lunamoth
Episcopalian
If God is good why is there evil in the world?
Theodicy
- Thread starter lunamoth
- Start date
noctuary
Mercurial Goddess
Well for someone like myself, I don't believe in evil. I believe people make dumb decision and when pushed to take responsibility claim evil over being just a dumb human.
Nick the Pilot
Well-Known Member
Lunamoth,
We sometimes hear the question, "'Why does God allow so much evil in the world?" The author quoted below is saying that we must freely choose to be good, and at the next level of existence only good people will be allowed in. We must allow people here at this level to be good or bad, so they can make that choice freely:
"And then the question arises — as I know it arises in many minds, for it has been put to me both in the East and in the West over and over again — why so much difficulty in the evolution, why so much apparent failure in the working, why should men go wrong so much before they go right, why should they run after the evil that degrades them instead of following the good that would ennoble them? Was it not possible for [God], for the Devas who are His Agents, for the great Manus who came to guide our infant humanity — was it not possible for Them to plan so that there might be no such apparent failure in the working out? Was it not possible for Them to guide so that the road might have been a straight and direct one instead of so devious, so circuitous?
"Here comes the point that makes the evolution of humanity so difficult, having in view the object which is to be gained. Easy in truth would it have been to have made a humanity that might have been perfect, easy to have so guided its dawning powers that those powers might have travelled towards what we call the good continually, and never have turned aside towards what we call evil. But what would have been the condition of such an easy accomplishment? It must have been that man would have been an automaton, moved by a compelling force without him which imperiously laid upon him a law which he was compelled to fulfil, from which he could not escape. The mineral world is under such a law; the affinities that bind atom to atom obey such an imperious compulsion. But as we rise higher we find greater and greater freedom gradually making its appearance, until in man we see a spontaneous energy, a freedom of choice, which is really the dawning manifestation of the God, of the Self, which is beginning to show itself through man. And the object, the goal which was to be attained, was not to make automata who should blindly follow a path sketched out for their treading, but to make a reflection of [God] Himself, to make a mighty assemblage of wise and perfected men who should choose the best because they know and understand it, who should reject the worst because by experience they have learnt its inadequacy and the sorrow to which it leads. So that in the universe of the future, as amongst all the great Ones who are guiding the universe of today, there should be unity gained by consensus of wills, which have become one again by knowledge and by choice, which move with a single purpose because they know the whole, which are identical with the Law because they have learned that the Law is good, who choose to be one with the Law not by an outside compulsion, but by an inner acquiescence. Thus in that universe of the future there will be one Law, as there is in the present, carried out by means of Those who are the Law by the unity of Their purpose, the unity of Their knowledge, the unity of Their power — not a blind and unconscious Law, but an assemblage of living beings who are the Law, having become divine. There is no other road by which such goal might be reached, by which the freewill of the many should reunite into the one great Nature and the one great Law, save a process in which experience should be garnered, in which evil should be known as well as good, failure as well as triumph. Thus men become Gods, and because of the experience that lies behind them, they will, they think, they feel, the same."
— Annie Besant, The Path of Discipleship, pp. 9-11
We sometimes hear the question, "'Why does God allow so much evil in the world?" The author quoted below is saying that we must freely choose to be good, and at the next level of existence only good people will be allowed in. We must allow people here at this level to be good or bad, so they can make that choice freely:
"And then the question arises — as I know it arises in many minds, for it has been put to me both in the East and in the West over and over again — why so much difficulty in the evolution, why so much apparent failure in the working, why should men go wrong so much before they go right, why should they run after the evil that degrades them instead of following the good that would ennoble them? Was it not possible for [God], for the Devas who are His Agents, for the great Manus who came to guide our infant humanity — was it not possible for Them to plan so that there might be no such apparent failure in the working out? Was it not possible for Them to guide so that the road might have been a straight and direct one instead of so devious, so circuitous?
