From: kharin (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Tue Mar 19 2002 - 02:41:44 MST
Dear Violet,
Thank you for the sunday school anecdote - it really has brightened up the day considerably. If only all such individuals tripped themselves up so easily:
[quote]Oh, that\'s a very good one. I must try them in my Sunday School class [/quote]
I don\'t think you\'ll find it difficult to trip them up, but the likelihood is that contorted logic will be resorted to. You could nonetheless try this:
Try this:
Christianity has always been somewhat hamstrung when it has come to addressing the issues of the existence of pain and malice. The classic question is how can a loving god permit the existence of evil. For other creeds, the answer has been that god is not necessarily benevolent or good (although, it is not easy to see a God capable of ordering Abraham to murder his own son as being either moral or benevolent). In Hinduism Shiva is both the god of destruction and regeneration, the great ascetic and the symbol of sensuality. The Greek Dionysus (himself incorporated into the Greek pantheon from the east) has a not dissimilar role as a God of fertility and destruction (Dionysus was also frequently represented as a horned figure, thereby inviting parallels with the devil). Elsewhere in Greek culture, such writers as Homer and Euripides were often wont to portray the gods as fickle and callous. In particular, in The Iliad Homer describes Ares as \'most hated\' in The Iliad . Certainly the gods are not depicted as
being anymore moral than man.
Within Christianity the concept of either differing gods with differing degrees of morality, or a single god who is not exclusively good is displaced into a chiastic opposition between god and Lucifer. This dichotomy is somewhat unsatisfactory, as by definition, the christian god must have had the ability to both foresee the revolt of Lucifer against him and to prevent it had be so wished. As such, this division has caused endless theological difficulty, from the suppression of Manichaeism to the recent Papal redefinition of the devil as a metaphorical force rather than an entity. The more conventional answers to this question do not entirely satisfy: either god permits evil because he wishes his creation to be able to exercise free will, for which one needs to know evil as well as good (in which case it seems illogical that he did not himself give Adam and Eve the knowledge of evil), or that evil is only permitted as a means to an ultimately good end (in which case god is quite clearly a Machiavel).
Certainly, a religion that emphasises free will requires evil as much as good. In order to have a choice both are necessary - essentially by giving us the ability to choose, God would either have predestined our ultimate fate (heaven or hell) - thereby effectively making the free choice little more than a formality, or would have had to abstain from foretelling our futures (those being two theological extremes).
Viewed from this aspect, William Blake\'s interpretation of Milton having been of the Devil\'s party without knowing it, is merely one manifestation of this concept. Shelley\'s comparison of Satan, with the great transgressor of Greek myth, Prometheus becomes much more logical. Satan is surely the first democrat, striking the first blow for free speech against the benevolent tyranny of God. In An American Dream Norman Mailer has one of his characters expound an unusually Manichaen interpretation of Christianity; \"the devil in such a scheme has to have an even chance to defeat the Lord; or there\'s no scheme to consider. Since the church refuses to admit the possible victory of Satan, man believes that God is all powerful. So man also assumes that God is willing to forgive every last little betrayal. Which may not be the case.\" As such, Mailer suggests that there may well be complicity between god and devil.
In any case, the devil is a rather problematic creature. It is difficult to conceive why any sentient entity would be so foolish as to rebel against an omnipotent deity, given that in the ultimate scheme of things he is destined to be vanquished. At best, his task is a rather thankless one. After all, he is only allowed to exist by his adversary, in which sense god is still ultimately responsible for evil, and the devil is little more than a stooge.
---- This message was posted by kharin to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=16;action=display;threadid=11623>
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