This week at Wednesday Night Live we are going to be viewing tour #3 of The Truth Project - Anthropology (the study of the nature of humans). Next time we'll look at theology (the study of God). John Calvin affirms the importance of understanding both of these as he opens his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion this way: “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, chapter 1, paragraph 1.)
One of the key questions in this video segment is, "What is evil?"
Cornelius Plantinga Jr., in his book Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: a Breviary of Sin, defines shalom, evil, and sin this way:
- Shalom = the way things ought to be. (“In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.” p.13)
- Evil = any spoiling of shalom
- Sin = culpable shalom-breaking. (“any act – any thought, desire, emotion, word, or deed – or its particular absence, that displeases God and deserves blame…let us therefore use the word sin to refer to such instances of both act and disposition.” p.14)
I'm eager to hear what comments and questions come up during our discussion.
I think the video deviated from the initial statement of 'what is evil', and towards the end, when dealing with image of God vs not, was less than helpful in build a christian apologetics approach to discussing this with newcomers.
ReplyDeleteJ - I agree about the deviation from the question of the nature of evil. That is one of the reasons I put up the Plantinga quotes. Plantinga has a concrete way to talk about evil that the interview section of the video never seemed to return to. The real tag line for this particular tour was anthropology, and it did get into the nature of what it means to be human. I'm glad you commented on the image of God issue. I didn't really have an eye on that when I was watching, so I'll have to go back for it. I was just reading an article on evolutionary science and the book of Genesis, so I have image of God questions running around in my head. Very important.
ReplyDelete