The late Mennonite theologian, John Howard Yoder (to be sure a fallen man himself), crtitiqued theodicy with the following questions. I’d like to hear from both the theists and atheists on this site what their responses are to his questions:
a) Where do you get the criteria by which you evaluate God? Why are the criteria you use the right ones?
b) Why [do] you think you are qualified for the business of accrediting God/s?
c) If you think you are qualified for that business, how does the adjudication proceed? [W]hat are the lexical rules?
Hi Jackson,
Since we’re talking about the problem of evil, I’ll assume Yoder is asking about moral criteria. The answer is that they come from the person(s) advancing the particular omniGod hypothesis.
Let’s say I claim that an omniGod named Frank exists — omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Suppose I also claim that Frank regards seahorses as the absolute height of evil. The world contains a lot of seahorses, and Frank, being omnipotent, has the power to wipe them off the face of the earth. Why doesn’t he? Why does he countenance a world full of seahorses?
Is the existence of seahorses a means to a higher end? Is it just that Frank’s ways are mysterious? Or should I conclude that Frank probably doesn’t exist?
I can reason and evaluate evidence.
Not sure why Yoder chose the word “lexical”, but the rules are the same as for evaluating any other hypothesis: determine its entailments and compare against observation. Do the same for competing hypotheses and provisionally pick the one that best matches the evidence.
Welcome, Jackson.
I don’t “evaluate God”. I sometimes evaluate claims made by people who say they believe in a god or gods.
I have never been presented with an operational definition that would allow me to distinguish between a god and a non-god, nor have I seen any objective, empirical evidence supporting the idea that such an entity might exist.
I do have sufficient education and experience to evaluate claims about gods, though.
I don’t know what you mean by “lexical rules” but the adjudication proceeds first by whoever is making a positive claim shouldering their burden of proof followed by discussion to clarify the claim and presentation of supporting and disconfirming evidence and arguments.
The only “problem of evil” is how we deal with it. This is a test to see if we are worthy or not. The test would be moot if God intervened all of the time.
We are not supposed evaluate God- how can we seeing we don’t know what we need to in order to evaluate?
Hi Keiths
Question 1 – I am not sure I fully understand your response. I interpret the question to be an attempt to probe into “what criteria decides” what would be “just or unjust” or “good or un-good” or “omnigood or un-omnigood” to use your terms. I think the question is intended as much for a critique of theodicy as it is for the atheist. So I would ask the proponent of a theodicy the same question? Where do they get there criteria by which they judge? And why is that criteria the right one?
Question 2 – But if in fact we are contingent upon, and inferior to God/s, how are we qualified to evaluate him/her? I think we could fairly ask questions…but it doesn’t seem to me we would be well positioned to render judgements either in his defense (theodicy) or in his condemnation.
Question 3 – To some extent I agree with your answer here…and that is why JHY was critical of theodicy at large. Basically implying, who are we establish a system to judge God, either for or against his “omni-goodness.” Also questioning, who adjudicates the “ought” question when a various theodicy is made?
Patrick –
Q 1 – Fair enough. I think the question was intended to people who make claims either in defense of “God/s” morality or in condemnation of.
Q 2 – Whether or not there is evidence of God’s existence, I guess depends on who you ask. In this case the question is whether or not we are qualified to make judgements about what God “ought” to do.
Q 3 – I think the point to this question is…if God is on trial, what lexical rules apply? Who adjudicates?
If God exits, especially the Christian God, such questions are like a parasite or if a medical researched is good or bad in doing what it wishes in the lab with the parasite.
Seems to me it is a rather moot question on the intellectual level.
The real question being asked is if we can find rational reasons to love God after all the garbage he pours on humanity. But rationality and love don’t necessarily mix well. Reminds me of a woman trying to rationalize why she should love a husband that she doesn’t love.
If I had been a Jew in Auswitch or Dacau and believed in God and saw what they saw (google for oneself if one want to see graphic photos), it would seem rather hard to find reason to get up on Sunday morning (or on the evening of the Jewish Sabbath) and be thrilled about the Creator existing. I know for myself, there were times I just didn’t want to sing praises in church, when maybe cursing was more in line with what I felt. Don’t like to say it, but that’s just being honest.
