In response to a piece I wrote on Nietzsche and intrinsic human worth, I heard from a college student, who wrote me this:
We read Nietzsche in philosophy last semester, so it was fun to hear him strongly taken to task. However, while this is a terrific argument about why atheism/agnosticism is an unsustainable world view, my problem with it is that I’ve heard it used too often … as a rebuttal to the Problem of Evil, despite the fact that this doesn’t really do anything to defend our worldview from the Problem of Evil. As a believer, one of the hardest philosophical questions for me to overcome is how can God be perfectly benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent and allow for evil in the world. So, I guess my question is: how do you deal with this problem philosophically as a believer?
That is a very important, difficult, and age-old question, and one I’m planning to respond to in short order. Suffice to say the matter of theodicy is among the more challenging ones for people of faith to grapple with. I should add that as someone whose own pilgrimage of faith has often been marked by intellectual struggles and even, from time to time, doubt, I have great sympathy with the question posed by this student. (C.S. Lewis once referred to the “incurable intellectualism of my approach,” which he meant as no compliment.)
My own view has been to never discourage honest inquiries from anyone, either believers or those who have no religious faith at all. The words of the Lord found in the book of Isaiah — “Come now, let us reason together” — have been something of a touchstone for me. And the examples of anti-intellectualism, and even obscurantism, that one finds within some strands of Christianity have long troubled me.
But over time I have come to some preliminary (and thoroughly unoriginal) conclusions, one of which is that faith, while certainly not at odds with reason, goes well beyond reason. Faith is, after all, “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” in the words of the author of Hebrews. Jesus put it blunter still: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
There is, in other words, something about the nature of faith that requires a leap of faith. One can believe Judaism and Christianity are historical faiths, for example, while also acknowledging that they cannot be proven to be true in an indisputable, scientific, empirical way. That will never happen – and it was never meant to happen.
The second insight into the matter of faith and doubt was underscored to me once again while re-reading Lewis. In one of his essays, when asked to write about the difficulties that people must face in trying to present their faith to modern unbelievers, Lewis said this:
The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are quite reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge; if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the bench and God is in the dock.
Lewis, perhaps the greatest apologist for the Christian faith in the 20th century, would have been the last person in the world to denigrate a person for asking tough questions about the nature of God. (Lewis, in fact, helped found The Oxford Socratic Club, whose guiding principle came from Socrates, who exhorted men to “follow the argument wherever it led them.” The purpose of the Club was to apply that principle to one particular subject matter – the pros and cons of the Christian religion.)
Still, Lewis was making an important point, which is that questions about faith are one thing; calling into question the fundamental character of God, or acting in arrogant judgment of Him, is something else again.
These are not easy matters to sort through. After all, if one believes some of the actions of God are unjust – for example, God calling for the complete destruction of the Canaanites, including children — that will, for some people, reflect on how they perceive the character of God. Lewis himself, besieged by grief after the death of his wife, gave voice to his own fears. “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but, ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’”
Some theologians I know found Lewis’s book, and his struggles, to be troubling. I never have and, in fact, I appreciate his candor and honesty. I also took some comfort in the fact that even Lewis was not immune to doubt and to struggles. We shouldn’t pretend these things are virtues; but neither should we deny that they are fully understandable, and in some respects entirely predictable. There is no shame in wrestling with doubt.
In the end, Lewis regained his faith. At the conclusion of A Grief Observed, Lewis quotes his dying wife Joy as telling a chaplain, “I am at peace with God.” She then smiled, but not at Lewis, who ends his book with these words: Poi si torno all eterna Fontana (the words come from Dante and translated mean, “Then unto the eternal fountain she turned.”)
Man was no longer on the bench, and God was no longer in the dock.
Very interesting. I must read Lewis. One of my problems is the veneration of God's creation of humankind. If God was making automobiles with the same skill, he would be out of business in no time. All his autos would be returned for full refunds, having been made so poorly. In every way, physically and mentally. What a botched job.
God created us with the ability to discern good from evil and to choose our own course of action. Some people choose actions that consequently hurt other people, directly or indirectly. The argument "against God" is that He should either (1) remove the ability to choose from people who would choose evil; or (2) forestall the consequences of their choices, making them of no effect. nInstead, God gives us the "instruction manual" and, if we permit Him, trains us to choose well ourselves, and to bear up under the burdens that result from other people's choices and the natural hazards of living in the temporal world. nSurely, God could make everything all nice for everyone all the time, like the parents who guard their children from every possible hurt and disappointment. Those children grow up to be socially and personally dysfunctional as adults. nGod wants us to be better than that.
