Problem of evil

[Herman, monk]

This is posted in an atheist forum. The person I’m responding to describes himself as a “maltheist,” and is hoping to prove that God must be evil. If anyone thinks they understand what I’m getting at and can offer any suggestions, any help would be appreciated.

The human body is subject to all kinds of debilitating illness. If God is described as a good creator then with his omniscience he should have been able to look ahead and to build a stronger pancreas so we don't have kids dying from juvenile diabetes. God is responsible for both the genetic weakness in the human body and for the disease.


This will be a first tentative attempt to answer the argument. I would paraphrase the argument thus:

God is seen as a benevolent [omnipotent] and omniscient creator. Yet the human body is subject to all kinds of debilitating illness. Such a God should have been able to create a perfect world, free from [the limitations we now see in nature, including] illness and other kinds of suffering. God, therefore, must be held responsible for this suffering. The argument stops short of further asserting that God must therefore be evil.

I think I might relate my answer to the character of reality as I understand it.

All we actually know of reality is our experience of it. While we can be certain of this mental, spiritual side of the world, we’re not too sure about anything else. We presume a physical world exists, but we have no way to confirm that existence since we can never transcend our experience of it. Physics, assuming the true existence of physical reality, nevertheless represents that reality as almost entirely empty. Such particles as do seem to exist are, moreover, constantly disappearing and reappearing. The “materiality of matter,” if it exists at all, is tenuous indeed. The reality of experience, by contrast, is something we can be absolutely certain of.

The reality of the physical world, however, does not depend on its existence, nor is it compromised by its possible nonexistence. Our physical experience is as real as any other experience we might have. Suffering is real whether or not the physical world exists even if space, time and existence itself are nothing more than stories we tell ourselves about our experience.

[omit?: The argument attempts to criticize a traditional theistic understanding of reality, but makes two surreptitious alterations to that view. Instead of an omnipotent God, the argument requires a God who is powerless to makes things right. It also assumes that the world has only a material aspect, making the sufferings of this life the final word.]

But the reality of suffering is not the end of the story. It’s also necessary to consider how we respond to suffering.

Suffering is sometimes weakened by the presence of the spirit in us. This spirit is, I believe, the same as what is sometimes called the observer or the witness. This is that part of us that observes the experiences we undergo without being affected by them, the part that transcends both happiness and suffering. It is this same part of us that is most immediately in contact with the reality of God.

In at least one important tradition God is seen as suffering along with humanity; and humanity as participating in divinity. For God to be omniscient means that he is fully and completely conscious of all possible as well as actual states. Omniscience must mean that God is conscious in every conscious being. Omniscience describes God not only as an impassible observer in his essence, but as having, through his energies, complete participatory knowledge of every happiness as well as every suffering.

Does God’s participation in the suffering of creatures lessen the creature’s suffering?

Regarding the benevolence of God, I would ask: Does suffering render the sufferer unlovable?

[Owen Jones]

In rejecting the idea of a good god, your friend is also rejecting the civilization which that idea created. It is the unique aspect of "Western Civilization" that it is grounded in the idea of a God that is Good, which also means that he is not arbitrary, whimsical, makes up the rules as He goes along. Which means it becomes possible to have consistent laws of nature and of government and civil society. It's what makes scientific inquiry possible. In societies that believe in an evil god, you simply do not see much if anything in the way of social, economic or scientific progress.

To reject the idea of a good God means that he has rejected the idea that there is any goodness in people. The alternative is that of animistic societies that use special incantations to ward off evil spirits, and take vengeance on others through the "evil eye." In other words, magic is the only logical alternative in an evil word created by an evil god.

Both Hitlerism and Stalinism are based on the idea that there is no goodness in man, and therefore man must be controlled, dominated, by those who are tougher and smarter. Weakness is seen as the primary evil. Weak people must be sacrificed to the greater good, by simply exterminating them. The definition of weak is purely arbitrary.

Plato said that those who dwell on evil are sophists and the sophist is at root an alechemist. Better to dwell on the good.

Then there is the argument from authority, that wise and good people throughout the ages have all believed in a good god, but it sounds like your friend has an authority problem that is at the core of his objections. He may feel that he has made some kind of great intellectual breakthrough by arriving at the conclusion that God is evil, that makes him feel special, but it is pretty conventional drivel.

[Elias Young]

It seems to me I once heard that a certain form of Western Protestantism also believed in something called the total depravity of man. Perhaps it was the Protestant man who formulated this maxim who also sought to exterminate those in his city of Basil (Switzerland) who were either not willing or not able to get with his program of a freshly-minted theocratic civil society. It has also been said by some the Mr. Hitler was an ardent admirer of Mr. Luther's view of the Jews. As we've come to know, Protestantism was a major contributor to society in the Americas if not to "the West" in general.

elias

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Owen Jones wrote:
In rejecting the idea of a good god, your friend is also rejecting the civilization which that idea created. It is the unique aspect of "Western Civilization" that it is grounded in the idea of a God that is Good, which also means that he is not arbitrary, whimsical, makes up the rules as He goes along. Which means it becomes possible to have consistent laws of nature and of government and civil society. It's what makes scientific inquiry possible. In societies that believe in an evil god, you simply do not see much if anything in the way of social, economic or scientific progress.

Both Hitlerism and Stalinism are based on the idea that there is no goodness in man, and therefore man must be controlled, dominated, by those who are tougher and smarter. Weakness is seen as the primary evil. Weak people must be sacrificed to the greater good, by simply exterminating them. The definition of weak is purely arbitrary.

[leandros]

The original question about the creation of "stronger pancreas" is actually implying that human nature is an absolute value by itself. So by accepting a weaker human nature we are forced to accept a decrease of its value. The main problem in understanding the answer to the original question is to come in an agreement to a common value of human nature.

The atheist is defining the value of human nature as a result of self-value. If human nature is strong then it has a big value, if human nature is weak then it has no value at all.

By analogy a perfect world is a self standing world that has no needs at all. An atheistic perfect world is a world of Aristotelian perfection. I think that the original atheistic question is not about the goodness of God in a world that is in pain but it is about the lack of God presence in a perfect creation.

In this context the atheist is absolutely right.

In this context the answer of Church in incomprehensible:

1 Corinthians 1:7-10
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me--to keep me from exalting myself!

Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.

And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

[George K.]

If we don't have kids dying from juvenile diabetes we will have adults Dying from spiritual diabetes (sin).

And so we have juvenile angels rather than adults who are damned.

Looks like a good deal to me.

gk

[Owen Jones]

John Calvin preached the total depravity of man. Marxism is a secularised form of Calvinism.

Luther had an apocalyptic view of his contemporary times. He believed that Muslims were on the verge of destroying Christian Europe (they were) and that the Pope was singularly responsible for the Church's lack of a forceful (military) defense of Europe. He believed that his movement would lead to the conversion of the Jews who could then become a force in the defense of Europe against the Muslim onslaught. He reportedly died in a very anti-Jewish mood, seeing as how they did not exactly go along with his plan. Naziism is in many ways a secular version of Luther's apocalyptic vision. Although we should not directly blame Luther or Calvin for the horrors that they could not have envisioned.

