• Wayfarer
    24.2k
    //Thread title changed - originally The Hotel Manager Theodicy, which was misleading, as the view being criticized is not a religious apologetic, but used as an indictment. Thread title changed to reflect this.//

    One of the most frequently raised objections to religious belief in the modern world is the Problem of Evil. The argument is simple and emotionally powerful: if God is all-powerful and all-good, then why does He allow terrible suffering? The stock examples are ready to hand: the torture of innocents, natural disasters, the capricious cruelty of life. Surely, it is said, if God were truly good and omnipotent, He would not permit such things. He has the power to prevent them, but does not, so He must be malicious.

    But this framing of the problem reflects a profound misunderstanding of its nature. It assumes a particular conception of God — one that is, in effect, a kind of cosmic hotel manager. The world is imagined as a well-appointed establishment where the guests expect, indeed are entitled to, a decent standard of accommodation. If the plumbing leaks or the ceiling collapses, we understandably demand to know who is responsible. “Who’s running this place!?! Who is in charge!?!” becomes not just a rhetorical question but a moral indictment¹.

    Let us call this the Hotel Manager Theodicy. It holds God to account for the conditions of the world in the same way one might complain about bad service. But this view has no basis in the spiritual vision of the major religious traditions. And even on its own terms, the logic quickly becomes untenable. If suffering were to be eliminated, where exactly should the line be drawn? Is it enough that we only suffer head colds, not cancer? That no child is ever harmed, but adults might still endure misfortune? That natural disasters occur, but without casualties? (It turns out, after all, that life on earth requires that the earth’s core be hot, which causes volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis.) So, the very premise begins to collapse under scrutiny, because any finite world — governed by change, limitation, and contingency — will contain disorder. The moment there is matter, there is entropy. To demand a world of comfort and security without suffering is, in effect, to demand a world without change, decay, or finitude. But such a world would be lifeless, inert, or unlike anything we recognize as human experience. Disorder and disease seem, in some sense, to be inevitable aspects of physical existence itself.

    Besides, nowhere in the sacred texts of East or West is there a promise that the world will be free of suffering. Quite the contrary. Christianity, for example, is founded upon the image of a crucified Saviour, who bore suffering for the benefit of all mankind². Buddhism begins with the recognition that life is inevitably marked by suffering (dukkha). These traditions are not surprised by suffering; they take it as the starting point of spiritual inquiry.

    Fyodor Dostoevsky, in The Brothers Karamazov³, gives voice to a famous version of this complaint in the character of Ivan, who refuses to accept a world redeemed by God if the price of that redemption includes the suffering of a single innocent child. His rejection is not logical but moral — an existential protest. Yet the deeper reply is not given by counter-argument, but by the spiritual witness of Alyosha and the silent faith of the saints, who do not explain suffering but transfigure it through love.

    To modern sensibilities, this sounds like a dodge. But that is because modernity has flattened the metaphysical landscape. When there is only this world, and only this life, then any suffering seems unbearable and unjustifiable. After all, life is supposed to be good, right? There is no longer any axis of salvation, no trajectory of the soul, no higher destiny against which the meaning of suffering might be understood. The result is either a kind of moral outrage, which demands an answer that the spiritual traditions were never trying to provide, or retreat into the nihilism foretold by Nietzsche.

    The Augustinian view of evil as privatio boni (privation of the good) is also instructive. Evil, on this view, is not a substance or a power in its own right, but the lack of something that ought to be. Like rot in wood or shadow in light, it is a deficiency, a defect, not a thing in itself. Augustine writes in Confessions, “For evil has no existence except as a privation of good, down to that level which is altogether without being.” This view does not explain evil away, but it places it in a broader context: creation is good, but also finite, and finitude allows for, indeed entails, distortion, error, and suffering. This is not an answer in a managerial sense, but it reframes the issue in a broader context.

    The Buddha, too, begins with suffering — not as something to be blamed on a creator, but as a — or the — basic fact of existence. The First Noble Truth states that existence inevitably entails suffering, and the Buddhist path begins by recognizing and understanding that it has both a cause and a way to bring it to an end. It is not an appeal to divine justice so much as a liberating insight. But it doesn’t try and gild the lily of suffering in this world.

