We can rationally accept the abundant evidence for common descent of life on earth, including humans. An entire lifetime can be spent working with, fine tuning and adding to the evidence for the essentially chemical relationship of all living things, from viruses to humans. To be sure, ‘chemical’ means relatively big to really big molecules; but it also means the small molecules and the elements. When we include these, we see how living things are truly one with the ‘dust of the earth’. It is humbling to realize that all of the atoms making up our molecules right now were, not long ago, part of some other entity, living or non-living. This is especially true of carbon, the basis of our bodily being. In God’s economy, the atoms represented in the beautifully symmetric periodic table are all that is necessary for the material universe, non-living and living, to exist. This reality is breathtaking and most of the evidence for it has been developed in the last 200 years.
Genesis 1:2-3 begins with these words, “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” It is interesting to read so early in God’s revelation of himself to us clear references to both physical energy (light) and the power of God. The material world is held together (sub-atomically, atomically, molecularly, and on up the levels of organization) by the energy common to the physical universe. God reveals in this passage that his is the authority that makes possible light and physical energy in all its forms. The Spirit of God is part of a separate reality that is, nevertheless, very close to and very effective upon our better understood physical/material reality. This is even more amazing if we consider love to be God’s essence. With this view, the cosmos is a fundamental, overwhelming expression of God’s love.
The powerful love of God made possible the laws of physics and chemistry. What came into being from this is immense, complex, ever changing, and diverse. It may be, given the limitations imposed by natural laws, that an entire universe was required in order to arrive at one material being (species) upon whom God could confer free will and have hope for real fellowship. This free will is necessary if a sentient being is to be able to accept God’s authority freely. Thus, we were created ‘in the image of God’ – free will, body, mind, spirit and all.
Made in the ‘image of God’ means many things, and this includes a God-given authority to make our own decisions (God can say no, we can too). But we still have to confront the question of power. Though made in his image we clearly do not have power like the power of God. Given the authority to make up our own minds, and the reality of evil, which existed before creation, our human power now comes into play. The power we have is wholly insufficient for the challenge of dealing with evil – it wasn’t sufficient in the ‘garden’ and it is not sufficient for any one of us at any time in history.
A main reason this is so is our mis-understanding and mis-applicaiton of power. We see power as more potent than love, we clearly worship it and have faith in it – this is also the view that Satan subscribes to. If fact, we get the idea from him. Power is used to combat power (or violence is used to combat violence) and the result is always destruction – the greater the violence, the greater the destruction. This sinful concept of power does not come from God – what flows from God, all the time, is love. We could say God uses love to redeem and sanctify power, and His love is powerful enough to utterly defeat raw, coercive power.
Power and love are like water and oil, darkness and light. “When God began to create heaven and earth – the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water – God said ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” (Tanakh, JPS 1985). Power looks to violence, love looks to healing and restoration. We can see this by juxtaposing some ideas that speak of power and love respectively.
Power destroys – love creates; power enslaves – love gives freedom; power brings darkness – love brings light; power engenders fear -love engenders hope; power coerces – love persuades; power controls – love cooperates; power closes – love opens; power hoards – love shares; power spreads falsehood – love reveals truth; power brings sadness – love brings joy; power is ultimately ineffective – love is ultimately effective; power is Satan’s way – love is God’s way; power is well understood – love is poorly understood; power is in a hurry – love is patient; power is prideful – love is humble; power is heavy – love is light; power is discordant – love is harmonious; power screeches – love whispers; power kills – love resurrects.
Jesus, as a man, relied entirely on God’s love (through the Holy Spirit) for the necessary power to complete His work on earth. Once humanity reached the stage where we could be given authority over our decisions, we became easy prey for evil and made, and continue to make, decisions that seriously separate us from God. We don’t have the love to resist. Only God has this kind of love.
The loving power that we lack is the Holy Spirit (God’s spiritual agent in our material reality, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus). He appears all over the Bible, beginning in Genesis 1:2-3. He is the link between the two realities of material and spiritual. He is the mighty part of the Triune God, a might achieved through Love. God gives us authority to make our own decisions, but to fully appropriate the Holy Spirit, we must recognize God’s overall authority. We must repent from our evil idea of selfish power and accept the power of love. Without this power of God, we cannot resist evil which is real and active in this world.