Rather than provide rationale, I read a book by someone who actually survived Auswitch, Victor Frankel. His wife and parents were murdered by the Nazis. He saw some real horrors. How did he find meaning in all this?
Theistic beliefs are usually unwelcome in the realm of Psychiatry, but since Frankel survived trauma that few will ever know, the Psychiatric community seemed to look the other way at Frankel’s belief in God and what it did for him during those dark days.
He went on to help many who had suffered extreme suicidal episodes. People would obviously be willing to listen to what he said given he was counseling others and himself in Auswitch in situation that looked hopeless.
I cannot do justice to what Frankel wrote, but theists and atheists have benefitted from what wrote. If one believes there is meaning and purpose in the suffering, one can get through ordeals. Perhaps there is some faith involved before seeing vindication of the idea there is meaning.
Case in point: when someone told him they are ready to kill themselves, he would say, “what if a year from now, you found there was purpose for you, if you kill yourself now, you won’t find the meaning.” Many of his patients, practically all of them that survived and saw him again said they were glad they stuck around, they eventually found purpose in being alive. Every story was different.
If “All things work for the good of those that love God”, then when the Lord warns his people like Paul of all the things they will suffer, all the plagues and prophecies that will come to pass (like the destruction of Jerusalem and the horrible things laid out in the Deuteronomy 28 curse), one can accept (not relish) the bad as part of the Divine Drama that will have a happy ending. The destruction and trouble in the world is part of the Intelligent Design to make the next world more meaningful. 2 Cor 4:17
What Frankel himself experienced and what he saw in his patients confirmed the human capacity to eventually find meaning in awful circumstances.
Whether such meaning is ultimately real is a separate question, but it’s real enough for most people. If there is meaning, there is reason to hope, and if there is reason to hope, there is reason to love.
The book is available for on Pdf. I personally own copies of his writings.
http://streetschool.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Viktor-Emil-Frankl-Mans-Search-for-Meaning.pdf
I’ve recommended it to theists and atheists. It’s one book that helped me to love a God who has done some pretty harsh things to humanity. FWIW, the book of Lamentations by Jeremiah is close to my heart since it reflects the human condition after experiencing the horrific acts of God and how Jeremiah had to find meaning in all the suffering around him.
There is a song inspired by the book of Lamentations:
So the question apparently is, can we recognize contradiction?
It would seem so. Does the slaughter of the Amelekites comport well with the Golden Rule? Not really.
If the “God” we’re talking about is some philosopher’s god–the substrate of being or some other empty combination of words–then one might ask if we can judge such a god. Probably not, but I don’t see many running around complaining about the philosopher’s god(s).
The Abrahamic God need only be held up to what it purportedly tells us is good. The contradictions flow from there.
Glen Davidson
stcordova,
However, one might also think that a correct acknowledgement of the Holocaust requires rejecting theodicy — though not rejecting God; “The Acknowledgement of Transcendence: Anti-Theodicy in Adorno and Levinas” (academia.edu).
Yes…and this is in line in a sense I think with the point of JHY’s questions.
I picked up a very similar thought from Placher’s The Domestication of Transcendence. Placher argues that “the problem of evil” as an intellectual problem — is the fact of evil logically consistent with classical theism? — is itself a deep failure to understand the sheer transcendence of God as taught by classical theism. It’s an intellectualization, a rationalization, an attempt to make God comprehensible and thereby deny His radical otherness from us. Placher argues at length that the attempt to make God fully intelligible to us has been a series of mistakes.
Jackson,
I probably responded to a question you weren’t really asking. Apologies if I did.
It seems that you wanted a more philosophical or academic type inquiry.
Perhaps the only way to be certain of all answers is to be God (Ominscient). So JHY appears to be asking leading questions in as much as his questions assume such criteria of evaluating God can be accessible to finite mortals, which is probably a false assumption since finite mortals cannot answer all questions without being God themselves.
This is a typical apologist’s misdirection.
In fact, the apologist wants us to evaluate God. The closest one can come to not evaluating God is atheism (as distinct from anti-theism).
The only “problem of evil” I see is how to mitigate it.
Kantian Naturalist,
Interesting. If that be the case any systematic theology (or theodicy) is a vain pursuit.