    In both Christian and Buddhist cosmologies, the condition of suffering is not incidental but intrinsic to our state of being. In Christian theology, suffering is bound up with the Fall — not simply as a punishment, but as the consequence of a turning away from the divine source. In Buddhist thought, there is no single event of “falling,” but rather a beginningless ignorance (avidyā) that gives rise to craving, rebirth, and the cycles of suffering (saṃsāra). In both cases, the fact of being born into the material world is itself an index of spiritual estrangement. Worldly existence, in these traditions, is not expected to be perfect. On the contrary, it is marked by imperfection as the very condition that makes liberation or salvation necessary.

    The modern indictment of God on the grounds of suffering is, therefore, based on false premisses. It seeks from religion what religion never promised: a world without pain. The real question is not why suffering exists, but what it means, and what it points to. For that, one must look not to a cosmic customer service desk, but to the depths of the soul and the mystery of being.

    In that sense, the real problem is not the nature of life, but one of spiritual literacy. We are missing a dimension of existence, against which the nature of suffering can be better understood. ‘There is no sickness, toil or danger in the place to which I go’, sings the Poor Wayfaring Stranger⁴. And that isn’t for a minute to justify suffering, or to deprecate the ability to seek amelioration through medicine, science and political remedies.

    But spiritual literacy is not something that can be regained through a change in opinion or sentiment. It is a way of seeing the world — a metaphysical orientation that has been largely lost to modernity. The decline of religious cosmologies, the ascendancy of scientific materialism, and the collapse of a shared symbolic framework have left us without the conceptual space for transcendence. We live, as philosopher Charles Taylor has observed, within an ‘immanent frame’⁵— a view of the world that is closed to the transcendent by default, even when it remains open to moral or aesthetic experience.

    To recover a sense of the larger reality that the religious traditions point toward is no easy undertaking. It often requires a kind of rupture or a crisis — a painful deconstruction of the ego and its assumptions, the subject of many a major work of art, philosophy and literature. The path to a deeper understanding often passes through doubt, loss, and confrontation with suffering itself, a dark night of the soul, as it has been called. The mystics and sages rarely speak of temporal comfort; they speak of insight, of awakening, of seeing what really matters.

    But this essay is not an attempt to justify suffering, nor to offer spiritual guidance. It aims only to point out the mistake of that common assumption in modern discourse — the idea that if God exists, He must operate like a benevolent manager of human well-being. It’s a superficial way of seeing it. Recovering some understanding of the metaphysical and theological contexts against which the problem of evil has traditionally been resolved, allows us to reframe the question in a larger context — one in which suffering still has to be reckoned with, but not on account of a malicious God.

    -------------------------------------

    1. “The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God in the dock.” — Lewis, C.S. God in the Dock, Eerdmans Pub Co; Reprint edition (1 October 1994)

    2. A significant exception to the classical theistic view is found in certain strands of Gnostic thought, which depict the creator of the world — the demiurge — as either malevolent or ignorant (sometimes identified with the Jehovah of the Old Testament.) In these schools, the material world is not a fallen creation of a good God, but a prison from which the soul must escape through the attainment of gnosis. See Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity. 3rd ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.

    3. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990.

    4. Poor Wayfaring Stranger, American Folk Hymn, Traditional

    5. Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
  • goremand
    138
    The argument is simple and emotionally powerful: if God is all-powerful and all-good, then why does He allow terrible suffering?Wayfarer

    This is a bit of an understatement, if God is understood to be the creator of the cosmos he is also the creator of all suffering. He didn't merely "allow" it. The more pessimistic among us would condemn God not for "allowing" suffering but for creating a world for suffering to occur within in first place. Couldn't he have left well enough alone?

