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“Christian Theodicy in Light of Genesis and Modern Science” (expanded version)

William Dembski
May 12, 2006
Intelligent Design
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Here is a substantially expanded version of my theodicy paper that was earlier discussed on this blog (go here for the earlier discussion): http://www.designinference.com/documents/2006.05.christian_theodicy.pdf.

Comments
I don't understand what you are saying, tribune7. I know that Christ was crucified. The question at hand is whether his death itself, like the animal sacrifices of ancient times, was what his mission was about. willed by God so that humans could, through this final act of repudiation and hatred, be forgiven everything. also, I apologize for not being more clear in the phrase "Christian thought". Of course the sin of Adam is from Jewish tradition, but Christianity contains many concepts which Judaism doesn't, precisely because of Christ. Christians, for example, generally have a more elaborate doctrinal structure around what happens to the soul after death, etc. (to point out just one difference). The origin of the soul is a crucial question, especially if you are going to contend that the soul contains an inherent, heritable tendency to sin. no one but the Lord is without sin may be a fact of history, or it may be an inherency. Either we sin because we choose to sin, or we sin because we have no choice, having been burdened with a sinful nature because of some historical act. THese distinctions are critical and cannot be whitewashed. Even if you take the Genesis account quite seriously, believing it to be an allegory for the tempter and his influence on humanity, this in no way obliges you to believe that the free will to choose good over evil has been eradicated for every human for all time. Eve made a choice to succumb. Where in that does it logically follow that it becomes the inherent nature of every subsequent human to succumb?tinabrewer
May 16, 2006
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tinabrewer: You responded to my contention that the sacrifice of Christ lay in his mission rather than in his death But He was crucified. you feel that the sin of Adam is able to propagate through time within the framework of traditional Christian thought. It was from Jewish thought How does an innocent soul, born today, relate to the sin of ADAM? Why does suffering exist and why is that "innocent soul" going to sin since no one but the Lord is without sin?tribune7
May 16, 2006
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WmAD: i wanted to say that you addressed the question of the true nature of love somewhat more completely in this version. I was wrong to exaggerate the degree to which unhealthy types of self-sacrifice are a corruption of the concept of love. Of course you correctly point out that Christ encourages the concept of self-sacrifice as a measure of love. The sticking point is in the WHY. If I lay down my life for a friend because this act benefits him, then it is an act of love. If I do it even though I know that this act will likely increase my friend's weakness or sin, then this is not love, but contempt. The trick is to always ask, in the deepest way, what benefits the beloved. In many cases, what benefits someone spiritually is the greatest severity. The wrath of God is severe. It benefits humanity, because it wakes them up from their delusional lazy self-satisfaction. I guess I still think that the truest definition of love is "what benefits and uplifts". It is a positive force in the universe, which originates in God, and emanates from us towards one another. In an world free from sin, it would radiate everywhere, and everything would be beautified, uplifted, strengthened by it. There would be no self-service, and thus no need to doubt the intentions of one another. You responded to my contention that the sacrifice of Christ lay in his mission rather than in his death simply by assigning this heresy a name (Pelagianism) and then rejecting it. This cannot be a serious response. Putting a name on something doesn't make its substance go away. Incidentally, I have not read about Pelagianism, but if it truly is what you say, namely a belief that a "straightforward act of will" is adequate to heal the rift with God, then I absolutely disagree with it. Humanity needs the sacrifice of Christ. Only through the truth, which Christ brought, can we be set free. However, this is very different from a belief that the murder of Christ's body was a necessary propitiatory sacrifice. He gave up his life because the hatred of humanity for the truth made it absolutely inevitable that he would be killed. He knew this, and he came anyway. He would not back down from his bold assertions, and he would not flee in a cowardly manner. It utterly fascinates me that the doctrine of propitiatory sacrifice is a virtual creation of Paul, and that is why whenever I question it, every single Christian I ever talk to says "see Romans". Romans, Romans, Romans. Well, what about the gospels? What about the many many many statements of Christ which make it utterly and unquestionably clear that the murder of the 'son of the lord of the vineyard' will provoke the absolute wrath of God? What about the prayer of intercession "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do"? None of these things is ever answered. Just 'see Romans'. The other main problem I see is that you conflate the sin of Adam with "humanity". And yet you take no pains to elucidate how, or in what manner you feel that the sin of Adam is able to propagate through time within the framework of traditional Christian thought. How does an innocent soul, born today, relate to the sin of ADAM? You write "For redemption to effectively deliver humanity from evil therefore requires humanity to be clear as to precisely what it has consented to in rebelling against God and embracing evil." How does a child, who has never lived and been tempted before, automatically inherit the tendency to sin? If there is no mechanism for the propagation, do we assume that every individual reenacts the scene in the garden with the serpent? Also, mentok makes the correct point that the terrible inequalities among humans must give a serious person cause to question the benevolence of God (in the absence of a meaningful explanation for this inequality). Why does one person suffer terrible physical pain, poverty, persecution, etc. and another have a life of perfect health, success and wealth? If it is 'just the way it is', and someone who has a life of terrific suffering is expected to make the same ultimate spiritual choice to embrace God's will, then at least it must be admitted that the suffering one's choice is many times harder. Why? Why would God equally accept someone into his eternal kingdom who never experienced a moment of hardship, was born into a Christian family, easily and without sacrifice of reputation came to "accept Jesus", alongside another who lived a life of terrible existential torment, had no opportunity to know the sacrifice of Christ due to his circumstances, would certainly have suffered torture and death had he chosen this route, etc. These inequities are often extreme. They must be addressed explicitly in a meaningful theodicy.tinabrewer
May 15, 2006
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"The problem facing orthodox Christians is orthodoxy." Very well said! Beautiful.