Orthodox Christians from time to time have committed some terrible horrors.

Back to the "maltheist" question. When we acquire humility, the world looks different. When we forgive the wrongs done to us, the world looks different. A resentful person typically thinks that his opinions are superior, even unique. The world (and therefore its Creator) begins to look a lot better, and we begin to realize that we are not so smart afterall, when we are humble and when we forgive. You cannot blame a tribesman in Borneo if he believes in the dominance of malevolent spirits. You can blame someone raised in our society who has free access to our tradition and can actually compare opinions and beliefs when he complete rejects out of hand the long tradition of faith in a Good God. By the Way, neither Luther nor Calvin believed that God was in any way evil. They had simply lost the core teaching of Patristic Christianity which that the purpose of the Incarnation was not just to atone for our sins, but to make us partakers of the divine nature. They conveniently forget about those passages in Scripture. Or the come up with their own convoluted interpretations.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

The human body is subject to all kinds of debilitating illness. If God is described as a good creator then with his omniscience he should have been able to look ahead and to build a stronger pancreas so we don't have kids dying from juvenile diabetes. God is responsible for both the genetic weakness in the human body and for the disease.

As others have pointed out the major weakness of the above idea is that it pre-defines the beneficence of God in a fallen human sense mainly relating to compulsion. "If God had built a stronger pancreas then kids wouldn't die." The implication is that the good God would not only not have allowed death but that He would have used compulsion to force the issue.

God created us with free will & this is the most precious aspect of our being in the image & likeness of our Creator. But we misused this free will & so all of creation groans from sin & its fruit death. So would not the "good God" have not allowed death in the first place?

The problem with this idea is that it fails to see the connection between our sin and the death around & within us. In other words it fails to recognise how the misuse of our free will has led to cosmic death or the groaning of creation. And it fails to see how the scenario of a 'god' not allowing us to sin is a 'god' not allowing our free will and a 'god' not having created us in His image & likeness in the first place.

God's love is a mysterious gift of freedom which allows even death. And in connection with this it is interesting to think that the Fall is not just an event of the past- it is also an ongoing falleness caused directly by our sinning now. So right now at this very moment from a certain perspective God is allowing what is admittedly a cosmic violation of the most horrendous sort. That is...He allows us to sin and to affront His most precious gift which is Life.

The mystery of how God heals death is seen only through the mystery of the Cross & Resurrection. But here we recognise the part of the equation quite left out of the idea in the above quote: which is that we as the cause of sin & death are called to participate freely through Christ in the healing of death. So the alternative idea in a strange way leaves humanity completely out of the picture of participation in its own salvation. This alternative vision of 'salvation'- humanity chained to one will- is more like what the evil one has in mind for us.

Man has always been impatient at the presence of sin & death. In a way this is only natural. But paradoxically as we see in the Church the way in which we deal with sin is through a patience which is not an indifferent acceptance of sin but rather a love for others & growing in humble-mindedness. Outside of this there is a worldly kind of impatience about this that rapidly sinks especially in modern man's mind into final solutions that solve the problem of death - ironically & tragically- by dealing out more death.

In the Risen Christ
Fr Raphael

[Herman, monk]

I think I will begin, on the atheist board at beliefnet, by posting just this much:

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Re: post 31

Here's what you wrote:

The human body is subject to all kinds of debilitating illness. If God is described as a good creator then with his omniscience he should have been able to look ahead and to build a stronger pancreas so we don't have kids dying from juvenile diabetes. God is responsible for both the genetic weakness in the human body and for the disease.

This will be a first tentative attempt to criticize the argument, then to answer it.

I would paraphrase the argument thus: please let me know if this correctly expresses what you wrote.

"God is seen as a benevolent [omnipotent] and omniscient creator. Yet the human body is subject to all kinds of debilitating illness. Such a God should have been able to create a perfect world, free from [the limitations we now see in nature, including] illness and other kinds of suffering. God, therefore, must be held responsible for this suffering.

"The argument stops short of further asserting that God must therefore be evil."

Cast as a question, the argument seems to ask: If God is perfect (or perfection), why would he choose to create an imperfect world?

There is also implied a question about the freedom of God:

God alone, it is said, is perfect. If God creates something outside himself, it must therefore necessarily be }imperfect. Does this limit God's omnipotence? If God alone is perfect, if creation must necessarily be imperfect, does this necessarily call God's omnipotence into question?

Does this much correctly reflect your argument?

JJR MH

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Herman, monk wrote in reply to the question of of a 'maltheist':


Cast as a question, the argument seems to ask: If God is perfect (or perfection), why would he choose to create an imperfect world?

There is also implied a question about the freedom of God: God alone, it is said, is perfect. If God creates something outside himself, it must therefore necessarily be imperfect. Does this limit God's omnipotence? If God alone is perfect, if creation must necessarily be imperfect, does this necessarily call God's omnipotence into question? Does this much correctly reflect your argument?

I think this really gets to the heart of the matter which is whether we are going to believe that God is imperfect for having created something outside of Himself. Humanity is created with free will in the image & likeness of God while creation itself is created as something distinct & other than God. But seen through the maltheist's eyes either God's creation is imperfect simply because it is distinct & free or to put it the other way around- God's creation would have been perfect if it had never been created(!).

This last point I think is very important. Of course behind the 'maltheist' question is the human cry about why there is death & pain if there is One God Who created heaven & earth. But the explanation of the maltheist is based on a selfish perception of God in the first place, a selfishness that does not allow for the love of God nor in reality of the very creation itself. Connected to this it does not see that sin & death come not from God but from us and that for God to end this in the way the maltheist would like- well this is precisely a malevolent 'god' that is a projection of human frustration & not God.

There are theological & pastoral explanations of God's love and how this providentially works to heal creation of sin & death. But the actual way in which we begin to understand these things is by first acknowledging our fundamental role in causing death & then by responding positively to God's invitation to heal the world of sin & death.

In the Risen Christ
Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

There are only two explanations for a fallen world. Either God is fallen or man is fallen. Because we all experience the world as something less than what it is supposed to be, these are the only two explanations. There are consequences to each explanations. Modernity is predicated on the second belief, more specifically, if man had gotten there first, we would have created a much better world. Ask a "maltheist" this question: so you think you would have done a better job?

[Herman Blaydoe]

Isn't this just a warmed-over version of gnosticism which posits that "matter" is evil and the God of the Old Testament is different from the God described in the NT. The "old" God is, in their view "evil" for having created matter, and the "new" God is setting "matters" straight.

Herman who is not a monk

[Herman, monk]

Christ is risen

Here is my response to the addition by another poster

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re: post 55 by kjn

The creation of an omnipotent God must necessarily be as perfect as himself unless he chooses to make it otherwise. And if he chose to make a creation as imperfect as this one, he would have done better not to make it at all.

Besides, if he's perfect in himself, he obviously lacks nothing in himself. He wants nothing. So what would motivate him to create the world?