Neil Rickert,
An atheist can logically choose not to evaluate God. That makes more sense to me.
That is not what proponents or opponents of a theodicy do though. They are engaging in God’s evaluation on one hand or the other.
Elizabeth,
I take it you don’t see the questions as one’s worth spending too much time on.
That seems right to me. The correct response to “the problem of evil” is not any kind of intellectual comprehension but the practical activity of love and justice.
An important post-Holocaust Jewish philosopher, Levinas (SEP here), argues that because theodicy offers an intellectual response to the suffering of others rather than directing us to mitigate it, theodicy is itself essential unethical. I agree entirely.
It may be indeed.
Or, less pessimistically, systematic theology must be done in an attitude of mindfulness about the limits of systematic comprehensibility. It’s not that there’s nothing at all worth saying about our experience of the divine or transcendent; it’s rather than we should be mindful of the limits on what it is possible for us to say about that which transcends all of our categories and concepts.
Well, the problem of how to mitigate evil is a huge and important one.
Did you have a different problem in mind?
Elizabeth,
Some would say the problem of deciding what is evil is a bigger problem; especially if one’s believes that evil is decided by whoever is in power in their particular region.
Jackson Knepp,
That’s why I specified “objective, empirical evidence.” Subjective, internal experiences can be powerful, but they’re not evidence.
I’m still not sure what you mean by “lexical rules”. Who adjudicates? Every single person.
Well, I disagree. I think the problem of what is “bad” is intrinsic. What we might call “evil” is the intentional causing of “bad” for no net benefit to anything else.
Well, exactly. But if one doesn’t believe that evil is decided by whoever is in power in a particular religion it’s a lot easier. As I said in my earlier post – bad is the state we want to get away from, good is the state we want to reach.
You might want to reserve “evil” for the intentional imposition of a bad state for no net good.
Defining it is only really a problem when you bring a god or gods into it.
I think it’s possible to evaluate fictional characters just as readily as real ones (that does not mean I think God categorically fictional, but all I seem to know about him comes from the writings of people whom, I suspect, had no more exposure to the reality than I do).
I evaluate all moral agents against my own standards of such characteristics as ‘Good’, ‘Just’, ‘Honest’. I did not simply invent these standards of course. I share many of my prejudices and preferences with family and society, and in some matters with most of humanity.
They are ‘right’ if they conform to my idea of what ‘right’ means, although I don’t claim that exists in a vacuum, and didn’t just make it up.
I am a resident of the parish.
I learnt from family and peer group and wider society what is an appropriate set of behaviours to which the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad’ can apply. But I also apply a layer of my own judgement. ‘Good’ characteristics are those attracting my approval (honesty, fairness, kindness), and ‘bad’ ones my disapproval (lying, harm, injustice, cruelty). So my assessment of any entity possessed of insight and intent is with regard to those responses to their actions.
It may actually be deemed invalid if they themselves are not possessed of any moral sense. For instance, I think cats cruel, but they are only cruel by my standards, clearly not theirs. Whether they are cruel by any other standard, I cannot say. This could be argued on behalf of God – my standards just don’t apply. But we are instructed that he is more like people than anything else (rather: vice versa), and therefore I am happy to judge him as if he were.
phoodoo,
God is in power in your ‘region’, and he decides what is evil according to your theology. So your problem is one for the theists.
Intrinsic to who?
Is it bad to take more of the world’s resources when others have less?
Jackson Knepp,
I disagree. Most opponents of theodicy in my experience are discussing the claims made by believers and pointing out the contradictions inherent in those claims. It doesn’t make sense to say that anyone is evaluating a god when there’s no evidence such a thing exists.
Patrick,
Yet there are lots of people here claiming there can’t be a God because a God wouldn’t make the world evil.
Elizabeth,
Yes…I agree mostly with your point. It many cases it is very clear what we can do to mitigate evil. In a small, but important, number of cases it is more challenging in knowing what we should do though we can do something. In some instances there doesn’t seem to be anyway of mitigating it. Not even for God…if you accept that God can’t do illogical things, like make all the bad things that have already happened not bad anymore. (I am a theist – though I don’t believe in an “omni-God” like that).