The problem of evil (POE) is really (mostly) the problem of free will. We are created in the image of God- which means, perhaps above all else, is that we have capacity for choice. The POE is often hinged around the issue of God's sovergnity- "if God is so powerfull, then why does he allow…". Yet, at least in this corner of creation, God's sovergn rule is limited by the choices of man, as granny has said. nThis is not an answer to the POE, but a background consideration in which the reasoning takes place.
I am glad to see Peter addressing this question. One point that I would make is that depending on a range of variables related to one's individual experience and one's intellectual processes, the "leap of faith" may actually be more of a "step of faith." n nI for one, don't find that belief in a benevolent God requires any sort of "leap" but is more a matter of a "step," or better, a series of "steps" walked out over a lifetime.
If life is happily ever after or a movie likes Ground Hog Day is there any point? Things always work out or no matter what we do we are back where we started, never to leave. While death and decay make a perpetual status quo attractive it would also be meaningless due to a lack of consequences. n On another topic evil is no picnic for those deemed to deserve it; they unlike Job cannot protest their innocents but is pain less for committing the crime? Willa Cather wrote” Even the wicked get worse than they deserve.” Some days I feel the truth of her words. n
"Is pain less for committing the crime?" n Yes. It most certainly is. Especially in terms of the struggle of the Believer to understand why/how God the Father lovingly trusted us to be able to bear it, and why He wants us to bear it for the sake of His plan, which did not even spare His Own Son from even worse. But sparing NOT His Own Son was looking forward to the Feast of the Bridegroom. n nEvery phrase in Isaiah 53 is a Name of God, as is Psalm 23. Search them out. n nBut in both cases, it is vital to the working out of the innermost matters of the heart. We need to face the dross of the heart and decide what to do with it. Job was innocent yet had a powerful amount of "stuff" to work through before he came to Wisdom – as did his wife and his friends. And everyone in the whole territory who heard of it all and had to sort through in their minds – if God let this happen to a man reputed to be one of His most loved friends… what does that mean to me and my own situations? What is God doing? What is He saying to all the rest of us? n nThe wicked never get worse than they deserve. Any wickedness is full deserving of total separation throughout all eternity from the Living God Almighty. Any wickedness is fully deserving of the perpetrator who thus rejected the God of Heaven to be then stuck for all eternity with the master to whom he did willfully BOW THE KNEE – Satan. n nWhen God saves even a poor sinner who is unrepentant for any of the consequences of rejecting Him, that is called MERCY. nThe least of any one of our sins requires the Blood of Jesus to buy us from Satan and to redeem us to His Father. Jesus must Break Every Yoke of Bondage by His Anointing bought by His Blood on the Cross THROUGH THE INTACT BLOOD COVENANT of His Father Jehovah with His father Abraham. nJehovah is Holy – and only the Blood of His Son covering us as we are repentant of our sins, asking His Forgiveness, shall wash us white as snow, and remove our guilty stains. n nAnything we think we do not deserve, thinking our sins are ~not that bad~ is a statement that we did not NEED the Blood of Jesus for THAT BREECH FROM THE FATHER (for which the LEGAL PENALTY is DEATH). nIf it cost His Blood on the Cross to pay for it, to redeem us from Hell for it, what can happen to us that WE are egotistical enough to think we do not deserve? nROMANS nPraise God the Father and Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit for His everlasting Mercy and Grace. nRomans 8:32 He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all [other] things?
The student writes: "how can God be perfectly benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent and allow for evil in the world." n nThe correct answer is that God does not fit in the three word box you created. The Torah is the record of his revelation of himself to the Patriarchs, Moses and the House of Israel. He never defines himself in that way there. Read EX 3, and Ex 33-34. Moses is never satisfied as to the Divine name because He cannot be reduced to a formula, and the totality of it simply is too much for a man to even see: Ex 33:20 "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live." n nIsaiah is further instruction on these lines. The invitation to reason is not however an invitation to Hellenistic dialectics, it is an invitation to observe the mitzvot: rtwt: n n[18] "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: nthough your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; nthough they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. n[19] If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; n[20] But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; nfor the mouth of the LORD has spoken." n nThe prophet receives instruction about God's nature from the seraphim in 6:3. "the whole earth is full of his glory" n nHis glory encompass not only the good the useful and the pleasant, it also fills the bad, the malignant, and the destructive. See PS 148: 7-8 "Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!" n nThe prophet strives to counsel us: Isa 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." And we must realize that our understandings must always be partial: Isa 55:8-9 [8] "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." n n
