Good God? A conversation with Professor N.T. Wright at Duke

Author and professor N.T. Wright addresses reconciling a good God with a world filled with suffering. | Duke University, 2014 | Explore more at www.veritas.org.
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[@hughwanzakaffi7348]

Amazing! Really glad I listened to this.

WOW 1:21:39

[@kennethfaught8754]

Nine years later, has anyone positively identified the interviewer?

[@duncescotus2342]

So many nuggets of solid gold here. Listen, people of God. N. T. Wright is an apostle for our time.

[@jodamato6362]

I'm really enjoying this discussion ✝️❤️Regarding ISIS, please can we (followers of Jesus/Yashua) please give them something better to believe in & give their lives to.

[@bonnie43uk]

This Simon Ben Kosiba character N T Wright mentions at about 36:00 sounds a very interesting character.

[@uganda_mn397]

Not really. Rather a blasphemous man

[@johnstewart7025]

Listening to C.S. Lewis describe "eros" or Venus as a spirit that could be confused with God, for instance. That sounds true. A lover could confuse their spirit of romantic love with God's will. So, perhaps the devil as a spirit does exist. I know that tormenting others has its pleasant side.

[@troyarchers]

I'm not sure why he associates Dante with the idea that Satan is equal to God. Satan in the Divine Comedy is a figure almost without agency, imprisoning himself with his own desire to be disobedient to God's will. This is not an equal adversary; he has a position at the center of the Inferno simply because he was the first to fall.

[@shawngregory8018]

not so. the bottom level was for the WORST sinners, not those who sinned first.

[@troyarchers]

I think you misunderstood. Satan sinned first, without a doubt. And the logic of the inferno is that his fall from heaven into the earth created the cave of the inferno. The fall into the earth also, in the poetic logic of Dante's universe, pushed up the Mount of Purgatory on the other side. So the first instance of sin created the means of purging one's sinful nature. The fact remains though, that Satan has no agency whatsoever, and is almost a tragic figure in the poem, when the more he beats his wings to escape the more the winds freeze him in place.

[@troyarchers]

Oh, and I meant you misunderstood what I was trying to say about Satan in the Inferno, not that you misunderstood the poem. The lowest level of hell is absolutely for the worst sinners (the betrayers).

[@troyarchers]

I'm not sure how that comment is a response to this thread on Dante, or what the importance of it is.

[@uganda_mn397]

​@@tripp8833probably was

[@azbymusic]

Who believes God and Satan to be equal and oposite? Strange to argue against this position which i didn't know existed. I love Nt Wright btw.

[@oldterry9356]

See the book of Job!! 😀

[@ramonzavala3875]

Good study

[@johnstewart7025]

The resurrection is "true" in the sense that by dying to self, we are born again with a new life of selflessness or at least less selfishness.

[@markuswmenezes]

That certainly is an interesting interpretation, but would it exclude Jesus dying and rising in a glorified body (what Jews meant by resurrection)?

[@uganda_mn397]

it is important to believe Jesus died and rose physically on the third day

[@omicron4498]

Is that Peter Feaver interviewing him? He's a civil-military relations scholar at Duke.

[@godsworduncensored5010]

Check out Mark13records here on KZbin.

[@johnstewart7025]

I doubt the existence of an all knowing, all powerful personality or God because that would mean we could have had a world different or better than the one we have. At least that is what makes sense to me. On the other hand, I do think that love of another person makes life worth living. It seems that we can only have love by putting up with the process that creates it. So life requires a cost/ benefit analysis.

[@uganda_mn397]

No, God gave us free will, we've abused it and this is how it ended. God said about Creation after the first man that it was very good

[@jetc4332]

anglicans don't believe in hell?

[@mackdmara]

JeTc That is Not what he said. He said that Hell is not equal to Heaven.

[@melissamybubbles6139]

Why did no one call him out for saying that people who run away from God are making themselves less human. He says that to relatives? Christian supremacy is ugly no matter how intellectual.

[@davidwhittaker2618]

One thing to remember is that NT Wright was speaking through the lens of the Christian worldview as communicated in the bible. With that in mind, the biblical story suggests human beings were created in the image of their Creator (i.e. God) to rightly represent him and reflect his love and character into the world, and the implication is that this is the biblical idea of what it actually means to be human. So, if someone who is created for this purpose turns his back on the Creator and decides he wants to do life on his own terms, and no longer represent and reflect the Creator, he is by all accounts becoming something less or other than what he was created to be. Therefore, from the bible's perspective, to be human = representing and reflecting the character of the Creator; to be a diminished human = to no longer want to participate with the Creator in this endeavor (i.e. running away from God). I believe that was the point NT Wright was attempting to make in a setting where the time to do so is very limited. You or others do not have to agree with NT Wright's or the biblical view in regards to humans being created in God's image for this type of purpose, however, if someone does believe in this view (and NT Wright clearly does) it is a logical conclusion to draw that human beings become diminished (a lesser version of themselves) when they choose to no longer function according to their design. I hope that helps add a little more context, from a biblical perspective, to the idea that "people who run away from God are making themselves less human."

[@uganda_mn397]

well because we are created in His image and by going away from that, we are becoming less of the thing we actually were made to be. We never thought we were better because of ourselves. How can we brag by things we have received? God made us new creatures not because of our righteousness but because He was so loving.

[@melissamybubbles6139]

@@uganda_mn397 Who says we were made in your god's image? You? You don't recognize how dangerous it is to say that people are less than human or even less godly because they aren't your religion? People suffer and even die from laws made on that basis, in our day, not just in history. People suffer and die from extralegal actions based on that belief. That is why so many Christians are considered dangerous extremists.

[@uganda_mn397]

@@melissamybubbles6139 where did i ever say that? I believe there are a-theists more moral than people claiming to be Christians

[@jetc4332]

*"the polarization between Heaven and Hell [...] never was in the Bible itself"* *"the Bible doesn't do big pictures of Heaven and Hell..."* Really, Prof. Wright? What about this: A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. [...] And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, *who is called the Devil and Satan*, the deceiver of the whole world-_*he*_ was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Rev. 12) You are right Satan is not "equal but opposite to God" but it most definitely is not true that the Bible refers to Satan as some vague "evil force"

[@aristotelian3098]

That is John's vision of heaven, not a description of it. Visions are allegorical, not literal.

[@mackdmara]

Satan means Accuser as he said. You are Satan to NT Wright, how does it feel? Attend to your rafter first. I have deep convictions also, but I also know NT Wright has forgotten more about this subject than I most likely have grasped. Beware your pride, it has ruined many a great man! Vision, hyperbolic speech, & metaphors found in the Bible should not be taken literally.

[@yeehaw6267]

JeTc The issue is that, when you say all temptations, all doubts about God, all evil in the world, is "from Satan", you are in fact giving him immense power that many throughout history have viewed as almost equal to and opposite God. You're saying he has power over thoughts, over actions, over desires and impulses, over human beings and groups of human beings. When the Bible calls Satan the "father of lies," does it really mean he is able to wield power over our thoughts and push us to lie, or does it mean through his wickedness and temptation, sins-like lying-entered the world and now afflict all men?

[@1StepForwardToday]

@@yeehaw6267 I think it means Satan wields the power of sin itself. Any/all sinfulness. He then, is the source of the temptation of all sinfulness. But, Christ Himself took on "all of sin". He was afflicted with every craving, and dark desire. And, though He endured struggle, He overcame them all. So, He gained power over the nature of sin. Through Christ, mankind is saved from the wages of sin. (death, selfishness, pride, fear, greed, lust, jealousy, envy, vengeance, etc.)