You have an argument here, followed by a question. I think I can treat the question as essentially a reiteration of your conclusion.

As to the argument, I would quibble with your premise, that a perfect and omnipotent God would necessarily create a world as perfect as himself. I see it like this: let’s suppose that God is perfect (or perfection) and that God is to create something other than himself. It seems to me that to create something other than himself he must create something that is other than perfect. Now, if he is all-good, something other than himself need not be evil, or completely opposite, but must at least have good and evil mixed. So with wisdom, reality and every other quality that God is said to have in the perfect degree.

But if God is perfect, lacking nothing; and impassible, wanting nothing; what would motivate him to create at all?

In answer I would say this. If God is perfect, then he has every perfection, including perfect reality. But we know that the reality of our world is defective since it includes illusion, delusion, error and so on. But I would assert that reality is such a compelling good that the experience of reality, however imperfect -- even though this imperfection includes suffering -- is good in itself. Further, if God is perfect in reality, then experience of reality, however imperfect, is experience of God himself. This suggests the conclusion that the purpose of God’s act of creation may be to give to beings other than himself a share in the all-perfection, the perfect reality, that is his own being.
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If anyone is interested in following this further you can find it at beliefnet.com. Look for the Atheist boards, then find the "Atheist debate" board and the "Larry King" thread.

JJR MH

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Herman, monk
You wrote:


I would quibble with your premise, that a perfect and omnipotent God would necessarily create a world as perfect as himself. I see it like this: let’s suppose that God is perfect (or perfection) and that God is to create something other than himself. It seems to me that to create something other than himself he must create something that is other than perfect. Now, if he is all-good, something other than himself need not be evil, or completely opposite, but must at least have good and evil mixed. So with wisdom, reality and every other quality that God is said to have in the perfect degree.
God is not defined by any of His characteristics (eg good, wise, infinite). When He is then these characteristics assume a priority over God and then define His nature. As others have pointed out in this forum this is perceiving God in a definitional fashion.

If we do this we fall into the problem in the above way of describing God; ie God is defined as good- so all that which is distinct from God (creation) is defined as not good. From here we would have to say that God's creation is evil by nature which of course is wrong. If you think about it if this is so then the maltheist has every justification for wondering about a 'god' who would create in this fashion. In defending the 'good god' all you would end up doing is saying that God has every right to create a creation with evil in it- because this is logical. The person with the failing pancreas which you referred to in your first post might well still complain about this.

I think that any answer you formulate needs to account for how God created- "and it was good' as Genesis says. This point that God created what was distinct from Himself is so very foundational to Orthodox theology "and it was good". It may be helpful to follow up on why or how this is so.

In the Risen Christ
Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Irenaeus of Lyons, Against heresies, book 4, chapters 38 and 39.

INXC, Matthew

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

From Against Heresies book 4 chapter 38


1. If, however, any one say, “What then? Could not God have exhibited man as perfect from beginning?” let him know that, inasmuch as God is indeed always the same and unbegotten as respects Himself, all things are possible to Him. But created things must be inferior to Him who created them, from the very fact of their later origin; for it was not possible for things recently created to have been uncreated. But inasmuch as they are not uncreated, for this very reason do they come short of the perfect. Because, as these things are of later date, so are they infantile; so are they unaccustomed to, and unexercised in, perfect discipline. For as it certainly is in the power of a mother to give strong food to her infant, [but she does not do so], as the child is not yet able to receive more substantial nourishment; so also it was possible for God Himself to have made man perfect from the first, but man could not receive this [perfection], being as yet an infant. And for this cause our Lord in these last times, when He had summed up all things into Himself, came to us, not as He might have come, but as we were capable of beholding Him. He might easily have come to us in His immortal glory, but in that case we could never have endured the greatness of the glory; and therefore it was that He, who was the perfect bread of the Father, offered Himself to us as milk, [because we were] as infants. He did this when He appeared as a man, that we, being nourished, as it were, from the breast of His flesh, and having, by such a course of milk nourishment, become accustomed to eat and drink the Word of God, may be able also to contain in ourselves the Bread of immortality, which is the Spirit of the Father.

4. Irrational, therefore, in every respect, are they who await not the time of increase, but ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature. Such persons know neither God nor themselves, being insatiable and ungrateful, unwilling to be at the outset what they have also been created—men subject to passions; but go beyond the law of the human race, and before that they become men, they wish to be even now like God their Creator, and they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals [insist] that there is no distinction between the uncreated God and man, a creature of to-day. For these, [the dumb animals], bring no charge against God for not having made them men; but each one, just as he has been created, gives thanks that he has been created. For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness. He declares, “I have said, Ye are gods; and ye are all sons of the Highest.”4419 But since we could not sustain the power of divinity, He adds, “But ye shall die like men,” setting forth both truths—the kindness of His free gift, and our weakness, and also that we were possessed of power over ourselves. For after His great kindness He graciously conferred good [upon us], and made men like to Himself, [that is] in their own power; while at the same time by His prescience He knew the infirmity of human beings, and the consequences which would flow from it; but through [His] love and [His] power, He shall overcome the substance of created nature.4420 For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God, having received the knowledge of good and evil.
Chap 39:

2. How, then, shall he be a God, who has not as yet been made a man? Or how can he be perfect who was but lately created? How, again, can he be immortal, who in his mortal nature 523 did not obey his Maker? For it must be that thou, at the outset, shouldest hold the rank of a man, and then afterwards partake of the glory of God. For thou dost not make God, but God thee. If, then, thou art God’s workmanship, await the hand of thy Maker which creates everything in due time; in due time as far as thou art concerned, whose creation is being carried out.4421 Offer to Him thy heart in a soft and tractable state, and preserve the form in which the Creator has fashioned thee, having moisture in thyself, lest, by becoming hardened, thou lose the impressions of His fingers. But by preserving the framework thou shalt ascend to that which is perfect, for the moist clay which is in thee is hidden [there] by the workmanship of God. His hand fashioned thy substance; He will cover thee over [too] within and without with pure gold and silver, and He will adorn thee to such a degree, that even “the King Himself shall have pleasure in thy beauty.”4422 But if thou, being obstinately hardened, dost reject the operation of His skill, and show thyself ungrateful towards Him, because thou wert created a [mere] man, by becoming thus ungrateful to God, thou hast at once lost both His workmanship and life. For creation is an attribute of the goodness of God but to be created is that of human nature. If then, thou shalt deliver up to Him what is thine, that is, faith towards Him and subjection, thou shalt receive His handiwork, and shall be a perfect work of God.

3. If, however, thou wilt not believe in Him, and wilt flee from His hands, the cause of imperfection shall be in thee who didst not obey, but not in Him who called [thee]. For He commissioned [messengers] to call people to the marriage, but they who did not obey Him deprived themselves of the royal supper.4423 The skill of God, therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to Abraham;4424 but the man who does not obtain it is the cause to himself of his own imperfection. Nor, [in like manner], does the light fail because of those who have blinded themselves; but while it remains the same as ever, those who are [thus] blinded are involved in darkness through their own fault. The light does never enslave any one by necessity; nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, therefore, who have apostatized from the light given by the Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves.

