Re: [asa] The Doors of the Sea

Hi David,

I'm not saying he is making a TE argument, but I do sense a substantial similarity. For example, Hart would argue that God is not directing each and every circumstance that humans encounter (whether natural or personal), just as TEs do not see God directing every mutation and speciation event.

-Mike

  I read Hart's book and corresponded with him a bit about it. In the passage you quote, Mike, Hart is responding to the classical argument that some evil might be necessary to achieve the greatest good -- that this universe, with its evil, it known to God as the best of all possible worlds from the perspective of eternity. Rather, Hart argues, the universe was originally created good, and evil, including "natural evil," is a foreign invader into that goodness. In this, Hart is definitely not taking a line typically taken by TE's.

  I corresponded with Hart a bit about this, and he said he acknowledges that there was natural evil in the world long before human sin, but that his view of the fall is "Origenist." This I take to refer to Origen's notion of pre-existing souls that fell before the physical world was created. In this view, evil was introduced into the creation in a spiritual realm of souls; natural evil is in some sense a result of this spiritual rebellion. I don't know the extent to which Hart literally follows Origen here, but in essence, the universe is a duality in which "prior" events in the spiritual realm impact the physical.

  While this would solve the temporal problem of natural evil preceding the fall, I'm not sure many of us would be willing to commit to it -- particularly as many TE's seem to reject ontological dualism altogether. Origen's views on the preexistence of souls were eventually condemned as heretical by the Western church. I'm not sure of their status in the Eastern church.

  In any event, Hart is a beautiful writer, and I'd recommend The Doors of the Sea to anyone thinking through theodicy.

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Received on Sun Aug 10 21:06:20 2008