For awhile now, I have tried to put my finger on something that has been nagging at me: what is it that makes Christian music sound so different? That is, when I surf through the radio, there’s a certain something that identifies Christian music as such. Even my 3-year old notices it: while surfing, whenever I hit the Christian station, regardless if any words are being sung, my little munchkin will pipe up; “That song’s about Jesus!”
Today it occurred to me that Christian music (at least the pop Christian music played on the radio) makes a gratuitous use of reverb, echo, and delay effects that you don’t see quite as much in any other genre. There are some bands that use a lot of electronic effects; U2 is well known for the Edge’s trademarked delay sounds. But it doesn’t seem to matter which Christian band it is, they all amp up the delay. Likewise, the drums aren’t your snappy jazz kits, the Christian drum kit sounds big and powerful. Christian vocalists also seem to have more reverb and vocal effects added to their sound, and the bass frequently has a powerful boom to it, rather than the sharp pop-bass you find in a lot of contemporary rock.
There is one other genre that regularly makes use of such tones, and that is 80's hair metal. What’s with that? What’s the connection between 80's metal and Christian rock?
I think the combination of boom tone bass, echoed big drums, guitars with delay, echo and reverb maxed out and a concert-hall echo on the vocalist gives Christian music an “epic” tone. It’s a fitting style of music for the content Christians sing about: the larger-than-life God, the transcendent, the macro themes that make the finite world seem so small. In light of God, the world is just one big, empty canyon that His voice fills up with ease. Can you properly communicate the majesty and grandeur of God with a banjo? Wouldn’t the tone do a disservice to the theme?
You see a similar tone in a lot of Enya’s music, where the tones and instrumentation she uses has that “Spiritually transcendent” feel to it where the echoes and the reverb and delays take the listener to the past, and the earlier notes and words continue to echo in the background as the continues. Like Christian music, the tone fits the themes of the words.
The big joke of course, is 80's hair metal. If the above rationale about musical sound and content has a grain of truth to it, what on earth led rock stars to connect such tones to their lyrical content? Consider Def Leppard, a good example of the quintessential “epic” tone of 80's metal. Rather than using epic tones to fittingly describe epic themes, they use epic tones to describe their epic sex lives, their epic romantic flings, and their own epic rock.
While I generally find fault with the proverb “the medium is the message”, I have to concede there is a grain of truth there. If art is just the mirror of the soul, 80's hair metal might rightly be described as the purest expression of Freudian humanist philosophy: sex as that great transcendent beginning and end of all things.
Philosophically, Freud is depressing. Musically, I think he's hilarious.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Some Theological Reflections on Japan’s Earthquake part 5 of 5
My last post was largely concerned with defining and defending the sovereignty of God in the midst of evil. God is directing, working with, and using the earthquake as a means towards a good end that only He fully knows and understands. How does this answer the problem of evil? I have offered no complex argument, it is basically: “God is sovereign.” Why do I think this is a good answer? For starters, it places God where he belongs: not as the conclusion of a philosophical curiosity, but as the One who makes inquiry possible, and provides the events that cause us to seek Him:
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:24-28)
Secondly, it challenges the questioner’s question, which I think is crucial. Just as all answers come from a certain worldview and motives, so all questions come from a certain worldview and motives. It gives the questioner the response God gave to Job:
“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!”
“Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
“Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
Do you have an arm like God’s,
and can your voice thunder like his?
Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor,
and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.”
(Job 40:2-10)
Letting God be God
This answer preserves the Godness of God. Rather than suggesting we know the why, what, how, and when of God’s own inner counsel, we freely say that God’s ways are inscrutable, and this is what we ought to expect: if our answers did away with all mysteries of the Divine, we would essentially have proven secular humanism, not Christianity. If God could be explained, He would not be Higher than us, he would be merely “man writ large”.
There is a bad need to correct many contemporary well-meaning apologists who trot out a diminished deity as a response to the problem of evil. One way or another, their response amounts to this: “What’s that Mr. Skeptic? The idea of God being Sovereign offends your human autonomy? No problem, I have just the product for your skeptical woes in my apologist’s handbag! Introducing: Christianity! Now with 25% less Deity!”
The problem of evil and suffering brings us face to face with what we are commanded to surrender: our own personal claim to Lordship. God directs all events, and He is under no obligation to anyone to justify His actions or to explain what He is doing, or how He does it, or where evil came from. He is the Holy One, the Almighty, and we are His subjects under His judgment, not the other way around. To insist that God submit to our queries reverses the order of Creator-creature, as if God was bound to justify himself to His subjects.
The Evil Practice of Justifying Evil
This answer doesn’t pretend to justify or explain away the weight we feel in the face of evil and suffering. It seems to me that if you come up with an answer that justifies the existence of evil, you have failed to understand evil. Look closely at the suffering of the Japanese, and can you, O Philosopher, come up with any possible answer that makes this right, just, or fair? If you can, you have just justified evil. You have established that evil can be right and warrantable.
Any attempt to say that “Evil happens because of ___” is really saying that evil can be tamed by reason, and that its presence in the world may be rationally justified. This does great dishonor to victims of suffering, for it in turn demands that we argue that “the ends justify the means”. As if there is any end which could justify the existence of suffering. The answer I have given, which is basically the bible’s answer, is to refuse to justify evil. The demands of the rationalist cannot be met without a gross misperception about how evil evil really is.
By contrast, the bible never pursues this route, recognizing that evil is unjustifiable: that is what makes it evil. It cannot fit into rational categories. By its very nature, evil is defined in terms of what it isn’t, but it’s impossible to conceive of what evil is. Goodness is law, order and logic. Evil is lawlessness, disorder, unreasonable. So I think that beyond God’s own inscrutable purposes, it seems that evil itself is inscrutable as a subject. To try to bring the weapon of reason to bear against evil is like bringing a butter knife to a gunfight thinking you have the upper hand. It is hopeless to try and answer evil. What is by nature irrational cannot respond to rationality.
Conclusion
Evil and suffering is altogether an inscrutable menace. It is obviously in some sense a product of freedom, but it’s clear as day that freedom does not justify the existence of evil. (See part 2 in this series of posts) God knows why He allows it, and He merely asks that we trust He will do away with it on a set day that He has appointed. He defeated it on the cross, and will bring that initial victory over death and evil to a final conclusion. Ironically, though we have no idea how, Japan’s suffering will in some way serve the good purposes of God in bringing about the destruction of evil. For now, we must be content to let God be God, and leave the foe of death, destruction, suffering, and all other evils in the hands of the only one with the power to bring it to an end. In the meantime, we are commanded to let our faith work itself out in love, compassion, hope and patience.