"Here comes the point that makes the evolution of humanity so difficult, having in view the object which is to be gained. Easy in truth would it have been to have made a humanity that might have been perfect, easy to have so guided its dawning powers that those powers might have travelled towards what we call the good continually, and never have turned aside towards what we call evil. But what would have been the condition of such an easy accomplishment? It must have been that man would have been an automaton, moved by a compelling force without him which imperiously laid upon him a law which he was compelled to fulfil, from which he could not escape. The mineral world is under such a law; the affinities that bind atom to atom obey such an imperious compulsion. But as we rise higher we find greater and greater freedom gradually making its appearance, until in man we see a spontaneous energy, a freedom of choice, which is really the dawning manifestation of the God, of the Self, which is beginning to show itself through man. And the object, the goal which was to be attained, was not to make automata who should blindly follow a path sketched out for their treading, but to make a reflection of [God] Himself, to make a mighty assemblage of wise and perfected men who should choose the best because they know and understand it, who should reject the worst because by experience they have learnt its inadequacy and the sorrow to which it leads. So that in the universe of the future, as amongst all the great Ones who are guiding the universe of today, there should be unity gained by consensus of wills, which have become one again by knowledge and by choice, which move with a single purpose because they know the whole, which are identical with the Law because they have learned that the Law is good, who choose to be one with the Law not by an outside compulsion, but by an inner acquiescence. Thus in that universe of the future there will be one Law, as there is in the present, carried out by means of Those who are the Law by the unity of Their purpose, the unity of Their knowledge, the unity of Their power — not a blind and unconscious Law, but an assemblage of living beings who are the Law, having become divine. There is no other road by which such goal might be reached, by which the freewill of the many should reunite into the one great Nature and the one great Law, save a process in which experience should be garnered, in which evil should be known as well as good, failure as well as triumph. Thus men become Gods, and because of the experience that lies behind them, they will, they think, they feel, the same."
— Annie Besant, The Path of Discipleship, pp. 9-11
T
Tao_Equus
Guest
Hi Luna and a Happy New Year!! I have not seen much of you lately on these threads, which is a real shame as you are one of the people here that has the ability to make me think in ways that make me a more complete person. I do hope all is well with you.
tao
I'd have to agree with Noctuary on this one except to say that evil can be fairly ascribed as a descriptive to certain heinous acts. In that regard the world has much evil. But the bible actually does not help to define evil, to the contrary, I would go as far to say it makes an excuse for evil. For one can commit it and then repent with all forgiven.
tao
Francis king
Well-Known Member
there is evil because we collectively allow it to exist...
if we had no evil, there would be no need for- social workers, policemen, child psychologists, victim support workers, no need for the RSPCA or the NSPCC...
...but without evil, so many middle class ppl would not have jobs...
I worked in the voluntary sector for years, only to realise that our advice organisation did not need to exist IF these external services provided to the people were delivered adequately in the first place...
maybe it seems silly to describe simple things like incompetence as "evils", but if Mr B had filled in Mr A's forms properly, Mr A would not then come to my desk, worried he'll lose his home... if the NHS provided the services they state they provide on paper, then I would not have mentally ill people at my desk asking me to help them catch demons, and I would not have battered wives desperate for sanctuary clamouring for the number for a refuge...
sins of ommission, maybe?
evil is everywhere- everytime we open a newspaper, we see it- rapists, serial killers, ppl who dig kiddie porn, those who murder their partners for money, mutilated animals, dead babies... it's all there...
and not just there- check out the gossip columns, where we ridicule ppl's style of dress, laugh at their cellulite, mock their hairstyles, reveal their secrets... look in the office, where the tea lady gets touched up by the boss, where the junior gets bullied, where the production is outsourced to a tin pot villiage for the sake of maximising profits with no care for the workforce...
all evils...
but we tolerate the office gossip- we say there's no harm there, we like the banter... we say it's okay to ostracise Billy because Billy is not like us- he hear voices in his head telling him he's a saint... it's okay to wear beaded and embroidered clothing, which is created by the hands of small children who many not even get paid, who don't get to go to school- it's not our responsibility...
when a kid runs into a school, with a gun, and kills his classmates, we say his action is evil, yet... when that kid has been openly snubbed, made to feel small, laughed at, ridiculed, on a daily basis, his actions are, in fact, quite rational, and almost noble...
