Theodicy

How can human suffering be thought together with the goodness of God?

Introduction

Right at the start: I am writing this text because I experience the public stance of modern biblical scholars as a cowardly answer to this fundamental question.

I listened to hours upon hours of Worthaus lectures. I engaged with different theologians, of course only as a layperson, but I still invested a great deal of time in listening, thinking, and prayer, and I found myself missing the obvious answer to the problem of theodicy, and I felt compelled to write this. Of course I am aware that I am probably writing this first and foremost to sort out my own thoughts and not to convince others.

A brief outline of how theodicy is treated. A warning is appropriate here. I will present the positions very briefly and concisely. Representatives of these positions could speak for hours about the subject, elaborate on it, and explain it, and they have. But in my experience they do that mainly so as not to be so vulnerable while still keeping the position. I demand the courage to defend a position and to accept the short version of it as well. And do not worry, I will also state my current stance on theodicy and stand by it. You are welcome to take the two-sentence version and say: "He believes that."

I believe it is important that we regard our readers and listeners as mature people and let them think for themselves. They should learn to endure and digest these unpleasant thoughts on their own. If they cannot do that, then they will turn to their safe harbor, the one they have always believed in. That is okay and often the right decision. But for all those who can bear it, I want to challenge you here.

The Problem

The question of theodicy can be described very compactly in philosophical and logical terms.

It starts from two assumptions: 1. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and good. 2. God does not like suffering, whether cancer, child rape, or similar evils.

From that, one can draw a few conclusions: 1. Since God can do everything, he can also prevent suffering. 2. Since God is good, he also wants to do that. 3. If God wants something, then he also does it.

From this the problem follows: Therefore God would have to prevent suffering. But he does not.

I hope this is not the first time you have seen this problem stated so clearly. It is important to understand the great questions and problems of our world.

The Answers

The following popular answers exist. I will describe them briefly here and point out the problem in each answer.

Free Will

Variation 1:

God gives us free will and thereby limits himself. He does not want to restrict it. Human beings with free will cause this suffering.

Problem 1: Since God is omnipotent, he could have created a world in which free will exists, but only for self-harm and not for harm to others. Such a world would be "better" in the sense that it would contain less suffering. As a good God, he would have preferred that world and therefore would also have made it.

Problem 2: Cancer, plague, and tsunamis were not caused by free will. This kind of suffering is not explained by free will.

Variation 2: Fallen Creation

God created us perfect, but we deviated from his plan and therefore everything has now become bad.

Problem 1: This is simply another version of the "free will" argument. Therefore the counterarguments to "free will" apply here as well.

Problem 2: God could have given us, deep within our feelings and thoughts, the certainty that we should keep his commandments. He could have given us free will and also the knowledge that we should not sin. But he did not do that, and therefore he is not good. (Knowing something is different from merely being told it. You can tell your child that the stove is hot, and yet at some point in life the child will still touch it. But after touching it, the child knows deep down that the stove can be hot. God could simply have given us that kind of "deep knowledge." But he did not, and therefore he is not good.)

Variation 3:

God enters into an adventure with us in this world and suffers along with us. He is open to things not turning out the way he wants.

This is the so-called open theism. In other words, a belief in a God who says: God does not know how people will decide. But he carries them through it. I see no difference at all from Variation 1, and therefore the counterarguments there apply here as well.

Open theism has also been understood more as a pastoral answer than a dogmatic one. In other words, it is meant to satisfy or reassure church members and not necessarily to be logically consistent in the first place.

God Is a Mystery

God's ways are greater and beyond comprehension.

This position has become established in many places and exists in many variations.

Variation 1:

You cannot understand it. You as a human being are too limited for that.

Problem 1: How can a limited human being know that? If I cannot recognize the ways of God, how can I recognize that I cannot recognize them?

This argument is intellectually dishonest because it refuses to engage with the arguments. We have arguments that claim something, and this answer refuses to deal with them. The problem is stated simply. It has the three assumptions and the three conclusions mentioned above. Where did the reasoning go wrong? What is false? This answer is a pseudo-answer. Because either one of the assumptions or one of the conclusions is wrong. And if everything is correct, then I have shown that one of the three assumptions must be false.

Variation 2:

The problem is real and important and we cannot resolve it. At the same time we hold fast to God in full trust.

Perhaps that is the best answer. Perhaps mine is related to it. But I consider the wording cowardly. As mentioned above, it is the answer of many theologians.