Lastly, we must never lose sight of Jesus Christ, the Conquering One crowned with Sovereignty. As a foreshadowing of the fullness of God’s promise, evil has been utterly defeated and humiliated at the cross. Ultimately, Jesus himself is the response to evil, for in Him, suffering has been overcome, and death has been defeated.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:24-28)
Secondly, it challenges the questioner’s question, which I think is crucial. Just as all answers come from a certain worldview and motives, so all questions come from a certain worldview and motives. It gives the questioner the response God gave to Job:
“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?
Let him who accuses God answer him!”
“Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
“Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?
Do you have an arm like God’s,
and can your voice thunder like his?
Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor,
and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.”
(Job 40:2-10)
Letting God be God
This answer preserves the Godness of God. Rather than suggesting we know the why, what, how, and when of God’s own inner counsel, we freely say that God’s ways are inscrutable, and this is what we ought to expect: if our answers did away with all mysteries of the Divine, we would essentially have proven secular humanism, not Christianity. If God could be explained, He would not be Higher than us, he would be merely “man writ large”.
There is a bad need to correct many contemporary well-meaning apologists who trot out a diminished deity as a response to the problem of evil. One way or another, their response amounts to this: “What’s that Mr. Skeptic? The idea of God being Sovereign offends your human autonomy? No problem, I have just the product for your skeptical woes in my apologist’s handbag! Introducing: Christianity! Now with 25% less Deity!”
The problem of evil and suffering brings us face to face with what we are commanded to surrender: our own personal claim to Lordship. God directs all events, and He is under no obligation to anyone to justify His actions or to explain what He is doing, or how He does it, or where evil came from. He is the Holy One, the Almighty, and we are His subjects under His judgment, not the other way around. To insist that God submit to our queries reverses the order of Creator-creature, as if God was bound to justify himself to His subjects.
The Evil Practice of Justifying Evil
This answer doesn’t pretend to justify or explain away the weight we feel in the face of evil and suffering. It seems to me that if you come up with an answer that justifies the existence of evil, you have failed to understand evil. Look closely at the suffering of the Japanese, and can you, O Philosopher, come up with any possible answer that makes this right, just, or fair? If you can, you have just justified evil. You have established that evil can be right and warrantable.
Any attempt to say that “Evil happens because of ___” is really saying that evil can be tamed by reason, and that its presence in the world may be rationally justified. This does great dishonor to victims of suffering, for it in turn demands that we argue that “the ends justify the means”. As if there is any end which could justify the existence of suffering. The answer I have given, which is basically the bible’s answer, is to refuse to justify evil. The demands of the rationalist cannot be met without a gross misperception about how evil evil really is.
By contrast, the bible never pursues this route, recognizing that evil is unjustifiable: that is what makes it evil. It cannot fit into rational categories. By its very nature, evil is defined in terms of what it isn’t, but it’s impossible to conceive of what evil is. Goodness is law, order and logic. Evil is lawlessness, disorder, unreasonable. So I think that beyond God’s own inscrutable purposes, it seems that evil itself is inscrutable as a subject. To try to bring the weapon of reason to bear against evil is like bringing a butter knife to a gunfight thinking you have the upper hand. It is hopeless to try and answer evil. What is by nature irrational cannot respond to rationality.
Conclusion
Evil and suffering is altogether an inscrutable menace. It is obviously in some sense a product of freedom, but it’s clear as day that freedom does not justify the existence of evil. (See part 2 in this series of posts) God knows why He allows it, and He merely asks that we trust He will do away with it on a set day that He has appointed. He defeated it on the cross, and will bring that initial victory over death and evil to a final conclusion. Ironically, though we have no idea how, Japan’s suffering will in some way serve the good purposes of God in bringing about the destruction of evil. For now, we must be content to let God be God, and leave the foe of death, destruction, suffering, and all other evils in the hands of the only one with the power to bring it to an end. In the meantime, we are commanded to let our faith work itself out in love, compassion, hope and patience.
Lastly, we must never lose sight of Jesus Christ, the Conquering One crowned with Sovereignty. As a foreshadowing of the fullness of God’s promise, evil has been utterly defeated and humiliated at the cross. Ultimately, Jesus himself is the response to evil, for in Him, suffering has been overcome, and death has been defeated.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Some Theological Reflections on Japan’s Earthquake part 4 of 5
This series has been quite awhile in between posts, so let me just summarize what I’ve said thus far.
First off, I have discussed atheism’s self-imposed joke of criticising Christianity for “the problem of evil” meanwhile openly asserting good and evil are not objective categories.
From there I addressed 3 Christian answers that aren’t very good: the “It’s just natural law!” plea, the “free will justifies evil” response, and the hypocritical “they’re sinners!” response. I hope to wrap this up in two more posts by sketching out what I think is a better answer intellectually and practically.
Of course, by “better”, there’s probably more hubris in that phrase than I’d like to convey: I’m very much indebted to a number of other authors on this topic, and I have by no means finished studying it. I’m sure many, if not most people, will find my answer to the problem of evil to be a terrible one. The answer I give will also raise more questions for my reader than I will probably address here, and so comments and criticisms are most welcome as always.
The Sovereignty of God
When answering the problem of evil, I find the temptation to obfuscate God’s power and glory is great. Whether coming from a strict intellectual question, or a hurting person, the ominous presence of God seems to be what causes the problem of evil to be so sharp, and so many answers relieve this problem by avoiding or minimizing the sovereignty of God. By contrast, I think we must assert that God is fully sovereign and fully knows and intentionally purposes all events that occur. Deliberately drawing attention to the fullness of God’s power and glory I think is the first step that makes the difference between a good and bad answer to this difficulty.
Some Christians, (notably those in the Arminian tradition) openly disavow or silently avoid the traditional doctrine of God’s sovereignty. (Kenneth Grider’s systematic theology is a good example of Arminian silence on this.) The deep problem involved in denying the full sovereignty of God is this: if God is not in control of every unfortunate/evil event, then we introduce a large amount of meaninglessness into the universe. This is because God’s sovereignty is an either/or position. Either God is involved, or he isn’t. He is either hands-on and thoughts-on, or neither of these. There can be no “middle position” on this, because it’s a yes or no question. If our answer is “no”, we are basically saying that evil serves no purpose in God's mind. If God has no thoughts or actions towards evil events, who do we think we are to propose an answer?
Further, This also demolishes any pastoral concerns of comfort, for God himself is distant and uninvolved. To deny that God directs all things pushes a person to assert that God created a world in which meaningless and purposeless events occur regularly and often. If that is the general nature of the world God has created, there can be no basis to assert that God is ever involved in any particular occurrence of suffering. In turn, this has implications for the nearness and knowledge of God, and results in a deity that is either ignorant, or distant, or both.
Despite these problems, many Christians still reject the full sovereignty of God, claiming that rejection of God’s sovereignty avoids making God responsible for evil. Better to have a non-sovereign God they say, than a God who causes evil.
