Summary of text [comment] pages 54 and 55
[In Manichaeism, evil is regarded as a timeless divinity, co-existent with good.
Contrast this image with the eternal co-existence of the Father and the Son.
The former embodies conflict. The latter embodies family.
The former embodies imbalance. The latter embodies harmony.
The former is fruitless. The latter is generative.]
[To me, this “good versus evil” simplicity eerily matches the moment when an alliance of infrasovereign religions grasp sovereign power. Thinkdivine is eclipsed. Thinkgroup splits into thinkpro-object (substituting for thinkdivine) and a projected thinkanti-object (taking the role of thinkgroup compared to thinkdivine).
Pro-object is designated good. Anti-object is designated evil.
From all appearances, two co-eternal gods have been designated.
However, there is a trick.
“Evil” becomes “a projection by the alliance in power” onto other persons. The accusation of thinkanti-object and conscienceanti-object destroys the accused, whether innocent or guilty.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 54 and 55
Schoonenberg noted: “Divine causality with respect to evil” must considered in light of God’s transcendent causality.
The notion, that “evil may be a positive entity in and of itself” has been around a long time. It was a key tenet of several non-Biblical religions.
For example, the heresy of the Albigensians displayed a Manichaen dualistic point of view, claiming that good and evil exist in and of themselves.
This notion greatly simplified the world. There were two divinities, one good and the other evil.
Summary of text [comment] pages 54 and 55
Along with the questions of responsibility and freedom, there is the question of evil itself.
[We already encountered “the idea that metaphysical limitations and physical challenges are implicit to every spontaneous order”. These evils describe “actuality slipping back into possibility”. They are a necessary part of any spontaneous order. Otherwise, a spontaneous order would no longer dynamically bring possibility into actuality. The spontaneous order would become static.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 53 and 54
Why doesn’t God just destroy evil people?
These types of questions were raised in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the so-called Renaissance was trending into the so-called Enlightenment.
[Of course, these questions were misleading. They pretended that God’s freedom and fairness were actualities that could contradict one another.
Instead, fairness puts actions into context. Actions situate freedom.
God’s existence encompasses all modes of causality.
God’s existence includes normal context, actuality, and potential.
God does not induce sin, even though God supports a world in which evil exists.
God supports a world in which we are free.]
[Only in the realm of possibility can a god be fair and unfair at the same time.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 53 and 54
Scripture teaches that evil comes into play as “God continually causes the world to exist”.
All the examples in the previous blogs are about the creatures that God created.
We are autonomic selves acting while God sustains us.
What would happen if God were to withhold his sustaining activity.
What if God stopped supporting the existence of one human creature engaged in evil actions?
We would question our freedom and the fairness of God’s judgment.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 53 and 54
Does God affect sin? Does God cause it, since he is the universal cause?
In Scripture, Yahweh hardened the Pharaoh’s heart. Yahweh inspired David to hold a census, then punished David for it. Paul noted that God can harden the heart of whoever he wills.
In the Lords prayer, we recite “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil”.
In contrast, the epistle of James claims that God cannot tempt.
Schoonenberg concluded: The seriousness of sin corresponds to the earnestness with which God is our God. God’s seriousness goes together with our powerlessness to reach the transcendent God in his own being. Contrition must be accompanied by adoration.
Summary of text [comment] page 52
Does sin affect God?
[Well, we did crucify Him. Would that count as “affecting”?
On the other hand, we only crucified Jesus, “the Person who the Father Recognizes2“. I suspect that upset “the Person who Recognizes2“. But it could not alter “the Person3” who brings “the actuality of God2” into relation with “God’s own Potential1“.
Without Peirce’s three categories, Schoonenberg struggled to describe how our sins do and do not affect God.
If our sins did not affect God, then He would not be in relation with us. We would merely be creatures in a Deist universe.
If our sins could create or destroy gods, our gods would merely be extensions of ourselves.
Peirce’s categories allow us to see how our sins affect God in the realm of actuality, but not in the realms of mediation and potential.
Our sins affect the Father and the Son.]
