Chapter eight: Evil

First JP makes the observation that physicists seem to be more likely to embrace some kind of religious thinking than are those in the biological sciences even if it is the kind of cosmic spirituality of Einstein, as if the perceived order of the universe brings to mind the language of God. By contrast, biologists are embroiled in a controversy with the religious over evolution, and biology affords many examples that make the idea of design in living things a little absurd. Living things a filled with examples of both the most awe inspiring efficient complexity and the most tragic mistakes. But in addition to this, JP suggests that the biological scientists seems to be stuck in the same kind of over inflated confidence in the ability of a mechanistic worldview to explain everything that physicists had before the advent of quantum physics. Because of this JP thinks that biological sciences will eventually confront similar worldview transforming discoveries, where the science forces them recognize the role of emergent causal principles in the biological organism.

However in this chapter it is the awareness of tragedy that JP is most interested in because it underlines the greatest philosophical obstacle to religion, known as the problem of evil. This is the apparent contradiction between the power and character attributed to God and the existence of evil and suffering. In addition to the natural evils of which biologists are particularly aware there is also moral evil which is a consequence of human choices. I very much agree with JP when he points out that this is an existential problem as much as a logical one, for actual experience of evil and suffering can be a far weightier matter than any mere logical or philosophical consideration. And yet I will add the observation that JP does not that such experiences seem to be as much of a faith maker as a faith breaker, probably because it is often only faith that gives people the power to endure such experiences. Doctors are quite aware of the critical importance that a will to live has in the ability of the patient to survive, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that of all those in the biological sciences doctors are most religious. The point is that belief matters, for surviving the most difficult things requires a belief that it is worth it and it is this that seems to have a fundamental tie with a belief in a good and loving God more than anything else.

JP discusses what he sees as the three most significant answers that theologians make to this. First the oldest is according the literal understanding of Genesis and Romans 5:12, that death and suffering are the result of the disobedience of mankind's first ancestors. JP says that science has made this answer untenable and I certainly agree that this interpretation is the least compatible with the scientific worldview. JP suggest however that Genesis can be understood as a symbolic turning away from God in dawning hominid consciousness and an emerging awareness of death, but I find this to be a rather insipid approach that all but makes God Himself completely symbolic of some development in the hominid mind. Furthermore I find the attempt to interpret Romans 5:12 as meaning that only an awareness of death is the result of sin to be too great a distortion of scripture.

First there is nothing in the theory of evolution that requires making the story of Adam and Eve completely symbolic. There is a much much more natural approach, and that is to see Adam and Eve as the first hominids with an awareness of God, because He in fact communicated with them directly. The Bible has a tradition of calling those to whom God has chosen to communicate, the children of God or "sons of God", and this lends itself to a rather straightforward interpretation of Genesis 6 as an answer to the age old question of whom did the sons of Adam and Eve marry: the "sons of God" married the "daughters of men" and their children were men of renown. But if this is the case, then what of evil and suffering and what of Romans 5:12? Well Biblical support for it is not enormous but there are suggestions that there is another kind of death than physical death.

Probably the biggest hint, which punches a rather large hole in literal minded interpretations of Genesis, is the fact that God told Adam that on the day he ate of the fruit he would die. Since Adam did not die on that day, we must either say that God lied or that there is another kind of death. Then there are Jesus' words "Let the dead bury their own dead", which would be impossible unless there are two meanings of dead here. Matthew 8:22 is also quite suggestive for it is too obvious that gaining the whole world is pointless if you die in the process, which is why many translations replace the word "life" with "soul" even though this is not supported by the original Greek. But if there is more than one kind of death (and thus more than one kind of life) then this makes perfect sense. Then there is Matthew 10:28, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both the body and soul in hell." In other words, all these passages suggests that in addition to physical death which is a natural part of life there is also a spiritual death - a death of the soul, which is such a more terrible thing than physical death, that God's warning in the Garden really does refer to the truth.

In the next post I will continue the examination of this rather important chapter with the second answer to the problem of evil which JP discusses.

Where is the last post I made?

Ah... I see there is a rather odd quirk in the system where post 11 was invisible because page 2 was not displayed until this post was made.

