cbostrum (04/05/83)
I agree with Tim Maroney that before arguing about what things are good and evil, we should figure out what we mean by "good". I have been watching this discussion with a certain amount of disgust due to peoples' lack to do this. When we say an act is good, what do we **mean** by this? I dont see how we can sensibly discuss casuistry until we have some minimal agreement on this topic. I would certainly have to disagree with Tim, tho, (if this is what he said) that good is just something invented by someone as a carrot-and-stick thing. At least, this is not what "good" means. Perhaps the idea that "good" is a term that really does mean something has been planted in us; that, however, is different. (I wont disclose right now what I think "good" means. But I dont think its meaningless)
amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (12/30/83)
Larry West, in his recent article on "Can God Change?" says: >> Why shouldn't God change? Is he incapable of learning? >> (That question assumes a belief in something resembling >> ``free will'', such that God doesn't know what people >> will do;....) I don't really understand the comment about free will. When I first read it, it seemed to imply that God might not have free will, which is ridiculous. About people having free will, the orthodox Christian answer is that yes, we do, otherwise the concept of sin is meaningless. Whether or not God knows what we do is beside the point. We choose to do certain things or not do certain things, and God's foreknowledge of what our choices will be has no bearing on our making of these choices. Larry also touches on the problem of good and evil, to which I want to make my major comments. The world is a beautiful and wonderful place, but, as Alphonso X of Castile (surnamed "The Wise") put it: "Had I been present at the creation, I could have made a few suggestions for the better ordering of the universe." What is sauce for the gander is also sauce for the liver fluke, the cancer cell, and the loan shark. If God is running this show, then he has a great deal of explaining to do if he hopes to maintain his reputation as the original Good Guy, and God has steadfastly refused to explain. Many theologians have not done very well either. More often than not, they have set up the problem of evil in a way that makes their attempts at theodicy--at justifying the ways of God--seem ridiculous and even cruel. Some of them, for example, solve the problem by saying that God allows evil in order to teach people useful lessons and make them beter persons. You know; there is pain so we could learn to keep our hands out of the fire, disappointments to teach us perseverance, unkindness from others to help us grow in charity, and so on. The trouble with that is the and so on: torture, to teach us what? cancer, to help us grow how? earthquakes, to advance civilization in what way? It simply won't wash. For a few great souls, poverty may be a blessing; for most, it is a curse. Now and then a terminal illness enobles; most of the time, it is far from being even the best of a bad job. To set up God as an instructor who uses such methods is to make him the wardn of the worst-run penitentiary of all. The atheist who would rather have no God makes far more sense than the pietist who takes this sort of injustice lying down. The atheist at least sounds like Job, the pietist sounds like hell. Let me say that there is ultimately no way of getting God off the hook for evil. Let me also make a distinction between evil and badness, reserving evil for deliberate perversions of being by creatures with free choice, and badness for all the other collision, contretemps, and disasters in the world. Even that distinction helps only slightly. It enables us to blame voluntary evil--sin, if you will--on other persons than God; it does not, of course, exculpate God from the responsibility for making free beings in the first place. Sure, my brother-in-law is the one who got drunk and punched me in the nose; but then, why is God so all-fired insistent on preserving my brother-in-law's freedom to mess up other people's lives. Sin is possible only because God puts up with sinners. The quick retort that I object only to other people's freedom--that I find my own precious, and will defend it against all comers--is true enough. It is not an answer to the question of why any of us should be free in the first place. It says only, perhaps, that I am enough of an opportunist to agree with God in my own case--that I like this man-made-in-God's-image business when i profit from it; it sheds no light on the mystery of why he should keep such a shop when he knows it is, at least half the time, a losing proposition. The last gasp in this line of defense is to say that the fact that he keeps backing such a bad show proves how highly God regards freedom. And on a good day, when the sun is shining, when my bowels are not in an uproar, and when my brother-in-law has phoned to say he can't come to my dinner party, it sounds pretty good. But in the stormy season, in the thick of other people's sins and my own, it is only one inconvenient mystery used to cover another. God is still firmly on the hook. (That he is literally on the hook is, of course, the Christian answer to the whole matter. According to the Gospel, he hangs himself on the cross with the rest of his free creation. If you believe that, it can be a great comfort; it is not, however, one bit less of a mystery.) There is, therefore, no untying the knot of freedom. Even in the relatively simple case of moral evil, where you cn find someone else besides God to blame for what is wrong at the party, it remains true that things go wrong only because of his stubborn insistence on keeping the party going no matter what. Theodicy is for people with strong stomachs. If the case for moral evil is difficult, the case