My original question was around the usefulness of either the theist in seeking to establish a theodicy, or to the atheist in opposing a theodicy. So I guess your question is the conclusion…you just moved there quick.
I’ve never heard anyone say that. What I’ve heard is people say that if there is a God s/he doesn’t appear to have human welfare as a high priority.
Patrick,
Hmmm…that doesn’t really jive with my experience. As a theist, I frequently run into atheists, or perhaps anti-theists, or as one person said “born again atheists” that want to challenge my theism with an “argument from evil” in spite of the fact that I made no attempt at theodicy.
That’s unusual – I’m usually quite slow 🙂
Well, are you sure that they are not simply saying that they don’t see evidence for YOUR God – an omniscient, omnipotent omnibenevolent God? Because usually, that’s the one on offer.
Elizabeth,
As a theist, I am suspicious you may be right. Perhaps, as his highest priority, human welfare, in the sense at least of biological life, may not be his penultimate. I know I went a bit off topic there but fwiw…
Elizabeth,
They usually don’t ask me. In any case, when words are thrown out that include the prefix “omni” it gets unnecessarily tricky methinks. As an example, what does omnipotent mean? If it means the ability to the “illogical”…well then it is illogical without any further explanation necessary. If omnigood, when paired with omnipotent, means bad things never happen, well clearly they do. I at least don’t find that those facts are defeaters for theism.
I probably don’t see quite the same dichotomy between “subjective” and “objective” that you do. And in some ways I don’t find those terms helpful. I might ask, what exactly are subjective experiences versus objective experiences? In a similar way, I don’t find the juxtaposition of “natural” and “supernatural” very helpful. Perhaps as a result, in my view, there is compelling evidence for God’s existence.
Well, the classic “problem of evil” is how to reconcile a tri-omni god with the observed plight of humans on this earth. There’s not much of a problem left if you don’t worry about trying to fit a tri-omni god into place.
Although tbh, when I was a theist,I didn’t think there was much of a problem anyway. The beautiful thing about the Christian story, as I understood it (and as I still perceive it, albeit as a myth, in the best sense of that word) is the idea of the suffering servant – God-made-man who died on a cross to show that the ultimate triumph over evil is the abnegation of self, and the demonstration that “whatever you do to the least of my brothers you do to me”. Greater love hath no man than this but he lays down his life for his friends.
But it was always a cherry-picked story. Nonetheless, one of my favorite passages on theodicy is from Helen Waddell’s novel, Peter Abelard:
Waddell does a pretty good job of Abelard’s theory of the Atonement as far as I can tell. Worked for me for half a century anyway.
phoodoo,
If you read closely, you’ll see the real argument is that the existence of an omnibenevolent god is not consistent with the world as we observe it.
Jackson Knepp,
Are they not challenging your claim about the existence of an entity with particular characteristics, including omnibenevolence? It’s quite possible to discuss a claim without asserting the existence of the entity being discussed.
Yes, exactly.
Elizabeth,
Yes. Much there to agree with. I would add though, besides the suffering servant component, the good news in the story and teachings of Jesus also includes a path to redemption, forgiveness, hope, and self-worth for all. But wait, there is more, the audacity to believe that there is more social redemption and social salvation in “turning the other cheek” then there is in more F16s and a bigger military and more Cruise missiles. And that nonviolence is more effective at “winning the peace” than is defensive or pre-emptive war. And that simple truth-telling is better than swearing oaths. And that giving brings more joy than receiving and hoarding and buying that other house in the Hamptons. Unfortunately many hear but few really follow the teachings.
Well, atheist though I be, I’ve been busy today making precisely that point on Facebook vis a vis Syria 🙂
Patrick,
Yes I think they are challenging what they think I believe. But as I noted earlier, I don’t really embrace a systematic theology approach, or theodicy, and I don’t really care for the “omni” words for the reason I gave earlier. What does omnipotent even mean? If it means the power to do the illogical, it is clearly illogical, no further argument needed. The other “omni words,” upon close inspection, pose similar problems.
Jackson Knepp,
Do you have this flexible approach to evidence in other areas of your life? If so, I have some
sub-primepotential high growth investments I’d like to discuss with you.I wouldn’t describe it as flexible…and generally I am not one who is known to uncritically accept things. So I’ll say no to your “high-growth” investments presently. (Of course part of that is because I don’t have money to invest – and part is because I would idealize a non-accumulation of goods practice).