This post has been edited by mitchellmckain: Jul 19 2008, 04:59 PM

The second answer that JP discusses is the denial of the reality of evil as a kind of deprivation of good in the same way that darkness is the lack of light. JP suggest that this idea loses much of its credibility in the face of things like the Holocaust and I quite agree. Saying that the problem doesn't exist has more of the flavor of pretending and delusion than of a rational solution. HOWEVER as JP mentions later in the chapter, the problem of evil and suffering is largely one of scale and what JP fails to notice is the fact that scale is something that alters with perspective. The child denied a piece of candy often acts like it is the end of the world, and similar changes of perspective happen throughout life. What then can we say from the perspective of eternal life in which God promises the realization of perfect justice and eternal happiness and which are difficult for us to even imagine.

The third answer that JP discusses is the idea that evil and suffering are the neccessary price for some greater good that can be obtained in no other way. This is certainly an improvement on an older idea that evil is necessary for good, but there is still something troubling in JP's explanation, for although this may work for suffering or natural evil (such as the pain that is endured for the sake of great accomplishments like in ballet), we would not want to say that there is anything that could justify moral evil. But the solution to this is found in the connection that JP makes to the "free will defense". For then it is not evil itself that is justified but only the possibility of evil that is inherent in free will. I, in fact, believe that free will is the essence of life and so I claim that the possibility for evil is inherent in the idea of life itself. But in this case, is the creation of life really justified? I believe this depends entirely upon the motivation for doing it. Surely to create life just in order to bring this possibility for evil into fruition, is itself evil. On the other hand, to create life to care for and love, means that any suffering caused by this possibility for evil is empathetically shared by the creator, and thus I believe is morally justified when done for that motivation.

However this is not explained by JP who simply suggests that there is a greater good that requires a two step process where God first creates at a distance to allow for free will but then allows us to abandon that free will by our own choice in order to experience heaven. But I find this solution of JPs to be quite attrocious, both for conceiving of a need for a Deist sort of God and for believing that an abandonment of the responsibility of free will (an abandonment of life itself in my view) is the nature of heaven. I think both of these are sterile and very short sighted. I see no reason to abandon the idea of God's involvement in our lives to the degree that JP does, for I think the logical problems are adequately addressed by simply limiting the nature of that involvement from a designing or controling role to that of a stimulating participant in the lives of His creatures as one part of their environment. Furthermore I believe that heaven is not found in an abandonment of life but by fully embracing it, but that life is only most fully engaged in a functional relationship with an infinite God. The illusion is not free will itself but our perception of it, like the imagination of child that the acceptance of rules is stifling their creativity, when the truth is that the structure that rules provide can actually liberate the hidden potential of our creativity. This truth is obvious in the arts but is also true in social interactions and in every other aspect of life.

There are some other rather natural answers which JP does not discuss: that God lacks the power to prevent or stop evil, or that God is Himself a being of both good and evil. On can argue that these options are not seriously considered by Christian theologians, yet on the other hand there are elements in Christian thought that get very close to these and so I think indentifying them as such can help to show why they are wrong or at least distorted. Some versions of open theism make the future inaccessible to God, so that instead of being a choice to sacrifice absolute control, God is simply incapable preventing evil. The kenosis conception of God sacrificing power and knowledge for the sake of love is far richer and more inspiring. Much more common are attempts to justify apparently immoral behavior on the part of God by defending God's right to do as he pleases, which is a might makes right sort of philosophy that is morally vacuous and indefensible. This conception of God is closely associated with the intellectual blackmail approach to evangelism - believe or else, but putting God into the role of a gunman getting His way by waving a big gun around is a device suitable for religion as a means of manipulating people rather than bringing about spiritual awarenss and growth in a relationship with God.

In conclusion I must say that JPs theodicy is greatly complicated by his idea of locating the hope of the Christian in some future act of God. In fact I think that this is a bandaid on a flawed theodicy. Furthermore, any formulation of Christianity which postpones its effectiveness to a future event makes it into a vacuous promise of a manipulative religion rather than a viable answer to life's challenges. This is why I think the immortality of the soul has always been the more universally accepted basis for religious thought, for then the issues of religion are immediate rather than promisory. There is only the need to understand this idea of the "immortality of the soul" properly by making the clear distinction between eternal existence and eternal life, knowing that it is having the second which makes the first an experience of heaven rather than hell.

