Deliver Us To And Not From The Suffering In Our World: The Theodicy Dilemma

In the last "Blogspot" I explored Universalism in its many varied, dare I say universal, forms. When asked what kind of a Universalist I was? I said I was a Universalist, Universalist, Universalist. The service, that the "Blogspot" was based on, was delivered at three congregations that day. By the time I got to third I could almost have done so without notes. I had all kinds of interesting responses to the service, many folk seemed to identify strongly. Later that day, exhausted, I returned home and published this “blogspot” based upon it. Whoever read the post actually received what I had intended to deliver, where as those who heard it received versions as they manifested in the time and space. Again I got some very interesting responses, to the published version. At the time I did not have the energy to respond but thankfully others did. One stayed with me and and this "blogspot" has grown from it. The post read “ The thing is I worry about how much input a God of love is having, in that so many are hurt, killed, homeless, hungry etc”

It is a good question. If we look at the world, at the suffering within the world, it is reasonable to ask in what sense could a God of love be involved in all of this? Of course the response of many is that none at all, for there is no God. Or others will say that God is not all loving. Others may say well it’s all a mystery and we cannot understand how God’s love operates. Then still others will suggest that we look at the helpers and that this love manifests in their actions. Are any of these answers adequate? It is certainly something to ponder.

Now suffering and a God of Love is a question that has troubled theologians, philosophers and plain ordinary people for centuries. The question has been asked and continues to be asked as to what causes suffering and can it be overcome? Now in some quarters it has been suggested that the root cause of suffering is “evil”. Which has led to the question that if evil exists then how can God be all powerful, ever present and all loving? In theological circles this question has become known as “The Theodicy Dilemma”

Theodicy from the Greek words "theos" (God) and "dike" (justice)

“The Theodicy Dilemma” may be summed up by the following question, about God, asked by the eighteenth century philosopher David Hume:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil.”

This question encapsulates the whole Theodicy debate.

The debate is also captured in the following poem by Czeslaw Milosz "Theodicy”

“Theodicy” by Czeslaw Milosz

No, it won’t do, my sweet theologians.
Desire will not save the morality of God.
If he created beings able to choose between good and evil,
And they chose, and the world lies in iniquity,
Nevertheless, there is pain, and the undeserved torture of creatures,
Which would find its explanation only by assuming
The existence of an archetypal Paradise
And a pre-human downfall so grave
That the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power.

The poem is even more hard hitting, I would suggest, than Hume’s questions. This from Milosz a Nobel Prize winning Poet who was a Polish Catholic, who spent much of his life wrestling with his own faith.

I remember exploring “Theodicy”, in depth, while training for the ministry. I probably spent more time on the piece I wrote on the subject than any other, which showed in my final marks. I struggled and I wrestled, as so many have no doubt done. Looking back I can see how important it was for me to do so.- By the way I struggled once again while trying to put the service together, that this "Blogspot" is taken from.- I am grateful for the struggle as I have learnt, in my time as a minister, that a large part of the work is to be with others in their suffering, often seemingly senseless suffering by the way. It is of course suffering that brought me into ministry in the first place.

I remember wrestling for hours, in the library and walking in the park, with the theodicy question, I continue to do so by the way. I found my own unsettled faith in it and as a result a greater purpose has emerged. If I have learned anything from suffering, it is that I cannot take away the suffering of anyone else, but I can be with them in it. I have learned that in so doing the God of my limited understanding comes into being once more.

The Christian tradition has wrestled for centuries with the Theodicy question. One strand, beginning with Augustine of Hippo concluded that evil was the absence of good in a person’s life and was the consequence of God given free will. He believed that God was aware of the potential misuse of free will but allowed it, as to deny it would be worse than to allow the evil that could stem from it. He believed that the fall of Adam, his original sin, had permanently corrupted humanity and compelled people, through destructive behaviour, to develop habitual wickedness. He believed that the root of our troubles was our inability to accept our creation and all that it entails, therefore we do not submit to God and instead submit to habitual evil which creates suffering for all.

For the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas evil resulted from the absence of God, the lack of a positive substance, in the same way that blindness is the absence of sight. He suggested that there is no such thing as pure evil, just that something created good has become defective.

One of the leading figures of the Reformation Jean Calvin believed in God’s “Divine Plan” or Predestination. He believed that nothing took place by chance and that God was involved in every aspect of life. Like Augustine he believed that evil was caused by man’s fall and that we are enslaved by this ‘original sin’.

During the Twentieth century theologians have attempted, from a variety of stand points, to understand the nature of evil, suffering and God. John Hick offered a view very different to that followed by Augustine, Aquinus and Calvin and traces his thinking back to Iraneas. He saw the world as a vale of soul making where people are shaped by God, who desires all creatures to grow into relationship with him. Therefore, suffering is essential for this to take place. He claimed that God is, in some sense, hidden within creation and that coming to terms with suffering is part of this process. This leads to salvation which occurs when humans enjoy this perfect relationship with God. Richard Swinburn’s “Natural Law Theodicy” follows a similar line claiming that natural evil has to exist if humans are to make the correct choices that will prevent human evil.

