Some people have responded to my comments on suffering with the interesting observation that most suffering, in their view, is caused by humans against humans, so that there is no reason to “blame God” for it. That is obviously true of some of the most horrific things that happen in our world: murder, genocide, torture, war, refugee crises, and on and on and on. And one could argue that it is true of even “natural” disasters, such as starvation: there is more than enough food in the world for everyone to be well-fed, so if people are starving, it is *our* fault, a lack of social and political will. No need to doubt that God exists just because we’re too stupid, lazy, or self-centered to deal with any problems that come along.
I have several reactions to this view. The first is that on one level I heartily agree. So many of the unspeakable things that happen to people, destroying their lives, causing unspeakable pain and misery, and often leading to death, are caused by other people, either through intention or negligence. How can we not all agree on that?
Moreover, I resonate with the premise underlying this view, that the reason for such terrible forms of suffering is that as humans we have free agency (to some extent). We can choose to burn down our neighbor’s house, or kidnap his children, or go to war, or hoard all our money when others around us starve, or inflict a genocide, or whatever. In the standard phrasing, we have “free will.” And if we did not have free will, we would not be human. We would be some kind of divinely constructed robots that did whatever we were programmed to do, and I think most of us would agree that in the end, that would not be good. Of course, horrific suffering is not good either, but still, the argument is that it is not the fault of God or nature, but of our own decisiosn.
Having said that, I also have to say that …
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In my youth I also used to repeat the trite maxim “suffering exists due to free will, and without that we’d be robots”, then eventually I realised that this implies we’ll be robots in heaven.
Of course many people imagine heaven, and our form in it, in a different way. But as you say there is no escaping that heaven “means that God *could* create an existence for living beings without suffering”.
And we *could* make this world a paradise–a true Kingdom, without earthly kings to push us around, without creating false divisions among ourselves, with everyone sharing the bounties of this remarkable planet, and life would always be imperfect, because life is supposed to be imperfect. Perfection is dull and empty. Life is multifarious and complex. But it could be so much better than it is now.
And that’s on us. I don’t see much difference between theists and atheists on this point. The best people from both groups try to make it better. And the worst people from both groups end up making it worse. And most just focus on their own selfish pursuits, and let the rest go to hell.
. . . Matt 5:48 . . .
Easy escape from that, since somebody we both know wrote a book about how often Jesus gets misquoted.
It was a commonplace idea in early Christianity, even in its more conservative (less gnostic) forms, that the goal of being a Christian was to be like Christ. And in so doing, to become God, in a certain limited sense.
When it became evident to all that nobody was going to be walking on water, no matter how much they believed, that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Or you might say, sank like a stone.
Jesus believed perfect faith was possible, and he believed this earthly world could become a paradise. I don’t know if he believed life would then be utterly perfect, and that this perfection would be desirable. But I know I don’t.
Just my opinion but it seems God wants those of His creation who are capable of loving Him to have free will. Whether it is angels or humans. And, of course, with both man and angels there is a risk in having free will. But I do not agree that we will be robots in heaven. Why would we? We will be our individual personality with desires and interests like we had in human life. Each of us will be as unique in heaven as on earth but it says in the NT (I forget which book) that we will have a new heart. We will have free will but will not have the desire or temptation to rebel against God. As for suffering, I agree that most suffering on this earth is due to humanity. Yes, earthquakes happen and is that because we have upset a balance of nature or not? I don’t have the answer. I do believe much of the global warming which is causing many of our meteorological catastrophes is caused by human activity.
Suppose we’d been created to always do the right thing, and the world had been created in such a way as to never challenge our belief in the goodness of creation.
What would we be then? Perpetual children. There is, in the story of Adam and Eve, a subtext–yes, they had everything, including perhaps immortality. But they had no purpose. There was nothing for them to do. The serpent brought them self-knowledge. Which leads to discontentment. Which leads to civilization. Which may, in time, lead to the end of humankind. But without it, what are we for? There’s nothing we can do in a state of nature that other animals can’t do better.
Can we find a way to live in balance with the world around us, while still leading fully conscious lives? Can we be stewards of this planet, instead of merely parasites upon it? Can we erase the mark of Cain?
What global warming? There hasn’t been any significant rise in temperature for 20 years. Last year, trumpeted as the hottest year ever, was up 4/100 of a degree Celsius, well within the margin of error. None of these climatologists is able to explain the medieval warming period (somewhere between 800 and 1200 CE) when the earth was far warmer than today, Greenland was actually green, and there were no factories belching smoke, automobiles exhaling gases, etc., etc. Of course, there is climate change–there is always climate change, but global warming cultists are only one subset of the massive, new religion: Enviromentalism, whose congregation totals rival Christianity’s 2 plus billion.
OK, we’re not gonna go here on the blog!
I prophesied this would happen! “Woe unto ye bloggers who stray from your chosen and rightful pathways, for unto ye shall come all the confusions and controversies of the internet, and chaos shall reign supreme over the blog.”
I can’t quite place the chapter and verse where I said this, but it’ll come to me.
😉
Once again, Bart’s critique of theism rests upon G-d being a certain sort of being. He is not only “powerful,” compassionate, and vastly superior to human beings. He is also without any limits in power, knowledge, presence, compassion, etc. That conception of G-d is captured very well in the “Ontological Proof” of G-d – that he MUST exist, as a matter of logic, since a G-d that doesn’t exist lacks one imaginable positive attribute.
However, this conception of G-d arose relatively late, at least in the Jewish tradition. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and the Samuel narratives contain no such conception. And the portions of Genesis (which is believed to be the chronologically last of the Torah texts) that do contain something like this conception are also the least “historical” and didactic of these texts. They have also been nothing but trouble for Jews, due to their obviously false account of natural history. .
Not entirely false–the authors of Genesis, in a remarkable burst of intuition, correctly deduced life began in the sea.
That doesn’t make it science, but science as we know it didn’t exist. Insight did.
Sea life began in the sea. It does not say mammalian or human life or bird life began in the sea.
Genesis says the first animal life God created was the creatures who live in the sea–it also says the birds of the air were created on the fifth ‘day’, with land animals showing up on the sixth, so that’s off, but these weren’t zoologists. I call that a pretty good guess.
And interestingly, Genesis does not give a separate day of creation to humankind. Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day, along with all other land animals.
I mean, are you going to deduct points for people living thousands of years ago not stumbling across the theory of evolution? I call that petty. Though it should be said, the idea of evolution is a whole lot older than Darwin.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, and the very last thing I want is a benevolent dictator, holding my hand from the cradle to the grave. I’m no libertarian, let alone anarchist, but I value freedom above all else. And there is no freedom in a perfectly ordered world, because that order would, of necessity, extend to the free exercise of choice. In such a world, there would be no such thing as conscience. I question whether there would be any such thing as a soul.
