my published essay
This is the essay I wrote for my philosophy of religion class last year that was published in my school magazine, Absolute. It also won critic's choice for non fiction. I'm still sort of a little in disbelief about it. It's non profit so I won't be in any trouble.
Also: warning for talking in depth about rape and abuse. I mention genocide. Contains me speaking about religion in an academic sort of way.
The Problem of Evil
I'm going to break a lot of rules in this essay. This is an obvious fact from my first sentence. I'm writing in first person, I'm going to be speaking from my own personal experiences, and I'm not using the usual structure I've learned to use in this type of essay. I will, however, not be abandoning the assignment altogether. Everything I'm about to say is going to be informed by John Hick's use of bios and zoe.
The reason I've chosen to write the essay like this is because the nature of the assignment troubled me because I don't know which of the arguments we studied that I found most convincing. So, I looked at the discussion questions at the end of each article and had chosen to write about John Hick's ideas in the context of the myth of Adam and Eve in the Christian tradition.* I wrote a brief outline before going out with my brother and planned to buckle down and write the essay when I returned home.
When I got home, I realized that if I wrote the essay that I had planned, it would have been a terrible one. Sure, technically, it might have been a good essay. I hope I would have been able to make my ideas clearer than I did in the last one I wrote for this class. I think I would have been able to back up my assertion(s) well. And, I know I'm a good writer so I'm pretty sure it would have been a clear and interesting read. However, it wouldn't have been an honest essay.
I recognize that to some people, my standards for writing this essay are, to put it kindly, somewhat odd. In fact, I honestly think they're a bit ridiculous. This essay is meant to show that I understand the material we've been studying. I'm supposed to show a high degree of critical thinking skills. If I decided to write about how I think C.S. Lewis made the strongest argument and did it well, I would have done what I was supposed to do. That's all that was asked.
But, the topic is theodicy. It's about evil. It's about attempting to reconcile the fact of evil with the hope of a benevolent deity or deities. This is a subject that keeps people up at night. This is a subject that makes people walk away from their religions. This is a subject that had my brother burying his face in his steering wheel and sobbing.
In class, it's easy for me to step away from evil. I can bring up genocide and murder without blinking. In academic settings, I try and step away from my emotions and focus on logic and reason.** Although, I'm hardly completely successful in that aspect, I'm easily able to look at complicated and messy subjects without putting myself into them. I'm able to think and talk about these ideas we talk about without thinking anything is on the line for me. I can do this because in a setting like this, for me, they aren't. I haven't spent a lot of time struggling with how to accept the fact of a benevolent god with the fact of evil. Philosophy is a new area of learning for me. I don't have emotional or intellectual attachments to philosophical ideas yet.
But, I do know evil. Evil was my father walking into my room when I was five years old and raping me. Evil was me blaming myself for this. Evil was my brother screaming at me that I should hate him because he couldn't protect me the night I wrote this essay. My brother was four when my dad was raping me. Evil is my brother hating himself because he didn't have enough power as a small child to save me. Evil is my brother not being able to understand that it wasn't his fault. Evil was me having no words to comfort him. Evil was him looking at me aned wondering how I could stand to love him.
I wanted to tak about bios and zoe. I wanted to talk about how people need to struggle to develop into something that can connect with God on a meaningful level. I wanted to talk about how maybe God created human beings because he didn't want to be alone. That's why Adam was given animals and then Eve, right? I wanted to talk about how maybe the only way sentient beings can overcome loneliness is by choosing to connect and lvoe each other through the agony of evil.
But, when I closed the door to my brother's car and walked to my house, that belief in me was shaken. The dysfunction in my family has created a man who doesn't believe he deserves love. That man is my brother. I thought about talking about bios and zoe to him. The words felt empty in my head. I had nothing to give him but three words (I love you) that he couldn't accept.
I don't know how to write about theodicy when my brother's cries echo in my mind as I sob. I don't know how to defend or expand upon any ideas that we've studied when my brother is suffering so much. I also cannot reject the idea of theodicy because my dad raped me but I've found a way to see so much goodness in the world and I've been able to do this, in part, because I do have a God that I believe is good. I just don't know how to argue it yet. I still need to think on it.
