The Good, The Bad and Theodicy
John Holroyd on the pitfalls of academic debates about God and evil.
On the other hand, when the experiences they share are embedded deeply in all manner of pain and suffering, the only way in which to understand it in the “best of all possible worlds” is in being able to subsume it all in God or religion.
If your mutual understanding and working together doesn’t make the pain and suffering go away, then you either agree to leave all that to the ecclesiastics or you might end up thinking about it all as I do.
Questions are asked. Different faiths exchange possible answers. But, in the interim, in the absence of God manifesting Himself with the only explanation that really matters, it’s like questions and answers being exchanged regarding all other aspects of human interactions in the is/ought world: they’re right from their side, we’re right from ours.
Muddling through the “actual contexts” given one or another intertwining of might makes right, right makes might, democracy and the rule of law.
And what we do here: discuss and debate it.
Then this: the best of all possible worlds…
Yes, and when the next “super volcano” or the next “big one” from space precipitates the next “extinction event” here on planet earth that becomes magnified a thousand fold. A multicultural reaction on steroids.
But there is still the grotesque horror of the event itself. A global catastrophe of truly epic proportions.
The idea that God is in fact loving, just and merciful…just not omnipotent. And that can work for some precisely because no actual God has ever been demonstrated to exist. If God is just something you define or deduce into existence from a world of words concocted in your head, the problem/paradox embedded in centuries of at times excruciating human pain and suffering can be resolved in any number of ways:
Here at ILP of course we’ve had any number of “spiritual assessments” over the years…members providing us with explanations from any number of conflicted denominations – and from “personal” TOE – for why the world is what it is. But one thing never changes: that truly horrific human pain and suffering derived either “man’s inhumanity to man” or from one or another “natural disaster”.
The covid-19 pandemic being just the very latest example of how we are confronted with the “will of God”.
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
The God of the Old Testament.
And, again, isn’t this really the only way in which to reconcile God – any God – with the world that we live in? There is so much pain and suffering around – staggering amounts of it! – that only a man or a woman desperate for immortality and salvation can take that leap of faith to worshipping and adoring the nasty brute of the Old Testament. Here it seems to be more about fearing the wrath of God than anything else.
That at least makes sense.
The God of the Old Testament is like the unbridled capitalist. The God of the New Testament – Jesus Christ – is, instead, more the yearning among the flock for the socialist alternative.
Okay, so given things like natural disasters, viral pandemics and extinction events, what else is there but linking this more “perfect” God to a will that mere mortals are simply unable to grasp. Everything, apparently, will be explained to faithful on the other side of the grave. And in paradise no less.
And there are only going to be problems when the idea of God and the ideal God actually have to acknowledge just how ghastly human pain and suffering is. But, up in the spiritual clouds, the solutions can simply be “thought up”.
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
So, leaving the part where an omniscient God is compatible with human freedom aside, we are to believe that the God of Moses and Abraham allows the pain and suffering endured by His flocks still today to persist because of something done by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We are made to endure unspeakable tortures for something that others did. We didn’t disobey God, they did. But it’s all the same.
And yet [of course] most of us would find it utterly appalling to punish children for the transgressions of their parents. Let alone for their parents parents or their parents parents.
And, again, what of the terrible agonies endured by men, women and children brought on by natural disasters and ghastly diseases and extinction events? How is that explained when human obedience and behaviors have little or no part to play at all in these catastrophes?
Another bizarre frame of mind. As though Satan himself is not just another creation of God. And what of Satan literally entering the bodies – the hearts and souls – of mere mortals. Blame it all on us? Going all the way back to Adam and Eve.
And what of all those who lived, suffered and died, before this? And [seriously] what did Christ have to say about the terrible suffering endured by mere mortals due to “acts of God” beyond their control?
My own point as well.
On the other hand, my own point is as well to note the obvious. That in the absence of God, all human pain and suffering is essentially meaningless and life itself ends in oblivion.
So, if the only alternative to that is to invent a loving, just and merciful God and then subsume all the pain and suffering in His “mysterious ways”, how can that not be better than an essentially meaningless existence that tumbles over into the abyss that is nothingness?
I’ll still choose that if I can come up with a way to.
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
This might seem more reasonable in regard to human interactions in which the pain and the suffering are more clearly the result of bad or immoral decisions. Your body has to be punished so that your soul can learn to avoid the pain and the suffering by choosing more righteously.
