The Question of Evil, Part II

[Some] Attributes of God

Before continuing to exploring some of the traditional answers to the question of, “How can a loving God allow Evil to exist?” I want to explore some of the attributes of God. This falls into the pale of rephrasing the question. God is loving, yes, but He is not all-loving, in the sense that “LOVE” is the only attribute that God has. I want to emphasize, too, that the attributes of God are simply descriptions of God. These attributes describe God’s nature and what He does, and these attributes are integrated and connected. Some of the attributes of God are below:

1. God is omnipotent. This simply means that God is all-powerful. Skeptics have often asked the questions, “Can God make a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it?” or “If God’s right arm and God’s left arm wrestle, which arm will win?” These questions are absurd, and since they are absurd, they cannot demand a logical answer. Perhaps the best answer to these questions is itself a question: “Why doesn’t God kill you right now for being an ass?” The answer: “Oh, yeah, because He is patient and benevolent.” God’s omnipotence can be adequately defined as: God can do anything He wants to do. God cannot do anything evil or irrational, because God is holy and logical.

2. God is omnipresent. This means that God is everywhere at once. Understanding this is essential to answering the question about evil. In the ancient Near East, the pagan religions stated that the gods were not all-present, and thus whenever something bad happened, or wherever evil flourished, the gods were not present. If we were to say that God is not all-present, it would answer the question about the existence and prosperity of Evil, but it would neglect God’s worth. Why ought we worship a God who is regional and limited geographically? But because God is all-present, the answer to the question of evil becomes even more intense. God is obviously present where evil flourishes, but it seems He does nothing.

3. God is omniscient. This means that God is all-knowing. It means that God knows everything that can possibly be known. Does He know that which cannot be known? Does He know possibly alternative futures? Does he even know alternative pasts? No one really knows. God knows what we are thinking even if we do not reveal it to others or even to Him. In the Book of Job, we see that God knows Satan’s plans even when Satan tries to hide them; God knows about the evil that exists in the world, and He is well-aware of how it is prosperous and flourishing. This, again, makes answering the question of evil even more difficult.

4. God is benevolent. This means that God’s attitude towards His creation is that of care, compassion, and good-will. The Hebrew language expounds upon God’s benevolence even more than any other attribute. This makes the question of evil more difficult to answer: God wishes good things for His creation, including humanity—scripture attests to this—but yet even the people of God experience evil in their lives and are often traumatized by it. It doesn’t seem like God’s benevolence is coming through.

5. God is Authentic. This means that God is more concerned with our hearts and lives than religious ritual.

6. God is Just. This is intimately connected to God’s benevolence; one who loves and cares bestows blessings upon the other person. God is Just, and He pursues justice. This raises another struggle to the table: God, who is Just, allows evil to exist and prosper. Where is His justice?

7. God is Holy. His holiness is seen in the fact that His very nature is holy, and that He will not even associate with evil.

These are some of the attributes of God that make the question of evil even more difficult to deal with. There is one attribute missing [note: this list is certainly not exhaustive], which is hotly debated amongst Christians, but what I believe holds the key to an adequate answer. This other attribute, which will be explored in my next post, ties in with God’s justice. Looking at these attributes of God, it seems that God is less and less deserving of our worship: He has the power to stop evil, He knows evil abounds, He is present where Evil abounds, He is a God who loathes Evil and seeks justice, and He is a God who is, according to scripture, seeking the good-will of His creation. None of this makes sense when we look evil straight in the face. Hopefully with the next attribute of God things will become clearer.

spring semester: the first week

Monday. Class started at 10:00. Job & Lamentations with Dan Dyke. I found a check in my school mailbox for $140. I spent most of the evening in my dorm room, laid over with a headache. I grabbed dinner from Pizza Hut and hung out with J.T., Morocco, and Kyle for a while. I went to WalGreens and bought some pens for note-taking. I called Jessie come nightfall, and we talked for a bit. Justin V. broke up with his girlfriend, and it’s probably a reliable guess that he will pursue Jessie. She’ll date him, and I’ll be kicked to the curb. *SIGH* But that’s how things go; history doesn’t lie.

Tuesday. I took a nap after Job & Lamentations and went to The Anchor for dinner. I’ve been there so much that the waitresses know me, and they have coffee waiting for me! Back in my dorm room, I did some editing and revising of losing touching searching, which I finished in 2007, before the start of my Junior Year at C.C.U. It’s actually very good—and depressing. It’s all about suffering, but at least it has a happy ending.

