How to believe God is good despite evolution & natural evil?
September 6, 2020 4:43 PM Subscribe
What scenario makes it okay for God to create a world like ours? I'm looking to hear from people who have found a way to live in this strange world and still maintain hope in a good God (specifically concerned with evolution and the problem of natural evil, earthquakes, disease, predation, etc.)
Since we can't know for sure whether there's a God and what his nature is, and since having no belief system at all leaves me feeling totally unanchored — like I'm floating through space — I figure it makes sense to believe the highest and best of all possibilities.
But what exactly is the best of all possibilities?
After all the time I've spent thinking about the nature of life and existential issues, I've narrowed it down to this: all I need is a belief system that explains life good enough, makes room for evolution, and provides me with hope in a good God.
The problem is, I can't even figure out what that scenario would be. If I could find one, good enough theory, I'd cling to it with all I have. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what scenario makes it okay for a world like this to exist — with natural evils, predation, disease carrying insects, death built into its very fabric — but I so desperately want to.
For a long time, I believed the Biblical fall made a lot of sense out of the world that I see. But evolution doesn't leave a lot of room for a fall, since death and suffering aren't a result of sin, but built into the very fabric of life.
So now I'm trying to find another way to deal with the problem of evil without losing my faith. I have a hard time believing in a good God, but I'm miserable believing anything else.
I'm trying to find a hope that feels authentic, sustainable, coherent, and unforced. My life is a million times better when I believe that way.
Maybe I'm weak and need to believe in God just to get by. But I find it possible that maybe we were created for belief in the transcendent.
Some people have told me you cant crowdsource answers for this kind of thing. I couldn't disagree more. Look forward to your thoughts.
Since we can't know for sure whether there's a God and what his nature is, and since having no belief system at all leaves me feeling totally unanchored — like I'm floating through space — I figure it makes sense to believe the highest and best of all possibilities.
But what exactly is the best of all possibilities?
After all the time I've spent thinking about the nature of life and existential issues, I've narrowed it down to this: all I need is a belief system that explains life good enough, makes room for evolution, and provides me with hope in a good God.
The problem is, I can't even figure out what that scenario would be. If I could find one, good enough theory, I'd cling to it with all I have. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what scenario makes it okay for a world like this to exist — with natural evils, predation, disease carrying insects, death built into its very fabric — but I so desperately want to.
For a long time, I believed the Biblical fall made a lot of sense out of the world that I see. But evolution doesn't leave a lot of room for a fall, since death and suffering aren't a result of sin, but built into the very fabric of life.
So now I'm trying to find another way to deal with the problem of evil without losing my faith. I have a hard time believing in a good God, but I'm miserable believing anything else.
I'm trying to find a hope that feels authentic, sustainable, coherent, and unforced. My life is a million times better when I believe that way.
Maybe I'm weak and need to believe in God just to get by. But I find it possible that maybe we were created for belief in the transcendent.
Some people have told me you cant crowdsource answers for this kind of thing. I couldn't disagree more. Look forward to your thoughts.
This post was deleted for the following reason: poster's request -- cortex
Also, it looks like this is something that you've asked about 3-4 times in the last little while. Are you part of any particular community of faith, especially one with some gestures toward scholarship? Is there an elder of some kind that you can discuss this with? Without being embedded in the same worldview as you, it's a lot harder to figure out what, exactly, would help you feel authentic, sustainable, and coherent.
posted by sagc at 5:04 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by sagc at 5:04 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Perhaps it's as simple as giving up the idea that God is omnipotent. Maybe He's just doing the best He can.
posted by SPrintF at 5:20 PM on September 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 5:20 PM on September 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
a very abstract, non-interventionist interpretation of a deity
This is about the only way I can see to reconcile this problem, and have known a couple people who fairly consistently ended up there.
As a big old atheist I find that wanting, but neither do experience any pervasive desire for faith or certainty, YMMV.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:25 PM on September 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
This is about the only way I can see to reconcile this problem, and have known a couple people who fairly consistently ended up there.
As a big old atheist I find that wanting, but neither do experience any pervasive desire for faith or certainty, YMMV.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:25 PM on September 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Nobody has good answers to this one -- various theodicies have been proposed, all flawed.
Of these arguments, the one from a Christian perspective that I think is least unconvincing is that Christianity claims that God, who created a universe in which there is natural evil, was willing to enter that creation and suffer Himself, which is somewhat reassuring. Anyway it at least means that the Christian God is not a cruel tyrant inflicting pain on others without going through that same pain, and suggests some explanation might exist even if incomprehensible to humans.
posted by vogon_poet at 5:34 PM on September 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
Of these arguments, the one from a Christian perspective that I think is least unconvincing is that Christianity claims that God, who created a universe in which there is natural evil, was willing to enter that creation and suffer Himself, which is somewhat reassuring. Anyway it at least means that the Christian God is not a cruel tyrant inflicting pain on others without going through that same pain, and suggests some explanation might exist even if incomprehensible to humans.
posted by vogon_poet at 5:34 PM on September 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
Although it may seem so, I am not trying to be glib, it's just hard to do a question like this justice. If you haven't already, I would read some of C. S. Lewis' spiritual books (as opposed to his fiction), such as "Miracles" or "The Screwtape Letters". Also make sure you've read this short philosophical tract by Smullyan. Step carefully near the concept of duality, too far one way and you believe that God is in an eternal struggle that he/she cannot win, in which case it defeats the definition of "God". Too far the other way and you believe he/she can win the struggle but is uninterested in doing so or has other interests. Watching the Kevin Smith movie "Dogma" is (to me) a religious experience, it puts these issues in very stark (though irreverent) terms.
posted by forthright at 5:41 PM on September 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by forthright at 5:41 PM on September 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm a mostly-lapsed Catholic, and for Catholics -- and many mainline Protestant denominations -- the Fall isn't a literal historical event, but a sort of Aesop's fable that explains why bad things happen in the world. The fundamental truth -- that humans don't fully know/understand God, and therefore make bad/sinful decisions; that nature isn't fully in harmony with God, and therefore bad shit happens that causes suffering -- works the same whether you think "the Fall" is literal or whether you think it's a fable explaining why there's evil in the world. (Catholics and most mainline Protestants accept evolution as a fact, and believe that studying it glorifies God by understanding the created world better.)
The problem of theodicy -- literally "justifying God" in its Greek roots; in modern English "explaining the problem of evil" -- is one of the oldest in Christianity, and there are 2,000 years of intelligent people grappling with it that you can read and agree or disagree with. Some thinkers find an explanation they can accept; others don't, but feel they can believe in a good God without it; still others quit religion entirely over it. It's not an easy problem, and it's not a solved one, and it's one that every serious Christian eventually grapples with. (Which is to say, someone who isn't grappling with it isn't very serious about their faith and is just parroting bumper stickers.)