But:
1] what of the terrible pain and suffering inflicted on children and babies and infants?
2] what of the situations embedded in “rival goods”, in which mere mortals on both sides of the the conflicts genuinely and sincerely believe their own moral values are righteous ones?
And then the part where pain and suffering comes as a result of natural disasters. I remember a newscast once in which a woman insisted that the deaths brought about about by a hurricane were God’s way of telling us that we should not build homes too close to the shoreline.
Exactly. All the terrible pain and suffering inflicted on those oblivious even to the existence of a God allowing pain and suffering in order to make them a “truly good person”. And the staggering extent of the tortures that those who are already God fearing “good people” are made to endure.
Here, it would seem, there is nothing left but to fall back on the only explanation there is: God’s mysterious ways. Anything that happens to anyone can be accounted for here.
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
What can I say? Sure, if you are able to think yourself into believing that something along these lines is true then for you it’s true. That’s the beauty of living in a world where the evolution of biological life on Earth has culminated in human brains able to believe in things not even remotely able to be demonstrated.
Minds able to reconcile an omniscient God with the free will of mere mortals. Minds able to worship and adore a God that has inflicted mind-boggling amounts of pain and suffering on the flocks down through the ages. After all, is not God ultimately responsible for the existence of such things as the covid-19 and HIV viruses?
But: blame Adam and Eve, not God?
Of course all of this is just “thought up”. In theory it is true and all any of us can do is take a leap of faith to it and live our lives as though it were in fact true. After all, if it is true and you live your life accordingly you are rewarded. And if it is true and you don’t live your life accordingly you are punished. And if you can’t figure out why the good people are punished you can just go back to Adam and Eve and assume that the Fall is manifested in ways that are beyond the reach of mere mortals.
Knowing of course that unless you are able to think yourself into believing it, you’re left with hundreds and hundreds of conflicting moral narrative here and now to choose from and then oblivion there and then.
And you would go about demonstrating to us that this is true…how?
Take the covid-19 pandemic. The terrible toll that has taken on millions around the globe. How does God being finite or the universe being alive help us to make sense of it?
Notice im not here to debate how nice or how evil God is.
This is just a question of creation vs evolution.
There has been much said on both sides of this debate.
The fine tuned qualities of the universe.
The irreducibly complex qualities of some living things.
The answer revolves around deduction.
We can’t ask God if there is a god,
and we can’t ask reality if it is alive.
But deduction shows clues about how much of this whole thing is like this or like that.
What if i asked you to prove there is no creator?
Demanding proof is for lazy half-philosophers.
You gotta get it yourself.
Well, the point of this thread [mine] is to somehow reconcile a God said by many to be loving just and merciful with “the question of theodicy”: “the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil”
Pain and suffering that is clearly derived from human interaction and then the terrible afflictions inflicted on humankind as a result of so-called “acts of God”.
What clues do you deduce about God or the universe that might explain the existence of viruses like HIV or Covid? Or bacterium that brought about such things as the bubonic plague.
Then, from my frame of mind, we are back to suggesting it is far more incumbent upon those to demonstrate something that they claim does exist than for those to prove that it does not. Besides, the assumption here is that God and the Universe do exist and, as a result of it, staggering amounts of human pain and suffering accumulate day after day after day.
Why, given the assumption that, in turn, God and the Universe reflect “divine goodness and providence”?
Though not for, say, committed scientists.
And have you got some proof yourself? So far, what is it?
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
Okay, but there are any number of mere mortal parents who do precisely that: they are fruitful and multiple and then are adament in instilling the word of any particular God said to be loving, just and merciful into their child’s interactions with others. The child accepts the difference between good and bad and lives his or her life accordingly. But then bad things still happen to both the parents and the child.
Why?
Well, what else is there here but either The Fall or God’s mysterious ways? Isn’t that theodicy in a nutshell. One or the other?
So, for those who adhere to the God of Abraham and Moses, Adam and Even are not in a cage, are given free will, but are punished for actually using it. Not only that but all the rest of us are punished in turn for something that they did.
Here, for many, the only way to grapple with theodicy now becomes God’s mysterious ways. Unless there is another reason that I’m not privy to…or am privy to but fail to grasp.
In other words, you have to earn immortality and salvation. And, yet again, explaining those who do endure many, many terrible trials and tribulations maintaining and then, through strength and moral effort, sustaining their faith in God and continuing to live in accordance with the will of God…?
