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

I'm not sure either of these questions hit the mark.

On the first -- II don't think God could build "warning signs" into nature
without making a radically different creation. Underground earthquakes that
create Tsunamis are what they are -- they don't emit warning noises -- this
is just a matter of physics. OTOH, it is possible for human beings as
stewards of creation to create devices that detect underwater earthquakes
and that cause warning devices to be triggered -- those exist now. Perhaps
this sort of thing is a space in which the human role as co-creator is built
into the creation?

On the second -- I don't think bringing up the incarnation here is apt.
Jesus came into our brokenness, emptied himself of his divine prerogatives,
and experienced the effects of our *present broken human condition* himself,
including the "my God, my God, why have you foresaken me" agony of the
cross. I would not expect at all that the incarnation would involve the
bestowal of alien technology into the culture in which Christ was born as
man. At the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, he healed and performed
miracles primarily as a sign of the coming of the Kingdom.

Yet -- the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection and the coming of the
Spirit set the stage for the in-breaking of the Kingdom, which
*will*result, in the fullness of time, in the new Jerusalem. I fully
expect that
the new Jerusalem will involve humanity as co-creators of technological
wonders, and that such wonders will be part of the reason there will be no
more tears and no more "death." To go a little further out on a limb, I
might speculate that the "trans-humanist" movement is a distortion of some
aspects of Christian eschatological hope.

Also on this being "beyond the scope of the Bible" -- I disagree, depending
on what you mean by this. It certainly is not expressly mentioned in the
Bible. However, I'd argue that the "goodness" of human co-creative
potentiality, the mandate for humans to use their co-creative potentiality
for the benefit of all creation (including other humans), the hiddeness of
God after the "fall," and the brokenness that now affects human social and
technological potentiality, are deeply Biblical themes (which also resonate,
I think, with some Partristic theology, particularly Ireneaus).

I certainly would not claim that referring to lost human technological
potential is some kind of obvious panacea to the problem of natural evil.
But, it seems to me an aspect of this riddle that could profitably be
explored.

I'm curious -- what at present is your positive statement of a theodicy?

On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 1:18 PM, Bethany Sollereder <bsollereder@gmail.com>
wrote:

> David,
>
> You asked why God didn't reveal to humanity the technology needed to give
> aid earlier. You also speculate about whether God would have revealed
> advanced technology to people if they had not been tainted by sin.
>
> Two things: We should ask not only why God didn't reveal technology
> earlier, but why he didn't put more warning signs into nature. He could
> have devised a system where a loud whistle emits out of an about-to-explode
> volcano three days early, infallibly, to warn people to clear out. He could
> have done many things to reduce the "evil" effects of nature, but he didn't.
>
> Second, speculating about whether a sinless humanity would have been shown
> how to build technology that saves lives is certainly beyond the scope of
> the Bible. Also, the one sinless human being to walk this earth did nothing
> of the sort. You don't see Jesus pulling penicillin out of moldy bread, or
> developing defibrillators, nor even teaching basic anatomy to help with
> surgeries, or any of the things you could expect. Certainly one who was not
> only human, but God himself, would have done those things if that was the
> way that he worked in the world. But it seems it isn't.
>
> Bethany
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 9:52 AM, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 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
>
>
>

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