It reminds me of a story of Kali... Kali lived in a villiage, and was disliked simply because she was dark skinned and low born...
there was a wedding, and she was not invited, so she sought revenge...
she made a bomb, and threw it into the church, and when the people ran out screaming with their limbs missing, Kali laughed, and thought- ha! that sure taught them!
The world is a cold, dark and harsh place... we uphold these values and virtues, morals, rights and responsibilities, but we are prepared to sacrifice these noble intentions if it means making a little cash, or if it means enhanced status within society... so many of us discover that these neat concepts like democracy, justice, human rights, don't actually exist, and probably never did- they were just excuses we created to cudgel other people with...
I was reading the Observer yesterday, and Chris Langham, a British actor who was caught with child porn on his computer a few years ago was there with his wife, telling their story.
Some of the images he had downloaded had been level 5- the worst kind, baby rape, torture, etc...
His career is over- no-one wants to work with him... He feels sorry for himself... his excuse? He was abused himself as a child, he was researching the kiddie porn thing for a tv show he was in, he didn't actually look at all 14 files he had downloaded, just a few... He had a wife, who stuck by him, children who remained loyal, a family, all supposedly proof that he deserved to be forgiven...
and out the middle classes come, with their cheap forgiveness, accepting his trite confession, and maybe we'll even see him on TV again...
it worked for Pete Townsend...
if we had no evil, there would be no need for- social workers, policemen, child psychologists, victim support workers, no need for the RSPCA or the NSPCC...
...but without evil, so many middle class ppl would not have jobs...
I worked in the voluntary sector for years, only to realise that our advice organisation did not need to exist IF these external services provided to the people were delivered adequately in the first place...
maybe it seems silly to describe simple things like incompetence as "evils", but if Mr B had filled in Mr A's forms properly, Mr A would not then come to my desk, worried he'll lose his home... if the NHS provided the services they state they provide on paper, then I would not have mentally ill people at my desk asking me to help them catch demons, and I would not have battered wives desperate for sanctuary clamouring for the number for a refuge...
sins of ommission, maybe?
evil is everywhere- everytime we open a newspaper, we see it- rapists, serial killers, ppl who dig kiddie porn, those who murder their partners for money, mutilated animals, dead babies... it's all there...
and not just there- check out the gossip columns, where we ridicule ppl's style of dress, laugh at their cellulite, mock their hairstyles, reveal their secrets... look in the office, where the tea lady gets touched up by the boss, where the junior gets bullied, where the production is outsourced to a tin pot villiage for the sake of maximising profits with no care for the workforce...
all evils...
but we tolerate the office gossip- we say there's no harm there, we like the banter... we say it's okay to ostracise Billy because Billy is not like us- he hear voices in his head telling him he's a saint... it's okay to wear beaded and embroidered clothing, which is created by the hands of small children who many not even get paid, who don't get to go to school- it's not our responsibility...
when a kid runs into a school, with a gun, and kills his classmates, we say his action is evil, yet... when that kid has been openly snubbed, made to feel small, laughed at, ridiculed, on a daily basis, his actions are, in fact, quite rational, and almost noble...
It reminds me of a story of Kali... Kali lived in a villiage, and was disliked simply because she was dark skinned and low born...
there was a wedding, and she was not invited, so she sought revenge...
she made a bomb, and threw it into the church, and when the people ran out screaming with their limbs missing, Kali laughed, and thought- ha! that sure taught them!
The world is a cold, dark and harsh place... we uphold these values and virtues, morals, rights and responsibilities, but we are prepared to sacrifice these noble intentions if it means making a little cash, or if it means enhanced status within society... so many of us discover that these neat concepts like democracy, justice, human rights, don't actually exist, and probably never did- they were just excuses we created to cudgel other people with...