In our weak state we always sin and need forgiveness; and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit – the same loving power that raised Jesus from the dead. Our repentance is therefore absolutely necessary – we must turn from our own way to God’s way, accepting Christ’s sacrifice. Then, by the power of the Holy Spirit we are redeemed, made righteous in Christ. The Spirit takes up residence within our spirit so that we become part of God’s new temple. Evil is still present in this new Kingdom of already-but-not-yet, but now, if we willingly appropriate it, the powerful love of God dwells in us to do “work every good work.”
You can also read part two in this two-part series entitled Creation Under Limiting Conditions.
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Dr. BK (Bev) Mitchell, Biologist, writer, hopeful theology popularizer, aspiring critical realist. NB Canada, Oaxaca, MX. Bev is Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, where he taught in the 70s through the 90s before retiring in 2001. Now he reads a lot, studies languages and enjoys the beautiful city of Oaxaca, MX and his home province of New Brunswick. Recent studies in theology have inspired him to combine his love of biology with his love for the Lord by writing about them together. He particularly likes the idea that there are really two kinds of Life sciences – secular and spiritual, biology and theology.
For additional reading, reference Bev’s article posted on the Jesus Creed blog on August 11, 2012.
August 13, 2012 at 10:21 am
I find myself in agreement with the majority of objections to the piece over on Jesus Creed. On the one hand, he admits God is ‘powerful’, exercises ‘power’, and he even speaks of “the powerful love of God” (where power is an attribute of love). And he recognizes that the objectionable power he juxtaposes with love is in fact a “sinful concept of power.” But on the other hand, he speaks without qualification of power (per se) as that which destroys, enslaves, brings darkness, etc.
I get the present-day concern to understand abusive power vs love, coercive power vs love, power under vs power over (Boyd), etc. Process theists have been all about this for decades. And I admit that the coolest quote of all comes from Whitehead: “God power is the worship he inspires.” Worship and love can’t be coerced. BUT…that doesn’t deal ‘power’ out of the set of divine attributes.
I can’t tell if he really think power PER SE destroys and enslaves. That can’t be the case re: power. Power doesn’t do anything “on its own.” WILLS exercise with INTENTION a particular use of power…to destroy and enslave or to love and redeem. I think he’s beating up on a concept (‘power’) and ignoring what power is and why it sometimes destroys and enslaves and other times creates and frees. So to that extent he sets up a false antithesis.
I was especially intrigued by his comment that “Given…the reality of evil, which existed before creation….” Evil existed before creation? Why does he think that?
August 13, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Circle theology
Tom,
To your first concern,
What I’m on about here is to question any separation of power and love when we think about God, or how we should serve him for that matter. If power derives from love, we should never think of God’s power without thinking of his love. Just as we should never think of God’s love without thinking of his holiness. Imagine what would happen to us in the presence of a Holy God without the mighty, covering presence of his love (the last sentence is a reference from pastor Kevin’s sermon yesterday).
This little story highlights the matter in another manner.
Circular Reasoning and making god in our image.
Circles, and their puffed up cousins, spheres, are completely dependent on ‘pi’. Without ‘pi’ they would remain undefined, circumference-less surface-less. If circles had imaginations, and turned their thoughts in a theological direction, the god they imagine would likely be centered on ‘pi’, this awkward, unruly little number would be at the heart of the circles’ god.
Do we humans have a ‘pi’ in our makeup? Could it be power? When we attribute power to any god we can imagine, we feel we at least have made a good beginning – any reasonable god for human beings must have power, lots of it, must hold power even more dearly than we do, must use power in every way possible with great gusto and self-satisfaction. This god would certainly expect humans to worship its great power. It all makes so much sense. We understand and respect and fear power. Our god’s power could, theoretically, even be calculated – our power multiplied by some really big number. This god’s manner of using power could easily be imagined – it’s simply our use of such great power, if we only had a bigger multiplier at our disposal. Power is to humans as ‘pi’ is to circles.
Our fixation on pure power (which is fundamentally sin) is why we have so much trouble understanding the real, self-revealing God of the ages when he comes to us in love, expressing his power through love. Sadly, we can even do theology as a kind if speculative autobiography wherein we attempt to answer the question “What would I do if I had that kind of power?” It would be more faithful to Scripture to ask “What could be done with that kind of love?”
A note on sources.
For an excellent development of this and related themes, please see John Polkinghorne “Theology in the Context of Science” My thinking on all of this is shaped by a good number of relatively recent books. This is one of them, and a full list will be provided in due course. A quote from Polkinghorne (Chapter 5) fits well here.