    Anyway, I think the obvious answer to the problem as you put it is to conclude that suffering is in fact not evil. Equating evil with suffering specifically seems like a very modern idea, God might think that the occasional suffering is a good thing.
  • Wayfarer
    24.2k
    Couldn't he have left well enough alone?goremand

    You mean, not created the world?

    the obvious answer to the problem as you put it is to conclude that suffering is in fact not evilgoremand

    It's one answer, although suffering that is inflicted, or intentionally brought about, is generally regarded as evil (although to explore that topic would require further consideration.)
  • goremand
    138
    You mean, not created the world?Wayfarer

    Yes, exactly. Its something I've always had trouble with, why would a perfect, infinite and self-sufficient being bother with such a thing? Seems completely arbitrary.

    It's one answer, although suffering that is inflicted, or intentionally brought about, is generally regarded as evil (although to explore that topic would require further consideration.)Wayfarer

    We think it's evil when it "crosses the line", but most people are fine with child scuffing their knee (builds character), or a criminal having a bad time in jail (it's a punishment, after all).

    Anyway, why should God be concerned with what a bunch of ignorant, fallen beings consider to be good or evil?
  • Tom Storm
    9.7k
    But this essay is not an attempt to justify suffering, nor to offer spiritual guidance. It aims only to point out the mistake of that common assumption in modern discourse — the idea that if God exists, He must operate like a benevolent manager of human well-being. It’s a superficial way of seeing it. Recovering some understanding of the metaphysical and theological contexts against which the problem of evil has traditionally been resolved, allows us to reframe the question in a larger context — one in which suffering still has to be reckoned with, but not on account of a malicious God.Wayfarer

    Well, I don’t believe in God, but for the purposes of this exercise, I’d tweak the argument about suffering.

    It’s not just that suffering happens—through accidents, natural disasters, terminal illnesses in children, and so on - but that if God created nature and all life within it, then he designed a system where predation and abject cruelty are the engine of survival. An essential feature, not a bug. Nature isn’t merely amoral; it’s grotesquely cruel and perverse by design. To me, this feels less like an argument against God’s existence and more like one for it, because only a conscious superbeing could intentionally design something that inflicts such a vile fate on so many billions. In other words, God isn’t just the hotel manager - he’s the fucking architect and builder of the joint and it's a charnel house.
  • Quk
    102
    I understand that every scalable quality requires a certain bandwidth in order to generate contrast. Without contrast, the world would be gray. I just think it would be nicer, if the divine hotel manager, if he exists, had narrowed the bandwidth a bit more: Less intensive pain and less intensive enthusiasm.

    I don't like to think in hard yes/no categories. I prefer gradual, relative thinking. So, a little pain is OK. That's not brutal. That's enough to get warned about caries or fire. It's not neccassary to exaggarate it. When there is a white spot on the photo, it's clearly recognisable; it makes no sense to overexpose the photo; it won't make the white spot whiter. I think this hotel manager has no interest in well-exposed photography; he's just a myopic sadist.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.5k


    Blame Yaldy-Baddy, the ol' Demiurge. Or, even on the more mainstream view: "Satan is the God of this world" (II Corinthians 4:4; see also John 12:31). And "the entire cosmos is under the control of the Evil One" (I John 5.19).Hence, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (I John 2:15). The world is rather in need of saving: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17). But "this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).

    Hence, as David Bentley Hart writes in "The Gates of the Sea:"

    Now we are able to rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes – and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away and he that sits upon the throne will say, ‘Behold, I make all things new...'

    …of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines…Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred…As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy. It is…a faith that…has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead...

    For, after all, if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God.

    Metaphysical optimism seems generally at odds with the picture of a fallen and rebellious cosmos.



    Right, for instance the view from I Peter 4:

    12: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And

    “If the righteous is scarcely saved,
    what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

    19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

    And I Peter 2:

    19 For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. 20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

    22 “He committed no sin,
    and no deceit was found in his mouth.”[e]

    23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

    There is also Surah Al-Baqarah - 214

    Do you think you will be admitted into Paradise without being tested like those before you? They were afflicted with suffering and adversity and were so ˹violently˺ shaken that ˹even˺ the Messenger and the believers with him cried out, “When will Allah’s help come?” Indeed, Allah’s help is ˹always˺ near.
  • Wayfarer
    24.2k
    I didn't intend this as an essay in religious apologetics, and I didn't (and generally don't) quote scripture. It's an essay in philosophy of religion, the point of which is to try and articulate what I see as a misconception about the problem of evil, based on a misunderstanding of some religious perspectives on that question.

