Is The Fall compatible with evolution?

I wasn’t complaining about the evil in this world. All I’m saying is that if you reject the traditional Christian interpretation of the Fall, and instead claim that God created us in our current form via evolution, it is harder to argue that God is omnibenevolent.

Where in the Bible does it say God is omnibenevolent?

Randal Rauser argues that term is an impossibility. Good, yes. That term, no. I will have to find the reference.

1 Like

I thought all Christians believed that god is omnibenevolent? But if thats not the case, then obviously my comments under this threat are no longer applicable. Just out of curiosity, how would you describe gods nature then?

1 Like

It’s not odd that Christians would be so odd, no.

Threatening people around here, are we? :grin:

I had to look up that word too. Will be interesting to see how responses continue here … carry on.

2 Likes

Ha! Er, how did you think that? Damnationism dominates here and virtually everywhere in the post-Jewish religions.

1 Like

I still feel this disconnects creation too much from God for traditional theology to handle. I guess I would ask proponents of this if they think God knew where evolution would go “In the beginning”? Or did he just design a process and let it roll on its own with certain probabilistic laws in place? Maybe a tinker here and there.

If we conceive this is the only way God could have created a free universe, not that you said that, but if so, what does that say of heaven, a place where there is no evil (I don’t think) and if I’m not free I’m not me so meh.

It’s hard to reconcile a high view of the sovereignty of God with this outlook and that may very much be okay. Maybe there is something to open-view theism and God surrendered a bit of power in creating free willed beings or in inaugurating a system that would lead to free-willed beings, possible with or without some tinkering here or there.

Theological speaking, it seems hard, though I guess not impossible, to deny the natural world is anything other than the way God wanted it made.

Morally speaking, it’s hard to deny the natural world looks little like an ideal setting of a benevolent Creator.

I’m with you in it being a bit problematic. And it’s more so with Greek philosophy now intertwined with Christianity. It’s very easy to interpret some of early Genesis as “God learning with us” (finding Adam’s a partner, promising never to flood again etc.). But we approach God with these immutable properties that essentially make him a prisoner of the attributes humans language and thought has come up with and ascribed to him.

No good answer really but it’s not a deal breaker to me. For all we know or don’t know, there could be an entire spiritual world beyond the material (angels and demons) and we really only see in part. It’s one of those areas where faith comes into play and we have to trust our experiences and that this is somehow okay based on other parts of our worldview that make more sense. But I certainly understand the complaint of skeptics here. I feel it just as deeply and possibly even more so, since I’ve experienced the grace, love and forgiveness of God through Jesus. This makes natural evil even harder to fathom for me.

By product of a genuinely free world. I’d say sorry hardcore Calvinists, you can just maintain God kills people because it’s his divine right whereas I’ll maintain it was a necessity of his love in creating genuine free will. I think this is salvageable with heaven because I’m not the “one and done” type. I think the next stage of our journey which must have room for more growth. I think CS Lewis had a good story and analogies for the afterlife. If God is real, benevolent, and sovereign, this world must somehow be the greatest good. I do Envy the conservatives who can just blame it all on sin with the Garden story. Wouldn’t that be nice. I think most of us have to wrestle with God like Jacob on this.

Sorry for the ramble but this subject has always been near and dear to me.

1 Like

Yes, they pay lip service to the “goodness” of God and preach the “good” news that 99% of everyone who ever lived will be suffering eternal torment in hell. The sad thing is what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust is a fun day at the amusement park compared to eternal conscious torment…

Vinnie

3 Likes

That sure would be a bummer, wouldn’t it? :grinning:

I know.

So … you’re not against the objection that a good creator couldn’t possibly prevent our inclinations toward evil?

[whatever tangle you make, I can make a better one! Hope there aren’t any English teachers loitering here.]

1 Like

I meant to say doesn’t. Wow, that changes a lot…fixing now

1 Like

Well - hey! As someone who sees very little scriptural integrity to support traditional damnationist views, I’ll happily stand accused of the conviction that God is benevolent … omnibenevolent even. And I will own (even if I can’t answer) all the difficulties, complications, and apparent contradictions that you, @Anthony, sees necessarily attending that particular conviction.

