Philosophically Speaking, "Is Suffering a Challenge to God's Existence?"

[YesNo]

VIDEO:

http://www.prageruniversity.com/Reli...l#.VZEnkUv7VFI

I re-listened to the video after finding Peter Kreeft's book, "Letters to an Atheist", on the public library shelves and finding this passage (page 18):

Does love "go all the way up"? Is it the nature of ultimate reality? Does it "move the sun and all the stars," as Dante said? Is gravity "love among the particles"?

I wonder how people would answer that?

I expect an atheist to answer it by saying the universe is unconscious matter (in spite of the myth or metaphor of the "selfish" gene) and so it does not include "love" all the way up. Or an atheist might say that love is nothing more than a metaphor with no ground in reality forgetting that such beliefs themselves are as unsupported as their view of love.

But what would various religions say? I don't think a Buddhist would accept it. But a Buddhist would dodge answering the question arguing that the the task of achieving nirvana and ending suffering is too important to waste time on such speculations. That's an unsatisfactory answer.

A Deist might say that God is only necessary at the endpoints. God starts the universe and then lets it run under Newtonian determinism like a clock. There is no love "all the way up", only perhaps in some minor way at the beginning.

What does this have to do with the OP's problem of evil? The problem of evil is a complaint against the universe. If the universe is evil and God made it, then saying God is good is not a mystery. It's a contradiction.

But if the universe can be represented as "love going all the way up", how can one say that such a universe is evil, depraved, rotten, corrupted? That would also be a contradiction. Some description of the universe, not God, is incorrect.

[Pompey Bum]

That's inevitably going to be a problem for "faith alone" or "scripture alone" theology. It is impossible to determine what someone believes; we can know only what he says he believes. To the extent that religions establish communities, fundamentalist evangelicals reject basing membership (as Catholics or Orthodox Christians or Episcopalians base membership) on baptism, communion, or the other rituals of the Church. Yet, because there is no way to determine faith, they search for statements and behaviors that either confirm or contradict the member's faith. As a result, some Evangelical groups seem to require an entire set of statements to confirm "true" belief, including global warming denial, anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage positions, etc.

I haven't heard of those things specifically (at least not as criteria for justification), but given the expansion mechanism I discussed above, it's possible (and problematic). Incidentally, in theory there shouldn't be a conflict between sola fide and sola scriptura since they govern different objects. Sola fide means that justification is attainable by faith alone; sola scriptura means that the Bible (as opposed, for example to the Pope) is the sole authority for Christian doctrine; but through the witness of the Holy Spirit in the heart of each Christian. It is different from Biblical literalism, which is based on a doctrine held by only some Evangelical and Baptist groups, that Scripture is clear and self-interpreting. Those groups are of course free to believe what they like. Personally I reject it as absurd (the Biblical text is anything but uncomplicated). It also subverts sole fida and forms the basis for the kind of political "loyalty oath for justification" that you mention. And again, the Reformation was supposed to end that.

[Pompey Bum]

But isn't it possible that there is a level of morality that is not available to us? Godly Morality?

I do not understand the morality of an omnipotent God who let those children at Sandyhook Elementary School be gunned down in terror. I'm not saying that there isn't a Godly morality: I'm sure there is. But I don't get it and doubt I will in this life.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself, and love God with all of your heart, soul and strength. I don't think we can or that we need to understand the whole mind of God in order to live morally in this life.

Well said. And a great example. I hesitate to say this because it sounds like boasting and it sure isn't meant to be, but I repeat the Lord's Prayer to myself over and over again for about two hours at a time every morning (it's down from 3 hours plus-- I sleep better since I've retired). I repeat it silently and slowly and all the while reflect on its meaning and my life--stopping frequently to give thanks and especially to ask for forgiveness. I find it endlessly instructive in how to live my life. So yes, we can try to work out our lives with what we have. As I said earlier, it strikes me that not being able to know God's mind may be the whole point. I can only think that God wants us to choose the Good on our own.

I think for the most part we are too "young" to understand the mystery of the existence of suffering.

Me too. It reminds me of a corny religious story I heard once that remains meaningful to me. According to the story (I assume true, but who knows?), one of the Native American groups had a rite of passage for boys before they could hunt with the men. At a certain age, each boy's father would lead him into the wilderness, farther than he had ever been before, until the night and total darkness fell. The father would then take leave of the boy, telling him that he was to sit still through the night and no matter what happened to stand his ground. After his father disappeared, the boy would have to struggle with his very real fears of the beasts that hunted in the forest, and his religious terrors of the spirits he could hear as the night filled with sounds. If he summoned the courage, he would remain sitting until the beams of dawn began to shine through the trees, and he would perceive (sorry, it is a little corny): his father, who had sat silently beside him during the night, keeping him from harm. I HOPE the mind of God works like that, but I have no way of knowing--for now.

