Loading...Several people have asked me recently about why, when I left the faith, I didn’t simply start to believe in a different kind of God. I had come to think there was not an all-powerful, loving, and active God in the world simply because, after lots of reading, arguing, and thinking, I could no longer explain all the pain and misery in the world. But why would God have to be all-loving, all-powerful, and active? Why not believe in a different kind of God?
I dealt with this question on the blog some years ago, and would like to revisit it now.
Certainly in the realm of my expertise, the ancient world, there were very different views of the divine that could indeed explain why there is suffering. In antiquity everyone except Jews acknowledged that there were *lots* of other deities, at all kinds of level and of all sorts of temperament. Some divine beings could be hateful, malicious, and antagonistic. Can’t do much about that. Even with the good ones – if you got them angry, things could go very wrong indeed.
Even the religion that became Judaism started out
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I don’t think much about the nature of God, but there’s something to be said about examining our own nature and if suffering is an essential part of the experience, even of the innocent. After all, even the worst among us feel justified in their actions through ignorance. Ignorance is it’s own kind of innocence.
What about the suffering of animals? For me, that’s an even stronger argument against a merciful, just, compassionate creator than the suffering of humans. Animals are not moral agents and are therefore completely innocent and are also (presumably) incapable of growing spiritually from their suffering . There can be no value in their suffering. A gazelle who is being eaten alive by a lion is suffering horrifically, and I doubt that the gazelle in that moment is engaged in examining its own nature and contemplating the value of its experience of pain.
And many years ago now, when I visited a 3-year-old child as she was dying–in atrocious and constant pain–from leukemia, the idea that suffering was somehow “an essential part of her experience” would not have cut much ice with me. That was 1976 and the memory of the expression in her eyes haunts me still.
I’m with you on the suffering of animals. Nature is brutal. I’m open minded about there being a purpose to it, though, and the possibility that there are broader perspectives to be found, even in the suffering of the innocent. I don’t have an answer, but my initial point was that just because no one does, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one. We are all ignorant and innocent to me.
This is all new to me, I’m not a biblical scholar (healthcare). The more I study the Bible the more I understand the news and world events.
Funny how the prosperity gospel is so popular and at the same time why the redemptive suffering concept that makes you into gold is also popular.
I guess we can pick which we want to go with depending on how our life is going at the moment.
In Ecclesiastes it sounds like the author had the same questions as we do. The “preacher” is chasing after the wind. I think we find comfort in each other and
why we have to choose our company wisely.
Thank Goodness The song of Solomon was placed after Ecclesiastes. After becoming thoroughly depressed from Ecclesiasties we can smile a little in the Song of Solomon.
The necessity for me, and possibly many others, is the strong desire to be immortal, to retain the sense of self and consciousness forever.
Sadly, human senses aren’t especially the best suited to observe tangible things in the world them, much less a so far intangible divinity.
I think of myself as agnostic, I don’t know and have no way of knowing, but I hope!
Scholastics had a variety of logical arguments but they always begged the existential question: the argument might have formal validity but does the thing “proven” actually exist. In fact even the formal validity was sketchy, involving ideas like “perfection”, and one sort of thing better than another. Really?? Spiritualism of some sort would be an out, with no god involved. But there’s no solid evidence for that sort of thing. As far as logical necessity goes, is there any logical necessity for anything at all? Objectivists chant: “A is A! Existence exists!” That might be true but why should “Existence” take any specific form, out of all possible forms? Any logical necessity for any specific form? How can a primate with a hypertrophied brain be expected to make sense of things?
The emotional attraction of Deism is that it gives meaning to a meaningless universe and offers the possibility of understanding the Creator Deity through the application of reason and through the study of a meaning-infused universe.
In his book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking wrote: “… if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.”
Question for Professor Ehrman: Are you familiar with the God of Process Theology? If so, what prevented you from embracing this radically different kind of God?
Yes, Process theology was a major thing when I was i n Seminary. I never found it compelling, since without the Sovereingty of God, I didn’t really see what was compelling about it. That is, I never saw what reason there would be to believe in God at all if he was simply changin’ with the times…. It seemed to me to be more likely a modern construct that tried to salvage a divine being given the reality of modernity.
What is process theology about?
Short answer is that God is not an transfixed immutable being, always the same, but develops and changes in relationship with his creation (and the humans in it).
That reminds me of the scientific theory of evolution! 😃
Hi Bart,
Would you reconsider belief in God if you would have a “mystical” experience or “encounter”.
I personally believe I embraced monotheism (first unitarian christianity then islam) initially because of two personal mystical experiences at 18-19 years of age and because in islam i experienced sekinah (ar. tranquility, not the heb.shekinah) after experiencing intense existential anxiety and mood swings.
The sad events in Muhammad’s life,him being himself and orphan, his loss of his first son in his early twenties, and then the loss of his second infant son,just before his own death,make one reevaluate their own losses from a faith perspective.
That is probably why Muslims accept suffering as a normal (not as divine punishment or indifference) part of being a man on this earth, as a sort of test.
I studied Nietzsche and Sartre in my twenties,fascinated and troubled by their conclusions on the fate of man. Much tougher than Ecclesiastes. Indeed needed to study psychology for 10 years (get a MA and PHD) to get over them.
My actual belief in God, following the Quran,is still basically experiential,I still feel that soothing breeze of divine presence (though not always), when I repeat to myself “la ilaha il-allah”.
I don’t know. It would depend what it was. I certainly have had a number of such experiences in the past, but I still don’t believe in God.
Disagree. I believe in Deus sive Natura, and I’m basically absurdist, meaning there is no objective meaning in the world.