You may be familiar with a quote regarding those who try to prove Jesus didn’t exist. I can’t remember this moment who said it, but the gist was that anyone who tries to distort history to prove Jesus didn’t exist only does so because his mind has been darkened by the wish Jesus had never existed.
Would you rather this magnificent cosmos we inhabit perhaps the most extraordinary part of (it will be a long time before we can say for sure) had never existed?
The least bit of evil negates all good? The least bit of ugliness negates all beauty?
Okay, strawman argument–there’s a lot more than just the least bit.
But with all the gifts we have received, can’t we be grateful, sometimes? To whatever force gave them, when it could have given us nothing? Is life that much of a burden?
If so, then maybe it’s time whatever created us erased the slate and started over. Oh right, we’re well on the way to doing that ourselves.
Our evil is the only evil we have control over. How much time shall we waste looking for something else to blame for our own problems?
This is a philosophical argument, not a theological one. And I find myself very much out of sync with your philosphy. I would be so if I had never had any religious beliefs of any kind. I would not willingly live in the world you imagine.
Alexander Skutsch, a very great ornithologist and field biologist, wrote a book about his philosophy, and in it revealed that he hated birds of prey–hawks, eagles, owls–thought they were ugly. Thought predators never had to exist, that the world (without any God, he wasn’t religious) could have evolved as some kind of collective of plants getting all their nutrition from sunshine.
I could not then, and do not now, understand how anyone could want to exchange the world we have for a world of sentient algae, vegetating under the sun.
But one man’s meat…..
If you choose to associate suffering with evil then it necessarily begs the question – where did “evil’ (moral or natural) come from? Could evil have originated from a God who is defined in the Bible as “love?”
Let’s not dilly-dally around here – Isaiah 45:7 clearly states that Yahweh did in fact “create” evil.
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and CREATE EVIL: I the Lord do all these things. Note that the KJV Bible is one of the few translations that correctly translate the Hebrew word רָ֑ע as “evil.” The other translations translate the word as “disaster” or “calamity” in an obvious effort to cover up the fact that the God they serve called Yahweh is the one and only creator of evil.
There is suffering in this world because God obviously wanted it. That’s not my opinion – it’s what the Hebrew scripture emphatically states. The problem I have is that the Christian faith promises eternal life after a physical death in a place were pain, sorrow or suffering do not exist.
The problem with this utopian idea is that it can only exist if its inhabitants are somehow restrained from doing evil. In which case, all those who inhabit a place like that would necessarily have to be mind controlled. In which case, why would a loving God not choose to skip the horrific pain and suffering of humanity and simply set up his utopia with inhabitants that are created without the ability to do evil? Not to mention the fact that the Bible clearly states that all those who don’t accept God’s rules will be eternally punished with horrific torture.
My question is simpler.
In a perfectly ordered world, would something like this be able to exist?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am8qrrZAtP4
God is Love–but Love of what? Love like in a greeting card?
Love of everything. Love of all life. Love of what comes from life, which is (pardon the doggerel) strife. God could have made us all perfect little wind-up dolls. Instead he gave us a universe of choice, and chance–and the possibility of love. Because without all that, we’re not alive.
Suffering as learning? When we touch something hot as a child, we quickly learn to be cautious in regards to heat. We learn the pain it causes and, hopefully, project this to others and help them be cautious, too. Not so much in the initial learning, which we all go through at some point, but in the caution needed when someone may not be aware that something is hot, like a hot stove that’s not visibly hot, but that could still burn someone.
What does one learn by getting childhood cancer and dying? I’m not sure (though I have some theories). The parents go through a painful learning process, I’m know, but I’m just thinking here about learning imparted to the sufferer. Do we have to have all the answers? Can we be more stoic, more patient, and more accepting (when, finally, there is nothing we can do) instead of just having to have all the answers and having to make pronouncements about suffering proving or disproving the existence of a loving God? That stoicism, patience, and acceptance is, I believe, “trust in God.” A person can say “I don’t understand it, I’m not capable of understanding everything, and I don’t even like it, but I trust God will work it out.” That is not an endorsement of attitudes like those who would reject medical treatment and put it on God. It’s just an acknowledgement that when our agency ends, we can know that God’s begins and trust in that agency.
I agree with you, of course, that we should do all we can to alleviate suffering and aid those in need. But there’s something you didn’t point out (unless I somehow missed it).
Even if *all* types of suffering were caused (as we know they aren’t) by *humans* in one part of the world hogging all the resources, that wouldn’t adequately explain the “problem of suffering”! It would still be a situation in which the *victims* were *innocent*.
Bart, I hope you had a wonderful 4th.
I like how you’ve clearly defined moral and natural evil, Bart.
This seems to be what Jesus was doing in Luke 13:1-5 – do you think this shows how the historical Jesus (or his followers) understood why innocent people suffer?
Jesus first gives the example of Pontus Pilate slaughtering Galileans whilst they were sacrificing in the temple – moral evil. He then cites the tragedy of the collapse of the Tower of Siloam which killed 18 – a natural evil (assuming, of course, it was an unintended collapse).
What seems most relevant is that Jesus goes on to say those who died in both events were not worse sinners or offenders than anyone else – suggesting they (the innocent) do not deserve to suffer this way.
He then gets all apocalyptic and claims everyone will perish unless they ‘repent’. Although it’s only attested to in Luke, the historical points correlate: Pilate’s typically Roman brutality was well known, as was his loathing of Herod who had jurisdiction of Galilee. I understand the ruins of the tower of Siloam were recently discovered underneath the ruins of a rebuilt tower. It seems the source of this story was familiar with Jerusalem and the story of the collapsed tower.
I”ve never been quite sure whether Jesus said this or not.
Somebody who believed in him believed he said it.
Yup, that happens a lot.
It does with pretty nearly all famous people. There’s a long long list of quotes misattributed to much more contemporary figures.
When Christian writers put such broad-minded words in his mouth, that means they had a vision of him, highly idealized of course, that corresponded with those words. You try to live up to ideals–as Americans try to live up to the ideals of Lincoln, who we have idealized (and sometimes demonized, leaving historians to find the middle ground). And most of the time, we fail.
But without goals to strive for, what are we?
I am not sure where I read this from, but that Luke 13:1-5 were two instances of small Jewish revolts/rebellions. I recall reading that some were digging (conjecture) under the tower, which caused it to collapse and kill either them, or other bystanders. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea, but it would make sense. Presuming that it were true, I would then suggest that when Jesus said “Repent or Perish” meant this: Change your rebellious ways against the Romans, or perish. Perish they did, when Rome sacked Jerusalem.
My opinion, of course, but it seems to me that the both the Old Testament and New Testament when talking about life and death have taken an otherworldly interpretation that wasn’t intended by the author. I believe this is most especially true in the Old Testament, but I have long suspected that it is the case for most of New Testament as well. Luke 13:1-5 is the main reason for me starting to question these things.
