God: Master of Evil

Hope the title caught your attention.

Lots of my classes lately have been discussing the problem of evil in theology, which has got my wheels a-turnin'. Here's the run-down:

The traditional view of God states that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent. God, with all of these traits, created the universe. We see that the universe has evil in it, which poses a few problems. 1) How can God, being all good, create a universe which contains evil? and 2) How can God, being all good and all powerful, see evil in creation and do nothing about it? It seems like there are some inconsistencies.

For starters, it's probably best to take an almost agnostic stance towards the whole thing and say, "Well, we'll never know God's intentions and so maybe what we think is evil really isn't evil but part of a greater good." I have a major problem with that. If you're going to take an agnostic stance towards the problem of evil, you must also take an agnostic stance towards the very nature of God. The only solution is mysticism. It just doesn't make sense to put forth premises about the nature of God and, seeing that they lead to an inconsistent conclusion, appeal to ignorance and say that we'll never know the will of God.

I think I have a more coherent view of God that might help solve this issue. What if God is not perfect in the sense that God contains absolutely no concept of evil, but instead God contains evil and is the perfect master of evil. In this way God is perfect and it isn't incoherent to see that God's creation contains evil. I also believe this idea solves the problem of evil's continued existence in the world, but it might be a bit of a stretch. Here goes.

When you think about the perfect person, that concept doesn't entirely exclude notions of what is wrong and the capability to do it. That person had to learn not to do wrong and learn to love what is right. Seeing as we are reflections of God and made in God's image (from a Christian perspective), it would make sense that we are striving to be more like God, who also has a concept of evil but loves good so much that God never commits acts of evil. So much in the same way that our idea of the perfect person knows what is evil and has the ability to commit evil acts but does not, so too does God.

Perhaps God sees a greater purpose for allowing bad things to exist within the world. A perfect person would have no conception of "right vs. wrong" if the two did not coexist and contrast each other. If evil did not exist, there would be no great challenges in the world to help develop character and allow humankind to reach its full potential.

I've still got a lot of thinking and developing to do with this idea, but I kinda like it. It answers a lot of questions for me. This is also the first time I've tried to express it in any solid fashion, so there are sure to be a few major kinks. Critiques? Ideas?

Are we broken or beautiful?

Today I read a selection from Freud's book, "The Future of an Illusion," in which he describes how religion is an illusion created by man in order to cope with the mysteries of nature. This is called the "God of the Gaps," which Freud thinks will be destroyed by science and its systematic destruction of mystery in this world. An interesting assumption. Do I think he's completely correct? No, not really. He does, however, give me some good food for thought. Still, that's not the point of this post.

While discussion the God of the Gaps in class with a friend, we ended up talking about two particular topics I'm very interested in. Here's the first:

Freud's writings, if they're correct, destroy God. My buddy seemed to think that without God, there is no hope. There is no future. If the only thing that exists is the here and now and there is no afterlife, it's a bleak life indeed. I hold that the community of people surrounding us can be a source of light in the case that there is no God and we can still put our efforts forth to make something bigger and better than ourselves. The bottom lying question in this debate is this: Do we have to have to have something bigger than ourselves to focus on in order for us to be happy, optimistic people? If we focus solely on ourselves and nothing bigger than ourselves, can we be truly happy?

Second question:

What is our nature as humans? As we were discussing this, I was talking about how, even if there is a God, we should be doing good for good's own sake. If it is our motives that matter, we shouldn't be doing things in order to store up treasures in heaven or expect anything in return. Rather, we should be doing good and expecting nothing in return. We should be doing good for good's sake. That's my personal opinion on the matter. My friend raised an objection, however. Is it possible for us to do good for good's sake? He argued that no matter what we do, we will always have a motive of self-benefit. We can never just do good things and not expect anything in return. It's an interesting question. One that I don't really know if I can answer. Any thoughts?

A lack of phronesis...

I was driving around last night just to clear my head (a terrible way to do it, I know. I would have ridden a bike, but you can't really let your mind go on a bike like you can in a car). Anywho, I was pondering life and my obsession with my quest for religion. Why do I think about it all the time? What grounds do I have for this search?

I realized something weird: I've never really had a first-hand experience of God. I've never felt like God has answered a prayer, comforted me from a third-person perspective, or anything mystical like that. My experiences with the divine always lie in nature, in the things I see on my bike rides, in sunsets and such. I just have a hard time believing that there isn't anything out there after I see such things, so I quest on looking for whatever "it" is.

I think the notion that I've never experienced a third party entity revealing itself in my life (and believe me, I looked for years with sincere devotion) has led me to believe that God is somewhat removed from my life at least. Either God is removed from personally interacting in my life, or I have an Atman that I haven't realized yet. Any thoughts? Personal experiences?

My Hero, Al Ghazali...

I have come across a particular philosopher two times in my studies thus far. The first time he and I crossed paths was last year in my Medieval Philosophy course. Al Ghazali, an Islamic philosopher from the 11th century, was just someone for me to study then. I didn't really connect with him. I think I was just on a different part of my journey back then, but this week when he and I met again, it was different.

I'm reading a book right now for my Does God Exist? course. It's called "A History of God," and it goes over a chapter about the history of philosophers and their connection to the question, "Does God exist?" That's a question that I've struggled with for a little while, but not in the traditional sense. My problem is that I don't know how to define God. What is God? I'm sure that there is something out there that is "God," but whether that is Brahman, some ultimate consciousness, Reason, the Self, I'm just unsure. This is where my man Al Ghazali comes in.

Around 1070, Al Ghazali became a scholar. He wanted to answer the questions he had about God and the world surrounding him. He studied every branch of knowledge he could. He was a mathematician, a physician, and ultimately settled on philosophy. Al Ghazali tried to answer the deep question, "Does God exist?" using logic and metaphysics, to which he was ultimately unsuccessful.

The story goes that he eventually became so distraught that he was actually clinically depressed. He wanted to kill himself to end his anguish over the question. He couldn't take anything on faith, and there are very solid philosophical arguments either way, so he sank deeper into confusion and depression. Eventually, a doctor told him he had to quit this obsession with these questions or he would meet his demise. It was then that Al Ghazali took his leave from philosophy and became a Sufi, a mystic. After several years as an ascetic in the wilderness, he came back having experienced God first hand and his fears were stilled.

Al Ghazali says all the things he learned about God were a heuristic ladder to reach the experience of God, which is the ultimate goal of life. Eventually, you can only learn so much. You've got to throw away all of that knowledge and experience something. Knowledge can only get you so far.

For me, Al Ghazali is my hero. I struggle with philosophy and religion in the same way that Al Ghazali did. I often wonder whether I'm going into this profession for the wrong reason. I'm not doing it ultimately for the love of philosophy itself, but I want to learn more about different faiths so I can hopefully figure out the truth behind this world that I'm living in. That's why I can't stop. My problem is the same as Al Ghazali's though. Words aren't going to tell me what this world is really about, or what God is. I've got to experience that personally. That's the only answer I can come up with. Now if I could only find the time....