undoing the past (Was Re: [asa] The Fall (humanity source of suffering)

Several things here.

1) I hope this isn't taken as a zap of anyone in particular or an expression of personal pique but it seems symptomatic of a lot of discussion on this list that the post I sent recently about Ted Peters book & prolepsis has been ignored in favor of various other speculations. I.e., the well worked out ideas of a professional theologian are bypassed & instead what gets discussed is various amateur "God might do this or that" blue sky stuff.

2) When people talk about divine omnipotence they ought at least to be aware of what the term means in the theological tradition. Its primary import is not that "God could do anything" but that "God does do everything." I.e., God is the ultimate or "First" cause of everything that happens in the world. Of course some people don't like that concept because of theodicy issues (among others). But if you reject the idea that God that God is the ultimate cause of everything then you are rejecting divine omnipotence - as Charles Hartshorne did in his book Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. OTOH the idea that "God could do anything," while it has some support in what both Sarah & Mary were told - nothing is too hard or impossible with the LORD - is more speculative & is the kind of thing that gets people tied up in "can God make a rock so big he can't lift it?" conundrums.

(OTOH, I'm always amused by those who insist that God can do anything & then go on to deny divine passibility - i.e., "God can't die.")

3) The basic problem with the idea of God "undoing the past" is not with omnipotence or whether God could do it but with the integrity & goodness of creation. It's to be rejected for the same reason that the Christian tradition has generally rejected reincarnation. Our bodies, our physical makeups, matter to who we are & the physical makeup of the world - including the results of past events - matter to what creation is.

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

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Received on Thu Jun 19 15:10:49 2008