The Good, The Bad and Theodicy
John Holroyd on the pitfalls of academic debates about God and evil.
Making Logic Moral
At its best, the debate between the theodicists and anti-theodicists is both a logical and moral enterprise.
Logic and morality. I won't even pretend to untangle all of the variables here. Come on, where does the part that we can encompass in reasonable communication end and the part where the subjective/subjunctive "I" is able to actually demonstrate that their moral and political value judgments encompass the logical, rational, epistemological truth.
And throw in all of the assumptions that revolve around an omniscient and omnipotent God? Is the word of God necessarily logical? Can God's own ghastly creations -- natural disasters, extinction events, countless diseases -- be grappled with by mere mortals using the tools of philosophy?
Whether or not belief in an all-good, omnipotent God is compatible with the existence of evil is a question of great importance in the lives of many people, and the debate is an attempt to pursue that vital question. To do so honestly, to seek what is most reasonable to believe whatever one’s personal background or inclinations and however much one’s findings may clash with existing beliefs, is a moral pursuit.
On the other hand, from my frame of mind, you would have to
be an omniscient God in order to accomplish this. After all, can any of you grasp the lives of those who lived them in ways you haven't a clue regarding? Can you take into account all of the multitudinous experiences millions and millions around the globe have had that create "backgrounds and inclinations" embedded in untold combinations of historical, cultural and circumstantial factors? All in order to acquire a God's eye view in order to pursue a morality in which one size fits all?
So I do not advocate a halt to this debate. Quite the contrary. It should remain part of an ongoing exploration both within and beyond academia. Clearly the debate can lead some people to believe in a God and others to lose their faith.
Why? Because it can be determined rationally, logically, epistemologically that someone either ought to believe in God or lose their faith given the pain and the suffering that they have endured? This is not more likely to be rooted instead in the arguments that I make?
And it's not like those who do subsume their miseries in God and religion have any better alternative. What, to believe that their terrible pain or grief or bitterness or anger can only be subsumed instead in an essentially meaningless No God existence?
Why
not place that wager on immortality and salvation by betting on the God or religious path that you are able to think yourself into believing in? It's just a matter of still being
able to. Some can, others can't.
Bottom line [his and mine]:
These arguments are part of the fabric of many people’s deliberations and perspectives, but how the arguments fit together with personal perspectives is a complex question. It is often ‘reasonably’ driven not so much by some diktat from philosophers that one should be ‘logical’, but by the necessities of life. In our various searches for meaning, psychological survival or personal fulfilment, we are often concerned with what we think it is rational to believe or do. It is hard to justify a claim about what role an argument should play within the living of someone else’s life, without entering into dialogue with them, and into a genuine attempt to appreciate their situation in life.
I merely suggest that in the absence of that crucial confirmation that a God, the God is in fact your God, it is likely that the choice that you make here is only able to be communicated to another up to a point. It is rational to you more because you have managed to think yourself into believing that it is. At least until the next round of pain and suffering. Then [existentially] that may well be the one that changes your mind.
Thinkers from either side of the debate that fail to do this are clumsy; in this sense theodicy is indeed ugly. Discussions about problems of evil and suffering are at their best when the participants put aside the desire to convert someone to their own point of view, and instead are open to an exchange that aims to deal practically with suffering while simultaneously reflecting upon its nature.
Yes, here, on this thread, the best of all possible worlds. I simply point out that
with so much at stake on both sides of the grave, communication breakdowns are far more likely to be the rule.