On the "Spiritual Left" and Science
I read an interesting article the other day in one of my science magazines. I am used to reading countless articles about how horrible "right wing" Christians are to science and how they must be stopped at any cost. It is pretty scary reading the vehemence with which these scientists write, and I am getting sick of it. (Now, while I think that most
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Good as a category in itself is an assumption which in any case must be qualified.
"Good" for them is whatever enhances humanity. Now, they are concerned about the environment -- they do not want to lose species to extinction, they do not want to lose forests and habitats -- but they do want to improve on everything for the benefit of man.
That does not make things clearer. Conceptions of humanity or man, introduced by scientists who get their financial support from interested companies, more often than not do more good to those companies than to humanity or man. Bad things they want to abolish just fit into their agenda. They want your best--and will probably get it. Enough said, scientists' conceptions of Good have no relevance in this context.
I look to Scripture for indications of what a good world would look like.
Life after final redemption is the broadest concept of good I can think of. Creation is good, man is good, man's intentions and deeds are good. Just everything is good, and that's why Good has no meaning any more.
Paul talks of the creation groaning because of sin. I do think you are wrong that it is only man who has been corrupted by sin, according to Scripture. Read Romans 8:18-25.
One could still maintain that it's solely man who is corrupted. Creation is groaning because of man's sin. It is suffering from man's sin and its consequences. You don't need to be an environmentalist to see that point.
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I agree.That does not make things clearer. Conceptions of humanity or man, introduced by scientists who get their financial support from interested companies, more often than not do more good to those companies than to humanity or man. Bad things they want to abolish just fit into their agenda. They want your best--and will probably get it. Enough said, scientists' conceptions of Good have no relevance in this context.
I also agree.Life after final redemption is the broadest concept of good I can think of. Creation is good, man is good, man's intentions and deeds are good. Just everything is good, and that's why Good has no meaning any more.
Here, you lose me. I don't see how creation being good negates goodness. The Scripture does not paint a ying-yang world. One could still maintain that it's solely man who is corrupted. Creation is groaning because of man's sin. It is suffering from man's sin and its consequences. You don't need to be an environmentalist to see that point.
Yes, the world is suffering from man's sin. But Paul talks of creation "being subjected to futility" "because of Him Who subjected it." (One might argue that the one subjecting it was man and not God, but Gen 3:17-19 is likely the thought.) Paul says that creation itself is in "slavery to corruption". Taken in line with the rest of Scripture, that indicates death as the enemy of God, that indicates toil as a part of the curse, that inidcates our physical bodies as being corrupted, not just our physical hearts (1 Co 15), I think that the argument that the groaning is from our damage to the environment is a weak one.
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Evil will be deleted. Death defeated, the Beast and its prophet together with Satan and its angels being thrown into the fiery pit, leaves creation as all in all and all in God. Good then looses a considerable part of its meaning because in this world, good has been profiled (among others) as opposed to bad / evil (I prefer the latter term).
Taken in line with the rest of Scripture, that indicates death as the enemy of God, that indicates toil as a part of the curse, that inidcates our physical bodies as being corrupted, not just our physical hearts (1 Co 15), I think that the argument that the groaning is from our damage to the environment is a weak one.
The environmental argument was none, it was intended to be a hint. The gate through which sin enters is inobedience.
The snake is cursed but the announced punishment on man (death) is not executed. Instead,
1) woman is bestowed with a) pain during childbirth and and b) yearning after her man,
2) man is bestowed with a) sorrow and labour for nutrition and b) his returning to soil.
Another curse, this time hitting the land on behalf of man, causes it to not voluntarily yield its fruit to man (3:17b).
This (and the curse of the Snake) is the only corruption of creation for the sake of man's sin that I can see. Cf. ps. 104 (particularly the beginning of the last verse in that context).
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