Myles, I appreciate this follow up to your previous post!
Still leaves me with questions though...
Your summary statement: "The way of God is one of generosity and provision, and this occurs in a world whose default is scarcity." I think my questions hone in on further clarity for the word "default." The account of the Fall in Gen 3:14-24 does seem to indicate that scarcity was a function of the fall, so I'm okay if you mean "a *fallen* world whose default is scarcity." Conversely, the goodness of creation before the fall, would seem to indicate that scarcity did not exist in that world.
But if God through Christ is redeeming and restoring creation, what does that mean for how we understand scarcity and abundance? I appreciate the additional thoughts on desire in this post, and agree that in our modern world our conceptions of abundance are all tangled up with our desires, and I agree with you that abundance cannot simply mean having everything we desire. Under your framework as sketched here, what does abundant life in Christ (John 10:10, etc.) look like in a fallen world whose default is scarcity? Jesus's proclamation of abundant life (and certainly worthwhile for us to unpack what that does and does not mean) does seem to be one of the distinctives that makes the Gospel good news.
The way that Christians have typically understood this claim of God redeeming all of creation through Christ is that creation still groans in anticipation, while the Spirit makes alive our mortal bodies even in the shadow of death. It's not an immanent ecological claim so much as a personalist claim. It doesn't mean the end of dying or of the material conditions of the world, but rather, a transformation of agency, personal relations, and through them, the virtue and structures governing creaturely life. But all that is different than saying that suddenly there is more water than there was.
Myles, I appreciate this follow up to your previous post!
Still leaves me with questions though...
Your summary statement: "The way of God is one of generosity and provision, and this occurs in a world whose default is scarcity." I think my questions hone in on further clarity for the word "default." The account of the Fall in Gen 3:14-24 does seem to indicate that scarcity was a function of the fall, so I'm okay if you mean "a *fallen* world whose default is scarcity." Conversely, the goodness of creation before the fall, would seem to indicate that scarcity did not exist in that world.
But if God through Christ is redeeming and restoring creation, what does that mean for how we understand scarcity and abundance? I appreciate the additional thoughts on desire in this post, and agree that in our modern world our conceptions of abundance are all tangled up with our desires, and I agree with you that abundance cannot simply mean having everything we desire. Under your framework as sketched here, what does abundant life in Christ (John 10:10, etc.) look like in a fallen world whose default is scarcity? Jesus's proclamation of abundant life (and certainly worthwhile for us to unpack what that does and does not mean) does seem to be one of the distinctives that makes the Gospel good news.
The way that Christians have typically understood this claim of God redeeming all of creation through Christ is that creation still groans in anticipation, while the Spirit makes alive our mortal bodies even in the shadow of death. It's not an immanent ecological claim so much as a personalist claim. It doesn't mean the end of dying or of the material conditions of the world, but rather, a transformation of agency, personal relations, and through them, the virtue and structures governing creaturely life. But all that is different than saying that suddenly there is more water than there was.