In the Risen Christ- Fr Raphael

[Elias Young]

I cannot subscribe to the modern theory somewhat advocated here that moral and cultural relativism make false teachings a little more palatable and even legitimate.

The notion that Calvin & Luther cannot be blamed for their erroneous ideas because they had little-to-no idea how bad things could get (because they perhaps lacked the 20/20 hindsight afforded to modern historians)...well, seems a little myopic.

Calvin didn't know that his ideas about executing non-believers was wrong? Luther didn't recognize that he had unleashed the spirit of anarchy and radical individualism on Europe, the same anarchy which would break out again even more virulently some 500 years later?

"Orthodox Christians & terrible horrors"...may the two never be mentioned in the same breath. It may be helpful in this instance to make a clear distinction between how one lives out one's life and what is the belief which makes one a certain type of Christian...or Bornean savage. Both Luther and Calvin's doctrines determined their behaviors in a given historical context. As was the seed so becomes the tree.

It could probably be said that any acts of terror committed by certain Orthodox would have been committed despite their rigorous belief system. In this case, the aberration is in the nature of the person (or people) committing said acts rather than in any erroneous beliefs to which they may have held. This it seems may be closer to the Orthodox position re: Calvin & Luther's indiscretions. And those terrors perpetrated by beastly Orthodox.

elias

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OwenJones wrote:
John Calvin preached the total depravity of man. Marxism is a secularised form of Calvinism.

Luther had an apocalyptic view of his contemporary times. He believed that Muslims were on the verge of destroying Christian Europe (they were) and that the Pope was singularly responsible for the Church's lack of a forceful (military) defense of Europe. He believed that his movement would lead to the conversion of the Jews who could then become a force in the defense of Europe against the Muslim onslaught. He reportedly died in a very anti-Jewish mood, seeing as how they did not exactly go along with his plan. Naziism is in many ways a secular version of Luther's apocalyptic vision. Although we should not directly blame Luther or Calvin for the horrors that they could not have envisioned.

Orthodox Christians from time to time have committed some terrible horrors.

....You cannot blame a tribesman in Borneo if he believes in the dominance of malevolent spirits. You can blame someone raised in our society who has free access to our tradition and can actually compare opinions and beliefs when he complete rejects out of hand the long tradition of faith in a Good God. By the Way, neither Luther nor Calvin believed that God was in any way evil. They had simply lost the core teaching of Patristic Christianity which that the purpose of the Incarnation was not just to atone for our sins, but to make us partakers of the divine nature. They conveniently forget about those passages in Scripture. Or the come up with their own convoluted interpretations.

[Owen Jones]

We shouldn't blame Christ (although many if not most people in formerly Christian countries do) for all the sins committed in his name. So I do not wish to totally demonize Calvin and Luther because later people took some of their extreme ideas and made them more extreme. BTW, anyone know why St. Maximos is called the Confessor?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

St. Maximos is called Confessor because of the suffering he endured in his defence of Orthodoxy against Monothelitism. About this the Prologue says,


Maximos' sufferings for Orthodoxy cannot be described: tortured by hierarchs, spat upon by the mass of the people, beaten by soldiers, persecuted, imprisoned; until finally, with his tongue cut out and one hand cut off, he was condemned to exile for life in Skhimaris, where he gave his soul into God's hands in the year 662.

In the Risen Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

It has been written above:


"Orthodox Christians & terrible horrors"...may the two never be mentioned in the same breath. It may be helpful in this instance to make a clear distinction between how one lives out one's life and what is the belief which makes one a certain type of Christian...or Bornean savage.

The fear of admitting one's past is deadly. It lies at the very root of the need of asceticism on the personal level -- our sins are to be dealt with, not swept away. Only if we approach the sins of others through and after our own sins, do we approach them rightly (and it is right to approach them; Christ does in fact say to help one's brother with the speck in his eye -- but this must be done after the log is removed from one's own).

INXC, Matthew

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear friends,

There is quite a lot going on in this thread, which makes for tremendously interesting reading. If I could perhaps pick up on one comment from the 'great and multiple host' above:


God alone, it is said, is perfect. If God creates something outside himself, it must therefore necessarily be imperfect. Does this limit God's omnipotence? If God alone is perfect, if creation must necessarily be imperfect, does this necessarily call God's omnipotence into question?

There is revealed in the very structure of this question certain presuppositions about creation, perfection, imperfection and divine power that are perhaps more fundamental to the Christian understanding of God and the cosmos than the question itself. Many people are used to framing such challenges, and hearing them framed, precisely because categories of 'perfect' and 'imperfect' are accepted in a rather static reading -- one which, it might be worth noting, stands at great odds with much of the scientific concepts prevalent today, not less an authentic Christian vision.

What does it mean to speak of a 'perfect' creation? Or, more specifically, a 'perfect' human person? Challenges against God's 'power' often begin from this premiss, that God has created an 'imperfect' world; but this statement can't be interpreted without some picture of the 'perfect' world one feels God has failed to manifest.

What is a perfect human person? We can articulate a response that is primarily categorical -- free from disease or deformity, capable and strong, intellectually free and able -- but such a response is highly secularised, inasmuch as we're speaking primarily of biological and abstractedly intellectual 'fitness'. Yet surely the Christian understanding of humanity's perfection must rest cardinally in the vision of union with God. The 'perfect man' is he whose full humanness is fully in communion with God's divinity, living as human a life of communion with God. To define human perfection in such a way, however, in fact eliminates the possibility of the kind of static categories that we tend to favour when thinking of 'perfection'. The being of God with which humanity is joined is infinitely beyond that which we are. A perfect communion with God's being is always a dynamic reality; perfect humanity is a humanity that is always being transfigured and transformed.

Christian visions of perfection have, then, at their very core to be dynamic and developmental. We are growing, changing, becoming the sons and daughters of God. Such growth is fraught with challenges (just as is the case, as a parallel, with the growth of a human child in the normal course towards physical adulthood), but such challenges are part-and-parcel with an understanding of perfection that is necessarily dynamic, as God is dynamic. If humanity truly is the 'image and likeness' of a God whose nature is Trinitarian relation, among whose chief gifts to the creature is intellectual reason and freedom, then 'being perfect' requires the constant challenge of bringing one's will and intellect into conformity with the will of God, such that we might be joined into a relationship that is united to him.

This kind of perfection will not allow for the kind of making static of experience and action that is so common in discussions on creation and perfection. God's power is exemplified in the fact that he did fashion a creation capable of change and mutation (which must always mean the capability for negative, as well as positive change), for it is only in this context that perfection through growth is possible. Else God merely makes some manner of perfect diorama, a set stage piece that has only the appearances of perfection. Yet God is Trinity, eternally in dynamic relation, a God whose 'image', humanity, must similarly be dynamic if it is to have any iconic connection to its source (which is what 'image' demands).

