Hey everyone,
Last Tuesday I was talking with some of the guys I work with about a paper we've been working on. The paper is titled "Constructing a Mormon Theodicy." I thought I'd share some of our ideas on this blog. I'll break eveything up into two posts. This post will explain the theodicy problem, the next post will explain some possible solutions.
A theodicy is an attempt to reconcile the existence of God and the existence of evil. This reconciliation is usually expressed in the form of an inconsistent triad that looks something like this:
1) God is all loving.
2) God is all powerful.
3) Evil exists.
These three statments make an inconsistent triad because the affirmation of any two of them leads to the negation of the third. For example, if God is all Powerful and He loves us perfectly, it seems strange that evil (or suffereing in general) exists because any suffering possible he could prevent. Similarly, if you affirm point 3 and point 2, then you have to accept that evil exists, that God could prevent it, but he doesn't so he's not all loving. Clearly something needs to give but any of these three statments taken alone would be readily affirmed by most people.
Most Theodicies work by limiting one of the three points. Some people say that God isn't all loving, or that his love is more complicated than we can imagine. Others argue that God isn't all powerful in the traditional sense, by this they mean that God is limited in his power by the free actions of independent beings (us). And finally, some people argue that evil doesn't exist, or at least genuine evil doesn't exist. They argue that God uses all our problems for our good, so evil, which we can define as any action that results in greater suffering than good, is an illusion.
Nearly every attempt at reconciling these three points results in what most people generally consider to be an unsatisfactory answer. Most philosophers solve the problem arguing for a less powerful God, most new wave free-thinking types say that they either don't believe in God or they think God must not care all that much, and most religious people try to dismiss it all by saying that it is all God's will (thus dismissing evil as a temporary circumstance brought on by God necessary for some greater good)--essentially arguing that genunine evil doesn't exist.
Now, I've said I'd make shorter posts so I thought I'd stop here. I'll pick up this train of thought later. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up as to what I've been thinking about. I'll post my opinion on this topic (not that it is definitive (or even very oirignal)) in the second half of this post. Anyone that wants to chime in with their views please feel free to do so.
Hope you're all doing well!
carefree
8 years ago
11 comments:
I don't get why this is so complicated. Maybe I'm missing something. They can certainly all three be true. (Forgive me if i get any of the religious stuff wrong...haven't been to church in awhile) God loves us. God sent us to Earth to gain physical bodies and be tested. It would be impossible for us to be morally tested without the existence of evil therefore God allows evil to exist for our benefit so we can grow from the experience of overcoming it. This ties in with your post regarding "Changes" last month. Spiritual growth would be impossible without the opposition or emotional stress from disagreeing parties. If you are righteous, that opposition can only be possible with the existence of evil. While your opposition does not necessarily have to be evil in nature, their ideology must be tainted by evil in order for them to have a differing viewpoint.
This scenario in no way diminishes God's power nor does it to imply that he is not loving. In fact, I'd say God allows evil to exist because he DOES love us.
I like the fact that evil exists. It gives us the opportunity to live in a colorful and dynamic world with lots of CHOICES to make. I don't want a world full of sunshine, kittens and lollipops.
Hey Tim,
Your view is very similar to mine. I think the reason people see it as a problem is they distinguish between natural evil and genuine evil. Natural evil is just the traditional problems that we all face that end up being good for us, natural evil is the stress of life, the opposition that inspires us etc. Genuine evil is badness for the sake of badness, it is evil that cannot be redeemed and does not contribute to growth in any way. Some people think this type of evil doesn't exist. I think that there is some evidence that it does. The Hi-Fidelity murders are what I think of when I try to imagine genuine evil. Those guys raped, murdered, kicked pens into people's ears, forced people to drink detergent etc. I don't think the people murdered gained much from the ordeal, whatever lessons the victim's families learned could have been learned in a less horrific way, and I don't think reading about the tragedy really inspires all that much, in short, those murders were more evil than the possible growth they could inspire. Now this of course can't be proven, I'm sure if I wanted I could argue for possible benefits from this tragedy, some people have. So, if you want to explain genuine evil away you can, it's possible, it just takes the "look at the big picture" approach. Most people who argue for genuine evil say the concept is axiomatic, and as such, they see no need to defend it.
Another argument someone might make is that if God is all powerful he has the power to make a world where growth could occur with less evil (or even no evil). I agree with you when you say spiritual growth could not be possible without opposition, but what others would say to this is "why is this the case?" If God is all powerful he could make spiritual growth possible without opposition...and if he can't he's not all powerful. We of course would say "that just doesn't sound possible, opposition creates definition," but all someone would have to respond to this with is "why can't it be otherwise?"