    That said, the passage from David Bentley Hart offers a powerful theological stance worth acknowledging. His view, as I read it, is not that suffering is part of God's plan, but that it stands as a distortion of it — something God opposes and ultimately redeems. So he's breaking from the 'it's all part of the plan' rationalisation which sometimes characterises traditional theology. He distinguishes between optimism, which attempts to rationalize suffering as necessary, and hope, which insists that suffering and evil really are evils, but are destined to be overcome. From that perspective, God is not the author of suffering but its adversary — not the architect of the “charnel house,” but the sure refuge beyond.
  • Tom Storm
    9.7k
    Indeed. In fact Hart places the problem of evil and suffering as one of the only matters which has him, on occasion, doubting his faith (I'm paraphrasing).

    I remember author Anthony Burgess talking about faith. He told the story about his father narrowly surviving World War I in the abject misery of trench warfare, only to come home and find his wife and children dead from the Spanish Flu. 'My father knew immediately that this proved God was real...'

    From that perspective, God is not the author of suffering but its adversary — not the architect of the “charnel house,” but the sure refuge beyond.Wayfarer

    That's a tricky perspective to proffer, if you ask me, since the very condition of life is suffering - it depends upon it for its continuance. Now we do know theology and exegesis can be spun to justify anything - so I have no doubt there will be escape hatches left, right and centre. I'll bugger off now...
  • goremand
    138
    God is not the author of suffering but its adversary — not the architect of the “charnel house,” but the sure refuge beyond.Wayfarer

    But is a view that really seems to struggle with the problem of evil. God is supposed to be the author of everything, something that he sincerely opposed would never exist in the first place. Really this only makes sense if you consider God to be a limited being who is not in full control of the cosmos.
  • Wayfarer
    24.2k
    That's a tricky perspective to proffer, if you ask me, since the very condition of life is suffering - it depends upon it for its continuance.Tom Storm

    As I mention in the OP, that life is suffering is the foundational truth of Buddhism. But that is not the end of life, indeed it is the first of the 'four noble truths', the remainder comprising the cause, the end, and the way to reach the end of suffering. The first link in the chain of 'dependent origination' - the psycho-physical complex that is the driving force behind lived existence - is ignorance, avidya, which is the lack of insight or knowledge into what enmeshes one in suffering.

    God is supposed to be the author of everything, something that he sincerely opposed would never exist in the first place.goremand

    You might rephrase that, because, as written, it does not parse.

    -----

    I'll add another philosophical note here - again, not intended as religious apologetic, but as a way of expressing an existential truth in analytical terms. One of the formative books in my quest was Alan Watts' The Supreme Identity (although I don't know how well it has aged). But something I took from this book, is that the cause of suffering is a consequence of our mis-identification with who or what we really are. Because of this mis-identification - this is what 'ignorance' means - we fall into states of suffering, which can extend over lifetimes (or 'aeons of kalpas' in Indian mythology). Realising the 'supreme identity' is the seeing through of that illusory sense of identity, and the awakening to our true nature, which is somehow beyond death and decay. Of course, this is a motif that is found in many cultures (think Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey). You can find analogies for it in philosophies East and West. And I think seeing it in those terms (rather than just through the prism of inherited religious lore) gives it credibility, at least for me. So again, in analytic terms, the aim of the paths of liberation or enlightenment, is to come to know directly a higher intelligence - not theoretically, not dogmatically, but through insight, always hard won. And that awakening, or 'return to the source', is what is being alluded to through the various religious lores that have been handed down. That on that return, the being realises it's original identity as one with that source and beyond suffering (although each cultural tradition may have very different understandings of what that means.)
  • goremand
    138


