This is part of a series of articles about the life and ideas of Dr. Ralph D. Winter, whose memorial service will be held this Sunday, June 28. Winter, the co-founder the U.S. Center for World Mission, passed away on May 20, 2009, after a long battle with cancer. He was 84.
PASADENA, Calif. – In recent years, Intelligent Design has made headlines in media outlets across the country.
The concept, which some have labeled “creationism in disguise,” asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
Those Christians who support Intelligent Design, not surprisingly, identify that “intelligent cause” to be God.
But some would argue that such an association would then suggest that God designed viruses, bacteria, parasites and other harmful and destructive organisms that do nothing but bring disease and suffering to God’s creation.
Either that or they were simply errors in creation or creations with harmful flaws.
It’s an age-old question on a microscopic level – did God create the “tiny evils” that spread disease and death throughout the world? If so, then isn’t He to blame for mankind’s suffering?
One of the most influential missiologists of the 20th Century didn’t think so.
Dr. Ralph D. Winter, who recently died at the age of 84, had argued that all violent forms of life – including all disease pathogens – are the works of an “intelligent evil power” that seeks to destroy God’s creation.
“Evangelicals have recently stressed the inevitable intelligence and design in nature, but they have not, to my knowledge, attempted to suggest that there is evidence of any evil intelligence and design,” said Winter.
“Our theologies – that is, our formalized ways of attempting to think biblically – were hammered out during centuries that were totally blind to the microscopic world,” he added. “Our current theological literature, to my knowledge, does not seriously consider disease pathogens from a theological point of view – that is, are they the work of God or Satan?”
As a result, God has for far too long been taking the blame for Satan’s destructive works, Winter contended. And even Christians are confused over who is responsible for all the evil in the world, including disease and suffering. Some even claim that God wants diseases in the world.
“This is perhaps due to a theological tradition which does not understand demonic powers to have the ability to distort DNA,” he expressed.
But even as he battled multiple myeloma and lymphoma, Winter maintained that God is not responsible for the presence of evil but an intelligent evil is.
“I have a strong suspicion that these defects are often actually intelligently evil distortions by Satan not just things that went wrong accidentally,” Winter wrote in a past article, titled “Evolved or Involved?”
Editorial
Diseases: creations of God or 'Intelligent Evil'?
By: Michelle A. Vu and Kenneth Chan
Monday, 29 June 2009, 16:12 (IST)
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