And, to answer Ehrman’s claim: knowing reality is not about *me*. Even when I was a Christian, I considered God to be some reality out there, objectively existing, and not so much having to do with *me*.
I’m a naturalistic pantheist and an existential absurdist as well but I’m simply playing “Devil’s advocate” by explaining the emotional attraction of Deism.
Regarding Second Isaiah: I do think Second Isaiah was pushing something close to absolute monotheism, in part to explain how Yahweh could allow his temple to be destroyed by the followers of Marduk; didn’t that make Marduk a stronger god? (Jeremiah’s answer was that it was Yahweh who ordered Nebuchadnezzar to do it, and then Isaiah came along and said in effect there never was a Marduk; it was all Yahweh.) But I refer you to Saul Olyan’s article “Is Isaiah 40–55 Really Monotheistic?” in Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 12 (2012) 190–201. Have you read it? I’m looking into it now.
In the meantime, I have this observation: We live in a universe of two trillion (and counting) galaxies, each with several hundred billion (or even a trillion) stars, many of which have habitable planets. It is the height of vanity to claim that al this was created for the sole benefit of some protoplasm on the third planet of an average sun on the outer limb of a mid-sized galaxy (in other words, us).
I haven’t read it, no. ANd yup, I agree about the universe.
And in all the universe, four fundamental forces can explain all matter and interactions. Gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force.
This probably the best reason to not simply believe in another divine being.
My argument against Deism “solving” the problem of evil is that a caring creator who assembled this clockwork universe is still on the hook for suffering. That creator designed a world with the suffering baked in. Could They* have not created a different version with even just LESS suffering? Were They not able to create such a world? Did They not wish to create such a world?
With the Deist position, we find ourselves in the same situation: an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God is inconsistent with what we see all around us. We have gained nothing unless we accept a malicious God instead of the ideal entity most of us want in charge.
There is an influential United Methodist minister, Adam Hamilton, who wrote that deadly tsunamis were inevitable in a world shaped by plate tectonics. Apparently some scientists had claimed that life on earth would be impossible without these tectonic forces. God had to build a world with deadly tsunamis in order to have humans that He could love. I find it ironic that such a prominent CHRISTIAN would rely such a DEIST explanation for the necessity of evil.
* Preferred Pronoun? 🙂
“Why appeal to a divine causality for the start of all things when everything else can be explained apart from divine causality?”
I’m not aware that any scientist has made a compelling explanation that everything just came to be without some kind of creator to at least start the ball rolling. Rather, from my readings anyway, they tend to make their case along the lines of “the idea of a God is ridiculous, and therefore the universe just came to be on its own.”
Oh, I’m afraid lots of scientists do make explanations without appealing to God either as ridiculous or as an ultimate cause. Science does not bring divine causality into the equation one way or the other.
Even if one assumed the existence of God as conceived from the Christian point of view, would he be worthy of worship and praise if he really condemned non-believers and/or non-worshipers to either torture or destruction?
That sounds like an evil tyrant rather than a loving creator to me.
Lots of people think it is worth worshiping and praising an evil tyrant!
I hear you, and largely agree with you – why would a deistic god even matter to us or to our lives? Where it matters for me (and only as an interesting intellectual exercise) is that the existence of such a deity/entity could conceivably account for the “fine tuning” problem in cosmology (and it is a problem). If you look hard at the science, the logical possibilities seem to be constrained to either 1.) some kind of *intelligent* creative force, or 2.) some version of the anthropic (many universes) argument.
OK, fair enough: but what would be a reason to think such a God existed? The fact that things ended up tuned well enough for us and other things to exist doesn’t mean there’s a divine force to cause it.
Bart, I have to agree with you. There’s no good reason to believe in either the biblical god or the god of deism, and not just because of the problem of theodicy.
To my mind, insisting that there must be a god is just the ultimate example of what Occam objected to: the needless multiplication of entities without necessity. Looking at the history of theistic religions and the repeating pattern of myth-making they’ve all followed, it’s very hard not to conclude that the simplest explanation is that god is an entity of our own invention.
If god’s alleged perfection includes perfect reasonableness, then we have a right to expect him to “play fair” with us, starting with staying in touch rather than keeping himself an invisible mystery. Yet he doesn’t.
Our dogs and cats don’t suffer from doubt about *our* existence. They see us every day, interact with us, and rely upon us to feed and care for them. They hear our voice and feel our affectionate touch. That makes it natural for them to offer us their love in return. Surely, if god exists, he would do as much for us as we do for our pets.
True – my only point was that we are left with, as far as I can see, only those two possibilities (aside from simply giving up and accepting our extraordinarily fine-tuned universe as a brute fact). Aside from an intelligent creative force of some kind, the only other possibility is the anthropic scenario. Either way, the implications are stunning.
To put a finer and more elegant point on my comment earlier, here are a couple of videos from an interview with Leonard Susskind, professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, which you may find interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cT4zZIHR3s&list=RDLV2cT4zZIHR3s&start_radio=1&rv=2cT4zZIHR3s&t=11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z27k9_NP4FU
I would say that there is only one reason why I would want to believe in something and that’s if it’s true – whatever problems that belief raises. Surely this is how both historians and scientists and true seekers after truth proceed? Both the physical universe in all its complexity and beauty and consciousness, particularly the richness of human consciousness, need some grounding in causation. Consciousness has not been there forever and the matter and energy of the physical universe has been there forever – as you point out, modern cosmology makes it clear that it has not. Not only that, but we need to also to have some explanation of why the physical laws that govern the universe, still continue to effectively maintain the existence of the universe. This is why simple deism doesn’t work. Then we have the classic Leibniz question why is there anything at all? The other question is why we feel so awe inspired by the staggering immensity, complexity and beauty of the physical universe and why we seem predisposed to ask the question “what is it all for?”