“The context of science encourages us to resolve this apparent clash between divine goodness and divine power by qualifying what it meant by God’s being ‘almighty’. It does not mean that God can do absolutely anything, but rather that God can do anything that is in accordance with the divine nature……The God whose nature is love cannot be the Cosmic Tyrant whose creation is no more than a divine puppet theatre, its creatures inexorably responding to the pull of every string.”
Then, the clincher for where my attempt at a loving creation theology is going, “Creatures must be allowed to be themselves and to make themselves.”
As to your question about the age of evil, what does “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep….” sound like to you? Or, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to…” Luke 4:6. It seems to me, as I said elsewhere that “This universe came into existence in the face of a spiritual rebellion against God’s will.” (see link at bottom). This is as reasonable, in my opinion, as positing a perfect universe spoiled, especially in the light of modern science. What was good about creation in Genesis, and very good indeed, was God’s work to overcome evil, which reached its apex at Calvary and in the Resurrection. The Kingdom that is still emerging will be very good indeed, and Christ is the first perfect human inhabitant of that Kingdom, and its King.
Reference:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/08/a-guest-post-the-biblical-story-of-god-and-us-that-includes-evolution-from-a-frequent-visitor-here/#comments
August 13, 2012 at 10:22 am
I meant: God’s power is the worship he inspires. ;o)
August 14, 2012 at 1:46 am
Thanks Bev.
I have no objections to questioning the separation of power and love when we think of God. But much of your post seemed to say more than just this.
As to the existence of evil prior to creation, you ask what “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep” sound like to me. Whatever it might sound like, it doesn’t imply the existence of evil prior to all creation, which is what you describe, i.e., the existence of evil prior to the coming into existence of any non-divine beings/entities whatsoever? Whence evil then?
August 14, 2012 at 6:33 am
Hi Jeff, I had posted this article on my wall and my dad just commented on one thing. The line about evil existing before creation- now he can get into really convoluted and philosophical discussions about the spirituality of evil etc which end up in me getting frustrated. I was wondering if you could help out. I guess his struggle has always been- where did evil come from? How did Lucifer get proud? If God created evil, (otherwise where could it have come from since He’s the Creator) then God must be evil as well. Sigh. Any thoughts?
August 14, 2012 at 11:33 am
Athena and Tom,
Yes, evil. Theodicy (God’s relationship with evil). The really big one for many. Subsequent posts in this series may help a bit, but it will forever remain a problem for all of us and, unfortunately, a stumbling block for many. This is at least in part what Peter meant when he referred to “a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall (1 Peter 2: 7-8 NIV 2011). Here it is the awful/wonderful sacrifice of Christ made necessary by the work of evil that causes the stumbling. But, in a real sense, evil is causing the stumbling as well.
There are small libraries of books on theodicy. I’m sure Jeff has read many more than I have so we all await his response. However, I will suggest two that I have read recently. My wife also read the first one, and recommends it as well.
Wright, Christopher J.H. “The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith” Zondervan Press 2008.
Boyd, Greg “Is God to Blame? Moving Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering” IVP Press 2003
August 15, 2012 at 12:58 am
It’s specifically your claim that evil predates all created being itself that I inquired about. I don’t find your points regarding power/love to be problematic when it comes to theodicy.
August 14, 2012 at 6:12 pm
The easiest thing for me to do would be to provide a link to an article I posted earlier in the summer on faith and the challenge of evil and suffering. I concur with Bev on the Greg Boyd book he highlighted above. This has proven to be an excellent, and very accessible book, on the difficult subject.
http://jeffkclarke.com/2012/07/02/faith-and-the-challenge-of-evil-and-suffering-part-one-is-god-to-blame/
August 15, 2012 at 1:01 am
Greg’s stuff is great. He’s a good friend and brilliant to boot. But Bev didn’t get the notion that evil pre-existed all created being itself from Greg. Greg locates the origin of evil within the created order. But Bev’s statement removes the origin of evil from the created order. It’s an explanation of that which I was after.
August 15, 2012 at 11:13 am
Tom,
Now I get it. Thanks for sticking with this. The origin of evil (“creation” of evil as you say) is one of the central (ugly) questions for any theology of creation – indeed, for theology in general. From an Arminian perspective, there can be no acceptance of the idea that God created evil, but the view that he permits evil is not terribly comforting either. I’ll get to your question on origin of evil below, but some background is needed because I think you are really asking two questions that can and should be treated separately. We have two basic possibilities.
