Re: Dembski theodicy

 *God's hand is still raised... Even now his wrath isn't turned away...
He brings armies from the north... You've all read it before. It's
everywhere.*

Merv, I think we need to treat the question of God's wrath somewhat
differently than the question of natural evil. Natural evil (giving due
weight to Dick's discomfort with the term, but using it because that's the
term people use) is stuff that happens to people without any apparent
cause. The passages you're referring to are instances where the Bible tells
us that God caused human suffering and death as judgment for sin. In the
latter case, there's no question that the suffering and death in question
was not "natural" -- it was the direct result of sin. I don't think that
most Christians of any persuasion today (excepting maybe folks like Pat
Robertson in ungaurded moments) would suggest things like Hurricane Katrina
are direct instances of judment for sin.

I'd agree that these questions are linked in Christian theology in that
"sin" is a heuristic for both. And, both raise some common questions: why
would God create a world in which His the intelligent, self-aware part of
His creation could rebel and be subject to the general ravages of sin as
well as the specific pains of judgment? But the questions diverge somewhat,
I think, when we consider whether *any* sort of death or decay (e.g., the
Second Law of Thermodynamics) were part of God's original plan for
creation.

As to the "big" question of "why would God create such a world," I don't
know that anyone can really answer that. Any thoughtful Christian, I think,
has to struggle from time to time with these questions, and to some extent
has to accept the sorts of responses God gave to Job. But even so, lots of
what C.S. Lewis wrote about this seems helpful to me, as do the sorts of
ideas George Murphy has mentioned above. Very often, in my experience,
criticisms of theism that proceed along these lines betray an impoverished
understanding of God and of the gift of human free will.

On 5/12/06, Mervin Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
>
> David, I didn't see or get your reply until reading it in George's
> response here. I'm not disputing that the wrestling match is as old as
> sin itself. But there is such a contrast (I think) between our
> "privileged" unpriviliged positions. I'm happy to listen in on the
> historical debate among you who are much more historically knowledgeable of
> examples or counterexamples. But I'm primarily just even looking at the
> Bible to fuel this thought. Not only did they not try to "absolve God" as
> George phrases it below -- they repeatedly give God "credit" for the worst
> atrocities as well as the good. And that seems to bother them not at all
> like it bothers so many of us. I won't even cite the passages, they are
> so plentiful. God's hand is still raised... Even now his wrath isn't
> turned away... He brings armies from the north... You've all read it
> before. It's everywhere.
>
> If my comment on navel gazing was laying it on a bit thick, I'll blame it
> on hasty posting. Be assured it's a self-critique more than anything. My
> own dirty laundry probably doesn't need public airing. I appreciate the
> overall aura of professionalism exhibited in this list which is a great
> influence on me.
>
> --merv
>
>
>
> George Murphy wrote:
>
> I think Forde had Christian contexts in mind rather than gnostic
> speculations. (Admittedly there have been plenty of the latter in Christian
> contexts!) & there's a significant difference between trying to figure out
> why some specific bad thing (e.g., the fall of Rome) happened & justifying
> God's creation of, & activity (or lack thereof) in, the kind of world we
> inhabit.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ <http://web.raex.com/%7Egmurphy/>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> *To:* George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> *Cc:* Mervin Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net> ; asa@calvin.edu
> *Sent:* Friday, May 12, 2006 11:24 AM
> *Subject:* 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:
> >
> >
> >
> > 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/ <http://web.raex.com/%7Egmurphy/>
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- 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.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 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
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Sat May 13 09:31:29 2006