The problem of good

Christians are often asked to defend God, from attacks using the problem of evil: If God is good, and all-powerful, why are there things such as earthquakes, meteors, and Alzheimer's? Why does God allow human-caused evils, like global climate change, child sexual exploitation, and war? These can be serious questions, and hard ones to answer. This area of thought is often called "the problem of evil." C. S. Lewis answered that problem in his The Problem of Pain.

There are, then, problems for Christians. However, there are corresponding problems, much less frequently discussed, for atheists, namely the problem of good. As N. T. Wright put it in his Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues, if the universe is here because of mindless chance, how is it that there is so much in our surroundings to appreciate and cherish: leaf colors, rainbows, music, innocent laughter, beautiful human constructions, unselfish good deeds, uplifting literature, and much more?

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 706

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:


Christianity: Comedian Stephen Colbert on how he found his faith again, through a New Testament (Gideon?) given to him on the street.
A BioLogos writer discusses how evil can be in the world, in spite of God's existence and power.
(And politics) Relevant reports on Pastor Tim Keller points out the dangers of nationalism, applying the book of Jonah.


Computing: Gizmodo reports on 22 apps for Android devices that drain batteries rapidly, and may contain malware.

Education: Grammarphobia explains the use of "clear" and "clearly."

Health: (And politics) Michael Gerson on the anti-vaccination movement in Italy (and the U.S.).

Humor: One of my Flickr contacts has been imagining really big helpings of several kinds of food.


Politics: Scientific American reports that the Department of Interior is not protecting the environment -- quite the opposite.

FiveThirtyEight asks whether the Republican Party has given up on attracting black voters, and discusses the history of the question.

Science: Relevant reports on studies that show that almost all old ice in the Arctic is gone.


The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, I believe, it is public domain.

Thanks for looking!

Why is there evil in the world?

Why is there evil in the world?

The classic Christian answer is this: When God created people, He gave them the power to choose. If the power to choose was real, then people could choose bad things, with bad consequences. The first, and most profound, bad choice was when Adam and Eve disobeyed God about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, whatever may have happened then. That choice resulted in a fallen creation, with human death, necessity to work, diseases, extinctions, parasites, hurricanes, earthquakes, pollution, wars, exploitation of other people, and of animals, other types of sin, and violence of all kinds.

God’s answer to bad human choice (sin) is Himself. Christ, who was God and man, paid the price for our sin by personally suffering on the cross, a voluntary, sinless sacrifice. (The resurrection shows that the sacrifice was acceptable.)

There will come a time when human suffering, for those who have chosen to accept Christ’s sacrifice, and accept Him as Lord, will be over. Our bodies will be restored to the state God planned for them in the first place, free from aches and pains, aging and death. The earth will also be restored to the state God planned for it.

God doesn’t send anyone to hell, a place of eternal suffering. People choose to go there, and God honors that choice.

Suffering builds character. We can’t achieve salvation by suffering, but undergoing suffering may help us serve God better.

“I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” – Orual, the main character of Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis.

The book of Job is largely about the previous paragraph. Bad things happened to Job. They weren't his fault. He blamed God. (See here, for example.) But, in the end, Job realized that God was infinitely more wise, and good, than he was. (See here.) God also allowed Job to live a long time, restored his health, and replaced the possessions and children that he had lost. (However, there is no promise of that sort of earthly recompense for the suffering of all of God's followers. See Hebrews 11.)

Thanks for reading. Bad things will happen. The most important result of them is what my response will be.

Among Others by Jo Walton

You can almost always find chains of coincidence to disprove magic. That's because it doesn't happen the way it does in books. It makes those chains of coincidence. That's what it is. It's like if you snapped your fingers and produced a rose but it was because someone on an aeroplane had dropped a rose at just the right time for it to land in your hand. There was a real person and a real aeroplane and a real rose, but that doesn't mean the reason you have the rose isn't because you did the magic. Jo Walton, Among Others. (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2010, p. 40.)

