Did God create Adam and Eve to sin?

If you read the previous post, this was one of the questions that arose in my mind and which we tried to discuss at the story group on Friday night.  It’s sort of part of that question of where evil comes from.  I’ve been chewing it over and over, and here are some thoughts that I’ve been having (which doesn’t make these thoughts true).

A simple answer would be ‘no’.  I don’t think God would’ve created Adam and Eve to sin, nor do I think God created ‘defected’ human beings.  At the same time, however, neither do I believe that he created morally perfect beings.  I remember a talk that Paddy Benn gave at an EU Public Meeting this year where he tried to flesh out that when Genesis uses the word ‘good’, when God says his creation is ‘good’, it’s not referring to moral goodness but to functionality – it works just right.  We know this because that which is not good (Genesis 2:18) is simply not yet fully functional, rather than morally corrupt.  I think this has implications for how we understand sin, particularly if God somehow was responsible for it.  The use of the word ‘good’ to mean functionality implies that God neither sufficiently nor necessarily created human beings to sin, but they certainly have the ability to do so because freewill is part of our humanity.  That whole sentence is controversial but I’m thinking if God creates humans to be perfectly (and I use this term loosely) well-functioning, then the ability to sin is actually irrelevant to functionality.  In other words, God did not intentionally create morally-flawed creatures because the Bible doesn’t indicate that his ‘good’ creation of human beings concerned morality.  I think this potentially has implications for moral philosophers who debate the notion of freewill.  The dichotomy between determinism and freewill might not be so ‘dichotomous’ after all?  We believe in a God who does determine the course of history but he made humans to be free agents because they were not morally constrained?

Power…who is to be entrusted with it?

Dear friends,

I’m so terribly sorry that I haven’t written anything here for a while!  And thanks Phil & Miriam, for bringing that to my attention and the timely spur 🙂  It has indeed been three weeks, and I should really be doing this regularly for it to become a habit.

Well, what I’m about is type up is something that I read last week for my Writing History subject.  It is most interesting…

To set the context, this is a transcription of a conversation between Jean-Pierre Barou, Michelle Perrot and Michel Foucault (all influential French philosophers…though I don’t really know who the first two are).  It’s from 1972 and they’re talking about this ‘device’ called ‘the Panopticon’, invented by a man named Jeremy Bentham, which is basically the way jails are run.  (You have an authority figure who sits in the centre of a circular room or tower, and around the circumference are the individual cell rooms.  The idea is that this system creates a phenomenon where the authority figure has ‘the eye of God’; he/she is able to see every move of the inmates, and what eventually happens, or as they hope to happen, is that the criminals become so overwhelmed by the authority figure’s ‘all-seeing’ power in ‘the gaze’ that they start to regulate themselves.  That is, they start to become their own overseer; each person starts exercising moral surveillance over, and against, himself!  It’s a powerful idea if you think about it!)

Okay, so at one point in the conversation, they start asking the question: Who is to be entrusted with this power?

PERROT: As one reads him [Bentham] one wonders who he is putting in the tower.  Is it the eye of God?  But God is hardly present in the text [Panopticon]; religion only plays a role of utility [this is an interesting point, I thought].  Then who is it?  In the last analysis one is forced to conclude that Bentham himself has no clear idea to whom power is to be entrusted.

FOUCAULT: He can’t entrust it to anyone person since no one can or may occupy the role that the King had in the old system, that is as the source of power and justice [this assumption is based on the belief that all kings and thus the monarchy system is corrupt].  It was implicit in the theory of monarchy that trust in the King was a necessity…Power, in his person, could only be good; a bad King was either an accident of history or a punishment by God, the absolutely good sovereign.  On the other hand, if power is arranged as a machine working by a complex system of cogs and gears, where it’s the place of a person which is determining, not his nature, no reliance can be placed on a single individual.  If the machine were such that someone could stand outside it and assume sole responsibility for managing it, power would be identified with that one man and we would be back with a monarchical type of power.  In the Panopticon each person, depending on his place, is watched by all or certain of the others.  You have an apparatus of total and circulating mistrust, because there is no absolute point.  The perfected form of surveillance consists in a summation of malveillance.

