Nate Ritter

Tonight begins another topic session by Aaron Sherwood. He’s a great presenter. This will be fun. I’ll blog some notations as we go along.

First a few public announcements: [1] Next Tuesday, Sean Hall will be playing 7:00pm, March 1st at Hillcrest Chapel. (Sean Hall presented on Ancient-Future worship a few weeks ago) [2] A walk proclaiming the Passion of the Christ according to John will be occuring in Bellingham Good Friday beginning behind the downtown public library. A final reading will occur at Garden Street United Methodist Church at 1326 Garden St.

And so we begin. One of the things we’ll be doing is defining evil in this topic, which I always find fun. We debated this question in high school and it gets messy quick.

• Sources of Suffering: [1] Sin. [2] Cycle of habitual sin down through generations of families or communities. [3] Spiritual opposition/Satan
• 4 Questions about evil: [1] What is it? [2] What are its origins [3] How long? (cf. Hab 1:2-3a) [4] Will evil triumph? (in order of increasing importance)
• We cannot attack this question from a “rationalist” point of view. (How then should we attach this question?) A: It’s a moral issue, not a philosophical one. Think in terms of God (transcendent, relative to the creation, not defined in terms of what is created, not limited by observable and quantifiable). Morality starts with God, not philosophy.
• The bible has to provide the answer, not the philosophical/worldly mindset.
• If you don’t believe in God, why would you believe that evil exists at all? Why not believe what happens as just part of life and not be concerned with it at all?
• Evil is common to every culture and language. Antithetical to goodness. Relatively clear and present everywhere.
  

  An evil is an unjustifiable reality, something that occurs in experience and ought not to
  - Blocher, p.10 (Evil and the Cross (Le Mal et Le Croix)).

• The best word to define it is that evil is “chaotic”, disorder, “utterly empty, for the other figure used of it is vanity… [evil is] that which defiles description in creational terms (except negatively!).”
• Evil = chaos in the bible: Ps 69:1-2, 14-15, Ps 88:14-17, Jonah 2:3, 5; Gen 7 (Great flood); Dan 7; Rev 21:1
• Water is an essence of chaos, therefore evil
• Chaos has no part in God’s creation. It can’t be explained because God is good and rational and chaos is in the world.
• Instead of an answer of what/who evil is or why it exists, God gives Job an instance of His presence.
• Evil is everything that is in opposition to God’s character and His purposes for His creation.
• Sin is humans deciding to pursue chaos rather than the way of righteousness.
• The subordinate between the partner is typically the one who walks between the two pieces of animal, rather than Abraham, to take the curse upon himself.