A theodicy
This entry is a personal response to the question of suffering in the world. It is in response to an earlier thread on a different journal. Feel free to read if you want to; comments / questions welcomed.
Ultimately, I have had to confront some kinds of human suffering where my intellect failed me. Painful and slowly lethal birth defects are a particularly bitter pill for me to swallow, and I can't construct some internal mental framework in which they easily contribute to some greater good, or in which they are some just and logical result of intentional human action.
For me, then, as someone who believes strongly in a benevolent God, a decision must be made, to resolve this problem. There are many answers to this question of how such pain could be allowed to exist, but I'll deal only with those I personally strongly considered.
The first, of course, is that God doesn't exist. Life is a semi-orderly decay of energy states, and nothing more.
I can see the appeal in this answer, in that it seems to simplify a great many things. However, I also can't accept it, as it lies in conflict with a far greater weight of experiential evidence. I can certainly be attacked, then, on counting my subjective experience as somehow relevant; but I don't see how it can be anything but relevant.
The second is to say God wishes these things to happen, in accordance with a plan foreordained in the beginning of time, and the Universe plays out according to this plan. This is essentially strong Calvinism. However, when the rubber hits the road, Calvinism seems to require both the elimination of much of free will, as well as God's direct and willful authorship of evil, both of which stand in conflict with my understanding and experience of God.
The third, and what I think is closest to the actual situation, is to differentiate between what God wills and what God allows. I don't believe God gos around killing people in car accidents and sending famine, despite the attempts of some to say that such things are “God's Will.” That would seem to run afoul of my general impression that “God is ultimately not a dick.” However, I do believe God allows a great deal of suffering to exist. This naturally leads to the question “why would an omnipotent God allow suffering?”
Of course, my ultimate answer must always be “I don't know, I just trust.” I think the whole of faith, ultimately, is the issue of trusting that, ultimately, God's only manifestation is an overpowering and unconditional Love - the “love which surpasses all understanding.”
Now, I can write a book clarifying that position, talking about the fulfillment of God's will in the fullness of time, or referencing the before/afterlife as part of the equation, or what have you. Leslie Weatherhead's book The Will of God does an excellent job of this, for those who are interested.
I personally would address this more by examining the assumptions that underly it, those being that we can use terms like “omnipotent” or “omnibenevolent” and actually be able to draw conclusions from them, which would require that we truly understood what they mean. In the same way, I can say “God exists outside time” or “God is infinite” and we can nod our heads, but we still don't really grasp what such a statement means, and I don't know that we can. A similar situation exists once you get into a certain depth of physics, mathematics, or any other discipline which studies the substructure of the Universe. Once you start talking about infinite sets, or how electrons are charged particles with zero radius who have no definite location in space, you necessarily begin using metaphors and comparisons and symbolic notations because you have left the realm of the directly comprehendable. You've even left the realm of objects which cannot be directly experienced but which we can still comprehend (a mime's invisible rope routine works because we can understand intuitively how an invisible rope would behave, and we measure his success by how correctly he interacts with this nonexistent entity.)
There is the objection to this position (the “I don't know, but I trust God loves us”) on the grounds that it is dismissive of human suffering. After all, what kind of comfort is it to someone who has just lost a child to tell them such a thing? The only answer I have for that is, experientially, both as giver and receiver, it appears to be the strongest comfort possible. I also find it is one of the few answers that allows you to truly grieve with a person, and that allows you to tell them truthfully that God suffers with them. Finally, I think it is the only response that allows me to let go of the tremendous rage I otherwise have at everyone and everything for the state of some human lives, and how badly that state hurts and offends me. As long as I search my mind for some perfect, airtight explanation for every tragedy, I am unable to be present with the people suffering and alleviate their pain.