C.S. Lewis is a good suggestion, and very digestible for an intelligent layman. Kevin Smith is also a good suggestion! Emilio Estevez's "The Way" is also really good; he grapples with his Catholicism and his father's (Martin Sheen's) via a pilgrimage story where Martin Sheen's character tries to grapple with theodicy (his son dies very young). The Brothers Karamazov is fundamentally about theodicy (and the first place a lot of theologians go); Alvin Plantinga's "God, Freedom, and Evil" is often a basic text in early theology classes.
The entire area of study known as "Holocaust theology" grapples with this problem of evil, from a Jewish perspective and a Christian perspective. How could a good God allow something so awful to happen to God's chosen people? A LOT of people have grappled theologically with that in the past 70 years -- including every major Christian denomination, who could not avoid forming a response -- in ways that might be the most meaningful to the modern mind. "Death of God" theology from the late 50s/early 60s is a closely-related school of (Protestant) thought, where Protestant theologians attempted to grapple with the realities of WWII and modernity.
(Also, tiny side note: People love to say "there's no atheists in foxholes" but that is literally where all the atheists come from, it was people sitting in foxholes in WWI going "holy crap God cannot possibly exist if this bullshit is happening" that gave birth to modern atheist thought, so ignore those assholes who claim there are no atheists in foxholes, they're basically just refusing to grapple with theodicy in any honest way.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:38 PM on September 6, 2020 [31 favorites]
The problem of theodicy -- literally "justifying God" in its Greek roots; in modern English "explaining the problem of evil" -- is one of the oldest in Christianity, and there are 2,000 years of intelligent people grappling with it that you can read and agree or disagree with. Some thinkers find an explanation they can accept; others don't, but feel they can believe in a good God without it; still others quit religion entirely over it. It's not an easy problem, and it's not a solved one, and it's one that every serious Christian eventually grapples with. (Which is to say, someone who isn't grappling with it isn't very serious about their faith and is just parroting bumper stickers.)
C.S. Lewis is a good suggestion, and very digestible for an intelligent layman. Kevin Smith is also a good suggestion! Emilio Estevez's "The Way" is also really good; he grapples with his Catholicism and his father's (Martin Sheen's) via a pilgrimage story where Martin Sheen's character tries to grapple with theodicy (his son dies very young). The Brothers Karamazov is fundamentally about theodicy (and the first place a lot of theologians go); Alvin Plantinga's "God, Freedom, and Evil" is often a basic text in early theology classes.
The entire area of study known as "Holocaust theology" grapples with this problem of evil, from a Jewish perspective and a Christian perspective. How could a good God allow something so awful to happen to God's chosen people? A LOT of people have grappled theologically with that in the past 70 years -- including every major Christian denomination, who could not avoid forming a response -- in ways that might be the most meaningful to the modern mind. "Death of God" theology from the late 50s/early 60s is a closely-related school of (Protestant) thought, where Protestant theologians attempted to grapple with the realities of WWII and modernity.
(Also, tiny side note: People love to say "there's no atheists in foxholes" but that is literally where all the atheists come from, it was people sitting in foxholes in WWI going "holy crap God cannot possibly exist if this bullshit is happening" that gave birth to modern atheist thought, so ignore those assholes who claim there are no atheists in foxholes, they're basically just refusing to grapple with theodicy in any honest way.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:38 PM on September 6, 2020 [31 favorites]
The Bible old testament says a lot about these natural devastations, and about how life just isn't really fair sometimes, and we just have to deal with it.
The Bible new testament is a message of hope about dealing with things.
(I'm not devout but that's my context)
posted by ovvl at 6:53 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
The Bible new testament is a message of hope about dealing with things.
(I'm not devout but that's my context)
posted by ovvl at 6:53 PM on September 6, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Look way way up past the local angels to (really not being glib here) to astronomy, if there is a god would it make sense to be just for this planet in a galaxy of billions of planets in a cluster of billions of galaxies? Take a larger view of the transcendent, the god of this actual universe started something with a bang, a big one and kicked off swirling clouds of divine particles that have transitioned through cycles of suns growing and exploding to create the elements of life. If there is an ultimate purpose at the god level, it's so much bigger than a single planet, perhaps the human race or something we transition into will be an integral part of that, but ask a five year old girl tumbling on mats to directly enter the olympics, nope, it takes huge trials for a youngster, amazing pain and growth, but some make it. Perhaps this trial on earth is one of many, again billions, to become some end that may not become apparent for cycles of galaxies. Thing really big, but remember beating the devil is in the details. Be as great as you can be each moment of each hour of each day.
(as a rejoinder from this heaviness, a daydream in the sun may be the most important moment, at that moment)
posted by sammyo at 7:25 PM on September 6, 2020 [14 favorites]
(as a rejoinder from this heaviness, a daydream in the sun may be the most important moment, at that moment)
posted by sammyo at 7:25 PM on September 6, 2020 [14 favorites]
I acknowledge that there are lots of terrible things in the world. But there are also rainbows and kittens - little teeny tiny pounce monsters who love to snuggle and purr - and delicate flowers with delicious scents. There's bright blue sky and gusty winds you can almost lean in to. There's birdsong and music. And amongst people there are so many who will go out of their way to help others and there are more of them than the bad people.
I love sammyo's post above. I studied intro astronomy at university and it gave me so much to think about. Big bang theory makes most sense to me when a higher power is involved. An explosion gave us violets and pandas and trees turning golden each year! I personally attribute this to God as a distant, benevolent universe. It gave us some really intolerable stuff too but I don't think everything being perfect would allow us to enjoy the wonderful things so well.
In many ways we're cursed by our extremely clever brains. Animals just get on with life. We are aware of so much more but we also doubt so much more and don't do well just being in the moment. My cats think there are some terrible things in the world (lightning, the vaccum cleaner, a half empty food bowl, delivery guys) but overall are so content with the good things these don't cause them doubt about life.
(Curious how many of the mystics had bipolar disorder. I used to feel very much at one with the universe - and then got diagnosed. Bummer. Still comforting to remember though - might be partly why I don't struggle with faith
posted by kitten magic at 8:26 PM on September 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
I love sammyo's post above. I studied intro astronomy at university and it gave me so much to think about. Big bang theory makes most sense to me when a higher power is involved. An explosion gave us violets and pandas and trees turning golden each year! I personally attribute this to God as a distant, benevolent universe. It gave us some really intolerable stuff too but I don't think everything being perfect would allow us to enjoy the wonderful things so well.
