Re: Natural Evil (was: The Curse - Upon All Creation...?)

In his poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud" William Wordsworth pointed out
that daffodils actually dance to music but he didnt say to which tune.

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "gordon brown" <gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu>
To: "Charles Carrigan" <CCarriga@olivet.edu>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 10:14 PM
Subject: Re: Natural Evil (was: The Curse - Upon All Creation...?)

> The wording of Rev. 16:18 seems to suggest that the author believed that
> there may have been earthquakes before Adam that were larger than any that
> have occurred since.
>
> I have another comment below the following quote.
>
> On Thu, 30 Sep 2004, Charles Carrigan wrote:
>
> > "Natural evil" is a category name given for things like earthquakes
> > and
> > parasites and disease which hurt, destroy, and kill, but which are not
> > caused by anyone's specific immoral decision. Is all "natural evil" a
> > result of the Fall and the Curse?
> > >>>>
> >
> > Theologically, speaking, I would have to answer "yes" to your question
> > here. Otherwise, eveything that occurrs in the garden of eden is
> > subject to the same probabilities of disaster striking as everything
> > else. Can we honestly imagine that a volcano could have erupted and
> > buried the Garden of Eden, and it be just dumb luck associated with the
> > earth releasing heat through plate tectonic processes? Or pick some
> > other disaster in place of a volcanic eruption - wild fire, tornado,
> > hurricane, meteor impact, etc.etc. I have a hard time believing that
> > the writer of this story intended the garden to be subject to such
> > things in our minds - the garden is written as a perfect paradise where
> > God and humanity and nature interact in harmony, and that harmony is
> > clearly destroyed after sin occurs. Is anyone on this list from
> > Flordia? Can you imagine 4(!) hurricanes coming through and destroying
> > the garden of eden?
>
> With the omniscient God there is no such thing as "dumb luck". No volcano
> erupted in the Garden because God knew what he was doing. To Him natural
> processes are predictable so that, for example, he could have the wind
> blow at the right time and with the right velocity to roll back the waters
> of the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross on dry ground. We are
> confident that when we pray, if it is God's will, he can keep natural
> disasters away from us without changing the laws of physics even though
> such events happen at other times and places.
>
> Gordon Brown
> Department of Mathematics
> University of Colorado
> Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>
>
>
Received on Fri Oct 1 02:31:38 2004