Systematic Theology 1

Gunton allows that we are created in the image of God and given the task of “subduing” the earth. Within this task, a task that is only given to the human race, there is freedom. Therefore, human beings do not have freedom to choose whether or not they will be the image of God, nor do they choose whether they will be connected to Him for He breathed His Spirit of Life into each member of the human race. However, each human being is given freedom in his material being. When a human being tries to sever his or her spiritual connection to God so that the material faculties are all that remain, that human being becomes capable of great evil. Williams takes a slightly different approach arguing that God created a world full of human beings with free hearts and minds. Even though this reality does not make the existence of evil on the earth more or less painfully disappointing, Williams states that a world without risk is not a world at all. If God stopped any evil in which living things would be affected, we would no longer be a part of a real universe. I agree with Williams in the sense that the Christian response to evil should first be to clear one’s head and realize that we live in a risky universe. We must have faith that when evil thwarts our path, that God will always prove to us why He still can be taken seriously by tending to us in weakness.

Rowan Williams gives less of a specific of where and when and how evil came about, but rather speaks to how it is possible that evil comes about at all. He—like Gunton—stresses the importance of understanding that Creation is distinct from Creator, and this without contradicting the fact that the Creator is immanent in Creation by constantly acting within it and opening up freedom and a future for it. This last point is a key one in Williams’ work here and in his discussion of Dostoevsky: though at points paradoxical, it is important to note that God, in making Creation and being loving toward Creation, wants to bestow as much of His being upon Creation—including freedom. Because of this freedom, the act of creating is a risky one. Creation has its own natural processes, though God is still constantly at work in and through it (such that miracles are not to be understood as aberrations from the natural order, but God establishing or directing or hastening that which is natural). This freedom comes to full fruition in humans, for whom the greatest state of being—and only true state of being—is to live in love and relationship with this Creator. The distortion of this is also possible; natural processes and human freedom “leave room” for evil to take place. Williams then carries this argument to say that man’s response (perhaps) can be to live in such a way as to “leave room” for God to act in accordance with His will by and through their actions. That is, God is apparently enabled to act more easily or robustly through certain lives or decisions or circumstances, and we ought to live as His children, seeking for the Kingdom to be brought forth on earth by our putting ourselves in the positions for this to occur.

Gunton is still developing his argument thus far; I don’t think he has addressed evil as thoroughly as he intends to. In many respects he bears a resemblance to Rowan Williams, taking the stance that Creation’s “otherness” from God allows evil to exist. The contrast between the two seems to be one of emphasis. While Williams discusses God working in and through Creation to bring it to what He intends it to be, Gunton continually emphasizes that the eschatological perspective is looking toward God bringing Creation—and thus people—to their full maturity. He argues that humans were put on earth to both be and become human. They do this by loving their Creator and their neighbor; it is for these things that humans were created and by which we have our eschatological hope of perfection. Interaction within culture to move man toward the beautiful, true, and good through love is at least in part how man enacts man’s progress toward being more human.

Word Count: 472

Gunter states his argument as being one in which God has no evil, and doesn’t cause people to be evil. This is to say that evil that exists within people is through humanity. He uses the fall account in “Genesis 3”, to illustrate his point. Through the fall, humanity had taken up evil. There is a type of sinful structure that dwells within humanity. The evil that comes from humanity is pretty much inevitable. He does allow the reader to know that there is some good within humanity. There is an onward strive unto perfection and being free from through humanity. This will not and cannot ultimately be attained until the period of eschatology. This is referring to the coming back of Jesus Christ. There will come a time when humanity will be able to walk in a newness of life. This is where the perfection takes place.
Williams believes and states that creation is distinct from the creator. God is good, and it is that humanity can be evil. Not to say that God’s good cannot dwell in humanity. Williams states that God gives humans freewill. This was so that humans will have the freedom to choose to serve Him. In turn, people became free to choose to serve evil also. God does not impose force on anybody. As Gunter had stated that the intervening in the social structure, one is susceptible to evil. Williams is saying the same thing in this regard. Arguing the point that one is a product becomes contaminated with evil, just by being a human. Ultimately, one can only be so good, and that is due relationship with God.