Neurotheologian – I agree with amost everything you wrote but I get hung up on the words “believe” and “belief.” I also want to follow only that which is True, but if it is true and can be proven, then there is no need to speak of belief — I KNOW it, not believe it.
When it comes to the First Cause however, nothing can yet be known, so people fall back on belief and HOPE that that in which they believe is “True.”
In theory, the universe can be its own cause as this has as much explanatory power as ‘god did it’.
Expansion started from singularity, it’s not like there was nothing before. It’s a change of state. Modern physics +some philosophical arguments lean to consciousness being fundamental & matter proceeding from that. (Idealism/panpsychism).
Either way, god “suffering with us”, has always struck me as about as much use as a chocolate teapot. If you’re knocked over by a car, do you want people to ring their hands in sympathy or rather ones who ring an ambulance & stem the bleeding?
Whilst crucifixion is no picnic, granted, it amounts to a few hours of pain in a lifetime for Jesus. I know 6 year olds who have endured more. It’s always said he sacrificed his life. But he didn’t, he got it back. It’s a temporary suspension of a state of existence, that’s all.
The last paragraph of how can you have kindness without suffering etc. See heaven. There, there’s no suffering/pain, yet freewill (see rebellious angels). And THATS what Christians are all shooting for. An eternity of this.
It seems reasonable (indeed compassionate) for god to have skipped the earth experiment part.
Chocolate teapot. I like that!
Hi Sarah. You have some great points. However, I’m not convinced that the universe being its own cause has as much explanatory power as ‘God did it’. The singularity is a point where all known phsyics collpases and is itself an admission of ignorance by the cosmologists. I have come to like the Plotinian idea of “the One” before, rather than “the Nothing” which you effectively postulate. I am interested that you mention idealism, because I have switched my own ontological metaphsyics to idealism from dualism and I would be interested to discuss further with you. With regard to the relative suffering of “the man acquainted with grief” compared with the 6 year olds you know, you may well be right and I wasn’t arguing superlative suffering just identification with our suffering. As to the chocolate teapot, I think I made the point that suffering was part of the plan jsut as much as joy, and doing something about it with kindness, seems to be down to us as you hint. The heaven bit is a good point. My answer is that it compares with our earthly suffering.
I can’t give you an answer to the problem of evil and suffering. All I can say that if God is omniscient, then he feels all that pain with us. I can also say that Christianity does not shy away from this problem, far from it, Christianity elevates to the highest place, a deeply suffering, crucified, innocent man “acquainted with grief” and seems to suggest that suffering is part of the plan for all of us including Jesus. As Augustine and Plotinus pointed out, how could there be good without evil or evil without good? How could there be kindness without suffering? If everything was perfect and good what would there be to strive towards and what would there be to pull away from?
Excellent exposition. I inclined toward belief in a supernatural for much of my young adult life. It took a long time to realize my biggest problem was forcing myself to belief unsupported ideas, in large part, because so many of those around me believed it and I didn’t want to be left out.
So much mental fog lifted when I started understanding the biological force of natural selection and the mysterious but predictable math of quantum physics (not that I have mastered an understanding of either!).
Studying of the anthropology of religion while working on my MA in anthropology taught me a great deal about the role of supernatural beliefs in human affairs, how intertwined beliefs are with the culture one is born into. To coin a phrase, it takes great effort to break the spell. Scientific explanations can feel cold compared to the warmth of religious community based on shared, if untenable, beliefs.
I loved it – probably because I’ve had these same thoughts as I studied many “isms” and debated various ones. I’ve reached my current conclusion and doubt that it will change, as I’m 75 and don’t have time.
I’ve found that even the most intellectual can’t necessarily comprehend the idea of “NO BEGINNING”…. not even when contemplating a Mobius strip. It seems we humans require linear thinking.
My idea of God has been influenced by the Kybalion: God is the state of perfect balance. (Nature has “good” and “bad” according to seasons).
When Jesus was born, his birth looked like a normal human birth, as Jesus was in human form his whole life on earth, including his birth. How then would Matthew and Luke have known that it was a Virgin birth?
They didn’t. They heard it was so they repeated the stories.
Hi Professor Ehrman,
I will be brief – I can only imagine how much correspondence you get.
I am a “super fan” (although I only have gold-member status on this point on your blog).
In one of your lectures you recommended the Oxford annotated study Bible. I purchased one a while ago and I absolutely love it. None of my previous study bibles compare.
Do you recommend a concordance, commentary and dictionary? I’m looking for something that is unbiassed and focussed on scholarship (but won’t be over the head of a lay-person such as I).
Thank you so much in advance.
And at the risk of sounding like a weirdo, I want to thank you so much for your books, lectures, debates and Great Courses DVD’s – and frankly, for you just being you! You couldn’t know this, but I promise you it’s absolutely true, you have utterly changed my life and for the better!
Have a wonderful day.
Darrell O’Dea
Any concordance will do: they simply list every place a word appears in the text. The only criterion is to choose a concordance for the translation you use, otherwise it’s a huge problem! A good one volume commentary is the Harper Collins Bible Commentary and a good one volume dictionary is the Harper Collins Distionary. But if you’re really wanting to go for it, go for the six-volume Anchor Bible Dictionary, a true vade mecum (or would be if it were portable….). And thanks! I hope life keeps getting better!
So henotheism = monolatry?
In a sense. The first is referring to how many gods exist with one being given top billing, the other to how many gods are to be worshiped.