    What I mean is that God might allow suffering in the service of some greater purpose, in other words he would regard suffering as good in certain circumstances. But there is no reason an almighty being would permit something he fundamentally disapproved of. Why would God be "tolerant" in this way?
  • Wayfarer
    24.2k
    The David Bentley Hart passage that @Count Timothy von Icarus quotes, explicitly criticizes the 'greater purpose' view. As to why evil is possible at all, I think the orthodox answer is that it is because we are free agents, able to choose to do good or evil, otherwise our freedom would be pointless - we'd just be animals, or automatons. Don't overlook the symbology of the choice of the apple 'from the tree of knowledge of good and evil'. To me, that signifies the origin of self-consciousness, with the burdens and possibilities that it brings. As to 'why creation in the first place', a philosophical perspective is that through the process of 'descending' into organic existence, the Deity is able to discover horizons of being that could otherwise never be explored. (This is something that Alan Watts writes about, also.)

    And, hey, these are very deep questions. I'm not trying to push a polemical barrow here, just exploring them.
  • goremand
    138
    As to why evil is possible at all, I think the orthodox answer is that it is because we are free agents, able to choose to do good or evil, otherwise our freedom would be pointless - we'd just be animals, or automatons.Wayfarer

    But that is what I mean by a greater purpose. This is a lesser "pseudo-evil" in the service of the greater good of free choice. In this case, the real evil would apparently by for humanity to be "just animals" (horrible to contemplate).

    As to 'why creation in the first place', one philosophical answer is, that through the process of 'descending' into organic existence, the Deity is able to discover horizons of being that could otherwise never be explored.Wayfarer

    The problem of evil is an argument against the omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God of mainstream Christian theology. What is there to discover for God, an omniscient being?
  • unenlightened
    9.6k
    Love is taking pains; care is painstaking.

    If giving cost nothing, generosity would be no virtue. If love had no price, it would be worthless. I do not doubt that the same voices that condemn God for allowing suffering complain also of parents spoiling their children with indulgence. Wrong on both counts.
  • J
    1.4k
    Let us call this the Hotel Manager Theodicy. It holds God to account for the conditions of the world in the same way one might complain about bad service.Wayfarer

    I like this! A good phrase that captures a major tenet of traditional theocidies.

    Besides, nowhere in the sacred texts of East or West is there a promise that the world will be free of suffering.Wayfarer

    But here's the problem. There is a promise, in the Abrahamic religions, that God is a loving God, that God is love, that we may view God as we would a parent. The charge, then, is that this is completely inconsistent with the amount of suffering in the world. Not the fact of suffering as such, perhaps, but the sheer devastating omnipresence of it. And to short-circuit the Free Will Defense at this point, we can simply limit the suffering in question to the so-called natural evils -- disease, earthquake, accident, etc. What loving parent would do this to their children? "After all, life is supposed to be good, right?" No, this is the wrong point. God is supposed to be good.

    But does God "do this"?

    As others have commented, it makes a difference that God is not merely the manager of the hotel, but the architect and builder. It would require some highly abstract philosophical premises (along the "best of all possible worlds" line) to maintain that God has done the best they could. If that's so, then God's ways are truly mysterious to humanity; we are missing so many pieces of the theological puzzle that we might as well give up trying to understand it at all. Certainly "love" and "goodness" and "possibility" cannot mean the same thing to God as they do to us.

    If suffering were to be eliminated, where exactly should the line be drawn? Is it enough that we only suffer head colds, not cancer? That no child is ever harmed, but adults might still endure misfortune? That natural disasters occur, but without casualties?Wayfarer

    The line can be drawn anywhere, to refute the theodicy. Use the parent analogy again. We expect a loving parent to permit suffering that is truly necessary (a painful operation for their child, perhaps) but firmly exclude anything else in their power, especially capricious and pointless pain. So if God could have, say, prevented the development of cancers in humans, but did not, then God is at fault. But likewise, if God could have arranged things so that a single volcano in Sri Lanka in the year 418 did not erupt, yet it did, God is equally at fault. No loving parent would do either one.