I was reading the Observer yesterday, and Chris Langham, a British actor who was caught with child porn on his computer a few years ago was there with his wife, telling their story.
Some of the images he had downloaded had been level 5- the worst kind, baby rape, torture, etc...
His career is over- no-one wants to work with him... He feels sorry for himself... his excuse? He was abused himself as a child, he was researching the kiddie porn thing for a tv show he was in, he didn't actually look at all 14 files he had downloaded, just a few... He had a wife, who stuck by him, children who remained loyal, a family, all supposedly proof that he deserved to be forgiven...
and out the middle classes come, with their cheap forgiveness, accepting his trite confession, and maybe we'll even see him on TV again...
it worked for Pete Townsend...
I see no evil. You gotta break eggs to make an omelet.
Evil to me is simply defined as something we perceive to be evil from our point of view.
Now we can get into Hitlers and Atillas and Hirohitos or even Bushs and Blairs or Saddams, or Billy Grahams, or Huckabees or Obamas or Osamas, in all cases evil is in the eye of the beholder.
So if everything were perfect we'd find evil in perfection. And that is what we have done.
Back to the omelet, you love omelets? You are taking part in the abortion of millions of chickens...how evil.
You walk down the sidewalk, and kill how many bugs, how evil.
We gargle with mouthwash and millions of germs die on contact, how evil.
Pendelum swings and good comes out of everything, yin/yan, ebb and flow.
I waiver between everything just is, and it is all good!
I lean toward it is all good.
When I am in the midst of a trying circumstance I start with everything just is. It allows me to step away, and then I try to find the lesson, how I and others can grow from the perceived evil event/situation...and find out in the end...it is all good. I can't stay with everything just is, I always end up with it is all good. This is after divorce, foreclosure, addictions, muggings, beatings, being broke, homeless, unemployed... fifty years of life and living, it is all good.
(now when I don't learn from my lessons and have to repeat them, lol, that's evil!)
Evil to me is simply defined as something we perceive to be evil from our point of view.
Now we can get into Hitlers and Atillas and Hirohitos or even Bushs and Blairs or Saddams, or Billy Grahams, or Huckabees or Obamas or Osamas, in all cases evil is in the eye of the beholder.
So if everything were perfect we'd find evil in perfection. And that is what we have done.
Back to the omelet, you love omelets? You are taking part in the abortion of millions of chickens...how evil.
You walk down the sidewalk, and kill how many bugs, how evil.
We gargle with mouthwash and millions of germs die on contact, how evil.
Pendelum swings and good comes out of everything, yin/yan, ebb and flow.
I waiver between everything just is, and it is all good!
I lean toward it is all good.
When I am in the midst of a trying circumstance I start with everything just is. It allows me to step away, and then I try to find the lesson, how I and others can grow from the perceived evil event/situation...and find out in the end...it is all good. I can't stay with everything just is, I always end up with it is all good. This is after divorce, foreclosure, addictions, muggings, beatings, being broke, homeless, unemployed... fifty years of life and living, it is all good.
(now when I don't learn from my lessons and have to repeat them, lol, that's evil!)
Indeed. “Good” is a concept which can only exist if the concept of “evil” exists. If there is one, there is the other. When something / somebody / some action is described as “good”, one is making a comparative statement to the alternative, which is “evil” (or bad).
s.
Dondi
Well-Known Member
The question is if God is omnibenevolent, then why does evil exist? I think it is a mistake to assume one is diametrically opposed to the other. It seems to point the finger back at God, when evil is a human characteristic (assuming your definition of evil if moral-based). Evil is a perversion of that which is good, else we could not define evil at all. There would be no basis to form an opinion of what is evil and what is good.
Evil is a consequence of humans having the freewill to choose. But without freewill, there would not be the capacity to love, for love implies a choice.
But then the question is, does God have a freewill? And if so, does He have the capacity to choose evil as well? You could give the pat answer that God is good because it is in His nature, but then you would have to understand what His nature really is.