Problem 1: If the problem is real, then it follows that one of the assumptions is false. If one of the assumptions is false, why do we continue to hold fast to God in full trust? - Is he not omnipotent? Then he is not God. Apparently he is less powerful than the rapist. Why should I worship a God who is less powerful than a rapist? - Is he not omniscient? Why should I trust him with the course of my life if he also does not know whether it will turn out well? - Is he not good? Why should I trust him if his plans for our life are not good?

Problem 2: It shows cowardice. This answer twists itself into "empathetic" sentences in order to avoid having a clear position. It refuses to draw the obvious conclusions. They refuse to acknowledge that God is not all three things. I have never heard those theologians say: "Yes, one of the three assumptions is false." They always wind their way around this uncomfortable truth with beautiful phrases.

The Problem of Heaven

Anyone who believes that God creates a heaven in which all suffering is gone simultaneously believes: - God created a world with suffering, our world. - God can create a world without suffering, heaven. - So God did not want to make this world as good as heaven.

There are also counterarguments to this argument:

Answer 1: With the new body and spirit we can no longer sin.
Problem: Why did he not give us this new body and spirit already now?

Answer 2: In God's presence we can no longer sin. We do not even get the idea. We could, but we do not want to.
Problem: Why does God not give us this presence here? See Problem 2 under Fallen Creation.

My Position

One of the three assumptions is false. So God is either not omniscient, not omnipotent, or not good.

My Current Stance

I tend to think that God is not good. I believe our New Age people, nature hippies, and mushroom-trip wanderers have recognized God's character better than we Christians have.

They say: "Nature, the universe, is God. It is beautiful, and if we know it deeply, we also sense how thoroughly good it is." Especially on drugs or in some other trance we are very close to God, and there everything is good, in the best case. At the same time nature is cruel and lets its creatures die in all kinds of ways. Trance also brings up the worst conceivable feelings, especially with repressed trauma. These people are aware of this ambivalence and yet they still have a love for this world that we often do not have.

I believe God is exactly like that. There is no opponent of God who makes everything bad. All of that is God. Cancer is God, love is God. Rape is one facet of God. But I also believe and hope that in these abysses of life God retains an uplifting power. People can be strengthened in captivity.

My stance is philosophically honest: it dares to draw conclusions about God's attributes. It is not detached from reality because it acknowledges suffering. It remains Christian. I am only saying farewell to an untenable and inhuman image of God.

If someone says they cannot worship such a God, then I understand that. It is one of the great reasons why people become atheists. At the same time I believe that here too we can learn a great deal from our mushroom gatherers. They see how brutal the world is and yet, after a deep encounter with God, they still do not let him go. The fascination of "God" is great, even if he is not good. That fascination and attraction, which God has, brings me to worship, not the abstract attributes.

Consequence

I believe this image of God is profoundly biblical. Job, Noah, and many others show the ambivalence of God. And precisely with this image of God, the insight of Jesus is incredible: Jesus knew the Jewish story. And yet one of his achievements, still taught today, is to address God as Papa. God is not only a father, but a Papa. Such an intimate relationship with such a God. A God who can be frightening. How much trust does that require? How much self-surrender to call this God "Papa"? And then the wonder is this: that positive stance is vindicated by God. God testifies that Jesus spoke rightly and exalts him.

Jesus thus showed us the way, the truth, and the life: whoever trusts God like that will see God. Everything will become possible for that person. They will not break under the burden of this world. That hope is sustainable for me.

What is God?

A discussion about God often leads to the question: "Why do you believe in God?" or "Why don't you believe in God?" But when you dig deeper, you find that there is no agreement on what "God" is. Non-believers often tune out at this point. After all, why should they bother discussing the existence of something that is not clearly defined? And that is legitimate. But when discussing things that do not belong to the ontological category of "physical object," it is always difficult to define them. (By the way, it is also difficult to define physical objects. However, we are more willing to accept a definition there.)

Consider, for example, numbers. Numbers do not exist in the physical sense. However, most people would agree that they do exist. Or that numbers are something. 1 + 1 = 2 not because of experience. Because we have added one apple to another apple many times to see that there are now two apples. It is due to the properties of the numbers "1" and "2" and what "+" and "=" mean. This has nothing to do with the physical world. But if we were to start discussing the existence of "1," we would see some challenges. I once witnessed a debate between a well-known Christian and an atheist. At one point, the atheist challenged the Christian by saying, "God, show yourself!" and then claimed, "Why should I bother if he doesn't?" But no one would ever say this to the number "2." Numbers are simply a different ontological category.

