Hi Bart ...
And thanks for your reply
I'm glad you've joined in and let me say that I appreciate the manner in which you are interacting with this thread. You are indeed welcome.
Many thanks. I appreciate debate and wrestling with ideas. I gain nothing from offending people. If anything I say does cause offense, then it is unintentional.
Likewise, I appreciated your well thought out response. I have been on boards where I have been told that I am going to hell - and there is little room for debate at all. Your reponse is most refreshing.
This is a legitimate question coming from the point of view of someone who has not accepted specific revelation and in particular, specific revelation in the form of the Bible.
I think you highlight one of the central problems straight away
The atheist it seems, MUST explain certain phenomenon before his atheism should be considered legitimate or worthy of consideration. However, God requires no explanation at all and should be accepted as a brute fact.
Certain material attributes are pointed out as being finite expressions of God's infinite person. However, it only seems to me that the problem has been pushed back. By postulating God, the theist hasn't explained the existence of intelligence or morality but rather made those things attributes of a being that apparently requires no explanation.
Agreed. If one accepts the Gospel quotes of Jesus as accurate historically, and I believe there is good reason to do so beyond the obvious answer for the Christian of inspiration and inerrancy, then there are some very clear indications that Jesus believed and taught the existence not only of heaven, but also of hell.
I don't think we have much debate on this issue.
In fact, in terms of volume of material, Jesus referenced Hell more than any other subject in his public ministry. There is opportunity for endless debate (and that opportunity has been exercised here as well as throughout history) as to what Jesus meant by hell, whether that hell is eternal, etc. Those are other discussions. Regardless of how you choose to interact with the material, there certainly is an onus upon anyone addressing Christ and His teaching to address this as primary and incorporate it firmly into any framework of understanding of His person and His teaching.
Agreed
However, it seems strange that such a crucial issue has been left open to so much question and so many diverse interpretations.
Agreed. This is a reasonable conclusion within this construct. I would simply point out however, that it is not necessarily inclusive of every factor to be considered in coming to a final conclusion. It is an inherent weakness of logical constructs that they are limited to internal consistency involving the premises provided but it is not a given that those premises are necessarily inclusive of all relevant considerations.
I think this is one of best definitions of logic I have seen. I am glad that you do not see logic as some absoulte indicator of truth.
For example - on the basis of observation and logic, people once believed that the world was flat. We now believe something quite different because increased observation has caused us to change our stance.
Here we come to the crux of the matter. The next point follows and would seem to be be the major difficulty. I think however, that more time needs to be spent here.
I think so too.
"If I was God ...." Obviously, we're not God, nor, if we accept the premise that some of God's characteristics ie Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence etc are immutable and cannot be fully grasped, let alone shared, then we have constructed something of a paradox here.
We have. The problem is, if God does things that can appear evil to me (even though they are not in any absolute sense), then this only shows that our sense of evil is relative (God would not find something evil that we find evil because he has a wider perception). How could we therefore look at what we might believe God permits and gain any sense of right and wrong from it?
Obviously, for the Christian, which I profess to be, the immediate answer is that God as infinite cannot be grasped completely by we who are finite. Therefore, we lack the understanding and the perspective to adequately pass judgement upon the matter.
Exactly! We lack the
perspective. This only seems to highlight that our sense of good and evil is relative in that it is based on a limited, finite perception. If God allows everything and can justify what he is doing in some way, then nothing can be evil in any absolute sense.
I understand that that is a very unsatisfactory answer to someone who does not share that world view and that it can be viewed as circular. Further I understand that such an argument can be seen as a "copout."
I wholly respect your answer - but do see problems with it, yes.
I do believe that God has through His revelation given us some insight into the matter and that it is a legitimate question to ask and that more should be said than simply throwing this up as a defense and walking away.
It is VERY frustrating to read comments such as, "You're wasting my time and yours. Believe or go to hell! Your choice!" - or something like that and to have people walk away from you. I don't find this frustrating at all.
Basically true, yet not necessarily complete. First, I'm not sure I agree with the incapability of sin in terms of its being a possibility, so much as I believe Christians see a completion or maturity occurring upon final bodily redemption in which the element of our humanity that is marred by original sin is "healed" or "removed" as you will. Perfection is a concept that is often misunderstood by even many Christians. The Biblical concept of perfection is more along the lines of maturity or completeness. It has been taken by others theologically to mean the absence of anything we call "bad" or "evil" by our definition.
OK - I appreciate your answer. However ...
God presumably has free will. He is also incapable of sin. Therefore it is possible to possess free will and never seen and to be incapable of sin. God created us in his image (according to Genesis) - but not enough in his image to make us incapable of sin as he is.
The best example I can offer up quickly is the idea that physical death is evil or bad and as such the direct consequence of sin. There are some Biblical passages when taken together that seem to indicate this, primarily in the Genesis account of Genesis 2 & 3 and then Romans 5:12.
Paul certainly speaks of death being an enemy to be defeated. This is certainly in a context where he is talking about physical resurrection.
However, many Christians, myself included, understand the death being spoken of there as representative of the Hebrew concept of death in this context being a separation from God. Physical death as an element of creation in terms of life-cycle and food-chain is not necessarily inherently evil, especially as it relates to non-human elements. Man is seen as a special case due to the spiritual element which does not exist in other forms of plants and animals.
I see. However, as pointed out above, the idea of spiritual death and physical death seem to be closely linked, Biblically.
I'm think that the correct view is to say, not that we will be incapable, but rather in view of the maturing, perfecting work of Christ in our lives, we will no longer have that element of original sin and rebellion grafted to us and as such our desire to know and serve God will be able to express itself without restriction. The desire will be gone and we will exercise volitionally what our greatest hearts desire in fact is without distraction or conflict.
A lovely hope
However, I am still left wondering as to why God would not have created man in this state to being with and removed the possibility of sin and consequently, suffering.
Implicit within your proposed definition of "evil" is a human perspective that in turn is applied back to God. In a sense, it can't help but be so. We obviously are human and can only grasp and interpret what we see and interpret in that manner.
Exactly.
Let me suggest this as a definition of evil.
Evil and sin, are not ultimately things in and of themselves. Rather they are anything that falls short or, or misses the mark of perfection and good as defined and embodied in God himself.
But if God is so beyond our scope that his actions can even appear evil to us (based on limited perception), I cannot see how he can be a moral guide or act as a basis for objective morality.
Once again, many thanks Bart. I feel I probably have not done justice to all your points but wanted to answer as best I could in the time available.