Now, I really do agree with you, I'm just trying to present the other side of the argument.
You agree with me when I say spiritual growth could not be possible without opposition Garett? Funny, I remember you saying something similar in a blog recently :P
I believe logic constricts everything including God. You couldn’t make righteousness meaningful without the existence of evil anymore than you could make rape as righteous as going to church (which could be the same thing for catholics). If God were able to make spiritual growth possible without opposition (which he may be able to) he wouldn’t be able to do so without sacrificing the testing portion of why he brought us here. When every option available is a righteous option it would be impossible to be anything other than righteous which would be equivalent to a multiple choice test with the only option to answer being ‘A’.
I think a more interesting debate would be to discuss if God allows evil, and God loves us, then choosing evil may not be wrong.
I wasn't saying I agree with you in a patronizing way so I don't see why I deserve the Garett reference :)
But back to the original point, the problem still exists. You've said God is limited by logic (while I agree with this you'll only find a handful of people willing to admit this (this is a decidedly Mormon view)). So that removes premise 2 and God isn't all powerful. And, when speaking of limited options...of things needing opposition, of real good requiring real evil etc...all this can be had by natural evil--evil with a purpose. Premise 3 is about evil that has no purpose. If you don't admit such evil exists then you're modifying premise 3. If the suffering in the world is not directly proportionate to the amount of virtue such suffering inspires/creates then genuine, unnecessary, and preventable evil exists.
My thoughts:
*There's a difference between loving and coddling. I think this is probably what Tim was saying (I wouldn't wanna live in a world full of sunshine, kittens, and lollipops, either). You know me, I'm all for delving into the words of the problem and twirling them around until the problem disappears, but I think this particular problem probably deserves a kinder treatment. Still, though, I'm with Tim in not really seeing the conflict here.
*I don't like your distinction between natural and genuine evil. Consider a world that has the latter without the former, e.g. a world where anyone who sins dies instantaneously (or better yet preemptively because that's the only way to really get rid of genuine evil). People suffer natural evil, but anyone who starts heading toward genuine evil is out of the picture. Suddenly the whole set up is tending toward Tim's A-laden test. Are you then going to try to put "genuine evil" on a scale where some sins at punishable by preemptive death and others are not? Good luck. I'm pretty sure that, in God's eyes, sins are sins (though, admittedly, some are harder to rectify than others, but I think that's the same natural law that says the longer we let our kitchen trashcan overflow, the more trips to the dumpster we'll have to make). So, yeah, your Hi-Fidelity yackoes would be stopped, and so would all murders and terrorists and rapists and abusive folks, and so would all adulterers and slanderers, and so would anyone who's ever mocked anyone unkindly, and so would anyone who's ever bent the truth or taken God's name in vain or sinned in any other way--oh look, nothing's left in the world except sunshine, kittens, and lollipops. You wanna call this a slippery slope? Tell me where the line is drawn. If all genuine evil is removed, all sin is removed, and the only way to do that is to remove choice, and the only way to do that is to only let people choose A on the test, and suddenly life has become meaningless. Maybe someone would say that, if God were all powerful, he could give us agency in a world without evil, but now we're back to defining our words, and I define 'agency' as "the ability to choose between good and evil," so my hypothetical opponent will have to define 'omnipotence' as "the ability to make chocolate-chip cookies without chocolate chips." [What was that fancy word for a mixed metaphor again?]
* RE: "You've said God is limited by logic (while I agree with this you'll only find a handful of people willing to admit this (this is a decidedly Mormon view)). So that removes premise 2 and God isn't all powerful."--Maybe, instead of removing premise 2, it removes premise 0 and logic isn't all powerful. Just a thought.
[ADDENDUM Not that I have anything against logic, of course: I think logic is fantastic (I, moron that I am, just declared it as my minor, in fact), but I have trouble believing man has the capability to come up with a perfect system of reasoning.]
Couple things. First, congratulations on the logic minor.
Second, you're equivocating the word logic. Logic can mean the formal (and admittedly imperfect) system used by logicians, but logic also means (as I used it) reason. When I say God is bound by logic I'm not saying he's bound by rules we've established say in truth functional logic. I'm saying God is subject to laws like the law of the excluded middle. By this I mean God can't be perfectly rational and perfectly irrational at the same time...or as Schmetterling said, make chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips.
I had a girl in one of my classes last year who would say (along with most of her protestant brethren) that God could make chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips cause if he couldn't he wouldn't be all powerful.
She said God can contradict himself without contradicting himself because whatever he wills is right and contradictions are wrong so if God contradicts it's not a contradiction...or some other circular argument.