Scenario 1. If God’s decision to create was opposed, evil must have said something like, why not nothing, why not chaos, why not darkness, why not purposelessness – in short what’s wrong with tohu va bohu? And God replied in love with “Let there be light”. This is metaphor, but powerful metaphor. The reality is what we see in the evolution of the ordered cosmos and, ultimately the emergence if life. God made and continues to make it all possible, despite initial and continued opposition. My suggestion is that this view makes sense scripturally and scientifically.
Scenario 2. God had no opposition in the beginning. All was God alone and a perfect world was made. Zapped into existence or emerged into existence, but perfect. Then evil arrived and ruined it all. Or worse, and it makes me cringe to say it, God made evil to mess up the world, and us so that he could reveal his glory by fixing everything. Some folk think this makes sense Scripturally. Nobody thinks it makes the least attempt to include the truth we have been blessed to know through science. Beside all of that, this story seems far to melodramatic, too human derived, too platonic ……. just too much.
If we are to ever have a truly workable creation theology, it will have to provide a logical, reasonable, God glorifying, creation affirming, knowledge accepting flow from what is as yet unknown (perhaps unknowable) to what is known (derived from using our God-given gifts, including the scientific kind). This is a corollary to the very widely accepted idea among believers that all knowledge of truth comes from God. If it’s all from God, and we have sufficient knowledge to connect two areas of knowledge, the flow of thought between those two areas should be smooth.
Now, one could argue that the flow is not yet smooth (as in scenario two above) because of some great gap in our knowledge of the truth. One could also argue that any smooth transition (as in scenario one) is only apparent and doomed to failure when we know more. These arguments are impossible to refute in the short term, and very effective as displacement activity. Thus, they will not soon go away. Yet, such objections notwithstanding, many think our knowledge of the truth is sufficient to begin imagining a smoother transition between the known and the unknown. Hence my attempted imaginings.
For your question of why I think evil existed before creation, there you have it. When you are ask about the creation/origin of evil, I think we are both in the same boat. Science is not going to help us and, with respect to this matter at least, Scripture seems quite coy as well.
Hope this helps clarify things.
Bev
August 15, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Thanks Bev. Appreciate your time.
Bev: Scenario 1. If God’s decision to create was opposed, evil must have said something like…
Tom: Bev, prior to God’s decision to create at all, that is, prior to the creation of any non-God entities whatsoever, where would this objection to God come from? From God? Certainly not. But if God has not yet created, whence the objection? Whence evil? Unless you want to posit some kind of metaphysical dualism where God and ‘evil’ co-exist necessarily, then the place to locate the origin of evil is the created order. Evil can’t exist prior to that order since evil originates in wills other than the divine will and every will other than God’s own is created. Thus evil cannot predate creation. But you have evil predating the created order per se. See my issue?
By ‘creation’ I mean creation per se, i.e., the created order per se (whether material or immaterial angelic entities, etc.). I do not mean just this material universe. Did evil predate the creation of the material universe? Possibly, if some other ‘created’ immaterial being rendered itself evil through choice prior to the creation of the mateiral world and is also the orgin of evil within our universe. But that original self-corrupting choice would be the choice of a ‘created’ being nonetheless. In the end, regardless of the priority and order of created beings, evil still originates within the created order and by definition cannot predate that order. Only God (uncreated being) can predate the created order. If you take the Process view that some non-divine order exists necessarily alongside God, then the origin of evil is an entirely different question. Do you take this Process view?
August 15, 2012 at 6:24 pm
Tom,
Good stuff.
Before going further and taking unnecessary time, let’s see what we agree on. I suspect it is a lot.
First, I definitely do not take the process view – God is outside creation, but could be very close to creation. Creation is his. He lovingly makes it possible yet he does not need it in order to be God in all his glory. While we are touching all the bases, God also certainly does not need to create evil so that he can vanquish it to reveal his glory. Nor did he create evil, as such for any reason. Hopefully you and I are somewhere in that big space in between. That said, we probably agree that we know next to nothing of the nature of the connection between spiritual reality (God, and horribly so, evil) and material reality. Scripture does reveal that a connection exists, but we know next to nothing about its nature – how it works.