In many ways we're cursed by our extremely clever brains. Animals just get on with life. We are aware of so much more but we also doubt so much more and don't do well just being in the moment. My cats think there are some terrible things in the world (lightning, the vaccum cleaner, a half empty food bowl, delivery guys) but overall are so content with the good things these don't cause them doubt about life.
(Curious how many of the mystics had bipolar disorder. I used to feel very much at one with the universe - and then got diagnosed. Bummer. Still comforting to remember though - might be partly why I don't struggle with faith
posted by kitten magic at 8:26 PM on September 6, 2020 [7 favorites]
I'm not an atheist, but the god of Abraham (of Judaism, Christianity & Islam) never has fit well with my direct experiences of the divine or any theology that makes sense to me. The Christian story of a god who redemptively takes on human suffering is an amazing deep story on many levels, but I've been unable to accept it as true. In my own search I've been ultimately able to do without the idea (or idealization) that God is all-powerful, in favor of a good God who is friendly and on whose side I feel comfortable, but who doesn't have all the answers and is not able to bring about just any end they wish by fiat. God can fail. Not cause it's really a success that we mortals don't understand or that it will show fruits later on, but because They aren't omnipotent and so They sometimes fail. Maybe even a lot, in this world.
I've been helped in thinking about god -- and having my thinking about 'em shook up -- by studying the cosmology, myths and practice of the now mostly defunct world religion of Manichaeism. The Manichaeans saw us and our world as being caught up in an immense conflict between light and darkness (or, otherwise put, between spirit and matter, or reason and chaos.) Human beings are the product of a mixture of these two opposing elements, but can choose to be on the side of light and the God of light and Their creations and allies and fight against the harmful material chaos with them. Manichaeists are sometimes charicatured as being moral simpletons who saw things unduly in black-and-white terms and are quick to condemn and fight a demonized Other to irradication. This is very unfair. They saw us as inherently mixed. And they were rather hyper-pacifists, who saw soul in every part of the world, and saw their mission as to relieve suffering and gather light. Light to be ultimately returned to its source in the God of light, when the soul in the world has been liberated from the material world. (The forces of chaos are envisioned not as being ultimately subjected or punished, but rather as being left on their own.
It's nice system for thinking in a particular spiritual way about Western physical sciences. The world the physical sciences describe exists, but it's a world of blind matter antagonistic to the world of spirit to which we humans (along with the rest of creation) also belong. We live in this material world (of the physical sciences) but also in the spiritual world at the same time, cause they've mixed. And again we can choose to identify with the God of light and Their various allies to work to liberate ourselves and others from the suffering and pointless bondage due to the God of darkness and Their forces. (The two Gods at the same time correspond to each other and are radically incommensurable in their being and ways of acting. In some some sense it is wrong to speak of the Lord of darkness as being a spiritual being at all, for instance.)
Anyway, I'm not a full-fledged Manichaean by any means, but I like that you get a good, friendly God who's in a real conflict with badness and suffering -- real in the sense it's not in any sense preordained who will win! Because the good God is not the absolute dominator of our world. So, doing the work of God is actually helping God, and They can really use our help! (Unlike in the Abrahamic theologies.) It's not so much our salvation that's at stake, but the liberation of the God of light Themselves from mundane bondage by blind material forces.
I'm oversimplifying horribly. Mani's myths have a very large cast of divine characters. But I hope that gives you a taste of an alternative way of thinking about the divine.
I want also to say I don't myself think 'darkness' should be always associated with badness and evil. But that's a further topic.
For reading, I found the book The Manichaean Body very helpful, though it's more about practice than theology. Searching 'Mani and Manichaeism' on amazon brings up a bunch of books on the topic.
I hope your reflections on my and the others' comments help you toward good relations with your god!
posted by bertran at 9:01 PM on September 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
I've been helped in thinking about god -- and having my thinking about 'em shook up -- by studying the cosmology, myths and practice of the now mostly defunct world religion of Manichaeism. The Manichaeans saw us and our world as being caught up in an immense conflict between light and darkness (or, otherwise put, between spirit and matter, or reason and chaos.) Human beings are the product of a mixture of these two opposing elements, but can choose to be on the side of light and the God of light and Their creations and allies and fight against the harmful material chaos with them. Manichaeists are sometimes charicatured as being moral simpletons who saw things unduly in black-and-white terms and are quick to condemn and fight a demonized Other to irradication. This is very unfair. They saw us as inherently mixed. And they were rather hyper-pacifists, who saw soul in every part of the world, and saw their mission as to relieve suffering and gather light. Light to be ultimately returned to its source in the God of light, when the soul in the world has been liberated from the material world. (The forces of chaos are envisioned not as being ultimately subjected or punished, but rather as being left on their own.
It's nice system for thinking in a particular spiritual way about Western physical sciences. The world the physical sciences describe exists, but it's a world of blind matter antagonistic to the world of spirit to which we humans (along with the rest of creation) also belong. We live in this material world (of the physical sciences) but also in the spiritual world at the same time, cause they've mixed. And again we can choose to identify with the God of light and Their various allies to work to liberate ourselves and others from the suffering and pointless bondage due to the God of darkness and Their forces. (The two Gods at the same time correspond to each other and are radically incommensurable in their being and ways of acting. In some some sense it is wrong to speak of the Lord of darkness as being a spiritual being at all, for instance.)
Anyway, I'm not a full-fledged Manichaean by any means, but I like that you get a good, friendly God who's in a real conflict with badness and suffering -- real in the sense it's not in any sense preordained who will win! Because the good God is not the absolute dominator of our world. So, doing the work of God is actually helping God, and They can really use our help! (Unlike in the Abrahamic theologies.) It's not so much our salvation that's at stake, but the liberation of the God of light Themselves from mundane bondage by blind material forces.
I'm oversimplifying horribly. Mani's myths have a very large cast of divine characters. But I hope that gives you a taste of an alternative way of thinking about the divine.
I want also to say I don't myself think 'darkness' should be always associated with badness and evil. But that's a further topic.
For reading, I found the book The Manichaean Body very helpful, though it's more about practice than theology. Searching 'Mani and Manichaeism' on amazon brings up a bunch of books on the topic.
