Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Seminar yesterday
I forgot - I had a seminar yesterday. Richard, the staff member, was leading it: on the atonement. We had quite a discussion on the nature of sin. I take the view that sin and evil are pretty much synonymous, and without conscious humanity, there would be no evil. His theodicy is rather different to mine: he sees a broken creation, whereas I see a broken and fallen humanity. Christ dies on the cross, for me, to atone for humanity's sin, but for Richard, he atones not just for moral evil, but for the "evil" he sees in nature: the pain of a dying animal, and the death of an innocent neonate human baby.I don't see evil in this way. For me, the phrase "the lion will lie down with the lamb" is allegorical, not literal, but if you take a view of creation that it is broken, then the Atonement must, I suppose, include this. My concern with this view is that I believe that God's grace is strongly shown through the natural world, and that any intervention that breaks the rules of that world - of what we call scientific laws - would be a denial, by God, of his grace and love.
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Interesting Mike- I find I sit somewhere between the two of you...
I see the glory of God in creation, but then I also see the glory of God in humanity.
Sin and evil I believe have effected both - and in a sense therefore both are fallen, the thing abt people is that we actively participate in evil, whereas creation is permeated by its effects- does that make sense?
A great bk on Theodicy is John Swinton's Raging with Compassion.
I see the glory of God in creation, but then I also see the glory of God in humanity.
Sin and evil I believe have effected both - and in a sense therefore both are fallen, the thing abt people is that we actively participate in evil, whereas creation is permeated by its effects- does that make sense?
A great bk on Theodicy is John Swinton's Raging with Compassion.
But scientific "laws" aren't really laws at all as I understand them - they are descriptions of the way that things are observed to happen. Nothing would ever really break a scientific law - it would just prove the law wasn't good enough.
True. But just because we don't understand them fully doesn't mean that they're not fixed: and if things start happening which are at odds with all that's gone before, that's God acting against Herself and all She's given us, which is against Her nature, and therefore not loving...
That seems a very simplified version of who God is Mike- have you considered that God might have a "dark" side- not evil but beyond our comprehension.
I'm thinking of Biblical characters who have wresteled with God, like Jacob and Job....
As for things being fixed- I think that there lies the tension of the now and not yet...
I'm thinking of Biblical characters who have wresteled with God, like Jacob and Job....
As for things being fixed- I think that there lies the tension of the now and not yet...
Firstly: I disagree. Just because we think we've sorted out what the scientific law is, it doesn't mean we're right. Newton's physics worked great (and probably encouraged lots of liberal Christians in their view of a mechanistic universe) - right up to the point when Einstein found answers to the questions that Newton's laws couldn't answer. Einstein didn't think God would play dice (he's more of a cribbage guy, I would think) - but the quantum boys proved him (Einstein, not God) - wrong. So scientific "laws" only describe how we think things are, based on what we've observed - or think we've observed - so far.
Secondly - does this view include the Resurrection?
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Secondly - does this view include the Resurrection?
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