The British writer, actor, and comedian Stephen Fry is featured in a YouTube video which has gone viral: over 5 million views as of this moment.
 

 
As you may know, Fry is, like his British counterparts Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, a fairly ferocious atheist, who has made a name for himself in recent years as a very public debunker of all things religious. In the video in question, he articulates precisely what he would say to God if, upon arriving at the pearly gates, he discovered that he was mistaken in his atheism. Fry says that he would ask God why he made a universe in which children get bone cancer, a universe in which human beings suffer horrifically and without justification. If such a monstrous, self-absorbed, and stupid God exists, Fry insists, he would decidedly not want to spend eternity with him. Now there is much more to Fry’s rant—it goes on for several minutes—but you get the drift.

To those who feel that Stephen Fry has delivered a devastating blow to religious belief, let me say simply this: this objection is nothing new to Christians. St. Paul, Origen, Augustine, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and many, many other Christian theologians up and down the centuries have dealt with it. In fact, one of the pithiest expressions of the problem was formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. The great Catholic philosopher argued that if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. Yet God is called infinitely good. Therefore, if God exists, there should be no evil. But there is evil. Thus it certainly seems to follow that God does not exist. Thomas thereby conveys all of the power of Fry’s observations without the histrionics. And of course, all of this subtle theological wrestling with the problem of suffering is grounded, finally, in the most devastating rant ever uttered against God, a rant found not in an essay of some disgruntled atheist philosopher but rather in the pages of the Bible. I’m talking about the book of Job.

According to the familiar story, Job is an innocent man, but he is nevertheless compelled to endure every type of suffering. In one fell swoop, he loses his wealth, his livelihood, his family, and his health. A group of friends console him and then attempt to offer theological explanations for his pain. But Job dismisses them all and, with all the fury of Stephen Fry, calls out God, summoning him, as it were, into the dock to explain himself. Out of the desert whirlwind God then speaks—and it is the longest speech by God in the Scriptures: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know….Who shut within doors the sea…when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands? Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place” (Job 38: 4, 8-10)? God goes on, taking Job on a lengthy tour of the mysteries, conundrums, and wonders of the universe, introducing him to ever wider contexts, situating his suffering within frameworks of meaning that he had never before considered. In light of God’s speech, I would first suggest to Stephen Fry that the true God is the providential Lord of all of space and all of time.

Secondly, I would observe that none of us can see more than a tiny swatch of that immense canvas on which God works. And therefore I would urge him to reconsider his confident assertion that the suffering of the world—even the most horrific and seemingly unjustified—is necessarily without meaning. Imagine that one page of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was torn away and allowed to drift on the wind. Imagine further that that page became, in the course of several months, further ripped and tattered so that only one paragraph of it remained legible. And finally imagine that someone who had never heard of Tolkien’s rich and multi-layered story came, by chance, upon that single paragraph. Would it not be the height of arrogance and presumption for that person to declare that those words made not a lick of sense? Would it not be akin to someone, utterly ignorant of higher mathematics, declaring that a complex algebraic formula, coherent in itself but opaque to him, is nothing but gibberish? Given our impossibly narrow point of view, how could any of us ever presume to pronounce on the “meaninglessness” of what happens in the world?

A third basic observation I would make to Mr. Fry is this: once we grant that God exists, we hold to the very real possibility of a life beyond this one. But this implies that no evil in this world, even death itself, is of final significance. Is it terrible that innocent children die of wasting diseases? Well of course. But is it finally and irreversibly terrible? Is it nothing but terrible? By no means! It might in fact be construed as an avenue to something unsurpassably good.

In the last analysis, the best rejoinder to Fry’s objection is a distinctively Christian one, for Christians refer to the day on which Jesus was unjustly condemned, abandoned by his friends, brutally scourged, paraded like an animal through the streets, nailed to an instrument of torture and left to die as “Good Friday.” To understand that is to have the ultimate answer to Job—and to Stephen Fry.
 
 
(Image credit: Sneaky Mag)

A lot has been said about the “problem of pain.” Why, if God is both loving and all-powerful, is there still suffering in the world? The question is a challenge for Christians, as for all theists.Christians have some sense of why a loving God would permit suffering. It's easy enough to see that love is a good (the highest good, even), and that love requires free will. And it's just a small step from there to see how that free will could be used in some dastardly ways. Likewise, it's clear enough that a loving God might permit His creatures to suffer, in certain cases, for their (our) own good.

This answer to the problem of pain is sensible, but not satisfying. There's no shaking that there's still something out of whack, something not quite right about this world. Christianity hasn't been shy about this point. The whole doctrine of the Fall is that things aren't how they ought to be, and how we're the ones who screwed them up. You can read that story in Genesis, or watch it on the nightly news.

And there's no shaking the sense that we don't have a full explanation. But again, Christianity acknowledges this from the outset: when Job complains about his problem to God, he's not given an answer; rather, he's basically told that there are things going on that he can't begin to comprehend. In the Cross, we get a fuller picture: God doesn't just acknowledge suffering, He takes it on, and we're given a tiny glimpse into the mysterious relationship between love, vulnerability, and pain. But there's still so much that we don't understand. And the Christian answer seems to be: that's the way it's going to be, this side of heaven. The answer is unsatisfying, but it seems to me that it's meant to be. This ground is well-tread, and others have addressed the problem of pain much more eloquently and exhaustively.

But today I want to look at another problem that doesn't get much attention: the “problem of beauty.” It's a problem, not for believers, but for non-believers: if there isn't a God, how can we account for all of the joy and beauty in the world? More specifically, how can we account for all the joy and beauty that doesn't have any evolutionary benefit? I really like the description of the problem given by Joanna Newsom, in a discussion about an album that she wrote shortly after the death of her best friend:

“The thing that I was experiencing and dwelling on the entire time is that there are so many things that are not OK and that will never be OK again,” says Newsom. “But there’s also so many things that are OK and good that sometimes it makes you crumple over with being alive. We are allowed such an insane depth of beauty and enjoyment in this lifetime.
 
It’s what my dad talks about sometimes. He says the only way that he knows there’s a God is that there’s so much gratuitous joy in this life. And that’s his only proof. There’s so many joys that do not assist in the propagation of the race or self-preservation. There’s no point whatsoever. They are so excessively, mind-bogglingly joy-producing that they distract from the very functions that are supposed to promote human life. They can leave you stupefied, monastic, not productive in any way, shape or form.
 
Those joys are there and they are unflagging and they are ever-growing. And still there are these things that you will never be able to feel OK about–unbearably awful, sad, ugly, unfair things.”

This captures the problem so well, because it anticipates the easy answer: that joy and our love of beauty is some sort of evolutionary benefit bequeathed to us by natural selection.

That answer might sound good at first, but there's no real evidence for it. Moreover, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. After all, we're moved to awe at the grandeur of the heavens: how does that aid the survival or propagation of our species? Often, as Newsom points out, the sensation of beauty draws us away from working and reproducing, leaving us “stupefied, monastic, not productive in any way, shape or form.” Without God, it's hard to give a good account of why we experience this kind of joy at beauty.