Dr. Ehrman, again, I feel compelled to bring up the Fundamental Attribution Error, because it seems that until people are able to fully understand and appreciate this innate bias in all human beings they will continued to be bedeviled by the existence of suffering.
A quick recap: The Fundamental Attribution Error says that people have a tendency to ascribe the failure of others on the innate, personal peccadilloes of those people (e.g. laziness, ignorance, immorality and “sin”, etc.) while attributing their own failures to the outside world being against them — that is, the world is “unfair” or “cruel” or “uncaring” or, possibly even, controlled by evil powers like the Devil. Conversely, when other people succeed, it’s because of outside influence, such as: they got lucky, or they had an unfair advantage, or some other outside entity — whether god or devil — was helping them. Furthermore, when I succeed, it’s because of my own positive qualities (e.g. I’m smart; I’m hardworking; I’m blessed; I’m talented; I’m good, etc.)
In other words:
— I fail because of external factors, but I succeed because of internal factors, while…
— Other people fail because of internal factors, but they succeed because of external factors
Like I said in a previous comment, conservatives tend to hold more to the FAE bias than non-conservatives, so it’s natural for them to think and feel that when other people are suffering it’s because those other people somehow deserve it, whether it’s from an innate fault they have choses (e.g sin) or from an innate flaw they are born with (e.g. original sin). In the conservative mind, a person is primarily responsible for his or her own suffering. However, the FAE bias in the mind of a conservative extends to the other factors as well. The conservative feels that if they are suffering it’s because something outside them is trying to make them suffer — whether that outside factor is other “bad” or “sinful” people and influences (e.g. Rock and Roll music, Hollywood movies, drugs, etc.), or Satan, or demons, or whatever. The point is it’s not from a failure within them, but from an evil from without. Now, of course, this isn’t 100% universal. There are, for example, plenty of conservative people who will tell you that they suffer because they were born with “original sin” or some other such internal flaw. But if you really sit these people down and talk to them about the cause of suffering in the world, invariably, they will talk more about how everything is wrong with the rest of the world and other people, and their own “original sin” will quickly take a backseat.
The FAE bias in the conservative mindset also extends to perceived successes and happiness. When they are happy and successful, conservatives tend to credit it as their own personal achievement. I worked hard for it. I am a good person; therefore, I deserve it. Very rarely will you find a conservative who will credit social, economic or cultural advantage, not to mention luck, for their successes. They invariably talk about deserving their success and happiness because of the “right choices” they have made, or the “hard work” they have put into it, or their “faith in God,” or any other number of personal achievements they feel they have made. By implication, therefore, in the conservative mind, anyone who has failed to achieve equal success or happiness has failed to “work hard” or make the “right choices” or had the requisite “faith in God”.
This is why it’s so hard to discuss the origin and nature of suffering with many conservative people, because the FAE bias is ingrained into their thinking. It’s hard for them to completely remove themselves, personally from the debate, to look at suffering objectively, because they view everything from this central conceit.
In line with your observation, it is amusing to observe the loathing of many conservatives with all things Government. Particularly, their refusal to recognize tax payer provided government services, systems, infrastructure and other supports as enabling and contributing to their success.
The term “natural evil” sounds somewhat oxymoronic to me. A few years ago tourists visiting a fenced off nature refuge were watching a young fawn feeding. Suddenly a cougar or some other predator pounced on its prey. The tourists reacted in alarm, throwing rocks at the feline and actually drove it away, saving the deer. The people were then admonished, telling them they should not have interfered in a natural process. More recently, a hiker noted what appeared to be an abandoned bear cub. He picked it up (not wanting it to starve) and brought it to the Ranger station for further disposition. His “reward” was to be chewed out by the ranger, telling him he had in effect “killed” the cub since the mother (who was likely nearby) would no longer care for it. The hiker was actually charged with a misdemeanor!
The point is, sometimes the “solution ” to a “natural evil” may be worse than the “evil” itself. Even in the first example, the cougar may have been hunting for food for her own cubs, who could eventually starve if mom was consistently deprived of prey.
“Mother Nature”, through natural selection, can be seen by some as cruel, but “evil”…I dunno. Maybe, if there is a God, He/She/It should have created a different kind of matter (different fermions, bosons, fields, strings, whatever), that would have evolved a different kind of Nature. Ever wonder what that would be like? Certainly not the universe we live in now.
I have a working hypothesis in favor for there being a God: God is loving and omnipotent. He is not jealous nor does he show favoritism. He does not require worship nor does he require belief; those are petty, man-made constructs. When there’s two survivors out of a hundred from a plane crash, that’s his way of not showing favoritism and a lesson in showing us that we shouldn’t show favoritism either but still should be thankful in all things. After all, he gave us life and that’s enough in itself.
He is so loving and selfless that his ultimate goal is for us to literally become like him–God. That requires time and time requires patience, also one of his attributes. Suffering is the exact opposite of his nature, so we must learn to conquer it. We do that by loving one another and gaining the knowledge needed to rid ourselves of suffering, whether suffering comes through man or nature. Conquering suffering means we’ve gained everything we need to expel all what God is not: hate, envy, pain, strife, greed, ignorance, etc… so that by the end, we are Godlike: all-powerful and loving.
I’m sure there’s holes in that, but that’s the best I’ve come up with so far in favor for a God.
That is an eloquent depiction of a benevolent God. In mentioning “worship,” I’ve always been puzzled by God’s insistence on being worshiped. I cannot imagine an omnipotent being with the human failing of egotism. And of the two commandments expressed by Jesus, why is the demand to love God placed before the requirement to love each other? Even the first few of the Ten Commandments address the adoration that God is due.
Thank you, and I agree. If there is a God, he’s a laissez-faire God.
i can’t think of any holes in that theory – that God wants us to be like Him.
I have heard someone say God wants us to be ‘better’ than God.
An alternate way of saying “suffering is our fault” is, at least for a believer in God, to say “suffering is the result of ‘sin’ “; Not in the sense that someone or some people suffer heavenly wrath as punishment for their sinful/failure in following one particular of God’s capricious dictates. Rather that there is an intrinsic correlation of sin and suffering. Obviously in the case of murder but also indirectly in the case of our society’s failure to follow the second great commandment ‘to love our neighbor as ourselves’. Doesn’t that ‘sin’ lead to the the starvation of the child each 7 seconds as you have noted? And these ’sins’ bring about suffering to God Himself commensurate to the suffering of His children.
Anyway I, personally, don’t have a reason to doubt the existence of a loving God, while I am living in a world that doesn’t even marginally follow either the two commandments Jesus required in Matt 22:37.
I know there is also suffering that doesn’t seem to have any correlation to moral failures (birth defects, earthquakes, and so on), and I can’t offer any understanding of the whys of these. But I will comment that throughout history and even today, how much of our human effort and money and resources have been invested in wars and killings, exactly contrary to the teachings of all religions. How much of those kinds of suffering would there really be if instead the two commandments were taken seriously and the resources of war and crime redirected? I guess, not much. . .
