tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post1314505940171153141..comments2023-08-22T07:01:08.590-07:00Comments on Agent Intellect: The Oddity and Audacity of Openness TheodicyJim S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15538540873375357030noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-33151052322637808952010-08-09T06:22:10.035-07:002010-08-09T06:22:10.035-07:00Just in case you're interested in reading it, ...Just in case you're interested in reading it, I've discussed these thoughts in the OP and comments of <a href="http://iliocentrism.blogspot.com/2010/04/meaning-of-passion.html" rel="nofollow">this thread on my blog</a>.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-28699511699915195052010-08-07T11:46:08.430-07:002010-08-07T11:46:08.430-07:00[continued]
Jim S: "Moreover, evil has also ...[continued]<br /><br /><b>Jim S:</b> "<i>Moreover, evil has also traditionally been understood as the rejection of God in some sense. To perform evil is to deny God.</i>"<br /><br />Now you're clearly speaking of moral evil, of wickedness. Yes, wickedness is the rejection of God ... which is why "<i>the wages of sin is death</i>;" for, ultimately, to reject God is to embrace non-existence.<br /><br />But, God <i>created</i> evil -- God created the actuality of "natural" evil, and he created the potentiality of moral evil (or wickedness).<br /><br />What is the single-most distinguishing feature of the created order, whether the whole of Creation or any specific created entity? It is that it is/they are <i>not God</i>! In creating <i>anything at all</i>, God created that-which-is-not-God. In creating anything at all, God created privation-of-the-Good.<br /><br />And, in creating rational beings, God created the posibility of the rejection of God.<br /><br /><br /><b>Jim S:</b> "<i>So to say God participates in evil means that he rejects or denies himself. Again, this is difficult to make sense of, and it seems to contradict the Bible (2 Tim. 2:13).</i>"<br /><br />"<i>In him [Christ] we live and move and have our being</i>" -- that applies not only "the elect," but applies to <i>all</i> Creation, the living anf the non-living, the human and the angelic (and demonic).<br /><br />I think you're misunderstanding "participation" ... and I can't yet think of a way that might help you past that. On a more human (less metaphysical) level, did Jesus participate in his own flogging? Well, of course he did ... and I don't mean that, being God, he "allowed it" and could have stopped it at any time ... I mean that he participated in it in the same way that the the thieves crucified with him participated in their floggings. What I'm trying to get at here is that "participation" can cover far more ground than merely the action of he who acts.<br /><br />In any event, the wickedness we do is so wicked, so offensive to God, precisely because we, so to speak, choose to drag Christ through the mud with us.<br /><br /><br />When Jesus was tempted by Satan, was it a <i>real</i> temptation, or was the Son just, so to speak, putting on a shadow-play? The Bible asserts that it was a real temptation.<br /><br />Was it logically possible that Jesus might have succumbed to the temptation? If it was not logically possible that Jesus might have succumbed to the temptation, then it was not a real temptaion. But, the Bible asserts that it was a real temptation.<br /><br />If Jesus the Christ, who is God-the-Son, who "upholds the existence of all things," had succumbed to the temptation by Satan, what would that <i>mean</i>? Why, it would mean that Existence Itself contradicts itself ... it would mean that <i>all things</i> cease to exist -- God was not playing a game with the Incarnation.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-21190195751253617352010-08-07T11:45:41.161-07:002010-08-07T11:45:41.161-07:00Jim S: "Traditionally evil has been understoo...<b>Jim S:</b> "<i>Traditionally evil has been understood as the privation of good. So to say that God participates in the evil we do means he participates in the privation of something. This is difficult to make sense of, because a privation is not a thing in and of itself, it is the absence of something.</i>"<br /><br />I know that what I said is difficult to grasp upon first exposure, and I know I haven't explained it well (in part because it hasn't been important enough to me to fully articulate it), but, come on ... it's really simple/straightforward logical deduction. <br /><br />We could come to the understanding I tried to express in my previous post via purely philosophical means, as some of the ancient pagan Greek philosophers did ... it is at least implicit in the better philosophy which has come down to us.