Evolution and Theodicy:An article

[pog]

Hi Johnny - a lot of what you say I agree with. And ultimately I guess we’re all in the dark, seeking for the answer to the mystery of evil. And I also hold my hand up to a childish naiveté: bad stuff = not God, good stuff = God. The best theodicy I have at the moment is: universalism + FWD + cosmic warfare + vale of soul making + subversion of evil + open theism. I find that the removal of any one of those elements results in a less good God

I’ll add some more thoughts (let me know if I get too wordy or hog the thread):

God will truly restore all the years the locusts have eaten. And true apokatastasis requires Universal Salvation

Cindy, Johnny - totally agree. It is very hard to see any theodicy working without the ultimate redemption of all things (including animals and angels).

Ivan Karamazov’s argument, though, is hugely powerful. It demands an answer. But there isn’t one.

Well, I think I have one … (My arrogance is like a shield of steel)

We cannot know what apokatastasis will be like, or how that ultimate restoration might, as CS Lewis put it, “work backwards” and nullify, even undo all the pain and suffering we must endure in this vale of tears.

But we do know that God cannot change the past: because if He could then He already would have and nothing bad would ever have happened, for a God who retains the power to intervene must, if omnibenevolent, intervene every time to erase evil - not that that would solve any ethical dilemmas since the suffering would already have occurred prior to His intervention, thus He would only rob us of the meaningfulness of free choice without removing the suffering (and, indeed, if predestination was not true, then He may have to run and re-run history many times, thus only compounding the suffering for no end moral benefit)! Example: I do sin a which results in suffering b. Even if God rewinds history to stop a, b has already been felt (both by a being and by God in His omniscience). If God then lets freedom run its course again b has yet another chance to occur - and it might - thus God’s time intervention has only served to double the suffering whilst removing any meaningful sense of freedom for me (I never had the choice to proceed with a). Thus, whatever greater good is redeemed out of evil and suffering by universals reconciliation it cannot be made so that the suffering was not: God may bring good out of evil, but the evil still happened and was bad.

To push further: Simple foreknowledge, IMHO, makes moral freedom meaningless (since we don’t have the power to choose an alternative or actualise an alternative consequence), presents us with the intractable moral problem of a God who chose to directly actualise all evil that has ever been or will be, and leads to major pastoral difficulties (see below). A Calvinistic predestinarian God is little more than a puppet-master, with even worse moral issues, and a Molinist middle-knowledge solution has philosophical difficulties regarding how that foreknowledge of future free actions are grounded, and with its conflict with libertarian free will and the reality of alternatives – not too mention suffering from the same pastoral issues and moral problems as Arminianism. It also robs God of the virtue of adventure and intelligence since He’s just running through a script – you don’t need *creative solutions *to problems (wisdom) when you’re just following a foreknown course. On top of all that, I’d contend that a God who interacts with time, gets frustrated, changes His mind, has to test people to see what they would do, is sometimes surprised, and has to engage in genuine struggle with the forces of evil is a more prominent biblical theme than an impassive, static Hellenic deity …

A Pastoral difficulty (taken from Greg Boyd’s God of the Possible):
A young woman is dating a young man. She wants to know if God will bless their marriage and so prays earnestly for wisdom and guidance in this area. She is granted clear assurance to go ahead and marry (fill in whatever would convince you that God had answered her prayer for guidance, assuming that God does grant people wisdom). Later, the man she marries turns abusive. If foreknowledge is true then God is directly responsible for setting the young woman up with someone who He knew was going to be abusive. The only solutions are: God predestinates all things, including evil actions, for a greater good; or God doesn’t give people guidance on anything; or God doesn’t have foreknowledge; or God is not good.

It seems to make God time-bound, whereas I believe God created time, and exists outside of it.

Time and God’s bounding by it are really tricky philosophical issues. My very simplistic take on it is that God must be bound to time in some way in order that: a) He can’t change the past (see above); b) He can think (thinking is a process that requires movement from a to b, thus time); c) He can interact with us (a timeless being couldn’t really interact with and in time AFAIK).

Further, I think the idea of God having to come up with a ‘contingency plan’ for sin and evil does him a great disservice.

Even with foreknowledge His interactions with humanity would be contingency plans – for we sin and fail His perfect will for our lives (which He forgives and redeems). Unless one is going to go down a Calvinist road I can see no other way than God working by having options: if pog does a, I’ll do b (holding every possible alternative in mind at once). And again, I think the biblical narrative points towards salvation primarily in terms of a recue plan, not in terms of the outworking of something ideally hoped for (unless one is arguing that sin, suffering and evil are something God wanted?)

My problem with the cosmic warfare model is that I don’t believe in satan and demons.

Obviously there is no way of holding to a cosmic warfare model without accepting some form of trans-human non-God free willed agents. Belief in something like demon possession is not necessary (cosmic warfare not to confused with spiritual warfare), but a belief in evil *free willed *agents affecting the physical universe is. Though I fail to see why this cannot be a metaphysical possibility given that God is an unembodied mind which can interact with matter, and (depending upon your understanding of the mind-body problem) possibly so are human minds. And again I’d point to the major biblical motif here (though also accepting the fact that satan/ Leviathan/ principalities and powers are also sometimes metaphors for institutional or systemic evil).