God designed a place that would have suffering and a place that would have no suffering i.e Earth and paradise.
God appointed varying degrees of suffering to different people i.e. predestination. Things that we do not control basically are predestined.
God decided that are place in hereafter would depend on how we ‘respond’ to the suffering or pleasure.
An ungrateful person with lots of pleasures of life ends up in hell, a grateful person born with disability goes to heaven.
Qur’an (2:155) And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient,
Why is there a problem in God designing a world with tectonic plates that can cause earth quakes and cause people to die?
If this life is not all there is, why is suffering in this life is a problem when it actually helps test people.
Qur’an (67:2) [He] who created death and life to test you [as to] which of you is best in deed – and He is the Exalted in Might, the Forgiving –
Why would an all powerful God test me with loss when he knows the out come? That makes the test useless. And saying it is for my benefit is even worse because I may fail the test. Ultimately Job failed the test because ‘god’ came down and chastised Job for questioning him. This god allowed satan to test Job as if god and satan were friends?
Bart I’m intrigued by the ‘closed system’ of your analysis of suffering, in which only the human species features. Surely the suffering of non-humans deserves consideration?
I don’t have a closed system at all! I’m just talking about part of the problem, the one that has historically caused most anxiety for most people.
If we questioned the suffering of animals–whether a just God would allow it–we’d have to stop exploiting them for work and meat.
I’m not a PETA person, can’t stand them, but that’s what it comes down to.
We conflate ‘evil’ with ‘whatever makes me unhappy.’
“I am come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.”
Well, don’t we? Collectively?
The individual wants freedom–which you can’t have in a perfectly ordered world.
The species wants to be fruitful and multiply–which means somebody has to suffer, somebody has to die.
I don’t see how this equation can work out. Granting the premise that God created the laws of the universe, if God negated those rules, wouldn’t that destroy the universe?
Ah, here’s the one I was looking for–
http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2006/01/14/
Just a little bit different.
😉
It would seem that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving perfect God (if it exists) would have created perfect people. Instead, he knowingly created imperfect people. And so all of us, no matter how hard we try to be good, inevitably hurt ourselves and others at least occasionally. Sometimes we even do harm when we’re trying to do good. We don’t have perfect knowledge or perfect wisdom, and we’re certainly not perfect. And, as Bart has pointed out, there is a lot of natural evil in God’s “creation”. But as Bart also pointed out, there is a lot we can do to make things better.
Bart,
One kind of evil that you do not mention is that associated with plagues, epidemic, and mass starvation. In the Old Testament we find these explained by the wrath of Yahweh directed against foreigners (Egyptians) or sometime the Hebrews themselves for being wicked. The great plague during the reign of Justinian, the Black Death during the 14th and 15th centuries, or the Great Influenza of the twentieth century–all of these and other afflictions killed in the tens of millions by means of what? A flea, a mosquito, some microscopic “bug”, etc? How easy would it have been for an all-powerful God to abstain from creating these conveyors of enormous suffering for millions. We’ve learned how to contain small pox, the polio virus, malaria.,etc.. Were any of these afflictions brought under control by a priest, a rabbi, or an ayatollah? I think not .Far more people recognize the name of St. Mother Teresa.than that of Norman Borlaug, the father of the “Green Revolution.” But who did more to alleviate human suffering? Just a thought..
Sorry, I thought I *had* discussed those kinds of suffering. My view is that the Old Testament has *various* ways of explaining them, depending on which author you’re reading.
I once had a pastor try to explain that thorns were not part of the original creation but we’re a result of the “fall.” I imagine that he would explain mosquitos and viruses, etc.as a result as well.
I’m assuming you’ve heard the latest with Hobby Lobby. Here’s a link for anyone interested: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/532743/
Did you say that a book about their findings is coming out this fall?
A new version of the original story is circulating and it just so happens Candida Moss just posted that her book is coming out this fall. ???? Of course, I pre-ordered it.
https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Nation-United-States-Hobby/dp/069117735X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1499303837&sr=8-2
But for my previous comment, I was referring to Brill.
Yup! Co-authored by Joel Baden and Candida Moss. Should be good!
Again, the theodicy problem of classical and medieval philosophy and theology has, I suspect, very little to do with the more profound truths of Jesus’ teaching and experience. Jesus proposed no solution to the classical philosophical problem of evil, including the so-called problem of natural evil. In Jesus’ words, God causes the rain to fall on the virtuous and evil alike. Jesus foresaken and despairing on the cross is not propounding upon some philosophical problem of evil. He is simply bearing witness to the truth as he saw it. I think the ‘solution’ to the classical philosophical problem of is simply to realize that the problem lies more with our assumptions and presumptions. We may think we can imagine a more perfect world, a more omnipotent, more benevolent, more just God, but that is already to fundamentally avoid what should be our primary responsibility to respond creatively to all of various evils we encounter to the best of our abilities, not to explain them away or indict or deny the existence of a poorly and ill onceived deity. If evil could be definitively ‘explained’, it would not be evil. Likewise, if God could be explained or defined, such would not be God.
A lot of suffering is our fault, but as you talk about in a lot of your work there is suffering that an omnibenevolent deity would have put to rest a long time ago, or never even allowed to exist to begin with. A rapper named Greydon Square said himself, “if God is omnibenevolent how can evil exist?”
I have begun to lean towards Marcion’s view in regards to this (or something similar). Suffering could be caused by the evil god of the Tanakh until the true God came into being. Yet I do not know if that is true or could even be true.
My mother just asked me why her friend’s son is suffering and why God would allow it. I said “I have no idea, I do not know”. That is the first time I used that as an answer for suffering. Then she said, “is God getting them ready to be in a better place, should I tell my friend that?” I told her. “Don’t offer her that empty meaningless platitude. Comfort your friend, tell her you grieve with her and you are a shoulder she can lean on. Just be there for her.” I have never answered anything about suffering like this, but thanks to you Dr. Ehrman I indeed did answer this way and felt much better than all the answers I have EVER given.
I like that you separate the suffering and disaster itself from our response to it. The responsible thing for humans to do is to respond to the needs around us so your quote, Dr. Ehrman, is right on. “But I *do* agree that for many, many, many kinds of suffering in the world, there are things we can do about it. This “solution” to suffering may not provide an adequate explanation for suffering. But it can suggest an appropriate response to it.” Many, many organizations are doing that – UNICEF, Heifer Project, Habitat for Humanity, Bread for the World, Disaster Assistance, Doctors without Borders, etc. This is consistent with Jesus’ law of love and the idea in the Genesis story that God gave man dominion which led to idea of stewardship of the planet.
The reason for natural disasters is another story. Paul Davies in his book “God and the new Physics,” says “To the physicist, violent phenomena are simply one particular expression of natural laws that are morally neutral. Good and evil apply only to the mind, not matter.” (p. 229) Science has gotten us to the creative moment of the Big Bang but has not concluded whether it self-started or had some sort of natural or supernatural force behind it. We, whether theologian or scientist, all stand in awe of the intricacies of the universe. I think I’ll take a little break from theology and turn to cosmology for awhile.