This question, in its various permutations, has worried me for sometime about your views. After all, the Torah says nothing at all about Hashem being a god of superlatives or about him being immaterial. He has a might arm, a back, a face, etc. His attention wanders. He gets really angry and smites people. He gets attached to particular people or peoples. He has a house where he resides.
And while I now understand your reasoning, I’m not certain I fully buy it. OF COURSE the burden is on the advocate of an existence claim to “put up or shut up.” But plenty of people have claimed to have produced God or a god. And what he is “good for,” if he can be summoned and appealed to is self-evident.
That is a figure of speech. It’s not meant to be taken literally.
I think the desire to believe in a god is partly a desire for control over the world, alternating with a desire for miracles to upset the physical order. We want to transcend the limits of our existence. Accepting our limits sometimes offers a very bleak outlook. On the other hand, believing that we can go beyond our reality is often a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have witnessed miracles myself, but I cannot offer any proof that these were not just psychological experiences. I know others who have had similar inexplicable experiences, and the archaeology always fails to produce artefacts. Yet, every increase in level of awareness, every enlightenment, is an internal miracle at least; this is a great attraction of the intellectual life— to receive that joyful flash of disillusionment. I do not think that we need a god, but we do need transcendence. We need miracles.
Bart —
Thank you for this. I am a big fan of your work.
I think you are describing Deism. Einstein sometimes used the word God to speak of the laws of physics, although he was not a theist.
There is also a moral component. Jefferson spoke of “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and Kant of his awe of “the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.”
A Buddhist can believe in karma as a law of nature without a personal God.
This can be called panentheism (Marcus Borg).
I believe that we should do justice, love mercy, walk humbly, and love our neighbor.
Whether you want to call the reason for that God is a matter of personal taste.
An interesting notion, outlined in Arthur Clark’s novel “Rama Revealed”, is that the creator is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, but rather some sort of very clever engineer whose goal is to ignite a harmonious universe by adjusting the ignition parameters. Our universe, in this narrative, is but one of many started by the engineer, one which has some serious flaws. Of course, this is fiction.
Bart,
I really appreciate your thoughts, opinion’s and love your mind!
I think the one thing that deism potentially gets you is a solution to the problem of infinite regress. Without a first cause, cause and effect spiral backwards indefinitely. Sure, unless you engage in special pleading, there’s no reason to stop at a deistic god in this chain, but *any* first cause winds up being special pleading.
One thing that has always bothered me about the “god question,” is the attendant hubris that comes along with what we know now as a class of beings living on a small planet in the middle of nowhere declaring that somehow for us – there is a need for a god. The Universe as we’ve learned, says nothing like this to us. Nowhere have we discovered anything like what any ancient religious text, say, was “reality” regarding humans and the greater World/Universe. If any of those books were true in a universal sense, they would give us knowledge beyond the idea of making shit up, and they do not. We now know, that reality is not about what we invent, or feel that we need. The ancient books we have about history and gods are about humanity. They mirror parts of, our existence.
When I hear people say, “I don’t want to live in a Universe that seems meaningless in a particular sense,” I think, “I’m sorry, it’s not your choice.” We cannot define reality according to anyone’s particular conception of need. This fact has never been more clear.
Humanity, people, are important to us, only because we say so, and that has to be good enough.
Hear, hear!
I suspect gods were a cop out by our neolithic ancestors. More specifically that tiny subset of them who had watched the night sky enough to recognize patterns that foretold the seasons. These ancestors gained great power. The power to lead hunter gatherers to better hunting grounds and natural grains. Later the power to direct when to plant…. All increasing food production and starting that long evolution to us. How so gods? The shaman had to explain why his observations worked and not knowing was politically a poor move so, it was the gods!? Gods that he understood thus increasing his influence. At this point, with great difficulty, I refrain from a political comment.
Hi Bart,
“Lots of people think it is worth worshiping and praising an evil tyrant!” But you would not.
And lots of people would excuse someone powerful who has the power to help people but does not. But you cannot excuse such a person.
And this sums up why if God exists, you want no part of Him.
It is not an easy road you have chosen. But then your moral convictions gave you no choice.
Dennis
My grade-8 students had the assignment of creating self-contained eco-systems in a bell-jar and competed with each other to see how long theirs would last. Besides the usual plants, fish and water eco-systems, others got more creative and grew yeast in theirs and still others, maggots from dead fish. I almost got fired for giving the assignment as they stood back like gods and watched their creations!
On another note, I have full faith that the internet exists out there in the ether when I buy an expensive computer which will allow me to communicate with everyone around the globe. Given the “expensive” computer my brain and mind and spirit are, why can I not live with the hope that I may be able to communicate with my god outside our bell-jar or that he/she may communicate with me? He/she obviously has a sense of humor as he/she has thrown in sex and religion as two additional complicating factors into our world! God, as First Cause, does not catch my fancy so much as the desire to posit an ontological being out there that is some how responsible for setting in motion our physical, biological and chemical laws of nature.
Why not embrace the idea that God is man made, yet still “exists” in a religious, poetic, and communal form that we can worship? I saw you speak in one debate about the distinction between truth and historical accuracy. Might it be good to participate in a God-based faith as a vehicle for meaning-making and community without the pretense of describing scientific facts? It’s one thing to believe in certain values; it’s another to explore them routinely, in concert with others, with the support and guidance of a pastor, using powerful symbols and narratives, in the context of a larger faith community. There are very, very few secular communities trying something along these lines — and they simply don’t have the history of traditions, narratives, and symbols to do what faiths can.