Science, of course, does not recognize spiritual reality in the sense we are talking about, but neither can science prove it does not exist. We (Christians) claim to know it exists because of a revelation from God. Again, science cannot prove that God does not reveal himself to humans.
At to wills, yes, God’s will exists and some other will in opposition/rebellion to God’s will also exists. We can make a case from Scripture that this rebellious will exists but it is not terribly clear how it came to be. Fallen angels, battles in heaven are images from Scripture, but without knowing what they mean, we are not a lot further ahead for having these images. All we can be reasonably confident about is that God faces rebellion. Unfortunately, we can get a very good idea of the nature of that rebellion when we look at human behaviour. But again, not of its beginning. Here forbidden fruit and talking snake are no more help than rebellion in heaven and fallen angels. And to repeat, from Scripture we conclude that, like God, the will that resists God is spirit.
When did this horrible rebellion first occur? Did it occur before time or what we call the arrow of time came into existence? – assuming here that time began with creation. Did God face any resistance before time began? Did God first face resistance at the beginning of time? Did God not face any resistance until human beings came on the scene? Did resistance (the tempter/liar) come into existence simultaneous with the first humans? How did the snake get into the garden? As Tevye said in Anatevka, “… posing questions that would cross a rabbi’s eyes.”
I just read Ecclesiastes this afternoon while thinking about how scientists try hard to avoid, even fear, asking the wrong question. If you read the seemingly sad list of conclusions in the first chapters of that vastly underrated book, it is very helpful to see them as the results of asking the wrong questions. Scientists are not a fearful lot, but the wrong question, or even a poorly timed question can be very costly, at the least. Such an error can also set research back for years, sending it down a maze of blind alleys. Theologians, especially this amateur one who happens to be an experimental biologist, should keep this ugly possibility well within sight.
So, can we agree that we do not really know when evil started and that God did not cause it, though it exists as part of creation in at least one of his creatures. And can we agree that the source of evil is spiritual?
Now, here is where I suspect we may disagree. God is an altogether loving God and an essential part of the love that God shows and bestows is libertarian freedom – the freedom to say no. Our will is our own, it is not manipulated by anything or anyone that is truly loving. The same is true for all of God’s creatures, including fully spiritual ones. The original decision to rebel, whenever it occurred, was made by a being possessing a fully free will. That being could have said “no” but chose to say “yes” to rebellion.
If we still agree, we can move on. Well, in fact, we can move on in any case. One of the things science can teach theology (I humbly suggest) is that when up against a brick wall, consider asking a different question. Don’t trash the research program. There is lots here to discover. A better question is almost certainly what we need. I hope I can convince you of this in the next installment to appear relatively soon. I’m leaving that call up to Jeff.
I’ll also leave this probably over-long answer with a short literature reference. As to wrong questions and their damaging effects, have a look at the great rebuttal Pete Enns has just given to a reviewer of “The Evolution of Adam” The reviewer was asking a lot of wrong questions and Pete does a great job of dealing with the problem. It is an excellent case study. It’s at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/ with the title “Spinning our Wheels”
The other reference is Tom Oord’s “The Nature if Love: A Theology” It was this book that got me thinking along these lines some 18 months ago.
August 15, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Enjoying the conversation, Bev and Tom. And, I appreciate the spirit demonstrated throughout. Bev, I’ll probably post part 2 of your mini-series next week.
August 15, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Sounds good. I’m busy with company Monday and Tuesday.
Bev
August 15, 2012 at 11:06 pm
Thanks Bev and Jeff. I didn’t mean to sidetrack what was supposed to be a focus on love and power, but Bev’s opening claim that “evil existed before creation,” left me struggling to comprehend his comments on love and power. And I’m still not clear, Bev, on what you meant when you said evil existed prior to creation, because in this last post of yours you seem to agree that evil originates within the created order. And since you don’t buy the Process doctrine of a necessary God-World(s) relation, there’s no pre-Creation room to locate evil. So are you retracting your claim that evil existed before creation? It would seem so.
Bev: So, can we agree that we do not really know when evil started and that God did not cause it, though it exists as part of creation in at least one of his creatures. And can we agree that the source of evil is spiritual?
Tom: I agree that we don’t have an exact timeline of evil’s origin, except for the fact that evil has its origin in the created order. It didn’t (and couldn’t—given our apparent agreement that God alone is the sole necessary existent) exist “before creation.” And you seem here to agree that evil originates in wills other than God’s, i.e., in created wills, i.e., in the created order. Hence I’m going to assume that you don’t think “evil exists before creation” and just misspoke when you said that.