[alecforbes]

Cindy, Pog, Sobornost, and Johnny. Great posts! I really want to put up an “I’m not worthy!” smiley as your posts are just outstanding.

Cindy, your story of God speaking to you and reassuring you that “all will be well” really touched me. It’s easy for me to do too much thinking about God instead of listening to him and appreciating and responding to his love. This :

I probably can’t defend this logically (I’m way more on the right-brain side), but instinctively I know that no one and nothing can develop into a mature and free person if that person doesn’t undergo and understand suffering. It’s a requirement for developing any kind of true character.

made me think at once of MacDonald’s fairy tale The Light Princess .

Pog, your explanation helped tremendously in understanding your thoughts. There is much to be said for this theology. It prevents God from being the author of evil, provides an explanation for the natural world and promotes a “high” view of OT scripture ( which I really don’t have). I don’t have a huge problem with the existence of “angels” or:

evil free willed agents

A couple problems for me, though, with this theology.

First, what would an “uncorrupted” natural world look like? If evolution is at work and all animals are vegetarian (assuming eating living plants is not evil in some way) diversity would be very limited. In the absence of death, the world would soon be overpopulated unless it was continually expanding or reproduction stopped at a certain point. The usual factors influencing evolution, natural selection and genetic drift, would be impaired by the new rules and it’s difficult to see how much diversity could come forth. Also, would other laws such as gravity have to be affected to eliminate the potential for creatures falling off a cliff and being killed or injured? This is probably a case of my imagination being limited, but this uncorrupted world seems a bit bland and unrealistic.

Finally, I think there are major problems positing that the devil or his minions “messed with” “…the partly intractable medium (physical universe)” and led to a corruption in evolution and presumably other processes. The main problem I see is the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, which is built into the very fabric of the universe right at the “Big Bang”. In essence, death, is built in to the universe from the start. If an evil being sabotaged the universe at that point, essentially, the universe was created by an evil (and given the magnitude of this change, extremely powerful) being. I also doubt that any physical universe at all could have been created in the absence of entropy. Tinkering with base-pairs on a strand of DNA is one thing, altering the very fabric of the universe at the time of its creation is another. Of course, it can be argued that death by itself, is not intrinsically evil.

Had to add this, this theology seems a bit “tortured”. The theology is being twisted and and manipulated to appease both the evidence of science and scripture. It seems very forced and unnatural to me. It reminds me a bit of the “theology” in Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban (which I think is absolutely brilliant, by the way, one of my favorite novels). There is truth in it but it’s forced, contrived and based on wrong assumptions That being said, there is much that interests me about open theology and I suspect here is much truth there.

By the way, I haven’t read anything by Greg Boyd (other than a couple of his blog entries, today) and would be interested to read something of his. What would you recommend?

Ivan Karamazov’s argument, though, is hugely powerful. It demands an answer. But there isn’t one. There is no nice, pat solution to the problem of evil.

Well said, Johnny.

and…

But if apokatastasis is true, no death is ever truly meaningless.

For me, if I can trust God is good as revealed in his son, Jesus, I can trust that he has a solution to the problem of evil.

All the best,

Steve

[Melchizedek]

Great post, Steve.

I have long believed traditional theodicies to be failures. Theodicy is one of the most powerful reasons why I am a Universalist. Only a Universalist theodicy, for me, gives a satisfactory answer to the question of why God created a universe with so much pain and suffering in it. Only if the whole of creation is one day going to be gloriously redeemed can His original creative fiat - by which he knowingly brought the possibility of evil and pain into being, while not formally actualising those states himself - be legitimised, in my opinion

I’ve only skimmed the article thus far, but this statement of Stein’s leaps out:

“Out of love God, gave humanity freedom of choice and nature freedom of process.”

That gets a big tick from me. To me it is blindingly self-evident that nature is ‘free’ to produce earthquakes and hurricanes and cancer cells and tsetse flies and acephalous babies. It is blasphemously ludicrous to suggest - as the Calvinists do - that God deliberately wills these things.

It is also, in my opinion, blasphemously ludicrous to suggest that God could snap his metaphysical fingers and prevent them from happening, but chooses not to do so for his own inscrutable reasons. No, the only rationale that makes sense is that these evils are somehow *intrinsically necessary *to the world God has created, the best of all possible worlds, a world in which genuinely free beings can develop in a genuinely independent, morally neutral environment - and in which all things will ultimately come together in everlasting joy for all creatures, and all suffering will be transmuted into glory.

And just in passing, I’ve heard it suggested (by the self-styled world’s most outspoken Bible scholar Martin Zender, for example) that evil and suffering are deliberately created by God for the purposes of contrast! How any thinking person can believe such blasphemous garbage is beyond me.

More soon.

Cheers

Johnny

I wonder if Mark Twain had some Calvinist tendencies. For some reason, this reminded me of a quote attributed to him:

“God didn’t make any creature in vain, but the fly comes near.”

[pog]

Even more interesting thoughts … I’ll try an address your very good points alec, but I’m now operating on the very outer limit of my speculative theodicy

First, what would an “uncorrupted” natural world look like?

The simple answer is heavenly. There will be no sea (destructive chaos) there.