The reason why this symbolic, functional approach to religion does not work is it has no appeal to about 99% of humanity. It has only ever had appeal to a scant few people happy to embrace ambiguity, doubt and symbolic representations of cosmic or moral truths
Most people seem to intuitively realize, God being ACTUALLY real or not is of the highest important.
I like it when we get to look inside the head of Dr. Bart Ehrman. I would like to look a little further. When you speak of ‘other gods’ you remind me of all the YouTube posts about the Anunnaki, Enlil, Enki, and all the theories floating around with that whole world. Do you believe that these may be the ‘other gods’ mentioned in the Bible? Also, in your opinion, are the stories of the Bible any more believable than the stories from Sumeria? That is, as far as reality is concerned. – Time has no beginning, contrary to what you may have heard….
The other gods known to the bibical writers would be the ones in their own enviornoment, and of course, the others they had heard of. I think all sotries about gods are equally (un)believable.
Dr. Ehrman
If one day when walking your dog
you have your Eureka moment,
you find the answer to the problem
of suffering, a real answer, not like
the one we find in Job,an answer or
a reason that no human being ever
has thought of,whatever that is,an
answer that you find convincing.
will that pave the way for you to
become a born again Christian
again?I don’t have the faintest idea
what that answer could be.
The reason I ask this hypothetical
is that you sometimes ask this
rhetorical question if God inspired
the authors to write down the word
of God,why didn’t he then make the
effort to preserve it. It’s an equally
compelling argument no matter
what the answer to the problem of
suffering might be.
I’m always open to chaning my mind and going int he direction that I thnk truth lead me. But I wouldn’t hold my breath expecting me to be born again again. (!)
Hey Bart,
If you are interested, here’s my argument for divine causality of the origin of tensed time and quantum particles while God is all-loving and active in creation through synergism with creation but unable to meticulously control creation (https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2020.1825195).
Cheers,
James
I agree completely with your take on this, Bart. “You can’t explain the First Principle.” Exactly; and since we can’t, pushing the First Principle back one step and calling it “God” explains nothing, solves nothing, accomplishes nothing.
When I was four years old, I asked my mother “If God made the world, who made God?” My memory is that she said something like “That’s the kind of question you’re not supposed to ask.” But it seems to me now 62 years later that since we have to accept that SOMETHING “just is,” it makes the most sense to accept that the universe “just is.” We gain nothing by positing some prior entity and calling it God.
I would rather believe in an active, all powerful God than a God who creates the world and then sits on the sidelines. That’s my opinion.
What about something like Zoroastrianism where this world is a battle between good and evil? Broadly speaking that fits the facts. And God is not alleged to be all-powerful — though hopefully more powerful than any other being. God could still offer critical assistance and even ultimate hope.
I even think the historical Jesus could be made to fit into this scenario. He thought evil was for some reason ascendant in his time but would ultimately be defeated by God.
Nowadays we might think that evil is not caused so much by supernatural agents but more by the indifference and resulting cruelty of nature. Also, Biblical creation is now understood to not be “ex nihilo” but that God is more a molder of pre-existent “stuff.” It’s plausible that that’s an indication of less than omnipotence, eg, that “matter” is resistant to God’s good intentions. And in at least one dialogue Plato presents God as more of an artisan than a creator.
Finally, I’d suggest that any ultimate victory of good over evil is partly – maybe even ultimately – dependent on agents like ourselves though with God’s assistance. That’s gives an ultimate purpose to our actions.
Yes, I’d say that would work; so would all the ancient pagan religions. The problem of evil is mainly a problem for monotheists. But I”ve never seen much reason to believe in multiple gods either.
The traditional view of God seems fatally wounded by so much horrible suffering. Deism might initially seem more plausible because God is not necessarily responsible. But then what’s the point of believing in a God who is not actively good? That’s hard to argue with.
However, there does seem to be a point in believing in a God who is actively good and tremendously though not all powerful. Suffering doesn’t falsify that the existence of that God. If an all-powerful, good and active God would be worth believing in-except for suffering-why wouldn’t it be worth believing in a less than all-powerful God who is actively good and for whom the problem of suffering is not fatal? Isn’t that inconsistent? Wouldn’t there have to be other reasons for not believing in a limited God—or for any kind of God?
It seems like what happens may be something like: the realization that the traditional God does not exist removes the illusion that any gods exist. Or a limited God feels like backfilling rather than conviction. Or once the traditional God is out of the picture the rational, scientific worldview completely takes over. To be continued)
(Continued) I’m not claiming that there are strong reasons for believing in a limited God or multiple gods. Setting aside for the moment the problem of suffering, it just seems like there is as much reason to believe in a limited God as an all-powerful God. The same (religious) experiences that lead one to conceive an unlimited God should also support a conception of a limited God. The original notion of an unlimited God has simply been refined by reason. However, the limited God can’t so totally embody the faith and hope and trust and reliance that an unlimited God can. It just doesn’t seem like a satisfactory solution. That could be a big part of the problem.
Also, couldn’t a limited God be consistent with a scientific worldview? Certainly there would be tensions. And it’s messier than a more monolithic view. But there are lots of human experiences that suggest a religious outlook too.
In college in the early 70s, I read an excerpt entitled “ The Problem of Good and Evil” from a 1931 book by the philosopher WP Montague. A key sentence is “material nature makes altogether too many winning throws for us not to suspect that she is playing with dice that are loaded, loaded with life and mind and purpose.” The point is that evil is easy to understand from the standpoint of mechanistic nature. But can the amount of good be explained as due to chance alone? He suggests that nature is imbued with purpose, eg, evolution, broadly conceived, though it’s not all-powerful.
