kechkayl@ecn-ee.UUCP (04/27/84)
#R:qubix:-103800:ecn-ee:18600017:000:321 ecn-ee!kechkayl Apr 26 22:32:00 1984 HURRAY! Someone has once again asked Christians another question that is unanswerable. Great, BIG DEAL. You will get a lot of confusing drivel that tries to answer it, and no one will change. Sigh, I guess the futility of net.religion is getting to me. Thomas Ruschak pur-ee!kechkayl "Aiee A toy robot!"
rjb@akgua.UUCP (R.J. Brown [Bob]) (04/27/84)
| | | I have a little theological question about Christianity, | that I would like some Christians to take a stab at. You | see, I know that there are at least four tenents held by | Christians which seem to be contradictory, and perhaps if | you have some insight, you can tell me why they are not. | | The tenents are: | | * God is Good ("He" loves us, and doesn't want to hurt us). | * God created Satan | * Satan is Evil ("He" wants to hurt us) | * God is omniscient (God knows all -- including the future) | | Now the question that I have then, given the above tenents are | true in the Christian world-view, is this: | | Why did God, knowing what terrible suffering Satan would bring | on humanity, create him in the first place? | | Steven Maurer | | If God wanted to create beings with the capacity to really love Him, then He would of necessity have to allow them the alternate choice (i.e. to reject Him). To do otherwise would imply the creation of automatons. According to the scriptures Satan was Lucifer, the covering cherub, in the beginning. A pretty high position in the Universe ... es verdad, no ?? Lucifer was not created evil. It was his choice to go that route. However, your more general question is "Why is there evil ?" This has indeed been the thorniest of questions for Christian theologians. There have been attempted explanations over the millenia - some more plausible than others. GUESS WHAT ?? We (Christians) do NOT completely understand the existence of evil. (Please forgive the arrogance of my "We") (ED. Golly...A Christian who doesn't have all the answers!) Bob Brown {...clyde!akgua!rjb} AT&T Technologies, Inc.............. Norcross, Ga (404) 447-3784 ... Cornet 583-3784
emjej@uokvax.UUCP (04/30/84)
#R:qubix:-103800:uokvax:8300056:000:433 uokvax!emjej Apr 30 11:53:00 1984 /***** uokvax:net.religion / akgua!rjb / 3:59 am Apr 28, 1984 */ If God wanted to create beings with the capacity to really love Him, then He would of necessity have to allow them the alternate choice (i.e. to reject Him). To do otherwise would imply the creation of automatons. /* ---------- */ What makes you think we are not automata? I think I am. Also, please explain what you mean by "really love." James Jones
pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (05/01/84)
Did any of you expect this to be a short article? :-) > [from Steven Maurer:] > I have a little theological question about Christianity, > that I would like some Christians to take a stab at. You > see, I know that there are at least four tenents held by > Christians which seem to be contradictory, and perhaps if > you have some insight, you can tell me why they are not. > > The tenents are: > > * God is Good ("He" loves us, and doesn't want to hurt us). > * God created Satan > * Satan is Evil ("He" wants to hurt us) > * God is omniscient (God knows all -- including the future) > > Now the question that I have then, given the above tenents are > true in the Christian world-view, is this: > > Why did God, knowing what terrible suffering Satan would bring > on humanity, create him in the first place? > Did he say a *little* question? Quite an understatement, I'd say. Questions of this kind have generated not a little discussion among theologans and philosophers. They represent quite a challenging area of study. Far be it from me to claim that I have "the answer" to questions like these, but I do have an interest in them. That being the case, I will offer some discussion. This is only my offering. I can't gaurentee its orthodoxy. It is only a result of my own limited study, reading and contemplation. To the best of my knowledge, I think it is supported by biblical exegesis. I hope other Christians will contribute. For the purpose of my discussion I will assume that the tenents listed by Steve are true and are not to be brought into question. That is the basis on which he asked the question. I'll discuss the tenants on the basis of their being true and see if they are really as contradictory as they seem. I think it is safe to say that God created Satan in much the way he created man--not necessarily in his Image, but with free will. That is, with a choice--an ability to refuse to do God's will. Since God is good (i.e. there is no evil in him) to rebel against him is evil. God did not create Satan to be evil, but he did give him the choice. Why did God give him the choice if he knew that Satan would choose evil? Maybe a certian motive God has in wanting to create sentient beings left him no choice. It seems to be an underlying assumption, in objections that are usually voiced in the form of Steve's question, that a perfectly good God is under a strict constraint to create the best possible world that he can. My first objection to this assumption is that the meaning of "best" is derived from our perspective. What they are really saying is, "If I were God, I would have done it this way...". In this discussion we are assuming that God is omniscient, not us. Inherent in that assumption is an acceptance of the possibility that God may know better what "best" is. My second objection brings in the motive God may have for creating sentient beings to serve him (who is Good and is called Love). God not only loves us, it is his desire that we love him. With love there has to be a choice. Love without choosing to love is not really love. Loving a good God without having a choice between that and loving anything else is meaningless. We appreciate the love of a spouse because it is given freely. If our spouse had no choice but to marry us and act lovingly toward us, of what value would that devotion be? If you knew he or she would rather be married to another the pretense of love would be most disheartening. How long could we continue in that sort of relationship? What I have started to do here is to draw an analogy between God's motive for creating Satan and his motive for creating us. The analogy is limited but still useful. We cannot presume that Satan is made in the Image of God, as Scripture says Man was. As the Image bearer of God, man is redeemable. Satan, on the other hand seems to be one who has no good in him at all. A human individual comes into existence in space and time. His redemption is also worked out in that dimension. A man may ponder over his need for salvation during his lifetime and his deeds (judged good or evil) are done within history. He has *time* in which to make his decisions and, according to