I hope your reflections on my and the others' comments help you toward good relations with your god!
posted by bertran at 9:01 PM on September 6, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh, to Why does this world exist at all? the Manichaeans answer that our world is a kind of unintended consequence of a certain diversionary gambit of the God of light in fighting the forces of darkness; the fact that the light and the darkness are fighting is itself due to a kind of weird accident by which the two realms collided and the creatures of chaos developed a kind of lust for the realm of light. This our world of mixture is thus a side effect to a minor skirmish in the cosmic battle having gone less than perfectly. (I like that about this religion too.)
posted by bertran at 9:17 PM on September 6, 2020
posted by bertran at 9:17 PM on September 6, 2020
A slightly different tack: consider why, specifically and in great detail, you require a belief in the divine and what that need means.
...I do not mean this as a cheap shot or anything, but rather that I’ve found a great many people don’t actually understand the basis of their belief, nor their need for belief, and that limits their ability to find answers — they don’t know why they’re looking, and thus don’t know what they’re looking for.
So, write it down. Read it after a few days, re-write, and so on until you’re pleased with the results.
And only then pursue the line of questioning you’ve outlined here.
If you don’t know where you are, you won’t know where to go.
posted by aramaic at 9:18 PM on September 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
...I do not mean this as a cheap shot or anything, but rather that I’ve found a great many people don’t actually understand the basis of their belief, nor their need for belief, and that limits their ability to find answers — they don’t know why they’re looking, and thus don’t know what they’re looking for.
So, write it down. Read it after a few days, re-write, and so on until you’re pleased with the results.
And only then pursue the line of questioning you’ve outlined here.
If you don’t know where you are, you won’t know where to go.
posted by aramaic at 9:18 PM on September 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
"least unconvincing" is my new favorite compound adjective.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:28 PM on September 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 11:28 PM on September 6, 2020 [3 favorites]
Bear in mind that this whole thing is only an issue in monotheistic religions. Manicheaism is a giant leap forwards as bertran says above, but consider that polytheistic religions don't have or need any version of the problem of evil. If you have a whole bunch of gods who are all doing their thing to the best of their current ability - but who are also riven by & playing out their ages-long rivalries - then it's entirely expected that some of the unwelcome consequences should plague our own lives.
When we choose to say that there's just One Big God in charge of everything, we've given them a bit too much to do.
posted by rd45 at 2:13 AM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
When we choose to say that there's just One Big God in charge of everything, we've given them a bit too much to do.
posted by rd45 at 2:13 AM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Belief has been overly-complicated by evangelicals (especially) IMO and all the other literalists, in their insistence on Earth being young and finite when God comes from/dwells in 'the infinite' - this favours cults and a throw-away society. Look into deep space and it's totally obvious you live in Deep Time, and that should be sacred enough on its own. [I assume you're framework is Christ, Mohammed or Moses].
There's not the space to say everything but it is likely (from reading (too?)deep into Genesis) that God was involved in an event that led to us. It is probable evolution was/is part of this process. God's intervention is also probable (altho' not - apparently - often or widespread). I'm comfortable with this and dismayed with proselytizers' focus on anti-evolution rather than redemption and treating Earth as sacred - where we come from is far less vital than how we live now.
I didn't always think this way and 30 years ago I was a good little pentecostal (small p - most of them don't deserve a Capital) and a True Believer™, but it was a shallow belief. But life changes and two degrees and different lifeways showed me everything is bigger, fantastically ancient and very, very complex - and sometimes just complicated.
A small part of me still believes in Jesus (a few inexplicable events have helped that) and I still wonder at nature. And I haven't thought so deeply on this for ?20 years.
posted by unearthed at 2:29 AM on September 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
There's not the space to say everything but it is likely (from reading (too?)deep into Genesis) that God was involved in an event that led to us. It is probable evolution was/is part of this process. God's intervention is also probable (altho' not - apparently - often or widespread). I'm comfortable with this and dismayed with proselytizers' focus on anti-evolution rather than redemption and treating Earth as sacred - where we come from is far less vital than how we live now.
I didn't always think this way and 30 years ago I was a good little pentecostal (small p - most of them don't deserve a Capital) and a True Believer™, but it was a shallow belief. But life changes and two degrees and different lifeways showed me everything is bigger, fantastically ancient and very, very complex - and sometimes just complicated.
A small part of me still believes in Jesus (a few inexplicable events have helped that) and I still wonder at nature. And I haven't thought so deeply on this for ?20 years.
posted by unearthed at 2:29 AM on September 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
But for the life of me, I can't figure out what scenario makes it okay for a world like this to exist —
two things come to mind, both based on stuff I sort of signed off on many decades ago. I'm sixty-one now.
The first is something somebody said in the heat of a rather intense back and forth on meaning/unmeaning, theism/atheism. Basically, they posited that nothing scares us humans more than the notion that the life-the-universe-everything is neither completely random/chaotic nor completely fixed/ordered -- that free will is real, IT MATTERS WHAT WE DO.
(that last part was shouted)
The second was my personal surrender to the notion that any definition of God (or gods) that I could properly comprehend would be, by definition, wrong. That if there's a God (or gods), then he-she-it-them-whatever is, by definition, forever beyond my grasp. I may catch a glimpse of something every now and then, but as soon as I try to grab onto it, or reach for my metaphorical camera, it's gone. Which doesn't mean it's not there.
posted by philip-random at 8:35 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
two things come to mind, both based on stuff I sort of signed off on many decades ago. I'm sixty-one now.
The first is something somebody said in the heat of a rather intense back and forth on meaning/unmeaning, theism/atheism. Basically, they posited that nothing scares us humans more than the notion that the life-the-universe-everything is neither completely random/chaotic nor completely fixed/ordered -- that free will is real, IT MATTERS WHAT WE DO.
(that last part was shouted)
The second was my personal surrender to the notion that any definition of God (or gods) that I could properly comprehend would be, by definition, wrong. That if there's a God (or gods), then he-she-it-them-whatever is, by definition, forever beyond my grasp. I may catch a glimpse of something every now and then, but as soon as I try to grab onto it, or reach for my metaphorical camera, it's gone. Which doesn't mean it's not there.
posted by philip-random at 8:35 AM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
My perspective is a little different, as a biologist and lifelong progressive Protestant. I was never really indoctrinated into literal creation or original sin, so I don't carry that baggage, and I've learned as an adult the joy of throwing off lots of other bits of theology, too. In trying to think of your best of all possible worlds, would everything around us be nearly as great if only perfectly good things happened and we had no choice but to do good? The freedom and randomness of the universe allows far greater things to be chosen and to evolve.