Rude
May 15, 2006
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Ah Job, but maybe the theodicy there is more subtle than you think. In the Hebrew Scriptures the Satan is pictured as completely subservient to God. He can do nothing that God doesn't permit. He is merely a tool that God could annihilate in an instant. It's not Satan that God wants to impress--it's Job. And maybe too Job is a caricature of Israel and every man.

Humans can be tools too. Consider Pharoah. It was in his heart to fight against God's purpose but he seems not to have had the fortitude to go the stretch, so in order for God to do what he purposed (i.e., the Exodus) he found it necessary to harden Pharoah's heart. Later with Nebuchadnezzar this seems not to have been necessary.

By the way, in view of the way Scripture portrays an interventionist God, not just in cosmic and biological history, but also in human history, consider what Winston Churchill said before the US congress on December 26, 1941: "If you will allow me to use other language, I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and for the good of all, walk together in majesty, in justice and in peace." (accessible at https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ww2/churchill122641.html)

Prophetic speculations may be futile, but how about ID someday looking for the inference of design in human history--design from a perspective larger than that which humans could be responsible.

Rude
May 15, 2006
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The problem facing orthodox Christians is orthodoxy. Who were the greatest enemies of Christ? The most orthodox members of the group into which he was born. They opposed him precisely because they could not free themselves from their self-created version of truth. On the other hand, for some mysterious reason, a select group of individuals obeyed the dictates of a powerful inner urge for truth and broke the bonds of convention, often facing great suffering and death, because they resonated with his truth.tinabrewer
May 15, 2006
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The problem facing any orthodox Christian theodicy is to resolve this: "(1) God is a perfectly good being who would create a world without any genuine evil if he could; (2) God is an all powerful being who can create a world without genuine evil, and yet (3) genuine evils exists." I suggest, for any who might be interested in a non-classical, yet Christian, resolution of the problem of evil, the following: http://speeches.byu.edu/freefiles/provider1/type1/PaulsenF99.pdfjaredl
May 15, 2006
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I have no problem with God conversing with an adversarial angel. I believe Satan to be real, and personal. However, I have a real intuitive problem with the idea of the maker of all life 'bargaining' with Satan, and using his self-conscious creatures as a means of proving his ominipotence to another of his self-conscious creatures, namely Satan. Certainly, the adversary knows that God is almighty. He only wishes, in his loveless ruthlessness, to destroy as many human beings as he can because of his contempt for our weakness. In Job, ultimately the only real insight conveyed is that 'the buck stops with God'. I couldn't agree more. However, 'the buck' can be interpreted in various ways. Theodicies are attempts to get our minds around the nature of our creator. Some succeed, some fail. As to inerrancy, I am in agreement that one must say "either this is a great book full of wisdom and potential insights", or "this is the inerrant word of God". I have never heard a single cogent argument for believing in Biblical inerrancy before, and the multitude of differing interpretations which arise from the same literature is proof enough that total clarity is lacking. Where there is clarity and truth, by definition there can be no disputing.tinabrewer
May 15, 2006
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DS, believe me, you don't need to give me an education. I was reading Asimovian Science at eight.
But at least we agree on the darwinite and global alarming perversions of real science.
I merely suggest you be open to all evidence, not just established 'truth'.
There's a Zeitgeist behind the mis-scientism.