    By the way, this whole idea of what God "could have arranged" is hard to discuss in reasonably scientific terms. What are we actually asking for? Some difference in the initial conditions, 14 billion years ago, such that eventually the Earth and its inhabitants would have different characteristics? I guess so. With God all things are possible, or at least we have to allow this for the purposes of the theodicy thought-experiment.

    There is no longer any axis of salvation, no trajectory of the soul, no higher destiny against which the meaning of suffering might be understood.Wayfarer

    This suggests the only theodicy that I've ever been able to accept: Like Kant, I think we have to postulate an afterlife if we're to make sense of suffering, and God's reasons for creating things as they have. If this life is all there is, I would find the idea of a loving God absurd, and would reject all the theodicies I've ever seen. I would, I suppose, be a Buddhist. But with an "axis of salvation" a "higher destiny" understood literally as "death is not the end," we have additional possibilities.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.5k
    Some good posts here. I think they bring out a difficulty for classical theodicy, which is that it must either adapt itself to changes in modern conceptions of man and nature, or else rebut these changes before proceeding.

    Classically, the idea of nature as merely "laws + initial conditions," which God must tweak so as to "minimize suffering," wouldn't even have been on the table. Beings possess their own self-determining natures, although in the fallen cosmos they fail to fully correspond to the "divine idea" underlying them. In struggling to maintain their form, each being is doing the best it can to be "like God" in the way they are adapted to by their limiting essence. Each being is self-determining to some extent, and is striving (poorly or well) to become more so. "Evil as privation" suggests then that evil is ultimately a failure of things to "become what they are." Suffering as "negative sensation" plays a role in this, but the sensible world is ultimately "less real" than the intelligible, often "passing away" in many cosmologies. Evil, by contrast, lies wholly in the inappropriate use of things (including sensible suffering).

    In this world, man is a "middle being" strung out between the corporeal/sensible world and the intelligible order. He is not "the highest of beings," as he often is in the modern view. The fallen cosmos involves a web of sin or imperfection/confusion involving not only human action, but also superhuman rebellion, the turning away of Satan and the corrupt archons and principalities, which manifests in the decay for nature. Earth itself is accused of rebellion by some of the earliest Jewish commentators because God tells it to "grass grass" (a use of the verb akin to "dance a dance") and it instead "puts forth grass." Whereas in the modern view, it often becomes just man, mechanistic nature working according to inviolable laws, and God in the picture. There is no notion of "vertical levels of reality," and so sensible suffering is not "less than fully real," and its conquest thus largely a matter of proper perspective (as in much Pagan thought, or Boethius' philosophical consolation).

    I suppose the difference here is perhaps also one between having to argue that all of creation—creatures taken as a whole—must be free, versus the consideration of the freedom of individual creatures as individuals (often just man) against the backdrop of a "clockwork" nature. The shift in focus to the individuals throws up new difficulties for the classical view.

    Maybe a shift in ethics and politics is relevant too. God, far from simply giving over the gift of being and freedom to creation (and of course ultimately redeeming them and bringing them to perfection, or at least offering them this choice), becomes a cosmic executive on the model of the liberal state. He must contend with the problem of one creature encroaching on the freedom of another and strike the ideal balance. The role of the higher beings gets flattened out or vanishes here, or else explodes into a major issue because they are now "encroaching on the freedom of the cosmos". And this also goes along with changes in Reformation theology that moved towards seeing redemption and election as largely about the individual (e.g. Calvinism vs Arminianism, often taken as exclusive of all possible views, versus the prior dominance of corporate conceptualizations of election).
  • Martijn
    14
    The human mind seeks answers because it cannot understand the true layer of reality. We think we can understand the world through our sense, for example, but these are illusions. True reality has no such thing as 'color' or 'sound' and so on. We are stuck in a permanent filter.

    We are, in a sense, extremely primitive. We have evolved in a similar way to all other lifeforms. We are slowly proving to be the exceptions (not due to our biological origin, but due to our behaviour, intellect and heightened consciousness). We are still extremely early in this 'path of enlightenment.'