for natural evil--for what I choose to call badness--is postively distasteful. There is, of course, no question that bunny rabbits are cute. But to allow one's theology of creation to rest content with paeans to all that is cuddly and warm is to ignore at least half of creation. The rabbit is indeed good, and, in his own way, he aggressively affirms his goodness. The coyote is good, too. But when he is in the process of affirming his own goodness by contemplating the delectability of the rabbit, it turns out to be a little hard on the rabbit. The world of delight which God holds in being is a rough place. Everything eats everything else, not only to the annoyance of those who get eaten, but to their agony, death, and destruction. Man is certainly no exception. Modern children probably think that turkeys are not killed, bled, and plucked; they are mined from supermarket freezer cases. Man has more than a lion's share of the world's blood on his hands. What to say, then, about the goodness of a God who makes a world so full of badness? Wrong solutions come to mind at once. Paying attention only to what is lovely simply ignores the problem. A more serious error comes in trying to fob off all the killing and eating on sin--to tie natural badness to moral evil, and to say that, if it hadn't been for sin, all the animals would have been vegetarians. That is a bit much. It involves, as someone once observed, the saber-toothed tiger waking up in the morning after his creation and wondering why the God who designed him to eat grass gave him such a confoundedly awkward set of choppers. Such gambits never solve the problem of theodicy, they simply arrange to have someone else's ox gored. Furthermore, even a vegetarian creation is no answer. It is only our animal chauvinism that is satisfied when literal bloodshed is ruled out. The lettuces still, in their own way, take a dim view of having to cease being lettuces; as best they can, they fight it. One of the deepest mistakes in theology is to start our discussions of the major activities of creation too high. We act as if only man were free, only man had knowledge, only man were capable of feeling. This is not only false, it is mischevious. It makes man a lonely exception to the tissue of creation, rather than a part of its hierarchy. Finally, it is not at all apparent, in such a solution, just how sin managed to bring about the debacle of a bloody creation. It was bloody long before the only available sinner showed up. To argue that man's work was to be the reformer of that destructiveness and that, by sin, he welshed on the job is possible. It is not easy to see how man could be able to do much about weaning coyotes away from their taste for rabbits. To repeat, it won't wash. However much we may be able to make a case for the lion's lying down with the lamb in the eschatological fullness of time, no wise lamb thinks much of the idea right now. No, the atheist, once again, is right and the pietist is barking up a tree that never existed. Nature is red in tooth and claw. The badness of creation is inseperable from the goodness of creation. It can, indeed be argued that moral evil, sin, perversion--the willful twisting of goodness towards nothing--is not necessary to the shape of the world; but there is no way of getting the simple badness out of the act. The world is a rough place. If it exists because God likes it, the only possible conclusion is that God is inordinately fond of rough places. Part 2 of this will be along in a few days. John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, IL (312) 979-7293 ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2
gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (12/31/83)
You must recall that according to the Bible, man was the cause of original sin and the fall from grace. Before Eve ate the apple from the tree, all of what Adam and Eve needed was provided for them. (The Bible doesn't say that Adam and Eve hunted animals for food, but it doesn't either, so you can draw your own conclusions.) What is important is that all the suffering of the Israelites, their 40-year trek in the desert, God's deliverance of the enemies of Israel into the Israelites' hands, etc. is a cause of original sin. To put it another way, man screwed up and got kicked off easy street, why does he complain that God is unjust in his dealings of punishments? If one is to follow the Bible literally, one cannot blame God for man's transgressions, except maybe to say that God should not have created man to be able to screw up if he hadn't wanted him to -- then God would have created robots not intelligent beings. The other alternative would have been for God to wipe out his creation again and again until he finally had a crop of living beings left over who would propagate into a race which lived according to His commandments. But then, He would never have been able to do this, because He created man to have free will -- there would always be some bad sheep which would give rise to worse sheep, etc. One more thing: there is a big difference between a coyote eating a rabbit and a human being hunting rabbits for sport. The former is an act of survival -- the coyote eats rabbits to stay alive. Whether or not he relishes the taste of rabbit is immaterial -- it is not a sin, or evil, for the coyote to like rabbit -- he is behaving as he must to stay alive. On the other hand, the human who kills a rabbit is acting out of selfishness -- it is not ok -- it is evil. Whether it is a sin is another issue, however, it is morally wrong to take a life (even if non-human) unnecessarily. So, when you talk about good and evil, you must restrict your examples to clear cases of good/evil, not cases involving survival (that includes people eating chickens, etc.) Oh Please Don't Burn My Mailbox --greg ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!gds
amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (12/31/83)
First, two quick little asides-- I'm sorry, Mr. Maroney, if I got your name wrong. On the subject: Re: query: God=Father & Christ=Son Greg Skinner says: >> 1) So why wasn't Christ mentioned earlier in the Bible? >> >> He IS. As early as the major prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel, >> Daniel, etc. all mention Him. The Messiah is mentioned, but the person of Jesus is not. Nor is there any mention of a Trinity (there are things that have been interpreted as referring to the Trinity, but nothing explicit.) Now to my response to Greg on my original article on good and evil (no, this is not my promised and eagerly anticipated second part). When you say: >> What is important is that all the suffering of the >> Israelites, their 40-year trek in the desert, God's >> deliverance of the enemies of Israel into the Israelites' >> hands, etc. is a cause of original sin. I assume you mean result, not cause. (And how do you feel about the Christian anti-semites who blame the sufferings of the Jews on their supposed responsibility for the death of Christ?) I was not talking about the results of original sin, but rather that there is a lot of badness in the world that cannot be ascribed as the result of sin. I am also not trying to "blame God for man's transgressions" all I am asking is why God created man with free will. I don't necessarily agree with you that if had created man incapable of screwing "then God would have created robots not intelligent beings." It is perfectly concievable (to me, at least) that God could have created man so filled with love for him that any attempt to transgress God's will would be simply unthinkable. If you truly love someone, you do not deliberately do something that you know will hurt her or him. >> One more thing: there is a big difference between a coyote >> eating a rabbit and a human being hunting rabbits for sport. >> The former is an act of survival -- the coyote eats rabbits >> to stay alive. Whether or not he relishes the taste of >> rabbit is immaterial -- it is not a sin, or evil, for the >> coyote to like rabbit -- he is behaving as he must to stay >> alive. On the other hand, the human who kills a rabbit is >> acting out of selfishness -- it is not ok -- it is evil. >> Whether it is a sin is another issue, however, it is >> morally wrong to take a life (even if non-human) >> unnecessarily. So, when you talk about good and evil, you >> must restrict your examples to clear cases of good/evil, >> not cases involving survival (that includes people eating >> chickens, etc.) I am not going to get drawn into an argument on the morality of hunting as a sport (for the record, I am a non-hunter), nor am I going to get into vivisection. It appears that you have missed one of my main points. I agree completely that the coyote eating the rabbit is not evil (I have defined evil as the actions of moral beings), and I have said that the coyote, in all his actions--including rabbit-eating--is reaffirming his goodness in the eyes of God. What I am saying is that this makes it hard for the rabbit to continue to reaffirm his goodness, nad the rabbit, in eating lettuce, is ending the lettuce's ability to reaffirm its own goodness. I do feel that the world is a very rough place, and I am in the middle of wondering why God should have it so. John Hobson At&T Bell Labs Naperville, Il (312) 979-7392 ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2
ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (01/03/84)
Greg Skinner's article raises one of the biggest problems the God of the Old Testament faces with respect to modern day morality. In the Old Testament offspring are viewed as extensions of their parents, in particular of their fathers. This viewpoint is alien to the concept of individualistic morality which I, and probably the vast majority of people on the net accept. According to the Bible, when Adam sinned God punished both Adam and Adam's descendants. There is simply no way I can accept God's action as moral. In every nation represented on this net, if a person breaks the law then that person is punished, not his children. Even if the lawbreaker happens to die before he is convicted, his children are not punished in his place. What's more, nobody would even consider this possibility. Each person is an individual and is responsible for their own actions, not those of his parents. Another incident in Genesis which illustrates the issue slightly differently is the story of Lot. Lot meets a pair of men who are angels and invites them into his house. When the men of Sodom want to rape Lot's guests, Lot offers to send out his daugheters instead. This story illustrates the value placed on hospitality. Lot offers to sacrifice one of his most precious possessions, his daughters, to protect his guests. However, in the United States today, daughters are not posessions, they are individuals; and Lot would probably be facing loss of custody of his daughters as well as criminal charges. In short, the some of the values of the Old Testament conflict with both my values and with the norms of the culture of which I am a member. I won't join with Tim Maroney in calling the God of the Old Testament a hideous monster, but that god certainly holds values which I find difficult to comprehend, much less accept. Kenneth Almquist P.S. I'm not sure that there is Biblical support for the idea that people have free will. Consider Exodus 10.1: Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go in to the Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine amoung them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your son's son how I have made sport of the Egyptians and what signs I have done amoung them; that they may know that I am the Lord. This passage hardly suggests that the Pharoah has free will.