I simply cannot step out of myself and my life in order to write about what we've studied. Not for this subject. Perhaps I have failed in the first thing I was supposed to do in this class: to be objective about these ideas. Evil is just something I can be objective about enough in order to write an essay on. I know myself enough to know I cannot engage critically in these ideas when I simply don't know where I stand. Not after evil touched me again when I spoke with my brother.
If I haven't talked about my brother, I would have written about John Hick's bios and zoe. I would have talked about how bios means the biological instincts that make up human beings and how something within human beings makes them want to move above them and how that process is called zoe. I would have interpreted the story of Adam and Eve through these ideas. Maybe I would have come up with something profound.
However, I did talk to my brother. I saw his tears. I heard his screams. I felt the tension in his body when I touched his shoulder. I was completely powerless as I struggled and failed to comfort him.
I realized I have no real clue how to reconcile the fact of evil with the belief in a benevolent God. If I tried, it would be a lie. I simply do not have the stomach to lie about evil when I was just reminded that evil isn't a word with a definition, but an integral part of the world I live in that does things like break my little brother into pieces.
*If I had written the essay as planned, I would have spoken about how Adam and Eve have been read specifically in Christian tradition. Islamic, Jewish, and other religions that use this story have their own interpretations and would have had me writing a very different essay if I'd chosen to talk about it from a different perspective. In hindsight, I wish I had made this much clearer. But, this was a personal letter to my professor pretending to be an essay that he thought was good enough to be published and I decided to take a risk. I didn't have it in me to revise this paper too much. I wish I had. But I didn't. Apologies.
**I do not think that emotion is a bad thing to keep in mind when talking about issues like genocide. In fact, I believe that the total disregard for emotions sometimes advocated in academia is profoundly toxic. But, personally, I've found I can speak most clearly when I step out of my emotions (which I'm able to do so well because of a lifetime of damage due to my dad raping me). It's also the way I can speak on important issues without falling apart. Again, I wish I had clarified this more. But I didn't. Sorry!
Also: warning for talking in depth about rape and abuse. I mention genocide. Contains me speaking about religion in an academic sort of way.
The Problem of Evil
I'm going to break a lot of rules in this essay. This is an obvious fact from my first sentence. I'm writing in first person, I'm going to be speaking from my own personal experiences, and I'm not using the usual structure I've learned to use in this type of essay. I will, however, not be abandoning the assignment altogether. Everything I'm about to say is going to be informed by John Hick's use of bios and zoe.
The reason I've chosen to write the essay like this is because the nature of the assignment troubled me because I don't know which of the arguments we studied that I found most convincing. So, I looked at the discussion questions at the end of each article and had chosen to write about John Hick's ideas in the context of the myth of Adam and Eve in the Christian tradition.* I wrote a brief outline before going out with my brother and planned to buckle down and write the essay when I returned home.
When I got home, I realized that if I wrote the essay that I had planned, it would have been a terrible one. Sure, technically, it might have been a good essay. I hope I would have been able to make my ideas clearer than I did in the last one I wrote for this class. I think I would have been able to back up my assertion(s) well. And, I know I'm a good writer so I'm pretty sure it would have been a clear and interesting read. However, it wouldn't have been an honest essay.
I recognize that to some people, my standards for writing this essay are, to put it kindly, somewhat odd. In fact, I honestly think they're a bit ridiculous. This essay is meant to show that I understand the material we've been studying. I'm supposed to show a high degree of critical thinking skills. If I decided to write about how I think C.S. Lewis made the strongest argument and did it well, I would have done what I was supposed to do. That's all that was asked.
But, the topic is theodicy. It's about evil. It's about attempting to reconcile the fact of evil with the hope of a benevolent deity or deities. This is a subject that keeps people up at night. This is a subject that makes people walk away from their religions. This is a subject that had my brother burying his face in his steering wheel and sobbing.