    Our primal instincts still run deep within us. This is why our emotions, especially fear, are so powerful. We fear the unknown, fear change, and we fear what might lie beyond in the void. To handle this fear, the mind creates stories. Stories about fate, karma, God, a higher purpose, Heaven and Hell, and so on. Since none of us alive today understand the naked truth regarding the nature of reality, and this is a question we may never find a truthful answer to, we create our own answers. This is why there have been countless religions, philosophies, rituals, and traditions in the history of humanity.

    So regarding your Hotel Manager Theodicy, you'd indeed have to be willfully ignorant to believe that God, if He exists at all, runs the show. There is so much injustice and suffering going on, on this planet alone (both man-made and natural) that there is no legitimate case for a managing God. So go ahead, have some intercourse before marriage. He won't care. Or don't. Your call.

    We should have listened more to Nietszche. We need geniuses like him now more than ever, to wake humanity up from its spiritual slumber and to start to take matters into our own hands. We are already stuck in an era of nihilism (and hedonism), since God is dead and we have no alternative. We have tossed the baby with the bathwater, and we cannot cope with an empty crib.
  • Quk
    102
    To demand a world of comfort and security without suffering is, in effect, to demand a world without change, decay, or finitude. But such a world would be lifeless ...Wayfarer

    This is a logical conclusion. Being an agnostic, I assume the christian god is unable to manipulate these logical axioms (and all mathematical laws); he seems to be subject to them. Thus, this god's power is limited. He's a semi-god.

    The true god is called Logic. There's another god called Random.

    Logic and Random are very cold gods. They don't care about a specific pain limit. Logic provides the axiom that reads "life without variety would be no life", and Random sets the maximum possible pain experience at random. The christian semi-god has to follow their rules; he's employed as a hotel manager.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k
    Yes, exactly. Its something I've always had trouble with, why would a perfect, infinite and self-sufficient being bother with such a thing? Seems completely arbitrary.goremand

    Anyway, why should God be concerned with what a bunch of ignorant, fallen beings consider to be good or evil?goremand

    You bring up a good point I have also proposed in past posts. That is to say, a self-sufficient being doesn't need to design a game of "struggle of lower beings to recognize X, Y, Z", and "learning their lessons through cycles of suffering". This just seems all too human.. that there is some sort of moral/aesthetic lessons to be learned that suffering must be instructive towards.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k
    I don't like to think in hard yes/no categories. I prefer gradual, relative thinking. So, a little pain is OK. That's not brutal. That's enough to get warned about caries or fire. It's not neccassary to exaggarate it. When there is a white spot on the photo, it's clearly recognisable; it makes no sense to overexpose the photo; it won't make the white spot whiter. I think this hotel manager has no interest in well-exposed photography; he's just a myopic sadist.Quk

    Leads to a conclusion of radical contingency over elegant design. Thus leading to a sort of multi-universe theory whereby this universe is but one we happen to inhabit with all its experiences. It could have went differently, but since we are living it out, it seems inevitable.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.5k


    The true god is called Logic. There's another god called Random.

    Logic and Random are very cold gods. They don't care about a specific pain limit. Logic provides the axiom that reads "life without variety would be no life", and Random sets the maximum possible pain experience at random. The christian semi-god has to follow their rules; he's employed as a hotel manager.

    Partly, this is less of a problem for the older theology because modality was dealt with quite differently. Modality was primarily conceived of in terms of act/potency. "Is it possible for a cat to become a frog?" The old answer would be "no." You're talking about substantial change there, replacing one thing with another. It is only possible for a cat to become something that it already possesses the potency to become. It must "be that thing potentially." If something isn't "potentially actual" then it isn't possible. If one contrary is present, "in act," say "light," then its opposite, "darkness" is not a possibility.

    I think it would be fair to say that, starting with the nominalists, modality gets much more "expansive" and "linguistic," while also becoming less "metaphysical." Possible worlds modality ends up looking a lot different. I suppose the critique of it would be: "just because you can slam words/concepts together and not recognize an explicit contradiction doesn't mean there isn't one to be found if the things you were speaking of were fully understood."