In reply, it must be asserted that God’s sovereignty is ultimately a mystery. We don’t know how He works, and so we cannot reasonably bring the accusation of malice to God just because God says he is Sovereignly directing all things for a purpose. God’s methods are inscrutable: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) Nevertheless, some things can be said about God’s sovereignty to rule out a deterministic take on God. I can’t put it better than it was put by Thomas Oden, so I’ll just cite how he put it:
“Classical Christian exegetes have thought of providence in three inter-related dimensions:
-The unceasing activity of the Creator by which in overflowing bounty and good will (Ps. 143:9; Matt 5:45ff.) God upholds creatures in time and space in an ordered existence. (Acts 17:28; Col 1:17; Heb 1:3)
-God cooperates with natural and secondary causes to employ fit means to good ends through orderly and intelligible processes of natural causes; (Prov 8:29-31; Westminster Conf. V.2 CC, p. 200); and
-God guides and governs all events and circumstances, even free, self-determining agents, overruling the regrettable consequences of freedom and directing everything toward its appropriate end for the glory of God. (Eph 1:9-12)” (Syst. Theo. Vol I, 270-71)
Upholding, guiding, cooperating are primary concepts to understanding God’s Sovereignty. But above all, in the midst of that we assert God’s goodness and love, without which all the upholding, guiding and cooperating would mean nothing.
There is meaning and purpose in suffering. God is constantly near and in control, and no amount of evil ever diminishes that. In fact, the assumption of God’s sovereignty is necessary to give a meaningful answer, because it is a necessary assumption behind the love of God. God is near, He is in control, and He cares. If He is not in control, it is impossible to assert that God cares, or that a disaster like Japan’s earthquake has any meaning or purpose in God’s free and sovereign will.
First off, I have discussed atheism’s self-imposed joke of criticising Christianity for “the problem of evil” meanwhile openly asserting good and evil are not objective categories.
From there I addressed 3 Christian answers that aren’t very good: the “It’s just natural law!” plea, the “free will justifies evil” response, and the hypocritical “they’re sinners!” response. I hope to wrap this up in two more posts by sketching out what I think is a better answer intellectually and practically.
Of course, by “better”, there’s probably more hubris in that phrase than I’d like to convey: I’m very much indebted to a number of other authors on this topic, and I have by no means finished studying it. I’m sure many, if not most people, will find my answer to the problem of evil to be a terrible one. The answer I give will also raise more questions for my reader than I will probably address here, and so comments and criticisms are most welcome as always.
The Sovereignty of God
When answering the problem of evil, I find the temptation to obfuscate God’s power and glory is great. Whether coming from a strict intellectual question, or a hurting person, the ominous presence of God seems to be what causes the problem of evil to be so sharp, and so many answers relieve this problem by avoiding or minimizing the sovereignty of God. By contrast, I think we must assert that God is fully sovereign and fully knows and intentionally purposes all events that occur. Deliberately drawing attention to the fullness of God’s power and glory I think is the first step that makes the difference between a good and bad answer to this difficulty.
Some Christians, (notably those in the Arminian tradition) openly disavow or silently avoid the traditional doctrine of God’s sovereignty. (Kenneth Grider’s systematic theology is a good example of Arminian silence on this.) The deep problem involved in denying the full sovereignty of God is this: if God is not in control of every unfortunate/evil event, then we introduce a large amount of meaninglessness into the universe. This is because God’s sovereignty is an either/or position. Either God is involved, or he isn’t. He is either hands-on and thoughts-on, or neither of these. There can be no “middle position” on this, because it’s a yes or no question. If our answer is “no”, we are basically saying that evil serves no purpose in God's mind. If God has no thoughts or actions towards evil events, who do we think we are to propose an answer?
Further, This also demolishes any pastoral concerns of comfort, for God himself is distant and uninvolved. To deny that God directs all things pushes a person to assert that God created a world in which meaningless and purposeless events occur regularly and often. If that is the general nature of the world God has created, there can be no basis to assert that God is ever involved in any particular occurrence of suffering. In turn, this has implications for the nearness and knowledge of God, and results in a deity that is either ignorant, or distant, or both.
Despite these problems, many Christians still reject the full sovereignty of God, claiming that rejection of God’s sovereignty avoids making God responsible for evil. Better to have a non-sovereign God they say, than a God who causes evil.
In reply, it must be asserted that God’s sovereignty is ultimately a mystery. We don’t know how He works, and so we cannot reasonably bring the accusation of malice to God just because God says he is Sovereignly directing all things for a purpose. God’s methods are inscrutable: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) Nevertheless, some things can be said about God’s sovereignty to rule out a deterministic take on God. I can’t put it better than it was put by Thomas Oden, so I’ll just cite how he put it:
“Classical Christian exegetes have thought of providence in three inter-related dimensions:
-The unceasing activity of the Creator by which in overflowing bounty and good will (Ps. 143:9; Matt 5:45ff.) God upholds creatures in time and space in an ordered existence. (Acts 17:28; Col 1:17; Heb 1:3)
-God cooperates with natural and secondary causes to employ fit means to good ends through orderly and intelligible processes of natural causes; (Prov 8:29-31; Westminster Conf. V.2 CC, p. 200); and
-God guides and governs all events and circumstances, even free, self-determining agents, overruling the regrettable consequences of freedom and directing everything toward its appropriate end for the glory of God. (Eph 1:9-12)” (Syst. Theo. Vol I, 270-71)
Upholding, guiding, cooperating are primary concepts to understanding God’s Sovereignty. But above all, in the midst of that we assert God’s goodness and love, without which all the upholding, guiding and cooperating would mean nothing.
There is meaning and purpose in suffering. God is constantly near and in control, and no amount of evil ever diminishes that. In fact, the assumption of God’s sovereignty is necessary to give a meaningful answer, because it is a necessary assumption behind the love of God. God is near, He is in control, and He cares. If He is not in control, it is impossible to assert that God cares, or that a disaster like Japan’s earthquake has any meaning or purpose in God’s free and sovereign will.
Monday, April 4, 2011
That Inevitable Evil: Superficial Politics
Allright, let’s face it, elections are that aggravating time of year where we all look down our noses at each other’s grossly incorrect opinions and lament the shallowness of the sloganeering and vacuous mud-slinging that goes on between our country’s elite. Is this what the best and brightest do? Elections time to me always has a fog of hopelessness in the air: strategic voting, angry arguments, pushy politico-evangelists, shallow mail-outs and demonizations of “the other guy”.
I’ve never liked the idea of not voting, especially the so-called conscientious objector who fancies himself too profound of a thinker to get involved in this barbaric box-ticking and shouting matches. Not that I’m without empathy: it is shallow, it is depressing.
However, it has to be. There are two sides to political opinions: the present and the future. The future is what we hope for, the country we’d like to see, the personal values we vote from believing they would make the world a better place to live in. However, we can’t stop the machine of government until that happens. We are here now, and we must govern now. So until the ideal comes, part of working for an ideal will involve a realistic assessment of the present, and working with the tools of the present.
