Why Does God Allow Evil? - Email from a Skeptic

Koinonea House Online ^ | Dr Mark Eastman

[Revelation 911]

my sincere condolences winston -- God bless you and your wife richly

[cornelis]

ascended into Heaven -- i.e., he left space/time

Does he reincarnate or return? Where is the risen body?

[Alamo-Girl]

ascended into Heaven -- i.e., he left space/time
Does he reincarnate or return? Where is the risen body?

Er, if I may offer a few cents...

So also [is] the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit. Howbeit that [was] not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man [is] of the earth, earthy: the second man [is] the Lord from heaven.

As [is] the earthy, such [are] they also that are earthy: and as [is] the heavenly, such [are] they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. - I Corinthians 15:42-48

I take these verses to mean that a resurrected body is not subject to physical laws, such as entropy, mass/energy, and spatial or temporal dimensionality. The accounts of the witnesses to Christ’s appearances after the empty tomb comport with this understanding.

Paul continues in chapter 15, verses 51-54, to promise that we shall have a resurrected body of this type:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [must] put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

[cornelis]

a resurrected body is not subject to physical laws, such as entropy, mass/energy, and spatial or temporal dimensionality

"Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side." John 20.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

a resurrected body is not subject to physical laws, such as entropy, mass/energy, and spatial or temporal dimensionality

"Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side." John 20

Indeed. But the statements are not mutually exclusive.

IOW, a body which is not subject to physical laws (such as entropy, dimensionality, speed of light and the ilk) may nevertheless appear in such form, but not subject to or restricted by physical law. The body could appear as if from thin air, have a different appearance, go through walls, be "solid" or not, etc.

[Alamo-Girl]

Rats, I should have added to my statement:

The body could appear as if from thin air, have a different appearance, go through walls, be "solid" or not, etc.

These are descriptions of appearance from our four dimensional space/time aspect (to which we are curiously limited by vision and mental capability BTW.) From extra spatial or temporal dimensions - and most especially from a spiritual realm perspective - the appearance would be different.

[maestro]

Your# 126...........exactly!!

(Romans 10:17)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post and agreement!

Revelation 22:20-21

[maestro]

Amen!

Revelation 1:7

(Romans 10:17)

[Alamo-Girl]

Amen!

[betty boop]

I take it that when you say, epiphanies, you're not speaking of a direct presence of God into space-time, as in the Incarnation, but rather an involvement of the Spirit with our spirit or soul. So, for instance, when God passed in front of Moses it was not a literal invasion of God into space-time but rather the Spirit providing Moses with an internal sense of the glory of God. Does this accurately represent your viewpoint?

Yes, lockeliberty!

To be honest, I find the Platonist view of God too transcendent.... It reduces Christianity to merely ethics and feelings and excludes providence and revelation.

Too transcendent? And to the extent Christianity is affected by Platonism, it is thus reduced "merely" to ethics, feelings, excluding providence and revelation?

Well, I think you're being very hard on Plato! Actually, I think he was rather a big fan of revelation. I'll try to explain that in a minute; but first I want to recall something that RightWhale earlier said to cornelis. RW wanted to know how one can tell the difference between idealism and realism. The "quick-and-dirty" clarifying question that allows us to distinguish between the two is this: Does the thinker/philosopher build a system of thought? If he's a system builder, he is most likely an idealist. If his goal is not to systematize reality, recognizing the futility of any such attempt, he is probably a realist.

On this criterion, Plato qualifies as a realist. He was not at all interested in conceiving a "systematic" philosophy. He was more interested in formulating crucial questions than specifying their answers and then "universalizing" them in the form of a system.

I know that Plato is usually classified as an "idealist" in modern times, thanks to thinkers like Ayn Rand, Dr. Piekoff, et al., who think his "spirituality" is the dead giveaway. But Plato knew from his own experience that the spirit is very real (and very important) in universal human experience. And the fact remains that, unlike Kant and Hegel (for instance), Plato never tried to "tell" or "explain" to us what to think or believe. He elucidated an entire symbolic language of the psyche in its existential tension toward the ground of being, the nature of its "in-between reality" (i.e., the metaxy). His method was to point such matters out to us, and bid us to go look for ourselves. And then we will see what we have it in us to see. In a certain sense, Plato was more a coach than a teacher. He has actually been described as a midwife -- and I think there is justice in that characterization.

This, of course, was not the method of Kant or Hegel, both master system builders. By our criterion, they are both idealists -- Hegel a "transcendental" one....

What is very difficult for the modern imagination to grasp is that this realist, Plato, definitely identified psyche or soul as very real. For all its putative "intangibility" psyche is something that human beings constantly experience, without paying much attemntion to it at all -- it's so taken for granted that it normally falls below the threshold of awareness. But the philosopher, in intense contemplation, was able to become aware of the movements of psyche and to make them available to consciousness and symbolization in language. This was Plato's sublime achievement.

I want very much to speak of the metaxy here; however, I'm just about to run out of lunch hour! (Work is too busy....) I will come back to this later today; but for now, let me leave you with a related thought: Human life is lived and experienced in the "in-between" of the metaxy. Man stands at the intersection of time and the timeless.

More later! Thanks to all for this fascinating thread....

[cornelis]

"the statements are not mutually exclusive"

How about that--and thanks to Thomas.

I doubt Thomas was trying to poke his finger into non-spatial dimensionality.

[RightWhale]

RW wanted to know how one can tell the difference between idealism and realism.

Thanks for the thought. It's still not the fundamental distinction, but as these aspects are added to the dialectic we will eventually arrive at where we need to be.