This post has been edited by mitchellmckain: Aug 9 2008, 01:37 PM

Chapter 9 Ethical Consideration

One of the things that has become obvious as science has enabled us to do new things is the need for ethical guidance. We must observe that just because we can do a thing does not mean that we should. Science itself cannot answer such questions but although it would not be wise to simply hand such questions over to religion nevertheless ethics is something which religion has always studied and had a stake in. But although JP argues that science must accept that religion has something to contribute on these questions as a possible reservoir of ethical experience, JP also makes the excellent point that religion must also recognize that science brings about competely new ethical challenges that religion cannot ever have considered before. JP takes this to mean that these must be a matter of public dialogue. I would add that although religious principles may well play a role in the discussion, it is not productive to pretend that scriptures make a definitive stand on these issues.

As an example JP considers the possibility of human cloning raised by the successful cloning of sheep. Because the high falure rate, negative health impacts, and potential for the manipulative invasion of human personhood, the use of cloning for actually producing human beings is plagued with ethical red flags. But the issue of theraputic cloning for stem cell research is quite a different matter. However, remembering Kant's injunction that human beings must always be an end and never a means to something, we are faced with the same question that is fundamental to the controversy over abortion: when does human life begin such that it should be protected by this ethical mandate laid down by Kant?

Theology brings into this discussion questions about the spirit and soul. If the joining of the soul to the body happens at conception then the implication is that embryonic stem cell research should not be allowed. However JP points out a very interesting flaw in this point of view and this is the fact that the separation of the embryo into identical twins can occur up to 14 days after conception. JP also points to a older theological tradition by Thomas Aquinas (no doubt influenced by the opinion of Aristotle) that the soul becomes attached to the infant in the womb between 40 and 80 days after conception.

However I think that JP's idea that dualist philosophy is somehow logically connected to the idea of human life begining at conception with the gift of the spirit is completely without foundation. I certainly do agree with JP that a developmental view of the human spirit is certainly more compatable with the scientific facts and the belief that human life begins somewhat later than conception, however I don't think that there is any necessary connection between the developmental view and JP's psychosomatic view. I hold to a developmental view that is a dual aspect monism like JP's view but which is much more highly dualistic than his psychosomatic view. I would argue that we can see very clear distinctions between the spirit, mind and body which makes JP's reduction of the spirit to some information bearing pattern of the body quite inadequate.

In fact I think JP's view maintains the identification of humanity with genetics and biology which I think is seriously flawed philosophy. If genetics defines humanity and human value then this is not only more supportive of this idea of human life beginning at conception, but this is only one small step away from ideological justifications for racism, sexism and prejudice against the handicapped. Therefore I think our intuition or instinct to see our humanity as something quite apart genetics and biology -- which really amounts to no more than appearances, is well founded. Deviation from biological norms and differences in appearance do not subtract from our humanity, and likewise I submit that we can very well retain our superficial "human" appearance while losing everything that makes us human.

Therefore since I see NO connection between our genetics and our humanity, I would find all these ethical concerns regarding the human genetic code to be a little misplaced. Our genome is certainly very important but all it really amounts to is a repository of information which is our heritage from our biological roots. I can very well see the ethical problems with tampering with that heritage in its abusive potential for a manipulative invasion of a person's life. However I see absolutely no reason to consider the human genetic code as sacred in any other context.

This post has been edited by mitchellmckain: Sep 8 2008, 08:46 PM

Chapter 10 Imaginative Postscript

JP starts this chapter with an attempt to justify going beyond firmly based knowledge to use imaginative speculation in the investigation of theological truth comparing it to the use of thought experiements in physics. For me there is no need for such a justification, for more than JP's tentative endeavors I see this sort of speculative exploration as a central part of my own systematic methodology for discovering the truth. To do this requires adding a selective process so that you can plumb such a speculative explorations for something with actual truth value. This is done by matching the logical implications of such speculations to ones experience of reality and human existence. The reason for JP greater hesitation is probably found in the use that JP makes of his speculative exploration which is in the subject of eschatology. Since this is an opinion about future events this is not something can be pragmatically verified by anything but waiting to see. This can also explain, why I have not had much interest in the subject of eschatology at all.

