Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

In his On Being a Theologian of the Cross Gerhard Forde gave the following salutary warning about theodicies. (No significance to the color - that's the way it was in my notes & it won't go away.)

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: Rich Blinne
  To: Randy Isaac
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 4:44 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

  My read of the history of theodicy has shown that by trying to get God out of the pit we dig a bigger one for ourselves. I would almost classify "I have the lesser theodicy problem" argument as a type of logical fallacy. People may pick up a pattern from my recent posts that I am coming from the Sergeant Schultz (from Hogan's Heroes) school of theology. "I know nothing, NOTHING." That's one of the advantages of not having a stratospheric intelligence. We have as former Secretary Rumsfeld put it, known unknowns.

  Rich Blinne (Member ASA)

  On Feb 18, 2008, at 2:21 PM, Randy Isaac wrote:

    I would rather think that we all have a big problem of theodicy which no one has fully resolved. Whether someone has a "bigger" or "lesser" problem, I don't know how to judge nor do I know if it matters. Are you implying that TE's have a "bigger problem" because they see divine guidance in all things and are therefore attributing disease, suffering and death directly to divine will? If so, wouldn't anyone else, ID or PC or whatever, have an equally "bigger problem" because they see divine intervention as something that occurs as needed to generate the organism that God willed into being? How would that lessen the problem of disease, suffering, and death? Does the perceived absence of such intervention absolve God of responsibility in those cases?

    Randy
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: drsyme@cablespeed.com
      To: David Opderbeck ; Rich Blinne
      Cc: 'Randy Isaac' ; asa@calvin.edu
      Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 12:38 PM
      Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

      But many random mutations cause disease and suffering, or death. This imo is a bigger problem for TE than God's mechanism of action is.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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Received on Mon Feb 18 17:46:20 2008