At first, it seems like we're dealing with two equal-and-opposite problems: believers struggle to account for all of the bad bits of life, and non-believers struggle to account for all of the good bits. Both of us are placing our trust somewhere. The Christian trusts in the goodness of God and the promise that someday, all of this will be clear; the atheist trusts in the idea that science will somehow solve the problem of beauty, and that someday, all of this will be clear. But these two problems aren't really equal. I think that we can see this inequality in a few ways.

First, they're not equal in size and scope: despite all of the awful bits, life is beautiful. Indeed, one of the very reasons many of the awful bits (like death) are so awful are because they deprive us of life. Thomas Hobbes famously claimed that the life of man in “the state of nature” was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But if life is really as awful as all that, why complain that it's short? It's like the Woody Allen line that “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.” The very fact that we lament the fleetingness of life (our own and others) points to a recognition that life is beautiful. Evil is noticeable precisely because it sticks out: it sharply contrasts with the beautiful background of life that we so often overlook or take for granted.

Second, evil is metaphysically dependent upon good. This is a concept that deserves more attention than I can give it here, and I hope to return to it soon. But I think that I can give at least a sense of what I mean by using a couple of analogies.

We often speak of light and darkness in a dualistic way, as if they're equal and opposite. But they're not: light actually exists in a way that darkness doesn't. In a world without darkness, we could still analyze light and its wavelike and particle-like properties. In a world without light, the very term darkness would be meaningless. We can only understand what darkness is by reference to light, but we can understand light without reference to darkness. The same holds true for  heat and cold. Heat actually exists: it's molecular energy. Cold is just the relative or absolute absence of heat. It's why we can talk about absolute zero: it's an absolute absence of heat. But there's not some maximum temperature where all of the “cold particles” are wiped out.

Something similar holds in discussing good and evil. Much of our concept of evil is tied up in the idea of “something that shouldn't have happened.” But for that concept to make any sense, you have to have at least an inkling of an idea of should, even if only an intuitive one. Evil is a perversion or an absence of good.

One of the clearest ways that we explore this is to understand why intentional evils are done. Invariably - as in, without a single exception - evil acts are done in the pursuit of some real or perceived good. We're always chasing after the good: after pleasure, honor, love, etc. (That doesn't excuse evil actions, obviously: you can't justify torturing the cat for pleasure simply because you did it for pleasure.) This shows that every evil act pays homage, no matter how unwittingly, to good. That's why you can't understand evil without understanding good. But none of this is true in reverse. We don't do good things because we're seeking evil, and we don't need a concept of evil to understand why something is good.

Third, there's a difference in explanatory power. Here, I want to conclude by refocusing on the two specific problems, the problem of pain and the problem of beauty, because it's here that we see the final inequality. The Christian explanation for pain leaves us unsatisfied, and I think that's an appropriate response. For starters, it's not a thorough explanation, nor a specific one: it doesn't explain why this evil thing happened to that person. But despite this, it offers a colorable explanation of the problem. It's clear that there's no logical incompatibility between permitting evil and being good, and this corresponds to our experience of life. We live in societies built on the idea of freedom-expansion, even if that entails the annoyance of people misusing that freedom for stupid or evil ends.

The atheist explanation of the problem of beauty is similarly unsatisfying. But here's the rub: unlike the Christian account of pain, the atheist account of beauty doesn't even advance any colorable explanation. The generally proffered solution, natural selection, just doesn't work here. Nor does it correspond with our experience of life: we don't see a clear correlation (at least, not a positive one) between “I cry at museums” and “I am adept at surviving and mating.”

At the end of a court case, even a well-argued one, there are often questions left lingering: if X is at fault, how do we explain this or that piece of evidence? On the other hand, if X isn't at fault, what about all of these other pieces of evidence? And if God is in the dock, so to speak, these are some of the critical arguments we should expect to see brought up - both in regards to his existence, and his goodness. That's why I think it's important to hold the problem of beauty up, side-by-side, with the problem of pain, weighing them, as if in a balance.

I think Joanna Newsom and her dad are right. While the argument from beauty isn't the only proof for the existence of God, I think it's conceptually sound, and hard to answer. The universe is full of endless delights, joys that we have no right to by nature, and which are presented before us everyday, all the same.
 
 
(Image credit: Unsplash)

NOTE: This is the last in our four-part series by philosopher Fr. Robert Spitzer addressing the question, "Why Would God Allow Suffering Caused by Nature?" Instead of focusing on the existence of moral evil, or suffering caused by the free choice of humans, he examines why an apparently good God would create an imperfect world replete with natural disasters, physical disabilities, and unavoidable heartache. Find the other parts of the series here.
 

 
We now move from an individual and personal perspective on suffering to a social and cultural perspective. We saw in the previous three sub-sections how God uses an imperfect world (and the challenge/suffering it can cause) to call and lead individuals toward life-transformations, courage, self-discipline, empathy, humility, love’s vulnerability, and compassion. However, the value of an imperfect world and suffering is not limited to this. God can also use suffering to advance the collective human spirit, particularly in culture and society. There are three evident manifestations of this collective-cultural-societal benefit of an imperfect world and suffering: (1) interdependence, (2) room to make a better world, and (3) the development of progressively better social and cultural ideals and systems. Each will be discussed in turn.

Interdependence

 
We cannot be completely autonomous – we need each other not only to advance but also to survive. Our imperfect world has literally compelled us to seek help from one another, to open ourselves to others’ strengths, to make up for one another’s weaknesses, and to organize ourselves to form a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. We could say that our imperfect world is the condition necessary for the possibility of interdependence, and that interdependence provides an almost indispensable impetus to organize societies for mutual benefit.

The reader might respond that this is a somewhat cynical view of human nature because we probably would have formed societies simply to express empathy and love. I do not doubt this for a moment. However, I also believe that necessity is not only the mother of invention, but also the mother of social organizations for mutual benefit and specialization of labor. An imperfect world complements the human desire for empathy and love. While empathy and love allow us to enjoy one another, the imperfect world challenges us to extend that love to meeting others’ needs and making up for others’ weaknesses. Challenges (arising out of an imperfect world) induce us to extend our empathy, friendship, and enjoyment of one another into the domain of meeting one another’s needs, organizing ourselves for optimal mutual benefit, and creating societies which take on a life of their own beyond any specific individual or group of individuals. Yet an imperfect world does far more than this. It calls us to make a better world, to the discovery of the deepest meaning of justice and love, and even to create better cultures and systems of world organization.

Room to Make a Better World

 
An imperfect world reveals that God did not do everything for us. He has left room for us to overcome the seeming imperfections of nature through our creativity, ideals, and loves – not merely individual creativity, ideals, and loves, but also through collective creativity, ideals, and loves. As noted above, individuals can receive a tremendous sense of purpose and fulfillment by meeting challenges and overcoming adversity. Yet we can experience an even greater purpose and fulfillment by collectively meeting challenges which are far too great for any individual; challenges which allow us to be a small part of a much larger purpose and destiny within human history.