A viable theodicy (I think) which is a crucial part of my Pantheopsychic Theology is that Evil exists and is created by God (who literally created everything) while God is in a state of non-lucid dreaming, which precludes deliberation and intention and thus preserves God’s goodness.
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
Really, try to imagine any parent you know allowing the terrible pain and suffering that we know is afflicted upon millions of children around the globe day after day after day. And then justifying it as an exercise in “soul-making”.
The fate of children in this grim pile of statistics.
[b]"A child dies from hunger every 10 seconds
Poor nutrition and hunger is responsible for the death of 3.1 million children a year. That’s nearly half of all deaths in children under the age of 5. The children die because their bodies lack basic nutrients." from the world counts web site.[/b]
No, instead, this sort of thing always strikes me as an example of parents trying to deal with statistics like the ones above and recognizing [consciously or not] that the only possible consolation that is available to them is to take a leap of faith to God.
So, the children suffer terribly from any number of ghastly afflictions. But not because they chose evil, but because their parents did? And even if their parents chose good, there’s still The Fall?
How can reasonable people not come to accept just how bizarre that is given the assumption that their God is loving, just and merciful? I can only go back to the bottom line [mine]: that God is chosen because the alternative is a world of terrible pain and suffering that is essentially meaningless…and then ends in oblivion.
edit
Just a reminder that I am not arguing that this is how it is, only that this is what I have thought myself into believing makes the most sense here and now. If it doesn’t make sense to you and you have a more optimistic point of view, let’s hear it.
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
Okay, but how is that then reconciled with those who claim that their own God is omniscient? It would seem [to me] to be the theological equivalent of peacegirl’s free will/no free will frame of mind on her determinism thread.
Better or worse than what? We’ll need a context of course. And God knows what that might be.
You know, whatever that means given a particular set of circumstances. Unless, of course, we really do live in a wholly determined universe. Then all of this terrible pain and suffering derived from a loving, just and merciful God is merely a manifestation of whatever nature compels me, you, all of us to think it is.
Here of course we are in sim world, dream world, Matrix world territory. Anything able to be “thought up” in our heads is possible to explain “evil”/evil merely by claiming something – anything – explains it. And not just the fantastic claims above. Here at ILP we’ve had any number members over the years who have offered us their own fantastic theological/philosophical assumptions/theories about every possible thing under the sun.
Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 6. The Problem of Evil
Section 4. Theodicy
Where to even begin…
Suppose we can all agree that there is a rational manner in which to reconcile an all-knowing Creator – another assumption? – with human autonomy. Okay, how then do we go about pinning down which human behaviors are, in fact, objectively good and evil? Do or do not all of the multitude of religious denominations down through the ages agree on some things but disagree on others? And that’s before we get to all of the vast and varied contexts in which all of the variables are never exactly the same. Though shalt not kill? When and where given what exact set of circumstances? It’s okay in a religious crusade? Or to bring down the infidels? Or to stop a doctor who performs abortions?
Ah, but here we are ever and always talking about a God that has been “thought up” by mere mortals themselves. At least to the best of my own current knowledge. Unless, unbeknown to me, an actual God has in fact been demonstrated to exist. When God is the stuff of Scriptures, and Scriptures are the stuff of mere mortals, He can accomplish anything at all. For all we know, God has dumped us all into his very own Matrix or sim world contraption. Just to entertain Himself perhaps.
Am I understanding this correctly? God is all powerful, allows mere mortals to freely choose their behaviors, but then prevents them from acting on what, of their own volition, they want to do?
Instead, more likely to be this:
I am not personally aware of any prominent proponent of the partly bad [or indifferent] God, but Harold Kushner is well known for embracing a God that set into existence a world that has somehow gotten beyond His control. But, again, this would appear to be just more of the same: a God that is defined or thought into existence. With no way to actually establish which it is. Or if any God at all does exist.
Once it comes down to a thought up God, the sky’s the limits as to what one proposes that He is:
This world? The best of all possible worlds? In that case this all powerful and all good God is clearly not all knowing. Starting with the Holocaust itself, which must have gotten by him somehow.
I wrote that evil comes about via primordial fear.
It would require that God protect infants from all forms of trauma and abuse.
Killing all the “bad people” is typical of the Jew-god solution.
But at that point, it is too late.
Bad people are usually wrecked.
Prevention is the real answer to the problem of evil.
God obviously doesn’t manifest worth beans in the big picture.