I totally agree that evolution as is makes no sense in a world without pain and death, so I have to assume your second point which is that the angelic fall occurred very early in the life of the physical universe - how early I have no idea (there may be biblical hints that the angels were party to, or observers of, the physical creation process), and I think I’ve run across the devil being blamed for entropy somewhere in my exploration of cosmic warfare, but your point against this is well made. I’m certainly no cosmologist and cannot comment about pre-Big Bang possibilities, or what led to physical laws being such as they are etc.

I too cannot imagine how a perfect developing physical world functions without cosmic violence, decay, entropy and death - but isn’t that exactly what the restored new creation heavens and earth are going to be? I can’t imagine that heaven is a static state, nor can I imagine it ceases to have creativity within it (if such things are good), so even if I can’t imagine how it functions I’m happy to say that God will sort it (much like I can’t imagine resurrection or eternity etc).

Where does that leave me? Pretty much with angelic beings having enormous power and influence over the very fabric of our material reality, possibly right up to the laws that have governed the universe from the Big Bang onwards. I think this is possible and, as noted, think that there’s biblical warrant for such a picture of the angelic realm – and it would certainly match the genuine warfare motif between God and the sea (chaos).

When push comes to shove, I think it better to say that the devil is more powerful than we first imagined rather than God is responsible for death and suffering and evil. I can accept that I don’t know the details but that God is good. However, the alternative view, that God is less good than I thought, is simply chilling. Any God who can invent death and pain (especially if He had other options available) is one I’d find very difficult to worship … And would, at first glance at least, seem not to be the Father of Christ, who went around releasing people from death, suffering, disease which He blamed only the devil for (He didn’t go around undoing His Father’s good work). And where would that leave our efforts to prolong life, fight disease, and often go against the grain of natural selection - are we taming God?

Had to add this, this theology seems a bit “tortured”. The theology is being twisted and manipulated to appease both the evidence of science and scripture. It seems very forced and unnatural to me.

I’ll go along with this Yes, it is pretty tortured in some respects – I plead guilty! But I also reckon it’s the most straightforward of all theodicies, it’s just that all theodicies are tortured God is good, creation was good, evil free willed agents messed it up, God will rescue it. Simples! It also has a decent amount of biblical warrant behind it (death is an enemy; the devil has the power of death; God must fight Leviathan; etc) compared to trying to make death the friend of God.

When I’m out in nature I see the beauty of the universe, the grandeur and complexity. And I praise God. But, when I see the death behind the grandeur, the incalculable suffering of animals and proto-humans and people that has been, I choose not to praise God but rather blame the devil. I do not want to have praise God for His glorious invention of death, nor do I want to thank the devil for the wonder of life: the only answer I have is cosmic warfare – that this world is a battleground from top-to-bottom. And I think such a view is intuitive, biblical, evidential and has decent explanatory scope.

Regarding researching Greg Boyd more, I suggest:

This youtube series on Open Theism by Greg Boyd: youtube.com/watch?v=P6UA1bToI7U

This article on Cosmic Warfare:
schooltothenations.com/STN/Student_Assignments_files/God%20at%20Warpdf.pdf

And these books (all by Boyd):
God of the Possible
God at War
Satan and the Problem of Evil

[alecforbes]

Hi Pog, great points as usual!
Just read the article on cosmic warfare and watched the Youtube series on Open Theism by Greg Boyd. He really is an eloquent and dynamic speaker and I’d have to say I am now an open theist. It certainly does help with working out a theodicy. It adds another layer of freedom to the universe as opposed to the “blueprint” model, allows a truly reciprocal relationship with God, and the universe postulated seems much more “real” than the traditional model. Just a few of it’s strong points.

I’m still reluctant to subscribe to the Cosmic Warfare idea, though I must say I always loved C.S Lewis’ space trilogy. Who knows? I may come around to it yet. Would agree with Johnny that I haven’t found an example of personal evil that required a demonic explanation, but perhaps at higher levels- acts of nations, cultures, the possible “corruption” of the universe- the Cosmic Warfare idea may have more application for me.

However, the alternative view, that God is less good than I thought, is simply chilling.

Certainly true and a view that I don’t even begin to believe. I cannot see how a creature can be more moral than his Creator, and as I have confidence that God’s morality is at least as good as mine, I cannot accept obviously evil actions attributed to him. This is probably the main reason I came to UR. It’s also the reason I have had a “low” view of the OT as many actions attributed to God are plainly wrong and plainly evil. As a side note, I also find the theistic “Argument from Morality” to be quite persuasive.

A few posts ago when describing the creation of the cosmos, you mentioned, “…there could be no chance of irredeemable extreme evil, like damnation or universe destruction…” referring to what Boyd calls the “parameters” to limit the degree of evil possible in a free universe. Might one of the mechanisms for limiting evil be entropy and thus death. After all, how much more evil could a human do if it was immortal? Or how much worse the suffering if a victim couldn’t die? The death of stars and the universe itself due to entropy also provides “an endpoint” for the creation experiment (at least this iteration). Is death itself evil or the pain, fear and suffering that can go with it? I think of the death of the Hrossa, intelligent beings in Lewis" Out of the Silent Planet, where death was just a passing on, a departure.

Finally, is “Cosmic Warfare” necessary to get God “off the hook” for evil? Is God’s lack of foreknowledge of the path a free universe will actually take enough to excuse him in the absence of evil angelic beings? Perhaps just open theism, FWD and UR is enough. I may have been premature when I said:

I can’t accept that God didn’t know evil and suffering of innocents would occur when he brought forth this world. I can’t believe he took a cosmic gamble and lost.