    In one of his homilies (Pentecost I think), St. Thomas claims the collective efforts of the human race have not even come close to fathoming the essence of a single fly. On this view, thinking up possibilities in terms of linguistic composition, and then searching for obvious disqualifications, seems less justifiable. So, they stick to a understanding of necessity grounded in act/potency.



    I don't like to think in hard yes/no categories. I prefer gradual, relative thinking. So, a little pain is OK. That's not brutal. That's enough to get warned about caries or fire. It's not neccassary to exaggarate it.

    It reminds me a bit of existentialist "overcoming." How absurd must the world be for us to find meaning in our capacity to overcome absurdity? Just a little? A lot?

    I would imagine the ideal is likely closer to "as absurd as possible without resulting in a total collapse into despair" for a lot of those thinkers though.
  • Hanover
    13.5k
    But this essay is not an attempt to justify suffering,Wayfarer

    But that sounds like a throw away line you had to say in order to avoid the proper criticism that you must be telling me that suffering has some mysterious purpose else an all good god wouldn't allow it. Couldn't he forge within me whatever solid character comes from suffering without me having had to suffer?
    If suffering were to be eliminated, where exactly should the line be drawn?Wayfarer
    I don't know, but it is in fact drawn. There is a level of suffering no human has ever endured, so there are limits.
    But spiritual literacy is not something that can be regained through a change in opinion or sentiment. It is a way of seeing the world — a metaphysical orientation that has been largely lost to modernity.Wayfarer

    I also don't agree with the general assessment that there aren't ancient examples of considering God as a hotel manager providing lousy service.

    Consider:

    Exodus 14:10 to 14:12

    "10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”"

    Sounds like some ancient Hebrews kvetching (bitching in the way only Hebrews do) to their hotel manager about their accomodations. What happened next was he parted the sea for them and swallowed up the Egyptians, which sounds like excellent customer service finally.

    Then in Exodus 16:1 to 5 they kvetched about the food situation, and so the Good Lord accomodated by dropping bread from the heavens.

    16 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

    My point is there is the no good answer to the theodicy problem.

    And by the way, these complainers did eventually get their comeuppance when they tried to cross over into the promised land and God told them they couldn't cross. Enough was enough. But at least in that example the suffering was earned and deserved. A just dessert in the desert.
  • J
    1.4k
    A just dessert in the desert.Hanover

    Can I steal that line? :grin:
  • Tom Storm
    9.7k
    We should have listened more to Nietszche. We need geniuses like him now more than ever, to wake humanity up from its spiritual slumber and to start to take matters into our own hands. We are already stuck in an era of nihilism (and hedonism), since God is dead and we have no alternative. We have tossed the baby with the bathwater, and we cannot cope with an empty crib.Martijn

    This seems a pretty tired argument - are you a Jordan Peterson follower? What reasoning do you have to support this?
  • Martijn
    14


    What do you mean? And I am not a Peterson follower. I don't follow anyone, I read literature all across the spectum and would align myself most closely with Stoic philosophy.
  • Banno
    27k
    My point is there is the no good answer to the theodicy problem.Hanover
    Indeed, the world behaves pretty much as one would expect, if there were no god. Theodicy is the study of excuses for how this can be so.
  • Tom Storm
    9.7k
    What do you mean?Martijn

    I'm curious whenever someone paraphrases Nietzsche on this, just how they interpret this particular well-worn notion.

    Peterson, as you may know, practically wraps his entire anti-modernist screed around this observation, which he likes to follow up with muddled account of what he terms 'post-modern Marxism' presumably taken from Stephen Hicks.
  • Janus
    17.1k
    The irony with this OP is that the "Hotel Manager" analogy presented is not a theodicy, but a critique. A theodicy is an apologetic.
  • Banno
    27k

    The "idea that if God exists, he must operate like a benevolent manager of human well-being" is not something to which folk outside of the theistic tradition might be committed. It's the faithful who understand god as caring for their needs. So yes, one could see the rejection of the hotel manager ads a rejection of theodicy.

    One has the impression of watching slowly returning to the Catholicism of his childhood - if I recall correctly.
123459
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.

×
We use cookies and similar methods to recognize visitors and remember their preferences.