What is peculiar in JP's view (not to imply that others do not share it) is that it is to eschatology that they look for fulfillment of the Christian's hope after death. And so to pursue this with a speculative investigation, JP considers the question, "how are the old creation and the new creation related?" This is of particular interest to JP because it is directly related to JP's theology of there being two stages in God's creative work: first at a distance to allow for free will and then acheiving the ideal when we freely choose to abandon that free will. Since I cannot even look forward to the heaven He envisions as something of any promise at all, I cannot see any merit in his thinking. I do see a promise for the development of humanity in the historical context but not as something which all our hopes rest upon and not as the kind of physical transformation that JP envisions. Again I think that JP fails to think through all the implications of evolutionary theory and how it can bring new meaning to Christianity, for this gives us reason to see unfulfilled stages in the evoloutionary development of mankind as part of the natural course of human history which is quite apart and different from the natural stages in individual human life, which is where the hopes individual must be found.

In any case, JP pursues his speculation based on the implications of New Testament scriptures that indicates that the kingdom of God is not something only in the future but something already begun with Christ's resurrection and concludes that this means that the old creation and the new are not simply sequential but also exists side by side. His speculation in this regard becomes extremely fantastic (not credible) when he envisions these as two subspaces within the multidimensional vector space of total created reality or as being located on separate branes of M-theory, which he thinks may intersect in our experience of the sacraments. I think that the answer to the question of how JP could be brought to such wild and incredulous ideas is found in the fact that he does not believe in a spiritual reality apart from the physical and this distort every aspect of his theology.

This is brought into sharp focus with his question, "Did the risen Christ breathe?" He suggests that this represents and interchange of matter between these two intersecting worlds. I find it quite puzzling that JP ignores the words of 1 Corinthians 15, answering the question of "with what kind of bodies are we raised", with the words "spiritual body". I think the implication is quite simply that there is a spiritual aspect of reality including spiritual beings like God and the angels which are capable of interacting with the physical. JP's refusal to believe in a separate spiritual reality interacting with the physical explains why his views seem to me to fall somewhere between Panentheism or Deism, for it seems that he must be forced to conclude that either physical reality is a part of God or there is no way for God to interact with it.

JP laments the way opposing theological positions that seem to dismiss scriptures talking of Jesus eating and touching or the stories of the empty tomb which he sees as implying this interchange between two worlds and denying the critical significance of Jesus resurrection. But the other ways is to see Jesus' resurrection is as an affirmation of the tangible reality of the spiritual and with it the undeniable reality of the subjective aspect of our experiences. The point is that although the experiences of the risen Jesus may have been fully spiritual and subjective, this does not mean that they were not absolutely real. The undeniable significance of the resurrection can be found in the fact that the spiritual IS REAL, just as God who is spirit IS REAL, no matter how subjective our experience of Him may be. I think calling this point of view "dismissive" is just plain prejudicial. To show just how non-dismissive this can be, I ask you to consider my metaphysical position that spiritual things are composed of energy just as are physical things, but that these are simply a very different form of energy and is not a part of the space-time plus (11 dimensions in all) structure of the physical universe, and more importantly not subject to the laws of physics which is the basis of objective experiences.

This post has been edited by mitchellmckain: Sep 8 2008, 08:41 PM

Chapter 10 continued

I would like to begin by mentioning a book by N. T. Wright called "Surprised by Hope" in which you will find many of the same ideas regarding an eschatological hope in a future physical resurrection rather than a spiritual hope founded on a belief in the immortality of the soul. The point being that JP is far from being alone in his ideas and convictions in this regard. Also I can say that it was from reading that book by Wright that I formulated a lot of the objections I am expressing in response to this idea as it is expressed by JP in his book as well.

To continue, the thrust of JP's reasoning about an interchange of material with the risen Jesus is to lead us to his conclusion that our personal destiny, human destiny and the desiny of all material creation is one and the same: a recreation by God. However, I feel that this has some serious theological flaws. A need for God to recreate the world impies that either God's original work of creation is flawed or that mankind has managed to contaminate God's creation and make it evil and in need of redemption. Together with JP denial of a spiritual reality apart from the physical, this implies that this contaminatation is of a physical nature for why else would it require a physical transformation. The more common Christian view is that the evil in the world is purely spiritual both root and effect and the only transformation of the world that is required is a transformation of the human spirit.