Why have just one kind of beetle when the combination of natural selection and random events that we call evolution allows the joy of 400,000 different beetles, all beautiful and amazing solutions to the problem of how to survive? Why have creatures that love God and and do the right thing because that's all they can do, when there can be creatures who screw up sometimes and yet keep choosing to love and choosing to do the right thing with their free will in new and amazing ways every single day? Why have only one planet in the universe like this that is exactly 4000 years old where there were once a single pair of humans who made a dumb mistake that condemned us all forever when there can be an unlimited number of amazing planets where amazing things have been happening for billions of years and a single action can always change the future?
(Getting into Christianity here--I apologize if you are not Christian. Then just skip this part) Why imagine a God who took human form to serve as a blood sacrifice for God's own weird system of justice when we could have a God who took human form in order to experience this amazing freedom and randomness and love for Godself, even knowing that part of that experience is suffering and dying, and that sometimes that suffering and dying is punishment from our fellow humans when we choose to do the right things?
posted by hydropsyche at 8:44 AM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Why have just one kind of beetle when the combination of natural selection and random events that we call evolution allows the joy of 400,000 different beetles, all beautiful and amazing solutions to the problem of how to survive? Why have creatures that love God and and do the right thing because that's all they can do, when there can be creatures who screw up sometimes and yet keep choosing to love and choosing to do the right thing with their free will in new and amazing ways every single day? Why have only one planet in the universe like this that is exactly 4000 years old where there were once a single pair of humans who made a dumb mistake that condemned us all forever when there can be an unlimited number of amazing planets where amazing things have been happening for billions of years and a single action can always change the future?
(Getting into Christianity here--I apologize if you are not Christian. Then just skip this part) Why imagine a God who took human form to serve as a blood sacrifice for God's own weird system of justice when we could have a God who took human form in order to experience this amazing freedom and randomness and love for Godself, even knowing that part of that experience is suffering and dying, and that sometimes that suffering and dying is punishment from our fellow humans when we choose to do the right things?
posted by hydropsyche at 8:44 AM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
There are two common answers to the problem of evil that are often dismissed as unsatisfying that I think are actually much more compelling than people say.
1. Imagine an omnipotent God. How is it possible for this God to create genuine persons who are not mere puppets that God pretends are independent beings? How could they ever be more than a video game character that God has written all the dialogue for, programmed all of the actions?
I think it's possible that this is something very hard for God to do, not in spite of God's omnipotence but because of it. Maybe the only way to create genuine persons is to create an entire universe with non-deterministic laws and wait for life to evolve. Maybe this whole universe that makes us seem insignificant is in fact the minimum size necessary to create persons who are not God's puppets.
There are a lot of saints and mystics who say they have had an exceptionally vivid encounter with God. They talk about losing their sense of identity, feeling at one with God. And afterwards they often feel devastated. They refer to the time after the encounter when God seems to have left them as "The Dark Night of the Soul." You get the impression that maybe it's very dangerous for God to get too close to someone, that their personhood is in danger of being erased. (Perhaps if there were somehow a way for God to actually become a human being, that would be the only safe way to interact with us?)
Imagine that God wants to intervene in our lives to prevent evil and help us, and that God does do so as much as possible, but that every time God touches the universe, there is that danger of erasing us, destroying our independent personhood and making us mere puppets that God could only pretend were persons.
2. Imagine someone who has been harmed in a way that deeply disturbs you, that makes you question the existence or goodness of God.
Now imagine if you could give that person an entire week without pain. A week in which they were at peace with the people around them. A week with people they loved who loved them. A week in which they had satisfying, worthwhile things to do which they could do well. A week living somewhere safe, comfortable, and beautiful, with plenty to eat.
Now imagine that instead of a week, they could live that way for an entire year. What if they could live that way for 20 years? I don't know how old you are, but can you imagine living for 50 years like that? Fifty years of living a life of peace, joy, and love?
The idea that Heaven could somehow make up for the pain and suffering of this life is widely regarded as naïve, offensive, cruelly indifferent to people who have suffered, a monstrous justification for ignoring injustice, for turning our backs on people we could help. And it's true that I have suffered less than most people in this world do, so maybe I'm only one disaster away from thinking all of this is worthless nonsense.
And yet, I have a very hard time believing there are wounds that could not be healed by 50 years of peace, joy, and love. But the promise of Heaven is not just 50 years. What kind of wound could not be healed by 300 good years? 12,000 good years? 450,000,000 good years?
There are still questions (if Heaven is impossible now, how could it be possible in the future?) and there are other reasons to doubt whether God exists at all, whether the Christian story about Jesus is true. But when it comes to The Problem of Evil, these kinds of thoughts have made me feel that even if I'm wrong about some of the particulars, there's not some logical impossibility to the idea that a world like ours could be created and loved by a God who is omnipotent and good. I wouldn't say that I have the explanation, but I feel like there really could be one.
posted by straight at 8:53 AM on September 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
1. Imagine an omnipotent God. How is it possible for this God to create genuine persons who are not mere puppets that God pretends are independent beings? How could they ever be more than a video game character that God has written all the dialogue for, programmed all of the actions?
I think it's possible that this is something very hard for God to do, not in spite of God's omnipotence but because of it. Maybe the only way to create genuine persons is to create an entire universe with non-deterministic laws and wait for life to evolve. Maybe this whole universe that makes us seem insignificant is in fact the minimum size necessary to create persons who are not God's puppets.
There are a lot of saints and mystics who say they have had an exceptionally vivid encounter with God. They talk about losing their sense of identity, feeling at one with God. And afterwards they often feel devastated. They refer to the time after the encounter when God seems to have left them as "The Dark Night of the Soul." You get the impression that maybe it's very dangerous for God to get too close to someone, that their personhood is in danger of being erased. (Perhaps if there were somehow a way for God to actually become a human being, that would be the only safe way to interact with us?)
Imagine that God wants to intervene in our lives to prevent evil and help us, and that God does do so as much as possible, but that every time God touches the universe, there is that danger of erasing us, destroying our independent personhood and making us mere puppets that God could only pretend were persons.
2. Imagine someone who has been harmed in a way that deeply disturbs you, that makes you question the existence or goodness of God.
Now imagine if you could give that person an entire week without pain. A week in which they were at peace with the people around them. A week with people they loved who loved them. A week in which they had satisfying, worthwhile things to do which they could do well. A week living somewhere safe, comfortable, and beautiful, with plenty to eat.
Now imagine that instead of a week, they could live that way for an entire year. What if they could live that way for 20 years? I don't know how old you are, but can you imagine living for 50 years like that? Fifty years of living a life of peace, joy, and love?