I recently read Among Others by Jo Walton. The book won several important awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and British Fantasy awards, and was a nominee for the World Fantasy Award.

The book consists entirely of the diary of Morwenna Phelps, also known as Morwenna Markova, during the period from September 1979 through February 1980, plus an initial entry from 1975. She is a teenager, in a boarding school. She has been in a terrible accident that took the life of her twin sister, Morganna, and left her with one bad leg, so bad that she isn't required to participate in sports at the school. That's all right with her, because she is a voracious reader, mostly of fantastic literature. I didn't count, but there must have been a few hundred of such books mentioned, mostly read by Morwenna. She gives her opinions of them, and occasionally discusses them with a book club, or with her father. Many of these books are well known even today, and some of the others should be, although they aren't. I suspect that this parading of the history of science-fiction/fantasy, throughout the book, was one of the reasons for the awards that it won. It's a good book, though, lest there be any doubt.
It's a quiet book, and you won't find any armies marching, swordplay, space travel, or desperate wizards going to great lengths to cast spells. The quotation at the beginning of this post describes how magic works in Walton's sub-creation. It works quietly, in the background, as it were. I won't give away any more of the plot than is necessary to discuss a couple of matters. If you are interested in the plot, I recommend these reviews: This review says that Walton's description of magic, which takes the quotation above as its theme, is the most important aspect of the book. This one says that perhaps none of the magic, nor even the accident and the dead twin, are real, but we have a case of an unreliable narrator. This one, and others, indicate that the book is partly biographical. The location and time correspond to Walton's own life. Walton was, and is, somewhat crippled, and read fantastic literature as a teenager.

The first matter to discuss is fairies. Morwenna is able to see, and communicate, with fairies, mostly Welsh fairies. Such fairies are unlike most descriptions of these folk. They come in various sizes and shapes, some of them being not obviously humanoid at all. They can communicate a little, but aren't good with words, and don't like to talk to people. Most people can't see them.

The second matter is this: the book is a coming of age novel. It isn't much of a distortion to say that it's also about Morwenna's search for God. I quote:

[Humphrey] Carpenter says in the Inklings book that [C. S.] Lewis meant Aslan to be Jesus. I can sort of see it, but all the same it feels like a betrayal. It feels like allegory. No wonder Tolkien was cross. . . . Sometimes I'm so stupid -- but Aslan was always so much himself. I don't know what I think about Jesus, but I know what I think about Aslan. (page 129. Tolkien, though a great friend of Lewis for much of their lives, was not pleased with the Narnia books.)

and

Dear God, if you are there and care and can bless people, please bless Alison Carroll with your very best blessing. (page 212. Alison Carroll is her school librarian. Libraries are very important to Morwenna, and Ms. Carroll and another librarian went out of their way to do good things for Morwenna.)

There are several other indications that she is searching for meaning in life, and hoping to find it, somehow, in God. She doesn't exactly do so, though.

Thanks for reading. If you want to read an ambiguous book about magic, coming of age, and searching for God, Among Others is for you.

Job, Harry Potter and misery

If there is a God, and He is even close to all-powerful, why is there suffering? (If there is a god who isn't even close to being all-powerful, he, she, or it is not God.)

That's a very good question, and theologians and philosophers have been asking it, and trying to answer, for a long time. But it's pretty clear that none of the answers are fully satisfactory to everybody. This attempt won't be, either. (I have dealt with the topic before, here, and here, among other places.)

C. S. Lewis had two good answers. One of them was in his non-fictional book, The Problem of Pain. Here it is in one sentence: "Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you will find that you have excluded life itself." The other, simpler, better answer is in his splendid novel, Till We Have Faces. The four-sentence answer there is "I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?" To me, a belief in an after-life is also an answer, but I won't say more about that here. I doubt if it's a full answer for almost anyone.

I'm sure that not everyone is satisfied with either of the answers given by Lewis. The question remains, for many.