Wednesday. I cried today. I was on Chapter 4 in losing touching searching, where I write about how happy I was with Julie (a.k.a. Rebecca). The memories literally hurt. After class (33 pages of notes so far) I went to The Anchor again for a cheeseburger and coffee. I called Jessie to talk, but she was on the phone with (you guessed it!) Justin. I have been contemplating scripture all day today: Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will grant you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37.14.

Thursday. In class Dyke had me stand up in front of everyone, and he said, “This is my special friend. We share a secret no one else knows. I caught him doing something, nothing bad, a very wholesome thing, and when I think about it, it’s so funny that it makes me want to cry!” I met up with Jobst and took him to the tobacco shop in Florence, Kentucky where he bought a new pipe. We went to The Anchor and drank coffee, smoked, talked theology. I called Jessie tonight, and we talked for two hours! So much laughter and great conversation.

Friday. Class was over 12:15. I went back to Mom & Dad’s in Dayton, then went over to Dewenter’s house. We played chess, drank homemade beer, strummed on the guitar, and watched Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston. Our evening concluded with coffee and cigarettes. Mom ordered pizza for dinner, a weird way to commemorate the 1-Year Anniversary of Doogie’s Death.

Saturday. I didn’t fall asleep until 5 AM last night, and I woke at 2 PM. I spent the afternoon writing, went to Dorothy Lane Market for a nice-sized rib-eye steak, and cooked it at home. I watched American History X and talked with Jessie for a while. Grandma M. came down from Tipp City. She’s here till the 14^th, then going down to Atlanta.

Sunday. Dad and I went to Showcase Cinemas by the Dayton Mall and saw the movie Gran Torino. I returned to campus and went to the Rine lobby where I hung out with Jessie, Faikham, and Deshay. They’re all in town for an early week. Bullard—a.k.a. “Stupid Farmer”—, Kyle, Gambill and I hung out till bedtime.

Gran Torino

Dad and I went to the theater this afternoon and saw this movie: “Gran Torino” with Clint Eastwood. Eastwood was before my time, but the few movies I’ve seen of his have been great. “Gran Torino” is no different. I recommend it, even if you don’t care much for Eastwood. The acting is great (at least Eastwood’s acting), and one of the characters—Sue—is pretty cute. I’ve always had a thing for Asian girls, I must admit.

I begin another Early Week class tomorrow: “Prayer & Spirituality.” The theology professor—a 60-year-old man who has tattoos up and down his arm, drives a Harley, and pretends to be Amish while performing Civil War reenactments—is teaching the class. I expect it will be pretty good. This time I am in the class with several friends: Trista, Kyle, Gambill. It should be good.

Yesterday’s post was pretty heavy. “The Question of Evil, Part II” will be posted tomorrow. I expect I will begin by giving some of the traditional answers to this question. There are about five or six I’ll be exploring. Any comments are definitely welcome.

The Question of Evil, Part I

“How can a loving God allow evil to exist?”

When I was in High School, I hung out with a group of agnostic friends. They knew I was a Christian, and they constantly attempted to shut down the way I understood reality. I used to be big into apologetics, and I was able to answer every question—or, rather, accusation—against Christianity that they proposed. Except one. “How can a loving God allow evil to exist?” There are a plethora of answers to this question, and it’s been a question that’s been wrestled with since the dawn of time. Even before God called Abraham, this question was dealt with in the ancient Near East. Judaism has wrestled with it. Christianity has wrestled with it. Zoroastrianism has wrestled with it. Islam has wrestled with it. Every ethical monotheistic religion has wrestled with it and continues to wrestle with it. I believe this is because the question is not one that can be answered adequately; while an answer may adequately fulfill the question in the intellectual realm, answers have failed to provide adequate emotional satisfaction. Thus when this question was proposed, I found myself able to spout off multiple answers, but I failed in the arena where it mattered much: personal existence. I do not claim to have the answer. It is one that I still struggle with, and one that I am quite confident of struggling with for the rest of my life. But there is a sense in which the question itself must be examined in order to understand what kind of answer is requested.

In conversation between two people with different metanarratives (worldviews, perspectives, or understandings of reality)—in this case, Christian theism (X) and Atheism/Agnosticism (Y)—there are barriers that must be broken down. Between X and Y, the question is often regarding the existence of God and the reality of evil in the world. This question—this barrier—is often poised as intellectual, but often the question is simply a way for Y to avoid God for personal issues (i.e. wanting a life of moral freedom and no restraint due to God’s existence and subsequent authority in the arena of moral life). The task of X is to discover the real barrier, and the discourse should involve both an intellectual and veiled personal barrier being present.