Okay, the regulars can stop laughing at me.

[tailor STATELY]

re: Sandyhook, ISIS burning man alive, suffering...

If one where to have faith, as I do, that this earthly existence is our probation only (ref: "The Pearl of Great Price"/"Moses" & "Abraham"), and one that we chose btb in a pre-mortal council) - then those who have passed through the veil have obtained immortality - won through Christ Jesus' atonement; and those under the age of accountability: Exaltation guaranteed.

A few scriptures in "The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ" may be informative; Alma 60:13:

For the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked; therefore ye need not suppose that the righteous are lost because they are slain; but behold, they do enter into the rest of the Lord their God.

and Alma 14: 10,11

10 And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.

The Restoration (this last dispensation of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ that succeeds the Reformation) teaches that our Heavenly Father is perfect love, as is our Savior. Knowing the true attributes of God will not lead one astray. Understanding agency will help a bit more... line upon line; precept upon precept.

With sincere respect for all beliefs/faiths/or no,

tailor STATELY

[Pompey Bum]

Hi Tailor! Thank you for your contribution to the discussion. We agree that faith is a human response to the problem of suffering. Please accept my condolences, too, at your good friend's passing yesterday. I'm sure he knows the answers now. God embrace him.

[tailor STATELY]

Thank you very much Pompey Bum. He was true to the faith to the end; throughout his suffering (cancer).

:tailor

[Pompey Bum]

(cancer)

Ah yes, been there and done that. I managed to cheat it for now, but we all die eventually. It helped me to appreciate the difference between my body and myself, though. Sorry for the grief you must be feeing for your friend. Perhaps you will laugh about it together someday. Keep the faith.

[easy75]

I do not understand the morality of an omnipotent God who let those children at Sandyhook Elementary School be gunned down in terror. I'm not saying that there isn't a Godly morality: I'm sure there is. But I don't get it and doubt I will in this life.

I think the way you feel is probably the way God wants you to feel. I don't think God wants us to be ambivalent to suffering. I think maybe when we mourn with those that mourn, and offer support, and shake our heads or shed tears at the tragedies of life we are fulfilling our moral obligations in the face of suffering. I experienced a lot of death in my life when I was still young, (mother, father, sister, 3 close friends) all before I was 24 years old. Some of my worst memories are of people that I didn't know very well "consoling" me by downplaying my sorrow and using my loss as an opportunity to extol the virtues of heaven, and even using the situation to try to "save" me or others in my family. If I hadn't already been a believer to some extent, this probably would have pushed me away from God and/or religion.

Me too. It reminds me of a corny religious story I heard once that remains meaningful to me. According to the story (I assume true, but who knows?), one of the Native American groups had a right of passage for boys before they could hunt with the men. At a certain age, each boy's father would lead him into the wilderness, farther than he had ever been before, until the night and total darkness fell. The father would then take leave of the boy, telling him that he was to sit still through the night and no matter what happened to stand his ground. After his father disappeared, the boy would have to struggle with his very real fears of the beasts that hunted in the forest, and his religious terrors of the spirits he could hear as the night filled with sounds. If he summoned the courage, he would remain sitting until the beams of dawn began to shine through the trees, and he would perceive (sorry, it is a little corny): his father, who had sat silently beside him during the night, keeping him from harm. I HOPE the mind of God works like that, but I have no way of knowing--for now.

Okay, the regulars can stop laughing at me.

For the record, I think that is a great story and I like to think the same. Sometimes enduring laughter is worth it. Lol.

Regarding your prayer routine, I have strived to meditate more on The Lord's Prayer. I think there is a key in it, or better, I think it is a framework to everything that I need. I have done a fair amount of study on early Christianity and Messianic Judaism and I think in the Sh'ma and in The Lords Prayer there is peace through meditation.

[YesNo]

He was true to the faith to the end; throughout his suffering (cancer).

I am sorry to hear of your loss.

Your quotes from Alma made me realize that it is not just those who are suffering who need to be saved, but also those who are causing the suffering.

I enjoyed the story, Pompey Bum, of the father watching over his son during the night-time wilderness ritual. It reminded me of a story told by a man dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. The story was about a fire in a house and everyone was safe except for a child who was still hanging onto a second-story window afraid to let go. His father was below the window and told the child to let go and his father would catch him, but the child complained saying that he could not see his father. His father said, "But I can see you."

[Pompey Bum]

I experienced a lot of death in my life when I was still young, (mother, father, sister, 3 close friends) all before I was 24 years old. Some of my worst memories are of people that I didn't know very well "consoling" me by downplaying my sorrow and using my loss as an opportunity to extol the virtues of heaven, and even using the situation to try to "save" me or others in my family. If I hadn't already been a believer to some extent, this probably would have pushed me away from God and/or religion.

