God and Satan, Good and Evil

[_truth dancer]

Lets assume for a second that God exists as a man/spirit/being somewhere out in space.

And, lets assume evolution is the way humans have come to exist.

OK... so would we not assume further that many of our human traits are a result of Evolution? Greed, selfishness, sexual strategies, desire for status, etc. etc. for examples?

So, my question is, if God is the one who came up with the whole idea of evolution, knowing what sorts of traits and characteristics would keep our species going, would it not be God who is at the foundation of those things we consider sin?

It is as if the very humanness of our species is designed by evolution which is God created.

Rising above these "sins" (if it is even possible - I go with the idea of cultural evolution), by releasing desire, UNselfishness, etc. etc. would be contrary to the very creation of God. In other words, it would seem that if there is something going against the very nature of creation it is something other than what God created through evolution.

Some would go with the idea of the "fall" and that Satan is what/who has created the sins, but then would that mean Satan is who designed evolution? And how far back would we have to go to find the origin of selfishness and various sexual strategies... maybe a few billion years? The way I see it, seems selfishness started around the time of multicellularity but this is a different thread! :-)

If the very things that have kept humans alive are those which stem from evolution (survival), and are the very things which are condemned as sin, who then is responsible for creating humans to embrace such behavior?

I just do not see how those who believe in evolution can go with the whole plan of salvation. When was the fall? How does one account for sin? How can the natural man (man who is a result of evolution) not be considered a result of evolution which is created by God?

It would seem God is the creator (through evolution) of the sins of the world, not Satan.

Thanks for any thoughts or insights!

~dancer~

[_Coggins7]

Lets assume for a second that God exists as a man/spirit/being somewhere out in space.


Yes:


And, lets assume evolution is the way humans have come to exist.

Yes:

OK... so would we not assume further that many of our human traits are a result of Evolution? Greed, selfishness, sexual strategies, desire for status, etc. etc. for examples?

No, I see no reason we need to assume that kind of deterministic reductionism. Only the propensities for these things, and the hormonal and biochemical environment necessary to actualize them need be directly attributed to evolutionary development.

So, my question is, if God is the one who came up with the whole idea of evolution, knowing what sorts of traits and characteristics would keep our species going, would it not be God who is at the foundation of those things we consider sin?

This is a reworking of the centuries old argument of whether, since God is the ultimate ground of being, and the creator of all things (including Satan and evil itself), then how can God escape culpability for the existence of evil in the world. The core problems here are, I believe, the notion of creation ex-nihilo, and that God actually created, in a transcendent, ontological sense, "all things". That's the old theological and philosophical problem. You're own reworking of it seems to assume both that evolution implies that the programming of even the most subtle and idiosyncratic aspects of human psychology and personality are genetically programmed, and that God, again, since he forknew the system and what the system would produce, can be held accountable for its outcomes.

There are a great many assumptions here, Dancer, that would have to be worked through before your argument could be developed much further. First are the assumptions of just what evolution does and what it is capable of doing vis-a-vis the "fine tuning" of intelligent organisms (even intelligent non-human mammals are not, by any means, completely programmed as to their reactions to stimuli and "personality"). Second are some philosophical problems regarding a few abstract concepts, notable good and evil. If one holds God responsible for all reality whatever, then this argument looks plausible. however, good and evil are logically and conceptually dependent upon one another for meaning. If God "created" evil, this implies the "creation" of Good by definition. This then, also implies that good and evil, being spun from whole cloth by God, are, to a great extent, arbitrary concepts. Evolution, seen as a major determinant, not just of the morphological, physiological, and biochemical environment in which human beings make choices and develop complex personality structures, but of even the most idiosyncratic and varied elements of personality (following Skinner or Wilson), can then be used as a club with which to beat God's omnipotence and foreknowledge.