I suppose that one of the reasons why people are brought to JP's way of thinking is the existence of what they call natural evil: things like physical death, disease and natural disaster. But it seems to me that this is a remnant of thinking from before the theory of evolution and an imperfect absorbtion of its implications because the scientific theory of evolution necessarily implies that all these are a perfectly natural part of God's creation, for you cannot have evolution without physical death and even the challenges of disease and natural disasters are spurs for evolutionary development. If one understands evolutionary development to be an objective manifestation of God participatory role in the creation of living things then these "natural evils" are no different from the other challenges in life by which God helps us to grow in spirit, mind and responsibility for our own existence. The plain fact is that just as stable populations cannot evolve, so also does comfort and security lull us into apathy, atrophy, and stagnation.

JP continues his spectulation with the question of "how will that transformation come about for the great bulk of matter still remaining in the old creation, untouched so far by the resurrection?" He answers saying that "God will continue to hold this present world in being while its processes are still capable of fruitful development." The part in italics raises a common belief by many Christians that I do not agree with, and this is the idea that the continuing existence of the universe requires exertion of God's will. The problem is that this implies that God is incapable of creating anything truly apart from himself, and that this world is more like a dream in the mind of God that will vanish when God's attention is elsewhere. I have a difficulty distinguishing this view from panentheism, and I don't believe that it makes any sense, for either you limit God's power to create things apart from Himself or you contradict His obvious intention to create things with free will an thus acting independent of His own will, which could never be complete or real if we did not even exist independent of His will. It is my suspision that this belief is a logically inconsistent product of misplaced piety, but our dependence on God must be derived from an acknoweledged need for His guidance and not from some philosophical rational for why we really have no choice.

In any case, JP suggests that the fact that the universe cannot go on forever, because the second law of thermodynamics makes this universe a wind up affair that is inevitably running down, supports his idea of God transforming it into a new creation. But I do not think that the finite span of the universe is in any way relevant to what JP would have us believe. My own expectation is that in the spirit we will be free to admire and enjoy the the universe in its entirety as a beautiful creation of God, including our own very small contribution from when we were a part of it. The rather common belief that the spiritual exists outside of time and space, strongly supported by the implications of modern physics, means that the finitude of the universe's temporal expanse is no different from the finitude of its spatial expanse. Furthermore this adds an additional absurdity in seeing the development of God's kingdom as somehow dependent on the passage of time in the progress of human history.

The idea that God requires this universe as raw materials for a new creation sheds a very different light on JP's comment regarding God creating "continua" rather than the traditional idea of creation ex-nihilo. As far as creating living things I certainly agree that God created living things by stimulating the process of evolution just as God stimulates our own spiritual developement as Christians. But this is entirely due to nature of living things and not any limitation on God's power of creation and so although I envision God creating this universe out of knowledge rather than magic, I would certainly not think that God creation of this universe required some pre-existing material. But that means that I also would therefore not think that God's creation of a new heaven and earth would require God to use this universe as raw materials for it.

The most natural conclusion to draw from scriptures implying that the kingdom of Heaven is both now and in the future, is to take Jesus at His word when He says that His kingdom is not of this world. Yet when we understand this, like most Christians, as a spiritual kingdom, then as God who is spirit, not only interacts with this world but can dwell within us, so also can Jesus' spiritual kingdom transform this world until it finally resides within and inhabits this world as well. This is not only rather naturally suggested by numerous scriptures in the Bible but it is far more natural resolution of this problem than resorting to intersecting branes and subspaces.

This post has been edited by mitchellmckain: Sep 8 2008, 05:34 PM

Chapter 10 continued and conclusion.

