Richard, you mention Human vs Natural evil. This is something I jotted down some years ago. Particularly take note of the second paragraph.
On All Saints Day in 1755, a powerful earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal, collapsing the roof of the cathedral full of worshippers along with causing horrendous death and destruction in the city. Coming at the time the Enlightenment was kicking into high gear, the philosophers of the new way of thinking had a field day taunting the faithful about their "almighty" God. This event struck a blow to Christendom from which it is still reeling.
Nowdays we know earthquakes are the result of plate tectonics rather than Divine Wrath. Ironically, the mechanism of plate tectonics is believed to be essential for life itself by recycling excess carbon back into the earth's crust, just like hurricanes and typhoons are essential to balancing heat in the atmosphere.
So, what's the person of faith supossed to do with all of this?
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that I really don't need a God that causes or prevents earthquakes. I can consult with a seismic expert about how to construct my dwelling. I can deal with fractures in the earth's crust. I need something a lot stronger for fractured and broken relationships.
The only force in the universe powerful enough to heal the tragedy and absurdity of the human condition is the self giving cruciform shaped love revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
What I DO need is a God who will engender the love and concern in us that this God will be present in the chaos and destruction of the earhquake or the hurricane or the tornado (living in Kansas I'm way too familiar with them) in us and through us. People willing to incarnate God's love and bear His image into a hurting world.
This makes me think of one of my ongoing questions around nature… death is built into how nature works. Particularly thinking of plants, since I garden - for example, trees drop leaves, which die and decompose and then are turned into nutrients that get taken up into other plants through their roots. There’s an element of necessity to death in the natural world in order to renew resources for life to continue. So is this a consequence of the fall? In which plants and other things in nature die, but then God has arranged for that death to lead to new life? So that even nature proclaims the sacrificial nature of God’s love? And if so, what happens in resurrection? Trees at least are referenced as being in the new creation… so is it just something totally different that we can’t really even imagine at this point? No answers, but I’ve pondering this for some time…
So does an ex nihilo only theologian contend that when God created the good sun, He created it to burn bright and warm forever, that is until the ‘very good’ creature Adam came along and chose to take a bite from the fruit? So in this ‘anti-ex Deo’ theologian’s worldview, it was only after Adam’s evil choice, that the sun started to burn out and head towards being a death star? Seems a little off base, doesn’t it? Asking for a friend.
Do you recall the first Jurassic Park movie where the man in charge of keeping the dinosaurs in their holds exclaimed "Clever girl!" just before getting eaten, in response to a velociraptor (sp?!) successfully stalking him? When I first read Thomas' definition of God as pure actuality used to define evil out of existence (out of Reality would be technically correct) I had a "Clever guy!" reaction that came to mind as I watched the movie. It's too complicated to explain in a quick reply, but Augustine's separation of eternal Reality from temporal existence allows one to frame the challenge of blaming God for evil as tantamount to claiming that God ought not have created us.
Richard, you mention Human vs Natural evil. This is something I jotted down some years ago. Particularly take note of the second paragraph.
On All Saints Day in 1755, a powerful earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal, collapsing the roof of the cathedral full of worshippers along with causing horrendous death and destruction in the city. Coming at the time the Enlightenment was kicking into high gear, the philosophers of the new way of thinking had a field day taunting the faithful about their "almighty" God. This event struck a blow to Christendom from which it is still reeling.
Nowdays we know earthquakes are the result of plate tectonics rather than Divine Wrath. Ironically, the mechanism of plate tectonics is believed to be essential for life itself by recycling excess carbon back into the earth's crust, just like hurricanes and typhoons are essential to balancing heat in the atmosphere.
So, what's the person of faith supossed to do with all of this?
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that I really don't need a God that causes or prevents earthquakes. I can consult with a seismic expert about how to construct my dwelling. I can deal with fractures in the earth's crust. I need something a lot stronger for fractured and broken relationships.
The only force in the universe powerful enough to heal the tragedy and absurdity of the human condition is the self giving cruciform shaped love revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
What I DO need is a God who will engender the love and concern in us that this God will be present in the chaos and destruction of the earhquake or the hurricane or the tornado (living in Kansas I'm way too familiar with them) in us and through us. People willing to incarnate God's love and bear His image into a hurting world.
This makes me think of one of my ongoing questions around nature… death is built into how nature works. Particularly thinking of plants, since I garden - for example, trees drop leaves, which die and decompose and then are turned into nutrients that get taken up into other plants through their roots. There’s an element of necessity to death in the natural world in order to renew resources for life to continue. So is this a consequence of the fall? In which plants and other things in nature die, but then God has arranged for that death to lead to new life? So that even nature proclaims the sacrificial nature of God’s love? And if so, what happens in resurrection? Trees at least are referenced as being in the new creation… so is it just something totally different that we can’t really even imagine at this point? No answers, but I’ve pondering this for some time…
So does an ex nihilo only theologian contend that when God created the good sun, He created it to burn bright and warm forever, that is until the ‘very good’ creature Adam came along and chose to take a bite from the fruit? So in this ‘anti-ex Deo’ theologian’s worldview, it was only after Adam’s evil choice, that the sun started to burn out and head towards being a death star? Seems a little off base, doesn’t it? Asking for a friend.
Do you recall the first Jurassic Park movie where the man in charge of keeping the dinosaurs in their holds exclaimed "Clever girl!" just before getting eaten, in response to a velociraptor (sp?!) successfully stalking him? When I first read Thomas' definition of God as pure actuality used to define evil out of existence (out of Reality would be technically correct) I had a "Clever guy!" reaction that came to mind as I watched the movie. It's too complicated to explain in a quick reply, but Augustine's separation of eternal Reality from temporal existence allows one to frame the challenge of blaming God for evil as tantamount to claiming that God ought not have created us.
Gotta go to work!