Therefore, if one holds evolution responsible for all human behavior, even to the degree of idiosyncratic tendencies toward ethical or moral problems, then one can, along this avenue, return again to holding God responsible for those same things Its just a little more of a circuitous route.

I think one key question to ask here is just what are the limitations of both God and evolution? Is evolution capable of "creating" a Hugh Hefner on one hand, and a Mother Teresa on the other, and did God actually create the very abstract concepts of good/evil, right/wrong upon which moral imagination and decision making rest?

This ultimately resolves itself, yet again, into a contest between determinism and free will; the great controversy of the ages. Indeed, the War in Heaven partook of much of this very dilemma.

It is as if the very humanness of our species is designed by evolution which is God created.

Is it? Is it not perhaps the case that the dynamics of human "nature" are far to complex to discern from the biological background in which they are embedded? If man has a spirit intelligence ("mind") and a complex background of biological predispositions and tendencies inherited through evolutionary development, how would we know where one ended and the others began?

Rising above these "sins" (if it is even possible - I go with the idea of cultural evolution), by releasing desire, UNselfishness, etc. etc. would be contrary to the very creation of God. In other words, it would seem that if there is something going against the very nature of creation it is something other than what God created through evolution.

This is quite fascinating, not to insult you Dancer, but this sounds much like the traditional Satanism of Anton Levey. We are natural, biological creatures with certain inherant, evolutionarily determined traits, instincts, and tendencies. To artificially delimit or suppress these traits, instincts, and tendencies, is unnatural and psychologically destructive.

Indeed, much of the original sexual revolution philosophy of the late Sixties and early Seventies was based on such a premise. The O'Neill's Open Marriage was founded on the premise that human beings are not naturally monogamous (as most other non-human animals, and primates especially, are not) and that hence, monogamy and the Judeo-Christian norms of sexual behavior are artificial and unnatural impositions upon our inherent, evolutionarily constructed "nature".

This sounds like some of the stuff Robert J. Ringer used to write about.

Some would go with the idea of the "fall" and that Satan is what/who has created the sins, but then would that mean Satan is who designed evolution? And how far back would we have to go to find the origin of selfishness and various sexual strategies... maybe a few billion years? The way I see it, seems selfishness started around the time of multicellularity but this is a different thread! :-)

Multicellular organisms cannot be "selfish". Selfishness is a value judgment,, not an evolutionary survival mechanism. Organisms such as that do what they do quite unaware that they are doing it. We do not. Why do you need someone or something to have "created" the concept of sin? What if God only identified the concept to us, not created it?

If the very things that have kept humans alive are those which stem from evolution (survival), and are the very things which are condemned as sin, who then is responsible for creating humans to embrace such behavior?

God is responsible for organizing and crating our spirit intelligences and our bodies (let's assume through evolutionary development) such that we could undergo a probationary state in which to come into contact with these biological conditions and learn to negotiate our existence embedded within them for the purpose of mastering them and using them to our own benefit. This as over against allowing them to master us and overwhelm our spiritual tendencies and capabilities.

I just do not see how those who believe in evolution can go with the whole plan of salvation. When was the fall? How does one account for sin? How can the natural man (man who is a result of evolution) not be considered a result of evolution which is created by God?

Again, I think you're ascribing to evolution capacities that it does not possesses. Your entire argument seems to rest on the assumption that both evolution and God must be thought of as creators in the sense of bringing absolute being, in all of its facets and idiosyncrasies, out of nothing. Why is it not possible that both God and evolution are organizers of potentialities and possibilities? Why the extreme reductionism?



I

t would seem God is the creator (through evolution) of the sins of the world, not Satan.

Thanks for any thoughts or insights!

[_truth dancer]

Hi Coggins... thanks for your thoughts. :-)

First, I am not trying to make an argument.

I personally do not believe in a personal man/being/God at all.

I'm just trying to figure out how people who believe in God (and the plan of salvation) and evolution reconcile the two.

I'm having a difficult time figuring out how people who believe in evolution and God, see God as being a great man/a God who loves his children.

