Here are some excellent questions I’ve received from readers of the blog that I’d like to share with y’all, along with my attempts at responding….
QUESTION:
Do you think that the presence of mass suffering is not necessarily an argument against the existence of God, but rather an argument against the existence of a loving God? If so, what would a loving God be expected to do regarding suffering? Or at what point does the amount of suffering become incompatible with the existence of a loving God? I’m curious how you would define divine love in this context and what implications that definition would have for the problem of suffering/evil.
RESPONSE:
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Thank you Dr Ehrman. I really enjoyed reading these Q&As, which covered some fascinating issues. But I am curious to know what Hegel thought about diversity in early Christianity (second Q&A) as I’ve never really been able to understand much of his philosophy. As far as I can gather, I thought he just favoured the rationalist approach, like Heinrich Paulus?
I’m actually not sure what Hegel thought of it. The biblical scholars who were influenced by him thought that the history of early Christianity could be understood in Hegelian terms. In simple form, Hebel believed history proceeded in a kind of logical progression, that there is a view/perspective/understanding that is dominant (call it the “thesis”) and then a contrary view/perspective/understanding emerges that turns the tide so that now that becomes the dominant view (called the “antithesis”), and then there appears a new view/persepctive/understanding that serves to reconcile the two earlier perspectives (called the “synthesis”) When a German scholar such as F. C. Baur, influenced by Hegel, applied this thinking to understanding the development of the Christian religion, he argued that originally, under leadership of James and Peter, Christians believed that it was important to be Jewish to be a follower of Jesus (that’s the thesis); then Paul came along and insisted the opposite, that Christianity was not a Jewish religion but a new thing (antithesis); and then a reconcilation appeared that insisted Christian faith did have elements of Judaism in it but that it was not necessary for all believers to be jewish or keep th law (synthesis). Some books of the New Testament (Matthew) are more Jewish; some are more non-Jewish (Paul); some are a concilatory form, 1 Peter.
Oh, you’re a heliocentrist? That’s so Galileo!
God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering is a great book to which I was turned onto in this blog years ago.
I have not read that book but I am almost finished reading Daniel E. Lieberman’s The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease.
Personally, I really resist philosophical, logical or religious explanations because these are ALWAYS based on the best evidence available at that time. Rather I just stay with the evidence. Lieberman uses a robust set of empirical sources which include comparing ancient hunter-gathers to agricultural humans to industrial humans. Disease and pain across the entire history of Homo, just as with all other animals. I think to limit pain and suffering analysis among humans is the ultimate hubris. Life, health, enjoyment, disease, pain and suffering are all because every animal – I’m discounting plants – have nervous systems that can and do react to pleasurable and damaging stimuli.
Was in a flooded area of Illinois last week and saw a young raccoon in the later stages of trying to survive. Definitely in pain and suffering. To say it can’t be equivalent to human suffering is ridiculous. No philosophers try to reconcile animal suffering to the nature of god.
“why/how that would work, that the destruction of Jerusalem suggested to people they ought to write Gospels nooow”
I assume the gospels were written for Diasporan Jews who were mainly lax in their observance of Torah. I also assume that religious firms compete for ‘customers’. There were multiple Jewish religious groups, but there was also a monopoly firm. Diasporan Jews recognized that Judaism was focused on the Jerusalem Temple and there was no way around that, even if they didn’t like it much. They thought being Hellenized and assimilated was perfectly okay, but the monopoly firm which held religious authority highly disapproved of their ‘profane’ practices as result of their intermingling with other nations.
Suddenly there was a way around that – the temple was razed. In market competition terms, it was a wide open market as of 70CE. The monopoly firm no longer had operating capital – brick and mortar. The Jewish group that later became Christian had a ready substitute for that loss: the body and blood of a Jewish martyr. This resulted in a flurry of ‘marketing materials’ promoting once-profane (but not now!) practices once the market had been blown wide open.
“Just philosopher H” is deflection and ad hominem, not rational refutation. But any philosophical argument, and by extension theological, depends on accepting the premises. In one of my classes the logic of: given Aristotle, then the Thomist point … uh, no. At the time, I couldn’t explain what I was feeling. To learned RCs, I seemed dense.
I wasn’t raised with religion. Mystical encounters in my late 40s that to my surprise seemed more or less to fit Christianity led to Eastern Orthodoxy {I’m now Eastern Heterodox ;-)} and to the Jesuit School at the GTU. I’d hoped someone had The Answers. Theodicy?! Nope. Yet ‘some other G-d,’ reasons for–can’t argue your way to a firm yes/no there, either. Consider non-rational experience. Rationally or empirically, a painting is a chunk of botanical fibers w/ splotches of chemical pigments. It’s the artistic, poetic, mystical, spiritual, and religious aspects that through metaphor give it meaning. I’m reading heavy works on consciousness and mind. Panpsychism has problems, dual aspect monism or Mind as ontological prior seem more likely. But not enough if only abstractions and not experiential.
There is a book I read a few years ago called The Molecule of More, written by Daniel Z Lieberman and Michael E Long. There’s an interesting point they make about God. They ask the reader to draw a circle on a blank piece of paper and then ask the reader to symbolize the circle as God and then describe the circle.
I think those early disciples’ behavior is similar to today’s population. Their view of God is based on both subconscious and external perceptions. It might solve why God appears to be a loving construct or a vengeful one.
The character of God seems to change often, yet, the staunch, authoritarian, evangelicals claim God’s character never changes.
As a result, the description of God is subjective based on the author’s personal experience and this would support the molecule of more.
I’ve been thinking about the problem of suffering and how it relates to God. I’ve been wondering if it is because God is a choice that there is so much suffering.
God is a choice, or it’s just not God.
If it’s not consent, it’s not God.
Would anyone be inclined to believe in God if it wasn’t a choice and a matter of full, complete, unequivocal consent?
It’s a choice to go with God or to go with the spirit of being a good person.
There are people who believe that even things like natural disasters are because people’s behaviors and karma are so bad that it causes these things to erupt. Some also will say that the dinosaurs were so awful that their “karma” caused a meteor to form and slam into the Earth. Some say that we can actually calm a storm or cause it to rain; the problem is that there are so few people praying or wishing in the right direction that it’s not enough to take care of everything.
Do people have some influence/dominion on this Earth, or is it all up to God and we should just sit back and get a freeride?