Do you think we actually have freewill? Or do you think the compatibilists get it right about freewill/determinism?
I think we have some kind of very limited free will, if by that we mean that we can motivate our own actions to some extent.
“Of course we have free will, because we have no choice but to have it.” — Christopher Hitchens
Story Alert! – In 2003 I took a World Religions class at an unmentioned Canadian University. My professor said you can submit a paper on any topic, so I researched topics. I found an internet page called ‘Inconsistencies and Contradictions in the Bible’. My Catholic faith was absolutely shaken, how could no teacher or priest mention this info? I was betrayed, but I was more intrigued! The criticism of my faith was hidden from me, why? Some truth was hidden, a truth that made the whole faith look very human. Angels from Zoroastrianism, two humans producing billions, earth created in 6 thousand years, miracles, all agricultural analogies, homo sapiens 200 000 years old, humans 2 million years old, the true faith given in an area the size of my backyard to an illiterate people who didn’t know where the sun went at night, immorality of the highest order in the Bible, injunction for slavery, the evolution of Satan, no mention of electricity or gravity or the quantum world, etc.. I told my professor I would write on this topic, what a find! I could tell the world all about this! I was very strongly encouraged not to write it. My professor said all religions have their inconsistencies and contradictions, so I would be proving nothing. I thought what a strange statement from a believer. Now that I have the gift of hindsight, what she really meant was I really do not want to read a full paper poking holes in Christianity. I’m always left with the question if it’s that good, can’t it stand up to critique on its own merit?
I think the Reformation was a pretty strong critique, and Catholicism is still there.
She couldn’t stand the critique. Her, personally.
I’ve lost count of all the atheists/agnostics I’ve encountered online who are a thousand times touchier when you touch on their contradictions.
And I have, believe it or not, met theists who are quite happy to engage on this front.
Don’t confuse personality with theology/ideology The one either enriches or corrupts the other. Or both.
The notion of “free will” is mostly a fallacy. Our thoughts and actions are predominantly determined by our biology and environment. Early childhood environment is an obvious and important component, and a critical one in the formation of religious beliefs.
Sometimes I hear the Christian argument that God gave Adam and Eve free will, which led to their disobedience and the Fall. God, being omniscient and omnipotent, knew exactly what would happen with His free will gift. His response was to punish the unhappy first couple and the rest of us. Like giving a baby a sharp object and next punishing the baby for getting hurt. Not much love there.
Um–you don’t believe that happened, so……? 🙂
This is yet another of many good posts in this series on what you believe and why. I wish more would do such a critical examination of crucial questions. In my neck of the woods, this is seldom done. It is, however, a good exercise for people to try to summarize their views about religion. I try to update my views each year and it is quite helpful to me to do so.
Suffering … continuing with my earlier posting (a Different God), I’m reading next Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. I’m wondering if suffering begins at the genetic level? It’s a given as the Buddha taught and yes humans and also some within the natural world possess free agency. Obviously I don’t subscribe to the “Creator God” theology. I whole heartedly and I do mean WHOLE heartedly agree and participate in your conclusion: “*I do* agree that for many, many, many kinds of suffering in the world, there are things we can do about it. This “solution” to suffering may not provide an adequate explanation for suffering. But it can suggest an appropriate response to it. If we can bring help to those in need, we should do so. We should devote our social, political, and personal energies to doing so. If we have the free will necessary to better our own lives, we should use it to better the lives of others, especially those who are experiencing such horrible suffering.” (And it is THIS selfless compassion which makes “us” Divine! .. by compassion and action/ not by a God’s designation 🙂
Thank you Dr. Ehrman.
About The Selfish Gene:
1)Dawkins borrowed the basic idea from a much less well known evolutionary theorist, George C. Williams. All he did was popularize somebody else’s work, and his own conclusions are increasingly questioned by the mainstream of his field. He’s a great self-publicist, but he’s not really an important scientist, and he’s basically stopped writing about science.
2)Dawkins popularization has inspired many people you might not like very much.
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/survival_of_the_kindest/
He says he was misunderstood.
Well, that’s what they all say, right?
😉
You know, I thought about it, and no, ‘Acts of God’ are not out fault–but global warming is. All the earthquakes in in states like Kansas, with a lot of fracking, probably are. The Dust Bowl was our fault.
The blight that killed and exiled so many of m Irish ancestors was due to the peasantry being forced to live on a very prolific strain of potato that was not disease resistant, so that they could sustain themselves on tiny plots of land, while the landlords shipped cash crops abroad–even while millions were starving. That wasn’t intentional genocide, but all the true genocides that have occurred–our fault.
War is always our fault. The rapid spread of virulent diseases into places where there is no natural resistance to them–our fault. Pollution is our fault. The massive proliferation of deadly weapons–can’t say Jesus didn’t warn us.
Most birth defects are caused by environmental problems that we caused–not all, to be sure, but in a state of nature, evolution tends to weed out such problems (meaning that civilization is at fault). However, without some genetic drift, we couldn’t evolve. Why do we only consider this a problem for a loving God when we look at the human world?
You say you accept the necessity of death. But you don’t seem to have thought through what this perfect world you say God could have made (if God existed, and was loving) would entail. Or what we’d be like if everything was just handed to us. Actually, we have some pretty good present-day examples of what people are like when everything is handed to them.
We used to just be animals. Very intelligent animals, but still animals. We didn’t have any gods. And we didn’t have any civilization. And we didn’t question our short hard existences. We were too busy surviving, and taking what pleasures we could in it.
It seems pretty clear we only started asking serious questions around the same time we started being religious.
“we only started asking serious questions around the same time we started being religious.”
That’s actually a pretty perceptive comment. By the time we developed an advanced language center, we could literally ask questions and tell stories. With a prefrontal cortex that never rests, we had to find answers. When the questions turned to “Why are we born only to die?” and “what happens to us when we die?” we found answers. They might not have been correct answers, but the brain doesn’t actually care about truth, it only cares about what’s useful. And a wrong answer is more useful than no answer. At least it is to a prefrontal cortex that can’t rest.
I wouldn’t say the brain doesn’t care about truth, but it doesn’t like not having an answer. We all jump to conclusions, because uncertainty is troubling for all of us. We want an answer, whether we have the means to find it or not.
If an answer turns out to have problems later on, it can be retooled, or abandoned entirely. And that choice–to adapt or reject–evolutionary or revolutionary–defines many of us.
I don’t think the answers our ancestors found were wrong. They were merely incomplete, and too narrow, from lack of sufficient information, and unwillingness to look at the whole picture.
And all the answers we have now still are. Theist and Atheist. Still incomplete. Still refusing to see the whole picture.
