Dad sent me a link to an interesting survey asking how Christians deal with the question of theodicy.
In its simplest form Theodicy asks the question, “If there is a being, God, who is all powerful, everywhere present, all knowing, all good and loving, why is there so much evil, suffering and pain in the world.” The answers range from, “the existence of evil is proof that such a being does not exist,” to “there is no such thing as real evil.” The discussion fills the halls of academia, the corridors of seminaries and is occasionally addressed from the pulpit, particularly in response to tragedy.
Long-time readers of this site (yeah — all ten of you) will know that while I’m not very active in the church, and certainly have my own fair share of doubts and questions, my core beliefs stem from being brought up in the Episcopal church. While I’d not heard the term theodicy before this (or at least didn’t remember hearing it), the question has come up on occasion over the years, often during conversations when people have expressed surprise that a black-wearing, industrial-music-listening, goth-culture-loving, (ex-)drug-using, GLBT-supporting, open-minded person such as myself would still count their base beliefs as Christian.
Admittedly, the question of theodicy is one of the most difficult out there, and often one of the most difficult to counter when someone tosses it out as one reason that they can’t/don’t/won’t believe in God. As for myself, I’m a firm believer in free will (and, thus, no big fan of predestination theories), and have never believed that God (or the Devil, for that matter) intentionally causes tragedies to happen to people as any form of test. There’s a level of sadism to that belief that has never jibed with my notions of what God — should s/he exist (which as I mentioned above, I do sometimes struggle with) — would be like.
Rather, I believe that there’s a lot of things that happen in this world, both good and bad, natural and man-made, and how we deal with them is what’s important. From natural disasters to people doing horrid things, they don’t happen because “God willed it”, but (as trite as it sounds) simply because these things happen at times. And, in a certain sense, the bad things need to happen for us to appreciate the good, just as much as the good needs to happen for us to cope with and get through the bad. No light without dark, yadda yadda…I’m not explaining it well, and I’m afraid I’m veering frighteningly close to new-age mystic claptrap, but I think you get my overall point.
I’m often reminded of three stories I’ve come across over the years.
The first is one my dad tells about a priest and family friend in Alaska, Fr. Mark Boesser, who would be drawn into conversations with someone either expressing doubts in their faith, or lambasting him about his. At some point he would ask them what sort of God they didn’t believe in, and they would go off, describing a God that constantly wreaks havoc on the world, causes earthquakes that kill off thousands of people, kills babies in their cribs, tears families apart in accidents, gives people debilitating illnesses, and so on. After they wound down, Fr. Boesser would almost always in complete honesty be able to look at them and say, “I don’t blame you — I couldn’t believe in that sort of God either.”
The second is from a book I read a long time ago — unfortunately, I can’t remember which. Someone who has just lost someone close to them (a child, I believe) goes to a priest and demands to know why God would allow such a thing to happen. The priest says something along the lines of, “It is my belief that when your child died, the first tears to fall were God’s.”
The third — well, for the third, you’ll just have to bear with my sense of humor. In James Morrow’s book Only Begotten Daughter, Julie Katz (the daughter of God) is being taken on a tour of hell by Satan. They start debating the question of theodicy, and eventually Satan turns to Julie and says, “Well, just think about it this way. All power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Our adult Sunday school class is finishing a study of Job, in which Job was asking many of the same questions. God didn’t really answer Job, either, but Job was satisfied with the answer that God did provide.
far be it from me to quote bible passages, but this is one I learned when I was attending episcopalian services near the end of high school – somewhere in the new testament, a similar question was asked of jesus, and he replied (i’m paraphrasing) that it rains on both the just and the unjust.
that certainly provided a decent answer for me.
Your questions are completely understandable. There was a famous theologian, Templeton, that used to go around with Billy Graham and probably would have had as big of a ministry that Billy has but he allowed doubt to enter into his heart. Templeton said that he saw a photograph of an African woman holding her dead baby in her arms, having died of starvation due to severe drought. God allowed all this suffering when all the woman needed was a little rain. How can there be a loving God if He won’t even send a little rain? (Found in Lee Strobel’s book Case for Faith)
This destroyed his faith in God that he had relied on for so many years. He wanted to put God in a box and make Him into something he could believe in. God is not to be put into a box that we can understand. We need to live by faith that is not always based on understanding. Finite humans are not capable of understanding the plans and reasoning of an infinite God. God sees the beginning to the end of our lives as a whole. And not just our individual life but everyone’s life. We live through our lives never knowing what is going to happen next. It’s not predestination as much as it is complete knowledge of what has happened and what will happen next. We look at what is happening and then we start thinking that if “I” was God I would have handled that a lot differently.