It would have been noble indeed, and a fulfillment of both individual and collective purpose to have played a small part in the history of irrigation, the synthesis of metals, the building of roads, the discovery of herbs and medicines, the development of elementary technologies, the development of initial legal codes, the initial formulation of the great ideas (such as justice and love), the discoveries of modern chemistry, modern biology, modern medicine, modern particle physics, contemporary astronomy and astrophysics, the development of justice theory, inalienable rights theory, political rights theory, economic rights theory, contemporary structures of governments, the development of psychology, sociology, literature, history, indeed, all the humanities, arts, and social sciences; to have played a small part in the great engineering and technological feats which have enabled us to meet our resource needs amidst growing population, to be part of the communication and transportation revolutions that have brought our world so much closer together; to have been a small part of the commerce which not only ennobled human work, but also generated the resources necessary to build a better world; to have been a small part in these monumental creative efforts meeting tremendous collective challenges and needs in the course of human history.

Yet, none of these achievements (and the individual and collective purpose and fulfillment coming from them) would have been possible without an imperfect world. If God had done everything for us, life would have been much less interesting (to say the least) and would have been devoid of the great purpose and achievement of the collective human spirit. Thank God for an imperfect world and the challenges and suffering arising out of it. We were not created to be self-sufficient, overly-protected “babies,” but rather to rise to the challenge of collective nobility and love – to build a better world.

The Development of Progressively Better Social Ideals

 
We not only have the capacity to meet tremendous challenges collectively, we can also build culture – the animating ethos arising out of our collective heart which impels us not only toward a deeper and broader vision of individuals, but also of groups, communities, societies, and the world. This broader and deeper vision includes a deeper appreciation of individual and collective potential and therefore a deeper respect for the individual and collective human spirit. Thus, we have the capacity not only to build a legal system, but also to infuse it with an ideal of justice and rights, a scrupulous concern for accuracy and evidence, and a presumption of innocence and care for the individual. We have the ability not only to make tremendous scientific discoveries, but also to use them for the common good rather than the good of just a privileged class. We have the ability not only to build great structures, but also to use our architecture to reflect the beauty and goodness of the human spirit. We have the capacity not only to do great research but also to impart the knowledge and wisdom gained by it in a humane and altruistic educational system. And the list goes on.

Perhaps more importantly, we have the capacity to build these more beneficent cultural ideals and systems out of the lessons of our collective tragedy and suffering. One of the greatest ironies of human history, it seems to me, is the virtual inevitability of the greatest human cultural achievements arising out of the greatest moments of human suffering and tragedy (whether these be caused by natural calamities like the plague or more frequently out of humanly induced tragedies such as slavery, persecution of groups, world wars, and genocide):

• Roman coliseums (butchering millions for mere entertainment) seem eventually to produce Constantinian conversions (taking an entire empire toward an appreciation of Christian love)
• Manifestations of slavery seem to lead eventually to an abolitionist movement and an Emancipation Proclamation
• Outbreaks of plague seem to lead eventually to advances in medicine and public health, as well as a deeper appreciation of individual life and personhood
• Manifestations of human cruelty and injustice seem to lead eventually to inalienable rights and political rights theories (and to systems of human rights)
• Large-scale economic marginalization and injustice seem to lead eventually to economic rights theories (and to systems of economic rights)
• World wars seem to lead eventually to institutions of world justice and peace

There seems to be something in collective tragedy and suffering that awakens the human spirit, awakens a prophet or a visionary (such as Jesus Christ, St. Francis of Assisi, William Wilberforce, Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, Jr.), which then awakens a collective movement of the human heart (such as the abolitionist movement), which then has to endure suffering and hardship in order to persist, but when it does persist, brings us to a greater awareness of what is humane.

Out of the ashes of collective tragedy seems almost inevitably to arise a collective advancement in the common good and human culture; and more than this – a collective resolve, a determination of the collective human spirit which proclaims, “never again;” and still more – a political-legal system to shepherd this collective resolve into the future.

As may now be evident, the greatest collective human achievements in science, law, government, philosophy, politics and human ideals (to mention but a few areas) seem to have at their base not just an imperfect world, not just individual suffering, not just collective suffering, but epic and even monumental collective suffering.

Was an imperfect world necessary for these greatest human achievements? It would seem so (at least partially); otherwise there would have been no room to grow, no challenges to overcome (either individually or collectively), and no ideals to be formulated by meeting these challenges. God would have done them all for us.

Nothing could be worse for a child’s development and capacity for socialization than an overprotective parents who think they are doing the child a favor by doing her homework for her, constructing her project for her, thinking for her. To remove all imperfections from a child’s living conditions; to take away all challenges and opportunities to meet adversity, all opportunities to rise above imperfect conditions; to take away all opportunities to create and invent a better future; and to remove the opportunity to exemplify courage and love in the midst of this creativity would be tantamount to a decapitation. God would no more decapitate the collective human spirit than a parent would a child; and so, God not only allowed an imperfect world filled with challenge and adversity, He created it.

We must remember at this juncture that God’s perspective is eternal. From the Catholic perspective, God intends to redeem every scintilla of our suffering and to transform it into the symphony of eternal love which is His kingdom. Therefore, a person who suffered in a Nazi concentration camp (which eventually led to the U.N. Charter of Human Rights and to the current system of international courts) did not suffer for the progress of this world alone, as if he were merely a pawn in the progress of the world. Rather, his suffering is destined for eternal redemption by an unconditionally loving and providential God who will bring courage, self-discipline, empathy, humility, love’s vulnerability, compassion, and agape to its fullest unique expression for all eternity. At the moment of what seems to be senseless suffering and death, God takes the individual into the fullness of His love, light, and life while initiating a momentum toward a greater common good within the course of human history. That means we must continually take precautions against reducing ourselves to mere immanentists, for the God of love redeems each person’s suffering individually and eternally while using it to induce and engender progress toward His own ideal for world culture and the human community.

The above points only answer part of our question about the necessity of suffering to advance the common good; for even if an imperfect world were truly necessary for such advancement, it does not seem that something as monstrous as a world war would be so necessary. Perhaps. But here is where moral evil and human freedom exacerbate the conditions of an imperfect world. Unlike natural laws, which blindly follow the pre-patterned sequences of cause and effect, human evil has embedded in it injustice, egocentrism, hatred, and cruelty which are all truly unnecessary. Nevertheless, even in the midst of the unnecessary and gratuitous suffering arising out of moral evil, the human spirit (galvanized by the Holy Spirit, according to my faith) rises above this suffering and seems eventually to produce advancements in culture and the common good in proportion to the degree of suffering.

In conclusion, the annals of human history are replete with examples of how tremendous moments of collective human suffering (whether caused by human depravity or the imperfections and indifference of nature, or both) induced, engendered, accelerated, and in many other ways helped to create the greatest human ideals and cultural achievements. If one has faith one will likely attribute this “phoenix out of the ashes” phenomenon to the Holy Spirit working within the collective human spirit. If one does not have faith, one will simply have to marvel at the incredible goodness of the collective human spirit. (And ask, was it possible for us to do this by ourselves?)

In any case, the imperfect world and the history of human suffering have given rise to a concrete reality of remarkable beauty and goodness in the areas of justice, rights, legal systems, governance systems, medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, sociology, and every other discipline which has as its noble end the advancement of the common good.