INXC, Matthew

[Vasilis Kirikos]

> Re: " The fear of admitting one's past is deadly." It was only after I confessed my sins in a private prayer while in church during the Liturgy one Sunday that I received "the peace that passeth all understanding". Let me explain. One Sunday about 25 years ago I felt as low as a person can get. My wife had been in the hospital for over 9 months due to a brain abscess and nephritic (kidney) Lupus. The medication for her Lupus caused a yeast infection which caused a brain abscess. The horrible medication for the yeast infection (made her sicker than any cancer medication I have ever seen) shut down what little was left of her kidneys previously destroyed by the Lupus. And so she ended up on dialysis (kidney machine) 3 times per week. On top of that we owed a lot of money in doctor bills. So I prayed..."Lord Jesus Christ, you said come unto me all ye that travel and are heavily laden; well, I'm here to collect on that promise". No sooner had I said that prayer to myself (after previously confessing my sins in a private prayer to the Lord) than a force-field came out of the Icon of Christ in Iconostas and hit me. It was most certainly a physical experience. And I could sense a sort of velocity from the Icon of Christ to me...like a wind traversing the distance from the Icon to me so I think I could have measured it in time. It's hard to explain. But the result of that energy/power hitting me was so incredible. It was as though this dirt that was covering me was suddenly wiped clean...all the foreboding and worry was GONE!! I was left relaxed and smiling. It was incredible. I don't know what a heroin or cocaine high is like but I will bet that it is NOTHING like the feeling I got from His touch. Lord Jesus THANK YOU! I have to confess that unfortunately after the service we all went down to the church hall for coffee and the priest came up to me (very unusual for him) and put his hand on my arm and was intently looking at me and said "what has happened to you? you have changed. What has happened to you?" And indeed I had changed. I was glowing and smiling from ear to ear. I felt so wonderful. But rather than tell him what the Lord had done for me I gave him some sort of smart answer AND IMMEDIATELY THE WONDERFUL FEELING OF "PEACE THAT PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING" LEFT ME! I have prayed and asked for forgiveness for not confessing Him when asked by the priest, and to receive that experience once again. I may have received it again once or twice but not with the intensity I received that first time. WHY? WHY didn't I tell the priest what happened? I told him later what happened in Church that Sunday; and his reaction to me; but he said that he didn't remember the incident. What must I do to achieve that peace again?? Anyone????? Vasilis

[Clint Sharpley]

I think the moderator has hit on something here with the topic of presuppositions. I would recommend the area studied by van Till, Presuppositionalism, for a more detailed exposition. Let's just summarize for the moment that people conclude what they presuppose.

But the man has not with his Perfect World thesis, he has not denied but rather become a God, a God who demands a world that meets his standards yet is incapable of creating such a world. I also doubt he is incapable of dealing with the number one flaw of trying to create such a nearly infinitely complex world with such a simplistic standard: unintended consequences.

Does his perfect world rule out death? Then what happens as the world becomes infinitely overcrowded, people become eternally lonely? Will he erase space and time, as well as human emotion to keep such things from happening? What will be the unintended consequences of that?

Why doesn't he begin with this very basic fact: he makes this world less perfect by being in it. The real God could easily make the world more perfect by eliminating him, at least. Wouldn't that at least be a start toward a more perfect world? For God to simply obliterate this imperfect fellow, isn't that a first step in the direction he rquires that he should certainly approve? Does he espouse that as the obvious road to perfection or is he now willing to let God allow a little imperfection and Theistically intended consequences after all?

Athanasios

[Efthymios]

Dear Clint,

Getting ready for Liturgy?
-------------------------

Ever read: (?)

THE RIVER OF FIRE
by
ALEXANDRE KALOMIROS

A reply to the questions: (1) Is God really good? (2) Did God create hell?

[Link] (http://www.stnectariospress.com/parish/river_of_fire.htm)

(Message edited by admin on 19 February, 2006)

[Clint Sharpley]

Dear Efthymios,

Thank you for the link to the River of Fire. For one thing it does what every good piece of apologetics does, I believe.

It does not begin by asserting presuppositions the other person has already denied. It begins by attacking the other person's presuppositions and showing them to lead to an untenable world for the other person. Then and only then can it lead to the new and desirable presuppositon of the theologian.

So to go back to our example of the man who asserts that God is perfect yet evil, you can see that it is pointless to begin with him at the point that God is good. He rejects that truth outright. You must begin with what he presupposes and take him through his own beliefs to a point where he does not want to admit he already is: nihilism. You must show that it creates a change for him he does not want. After all, he does not want to change at all. He wants God to change for him (so he doesn't have to).

So you might proceed thusly:

God is perfect. He is capable of having and maintaining a perfect world (or any other world... what kind of world it is only he is capable of judging, we aren't, since only a perfect one could judge whether somethig attains perfection... but we will let that go for now.)

Obviously this man would admit he is an imperfect member of this world. On the way to perfecting the world, such a God's first step could be to destroy this man and everyone like him, as they obvivously contribute to the imperfection of the world.

Conclusion: Problem solved through holocaust. A perfect God in a perfect world. Just what the man asked for. (Of course, all the imperfect people will have been destroyed in a complete holocaust. But he did ask for that as well, didn't he? Eliminated people can't suffer or die. Perfect.)

But being imperfect yet wanting to survive in a perfect world, he might want perfection in an imperfect way. Not only is that illogical it is unworkable.

I mean you can't just take away mortality from the current people. That means the criminals and lonely would live forever just like the good, so you would have to alter human emotions to where the word we have known as human would truly be unrecognizable as a term. Then without mortality, the earth's resources would be destroyed at a rate that, while currently worrisome, would then require altering of current views of space and time to dimensions unrecognizable and consequences unknowable. It is clear that his solution is either unknowable in its implications for what used to be humanity and earth or is complete holocaust.

The only problem is that the man cannot survive the conclusions of his own presuppositions. The cleanest solution, he must admit, to his perfect world theory, is that God lives in it and he does not.

But that is not really the outcome he wanted to a presupposition he wanted, is it?
If he objects, just keep taking him back through his own argument. Refuse to go to yours until he can see that his has collapsed on himself.

Now and only now is he ready to listen to yours.

That is apologetics through the use of presuppositionalism. Mine is clumsy and brief.
Kalomiros was detailed and glorious.

But I hope my little word furthers the discussion a bit. For as one who has suffered the setbacks of Multiple Sclerosis, I have spent the last six years since diagnosis studying the problem of evil from a theological basis. But in that time I have found (even in myself) you must treat the fury of angry men before you can talk to them about having been "scarred for good."

You must tear down the wall of the false before you can ever erect the edifice of truth. To build on the old edifice is to achieve false conversion through the erection of heresy.
Sometimes knowing their very presuppositions are at stake will make hardened men angrier. Sometimes it will break their heart and bring them to the truth. What a privilege it is to be there, a humble instrument of the love of God, in either case.

Athanasios

[M.C. Steenberg]

It seems to me better simply to acknowledge, as did Irenaeus, that God cannot create a perfect world.

Then, while reeling about how awful that sounds, to sort out that we don't have a proper theological understanding of perfection.