This reminds me of the process philosophy/theology of AN Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and Teilhard de Chardin. Process thought is still very much alive — though the Process material I’ve read myself doesn’t make much sense to me.
I also think that the philosophers William James and, more controversially, John Stuart Mill thought that something like a good but not all-powerful god might well exist.
So I guess the question is, even if chance does a convincing job of explaining evil, can it explain the amount of good in the world?
Yup, it’s the right question. I’ve thought a lot about it and I think the answer is decidedly: Yes. It all has to do with how we define “good,” and how we see it in relation to (our own) evolutionary psychology.
One final thought. God is emerging, in an evolutionary sort of way and, as conscious, purposive beings, we are (or can be) part of that divine emergence. What anchors this idea is the undeniable fact of biological evolution which it builds on. The universe, in the indefinitely long run, is susceptible to our purposes.
Death is the main obstacle to this idea being attractive. But perhaps the universe is susceptible to human desires for immortality and even even to resurrection of the dead.
It may not be reasonable, in this era, to “believe” in God. But couldn’t it be reasonable to “search” for God if there’s more than a negligible chance of God’s existence? Life can be very good even without God. But couldn’t God be the icing on an otherwise delicious cake?
This assumes that there are no absolute contradictions between goodness with God and goodness without him—in the sense that it would be reasonable to pursue pretty much the same goals with and without God.
Yes, there are those who believe that God hasn’t full control of everything, and therefore, He cannot prevent all evil.
The question is what the word “almighty” or “omnipotent” really mean. A friend of mine suggested that it just means “supersupersupersupermighty”, which agrees with what a minister once explained to me: that the Greek word translated as “almighty” in NT is “Pantokrator”, which means “ruler of all there is”, which doesn’t mean that God has “total view in all directions”.
The problem with this is of course that if God hasn’t this “total view in all directions” and cannot prevent all evil, can we then be certain that God will win in the end, and that the evil forces will be defeated? If not, He wouldn’t be much of a God to trust in.
How much influence did the First Jewish-Roman War have on the content and general outlook of the Gospels? I can imagine it being enormous. At least three of them were written not terribly long after. And my impression is that Mark kind of straddled it. It must have been a terribly traumatic event for the Jewish people. To apocalypticists, both Jewish and Christian, it must have seemed like the Day of the Lord had finally come – except that it didn’t actually come after all.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the gospels were in large part a reaction to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Among other things Jesus hadn’t yet returned despite the fact that the war seemed to be the sort of thing one would expect when he returned. It wouldn’t really be stretching things too much to say that the war occurred within the lifetime of Jesus’s contemporaries. And Jesus may have predicted the the temple’s destruction too.
Many peole have thought that. It makes sense on one level: if the Jewish sacrificial system is no longer in place then the idea of Jesus as a perfect sacrifice for sins seems to be a good “replacement” theory advanced by his followers after the destruction of the temple. I guess one counter-argument is that you would think the Gospel writers then would make the comparison/contrast (between the Temple sacrifices and Jesus’) more explicit and emphatic….
Could a person who finds no reason to believe in any kind of external god, find meaning in belief in internal human spirituality? I would start with the assertion that our entire experience of being is a translation of physical reality. Waves of electro-magnetic radiation have no color. Pressure waves in the atmosphere have no sound. But the brain translates those impulses in our experience of sound and color. We might suspect that all sentient beings experience life as such a translation, but I would argue that only the human brain enriches and supplements that translation with abstract thought — including the ability to knit bits of evidence in ancient manuscripts into probability-based history. So, it may be futile to try to connect to an external god with meditation, but potentially rewarding to engage in self-reflection through meditation. This means we do not have to thank God for the beauty of a sunset, but we can appreciate the blessing of being able to experience beauty arising from the interaction of light rays and atmospheric dust and moisture.
I like that last comment, thank you!
Bart and responders
One reason to believe that an unknown force we call GOD exists is that there is now some evidence: 60-years’ research into reincarnation conducted at the UVA Medical School’s Division of Perceptual Studies, which is available online, shows that many children age 2-6 tell their parents they had a prior life and provide specific details (names, locations, complex activities) that in a few cases have been independently verified. The Bible is wrong when someone imagined that a supreme power will condemn those who do little to help others (in some instances because they died young) to eternal suffering. There is some evidence that GOD simply gives them (i.e., their spiritual-selves, mind, consciousness) that exists after their body died) additional chances to spend time helping others. The research shows that after age 6 there is so much new information coming into children’s brains that the prior-life memories are completely lost. DOPS has a database of 2,000+ children who provided some information, but there are admittedly only a small number who provided sufficient information for researchers to verify that there is no other possible explanation. Please go online to UVA DOPS and decide for yourself.
Bill Steigelmann
Dr. Ehrman, I assume that when you mean pain and suffering, you are not referring to pain and suffering from human conflict, exploitation, and indifference, but rather natural pain and suffering—specifically something that God designed into the world. I think cancer is an easy one. Why would a loving and benevolent God design a world with cancer? I’ll focus on two specific reasons. God designed the world with cancer but he also designed human nature to have compassion and empathy. We show compassion and empathy towards those who suffer from cancer. If you take away not only cancer, but all disease, and all natural things that cause pain and suffering, does compassion and empathy remain? God also gave us intelligence. To a great extent pain and suffering motivates us, as a race, to figure out ways to alleviate pain and suffering. While we haven’t cured cancer, we have made strides in treatment and alleviating the suffering from cancer. However, lung cancer kills more people than any other cancer. So, as a race, one step forward, two steps back. I could elaborate further, but I only get 200 words.