Without an imperfect world, without some suffering in the world, I find it very difficult to believe that any of this would have arisen out of the collective human spirit in the course of history.

It would seem that the price paid in pain has been at least partially offset by the gains made in culture, society, the individual spirit, and the collective human spirit. I do not mean to trivialize the history of human suffering and tragedy nor the lives of individuals ruined by human injustice and an imperfect natural order. Yet we should not fail to find some hope in light emerging from darkness, and goodness emerging from evil. Inasmuch as God is all-powerful and all-loving, He can seize upon this goodness and light to reinforce its historical momentum, and more importantly to transform it into an unconditionally loving eternity. An imperfect world shaped by an imperfect, yet transcendently good human spirit brought to fulfillment by an unconditionally loving God, may well equate to an eternal symphony of love.
 
 
(Image credit: Talib Karim)

NOTE: Today we continue our four-part series by philosopher Fr. Robert Spitzer addressing the question, "Why Would God Allow Suffering Caused by Nature?" Instead of focusing on the existence of moral evil, or suffering caused by the free choice of humans, he examines why an apparently good God would create an imperfect world replete with natural disasters, physical disabilities, and unavoidable heartache.
 

 
In philosophy, agape is one of the highest forms of love. For our purpose here, suffice it to say that agape is a gift of self which is frequently expressed in self-sacrifice. It is grounded in empathy with the other which makes transparent the unique and intrinsic goodness, worthiness, and lovability of that other, which creates a unity with that other whereby doing the good for the other is just as easy, if not easier, than doing the good for oneself. As such, agape arises out of a desire to give life to the intrinsically valuable and lovable other. That other could be a stranger or a friend.

Furthermore, agape seeks no reward – neither the reward of romantic feelings intrinsic to eros (romantic love), nor the reward of reciprocal commitment and care intrinsic to philia (friendship), nor even the feelings of love and delight intrinsic to storge (affection). In agape, it is sufficient to see the other as valuable and lovable in him or herself. The well-being of the other (in him or herself) is a sufficient reward for the commitment of one’s time, future, psychic energy, physical energy, resources, and even self-sacrifice. The well-being of the other in him or herself is its own reward.

As can be seen, agape begins with empathy, a feeling for another, or perhaps better, a feeling with another. That produces a recognition of the unique and intrinsic goodness and lovability of the other, which produces “caring for” and “caring about” the other (in him or herself). Finally, that leads to unity with the other whereby doing the good for the other is just as easy if not easier than doing the good for oneself.

Most of us would agree to the proposition that this “feeling for and with another” is quite natural. We can meet another for a few moments and get a sense of the goodness and lovability of another from that other’s mere benevolent glance. We can see another in need and intuit the worthiness of that other by merely looking into their eyes. We can meet our students on the first day of class and intuit from the ethos exuded by them that they are worth our time and energy. Mere presence, mere tone of voice, mere benevolent glance engenders a recognition of unique and intrinsic goodness and lovability which causes us to care about the other, to protect the other, to attend to the other’s needs, to spend time with the other, and even to sacrifice oneself for the other – even a total stranger. It is as if we have a receptor, like a radio antenna, which is attuned to the frequency of the other’s unique and intrinsic goodness and lovability, and when the signal comes, whether it be from a smile, an utterance, a look of need, we connect in a single feeling which engenders a gift of self.

Yet, even though most would agree that empathy is natural to us, we must hasten to add that our own desires for autonomy and ego-fulfillment can block our receptivity to the other’s “signal.” We can become so self-absorbed or self-involved that we forget to turn on the receiver, and even if we have turned on the receiver, we have the volume turned down so low that it cannot produce adequate output in our hearts. It is at this juncture that suffering – particularly the suffering of weakness and vulnerability arising out of an imperfect world, proves to be most helpful.

This point may be illustrated by a story my father told me when I was a boy. I think he meant it more as a parable about how some attitudes can lead some people to become believers and other people to become unbelievers and even malcontents. But it became for me a first glimpse into the interrelationship between suffering and compassion, love and lovability, trust and trustworthiness, co-responsibility and dignity, and the nature of God.

Once upon a time, God created a world at a banquet table. He had everyone sit down, and served up a sumptuous feast. Unfortunately, He did not provide any of the people at the table with wrists or elbows. As a consequence, nobody could feed themselves. All they could do was feel acute hunger while gazing at the feast.

This provoked a variety of responses. At one end of the table, a group began to conjecture that God could not possibly be all-powerful, for if He were, He would have been all-knowing, and would have realized that it would have been far more perfect to create persons with wrists and elbows so that they could eat sumptuous feasts placed before them. The refrain was frequently heard, “Any fool can see that some pivot point on the arm would be preferable to the impoverished straight ones with which we have been provided!”

A second group retorted, “If there really is a God, it would seem that He would have to be all-powerful and all-knowing, in which case, He would not make elementary mistakes. If God is God, He could have made a better creature (e.g., with elbows). If God exists, and in His omniscience has created us without elbows or wrists, He must have a cruel streak, perhaps even a sadistic streak. At the very minimum, He certainly cannot be all-loving.”

A third group responded by noting that the attributes of “all-powerful” and “all-loving” would seem to belong to God by nature, for love is positive, and God is purely positive, therefore, God (not being devoid of any positivity) would have to be pure love. They then concluded that God could not exist at all, for it was clear that the people at the table were set into a condition that was certainly less than perfect (which seemed to betoken an imperfectly loving God). They conjectured, “We should not ask where the banquet came from, let alone where we come from, but just accept the fact that life is inexplicable and absurd. After all, we have been created to suffer, but an all-loving God (which God would have to be, if He existed) would not have done this. Our only recourse is to face, with authenticity and courage, the absence of God in the world, and to embrace the despair and absurdity of life.”

A fourth group was listening to the responses of the first three, but did not seem to be engaged by the heavily theoretical discourse. A few of them began to look across the table, and in an act of compassion, noticed that even though they could not feed themselves, they could feed the person across the table. In an act of freely choosing to feed the other first, of letting go of the resentment about not being able to “do it for myself,” they began to feed one another. At once, agape was discovered in freedom, while their very real need to eat was satisfied.

This parable reveals a key insight into suffering, namely, that “empathy has reasons that negative theorizing knows not of.” The first three groups had all assumed that weakness and vulnerability were essentially negative, and because of this, they assumed that either God had made a mistake or He was defective in love. Their preoccupation with the negativity of weakness distracted them from discovering, in that same weakness, the positive, empathetic, compassionate responsiveness to the need of the other which grounds the unity and generativity of love. This lesson holds the key not only to the meaning of suffering but also to the life and joy of agape.

The experience of the fourth group at the table reveals by God would create us into an imperfect world – because the imperfection of the human condition leads to weakness and vulnerability, and this weakness and vulnerability provide invaluable assistance in directing us toward empathy and compassion, and even in receiving the empathy and compassion from another.

As I've noted in past posts, weakness and vulnerability are not required for empathy and compassion, for many people will find empathy and compassion to be their own reward. They will see the positivity of empathy and compassion as good for both others and themselves.

