Re: [asa] The Doors of the Sea

 David,

 is Hart knowingly taking a position that has been condemned as heretical by the Western church?? Has he interacted with that declaration of heresy?

I'm not familiar with Origin or much theology, so I hadn't heard of this Originist view till I read your post, below.? It strikes me as related to C.S.Lewis's ideas found in _The Great Divorce_ where Lewis imagines human spirits existing outside time and projecting their wills into actions inside time.? It sounds like Lewis' view is an improved version of Origin's, taking a more modern view of Time so that souls aren't crudely "pre" existing.? I wonder if Lewis' improved version would have been condemned.? Did Hart mention Lewis' view either in his book or when you corresponded with him?

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 9:06 pm
Subject: 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 21:34:54 2008