Evolution and the Role of Theodicy

I guess the main point was on p 26 “I think you judge Joshua through the lens of what Jesus taught you.” The other major point is the issue of the precise historicity of the statements and, more to the point, the purpose of the works. Since some of these places were not even there in the time frame described, it means we have to read the passages differently.

It is a good point, the New Testament is far different. … there are good ways and bad ways to read it, but it does leave room that we can object to the writing but understand that Jesus puts a corrective lens on the interpretation of these passages.

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“We” teach that God created angels long before he created humans, Angels apparently did not satisfy God’s social and psychological needs. If this universe is the best compromise that God could live with . . . I have no complaint.

The worst part of LDS theology is that faithful males end up as gods of their own world. To me, that possibly describes the lowest part of Hell.

Actually, on a bit of a more serious side of the notion that animals can become reprobates … Well, of course, I was complaining about the most facetious interpretation of events, and that I don’t sway away from. However, an ominous point perhaps that we all should remember is the Egyptians saw and knew what was happening to the Jews in their slavery, just as God did. So the image that they could be reprobates is not impossible, though – as we regularly have to remind ourselves about Jesus suffering and dying on the cross – all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

That said, if we can assume this point as given, then it is my observation that household animals are also influenced by our behavior and reflect our behavior. A household of reprobates does not merely influence each other, it can influence the animals that live there.

Again though, I am not trying to evade the difficulties of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart and the implications, just realizing that our actions have consequences that extend even on the innocent.

[edited to fix spelling errors and a few words]

@wkdawson:

First born non-Jewish slaves held in Egypt would also be reprobates? And first born toddlers? And first born infants?

Look… the message I get from the Egyptian story cycle and God hardening the hearts of the Pharaoh is:

It’s his circus… it’s his monkeys. He does whatever he needs to do.

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I also find myself with the impression that God does as God does because God is God. It is a matter of faith to trust that what God does is righteous (even though we cannot understand it) and I can understand why some people find it hard to accept. At least being born in the USA, we find it hard to accept the idea of a monarch who decides things that don’t fit the rule of law. Monarchs are easily corruptible, so the concept is easy to understand.

… I note that I had forgotten in the discussion that the “first born” were infants too. So it was more potentially applicable to the animals than to the children.

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Wayne and George, that is something I have trouble with, as I see God as good, holy, and just, and would have trouble worshiping a god who was not. I realize God’s ways are above us, and not always understandable, but share the discomfort many feel with a petty and capricious God, and look for a way to reconcile the Old Testament with Jesus. Not that I have the answer.

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On the matter of God vs Pharaoh, the best I can think of, which I alluded to above, is that there are consequences when we have to learn by the school of hard knocks.

Pharaoh saw himself as a god, and so deeply resented any thought that he must submit to the God of the Jews. That sort of racism was surely systemic and something that societies often use to keep people in their place. There were real economic interests in maintaining slavery back then; we are greatly blessed by machines so we can dispense with this kind of terrible system.

In a similar vein, I pointed out that (even if we are generally not prone to racism) we can resent a brother or sister. There may not even be a reason, though I think most of the time there is and it goes something like that brother or sister really is good at something we envy. That is at least one we are probably most prone to suffer from if we’re too busy looking around at what other people are doing instead of focusing on what God wants us to do. If we happen to be a boss, we might use our power to put that brother or sister down. It is a more “local” prejudice, but it is still no less evil.

So, based on that kind of personal animosity that can flare up in our own hearts, I can see God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. I can almost hear Pharaoh saying “why do I have to submit to that stinking God that nuthouse Moses talks about?”. Pharaoh might have known Moses before he fled to the desert, which could easily add to his resentment and dislike. … and imagine, Moses probably did look and sound a bit crazed. Condescension is signs of a hard heart. Arrogance and hubris are signs of a hard heart. Now, to these common maladies of resentment, we add prejudice and power. … The very thought of submitting to the God represented by Moses and Aaron seems very likely to evoke that kind of resentment (or hardening of the heart). We do not choose to listen because we worship our cherished images of the myths we want to believe. To preserve those categories, we sometimes even try to force them out so people we dislike fit in our petty little box.

Hence, I am not particularly troubled about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. All of us have probably had to learn to dispense with notions in our heads about how things are supposed to be at least once in our own lives. I think it is something we have to learn again and again; though usually not by the lesson of hard knocks.

