Practical Evolution and a Benign God

Violence caused by animals to other animals, as well as their death, is necessary, as hard as it is to accept. Otherwise what would animals who are not vegetarians eat?

I'm still wrestling with the possibility of evolution being God's method of creating the world. I don't like the thought of death and violence being the vehicle by which God used to bring about the self-referential reality of homo sapiens. Nevertheless, the simplicity of the six day creation week, plus the Sabbath rest at the end, sometimes requires more faith than I have on a given day. The six day creation explanation, however, solves lots of problems, but I, at least, have to suspend some apparent evidences that perhaps life has been here for millennia, and, hopefully, will continue to be here for millennia, as well.

Minimal blog post: These are scraps of blogs that died before they could really live. Sometimes the title is the most significant aspect of the post. Other times, a lot is left to the reader's imagination. I include them as one would include unbaked loves of bread at the dinner table.

Dead but Not-Dead

Living this life is all about positive approaches to the challenges life presents. The same can also apply for the after-life state. I was brought up believing that the dead know nothing and that all await a successful resurrection at the 2nd coming, or an unsuccessful one at Christ's third coming after the 1,000 years are over. That was all very fine until I lost a friend 20 years ago who died of AIDS. He was not Christian and it was the first friend or acquaintance that died of this dread disease. For me at any rate, I couldn't accept the fact that he was in the ground hoping against hope to be resurrected at the second coming. It was healthier psychologically, at least for me, to think him in a positive afterlife where he was happy and conscious and free from the pain and disease that had killed him. Lately, I've been focusing on those ambiguous texts that Paul drops casually, and not on dire and dismal texts from Ecclesiastes about the "dead not knowing anything." How much better to focus on this text, "... neither life nor death can separate me from the love of Christ."

Does God have Free Will?

God gave us humans free will. For that we are grateful. We'd never have known that we didn't have it had we been created to do only what he wanted us to do.



As I sat in Sabbath School this past Sabbath the thought just popped into my mind. Does God have free will like we have free will? The thought startled me. I was even more concerned when the following text came to mind: "And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. . . Genesis 3:22. Now this probably means that God learned about evil, not from first hand experience, like Adam and Eve learned about it, but by being acquainted with Lucifer and his originating of the concept of evil.



Now, of course, I wouldn't want to suggest that God is capable of evil if he wanted to, being a free moral being that he is. But then I thought that since he is good because he is God and can only be good and never evil, then we are more free than he is by being able to choose good or evil. Of course, having chosen the latter, as it turns out, is not so pleasant, after all.



If you don't use the bible as your yardstick for matters of good and evil--bear with me for a bit---then an objective observer might think that God in wanting to destroy all he had made because humanity had turned to evil--except for Noah and his family--was less than good. Also, a very clinical observer might think these humans, although evil, were the work of God's hand. How could he be good if he wanted to destroy them all because he had regrets for having created them in the first place?



Now a subjective reaction to this might be that since God created humanity in the first place, he had every right to destroy it just as a potter has a right to reshape a pound of clay into something more perfect. Of course, the potter could also decide after he had finished the jar or glass vase, or whatever other work of non-living art, that it was imperfect and though he loved it a bit, it was better to destroy it and start again. After all does not the artist or the potter have every right to do what he wants with something he creates?



I read a while ago, that the Jews at one time attributed all of the vicissitudes of life to God. The good with the bad. The verse from Job, "the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" addresses this issue somewhat. Later on, Jewish thought attributed the bad things in life to Satan (the accuser) and the good things in life to God only.



Do we attribute only good qualities to God because that's what we would prefer him to have? Of course, there's the matter of violation of his law and the need to punish the guilty which most religious people feel that God is justified in doing.



These issues suggest, to me at least, that matters involving free choice and good and evil are more complex than many people facilely state they are.

Death, Salvation, Foreknowledge

I never felt uneasy about the concept of soul sleep until I lost a good friend to AIDS 20 years ago. My father tried comforting me by restating the Adventist position. I found it more comforting emotionally to think that somehow my friend, Clive, was still conscious in some other sphere. And then there's the other side of the soul sleep issue. If he didn't accept Christ, then he won't be among the "dead in Christ rising first."

Recently, a kind church mother of two young boys died of cancer. I had been praying for her for months. Now that she's gone I still pray for her wherever she is. I miss her so much that today I prayed that God would watch over her body if that is all that's left of her until he calls her to live again. I also prayed that if like most Christians believe, she is "with the Lord" now, that she would enjoy her new life free of pain.

My pastor insisted that Adventists equate soul sleep with only the life force. When I quoted "God is Spirit", he just kept silent. I guess, in that interpretation, it's the same as saying "God is life, itself."

What if both the majority of Christians and Adventists are wrong regarding soul sleep and all the rest. What if, as a recent New York Times Science-Philosophy article suggested, we are simulations in some larger-than-life cosmic computer with a Super Intelligence "watching over it all in loving grace?"

