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From: hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Omnipotence, justice and suffering: a very long question.
Message-ID: <2506@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 7-Jul-85 14:56:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.2506
Posted: Sun Jul  7 14:56:38 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jul-85 01:37:15 EDT
References: <1034@phs.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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In article <1034@phs.UUCP>, paul@phs.UUCP (Paul C. Dolber) writes:
> ...  Does anyone out there know of a genuine
> solution to the question posed by Kaufmann:  Can God or a god be both
> omnipotent and just (including good, morally perfect, and so on) and
> permit the suffering we know to exist?

As you might guess, the "problem of suffering" has been discussed on
this list in the past.  However since I haven't said anything before,
I will do so now.  As will be obvious, I am speaking from a Christian
perspective.  I would be interested to hear from people outside the
Judeo-Christian tradition.  The assumptions which lead to this problem
seem clearest from the Biblical perspective.  I would be interested to
know whether those who follow other religions believe that they have a
problem of suffering.

I do not know of any solution that causes God to be both omnipotent
and just using the definitions you have used.  I think it is fairly
clear that your definitions are such that this is impossible.  Of the
theologians I have looked at, all end up weakening (if that is the right
word) one, or the other, or both.

I'd like to start by taking a look at the idea that God is omnipotent.
By and large in the Bible, the idea seems to be that God is more
powerful than competing entities.  In the early parts, the issue was
that he is more powerful than competing gods.  In later parts, he is
more powerful than Satan.  Also, he has power over nature.  What he
decides to do, he can do.  But this is all at a fairly concrete level.
The problem of evil involves a discussion that is in some sense at a
meta level.  The question is not whether God can carry out some
specific action or create some specific thing, but whether he could
have structured reality in a different way.  I'm not sure that the
Bible deals with this level of abstraction.  To Medieval scholastics,
it was obvious that God must be omnipotent at all possible levels of
abstraction.  To more modern theologians, this is not so obvious.  The
Bible gives the impression of a God who is affected by what goes on
with men.  It almost sounds like he is part of the process of history,
and not above it.

So one possible answer would be that there is some level of reality
which God himself must take as given.  If we claimed that some
competing entity had prevented God from doing what he wanted, I think
that would be un-Biblical.  But I'm not sure it says he set up the
laws of physics, much less whatever metalaws might govern the setting
up of the laws of physics.

A second possible answer (which may be indistiguishable from the
first) is that there may be some deep reason why God couldn't
eliminate suffering without also eliminating some other important
thing.  In effect it may be that people who want no suffering are
asking for something that is logically impossible (given the other
things God is trying to accomplish).  If something is logically
impossible, then God can't do it.  Not because he lacks the power, but
because the request has no meaning.

This obviously begs the question of what great thing God wanted that
required him to allow suffering.  You mentioned free will.  I think
that is close, but not quite on the mark.  Suppose we think of this
life as a training ground for our final destiny.  It may be that
effective training requires real challenges, and even real defeats.

There may be a problem of perspective here.  Christianity generally
deals with this issue on an individual level.  It does not deal with
suffering in the abstract, nor with the suffering of all mankind, but
of my particular suffering.  This problem is managable.  Christians
can generally get at least a dim vision of how suffering fits into a
loving plan for them.  The problem with the general problem is that we
don't have this sort of understanding of other people's lives.  So
what is managable on an individual level appears impossible when we
think of millions of starving people in XXX.  However each of those
people has his own story.  At this point the obvious response is,
"yeah, but you're not starving."  I don't have any final answer to
that.  About all I can say is that it is not just rich people who see
God working in their lives.

On the idea of God being just.  In the Bible there is certainly no
claim that people get their just desserts immediately.  Job is not
alone in rejecting this idea.  The Psalms also deal with good men
suffering at the hands of evil men.  However there seems to be
confidence that God will eventually see justice done.  In most of the
Psalms it seems to be assumed that God will do so soon, i.e. in this
lifetime.  In other contexts, full justice is postponed to the Final
Judgement.  Indeed in both Jewish and Christian apocalyptic, the idea
developed that things would get worse and worse as we approached the
end, with Evil apparently becoming victorious.  I realize that this is
getting into sensitive ground.  To many people the idea of eternal
life and a final judgement sounds like a cop-out.  But it is hard to
see how one can avoid it and continue to be a Christian.  In fact I
believe that the idea of eternal life leads to a correct perspective
on things.  It shows us that what really matters in the world are the
people.  It is all too easy to get the impression that what matters
are nations, or economics, or the triumph of some particular ideology.
But these are all transitory.  It is the people who will last, and
they are what the world is all about.  Actually, I think the real
justice is probably going to be that people have to live eternally
with what they have made of themselves.  If you take this seriously,
it is about the most chilling possible end for the bad guys.