INXC, Matthew

[Alec Lowly]

The moderator writes:

"It seems to me better simply to acknowledge, as did Irenaeus, that God cannot create a perfect world./ Then, while reeling about how awful that sounds, to sort out that we don't have a proper theological understanding of perfection."

Yes, that's it. I'll leave the theology to others, but philosophically, this is the same problem as asking whether God can square a circle. This is all about definitions. If we define perfection as that quality about something that makes it what it is, the absence of which would make it something other than what it is, then the imperfection of the world is, well, its perfection.

Please note that a discussion of "essence" is another discussion entirely.

In XC,
Alec Lowly, sinner

[Clint Sharpley]

I am sorry to have to reply. I had hoped not to. But I cannot leave a heretical view unanswered. You cannot solve the problem of evil as some of the Protestants have done now by what they call Open Theology, which is a euphemistic term for the denial of the historic affirmation of His omniscience. Open theology says God does not know the future but once man chooses God is ready to react. Of course no one who wrote Scripture ever taught that. They are just making stuff up about God, like all heretics, trying to get God off a hook when He has not asked for any help that denies His true character.

Nor can you hope to do a similar thing in the obliteration of His omnipotence, as you do here. For one thing, it will not impress the man who despises the powerful yet "evil" God to try to claim He is to be declared not guilty by virtue of impotence. For another thing you have taken an indefensible position Biblically and thologically.

You said you would leave the theology to someone else but it is the sort of theology you cannot leave to someone else.

You must renounce the heresy that robs God of His Sovereignty. Be consciously irrelevant to the demands of the culture as was Tertullian rather than to sacrifice the characteristics of Holy God. This is not some cute mental game, such as asking whether if God can do anything can He sin or contradict Himself or some such nonsense. (By the way I think there actually is a mathematical procedure by which to square a circle.)

This denial of His ability to create whatever He chooses for a world, (in fact His ability to wipe out this one and start over according to the offer He made Moses) is a direct attack on one of the central attributes of the Godhead, that He is ALL mighty. And the measure of heresy has never been how many feel comforted by the sound of it.

As I say, I would prefer to be able to ignore this turn the conversation has taken, but I would be false to my Christian name (Athanasios)to let such an urgent matter be ignored.

Go and read Job chapters 12-14. See if he denies the Sovereignty of God to explain his suffering, the "imperfections" of his condition. And know that those who despise God will have no idea what he was talking about, even if you throw our God overboard even to try to make Him look better to a world that will still despise Him.

It is far better to stand firm in the pain and in the faith, affirming the greatness and power of our God.

Otherwise you must be asked the same question Job asks. "Would not His splendour terrify you? Would not the dread of Him fall on you? Your maxixms are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay." Job 13:11-12.

For the Defence of His Holy Name,
Athanasios

[M.C. Steenberg]

My, that was a strong response. Much of it was directed towards Alec; but since he was largely quoting me (from my previous post, in which I wrote 'It seems to me better simply to acknowledge, as did Irenaeus, that God cannot create a perfect world. / Then, while reeling about how awful that sounds, to sort out that we don't have a proper theological understanding of perfection'), I'll happily respond.

My original comment was intended to show in everyday usage we don't have (or at least do not employ) a proper theological conception of various terms - the one I mentioned there was 'perfection', as in 'could God create a perfect world?'. The fact that various fathers of the Church unabashedly answered this 'no', means that the energetic charge of heresy thrown at that same response today reveals a difference in understanding the concepts. The same is just as true of other terms (e.g. omnipotence, sovereignty and so on). The response my comments issued makes it even clearer that this is so.

One has to be very, very careful to register how the fathers deal with concepts before reacting to them in modern counterparts (a warning that's been on topic recently in another thread, regarding Christological language).

In general patristic thought, it is entirely acceptable to say that God could not create a 'perfect' world, and this is done so explicitly at (as mentioned earlier in this thread), Irenaeus' Refutation 4.38-39.

In patristic thought, it is in fact perfectly reasonable, and in fact necessary, to enumerate a host of things God cannot due. God cannot change - it is not that he chooses not to, but he cannot. God cannot not be God. God cannot act against his own will. These are not things God takes upon himself not to do, but things he cannot do. Patristic theology is filled with discussion on such matters. It is a peculiarly modern idea of 'perfection' that leads to the concept of there being no impossibility whatever -- which has led to all sorts of puzzling theological concepts, e.g. 'kenotic theology' that allows God to give up aspects of his divinity, or 'process theology' that allows God's passibility, etc.


You cannot solve the problem of evil as some of the Protestants have done now by what they call Open Theology, which is a euphemistic term for the denial of the historic affirmation of His omniscience. Open theology says God does not know the future but once man chooses God is ready to react. Of course no one who wrote Scripture ever taught that.

A fair-enough criticism of one aspect of 'open theology'; but it must always be remembered that omniscience is not the same thing as predestination. Human freedom, if it is real freedom, means that God's acts towards it are responses; if not, the 'freedom' is but a show. The patristic reading of scripture never allows denial of God's omniscience, but also draws attention to the fact that Abraham pleads long enough to, in the words of the Septuagint, cause God to 'repent' / 'change his mind' (metanoia) about his intentions towards Sodom; Jonas prays from the whale 'til God changed his mind' (again metanoia), etc.


You must renounce the heresy that robs God of His Sovereignty.

God's sovereignty does not rest in a modern concept of simply limitless impossibilities (i.e. infinite potency) coupled with absolute ordination of all affairs of history. It is perhaps worthy of note that in Orthodox iconography, the icon of 'Christ the all-mighty' (Pantocrator), often scene in large form at the top of the highest dome in a temple, does not have his 'all-mightiness' expressed through a depiction of power in this sense, but through his stature as priest delivering a blessing -- his right hand held in the sign of his own name, a sign that is intimately connected to the offering of the cross. The sovereignty of God is, in a patristic understanding, more to be associated with the sacrifice of love that eternally epitomises God's character, than it is with any concept of authority.

Put more succinctly, God's sovereignty is a matter of his relation to his creation, not a matter of his personal authority or capability.

It does not challenge God's sovereignty to claim, as Irenaeus did, that God could not create man perfect from the first. It is precisely what grounds the deep confession of that sovereignty.

INXC, Matthew

[Alec Lowly]

Athanasios writes:


"You must renounce the heresy that robs God of His Sovereignty. Be consciously irrelevant to the demands of the culture as was Tertullian rather than to sacrifice the characteristics of Holy God. This is not some cute mental game, such as asking whether if God can do anything can He sin or contradict Himself or some such nonsense. (By the way I think there actually is a mathematical procedure by which to square a circle.)"

Dear brother, I do renounce and condemn the heresy that God is anything other than supremely and absolutely sovereign. I do not profess this heresy. That is not what I wrote. Permit me to suggest that you re-read that post of mine and think it through again. Permit me also to point out that it is not for any man to say what God must do or must not do in any situation. God is beyond "ananke," necessity.