The question—“How can a loving God allow evil to exist?”—is a loaded question. No matter how you answer, you’re answer will not be adequate. If a loving God allows evil to exist, then He is not loving. If God does not allow evil to exist, then He is not all-powerful. In response to such a question—“How can a loving God allow evil to exist?”—perhaps our answer would best be, “There is no such God.” Because God is not only loving. When X is asked this question, X needs to rephrase the question and answer. This makes sense, because Y will not, in the majority of cases, understand X’s belief system more than X. The traditional question is too simplistic, such as, “Is light a particle or a wave?” It’s both. X’s response to Y’s question needs to clarify three points: 1. The True God, 2. The Identity of True Evil, and 3. The Nature of Bad Things. X must make the question fit the reality of evil. The question, if to be answered by X, needs to be true to X’s theological roots. For example, Y cannot ask X a question brought forth from a Hindu worldview. X must rephrase the question to be true to X’s theological framework. “But how do we do this?”

Perhaps we should first start off with, “Assume this with me…” This brings Y into X’s world, into the Christian theism perspective. It also mellows-out hostility or antagonism. It is then that we should begin to rephrase the question: “If God is X…” This assumes Christian theism and God’s existence. X stands for attributes or characteristics of God. This does not limit the question God’s love; it opens the door to the totality of God’s attributes and the integration of these attributes into an understanding of God’s nature. After all, attributes are simply descriptors—failing, at times—of God’s nature, and thus these descriptors are not independent of one another but combined in an elegant balance. These attributes are descriptors of a person, not a machine. To rephrase the question, we must affirm the EXISTENCE of God and the NATURE of God.

And then we continue rephrasing the question: “If God is X then how can He allow Evil, which is Y…” Y defines evil into two divisions: 1. Personal Evil (Satan, demons, etc.) and 2. Consequential Evil (real, genuine evil; and apparent evil, those things that are not really evil, but interpreted as Evil through human lens). There is a real and genuine evil that exists. This evil is what was seen in the Holocaust when Jewish children became blood factories for the Nazi army. It is seen in the present with what takes place on State Avenue, down the road from my house: 8-year-old girls being sold as prostitutes for $3 a piece. This is real, genuine Evil. But there is also Apparent Evil—things that are not evil but interpreted as such. For example, a cheetah tearing apart an antelope. “That’s evil!” we exclaim. No. It’s how God created things, and He declared it good in Genesis. There’s also the pain we feel when we step onto a rusted nail and it shoots through our foot and digs into the bone. The pain is immense, but it is not Evil. In answering this question, we must distinguish what Evil really is. That is what is at stake here: the identity of evil and God allowing it to exist. Ultimately, the key word here is Allow. God does not create evil, nor force it to happen, but He allows it to happen (which raises questions regarding theodicy, God’s justice; but I’m not going to deal with that right now).

Once X has identified Evil and emphasized that God allows it to exist, the rephrasing ought to continue. “If God is X, and He allows Evil, which is Y, to exist and prosper…” The issue is not merely the existence of Evil, but rather its prosperous, all-consuming nature. The prosperity of evil is evident en masse, and it is numbing and horrific. The prosperity of evil deals not with “bad things” or “misfortune”. Those are not evil. The prosperity of evil is seen in rape, murder, child molestation, sex trafficking, genocide… The list goes on and on. If we do not address the issue of evil’s prosperity, then we fail to answer the question.

The question continues to be rephrased: “If God is X, and He allows Evil, which is Y, to exist and prosper, then how can He still be worthy of Z?” Z here refers to that which God demands of His creation: adoration, devotion, dedication, commitment, service, loyalty, honor, praise, worship, dignity, thanks. The list goes on and on. This is the biggest part of the question. “Sure,” Y might say, “God exists, and sure, He may allow Evil to exist and prosper… but why give Him Z?” This question MUST be answered.

