John R. Houk
© June 15, 2010
Norma Zager explores that great wonderment of the ages. If religions are committed to experience a transformation that moves beyond the human tendency to do evil, why do so many religions are the instigators of evil? The greatest question of those that believe in the existence of a manifest personal God (or polytheistically gods) is if a good God exists why is evil allowed to exist on the planet?
Now Zager is Jewish so perhaps there is not a theological out for such questions. Christianity explains the reason for why evil exists in the world which explains the reason to why God allows existence to manifest to magnify human suffering and ecological pain.
What is the Christian reason? The answer is within the Theology of Evangelicalism and Word of Faith. Most Christians have an affinity to the Evangelical answer. Unfortunately there is a significant amount of Christians who believe all things expounded from the Word of Faith are heretical. Oh well, that is my Christian roots.
So here is my non-theological non-expert derivative of the reason evil exists.
Most Christians will agree evil exists because the First Man Adam committed the sin of rebellion against God by partaking of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The Satanic promise to Adam was he would be enlightened and gain the understanding of God.
What was the result of the Adamic rebellion?
Adam was given a stewardship over all that exists on planet earth. Adam was charged with taking care of the Garden of Eden. This charge meant all things earthly was under the God lease of dominion to Adam. As long as Adam followed the design of God and was obedient to the rules of management given to him, the earth experienced global harmony. There were two rules of Divine management: 1) Adam and his wife Eve could partake of the fruit of the entire Garden particularly the Tree of Life. 2) The tree of knowledge of good and evil was forbidden fruit. Participating in the forbidden fruit would result in death.
When Satan tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit followed by Adam’s participation, disobedience entered the world. To assuage all the feminists out there God laid the responsibility on Adam and not Eve. Why? Adam had the direct revelation from his Maker about the rules and Eve was told of the rules by Adam. Adam’s responsibility was to resist temptation and protect his wife. He failed in both.
God’s warning to Adam concerning eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil indeed opened Adam’s eyes to comprehend what is good and what is evil. This meant Adam had the ability to choose what is good or what is evil according the thought process that he could reason an action that might feel good even if the action was evil. Without the knowledge of evil, Adam’s choices were based solely on good ways to do good, feel good and walk in harmony with his Creator.
God has told Adam if he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam would surely die. Since Adam and Eve did not drop dead in the physical realm, the curse of death did not touch physical death. The death Adam and Eve experienced was separation from God in their spirit man. In essence the stewardship given to Adam was transferred to Satan. When Adam made the choice of rebellion by eating the forbidden fruit, he was choosing the overlordship of Satan. Hence Adam’s stewardship would be overseen by Adam’s new Lord – Satan. In essence then not only did humanity experience separation from God, the entire planet under Adam’s stewardship became separated from God with Satan becoming its overseer.
Adam’s betrayal resulted in evil entering the world. In God’s sovereignty He could have scrapped the whole thing and started over. This time around (if you follow the Pre-Adamite antediluvian theory and/or Pre-Noahic antediluvian theory) God chose to redeem humanity and Adam’s stewardship to reunite in oneness with God. Thus the promise of a Messiah to forcefully execute redemption of humanity and the earthly stewardship: The curse and the promise of Redemption:
13 And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: “ Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (emphasis mine)16 To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” 17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “ Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field.
19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3: 13-19 NKJV
Verse 15 is the Promise of Redemption from an evil master. The incarnation of God in Jesus Christ as the son of Man and the Son of God made Him the only man born without sin and evil in his nature since the time Adam was created in the same fashion. This clean nature would be the blood sacrifice that was willingly given via unjust accusation. This unjust capital punishment upon innocent Jesus as the Son of Man became the price of Redemption or Ransom that gives humanity the ability to choose life over the death nature of this present age. The Holy Spirit offered to humanity is the down payment of Full Redemption for humanity and the stewardship of earth that will once and for all end evil on planet earth.
Evil exists in this age because the plan of Redemption is not complete. If God in His Majestic Sovereignty activated His Divine prerogative to end evil now, then not only would Satan’s lease terminate but all humanity still in the grip of darkness would be judged and condemned counter to the Divine plan to save the humanity God has declared He loves.
Keep these thoughts in mind when reading Norma Zager’s (click the link and roll down to the end of this essay) indictment upon the world for abandoning Israel and Jews to confront evil apparently alone – again.
JRH 6/15/10
Full redemption may have started?
ReplyDeleteThe first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the Gospel and moral teachings of Christ is on the web. Redefining all primary elements including Faith, the Word, Law, Baptism, the Trinity and especially the Resurrection, this new interpretation questions the validity and origins of all Christian tradition; it overturns all natural law ethics and theory. At stake is the credibility of several thousand years of religious history and moral teaching. What science and religion have agreed was not possible, has now become all too inevitable.
Using a synthesis of scriptural material from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha , The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Nag Hammadi Library, and some of the worlds great poetry, it describes and teaches a single moral LAW, a single moral principle, and offers the promise of its own proof; one in which the reality of God responds directly to an act of perfect faith with a individual intervention into the natural world; 'raising up the man' correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Intended to be understood metaphorically, where 'death' is ignorance and 'Life' is knowledge, this experience, personal encounter of transcendent power and moral purpose is the 'Resurrection', and justification for faith. Here is where true morality and perfect virtue, called righteousness begins.
Here then is the first ever viable religious conception capable of leading reason, by faith, to observable consequences which can be tested and judged. This new teaching delivers the first ever religious claim of insight into the human condition, that meets the Enlightenment criteria of verifiable and 'extraordinary' evidence based truth embodied in action. For the first time in history, however unexpected, the world must now measure for itself, the reality of a new claim to revealed truth, a moral tenet not of human intellectual origin, offering access by faith, to absolute proof, an objective basis for moral principle and a fully rationally justifiable belief!
This is 'religion' without any of the conventional trappings of tradition. An individual, virtue-ethical conception, independent of all cultural perception in a single moral command, and the single Law finds it's expression of obedience within a new covenant of marriage. It requires no institutional framework or hierarchy, no churches or priest craft, no scholastic theological rational, dogma or doctrine and ‘worship’ requires only conviction, faith and the necessary measure of self discipline to accomplish a new, single, categorical moral imperative and the integrity and fidelity to the new reality.
If confirmed, this will represent a paradigm change in the moral and intellectual potential of human nature itself; untangling the greatest questions of human existence: consciousness, meaning, suffering, free will and evil. And at the same time addressing the most profound problems of our age.
Trials of this new teaching are open to all and under way in many countries. For those individuals who will question their own prejudices, who can imagine outside the historical cultural box, with the moral courage to learn something new, and test this for themselves, to stand against the stream of fashionable thought and spin, an intellectual and moral revolution is already under way, where the 'impossible' becomes inevitable, with the most potent Non Violent Direct Action any human being can take to advance peace, justice, change and progress.
Published [at the moment] only on the web, a typeset manuscript of this new teaching is available as a free [1.4meg] PDF download from a variety of sites including:
[www].energon.org.uk
Klatu you have provided a very erudite synopsis for your paradigm of faith. I will find the time to examine your document at http://www.energon.org.uk/FF2.html.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the only valid paradigm is the inspired Word of God spoken through men under the inspiration of Jesus Christ via the Holy Spirit.
All else is fascinating speculative theo-philosophy.