Again, I must repeat that this was certainly not the case for me. Even though I saw the intrinsic goodness and worthwhileness of empathy and compassion (for both myself and others), my egocentricity and desire for autonomy created such powerful blocks that I could not move myself to what I thought was my life’s purpose and destiny. I needed to be knocked off my pedestal; I needed to be released from the spell of autonomy and egocentricity through sheer weakness and vulnerability. This happened to me – the weakness and vulnerability of an imperfect genome in imperfect conditions in an imperfect world.

Like the fourth group in the parable, my imperfect condition gave me a moment to reconsider the entire meaning of life – what really made life worth living, and it was here that I discovered empathy, love, and even compassion. The process was gradual, but the “thorn in the flesh” gave me the very real assistance I needed to open myself to love as a meaning of life.

Is suffering really necessary for agape (empathy, the acceptance of love’s vulnerability, humility, forgiveness, and compassion)? For a being like God, it is not, for God can, in a timeless, completely transparent act, through His perfect power and love, achieve perfect empathy, perfect acceptance of love’s vulnerability, perfect humility, perfect forgiveness, and perfect compassion. I suppose angelic beings could also do this in a timeless and transparent way.

There are some people who can easily move to this position without much assistance from suffering. But for people like me, suffering is absolutely indispensable to removing the blocks to agape presented by my egocentric and autonomous desires, my belief in the cultural myth of self-sufficiency, my underestimation of the goodness and love of other people, and all the other limitations to my head and heart.

God allowed an imperfect physical nature and an imperfect world for people like me not only to actualize agape freely (at least partially), but also, and perhaps more importantly, to even notice it. God asks people who are better than me in love to patiently bear with the trials that are indispensable for people like me to arrive at an insight about empathy, humility, forgiveness, and compassion. But then again, they already have the empathy, humility, and compassion to do this, so God’s request is truly achievable.

God works through this suffering. He doesn’t waste any of it. For those who are open to seeing the horizon of love embedded in it, there is a future, nay, an eternity for each of us to manifest our own unique brand of unconditional love. Without suffering, I do not think I could have even begun to move freely toward that horizon which is my eternal destiny and joy.

Next week, Fr. Spitzer will finish our series by exploring why God provides room to build a better world.
 
 
(Image credit: Vew Online)

NOTE: Today we begin a four-part series by philosopher Fr. Robert Spitzer addressing the question, "Why Would God Allow Suffering Caused by Nature?" Instead of focusing on the existence of moral evil, or suffering caused by the free choice of humans, he examines why an apparently good God would create an imperfect world replete with natural disasters, physical disabilities, and unavoidable heartache. The series will continue on each of the next three Fridays.
 

 
It is somewhat easier to understand why God would allow suffering to occur through human agents than it is to understand why He would allow suffering to occur through natural causation. After all, it would seem that if God creates the natural order, He could have created it perfectly – so perfectly that there would be no possibility of human suffering. He could have created each human being in a perfectly self-sufficient way, so that we would have no need. Or, if we had need, He could have created us with a perfect capacity to fulfill those needs within a world of perfectly abundant resources.

So why did God create an imperfect natural order? Why did He create a natural order which would allow for scarcity? Why did He create a natural order that would give rise to earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis? Why did He create a natural order which would permit vulnerabilities within the human genome that allow for blindness, deafness, or muscular degeneration? Why did He create a natural order which would permit debilitating diseases?

The brief answer lies in the fact that a perfect natural order would leave no room for weakness and vulnerability; yet weakness and vulnerability induce many positive human characteristics, perhaps the most important human characteristics, such as (1) identity transformation, (2) stoic virtues, (3) agape, and (4) interdependence and human community. This list of characteristics represents the most noble of human strivings, the propensity toward greater civility and civilization, and glimpses of a perfection which is unconditional and even eternal. Though weakness and vulnerability seem to delimit and even undermine human potential, they very frequently detach us from what is base and superficial so that we might freely see and move toward what is truly worthy of ourselves, what will truly have a lasting effect, what is truly destined in its intrinsic perfection to last forever.

A perfect world might leave us content with pure autonomy and superficiality, and would deprive us of the help we might need to deepen our virtue, relationships, community, compassion, and noble striving for the common good. The “perfect world” might deprive us of the impetus toward real perfection, the perfection of love, the perfection which is destined to last forever. We will now discuss each of the above four positive characteristics of weakness and vulnerability induced by an imperfect world.

Human beings tend to move through four levels of happiness or purpose:

(1) happiness arising out of external physical and material stimuli;

(2) happiness arising out of ego-satisfaction and comparative advantage (such as status, admiration, popularity, winning, power, and control);

(3) happiness arising out of making an optimal positive difference and legacy to the people and world around me; and

(4) happiness arising out of being connected with and immersed in what is perfect, ultimate, and eternal in Truth, Love, Goodness, Beauty, and Being (for those with faith, God).

It so happens that the lower levels of happiness/identity are more surface-apparent, immediately gratifying, and intense than the higher levels. They tend to more easily attract us and hold our attention from without (instead of requiring discipline from within), so we more easily gravitate toward them. However, they are much less pervasive, enduring, and deep than the higher levels of happiness/identity. For example, making an optimal positive difference to others and the world with my time, talent, and energy (Level 3) can have effects far beyond my ego-gratification (Level 2), so it is more pervasive than Level 2. These effects can last much longer than the acquisition of a new car, the enjoyment of an ice cream cone, and the enjoyment of status and power – so they are more enduring than Levels 1 and 2. Finally, they are deeper than Levels 1 and 2, because they involve my highest creative and psychological powers (i.e., my powers of intellection, moral reasoning, ideal formation, love, spiritual engagement, etc.).

The difficulty is that only one of these levels of happiness/identity can be dominant. The others will become recessive. Thus, if the desire for physical pleasure and material goods is dominant, the desire for ego-satisfaction, optimal contribution, and spiritual connection will be recessive. We will therefore live for what is most surface-apparent and immediately gratifying, but neglect what is most pervasive, enduring, and deep (and therefore, what could express our most noble purpose in life). Alternatively, if we want to move toward what is most pervasive, enduring and deep, we will have to allow Levels 1 and 2 to become recessive; we will have to let go of them (enticing as they are); and this is where suffering frequently comes in.

We cannot say that human beings require suffering in order to move from the more superficial levels of happiness/identity to the higher (most pervasive, enduring, and deep) ones, for human beings can see the intrinsic goodness and beauty of making an optimal positive difference to family, friends, community, organization, culture, and even, for Christians, the kingdom of God. They can be attracted to this noble, beautiful, and even transcendent identity as a fulfillment of their higher selves, or even their transcendent eternal selves. However, this more positive impetus to move toward the more pervasive, enduring, and deep identity can be assisted by suffering, weakness, and vulnerability; for it is precisely these negative conditions which can break the spell of the lower levels of identity.

Physical pleasures (Level 1) can be so riveting that they can produce addiction. The same holds true for status, esteem, control, and power. In my own life, I have seen how powerful (and even addictive) these lower levels of identity can be. Yet, I truly desired (and saw the beauty and nobility of) the higher levels of happiness/identity. Though this vision was quite powerful in me, I found myself transfixed by the lower levels – almost unable to move myself beyond them. This is where the “power of weakness and vulnerability” came into my life.