edhall@randvax.ARPA (Ed Hall) (01/03/84)
---------------------------- A thought in response to the close of John Hobson's letter: >> ... I do feel that the world is a very rough place, and I am >> in the middle of wondering why God should have it so. The more you consider the world in terms of its many parts, the more hostile a place it seems. On the other hand, if you consider the world as a many-faceted whole, it seems more harmonious. One interesting contrast between Creationism and Evolution that I rarely see presented is this: if we consider each organism to be the individual creation of God, then we have to wonder at why He created so much built- in hostility into the worldly scheme. On the other hand, an evolutionary point of view sees this `hostility' as being an important part of enhancing the overall vitality of life forms. (No, I don't believe for one moment that belief in evolution and God are antagonistic.) -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall
robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (01/04/84)
References: Although the idea that children should not be punished for the sins of their parents is in fashion today, there is nothing so great about it, and much to say in favor of the Old Testament views. Many of our worst problems today come from our refusal to accept that people today are punishing their descendants for their sins -- in the polluting of the environment, the acceleration of high technology in nuclear deterrents, and in our peculiar attitudes toward economic planning and birth control. On FREE WILL in the first five books of the bible: a case can be made from several quotes that the Jews are given free will and the choice of whether or not to follow commandments, but non-jews are not given free will, nor the choice of following the commandments. From my own perspective, it appears that everyone I have ever met has the same degree of free will that I have. Consequently I assume that at some time in history between the events narrated in the Bible, all other peoples have been given free will and the choice to follow their religion. This constitutes a proof to me that everyone else has a religion that they may follow, which is just as valid as mine. - TobyRobison decvax!ittvax!eosp1 or: allegra!eosp1
rf@wu1.UUCP (01/04/84)
A nit first: the belief in free will is orthodox *Catholic*, not orthodox Christian! Now for the the meat of the matter: why is the world such a harsh place? Please note: these are not answers I necessarily like. A Calvinist answer: to strengthen the faithful. If people are to become morally strong and yet independent of their creator, they must live in a place where they can learn moral strength. Beings with free will could not become morally strong in a gentle world. The world must be dangerous and even a bit harsh, or it is useless. A pagan answer (I think it's that old, anyway): the world wasn't made only for man. Our distress over the world's harshness may be analogous to the rabbit's complaint over coyotes; insigni- ficant in the scheme of things. Another pagan answer: the material world is fundamentally evil. All that is good is spirit. Gnostic (Christian heresy) variant: the world was created by the devil when god wasn't looking. Another variant of this is found in Judaic Kabalistic mysticism: god created the world by withdrawing himself from part of it. The world is what rushed in to fill the void. A spiritualist answer: the world was created by imperfect spirits newly cast out of the godhead; ignorant and innocent as babes. By creating the world and incarnating themselves within it they shall return to the godhead. When first incarnate, most spirits prefer learning the hard way--therefore the harshness of the world. When old, wise, and ready to leave the world, they've learned better ways--therefore the joys of the world. Randolph Fritz
kfk@ccien2.UUCP (01/04/84)
----------
From hou3c!ka Mon Jan 2 18:57:56 1984
... In the
Old Testament offspring are viewed as extensions of their parents, in
particular of their fathers. This viewpoint is alien to the concept
of individualistic morality which I, and probably the vast majority
of people on the net accept.
... Each person is an individual and is responsible for
their own actions, not those of his parents.
----------
Hmm. I think the current state of the justice system in this country
would argue the point. There are successful defenses being made by
persons on trial that they act they way they do because that's what
their parents did, or that's what they were taught by their parents.
For some reason which escapes me, this is considered a reason to let
a person off the hook for some fairly heavy-duty crimes. (I would argue
the converse: defending yourself by passing the buck to your parents
demonstrates immense immaturity, and, if convicted, I would make the
sentence on the convict a bit more stiff.) I won't argue which is more
correct just now (i.e., children are or aren't extensions of their
parents), but I don't think the blanket statement can be made that
children are not considered extensions of their parents, particularly
when questions of wrongdoing come up. There are also the psychologists
who espouse that a person has thus-and-so a condition because of their
potty training or some such similar thing.
----------
P.S. I'm not sure that there is Biblical support for the idea that
people have free will. Consider Exodus 10.1:
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go in to the Pharaoh; for I have
hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may
show these signs of mine amoung them, and that you may tell in
the hearing of your son and of your son's son how I have made
sport of the Egyptians and what signs I have done amoung them;
that they may know that I am the Lord.
This passage hardly suggests that the Pharoah has free will.
----------
Well, yes and no. Insufficient context was supplied. I discussed this
with an Orthodox Jew with whom I work, and his description was this: the
first 5 plagues were inflicted on the Egyptians with the Pharoah letting
his own will run the show. Then, after the fifth plague, "the will of
Pharoah was known," which is to say that it had become obvious that Pharoah
wasn't interested in the least in letting the people go. During this time,
Pharoah hardened his own heart. Once his will was known, and he was in a
sense beyond hope, God continued to use the situation. In this instance,
God maintained the hardening of his heart, but this was only after the
Pharoah's own free will had been fully expressed. When the last 5 plagues
had come and gone, and Pharoah's son had died, his will was broken. He
could have used his free will any time up to the fifth plague, but chose
not to; at that time, God took over the situation.
