| 08/19/08 05:41 PM |
#423
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Elmer Dante
Kevin,
I have to have you come to one of my brother's parties. In the past, he's suggested dropping off Laura and Barbara Bush in the middle of Africa so that they can walk village to village teaching abstinence (because George is unconvinced of the need for condoms to fight AIDs). Since Barbara was so eloquent during the New Orleans disaster, I’m quite certain that she’ll do just fine.
I believe that it was Pastor Rick Warren, an Evangelical Christian, posed the question “Do you believe that evil exists?” From a traditional Christian philosophical point of view, the answer should be “no.’’ Evil is a privation (or absence) of the good. It has no inherent existence. An example that is often used is a torn shirt or a shirt without a button—it is bad or evil because something is missing. This platonic idea was pivotal to the thinking of St. Augustine and to St. Thomas Aquinas and through inheritance, to the whole of the Western and Eastern theological traditions. (Note: the term ‘Evangelical’ is misleading. When used by one of the Lutheran Communions, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, it has the opposite meaning of how I’m using it in this post. I am using this term to describe very conservative, literal approaches to the exegesis of scripture—literally, the type of Church where you leave your brain at the door. Usually these people believe that anybody who doesn’t believe as they do will be damned to eternal Hell. Of course, the question “What the hell kind of God are you worshipping?” should be posed to them.)
To say that Evil exists as a “thing,” in and of itself, is the same as admitting that God created it. Since God is all good and pronounced all things that he created as “very good,” it stands to reason that evil was not created. If one takes the position that evil pre-existed creation, one is faced with an ontological dualism: only God is uncreated and exists; it evil is uncreated and exists, it is a God, as well. That is not to say, conventionally, that the affects of the "unsown herb," as the patristic writers so poetically referred to evil, are not painfully felt throughout creation.
The point I’m trying to make is that I find the wording of the question completely bizarre, but not unexpected from a pastor of the Evangelical tradition which devalues reason (and anything philosophical suggests the use of reason). His question does, however, suggest that Pastor Warren lives in a world of absolutes: Now I would be the first to suggest that what happened on 9/11/01 was the result of human iniquity and iniquity of that magnitude requires a response. And I will admit that there are certain people with whom dialogue is possible and profitable and others with whom it will not be possible and profitable. I can count on Pastor Warren as being in the group with which I couldn’t have a profitable dialogue.
Although I am a Democrat, I can’t forget that Abraham Lincoln, a great man, was a Republican. It’s sad to see (for the Republican Party that is) that Evangelicals feel so at home there (particularly since the Southern Baptists have finally, within the last five years, admitted that slavery is wrong).
Some of the questions posed to Obama are indicative of ideas that most listeners are incapable of understanding (i.e., they don’t have the proper training)—I don’t believe that either candidate precisely understood the questions. In Pastor Warren’s world view (which comes to us from the writings of St. Augustine), the fall of Adam and Eve (which Pastor Warren views as historical) caused humans to loose their capacities (in other words, humanity experienced an ontological change as a result of the fall). These capacities that were lost can only be restored through baptismal regeneration (in some traditions) and, in the Pastor’s viewpoint, through having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Keep in mind that people like this believe that Moslems and other, non-Christians (and some of them would say that about me, an Episcopalian) do not have restored capacities and, therefore, cannot be engaged in dialogue. In some of his speeches, President Bush has suggested this, in not so many words.
When working on a paper on the ‘filioque’ (Latin for “and the Holy Spirit”) clause of the Nicene Creed, I found that Evangelicals generally believe that this clause, although a later addition to the Creed, is absolutely requisite and that Orthodox Christians are neo-pagans for excluding this clause. The reason that Evangelicals make this argument is because they believe that it leaves open the possibility of the Holy Spirit working through the symbols and rituals of other religions.
Thankfully Pastor Warren’s worldview is not shared by most mainstream denominations. Although incarnational Christians (those who see the world as a sacrament of the divine),Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Episcopalians and Lutherans, take seriously the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, these groups have other ways of dealing with the dilemma of other religions (usually, at least in modern theology, in constructive manners).
When people live in a world of absolutes (we "the good" against "the other" who is regarded as evil), it doesn't suprise me that some fundamentalists engage in gay bashing, anti-semitism, etc.
I just thought I’d point out why Evangelicals are often anti-dialogue and view politics as an exercise in absolutes.
Best regards,
Elmer
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