So called evil is the inherent weakness in human nature; however, God’s providence tries to help the people get out of bondage and lead them to repent and live according to His purpose. Gunton’s views are stated, “In the West, both classical and modern philosophy have often assumed or taught that the continuity lies in the mind or the will: that there is an inner core, different in being from the material body, which, if correctly deployed, relates us directly to the divine, even, in the modern version, turns our deeds into ‘the works of God,’” (38) however, he goes on to say, “…under God, the created order cannot be fully without us. That the possibilities for its corruption and pollution are equally great follows from this, for it remains an indisputable principle of all life that the very worst derives from the corruption of the very best.” (41) He addresses this issues of how we as Christians need to deal with it on page 48 stating, “The difficulty and ambiguity of ethics are that it derives from two features of our situation: first that finite beings require a measure of structuring for their lives, and second that we do not treat each other aright without both internal and external restraint.” According to Scripture he adds, “…is that human sin and evil require that if he is to be known God should break through the barrier that man has erected against his love…” (52)
The view that Williams takes on evil is that is it “a betrayal of one of the basic insights of faith.” (39) “And what makes it possible to find God credible even in this context will not be an argument explaining why evil occurs but-once again- the experience of how actual people find God real even in the midst of these terrors.” (41) Williams thinks that Christians need to uphold the love approach that is taught in Scripture when dealing with sin and evil of man. He wants Christians to have faith when dealing with these occurrences in the world stating, “So out of the confused and fearful and partial picture of ourselves that most of us work with most of the time, God can make some sort of wholeness. He can lead us gently to face what we find unacceptable and learn how to make it meaningful by his grace.” (55)
Word count: 397

Gunton says that, “From His boundless goodness comes God’s inability to do evil” (pg 45). Gunton then goes into talking about how freedom and how Adam and Eve were created to grow to maturity. He talks about the concept of how people are made to grow towards perfection, but human persons are fleshly and material and this implies limits. Gunton does not really go into detail of his specific view of the so-called problem of evil, just that God is incapable of doing evil and that people have the choice of how they live their life.

Williams starts off saying that we are not going to have an answer to this problem of evil that allows us to stop thinking and worrying. Williams talks about how the world is capable of change. He says that this is a world which different process flow together and makes things happen, and any event has practically an unmeasurable range of causes, factors that have made it fall out this way rather than that (pg 39). Williams says, “The world of natural processes also includes beings who can think, plan and choose. It’s a world in which human beings have freedom about where they choose to live and they may opt to live where volcanoes erupt”(pg 40). So like Gunton Williams goes into this idea of freedom. Williams talks about how it is the experience of how people find God real and take His goodness seriously when faced with suffering and evil.

So both Gunton and Williams discuss how humans are capable of love and choice; that people have freedom in this world. As far as how Christians are to respond to the so-called problem of evil I cannot say that I have the key answer but I think that Gunton and Williams are right about how people have freedom of choice and God has given us that freedom. We are the ones who have to come to the realization of God and His purpose for our life and then yield ourselves to that purpose.

Williams believe’s that God, since He is a Good God, He can not be in any meter evil. Evil is an inherently human action.(45) But Williams adds that “Within every circumstance, every object and every person Gods action is going to be a sort of ‘white heat’ at the center of everything (35.) If the action of God is the center of all what does this say about disaster and troubles? Gods work is always active, His work may not always be visible. Instead of constantly thinking of God as “the God in outer space” when we experience hard and trying times, we need to have faith that God will show His face. Its a backwards philosophy to say “I have belief in God, God whom I have never met, but I am going to trust that He is constantly with me” but in some sense (maybe all) we do. All we know is that we are called to pray, trust and live with integrity before God in such a way as to leave the door open, to let things come together (since somehow God knits the fabric of our lives together for His good)so that love can come through (45).

Gunton’s view is similar to Williams. He states that it is an intrinsic part of our human createdness to be in a special relationship to God that is unbreakable lest by His act. (41) In the latter revelation their is a heirarchy under God, a created order which can not fully itself without us. (41) But we are finite and He is infinite. We are limited to time and space (very limited) while He is everlasting and HIs words are eternal. He awakens our capacitities despite our errors and folly. (47) In this way I see how these two authors are alike in general thought. God, is good and there is not a single room in Him that can ever house evil. The world, which He created to be perfect is now corrupt. In order to stay true to His decision to give us freewill, He will knit everything together and will use what the enemy does (somehow) and make it conform to His plan for perfection.