Karl Kleinpaste
...![ [seismo, allegra]!rochester!ritcv, rlgvax]!ccieng5!ccieng2[!:]kfkamigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson) (01/05/84)
(First, an aside. Various people have come up with comments on my first article on Good and Evil, none of which I really answer in this one. I am not ignoring you, I just want to continue with what I was saying. I will answer shortly.) What is the relationship between God the Creator and the comings and goings of the universe? Most theists would say that God is not simply the initiator of creation, but that he holds all of creation in being right now. You also have the assorted creatures he holds in being drinking tea, making love, rabbits or plankton, as the case may be, and generally doing what they please and/or can get away with. What is the connection between the act of God which makes them be and their own acts as individual beings? The answer must be twofold. To be utterly correct, in the Christian framework, one has to say that the connection is real but mysterious. For all practical purposes here, however, it will do quite nicely to say that, by and large, there is no connection. Unless you are an Occasionalist, that is, one who thinks that God is the only actor in the universe and that the whole history of the world is just a puppet show put on by him, then you must grant that it is the rabbits who make rabbits--and for entirely rabbitlike and non-divine reasons. Consider the stones of the seashore, how they lie. Why is this oval white pebble where it is? Is it there because God, in propria persona, reached down with an almighty hand and nudged it into place? No. God knows where it is, of course, and holds it in continual regard. He also knows what it does. But he is not the cause of its doing its own thing. The pebble lies in its place because of its own stony style--and because the last wave of the last high tide flipped it two feet east of where it is now, and the right hind leg of a passing dog flipped it two feet west. It is not there because God, either in person or by means of some pre-programmed evolutionary computer, has determined that it should be there. The pebble, in short, lies where it does freely. Not, of course, in the sense that it has a mind and will and chooses as a person chooses; but in the sense that it got there because of the random rattling around of assorted objects with various degrees of freedom. The waves are free to be waves, to be wet and to push. The pebbles are free to sink and to collide and to break. The dog is free to run around and chase birds. This whole mixed concert then comes together and makes whatever kind of dance it can manage. God may be the cause of its being, but he is, for the most part, only the spectator of its actions. He confers upon it the several styles of its freedom; it is creation itself that struts its own stuff. In other words, any realistic view of freedom has to start way below humanity. It has, in fact, to start with the smallest particle of actually existing reality. No matter how restricted anything is--no matter how deaf, dumb, and determined it may be--it is at least free to be itself, and therefore, by the creative act of God, free from direct divine control over its behaviour. Needless to say, such a position doesn't sound particularly religious. And, in fact, it isn't. Religion is one of the larger roadblocks that God has had put up with in the process of getting his messages through to the world. The frequent religious view is that God has his finger in every pie, and, as the infinite meddler, never lets anything act for itself. People bolster such ideas by an appeal to scripture, pointing out things like the walls of Jerico falling down or Elijah starting fires from wet wood on Mt. Carmel. That won't do however. To be sure, I am not about to make a case that God can't do miracles--that he can't from time to time stick in his thumb and manufacture a plum if he feels like it. Nor am I going to maintain that he can't answer the prayers of those of his free creatures he said he would listen to. All I want to insist is that most of the time he doesn't meddle; that his customary policy is: Hands Off. Obviously, it is just that policy that produces the roughness of creation. On November 1, 1755, in the midst of one of the most theologically optimistic centuries of all history, the great Lisbon earthquake occurred. At that time, most Christian believers had come to hold a theory of the relationship between God and creation which assured them that God took care of every contingency and was especially diligent about arranging for the safety and welfare of the elect. Likewise, most unbelievers had nursed themselves to the conclusion that the world was about as perfect a piece of machinery as was possible and would go on functioning smoothly forever. In either case, the Lisbon earthquake came as a shock; the philosophical tremor was as great as the geological one. How, everyone asked, in a world so well run by God or nature, could such a disaster occur? Why, the theologians wondered, didn't God take care of his elect? What had gone wrong? The answer was that nothing had gone wrong--with the universe. What had happened was that the theological theories had been formulated without paying enough attention to the facts of creation. What happened in Lisbon was indeed assignable to God, but not for the reasons people then advanced. Some said that it proved there was no God; others hunted for evidence of wickedness sufficient to warrant so fearful a punishment. The trouble with all such attempts to understand was that they went beyond the evidence. First of all, in spite of a few episodes in Scripture where God slapped down sinners, he nowhere promised to be a universal moral policeman. Too many scoundrels died in their beds and too many saints went out in agony ever to permit such a notion to be advanced realistically. In fact, Jesus resolutely refused to judge anyone. Far from being on the side of the police, Jesus ended up being done in by the very forces of righteousness who were supposed to be God's official representatives. Secondly, if God's role in the world was to be a perpetual Mr. Fixit, it had not, to say the least, been particularly self-evident. Once again, Jesus did a few miracles; he calmed a storm or two, healed a handful of