Re: Dembski theodicy

*It is remarkable that there were so few attempts to construct theodicies
prior to the 18th century.*

Maybe, although I'm not sure this description is historically accurate.
After all, Augustine's theodicy is significant, and arguably before him
heresies such as gnosticism were efforts to deal with the problem of evil --
as were many aspects of the Greek philosophies before them. I'd suspect the
attention paid to theodicy in the modern era has more to do with the
challenges posed to epistemology based on authority posed by the
Enlightenment.

On 5/12/06, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
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>
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> People have indeed "fretted about the origins of evil" for a long time but
that doesn't necessarily lead to construction of theodicies. Job doesn't do
anything of the sort (though his friends do). A note of Gerhard Forde's in
his On Being a Theologian of the Cross (Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 84-85 is of
interest here.
>
> "It is remarkable that there were so few attempts to construct theodicies
prior to the 18th century. Certainly there was no shortage of suffering and
disaster. Life was 'nasty, brutish, and short.' In Luther's own day the
black death had decimated the population of Europe and still threatened.
Villages and towns lived in constant dread of fire and natural disasters,
and so forth. Yet attempts to absolve God were deemed foolish. Is it not
curious that only when life seems to be easier do thinkers set out to
'justify' God. Is it perhaps that when we think ourselves to have done so
well we question God for being so inept? Perhaps it is as Hannah Arendt
remarks, 'When men could no longer praise they turned their greatest
conceptual efforts to justifying God and His Creation in theodicies.'
(Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, vol.2, Willing [New York, Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1977], 97)."
>
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Opderbeck
>
> To: Mervin Bitikofer
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 8:36 AM
> Subject: Re: Dembski theodicy
>
>
>
> It crosses my mind that the fuss over the origins of evil is the luxury
> of a society who isn't busy about daily survival – a society sold on the
> notion that pain doesn't have to be a part of this world, courtesies of
> pharmaceuticals, new technology, etc.
>
> Merv, I think I'd suggest exactly the opposite. People have fretted about
the origins of evil for as long as we have written records, and probably
before. If anything, our relative comforts in the industrialized North
probably cause us to think less about these things. Most of us aren't
confronted with death and suffering every day. Imagine how much more
immediate the problem of pain was before things like basic dental care. And
imagine how much more immediate the problem of pain is even today for the
majority of the world's population that doesn't share the relative
affluence of the North.
>
> Back to our philosophical navel gazing. It surely is productive in its own
way.
>
> Ok -- it's fair enough to point out that endless discussions about things
like natural evil and theodicy, after a while, become little more than
endless discussions. Surely many of us -- surely I -- sometimes could do
with powering off the computer and walking down to the local shelter to give
a cup of cold water to someone in need. I don't think, though, that all of
this is just navel gazing.
>
> If we're going to reframe the Creation-Fall-Redemption narrative to make
the Creation part less idyllic than traditionally imagined, IMHO, it's vital
that we explain how that affects the rest of the narrative. People who know
real suffering -- and even those of us in the affluent North come to know it
at some time or another -- understand that "something is wrong" and long for
Redemption. If our only answer is "nothing is wrong, this is just the
natural order of things," what have we to offer (or hope for) by way of
Redemption? What meaning does the Christian story have if it no longer
affirms that the world is not how it should be, that the very creation
groans for the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God? So, I think these are
vital, core questions for us to hash out.
>
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> On 5/11/06, Mervin Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
> > Here's a brief comment offered in the confidence that it will be
> > entirely ignored, (ignored in the name of job security for pedagogues).
> > It crosses my mind that the fuss over the origins of evil is the luxury
> > of a society who isn't busy about daily survival – a society sold on the
> > notion that pain doesn't have to be a part of this world, courtesies of
> > pharmaceuticals, new technology, etc. This includes many of us in the
> > first world nations, and probably the wealthy kings and philosophers of
> > previous ages. I'm certainly not saying such things weren't debated long

> > ago. The psalmists and Job fussed quite a bit over such problems as
well.
> >
> > Paul asks in I Cor. 1:20 "Where is the wise man? …" Later commenting
> > that God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise; and
> > so on. Maybe it is only the 'wise' that get tied in knots over where
> > evil came from. Not to belittle the anguished wails of the suffering in
> > the world. But I'll bet we'd be surprised how many of them would give an

> > incredulous look at any of us who suggested to them that they let their
> > circumstances remodel their theology. Theirs would not be the look of
> > ignorance, but of amazement that someone could so obviously get the cart

> > before the horse.
> >
> > But enough of this interlude. Back to our philosophical navel gazing. It
> > surely is productive in its own way.
> >
> > --merv
> >
> >
> >
> >
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Received on Fri May 12 11:24:43 2006