Next JP considers the question, "what will Jesus be like in this resurrected kingdom of God in the future?" Here perhaps JP is forced to depart from his side by side view of the new and old creations as is evident by his phrasing of this question in the future tense. This is another indication that JP is on the wrong track, for if we believe in the kingdom of God as a spiritual kingdom we would not need to ask this of the future for it would be equally valid for the present, experienced by those who are in the spirit already and by those to whom Jesus has visited. Furthermore, JP's answer that Jesus would be in human form would be quite obvious for there is no reason to think that Jesus would appear in any different form than that which He has already appeared to His disciples after the resurrection.

JP's appears to be concerned about how a vast human throng could all have access to a Jesus in human form but where JP must resort to magical ideas in a physical setting these difficulties naturally vanish in the spiritual setting outside the limitations of time and space. I would however add that I really do not expect Jesus sitting on some throne or as a constant companion in the way that some have envisioned and this is because I do not see the kingdom as and end to personal growth but only beginning. In such growth I would not expect Jesus to constantly hold our hand but only to come to us as an unexpected visitor to turn our world upside down and thereby give us what we need just and exactly when we need it, much like in the film named "Joshua". But this is another part of the fundamental differences between our views of heaven. For JP heaven seems to be an end of growth, strife, free will and thus equivalently and end of life which I see as a fundamental contradiction to the promise of eternal life. Apparently for JP, eternal life is little more than eternal existence.

Next JP considers the concept of the corporate Christ as described by Paul where Christians form a single body with Christ as the head. JP says that the best sense that he can make of this is simply that our encounter with the human Jesus will not be a sequential affair but partaking of something like the simultaneous individuation and unity of the Trinity. I see something quite different in this concept of the body of Christ. I see the next stage in human evolution in the formation of a communal organism, where individuals can cooperate with the same kind of productivity, exceeding the capacities of the individual, that is found in the community of cells making up the physical body. Perhaps one of the industries where we can see such cooperation at its peak is in the production of a major motion picture, where the creativity of many individuals results in the creation of new worlds for people to see and explore. I see this as part of both the future of mankind on the earth and the future in the spirit as well. I think this reveals another flaw in JP's view as, ironically enough, too other-worldly and so far from the hopes, dreams and expectations of non-Christians or even other Christians that they could not relate to it. This, of course, does not mean that JP is wrong but I think that the fact of the diversity of religion and human thought does suggest that JP probably is wrong. Furthermore, I think it makes more sense to base ones speculations upon the clues that are all around us in this world.

Finally JP extends his speculative inquiries to their most daring by considering the possibility of other intellegent beings elsewhere in the universe with their own awareness of God. JP asks the naive question of whether Christ died for these beings as well. I think this presumes too much similarity between these beings and ourselves such that they would even need anything like the salvation that we do. JP draws on the thinking of Gregory of Nazianus that Jesus assumption of humanity is essential to His work of saving humanity. With this I certainly agree and would add the very simple obervation that Jesus being the salvation for non-human beings makes no more sense than supposing that these beings also fell into sin as a result of the actions of Adam and Eve. But more importantly I think we cannot make any assumptions that there are any similarities in regards to the needs of these beings or the nature of their relationship to God. I imagine exploring the enormous differences in a very large number of such different beings may be one of the neverending vistas that we can look forward to as a part of eternal life and our discovery of the infinite nature of God.

So JP asks how this fits into the idea of encountering Christ in human form and imagining these aliens as a part of the corportate Christ suggests that Christ must take different forms appropriate to whatever species He encounters according to similar incarnation events on their worlds. I do not even imagine these alien beings as a part of the body of Christ at all, but expecting far more vast differences between us and them (which requires no imagining of any analogy to Christ in their lives) would suggest that a unity with such beings would most likely represent a completely different stage in the process of evolution, where the human community is just one individual in a greater communal organism. In Christian rather than scientific imagery this would represent another stage in our discovery, relationhsip and union with God.

Conclusion

I have certainly found enormous similarities in our approch to many things in Christianity and especially concerning the relationship between science and religion. Furthermore I have encountered many interesting ideas that are new to me, but as you can see, I also have many ideas that I would share with him as well. The differences in our thinking are primarily rooted in two things: one is a very different metaphysical conception of reality and the second is our position on the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Clearly our disagreement on these two issues are fundamental and important to the way we think affecting many different considerations. But hopefully our differences can ultimately be seen as just one of those things that make life interesting.