Experiences of physical limitation and the failure of “my best laid plans” broke the spell of unmitigated pursuit of ego, status, and power. I had a genuine Pauline experience of having to look at life anew – to look for more pervasive purpose in the face of a loss of power – to reexamine what I was living for in light of a loss of control. I became thankful for my weaknesses and the imperfect natural order which gave rise to them. Without them, I would have been unqualifiedly locked into my addiction to ego, status, and power – even though I saw the beauty and nobility of optimal contribution and love. I would have been addicted to the superficial amidst the appreciation of the noble – what an emptiness, what a frustration, what unhappiness – until weakness broke the spell. The irony is, weakness and suffering gave me the freedom to overcome the far greater suffering of living beneath myself, of avoiding noble purpose, of consciously wasting my life.

As noted above, there are probably people who do not need suffering to make a move from, say, Level 2 to Level 3 and 4. I was not one of them. Suffering was my liberation, my vehicle, my pathway to what was most worthy of my life, and what was most noble and perduring in me. I suspect that there are others like me who can use a dose of suffering, weakness, and vulnerability every now and then to call them to their most noble, perduring, and true selves. For these, the imperfect world is indispensable. Being left to the so-called perfect world would have led to superficiality and spiritual deprivation (a deeper pain).

This liberating power of suffering is not restricted to physical or psychological weakness. It applies most poignantly to the anticipation of death. I once had a student who asked, “Why do we need to die? If God is perfect and He intended to give us eternal life, why does He make us die in order to get there? Why not just allow us to continue living without all the mystery about the beyond?” I initially responded that eternal life is not merely a continuation of this current earthly life, and that death provided the transition from this life to the “new” life.

She responded, “Well, why isn’t the ‘new’ life a continuation of this one? Why wouldn’t God create us immediately in the ‘new’ life?” I indicated to her that the goodness, joy, and beauty of the “new” life did not essentially consist in a perfect, natural order (although this would be part of it), but rather in the perfect love that would exist between God and us, and between all of us in God. I further indicated that this “love” would consist in a perfect act of empathy with another whereby doing the good for the other would be just as easy, if not easier, than doing the good for oneself – where empathy would take over the desire for ego-satisfaction and autonomy – where communion and community would not immolate the individual personality, but bring it to its completion through others and God.

The student almost intuitively agreed that this would be perfect joy, which led her to re-ask the question, “Well, why didn’t God just create us in a situation of perfect love?” My answer revolved around the fact that love is our free choice. God cannot create us into a “world of perfect love;” we have to create the condition of love for ourselves and others by our free decisions. As noted immediately above, our decision to love (to live for a contributive identity) can be assisted considerably by weakness and vulnerability; but even more importantly, it can be assisted by the anticipation of death.

As many philosophers have noted (both those coming from a transcendental perspective, such as Karl Rahner and Edith Stein, or a merely immanent perspective, such as Martin Heidegger and Jean Paul Sartre), death produces a psychological finality which compels us to make a decision about what truly matters to us, what truly defines our lives, sooner rather than later. It really does not matter whether we have a strong belief in an afterlife or not; the finality of death incites us to make a statement about the “pre-death” meaning of our lives.

Most of us view an interminable deferral of fundamental options (such as, to live for love or not to live for love; to live for integrity or not to live for integrity; to live for truth or not to live for truth; etc.) to be unacceptable because death calls us to give authentic definition to our lives – the finality of death says to our innermost being that we must express our true selves prior to the termination of the life we know.

Death might be the best gift we have been given because it calls us to our deepest life-definition and self-definition, and in the words of Jean Paul Sartre, to the creation of our essence. If we believe in an afterlife, we take this authentic self-definition (say, love) with us into our eternity. But even if we do not believe in an afterlife, death still constitutes an indispensable gift of life, for it prevents us from interminably delaying the creation of our essence. It calls us to proclaim who we truly are and what we really stand for – sooner rather than later. We cannot interminably waste our lives in indecision.

In light of death, the choice of one’s fundamental essence (say, love) becomes transformative and “life-giving.” Death gives life – an authentic, reflective, and free life through a more pervasive, enduring, and deep purpose in life.

Next week, Fr. Spitzer will explore why the attainment of virtues requires an imperfect world.
 
 
(Image credit: ###)

NOTE: Today's post is in response to Steven Dillon's post, "Why I Don't Think God Exists."

 
I’d like to begin responding to Steven Dillon’s guest post on God’s existence by complimenting his thoughtful and candid writing. I especially appreciated his opening paragraph where, with great vulnerability, Steven acknowledged that he wished God existed.

Some atheists desire just the opposite. The philosopher Thomas Nagel admitted in his book, The Last Word:

“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”

By admitting his preference for an all-loving, all-powerful Father who brings life and order to the universe, Steven implicitly confirms his openness to God’s existence, a sign that he hasn't a priori rejected the possibility of God.

But as we all know, wishing something to be true doesn’t make it true. Steven offers what he considers a strong argument against God, one that presumably prevents him from believing. He outlines it this way:

Premise 1: If God exists, there are things that he will have had to have done.
 
Premise 2: God would not do at least one of these things.
 
Conclusion: God does not exist.

After offering this syllogism, Steven moves on to defend its two premises. Regarding the first, he states:

“God is traditionally conceived of as being perfectly good and the ultimate source, ground, or originating cause of everything that can have an ultimate source, ground, or originating cause. . .
 
Moreover, nothing that has happened will have happened without his permission. Each of us would be under his care as he chose to sustain us in existence from moment to moment.”

I commend Steven for accurately defining God as “perfectly good” (though classical theists would likely prefer “the Perfect Good”) as well as “the ultimate source, ground, or originating cause of everything that can have an ultimate source, ground, or originating cause.” No problems there. Moreover, Steven rightly notes that “nothing that has happened will have happened without [God’s] permission.” This aligns with Christian's affirmation of God’s ultimate sovereignty.

However, it’s difficult to see how the above points support or are even relevant to Steven’s first premise. Claiming there are things God “will have had to have done” is to assume some binding duty outside of and above God—some requiring authority which assigns duties to God (like a mother mandating her child to perform certain tasks). Yet this contradicts Steven’s own description of God as “the ultimate source, ground, or originating cause.” God can’t be the ultimate ground of morality and responsible to a higher moral authority. That’s a self-contradiction.

On the other hand, if Steven simply means that God has to perform or refrain from certain moral acts because of his nature (e.g., that God has to love his creation because he is all-loving), then that’s an obvious and unhelpful tautology. It’s difficult to determine which of these two scenarios Steven meant, but it doesn’t seem either supports his first premise.

The real crux of Steven’s argument, however, begins in his defense of his second premise. There he claims:

“If God exists, then due to his role as the ultimate cause, he will have had to have given his permission for every single thing that has ever occurred, including . . . the Holocaust . . . [and] every heinous count of abuse that children have been subjected to. But, this seems beneath God and more like the track record of a morally impoverished deity.”

