Theodicy (noun)
from Greek theos, “god”; dikē, “justice”
explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty,
and all-knowing God permits evil
the vindication of God's divine goodness and providence
in view of the existence of evil.
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Concrescence (verb)
the coalescence or growing together of parts originally separate
a relational, interactive, interconnective evolving of parts to the whole
the consequent nature of God interacting with the world, prehending fully every
single actual occasion in the world, upon its concrescence to thus preserving
the past, affect the present, and produce greater generative networks of
wellbeing and novelty
Process philosophers characterize God's relation to the world as one of
mutual transcendence, mutual immanence, and mutual creation.
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Is A Pandemic a God-Sent Plague
or Something Else?
by R.E. Slater
March 22, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020
When it comes to plagues and disasters a church may chose the loving God approach (my preference) or, as many will do, chose the condemning God approach. One seeks restoration. The other blame. One seeks communion. The other seeks disunity and division.
If theology is any good at all then a bible centered on God's love is the more meaningful, helpful, and easily transportable path to healing and peace. Good things come out of it like forgiveness, mercy, and fellowship.
The uglier approach of surmising God as a vengeful, condemning God but creates communities i) of fear, ii) rules-based faiths and formulas for legalism, and iii) ascetic living (trying to be holy by personal or social restrictions, a set of stoicisms, a self-harming form penitence, and so forth). This kind of God-perception withholds goodness and love, excludes many of God's children for many made-up religious reasons, is always sharply critical of everything, preaches guilt and unworthiness, and justifies its gospel of fear on every occasion.
Why Do Bad Things Happen?
As to why bad things happen in this world is a question of theodicy. I've been asking it for a very long time. For myself, as well as for many others, it is the simple observation that we live in a freewill creation which God doesn't control but rather guides by partnering where He can with man and nature.
Why Do Bad Things Happen?
As to why bad things happen in this world is a question of theodicy. I've been asking it for a very long time. For myself, as well as for many others, it is the simple observation that we live in a freewill creation which God doesn't control but rather guides by partnering where He can with man and nature.
Our restless and brooding souls are not unlike the whirlwind or troubling seas. But when hearing the Lord's words of peace and goodwill we must chose either by saying "Yea, Lord, I hear you," or, "Be gone from me and let me have my own way." This is the nub of an indeterminate freewill creation and sentient life.
The Agency of a Freewill Creation
The Agency of a Freewill Creation
Choices, as they can be made, blending with divine guidance and goodness, where it can be made possible, lived out in a cosmos boiling with restless energy yearning for life, is often expressed in ways of unbecoming rather than in ways of nurturing becoming.
Believing God to be in control is hopeful, but it is using the wrong word. God is never in control of a freewill creation with an open, undetermined future. Yet through loving guidance He seeks a kind of control in what can better be described as a fellowship or a partnership. A fellowship which guides, allowing the fullest of creation's energy to create, imagine, and become all it can be under a fulfilling divine guidance.
A virus, illness, natural disaster, or suffering is the unfortunate result of a freewill creation exercising un-nurturing agency. Within this environment - as God can - He will deliver and guide, but when not, He will always be present with us in all of life's events in a deeply personal communion.
Does God Damn and Condemn?
Does God Damn and Condemn?
In this sense then, our sins do not force God away towards condemnation and judgement as many will say. As a God who is always loving and filling life with goodness, He cannot be a God of damnation. It is our own sins which fill us with grief and feelings of cursedness, not God. This, He would take away in an instant, as we let Him, filling our lives in times of harm or in times of fullness, replacing condemnation with mercy, unforgiveness with love, feelings of hurt and harm with forbearance, wisdom, and deliverance.
More simply said, God's compassion is present with all His creation. There is nothing with may separate us from God's love. And though the bible narrates stories of judgment believed by the ancients as God-sent it would be more accurate to say that these events of suffering, hardship, ruination, disaster, were more in line with how a sin-marred creation operates. Not as acts of a loving God but as acts of agency from a creation willfully exhibiting itself.
How Does God Act in a Freewill Creation?
Once an initiating process bubbles forward it may bubble for good or bad releasing succeeding bubbles of goodness or badness. This is the essence of process theology. Through these bubbling consequences God is there throughout its process doing what He can within and without a freewill creation. This is not to speak of God as limited, but as a fully sovereign God guiding creation without coercing creation.
The easiest idea is to speak of God as determining and controlling creation. But if so, creation is not open, nor free, to become in its own way. Process thought will say that creation has an open and not determined future; and that its is not controlled by God but free to become what it was initial given in its essence... that of becoming like the image of God. That is, God poured God's Self into creation. In its bones, or DNA, is the strong yearning to exercise generative bubbles of goodness, nourishment, and wellbeing for all beings. To creative novel bubbles of relationships amid thriving continuity.
Sadly, with sin came a marring of creation. It is neither wholly good or wholly evil. But it is in need of redemptive atonement which God gave through His own sacrifice on the Cross. An atonement which has placed the path of creation back towards fellowship with its Creator. Empowering it from an old creation to a new creation.