Like God in the Open Theism framework, I’ve changed my mind. If the universe is truly free, (and freewill certainly is a huge point in Boyd’s explanation at least-to the point where freewill constrains God from acting in individual instances of evil) then not only the beings that come forth, but the physical world itself may have ended up differently. Perhaps something other than DNA would have coded for life (and may in other parts of the universe). In other words, evolution, may have been different than it turned out to be, without the “Red in Tooth and Claw” aspect. To be honest, this is difficult for me to imagine. If, however, evolution could NOT have been any different than it is, then a corruption of the evolutionary process by evil beings may be necessary to explain natural evil (or at least that involved in evolution). I’m not sure about this, however. The potential for natural evil is much less egregious than the potential for the “horrific evil” Ivan Karamazov objects to and allowing the potential for this (natural evil) may be justifiable in a good God. Will have to try and look into the argument by Polkinghome mentioned in the article and some others that may shed light on this.

Steve

[pog]

Cool beans on becoming an Open Theist! . I strongly recommend you get the books I listed just to make sure, though. Open Theism gets a rough ride in most churches, a bit like universalism! Also, there’s some more good stuff on YouTube including debates; try the Hasker debate m.youtube.com/watch?v=FkjVqTfuOCA

Re: Cosmic Warfare

If God invented or chose to actualise the physical laws which led to natural disasters and thereby to suffering, knowing full well that they would do so (even open theists would likely agree to this level of assumed deterministic knowledge), then we are faced with the problem of the Lisbon earthquake: God is less moral than His creatures, because neither of us would actualise such a world. If you can’t blame God for earthquakes, who do you blame?

I think your suggestion regarding the risky self-unfolding nature of the universe is interesting. God creates the universe which has a degree of chaos in it: it might turn out good, it might turn out to be full of death and suffering. God just doesn’t know. However, my gut problems with this are:
a) this assumes a level of indeterminacy with the universe at the level of physical laws of which even God is ignorant (I have no major problem with this, but some do), in other words there is stuff beyond God’s omniscience besides creaturely free willed choices;
b) it seems immoral to take such an unnecessary risk - God is allowed to take risks with creaturely freedom because free will is intrinsically good, but taking a huge risk (whether any suffering at all would occur!) without the justifying element of freedom is actually immoral (you don’t toss a coin to decide whether or not to let a baby in the lion’s cage and then blame the coin);
c) if there is no risk from such unfolding laws in heaven, yet heaven remains perfect and good, why did God not just start the universe out with heavenly physical laws? Why allow the chance of negative red-in-tooth-and-claw unfolding when it is only going to be temporary, is not justified on the basis of freedom, and which is clearly less good than the heaven you’re going to actualise at the end? This makes no sense: if heaven is in no danger from earthquakes, why should our universe be? There seems to be no justification for God’s risk if negative potential laws aren’t irrevocable (whereas freedom is irrevocable - He’ll never take it away).

I think the big stumbling block for people regarding cosmic warfare is not to do with theology or theodicy, but simply our Western worldview - we really struggle with the idea of angels and demons. We can only just about accept the un embodied mind of God, let alone populating the universe with spirits! It all smacks of something primitive, un-Enlightened, so very, well, non-European, so unmodernised and non-rational … But I think we should get over ourselves. There’s no metaphysical impossibility with angels (if we accept God and human souls), and Jesus and the apostles were very primitive since they clearly believed in demons and satan etc. I think it’s hard for us to accept a ‘magical’ world view, but I think such a view is biblical, and Christ-like. And seems to be the only theodicy which gets God off the hook.

[alecforbes]

Thanks again, Pog, for your excellent points.

Regarding open theism, I will watch that youtube debate when I get a chance and will also be reading at least a couple of Boyd’s books. So many strong points to open theism but it’s certainly fair to hear the argument from the opposition.

If God invented or chose to actualise the physical laws which led to natural disasters and thereby to suffering, knowing full well that they would do so (even open theists would likely agree to this level of assumed deterministic knowledge), then we are faced with the problem of the Lisbon earthquake: God is less moral than His creatures, because neither of us would actualise such a world. If you can’t blame God for earthquakes, who do you blame?

I was thinking about this, or more specifically moral evil, and (incorporating open theism) wanted to present this argument:

Suppose you were God for a day starting with now? You don’t know exactly what will happen in the future, you don’t know exactly what individuals will do (though you may know when the next earthquake, forest fire (see Arizona yesterday) or tsunami will occur based on your knowledge of the present status of the tension at the margins of tectonic plates, humidity levels, weather patterns etc. You also know the probabilities related to the likelihood of a mass murder, rapes, incest, run of the mill murders and war. Most of the humans born will be of average abilities and morality- doing some good and some evil but nothing horrific. A small percentage will be exceptional. They will be self-giving, loving and humble. They will create new ways of curing the ills humanity suffers from, new ways of feeding the hungry, write books and make movies that inspire millions to be better than they thought they could be. Others will devote themselves to comforting the sick, the lonely and dying. You know that very likely someone will be born in the next couple years that will end up in a theatre, a mall, an island blowing up or shooting a a crowd of innocent humans. You also know that you can make some good come from every evil, that you have an a plan for apokatastasis at the end of time to, as Cindy mentioned "…restore the years the locusts have eaten ". You don’t want evil to occur, nor is it part of your purpose. You could stop the experiment now. You could make every human sterile so that no further generations are born. You could even alter their minds so that they have no regrets about that and thus no pain from this.You could translate them to heaven. Would you do it? What would most humans say if asked this question? I suspect they would let the world “play out”, they would take the risk. My point is, even knowing that horrific evil will likely occur, (though not willed or needed) it may not be immoral to create a world that could contain it.