the sick, and fed two crowds by multiplying short rations. If I am being realistic, I cannot hold that these things were an announcement of a programme for the management of creation. They were signs to identify the manager--and they were evidence of the compassionate direction he intended his management to take. But as a programme, they were a flop. Too many uncalmed storms still remain, too many unhealed sick, too many hungry. Indeed, when Jesus did his consumate piece of managing, it turned out to be the ultimate act of non-interference: nailed to a cross, he simply died. Whatever else that was, it was the non-interference policy in spades. No, the Lisbon earthquake was not God's fault for any of the reasons assigned to it by unrealistic theologies. It was God's fault simply because he made the earth the kind of thing that it is. If he had made it out of one solid homogeneous block of monel metal, then it would not have developed a surface condition liable to crack and shift. But since he made it out of molten slush--and set it out to cool, not in an annealing oven, but in frigid space--it was liable to develop a somewhat unstable crust before its centre cooled. Again, if he had not made trees and grass, sheep and oxen, men and women free to wander about the earth, each in accordance with its own style of freedom, he could no doubt have arranged for the site of Lisbon to be unoccupied by anything likely to suffer from earth tremors. Obviously, he had no such restrictions in mind. Everything was left, barring miracle, to fend for itself with what freedom it had. It was indeed horrible for so many to die, it was not horrible for the crust of a partially cooled casting to crack a bit under the circumstances. The world, insofar as we can see, is not stage-managed by God. Neither is it a place in which a few free beings like men fight a lonely battle against armies of totally determined creatures like lions, sharks, and mountains. It is rather a place where all things are free within the limits of their own natures--and in which all things are also determined by the way in which the natures of other things impinge upon them. There is no badness except by virtue of the goodnesses which compete with each other in the several styles of their freedom. I have not, therefore, solved the problem, I have merely descended to a deeper level of consideration. The question now is: In a situation so radically out of God's control (apparently because he likes it that way), how does he bring it all around in the end? If he has power--and uses it as he claims--why does it look as if he has none? Part 3 along in a few days. John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, IL (312) 979-7293 ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2
amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson) (01/05/84)
Dave Norris, in his "L-O-N-G reponse to Tim Maroney" mentions Satan's temptation of Jesus in the desert. I have a few thoughts on that which I would like to throw out. This can be considered Part 3 of my Good and Evil series. The account we have is condensed and stylized, but the realities are still clear. After Jesus fasted forty days and has meditated, presumably on his coming redemptive work, the Devil makes three suggestions about the best way to get the job done. Christian piety usually hands Satan the short end of the stick, but its worth the time to turn the tables and give him his due. In the first place, the story does not cast the Devil simply in the role of the bad guy. On the old Christian theory that the Devil is a real being--a fallen angel, in fact-- he couldn't possibly be all bad. Insofar as he exists, his being is one more response to the creative delight of God. Being as such is good. There is no ontological evil. (Whether or not the Devil actually exists is another question, about which you will have to suit yourself. About the possibility of his beeing, you have no choice. He is neither more nor less likely than a rabbit. A priori objections to his existence are simply narrow-minded.) Furthermore, the story does not require that we consider all of his behaviour bad. Perhaps even his motives were good. After all, his suggestions to Jesus are by no means either unkind or unreasonable. What is wrong with suggesting to a hungry man at the end of a long retreat that he make himself a stone sandwich if he has the power to render it digestable. It is perfectly obvious that Jesus ate again sometime, either on the forty-first day or shortly thereafter. He did not aquire his reputation as a glutton and a winebibber by fasting for the next three years. Likewise, it was not necessarily mischevious to urge Jesus to jump off the temple and make a spectacular landing. As the Grand Inquisitor pointed out, people need some proof of power if they are to believe. Even the suggestion that, in return for Jesus' loyalty, Satan would hand over to him all the kingdoms of the world is not, on the Devil's terms, such a bad idea. It is simply a rather sensible with-my-know-how-and-your-clout-we'd-really-really- do-some-good kind of offer. After all, God, who was supposed to be running things, wasn't doing a very obvious job of it. Since, in his own terms, Satan was still Prince of this world--allowed by divine courtesy to keep his dominion after the fall--perhaps he could be exceused for hoping for a little more cooperation from the Son of God than he ever got from the Father. In any case, the clincher for this argument that the Devil's ideas weren't all bad comes from Jesus himself. At other times, in other places, and for his own reasons, Jesus does all of the things the Devil suggests. Instead of making lunch out of the rocks, he feeds the five thousand miraculously--basically the same trick, but on a grander scale. Instead of jumping off the temple and not dying, he dies and refuses to stay dead--by any standards, an even better trick. And finally, instead of getting heimself bogged down in a two man presidency with an opposite number he is not really sympathetic with, he aces out the Devil on the cross and ens up risen, ascended and glorified at the right hand of the Father as King of Kings and Lord of Lords--the best trick of all, taken with the last trump. No, the differences between Jesus and Satan do not lie in what the Devil suggested, but in the methods