Rephrasing of the question is often shocking to Y, because Y wishes to stump or embarrass X, and X proceeds to complicate and exacerbate the problem! “In complicating the question, in making it more severe, how then do we answer it?” This post is already way too long. If you’re actually reading this part (unless you’ve skipped down to the last paragraph after seeing the breadth of the post), good for you! So I’m not going to propose any answers right now. I’m going to leave that for later. This is a really big question, and it deserves an adequate answer. If you have any comments, feel free to leave them. If you don’t agree with me, that’s totally fine. Christians all across the world, all across the span of church history, have disagreed with one another on this subject. Why not continue the heritage?

I have been accused of being too depressing in my writing. These accusations are well-founded. My family doesn’t read my work, not because they think I am a bad writer, but because my books are too depressing. “Why don’t you write something that’s not about suffering?” my mom asked me once. My grandma, who read "Dwellers of the Night: Book One", was amazed at how well-written it was, but she refuses to read the other two books of the trilogy. Why? It is too much for her to handle.

Cormac McCarthy, one of my favorite writers—the author of "No Country for Old Men" and "The Road"—said in an interview, regarding authors who do not deal with the issues of life, death, and suffering in their books, “To me, that’s not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange.” I agree with McCarthy: if someone wants to write something that resembles reality, then suffering, pain, and death cannot be ignored. As Ernest Hemmingway, one of my inspirations, said when confronted by a woman who accused him of being too pessimistic and morose in his literature, “All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true story-teller who would keep that from you.”

Everything I have ever written is saturated with the question and reality of suffering. My most recent work, "losing touching searching", deals with it from a Judeo-Christian (and, admittedly, eistentialist) perspective. My current work, "Dwellers of the Night", approaches it from a nihilistic perspective. My future work "the toothless kiss of skeletons" will explore suffering from a naturalistic worldview, and "In Memoriam: Infractus Fatum" will explore it from a deist’s point-of-view. "Sunset Royale" will approach suffering from a Christian theism perspective. My writing is drenched with suffering not because I am a sadist who is obsessed with it, but because suffering is an intrinsic reality in our world, something that bonds all humanity—man and woman, rich and poor, slave and free, tyrant and subject—together. If my writing were not to deal with this supreme issue, then… What in the world would it be worth?

musings on Evil

I can remember it as if it were yesterday. I can remember standing ankle-deep in the snow, clutching the razor blade tightly between two fingers. I remember feeling the numbing cold against my skin, and I remember the feeling of watching the steaming blood crawl between the deep canyons I carved in my own forearm. I remember how the slashing at my own flesh grew quicker and quicker, and I remember how the tears, crawling down from my eyes, froze upon my cold-blotched cheeks. I can remember raising my hands to Heaven, staring up into the giant snowflakes falling all around me, and I remember a torrent of words escaping my lips, a torrent of words that I dare not repeat even in closed settings, words that were directed at God…

The words I spoke paralyzed me, and when the suffering passed (if only for a season), I wondered if God would ever forgive me for the words I spoke in my pain. It was then that I read the Book of Job and the Book of Jeremiah. Both of these men cried out to God, both of these men said things better left unsaid. Jeremiah called God a thief and a rapist. But yet God forgave these men. Why? I think it is because their words were born out of suffering, and God forgives even the cruelest words that find their root in our agonizing pain. The event that I described happened many years ago, but it lives fresh in my mind.

“Why is there suffering in the world? Why does Evil exist, and why does it prosper?”

This is a big question, a question that deserves no easy, pat, or “Christianized” answer. I have wrestled and struggled with this question for many, many months, even several years. I am not the only one who has suffered—from the days of the ancient Near East, all through Judaism, all through Christianity, this question has been bit into and fought with. And no one seems to have a perfect answer. Perhaps the best answer is, “It’s a mystery?” But I’m not content with that.

losing touching searching

I have been revisiting and editing a book I wrote back in 2007 entitled “losing touching searching.” I was going to make it public, but I decided not to because of its intensely personal nature. Reading through it, however, I can’t help but realize that the book can relate to so many people. It’s a fictional autobiography—fictional, because it incorporates lots of fictional conversations and scenes; but autobiographical, because it is the story of great suffering I went through during my second year at college—and it is a beautiful, majestic work. I am still amazed at some of the things I wrote down, how relevant they are to me still to this day. So I have decided to edit, revise, add some stuff, delete some stuff, and do my best to make it available to the public. The book right now is 273 pages long, but it will probably be longer when I’m done (revising, with me, usually entails much more addition than subtraction). Because of this, my work on “Dwellers of the Night” has been put to the side. This is a good thing; I like to set current projects aside and return to them later, because it helps me be more creative.