<br /><br />Or -- seeing that we are Christians, with a religious-and-philosophical tradition of considerably more than 3000 years, and which takes as its axioms both reason and revelation -- we can reason to this understanding via what God has revealed to us.<br /><br /><br /><i><b>Is not God existence itself?</b></i> (Do we not know, both from revelation and from proper and logical reasoning, that God is existence itself?)<br /><br />So: <i>Can anything exist wholly apart from God?</i> Is not that question logically equivalent to asking, "Can anything exists which exists-not?" <br /><br />The Bible asserts that God (specifically, the person of the Son) creates all that is created; the Bible asserts that all things hold together in Christ; the Bible asserts that God (Christ) upholds the existence of all things; and it asserts that "<i>In him [Christ] we live and move and have our being</i>." <br /><br />That is, nothing exists wholly apart from God; it's logically impossible ... for (<i>pace</i> Ayn Rand) <i>existence</i> is no more a thing apart from God than love is.<br /><br /><br />In the above quote it seems you are mostly making reference to "natural evil," that is, evil without a moral component; for instance, a rock-slide which buries a village, destroying all the lives within it. Is the rock slide <i>wholly</i> a privation or absence of something? Or, is there not at least some degree of positive ontological reality to it?<br /><br /><br /><b>Jim S:</b> "<i>There are also Bible passages which say that God has no part in evil, such as Job 34:10 and 1 John 1:5.</i>"<br /><br />And the Bible attributes to God the statement of Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)"<i>I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.</i>" (or, as the NIV translates it, "<i>I form the light and create darkness: I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.</i>") This, is, of course, to say nothing of all the verses addressing specific instances which attribute to God the claim that "<i>I will bring evil on [this or that person, house, city, nation],</i>" and other verses which may not use the word 'evil,' but rather name specific evils that God has or will bring down upon a city ... or a world.<br /><br />So, is the Bible contradictory? Or, are we frequently thinking to woodenly or simplistically? Or, are we trying to "protect" God where he does not seek, much less need, our "protection?"<br /><br />[continued]Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-16370725220877784522010-08-07T07:26:42.475-07:002010-08-07T07:26:42.475-07:00Traditionally evil has been understood as the priv...Traditionally evil has been understood as the privation of good. So to say that God participates in the evil we do means he participates in the privation of something. This is difficult to make sense of, because a privation is not a thing in and of itself, it is the absence of something.<br /><br />There are also Bible passages which say that God has no part in evil, such as Job 34:10 and 1 John 1:5.<br /><br />Moreover, evil has also traditionally been understood as the rejection of God in some sense. To perform evil is to deny God. So to say God participates in evil means that he rejects or denies himself. Again, this is difficult to make sense of, and it seems to contradict the Bible (2 Tim. 2:13).Jim S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15538540873375357030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6672880129970799148.post-4661243052458311462010-08-06T12:53:16.249-07:002010-08-06T12:53:16.249-07:00God, being "the ground of all being," an...God, being "the ground of all being," and "upholding all that exists," upholds both the evil and the good.<br /><br />The truth of the matter is that God not only knows all the evil that human beings will ever do -- and knows all the evil that human beings may do if the accumulated free choices of human beings results in *this* potential future rather than *that* potential future -- but he also <i>participates</i> in the evil we do, just as he participates in the good we do.<br /><br />God is not "up in heaven" watching history unfold as though it were an entertainment, <i>he is here with us</i>, living our lives with us.<br /><br />Christ did not put himself into the hands of his creation *only* during the Passion; he has always been giving his life for his creation -- Christ's Passion and Resurrection particularizes the creative and sustaining work he has always been doing. In a way of looking at it, the Passion (and Resurrection) is the symbol or metaphor.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.com