But if we turn it around and look at it from the stand point of a parent taking care of a child it seems a little more understandable. We look at this child asking us “Why didn’t you send the rain?” and the child doesn’t understand that if we sent the rain it could have washed out a whole village down stream that might have killed a few people that will have a major impact on millions of lives later on that coming year. All the child will see is what they can see. They have to take our choice on faith. It’s not that we really want this one child to suffer but we know that in the over all scheme of things the suffering is less then if we did send the rain. Does that make it right? I think it’s all a matter of perspective.
Next time your child asks you to buy them something that you know will hurt them or someone else. You go right ahead and buy it. Then explain to the person he hurts that it’s okay because that one child got what he/she wanted. Checks and balances.
I’m no expert but to try to explain why God would or wouldn’t do something is hard from my vantage point. That’s why it’s called faith.
What’s your faith in? Does that faith have a guarantee to give you life eternal? If God say’s accept His son Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you will have life eternal isn’t it worth accepting that offer? We have a small amount of time in our current bodies but eternity is sounds like it’s a lot longer then 100 plus years old.
Besides, who knows for sure that a little bit of rain would have saved that child only to be taken a different way? Or worse yet to continue suffering for countless days on end after that.
I know I wouldn’t want to choose.
Thanks for listening.
As an atheist-with-some-agnostic-sympathies who is married to one Christian and father to five others, I am comfortable with moderate mainstream religious observance and enjoy regular theological jousting and debate with friends of varied faiths.
However, statements similar to Albert’s take me over the comfort threshold and into concern. That sort of ‘we offer guaratees that are out of this world’ (pun intended) reminds me of a comment made by a Christian with whom I work. She looked at me one day, gave me a sad look and shook her head. When I enquired why, she said “It is you wife and children I feel sorry for”. Puzzled, I asked her why and she replied (and I belive I paraphrase accurately here) “Because when they are in Heaven, you will be suffering eternal damnation in Hell”. I countered by suggesting that this might not be the most ‘christian’ (small ‘c’ intended) of observations for a church/faith/believer to express to Christian children with a non-Christian parent. I am, however, understanding of the fact that many Christians might find more tactful ways of making the same point.
As with most things, the more extreme expressions of faith cause me more disquiet. I recently watched a fascinating documentary on second phase of a study carried out at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, on the effects of intercessory prayer on post-operative recovery after angioplasty. One of the seven prayer groups of varying denominations was comprised of five women from one of the Southern states, who met regularly at each others’ homes for coffe and prayers. When they became aware that one of the other prayer groups were Sufi Muslims, they stated that they felt sad for the recipients of their (the Muslim’s) prayers as there was only one true God. The producer went on to point out that blind trial study meant all the prayers groups were all praying collectively for each trial participant (believers and non-believers) randomly chosen by the independent controlling body. This seemed to cause more consternation amongst the five who stated that prayer in any other faith was useless. World events almost wrecked the study when, after 9/11, very few of those asked to volunteer for the study (once they were aware that a Muslim prayer group was involved) would agree to continue whilst they Muslims were involved. As an English unbeliever, I found a cruel irony in the fact that, from what I could ascertain from the film and the TV company’s website, the majority (if not all) the Muslims were white Americans. For a faith that is meant to have universal and unconditional acceptance and love as a central tenet, it does seem to a very significant proportion of adherants with narrow and self-serving views.
It is too late for me to recall what my original point was. Suffice to say, and to appropriate and alter the very telling quote of Michael’s Fr. Boesser, “I couldn’t believe in the sort of faith that attracted that sort of believer”.
Kirsten, I’m not precisely a Scripture quoter either, but I found the passage you were referring to: Matthew 5:45. Although, to be honest, I find it an unsatisfactory response to the question of theodicy. To me, I’ve most of the time solved theodicy for myself by saying that humanity’s free will negates God’s omnipotence and omniscience, but it’s not a pleasant thought. I find the question interesting …
Take two “known facts” from the Bible.
1) God gave man free will.
2) Jesus said “Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.” (Matthew 9:29)
Well, if man believes in evil, then evil as an effect is created by the faith of man. That is why the fruit of the tree of knowledge was forbidden… because when man decided to know for himself, his faith would shape the world around him… and his knowledge and capacity to know was far less perfect than God’s.