I think your suggestion regarding the risky self-unfolding nature of the universe is interesting. God creates the universe which has a degree of chaos in it: it might turn out good, it might turn out to be full of death and suffering. God just doesn’t know. However, my gut problems with this are:
a) this assumes a level of indeterminacy with the universe at the level of physical laws of which even God is ignorant (I have no major problem with this, but some do), in other words there is stuff beyond God’s omniscience besides creaturely free willed choices;
b) it seems immoral to take such an unnecessary risk - God is allowed to take risks with creaturely freedom because free will is intrinsically good, but taking a huge risk (whether any suffering at all would occur!) without the justifying element of freedom is actually immoral (you don’t toss a coin to decide whether or not to let a baby in the lion’s cage and then blame the coin);

You are absolutely right as far as this goes. This idea really doesn’t fly. I actually don’t think God could be ignorant of the probable outcomes of this event (Big Bang) at the level of physical laws. There may be some uncertainty but not the potential for a horrendous outcome. I think I was trying to come up with a reason for natural evil without invoking evil created beings sabotaging the process.

if there is no risk from such unfolding laws in heaven, yet heaven remains perfect and good, why did God not just start the universe out with heavenly physical laws? Why allow the chance of negative red-in-tooth-and-claw unfolding when it is only going to be temporary, is not justified on the basis of freedom, and which is clearly less good than the heaven you’re going to actualise at the end? This makes no sense: if heaven is in no danger from earthquakes, why should our universe be? There seems to be no justification for God’s risk if negative potential laws aren’t irrevocable (whereas freedom is irrevocable - He’ll never take it away).

A couple of thoughts…
First, there is something about this process on earth that it extremely important to God. I don’t know what it is, but to limit his power, allow the possibility of evil, and finally to humble himself and die on the cross tells me there is something about this that is extremely important to him. The process is not even very efficient as far as having beings go through a life, learn and grow. Look at the infant mortality rate (especially in the past) and the numbers of beings that never had a chance to learn anything.
As far as the physical laws in heaven, I wonder if they require an obvious presence of God? Would it be apparent that the creator is sustaining this place by his power and presence? God, in this situation, would not be hidden. This is apparently something important to him, at least in our situation. I think this is another aspect of allowing free-will. In other words, the teacher is out of the classroom in our world but sitting up front in heaven.
Another possibility is that the absence of natural evil is due to the bodies the creatures have as opposed to the environment. The properties of the spiritual or heavenly body seem to be different from ours as demonstrated by Christ’s ability to walk through doors etc.

I think the big stumbling block for people regarding cosmic warfare is not to do with theology or theodicy, but simply our Western worldview - we really struggle with the idea of angels and demons.

I think this is very true, but in my case, in the case of the natural evil involved in evolution, it’s a bit different. I think it’s a matter of wanting to see a really “elegant” solution. Cosmologists describe the “beautiful” mathematical equations that explain certain physical laws. I would like to see something like that for theodicy. I would love to see something like quantum theory that explains the wave and particle properties of light-an argument that explains moral and natural evil. I honestly have no real problem with the existence of angelic beings. It would be fun to speculate on their origin. Were they “created” , did they go through a process similar to us in another universe? It’s merely aesthetics that makes me think that the “corruption” of evolution is inadequate and probably is a weakness of mine.

BTW, read some of Polkinghorne and nothing groundbreaking to add. After this exploration so far of theodicy, I’m surprised that natural evil is a bigger problem for me than moral evil. Oh, well! God is good and Christ is risen!

All the best,

Steve

[redhotmagma]

Pog , I read that Boyd cosmic warfare piece. Interesting. One thing pops into my mind with this discussion. The creation was subjected to futility by God. In hope, eager expectation. That seems to sum up the mess we’re in. How does that reconcile with your views?

[pog]

Once again great points.

Alec, regarding what would I do if I was God (cue Kate Bush) and the world was as it is now, I would be spend every ounce of my strength and use all of my power to: a) make great good come out of every evil, b) work to usher in the re-creation age, c) prevent all evil. I would do this with every available method that wasn’t intrinsically immoral and didn’ over-ride freewill.

I think this is what God does. And is doing

I think God is constantly at work in the world, immanent and involved, persuading people’s consciences, making certain things happen, using His agents, whether people or angels, to war against the forces of darkness. But remember, by limiting Himself to allow a medium of mutual relationality, by allowing irrevocable empowerment and freedom, by being limited to time, by being limited (at least primarily) to persuasion not coercion, etc God is not functionally omnipotent and cannot just snap His fingers to make heaven on earth. Heaven on earth will occur with our participation: we (and the angels) have a very real part to play in deciding how this whole thing turns out: we pray kingdom come, we hasten the day.

