4:31 PM
i think that the modern Western, Protestant, Christian conscience has personalized (and unnecessarily reduced) "evil" to the actions of an agent. i think that they see things in direct cause/effect relationships and to that end they see agent-action in "evil" and "good." but this leads to all kinds of tension both within the text and in allegorical evidence. i think that this lends itself to a word study, honestly to see what "evil" (πονηρόν, in Romans 12:9) may, or may not, encompass.
at any rate, as with most things, we say "evil" but what do we mean? do we mean what Paul warned against (πονηρός), or do we mean what God relented from (κακίας) in Exodus 32:14? do we mean the "bad guys in the spiritual realm" or do we mean "bad things/tragedy?"
as for your les mis example, i wouldn't doubt that Jesus would see the very human reality that this person was starving, he did what he could to survive, and it was wrong. Jesus would forgive him if he was truly repentant and then he'd get into a tussle with the religious leaders about it because they'd let the man down by dehumanizing him to a place where he had to steal.
2 hours later…
6:58 PM
Good thoughts, @swasheck. This is a tough one to answer, since you are asking me for an Orthodox perspective. It would be hard to speak for all of Orthodoxy on this, but I can share my personal thoughts
so Orthodox believe in original sin from Adam and Eve, but not in original guilt as Augustine and much of Western Christianity teaches.
Death is not a punishment by God for sin, but rather the result of sinning. We have become corruptible.
Here is a great quote from the article: "Well, then, the connection of these names with substance is owing to its accidents. For murder is not a substance, nor is any other evil; but the substance receives a cognate name from putting it into practice. For a man is not (spoken of as) murder, but by committing it he receives the derived name of murderer, without being himself murder; and, to speak concisely, no other evil is a substance; but by practising any evil, it can be called evil.
Similarly consider, if you imagine anything else to be the cause of evil to men, that it too is evil by reason of its acting by them, and suggesting the committal of evil. For a man is evil in consequence of his actions.
For he is said to be evil, because he is the doer of evil. Now what a man does, is not the man himself, but his activity, and it is from his actions that he receives the title of evil. For if we were to say that he is that which he does, and he commits murders, adulteries, and such-like, he will be all these.
Now if he is these, then when they are produced he has an existence, but when they are not, he too ceases to be. Now these things are produced by men. Men then will be the authors of them, and the causes of their existing or not existing. But if each man is evil in consequence of what he practises, and what he practises has an origin, he also made a beginning in evil, and evil too had a beginning.
Now if this is the case, no one is without a beginning in evil, nor are evil things without an origin."
This is very Aristotelian, but does a decent job explaining it somewhat. And keep in mind the philosophical meaning of 'accident' - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_(philosophy)
This is basically Platonist philosophy, but Methodius (the author) was attacking the Gnostic view of the origin of evil and arguing in defense of the freedom of the human will
It was the Gnostics (especially the Manicheans) who believed in Fatalism. Oddly enough, Augustine was a Manichean for several years before becoming a Christian, and he taught double predestination (Christianized fatalism). Coincidence? I think not ;)
The only reason Augustine didn't suffer the same fate as Origen (being posthumously denounced as a heretic) was because the Synod of Orange cleaned up his image and espoused a modified Augustinism (which scholars today agree was not what Augustine actually taught) that made him more palatable to the church-at-large
7:39 PM
7:54 PM
The Irenaean theodicy is a Christian theodicy designed to respond to the problem of evil. As such, it defends the probability of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent (all-powerful and perfectly loving) God in the face of evidence of evil in the world. Numerous variations of theodicy have been proposed which all maintain that, while evil exists, God is either not responsible for creating evil, or he is not guilty for creating evil. Typically, the Irenaean theodicy asserts that the world is the best of all possible worlds because it allows humans to fully develop. Most versions of the Irenaean...
8:15 PM
I've come to the answer, the answer to the theodicy is Jesus. Not intellectually satisfying at first glance, but deep and true if you think about it.
But I read a book that does a phenomenal job with explaining this perspective: amazon.com/Problem-Suffering-Fathers-Hope/dp/0758626614
I presume you aren't much of a fan of Piper? I found this struck a chord with my reasoning (not actually by Piper, but on his site)
8:44 PM
@JackDouglas I've read J.I. Packer's "Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God" from this (your) perspective
I didn't like it, but his introduction about the 'antinomy' of man's free will and God's sovereignty is good. But then he kills the antinomy by reasoning it out on the side of sovereignty
I think Jaroslav Pelikan put it best in this book: amazon.com/Christian-Tradition-Development-Doctrine-Emergence/…
"Fundamentally, the objection was that Augustine had resolved the paradox of inevitability and responsibility at the expense of responsibility, and that he glorified grace by belittling nature and free will.... Grace and freedom stood in a kind of antinomy, which had been resolved first in favor of freedom and was now being resolved in favor of grace, but which 'the rule of the church's faith' did not permit one to resolve at all" (p. 320).
@DanO'Day I've read it twice and found it frustrating: I don't get the antinomy at all. I discovered this today on Piper's site (today is the first day I've been on that site as far as I recall). Loved it: summed up everything I thought but couldn't articulate about Packer's tract.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have made it a point to seek him out. Especially since he made the journey I did. He was an LCMS Lutheran who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy near his death (which was a HUGE deal)
For some of the underlying worldview differences between Calvinism and Orthodoxy (in many ways these are polar opposites), check out orthodoxbridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/…
8:52 PM
"double predestination is but a logical outworking of this fundamental premise (Barth 1922:117-118)." likewise!
9:12 PM
@JackDouglas but I certainly allow my presuppositions to be challenged. I was a pretty convinced Lutheran, then I was leaning towards Reformed theology, then an Eastern Lutheran, and only now do I consider myself Orthodox
In other words, the clay determines what the Potter does with it. If it resists formation, the Potter might form it differently
9:43 PM
50 mins ago, by Dan O'Day
For some of the underlying worldview differences between Calvinism and Orthodoxy (in many ways these are polar opposites), check out http://orthodoxbridge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Plucking-the-TULIP3.pdf
10:03 PM
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