Yes, you do need an education in high energy and astrophysics if you're struggling under the misinformed belief that we can't see supernovas or don't have the physics (math you called it) to know how heavy elements are formed in them. Or do you wish to change what you said? -ds mmadigan
May 15, 2006
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Well, it seems to me that the book of Job might be taken any number of ways. It may simply be a story which was an ancient attempt at theodicy, or it may be part of the inerrent word of God. Either way it doesn't try to excuse God, either by distancing him from the reality of our world or by blaming everything on "the Fall". Ultimately the buck stops with God. As for God conversing with an adversarial angel—why not? This may appear quite unsophisticated within our present "noetic environment", but it's not logically impossible. I say the more we push back the fog of naturalism the more logical such interventions will appear. On the question of whether God would reveal himself to mankind through the literature of a single nation—the Jewish nation, a very sensible argument is made in one of WmAD's articles in "Unapologetic Apologetics: Meeting the Challenges of Theological Studies," edited by WmAD and J Richards. My take is that one starts with a hypothesis: The Book is the word of God. OK, then does it say anything risky? Somewhere I remember Richard Feinman expressing his disdain for liberal Judeo-Christians: "They can't even be wrong!" And then are any of these risky statements easily refuted by the evidence? And is the book coherent? Liberals begin with the assumption that it isn't coherent, which I believe explains their antipathy for "proof texting". Anyway WmAD writes in his Theodicy, "Christian theism has traditionally regarded God as omniscient in the sense of possessing perfect knowledge of future contingent propositions and as omnipotent in the sense of being able to act effectively in the world to bring about any result that is not logically impossible." Yes, isn't this the very point of any theodicy—explaining how God is limited by logic? For if God were not limited by anything at all, not by logic and not by justice and not by any larger goal (such as the creation of virtuous free agents), then we have no answer to the question of why a good God would permit so much evil.Rude
May 15, 2006
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I am confused by Job. I read it like an attempt at theodicy, and not a really very good one. Certainly it is a story. I mean, does anyone picture God really chatting with Satan and accepting a bargain in which he uses a human being as a whipping boy? If Job were the answer, then we would never need to grapple with the problem of evil again, and like WmAD says in his paper, the approach of "get over your squeamishness" would be all we need. I think the questions raised by mentok are fundamental. It is one thing to talk about "the fall" in an impersonal sense "the fall caused all of this badness". It is quite another to look in the face of the alarming inequities in human life, and say that 'thats just how it is'. Any conscious being who seeks for higher recognitions is forced, unless he completely silences his inner voice, to grapple with these basic questions. Certainly the author of Job felt that he needed to grapple with them.tinabrewer
May 15, 2006
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As I have not denied anything, I puzzled by what your arguing against, ds.
But enlighten me. How do we measure Nova to New Elements?
The math has not shown it possible and we cannot 'see' it.
I have learned to distrust Big Science.
Do you accept anthropic global warming?

