harwood@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood) (07/15/85)
Reply to a reply ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >From: sher@rochester.UUCP (David Sher) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Omnipotence, justice and suffering: a very long question. Message-ID: <10567@rochester.UUCP> Date: 14 Jul 85 07:13:08 GMT Keywords: omnipotence omniscience theology In article <1034@phs.UUCP> paul@phs.UUCP (Paul C. Dolber) writes: ... > > 4. "The fourth spurious solution, which is one of the prime glories > of Christian theology, claims in effect that suffering is a > necessary adjunct of free will.... The following questions must > be pressed. First, if God knew that man would abuse his free > will and that this would entail cancer and Auschwitz, why then > did he give man free will? Second... is there really any > connection at all between ever so much suffering and free will?" > ... >If "suffering is somehow logically necessary," then how could God >create a heaven with no suffering, but not an earth with no suffering; >why not create just heaven and no earth at all? "Would the blessed in >heaven be unable to appreciate their bliss if they could not observe the >torments of the damned?" Royce argued that "`Your sufferings are God's ... >Regards, Paul Dolber (...{decvax!mcnc or !decvax}!duke!phs!paul). From a strictly logical point of view this argument seems to require more assumptions than you have made. The existence of heaven is not necessarily true. (I come from a Jewish tradition where the above argument was made but the existence of heaven was not believed, let me state that this tradition does not correspond to the Orthodox position or possibly any of the standard positions.) Without assuming the existence of any perfect place in particular heaven is this argument still spurious? It would seem difficult to prove the world non-optimal without a complete better world model and even then the evaluation procedure can be attacked. Of course from a standard Christian viewpoint the existence of heaven is axiomatic but also all sorts of wierd things are axiomatic from a standard Christian viewpoint (oops prejudices showing!). -David Sher sher@rochester seismo!rochester!sher ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There is undeniably a dualism in scripture, reflecting the difference between "what-is" on earth, and what we believe "should-be", which we would reify "in heaven". Whether this "heaven" exists, say, in life or afterlife with God, or world-to -come, or in an extraterrestial civilization (as suggested by Augustine in The City of God), or whether it is an unrealized Ideal, the concept of "what-should-be", although disagreed upon in some respects, is presupposed by our moral judgment: we strive to "improve" our existence, as we appreciate this, even though there are disagreements about this (especially about "means"). But even if the concept of "heaven" is an unrealized Ideal, we are left with the very apparent fact of our conscience -- by which we perceive that the world is not yet as it should be. So the logical force of the present argument is not less, unless one would also deny the justification of conscience. That is, why did not God create our world, from the beginning, so that we do not conceive of its "improvement", according to our collective conscience? Why do we perceive that the world is incompletely satisfactory, if this is not by His intention, whether or not "heaven" is real? Personally, I believe that we may ambiguously identify "heaven", according to the views of John and Paul, the first Christian "theologians", in one sense, imperfectly with the individual and racial consciousness of mankind, but in another sense, perfectably with the conscious will of God. Simply, "heaven" is synonymous for what John calls "eternal life", which he defines to be life "with knowledge of God, and of Christ," understanding that "knowledge of God," for John and Paul, both "Christian mystics", is not theoretical, but spiritual, meaning "identification with God" (as revealed in the life of Christ). In this "mystical" sense, our eternal life is that of Christ. Then the problem becomes why has God created something "rather different", something capable of alienation? This reminds me of a short, very insightful book, The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis (of course), in which everyone "in hell" despises everyone else, but denies that they really belong "in hell", nevertheless when everyone, at some point, is given the choice of "heaven", nearly all prefer return to self-admitted "hell". And so, whether or not "heaven" is "really real", "hell" surely is. David Harwood