Christian Scripture, his day of reckoning comes at the end of his time (he knows not how long). Satan, as a spiritual being, was not created in time and space. His act of rebellion was done once and for all eternity. The omnicience of God does not necessily imply that we wills all future events. From his perspective there is no future, only an eternal now. The *future* only has meaning from our perspective. God's precognition of events that happen within our *time* do not imply that he has determined their happening. I think that God's omnicience arises from his perspective of the universe, not out of an ability to know the future in the sense that we would think of an infallible fortune teller knowing it. To make help lucidify this concept I will borrow an illustration from an article I read recently by Phillip Yancey. (See "Insights on Eternity from a Scientific View of Time", Christianity Today, April 6, 1984). ... Time, we are know told, depends on the relative position of the observer. Take a very primitive example. When I glance at the sky right now, at 3:12 in the afternoon, I see a bright light in the sky--the sun-- shich hangs in space some 93 million miles away. Yet the light I now see left that star 500 seconds ago... As an observer on Earth, I view the son at 3:12, although I dimly realize that I am actually seeing the astral results of what took place at 3:04 Earth time. If the sun suddenly vanished into a black hole, I would not know it for eight minutes. Then the sky would darken and I would cry, "The sun is gone!" Imagine now a very large person--someone with a leg span of, say, 93 million miles. This person stands in our solar system, his head towering above it, with one foot planted firmly on Earth and one foot resting on the sun. He stamps his left foot on the sun. Such an action will have effects visible on Earth as solar flares shoot out in all directions. Eight minutes later I, on Earth, notice a dramatic change in the sun. But I am trapped on Earth. The very large person exists partially on Earth and partially on the sun--his consciousness spans both. The part of him resting on earth has knowledge of the left foot stomping eight minutes in advance of anyone else on Earth. The analogy approaches abusrdity, but it may demonstrate how our concept of time would change if we existed in two widely separated places at once. Now, however, take a further mental leap and imagine a being larger that the Very Large Person. Imagine a being as large as the universe, who exists simulteanously on Earth and on a star in the Andromeda galaxy billions of miles away. If a star explodes in that galaxy, this being takes note of it immediately, yet he will "see" it also from the viewpoint of an observer on Earth millions of years later, *as if it just happened*. ... A word like "foreknowledge" makes sense only when considered from our Earth-bound viewpoint. It presumes that time proceeds sequentially, frame by frame. From God's viewpoint, encompassing all of the universe at once, the word has considerably different meaning. Some of the fog around the doctrine evaporates. In bringing all this to bear on Steve's question I would like to point out that the same basic question has been stated with Man as the subject, rather than Satan: "If God knew man would rebel and cause all sorts of evil in the world, why did God create him". From a Christian standpoint we can't lay the blame for all the evil in the world completely on Satan. He has been our mentor as far as evil is concerned. We have carried much of it out. Yes, I think that much of the evil we experience has been wraped up in Man's existence here on this earth. And for God to intervene and remove it would either necessitate our removal (something for which God has been accused of being wicked) or the removal of our free will. God gives man dignity by giving him a choice. I believe he does this out of love for Man and his desire for Man to be a creation that can truly love God. I remember Tim Maroney writing that if the Christian God condemned him to Hell he would walk in proudly rather than worship a God that he considered repugnant. Well Tim, (if you're still reading this group) you can a least be thankful that you have that choice. Would you rather that he made you into an automaton that knows nothing but to respond to its programming? He has spared us that form of non-existence. If God is good, not being able to tolerate any evil, then it serves the cause of justice for we who do evil, to also suffer it. Things are the way they are for everyone and, if that be the case, wishing it were different will not make it so. In my view, Hell is a place devoid of the presence of God or his influence and we experience a mixture of both Heaven and Hell here on earth. Let me qualify what I have just said about God and evil by saying that I view the relationship between them as strictly monotheistic (as opposed to dualistic). That is that evil has no positive, independent esistence in opposition to good. Evil is the corruption of good which, I think, finds its embodiment, in an absolute sense, in Satan. (See C. S. Lewis' essay *God and Evil* in "God in the Dock" for a good explaination of this perspective.) In his space-time existence, man has trouble dealing with a world where there seems to be little justice or love, mostly cruelty and hatred. But may I suggest that justice and love as viewed from our perspective (having to do with actions done over a period of our time) may have little relationship to the same from God's eternal perspective. The time here is surely important, but not for the time's own sake. It is the time in which our eternity is determined. God does not even experience its passing. It is but a point on the landscape of his universe. So, yes, God created Satan, knowing that he could or would turn to evil. But the cause of justice is served by the resultant creation of a repository for evil that we call Hell (a void, the complete absence of good) while at the same time also giving Man the choice to reject God and live apart from him. But this justice happens in God's time (eternity), not ours. We enter eternity at death. Well, I wonder at whether I have really answered the question, but I hope that I have given some of us who like to spend time pondering such questions some new avenues to explore in search of the answer. Many times when I sit down to think about things like this I find that some of the things I learn while searching for the answer to be of far more value than the answer itself. Ah, the joys of trying to fathom the ways of the Lord--especially to realize that I would never have come this way had I not trusted him at the outset. If I had let my questions alone form the basis for keeping separate from God, I would learn nothing. -- Paul Dubuc ihnp4!cbscc!pmd "The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world..." (John 1:9)