by Lyle Troseth
My last two posts have followed two experts discussing the problem of evil. One commentator, Lyle Troseth, offered a particularly moving response outlining his conclusion regarding the problem. I reprint the comment here in full,
For those of us raised with generic church going training, at some point, these questions arise. (accompanied by guilt for daring to question God) I suspect we usually accept the somewhat bland reasons stated…..evil vs free will, no front without a back, (but isn’t He omnipotent?) Leibniz’s best possible world. etc, etc.
Or…. We arrive at the most likely probability…..God does not exist. It is only an indifferent, mindless, natural universe. A universe of processes, both driven by, and constrained by, a handful of natural laws.
There is one personal phase I remember going through. (I hadn’t yet arrived at the point where I was willing to relinquish belief in the supernatural.) It is mentioned in Mr. Shrode’s section 5.
“He wills the harm.”
In other words, all we had been taught about God’s love was false. God was evil. At best, he was indifferent. Any evidence of Love was contradicted by much more evidence of his Cruelty. Not to mention Hell being the eternal reward for ingratitude for this state of affairs. His Great Flood was the same as the bored child drowning his ant farm.
For myself, the idea of no God at all is far preferable to that of an omnipotent being, with power over my life and soul, actually existing.
Some random thoughts related to what I just wrote. I have been told that people cried when they heard Stalin had died. They had plenty of life evidence to tell them that he was a cruel monster. They feared him (and his demons/NKVD). But yet, to make it all bearable, they loved him. Worshipped him even. Excused his crimes as he was working for a greater good, a Utopia. Perhaps this is something deep in our human needs?
The other thought is my (fallible) memory of Elie Wiesel’s short personal memoir of WW2, “Night”. As time went on, I realized it wasn’t just an account of the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. It was the journey of a very devout Jewish adolescent losing his faith in the God he thought he knew.
[Here are 2 episodes from the book]
One, the inmates are watching the hanging of a young boy. The men began to stir and grumble. Not about the SS. Nor the Germans in general. Nor the Kapos. They were asking, out loud, “Where is God?”
The other episode was the Jewish New Year (I think that was the holiday). He watched the men of the barracks begin to sing and pray traditional songs. Traditional praises.
Watching this young Elie thought, “these men are stronger than God”. “God has abandoned them, but they have not abandoned God.” “They are greater than God.”
As I look back at this book, I think what a universe-changing insight that must have been for a young, devout boy. Some years later, I came across a play he had written. “The Trial of God”. It made me reread “Night”. I concluded that if, somehow, he hadn’t concluded that God did not exist, he had definitely decided God himself was either evil or powerless against evil.
If that were indeed the case, and God exists, what possible Hope could any of us have?
____________________________________________________________________
Mr. Shrode, the original author of the post that started this discussion, responded to Mr. Troseth as follows,
To Lyle, I can only extend a hand in brotherly commiseration. I’d agree that if God exists, what chance do we have. Fortunately, he doesn’t, and our ember of hope can struggle on, one day perhaps, to ironically fulfill the promise of the empty religions. With hope, we can possibly create a meaning that is forever indebted to and acknowledging of the struggles of mankind as we learned to live not for a God but for each other.
I would like to thank all those who have contributed to these discussions. I have learned a lot from you.
Inasmuch as human beings are endowed with some something called consciousness, which deepens as they mature from childhood, one would think they also have the faculty we call rationality. One would likewise conclude that rationality is distributed equally, all else being *equal*. As it turns out, however, the “all else” is virtually never equal. The children grow up, in different environments; with different influences, different ethics educations, etc. This largely determines the reality of who and what they finally become. Each blank slate, then, displays a different picture on the road to maturity and upon arrival. Thus it isn’t surprising that people disagree about these philosophical issues.
The problem is a Judeo-Christian God that is omnipotent, omniscient and creator of everything. A God that can do six impossible things before breakfast and which we then have to try and apply logic to understand. Or rather, use logic to justify our belief in the ridiculous.
That’s not to say there in no God, or Gods. The pagan position is a lot more coherent – that powerful entities exist (however defined) but only interact with us occasionally and not always to our benefit.
To illustrate, right now we are in the process of creating our own AI Gods. What do we expect of them?
Dirk, thanks for your thoughtful reply. I agree with most of what you say except I’m not sure about the other powerful existing entities.
Thanks John,
What a thoughtful article.
“A being having infinite attributes eternal in its duration, necessarily exists” Spinoza
I was an infantry medic in Vietnam and could not reconcile what I witnessed with a G__ that is all powerful, knowing, and present. He was AWOL on many occasions. I know a fellow veteran who says he became more religious after a near death experience where his comrade was killed. He never explained the inconsistency. My experience was that being to early or too late, too high or too low or too quick or too slow was the difference between life and death; luck not devine intervention.
Belief, in the ridiculous, is status quo. And belief (after Davidson) IS propositional, meaning, in part, it obtains, depending upon whichever system is being adhered to. So, we have Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Heretics, Atheists and so on. I believe, *all else considered*, the “sun will come up (appear) tomorrow”. In this sense, belief is experiential…it does not rely upon faith. Whether or not “God” is involved with all that is irrelevant. Our only advantage (or burden), in a higher order consciousness sense (after Edelman) is that we can think about all that. A deer, or, elephant, takes it one day, at a time. Which is not so bad either. Planning gets tedious, doesn’t it?
Thanks much for your thoughtfl comment Joseph. JGM
Too many useless ads on your blog, Dr. And, they can’t be deleted. Disappointing. Oh, well—I will read what I can. Your posts are in my top three. Thank you!
don’t have control of them
My apologies for being so late in an added comment to Mr. Moran’s reflections.
Perhaps it will be as though a comment falling in the forest.
While I have no such similar life experience, your observation of God being AWOL on many occasions strikes a chord. Where is He?
The irreconcilable reality of “I survived by Divine Providence, while my partner did not.”
All sorts of backflips of logic have to be invoked for such events and still retain Faith.
Your comments on luck reminded me of some lines from a poem:
…….
You survived because you were the first.
You survived because you were the last.
Because you were alone. Because of people.
Because you turned left. Because you turned right.
……
……
Luckily there was a wood.
Luckily there were no trees.
……
……
Your comment on too high or too low, too early or too late, etc says the same.
Your insights born of fire were the same as the poets.
Thank you for sharing them.