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.

Gratitude: The gift of the night

Whenever I hear someone speak of gratitude a phrase always comes to mind. Seven simple words awaken in my heart, my mind and my soul; the seven are “gratitude is a gift of the night”. The phrase is a slight misquotation of a principle put forward by Eli Wiesel. I know this as a while ago the following quotation appeared on my facebook feed:

“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.” Elie Wiesel

Sowhile I misquoted Wiesel I had grasped the principle.

The point he made is that gratitude is not something that comes from the wonderful gifts we are given, including life itself. It is often not something that is expressed by someone who has the whole world, as it seems that the whole world is still not enough. It is said that when Alexander the Great had conquered the whole known world that he wept as there was nothing else to conquer. He had the world and it was not enough. He died soon afterwards. Or so I remember once being taught in a history lesson back in school.

The idea that gratitude is a gift of the night comes from the sense that it comes not from being given things or even gaining things but truly learning about the value of what makes up our lives. It comes from almost losing everything and somehow surviving and learning to appreciate what is left after the dark night of our souls. It is important to note that Wiesel wrote “The Night”, is seminal work, reflecting on his own survival of the Holocaust. He certainly knew what it meant to experience the night.

This brings to mind a story a friend once posted on facebook.

A grandmother was walking with her 5 year old grandson on the beach, when suddenly a rogue wave came and grabbed him and carried him out to sea. She looked up to the sky, held out her fist and cried "God, this is unacceptable, unbearable. You cannot take an innocent child" and just as the words came out of her mouth, another rogue wave came and deposited the child smiling back at her feet. She then picked up the child in her arms, looked up to sky and said, "This child had a hat!"

We really are a funny lot. We focus and complain about the things we don't have or the things that we once had and have now lost. So much so that we fail to see the very fruits that we are surrounded by. We are an ungrateful lot. We can be a real glum lot.

Most of us are ungrateful; most of us practice being ungrateful. It's almost become a religious ritual in itself. We moan and complain about our imperfect jobs, our imperfect bodies, our imperfect family, our imperfect relationships, our imperfect religious communities, our imperfect football teams, our imperfect life, our imperfect world, even our imperfect God who doesn't give us exactly what we want when we want it.

This joylessness can become habitual and all consuming so that pretty soon life can look pretty bleak and empty. Is it any wonder that depression, mental illness and addiction are on the increase? If this is the view that we have of the world in which we live. We can be a glum lot. The problem with living an ungrateful life is that it eats away at everything that has any meaning. Until in the end life has no meaning.

Can you ever imagine wanting to spend time with or be near a person who has no sense of gratitude for life as a gift, a precious gift; the kind of person who only sees life purely as his or her personal entitlement that must be grabbed at and clung to.

If these things are lost there where is the value in our lives?

Where do you find value in your life?

I recently went to see the film “Generation Wealth” by Lauren Greenfield. The film is a truly depicts our growing obsession with wealth, by weaving images shot over her twenty five year career as a photo journalist. It narrates the story of a nation and wider world through sharing the stories of individual lives. It begins in Los Angeles spreading to Moscow, China, Iceland, Dubai and Europe exploring materialism, celebrity-culture and social status throughout the world. Greenfield powerfully bears witness to the global boom-and-bust economy that began in the 1980’s and has carried on into today documenting its complicated consequences that we now live with.

The film tells stories of ordinary people and families who become overwhelmed by crushing debt in the pursuit of buying a life or lifestyle for themselves and or their children. It depicts some who rose to extreme wealth and then lost it all due to the crash of 2008. It also depicts the lives of the elite whether in Bel-air, Moscow, Monaco or China. It depicts this overwhelming desire for wealth, fame and or status at all costs.

Greenfield does not spare herself and or family in her critique. For while she and her parents may not have been driven by the desire for wealth they were driven by the desire to succeed in their careers often at the cost of themselves and their families.

It is the personal stories that make the film. They are disturbing and harrowing. It shows some of the rich youngsters driven by search for fame in LA and the horrific consequences that followed for many. There is the story of bus driver who hated her body so much she went into horrific debt to have years of plastic surgery. She ended up living in a car and her poor daughter hated herself and own appearance so much that she ended up deforming herself and eventually taking her own life. The story of a business woman so desperately wanting a child, who for most of her life was driven by the desire for success and power. A Las Vegas party organiser who dragged her poor son through the lifestyle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more damaged individual in my life. A couple who dreamed of building the biggest home in America. A former child beauty pageant winner and so many more. And there standing in the middle of it all is the image of Donald Trump becoming the president of the USA.

The film was a distressing and disturbing documentary about the destructive nature of the power of mammon. That said it did end in hope. As it showed an alternative and the many of lives actually finding love and meaning, finding gratitude for the simple and important things in their lives. This came as they returned home or began to build ordinary simple families as they saw and experienced the things of real value in life. It showed that love can grow when we step out once again from the kingdom of the night.

To repeat Wiesel

“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.” Elie Wiesel

So the question perhaps is how we find that sense of gratitude for the gifts that are our lives? There are spiritual practices that do help to focus on what we have, to love what it is ours. In my nightly prayers, for part of the time, I focus on the gifts that I have experienced that day. I also take time to look at the beauty that I'm surrounded by, whether it's the bustling crowds in town or the beauty of nature. Beauty in ordinary everyday life comes in many guises.

That said I'm not convinced that this is enough. Religious faith, for me, is all about action and this action is frequently ignited by life's trials. These events can often be painful and almost utterly destructive. In my experience gratitude emerges from what has been called the "dark night of the soul". My own life experiences have proven this to me.

I’m with Eli Wiesel that gratitude and appreciation for the lives we have and the love we share only truly emerges from the night, when we have lost virtually everything. Just as so many of those people in “Generation Wealth” discovered too.

Gratitude is not about the things we do or do not receive; it is about being in relationship. It is about being in relationship with ourselves, the life we have, the people we share it with, the planet we inhabit and the universe we are a small but vital part of. It is also about being in relationship with whatever we understand is at the core of this. For me this is God, others understand this differently or give it another name. What we name it is almost irrelevant. What is really important is how we respond to this mystery that is life. All of us can pray for a grateful heart, for the gift that is life itself and for the opportunities that life offers to us. And if we fall many times, this is not the end.

The truth is that no matter how far we wander, or how often we stumble, love can find and bless us, if we are open enough to receive it.

That said sometimes we only really begin to appreciate the grace present in life after we have come through the kingdom of the night.

Sometimes it is only then that we begin appreciate the gifts that are present in our lives, Sometimes it is only when “We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering” and in so doing we can begin to learn to share them with those who we share our lives with.