So, I’m afraid that God never just let’s things play out. Being love He is always bound to intervene as much as possible to prevent evil and enact good - negligence and omission are moral imperfections. The big difficulty is seeing God at work: He works, often, invisibly or through agents (some of whom are invisible, and a lot who don’t know they’re doing God’s will); also, because everything in the universe is interconnected and forms a massively complex system, we don’t know that by moving atom x, or preventing car crash y, or whatever, God would actually be making more suffering in that in a roughly deterministic system (QM aside) might harbour all manner of butterfly effects:'prevent a car crash cause an earthquake. We as puny humans could never know the full future and universal ramifications of every action - but God does, and as He expressed to Job, we cannot deal with it - but He can be trusted to deal with it perfectly. Unlike the God of the blueprint, the God of Open Theism (and Cosmic Warfare) isn’t a script writer, He’s a dynamic and highly intelligent chess player playing a billion games simultaneously and still assured of the final win.

An example: a recurring question is where was God in the holocaust? I would answer God was right there, not only in sympathetic suffering, but always trying constantly to prevent evil and redeem suffering: if God had not been constantly intervening then it would have been incalculably worse! If free willed agents had played the part God was trying to persuade them to play then it would not have occurred to begin with. Once again I lay all evil, all, at the foot of free willed agents and not God - whether that is natural evil or something like the holocaust. What alternative is there that maintains God’s character?

Regarding wanting an elegant solution, I agree. But I’m not sure how Cosmic Warfare doesn’t allow you to see the laws that are beautiful and say God did it - and see the horrid ones and blame the devil. Always, I suspect, they will be mixed - imagine how much more ugly the physical laws would be if God wasn’t always restraining and redeeming, subverting and fighting? This strikes me as simplistic and elegant, but your mileage may vary

Regarding the importance of this earth, I agree. I use heaven as a shorthand to speak about the final state (heaven per se is just an intermediate state or reference to a spiritual state). There is only one creation, one universe: it won’t be scrapped, it’ll be changed; not destroyed, redeemed. God has only one overarching plan: a good universe full of good free agents enjoying each other in blessedness forever. He hasn’t changed on that issue, He just adapts His methods and timing to suit the choices of His creatures. Like a chess grand master playing a novice: the novice is free to make whatever moves he wants, the master will react accordingly, but the outcome is guaranteed. God is like the master - but a master who cheats! . God will win.

Redhotmagma: I think I would have to exegete that particular passage. I expect that having done so it wouldn’t affect my views as it might not mean what you seem to be implying it means. However, as I haven’t done so I can’t really comment. off the top of my head I suspect it has more to do with God’s actions post creation and post angelic disobedience than a pre-creation decision.

[Chrisguy90]

The problem of evil is probably the most interesting philosophical-theological topic to me. I’m one of those “crazies” who thinks that God does create “evil” and sends it on his creation in order to make “contrast.” I want to flesh out this view and try to put my thoughts in order for those who are confused on this philosophy. I think it makes most sense of all the facts and I’ll try to show why it’s a better view than others.

Here is the problem of evil - God, if he can do anything and if he is all good, would be able to make a universe just as good as this one, without any of the bad. If he can’t make this much good without the bad that there is, then he’s either unable and not all powerful, or he’s unwilling and not all good. UNLESS there is some logical contradiction involved in the idea of making a universe better than this one without the bad that it has.

From the theists perspective, then, there must be something the existence of which justifies the evil that is present in universe. The value of that something could not be attained any other way, and the existence of that something necessarily entails the existence of the evil that our universe has.

Now, some people think this higher good is free will. I used to think this myself, but don’t anymore. The reason being is two-fold.

1. I find the concept absurd. I think every choice is preceded by a motive, and every motive is, for want of a better word, “predetermined” in our genetic makeup. I don’t know how motives are formed - a combination of nature and nurture, I am sure. The point is that all these factors are things God has made himself. If we were going to create creatures, we would give them desires that directed their behavior. Pleasure would be the carrot that led their lives, and every decision they would make would be for some sort of benefit analysis that the creature made.

2. I don’t think that the existence of “freedom,” even if it did exist in libertarian sense, is so great a good that it has trumping power over other goods. For instance, if I had an insane child, I wouldn’t let him torture the new pet I bought him simply because I didn’t want him not to be “exercising his freedom.” Or I wouldn’t let him roam around in the street because I wanted him to play “freely.” How absurd would it be if I allowed my son to get hit by a semi, all because I didn’t want him to be unfree? Now the same I think applies to God. I do not think he would be justified in allowing so much evil to occur because of people’s “freedom.” There are a billion things people have no control over. God doesn’t seem to mind determining what people look like or where they’re born. To say that he will allow a human the power to rape and murder a 14 year old only daughter for the sake of the first person’s “freedom” seems totally contradictory to God’s other dealings with this person. There is not much “freedom” being respected in the case of the girl getting raped.

That’s a good point, actually, and one I’ve never really thought of until now. The free will defense cuts its own throat, because the great good that God is granting people is simultaneously being revoked from another person any time evil is committed.

So that’s why I don’t believe in the free will defense. There is also the notion put forth by John Stuart Mill - that God is not really omnipotent. He cannot eradicate evil, except through the long process he has been using these 14 billion years. I suppose that’s possible. But, if that is the real God, he isn’t much to put your highest hopes and aspirations in, because he may not be able to deliver.