"This denial of His ability to create whatever He chooses for a world, (in fact His ability to wipe out this one and start over according to the offer He made Moses) is a direct attack on one of the central attributes of the Godhead, that He is ALL mighty. And the measure of heresy has never been how many feel comforted by the sound of it."

I categorically deny that I in any way denied God's sovereign power "to create whatever He chooses." I did not say that.


" ... you must be asked the same question Job asks. "Would not His splendour terrify you? Would not the dread of Him fall on you? Your maxixms are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay." Job 13:11-12."

Amen and amen.

Athanasios, I admire and am grateful for your staunch devotion to the truth of our holy faith. I am always willing to be corrected when I am in error, thanks to God's grace and not to my humility, which the Lord knows is much deficient. But I am not standing in the error that you rightly decry.

In XC,
Alec Lowly, sinner

[Clint Sharpley]

Dear Brother Alec,

Thank you for your heartfelt and orthodox response.

The problem (and I must be brief)that I see in Matthews approach is threefold.

1. He misses the entire point of this stream which is to approach an unbeliever. That person, as I have tried to state repeatedly willl not be impressed with a God or a creation that has been reduced to his size to eliminate the problem of evil.(Matthew either had a hard time following my argument or simply listening to it because the one time I mentioned a similar but diffrerent heresy currently raging involving Protestants he ran to the word Predestination, wich had nothing to do with anything. Predestination refers to a possible use of God's power not the source of it.)

2. Our friend Matthew does not treat the Scriptures on their own merit. He says that basically the Psalms are overwhelmingly a tool for persoanly piety. This reduces a Psalm which begins talking about rulers and judges as well as its sister Psalm which starts out talking about David hiding from Saul in the cave to mere personal piety? In fact try reading almost any of Davids Psalms from that perspective, especially those such as Psalm 7. You would conclude with the Soviets, not that the Russian church was true martyrs for the faith but that we were paranoid in need of psychological "readjusment" best accomplished in camps. This is the atmosphere the tyrants delight in, especially the one responsible for the King James Version. (See my notes there, where the word tyrant appears over 400 times in the Geneva bible translation, the adequate and popular uage translation of its time, but not once in the KJV which replace it by the force of law.) But we are not called to be irrelevant personal reflectors (we leave that to the Bhuddist monks) but to be like David. The orthodox are called to be Martyrs. (Fr. Clark Carlton)

3. Finally He keeps saying this imperfect world stuff, which as I say will not impress the lost sheep (only the almighty shepherd will) and to back it up he keeps saying "the fathers" "the fathers". But repeatedly he has only one sentence from one father. Well I have one sentence said several times from Our Father who looked at this world He had made and said not only was it Tov Good but that it was Tov Meod Good Exceedingly. Probably that was as high a term as Moses could quote Him in describing the creation, considering he could not wait around long enough for a gnostic influence for a word like perfect.

SO I would try to be real careful not to tell God He cannot do something He has done or is about to do, even when it is motivated by protecting His reputation and deep love for Him. Peter found that out and got called worse than a heretic. He got called the Slanderer Satana and told to stand back.

I would simply suggest that before we ignore the Scriptures and try to tell an unimpressed world that God is less than HE is so that maybe they will like Him better, many of us who would never mean anything but love for Him should carefully consider taking a step back.
Again I appreciate your devotion to the Saviour and wish you well on your journey,Alec.
I would suggest you might read what we did to that creation by reading Athanasios' On The Incarnation of the Word. In fact that is his starting point in talking about the Christ is the Creation.

He was called Athanasios the Great. That is just one way you can tell us apart.

Athanasios.

[Tim Grass]

Clint... you've totally convinced me. I think we should find out who this Matthew is and billy-whip him senseless. He's clearly not nearly as smart as you.

--tim

[M.C. Steenberg]

The 'problem of evil' consumed the early centuries of the Church. One of the first great heretical controversies was over precisely it: how to account for the presence, reality and pervasiveness of evil and suffering, whilst still confessing God to be both all-powerful and all-loving. One posited solution was the stance of the so-called 'Gnostics', who put forward a duality between the spiritual and the physical, relegating the latter to a lower, base realm fashioned by a lower, base being. A much older philosophical answer was to hold God captive to the forces of nature. Another was to deny the evil was real. Yet another to separate the 'God of evil' from the 'God of good'. A most radical would be to deny God - which has happened often enough in history.

The response of the Church, over time, was to assert a confession that denied all of these, but refused to fall into the trap of positing an equally 'simple' solution of its own, based in black-and-white conceptions of evil, good, or God. The Church knows why she does such things: simple answers in comfortable categories may satisfy for a moment, but unless a response engages with the full reality and mystery of God, and the authentic complexity of the cosmos and human experience, the comfort it offers will be short-lived. It is not a peculiarly modern phenomenon to want simple answers in static terms (it has been a tendency always), but it is surely pandemic in the present day.

The argument that has been made in this thread, is that such claims as 'God did not create a perfect world' (which I offered above), '[miss] the entire point of this stream which is to approach an unbeliever'. More fully:


That person, as I have tried to state repeatedly will not be impressed with a God or a creation that has been reduced to his size to eliminate the problem of evil. [...] [it] will not impress the lost sheep

I do not think anyone here was suggesting that this be the only thing said to one who does not believe, or to one struggling to believe. (There is a continuous problem - and this I do think is more particularly a phenomenon of the modern day, as it is less frequent in the past - with the desire to simplify all pastoral guidance out to single statements or approaches. One addresses pastoral need personally, with the response to the needs of the person, not some universal formula.) But one must ask the question of how and with what one wishes to 'impress' such an unbeliever. Answering the problem of evil with simply an assertion that God's sovereignty means unlimited possibility, unbound, unrestricted act, is a comfortable answer for a moment. Perhaps. It is a tragically un-pastoral answer at a deeper level. The Church knows it is un-pastoral, first and foremost because it is not accurate, not complete and full. The Truth of God is what heals, comforts and redeems.

The original content of my remarks, which seems to have been ignored, was that coming to a patristic understanding of the terms and categories of theological discussion is important; that terms such as 'evil' or 'perfect' or 'sovereign' cannot and emphatically should not be reacted to with their modern definitions. What does 'perfect' mean? And 'imperfect'? Before announcing that another person is heretical for using such terms, it is a good idea to attempt an understanding of what they mean.

'Perfection' as a theological term has to do with ends, teloi, or fulfilment and fullness. In theological terms, God can create a perfect rock, but not a perfect man: humans grow and change over time; they are not at their beginning what they are called to be at their telos, end, 'perfection'. 'Imperfection' is not a moral qualifier, or a statement on the authority and power of the one who creates, but chiefly a statement on a growing creature's need to grow, to move from 'not-being-at-one's-end' (ateleiotes, imperfection) to 'being-at-one's-end' (teleiotes, perfection). To confess that humans are created 'imperfect' is not to admit flaw; it is precisely to proclaim that their creation is into growth that raises up to something yet better. It is a phenomenon of English, and particularly English in the modern day, that insists 'imperfect' must needs imply defect and deficiency. It is certainly not a patristic, nor a scriptural usage. Thus the response to the rather unfortunately mockingly-phrased comment:


He keeps saying this imperfect world stuff, which as I say will not impress the lost sheep (only the almighty shepherd will) and to back it up he keeps saying "the fathers" "the fathers". But repeatedly he has only one sentence from one father. Well I have one sentence said several times from Our Father who looked at this world He had made and said not only was it Tov Good but that it was Tov Meod Good Exceedingly. Probably that was as high a term as Moses could quote Him in describing the creation, considering he could not wait around long enough for a gnostic influence for a word like perfect.