1 Like

No worries … I was teasing you about the string of negatives you had there [and was trying to “one-up” it with my own indecipherable fun], and so was unsure what you were claiming in the first place! But always good to make sure you are saying what you thought you were saying. And then better yet to make it comprehensible.

We’re in the tiny minority Mervin. Like salt! But not leaven : (

1 Like

@Mervin_Bitikofer
No wait, I think I said what I meant. I am confused now :rofl:

The natural world doesn’t look like what I would imagine an omni-benevolent creator would make. It is hard to imagine a shepherd putting his sheep whom he loves into an environment that harms them. Or a shepherd who wants his sheep to remain safe with the flock, to teach them, or predispose them to running away or to harm one another. Or to allow them to run into a busy street or not to protect them from a lava flow if he can. The natural world and natural evil defies all Shepherd/Father analogies for God. Every good father will protect their child from environmental evil if they can. But somewhere we have to distinguish between freedom and control.

Could God stop hurricanes? I guess but we live on a rotating planet with oceans, and atmosphere and differential heating in the goldilocks zone. There is a reason I am not a fan of petitionary prayer however. Petitioning is fine and natural. But I think miracles were just signs to move people in the right direction. If Jesus wanted to heal the whole world he could have. That is not the point.

We have to describe God with human thought and human language and human analogies. Surely our language will break down at some pointing trying to describe and define something “infinite.” In the end this is a faith issue for me but based on theology and the love of God, I have to think this situation, which seems crappy at times is the greatest good, its the way God wanted the world to work right now. How could we imagine otherwise? The inanimate and physical universe he created and designed to evolve in a certain way defies him? Not only that but his humans keep defying him and have inclinations towards evil to the point that he wipes the slate clean? At some point I am going to question the competence of the designer… No real good answer here IMHO.

Vinnie

1 Like

I went back and read it twice and it confused me at first. And I wrote it! I tried to clarify in a follow up…

It seems to me that there will always be balancing “goods” that each alone taken to extremes encroaches on other goods to be had.

For exampe, I could imagine creating a world with no water (so no hurricanes and downing then) … no sunshine (causes sun burns, skin cancer, heat stroke, etc.) … keep all my subjects in a padded prison … er … I mean “sanctuary”, because just allowing freedom to run around means my subjects will be getting hurt occassionally. So perhaps I’ve now arrived at something closer to Anthony’s perfect world bereft of all suffering and death? Anybody want to sign up?

On this point, I would say that the tendencies were not evil, until we were endowed with moral capability. Evil is not something that can be applied to a lion killing an antelope, or even for the male lion killing the offspring of his rivals. It becomes evil when we become capable of loving, but chose to do harm anyway for our own selfish reasons.
But, it is still problematic. I personally deal with the problem of bad things happening (cancer, hurricanes, car wrecks etc,) by accepting that those things are the conditions of a material world, and it could be no other way. But I am not real happy about it.

2 Likes

So… if you give guns and machine guns to chimps and teach them how to use them then no evil would be done because they were not endowed with moral capability? I think not! Oh wait a minute… that isn’t evil but just a natural disaster, because the chimps don’t have any “moral capability.” I think this notion is the silliest thing I ever heard and pure fantasy.

All living things have just as much of any “moral capability” you might imagine and the only real difference is in the power to do harm. The one sure difference between man and animals is language and this empowers us to do so much more harm because enables us to acquire knowledge and power so much more quickly. But when animals do have the power to do harm then they have no difficulty using it and we have no difficult hunting them down for it too, no matter what rhetoric we use to pretend some difference from human criminals. LOL

Obviously, I don’t think Anthony’s argument is valid but I think the flaw is elsewhere.

If you did that, you would be the one doing evil, not the chimp. Now, you can argue that moral capacity is present in other animals, and perhaps so, but not sure that it is in the same way that it is with us, looking at Romans 1:18 and following verses. If they are, I suppose God deals with them in a just way also, but have no idea what that would be.

1 Like