Dorothee Soellee critiqued Hick’s position claiming that suffering, caused by God, cannot be justified. “No heaven can rectify Auschwitz” She was critical of this Christian Masochism and its concomitant Theological Sadism, claiming that human beings have become powerless masochistic accomplices to the sadistic God. She believed that to truly know God is to see Him as the God who suffers with humanity. The key question for Soelle was, who are the victims and who are the oppressors? For her God suffers with the victim, that God is present there within the suffering. Her position was powerfully illustrated in the following, told by Eli Wiesel, of two men and a small boy being hung by SS guards, from his seminal work “The Night”. Wiesel recalls:

“Where is God? Where is He? Someone behind me asked...but the third rope was still moving, being so light, the child was still alive. For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face...Behind me I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is he? Here He is hanging here on the gallows.”

Process theology and those influenced by it have offered other explanations as to why suffering occurs. It sees all entities as self creative and therefore free. This includes the smallest particles, which like humans are capable of responding to God. Therefore they can reject God’s purpose and it is this that creates the suffering in the world.

Process theology does not see humanity as corrupt in nature instead it claims that often we fail to live up to our potential. It recognises God as being infinite but also relative, both imminent and transcendent.It offers an explanation for both human and natural suffering. It is suggested that as man has emerged from the natural world human feeling and emotions must be present in all of creation. In essence it suggests life can respond to the Lure of Divine Love, but does not always do so and thus suffering result.

I’m not sure any of the attempts to reconcile suffering with an all powerful loving God are adequate and all resort to some extent to mystery. None give a clear picture of all loving and powerful God, who never changes.

Does this mean that "God is Dead?" as Nietzsche suggested in "The Gay Science" and many others have since.

And what do I believe, you may well ask. Well I for one do respond to the idea of a God of Love, as my experiences and observations of life suggest this. I also experience this love coming to life as I am present with those who suffer and do all I can to be with them in their pain, but I cannot prove that beyond any doubt. Like the great and lesser theolgians, I too resort to mystery. I am sorry if this answer is inadequate, but it is my honest view. No doubt this inadequate response would lead to some to reject the whole idea of God. I cannot reject the whole God concept though, for I do know and experience the lure of Divine Love. This comes alive in mine and others response to suffering, it comes to life as I turn to rather than turn away from life itself.

My growing sense of Universalism helps me to live faithfully, in love, in a world in which there is so much beauty but also suffering. I accept that no matter how loving I and others live, that horrific, dare I say evil, things will happen both personally and universally. It is the God of love, that is so great and ever compelling to me, that allows one to overcome even the most horrific situations, with a response grown from a sacred reverence for life itself. This is the God of Love that I worship, that is beyond my understanding.

I have come to believe that it is our holy duty to respond to the suffering of others, to stand in solidarity with them and act in holy compassion and never to declare the other as somehow less than human.

In my prayers I ask this Universal Love to help me feel a deep connection to all life and to bring some healing to the world in which I live and the world beyond my being.

It is I believe our holy duty to begin to bring healing to our world, to wipe the tears that flow from our humanity and to repair the tears in the fabric of the world, to bring compassion and love to those in fear, to bind up the broken and bring wholeness to those who feel separated from the love in life. This is the call of love from the God of my limited understanding.

It is a call that asks my senses to be opened to the world and instead of being delivered from evil, it is a call from an ever-loving God to be delivered to the suffering in this world.

I’m sorry if it does not answer why a God of love would allow suffering. I am sorry if that is not good enough. I am sorry.

All I can offer is a loving purpose that comes to life in this beautiful and at times suffering world.

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with a poem by Billy Collins titled “See No Evil”

“See No Evil” by Billy Collins

No one expected all three of them
to sit there on their tree stumps forever,
their sense covered with their sinuous paws
so as to shut out the vile, nefarious world.

As it happened,
it was the one on the left
who was the first to desert his post,
uncupping his ears,
then loping off into the orbit of rumors and lies,
but also into the realm of symphonies,
the sound of water tumbling over rocks
and wind stirring the leafy domes of trees.

Then the monkey on the right lowered his hands
from his wide mouth and slipped away
in search of someone to talk to,
some news he could spread,
maybe something to curse or shout about.

And that left the monkey in the middle
alone with his silent vigil.
shielding his eyes from depravity’s spectacle,
blind to the man whipping his horse,
the woman shaking her baby in the air,
but also unable to see
the russet sun on a rough shelf of rock
and apples in the grass at the base of a tree.

Sometimes, he wonders about the other two,
listens for the faint sounds of their breathing
up there on the mantel alongside the clock and candlesticks.

And some nights in the quiet house
he wishes he could break the silence with a question,
but he knows the one on his right
would not be able to hear,
and the one to his left,
according to their sacred oath-
the one they all took with one paw raised-
is forbidden forever to speak, even in reply.