One of the books of the Bible, Job, is about suffering. God, although sovereign, allowed Satan, the adversary, to take Job's possessions, his children, and his good health. (Satan said that, if he was allowed to do so, Job would lose his faith in God.) Job didn't like all this loss, and complained about what he didn't like for a few chapters. Other people, well-meaning, tried to tell Job that all this was his fault -- he must have done something bad. His wife told him to stop believing in God. Job refused to believe that his troubles were his fault, and he refused to stop believing in the goodness of God. But he still had a question. Why did this happen to me? In the end, God appeared to Job, and, basically, said, "Who are you to question me?" Job said, basically, "I'm sorry, you are right. Forgive me. I'll shut up." Then God restored his possessions, and he had more children. God told those who had questioned Job's righteousness to ask Job to pray for them. Satan doesn't make an appearance, after the very first part, but presumably he was seriously disappointed by Job's reaction. In many ways, the answer given Job is the same as the answer given in The Problem of Pain.

I don't know, for sure, if Job was a real character. He probably was, but I suppose that the book could be a long parable. I don't think it matters, for our purposes. The question remains -- why is there suffering, if there is a powerful and loving God?

I presume that you know enough about the Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling, that what I am about to say makes sense. If not, you  should read them, or at least the Wikipedia summary. (Here's one place where I have written about the books previously.)

Is J. K. Rowling a terrible person? After all, she wrote about a character, Harry Potter, who had to undergo a great deal of suffering. His parents died while he was still very small, he had to live with relatives, the Dursley's, who took advantage of him, and restricted him terribly. He went through all sorts of ordeals. Some of his best friends died. He felt that he and his two closest friends had to leave his wizard training at Hogwarts, and wander in the woods for an extended period of time, during which the three of them suffered the misery of disagreeing with one another, and doubting each other's motives. Harry's mentor, Dumbledore, died. Harry himself offered to die to save the good wizards.

Would people read these seven books, and watch the movies based on them, if Harry hadn't had to suffer? I don't think so. A life without conflict, without occasional misery, seems dull and uninteresting. (How much good news do you see on TV, or read in the newspaper, compared to scandals, natural disasters, wars, crimes, stupidity by various politicians, and other awful things? Not very much. The news organizations couldn't sell good news. We wouldn't buy it, or watch or read it.)

Rowling, to write a novel which speaks to us (or at least to some of us) included suffering, of various kinds. True, it wasn't all about suffering. In the end, Harry marries his sweetheart, and has children. He is at least on nodding terms with Draco Malfoy, who was once his bitter enemy. Voldemort and his followers are defeated. But I submit that Rowling, who had almost absolute power over the content of her books, including the plot, was not a bad person because she put many of her characters through terrible suffering. And she didn't put in characters, like Voldemort, who had, except possibly before the books start, no good characteristics, because she was not in control of what she wrote. She was.

Similarly, God is not a bad person, nor impotent, because there is misery in the world.

I know. The Harry Potter books are fiction. My life (I think) is real. So is yours. No analogy is perfect, and this one certainly isn't. But I think it helped me to write this post. Besides, I'm not so sure that the life of characters in a novel, in relationship to the author, doesn't resemble the relationship between our lives and the Creator.

Thanks for reading.

Why do sickness and death bother us so much?

Why do sickness and death bother us so much? Every one reading this, and the vast number who won't, will die, barring some miraculous event. All of us get sick, sometimes as a minor inconvenience, sometimes as a crippling incapacitation, and sometimes to death.

Why, then, don't we just accept this state of things? Why do we expect things to go right, when they almost never do?

There are probably a lot of different reasons for our rebellion against the way things are. I hope I understand part of the reasons.

I think that, deep in our DNA, or our unconscious, is the knowledge that things shouldn't be like this. So we complain, and rebel against the way things are. What do I mean, things shouldn't be like this? The Bible teaches us that the first humans lived in a world without human sickness and death. (Plants and animals probably died, or were killed by humans.) But that world changed drastically, because those first humans disobeyed God, the Creator. I believe that we somehow know that there has been a change, and long for it to be reversed, and complain at the consequences of that change, the Fall.

