2. Creation and Catastrophe
Christian
theology says both “Yes” and “No” as it announces its good news to the world.
Its positive word concerns what God has done, is doing, and will do for the
world. Its “No” concerns views that misstate, mistake, or deny aspects of that
positive announcement. Attending to the “No” is a crucial part of our struggle
as God’s subversive counter-revolutionary movement for it is precisely these
misstatements, mistakes, and denials we seek to subvert and present an
alternative to.
God
the Father
Creation-Evolution?
From
the get-go the loudest No to be said in the discussion of creation is the
creation-evolution or science-faith issue. And the no has to be said to the
entire discussion. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on it here. But I
want to say loud and clear that this is a pseudo-issue. Science asks and
answers questions of what is there and how it got there. Though it is an
ongoing discussion among scientists there is a stable consensus in the field
that some form of evolutionary development is the truth of how what is here got
here.
Theology,
on the other hand, proclaims from whence did what is here come and why is it
here. And its clear answer, given in literary terms using the images and
conceptions of its own cultural context in the Genesis stories, is that
Israel’s God is the creator and, as we seen, intends this good creation to be
his home with his creatures for all eternity. His human creatures are given
special roles to play in the growth and development of this creation toward its
divinely-appointed destiny.
There
is no necessary or inherent conflict between these two descriptions. Both need
each other, in fact. Conflict arises, however, when we assume these
descriptions are talking about the same thing. That is, when science presumes
to answer the from Where (or Whence) and Why questions and theology presumes to
answer the What and How questions. Science parading as philosophy and theology
presenting itself as science is where the conflict comes. Bad science
confronting bad theology creates the ugly scene we see play out in many ways in
our culture. And I forthrightly condemn this spurious discussion and will move
on to genuine issues (and there are genuine issues) in the rest of this
chapter.
The Whence of Creation
Christian
theology affirms that God, the biblical God, made known finally and fully in
Jesus Christ, is the Creator of all that is. Creation is not eternal, that is,
it has not been around forever. Despite the claims of some philosophies and
spiritualities that creation is eternal and is to be worshiped or revered or is
the source of everything else that is, Christianity draws a hard and clear line
between Creator and creation. God is God and creation is not.[1]
Unfortunately,
too much Christianity in the west has taken the difference between Creator and
creation to mean the diminishment or even denial of creation. This is a key
reason why movements to affirm or even glorify creation have arisen. The
philosopher Aristotle was a major early supporter of an eternal creation. But
the influence of his teacher Plato has been dominant in our part of the world.
He
taught that spirit and matter comprised two different parts of reality. Spirit,
the immaterial, invisible, inner part of reality Plato deemed the good,
superior, desirable realm. The material, physical sphere was deficient and a
hindrance to human development and destiny and ought to be eschewed.
Christianity
bought into this platonic scheme and styled following God as a “spiritual”
pursuit. One sought to grow inward and upward (or perhaps deep, below the level
of the material) away from the material. Death was often seen as a release from
the demands and drives of the body allowing the spirit, that inner immaterial
core inside us, to return to its true home, an immaterial, invisible existence
in heaven with God forever. You can see this often in “Christian” funeral
services.
This
devaluation of creation is thoroughly unbiblical. Not only did God pronounce it
good, even very good (Gen.1:31) but creation is to be the place of our “eternal
life” with God. Creation is not a dispensable part of cosmos but rather its
central site! Divine creation means that matter matters, and matters eternally.
And according to Karl Barth creation serves as the “external basis” for the covenant.
It is the theater on which the covenant story is played out. So when the
covenant is fulfilled creation will be fulfilled along with it.[2]
This,
of course, includes our bodies. We will receive a new one at the resurrection
(1 Cor.15) which will be more but not less than the embodied experience we have
in this life. We will not be immaterial, floating on clouds, playing harps, and
singing alleluias all eternity![3]
Rather, we will be embodied, on the new earth, carrying out the stewardship
vocation God always intended for us (see Rev.22:5).
Matter
matters, and matters eternally. Creation and its care are foremost matters of
concern for God’s people. It has its own integrity and relationship with God
(Noahic Covenant, Gen.9). God has promised to see its nurture and flourishing.
And has commissioned his human creatures to carry out this care. As God’s SCRM
we will
-be
alert to efforts to violate the creation, destroy its ecosystems, treat it
merely as a quarry for resources to meet our needs. -be
a place where ways of life and carbon footprints can be discussed and analyzed.