The idea that Heaven could somehow make up for the pain and suffering of this life is widely regarded as naïve, offensive, cruelly indifferent to people who have suffered, a monstrous justification for ignoring injustice, for turning our backs on people we could help. And it's true that I have suffered less than most people in this world do, so maybe I'm only one disaster away from thinking all of this is worthless nonsense.
And yet, I have a very hard time believing there are wounds that could not be healed by 50 years of peace, joy, and love. But the promise of Heaven is not just 50 years. What kind of wound could not be healed by 300 good years? 12,000 good years? 450,000,000 good years?
There are still questions (if Heaven is impossible now, how could it be possible in the future?) and there are other reasons to doubt whether God exists at all, whether the Christian story about Jesus is true. But when it comes to The Problem of Evil, these kinds of thoughts have made me feel that even if I'm wrong about some of the particulars, there's not some logical impossibility to the idea that a world like ours could be created and loved by a God who is omnipotent and good. I wouldn't say that I have the explanation, but I feel like there really could be one.
posted by straight at 8:53 AM on September 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
OK - such as it is, my woo-woo perspective points to something like this.
God(s) created this world as a ‘resistance’ or ‘friction’ realm/stage and put it into motion… leaving it a place/state where every single human being faces inescapable adversities in one way or another… either natural, self-inflicted, or by others.
But in this realm, our perspective is extremely limited. We don’t know what happens after death and we assume that it’s bad to be avoided. If it’s not, Life can be viewed a beautiful ‘blank slate’ where events are ultimately neutral. Yes, I believe ‘evil’ (pure egoic selfishness) exists. But as humans we have the ability, through cultivating presence, to ultimately be aware of, and choose our response to adversities and circumstances. Adversity gives us opportunities to grow in awareness, change perspectives and our ability to Love. The ‘choice’ might take place or evolve long after the event, or is something we arrive to, but we have a place where we can change and evolve. Sometimes it might be seemingly impossible/unfair, extraordinarily hard to swallow, ego-crushing. But we also have a capacity to create or channel solutions, growth, support, nourishment. This happens on a personal and collective level. (How you get there is another subject)
But for all this to happen, you need a stage.. a marvelous laboratory where all states of being are available (rage, deception/ selflessness, kindness). And this realm is comprised of physical, organic mechanisms… ever-changing, ever-recycling, ever-populating loops and spirals. Providing threats, opportunities. Nature is like this, our bodies are like this, and our spiritual growth (our Connectedness/ capacity to Love) is like this. The entire construct is a glorious wide-spectrum of physical/ spiritual availability and possibility. It’s the Way of the Universe and why I can perceive God(s) to be benevolent.
posted by mrmarley at 9:34 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
God(s) created this world as a ‘resistance’ or ‘friction’ realm/stage and put it into motion… leaving it a place/state where every single human being faces inescapable adversities in one way or another… either natural, self-inflicted, or by others.
But in this realm, our perspective is extremely limited. We don’t know what happens after death and we assume that it’s bad to be avoided. If it’s not, Life can be viewed a beautiful ‘blank slate’ where events are ultimately neutral. Yes, I believe ‘evil’ (pure egoic selfishness) exists. But as humans we have the ability, through cultivating presence, to ultimately be aware of, and choose our response to adversities and circumstances. Adversity gives us opportunities to grow in awareness, change perspectives and our ability to Love. The ‘choice’ might take place or evolve long after the event, or is something we arrive to, but we have a place where we can change and evolve. Sometimes it might be seemingly impossible/unfair, extraordinarily hard to swallow, ego-crushing. But we also have a capacity to create or channel solutions, growth, support, nourishment. This happens on a personal and collective level. (How you get there is another subject)
But for all this to happen, you need a stage.. a marvelous laboratory where all states of being are available (rage, deception/ selflessness, kindness). And this realm is comprised of physical, organic mechanisms… ever-changing, ever-recycling, ever-populating loops and spirals. Providing threats, opportunities. Nature is like this, our bodies are like this, and our spiritual growth (our Connectedness/ capacity to Love) is like this. The entire construct is a glorious wide-spectrum of physical/ spiritual availability and possibility. It’s the Way of the Universe and why I can perceive God(s) to be benevolent.
posted by mrmarley at 9:34 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I quote from the Book of straight, who alludes to what we were taught at our Reform Jewish temple, in the context of understanding how the Holocaust could have happened: Humans must have free will for life to be truly meaningful. I'm pretty sure our teacher didn't get into coronaviruses or anything, but it's not hard from there to apply that principle to explaining non- or less-human-originated evils and woes (most obviously, cancer). Maybe such a God created the whole thing and then pulled back to give the whole thing integrity, and intervening now would be like a higher-stakes equivalent to seeing your team fall behind big in the Super Bowl and being able to hit a Reset button as if it were all just a game of Madden. And/or the whole light/shadow thing; if you watched the NBC sitcom The Good Place (which everyone should!), you'll remember how they treated Heaven, and their solution to that problem. I think their treatment of the afterlife applies to life as well -- humans are too adaptable, and if life were 'perfect,' we'd get used to it and it would stop feeling that way.
posted by troywestfield at 10:33 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by troywestfield at 10:33 AM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
note: i am NOT religious
but my answer to that is that he gave us continual free will. he's under no obligation to protect anyone. if we make the wrong decision, we are the ones responsible
posted by megan_magnolia at 10:34 AM on September 7, 2020
but my answer to that is that he gave us continual free will. he's under no obligation to protect anyone. if we make the wrong decision, we are the ones responsible
posted by megan_magnolia at 10:34 AM on September 7, 2020
I often think about my cat when I go to work (less so in our Era of COVID, but normally): he's sad that I'm leaving him for what seems like no reason. I can't explain to him capitalist systems, or my need to go to work in order to keep him in home and kibble, or how my day to day life is structured in a way where my want of seeing to his larger needs involves balancing actions that might make him unhappy in a short term way but that cares for him in greater way that is outside of his understanding.
In the same way, I am agnostic because I recognize that there are likely cosmic realities that are so outside of my scope of understanding that I cannot fully comprehend them. That's not to say that I think that science is futile, only that our way of coming to understand things is inherently going to shaped by our needs, our culture, our history, our human brains. In that way, what we know is correct, but is also likely only a tiny piece of the grand richness that is existence.
In the same way, I also think that my experiencing the world, with all the attendant joys and pains, is a miraculous way of the universe experiencing itself. This time and my spark of self-awareness in the greater continuity of being is only separated from what is around it, that enormous complexity, by my perception of there being separation. And even in the moments of pain and suffering, this is just the small part of the greater existence extending backwards and forwards in what to me is an incomprehensible richness of being. In that context, the conceptions of a higher power and the order of the universe can be understood in many ways that are all only glimpses of parts of the infinitely complex whole, like how using a telescope to look at the stars doesn't make the fish in the sea cease to be.