Process theodicy does not need to defend God for the evil humanity or creation groans under. It states that any judgment type of events in life testifies to the struggle of creation to either give in to itself or to God. God is not sinful or evil. Nor is He powerless or weak. God has spawned God's Self into a process that will never end which He may have eternal fellowship with.
And like Himself it has agency. And with agency it has opportunities to move from being to becoming. From being what it is to becoming all that it might be in the image of God exhibiting deep fellowship not only with God but with itself. Between these tensions of being and becoming will be a titanic history of redemptive struggle.
Our Response in Time of Evil
We might incorrectly call these times of God's judgment but in actuality these will be times of opportunity through crisis to regain what was lost at Eden. Times of challenge to meet devastation with compassion, wisdom, mercy and love. To take loss of life, or loss of social justice, or loss of personal freedoms and rights to remake a crisis into a good thing rather than to perpetuate its evil.
In terms of today's coronavirus, to find effective vaccines, to double down on helping each other, in rebuking - or not encouraging - views of scapegoating, hatred, or slandering talk of the whys and hows and wherefores of the crisis being experienced. Of refusing lies by speaking truth. Of refusing racism by embracing the other. Of withstanding voices or churches or faiths which speak death to society by speaking life and love and wisdom.
Our responses may be like the effervescing bubbles of creativity, novelty, life-changing goodness by praying forth newer, more whole societies of healing, helping, and affecting responses. Perhaps an ecological society in place of a capitalistic or communist society with all the associative ills these have presented to the history of the world.
We may lean into the atoning sacrifice of God that His redemptive power bubbles forth new communities of healing, new ecologies of restoration, new personages of embracing multi-ethnic pluralistic cultures of strength. When such earthly "judgments" come our way we repent, we change our course in life, we mend broken fences, and lean into God even more to teach us wisdom and love.
These are times of restoration. Not loss of heart. Time of Courage. Not sobbing and worry as the lost world does. These times will want for vision. This then is our challenge... to be women and men of courage, vision, love, and healing. Go forward in God's empowering power. Raise up new generations of concrecsing beauty and imagination.
R.E. Slater
March 22, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020
More simply said, God's compassion is present with all His creation. There is nothing with may separate us from God's love. And though the bible narrates stories of judgment believed by the ancients as God-sent it would be more accurate to say that these events of suffering, hardship, ruination, disaster, were more in line with how a sin-marred creation operates. Not as acts of a loving God but as acts of agency from a creation willfully exhibiting itself.
How Does God Act in a Freewill Creation?
Once an initiating process bubbles forward it may bubble for good or bad releasing succeeding bubbles of goodness or badness. This is the essence of process theology. Through these bubbling consequences God is there throughout its process doing what He can within and without a freewill creation. This is not to speak of God as limited, but as a fully sovereign God guiding creation without coercing creation.
The easiest idea is to speak of God as determining and controlling creation. But if so, creation is not open, nor free, to become in its own way. Process thought will say that creation has an open and not determined future; and that its is not controlled by God but free to become what it was initial given in its essence... that of becoming like the image of God. That is, God poured God's Self into creation. In its bones, or DNA, is the strong yearning to exercise generative bubbles of goodness, nourishment, and wellbeing for all beings. To creative novel bubbles of relationships amid thriving continuity.
Sadly, with sin came a marring of creation. It is neither wholly good or wholly evil. But it is in need of redemptive atonement which God gave through His own sacrifice on the Cross. An atonement which has placed the path of creation back towards fellowship with its Creator. Empowering it from an old creation to a new creation.
Process theodicy does not need to defend God for the evil humanity or creation groans under. It states that any judgment type of events in life testifies to the struggle of creation to either give in to itself or to God. God is not sinful or evil. Nor is He powerless or weak. God has spawned God's Self into a process that will never end which He may have eternal fellowship with.
And like Himself it has agency. And with agency it has opportunities to move from being to becoming. From being what it is to becoming all that it might be in the image of God exhibiting deep fellowship not only with God but with itself. Between these tensions of being and becoming will be a titanic history of redemptive struggle.
Our Response in Time of Evil
We might incorrectly call these times of God's judgment but in actuality these will be times of opportunity through crisis to regain what was lost at Eden. Times of challenge to meet devastation with compassion, wisdom, mercy and love. To take loss of life, or loss of social justice, or loss of personal freedoms and rights to remake a crisis into a good thing rather than to perpetuate its evil.
In terms of today's coronavirus, to find effective vaccines, to double down on helping each other, in rebuking - or not encouraging - views of scapegoating, hatred, or slandering talk of the whys and hows and wherefores of the crisis being experienced. Of refusing lies by speaking truth. Of refusing racism by embracing the other. Of withstanding voices or churches or faiths which speak death to society by speaking life and love and wisdom.
Our responses may be like the effervescing bubbles of creativity, novelty, life-changing goodness by praying forth newer, more whole societies of healing, helping, and affecting responses. Perhaps an ecological society in place of a capitalistic or communist society with all the associative ills these have presented to the history of the world.
We may lean into the atoning sacrifice of God that His redemptive power bubbles forth new communities of healing, new ecologies of restoration, new personages of embracing multi-ethnic pluralistic cultures of strength. When such earthly "judgments" come our way we repent, we change our course in life, we mend broken fences, and lean into God even more to teach us wisdom and love.