Then there’s the notion that evil is “random” and “unforseeable” by God. (This is another problem with free will.) The question is, how could God create a universe in which he had no certain knowledge how it would work? We can do this, sure, by creating something and letting things play out, allowing nature to run its course. We can make predictions and have even really good guesses and still not be certain. But “allowing nature to run its course” is not an option for God it seems to me. If the entire universe, if every existent thing that is not God himself, depends on God for that existence and its action, how could anything “be” or “act” outside of God’s intention? It’s not as if nature herself is a God that just “works” independently of God. Or if she was then you have 2 Gods, existing independently and of their own power.

So then you come to the view that I hold. All evil is ordained by God. Why? For the greater good. (This is the same logic used in the free will defense, and, for that matter, all theodicies.) But if this is so - that God causes evil for the greater good - the act is not really evil, but good.

If all evil is really a form of pain, then perhaps we can shift the focus of the discussion away from evil and look at the phenomenon of pain, because understanding the problem in terms of pain helps give us a clearer understanding of the issue.

I do not believe that any evil/pain is gratuitous. It all serves its proper purpose. I do not think it would be logically possible to have as much good in the universe, unless there was pain in it. What pain’s purpose is, specifically, is to make us more appreciative of the good by providing a contrast in which to more fully evaluate goodness. Think, if there was no pain at all, perhaps it would still be possible to enjoy many good things. I do not have to eat mud to experience the pleasure of a warm slice of chocolate cake. But, to enjoy the good to the maximum ability, I would, theoretically, have to have experienced some sort of evil in order to make the additional mental evaluation that cake is better tasting than mud.

And that is not some mechanical evaluation. Imagine being separated from a loved one for a long time against your will. Experiencing that sadness is a key factor in the growing desire, and eventual joy in, seeing that person again. As odd as it sounds, experiencing pain that way makes us love the other more. To most fully appreciate a world in which there was no evil, or a world in which evil was overcome totally (a heaven, in other words), we would have to experience evil and stare it straight in the face, or else our valuation that “heaven is free of all evil!” would be hollow. There could be no true joy or meaning in the thought that “I shall never experience pain again!”

I think creative ways can be thought about along this line of reasoning that are fruitful concerning the problem of evil. I would appreciate any thoughts or questions.

[pog]

Hi chrisguy - I take it you’re a Calvinist!

I guess there’s three or four main areas of debate:

1. Free will: Libertarian vs compatablist vs determinist vs something else

2. Morality: somethings are inherently evil, to enact them is bad vs hyper- or cosmic- consequentialism, a good enough end can justify any means however horrid

3. Theodicy/Theology: Is it reasnoble to believe that no suffering or evil is gratuitous? Can God create evil? Will there be evil in heaven? Is all evil a form of soul-making?

4. Bible: what can be supported by scripture

I’m not sure I can really do any of those justice!

So, I’m going to start very small, with a question, a statement and a thought experiment:

Q) If all evil is for a higher good, then what exactly is that higher good?

S) The greater good must be directly applicable to the one suffering the evil as well as to the rest of creation

TE) A baby dies in pain. This suffering is not gratuitious - it serves a higher purpose. What exactly has the baby itself gained by its suffering?

[Chrisguy90]

Hey pog. Thanks for the reply.

I wouldn’t call myself a Calvinist as I do not believe in the Trinity or Hell.

Regarding your thought experiment - I could well imagine a baby suffering and thereby gaining an experiential knowledge of evil which is used in the afterlife to help it more fully experience joy. Any sentient being for that matter, that can experience pain, I can imagine this happening to (animals eg).

[pog]

Hmmm, you think a baby or an animal can gain some sort of educative or knowledge benefit from suffering. I’m not sure about that. Do babies have the ability to gain knowledge, or even remember their pain? Can you provide an example of what sort of benefit a baby might gain from suffering?

Does this imply that if I increase a babies suffering I am actually increasing its future goods?

And what if the baby dies painlessly; what benefit does its death provide (that wouldn’t be granted to it if it died later as a child)?

It seems pretty counter intuitive to argue that infant suffering is educative for the child.

[alecforbes]

Hi Pog and Chrisguy,
Hope you don’t mind if I jump in here.

TE) A baby dies in pain. This suffering is not gratuitious - it serves a higher purpose. What exactly has the baby itself gained by its suffering?

First, an observation (not having to do with my answer per se, but perhaps of value.) The baby dies so the suffering is temporary. In this case at least, death can be seen as good.

As far as what the baby has gained by its suffering, I would say nothing other than what God may do in the afterlife to “bring good out of evil.” There must be something God does for suffering innocents that is “special”, some recompense, some glory that would make it worthwhile for the sufferer. I cannot rationalize any value in “soul-making” in this situation, at least for the baby.

Steve

[pog]

A good doesn’t imply a educative benefit - and seems to argue against the benefit of the pain itself. How can both the pain and the removal of the pain both be justified by appeal to greater good. Wouldn’t the good of the pain outweigh the good of the ending of the pain, or vice versa? And if ending the pain was good, why would God cause the pain to begin with?

I cannot see a theodicy built on God’s deliberate and direct creation and causing of evil for greater good to have stronger warrant than the other theodices available. Indeed, I suspect it makes God a monster.

[alecforbes]

Q) If all evil is for a higher good, then what exactly is that higher good?