I would like to assume that the people behind the shouting and shallow mail-outs and commercials are deeper than the mail-outs make them look. As with almost everything, political mail-outs is an industry: there are people who specialize in slogan-writing and pejorative mail-outs and commercials. It’s a business, these political businesses run on certain principles.
Very little of a campaign is directed towards rational arguing, and politicians know this. A few quotes from workers in the field taken from the book “Culture Wars” by JD Hunter: “The purpose of the (political) letter is ‘not to convince the reader of anything [but to] motivate the person to send some money.” And “The rule of thumb in the industry is to keep writing to about the sixth- to eigth grade level.” “Direct mail is a medium of passion, and the more extreme the appeal, the more successful the mail campaign will probably be. One mailing consultant simply put it: ‘You’ve got to have a devil. If you don’t have a devil, you’re in trouble.’” Another remarked: “Find...a nasty enemy. Tell people they’re threatened in some way...it’s a cheap trick, but it’s the simplest.” Another Gem from Hunter’s book; “Political scientist Larry Sabato reports that direct mailers apply the ‘magic word test’ to their letters. ‘You add up the number of words under five letters in your copy, and if you’re anywhere under 65 to 70 percent, you have problems.’” In a nutshell, politics are institutionalized superficiality, and those are the tools politicians must work with, or forfeit the chance at power.
The same laws of superficiality apply to Parliament: all that “debate” is largely for the camera. Most of the real task of governing is done behind the scenes as they make deals and manoeuvres and compromises to get what they want and hopefully keep the job of governing under way.
For similar reasons, local MP’s are largely parrots for the party line: this is why every party has a member designated as “the whip”; responsible for in-party discipline. In other words, making sure all the soldiers are following orders and towing the line. As I understand it, Canadian politics aren’t so much about personality as they are about party, and local MP’s have to get used to being a cog in the party’s machine.
In a nutshell, there’s much to complain about the system itself. That’s no secret. But complaints about the structure is no reason not to vote, because the structure of Canadian government isn’t strictly the result of shallow minds and poor design. I don’t know everything that put it together, but one of the main reasons for the current state of affairs is the development of information technology. Televised parliament, mass-mail-outs, and newspapers. Information technology has popularized the process of governing to a whole new level. Polarized politics and articles are nothing new, but the extent of the superficiality is. Politics are superficial because the primary mediums of communication in our society, Television and Newspapers aren’t capable of carrying deep argument and detailed information. Only books, essays, lengthy conversations, lectures, and well-moderated debates can do that.
I would love to see a Canada that has a better educated electorate. (Then maybe the NDP would go away.) That requires work though, and before we complain about the process of elections, we ought to take stock of how informed our own political views are. If you had to publicly defend them, would your opinions survive any informed scrutiny? I know many of mine wouldn’t.
Conclusion: Read. Read your history, your economics, your political philosophy, and know where you stand with ethics on the various issues. Form your opinions on good arguments and evidence (and learn how to evaluate good arguments and interpret evidence!) before an election comes along. Know where the parties stand philosophically and practically. Even if “being a dutiful informed citizen” doesn’t turn your crank, do it because it helps make sense of the mud-slinging, and makes election time a little more bearable for the soul.
I’ve never liked the idea of not voting, especially the so-called conscientious objector who fancies himself too profound of a thinker to get involved in this barbaric box-ticking and shouting matches. Not that I’m without empathy: it is shallow, it is depressing.
However, it has to be. There are two sides to political opinions: the present and the future. The future is what we hope for, the country we’d like to see, the personal values we vote from believing they would make the world a better place to live in. However, we can’t stop the machine of government until that happens. We are here now, and we must govern now. So until the ideal comes, part of working for an ideal will involve a realistic assessment of the present, and working with the tools of the present.
I would like to assume that the people behind the shouting and shallow mail-outs and commercials are deeper than the mail-outs make them look. As with almost everything, political mail-outs is an industry: there are people who specialize in slogan-writing and pejorative mail-outs and commercials. It’s a business, these political businesses run on certain principles.
Very little of a campaign is directed towards rational arguing, and politicians know this. A few quotes from workers in the field taken from the book “Culture Wars” by JD Hunter: “The purpose of the (political) letter is ‘not to convince the reader of anything [but to] motivate the person to send some money.” And “The rule of thumb in the industry is to keep writing to about the sixth- to eigth grade level.” “Direct mail is a medium of passion, and the more extreme the appeal, the more successful the mail campaign will probably be. One mailing consultant simply put it: ‘You’ve got to have a devil. If you don’t have a devil, you’re in trouble.’” Another remarked: “Find...a nasty enemy. Tell people they’re threatened in some way...it’s a cheap trick, but it’s the simplest.” Another Gem from Hunter’s book; “Political scientist Larry Sabato reports that direct mailers apply the ‘magic word test’ to their letters. ‘You add up the number of words under five letters in your copy, and if you’re anywhere under 65 to 70 percent, you have problems.’” In a nutshell, politics are institutionalized superficiality, and those are the tools politicians must work with, or forfeit the chance at power.
The same laws of superficiality apply to Parliament: all that “debate” is largely for the camera. Most of the real task of governing is done behind the scenes as they make deals and manoeuvres and compromises to get what they want and hopefully keep the job of governing under way.
For similar reasons, local MP’s are largely parrots for the party line: this is why every party has a member designated as “the whip”; responsible for in-party discipline. In other words, making sure all the soldiers are following orders and towing the line. As I understand it, Canadian politics aren’t so much about personality as they are about party, and local MP’s have to get used to being a cog in the party’s machine.
In a nutshell, there’s much to complain about the system itself. That’s no secret. But complaints about the structure is no reason not to vote, because the structure of Canadian government isn’t strictly the result of shallow minds and poor design. I don’t know everything that put it together, but one of the main reasons for the current state of affairs is the development of information technology. Televised parliament, mass-mail-outs, and newspapers. Information technology has popularized the process of governing to a whole new level. Polarized politics and articles are nothing new, but the extent of the superficiality is. Politics are superficial because the primary mediums of communication in our society, Television and Newspapers aren’t capable of carrying deep argument and detailed information. Only books, essays, lengthy conversations, lectures, and well-moderated debates can do that.
I would love to see a Canada that has a better educated electorate. (Then maybe the NDP would go away.) That requires work though, and before we complain about the process of elections, we ought to take stock of how informed our own political views are. If you had to publicly defend them, would your opinions survive any informed scrutiny? I know many of mine wouldn’t.