-will not pull its punches and must name names and confront directly governments
and businesses about their responsibilities or violations in this regard. -treat the piece
of creation we are most intimately familiar with, our bodies with proper care
as well as avoiding obsessing and even idolizing them.
God,
the triune God, is the Creator. St. Irenaeus uses a felicitous image. God the
Father creates (or works in general) through his two hands, the Word (Christ)
and the Spirit. “Now man is a mixed organization of soul and flesh, who was
formed after the likeness of God, and moulded by His hands, that is, by the Son
and the Spirit.”[4]
God
the Father
Remembering
our discussion of the triune God (ch.1), that God’s work in creation is triune means
that the sovereign power of creation is love.
“We affirm that the universe
exists
by the power of God's Word and Spirit.
God has chosen to give it reality
out of the love we have come to know in Christ.”[5]
by the power of God's Word and Spirit.
God has chosen to give it reality
out of the love we have come to know in Christ.”[5]
A
Christian reading[6]
of the first few verses of Gen.1 bears this out. God the Father acts
(“created,” v.1) through his Word (“God said,” v.3) and Spirit (“the Spirit of
God swept over,” v.2) to form the world. The creation thus bears the divine,
that is, triune, imprint. Creation is shot through with relationality parsed
with love. Everything in creation is “for” everything else. The profound
interconnectedness and reciprocity evident throughout the cosmos is the
“fingerprint” of the triune God. But I get ahead of myself.
The
whence of creation is the triune God of love. Creation is his gift to his
creatures. It calls them into being and places them in a habitation fit for
them and for the life God calls them to. Love-gift-life form a triad expressing
the triune source and heart of creation. Frederick Buechner gives a profound if
whimsical statement of this truth: “The
grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have
been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.”[7]
Love-gift-life – this is the meaning of
God’s own work as subversive counter-revolutionary God in a world that has
chosen and chooses a scarcity-competitive-zero-sum way of life. Buechner has it
right: we are to throw a party and let everyone know that they are invited!
Such a way of life subverts the attitudes that underwrite the
scarcity-competition-zero-sum way and counters the way this attitude has been
structured and instituted in social life.
The What of Creation
In
the section of the Bible’s story in ch.1 I mentioned that the Genesis creation
accounts picture creation as God building a temple for habitation. It’s time to
fill out that claim a bit more. Nick Nowalk provides a helpful (if lengthy)
summary leaning on the scholarship of Gordon J. Wenham:
“’The garden of Eden is not viewed
by the author of Genesis simply as a piece of Mesopotamian farmland, but as an
archetypal sanctuary, that is a place where God dwells and where man should
worship him. Many of the features of the garden may also be found in
later sanctuaries, particularly the tabernacle or Jerusalem temple. These
parallels suggest that the garden itself is understood as a sort of
sanctuary…Further support for such a view arises from the overall purpose of
Genesis. The main weight of Genesis falls on the patriarchs: Genesis 1-11
is merely a prologue to the story of redemption beginning in chapter 12.
But as Clines has observed the promises to the patriarchs are essentially a
reaffirmation of the divine ideals for all mankind expressed in Genesis
1-2…Looked at in this light, the opening chapters of Genesis describe what
human life should be like. According to the rest of the Pentateuch
worship is of the greatest importance.’ (Gordon
J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,’ Proceedings of the World Congress of
Jewish Studies 9 (1986): 19-25
1.) The Lord was ‘walking’ in the Garden
(Genesis 3:8) just as he later ‘walked’
in the midst of Israel’s tabernacle and temple (Leviticus 26:12,
Deuteronomy 23:14, 2 Samuel 7:6-7). Both Eden and Israel’s
subsequent sanctuaries are portrayed as God’s own dwelling place with human
beings.
2.) Adam and Eve are called to ‘work and serve’ in the
Garden (Genesis 2:15). The only other Old Testament occurrences of these
two words together are found in Numbers 3:7-8, 8:26 and 18:5-6, where they
function as a job description for the Levite priests in the sanctuary.
3.) Cherubim play an important role in
guarding both the Garden and the later tabernacle/temple. In Eden, the
Cherubim are stationed on the east side of the Garden to prevent sinful
humanity from re-entering God’s holy presence (Genesis 3:24). In Exodus
25:18-22, 26:31, and 1 Kings 6:23-29 Cherubim guard and adorn the place of
God’s presence in the sanctuary.