Some of us question God's goodness, or even His existence, because of the consequences of sin in the world. How could a loving God allow such terrible things to happen? If I had the full answer to that, I would be God, which I certainly am not. But part of the answer is that God suffers with us, probably more than we suffer ourselves. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus also took the consequences of our sin upon Himself, for those who are willing to let Him do so for them. In the process, Jesus, Himself, suffered. Granted, He didn't suffer as long as, say, a burn victim, but He did suffer.

Another part of the answer is that God is going to provide a Heaven for those who believe, free from sickness and death.

It is not wrong to want to do something about sickness. Jesus healed every person who asked Him to do so. He also raised a few people from death. The Bible suggests that we pray for sick believers. But healing everyone is not God's final answer. (See here for more of what the Bible says on that subject.) Consider, also, that everyone Jesus healed died, most likely of sickness, later in their life. Those He raised from the dead  
died a second time. The Bible says that death is the last enemy to be defeated.

I think we, including me, concentrate too much on sickness. Although all the churches I have attended, and can remember, prayed most of their prayers for the sick, the New Testament church didn't pray in that pattern.

Thanks for reading.

What about the earthquake? What happened? Did God cause it?

I have just now read three fine posts on the recent earthquake in Japan. (Thank you, Google Reader.) One is by a geologist, writing at The Panda's Thumb, who explains what happened, and puts to rest some ridiculous rumors, such as the one about a supermoon (whatever that is). He also says that the number or severity of earthquakes is NOT increasing. There's also a Wikipedia article on this earthquake.

Two other posts are from a Christian perspective. One, from Heart, Mind and Soul, deals with the question, "Did God cause this earthquake?" Short answer: "No," but it's not quite that simple. Read the post, and the second comment. As the blogger points out, Jesus answered a question like that.

The second post, by He Lives, is on the statement, "There must not be a god, because if there was, he wouldn't allow such things to happen." (Paraphrased from scientist Jerry Coyne, who is not nearly as good a philosopher as a scientist.) The blogger puts that statement to rest, again.

Read these for more on the earthquake. I normally put out a Sunspots on Wednesday, but this seems more pertinent, so I'll hold off on that for a day or so.

P. S. A study, using US Geological Survey data, by the Institute for Creation Research (which I don't always agree with) indicates that the frequency of earthquakes is not increasing.

Thanks for reading this.

A Healing Homiletic by Kathy Black

One of my daughters lent me A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability by Kathy Black (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996). The central thesis of the book is that preaching about many of the familiar stories of the Bible, especially the ones about miraculous healing, can contribute to unfortunate perceptions of the disabled. For example, sin is often compared to blindness, so that being blind may be equated with sinfulness. (Black is deaf, and is ordained herself.)

Black takes the Bible seriously, and analyzes each story of healing that she uses, verse by verse, and in some cases, word by word.

I'm not sure what I would do about this, if I were a preacher, other than to read the book, and consider Black's suggestions on several common texts. I'm currently a Sunday School, and occasional children's church co-leader, and I need to be careful in this area while in those capacities. Her suggestions on how to use Bible stories are rather sparse. For example, in Chapter Four, on Mark 7:31-37, she suggests a number of things not to do in using this story. For one, she warns against assuming that members of the Deaf culture want to hear. Her suggestions as to what to do are just two: Don't reject people because they are different, and be willing to offer healing where there is no faith.

Black's book is also useful in that it points out the most likely explanations for human suffering/disability:
(1) it is punishment for their sin or the sin of their parents, (2) it is a test of their faith and character, (3) it is an opportunity for personal development or for the development of those in relationship to persons with disabilities, (4) it presents an opportunity for the power of God to be made manifest, (5) suffering is redemptive, and (6) the mysterious omnipotence of God simply makes it impossible to know why it is God's will. (p. 23)

None of these explanations are completely satisfactory to us. I guess that they don't need to be.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 221

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
Did you ever wonder about the adaptive significance of toucan's bills? The BBC reports on research into the function of these large bird parts.

