From an essay by Truman Madsen (Four Essays on Love, presented at the 4th Annual Religion Lecture Series under the title "The Problem of Evil".
...In a seminar at Harvard we were devoted to the analysis of St. Augustine's writings... In his doctrine of creation Augustine begins with a promise that God is all-powerful. To him that means all things, all else beside God, including space, time and the souls of men, were created by God from nothing. The puzzle arises as to why a being of unimited power should have chosen to create such a universe as this: of pain, torment, and (0n some views) endless damnation. Specifically, evil and the devil, were among the realities God chose to create.
Why, being good, could He - would He- do such a thing? This eventually led Augustine to the topic of freedom. How it was that God could make us from nothing and yet condemn us our reward us for actions? Why hold US responsible when He alone is responsible? "For," said one student in the class, "a God who is totally the cause of what is, is indirectly the cause of everything one does."
...Actually, as soon as it is recognized... that there is more than one eternal will in the universe - indeed, an infinity of such wills or autonomous intelligences - we have cut the thread that supposes God can "do anything." In all important ways even He, the greatest of all, can only do WITH us what we will permit him to do. Our center selves can agree or disagree, assent or resent, cooperate or oppose. To say, as the scriptures do, that God has all power and that He is almighty and that with Him all things are possible is to say that He has all the power and might it is possible to have in this universe of multiple selves.
And as soon as it is recognized...that there are eternal inanimate things which are subject to laws... which God did NOT create but Himself has mastered, we have cut another thread of illusory omnipotence... He can do only what our wills and eternal laws wil permit. In short, He did not make us from nothing and what He makes OF us depends on us and the ultimate nature of a co-eternal universe.
...In a seminar at Harvard we were devoted to the analysis of St. Augustine's writings... In his doctrine of creation Augustine begins with a promise that God is all-powerful. To him that means all things, all else beside God, including space, time and the souls of men, were created by God from nothing. The puzzle arises as to why a being of unimited power should have chosen to create such a universe as this: of pain, torment, and (0n some views) endless damnation. Specifically, evil and the devil, were among the realities God chose to create.
Why, being good, could He - would He- do such a thing? This eventually led Augustine to the topic of freedom. How it was that God could make us from nothing and yet condemn us our reward us for actions? Why hold US responsible when He alone is responsible? "For," said one student in the class, "a God who is totally the cause of what is, is indirectly the cause of everything one does."
...Actually, as soon as it is recognized... that there is more than one eternal will in the universe - indeed, an infinity of such wills or autonomous intelligences - we have cut the thread that supposes God can "do anything." In all important ways even He, the greatest of all, can only do WITH us what we will permit him to do. Our center selves can agree or disagree, assent or resent, cooperate or oppose. To say, as the scriptures do, that God has all power and that He is almighty and that with Him all things are possible is to say that He has all the power and might it is possible to have in this universe of multiple selves.
And as soon as it is recognized...that there are eternal inanimate things which are subject to laws... which God did NOT create but Himself has mastered, we have cut another thread of illusory omnipotence... He can do only what our wills and eternal laws wil permit. In short, He did not make us from nothing and what He makes OF us depends on us and the ultimate nature of a co-eternal universe.
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