I don't know if this gels well with your view of the world and a greater power, but I think it could.
posted by past unusual at 12:06 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
In the same way, I am agnostic because I recognize that there are likely cosmic realities that are so outside of my scope of understanding that I cannot fully comprehend them. That's not to say that I think that science is futile, only that our way of coming to understand things is inherently going to shaped by our needs, our culture, our history, our human brains. In that way, what we know is correct, but is also likely only a tiny piece of the grand richness that is existence.
In the same way, I also think that my experiencing the world, with all the attendant joys and pains, is a miraculous way of the universe experiencing itself. This time and my spark of self-awareness in the greater continuity of being is only separated from what is around it, that enormous complexity, by my perception of there being separation. And even in the moments of pain and suffering, this is just the small part of the greater existence extending backwards and forwards in what to me is an incomprehensible richness of being. In that context, the conceptions of a higher power and the order of the universe can be understood in many ways that are all only glimpses of parts of the infinitely complex whole, like how using a telescope to look at the stars doesn't make the fish in the sea cease to be.
I don't know if this gels well with your view of the world and a greater power, but I think it could.
posted by past unusual at 12:06 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'll suggest a different angle from all the smart, thoughtful answers so far: what if you saw this less as a question of theory and belief, and more as a spiritual need to be addressed by cultivating some kind of practice?
No one has solved the problem of theodicy despite millennia of attempts. And I suspect that the part of you that's discontent might actually not be satisfied even if it could be presented with a watertight logical justification for the existence of evil and suffering. So it might be more productive to address that discontent using some sort of sustained spiritual practice -- whether it's meditation, walking in nature, spending meaningful time with your loved ones, entheogenic exploration, or whatever else that might mean for you.
In my own experience as an agnostic who's regularly plagued by the same questions as you, I find that they bother me a lot less when I've been regularly taking care of myself in ways like the above -- I'm less likely to feel that sense of cosmic resentment of injustice, and more okay with accepting that I don't know the answers, nor am I meant to.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 12:45 PM on September 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
No one has solved the problem of theodicy despite millennia of attempts. And I suspect that the part of you that's discontent might actually not be satisfied even if it could be presented with a watertight logical justification for the existence of evil and suffering. So it might be more productive to address that discontent using some sort of sustained spiritual practice -- whether it's meditation, walking in nature, spending meaningful time with your loved ones, entheogenic exploration, or whatever else that might mean for you.
In my own experience as an agnostic who's regularly plagued by the same questions as you, I find that they bother me a lot less when I've been regularly taking care of myself in ways like the above -- I'm less likely to feel that sense of cosmic resentment of injustice, and more okay with accepting that I don't know the answers, nor am I meant to.
posted by hoist with his own pet aardvark at 12:45 PM on September 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
You might be interested in the Future Perfect podcast, and specifically the recent 8-part series they did called "The Way Through." They spoke with faith leaders from many traditions about how to grapple with everything that 2020 is throwing at us. It's perhaps not as existential in nature as your ultimate question, but there are a lot of truly fascinating discussions.
I was raised Lutheran and now am a Unitarian Universalist who hasn't made it to church in a while. That said, I *really* enjoyed the Christianity-focused episode, in which the host interviews a radical Catholic nun. She talks about the concept that life is just inherently really difficult, and God is there not as the deity who forced this pain upon you, but as a presence that can be with you in your inevitable suffering. I liked that idea.
posted by leftover_scrabble_rack at 4:33 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I was raised Lutheran and now am a Unitarian Universalist who hasn't made it to church in a while. That said, I *really* enjoyed the Christianity-focused episode, in which the host interviews a radical Catholic nun. She talks about the concept that life is just inherently really difficult, and God is there not as the deity who forced this pain upon you, but as a presence that can be with you in your inevitable suffering. I liked that idea.
posted by leftover_scrabble_rack at 4:33 PM on September 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Per reading "When Bad Things Happen To Good People," God is not omnipotent. Frankly, that makes me feel better. God isn't being all "I COULD save you from X, but fuck you, no!" it's not "God is a kid with an ant farm," it's not God on Supernatural being a dick--it's more like God doesn't have all that much power. God isn't thrilled about the hurricane or your three year old getting cancer, nor is God just not giving a fuck about any of it. God just can't do everything we though s/he could.
If you ever read Chalion books by Lois McMaster Bujold, it's a similar idea. Gods can't do anything without getting some assistance in that world. God sent a lot of people to save (removed character's name for spoiling) but all of them had the free will to decide not to go after all.
God works in the dark places and areas we're not looking in. Sometimes God can create miracles but most of the time, s/he can't. Sometimes God can help, and does, when it can. But probably most of the time, it can't do much or a lot in the way that we ask. We can ask, but God may or may not be able to deliver. Other people's free will is also an issue. I may have asked God to get me into a play, but if the director doesn't think I'm any good, then so much for that. You may want someone to fall in love with them, but if they are not capable of falling in love with you, then God can't fix that. God probably can't do much if there's no possibility path to what you want, or if it's a weak possibility path (that one reminds me of the Summon the Keeper series). Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. God wants to help, but is limited in what it can do.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:14 PM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
If you ever read Chalion books by Lois McMaster Bujold, it's a similar idea. Gods can't do anything without getting some assistance in that world. God sent a lot of people to save (removed character's name for spoiling) but all of them had the free will to decide not to go after all.
God works in the dark places and areas we're not looking in. Sometimes God can create miracles but most of the time, s/he can't. Sometimes God can help, and does, when it can. But probably most of the time, it can't do much or a lot in the way that we ask. We can ask, but God may or may not be able to deliver. Other people's free will is also an issue. I may have asked God to get me into a play, but if the director doesn't think I'm any good, then so much for that. You may want someone to fall in love with them, but if they are not capable of falling in love with you, then God can't fix that. God probably can't do much if there's no possibility path to what you want, or if it's a weak possibility path (that one reminds me of the Summon the Keeper series). Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. God wants to help, but is limited in what it can do.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:14 PM on September 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Math and the non-zero sum game. Life is evolving towards greater and greater complexity, and greater and greater degrees of symbiosis. Life, on the level of DNA is evolving towards integrating more separate living components to make a greater whole. Predatory behaviour is not as successful in the long run as cooperative behaviour.