Philosophy:
(or something) Wired has an article on guidelines (ethics, if you please) for robot behavior.

Christianity:
The problem of how a good God can allow bad things is addressed again, in Christianity Today. The article asks "Why do we Need Earthquakes?" and goes on from there.


Image source (public domain)

Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn

Eifelheim, (New York, New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2006) by Michael Flynn, was a nominee for the Hugo Award in 2007. I try to keep up at least a nodding acquaintance with some of the Hugo and Nebula Award books, so I read Eifelheim, and I'm glad I did.

The Wikipedia article on the book is here. I confess -- I wrote a little of the article.

I didn't really expect to run into two important theological questions in Eifelheim, but I did. Flynn sets much of the book in Germany of the 1300s. That seems like a strange setting for a science fiction novel, but the reason so much of the book is set there is because it's about aliens crashing to earth at that time and place.

Flynn hangs two interesting theological questions on the encounter between aliens and medieval Germany. The first is, "Where is God when things go badly?" (The plague is one thing that goes badly, in this book. See here for another post, quoting Eifelheim, and also quoting an even more celebrated science fiction work, on this question.) The second question is, "Can aliens be converted to Christianity?" Flynn's answer is "yes." Some of the aliens become believers. Some of the humans think that this is monstrous, and some think that these conversions are miracles of God.

There are some more typical science fiction matters in the book. One of these is communication between species. The aliens don't look much like humans, and they don't speak as humans do. So Flynn considers communication from both technical and cultural angles. There are twenty-first century scientists in the book, and there are considerations of cosmology, and of historical research, and they are interesting. (In case you are wondering how the 1300s and the twenty-first century get together, there is time travel. Actually, I think that the story could have been told in just the 1300s, with no significant loss.)

To me, the real meat of the book is Flynn's portrayal of a German village, set in the Black Forest, in the 1300s. He seems to have done his homework. The various characters, peasants, soldiers, Lord, and priests, ring true. Especially, their religion rings true. As Flynn put it:
I have tried to depict the milieu of the mid-fourteenth century Rhineland as accurately as possible, but that is difficult enough to do for early twenty first-century America, let alone a time and place where the worldview was so different from our own categories of thought.
For one thing, they took Christianity seriously; in many ways, more seriously than modern Bible-thumpers. At the same time, they took it more matter-of-factly. (p. 315, "Historical Notes.") Flynn certainly took Christianity seriously in this book.

It was a good read, and, as I have said, it considered two deep, and interesting, theological questions. I'm sorry that it didn't win the Hugo.

See here for a post on extraterrestrial religion.

Thanks for reading.

Where is God when things hurt us badly? pt. 4

This is the fourth in a series of posts. The most recent is here.

I realized, this morning during church (The pastor was speaking about Job, and while I was in that book of the Bible, I sneaked a peek at the NIV Reference Bible's introduction to the book.) that my previous posts had left out a very significant factor.

The question raised by the title of these posts is a thorny one, the question of theodicy. A person who commented on those was not convinced that I have an answer to the question that can be defended by argument. I'm not sure that I do either. I believe that I do have an answer from experience. The answer is that God's love never deserts us, not matter what.

The significant factor that I left out will not improve my chances at an argument, but, to the Christian, it's significant. That is that we and God are not the only actors in the drama. There's also Satan. Satan, although by no means as powerful as God, has some power, and wishes us no good. He has warped the world so that it contains germs, diseases, poisons, cancer, and the like. He also tempts humans to do evil, and, all too often, we succumb.

Well, doesn't the existence of Satan mean that God is not omnipotent? Why would a loving God allow the existence of such a being? I don't think I have a complete answer to that. One possibility is that God is giving Satan, himself, a chance to repent. Another is that God allows Satan to bring misery into the world in punishment for the sins of humanity. A third, illustrated by Job, is that God allows Satan to hurt good people so that their triumph over such hurt can be an inspiration to others. And, fourthly, God allows testing because that refines character. These four possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

To emphasize the last point, here's a quotation from C. S. Lewis:
When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected), he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When troubles come along--illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptation--he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity: What One Must Believe to Be a Christian. New York: Macmillan, 1952. p. 174.