Gunton states “From His boundless goodness comes God’s inability to do evil” (45). Due to the fact that God is good He cannot do evil. As humans we are to strive to be perfect, but because of the fall every human has a sin nature and are flesh and blood. This puts a stop to us being perfect. Gunton also says, “it is an inescapable feature of our human situation that we are freed or enslaved by the way others love or hate us, thus enabling us to become or preventing us from becoming the people we were created to be.” (45) I take this to mean that the culture we live in, which includes our environment and especially the people we are around have a great effect on us, and is one thing that hinders and stops us from becoming perfect. This is a problem. However, I believe that there is a greater problem than this. The biggest problem is How is God going to be known.
Williams has a similar view on evil and the problem that it brings about. Williams points out that God gave us freedom by giving us a will. This is an aspect that makes us different from God. Williams goes on to say, what makes it possible to find God credible even in this context will not be an argument explaining why evil occurs but-once again- the experience of how actual people find God real even in the midst of these terrors.” (41) In my opinion, we need to live our lives in a way where God is present in “these terrors.” (270)

According to Williams, in the creation of the universe, God created other than himself. Therefore the universe is changeable and variable as God is unchangeable and invariant. And because of that variability in the laws of nature, the universe is subject to violent occurrences, incidences that would be call catastrophic or even evil. The author gives the example of earthquakes and volcanoes. Unfortunately, or inescapably, humanity decides to make residence in these locations. This thought leads the following thought, “Why doesn’t God intervene?” The author responds, “Would a world with a perpetual safety net really be a world at all, a place wit its own integrity and regularity?” And again he responds, “…that natural disasters are just that, the laws of nature going ahead.” Evil also results as a fact of human choice and decisions. It was God’s pleasure to create a universe that reflects his glory, which includes his freedom—his free-will. As to our response to evil, Williams encourages believers to make as much as possible for the Spirit of God to move. For surely, God is constantly and consistently working in the universe, but there are times when natural processes may be against God’s working, and William suggests that perhaps there is in prayer and in holiness a spiritual broadening that occurs, allowing room for God’s purpose to occur. And so it is the responsibility of the believer to continue in faith and trust in the goodness the almightiness of God.
Word Count: 244

Williams describes the problem with evil in a way that specifies God as separate from His creation. It is through this Creator/creation separation that the world has the ability to have evil within it. He also says: “As the Bible says in its first chapter, what God made was good; nothing (and no one) is bad by nature. As we’ve seen, the tensions and collisions between the elements in the world produce situations that we can rightly call bad; but this is the effect of events, not of some ‘virus’ inside certain things or people that is evil by definition.” (53) It is through these events (also the freedom for these to come about) and through the separation of the Creator/creation that Williams attempts to explain the problem with evil.

Gunton does not address evil to the extent that Williams does, but one can assume some basic ideas that Gunton make take on the issue. Much like Williams, we can assume that Gunton’s way of dealing with the problem of evil is through the separation of creation/Creator but it is not as explicitly addressed as thoroughly as Williams. Also, Gunton mentions in another section of the reading that all humans are interconnected. One could jump to the conclusion that Gunton, like Williams, sees evil as a opportunity that is allowed through the freedom of these interactions.

(226)

Well Gunton takes the reader back to the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve when discussing this problem of evil. He states that, “what they are offered by their tempter is the opportunity to grasp at being like God, aspiring to know everything rather than being like God in the love and freedom which are their defining attributes” (60). I thought that the fact he chose to emphasize on their motive for choosing sin over righteousness was a great observation. He sides on some issues and perspectives that John Calvin wrote about. He feels that no evil or darkness can ever proceed from God and that we must choose to always be in His Light. Williams believes it is our choice as well but he also sees that God can enter amidst our darkness and set us free. He said that, “The world of natural processes also includes beings who can think, plan and choose. It’s a world in which human beings have freedom about where they choose to live and they may opt to live where volcanoes erupt”(40).

Williams explains that evil is a result of free will. He states that God has made us in his image and free will comes along with that. But is God capable of doing evil? And if not how could we be made like him but capable of something He is not? Gunton seems to be saying something along the same lines. God cannot do evil nor can He create it. I feel that neither of these appropriately addresses the problem of evil. If everything is created by God, than is there anything which humans can make? and if humans cannot create anything, than they cannot create evil. If one sets a vase on the end of a table so that it balances precariously on the edge, and he allows people to move freely through out the room, when some one inevitably knocks the vase off the edge, is the one who set it there not responsible for causing the accident? surely he is to share some of the blame. In short, I do not want to think that God has created evil but the with reasons given here, i was not able to justify this thinking.

Willaims provides a look at the problem of evil as a possible outcome from the presence of free-will within the universe. It is true that God made a good creation due to His inherently goodness. Because God has allowed His creation to have the ability to choose its own actions out of its own free-will, it has the option of choosing that which is against its original intended purposes. Gunton deals with the problem of evil not as a cause for good but as a situation in which good has the opportunity to express itself.