The idea of the leap of faith came from Kierkegaard, who saw Christian truth as paradoxical and therefore essentially unreasonable. Since in his view Christian faith was not based in reason, it takes a leap of the intellect to believe. Certainly, Francis Shaeffer rejected this view, and I believe that ultimately C. S. Lewis did as well, whether he ever used the words "leap of faith" or not. Surely, Lewis defended the existence of miracles, something which goes to the heart of biblical faith, as both reasonable and logical. nSince the leap of faith is against reason, the idea of a leap of faith, as originally understood, is not accepted by most conservative theologians nowadays. They see faith as reasonable, as the alternative is to say that God and absolute truth are completely unknowable by reason. nA better way of understanding the problem is to acknowledge that we know in part and see in part (1 Corinthians 12:27). We have not been granted access to all the mysteries of the universe, and it is part of God's plan that we are to struggle to learn and grasp knowledge and truth. Yet, how can a finite being ever fully understand the infinite? There will always be parts of God's mystery which we will never grasp. nThe part about scientific proof is a red herring. Hume demonstrated from a philosophical basis that nothing–nothing–could be proven scientifically. All we can say is that the preponderance of the evidence leads us to believe that something is truth. If absence of evidence proving causation means that it is unreasonable to think something is true, then most of modern science requires the same kind of leap of faith which you erroneously described. To be sure, many leaps may be small steps, but they are leaps all the same. nEven if the idea of scientific proof were valid, there is no way to ever test historical events scientifically. The bedrock of scientific proof is that evidence can only be derived from controlled experiments which when repeated derive the same result. Thus, there is no way one can scientifically prove the existence of, for example, the Battle of Gettysburg. While we know it occurred, it cannot be made subject to scientific experiment. nOn the other hand, there is such a thing as historical evidence, and this historical evidence has just as much–if more weight–in a court of law as scientific evidence. Since the claims of Christianity and Judaism are inherently historical in nature, they can be investigated and we can establish, in so far as reason and the evidence allows, whether or not they are true. Both Schaeffer and Lewis used this fact to eviscerate the arguments of people who claimed the Bible was a myth or a lie. nIn short, while reason is not in and of itself a substitute for faith, it is not at all opposed to faith. Indeed, reason must go hand in hand with faith for one's faith to be made complete.
"As a believer, one of the hardest philosophical questions for me to overcome is how can God be perfectly benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent and allow for evil in the world. So, I guess my question is: how do you deal with this problem philosophically as a believer?" n nHow are you a Believer and have no clue about THE LEGAL DEFEAT of Satan – and no clue why God in Heaven would buy our redemption from the Evil one yet LEAVE US THE CHOICE of which master WE decide FOR OURSELVES to choose to bow the knee to???? n nThis is a TEMPORARY Life which is here for the SOLE purpose of human beings created in HIS Image having the opportunity to CHOOSE whether to Love Him or to hate Him. n nWould you SERIOUSLY demand (you in the Driver's Seat – God Almighty as YOUR servant????) that God drag all humans to Heaven without them having a CHOICE in the matter? n nThere were some ancient Biblical Epoch movies in the Charlton Heston generation, and in one of them a Ruler who owned a beautiful slave woman had made her the chief female in his life, and kept speaking of "THEIR LOVE". One day, he was waxing eloquent about how much they loved eachother and begged her to tell him how much she loved him GIVING HER PERMISSION TO DO SO. nHe was more than supremely flabbergasted when she let him know that as his SLAVE without option for any hope of Freedom, he was frankly quite out of his mind if he thought that though she was his "lover" that she suffered ANY affection for him at all. OR THAT IF SHE "FELT" ANY, THAT IT COULD BE LEGITIMATE, AS HIS SLAVE, when she was NOT FREE to GIVE OR WITHHOLD IT by her own choice. n nThere is no way to explain to YOU how stunned the man was. n nWell, GOD has NEVER suffered such delusions. He created us for RELATIONSHIP – not for ROBOTIC OBEDIENCE to His Perfect Will. n nWell having Freedom of Choice means we have the elbow room to make decisions and suffer consequences for them and see the consequences of our choices on other people and other things, and have to deal with our Consciences given to us by Him, and to see what we ultimately choose to do with that. n nHe will only accept the WILLING AND LOVING of His OWN into Heaven, and those rebellious and those who reject and hate Him are NEVER going to be dragged into HIS HOME to make a hell of His Home, Heaven, that they make of This Earth! n nWhat is on your mind! n nGo study Blood Covenant and see WHY Jesus had to come to Earth THROUGH BLOOD COVENANT to ABRAHAM to pay the Price of Redemption BY RIGHT to FELLOW BLOOD BROTHERS through Abraham's Blood Covenant. I've been through over 20 HOURS of study, and each segment many many times to begin to ingest the gist of it. nIf you don't know why in Matthew 24, that Jesus slammed the door in the face of the FIVE FOOLISH VIRGINS, then you haven't BEGUN to study Blood Covenant, or the RIGHT of Jesus in a COURT OF LAW to pay for any man's SINS, and BUY him for His Father in Heaven, from Satan, so that Jesus and God the Father could turn that man free from Slavery to Sin to be FREE to Love God the Father through Jesus His Son..