Sorry for the super long quote, but what I think is really fascinating is what Foucault sees as a need for, not only a king who cannot be corrupted, but also a third party, someone outside the system of power, to oversee the whole working of the system.  And you might be already anticipating what I’m about to say next, but isn’t it obvious?  Foucault is right – never in history has there been a king that has fulfilled such a role, and that’s why when he talks about the Panopticon reverting back to ‘a monarchical type of power’, he doesn’t mean it in a good sense.  At the same time, without an ‘absolute point’, ‘you have an apparatus of total and circulating mistrust’!

God must’ve known this because He provides the exact solution!  There is a king he has established, the Christ Jesus.  He came to earth not to be served but to serve.  After he paid for our rejection of God by dying on the cross, he rose from the death to show that He is indeed God’s Son, the Messiah, the anointed King, who is Lord of the world.  He is the ‘absolute point’ and at the same time, because He is also God, He is ‘that someone [who] could stand outside’.  So yes, Mr Foucault, ‘we would be back with a monarchical type of power’…but it’s not one to be disappointed in!

As it says in Isaiah chapter 42:

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.  He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.  A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.  In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.  In his law the islands will put their hope.  This is what God the LORD says—he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.  I am the LORD; that is my name!  I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.  See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”

Food for thought 🙂  I don’t know if you think such a person could possibly exist, or whether Jesus is in fact that person.  But whatever your thoughts, I’d like to hear them!  For me, I know that this King has been revealed in the person of Jesus, and it is indeed God’s intention for a just and benevolent ruler to be King.  And that person is in fact Him.  And He is going to restore the world under His kingship.  Where do you think you’ll stand when He comes to be King?  With Him or against Him?

Creation: “Where’s the proof?”

I found this article really fascinating and easy to read.  It really got me to think outside the box.  Why not have a read yourself or even with a friend?  Check out: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v22/n1/creation-proof

Is the Bible just mere teleology?

If you are prepared to read some serious waffling, then please continue.  At the moment I’m trying to finish my psych essay (which, as you can see, isn’t happening so productively) and I’m arguing that most of the psychological theories that we have about love are teleological (new word for me too!)

Teleology is when you explain a phenomenon, like love, by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes.  (Note: please don’t confuse the definition with the theological one, which is “the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world” – thank you New Oxford American Dictionary!)  Teleological isn’t all bad, but it isn’t all good either.  For example, Anna caught the bus because she wants to get to uni.  This tells me that my aim was to get to uni; that’s my purpose.  You can answer questions like ‘why did you catch the bus?’ but you can’t answer questions like ‘why did you catch the bus and not the train?’, with the info given.  There’s just no info provided for the cause of me choosing to catch the bus, or even why I needed to get to uni.

So the question is, then: is the Bible (the explanation of the existence of our world – woah, I just realised that this post might entail a huge chunk of waffling!) teleological?  Does it only tell us about God’s purposes by its account and not the causes behind them?

Ahh…well, looks like this won’t be a huge waffle after all as my eyelids are just about closed, so I’ll have to type up the next bit soon!  But just in case you’re curious, the answer is no, and I shall try to write up why.

And incase you’re asking: “Anna, dude…why are you even wasting your time on such a fruitless topic?”, I’ll say that it’s because if the bible is not just mere teleology, then that means it probably is one of the only explanations of our world that is adequate!  I know that’s a real big claim, and I can’t really make it because I haven’t read everything ever written in the world, but I think the bible is at least an adequate explanation of the world, if not more.

‘Is there actually any ‘real’ evidence for the Resurrection?’

My friend was asking me this question today.  I think what he meant by ‘real’ was extra-biblical evidence.  (Note: historians widely acknowledge that the  biblical accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are reliable sources of historical accounts for the Resurrection.)  I’m no expert but I’ve found Josh McDowell’s article very clear and helpful.  Hope you will too, whether you’re searching for answers, or just curious, or wanting to talk it out with a friend.  It’s a very easy read as well!  The link to the article is: http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html.  Let me know what you think ok!