This is, of course, all true. If God is all-powerful, and if nothing occurs without God’s permission, he will have had to permit these heinous and seemingly indefensible tragedies. It also might seem, from our limited perspective, that permitting such acts would be “beneath God.”

But from there it does not follow that God has no good justification for permitting them.

Christians have consistently pointed out that because of God’s unique, metaphysical position, beyond space and time, he can have morally justifiable reasons to allow certain acts of pain and suffering—reasons that we're just not privy to. Just as we allow our children to experience darkness and hurt sometimes when we know it will bring about a greater good, God could have good reasons to permit apparently heinous acts. (Note: I’m not arguing here that God necessarily does have good reasons in any specific case, only that there’s no logical reason why he couldn’t have good reasons to permit evils in general, reasons we're just not aware of.)

Steven goes on to say:

“Typically, you should not allow children under your care to get beaten and molested. Perhaps there could be an exception to this rule, probably in what I’m guessing is a farfetched scenario. But, it is still a rule, and it thus expresses what is normally the case. To argue against this is to adopt the disturbing position that it is usually not wrong to allow children under your care to get beaten and molested.”

The first two sentences are true and agreeable, but the third does not logically follow. To claim that in some cases it might be possible for someone to have a morally justifiable reason for permitting an evil like child abuse does not necessitate believing that “it is usually not wrong to allow children under your care to get beaten and molested.” That’s simply a non sequitur.

It should be pointed out here that, once again, Steven has failed to provide any support for his second premise. It’s not clear how he supports the claim, “God would not do at least one of these things [that he has to do].” Steven never explains why it’s logically impossible for God to have morally justifiable reasons to allow suffering in one, many, or all cases.

Moving on to his conclusion, Steven acknowledges that his argument isn’t airtight, and thus not logically stable. He candidly admits:

“For all its beauty, our world just seems too ugly to include God in it. I certainly won’t pretend like this is a rationally undefeatable argument, but I also don’t think it’s anything like a pushover.”

I agree with Steven that his argument is not “anything like a pushover.” I agree with Thomas Aquinas who famously concluded that the “problem of evil” constitutes one of only two serious arguments against the existence of God.

I also agree with Steven that his argument is rationally defeatable. For example, Steven claims “our world just seems to ugly to include God in it.” Besides the fact that ugliness in the world is not incompatible with God—Christians have a perfectly logical explanation for moral ugliness: Original Sin—there’s a large difference between what seems to be true and what really is. For example, it may seem to be a remarkable stroke of luck that I was dealt two royal flushes in a row. But as my perspective widens and I’m given more background information, I learn the deck was stacked beforehand—a fact I wasn’t in position to previously know. Thus my perception changes: an apparent truth becomes, in fact, an illusion.

The same holds in the case of evil. Neither Steven, nor I, nor anyone in this world are in the privileged epistemic position to determine whether God has good reasons to allow evil. We simply can’t see the entirety of space and time (past, present, and future) the way God can. We can’t perceive the “butterfly effect” of events that may emerge out of a tragic event. Therefore we must acknowledge, in humility, that we can’t necessarily suppose “what seems to be the case” regarding the moral permissibility of allowing evil may, in fact, not be the case. We must acknowledge that God could have good reasons for allowing evil that we're just unable to glimpse.

Before wrapping up his article, Steven asks:

“How shall a theist respond to this argument? Is it not normally wrong to allow children under your care to be abused? Are we not under God's care? Or perhaps she will simply say the arguments for God’s existence are just too strong.”

To answer Steven’s three questions in turn: it is normally wrong to allow children under your care to be abused (note: God normally does not allow the children under his care to be abused); we are under God’s care; and it’s true that other arguments for God’s existence (like the arguments from contingency, fine tuning, first cause, etc.) are very strong.

Yet none of those three questions reveal how most Christians would answer Steven’s primary argument. The simplest and strongest response, as I’ve noted above, is this:

There is no logical contradiction between an all-loving, all-powerful God who permits evil in the world. To deny this, an atheist would have to show definitively that God could not have morally justifiable reasons for permitting evil in any circumstance. And since we’re in no position to judge whether God has such reasons, the existence of evil (i.e., pain, suffering, abuse, etc.) simply does not pose a strong argument against God’s existence.

In Steven's final paragraph, he writes:

“However we might respond to [the problem of evil], keep in mind that it won’t do to argue that God might allow things like the Holocaust, or human trafficking, or that God could have good reason for doing so. No has said that he couldn’t, that’s not the issue at hand. What needs to be shown is that God would allow these things, theists will need to take the risk of identifying the reason why God would allow the Holocaust, or human trafficking, and seeing whether that identification can stand to reason.”

I'm happy that Steven concedes that God could have good reasons to permit certain evils. But then he makes a subtle, yet significant move in his final sentences. He attempts to shift the burden of proof onto theists, challenging them to disprove his argument against God, instead of assuming the burden himself—instead of marshaling his own evidence in support of his own claims.

But the theist is under no such responsibility. If Steven claims that the existence of evil is logically or evidentially incompatible with God’s existence, he needs to show why. It won’t suffice simply to demand that theists show how God and evil co-exist. To say it another way, it’s fallacious to make a positive claim and then demand others disprove your claim—you have to provide evidence yourself! This is precisely why atheists won’t allow Christians to say, “God exists! And if you don’t agree, you have to show why he doesn’t exist!”

In the end, the honest theist can respond, “Look, we don’t know why God chose to allow the Holocaust. We also don’t know why he chooses to allow human trafficking. We can point to some obvious goods that result—like the gift of free will, a good that would be undermined if God stepped in, usurped human action, and disallowed the Holocaust. But in the end, we’re just not in a position to judge whether God has morally justifiable reasons to allow these things."

That admitted ignorance, a result of our limited knowledge and perspective, does not imply God’s non-existence. It’s simply a fact that we’re in no place to judge the moral permissibility of God’s actions.

For all of the reasons above, Steven’s argument fails. He does not provide substantial support for either of his two premises, and he does not show why evil logically contradicts God’s existence.

(For a longer response to Steven’s claim, I suggest reading Alvin Plantinga’s groundbreaking book, God, Freedom, and Evil. That book has caused many well-known atheists like J.K. Mackie to say, “We [atheists] can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically contradictory with one another.” I also highly recommend chapters six and seven in Trent Horn’s new book, Answering Atheism.)
 
 

(Image credit: Earthy Mysticism)

NOTE: Today we feature a guest post from Steven Dillon, one of our regular atheist commenters. Be sure to read Brandon Vogt's response, "Why Evil and Suffering Don't Disprove God".

I wish that God existed, I genuinely do. His presence would be an invaluable source of hope and strength as well as peace and happiness.¹ But, I don’t think he does and that realization is perhaps the greatest of disappointments. Be that as it may, reality is still beautiful and I think we should honor the truth.

So, in hopes of some provocative discussion, I’m going to share what strikes me as a fairly compelling reason to think that God does not exist.