No believer would claim that God is a physical object that exists in space and time. He is something else. But when one does not speak about this ontological category, it immediately becomes difficult to make a positive statement about his existence. When I talk to scientists, they feel comfortable with perhaps three ontological categories. These are: 'Physical Objects,' 'Laws of Nature,' and 'Mathematical Objects.' They squeeze everything into these categories, no matter how poorly it fits. They also force consciousness into the "Laws of Nature" and so "God." Although the former is obviously of a completely different nature. (If it is not clear to you, I might write an article about it in the future). In a recent article of mine about the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God, we concluded that the cause of the first instance of a certain ontological category must come from another category. This means that either the "Laws of Nature" have always existed and were able to cause the Big Bang, or something else caused the laws of nature and thus the Big Bang (or something like that). However, if one assumes that the universe began at some point and there was either no time before or an infinite time of nothingness, then the laws of nature must also have a creator outside themselves, which requires another ontological category that can cause the beginning of practical time.

Since God is neither an instance of the three ontological categories nor the categories themselves, he is of another kind. This means it is difficult to talk about his properties and existence because we do not know what God is. The religious claim, however, is more concrete. They believe they can pray to God, and he hears them. So instead of following the rabbit hole of ontology, I apply a different strategy in my life. Instead of trying to concretize the abstract, I try to find lower bounds for God.

I complete the following sentence: "God is at least ..." Where others try to say things like: "God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient." I will not do this, as these claims are hard to substantiate. Therefore, I provide the following lower bounds for God. God is at least ...

• ... the person to whom I direct my prayers.
• ... the voice in my head that wants the good for me.
• ... the cause of cognitive dissonance.
• ... the enforcer of sociological laws like: "The rich get richer." and "Love your neighbor."

The list could go on, but I will stop here. One could argue that certain, if not all, of the above statements can be explained by psychology or sociology. But I found it helpful to have the concept that there is indeed a unifying force or concept that cares about my life. If one accepts thinking in this category, one can explore the properties of such a God. One can build a relationship with him and find out whether he is loving or not.

If you go down either of the two rabbit holes, you might feel the urge to merge the uncaused cause with the God estimated by the sentences I just mentioned. But that is an adventure you must embark on yourself.

Truth Is Not Everything

I constantly reflect on myself to see if nonsense has crept into my thoughts. I try to be rigorous and commit myself to the axioms of logic. A statement cannot be both true and not true at the same time. If it is, the statement is not precise. However, sometimes contradictions arise. For example, I believe in an all-good and all-powerful God. This contradicts the existence of suffering in this world. I am aware of this contradiction and know that either the all-goodness, the omnipotence, or the reality of suffering in the world must be false. I am just not ready to decide which assumption is false, though I tend to let go of omnipotence.

In my everyday and practical life, however, it is different. In reality, there are phenomena like "positive psychology" or "placebo" in a non-religious context, or "proclamation" in a religious one. These are statements that demonstrably have an effect but must be considered logically false because they contradict the current reality. These speeches are described as performative in speech act theory. They are judged based on their effect. Yet this happens in the same German language.

Suppose we have two people: the performer and the logician. The performer says, "If you really believe in it, then you can do it." The logician disagrees, saying this is not correct. If the logician has no humor or understanding of performance, he will say, "Try to firmly believe that you want to be both alive and dead at the same time. You can't do it." And of course, the performer's statement is logically false. But the performer also has something to criticize about the logician. If the logician says, "The universe is almost unimaginably larger than I am, and my existence has a negligible impact on the entire universe," the performer would criticize that these statements have negative effects on the person. And both are right. Logically, we have no problem here.

We just have to judge from our values which statements we can hold simultaneously. Personally, I try to classify statements as either performative or logical and therefore accept contradictions because their claim is different. Thus, the aforementioned all-goodness and omnipotence are not only purely logical statements (although they are that too) but also performative. Believing that God has these attributes influences my worldview and optimism. That is why I do not want to give up either term because their performance is important to me.

So why not simply outsource the entire realm of religion to performative language? Because reality has the strongest performance. True statements have power. No matter which government or force fights against them, the truth remains. If a performative statement is also true, it becomes practically unshakable and reliable. I believe religion is not a collection of performative statements but an attempt to unite the two worlds of language. Thus, statements in the Bible about God remain vague and mysterious, while statements about the consequences of wrong behavior are very vivid.

The only value of truth is that it makes the statement more performative. Correct predictions of events are only relevant if we can adapt our behavior to the prediction (adapting our behavior means having an effect). By this, I mean that if we as humanity have no performance, we will go extinct. If we have no truth, we may lose some performance.