DR Ehrman:
Your Comment:
And so we are back to the question: why then is there suffering (through natural evil)? The explanation about tectonic plates redirects the issue, it doesn’t answer it (or even address it).
My Comment:
I think that it is “natural evil, when done with evil intentions by some evil authority, (not of human origin) who has the knowledge and ability to control the forces of nature.
I also think that a higher benevolent authority, i.e., God, or one of His angels commanded by Him, who also has the knowledge and ability to control the natural forces, may sometimes allow ”natural evil”, but not for the purpose of evil, as intended by the one evil authority conceiving the “natural evil” and doing it, but allows it for a purpose of good.
Following is an example of a deed committed with evil intentions by humans against another human, that God used for the good of many.
Genesis 50:20
20-“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.
According to Genesis 50:20, Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, was allowed by God, to save the life of many. In God’s Foreknowledge, He allowed and used the evil deed committed by Joseph’s brothers to save many lives later on.
To us, and most likely to Joseph, this wasn’t fair. However, it’s obvious that Joseph understood later on, when he saw, that the result of him being sold into slavery was the deliverance from starvation of an entire nation. (i.e., Egypt, and also the survival of his own father, brother’s and relatives.)
Another Example of “natural evil” is the death of David’s son with Bathsheba. David’s son did not choose to die as an infant. It was God’s decision to take David’s son’s life. In his wisdom and foreknowledge, God decided that the child should die physically. The death of David’s son with Bathsheba doesn’t make sense from a humanistic perspective, but to God, who has the power over death and life, the decision to end the child’s life on earth made sense for reasons that we don’t specifically know why.
For all we know, David and Bathsheba’s child grew up in a much better place, and if you could ask David’s son with Bathsheba, what he thought about God’s decision, he’d probably say that he wouldn’t have it any other way.
_____________________
NOTE: “natural evil can also be a judgment directly from God, or allowed by God, through some other principality, not of human origin. (e.g., God allows the evil one to destroy the bodies of certain individuals who have gone to far in their depravity.
There is an aspect of human suffering that I have long wondered about. I seems to me that evolutionary development demands death. Each generation must die and let the next, stronger, one live. Each and every individual life on Earth is temporary. That includes every live thing of whatever type one can imagine. Each individual life on earth is subjected to a very complex set of death causing stresses. Each life form has evolved, has built up strengths, to hold off or delay some but not all of those stresses for some (short) period of time. Life has evolved to survive.
Suffering or pain is an indication that some stress, some trauma or disease, usually but not always physical, is occurring and needs to be remedied.
We individual humans have inherited a set of strengths and weaknesses from our ancestry through the evolutionary process. We are each subjected to a set if stresses. Through a complex statistical probability environment sooner or later a stress or combination of stresses overcomes our strengths or defenses and we suffer and we die.
It is interesting to try to imagine what the situation on Earth would be if there was no suffering or death.
That, over simplified and poorly stated, is the way it is and if one believes that God is in control then one must believe that is the way He wants it.
A quick search on “dinesh d’souza biblical innerrancy” doesn’t turn a lot up-did you get some sense of his take on things like creationism in light of his arguments about tectonic plates giving rise to terrestrial life?
I don’t think he holds to inerrancy.
Bart,
I’m probably not going to resolve the Problem of Evil in this comments-box. Nevertheless: regarding your response to D’Souza’s argument about the long-term advantages of tectonic activity outweighing the short-term disadvantages (suffering initiated by earthquakes in populated areas), I’m not sure that it is an effective response to say, “But heaven is perfect.” If a weight-lifter never has weights pushing against him, how will he grow? Granting that one can say, “Someday the weight-lifter will reach his full potential, and then he will have no use for weights,” but until that stage arrives, doesn’t the argument hold that there is a net gain involved in some causes of suffering?
Someone might say, “The Bible says that human beings were already at our full potential in the Garden of Eden” — but I do not entirely grant that. There seems to be a desire on God’s part to have a relationship with people not just as Creator, but as Redeemer; not just as the automobile-maker, but as the person who restores wrecked cars. Suffering is somewhere in that equation, as a stepping-stone.
That wasn’t actually my response int he debate, if I remember correctly. My response was instead that the laws of physics and the natural universe were, in his view, created by God, not constraints under which God himself was required to operate.
That’s a fascinating idea.
Query–how strong are you in the physics department?
Stronger than me, I bet. 😉
Not strong. But strong enough to know that if God is constricted by the laws of physics then he is not sovereign over them, but they are sovereign over him.
It’s been theorized this might not be the only universe (by people who do know physics).
If God created this universe according to one set of rules, and then negated those rules, who’s to say the universe wouldn’t collapse? As indeed physics tells us it might someday.
Einstein’s beliefs on God were often misinterpreted. He said he didn’t believe in a personal deity, who cares for the individual. But he still felt awed reverence for the grandeur of the universe.
“If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
So I’m not sure if that means he’d agree with you or not. Newton, of course, would ardently disagree. Hawking has gotten a bit wacky, but you can hardly blame the man.
Ever read Narcissus and Goldmund? That’s about two lifelong friends who you might say worship different visions of the Godhead. Male and Female. The female God is the one you’d be afraid of. But She does love us. In Her own way.
“Without a Mother, how will you live? Without a Mother, how will you die?”
Spoiler alert. 😉
I respectfully disagree. If I gave my word to someone, I am the master of the word. I choose to keep my word because of my integrity, not because word got power over me. Same with laws. They are consistent because God wants us to understand His creation not to confuse us. Because He is Integrity.
Regarding your redeemer thought – Isn’t that somewhat of an empty victory? If I create a defective something, so that I can rescue/fix it… Do you see where I am going with this? You create the problem, then offer the solution. Think Stockholm Syndrome…
My addition to the “again” list in the comments: the whywontgodhealamputees.com website is still active. Enjoy.
Whew. After skimming through this discussion, I think it’s much simpler to quit arguing over whether the existence of suffering is compatible with the existence of “God,” and acknowledge that there was no good reason to assume the existence of “God” in the first place!
As I see it, there are three *main* possible explanations for the existence of the Cosmos:
1. An “Uncaused Cause.”
2. A literally infinite chain of “Causes” and “Effects.”
3. The possibility that there are levels of reality on which our concepts of “Cause” and “Effect” – perceived by human minds – are completely irrelevant.
So even if – to come up with *something* – we choose to focus on the “Uncaused Cause,” we have to understand it as merely a working hypothesis. And there are many things the “Uncaused Cause” might have been. For someone who assumes a “Creator,” there are still more possibilities: whether the creation was *intentional*; if so, what its *motive* was; whether the “Creator” still exists; whether he/she/it has *changed* significantly, etc.
DR Ehrman:
Your Comment:
So many of the unspeakable things that happen to people, destroying their lives, causing unspeakable pain and misery, and often leading to death, are caused by other people, either through intention or negligence. How can we not all agree on that?
My Comment:
I agree, that people have the power to commit atrocious cruelties, and many do.
