
> justify making the idea into a full-fledged doctrine - let alone
> using it to
> explain the whole nature of the physical world.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>; "American Scientific
> Affiliation"
> <asa@calvin.edu>; <kbmill@ksu.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 11:07 AM
> Subject: RE: Dembski theodicy
>
>
> I wrote a letter in PSCF,
> http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2004/PSCF9-04McLaughlin.pdf , pointing
> out that
> the fall of Lucifer occurred before the Fall of Man and could be the
> cause
> of natural cruelty in Nature. Why cannot the fall of Lucifer be the
>
> "preemptive" act so that the effect of the Fall of Man preceded the
>
> disobedience of Adam and Eve?
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Ted Davis
> Sent: Wed 5/10/2006 9:23 AM
> To: American Scientific Affiliation; kbmill@ksu.edu
> Subject: Re: Dembski theodicy
>
>
>
> Keith's post summarizes Dembski's view and comments on it as
> follows:
>
>
> I would take issue with his claim that his view of natural evil
> corresponds to the orthodox one. I will let the more theologically
> trained among us respond.
>
> Dembski's solution -- He argues that God, knowing of the Fall,
> acted
> "preemptively" so that the effects of the Fall preceded the
> disobedience of Adam and Eve.
>
> ****
>
> My comments are as follows. First, I thank Keith for calling
> attention to
> an explicit statement about theodicy and the fall in Dembski's
> corpus. This
> statement makes explicit what I have long felt intuitively
> concerning both
> Bill's own views and the views of most of his friends in the ID
> movement.
> It also underscores my longstanding view that theodicy, and
> specifically in
> the form of death and the fall, is the driving theological issue
> behind YEC.
> I have discussed this somewhat in the essay I wrote for Keith's
> volume,
> "Perspectives on an Evolving Creation." Others here will be more
> familiar
> with other theological traditions, but evangelical Protestants have
> mainly
> held the view that Dembski calls "the orthodox one." The whole
> package of
> sin/fall/redemption is where the rubber hits the road, in terms of
> TE.
> Those Christians who cannot buy TE b/c they see no satisfactory
> resolution
> there to core Christian doctrines--and this would be a large number
> of
> Christians--have my full understanding and much of my sympathy.
> There is of
> course nothing original about the way in which Dembski speaks about
> being
> heretical either way (ie, in science or in theology), but it hits
> the nail
> on the head.
>
> Dembski's own solution is, as far as I can tell, virtually identical
> to
> that of Edward Hitchcock, the leading American geologist before the
> civil
> war. I know I have often called attention to this, but it that's
> only b/c
> it keeps being relevant to what we talk abou here. I have put two
> versions
> of the theological part of Hitchcock's "Elementary Geology" text on
> my
> webpage, as follows:
> http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/texts.htm
>
> Once again, I urge people to go there and see for themselves.
> Hitchcock
> believed, as Dembski apparently does, that God foreknew the fall and
> planned
> accordingly, so that the pre-fall world already had death and decay
> within
> it. Indeed, he argues, unless Adam had already seen death he would
> not have
> understood God's injunction not to eat of the fruit of the tree of
> the
> knowledge of good and evil. There is nothing original in Dembski's
> view on
> this, it only underscores another point I keep making: so much of
> the modern
> discussion of origins is just reinventing the wheel.
>
> My number one criticism of ID--and I have made this criticism very
> often to
> my friends in ID--is that ID disavows theology, and therefore it
> disavows
> theodicy, and without theodicy it has no hope of success. I mean
> this point
> to cut both ways. On the one hand, without an explicit theodicy it
> is
> doubtful that people like Steven Weinberg will ever want God in
> their
> hearts; Weinberg's reasons for rejecting theism have nothing to do
> with
> "evolution" or other parts of science, and everything to do with
> Alzheimer's
> disease and the holocaust. IDs have no chance to speak to Weinberg
> without
> putting the crucified God front and center. On the other hand, *if*
> IDs
> would put theodicy at the center, then they would be forced to
> decide
> publicly the issue of the earth's age--since, as I keep saying, this
> cannot
> be divorced from theodicy, as Hitchcock knew and Dembski knows.
> Most IDs
> would probably side with Bill (and Hitchcock, not to mention many
> ASA
> members) and start finding ways to understand sin and death in terms
> of
> divine foreknowledge of the fall. That's an attractive option,
> since it
> comes right out of the Calvinism that Hitchcock believed and many
> other
> Christians also believe.
>
> For many years, I took that route myself--Hitchcock is close to my
> heart in
> many ways, and one of these years I hope to work more extensively on
> him
> (his work has not been studied much by historians thus far, leaving
> a large
> hole in the history of American science and religion). In recent
> years,
> however, George Murphy and John Polkinghorne have convinced me of
> the truth
> and great value of understanding theodicy in terms of the crucified
> God. I
> think that's a more biblical approach (I think Hitchcock's approach
> is also
> biblical) and also a more satisfying approach both spiritually and
> theologically. In "The Problem of Pain," CS Lewis placed the
> following
> epigram, from George MacDonald: "The son of God suffered unto the
> death, not
> that we might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like
> His."
> Amen.
>
> Finally, I was interested to see that Bill brings in Newcomb's
> paradox,
> which is the subject of my first article a long time ago in PSCF.
> As I
> said, a long time ago, and it's sobering to think how much water has
> since
> passed over the dam.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Wed May 10 14:24:54 2006