As you know, I would disagree that “…all evil is for a higher good…”

I cannot see a theodicy built on God’s deliberate and direct creation and causing of evil for greater good to have stronger warrant than the other theodices available. Indeed, I suspect it makes God a monster.

(My emphasis) I couldn’t agree more!

My only point was that God could bring good out of evil, not that the suffering was for good, for a greater good, or part of God’s purpose.

As you know my views pretty well, at this point, I’ll step back and await Chrisguy’s input, as I think you and I, Pog, are heading down the same path.

Steve

[pog]

Agreed, Alec. I’d be interested to see chrisguys response.

[Chrisguy90]

Hey guys. Let me try to answer your questions one at a time.

As far as a baby experiencing pain. Let’s look at the fundamental question first: what IS pain? Not in the sense of a physiological phenomenon, but, in terms of what it is to the person experiencing it. It is the coming to be of something highly undesirable. I can well imagine a baby being SAVED FROM such a sensation. In fact we see it all the time. A child is crying because it is hungry. It gets food, and is therefore satiated. What my point really tries to flesh out is this difference between a good without any pain being alleviated in the experience of that good, and a good that INVOLVES the alleviation/deliverance of the pain. Perhaps my example is elementary, but I can imagine heaven for a child consisting in the same sort of deliverance it experiences on earth (drinking milk, for instance.) Of course, since it is a child its knowledge and mental capabilities will not be the same as an adult, but that doesn’t mean it cannot experience the good in being delivered from evil AT ALL.

It does seem to me that if no evil is gratuitous, then it must somehow add to the good. Does this mean that if I harm a child, his afterlife existence is better than it would be if I never harmed him? Or does the universe itself become overall a better one the more evil that I do in it? It does seem that this is so. Otherwise, God would allow gratuitous evil. Why then should I not go around causing as much evil as possible?

Answer: because I have no certain knowledge that there is an afterlife or an infinitely good God. I hope there is, but I don’t think I have enough knowledge to justify acts outside the realm of my experience. IN MY EXPERIENCE, doing evil/causing pain, for the most part makes the universe a WORSE place.

If the baby dies a painless death, it still has experienced pain in its life in some form however crudely it is accessible to its memory and intellect. Perhaps heaven involves, at least in part, the continual feeling of deliverance from such evils. I note in passing how the death and suffering of children is also an evil that WE experience which, when/if we are delivered from it in heaven, will serve to cause us great joy.

In terms of other theodicies - I just don’t know of any that make sense. I’ve tried to express some of my issues in the thread above, particularly regarding free will. I do not see its existence as somehow capable of justifying rape and murder. But then again, I wonder if somehow my theodicy could incorporate it as a LESSER good, allowed to exert influence, but only because God can save people from the evil they experience by its exercise, and such people would have to be BETTER OFF having experienced the evil who are affected by the choices, else the means don’t justify the end regarding the creation of free will. It just wouldn’t be worth a baby being tortured to allow the torturer to exercise his freedom.

I don’t see how what I’m saying makes God a monster. In either case, tremendous evils are foreseen (or “seen”), and allowed to occur by God. But the purpose behind every undesirable momentary evil is for the greater good the creation, so the act of God is driven by his motive for the best good for his creation. Therefore he cannot be a monster.

[Chrisguy90]

Q) If all evil is for a higher good, then what exactly is that higher good?

As you know, I would disagree that “…all evil is for a higher good…”

I cannot see a theodicy built on God’s deliberate and direct creation and causing of evil

for greater good to have stronger warrant than the other theodices available. Indeed, I suspect it makes God a monster.

(My emphasis) I couldn’t agree more!

My only point was that God could bring good out of evil, not that the suffering was for good, for a greater good, or part of God’s purpose.

As you know my views pretty well, at this point, I’ll step back and await Chrisguy’s input, as I think you and I, Pog, are heading down the same path.

Steve

Hey Steve. If all evil is NOT allowed or caused for the greater good, why does it exist at all in the universe?

[alecforbes]

Hi Chrisguy,

First of all, I am really glad you joined this conversation and am sure to learn a lot from your input. Secondly, just so you know where I am coming from, I believe:

1. God is good and even better than I can imagine.
2. My moral sense is derived from God and if something appears to my moral sense to be obviously “evil” then it is.
3. There is evil in creation.
4. The presence of evil can teach me something about God, creation or both.

As opposed to some theodicy discussions, for me, the existence of a good God, worthy of worship, is not in question. It’s a matter of how and why evil is present in creation.

I would like to go back to something you said earlier:

I think every choice is preceded by a motive, and every motive is, for want of a better word, “predetermined” in our genetic makeup.

I believe this to be false and apparently most atheists do as well. I came across an atheist blog discussing moral realism and apparently two-thirds of atheist philosophers are moral realists meaning they agree that there are moral absolutes. The supposition would be that if there are moral absolutes then moral agents would have at least some ability to decide to follow (or not) these moral absolutes. I can certainly agree that free will may not exist in some humans such as those with severe brain injuries, dementia or infants. Would also agree that we have limited free will influenced by our genetics, upbringing and circumstances, but I disagree that no-one has any free will. As a determinist, what do you see the point of God creating humans to be? They are not “free” to love him. They aren’t free to do good or evil. Is creation simply God’s terrarium to watch what his little creatures will do next based on the effect of genes and environment? More to the point, what would be the purpose of evil in such a scenario? What higher good would be achieved?

Steve