he proposed--or, more precisely, in the philosophy of power on which his methods were based. The temptation in the wilderness is a conversation between two people who are talking right past each other, a masterpiece of non-communication. If you are really God, Satan says, do something. Jesus answers, I am really God, therefore I do nothing. The Devil makes what, to him at least, seem like sensible suggestions. Jesus responds by quoting Scripture at him. The Devil wants power to be used to do good; Jesus insists that it corrupts and defeats the very good it tries to achieve. It is an exasperating story. Yet, when you look at history, Jesus seems to have the better of the argument. Much, if not all, of the mischief in the world is done in the name of rightiousness. The human race adhers devoutly to the belief that one more application of power will bring in the kingdom. One more invasion, one more war, one more escalation, one more jealous fit, one more towering rage--in short, one more twist of whatever arm you have got hold of will make goodness reign and peace triumph. But it never works. Never with persons, since they are free and can, as persons, only be wooed, not controlled. And never even with things, because they are free, too, in their own way--and turn and rend us when we least expect. For a long time, man has been in love with the demonic style of power. For a somewhat shorter time, he has enjoyed, or suffered from, the possession of vast resources of power. Where has it gotten him? To the brink of a choice between thermonuclear annihilation or drowning in his own garbage. However we may be tempted, therefore, to fault the Divine style of power--however much we may cry out like Job against a God who does not keep hedges around the goodness he delights in--however angry we may be at the agony his forbearance permits, one thing at least is clear. The demonic style of power, the plausible use of force to do good, makes at least as much misery, if not more. Satan in the wilderness offers Jesus a short cut. Jesus calls it a dead end and turns a deaf ear. The great, even well-meaning, challange to the hands-off policy comes and goes, and God still insists on running the world without running it at all. The question is put loud and clear: Why in God's name won't you show up? And the response comes back as unsatisfying as ever: To show up would be to come in your name, not mine. No show, therefore. And, of course, no answer. Part 4 in a few days. John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, IL (312) 979-7293 ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2
awex@wxlvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat) (01/08/84)
Okay, greg, I won't burn your mailbox, I'll just ask a couple of questions: if, ask you suppose, there once was a man who "lived on easy street" and made one mistake, why am I still being punished for it? Why are all the babies who are too young to know what's going on still being punished for it? Let me preface my last question with a story: my aunt-in-law-to-be (my finacee's aunt) has a farm in Montana. On this farm she raises chickens. One would think that she does not like foxes, for they steal chickens to eat (just like the bunnies and coyotes you talk of). But worst of all, she hates minks. Why? Because if a mink gets into a henhouse, it will kill every chicken in there, eating one or none. Now the question: what was the mink's "original sin?" This seems a logical question to me, since you seem to blame the evil of mens' conduct on *their* original sin. --Alan Wexelblat (the vanishing philosopher) ...decvax!ittvax!wxlvax!awex
gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (01/08/84)
Okay, greg, I won't burn your mailbox, I'll just ask a couple of
questions: if, ask you suppose, there once was a man who "lived
on easy street" and made one mistake, why am I still being
punished for it? Why are all the babies who are too young to
know what's going on still being punished for it?
Again, why are the babies suffering? Not because God is allowing it to
happen, but because man is. And if you are suffering, it is likely that
someone is inflicting his own punishments on you, not because God is
directing him to do so but because he is exercising his free will to do
you harm. (Read my earlier article about IBM & Exxon re: starving, I'm
sure you won't disagree with me.)
Let me preface my last question with a story: my
aunt-in-law-to-be (my finacee's aunt) has a farm in Montana. On
this farm she raises chickens. One would think that she does
not like foxes, for they steal chickens to eat (just like the
bunnies and coyotes you talk of). But worst of all, she hates
minks. Why? Because if a mink gets into a henhouse, it will
kill every chicken in there, eating one or none. Now the
question: what was the mink's "original sin?" This seems a
logical question to me, since you seem to blame the evil of
mens' conduct on *their* original sin.
I don't see what this has to do with original sin. Original sin is a
result of Adam and Eve's fall from grace. Even if (and I have yet to
meet any mortal who never sinned) there was someone who could
conclusively claimed he had never sinned (and yet did not profess his
belief in God) under definition, he is still outside of grace (... that
if you would confess with your mouth "Jesus is Lord", and believe in
your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved ... --
Romans 10:9 NIV). Most certainly I cannot call his lack of sinning
something to the greater glory of Satan (in case you're wondering where
I stand on that issue) because surely good can be done through a
non-Christian -- the point is that it's not the fact that he doesn't
sin, but why he doesn't that's important -- perhaps we should separate
sin from wrongdoing. (a topic for my next article)
--
--greg
...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!gds (uucp)
Gds@XX (arpa)djhawley@watrose.UUCP (David John Hawley) (01/12/84)
You were somewhat off the mark when you described Satan's temptations
as a short-cut. Since Christ did what his Father told him,
and also since Christ's reason for coming to the earth encompassed
his sacrificial death (dare I say the primary reason), the short-cut
was a dead end.
"Why experience doubt or pain or humiliation? Take an easy way out.
The human race will be the only loser".