In our society there are consequences for violating the moral law. If one commits murder and is caught, and a jury returns a guilty verdict, a judge will then sentence the person who committed the murder, according to the law of the land.
The repercussions of murder affect mostly the relatives and friends of the one murdered, and of the murderer.
The victim’s family members will suffer because of the loss of a loved one. The one murdered, may also have a relative, or a friend, who will seek revenge, and injure or kill, an innocent relative or friend of the murderer.
__________________
My point is that the murderous deed of one person, will affect, far into the future, a host of other people who had nothing to do with the evil committed by the murderer.
My other point is: That God is left to deal with, and arrive at a verdict, according to all the facts, concerning the heinous crimes committed by individuals. These facts are based on God’s wisdom and foreknowledge of the intentions of the hearts, and the thoughts in the minds of all individuals involved.
God’s adjudication is based on His foreknowledge of ALL the facts, which only He has.
Unlike human judges, God is able to know the INTENTIONS of everyone’s heart, and the THOUGHTS in everyone’s mind, whether in the present or in the future.
Therefore God’s judgements may sometimes not seem fair to us, because we don’t have the panoramic view that God has of the human spirit, mind, and soul of every person.
__________
NOTE: I personally believe, God is the Judge of all judges, and the sovereign king of all kings, who rules over all.
God may know all these things, but how can we be sure God cares about our petty little sins?
One reason we came up with the idea of an afterlife (probably not the first reason) is that life is so patently unfair. So the afterlife would restore the balance. The last would be first, and the first would be last. Evil would be punished, and good rewarded (as we know is so often not the case on earth).
Let’s posit a different answer–God created Life with the idea that it would constantly change and adapt and work at the puzzle of why it’s here, and what to do about it. The animals and plants as much as humans (and any other sentients that might be out there in the cosmos).
If God intervened, this would ruin the project. God is not a Shepherd. God is a field biologist. Watching us with great curiosity, wondering what we’ll do next. (Or perhaps already knowing, coterminous with all time as Aquinas posited, but I find it hard to believe even God could know the result of the experiment without having started it first, and Aquinas only came up with that idea to justify God being able to answer prayers.)
I think we slander God by conflating our evil with His/Her judgement.
Maybe God wants us to do better. But it’s entirely up to us whether we make it or not.
Jesus died a horrible painful death, accused of crimes he almost certainly did not commit (overturning a few tables at a market is not generally a capital offense). Pilate probably died in comfortable retirement.
If you knew for a fact there is no Final Judgement–would you rather be Pilate? Whoever Jesus was, he was unquestionably far more alive in his short span than the Pilates of the world could ever hope to be. And no one was ever more loved by those who knew him. They loved him so much, they couldn’t allow themselves to believe he was dead. So he’s not. And we only remember Pilate at all because of him.
goodspell:
I think the answers to many of our questions depend on what we believe, or don’t believe, and in whom we believe or don’t believe.
I personally believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. I also believe that Jesus literally appeared to Paul after He (Jesus) resurrected from the dead. Therefore my faith is based on the teachings of Christ through Paul and others.
I don’t believe the synoptic Gospels are historically reliable, but I do believe the Gospel of John is, with all its discrepancies and interpolations.
When The editor of John’s accounts, records for us in John 6:38, that Jesus stated, that He came down from Heaven, I literally believe that Jesus actually made that statement, and that He was telling the truth.
Jesus came from another place, above our atmosphere, i.e. a place is in the skies. Call it heaven, or call it another world, if you will; Jesus came from where God Himself dwells and where his throne is.
Note: I believe that although the Gospel of John we have today, according to most modern scholars, may have first been made public around AD 90-110, However, the source for the edited version we have, was the writings of the disciple whom Jesus loved, according to John 21:24.
I also understand that some stories were altered in the Gospel of John and others were added in later times by the scribes who copied the Gospel of John. (e.g., The woman caught in adultery, (John 8:3-11), and the latter part of John 5:3,4, were interpolated. And there are other places in the Gospel of John where the words were deliberately altered and/or added.
I believe that to God anything is possible. I also believe that there are certain things that God will not do, such as accuse someone falsely. I also believe that although God can know everything that a person does and will do, God sometimes chooses not to know at the moment, but allows a person to do whatever they will, and then requires the person to give an account of what they’ve done at the end of their life here on earth. ( I do believe that at the end of our physical life, we all have to appear before Christ to give an account of all we have done while we lived in our body)
I also believe that if God doesn’t want a certain person to die at the hands of another person, or in a tragic accident, or in a natural disaster, etc, then that person will not die. But If God decides that a certain person will die for whatever reason, then that person will die physically not spiritually. That person is with God and God will deal with that person however God determines to deal with that person. We don’t know where that person has gone, but the person and God knows. This is what I believe!
To summarize: We live by faith, and that faith is determined by who we believe or not believe, and what we believe or not believe.
I don’t agree with Bart, and I don’t agree with you.
So I guess we don’t agree.
And I guess we never will.
Never is a long time.
We’ll see what mysteries will unfold in the future.
We’re not there yet.
Blessings!
“The blight that killed and exiled so many of m Irish ancestors was due to the peasantry being forced to live on a very prolific strain of potato that was not disease resistant, so that they could sustain themselves on tiny plots of land, while the landlords shipped cash crops abroad–even while millions were starving. That wasn’t intentional genocide, but all the true genocides that have occurred–our fault.
War is always our fault. The rapid spread of virulent diseases into places where there is no natural resistance to them–our fault. Pollution is our fault. The massive proliferation of deadly weapons–can’t say Jesus didn’t warn us.”
The main problem here is capitalism. ..it’s greed driven.
I really don’t get this idea of free will. What is is it? Where does it reside? How can it be reconciled with cause and effect? If adult behaviour is the result of a combination of childhood environment and genetic inheritance, how can free will exist? Daniel Dennet has tried (unsuccessfully, in my view) in ‘Elbow Room’ to prove some sort of compatibilist compromise, as did the far more eminent philosopher, David Hume, but neither succeeded. Just because we have a belief that it exists doesn’t make it true – any more than believing in God makes Him exist. We used to believe that homosexuality was a choice; that disease was a punishment from God; that addiction was a life-style issue…and so forth. Thankfully, as we become more aware of how little control we actually have, we have become kinder and less intolerant of those who do not share our tastes and inclinations.
If something does not exist absolutely, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist at all. Idealism only works as an idea, hence the name.
We make choices, all the time, every day, throughout our lives. These choices are often wrong, but they’re not always wrong. We can improve our ability to make the correct choices, with time and experience.
If we couldn’t make mistakes, free will wouldn’t exist. We can most definitely make mistakes. So it does exist. Q.E.D.
The only people who question freedom are those who have always had it. If you’d spent even a short time as a prisoner–or a slave–you’d be singing a different tune.