And one from James 1:
2 Count it all joy, my brothers*, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (ESV)
*There is an ESV text note, indicating that "brothers" can mean "brothers and sisters."

Thanks for reading.

Where is God when things hurt us badly, pt. 3

In previous posts, here and here, I considered the problem posed by the post title. One comment on the first post was as follows:

David B. Ellis said...

[quoting me here:] They both present answers. In Eifelheim, it is God's love, expressed through the unselfish love of fellow creatures, hope of heaven, and hope of ultimate redemption.


Hope? That sounds more like a coping mechanism than an actual answer to the problem of evil (or problem of unnecessary suffering, as I think its better called).

The "answer" in DOOMSDAY BOOK is even worse:


The question: why does a loving God allow terrible suffering he could easily prevent?

nonanswer: God loves us.

questioner: That doesn't address my question. If he loves us, WHY does he allow terrible suffering?

nonanswer: God loves us. 'Nuff said.

There's no answer in that. Just an unwillingness to actually face the challenge extreme suffering presents to the reasonableness of belief in a caring God.

Of course, in the passage you quoted from the book the actual question that was raised was whether one should go on struggling in the face of terrible odds.

The reasonable answer, of course, is yes. A 1% chance is better than the odds for just giving up, which is, of course, ) 0%.

One doesn't need belief in God for that. Just common sense.

I responded by agreeing that the responses I had suggested were, indeed, coping mechanisms, not answers. A relative, who is a psychiatrist, read my first post, and offered this response:

I think [Ellis] said something like "That's just a coping mechanism, not an answer." I think this is an appropriate analogy: In Psychiatry, we often admit people who have just suffered some huge crisis. Probably one of the biggest is learning that their spouse/significant other was going to leave them. In response, they impulsively overdose, slash their wrists, etc. Well, if someone's spouse is truly going to leave them, and managed care is going to pay for only 3 days (more or less) of hospitalization, we don't try to focus on solutions. We often first focus on coping mechanisms. We also focus on coping mechanisms for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder, a diagnosis characterized by impulsive behavior and labile mood. We use the term "self-soothing" sometimes. I think that in order to get to a place where you can actually work on ANSWERS, you first need to be able to cope with your current circumstances, and obviously, you need to be able to avoid killing yourself. Again, I don't know that we're necessarily providing hope, but often they do get more hopeful with time (and again, if they can keep from focusing on suicide)

In my second post, I attempted to explain (as many others have) how suffering, and a loving God, can both exist. At the moment, that's the best answer I have for that question. Coping, through hope and God's love, are the best responses.

Thanks to Ellis and my relative, and thanks for reading.

* * * * *

Added Jan 21, 2008: I have come to see that there is a serious omission in my musing on this subject, which I have attempted to repair with a fourth post on the subject.

Where is God when things hurt us badly? pt. 2

In a recent post, "Where is God when things hurt us badly?" I quoted from two important works of science fiction, which have that question as a major theme. I received more than the usual number of comments on the post (a couple of which were really about something else). Here's the last comment (so far, anyway). That comment deserves a lengthy, serious answer:

David B. Ellis said...

The whole question is WHY if God loves human beings he stands by inactive while they undergo horrible unnecessary agonies.

Such behavior is not consistent with a loving nature.

The religious skeptic is able to give a clear and credible answer to the question of why a loving God would allow such suffering:

Because he's fictional.

Theism, on the other hand, has been able to give no credible answer.

Simply restating your premise that God loves us does nothing to address this question---one of the most puzzling of issues that theism must address.

Ellis's first paragraph will do as a statement of the issue. I agree with him that this is one of the most puzzling issues that theism must address. Many others have attempted to address it, and some of them have been more successful than I expect to be. Nonetheless, I'll muse about it in this post.