4.) Both the Garden of Eden (Genesis
3:24) and the later tabernacle and temple (Numbers 3:38, Ezekiel 10:19, 11:1,
42:9, 12, 15, 43:1-4, 44:1, 46:1, 47:1) are entered only from the east.
5.) The menorah in the tabernacle (Exodus
25:31-35) seems to be a symbolic tree, pointing back to the original tree of life in the
middle of Eden (Genesis 2:9). Both remind Israel that life is only to be
found in the presence of the Lord.
6.) Adam and Eve are clothed by God after
their rebellion with garments (Genesis 3:21) that are perhaps reminiscent of
the priestly garments the Levites would later wear in the sanctuary (Exodus
20:23, 28:41-42, 29:8, 40:14, Leviticus 8:13, Deuteronomy 23:13-15), in view of
the dangers that exist when sinful human beings come ‘naked’ into the holy
presence of God.
7.) A river flows out of the Garden of Eden
(Genesis 2:10-14), a notable symbol for divinely given life in the
Scriptures. So also a river flows out of the eschatological temple in
Ezekiel’s vision toward the nations for healing the curse of death (Ezekiel 47;
cf. Revelation 21-22).
8.) The precious stones found
in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:12), bdellium and onyx, are later found in
Israel’s sanctuary as decoration or as a part of the priestly garments (Exodus
25:7, 28:9-14, 20, 1 Chronicles 19:2), and are compared to the heavenly manna
(Numbers 11:7), which is ‘bread from heaven’ (Exodus 16:4) and kept in the ark
of the covenant in the Holy of Holies (Exodus 16:33).
9.) The description of the ‘tree of
the knowledge of good and evil’ as pleasant
to the sight, good for food, and to be desired to make one wise
seems to be echoed in the description of the Torah as making wise the simple, rejoicing the
heart and enlightening the eyes in Psalm 19:8-10. The law
of Israel was kept in the Holy of Holies. The stone tablets containing
the ten commandments were kept inside the ark of the covenant and the book of
the law (the rest of the commands given at Sinai) was placed besides the ark
(Exodus 25:16, Deuteronomy 31:26). And just as eating the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil brought death in the Garden, so touching the ark
that contained the law brought death (2 Samuel 6:7, Numbers 4:20).
10.) Wenham also notes that ‘the
parallels in phraseology between the conclusion of the creation account in
Genesis 1:1-2:3 and the tabernacle
building account in Exodus 25-40 have long been noted…The six
commands in the instructions for building the tabernacle correspond to the six
days of creation…[and] God’s rest on the first sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3)
corresponds to his resting, i.e. dwelling in the tabernacle…[So] the completion
of the universe parallels the completion of the tabernacle’ (p. 23).
Wenham concludes with this
insightful observation:
‘If the Garden of Eden story is
meant to be interpreted symbolically in terms of later cultic
legislation…[then] the divine threat ‘in the day that you eat of it you shall
die’ [Genesis 2:17] should also be interpreted symbolically. According to
later cultic ritual the sanctuary was the center of life, because there God was
present. To be excluded from the camp of Israel was to enter the realm of
death…Thus the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden was in the narrator’s
view the real fulfillment of the divine sentence. He regarded their
alienation from the divine presence as death [cf. Ezekiel 37, where Israel’s
return from exile in the promised land characterized by God’s
presence is likened to a resurrection from the dead]. But the serpent was
a literalist who believed death meant physical death and so he denied that
eating the fruit would result in their demise. Though many commentators imply
that the serpent was right after all, because God relented and acted more
leniently than he had threatened, I suggest this is unlikely’ (p. 24).”[8]
Creation as Temple-Palace is verified by the vision of the new heaven and
new earth in Rev.21-22. There the New Jerusalem, God’s people, descends from
heaven to earth. The vision blurs its boundaries and that of the new creation
together. They are coextensive. And the New Jerusalem is cubic in shape,
sharing that shape with only one other structure in the Bible – the Holy of
Holies in the Temple. John the Seer intends us to understand that the creation
itself has become the place of meeting and fellowship between God and his
people just as foreshadowed in Gen.2.