Oh Easy, I'm sorry you had to deal all that, especially when you were so young. I know what you mean about people--religious and otherwise--who try to console you by minimizing the impact. I was talking to my physician about my family health history, and when I got to my Mother's cancer death when I was a young man, I choked up for a moment, then apologized, telling her that although it happened decades ago, I never really got over it. She told me in a very sensitive way, although an ultimately clinical one (in other words, she wasn't just trying to cheer me up) that the cutting edge psychiatry these days is that you never really get over that kind of thing: you just hide it because there is all this social pressure on you to stop grieving and move on. So your own suffering becomes a kind of dirty secret.

You have to forgive people when they do that. They are uncomfortable about death, too, and most of all they don't know what to say (which is why their goal is to get you to move on). Or maybe some are just inept. The doctor I mentioned is awesome, but I've had one or two real nincompoops in terms of the simple human support that you are talking about. I was diagnosed with lymphoma in my 20s, after an exit physical when I got out of the Peace Corps. The idiot doctor had a technician call me at my hotel to tell me the happy news on a Friday, with instructions to drop by and talk to him on Monday. Good news, he told me, the kind of lymphoma I had had a high survival rate--although he couldn't promise anything, and there would be difficult treatments ahead. Apparently he never even considered the lost weekend I had just spent under the impression that I was terminally ill. But it's not like he didn't have bedside manner. He told me that the Peace Corps would be sending me home, and asked me where that was. When I told him Boston, a big smile spread across his face, apparently because of the excellent cancer facilities there. "Boston," I swear he said to me, "is a GREAT town to have cancer in!" Hey, you have to look for the positive! It helps so much to laugh at that kind of cluelessness now. But it's good to forgive, too. (It was a pretty rough weekend, though).

I think the way you feel is probably the way God wants you to feel. I don't think God wants us to be ambivalent to suffering. I think maybe when we mourn with those that mourn, and offer support, and shake our heads or shed tears at the tragedies of life we are fulfilling our moral obligations in the face of suffering.

Yes, I believe that we are here to reject nihilism and choose the Good. Perhaps that goes a way toward explaining God's apparent silence in the face of suffering. But why does it happen in the first place? Why couldn't an omnipotent God have found a way that didn't involve suffering in the first place? Those are rhetorical questions at this point. I don't think they have answers that we are going to get--for now.

[Pompey Bum]

I enjoyed the story, Pompey Bum, of the father watching over his son during the night-time wilderness ritual. It reminded me of a story told by a man dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. The story was about a fire in a house and everyone was safe except for a child who was still hanging onto a second-story window afraid to let go. His father was below the window and told the child to let go and his father would catch him, but the child complained saying that he could not see his father. His father said, "But I can see you."

..........

[easy75]

Oh Easy, I'm sorry you had to deal all that, especially when you were so young. I know what you mean about people--religious and otherwise--who try to console you by minimizing the impact. I was talking to my physician about my family health history, and when I got to my Mother's cancer death when I was a young man, I choked up for a moment, then apologized, telling her that although it happened decades ago, I never really got over it. She told me in a very sensitive way, although an ultimately clinical one (in other words, she wasn't just trying to cheer me up) that the cutting edge psychiatry these days is that you never really get over that kind of thing: you just hide it because there is all this social pressure on you to stop grieving and move on. So your own suffering becomes a kind of dirty secret.

You have to forgive people when they do that. They are uncomfortable about death, too, and most of all they don't know what to say (which is why their goal is to get you to move on). Or maybe some are just inept. The doctor I mentioned is awesome, but I've had one or two real nincompoops in terms of the simple human support that you are talking about. I was diagnosed with lymphoma in my 20s, after an exit physical when I got out of the Peace Corps. The idiot doctor had a technician call me at my hotel to tell me the happy news on a Friday, with instructions to drop by and talk to him on Monday. Good news, he told me then, the kind of lymphoma I had had a high survival rate; although he couldn't promise anything, and there would be difficult treatments ahead. Apparently he never even considered the lost weekend I had just spent under the impression that I was terminally ill. But it's not like he didn't have bedside manner. He told me that the Peace Corps would be sending me home, and asked me where that was. When I told him Boston, a big smile spread across his face, apparently because of the excellent cancer facilities there. "Boston," I swear he said to me, "is a GREAT town to have cancer in!" Hey, you have to look for the positive. It helps so much to laugh at that kind of cluelessness now. But it's good to forgive, too. (It was a pretty rough weekend, though).



Yes, I believe that we are here to reject nihilism and choose the Good. Perhaps that goes a way toward explaining God's apparent silence in the face of suffering. But why does it happen in the first place? Why couldn't an omnipotent God have found a way that didn't involve suffering in the first place? Those are rhetorical questions at this point. I don't think they have answers that we are going to get--for now.