Now, as Richard Swinburne notes, “One unfortunate feature of recent philosophy of religion has been a tendency to treat arguments for the existence of God in isolation from each other. There can, of course, be no objection to considering each argument initially, for the sake of simplicity of exposition, in isolation from others. But clearly the arguments may back each other up or alternatively weaken each other, and we need to consider whether or not they do.”²

I propose this argument then as another piece to the puzzle, one which needs to be weighed in conjunction with the arguments for God’s existence.

My core thesis is this:

P: If God exists, then he will have had to have done things that he would not do.

If (P) is true, it affords what seems to be a powerful argument against God’s existence, because it’s absurd that God has done what he would not do. (P) is essentially composed of two claims:

P₁: If God exists, there are things that he will have had to have done.

P₂: God would not do at least one of these things.

Since (P) is true if and only if both P₁ and P₂ are true, I’ll focus on them. Let’s take each in turn.

P₁: If God exists, there are things that he will have had to have done.

God is traditionally conceived of as being perfectly good and the ultimate source, ground, or originating cause of everything that can have an ultimate source, ground or originating cause.

As such, if God exists, he will have had to have brought the natural world into existence along with most if not all of its significant features. Moreover, nothing that has happened will have happened without his permission. Each of us would be under his care as he chose to sustain us in existence from moment to moment.

P₂: God would not do at least one of these things.

If God exists, then due to his role as the ultimate cause, he will have had to have given his permission for every single thing that has ever occurred, including the most awful and horrific of events.

Take for example the Holocaust. God will have had to have deliberately allowed the systematic execution of millions, despite their unnervingly helpless pleas for him to spare their children as they were marched at gunpoint into gas chambers.

He will have had to have given his permission for every heinous count of abuse that children have been subjected to.³

But, this seems beneath God and more like the track record of a morally impoverished deity.

Typically, you should not allow children under your care to get beaten and molested. Perhaps there could be an exception to this rule, probably in what I’m guessing is a farfetched scenario. But, it is still a rule, and it thus expresses what is normally the case. To argue against this is to adopt the disturbing position that it is usually not wrong to allow children under your care to get beaten and molested.

Now, because it’s rational to assume that things are as they normally tend to be until given good reason to think otherwise, we’re putatively entitled to assume that someone who has allowed children under their care to get beaten and molested has done something wrong. We very well might go on to learn of extenuating circumstances that mitigate culpability or some such. But, the default position is that this sort of behavior is morally unacceptable, and just as well, right?

Well, in so far as we have prima facie reason to think that allowing kids under your care to get beaten and molested is wrong, we have prima facie reason to think that God would not do this. Because God will have had to have done this if he existed, we have prima facie reason to think that God does not exist.

There are many other moral rules that seem to yield this same conclusion, but they’d needlessly complicate a simple deduction

Conclusion

So, I believe there are some significant reasons for thinking that if God exists, he will have had to have done things that he would not do. For all its beauty, our world just seems too ugly to include God in it. I certainly won’t pretend like this is a rationally undefeatable argument, but I also don’t think it’s anything like a pushover.

How shall a theist respond to this argument? Is it not normally wrong to allow children under your care to be abused? Are we not under God's care? Or perhaps she will simply say the arguments for God’s existence are just too strong.

However we might respond to it, keep in mind that it won’t do to argue that God might allow things like the Holocaust, or human trafficking, or that God could have good reason for doing so. No has said that he couldn’t, that’s not the issue at hand. What needs to be shown is that God would allow these things. Theists will need to take the risk of identifying the reason why God would allow the Holocaust, or human trafficking, and seeing whether that identification can stand to reason.

What do you guys think?

(Image credit: Blog CDN)

Pablo Picasso’s Tragedy (1903) depicts three figures huddled on a beach—presumably a family. We see nothing of the ‘tragedy’ itself, however; no trace of specific disaster remains, and we are left to speculate about what series of events may have led to their misfortune. The focus of the painting centers us on the figures themselves.

The man and woman are turned inwards in an inherently familial pose, but the distance between them and their downcast eyes reveal their inability to comfort each other. The child, too young to understand the meaning of his own experience, places a hand on the man and looks pleadingly in the direction of the woman. Neither have anything to offer him, and this feeling of impotence must only increase their own suffering. Here ‘tragedy’ functions as a subject in the painting not in reference to any single event, but simply as the human experience.

Picasso is not alone in choosing to depict forms of human suffering and loss, and there is something fitting about this. Even after the fall, it seems that art is still inclined towards a kind of imitation of nature. Good art resonates with our experience of the natural world and with our own human nature as well. It does not flinch in the presence of failure, personal weakness, or moral evil. In point of fact, what is often so disedifying about pseudo-art or kitsch is not so much its technical mediocrity as its lack of honesty. Of course, an undifferentiated portrayal of negative experience can also lead to an insufficient humanism or naturalism. Worse still would be a deliberate focus on ugliness. The seeming danger for Picasso is not the first of these pitfalls, but the latter two.

The subject of Picasso’s work is something that should be inherently undesirable. There is nothing beautiful about tragedy. Although we may be slow to say so, the sight of others’ suffering has the power to repulse and to send us searching for a distraction. Nonetheless, there is something intuitively beautiful about Picasso’s Tragedy that strikes us as paradoxical only on second thought. The painting seems to exert an immediate draw that transports us directly onto Picasso’s gray-blue beach, bringing us close to the figures and to their nameless tragedy as well; it is only on further reflection that we realize how strange it is to be attracted by something so plainly awful.

Picasso draws our attention directly and simply to their pain itself, with no outside referent to distract or to offer impartial resolutions. When considered critically, there seems to be nothing attractive about this. And yet Picasso has presented tragedy simpliciter, and we are drawn by it not as we might be by a depiction of pleasant scenery, but as a father might be drawn by the suffering of his son. Picasso has portrayed the human experience of tragedy in such a way that we feel no revulsion—no burning need to distract ourselves from the human suffering before us. Tragedy is here framed in such primary and universal terms that it necessarily resonates with us all, evoking not pious sympathy, but real empathy.

The presence of beauty in a painting like this will always remain somewhat elusive, but perhaps a trace of an explanation can be found in Picasso’s authentic humanism. Picasso manages to elicit that which is most human in each of us by drawing us into another’s experience of something with which we ourselves are only too familiar.

Picasso was not a religious man, and there is no hint of theological horizon present here. His secularism extended even to his parents, who did not raise him as a practicing Catholic. And yet in spite of this, his work seems to be open to something greater. Perhaps it was the cultural Catholicism of his native Spain which imbued him with a certain anthropological honesty that was receptive to the motions of grace, if only subliminally.

Tragedy in the natural sense is survivable; no misfortune, however great, can completely discourage a person from seeking the good. But, in the eyes of Catholics, God alone can undo the knot of tragedy itself, reestablishing us in the newness of grace. Perhaps Picasso would not have anticipated it, but when his Tragedy is viewed through the lens of faith, our natural empathy can take on a supernatural character.
 
 
This article first appeared on DominicanaBlog.com, an online publication of the Dominican Students of the Province of St. Joseph who live and study at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. It was written by Br. Reginald M. Lynch, O.P., who entered the Order in 2007. He attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he studied philosophy and religious studies.