__
The purpose of pain, sorrow, death, suffering and all that is to give us a purpose. People get killed so that we will work on preventing deaths. Suffering is an opportunity to alleviate suffering. The reason pain hurts so horribly is so that we will feel empathy when other suffer because we understand it ourselves. All the bad stuff in existence is to give us something meaningful to do, not just hedonism and creativity and competition.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:43 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
__
The purpose of pain, sorrow, death, suffering and all that is to give us a purpose. People get killed so that we will work on preventing deaths. Suffering is an opportunity to alleviate suffering. The reason pain hurts so horribly is so that we will feel empathy when other suffer because we understand it ourselves. All the bad stuff in existence is to give us something meaningful to do, not just hedonism and creativity and competition.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:43 PM on September 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Wow. That's a great question! I've been in my faith for decades and I still revisit those basics quite often. Let me try and relate my God (I'm Catholic) in plain language and *very* over-simplified terms:
0. Least incorrect thing to say is that God is undefinable. Things about God can be known, from both reason and his own revelation of himself, but God can never be fully known.
1. St. Thomas Aquinas said God is not a highest powerful being (ens summum) but the very act of Being itself (ipsum esse).
2. God, as unconditioned Being, needs nothing. Especially not from anything he creates.
3. Yet here we are. Conditional beings like us, and the rest of creation, are held in being by God, who is Being itself. "Yahweh" roughly translates as "that which holds things in being."
4. Since God did not make creation for himself (because he needs nothing) creation is for us. The very notion of creation "ex nihilo," out of nothing, implies that creation is an outpouring of God's self for the sake of his creation. Or, creation is a gift. Our lives, beings, are gifts.
5. The next least incorrect thing to say about God is that God is Love. A special kind of Love which is a sacrifice of one's self for another as other. God as the outpouring of one's self for another's sake. This is the most useful definition of God for me in my everyday life.
6. Next most useful image of God to me is the Holy Trinity. St. Augustine put it like this: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are like a pattern of how love works. Father is the Lover who initiates the sacrifice of love. Son is the Beloved who receives the love and responds, often with love in return. And the Holy Spirit is the love exchanged between them which takes on a life energy of its own. The whole "system" is God. The Trinitarian God is a divine relationship which works as a model of an ideal human loving relationship.
6. In the book of Genesis, God looked on his creation and declared it to be good. That's God's original judgement of us and his creation.
7. But creation involves some suffering by design (e.g creatures survive by eating other creatures, creatures die and decay, etc.)
8. On top of this suffering, because of "the Fall," we sometimes use our free will to choose things that are not good for us and others (e.g. "sin") and by doing so introduce extra, unnecessary suffering into creation.
9. We have free will because the kind of Love that God is, that we are allowed to share with God, must be freely chosen.
10. Part of the mystery of suffering is that we can choose to be with others in their suffering, bear suffering with and for others, help protect and heal each other, etc. And we can make sacrifices to avoid the kinds of choices that create unnecessary suffering (a.k.a. "discipline.")
11. Salvation history boils down to the story of how God helps humanity learn to Love one another, culminating in God actually coming down in Human form to live and suffer with us and show how to bear our suffering with Love. Jesus Christ is considered by my faith to be the fullest human representation of 1-10 above.
And that is a gross reduction of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian belief and millions of person-years of theological thought into a few lines. Not trying to proselytize, just sharing what currently works for me.
These essential images and thoughts about God guide my daily choices (when I'm doing well) and are the standard by which I examine the worthiness of my actions at the end of each day. I find them immensely practical and can draw direct associations between my choices to act as if all this is true and the fruits of serenity and happiness in my life. Hopefully this helps you too.
posted by cross_impact at 8:45 PM on September 8, 2020
0. Least incorrect thing to say is that God is undefinable. Things about God can be known, from both reason and his own revelation of himself, but God can never be fully known.
1. St. Thomas Aquinas said God is not a highest powerful being (ens summum) but the very act of Being itself (ipsum esse).
2. God, as unconditioned Being, needs nothing. Especially not from anything he creates.
3. Yet here we are. Conditional beings like us, and the rest of creation, are held in being by God, who is Being itself. "Yahweh" roughly translates as "that which holds things in being."
4. Since God did not make creation for himself (because he needs nothing) creation is for us. The very notion of creation "ex nihilo," out of nothing, implies that creation is an outpouring of God's self for the sake of his creation. Or, creation is a gift. Our lives, beings, are gifts.
5. The next least incorrect thing to say about God is that God is Love. A special kind of Love which is a sacrifice of one's self for another as other. God as the outpouring of one's self for another's sake. This is the most useful definition of God for me in my everyday life.
6. Next most useful image of God to me is the Holy Trinity. St. Augustine put it like this: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are like a pattern of how love works. Father is the Lover who initiates the sacrifice of love. Son is the Beloved who receives the love and responds, often with love in return. And the Holy Spirit is the love exchanged between them which takes on a life energy of its own. The whole "system" is God. The Trinitarian God is a divine relationship which works as a model of an ideal human loving relationship.
6. In the book of Genesis, God looked on his creation and declared it to be good. That's God's original judgement of us and his creation.
7. But creation involves some suffering by design (e.g creatures survive by eating other creatures, creatures die and decay, etc.)
8. On top of this suffering, because of "the Fall," we sometimes use our free will to choose things that are not good for us and others (e.g. "sin") and by doing so introduce extra, unnecessary suffering into creation.
9. We have free will because the kind of Love that God is, that we are allowed to share with God, must be freely chosen.
10. Part of the mystery of suffering is that we can choose to be with others in their suffering, bear suffering with and for others, help protect and heal each other, etc. And we can make sacrifices to avoid the kinds of choices that create unnecessary suffering (a.k.a. "discipline.")
11. Salvation history boils down to the story of how God helps humanity learn to Love one another, culminating in God actually coming down in Human form to live and suffer with us and show how to bear our suffering with Love. Jesus Christ is considered by my faith to be the fullest human representation of 1-10 above.
And that is a gross reduction of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian belief and millions of person-years of theological thought into a few lines. Not trying to proselytize, just sharing what currently works for me.
These essential images and thoughts about God guide my daily choices (when I'm doing well) and are the standard by which I examine the worthiness of my actions at the end of each day. I find them immensely practical and can draw direct associations between my choices to act as if all this is true and the fruits of serenity and happiness in my life. Hopefully this helps you too.
posted by cross_impact at 8:45 PM on September 8, 2020
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I'm also not sure that this is something that can be solved by research, especially the sense of dissonance that you seem to feel between what you think you need to believe and the world around you.
posted by sagc at 4:59 PM on September 6, 2020