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From: amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Good and Evil (partPart 3)
Message-ID: <493@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Jan-84 10:36:03 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.493
Posted: Fri Jan 13 10:36:03 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Jan-84 03:33:05 EST
References: <463@ihuxq.UUCP>, <6405@watrose.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 90

David Hawley says:
>>	You were somewhat off the mark when you described Satan's
>>	temptations as a short-cut. Since Christ did what his
>>	Father told him, and also since Christ's reason for coming
>>	to the earth encompassed his sacrificial death (dare I say
>>	the primary reason), the short-cut was a dead end.
>>
>>	"Why experience doubt or pain or humiliation? Take an easy
>>	way out.  The human race will be the only loser".
>>
>>	Hardly a hands off policy to advise a few stages of radical
>>	surgery (crucifixion, tribulation, rapture, etc ) {not
>>	necessarily in that order} rather than essentially
>>	self-serving bandaid-over-the-decapitation approach Satan
>>	temmpted Jesus with. 

I think that you have misread what I wrote.  I specifically said
"Satan in the wilderness offers Jesus a short cut.  Jesus calls it
a dead end...."  Also, you seem to imply that my ascribing to God a
"hands off" policy in dealing with the world means that I am saying
that God has never intervened in the world.  I have said that God
is perfectly capable of intervening in the world, and, indeed has
done so, with the incarnation of and redemption by Jesus (in the
Christian view) being the most conspicuous examples.  My main
argument is that most of the time, God does not intervene.

David also sent me the following piece of mail:
>>	With reference to your part I discussion of the problems of
>>	moral and natural evil, you try to heap a set of "i don't
>>	likes' into a "it isn't true". Very effective style, but
>>	not logically conclusive. You mention the eschatalogical
>>	debloodying of nature, and say you don't believe it could
>>	happen and then assume that nature was created bloody. Both
>>	of these assumptions are not supported WITHIN the worldview
>>	you attack. It is definitely stated that nature is not in
>>	the state it should be. If God called it good at creation,
>>	this implies a past change of state. 
>>
>>	Secondly, I would like to see you seriously discuss your
>>	wish to be a robot, so that moral evil would be eradicated.
>>	It is sad to see how you accept your freedom while foisting
>>	your responsibility onto God.
>>
>>	Thirdly, why didn't you discuss Job a little further. His
>>	ultimate reaction was : God is right, I'm not wise enough
>>	to blame God. What a refreshing display of humility. His
>>	friends, if you remember, were amateur theologians and
>>	apologists. (There's a lesson for me there I think).
>>
>>	To keep this short, I'll finish off with this flame :
>>	net.religion has enough rhetoric for all of net.* . Let's
>>	try to argue logically.

I don't think that I am trying to "heap a set of `I don't likes'
into a `it isn't true'".  No, I don't like "liver flukes, cancer
cells, and loan sharks", who does?  (Probably only themselves and
their mothers.)  But I don't for an instant imagine that they do
not exist.  Perhaps I am not reading you correctly, but that seems
to be what you are saying.  When I talk about the eschatological
debloodying of nature, I didn't say that I don't believe it will
happen.  What I did say was "However much we may be able to make a
case for the lion lying down with the lamb in the eschatological
fullness of time, no wise lamb thinks much of the idea right now."
I am also saying that not only did God find nature good at the
beginning, but that he finds it good right now.  Perhaps at the
creation--whenever and however that may have occurred--nature was
perfect, and I hope that it will come to be so at the end, but it 
is far from perfect right now.

I never said that I wanted to be a robot.  What I did say, in
answer to someone else's criticism of the same point, is that it is
quite concievable to me that God could have created people so
filled with love for him that the idea of deliberately disobeying
him would be unthinkable.  If you truly love someone, you would not
dream of doing something that you know would hurt them.  I am also
not foisting my responsibility onto God.  I am saying that God
created men and women with freedom to do as they like, and that he
has not explained, and will not explain, why.

Job.  I should discuss Job.  Perhaps I shall.

To finish, I am rather hurt that you imply that I am not arguing
logically.  I had always hoped I was.  (I'm pleased you think that
my style is effective, however.)

				John Hobson
				AT&T Bell Labs
				Naperville, IL
				(312) 979-7293
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