It seems to me that the very origins of what believers consider "evil" are actually the result of evolution.

So, are you suggesting that the traits some would consider evolved for survival, (various sexual strategies, dominance, anger, need for status, etc.), are developed in the human due to evolution but the manifestation of them are a result of free will?

I'm not really suggesting God is the creator of Satan, (or going with that argument), I'm wondering how God can be great if "He" is the one who developed humans so they would have such survival triats, that are then considered evil. In other words, if humans exist because they adopted various traits in order to survive, and these same traits are considered evil, what does that say about God?

From a believers perspective, it almost seems like evolution itself is what is evil. Or is Satan the one who influences people to manifest the traits that are a result of evolution which is not evil? Certainly the survival traits (dominance, power, sexual strategies, etc), came into our ancestors long before there was any free will, no? It seems there is this legacy within the human to have various traits, some would suggest they are a result of evolution, others suggest they are the natural human, and others suggest they are of Satan. I'm wondering how people who believe in evolution and the idea of a "good" God reconcile these.

Just to be clear, again I do not believe in a personal God/being, nor do I believe in Satan at all. I'm just trying to better understand how others understand this.

Thanks... I've gotta scoot but will get back later on!

~dancer~

[_harmony]

Of course God created Satan. And allows him to exist. Satan serves as a key component of the Plan of Salvation. Without Satan, the Plan is superfluous.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

'Im having a difficult time figuring out how people who believe in evolution and God, see God as being a great man/a God who loves his children.

It seems to me that the very origins of what believers consider "evil" are actually the result of evolution.

If that is the case, than "good" must originate in genetic inheritance as well. Indeed, if evolutionary theory is taken not just as a mechanical description of how organic life developed, but as an irreducible explanation for the existence of life, consciousness, and intelligence, then good and evil are, in fact arbitrary concepts that are nothing more than a product of consciousness, which is nothing more than a function of a complex central nervous system, which just happened, by a vastly improbable fortuitous chance, to have evolved to its present state.

So, are you suggesting that the traits some would consider evolved for survival, (various sexual strategies, dominance, anger, need for status, etc.), are developed in the human due to evolution but the manifestation of them are a result of free will?

Not quite. What I'm really considering is that evolution produced the kinds of organisms necessary for our kind of consciousness to adequately manifest itself. Many of the 'traits" you speak of are inherent to the spirit intelligence that inhabits that organism, but also necessary to its physical continuation. Survival is a precondition for the mortal probation. The entire work of God would be frustrated without...survival. There's no story to tell without characters upon the stage.

I'm not really suggesting God is the creator of Satan, (or going with that argument), I'm wondering how God can be great if "He" is the one who developed humans so they would have such survival triats, that are then considered evil. In other words, if humans exist because they adopted various traits in order to survive, and these same traits are considered evil, what does that say about God?

Looking past the evolution aspect of your argument, it seems to me that this still boils down to the question of whether God can be held responsible for evil. We don't need evolutionary theory to have that discussion because the real question here is a metaphysical determinism rooted in a materialist world view vs. a metaphysically open system in which actors with free agency, yet limited in intellectual and physical abilities, make choices and decisions among a range of alternatives in a Telestial,or fallen world. This requires the organization and calibration of that world, but not its creation out of whole cloth. If evolution was merely one of the tools used by God to "organize" this world, then evil still remains the creation of human beings who are aware of the alternatives, not God.

[_Coggins7]

Of course God created Satan. And allows him to exist. Satan serves as a key component of the Plan of Salvation. Without Satan, the Plan is superfluous.

Is this a joke or what?

[_The Nehor]

I think every human survival trait has a survival trait.

We were given:

the ability to hate to hate sin.
the desire for sex so it can aid in love.
the ability to be angry to be angry at injustice and survive physical attack.
the ability to be selfish so we can survive at all.