Having seen people in unending agonizing torment because of cancer I do not agree that it is an easy case. In my view the compassion and empathy that it evoked does not justify the pain. A hangnail, maybe.
I meant the cancer is an easy case as far as showing the seemingly senseless pain and suffering that God designed into the world.
I may still be misunderstanding you, but I don’t think appealing to cancer as explicable if God designed the world makes much sense. Or maybe you’re agreeing?
Yes, in essence, I agree that cancer is something that people use as an example of meaningless pain and suffer that God designed into the world. But I gave two reasons why God may have designed cancer into the world. 1. Compassion (pure compassion) and 2. To motivate the human race to use our intelligence to eliminate this pain and suffering. By pure compassion, I mean that you simply focus on the emotional support toward the cancer patient. Someone who lives a healthy life and has not ingested carcinogens, may get cancer. In that situation, there is no one to blame (although some people want to blame God). And with the recovery rates from cancer, expecting someone with advanced cancer to get better is not realistic. Thus, it serves as an opportunity for pure compassion.
I’m sure you do not agree that to design cancer into the world to elicit pure compassion is a good design.
If I understand you, the pain and suffering represent the big hurdle to your belief in a “Different God.” But, in doing so, you’re somewhat relying on the Judeo-Christian concept of God.
Yes, I understood your points. I do not think there is a God who makes children, spouses, friends suffer horrible neverending excruciating agony so that it can make me a better person by becoming more cmpassionate. It’s really not all about me. It’s about those who suffer.
I am an atheist Jew.
A strong answer to the evil and pain in the world was given to us in Job. At the end, the message is that we cannot understand God’s nature.
Then came Maimonides and his Aristotelian thinking: we cannot tell what God is, but only what God is not. Tricky.
And then came the Kabbalists, whose
“ Ein Sof” ( infinity) became just….. “Eyn” ( there isn’t, nothingness).
I believe Jews were the first quasi atheists. Finally, a God so elusive, so absolute ( good or bad, loving or cruel) and vague was not possible to relate to.
Judaism being a religion of practice, not of doctrine, what remained was our acknowledgement that we can be “ in the image” ,indeed, warts el al, and that our role was, like sages said, to love our neighbour as oneself.
The issue of Jesus’ replacement sacrifice is so problematic. The “ Binding of Isaac”’ ‘s most outstanding message is that God does not want human sacrifices. These were forbidden in ancient Israel, though many, out of superstition, still performed them. Thus, the story of the “ Binding” was told.
The place where human sacrifices ( babies) were done, “ the Valley of Hinnom” in Jerusalem became, to this day, the Hebrew word for Hell : Gehenom. Nothing could be worse than a human sacrifice.
Unless Jesus was metaphorically thinking of himself as one of the two expiatory goats- one sacrificed and one let go as a scapegoat- which are dealt with on the Day of Atonement in the Torah, I cannot imagine that Jesus himself believed he was a human sacrifice.
By the way, every time I hear the God of Israel’s name pronounced Yaweh, I wince. It is universal, I know. But Hebrew doesn’t have a “ w” sound , and the “ e” ending is meaningless. The theophoric names’ ending in Yahu, like “ Netanyahu”, are closest to what The Name might have been. The extra “ he” ה, ending יהוה,is another story.
Divine Impassibility is intertwined in this discussion. For an overview see Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impassibility#:~:text=The%20Catholic%20Church%20teaches%20dogmatically,or%20any%20other%20temporal%20attributes.
I would hope God – not Jesus – but the Godhead himself – feels our pain and suffers with us. The official doctrine of the Catholic Church is that God is impassible. Based on writings of Agustine , Anselm, and Aquinas. An excellent overview and survey of the literature on this issue is Paul Fiddes book “The Creative Suffering of God” Oxford University Press 1986. I have read it multiple times and continue to read it.
French Jesuit Paleontologist Tielhard De Chardin wrote in “Christianity and Evolution”
“I say this with all sincerity: ” I have always found it impossible to to be sincerely moved to piety by a crucifix so long as this suffering was presented to me as the expiration of a transgression which God could have averted -either because he had no need of man, or because he could have made him in some” other way.
Qu’ allait-il fare dans cette galere”. Translation: “What did he think he was up to?”
The problem I grapple with is on the “back end” . Assume God has limitations and cannot create out of nothing but only able to combine spirt and matter in an evolutionary process i.e. big bag etc. My problem is grasping God’s overall plan. What happens after death and how does God rectify, justify all the collateral damage -particularly the infants. An infant may be happy in heaven but the parents will
not be, – they will wonder what that child would have become if allow to live to a full life. The loss of potential hurts.
We create God, but that doesn’t mean that God is unreal or useless. If you have a good invention, why not use it?
If there is some abstract goal I want to achieve, such as improving my knowledge, love, or unselfishness, I might find it useful to think of some of these abstract ideals as deities, to make them less abstract. So I invent a deity that represents the embodiment of, say, perfect love and worship it as a strategy to help me become a more loving person. And my worship of this imaginary God gives it a sort of reality. Of course, what is really real is the underlying principle, but the divine personality can assume an abiding presence in my life that is, in some ways, more real than many other things we accept as real.
That may not be a good enough reason for some to believe in God, but it’s good enough for me.
The existence of suffering doesn’t undermine my belief in God, because the God I believe in doesn’t have the role of a divine micromanager deciding who will and won’t suffer.
I went through a deist phase on my journey from evangelical Christian to agnostic. But I eventually came to the same conclusion you did: there’s no evidence, and besides, what’s the point?