Hardly a hands off policy to advise a few stages of radical surgery
(crucifixion, tribulation, rapture, etc ) {not necessarily in that order}
rather than essentially self-serving bandaid-over-the-decapitation
approach Satan temmpted Jesus with.
David Hawleyamigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson) (01/13/84)
David Hawley says: >> You were somewhat off the mark when you described Satan's >> temptations as a short-cut. Since Christ did what his >> Father told him, and also since Christ's reason for coming >> to the earth encompassed his sacrificial death (dare I say >> the primary reason), the short-cut was a dead end. >> >> "Why experience doubt or pain or humiliation? Take an easy >> way out. The human race will be the only loser". >> >> Hardly a hands off policy to advise a few stages of radical >> surgery (crucifixion, tribulation, rapture, etc ) {not >> necessarily in that order} rather than essentially >> self-serving bandaid-over-the-decapitation approach Satan >> temmpted Jesus with. I think that you have misread what I wrote. I specifically said "Satan in the wilderness offers Jesus a short cut. Jesus calls it a dead end...." Also, you seem to imply that my ascribing to God a "hands off" policy in dealing with the world means that I am saying that God has never intervened in the world. I have said that God is perfectly capable of intervening in the world, and, indeed has done so, with the incarnation of and redemption by Jesus (in the Christian view) being the most conspicuous examples. My main argument is that most of the time, God does not intervene. David also sent me the following piece of mail: >> With reference to your part I discussion of the problems of >> moral and natural evil, you try to heap a set of "i don't >> likes' into a "it isn't true". Very effective style, but >> not logically conclusive. You mention the eschatalogical >> debloodying of nature, and say you don't believe it could >> happen and then assume that nature was created bloody. Both >> of these assumptions are not supported WITHIN the worldview >> you attack. It is definitely stated that nature is not in >> the state it should be. If God called it good at creation, >> this implies a past change of state. >> >> Secondly, I would like to see you seriously discuss your >> wish to be a robot, so that moral evil would be eradicated. >> It is sad to see how you accept your freedom while foisting >> your responsibility onto God. >> >> Thirdly, why didn't you discuss Job a little further. His >> ultimate reaction was : God is right, I'm not wise enough >> to blame God. What a refreshing display of humility. His >> friends, if you remember, were amateur theologians and >> apologists. (There's a lesson for me there I think). >> >> To keep this short, I'll finish off with this flame : >> net.religion has enough rhetoric for all of net.* . Let's >> try to argue logically. I don't think that I am trying to "heap a set of `I don't likes' into a `it isn't true'". No, I don't like "liver flukes, cancer cells, and loan sharks", who does? (Probably only themselves and their mothers.) But I don't for an instant imagine that they do not exist. Perhaps I am not reading you correctly, but that seems to be what you are saying. When I talk about the eschatological debloodying of nature, I didn't say that I don't believe it will happen. What I did say was "However much we may be able to make a case for the lion lying down with the lamb in the eschatological fullness of time, no wise lamb thinks much of the idea right now." I am also saying that not only did God find nature good at the beginning, but that he finds it good right now. Perhaps at the creation--whenever and however that may have occurred--nature was perfect, and I hope that it will come to be so at the end, but it is far from perfect right now. I never said that I wanted to be a robot. What I did say, in answer to someone else's criticism of the same point, is that it is quite concievable to me that God could have created people so filled with love for him that the idea of deliberately disobeying him would be unthinkable. If you truly love someone, you would not dream of doing something that you know would hurt them. I am also not foisting my responsibility onto God. I am saying that God created men and women with freedom to do as they like, and that he has not explained, and will not explain, why. Job. I should discuss Job. Perhaps I shall. To finish, I am rather hurt that you imply that I am not arguing logically. I had always hoped I was. (I'm pleased you think that my style is effective, however.) John Hobson AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, IL (312) 979-7293 ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2
saj@iuvax.UUCP (02/15/84)
#R:hou3c:-16900:iuvax:1700004:000:246 iuvax!dsaker Feb 2 18:04:00 1984 Reply to Ed Hall: When I consider the world as a many-faceted whole, it does not seem more harmonious. When I consider the world as a many-faceted whole, I feel bewildered (and, on my sensitive days, frightened). Daryel Akerlind iuvax!dsaker
saj@iuvax.UUCP (02/15/84)
#R:hou3c:-16900:iuvax:1700005:000:549 iuvax!dsaker Feb 2 18:18:00 1984 Reply to greg (gds): Hey come on now! Take a walk through a hospital and notice the many babies whose suffering is most certainly not being inflicted on them by "man". Indeed, every human being associated with those babies is being wiped out by the sight of their pain, is trying to alleviate their pain, or is just being plain neutral. Such cases of suffering fall squarely on god's shoulders. By the way, if people are to be blamed for allowing suffering, shouldn't god also be blamed for doing the same thing? Daryel Akerlind iuvax!dsaker