Re: [asa] Wells and traditional Christianity

A basic dilemma seems to lie in our view of death. It's a bad thing in
our "local" view. Yet we are faced , as you note, with a creation that
is laced through and through with death.
It appears to me to be too thoroughly interwoven to be explained away as
a separate, post-creation phenomenon. In fact, in many cases, it seems
to be an actual pathway to new life.

I think of cell death, for example. It is inextricably part of how we
grow and repair wounds without developing cancer. Unless cell
replication is limited in some way, one result is cancer...also deadly.

So my sense is that there is a need to rethink the idea that death and a
loving God are antithetic; and especially that the nature of death is
somehow punative. [Though it certainly can be in our hands!].

Those are our perspectives, and not necessarily His, and we are probably
"dissing" God and His Creation in saying so. We are a part of His
Creation, and a part of His plan. It's probably risky to try from within
that Creation to be too venturesome in guessing whether some "feature"
such as death is good or bad when measured against the full measure of
God's creative intent and how He's chosen to accomplish it.

Or so it seemeth to me. Jim

Alexanian, Moorad wrote:

> The simple question that even a child asks and many of us are
> disturbed about is, why does the lion has to kill the zebra? Why is
> death so interwoven with life? The latter question is devoid of all
> sorts of theological baggage but address the same fundamental problem.
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Ted Davis [mailto:tdavis@messiah.edu]
> Sent: Mon 8/28/2006 7:08 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu; janmatch@earthlink.net
> Subject:
>
>
>
> <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net>
> Subject: Re: [asa] Wells and traditional Christianity
> Sender: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> Precedence: bulk
>
> Hi, Vernon,
>
> Thank you for pointing me to your "pilgrim's paradox."
>
> Lots of Christians agree with you, and I think your objections make
> quite a
> bit of sense. Wm Jennings Bryan's most basic reason for rejecting
> evolution
> was the same as yours. He wanted to think that "the law of
> love" (as he
> called it) trumped the "law of hate" (natural selection). Even Jack
> Haught,
> a very liberal Catholic theologian, sees the waste and suffering in
> natural
> selection as the greatest theological challenge presented by
> evolution. As
> I say, this is not a silly objection at all.
>
> Of the various ways in which one might respond, and I think there are
> various ways, the one I personally prefer is to emphasize (as George
> Murphy
> and John Polkinghore do) the theology of the "crucified God." If
> (as I
> believe) the primary revelation of God/God's character to us is the
> visible
> second person of the Trinity and his suffering/death/resurrection,
> then it
> is not so surprising to me that the creation might in some ways
> mirror this
> aspect of God's own character. That's not an easy way out of the
> theodicy
> problem--I don't believe there is any such thing as an easy way out
> of that
> one--but it's consistent with my own understanding (at least) of
> Christianity and the Biblical picture of the suffering servant. It's
> also
> consistent with the epigram to CS Lewis' book, "The Problem of Pain,"
> which
> quotes George MacDonald as follows:
>
> "The son of God suffered unto the death, not that men not suffer, but
> that
> their sufferings might be like His."
>
> This still fails to address the question, "Why did God not make heaven
> now?", but as with other questions of theodicy I doubt that fully
> convincing
> answers will be forthcoming this side of heaven--assuming that they
> even
> will then.
>
> Ted
>
>
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Received on Tue Aug 29 20:48:56 2006