That would explain a lot of things, but would open up another can of worms. If that should be the true reality, then none of this really matters, does it? Or perhaps it matters in a very different way. In the end, it's how we treat each other that matters, whether we're really here as flesh and blood beings or whether we're shadows flickering in some ancient Platonic cave.

An even better and more economical idea might be, if foreknowledge knows that an individual will eventually be burned up so as to dispose of unresolvable wickedness, why bother allowing that individual to live in the first place?

I like this idea for it infers that those that are living were created economically and will eventually be saved. This is possible because, in theory, all the people who are alive today or who have ever lived or who will eventually be born could very well experience a deathbed conversion, or its equivalent. This may be confused with universalism, but it's not really, as all of these formerly wicked people could--and could is a big word--accept Jesus or his ethical equivalent right before they die.

Didn't Paul say that all were destined to be saved? Well, if you accept this view of only creating those who are going to be saved--all that have lived and are presently living or will live one day--then this is the best of all possible worlds.

Of course, if you subscribe to the Open View of God--is Richard Rice out there?--then God has no idea who will be saved. He will be either pained or pleased, as the case may be, when the end of all things reveals which of his children he can enjoy forever.

The following was originally part of a Spectrum Blog exchange circa 8-15-07:

What follows was part of the comments in that now misplaced post:

Dick Larsen: After death the soul, spirit , or whatever it is of a person is not constrained any longer by time. In that, it can experience at once with every other soul/spirit the second coming of Christ simultaneously.

Yes, it sounds very attractive. It also sounds like what psychics refer to as global and gestalt consciousness. Even Isaac Asimov wove that attractive trait into the future of human evolution in his last installments of the classic Foundation and Empire series.

When I read about this gestalt consciousness you describe--well, that Mr. Campolo describes--I was surprised by the nature of what he suggests. I also thought, "why stop there with being in tune simultaneously with only every other redeemed soul/spirit"? In addition to this perfect consciousness, I'd also like for us all in this mass consciousness to be jacked in--to borrow a Matrix-like term--into the beauty and consciousness of Perfection Itself, namely the Spirit who created us all and gives us life. If this is heaven, it truly is beyond anything we could ever envision.

Thank you, brother Larsen, for sharing your vision of a perfect future reality.

The Long Dream: Asleep in the Spirit

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, ... neither the present nor the future, ... nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom. 8:38, 39 (NIV)

HAL 3000 (Artificial Intelligence Entity) asked in the film 2010, as he was about to be put to sleep or deactivated: "Will I dream?" The reply was, "of course, all intelligent beings dream."

Dreaming during this life could well be a type of preparation for the Long Sleep, or the the Long Dream. During our conscious life, we need to carefully shape our dreams and our lives, as it were, to become proficient in the art of dreaming, as well as the art of living, in the event that our Long Sleep is in fact, a Long Dream, as well. Though not totally unconscious while we are sleeping or dreaming, we are less conscious, needless to say, than when we are fully awake. So perhaps it's good to link the state of sleep and death together and plan to dream a lot during that Long Sleep. Just in case dreaming is not only a natural phenomenon during this side of our lives, but during the mysterious realm we commonly call death.

For those who dream vividly, their dreams are at times a sort of portal into awe and wonder. Might death, especially if it is also an unconscious dream state, be a portal into awe and wonder, as well, in spite of the fact that we'll be unconscious and "know nothing" as the Bible states in Ecclesiates.

Though some Christians believe that when we die we are not conscious--"the dead know nothing"--the same could be said for those are are asleep for 8 hours at a time. Think also of those who are unconscious due to being in a coma, or undergoing a near-death experience. They also know nothing while they're in that limbo state. Might they not also be dreaming while in that unconscious state? Therefore, it is remotely possible that during our unconsious state during death, we might as well be dreaming while we're waiting for the Next World. Otherwise, what a waste of all those years or centuries that could well have been put to good use by dreaming through them, instead of simply sleeping through them dreamlessly.

I've often thought that if it were possible for humans to remain watching over their deceased loves ones constantly, it would be the most loving thing to do. Since, of course, it is not practical or healthy to do so, we do not do so and only visit their sepulchres from time to time.

God, on the other hand, is able to watch over, or if he wanted to, through the same Holy Spirit that filled the soul temple during the believer's lifetime, be present right there in the sleeping saint's body, patiently waiting for the time when that loved one can rise again at the resurrection.

This would give new meaning to Paul's words "neither life not death can separate us from the love of Christ."Also, if the Holy Spirit where resting with and watching over the sleeping saint, what perfect positioning that would be when the moment for resurrection finally arrived.

Christ said he'd be with us "always even till the end of the age." It would be encouraging to think that through his indwelling Spirit, this promise could literally be true even as the unsconscious believer slept in the tomb until the dawning of eternal day.