As Creator of the Universe, He created all the laws set forth for us to function, much in the way an inventor devises a way in which he invention will operate within a certain set of parameters for optimum functioning. If it was God's intention to create a being that will have some kind of relationship with Him, then some of His own attributes would have to be infused into that being. So it would be a matter of creating a being of His own image (not in some anthromorphological image, but having certain attributes to communicate, interact, and commune with God). Making a carbon copy of Himself would do no good, if that being could not be automonous in it's thinking. All you would have is a mimic of the real God and without choice would be doing things in perfect will of God, but no real thought of doing it. (It would rather be like the pre-ordained bride picked out for Eddie Murphy in "Coming to America" who stood on one leg and barked like a dog on command).
Instead, God opted for a being who could choose to love God back...or not. He needed only one commandment to test his invention out, and yes, it worked...too good. The rest is history, both good and evil. While it was God's plan that man choose, it wasn't God's plan for him to choose poorly.
If we are going to learn what the nature of God is, we need to discover what are the operating parameters for man. For it is within those parameters that we can find an evermore perfect love toward God and toward others. So our quest is seeking the good choices among the bad choices available. Unfortunately, there are so many bad choices, that it's hard not to be infuenced by them. We are all affected one way or another by both good and bad options set before us. I believe that as we grow older we will gravitate in varying degrees between better choices and worse choices.
But in Christianity, and I suppose some of the other religions, we are promised that God's Spirit is there to guide us and empower us toward the better choices. With the Spirit of God, we can break the habits and addictions that can hold us to those bad choices and attitudes. And through His Spirit, we discover the power of His Love and how that Love can help us love others. It is a process that God makes avaliable if we are willing to abide in Him and obey His commandments. Obediance does not have to be a drag. Obedience is seeing the benefit of operating within the parameters that will allow us to function as God had planned. We become good be doing good. We form good habits by doing good habits. We turn the evil intentions back into good intentions. Wrong attitudes into right attitudes.
lunamoth
Episcopalian
I like the use of your word maybe throughout, dauer, because it underscores that these and any other explanations we could come up with are abstractions, theories. It's almost like we don't have all the pieces of the puzzle, and at times it seems we have very few.
lunamoth
Episcopalian
Hi noctuary, and welcome to CR!
Saying there is no evil, that it's all just perspective, is one way to solve this dilemma, and it is very tempting to me, very tempting, to agree. But then I see deliberate cruelty and the sadistic infliction of suffering on onthers, and things like the Holocaust and 9/11, and I can't gloss over those events or write them off as perspective. They were evil acts. And we could say that those were the result of a sick society, and rapists and murderers are sick individuals, and we would be right. But sick and suffering is still bad and so if we soften it thusly why does God allow bad in His creation?
I think the answer is related to free will, as I hope to get to below.
lunamoth
Episcopalian
Interesting post Nick, thank you. I agree with a lot of this perspective. Forgive me for limiting my comment to just one fragment of the longer post.
There is no other road. I think this gets at the heart of my own analysis. It's not a matter of the experience of joy justifying evil or suffering, but that there is no other way to create a being capable of love. The ends do not justify the means, and Dostoevsky's question remains subtly off-target because it suggests there are alternatives.
There is no other road. I think this gets at the heart of my own analysis. It's not a matter of the experience of joy justifying evil or suffering, but that there is no other way to create a being capable of love. The ends do not justify the means, and Dostoevsky's question remains subtly off-target because it suggests there are alternatives.
lunamoth
Episcopalian
Why Tao! Thank you for such kinds words. The feeling is mutual. :namaste:
I don't think the Bible makes excuse for sin, although it is one long story about what God is doing about evil in the world. What is evil? A good question in itself. It, the temptation to give ourself over to evil, is something that runs through each of us and through all of society, no matter how enlightened or progressive or even how saintly we may be. It's wrong, and dangerous, to say that a person or a country is evil, although there are some individuals and societies that seem to have given themselves over to greater extents to it.