Holy smokes! What an incredible life you have had! You seem to have made the best of some pretty awful circumstances and situations, with every right to feel the opposite of the way you do about a lot of things. Good for you!
And yes, I forgive people for their indiscretions and don't hold it against them. I have a friend who suffered a lot of family loss as well and we are both of the opinion that the best thing to say is a simple "condolences", a hand shake or a hug depending on the relationship, and then just move along.
Incidentally your Peace Corps service strikes a personal chord with me. My mother heard JFK speak at the University of Michigan in 1960 and promptly joined the Peace Corps and spent the next 5-6 years in East Africa.

[Pompey Bum]

Oh I've got lots of stories (you ain't heard nothin' yet), but the truth is I've lived a very privileged life and can barely list all the things I need to be forgiven for. But thanks. I was in Gabon, near the border with Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. It was quite a life changing experience.

[YesNo]

A few scriptures in "The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ" may be informative; Alma 60:13:

For the Lord suffereth the righteous to be slain that his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked; therefore ye need not suppose that the righteous are lost because they are slain; but behold, they do enter into the rest of the Lord their God.

I keep thinking about this passage and the idea that the Lord doesn't prevent us from making mistakes which is what would have to happen if those who suffer from our actions are not to suffer. If I generalize the "wicked" to all of us since we have likely caused others to suffer at some point in our lives, then the suffering we experience now could be viewed as part of the justice given back to us.

The existence of whatever free will we might have basically says that we are disposed to be fallible.

There is a story from the Bhagavatam that I've read through Amal Bhaktam's Mystical stories from the Bhagavatam : twenty-six timeless lessons in self-discovery. It is about a just king whom everyone loved and who served his community well. He did something to get a djinn angry, and as I recall from some of the Arabian Nights tales it is not hard to tick off one of these guys. The djinn decided to kill the king. The king had no power over such creatures and even though he was innocent of the djinn's current charges he accepted his coming death figuring he probably deserved it in some way that he was unaware of at the moment. At that point, because of his acceptance of his fallibility, some other deity stronger than the djinn stopped the djinn and the story ends.

This is how I view the problem of evil at the moment. There are three components to it: God, the universe and ourselves.

God represents the consciousness that was needed to initiate a universe and to keep it collapsed. This assumes either faith or acceptance of some version of a consciousness causes collapse interpretation of quantum physics. There are other interpretations of quantum physics and other faiths, but this is what makes the most sense to me.

The universe is good because it is consistent and we can find a home in it. It is a gift and from this gift one can derive the loving and personal aspects of God.

We have enough free will to be responsible for what we do and to mess things up. This is the source of suffering.

So, does the existence of evil and suffering imply that a good, loving God does not exist? No. What it implies is that not only did we receive the gift of a universe, we also received the gift of enough free will to be fallible.

[Pompey Bum]

So, does the existence of evil and suffering imply that a good, loving God does not exist? No. What it implies is that not only did we receive the gift of a universe, we also received the gift of enough free will to be fallible.

I agree that the existence of evil and suffering does not imply that a loving God does not exist (and I have faith that such a God does exist). But for me, "enough free will to be fallible" equals choice; and choice does not eliminate the underlying instinct/impulse one resists or acquiesces to with the choice. (Choosing to abstain from sex, for example, does not eliminate the underlying sex drive). So when you speak of people making mistakes (which technically is all sinning means), my question is what underlying instincts/impulses (rage, envy, jealousy, revenge, etc.) brought them to the mistake, and why those instincts/impulses exist on the first place. Augustine and Luther would have said it was from Original Sin. I agree, though I equate Original Sin with natural selection (which I see as the source of rage, jealousy, et al.).

So for me, having "enough free will to be fallible" does not get at the underlying issue of why we want what we want. On the other hand (to exchange our traditional site roles as optimist and pessimist, YesNo ), having will enough to choose sin implies having will enough to choose the Good over instinct--as for example one might choose to love one who has damaged you despite instincts for rage or revenge.

The second issue your statement doesn't really address is so-called Natural Evil (but since I think we all view this phenomenon as amoral rather than immoral, perhaps we should simply call it Natural Suffering). Having "enough free will to be fallible" does not account for why toddlers suffer and die of a childhood cancer (with all the pain that applies for parents); or why a random twitch of the sea floor can bring horrific death in tsunami waves. It is a mystery to me how an omnipotent god can do nothing while such things happen; nor can I accept your suggestion that because "we have likely caused others to suffer at some point in our lives, then the suffering we experience now could be viewed as part of the justice given back to us." A just and loving God is neither amoral nor an abusive or murderous parent. To me, these things remain a mystery, but they certainly do not suggest an inherently good material universe. Perhaps we are east of Eden after all.