[betty boop]

...as these aspects are added to the dialectic we will eventually arrive at where we need to be.

On the other hand, to feel that one must decide on the basis of dialectic -- putatively an extraordinarily threadbare and puny analytical device, at least as manifested by Hegel and his famous epigones, preeminently Marx and Hitler -- may already be a sign that the rules of engagement of the issue in dispute have been successfully constrained and co-opted from the get-go, in ways that systematically filter out contrary concepts and contrary evidence.

Which is why I think it is usually beneficial for human beings to just "try their eyes" and their own personal judgment, rather than consult with whatever intelligentsia-approved "code book" might happen to be currently fashionable at the moment....

Myself, I'll take common wisdom lived and truthfully described by real human beings over any "code book," anytime.

Thanks so much for writing, RW.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your excellent post and for all the information and analysis of Plato!

For all its putative "intangibility" psyche is something that human beings constantly experience, without paying much attemntion to it at all -- it's so taken for granted that it normally falls below the threshold of awareness. But the philosopher, in intense contemplation, was able to become aware of the movements of psyche and to make them available to consciousness and symbolization in language. This was Plato's sublime achievement.

Indeed! I look forward to your essay on metaxy!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply! Are you speaking of Thomas Aquinas? If so, I'm fairly confident he wouldn't have been poking at (or considering) either spatial or temporal dimensionality in his day.

As I recall, non-Euclidean geometry didn't arrive until the early 1800's though Euler would have been earlier with differential geometry and topology. And I believe Einstein was the first to consider a geometric solution to gravity. But Kaluza/Klein in the early 1920's were the first to propose multiple dimensions as a solution to unify gravity with electromagnetism.

[Alamo-Girl]

I'll take common wisdom lived and truthfully described by real human beings over any "code book," anytime.

Ditto. I prefer to pray, meditate, visualize and let the answers surface.

[lockeliberty]

Betty, I really enjoy your prose and find your writing to be rather romantic. Much of the time you leave this academically and intellectually challenged po boy scratching his head. (re: your post to Right Whale) Unfortunately, I disagree with your overall philosophy. Undoubtedly, I lack the skills to adquately challenge your belief system. (oops, perhaps system was the wrong word?) Nevertheless, one of the advantages of being ignorant is the ability to proceed despite the probabilities.

There are so many levels that I could respond to that it is difficult to synthesize this down. At the most basic level what you are prostelyzing is mysticism. Personally, I enjoy reading the mystics. As you noted, their level of contemplation allows them to define the psyche in ways most people do not consider. By itself I have no problem with and believe all should engage in some form of internal contemplation. The problem I have, as you might expect, is making the internal the whole of the objective. In that sense then, all revelation is internal and there is no external revelation. (Save, perhaps, the one objective Person) If I read your quote to RightWhale correctly, "Which is why I think it is usually beneficial for human beings to just "try their eyes" and their own personal judgment, rather than consult with whatever intelligentsia-approved "code book" might happen to be currently fashionable at the moment....", you deny any written form of external revelation. (AG, I was surprised to see your agreement with Betty in this area knowing of your love of scripture.) Truly, your critique of Hegel is correct in that an overly external life based upon systems is an empty life. OTOH, I would argue, that if the scales are imbalanced toward the internal we run the danger of irrationality, running between one form of pysche to another never quite sure of what pysche is true. Isn't the good life the one that balances the internal revelations against the external revelations?

We have established that you consider Hegel the devil. (Metaphorically) If Hegel is the devil then Kierkegaard, the extreme Platonist, could be considered the anti-devil. Now, I am the least qualified person to lecture you on the history of philosophy, but would it not be correct to say that the likes of Heidegger, Husserl, et al, are the bastard grandchildren of Kierkegaard? Could we say that Kierkegaard is the grandfather of our current irrational cultural mindset, perhaps innocently so? Did his bastard grandchildren twist his views out of proportion or is it a natural progression based upon a Platonist internalism? I'm certainly not qualified to answer these questions but I look forward to your response.

Thanks.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the heads up to your post!

At the most basic level what you are prostelyzing is mysticism.

I strongly disagree. In the first place, betty boop never insists that anyone see things the way that she does. I love this about her because we can freely exchange ideas respectfully, never becoming combative! Moreover, betty boop is speaking to philosophy per se not mysticism, though with the ancients’ nomenclature it may be difficult for the reader to separate the two. betty boop is the most knowledgeable person known to me. If what I knew about philosophy were put in her mind, I would rattle like a BB in a boxcar.

AG, I was surprised to see your agreement with Betty in this area knowing of your love of scripture.

Perhaps I should clarify my views. Indeed, I love the Scriptures. I know them to be revealed of God, Holy and inerrant down to the last word and tense of the word. But that’s not the whole story.

The Word of God is alive (John 1), is God and exists from the beginning – which is to say long before there were any written texts of any kind. Jesus is the Word made flesh. Thus, when we are born again, the Bible no longer reads like a book. The words come alive in our Spirit. (Hebrews 4:12)

In sum, the Scriptures – Holy and True – are not the whole story. He is. Therefore I pray, meditate, visualize and let the answers surface. Many times the answer I receive is a compelling to certain Scripture. But sometimes it is an understanding. But even then, everything I receive in this fashion must conform with the Scriptures or it is meaningless. (Acts 17:11)

If that makes me a mystic, then so be it. And, like betty boop, I do not insist that anyone else see things my way.

[RightWhale]

Emotivism is intensely popular these days. That's part of the problem. For sheer reasoning power there is nothing to compare with the German Hs. Straight up the steepest slope right to the top. Mount Analogue.