Bev: Now, here is where I suspect we may disagree. God is an altogether loving God and an essential part of the love that God shows and bestows is libertarian freedom – the freedom to say no. Our will is our own, it is not manipulated by anything or anyone that is truly loving. The same is true for all of God’s creatures, including fully spiritual ones. The original decision to rebel, whenever it occurred, was made by a being possessing a fully free will. That being could have said “no” but chose to say “yes” to rebellion.
Tom: No disagreement here, Bev! Just to fill in some blanks. I’m an open theist. So that should tell you where I stand on the question of freedom and love. I’ve become a fan of the Fathers and Eastern Orthodoxy (in spite of being an ordained AG minister), so you’ll understand my view of evil as both as ‘volitional’ and as a ‘privation of the good’ (or a privation of the good of existence).
So I’m on board with the general open view emphasis upon love and its qualified approach to power (and abuses of power). But I think we open (and ‘relational’) theists sometimes overstate the case, when for example we condemn ‘power’ per se (as your opening post seemed to do, not to suggest that you’re an open theist).
Hope that helps! Go ahead with whatever you had planned. Don’t mind me! ;o)
August 16, 2012 at 9:05 am
Tom,
I don’t “mind” you but I surely appreciate the input. :)
It seems the only major difficulty, so far, is my admittedly bold assumption that evil existed before creation. My boldest phrasing of this assertion was probably “This universe came into existence in the face of a spiritual rebellion against God’s will.” Which appears in a piece hosted last week by Roger Olson.
See:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/08/a-guest-post-the-biblical-story-of-god-and-us-that-includes-evolution-from-a-frequent-visitor-here/
Tom, you may not have seen that piece. It generated considerable commentary, but I don’t recall anyone coming up short on that sentence. Not that they shouldn’t have, mind you. The theme of the piece was quite different however.
Now, to try to better address your point. It may well be possible to think of creation in two stages. We believe that “God created the heavens and the earth”. The probable intent here is to have us think cosmos – material reality. It could be that we should think spiritual reality here too, but maybe not. This is definitely not to imply that God did not create spiritual reality, we believe that he did, but perhaps not at that moment. There are ongoing discussions as to what “beginning” means in the phrase “In the beginning” that I will only acknowledge here (because I am not up on that literature enough to carry on a discussion). However, I do like the translation of The Jewish Study Bible, “When God began to create heaven and earth”.
We believe that God existed before time (whatever that means). We believe that God created (made possible) heavenly beings – inhabitants of spiritual reality. We believe that God is spirit. We don’t really know what we would mean if we were to say that God inhabits spiritual reality, but let’s leave that aside for a moment. We believe that material reality not only required God’s decision and love/power to come into existence, but to remain in existence. What then is the role of spiritual reality (that part of it outside of the Trinity) with respect to material reality? Scripture gives some clues. Some roles are very good, some very bad.
Is it necessary, according to clear teaching of Scripture, to think there was nothing going on in spiritual reality before material reality came into existence? Yes, the Trinity existed before everything and everything flows from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But do we have scriptural warrant to say that material reality and spiritual reality came to be at exactly the same time or separately? – the eternality of the Trinity being our solid ground here.
So, does the clear teaching of scripture tell me not to imagine what is imagined in my bold statement? ”This universe came into existence in the face of a spiritual rebellion against God’s will.”
Put this way, Tom’s question is not simply one we have to work around. If it can be clearly shown from Scripture that we must not separate the beginning of spiritual reality from the beginning of material reality, then we have a show stopper, and it’s back to the lab.
I hope I am right on this, because I really like what comes next! However, this is, after all, a new imagining. We do need a much improved theology of creation for the 21 st century, but it certainly doesn’t have to be mine or even resemble mine. However, since no one seems to be explicitly trying to write one, I thought I’d give it a try. I do strongly feel we (evangelicals) have to more quickly get beyond the mess we are currently in with respect to the relationship between science and Scripture. Denying, or trying to rewrite or twist the best science, is not honoring to God or anyone else.
Science and Scripture are, at the same time, both simple and complex. When we interpret them we often come up with something that is simplistic and convoluted. I want to avoid that at all costs. More simplistic, convoluted things to defend we most definitely can do without.