Comments on: 3. Why Can’t God Stop Plate Tectonics?

By: On Death Before The Fall at Zoomtard

On Death Before The Fall at Zoomtard — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:39:22 +0000

[...] comments on an earlier Zoomtard, famous internet Christian Fanny Craddock challenges me about death and evil and David Bentley [...]

By: FC

FC — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:50:56 +0000

I quite like Hart, but it seems to me that he never addresses the obvious problem: death before the fall. Then again he uses a lot of big words, so maybe his explanation was lost to me under the weight of verbiage. I would have like to emailed him and request, nay, demand an answer. But unfortunately no contact details are registering on the internetz.

I know that Wright suggests in Surprised by Hope that death and sin have somehow become intertwined since the fall of man. Death pre and post the opening scene of 2001, if you like. It is not entirely convincing – are we to believe that death was somehow less painful before the fall – but possibly this is because he didn’t spend a great deal of time on the subject (in fairness the book wasn’t about this) and it needs to be teased out a little more.

I feel there is an answer, but I’ve also been a little disappointed by the responses I’ve heard so far. Perhaps, despite my hope, there is no answer on this earth, and I have to settle for the “2001″ explanation – that death was transformed during the fall – and pick the best bits from the like of Hart and Wright etc.

I’ll give you the next response to solve the problem of suffering. Off you go!

By: zoomtard

zoomtard — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:55:23 +0000

I think death before and after the opening scene of 2001 are different things, maybe?

I don’t agree with everything Hart writes: for example, he sometimes engages in cruel shallow jibes at us Reformed which I want to raise my fist at and shout “Caricature shenanigans!” but I like his style.

By: FC

FC — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:04:07 +0000

Any thoughts on the above?

By: FC

FC — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:00:14 +0000

So I’ve picked up a copy of The Doors of the Sea, and armed with a dictionary, I’m zipping through it. Hart makes an eloquent case, but I can’t quite decide if I entirely agree with him.

Presumably Hart thinks that earthquakes existed before fallen nature, and he suggests that death – be it by earthquake or whatever – is a tyrant to be overthrown. Yet I’m unsure how this can fit into our understanding of the universe. Death and earthquakes have been here since before our ancestors started beating each other with thigh bones and gathered around large black obelisks. Unless we are to deny this (OK, the 2001 reference is debatable), then they must have been part of the universe since before the fall. What then?

By: Proposal update. Oh and Haiti too. « 53 degrees

Proposal update. Oh and Haiti too. « 53 degrees — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:19:41 +0000

[...] will find it hard to separate the faith of people from technocratic imperatives. Kevin makes some salient points about why God cannot do anything about place tectonics and in this reinforces what I was taking [...]

By: More thoughts on theodicy, God, Haiti, Pat Robertson, etc. « Rev. Brent L. White

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:00:07 +0000

[...] thoughts on theodicy, God, Haiti, Pat Robertson, etc. January 19, 2010 Zoomtard pointed his readers toward an excellent First Things article by theologian David Bentley Hart, [...]

By: FC

FC — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:59:52 +0000

Good articles! I think I <3 Hart.

By: zoomtard

zoomtard — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:16:34 +0000

back that arrogant comment up johnny

richie, i should lend you that book by Hart next time we’re at some WHM drink fest together…

By: QM

QM — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 10:06:10 +0000

just another example of the insatiable need to find meaning and order in randomness of nature. god doesn’t roll out earthquakes no more than he gives children cancer or comfort or constructs beautiful sunsets or tsunamis.

take a breath then try to imagine the uncomfortable reality… the god stuff, most likely all in your head