In response to an earlier post on who rules creation, Charity asked whether I was advocating an old heresy:
You are saying that you are a Cathar or Arian? Those are REAL old heresies that believe that this world was created and ruled by an evil god (or Satan) and that all material things are evil. What you have described is just a variation of that belief.
I went back to the source I was quoting in the original post, Greg Boyd, and asked him just that question. Here is his response:
* I'm not saying matter is evil. Matter is GOOD. I'm simply claiming nature has been corrupted by Satan and the fallen Powers.* The view that Satan is "the god of this world" and "lord of this world" and "in control of everything" and the one who holds the key to death is not a hersey, for this is what the New Testament says about him (2 Cor. 4:4; Jn 12:32; 14:31; 16:11; Heb 2:14).
* Jesus treated all sickness and disease as originating ultimately from Satan, which shows that Satan and demons can affect natural processes.
* The view that the Satan had corrupted nature was the standard view of the early church fathers. For example, Athenagorus, a second century apologist, argued that Satan had been given the responsibility for carrying for the material creation before he fell. Now he uses this authority for evil purposes.
* What sets the NT and the early fathers apart from dualistic theologies like the Cathars and (earlier) the Manicheans was that they held that Satan (or some other evil entity) was ETERNAL, alongside God (though its not certain the Cathars or other dualistic "heretical" groups actually believed this, for the reigning Church accused just about everybody and their grandma of being a Manichean. These groups may have simply believed in a more or less biblical view of Satan, but it contradicted the dominant Augustinian theology of the time, so they were put to death and all their writings burned up).
* Arius' heresy was not in holding that matter was evil -- though he AND THE ORTHODOX FATHERS all tended to devalue it owing to the influence of Platonism. Arius' heresy was that he so stressed the transcendence of God that he could not accept that the one who became Incnarate was fully God.
This whole area is one of those vitally important and regularly untouched areas of everyday theology. I'm glad we're having this conversation.
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Charity -- LOL ...
David: "This whole area [of sin's manifestation on nature] is one of those vitally important and regularly untouched areas of everyday theology. I'm glad we're having this conversation."
I think it's untouched largely because it's a bit of a dead horse. The topic was beaten to death by theologian years ago.
Greg Boyd was previously quoted: "This, I argue, is why the animal kingdom is so full of violence - despite the fact that God originally created the world entirely free of violence, according to Genesis 1 (vs. 30). It also in part explains why nature often acts in massively destructive ways."
Where's the data that the world was created 'free of violence' or that nature didn't act in massively destructive ways prior to man's appearance and fall? There is none, and plenty of evidence that the world have behaved pretty consistently over the ages. Why is there disease in the world? Probably because it's natural outcome of biology. You want a world without death or destructive events? Change the laws of physics or move to another universe.
God is that which is in itself, where the shadows of the ego do not fall, because the ego is nothing/absent in the presence of God. The ego ends with death, and of course it is death that is one of the ego's greatest fears.
In other words - I Am that I Am
I also agree with Unsympathetic reader in that there really is no evidence that our utopian vision of Eden actually existed, even in the belief of the scribes who first wrote down the story of Gensis. If violence is part of the defination of Evil, how can we say Jesus the Christ was without sin when he took a scourge to the money changers in the Temple? Or destroyed a whole herd of pigs by casting the demons who were Legion into them?
And that's not even touching on the things that the God of the old testament had done or ordered done in his name....
I think we base our belief of some violence free Eden on the promises of the Kingdom to Come - with swords beaten into plowshares and the lion laying down with the lamb.
Thanks Dave for referencing the Bible for the answer to this question. So often it is debated but it need not be, the Bible makes it clear that Satan is the ruler of the current system of things. Jesus is to come and remove him from power in the time of the end, at which time his Kingdom will be on earth as it is in heaven (I think that's how it goes).
The animosity I felt reading some of the comments was scary.
the spirit of the lord is everywhere.
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