If you take it as assumed that we were once spirits then we are dealing with imperatives we may never have dealt with before.

Hatred needs to be limited to sin and not overflow towards people.
Sex needs to be subordinated to love.
Anger needs to be tempered with reason and thought.
Selfishness needs to be expanded to all selves. (love thy neighbor as thyself)

All our animal passions need to be overcome so they are our servants and not our masters. Theoretically we could have eternally denied ourselves these things but then there is much joy we would have been denied. The embrace of a loved one, the joys of sex, the awe at the delight in not just seeing but being one with beauty. It is one thing to observe a beautiful beach but quite another to walk along it or swim in it. I assume that pleasures that make the height of sexual passion seem like a vague dream await the body in the next life.

Last time I read the New Testament I was impressed by how much Paul focussed on death and rebirth. The ordinance of baptism is the beginning of a process of death as well as life. The animal portion of ourselves has to be beaten and killed until it gives up the keys of mastery and lets the spirit rule. Then the animal portions of us can be reborn as the perfect servants they were meant to be while the part of me I should call 'I' becomes a radiant God.

I don't see a way around this. The Book of Mormon argues that there is really no way to advance that doesn't create opposition. My old friend Satan fell because he found pride and ambition and misused them. There were probably stages of advancement before that where others fell. New joys were offered and they chose poorly.

The Fall is a doctrine I do not entirely understand in a historical sense. I simply believe that my story started with Adam. What was going on before I have no standards by which to judge. Could there have been a whole exalting process going on before him? Yes. Could they have been more animal than human? Yes. I just don't know.

[_Blixa]

Of course God created Satan. And allows him to exist. Satan serves as a key component of the Plan of Salvation. Without Satan, the Plan is superfluous.

Is this a joke or what?

Well, isn't it true (I mean in terms of those who believe this) that God did create Satan? Isn't he one of his children and one of our brothers? (Although, I guess you could say that "Satan" is the identity of Lucifer after the fall and thus different? Or could you?)

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the plan of salvation predicated on certain "tests", tests in which it would be necessary to discern between the false (Satan) and the true? Thus making an "adversary" necessary?

harmony's remarks are very general, but on the whole aren't they accurate?

[_Coggins7]

We don't believe that God created Satan in the sense of his being created as a foil against God and righteousness. God created Lucifer's spirit body; he was one of the Father's children. He had free agency, and he chose his path. He now serves an important function within that plan. Its a dirty job, as they say, but someone had to do it.

The problem here is that no matter how you slice this, God will always end up as responsible for evil until you restore the overarching concept of free agency to the question. At that point, God's culpability lies not in the existence of evil, but in existence. Without existence, there would be no evil as there would be no conscious entities to experience it. Problem solved.

[_Blixa]

We don't believe that God created Satan in the sense of his being created as a foil against God and righteousness. God created Lucifer's spirit body; he was one of the Father's children. He had free agency, and he chose his path.

Ok, I see the difference. Duly noted.

He now serves an important function within that plan. Its a dirty job, as they say, but someone had to do it.

Now this part interests me. It strikes me as speaking to the point that Satan is necessary to the "plan of salvation."

The problem here is that no matter how you slice this, God will always end up as responsible for evil until you restore the overarching concept of free agency to the question. At that point, God's culpability lies not in the existence of evil, but in existence. Without existence, there would be no evil as there would be no conscious entities to experience it. Problem solved.

Ok, but if Satan, or "someone" is needed (It's a dirty job, but someone had to do it) then the question of "free agency" seems rather trivial to the overall point: that is, that it was necessary for someone to be satan/the adversary. Maybe who would step up to the plate was open to "free agency," but nevertheless the role was necessary.

It all seems very cosmically Catch-22 to me, Coggins. I suppose it does to other unbelievers like me, too. I'm not digging in for a long argument or discussion on this, though. I merely wanted to follow through with a description of the problem that harmony's post brings up.