In a similar way, the Egyptian elite also saw themselves as entitled and they knew their own actions just as God saw what was happening there. In general, in our modern justice system, we emphasize that the one who commits the crime gets punished. However, this might even be understood as “merciful” because God taking the infants does not mean the infants were damned; what mattered was the repentance of the (adult) Egyptians themselves. If God had taken the (adult) Egyptians, there would be no chance for repentance. So as brutal as it was, it was not mercurial, arbitrary or vindictive if it brought about genuine repentance. We do need Jesus to make us better.

The Bible never says whether Pharoah repented after getting the tar beaten out of him in his encounter with the Red Sea, but it does mention that the Egyptians gave gifts to the Hebrews before they departed. In that sense, perhaps the Egyptian people recognized that they had done evil in God’s sight and finally recognized how wrong it was. That is repentance. That is the tax collector who could not look up to heaven but could only say “have mercy on me”. I realize it is a very hard lesson, but sometimes the school of hard knocks is how we come around to a proper way of thinking.

So maybe that is one way to see and understand the drama between Pharaoh and God.

There is still the problem of natural disaster and other misfortunes that can be deeply troubling; where it is really hard to see how God accomplishes anything that makes any sense in some of those quandaries of life. So there is still plenty that we have to just trust that God knows what we don’t. Fortunately, by grace, I have not endured testing beyond my ability to find some way through, but I must admit that sometimes it can be a lot like what Peter said to Jesus in John 6:68 “Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, …”

by Grace we proceed

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It seems Calvinists and Lutherans are braver than most.

@gbrooks9

I’m not really clear what exactly my theology is, but it is true that I seem to have found a home somewhere around reformed, Baptist and Lutheran influences.

However, being a physicist, I am like an ox kicking at the poke when it comes to predestination. I hope I don’t suffer losing my first born for snarking back at it. :wink: On the other hand, the providential view does mean that we can accept “death before the fall” and other aspects of evolution because God worked out this salvation plan from the beginning of the world and Grace was necessary from the beginning.

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I regard many of the things said to be done by God in the OT that seem horrendous to us today is because, however inspirered the authors, they did not have the fullest understanding of the divine love. For instance it is terrible picture that because of the wrong doing of two individuals that all their offspring should suffer thereafter. Its fhe sort of thing that pagan gods may do, but surely not the most good and righteous. (ditto the plagues of Egypt and some of the commands to commit genocide against their neighbours) found in Deuteronomy. We miss the point if we don’t view the texts in the context of history and the history of human thought. I can quite understand why Marcion thought the God of the OT was a lesser God and not the God of love and goodness found in Jesus Christ.

I think we do need to take a historical -critical view scripture as from people who grasped some ideas that were often incomplete and (in our potential views today) actually wrong and not in accord with the greater revelation in the Incarnation.

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Of course your have the answer, Phil. It’s just that it is inappropriate to post it on a Forum that strongly supports the inerrancy of scripture, including the Old Testament. Why should a Christian place all their bets (that Jesus is their Savior) on the literal accuracy of the accounts in Exodus? A disaster such as the sudden death of all Egyptian firstborns would certainly be recorded in their historical records. But it isn’t. Only in the Israelite history, and for the obvious reason that such miraculous events would promote cohesion in their society. It was of no importance to them that these accounts, if true, would make their God out to be petty and capricious–that was what made him more powerful than the other gods they believed existed and that he competed with: Egyptian, Canaanite, etc.

Personally, I do believe in (at least many) of the miracles attributed to Jesus. But I would certainly not 'bet my eternal future’ on those in the Exodus account.
Al Leo

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Could it be possible that the Egyptians have been given a bad rap for >3,000 yrs? That, by & large, they treated the Israelites as welcomed ‘guest workers’–not abject slaves? Exodus recounts that probably the Jews were well fed “in Egyptian exile”, since in Sinai they “_longed for the flesh pots of Egypt”._And they brought with them enough gold to fashion a golden calf to worship.

It is only natural for a people to write down the most favorable account possible for future history buffs. If that is the only one that survives, so much the better for its widespread acceptance. But as to the matter of the level of spiritual inspiration it represents, we must consider the fact that God continues to send that to us in these modern times also. And phrased in thoughts and ideas more appropriate to the culture we now live in.
Al Leo

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It is certainly not beyond possibility. I will say, however, that living as I have in Japan for a long time (i.e., in a foreign country), whereas there is only a little that I could complain about in my own experience, this experience has raised my sensitivities. I can also look at myself before this journey began and my attitudes then versus my attitudes now.

