The Great Connundrum - My Solution

By now, assuming you aren't just reading this on the way to a far more interesting post, you've seen that I've attempted to take commonly held beliefs regarding the eternal question of why bad things happen to good people and shown how they really don't provide good answers that hold up the common belief that God is all powerful, all knowing, and omnipresent. Some responses, such as "God is testing you now, and you must be strong and faithful," (also heard as, "Well, the good Lord won't give you more than you can handle!") I find to be patently offensive, for they make God out to be a sadist, who piles injury and torment upon creation just to see if we're "good enough" (whatever that means). I've known people who act like that, but I refuse to believe in a God who does.

There are other responses, variations of the ones I've presented in previous posts, or altogether different ones that I've failed to mention here. As always, I'd like to hear your opinion, as this is an issue that we all must face in our lives. But given the options that I've heard, the ones I've mentioned here, the issue seems to be the same: how can God be all powerful, all knowing, and ever present, and still be all good considering the world (and our lives) are in the shape they're in?

Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, suggests that one of those three attributes has to go. Either God is not everywhere at the same time, and thus isn't around when horrible things happen; or God is not aware of what's going on, and thus bad things happen when God is not on top of things; or God is not all powerful. Kushner chooses the third, stating that God is still all good, but that God does not interfere with events in the world. Disease, accidents, war, famine and other natural disasters - God keeps a hands off policy, but provides strength to the faithful so that they may persevere through difficult times.

My thinking runs along similar lines, in that I believe that God provides the ability to persevere under very difficult circumstances. I disagree, however, with Kushner's idea of a powerless God. In my view, the problem is in how we view power. And in this, I side more with the Process Theology school of thought.

If we think of Power in terms of how God is portrayed in the Hebrew scriptures, destroying cities, drowning armies in the Red Sea, flooding the world, turning Lot's wife to salt, and so forth, then yes, God is powerless. God does not do that now, and I'm not so sure we would want God to. God does not behave, nor I believe has God ever behaved outside of the myths and legends of the cultures of the world, in that fashion. Even if one takes a literal view of the Bible, one must admit that God no longer does these things. That alone should suggest a certain degree of powerlessness. But only if we think of power in those terms.

But, if we view power as the ability to persuade events and people to move, rather than coerce them, perhaps we can get closer to a solution to theodicy. Process thought holds that God does not force the actions of anything in the universe. Rather, we are offered the opportunity to make choices and be creative with our lives. In fact, all of reality is offered that same opportunity, to be creative and exercise self-determination. God may want something to happen, say for people to love one another or for rivers not to over run their banks, but that doesn't mean that events will unfold that way. This is not because God is powerless to prevent these events, but that God has chosen the ultimate gift - freedom - for the universe and all that inhabits it. Even if events occur which are tragic, they are still born of a gift.

In my opinion, that's why things are happening the way they are, and why evil is running amok, and why the current administration is not being smited for mismanaging the war. And that's why you might have had a bad day last week - or today - for that matter. It's not God's fault, it's not necessarily your fault (though it might be), it's not even the fault of someone else (though it might be). It's just the way it is. Almost sounds like the First Noble Truth of Buddhism ("There is Suffering" although there are other translations of the word dukkha), doesn't it?

But that is a discussion for another day. If I post more, I promise it will be far less heady material!