Dealing with evil through redemption, forgiveness, love, is not the same at all as excusing evil. If something is hurt, broken, suffering, it's not healed by just saying so. But accepting responsibility for the evil things we do and by forgiving the evil done to us, we tangibly work toward redemption and healing in this world.
lunamoth
Episcopalian
Hi Francis,
You've written a poingant poem (or at least it seemed kind of like a poem to me, rhythmic, pounding, raw, speaking softly and then screaming) reminding us that evil is not just a philosopher's puzzle, but a practical problem here where the rubber meets the pavement, and that it comes most ofen in the subtlest and slyest of forms. Thank you.
lunamoth
Episcopalian
Hi wil, as I said above to nocturna, to think of evil as completely based on our perspective, to say it's all relative so there really is no evil, is tempting. And the breaking eggs to make an omlet, that is a way of saying that the ends justify the means. Saying that evil really is good because without evil we would not have any experience of joy, or that evil is needed for us to learn and grow, still kind of leaves Dostoevsky's question hanging.
I don't have an answer, but one idea that brings some comfort is the idea that not joy or happiness, but being itself, or any being in which we are not automatons, simply can't happen without dualism, without choice. The only alternative is to not be at all.
lunamoth
Episcopalian
lunamoth
Episcopalian
This is true, we experience everything in this dualistic manner, and the two make up the whole which, I conclude, is good (since being alive and self-aware is good). The alternative to good and evil is non-being. But to say we go beyond good and evil in this life, wouldn't this be like saying it does not matter, there is no meaning? There is no reason, beyond my own comfort, pleasure and happiness, to do anything at all, because it does not matter if others think it good or evil. (BTW, I realize you did not suggest we try to transcend good and evil in this life...was just kind of thinking out loud there.)
lunamoth
Episcopalian
Wow Dondi, Excellent excellent answer. Thank you! I really can't add anything to that but to say you've expressed how I see it much better than I ever could. I don't think it would satisfy the anti-theist, but then what ever could? In his book Evil and the Justice of God, NT Wright suggests that a deep and time-honored tradition in Christianity is to treat the question of theodicy as almost a mystery, there is no logical answer from the perspective of humans and while attempts are inevitible, and can yield fruit, at the end of the day the only answer is silence.
One other great thing brought out by Wright in this book is the importance of forgiveness in addressing the practical problem of evil in this world. He suggests that God's forgiveness actually heals evil not only in this life, but heals all the evil ever done in a real and tangible way. In the act of forgiveness, the victim is freed from the evil as much as the perpetrator is released from his sin.
Dondi
Well-Known Member
I'm going to have to look into that book, luna. Sounds quite interesting.
I don't think I adequately addressed the question of the nature of God (and I'm not sure I could, really, but...) In human terms, we can think of God being good because His standards are good, being that it is how man needs to function optimally. So the Law can be regarded as the Principle of Good. But the Law was made for man, so that still doesn't answer the question of how does God choose to do what He does. Could He make an evil choice? Well, then to say that a choice God makes is evil is to compare His actions to the Law God set up for man. Yet is it proper to judge God according to what He set up for man and apply it to Himself? Assuming He is all wise, all knowing, and all powerful, knowing the end from the beginning, there may be factors that He knows that we don't and therefore we can not really accurately assess what God's plan is perfectly (we see through the glass darkly). We assume that because He has set such high and noble standards for us, that whatever God does must carry the highest, most noble status for Him. And that forms the basis of trust in God.
We wonder why there is so much evil in the world and why God would allow such. But the grand scheme is still being played out in the drama of life. God has given us the ability to choose, so we now have a history of nothing but choices. In a manner of speaking He has relinquished control to us, and it has not always produced good results. So we contemplate whether God is doing the right thing with us. It is evident in several places in scripture that God wondered the same thing.
I kinda view God as having a long leash on mankind. We're able to venture to a certain point, but He is still in control of the reigns. One of these days, He's gonna reel us in. We'd have spent too long playing outside. Time to come home now.
Ok, so maybe I failed in my attempt, but it's got me thinking, too.