Parables: Good Arguments Flew Away
Let's just come straight out and say it: Jesus' parables held much better analogies.
Flew's parable was about the origin of a garden in the jungle. ...So we have plants. In the jungle. Imagine that. The origin of plants in the jungle doesn't quite compare to the origin of matter and energy from nothing. I would like to retell the parable after moving the garden to the middle of the Sahara Desert. Two explorers traveling the desert stumble across a lush garden. The garden is watered by an irrigation system connected to a well which draws water from deep underground. Continue the debate about the Gardner as usual. Flew has a serious problem with pretending like the teleological and necessary being debates aren't even issues; based on his parable and the existence of plants in the jungle, one might be led to think that an infinite universe coming to exist from nothing is a normal, logical thing. When you have a jungle, it follows that there are plants. When you have nothing, it doesn't follow that you get a universe. Flew constructed his own scenario with no evidence of or necessity for a Gardener and then claimed he had disproven God. That isn't how this works.
Flew and Mitchell both seem to fall under the impression that God causes bad things to happen intentionally. Assuming they both had minimal knowledge of Scripture, I can't blame them for that. But according to Biblical doctrine, this planet is damned because of mankind. Bad things kind of have to happen to man as a result of that. Does God cause them, or does He simply let them happen because we brought them on ourselves? If God intended to give a free pass from pain and suffering to everyone faithful to Him, He wouldn't have cursed the planet in the first place. Offering a way out of suffering in this lifetime defeats God's purpose for allowing suffering. It's a contradiction that wouldn't look well on any divine record. With that, I'll point out my problem with Mitchell's parable: is God a policeman intentionally delivering freedom fighters to their death? Or is He a neighboring country that allows the freedom fighters to be captured because He's working on a different plan?
P.S. I commented on Natalie and Philip's posts.
Flew's parable was about the origin of a garden in the jungle. ...So we have plants. In the jungle. Imagine that. The origin of plants in the jungle doesn't quite compare to the origin of matter and energy from nothing. I would like to retell the parable after moving the garden to the middle of the Sahara Desert. Two explorers traveling the desert stumble across a lush garden. The garden is watered by an irrigation system connected to a well which draws water from deep underground. Continue the debate about the Gardner as usual. Flew has a serious problem with pretending like the teleological and necessary being debates aren't even issues; based on his parable and the existence of plants in the jungle, one might be led to think that an infinite universe coming to exist from nothing is a normal, logical thing. When you have a jungle, it follows that there are plants. When you have nothing, it doesn't follow that you get a universe. Flew constructed his own scenario with no evidence of or necessity for a Gardener and then claimed he had disproven God. That isn't how this works.
Flew and Mitchell both seem to fall under the impression that God causes bad things to happen intentionally. Assuming they both had minimal knowledge of Scripture, I can't blame them for that. But according to Biblical doctrine, this planet is damned because of mankind. Bad things kind of have to happen to man as a result of that. Does God cause them, or does He simply let them happen because we brought them on ourselves? If God intended to give a free pass from pain and suffering to everyone faithful to Him, He wouldn't have cursed the planet in the first place. Offering a way out of suffering in this lifetime defeats God's purpose for allowing suffering. It's a contradiction that wouldn't look well on any divine record. With that, I'll point out my problem with Mitchell's parable: is God a policeman intentionally delivering freedom fighters to their death? Or is He a neighboring country that allows the freedom fighters to be captured because He's working on a different plan?
P.S. I commented on Natalie and Philip's posts.
Another point to make concerning the "God causes bad things" side is that we often times forget to look at our own evil when examining the "huge" evil's in the world, not realizing that we are steady contributors to the overall disgusting amount of evil in the world. Shifting blame to God is a cover up for our own actions, and that is why it is hard to fathom that a good God would offer his own son as grace to us.
ReplyDeleteI think that the placement of the garden is intentional. In a place where plants naturally occur, the chances that a few could grow in a symmetric pattern are slim. It suggests a gardener, but it could also be a rare phenomena. No one knows what is beyond the universe. It could be that this universe is a freak accident in a vast jungle of something, or nothing. A gardener might have organized it, or the probability finally produced a finite universe on its own. If a garden was in the middle of a desert, it would be pretty obvious that there was a miraculous gardener at work. The parable of the jungle gives a little more wiggle room for doubt.
ReplyDeleteWhat good points to bring out. Unfortunately, too many times in our critiquing, questioning and doubting we seek out every place and being to shift the blame of our problems onto instead of owning up to what was our doing in the first place.
ReplyDelete