The usual Christian response to the problem of pain is that given by C. S. Lewis. The theology of this question is called theodicy. I am not a theologian, nor an expert in theodicy. I have read Lewis, and some criticism of his response.

My summary of the response by Lewis is the following:

Unselfish, agape love includes a desire for independence in the objects of love.

Although God began as an all-powerful being, He chose to give up some of His power, in that some of the beings He created were given the opportunity to make choices. If they really can make choices, then one of the results is that they (and often others, even innocent others) must experience the consequences of their choices, even though God would wish that they could be protected from such consequences. If there was no possibility of bad results of their choices they wouldn't really be choices. This is similar to, say, teaching a child to drive a car. Sooner or later, such a young driver, if she has really become an autonomous driver, must drive by herself. This means that she may have an accident, injuring herself, perhaps others, and even die, or kill others. Her parent knows this, but also knows that he cannot always be there to give advice, or take the wheel. In order that the young driver be able to transport herself to work, or to college, she must be able to make her own choices while on the road. Sometimes these choices will be wrong, with terrible consequences, but not allowing her to drive would be even worse -- she would always be dependent on others. Although allowing others to make choices may lead to terrible consequences, it may also lead to wonderful consequences. The daughter may get a good job, experience a good education, and meet a good husband. The creature, created by God, may choose to follow in His steps, without being forced to do so. A God who loves very much loved enough to allow for autonomy in some of His creatures.

Humans chose to admit evil into the world. From that came sin, sickness, war, death, and all kinds of evil. God didn't want that, but He did want humans (and angels, apparently) to have the capacity to choose. These terrible consequences have come about as a result.

God's answer to human problems, caused by our bad choices, original and current, is not to remove the problems, but to offer hope, and, especially, love. The ultimate love was to take on God Himself the consequences of evil choices, paying the price for our sin by His own sacrificial death -- love in the extreme. He also offers, to those who chose to accept it, an eternal life of (apparently) unmitigated good, in His presence. Thus, His answer to the terrible problem of pain is not to take the pain away, but to impart love and hope, and, finally, Himself. As Lewis put it fictionally:

"I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?" C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, p. 308. (Faces is not exactly about the problem of pain. It is more about the problem of being alive. But the answer stands.)

Ellis, and others, may say that this is no answer, and, in a way, it isn't one. Job wondered where God was when he was sitting in the ash heap, scraping his boils with broken pottery, with his family and possessions mostly destroyed. God didn't exactly answer him, but simply asked Job to compare himself with God. This was good enough for Job -- God is all-powerful (except where self-limited by the choices of others) good, and loving. Job repented of his doubt.

Christ, Himself, while on the cross, cried out "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" I suppose that He Himself was wondering where God's love was, at that time of greatest suffering. He personally experienced the consequences of my bad choices, and those of others. But He also cried out, as His last utterance, "Into your hands I commit my spirit." God's love is the answer. Hope, Love, and God Himself do not stop suffering. They don't even explain it. But they offer a way to cope, and final relief.

I have also posted again on this topic, responding to another of Ellis's comments. I thank him greatly for those comments, whether or not he finds my responses satisfactory.

Thanks for reading.

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Added Jan 21, 2008: I have come to see that there is a serious omission in my musing on this subject, which I have attempted to repair with a fourth post on the subject.

Theodicy, or the problem of evil/pain

Henry has begun posting on Theodicy. His first post on the subject refers favorably to a long article, "Christian Theodicy in Light of Genesis and Modern Science," by William Dembski. Henry, as he says, is not much of a Dembski fan, which makes his approval of this article more impressive.

The Dembski article weighs in at 52 pages, so don't hold your breath until I post about it. I may, or may not, but I wanted to mention it.

The problem of theodicy is a serious challenge to believers. (The Wikipedia article on the subject gives 9 different views on the subject.) One aspect of this is that different views of origins differ in how they deal with decay and death in non-human organisms. Henry, and, apparently, Dembski, are well worth reading as they consider this subject.

Thanks for reading!