I know this sounds ridiculous but that's because we're accepting a limited view of God's omnipotence from the get go. That is how Mormon's usually solve the problem of evil.
Both of your views take for granted the strength of the Mormon position. In Tim's first post he said "God sent us to earth." I believe this is true but standard theologians don't. They don't believe we were sent anywhere, your first moment of consciousness on earth was your first moment period, there was no existence for us before our lives.
For them, God created you and everything else from nothing. Because of this, every characteristic, every trait, and every act of evil perpetrated from the minor things straight on up to the holocaust are perpetrated by a supposedly all loving God.
Creation from nothing is such a huge philosophical bomb. If it's accepted thousands of problems result...you say you have choice, that choice was made by God, you say you're free, you're free cause God made you that way, you say we need to be free to choose evil, but if we're made from nothing God could make us so we'd never want to choose evil and we'd get all our suffering from inability rather than intent (a prerequisite for evil).
Put simply, if God is directly responsible for all that you are, he is indirectly responsible for all that you do.
We don't believe this, we believe there was a before, that we do have freedom, and we support this by arguing that we are made from eternally existing and unique intelligences. But this is the solution that we're taking for granted.
From both of your non-traditional and Mormon views of God (with the inherent limitations such a stance places on premises 2 and 3) it is hard to conceive of the problem of evil being a problem. I agree we have the solution, but the question now is why things must be this way. You have both assumed limitations on God, the problem now is to justify those limitations to those with a classical understanding of God. If this is easy for you then you're far smarter than anyone in the religion and philosophy departments here at BYU. Dr. Paulsen, (not to make an appeal to authority here) with his Ph.D and J.D. from Havard and Harvard law respectively once told me that "the problem of evil is the most difficult and troubling paradox in the philosophy of religion."
When we get down to it everything in religion simplifies down to evil and how to deal with it( what is the atonement after all). If that is simple you got the purpose of life, the universe, and everything in it figured out, I salute you.
But what I'm hearing is that another system could not work/exist. You both say evil is necessary, that you like to have choices, that choices are necessary for growth...but the question is but WHY? You're thinking in a system without admitting that another system could exist, and if another system couldn't exist, then God isn't all powerful.
Anyway, I better get back to work. I think the problem here is I'm not adequately presenting the problem. Maybe I'm struggling because I, like you, feel Mormonism has the answer--causing me to unfairly present the classical/opposing view. Oh well, I did my best.
I'll post more on the topic later, but you got the "Garett" title because YOU were the one who said spiritual growth is impossible without opposition in your post last month (I was merely referencing it) so by saying you agree with me, you are giving me credit for an idea that wasn't mine and if I accept that credit I'm liable for any issues with the premise I referenced from your original post, although I do agree with the concept from the original post.
It just cracked me up...when I read that I just thought of Garett and how he did that all the time.
What is the meaning of power without rules? If there were no constraints (be it logic, reason, physics) true power would have no meaning whatsoever. Gravity is a reality for us mere mortals. If we could ignore the rule of gravity, flying wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps our all powerful God created rules to give meaning to his abilities?
God loved his only begotten son, yet Jesus needed to come here to suffer for our sins. An all powerful God could have just skipped that and let us atone none the less. I’m not about to come up with scriptural evidence of this, but doesn’t the Bible say that Jesus “NEEDED” to come here to atone for us? If Jesus coming here was explained as necessary using phrasing that included any absolute such as “need” or “must”and if the bible is true (as far as it is translated correctly), doesn’t that imply a rule somewhere? Why did it take God 6 days to create the Earth? Was he daydreaming? Why subject people to Hell? If God loves us and his power is absolute why can’t evil doers live amongst the righteous within the pearly gates?
I can fully appreciate the possibility of a system completely foreign to what we understand. I’m only trying to argue that for there to be any meaning to why we’re here, or why God did any of this, there has to be rules. Rules give our time on earth and God’s actions meaning. Sure, God may be able to circumvent or even ignore any self-imposed rules he’s made but the consequence would be marginalizing whatever he is trying to do with us here.
Perhaps God created rules as a way to define his power? Being all powerful without a framework of reality to define what power means is similar to shouting absolutely nothing at the top of your lungs. God lives within his self-imposed rules for the same reason he sent his son to die for our sins and for the same reason he allows evil of any form to exist. Working within the framework of reason and reality gives purpose to his actions.
Good defines evil, evil defines good, light makes dark feasible and rules make power meaningful.
God lives within these rules for the same reason they stopped writing Superman comic books and for the same reason Raymond Feist took Pug and Thomas out of their main character roles in his books.
Now to totally undermine my point…What is that despair.com poster regarding power? “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it rocks absolutely, too.”
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