Somewhat coincidentally, I just finished a book by physicist Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality, which explores the various possibilities for the existence of other universes besides our own. One of the more interesting chapters discussed the means by which an advanced civilization — perhaps our own in some distant future era — might be able to create an entire new universe. It’s all very speculative of course. But the idea that it may be feasible opens up the possibility that our own universe could have been created, not by a god, but by an incredibly advanced civilization of mortal beings. The big drawback to doing so is that the creators of the new universe would have no ability to interact with their creation. Nor would any inhabitants that might evolve in it have any evidence of the creators. So maybe deism is onto something after all. Ha!
Yeah, he’s terrific. I’ve only read one of his, but would like to read more. I’ll check that one out.
Brian is one of the few physicists writing trade books that I find (mostly) comprehensible. 😉
I have read & reread all your comments. You have a *lot* of book knowledge but lack ‘Logic’. Also – you seem to lack ’Faith’. Do you believe in Life after death? Do you think all of ‘this’ is an accident? God is not ‘in’ anywhere nor everywhere. Everything = God. God ‘is’ everywhere; He is not ‘in or around’ the Universe – He IS = to everywhere…all existence. Everything that exists = (as in *equals*) God.
Think about it. God created everything, & every ‘thing’ good and bad. Good and bad aren‘t even valid terms. Everything created has properties (extremes) of it ‘s own. That is a given. If it is warm, a heat issue, the lowest value would be what we call cold, the highest value would be what we call hot. But there is no inherent good or bad. There is either more or less. Positive or negative. We have given positive a value of ‘good’ and negative a value of ‘bad’. That’s us, not God. The point is good and bad are not separate things, they are (extreme) properties of everything, that God created.(Page 1 of 2)
I”m not sure I lack logic — I rather don’t think so — but I do lack faith. I do not believe in God and I do think that the material world is all there is and ever has been. But I do believe in good and bad and like lots of philosophically informed thinkers believe that is logically defensible in a strictly material universe.
What say you then to this: https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/prominent-astrophysicist-calls-the-big-bang-a-mirage/
How does the material world fit in?
I’d say that’s how science works. You will find scientists who disagree with the consensus all the time. It’s the nature of teh beast. The key is not to believe whichever ones happen to say what you want them to, but to read a range of arguments and see WHY the consensus is the consensus.
I would say you are stating a religious belief, but I do not think most experts on “logic” would say that your views are logically necessary. (In fact, all the logicians I know disagree with you.) (That doesn’t mean you’re wrong! It means that if you’re right it’s for religious reasons, not logical ones.)
Thak you for the response but before I comment back, what about my page 2 of 2!
After reading p. 2 I decided to comment only on p. 1.
(OK Page 2 of 2 attempted Reconstruction:) First – in page 1 above, when I said I read all the posts and noted lack of logic, I was not addressing *just* Dr Ehrman…I was addressing ‘all’ the posts. To try to reconstruct:
“…Light is a creation, the high end being extreme brilliance, the low end being the total absence of light, or dark.
Endless discussions about who created evil, and if God is all Good how could He create evil, are fruitless. If God is Perfect, a given truth that we all agree to, then His creations must be perfect, with positive and negative extremes built in.
God is not all ‘Good’, He is all ‘Perfect‘, and therefore has the entire spectrum inherent to him, under his control, be it what we call good , or bad. Those are our values, human values. irrelevant in the total universe, and total creation…” Closing with ‘He created your Soul (in His Image) and placed it in your body when evolution created you to be a being capable of a conscious, and choosing Right from Wrong. (Are we the only ones?)
He created You…don’t disallow His existence!’ (or words to that effect).
May I continue the discussion at [email protected]?
I’m afraid I am not able to have conversatoins over email. Sorry!
I read previously of a Crusade sent by a Pope to specifically deal with a church(?) teaching of a ‘Creator’ God. Does any of the readers of this particular discussion know of such a reference?
I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to.
Can I address my question to the readers of this particular topic in general?
As long as you do so in 200 words or less! Commenters frequently state their own views, and if they are both appropriate to the material we cover in the blog and not personally proselytizing, then I post them.
Then please post my earlier comment of July 2 :
“I read previously of a Crusade sent by a Pope to specifically deal with a church(?) teaching of a ‘Creator’ God. Do any of the readers of this particular discussion know of such a reference?”
to *all* of the readers of ‘Why Not Just Believe in a *Different* Kind of God?’ (Your comment seemed to be in the First Person, causing me to wonder if the general population saw it)
ie: What about the Marcionites?
I saw that. The Crusades were mainly in the 11th and the 12th centuries, and had nothing to do with Marcionites (who did not exist at the time).
I realize that, the ie: comment was ‘out of order’ and should have been made separately if at all…But(!)
That does not tell me if anyone in the general group – know of the Crusade I mention(?)
I’m afraid if no one replies we have no way of knowing.
I believe in a “different kind of God.”
Two things influence my belief: evolution and quantum mechanics.
I am not a creationist but I do believe in irreducible complexity. I have read a lot of books on evolution and none have convinced me to accept that chance mutation and natural selection explains the extreme complexity of life. Some texts even use the word “design” to replace “chance mutation/natural selection”, Design implies intelligence.
So far, scientists cannot explain the the mysteries of quantum mechanics, e.g. entanglement and instantaneous communication (faster than than the speed of light). That makes me think that, on a quantum level, all matter may be connected and perhaps the universe is intelligent. I don’t think that our biochemical brain is the pinnacle of intelligence or the only form of “awareness” in the universe.
I guess, in short, I believe that God is the universe. This is not an all loving, personal God nor the God of the plethora of the world’s religions. Like Neil Degrasse Tyson says, ” I can’t believe in a God who is always trying to destroy us..”