Conclusion: Read. Read your history, your economics, your political philosophy, and know where you stand with ethics on the various issues. Form your opinions on good arguments and evidence (and learn how to evaluate good arguments and interpret evidence!) before an election comes along. Know where the parties stand philosophically and practically. Even if “being a dutiful informed citizen” doesn’t turn your crank, do it because it helps make sense of the mud-slinging, and makes election time a little more bearable for the soul.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Some Theological Reflections on Japan’s Earthquake part 3 of 5
There’s one last “Christian answer” that I almost forgot. I had hoped this answer had been sufficiently buried into the dustbin of stupidity, but I was told this answer was roughly given in a local church a week or so ago. That is; “They suffer because they’re sinners!”
Ugh. This barely deserves the dignity of a response, but because it’s so common, it seems one of those things that needs a constant reminder.
In one sense, this response is true: of course they suffer because they’re sinners, but the problem here is this whole “they”. I think it was it was well put by one Evangelical author who said “The problem with the Christian right is they think sin is everywhere but in them.” This answer’s main problem is both intellectual and moral: it reveals one’s hypocritical thinking patterns.
Perhaps this response would be better if it was rephrased to this; “Oh Lord, why weren’t we struck with an earthquake?”
Again, the book of Job deals with this answer ad nauseum, and Jesus needed to rebuke this opinion in his own circle of disciples; “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No I tell you; but unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will likewise perish.” (Lk 13:2-5)
Ugh. This barely deserves the dignity of a response, but because it’s so common, it seems one of those things that needs a constant reminder.
In one sense, this response is true: of course they suffer because they’re sinners, but the problem here is this whole “they”. I think it was it was well put by one Evangelical author who said “The problem with the Christian right is they think sin is everywhere but in them.” This answer’s main problem is both intellectual and moral: it reveals one’s hypocritical thinking patterns.
Perhaps this response would be better if it was rephrased to this; “Oh Lord, why weren’t we struck with an earthquake?”
Again, the book of Job deals with this answer ad nauseum, and Jesus needed to rebuke this opinion in his own circle of disciples; “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No I tell you; but unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will likewise perish.” (Lk 13:2-5)
Monday, March 28, 2011
Some Theological Reflections on Japan’s Earthquake part 2
This post is a continuation of my last one. This part discusses Christian responses to Japan's earthquake that I think we as Christians shouldn't give.
Free Will
Another influential response Christians have often given is the free-will argument. This argument has a certain dignity in the Christian tradition because of its long history, going back to the church fathers. Many people find this argument persuasive, and even philosophers who aren’t Christians, like Dr. Jitendra Mohanty (an atheist hindu philosopher) admits it’s a good answer to the problem.
Though this argument has a long history and many find it appealing, it also has a long line of Christian critics throughout history, starting with no less an authority than Augustine of Hippo. The Reformers, especially Martin Luther (an Augustinian monk) and John Calvin, were especially vitriolic against this argument. In a way, the Christian tradition is divided along Augustinian and non-Augustianian lines so there isn’t a true consensus on the issue. At the moment, the free will argument is enjoying considerable popularity. Nevertheless, I think it has some serious problems, and in my mind stands as an inadequate answer to the problem of evil and suffering.
The free will argument has several nuances, but if I were to apply it to the Japanese earthquake, it would go something like this:
Stating the Free Will Argument
In order to prevent the earthquake catastrophe God would have to either a) change the laws of plate techtonics so that they never occur wherever humans are, or b) Prevent humans from setting up shop on fault lines. Option a) would make geological science relative to the presence of humans, and would effectively undermine viewing the natural world as governed by predictable physical laws. In other words, for God to sustain a universe with no suffering, he would have to kiss science goodbye, resulting in a world without knowledge or predictability. Option b), preventing humans from setting up shop on fault lines, near volcanoes, etc, would involve God treating human beings as children and would effectively violate our freedom to act with meaningful choices. Since God has given us free will, he allows us to do what we want with it, including populate fault lines and do other foolish things and nasty stuff to one another.
The free will argument is also often buttressed with free will being necessary for virtue. God has given us the choice of doing good or evil: if he took away the freedom to choose act in evil ways or risky ways, that would rob the good choices we make of dignity. Virtue would be an automatic impulse, and we would be robots: without the choice to do wrong, the choice to do right loses its meaning. Love that is forced love is not truly love.
It’s kind of a thoughtful argument, isn’t it? Anyone who wants to object to the existence of evil, whether willful evil or natural evil like earthquake disasters, has answer the question: “What’s your alternative?” This inevitably leads us to conclude that for God to make an evil-free world, he would have to ditch this whole free will thing and natural law thing in some way, which we humans rather cherish. So take your pick: the present world with freedom, meaning, knowledge, and choice, or a coercive, neutral, irrational, compulsory world. Which would you pick? Anyways, the free will argument looks something like the above, although bear in mind the topic has been given much more ink and depth than how I have briefly put it.
Six Objections to the Free Will Argument
The first problem I see with the free will argument is that it argues that God in some way needs evil in order to have goodness in His world. I find this to be a pretty big challenge to the Christian concept of God, for God as creator of all things is independent of His creation. He is and has always been and always will be perfectly good and loving, and no creation of His can change that. But if the free will argument is valid, then God is not independent: He needs evil to exist, for without it, He could not create goodness.
Also, the bible says that God cannot do evil. (James 1:13) If evil is necessary for goodness, then how is God good? Does he need the devil in order for Him to be good? The free will argument argues that virtue and love are not genuine unless there is a genuine choice to the contrary. Consider what this implies for a God who is so good, choosing evil is not possible for Him. I find this argument leads to the conclusion that human love has more virtue than God’s, because unlike Him, we have the ability to choose evil.
Another objection to note is that this argument doesn’t show up in the bible anywhere. That itself doesn’t mean it’s wrong -lots of good and valid arguments about many things aren’t included in scripture. However, the bible does address this question, and it gives a consistent answer every time -never the free will argument.
I used to accept the free will argument, but it was always frustrating reading the book of Job which exhaustively discusses the problem of evil for 42 chapters, and never hints at anything remotely close to the free will argument. You can’t imagine the frustration involved in reading a holy book addressing this question all the time thinking my own answer to this question was better than God’s.
Job argues at one point; “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; He (God) covers the faces of its judges, if it is not He, (who gives the earth over to evil) then who is it?” (Job 9:24) Why didn’t Job’s friends here tell Job that God has too much respect for free will to prevent evil? Here Job says God is the cause of evil, -if it isn’t God, who is? The notion that God is not causing Job’s suffering does not even register as an option in the book of Job. Unlike many contemporary apologists, the biblical authors insisted that God must be involved in suffering every step of the way, and no human choice is ever done without the supervision of the divine hand. “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Prov 16:9)
There is also the charge of inconsistency in Christians who use the free will argument. Two of the most popular devotional verses in the bible are Matt 6:26 and Romans 8:28 .“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?” and “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
Christians regularly find comfort in these verses whenever they go through trials and sufferings. We affirm that God knows what’s going on even if we don’t, and nothing is happening by chance, but for a purpose. Essentially, it is a reminder that everything that goes on is in God’s mind and hand. This theme is repeated in almost every book of the bible. Yet if we then reply to the suffering of Japan with “it’s just natural laws and free will, don’t blame the Lawmaker for this.” What are we doing? We are drawing attention to natural laws, we’re looking at effects and causes and drawing attention away from the willful, intelligent presence of God. We are making two mistakes: a) we are contradicting our own practice of what we tell ourselves when we suffer and b) Denying that God was aware of and involved in the earthquake in the present tense. Was He too busy counting sparrows to notice the Nuclear reactor meltdown?
