Hi,
The Problem of Evil, especially as it relates to the Holocaust, has torn at me a lot over the years. It was heavy on my mind when I decided that I couldn't be a Christian anymore. Recently, though, I've begun to consider the question in a different light.
It seems to me that whether there is a God or not, all of us are still faced with a world that is both full of wonders and full of unspeakable evil. For every bird that takes flight, there's a baby that gets cancer. For every rainbow or Hubble telescope image, there's a Good Friday earthquake. I'm sick to death of theodicy and this post is not an exercise in that. If there is a God, then I'm fully prepared to find out that He is simply a sadist laughing at our suffering. But if there is no God, then we're still confronted with an existence that is nasty, brutish, and short to an extent that I'm tempted to call it a cosmic joke with no punchline.
If God has some grand reason for this, then He isn't telling us and we have no clue as to what it could possibly be. My gut tells me that there is no good reason for an omnipotent God to make the world like this, but I'm open to being wrong on that. Either way, in the face of God's silence on the matter, we might as well be living in a cold universe where suffering simply has no answer. The atheist and the theist are faced with the same absurdity in practice, if not in the ultimate reality.
So whether there is a God or not, we're also all still confronted with a choice to make-whether to "opt out."
I find that I've taken the words of Albert Camus from his Myth of Sisyphus as a sort of life motto- "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." One can either find a reason to carry on in spite of the practical absurdity of existence or one can give their middle figure to the heavens.
Either way, one is equally forced to find something that one personally finds meaningful enough to justify the continuation of this painful life. Whether one lives for the glory of God or the companionship of others, it's all essentially the same thing when looked at in this light. So, I really don't see the Problem of Evil as a logical reason for not believing in God (or at least for not being a sadotheist). I disbelieve for other reasons.
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PS.
The only remaining possible variable that I see is Romans 8:18- "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." It's tricky, but I guess my response at this time would be that this verse is only good enough to justify suffering in a world in which babies don't get cancer, in which God does not kill the just and the unjust alike, or at least a world wherein we knew without a doubt that "Heaven [and the resurrection of the dead] is for real." In other words, I think Paul is here siding with Job's interlocutors against the innocents who suffer in this world in which God is silent. It's just not a good enough answer for me anymore. Suffering, especially something like the Holocaust, is too much of a cosmic brown note to be soothed with so simple a balm. It takes all our reasonings and theodicies and laughs in our face.
As you can see, I have a hard escaping the idea that God Himself died in the ovens at Auschwitz and He isn't going to rise again this time.
The Problem of Evil, especially as it relates to the Holocaust, has torn at me a lot over the years. It was heavy on my mind when I decided that I couldn't be a Christian anymore. Recently, though, I've begun to consider the question in a different light.
It seems to me that whether there is a God or not, all of us are still faced with a world that is both full of wonders and full of unspeakable evil. For every bird that takes flight, there's a baby that gets cancer. For every rainbow or Hubble telescope image, there's a Good Friday earthquake. I'm sick to death of theodicy and this post is not an exercise in that. If there is a God, then I'm fully prepared to find out that He is simply a sadist laughing at our suffering. But if there is no God, then we're still confronted with an existence that is nasty, brutish, and short to an extent that I'm tempted to call it a cosmic joke with no punchline.
If God has some grand reason for this, then He isn't telling us and we have no clue as to what it could possibly be. My gut tells me that there is no good reason for an omnipotent God to make the world like this, but I'm open to being wrong on that. Either way, in the face of God's silence on the matter, we might as well be living in a cold universe where suffering simply has no answer. The atheist and the theist are faced with the same absurdity in practice, if not in the ultimate reality.
So whether there is a God or not, we're also all still confronted with a choice to make-whether to "opt out."
I find that I've taken the words of Albert Camus from his Myth of Sisyphus as a sort of life motto- "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." One can either find a reason to carry on in spite of the practical absurdity of existence or one can give their middle figure to the heavens.
Either way, one is equally forced to find something that one personally finds meaningful enough to justify the continuation of this painful life. Whether one lives for the glory of God or the companionship of others, it's all essentially the same thing when looked at in this light. So, I really don't see the Problem of Evil as a logical reason for not believing in God (or at least for not being a sadotheist). I disbelieve for other reasons.
-----
PS.
The only remaining possible variable that I see is Romans 8:18- "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." It's tricky, but I guess my response at this time would be that this verse is only good enough to justify suffering in a world in which babies don't get cancer, in which God does not kill the just and the unjust alike, or at least a world wherein we knew without a doubt that "Heaven [and the resurrection of the dead] is for real." In other words, I think Paul is here siding with Job's interlocutors against the innocents who suffer in this world in which God is silent. It's just not a good enough answer for me anymore. Suffering, especially something like the Holocaust, is too much of a cosmic brown note to be soothed with so simple a balm. It takes all our reasonings and theodicies and laughs in our face.
As you can see, I have a hard escaping the idea that God Himself died in the ovens at Auschwitz and He isn't going to rise again this time.
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