Valentinus
and Creation
Authoritarian Christians defend the
Creator of the fallen realm as
good, by asserting that he initially created the Material Universe
perfectly, but that it fell because of humanity.
Though only contested on pain of death until the recent past, this
argument has always been weak.
It is even weaker today as humanity learns more about the nature of the
created reality.
The arguments that have always stood against this position are fairly
simple.
For the Creationists, you need to wonder how 2
people in a garden can cause a perfect universe to morph overnight into
something 'red of tooth and claw'. Remembering that they were
not even the
first to fall (remember the snake?)
And doesnt Genesis infer that the whole created universe was not
corrupted at Adams decision, but that the Garden they were in remained
perfect, and that Adam and Eve were cast out of that into an
imperfection that existed outside?
For theistic evolutionists, humanity is only here after a long process
that depended totally upon the material universe's endemic "redness of
tooth and claw".
Ironically it is the success of 'the argument from design' that has
really questioned goodness of the Creator. Looking at
amazing complexity of
biological nano-machines has convinced many scientists that it is
highly improbable that biological lifeforms were not designed by a
higher intelligence.
So then, we are not talking about grass eating lions etherially
morphing
into beasts that rip lambs to pieces at the fall of man, we are looking
at amazing complex genetic code of creatures that are as cruel as
hell. Who wrote the code? Did the code just evolve
very quickly?
The Demiurge
Valentinus, Marcion and many of the Christians of the First and Second
Centuries rejected the creator of the parasitic wasp as the Demiurge.
See the Valentinian Redemption
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Early
Christianity!
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