Firstly, proof-texting rarely assists. This is essential, foundational patristic thought. If you are genuinely interesting in further reading on these matters, read Irenaeus of Lyons, Refutation 4.38-39, and the whole of his Epideixis; Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2-3; Tertullian of Carthage, On Patience; Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua; etc.

Secondly, the reference to the words of God during the hymn of creation, 'Behold he looked and saw that it was good, even very good...', is a wonderful case-in-point. It is your reading, apparently, that 'good' equates to a static condition of non-increasable qualities, thus what you are calling 'perfection'. Of course, there is nothing in the scripture itself which says this. Scripture says that it was good; but that goodness involved and implied change and development into higher things. Adam blesses creation by naming the animals, etc. More potently, there is the very fact that he and Eve are forbidden access to the Tree of Knowledge (a fact much discussed in this Community over past years). On this fact, Theophilus writes:


The tree of knowledge itself was good, and its fruit was good. For it was not the tree, as some think, but the disobedience, which had death in it. For there was nothing else in the fruit than only knowledge;. but knowledge is good when one uses it discreetly. But Adam, being yet an infant in age, was on this account as yet unable to receive knowledge worthily. For now, also, when a child is born it is not at once able to eat bread, but is nourished first with milk, and then, with the increment of years, it advances to solid food. Thus, too, would it have been with Adam; for not as one who grudged him, as some suppose, did God command him not to eat of knowledge.
The good creature, man, shall advance and grow in years, shall come to point when he shall eat of the tree. The goodness of creation increases in perfection as it matures in the freedom of the created image.

This brings me back to a comment from earlier in the same post, which I quoted briefly above, but now more fully:


He misses the entire point of this stream which is to approach an unbeliever. That person, as I have tried to state repeatedly willl not be impressed with a God or a creation that has been reduced to his size to eliminate the problem of evil.(Matthew either had a hard time following my argument or simply listening to it because the one time I mentioned a similar but diffrerent heresy currently raging involving Protestants he ran to the word Predestination, wich had nothing to do with anything. Predestination refers to a possible use of God's power not the source of it.)

The point that needs to be emphasised here is that attempts at pastoral communication to unbelievers, or struggling believers, that are not grounded in the authentic reality of God and man are not ultimately pastoral. We do not open a heart to the reality of God by altering that reality to make it more comfortable to the heart.

The Orthodox understanding of creation and evil is not simply a static system of 'perfection' interrupted. The main problem with such a concept (which has been a recurring 'traumatic theme' in various sorts of Christianity throughout history) is that ultimately it defeats the very desire to confess God as 'sovereign': a 'perfection' of the type implied ought also to imply the ability to prevent and compensate its disruption. Responsibility for the reality of sin and evil are ultimately thrust back towards God, if his sovereignty is believed to reside in a kind of unlimited, unthwarted irreducibility of static perfection. This is precisely what fuelled both Marcion and the 'gnostics' in the early centuries. And it is exactly why the Church responded with 'you do not know what perfection means, or power, or sovereignty'. The same advice still applies.

I agree whole-heartedly that an unbeliever will not be moved by a God ‘recuded to his size'; but the true 'reduction in size' of God does not come through this confession's address of creation and the matter of evil, it comes in answering the mystery of divine and cosmic reality with finite, limited concepts that are more comfortable to modern perceptions of power and sovereignty.

(As to the rather aggressive quip on my comments earlier re: predestination , I can only suggest reading them again. My point was precisely to show that you cannot speak of the concepts raised while considering that predestination has 'nothing to do with anything' - it is a logical consequence of the response to Open Theology that was being presented.]

Finally, and I am almost loathe to do this, it seems only proper to respond to the final offering of the post:


Our friend Matthew does not treat the Scriptures on their own merit. He says that basically the Psalms are overwhelmingly a tool for persoanly piety. This reduces a Psalm which begins talking about rulers and judges as well as its sister Psalm which starts out talking about David hiding from Saul in the cave to mere personal piety? In fact try reading almost any of Davids Psalms from that perspective, especially those such as Psalm 7. You would conclude with the Soviets, not that the Russian church was true martyrs for the faith but that we were paranoid in need of psychological "readjusment" best accomplished in camps. This is the atmosphere the tyrants delight in, especially the one responsible for the King James Version. (See my notes there, where the word tyrant appears over 400 times in the Geneva bible translation, the adequate and popular uage translation of its time, but not once in the KJV which replace it by the force of law.) But we are not called to be irrelevant personal reflectors (we leave that to the Bhuddist monks) but to be like David. The orthodox are called to be Martyrs. (Fr. Clark Carlton)

For those curious where on earth this rather scathing comment is coming from, it is an unstated reference to the conversation in Divine Vengeance thread, where the phrase from the psalms, [I]The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked, has been being discussed over the past year. As part of that conversation, I noted:


It is also worth remembering how many of the fathers speak of the spiritual nature of such psalms as these: i.e. that while there may be explanations and understandings on a 'practical' level of human-to-human interactions, in most cases the psalms should first and foremost be applied inwardly, to the battle of the heart against its own passions and demons. That in mind, the question of defeat of enemies, of righteous anger, takes a different turn.

This is part of how the Church reads the scriptures. There seems little point in debating the matter if it is simply rejected under one's own premises.

INXC, Matthew

[Kusanagi]

What people tend to forget is that man was reponsible for all these bad things happening to us because of us turning away from God.
i think that if you were to look after a person who is mentally handicapped and care and pray for them i am sure both will be saved, cause of self sacrifice as you are laying down your life for another.

St John Maximovitch of Shanghai and St Basil of Ostrog healed mentally handicapped people and St Naum of Orhrid.
Even some people with mental problems will be saved as in the life of St Arsenios of Cappadocia who turned a woman into a simple child to save her.

next time qoute this from St Anthony to them:

'Sight itself carries the conviction of these things. But as you prefer to lean upon demonstrative arguments, and as you, having this art, wish us also not to worship God, until after such proof, do you tell first how things in general and specially the recognition of God are accurately known. Is it through demonstrative argument or the working of faith? And which is better, faith which comes through the in working (of God) or demonstration by arguments?' And when they answered that faith which comes through the in working was better and was accurate knowledge, Antony said, 'You have answered well, for faith arises from disposition of soul, but dialectic from the skill of its inventors. Wherefore to those who have the in working through faith, demonstrative argument is needless, or even superfluous. For what we know through faith this you attempt to prove through words, and often you are not even able to express what we understand. So the in working through faith is better and stronger than your professional arguments.