It's beyond the scope of blog commentary to give you the education in high energy and astrophysics required to understand how heavy elements were created and distributed by supernova explosions of large early generation stars. You can begin by reading the links returned by this. The math does indeed show it possible as does experiment physics and astronomical observations. We CAN actually "see" it. You should watch "The Privileged Planet" as it goes into great detail about how the earth is ideally positioned so that we can see these things. The take home message from the video is that God gave us the best seats in the house from which to observe the universe. And no, I don't accept the alarmist interpretations of anthropic global warming. I believe the hyperbolic brouhaha is mostly just a means to insure and increase the flow of public funds into climate research. I don't particulary have a problem with that until the peanut gallery starts believing the hyperbole and wants expensive actions undertaken to stop a problem that may not even be a problem. We don't know that man's contribution to greenhouse warming isn't preventing the next ice age and an ice sheet a quarter mile thick covering New York City and everything north of it is at least as bad as the sea level rising a few meters and Canada becoming available for growing oranges and wheat. -ds mmadigan
May 15, 2006
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"Christian Theodicy in Light of Genesis and Modern Science," it's a case that should be made and Dembski makes it well, though I'd suggest substituting "Theology" for "Genesis" in the title. Today's better exegetes recognize how little of what we believe about Genesis is really there. Theodicy would be easier had we only to harmonize Genesis with scientific fact. One perceives in the theologians a certain "my concept of God is greater than your concept of God, and if you disagree you are limiting God." We seem to forget that when we expand God's attributes in one direction we usually limit them in another. Maybe that's why God told Moses that his name is "I AM THAT I AM." When we endow God with exhaustive foreknowledge we deprive him of curiosity, when we make him to know everything that will ever be known we make it such that he can never learn and never grow. If from all eternity God has known all his own actions and their effects and his retroactive responses then can God really be anything more than some deterministic template of Platonic forms? In "Moral Darwinism" Benjamin Wiker does an excellent job uncovering the Epicurean roots of our modernist materialism. Much can also be said in regard to the theological roots of the Deism that so naturally fed into agnosticism and atheism. Not only did men not want to retain God in their knowledge, their knowledge of God became so abstract that it didn't seem worth retaining. Genesis presents a very different God, One who formed creatures "and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them"—--was this merely the "anthromorphism" of our theologically unsophisticated forebears? Whatever the case Genesis presents a vastly more interesting God than Christendom bequeathed to the so-called Enlightenment. How is it in the Scriptures? Is it that the Planet was retroactively cursed because of Adam? Or was it that Adam was created to alleviate the curse caused by angels? One can amass scriptural evidence in favor of the latter but I fear only an isolated interpretation of Romans 5 in support of the former. The notion that Satan influences the physical creation only through the agency of man is only partly true, and perhaps only so since God metaphorically said (Gen 3:14), "upon thy belly shalt thou go". The Adversary never pulls a gun on you, but he can deceive another fellow into doing just that. There is, for example, the case of Job. The Satan got permission from the Almighty to harass Job, which is why there came word (Job 1:15), "And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." But in the story the Satan also instigates natural evil (Job 1:19): "And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." Reminds one of Ephesians 2:2 where the devil is called "the prince of the power of the air ([ο αρχων] της εξουσιας του αερος], the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience". And is it only man that the Adversary influences? How about beasts (Mat 8:30-32): "And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding. So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters."Rude
May 14, 2006
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Thank you for sharing your belief system,ds, I learned that in high school.
I've gotten used to keeping an open mind. thanks.