Therefore, I might pose it in a slightly different frame. It is more like in our native land, we know how the system works, we know what to expect, and we know how to navigate through the matters of life because we witnessed what our parents did, and they witnessed their own parents. When you live in the foreign land, nobody tells you the new system and you are stuck with learning it on your own. Add to this the ancient world with its views of outsiders, its inaccessibility to outsiders, the indifference of the insiders, and the complications that result, it seems plausible that the account (being one sided) is exaggerated, but maybe not entirely untrue.

I think the story that they were slaves in Egypt (though possibly exaggerated) has some merit. Leviticus and Deuteronomy (and a few other places) emphasize that the Jews should remember that they were foreigners. There are also a few laws that we might construe to reflect real life possible situations that must have initiated them; perhaps the fact that after 7 years, a person subject to slavery due to debt or what not is allowed to go free, also the year of Jubilee may be motivated by this, and there is a rule in Deuteronomy that a slave who flees his master because of “irreconcilable differences” does not have to go back to that person. Whereas it seems an unfortunate fact that the oppressed often become the new oppressors, it is my impression that anyone who might have written laws like these had some keen awareness of what it was like to be under the boot. If some elite class who never knew the boot wrote this, they would be indifferent to the evils of slavery.

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It is true that we have so far talked about this account as though it were entirely factual, whereas the archaeological evidence for 5 M people in the desert is next to nil and of course, the extra-bibical sources don’t strongly support much of any of the account either. There are various workarounds that I have read such as the exodus was only that of a few thousand people (though Numbers gums this up). Some people even claim that the exodus was told whole cloth. I largely doubt that because it says something I think is not good about the Jews, it seems too central to the Jewish faith to be a complete fabrication, and it completely lifts the bottom out of everything about being a Jew.

In that respect, I feel it is important to try to understand the point of the text. We do need to see it from our knowledge of Jesus. We need to understand that at that time, this was the butt-kicking God, not the God who endured our rejection and suffered shame, humiliation and death at our own hands. Jesus showed us just exactly what we can really be when we have to submit to the things that God cares about. Give us a way, and we will twist and bend it beyond recognition.Whatever good we can do is deeply dependent on God’s Grace and not our own strength and power of discernment.

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@wkdawson:

HARRIS PAPYRUS and IRSU (Not Bay, but perhaps OSAR-SEPH!) Osarseph - Wikipedia

This question was asked:
“Given that there’s no direct evidence of a smaller Exodus, is the evidence Friedman presents any less consistent with the Levites being some kind of priestly remnant of the Egyptian occupation of Canaan?”

RESPONSE
Back in 1908, in an issue of THE EXPOSITOR (p. 193), Rev. B.D. Eerdmans, DD, wrote a chapter called THE HEBREWS IN EGYPT.

GOOGLE BOOKS LINK: B.D. Eerdmans, DD, “Hebrews in Egypt”, THE EXPOSITOR (1908), p. 193.

And in it, he describes a small Exodus, at exactly the time I said would be the soonest that such a one could occur! It concerns the notorious personality of IRSU (Chancellor Bay [or Bey] is no longer believed to be the same man, having been put to death years before Irsu’s demise.

I’ll put together an abstract of the details, but in the meantime, let me provide a relatively recent (1979) translation from the Harris Papyrus, which is many times referenced, but most often discredited in its possible connection to the events that appear to have inspired Exodus:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1906 Translation by James Henry Breasted
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Modern understanding of the events occurring at the time is heavily dependent on the translation of Papyrus Harris I, a task which has proven difficult. In his 1906 translation of the document James Henry Breasted writes

“Hear ye that I may inform you of my benefactions which I did while I was king of the people. The land of Egypt was overthrown from without, and every man was (thrown out) of his right; they had no chief mouth for many years formerly until other times. The land of Egypt was in the hands of chiefs and of rulers of towns; one slew his neighbor, great and small. Other times having come after it, with empty years, Yarsu, a certain Syrian was with them as chief. He set the whole land tributary before him together; he united his companions and plundered their possessions. They made the gods like men, and no offerings were presented in the temples…”

This translation leaves open the possibility that Irsu acted in Egypt proper and consequently Chancellor Bay was considered a plausible candidate for this Irsu until 2000. However, an IFAO Ostracon no. 1864 found at Deir el-Medina and dated Siptah’s fifth regnal year records that “Pharaoh, life health prosperity, has killed the great enemy, Bay”.[2] Because chancellor Bay died years before Irsu, he is no longer considered a plausible candidate for this historical figure.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
IMPROVED 1979 TRANSLATION BY Hans Goedicke
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In 1979 the Egyptologist Hans Goedicke produced a second translation based on a detailed grammatical analysis of the document:

“The land belonging to Egypt was abandoned abroad and every man in his loyalty, he did not have a chief-spokesman [i.e. a pharaoh] for many years first until the times of others when the land belonging to Egypt was among chiefs and city-rulers — one was killed [the pharaoh], his replacement was a dignitary of wretches [a second pharaoh]. Another of the family happened after him in the empty years [a third pharaoh], when Su [aka Irsu], a Kharu with them, acted as chief and he made the entire land serviceable to him alone. He joined his dependant[s?] in seizing their property, when the gods were treated just like men, as one did not perform offerings inside the temples.”

Goedicke suggests that Irsu rose to power in Egypt’s territories abroad, in Canaan, following years of neglect on behalf of the last three pharaohs of the Nineteenth Dynasty, Seti II, Siptah and Twosret. According to this translation of the document, the earliest of these pharaohs, Seti II, is responsible for not asserting his power and control over the region; the second was held in low regard; while the last, Twosret, is said to have made an alliance with Irsu who had de facto authority over the territories.

Footnote: Hans Goedicke, “Irsu the Khasu in Papyrus Harris”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vol. 71 (1979), pp. 1-17

o Erichsen, Wolja. 1933. Papyrus Harris I: hieroglyphische Transkription. Bibliotheca aegyptiaca 5. Brussel: Fondation égyptologique reine Élisabeth

o Grandet, Pierre. 1994. Le papyrus Harris I (BM 9999). 2 vols. Bibliothèque d’Étude 109/1–2. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire

o Grandet, Pierre. 1999. Le papyrus Harris I: Glossaire. Bibliothèque d’Étude 129. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire

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First of all, I think the most important impact of evolution on theodicy is one of making the problem far easier to resolve because God is no longer in the role of designer to which all the imperfections of life can be attributed.

Second I am also open theist and so it is fair to say that one of those who do not support the idea that God is ordering all of our difficulties. I believe that God created life precisely because he values love and freedom more than power and control. Ultimately evolution provides the reason for death and suffering because it shows us how this is required for our very existence. Otherwise God is reduced to nothing more than a human dreamer or author and we are nothing but characters in a holo-novel drama in which there is no life or consciousness. But this does not mean that God is not intimately involved in our lives, for I think giving us the privacy of our own choices is not only required for love but is also what allows Him to be involved in our lives without being turning us into no more than characters in a holo-novel.

As for the story of Pharoah, I think it is wrong to read this as God using some kind of mind-control. I think it is the nature of sin and evil that it destroys are free will and makes us ridiculously easy to manipulate. And yes God manipulated Pharaoh to effectively write that story in the Bible in order to impact human consciousness as part of the on-going development of the relationship between man and God. No I am not saying that the ends justified the means. Instead I think that when you are dealing with human beings whose free will is so far lost to their bad habits that they are predictable even without foreknowledge then manipulating them really requires very little justification.

I think expecting numerical accuracy is unrealistic and measuring things of the past according to modern standards and values which are extremely different. I think the Bible is full of accounts which are highly inaccurate and exaggerated when it comes to the numbers simply because nobody took the time to pursue that kind of accuracy.

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I believe God is the designer… AND i think Exodus’ hardening if his heart demonstrates that God’s issues are not humanity’s issues.

It is an unproven supposition that God is “Holy.” From Job first chapter It appears to me that this universe is like a 4-D computer game and we only exist in God’s memory.

If the deer did not have any “natural enemies” they would over populate and starve to death. Which is worse, a quick death or a long slow death? If you are opposed to predation, do you refuse to eat meat? In other words do you condemn something in nature and accept it in your own life because it benefits you and is socially acceptable?

Human beings, you and I are the products of evolution. Is that a worthwhile price to pay for our existence? I don’t know. It depends how we use our lives.

I am not sure what you trying to say. It sounds like you are saying “God is not necessarily Holy” Does that mean you think God can do evil things? I guess God did create Satan. Maybe that is evil.

“4-D computer game”:
I remember a point I read in a book by the theologian John Polkinghorne where he wrote “God will remember us”. Certainly, even knowing that we are remembered eternally and that God remembers what we had in our heart (at least in our better moments) is a very pleasant thought. … and knowing that our less than becoming deeds and thoughts will not erase us from the book of life is something to be deeply thankful for.