Re: [asa] The Fall (humanity source of suffering)

True -- but this begs the question of *why* aid after natural disasters, and
preparation before natural disasters, and lots of other aspects of
technology, are relatively modern inventions. Why is it that God didn't
reveal / allow humanity to discover the technology and methods we now employ
in this regard until after 10,000 years or so of human civilization and many
tens of thousands of years more of human pre-history? Why is it that God
doesn't right now reveal / allow humanity to discovery a vaccine / cure for
AIDS, and so on?

To turn it around -- what would human society and technology be like if the
relationships of humans to each other and to God were uninhibited by sin?
What if the worldwide community of scientists and technologists existed in
perfect fellowship, if the driver for science and technology policy were
love rather than profit and prestige, and if the community had open
communication with God?

I think there's no doubt that under such conditions we'd live in a vastly
different world because human beings would have been completely free to
fulfill the creational mandate to build society, including society's
technology, without the limitations of sin. God's hiddenness includes
limitations on social and technological progress. I think it's possible to
acknowledge this without taking a particular view of the genre of the
Biblical narrative.

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Bethany Sollereder <bsollereder@gmail.com>
wrote:

> That doesn't seem very convincing to me, if only because aid after natural
> disasters is a relatively modern invention, as is medicine that could
> actually help those people.
>
> Mike, if you have #2, natural evil, you run into all sorts of other
> problems. The entire ecological system (food chains and such) would have
> had to pop up over night. The same would be true of plate tectonics, air
> and water circulation and countless other things. Can you really blame all
> those on the moral choice of two humans? And, could the world exist without
> those things? The world is dependent on those cycles in order to be able to
> sustain life. Is that evil?
>
> Bethany
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 9:23 AM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
> wrote:
>
>> You might have a point there, because even in great natural disasters,
>> many more are killed when aid can't reach them. Sometimes (many/most
>> times?) the aid is blocked because of politics and crime.
>>
>>
>>
>> …Bernie
>>
>
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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