Metaphysics is Psychology

First: What is metaphysics? It has nothing to do with physics in the modern sense. Metaphysics stands outside of physics. Natural scientists often ridicule it because it speaks of a world they do not know. I try here to break precisely this view.

Metaphysics speaks of the fundamental things. What is the origin of the universe? What are the properties of this origin? What is the basis of our consciousness? What is truth, and can we recognize it? These questions are generally considered unscientific and therefore unimportant. And yet the questions about meaning, God, and consciousness are formative. Our life is directed and points toward our goal. This goal is not scientific but metaphysical. We strive for the true, the good, and the beautiful. We are searching for meaning. These things are not found in matter but in the interpretation of matter. They are psychological states, and I claim that these are the most important questions in your life. Your life is determined more by your sense of meaning than by a more precise knowledge of the fundamental physical laws.

Beliefs are Relevant

Faith and science are at odds. At least, that is the common opinion. One seems forced in one direction. Science claims there is no free will, no God, no human rights, no soul, or whatever. Whether it really claims this should be discussed elsewhere. But let's assume it really does. What would be the consequence?

Every person with some life experience, and by that, I mean 20 years or more, realizes that there are different life melodies. There are optimists and pessimists. Those who believe in miracles and those who do not. Stable and not-so-stable people. The difference lies in the mind. In the thoughts of people. These thoughts shape life decisions and attitudes toward life. These thoughts thus shape reality. However, these thoughts are not scientific but rather religious in nature. Perhaps religious is too strong a word, but still far from objectivity.

The hypothesis is, therefore, that religious beliefs are central to the mind. They promote placebo or nocebo, zest for life or suicidality, meaning or meaninglessness. And now science can take hold again. With it, we can (provided we have defined a goal) shape our beliefs. Because the next stumbling block is the belief that we can freely define our beliefs. Much of it lies in our genes, in our life history, or in other elements of our lives that we cannot influence. Some people, for example, are more prone to depression than others. The other side is to believe that one cannot influence anything. That is also wrong. Science can help us find a path to a healthy psyche.

A small postscript: Here the story really becomes interesting. Because we are now talking about how we should shape our beliefs to achieve a goal. But these thoughts we create are not real and objective but rather mantras. They are often not true. If I say: "I believe in miracles!" that may be scientifically false, but it helps not to lose hope in difficult situations. So it may be that science in the future says it is better to believe in unscientific claims.

A Comment on the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Let's look at some philosophical arguments for the existence of God. There are several, but today we will consider the "Kalam Cosmological Argument." First, we will examine the argument. Then I will critique it. And finally, I will highlight some insights we have gained.

The Kalam consists of two premises—things we take as given—and a conclusion that follows if one accepts the premises.

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.

Therefore, the universe has a cause.

This is simple philosophy or logic. Three sentences, but one can talk a lot about them. To accept the conclusion, we must accept the premises. So let's look at these. "Everything that begins to exist has a cause." This stems from our general experience. When we see a chair, we know there was a time when it did not exist, and at some point, it began to exist. We also know it came into being due to a specific cause. The chair has its cause in the carpenter who made it. We have our cause in our parents. Our state has its cause in its founding ceremony. And so on.

From these two premises, it follows that the universe has a cause. The Big Bang has a cause. Theists equate this cause with God.

Now let's critique this. First, we must clear up an ontological confusion. What kind of existence are we talking about? There are physical, composite things like tables, chairs, and so on. For these, the premise holds. Then there are non-composite things—atoms. These are particles that cannot be further divided. I'm not a physicist, but I believe fundamental particles are not created but only transformed. But I don't know. Another view is that the universe is just one big wave function. The cause of this function is actually itself. It simply continues to evolve. Perhaps there was no beginning to the wave function. We've never seen a wave function come into being. Then the wave function could be such a causeless cause. But perhaps the wave function has a beginning and a cause. It must belong to another ontological category. It cannot be an atom or a chair. It must be something else. Now we can only speculate. What is the causing thing of the physical sphere? This is interesting, but the first premise seemed so obvious, yet there are different kinds of causes that are not equivalent, and for some of them, the premise might not hold.

It remains to be shown whether an instance of one ontological category can cause an instance of another. Of course, a combination of atoms can form composites. But can composites then cause something entirely different, like numbers, gods, psyche, or even atoms? Or perhaps they must have a common cause. I don't know. But let's note this: The claim that everything that begins to exist has a cause is not obvious when we talk about anything other than composite objects.