Lastly, to argue that God values free will so highly that he will not intervene to stop it, no matter what is being chosen, seems to be a pretty bad ethical misjudgment. Just like the eco-terrorists who value animals above humans, so the free will argument makes a glaring mistake in placing free will at the pinnacle of a value scale. For the free will argument to work, free will has to be elevated to such a high value that what is chosen becomes subservient to the act of choice itself.
Consider applying this to the Darfur genocides: God values the free will of the Sudanese government and the Jenjaweed so much that He doesn’t see fit to intervene to prevent them from dismembering men, women and children with machetes because that would violate free will. “Nope” says God, “Free will is too valuable, I cannot prevent this genocide. Choice itself is too precious.”
The struggle to understand evil is based on this moral truth we all intuitively know: evil choices aren’t worth a rat’s ass! The very worthlessness of evil actions is what goads us into asking how such worthless, wasteful, wicked events could possibly be permitted in the first place. The existence of suffering violates our sense of a proper priority of what is good and valuable.
It is the Christian’s most Spiritual prayer to say; “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” Not our will be done, but God’s. Our own will, so ignorant and prone to make stupid, impulsive and selfish choices is exactly what we pray to have God curb, transform, and remove. We don’t want sinful choices because they are rock-bottom on the value scale.
So in a nutshell, the following criticisms are raised by the Augustinian/Calvinist side of the Christian tradition:
1. The free will argument demands that God needs evil, making God dependent on His creation.
2. The free will argument makes (chosen) human virtue greater than God’s (eternal) virtue.
3. This argument is nowhere advanced by God, his prophets, or apostles.
4. Is inconsistent with Christian devotional practice.
5. It denies sufferers the comfort of God’s presence, and avoids talking about what we do believe: that God is sovereignly directing all events.
6. The Free Will argument elevates choice itself to be the greatest good.
For the above reasons, I found I had to abandon the use of the free will argument.
Free Will
Another influential response Christians have often given is the free-will argument. This argument has a certain dignity in the Christian tradition because of its long history, going back to the church fathers. Many people find this argument persuasive, and even philosophers who aren’t Christians, like Dr. Jitendra Mohanty (an atheist hindu philosopher) admits it’s a good answer to the problem.
Though this argument has a long history and many find it appealing, it also has a long line of Christian critics throughout history, starting with no less an authority than Augustine of Hippo. The Reformers, especially Martin Luther (an Augustinian monk) and John Calvin, were especially vitriolic against this argument. In a way, the Christian tradition is divided along Augustinian and non-Augustianian lines so there isn’t a true consensus on the issue. At the moment, the free will argument is enjoying considerable popularity. Nevertheless, I think it has some serious problems, and in my mind stands as an inadequate answer to the problem of evil and suffering.
The free will argument has several nuances, but if I were to apply it to the Japanese earthquake, it would go something like this:
Stating the Free Will Argument
In order to prevent the earthquake catastrophe God would have to either a) change the laws of plate techtonics so that they never occur wherever humans are, or b) Prevent humans from setting up shop on fault lines. Option a) would make geological science relative to the presence of humans, and would effectively undermine viewing the natural world as governed by predictable physical laws. In other words, for God to sustain a universe with no suffering, he would have to kiss science goodbye, resulting in a world without knowledge or predictability. Option b), preventing humans from setting up shop on fault lines, near volcanoes, etc, would involve God treating human beings as children and would effectively violate our freedom to act with meaningful choices. Since God has given us free will, he allows us to do what we want with it, including populate fault lines and do other foolish things and nasty stuff to one another.
The free will argument is also often buttressed with free will being necessary for virtue. God has given us the choice of doing good or evil: if he took away the freedom to choose act in evil ways or risky ways, that would rob the good choices we make of dignity. Virtue would be an automatic impulse, and we would be robots: without the choice to do wrong, the choice to do right loses its meaning. Love that is forced love is not truly love.
It’s kind of a thoughtful argument, isn’t it? Anyone who wants to object to the existence of evil, whether willful evil or natural evil like earthquake disasters, has answer the question: “What’s your alternative?” This inevitably leads us to conclude that for God to make an evil-free world, he would have to ditch this whole free will thing and natural law thing in some way, which we humans rather cherish. So take your pick: the present world with freedom, meaning, knowledge, and choice, or a coercive, neutral, irrational, compulsory world. Which would you pick? Anyways, the free will argument looks something like the above, although bear in mind the topic has been given much more ink and depth than how I have briefly put it.
Six Objections to the Free Will Argument
The first problem I see with the free will argument is that it argues that God in some way needs evil in order to have goodness in His world. I find this to be a pretty big challenge to the Christian concept of God, for God as creator of all things is independent of His creation. He is and has always been and always will be perfectly good and loving, and no creation of His can change that. But if the free will argument is valid, then God is not independent: He needs evil to exist, for without it, He could not create goodness.
Also, the bible says that God cannot do evil. (James 1:13) If evil is necessary for goodness, then how is God good? Does he need the devil in order for Him to be good? The free will argument argues that virtue and love are not genuine unless there is a genuine choice to the contrary. Consider what this implies for a God who is so good, choosing evil is not possible for Him. I find this argument leads to the conclusion that human love has more virtue than God’s, because unlike Him, we have the ability to choose evil.
Another objection to note is that this argument doesn’t show up in the bible anywhere. That itself doesn’t mean it’s wrong -lots of good and valid arguments about many things aren’t included in scripture. However, the bible does address this question, and it gives a consistent answer every time -never the free will argument.
I used to accept the free will argument, but it was always frustrating reading the book of Job which exhaustively discusses the problem of evil for 42 chapters, and never hints at anything remotely close to the free will argument. You can’t imagine the frustration involved in reading a holy book addressing this question all the time thinking my own answer to this question was better than God’s.