You said in an earlier post that you could only speak for yourself. I agree, so I am not sure what makes you know what sort of tune I would be singing in different circumstances.
How does making mistakes enable free will? Life is what it is. One’s behaviour is governed by things outwith our control: the combination of the environment in which we exist and our genetic inheritance. If there is a prior cause for every effect, where is the room for free will? What, incidentally, is the thing that is doing the choosing?
Just because people want free will to exist doesn’t make it so.
Even if a great deal of suffering is “our fault'” haven’t most Christians always believed that God can and sometimes does intervene to end, mitigate or prevent suffering that some humans cause others? Hasn’t that always been one purpose of prayer? So why did God not prevent or greatly mitigate the Jewish Holocaust? My point: even for that evil that’s humanly caused, God would still bear a great deal of responsibility for letting it continue. That’s one reason why, pretty early in my life, I decided against there being an interventionist God, responsive to prayer, even if there is some other kind of God.
I have a hard time giiving a fair hearing to any Christian who would be an advisor in the Reagan admimistration, but maybe D’Souza has matured morally since then. I think he is absolutely right about the necessity of the very things that cause the most “natural” suffering for our existence. If we did not exist at all, there would be no one to question why we suffer. I’m a little disappointed that he thinks heaven fixes it all.
My view is that, if there is an intelligence to the universe, it is a product of the same event that brought everything else into being and is subject to the same laws. I would not expect such an intelligence to be recognizable in human terms, i.e. it would not be conscioius of itself or anything else. It would be more like the way that things seem to work toward pockets of order in the midst of an overarching chaos. Whatever human intelligence is, it is the product of laws and processes that have existed since the Big Bang and, in that sense, there is a primordial intelligence in nature. If I would call anything God, that would be it.
There is interesting explanation why we suffer. We suffer because we choose to find out what is good and evil. I will try to explain. I am sure many of you heard of NDE (Near Death Experience). Anita Moorjani, Dr. Mary O’Neal and many other credible people talk about such things. They all visited another dimension, world, realm, call it what you wish. It was explained to them, that we chose our earthly lives ourselves . We chose our parent, our mode of suffering and difficulties, we chose level of suffering that suppose to help our souls to evolve and to grow. It is a voluntary thing. This is why God does not interfere with our mission. What is the worst thing that can happen to human? Death. But remember , we do not actually die. Dr. Mary O’Neal and Anita Moorjani talk about actual death as a moment of bliss and peace. They both were comforted in the very moment of death. So the thought of death is more frightening then actual death.
I just want to say that I believe in God- Creator, the Light. Living people saw the Light. It was incredibly loving, forgiving and compassionate.
There is no sin, only learning process. Well. You may ask, how about Hitler and Stalin? Was that a learning too? It is difficult for us to comprehend these things. But those offenders are actually had to have a meeting with their victims and see their own deeds not only through their eyes, but through the “eyes” of God and “eyes” of the victims. It is very difficult process but at the very end of it the victims forgive the offender and he is allowed to move on. Perhaps such offender will go back to Earth for another round , another life choosing specific level of suffering that suppose to help him to overcome low qualities of his soul .
Remember that we can only learn and grow here on Earth where evil and good exists. There is no judgement, there is no such thing as sin, there is no devil with pitch forks. I actually think that hell is here on Earth. It has to be. And we volunteer this mission for out own experience.
Since I started following subject of NDE, I came intuitively to conclusion that church doctrines are a lie and man made madness. Take for example doctrine of “original sin” What a bunch of baloney that is. But this is another subject. Anyways, I write with a lot of spelling mistakes. English is not my first language . I am originally from Ukraine. So I apologize to you, English people for bastardizing your language a little. Sorry.
Professor Ehrman, I am sure you have heard of NDE. What are your thoughts on this subject?
Yes, I have read extensively on NDEs over the past year, from various perspectives (including lots of the spectacular first-hand accounts!). Based on my reading, I personally think they are physiological experiences.
And I’ve never been drawn to the idea that we choose our own suffering; that works for me (since my suffering has been fairly run of the mill stuff), but not so much for the infant who starves to death or the person who is tortured to death over a period of months, or … or lots of other cases of suffering in extremis. Just my opinion!!
Thank you , Dr. Ehrman. I appreciate your point of view. I guess the idea of choosing our own suffering comes from craving the knowledge. If one wants to visit the jungle one must be ready for deadly snakes and mosquitoes in it. If souls want to visit three dimensional world they have to see it through physical eyes and fragile physical body to experience the life force of living human. Why such place exist? I don’t know.
And why souls crave knowledge when they live in the bliss surrounded by loving Light ? I don’t have the answer to that either. Perhaps craving knowledge is part of movement, motion of expending Universe. We will never know but we will keep looking into answer each relying on our own experience. Thank you Dr. Ehrman for sharing yours.
What is your opinion of Psalms 51:5? Is it a proof text for the doctrine of “original sin”? If so, how do we understand it in relation to Deuteronomy 23:2 and David?
Psalm 51:5 King James Version (KJV)
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Deuteronomy 23:2 King James Version (KJV)
2 A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.
The doctrine of original sin as it later came to be developed cannot be attesdted, as such, prior to the fifth Christian century (Augustine)
Bart –
In my current work, “God Can’t,” I”m arguing for a different view of divine power. I cite your good book, “God’s Problem,” in my section on healing. I want to cite you accurately, so I’d love to get your response to what I’ve written. Here it is…
An Evangelical Stops Believing
One of America’s leading biblical scholars was once an Evangelical. He now no longer believes in God. A long process of thinking through issues of evil and healing brought Bart Ehrman to reject his long-held faith.
In his book, God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer, Bart looks at how biblical writers address evil. He scours the Old and New Testaments, pointing to proposed explanations for pain and suffering.
After extensive research, Bart concluded that the Bible offers multiple responses to suffering. But none satisfies. The Bible fails to answer – at least in a straightforward way – the question hurting people ask, “Why didn’t God prevent my suffering?”
“If there is a God,” writes Ehrman near the end of the book, “he is not the kind of being I believed in as an Evangelical: a personal deity who has ultimate power over this world and intervenes in human affairs to implement his will among us.”
The God who intervenes doesn’t exist.
True believers in divine healing may disagree, of course. But Ehrman’s response is powerful: “If God cures cancer, then why do millions die of cancer? If the response is that it is a mystery (‘God works in mysterious ways’), that is the same as saying we do not know what God does or what he is like. So why pretend we do?”
I think Bart Ehrman is right… at least about one thing: the mystery card will not do. Those who believe God heals must give a reasonable explanation for their belief.
If we’re clueless about what God does or what God is like (“God works in mysterious ways”), we should stop saying we believe in God. Belief must have some substance.
But if we think we do know something about what God does and what God is like, we need a plausible account for why some people are cured of cancer while millions of others die.
We need a theory of divine healing that makes sense.
Tom
Yes, I think that’s a fair summary. Thanks for letting me look at it.