If by "belief system" you mean "reality that we can observe and measure with the rational minds that God gave us" then I'm happy to share it with you. I can only hope you'll someday stop denying it. -ds mmadigan
May 14, 2006
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That should be "Or CLAIM suffering occurs because God doesn’t care."tribune7
May 14, 2006
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If children suffer greatly then die before developing the ability to understand much of anything how does Christian theodicy explain the cause for their suffering and death? That's like asking "who sinned this man or his parents?" which of course was asked and answered in Scripture (John 9). There is actually a whole book devoted to the suffering of innocence (Job). Actually, if you think about it, the who NT is about the suffering of an innocent. The suffering of innocence is a fact. You can whine about why it is a fact or try to do something about it which is the point of the Lord's answer in John 9. Or suffering occurs because God doesn't care. Then, of course, you have to wonder why he sent His only begotten Son to suffer to deliver us from the main cause of our suffering -- namely ourselves, via greed, superstition, self-worship etc.tribune7
May 14, 2006
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When you speak of the fall of humanity "bringing evil into the world" is this meant as a singular historical event i.e. adam and eve brought evil into the world at a certain time and place when they rebelled against God, and from then on evil has plagued humanity? Or is it meant in the sense that every individual "brings evil into the world" when they rebel against God? There are many problems with any form of Christian theodicy in my view. A big problem is that so many children suffer and die before they have developed the ability to know right from wrong. Not knowing about right or wrong or God they have no ability to rebel against God. Just like in jurisprudence a person is judged insane if he is unable to know that his actions were wrong and therefore he is considered not guilty of any crime. How can a 3 year old be in rebellion against God? If children suffer greatly then die before developing the ability to understand much of anything how does Christian theodicy explain the cause for their suffering and death? They had no chance to engage in sin and had no mental ability to accept Jesus. What becomes of them? How about the people who lived before Jesus? Another problem is the disparity in peoples lives vis-a-vis their experiences. Some people are born into great suffering, violence, poverty and disease, while others are born into happiness, good health, wealth, security etc. How does Christian theodicy explain this disparity? Chance? Is God less then us? Would you leave your children to live lives of random chance if you had the ability to intervene? Would we treat our children differently for no particular reason, some we feed and clothe and provide opulent surroundings and good health care while with others we negelect? Would you treat your children whimsically? Is God less compassionate and caring then we are? If not then we have to consider that there is a very good reason for the disparity in peoples lives. If we believe that the life we live now is our first life then there is no good explanation as to the disparity in peoples lives or the suffering and death of children or why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Unless everyone is experiencing what God determined they need to experience for their continuing spiritual evolution over more then one life then we are left with a God who is less then us, less compassionate, less fair, less involved, less of a concerned involved parent. I don't buy that. In my view God is a better person, more concerned, more involved, and more compassionate then we are. Without including reincarnation any theodicy will fail to give redress to these philosophical dilemmas.mentok
May 14, 2006
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For me the story of the fall is a metaphor. There was no literal adam and eve. Evil is in the eye of the beholder. What the child thinks is evil when his parents punish him is seen by his parents as a necessary learning experience for the child. More later.mentok
May 14, 2006
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Doc I've been thinking more about your article. You point out that historiographical, archeological, and anthropological methods give strong support to the New Testament - and it should be noted that this type of evidience was the first step that led many intellectuals i.e. Sir William Ramsey and Dr. Simon Greenleaf to Christ -- while discrediting a literal interpretation of Genesis. And you are right to say that one can't have it both ways. This, of course, doesn't directly apply to what you are trying to do in explaining why pain and suffering existed before Adam and Eve as indicated by legitimate scientific evidence. But, if proved investigative techniques back the NT -- and more sigificantly the testimony of the Spirit -- then we can be certain that somehow, someway there was a fall despite what good science tells us. I said something like this earlier, but you do make one think. I will take issue with what you said about the plague -- if something should happen that would cause a third of us to die fairly suddenly, we would no longer need an elaborate theodicy either.tribune7
May 14, 2006
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Erroneously misled is a redundancy. Have you read Gerald Schroeder?mmadigan
May 13, 2006
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Respectfully, I consider myself a serious scientist, with no religious predeliction.
I was erroneously misled by darwinian mythologies in my youth. Astrophysics has many
'old earth' problems. And except for the haphazard radiodating inculcated with circular reasoning,
I have yet to see insurmountable problems for a Young Earth Geology.
So again, what is unacceptable except the Established Religion Consensus?

Our sun is a type G main sequence star with abundant heavy elements. Heavy elements are created in supernova explosions. Thus our sun must have been preceded by one or more generations of giant stars that formed, burned up their hydrogen fuel, and went out in a supernova explosion that formed and scattered heavy elements that later generation stars can incorporate when they form out of condensing gas clouds. Stellar evolution is fairly well understood and we can observe in real time all kinds of stars in all stages of their life cycles. It is impossible for our sun to have formed and matured to its current state in any kind of scale measured in thousands of years. The earth is billions of years of old. Get used to it. -ds mmadigan
May 13, 2006
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Mmadigan: Astrophysics and geology are serious sciences. Darwinian evolution is not. --WmADWilliam Dembski
May 13, 2006
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If a Young Earth seems a better fit, what is the major reason for rejecting it? There are unanswered questions on all sides. Why choose conventional darwinite 'wisdom? They are certainly wrong on other issues.mmadigan
May 13, 2006
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Dr. Dembski, An error in the Simon Blackburn quote at the beginning of your paper: "It shapes our emotional responses, determining what is a cause of pride or shame, or anger or gratitude, or what we can be forgiven and what cannot." The word "we" does not appear in the original. Regards, Hypermoderatehypermoderate
May 12, 2006
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Doc, That was an impressive paper. Are you saying that God is something like an author who began writing a story then at one point gave His protagonists the power to choose their course of action, which they did badly? Which meant that He had to go back and rewrite everything to set things right? I think ultimately one ends up having to say there is a limit to the power of the human mind and some things are always going to be a mystery. If one accepts, however, as unchallengable axioms that God exists and that Jesus is the Redeemer everything else will fall, if not in place, harmlessly.tribune7
May 12, 2006
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