Yet the Revelation vision is not a “return to paradise” picture. The
idyllic garden is still there. But now it is in the middle of a city – a grand
structure grown up around it. Genesis is the beginning of the end while
Revelation shows the end of the beginning. That’s to say that God’s creation
project is dynamic and ongoing. It is not complete and set in its final form in
the creation stories. It is good, to be sure, even very good. But that does not
mean perfect and unchanging. It means that it was just the kind of place for
God’s human creatures to exercise “dominion” over (Gen.1:28). This dominion,
though often perverted in industrial lands as tyranny over creation as we in
the west are all too familiar with, is interpreted in Gen.2 as “tilling and
keeping” the garden or “farm it and to take care of
it” (2:15). Nurturing and
protecting would be another word pair that captures the sense of the passage.
Dominion as nurturing/protecting ties in the rejection of the spirit-matter
dualism we noted above. Creation care, then, is at the heart of God’s purpose
for us. Our spiritual duty to God the Creator is to take care of his care whose
care he has vouchsafed to us. We are to shape it with care and attention to its
own systems, functions, and needs as well as ways we can live in harmony with
what God has provided for us. We are neither to let creation grow untouched nor
are we to overburden it with our demands on it and lifestyles. At present, it
is clear that the world has a small bevy of first-class passengers who consume
a disproportionate share of its resources. It is also quite clear that the
whole world cannot live at such a level without quickly bankrupting its
resources. Nurturing and protecting creation requires of God’s people, at least
a revaluation of our lifestyles and demand on its resources. This too, is part
of our service as God’s SCRM.
If
God created the world good, though, why is there so much evil, injustice, and
oppression in it? Why does it look so little like a Temple-Palace and so much like
a few islands of gated-communities surrounded by huge garbage dumps?
The
problem of evil is so vast a topic with so many issues and so much discussion
that I cannot hope to do justice to it here. But perhaps we can make some
headway. Let’s begin with a basic Christian affirmation.
“We acknowledge God's care and
control
in the regularity of the universe
as well as in apparently random happenings.
There is no event from which God is absent
and his ultimate purpose in all events is just and loving.
That purpose embraces our choices
and will surely be accomplished.
The Creator works in all things
toward the new creation that is promised in Christ.”[9]
in the regularity of the universe
as well as in apparently random happenings.
There is no event from which God is absent
and his ultimate purpose in all events is just and loving.
That purpose embraces our choices
and will surely be accomplished.
The Creator works in all things
toward the new creation that is promised in Christ.”[9]
This
seems to me a proper starting point, biblically and theologically considered,
for us to work from. It is the affirmation that creates the problems posed by
the presence of evil.
Among the
matters we need to consider here are:
-is
there an explanation for evil?
-is
God responsible for it? The devil?
-what can we say about it in
light of the biblical witness?
So, is there an explanation for evil?
No, not
in my opinion. Evil remains a mystery beyond human ken. And even divine
knowledge! St. Augustine taught us that evil is essentially a privation, or
lack of some good. Reason is one of those goods deprived of its goodness by
evil. There is no reason, no rational explanation for evil. Not even God has
one. Philosophers call such a thing a “surd.”
The Bible
offers no explanation for evil. It is a part of reality that exacts its toll
and must be faced. Evil deprives humanity of the experience of life, creation,
each other and God we are intended to have. John Mellencamp gets it just right
in a refrain in his song “Jack and Diane”: “Oh yeah, life goes on Long
after the thrill of livin' is gone.”[10] Evil
pervades every aspect of life. Not only our own inner lives and personal relationships
are corrupted but even the large institutions and systems that form the
infrastructure of our lives become enemies of human well-being on account of evil.
Love Almighty and Ill’s Unlimited, the
title of a well-known book by Austin Farrar, sets the issue. Evil is the most
vexing problem facing Christians trying to understand their faith in the world
as it is.[11]
It excites our fears and desire for control making us feel vulnerable and the
lack of a rational explanation leaves us uneasy and perhaps even feeling
intellectually dishonest. We must not underestimate the force of this problem
or fail to face it with as much honesty as we can muster. Bono and U2 give
voice to crisis evil should provoke for us in their song “Peace on Earth,”
written in the agonizing aftermath of a bomb that killed twenty-nine and left
dozens of others wounded in Omagh, Northern Ireland which shattered the new
Belfast Agreement for peace:[12]
We need it now I'm sick
of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
I'm sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing
Again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth . . .
Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth
This peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth[13]
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
I'm sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing
Again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth . . .
Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth
This peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth[13]
Our theology, I suspect,
does not truly become ours until we’ve had our hearts and minds ravaged by such
terror and we’ve been forced to work through it with God.
The
Bible, as I have said, does not (cannot) offer an explanation for where evil
comes from and why it is here. But it does identify evil as the enemy of God
and his good purposes for the world. And it narrates what God has done to
defeat this scourge.
Is God responsible for evil? Or is the devil?
Hebrew
thought could not imagine anything lying outside the control of God. “I am
the Lord,
and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create
woe; I
the Lord do all these things” (Isa.45:6-7). But they did not construe that in
a deterministic way. They knew evil was an unbidden alien intruder into God’s
creation and that God had set himself against it and would prevail over it.
Then how
about the devil? This figure, whether we take it as a personal evil presence in
the cosmos or an impersonal power or force, is not on a par with God. It’s not
like we have two equal and opposite powers fighting for control of the world
with the outcome lying in the balance. That’s but another version of dualism (cosmological)
that biblical faith completely rejects. God is in control but there is
(apparently) room within his creation for opposition to his will and way to
arise and be active. But there is no sense in which this opposition can prevail
against God. However, the way God defeats this evil opposition, ultimately
displayed and made clear in Jesus Christ, is not by crushing it and bringing
the hammer of divine power (as we imagine it) crashing down on it.
What,
then, can we say about evil in light of the biblical witness?
“Whether we understand evil personally or
impersonally,
we cannot explain how it originated in a world made good.
But we can affirm that evil is God's enemy as well as ours.
we cannot explain how it originated in a world made good.
But we can affirm that evil is God's enemy as well as ours.
In Christ, God shared our agony over evil
and broke the back of its power
by bearing the worst it could do.
God works continually to overcome evil.
In the end it will be utterly defeated.
Therefore we have courage to endure evil,
to learn from it, and combat it.”[14]
and broke the back of its power
by bearing the worst it could do.
God works continually to overcome evil.
In the end it will be utterly defeated.
Therefore we have courage to endure evil,
to learn from it, and combat it.”[14]
God “continually” works to overcome evil. But he
does not work to destroy either his creatures or creation. God works to
reconcile and restore. And that means cross-shaped action. The only way evil
power can be defeated without destroying creature and creation is by God
bearing the hurt and pain of evil at its worst, and in love overcoming it and
freeing his them respond anew to this demonstration of loving mercy and
forgiveness. This liberating love and mercy are seen most clearly in their
decisive display at the cross of Christ (Col.2:15). Having done its worst by
putting Jesus to death, and astonished and horrified that death did not defeat
his love, the powers of sin, evil, and death lost their hold over humanity and
creation. Deceit and illusion are now all that remains to these powers. The
“truth, way, and life” of Jesus has exposed these powers to be powerless and
destined to pass away.
As Jesus’ followers, his SCRM, the church is called
to cruciform action as well. This is how we “imitate” Christ and live for and
as the covenant (family), Kingdom (power), and Temple (presence) of God in the
world. More on all this down the road a bit.
The Why
of Creation
An earthly habitation for God and his people to
dwell together in harmony and fellowship – that’s the short answer to the “Why”
of creation. We’ve seen it foreshadowed in the creations stories in Gen.1-2 and
pictured as fulfilled in Rev.21-22. The Kingdom (throne) and the covenant (the
fulfilled covenant formula) are present in here too but the picture is
dominated by the New Jerusalem, the worldwide Holy of Holies, creation become
Temple, John sees.
If God’s people are to dwell with him in this
cosmic Temple, we will serve him as royal (children of the Great King) priests
(nurturing and protecting the Temple, mediating between God and the world and
the world and God). Royal priests – this is the calling and destiny of Israel
in Ex.19:5-6, and the calling and destiny of the church in 1 Pet.2:10. Royal
priests, then, is what it means to bear the “image of God” (imago dei).
The human vocation and destiny in God’s good
purposes is to represent the Great King as his children who spread the family
likeness throughout the world and those who serve him by protecting and
nurturing his Temple-Palace (creation).
As created in God’s image:
-we are molecule-like, made for and constituted by community. If God is
his relationships, so too are we. “It is not good for humans to be alone”
(Gen.2:18) for we are created for one another.