These are times of restoration. Not loss of heart. Time of Courage. Not sobbing and worry as the lost world does. These times will want for vision. This then is our challenge... to be women and men of courage, vision, love, and healing. Go forward in God's empowering power. Raise up new generations of concrecsing beauty and imagination.
R.E. Slater
March 22, 2020
rev. July 31, 2020
PS...
interpreted bad events through fear and judgment. I submit, there is
another way as expressed above when we change our idea of God.
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What Is a Virus? How Does it Work?
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
What Is a Virus? How Does it Work?
How Viruses Work - Molecular Biology Simplified (DNA, RNA, Protein Synthesis)
Learn or review basic molecular biology to understand how viruses work with illustrations from Dr. Seheult of https://www.MedCram.com. See our first 25 videos on the novel coronavirus outbreak that started in Wuhan, China:
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 25: Vaccine Developments, Italy's Response, and Mortality Rate Trends: https://youtu.be/UImSVhLLeGY
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 24: Infections in Italy, Transmissibility, COVID-19 Symptoms: https://youtu.be/UImSVhLLeGY
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 23: Infections in Kids & Pregnancy, South Korea, Spillover From Bats: https://youtu.be/JGhwAGiAnJo
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 22: Spread Without Symptoms, Cruise Quarantine, Asymptomatic Testing: https://youtu.be/OqpHvK0XADY
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 21: Antibodies, Case Fatality, Clinical Recommendations, 2nd Infections?: https://youtu.be/9BYaywITXYk
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 20: Misinformation Spread, Infection Severity, Cruise Ship, Origins: https://youtu.be/Ka48UZDDzLY
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 19: Treatment and Medication Clinical Trials: https://youtu.be/4HK9QEy1KJ8
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 18: Cellphone Tracking, Increase in Hospitalizations, More Sleep Tips: https://youtu.be/vE4pBkslqS4
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 17: Spike in Confirmed Cases, Fighting Infections with Sleep (COVID-19): https://youtu.be/wlbM6VVkVZM
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 16: Strengthening Your Immune Response to Viral Infections (COVID-19): https://youtu.be/qqZYEgREuZ8
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 15: Underreporting, Prevention, 24 Day Incubation? (COVID19) https://youtu.be/o804wu5h_ms
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 14: Hospital spread of infection, WHO allowed in China, N-95 masks: https://youtu.be/pDnmHu8x9C4
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 13: Li Wenliang, nCoV vs Influenza, Dip in Daily Cases, Spread to Canada: https://youtu.be/0UgrPgJdzp0
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 12: Unsupported Theories, Pneumonia, ACE2 & nCoV: https://youtu.be/GT3_A1bf9pU
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 11: Antiviral Drugs, Treatment Trials for nCoV (Remdesivir, Chloroquine): https://youtu.be/pfGpdFNHoqQ
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 10: New Studies, Transmission, Spread from Wuhan, Prevention (2019-nCoV): https://youtu.be/gPwfiQgGsFo
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 9: Fecal-Oral Transmission, Recovery vs Death Rate: https://youtu.be/8Hjy3UfaTSc
- Coronavirus Outbreak Update 8: Travel Ban, Spread Outside of China, Quarantine, & MRSA: https://youtu.be/GpbUoLvpdCo
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 7: Global Health Emergency Declared, Viral Shedding: https://youtu.be/nW3xqcGidpQ
- Coronavirus Outbreak Update 6: Asymptomatic Transmission & Incubation Period: https://youtu.be/UGxgNebx1pg
- Coronavirus Epidemic Update 5: Mortality Rate vs SARS / Influenza: https://youtu.be/MN9-UXsvPBY
- Coronavirus outbreak, transmission, and pathophysiology: https://youtu.be/9vMXSkKLg2I
- Coronavirus symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment: https://youtu.be/UCG3xqtcL3c
- Coronavirus Update 3: Spread, Quarantine, Projections, & Vaccine: https://youtu.be/SJBYwUtB83o
- How Coronavirus Kills: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) & Treatment: https://youtu.be/okg7uq_HrhQ
-----------------------------------------------------------
Speaker: Roger Seheult, MD
Clinical and Exam Preparation Instructor
Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine.
MedCram.com has videos on over 60 medical topics including the 2019 novel coronavirus in china, asthma, COPD, virology, hypertension, virology, microbiology, amino acids, 2019 ncov, coronavirus California, coronavirus prevention, coronavirus misinformation, antiviral drugs, wuhan virus outbreak, 武汉 肺炎, CDC, infectious disease, corona virus updates, severe influenza infections, immune system explained. Please check out our lectures on COVID-19, MERS, SARS, infectious diseases, sleep hygiene, Wuhan coronavirus, sleep apnea, and world health organization.
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Produced by Kyle Allred, PA
Please Note: MedCram medical videos, medical lectures, medical illustrations, and medical animations are for medical education and exam preparation purposes, and not intended to replace recommendations by your doctor or health care provider.
#Howviruseswork #microbiology #COVID19
Caption author (English)
Jacob Preciado