In all seriousness, though, how about you take a stab at this question? What is the difference between my subjective and my objective experiences?
Jackson Knepp,
Assuming that there is an external reality that we all inhabit and which we can perceive to varying degrees, objective experiences can, at least in principle, also be experienced by other people. We can work together to test ideas, replicate observations, and come to tentative conclusions about the nature of reality.
A subjective feeling that “a god spoke to me” cannot be investigated and tested.
Switching to your first paragraph:
My utterly unsubtle point was that, in my experience, theists apply a different standard to their religious beliefs than they do in every other area of their lives. Your question about the difference between objective and subjective is a case in point — I never hear questions like that when the topic is finances or cars or housing or anything but religion. It’s a common double standard.
Jackson:
Yoder’s mistake is to think that we must make some absolute judgment of whether a postulated God is good or evil. We needn’t — we simply have to judge the postulated God against that God’s postulated morality.
I introduced Frank, the anti-seahorse God, in order to make that point. Most of us don’t think that seahorses are evil — we think they’re kind of cute. But if Frank thinks they’re evil — and that is the postulate — then the abundance of seahorses in the world casts doubt on Frank’s existence.
If I love seahorses, then I am “inferior” to Frank, who “knows” that seahorses are evil. Does that prevent me from noting the abundance of seahorses in the world and questioning Frank’s existence on that basis? No, of course not.
The same holds true for more conventional omniGods.
Each of us has to decide which God or gods to believe in, if any. If you are suggesting that we cannot evaluate competing God (or non-God) hypotheses against the evidence, then you are arguing for agnosticism, not theism.
Is Frank really omnigood, relative to his anti-seahorse morality? By your (or Yoder’s) logic, we cannot even ask the question. After all, who are we, as mere mortals, to judge the great Frank, who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good?
There’s a slight wrinkle here worth a moment’s pause — what does “illogical” mean? By what conception of logic is a concept either internally incoherent or an argument invalid? Insofar as we’re using our ‘human, all-too-human’ conceptions of what logic is, I think we’re in real danger of domesticating the divine.
Where we differ is…I don’t feel the need to clarify and say “external” reality. Why not just say we inhabit reality? What does the clarification “external” reality bring to the question? If you say external reality are you sort of conceding and internal reality anyway? Why not just say reality?
I note you also wrote which “we (subjects) perceive to varying degrees.” I am sure you can see the internal questions that would arise if that statement underwent a rigid critical analysis.
I also agree we can work together to test ideas etc. I don’t disagree with that at all. However, what do you mean by the nature of reality? Is it important to you that that “nature” be subjective or objective? In my view it is just the “nature of reality.” Nothing more. And the nature of reality can only be experienced subjectively – to use your language. One of my concerns with the objectivity/subjectivity dichotomy is that in one sense if we go with a hard objectivity lens, objectivity loses all meaning as it doesn’t impact the subject at all. Such was the criticism of objectivity by the socalled “father of existentialism” (SK), I believe.
If one were to make a claim about an experience with God, why couldn’t that be tested like other propositions? I am inclined deny the supernatural/natural dichotomy at one level.
As for me, a theist, I make judgements about “the nature of reality” as I see it when measured against the whole of my experiential knowledge. Not sure what else to say there…
The further question is whether this epistemic double standard is a problem.
(There’s a philosophical discussion of this that goes back to Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” vs. James’s “The Will to Believe”. These essays really need to be read together, but today most atheists repeat Clifford’s arguments without realizing it and without considering James’s response, and most theists repeat James’s arguments without realizing it and without considering his essay as a response to Clifford.)
My own take — for which keiths and others here have criticized me, though not yet with much effect — is that the epistemic double-standard is a problem only when the theist insists on using his or her religious experiences as grounding the claims that he or she puts forth in a public space of reasons. And in that regard, the criticism of the double standard is a good objection to “the Religious Right”.
But the double standard is not a problem for other people when the person of faith is only insisting on his or her right to affirm the existence of a transcendent Being as central to his or her personal life.
Frankie,
If God is omniscient, he already knows whether we are worthy. No need to perform a test.