Job argues at one point; “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; He (God) covers the faces of its judges, if it is not He, (who gives the earth over to evil) then who is it?” (Job 9:24) Why didn’t Job’s friends here tell Job that God has too much respect for free will to prevent evil? Here Job says God is the cause of evil, -if it isn’t God, who is? The notion that God is not causing Job’s suffering does not even register as an option in the book of Job. Unlike many contemporary apologists, the biblical authors insisted that God must be involved in suffering every step of the way, and no human choice is ever done without the supervision of the divine hand. “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the Lord directs his steps.” (Prov 16:9)
There is also the charge of inconsistency in Christians who use the free will argument. Two of the most popular devotional verses in the bible are Matt 6:26 and Romans 8:28 .“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?” and “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
Christians regularly find comfort in these verses whenever they go through trials and sufferings. We affirm that God knows what’s going on even if we don’t, and nothing is happening by chance, but for a purpose. Essentially, it is a reminder that everything that goes on is in God’s mind and hand. This theme is repeated in almost every book of the bible. Yet if we then reply to the suffering of Japan with “it’s just natural laws and free will, don’t blame the Lawmaker for this.” What are we doing? We are drawing attention to natural laws, we’re looking at effects and causes and drawing attention away from the willful, intelligent presence of God. We are making two mistakes: a) we are contradicting our own practice of what we tell ourselves when we suffer and b) Denying that God was aware of and involved in the earthquake in the present tense. Was He too busy counting sparrows to notice the Nuclear reactor meltdown?
Lastly, to argue that God values free will so highly that he will not intervene to stop it, no matter what is being chosen, seems to be a pretty bad ethical misjudgment. Just like the eco-terrorists who value animals above humans, so the free will argument makes a glaring mistake in placing free will at the pinnacle of a value scale. For the free will argument to work, free will has to be elevated to such a high value that what is chosen becomes subservient to the act of choice itself.
Consider applying this to the Darfur genocides: God values the free will of the Sudanese government and the Jenjaweed so much that He doesn’t see fit to intervene to prevent them from dismembering men, women and children with machetes because that would violate free will. “Nope” says God, “Free will is too valuable, I cannot prevent this genocide. Choice itself is too precious.”
The struggle to understand evil is based on this moral truth we all intuitively know: evil choices aren’t worth a rat’s ass! The very worthlessness of evil actions is what goads us into asking how such worthless, wasteful, wicked events could possibly be permitted in the first place. The existence of suffering violates our sense of a proper priority of what is good and valuable.
It is the Christian’s most Spiritual prayer to say; “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” Not our will be done, but God’s. Our own will, so ignorant and prone to make stupid, impulsive and selfish choices is exactly what we pray to have God curb, transform, and remove. We don’t want sinful choices because they are rock-bottom on the value scale.
So in a nutshell, the following criticisms are raised by the Augustinian/Calvinist side of the Christian tradition:
1. The free will argument demands that God needs evil, making God dependent on His creation.
2. The free will argument makes (chosen) human virtue greater than God’s (eternal) virtue.
3. This argument is nowhere advanced by God, his prophets, or apostles.
4. Is inconsistent with Christian devotional practice.
5. It denies sufferers the comfort of God’s presence, and avoids talking about what we do believe: that God is sovereignly directing all events.
6. The Free Will argument elevates choice itself to be the greatest good.
For the above reasons, I found I had to abandon the use of the free will argument.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Some Theological Reflections on Japan’s Earthquake part 1
In the midst of Japan’s national catastrophe, I find myself pulled in two directions: to speak, or not to speak. On the one hand, Jesus taught us that the proper response to suffering is to "mourn with those who mourn”. Suffering demands the response of compassion. In the midst of that, speaking alone can do more harm than good. Stories abound of suffering people who have been brought theories as a remedy to their pain, rather than comfort. Therefore, I’m inclined to keep practical and quiet.
Yet, suffering does raise the question of theory, especially in regards to God: where is He in the midst of suffering? There is also a large crowd of atheists in the blogosphere who have been very quick to point out that this earthquake is a very strong argument against the existence of God. This is a theoretical question, and needs a theoretical response. In way, we can say that we are theoretical creatures: when suffering happens, we plug those events into our network of understanding of how the world works. We need theory to make sense of our lives, and so we theorize rather intuitively. It's part of being human.
As one final excuse to write about this when I kinda feel rude doing so, I would like to confess that though bringing a big plate of theology to the disaster scene offends some, it also comforts some. In fact, in my own darkest hours of suffering (when I almost lost my wife several years ago) I found theology one of the greatest comforts available. God was the solid rock in my own personal tsunami. He is real, and what we think about Him does have a significant bearing on how we react to our suffering.
Addressing the Atheist
I have no particular atheist in mind here, but “atheists in general” have been quick to jump on this quake as a salient demonstration of the non-existence of God. Atheists as people have every right to raise this excellent objection. However, they do not have the right to raise it as atheists anymore than a man has a right to raise the question; “How may I relieve my menstrual cramps?” Atheism simply lacks the proper equipment to make sense of the question. Unfortunately, they have raised the question of evil so often that it is no longer apparent just how ridiculous atheism looks doing so.
For a Christian, human beings are made in the image of God, and the suffering of God’s image-bearers is a palpably bad thing. However, humans only have this value placed on them because of their relationship to God. If you remove God from the picture, humans lose their value. It is no understatement to say that no philosophy or worldview in the world gives human beings the honor and dignity that the bible does, and this high view of humanity is what generates the problem of human suffering. This worldview provides ample equipment to legitimately criticize any mistreatment of humans, and provides the framework necessary to ask questions about the justness of their suffering. The question of suffering is thus an explicitly Christian (or Jewish) question, for it is a question that is raised by our view of the world.
By contrast, atheism has no such resources. A bunch of hairless hominids decided to build a country near a major geological fault line -end of story. Suffering cannot be related to the dignity of humans, for theoretically, they have none. Suffering is the activity of nerves that send unpleasant signals to our brains when tissue is damaged, or social relations are terminated by death and disaster.
Other than the new atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens who resolutely avoid this question, this is plainly acknowledged by more responsible atheists themselves: Kai Nielsen and Jonathan Shook are good examples of intellectually honest atheists who have freely confessed their lack of ability to explain the existence or nature of what we call “good and evil”. Notice it’s not just the inability to explain its existence, they don’t even know what it is! This is why atheism looks ridiculous asking this question; if you have no idea what the subject under discussion is, how do you figure you have anything coherent to say about it?
Let me be careful to note that I am addressing atheism as theory: as theory, the question is incoherent coming from within atheism. However, the question is valid for atheists as people, for they are made in the image of God. Though their worldview doesn’t equip them to make any rational sense of the dignity of humans, they nevertheless know it, for God has put that knowledge in us all. This simply needs to be pointed out to them, because most atheists have a high regard for evidence.
