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Natural disasters
Topic Started: Saturday, 21. April 2012, 17:57 (290 Views)
Marts

Interesting to think what will happen to creation after the final judgment.

When God made everything He saw that it was good. Will it cease to exist?
Jesus told us, his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13)
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OsullivanB

It just wouldn't be the same without hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes etc. Or was nature corrupted along with mankind at the Fall?
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Marts

OsullivanB
Saturday, 21. April 2012, 18:13
It just wouldn't be the same without hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes etc. Or was nature corrupted along with mankind at the Fall?
Nature was corrupted, but in Revelation 21:5 we read "the One sitting on the throne spoke. 'Look, I am making the whole of creation new."

God is unlikely to make all creation new just to destroy it. So what will happen to creation? Looks like a mystery; another one.
Jesus told us, his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13)
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PJD

I don't think it was so much as that nature was corrupted, but man's ability to discern the dangers that nature could provide. In just the same way as it might well be considered foolish to live extremey close to a natural erupting volcano and expect to go unharmed when such blew its top.

PJD
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Deacon Robert
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If we assume that Eden was perfection and after We moved away from perfection (after the fall). We enter into a scientific theory called Entropy ( it is the second law of thermodynamics) which if we extend it may be, in this case, an explaination of why perfection of Eden has become what the world is today. Perfection is affected by outside factors which degrade and randomise the end product. Earth is not and will never be pergfect and will futher degrade until the new heaven and earth.
The burden of life is from ourselves, its lightness from the grace of Christ and the love of God. - William Bernard Ullanthorne

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OsullivanB

PJD
Saturday, 21. April 2012, 19:50
I don't think it was so much as that nature was corrupted, but man's ability to discern the dangers that nature could provide. In just the same way as it might well be considered foolish to live extremey close to a natural erupting volcano and expect to go unharmed when such blew its top.

PJD
Remind me. What precautions should have been taken by the 230,000 who died in the 2004 tsunami?

Theology does not really deal with highly destructive natural phenomena of this kind.

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake shook the faith of many.

That is a very trivial answer to a very profound question (not mine but one posed by many who think seriously).
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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OsullivanB

Deacon Robert
Saturday, 21. April 2012, 21:31
If we assume that Eden was perfection and after We moved away from perfection (after the fall). We enter into a scientific theory called Entropy ( it is the second law of thermodynamics) which if we extend it may be, in this case, an explaination of why perfection of Eden has become what the world is today. Perfection is affected by outside factors which degrade and randomise the end product. Earth is not and will never be pergfect and will futher degrade until the new heaven and earth.
Deacon, your scientific explanation is fine. But as God is responsible for the phenomena that sicence merely accounts for in physical terms, it doesn't deal with the question I asked.

We know that we are taught that death came through the Fall. Man suffered for Man's sin. The question is whether the "law" of entropy (which is not a law but an explanation consistent with observed phenomena) is a consequence of the Fall. We know that death is avoidable (though bodily death is not). We know that Original Sin can be expunged through baptism. What is the theology of natural disasters? Until shown otherwise, I am inclined to believe that there isn't one.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Deacon Robert
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Osb, I thought my explaination was clear, apparently not. What I meant to imply was the perfection of God's creation was also subject to the fall. Once his perfection of creation was degraded by the fall, people and his pefect earth also became subject to outside inflences andreacted in a manner based on physical forces. If I have misunderstood your question, please restae it and I will try to answer.
The burden of life is from ourselves, its lightness from the grace of Christ and the love of God. - William Bernard Ullanthorne

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OsullivanB

Your answer was very clear, and I appreciate your posting it. But it doesn't seem to me to deal with the underlying question which I may not be asking very clearly. It is closely related to my continuing quest for an understanding of how evil entered the world in the first place.

God created all the outside influences. Did he create them after the Fall or were they present in His original creation? If the former, then Nature fell along with Man. If the latter, then they are part of the creation which God saw was good and presumably will be present after the Last Judgment, which is a little odd.

Natural disasters are woven into the fabric of the material world. Obviously, they are not a mistake on the part of God, or poor design by Him. So how do we account for them. A scientific account simply tells us what is. I feel the lack of a theology which tells me why or how it comes to be that that is "what is".
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Deacon Robert
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Evil may be explained as the absence of God, it is not a creation, but a lack of something (God). How do we prove a negative? If we take a new shirt and say it is perfection (created by God). How do we explain a shirt with a hole in it? A lack of the creation of God, or something mssing that was not God?

Sorry best I can do tonight, preparing form Mas tomorrow and making supper for family now. will answer after Mass Sunday
The burden of life is from ourselves, its lightness from the grace of Christ and the love of God. - William Bernard Ullanthorne

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Anne-Marie

Not convinced, Deacon.
:angel:
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
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Deacon Robert
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Anne-Marie, no thought put in that put into that response. Why should I bother?
Edited by Deacon Robert, Saturday, 21. April 2012, 22:18.
The burden of life is from ourselves, its lightness from the grace of Christ and the love of God. - William Bernard Ullanthorne

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OsullivanB

Deacon Robert
Saturday, 21. April 2012, 22:11
Evil may be explained as the absence of God, it is not a creation, but a lack of something (God). How do we prove a negative? If we take a new shirt and say it is perfection (created by God). How do we explain a shirt with a hole in it? A lack of the creation of God, or something mssing that was not God?

Sorry best I can do tonight, preparing form Mas tomorrow and making supper for family now. will answer after Mass Sunday
God is everywhere. He does not take leave of absence, surely. It is my understanding that he constantly keep the whole of creation in being, which includes the natural phenomena that are currently bothering me. It is the sort of question that I think is most difficult in Faith.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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Deacon Robert
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One more post for Osb.

"God is everywhere. He does not take leave of absence, surely. It is my understanding that he constantly keep the whole of creation in being, which includes the natural phenomena that are currently bothering me. It is the sort of question that I think is most difficult in Faith."

No he does not take absence and he holds the "WHOLE" of creation in being. My question would be: If we have free will, and our fore-parents had free will. How can he intervene with occurences (natural diasasters) which are the consequence of our "free will" without contravening "free will"
The burden of life is from ourselves, its lightness from the grace of Christ and the love of God. - William Bernard Ullanthorne

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OsullivanB

I cannot see the inundation and death of 230,000 people as in any way being an act of free will, or a comprehensible consequence of Adam's sin. Must just be me. I just don't get it.

Tsunami. 230,000 randomly dead. All-powerful and merciful God. I don't have a sentence, paragraph, chapter or book in which those three phrases live together.

It isn't a problem in the OT where every natural disaster described is ascribed to punishment for current misdeeds. The Israelites got the problem and gave an answer. Christians still get the problem. I don't think we have an answer.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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