In class, it's easy for me to step away from evil. I can bring up genocide and murder without blinking. In academic settings, I try and step away from my emotions and focus on logic and reason.** Although, I'm hardly completely successful in that aspect, I'm easily able to look at complicated and messy subjects without putting myself into them. I'm able to think and talk about these ideas we talk about without thinking anything is on the line for me. I can do this because in a setting like this, for me, they aren't. I haven't spent a lot of time struggling with how to accept the fact of a benevolent god with the fact of evil. Philosophy is a new area of learning for me. I don't have emotional or intellectual attachments to philosophical ideas yet.
But, I do know evil. Evil was my father walking into my room when I was five years old and raping me. Evil was me blaming myself for this. Evil was my brother screaming at me that I should hate him because he couldn't protect me the night I wrote this essay. My brother was four when my dad was raping me. Evil is my brother hating himself because he didn't have enough power as a small child to save me. Evil is my brother not being able to understand that it wasn't his fault. Evil was me having no words to comfort him. Evil was him looking at me aned wondering how I could stand to love him.
I wanted to tak about bios and zoe. I wanted to talk about how people need to struggle to develop into something that can connect with God on a meaningful level. I wanted to talk about how maybe God created human beings because he didn't want to be alone. That's why Adam was given animals and then Eve, right? I wanted to talk about how maybe the only way sentient beings can overcome loneliness is by choosing to connect and lvoe each other through the agony of evil.
But, when I closed the door to my brother's car and walked to my house, that belief in me was shaken. The dysfunction in my family has created a man who doesn't believe he deserves love. That man is my brother. I thought about talking about bios and zoe to him. The words felt empty in my head. I had nothing to give him but three words (I love you) that he couldn't accept.
I don't know how to write about theodicy when my brother's cries echo in my mind as I sob. I don't know how to defend or expand upon any ideas that we've studied when my brother is suffering so much. I also cannot reject the idea of theodicy because my dad raped me but I've found a way to see so much goodness in the world and I've been able to do this, in part, because I do have a God that I believe is good. I just don't know how to argue it yet. I still need to think on it.
I simply cannot step out of myself and my life in order to write about what we've studied. Not for this subject. Perhaps I have failed in the first thing I was supposed to do in this class: to be objective about these ideas. Evil is just something I can be objective about enough in order to write an essay on. I know myself enough to know I cannot engage critically in these ideas when I simply don't know where I stand. Not after evil touched me again when I spoke with my brother.
If I haven't talked about my brother, I would have written about John Hick's bios and zoe. I would have talked about how bios means the biological instincts that make up human beings and how something within human beings makes them want to move above them and how that process is called zoe. I would have interpreted the story of Adam and Eve through these ideas. Maybe I would have come up with something profound.
However, I did talk to my brother. I saw his tears. I heard his screams. I felt the tension in his body when I touched his shoulder. I was completely powerless as I struggled and failed to comfort him.
I realized I have no real clue how to reconcile the fact of evil with the belief in a benevolent God. If I tried, it would be a lie. I simply do not have the stomach to lie about evil when I was just reminded that evil isn't a word with a definition, but an integral part of the world I live in that does things like break my little brother into pieces.
*If I had written the essay as planned, I would have spoken about how Adam and Eve have been read specifically in Christian tradition. Islamic, Jewish, and other religions that use this story have their own interpretations and would have had me writing a very different essay if I'd chosen to talk about it from a different perspective. In hindsight, I wish I had made this much clearer. But, this was a personal letter to my professor pretending to be an essay that he thought was good enough to be published and I decided to take a risk. I didn't have it in me to revise this paper too much. I wish I had. But I didn't. Apologies.
**I do not think that emotion is a bad thing to keep in mind when talking about issues like genocide. In fact, I believe that the total disregard for emotions sometimes advocated in academia is profoundly toxic. But, personally, I've found I can speak most clearly when I step out of my emotions (which I'm able to do so well because of a lifetime of damage due to my dad raping me). It's also the way I can speak on important issues without falling apart. Again, I wish I had clarified this more. But I didn't. Sorry!