-as well as community, God’s life is marked as well by communication and
communion. We are made to declare, share, and bear one another’s lives as if
they were our own. We, like our Maker, are relational all the way down.
-more particularly, humanity is made male and female. Human being is
neither male nor female but male and female. Together the two make up humanity
and together they are commissioned by God to share equally together in the work
he has set for them. As someone has said, Eve was not made out of Adam’s head
to rule over him, nor from his feet to be trod upon, but out of his side that
they may share together in God’s work. Though this truth about our humanity has
been distorted, confused, and convoluted, we can be sure that God is working to
reconcile and restore male and female to this primal unity in all relationships
of life. A Declaration of Faith puts
it well:
God made human beings male and female
for their mutual help and comfort and joy.
We recognize that our creation as sexual beings
is part of God's loving purpose for us.
God intends all people--
whether children, youth or adults,
single, divorced, married, or widowed--
to affirm each other as males and females
with joy, freedom, and responsibility.
We confess the value of love and faithfulness
and the disaster of lust and faithlessness
in all our associations as women and men.
Our creation as males and females must not serve as a pretext
for dominating, hurting, betraying, or using each other,
for denying anyone's rights or rewards
or opportunities to develop potential to the full.[15]
for their mutual help and comfort and joy.
We recognize that our creation as sexual beings
is part of God's loving purpose for us.
God intends all people--
whether children, youth or adults,
single, divorced, married, or widowed--
to affirm each other as males and females
with joy, freedom, and responsibility.
We confess the value of love and faithfulness
and the disaster of lust and faithlessness
in all our associations as women and men.
Our creation as males and females must not serve as a pretext
for dominating, hurting, betraying, or using each other,
for denying anyone's rights or rewards
or opportunities to develop potential to the full.[15]
[1] “By refusing to
worship either Father Time or Mother Nature Christian faith may be said to
represent a vast iconoclasm, a clearing away of some of the most readily
available images of who God is as Creator.” Christopher Morse, Not Every Spirit: A Dogmatics of Christian
Disbelief (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994), 205.
[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III.1, 1,94. Further,
“(1) creation without redemption has no
purpose or meaning; (2) redemption without creation has no reality. We don’t
really know what “creation” means if we don’t know that it is redeemed in
Christ. And we don’t really know what “redemption” means if we don’t tell it as
the completion of God’s creating work.” See more at:
http://kenwytsma.com/2014/05/29/jonathan-wilson-on-reclaiming-the-doctrine-of-creation/#sthash.jZUXYkPD.dpuf
[3] Being musically
illiterate, this sounds good to me. Otherwise it seems kind of boring!
[4] Irenaeus, “Against
Heresies,” The Ante-Nicene Fathers, IV
Preface, 463.
[6] Obviously Jewish
readers do not find this meaning in these verses. Nor was it the meaning of the
author of Gen.1. It is a Christian reading looking back in light of Jesus’
life, death, and resurrection.
[7] Frederick
Buechner---------------------------
[8] https://strangetriumph.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/eden-and-humanity-the-first-temple-and-its-priests/.
[10]https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&q=lyrics+mellencamp+jack+and+diane&oq=lyrics+mellencamp&gs_l=hp.1.3.0j0i22i30l9.1674.6883.0.14317.18.14.0.4.4.0.617.2474.0j3j6j5-1.10.0....0...1c.1.64.hp..4.13.1927.0.4lZ8ONhVyhY
[11] It is worth noting
the problem of beauty that faces non-believers. John Horgan, not himself a
believer, writing in Scientific American,
November 13, 2011, says, “The
flip side of the problem of evil is the problem of beauty. If there really is
no God, if the world was not in some sense designed for us, why is it so
heartbreakingly lovely?”The flip side of the problem of evil is the problem of beauty.
If there really is no God, if the world was not in some sense designed for us,
why is it so heartbreakingly lovely?lip side of the problem of evil is the
problem of beauty. If there really is no God, if the world was not in some
sense designed for us, why is it so heartbreakingly lovely?
[12] Niall Stokes, U2 into the Heart – The Stories Behind Every Song (New York, NY: Thunder’s Mouth
Press, 2005), 156.
[13] http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/u2/peaceonearth.html.
[15] Ch.2, ll.80-95.
Comments
Post a Comment