(urth) Silk Takes A Stab At The 'Problem Of Evil'

[Daniel Petersen]

Lane Haygood<lhaygood at gmail.com>  wrote:

> Silk is arguing that the Outsider is not an occasionalist God. He doesn't
> control everything, and permits Evil (as a concept and metaphysical whole)
> because in the end Evil serves his great Purpose (which Man might not
> know).
> Little evils (like tsunami that kill thousands) are because the Outsider
> does not intervene or even control all events - God does not authorize
> every
> event as if he is a foreman at a construction site - but rather lets things
> flow organically.


Ok, Lane, right, so Silk's conception of God (the Outsider) is not
'occasionalist' (i.e. God *directly* causes all things), but the fact that
God 'permits' evil and forces it to serve his purposes 'however unwillingly'
seems to fit in with Aquinas' scheme of primary and secondary causation.
 Evil is personified by Silk as *hating* God, yet it is 'harnessed' by God
so that it 'serves' him by pointing us who get hurt by evil back to God for
our true love and goodness and purpose.

I think I agree with you that he's arguing that the Outsider allows his
creation to 'flow organically', but I just want to point out that Silk is
still conceiving of a God very much 'in control' in that his 'permissive
will' is orchestrating (if you like) all things towards his desired ends
(which, though many are unknown as you point out, yet Silk takes a major
known end to be that of love between creature and Creator).

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

> Elsewhere in tBotLS, Silk has an insight that strikes me heavily. I
> can't recall where it is, but it occurs to him that the purpose of
> free will is to give us the grace of consenting to what is going to
> happen anyway.


Dan'l, I vaguely recall that too.  It'd be good if we cold find the exact
quote.  I want to qualify that thought with the notion that those freewill
creatures are still somehow genuinely significant in their choices, that our
part in 'what is going to happen anyway' (or 'consenting to be governed by a
King' as David Stockhoff said) really 'makes a difference' somehow.
 However, I'm not sure whether that's Silk's or Wolfe's view.  Wolfe has
kept me guessing on this.  Sometimes he sounds pretty hard determinist
(especially, as I seem to recall, in certain passages of tBotNS).  Yet the
dramas he plays out sound more libertarian.  I know a compatibilist would
say that's just how things look but it's all causally determined even if our
'choices' are 'real' based on our desires (which are determined by all that
comes before us).  Is there any room for any kind of libertarian freewill in
Wolfe?

-DOJP



On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 4:28 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:

> Much like consenting to be governed by a king.
>
>
> On 4/12/2011 8:12 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>
>> Elsewhere in tBotLS, Silk has an insight that strikes me heavily. I
>> can't recall where it is, but it occurs to him that the purpose of
>> free will is to give us the grace of consenting to what is going to
>> happen anyway.
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Lane Haygood<lhaygood at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> Silk is arguing that the Outsider is not an occasionalist God. He doesn't
>>> control everything, and permits Evil (as a concept and metaphysical
>>> whole)
>>> because in the end Evil serves his great Purpose (which Man might not
>>> know).
>>> Little evils (like tsunami that kill thousands) are because the Outsider
>>> does not intervene or even control all events - God does not authorize
>>> every
>>> event as if he is a foreman at a construction site - but rather lets
>>> things
>>> flow organically.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> On Apr 12, 2011, at 6:39 PM, Daniel Petersen
>>> <danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Any philosophy of religion or theology students out there?  Is Silk
>>> arguing
>>> something of a 'freewill' theodicy here that still trades on a strong
>>> view
>>> of divine sovereignty?
>>>
>>> http://silkandhornheresy.blogspot.com/2011/04/silk-takes-stab-at-problem-of-evil.html
>>> -DOJP
>>>
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>>
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