Matt’s Journal

1 | honest_ape

June 15th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

I think his comments are well written, but they seem be a bit simplistic and glaze over several quite glaring issues; Natural Disaster, Disease, Accidents..

He states:

“…..that God gave dominion of Creation to Man. If there is suffering, if there is evil in Creation, it is there because Man who has dominion over Creation and allows it through either direct action or inaction…”

This may apply to evil, but in way touches upon the horrifying things that happen every day due the causes I listed above. How many godly or innocent people died over the last couple years from Tsunami, Hurricane or Earthquakes? How many innocent children died as a result of those? What about babies with cancer? Nuns who die from the flu? Did these things happen due to the “direct action or inaction” of man? How many people who died in the Earthquake, several days later, who surely must have been praying to God for rescue? How many died while praying for the quake to stop. How many children die while their mothers pray for their terminal illness to go away?

I don’t think you can explain away human suffering with something so easy as the evil that men do. If you want me to accept that free will allows man to do evil things to man, I’ll accept it. But you’ll need to do a lot better to make me believe that there are reasons God allows people to die in the above cases.

honest_apes last blog post..How to make a man lose his professional demeanor in one easy step

2 | nabiy

June 17th, 2008 at 4:13 am

M4tt, thank you for the link and for recommending the book. I’m having fun with it : )

In my post I did gloss over the problem evil and its relationship to free will and sin. Judeo / Christian teaching usually maintains that Evil, including natural disasters, entered the dominion of man through Original Sin. Original Sin has had degenerative effect on Creation, introducing cellular mutation, natural disaster and even death. A degenerative environment left to itself degenerates further, and the problem gets worse. The direct action of the first man (who had headship over all creation) has had a rippling effect over his whole dominion, enslaving creation to corrupting effects of sin (Rom. 8:19–21). We are feeling the effects of that first sin.

In his book Mr. Dawkins uses this problem as a proof that God does not exist. However, it is not a proof of God’s existence or non-existence but only proof that we don’t have a clear-cut answer for the problem.

3 | Skudd

June 19th, 2008 at 4:58 am

…I don’t like tea…

Skudds last blog post..Kite Shopping

4 | honest_ape

June 19th, 2008 at 6:59 pm

@nabiy
Appreciate the response and the fleshed out thought. I personally think the idea of original sin is reprehensible. The idea that God would hold all of his children responsible, from birth, for the sins of the first man, or any man in the past is a thought that makes God seem less like a loving God and more like a petty, vengeful God. Imagine you holding a child responsible for the actions of its parents. Say a man killed your dog, and you hold his newborn child responsible. Anyone who’s not God who did that would be considered small and petty. But if God does so, it’s canon and acceptable. I don’t want to believe in a God who thinks that way, or a church who endorses it.

5 | Matt

June 20th, 2008 at 10:25 am

@nabiy

Could you clear up the issue about people and seeing God? I thought that God has no form that is recognisable by man, therefore we cannot make God something in our image (or something similar to that). What do you make of people that have “seen” God, are they liars or confused by what it might mean? I understand many people say they can “feel” God and his power but seeing him is a whole different matter….

6 | nabiy

June 25th, 2008 at 6:17 am

@honest_ape
I also have an issue with that particular portrayal of God. However it doesn’t take into account the full teaching of scripture. Ezekiel 18 speaks explicity against that teaching saying very clearly that each man is responsible for his own sin and the Father’s sin will not be passed onto the son, “The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father nor will the father share the guilt of the son.” When I think of the effect of original sin i usually think of it in similar manner to the effects of Global Warming, even though our generation is not reponsible for the original fault we must still deal with the effects.

@m4tt
I think you’re right and I don’t think people can see God in the plain sense. However, I do believe that a person might see Christ (like the Apostle Paul), his messenger (Angels, or even a stranger) or God might even commune with a person through more natural means (the Eucharist, Baptism in water, the burning bush and the Holy Spirit appearing as a dove are good examples i think). - nabiy