Here it can be said that the strength of a theory depends on its ability to account for a wide array of evidence: in science, the more a theory can regularly account for the data, the better the theory is. This criteria can likewise be applied to philosophy, and here atheism is the philosophical equivalent of flat-earth science. It is unable to account for a massive array of data. The entire field of ethics is, en masse, unexplained. People and society cannot function without ethics: we need ethics in the workplace, in politics, in our hearts. Atheism thus remains ignorant about matters that pertain to almost every area of life. How much less then, does it have anything to say about suffering caused by earthquakes.
Addressing the Christians
Christians I’m afraid, haven’t always done the best job of addressing this question either, but at least we can claim that is it our question, and we have a right to ask and answer it: we are consistent in doing so. Let’s look at some of those answers, because some of the answers often given could use some internal criticism.
The "Natural Law" Answer
One answer I heard a few nights ago on the radio came from the influential Christian apologists and former US politician, Chuck Colson. Basically, he gave a Christianized version of the atheist answer: “Rational image-bearers of God built a country on a faultline, and God has commanded us to take account of the order of creation and act accordingly: in this case, we took a calculated risk. Now that choice has resulted in catastrophe, and our ethical response is compassion.” (My rough paraphrase) Colson is right as far as pointing out that the Christian worldview provides the rational grounding for the existence of earthquakes, but this seems to me to be avoiding the question of why a good God permits such suffering.
Basically, the answer to suffering is this: “The earthquake was caused by natural laws that God designed.” Sure. But we’re not questioning physical laws, the question is: “God being all-powerful, why would he deliberately create a universe with suffering?” or “Why doesn’t he intervene to prevent those laws from causing suffering?” Colson’s answer points to the mechanism of suffering, but fails to even address the nature or purpose of suffering. It is a non-answer, being roughly the same answer a thoughtful atheist gives: "natural laws caused this, let's get on with practical matters." The only difference is that for the Christian, God made those laws, whereas for the atheist, the laws just exist.
I have more to say about Christian answers to the problem of evil but due to length, I will save it for the next post.
Yet, suffering does raise the question of theory, especially in regards to God: where is He in the midst of suffering? There is also a large crowd of atheists in the blogosphere who have been very quick to point out that this earthquake is a very strong argument against the existence of God. This is a theoretical question, and needs a theoretical response. In way, we can say that we are theoretical creatures: when suffering happens, we plug those events into our network of understanding of how the world works. We need theory to make sense of our lives, and so we theorize rather intuitively. It's part of being human.
As one final excuse to write about this when I kinda feel rude doing so, I would like to confess that though bringing a big plate of theology to the disaster scene offends some, it also comforts some. In fact, in my own darkest hours of suffering (when I almost lost my wife several years ago) I found theology one of the greatest comforts available. God was the solid rock in my own personal tsunami. He is real, and what we think about Him does have a significant bearing on how we react to our suffering.
Addressing the Atheist
I have no particular atheist in mind here, but “atheists in general” have been quick to jump on this quake as a salient demonstration of the non-existence of God. Atheists as people have every right to raise this excellent objection. However, they do not have the right to raise it as atheists anymore than a man has a right to raise the question; “How may I relieve my menstrual cramps?” Atheism simply lacks the proper equipment to make sense of the question. Unfortunately, they have raised the question of evil so often that it is no longer apparent just how ridiculous atheism looks doing so.
For a Christian, human beings are made in the image of God, and the suffering of God’s image-bearers is a palpably bad thing. However, humans only have this value placed on them because of their relationship to God. If you remove God from the picture, humans lose their value. It is no understatement to say that no philosophy or worldview in the world gives human beings the honor and dignity that the bible does, and this high view of humanity is what generates the problem of human suffering. This worldview provides ample equipment to legitimately criticize any mistreatment of humans, and provides the framework necessary to ask questions about the justness of their suffering. The question of suffering is thus an explicitly Christian (or Jewish) question, for it is a question that is raised by our view of the world.
By contrast, atheism has no such resources. A bunch of hairless hominids decided to build a country near a major geological fault line -end of story. Suffering cannot be related to the dignity of humans, for theoretically, they have none. Suffering is the activity of nerves that send unpleasant signals to our brains when tissue is damaged, or social relations are terminated by death and disaster.
Other than the new atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens who resolutely avoid this question, this is plainly acknowledged by more responsible atheists themselves: Kai Nielsen and Jonathan Shook are good examples of intellectually honest atheists who have freely confessed their lack of ability to explain the existence or nature of what we call “good and evil”. Notice it’s not just the inability to explain its existence, they don’t even know what it is! This is why atheism looks ridiculous asking this question; if you have no idea what the subject under discussion is, how do you figure you have anything coherent to say about it?
Let me be careful to note that I am addressing atheism as theory: as theory, the question is incoherent coming from within atheism. However, the question is valid for atheists as people, for they are made in the image of God. Though their worldview doesn’t equip them to make any rational sense of the dignity of humans, they nevertheless know it, for God has put that knowledge in us all. This simply needs to be pointed out to them, because most atheists have a high regard for evidence.
Here it can be said that the strength of a theory depends on its ability to account for a wide array of evidence: in science, the more a theory can regularly account for the data, the better the theory is. This criteria can likewise be applied to philosophy, and here atheism is the philosophical equivalent of flat-earth science. It is unable to account for a massive array of data. The entire field of ethics is, en masse, unexplained. People and society cannot function without ethics: we need ethics in the workplace, in politics, in our hearts. Atheism thus remains ignorant about matters that pertain to almost every area of life. How much less then, does it have anything to say about suffering caused by earthquakes.
Addressing the Christians
Christians I’m afraid, haven’t always done the best job of addressing this question either, but at least we can claim that is it our question, and we have a right to ask and answer it: we are consistent in doing so. Let’s look at some of those answers, because some of the answers often given could use some internal criticism.
The "Natural Law" Answer
One answer I heard a few nights ago on the radio came from the influential Christian apologists and former US politician, Chuck Colson. Basically, he gave a Christianized version of the atheist answer: “Rational image-bearers of God built a country on a faultline, and God has commanded us to take account of the order of creation and act accordingly: in this case, we took a calculated risk. Now that choice has resulted in catastrophe, and our ethical response is compassion.” (My rough paraphrase) Colson is right as far as pointing out that the Christian worldview provides the rational grounding for the existence of earthquakes, but this seems to me to be avoiding the question of why a good God permits such suffering.
Basically, the answer to suffering is this: “The earthquake was caused by natural laws that God designed.” Sure. But we’re not questioning physical laws, the question is: “God being all-powerful, why would he deliberately create a universe with suffering?” or “Why doesn’t he intervene to prevent those laws from causing suffering?” Colson’s answer points to the mechanism of suffering, but fails to even address the nature or purpose of suffering. It is a non-answer, being roughly the same answer a thoughtful atheist gives: "natural laws caused this, let's get on with practical matters." The only difference is that for the Christian, God made those laws, whereas for the atheist, the laws just exist.
I have more to say about Christian answers to the problem of evil but due to length, I will save it for the next post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
