Parasites and Natural Evil

[Kafir]

In the old GodGab, somewhat before I got here, a poster called Loundry linked to a page about a parasitic nematode called the guinea worm, and asked, as I remember, “How do you explain this?”

It was put aggressively, but I thought it was basically a fair question to pose to theistic creationists. And guinea worms are a particularly unpleasant example, but the same could be asked about human-hosted parasites in general: in whatever sense birds can be said to be designed for flying, it would appear to be equally true that guinea worms are designed to burrow out of human flesh, and that smallpox is designed to produce infectious lesions.

This is unproblematic if the “design” in question is a product of unguided natural selection, but this class of apparently malevolent design seems difficult to square with the attribution of biological complexity to a benevolent creator. What gives?

[ggeezz]

The way I read Genesis, we originally had a benevolent creation, but because of the fall earth was turned into a place part good, part bad.

[Kafir]

I assumed the Fall would be the answer. Can you unpack that?

Turned by whom, for instance? Did God specially create human parasites in response to the fall (as punishment, along with the "thorns and thistles")? Or did they spontaneously acquire the features and behaviors that enabled their parasitic life-cycles? (Is there a natural law prior to God by which sin leads to parasitism?) Or did God design proto-parasites that were harmless, but with latent parasitic features in their unexpressed DNA, and then booby-trap the universe so that the first disobedience to him would trigger those latent design features?

Or, I guess the basic questions might be put as:
Where did the designs for those parasites come from?
and
By what mechanism were those designs instantiated in the universe?

[AGS]

Well I think the thorns and bristles is the easiest hypothesis if you don't want to think too hard about it. Also, I have no problem with God making parasites et al due to the fall.

As an Atheist - would you have a problem with God (the Abrahamic one) creating (for instance) parasites?

[ggeezz]

I assumed the Fall would be the answer. Can you unpack that?

Turned by whom, for instance? Did God specially create human parasites in response to the fall (as punishment, along with the "thorns and thistles")? Or did they spontaneously acquire the features and behaviors that enabled their parasitic life-cycles? (Is there a natural law prior to God by which sin leads to parasitism?) Or did God design proto-parasites that were harmless, but with latent parasitic features in their unexpressed DNA, and then booby-trap the universe so that the first disobedience to him would trigger those latent design features?

Or, I guess the basic questions might be put as:
Where did the designs for those parasites come from?
and
By what mechanism were those designs instantiated in the universe?

I'm going to have to say I don't know. Actually I've been leaning more towards a sort of creationism/theistic evolution agnosticism lately. There are number of plausible theories and they would answer those questions differently. I think Genesis is intentionally vague on the "how" of creation other than that God did it. The focus is on various implications of the creation.

So really I think that's the most I can confidently say. The various natural evils on this earth were created by God in response to the Fall.

[Kafir]

Well I think the thorns and bristles is the easiest hypothesis if you don't want to think too hard about it. Also, I have no problem with God making parasites et al due to the fall.

I guess I don't understand the sort of worldview in which there is no problem with millions of children being paralyzed/covered in sores/having meter-long worms slowly emerge from their skin (depending on the parasite we're talking about).

Or--that's unfair. Are you saying that you have no problem in the sense that it's no big deal; or that you have no problem because God, being God, can do as he pleases, regardless of the suffering it causes; or that you have no problem because inflicting these parasites on hundreds of generations of children was a just and appropriate response to Adam's disobedience?

As an Atheist - would you have a problem with God (the Abrahamic one) creating (for instance) parasites?

There's a paradox involved in asking how, as an atheist, I feel about God's actions. But I can say, at least, that I disapprove of causing unnecessary suffering. Don't you?

guineaworm.jpg

[Kafir]

Where did the designs for those parasites come from?
and
By what mechanism were those designs instantiated in the universe?

I'm going to have to say I don't know. Actually I've been leaning more towards a sort of creationism/theistic evolution agnosticism lately. There are number of plausible theories and they would answer those questions differently. I think Genesis is intentionally vague on the "how" of creation other than that God did it. The focus is on various implications of the creation.

So really I think that's the most I can confidently say. The various natural evils on this earth were created by God in response to the Fall.

I respect your uncertainty about the mechanism. But regardless of the details, your last sentence returns us to the problem of why a good God would create unnecessary evils.

And part of my reason for bringing this up is that I've noticed that Christians sometimes seem to use The Fall to redirect responsibility for natural evil away from God--as perhaps in your first response: "because of the fall earth was turned into a place part good, part bad."

I know that this is meant as an earnest answer, but it isn't an answer, so much as an unintentional evasion. Adam's sin presumably did not constrain God to create any particular life-form. So these parasites don't exist because of the Fall; they exist because of God.

God created them, perhaps, in response to the Fall--but that leaves us, at best, with a God who is cruelly vindictive.

I've had the same conversation with dwayner, who attributed natural birth defects to The Fall, as though God had no choice but to respond to sin by ordaining that babies should be born without cerebrums.

[AGS]

It is a tough question Kafir. One that should be explored by more Christians - why the suffering? It does not gel with the classic "God is good" mantra, does it?

[AGS]

Okay, let me just ramble on this one for a bit - not trying to come to any conclusions...

1 - It is because of the fall - Why punish all man for Adams sin? Is it out of revenge?
2 - We live in a broken world - points back to the fall.
3 - If God knows all, how did he allow Adam to sin, and thus allowing the Fall to happen?
4 - Are all parasites bad for us? Are our assumptions of parasites wrong? In the case of the guinea worm that might not be the case at all based on current knowlege - shaky ground...

*ugh headache*

[ggeezz]

Where did the designs for those parasites come from?
and
By what mechanism were those designs instantiated in the universe?

I'm going to have to say I don't know. Actually I've been leaning more towards a sort of creationism/theistic evolution agnosticism lately. There are number of plausible theories and they would answer those questions differently. I think Genesis is intentionally vague on the "how" of creation other than that God did it. The focus is on various implications of the creation.

So really I think that's the most I can confidently say. The various natural evils on this earth were created by God in response to the Fall.

I respect your uncertainty about the mechanism. But regardless of the details, your last sentence returns us to the problem of why a good God would create unnecessary evils.

And part of my reason for bringing this up is that I've noticed that Christians sometimes seem to use The Fall to redirect responsibility for natural evil away from God--as perhaps in your first response: "because of the fall earth was turned into a place part good, part bad."

I know that this is meant as an earnest answer, but it isn't an answer, so much as an unintentional evasion. Adam's sin presumably did not constrain God to create any particular life-form. So these parasites don't exist because of the Fall; they exist because of God.

There are two different questions. How did they get here? and why? You did originally ask "why" and my answer was short. But then you asked "how." (Or maybe by asking "how" you were pressing for details on "why?") More on the "why" . . .

Genesis is unashamed that God made the earth less-than-perfectly-benevolent. That is, I think the question is flawed: why would a benevolent God create a less-than-benevolent earth? God isn't "just benevolent." He's complicated. He's also Holy. It's in His nature to separate Himself from and to punish sin. It's also in His nature to redeem and forgive.

At least, that's how the bible describes Him.