Mouseworld -- One
We continue to wonder why bad things happen to nice people, and for serious-minded folks, this wondering might translate to, what kind of God permits evil? The quick answer might be, the God we've got, because it certainly does appear that if there is a God, she's decided to let bad things happen to nice people. The far-right religionist might counter by explaining that there's no such thing as a completely nice person and that God has chosen to make an example of the marginally nice just to show what she meant by those ten commandments (or to show what a piss ant she can be ... on occasion).
Questions of this sort have come up here before -- or maybe it was over on Miss Fairhope's blog. In any case, the answers we got were nowhere near satisfactory. Which is not surprising since there's never going to be a totally satisfying explanation of why God would permit such things as World War I, typhus, and crop failures, not to mention the particular bad thing that popped into your mind when the question was asked. We've been trained, conditioned, or whipped into believing that for God to really be God she has to be on the lookout for the human race. It ought to be fairly clear that the question of why God permits evil would not come up if we had not been taught to think we're "the creator's pets." We still might wonder why bad stuff happens, but we wouldn't have the option of thinking that God had fallen down on the job. Maybe then we'd have a better chance of finding the real causes of evil.
Now, the key word here is "causes." Once we catch on that everything that happens has a cause we could begin to see things more rationally. We'd perhaps, first, modify our idea of what God is. Instead of thinking of her as a potentate or king or ruler of any kind, we might start thinking of her as the ultimate understanding of everything that is. Which is not to say that it is humanly possible to understand everything, but that there really is an intelligibility to everything, and that if God had a mind like ours it would contain a complete understanding of that intelligibility.
But for anything to be intelligible there must be some sort of regularity to it. That is, it must obey something like what we call the laws of nature, especially the law that demands that every effect have an intelligible cause. You can see that if that law were not true, there could never be said to be anything understandable, not even to God. She might understand a thing today, but if there were no assurance that the same causes would produce the same effects tomorrow then it wouldn't be right to say that God -- or anyone -- understands anything. If nature were truly random, then the claim that the universe is intelligible would be a lie.
Follow that trail just a little ways and you see that the way to understand why evil things happen is to seek to understand the causes that led them to happen. Take the case of a good man's dying of what might be a curable disease. Let's say he received treatment from a public health clinic and because the clinic made a wrong diagnosis or administered an ineffective medication, the man died. Well, why would God have permitted that to happen? Why didn't God make the doctors smarter? Well, it's obvious that by blaming God we're looking in an altogether wrong direction. We ought to be asking questions of the doctors themselves, or of the schools that trained them, or perhaps of the state that may not have provided enough funds to hire well-trained doctors. Looking in those directions, we might eventually come up with an explanation for why the bad thing happened to the man. We might find an intelligible series of causes and effects that led to the bad thing's happening.
In the process of examining this series of causes and effects we might get an insight into the nature of evil. We might see that in addition to the series of positive causes that led to the man's death -- bad diagnosis, wrong medication, improper funding -- there was also a series of negative causes, things not done. Because I started this by saying the man died of a curable disease, it's clear that he was killed by a series of bad choices. A cure existed but it was overlooked. The people involved in any of the three series of suggested causes may indeed have done something positive (but deadly), but at the same time they failed to do another positive (and therapeutic) right thing.
Now this may seem so obvious that one may wonder why I even chose to write it. But backing off from the view of the situation as a medical question, and taking a look at it as a theological question, we see that in addressing evil just this way we have answered one of the most basic questions theologians have had to deal with. If God is all powerful, if God is the creator of all that is, then (as we have asked above) why does God permit evil? How do we equate an all-powerful God with the fact of evil?
By regarding evil as the effect of a failure to do the right thing, we have removed God from the chain of causes and effects that have led to evil things happening. It was not God who failed. It was us. For some reason -- which is bound to be ultimately intelligible -- we have failed to do something we might have done to avoid evil. The responsibility for evil rests squarely on human shoulders. Speaking positively, we see that there's a strong connection between the things we do and the things that happen to us. But speaking negatively, we see that there's an even stronger connection between the things we did not do and the things that happen to us. When we act at our best, we act positively on the basis of what we know to be the right thing to do, but in many, many cases, our best is not good enough. And it is not merely that we do not know the right thing, but that we think we do know the right thing.
But there is hope in this way of viewing God -- especially the all-knowing contents of her mind. If there exists an ultimate intelligibility, and if we identify that existence with the abstraction we have named "God," then it follows that the purpose of our religious commitment ought and must be to seek to know what God knows. The Jesuit philosopher/theologian Bernard Lonergan spoke eloquently (and exhaustively) of this commitment to God in his masterpiece, Insight. He found that not only does the intelligibility I spoke of exist but that humankind appears to be consciously self-compelled, by what he called an unrestricted desire to know, to seek God, that is to seek the same understanding of reality that exists in God's mind. He makes the claim that we are religious by nature, and that the object of our religious persuasion is to learn the will of God.
This seems a neat place to end this first excursion into "Mouseworld." Perhaps the spirit will move tomorrow upon the Mouse's watery brain and lead him to make a further statement about the transcendent nature of the human soul.
[Hmmm. You say you didn't think that's what I was talking about? Well, surely you didn't think God was dictating this stuff.]
Questions of this sort have come up here before -- or maybe it was over on Miss Fairhope's blog. In any case, the answers we got were nowhere near satisfactory. Which is not surprising since there's never going to be a totally satisfying explanation of why God would permit such things as World War I, typhus, and crop failures, not to mention the particular bad thing that popped into your mind when the question was asked. We've been trained, conditioned, or whipped into believing that for God to really be God she has to be on the lookout for the human race. It ought to be fairly clear that the question of why God permits evil would not come up if we had not been taught to think we're "the creator's pets." We still might wonder why bad stuff happens, but we wouldn't have the option of thinking that God had fallen down on the job. Maybe then we'd have a better chance of finding the real causes of evil.
Now, the key word here is "causes." Once we catch on that everything that happens has a cause we could begin to see things more rationally. We'd perhaps, first, modify our idea of what God is. Instead of thinking of her as a potentate or king or ruler of any kind, we might start thinking of her as the ultimate understanding of everything that is. Which is not to say that it is humanly possible to understand everything, but that there really is an intelligibility to everything, and that if God had a mind like ours it would contain a complete understanding of that intelligibility.
But for anything to be intelligible there must be some sort of regularity to it. That is, it must obey something like what we call the laws of nature, especially the law that demands that every effect have an intelligible cause. You can see that if that law were not true, there could never be said to be anything understandable, not even to God. She might understand a thing today, but if there were no assurance that the same causes would produce the same effects tomorrow then it wouldn't be right to say that God -- or anyone -- understands anything. If nature were truly random, then the claim that the universe is intelligible would be a lie.
Follow that trail just a little ways and you see that the way to understand why evil things happen is to seek to understand the causes that led them to happen. Take the case of a good man's dying of what might be a curable disease. Let's say he received treatment from a public health clinic and because the clinic made a wrong diagnosis or administered an ineffective medication, the man died. Well, why would God have permitted that to happen? Why didn't God make the doctors smarter? Well, it's obvious that by blaming God we're looking in an altogether wrong direction. We ought to be asking questions of the doctors themselves, or of the schools that trained them, or perhaps of the state that may not have provided enough funds to hire well-trained doctors. Looking in those directions, we might eventually come up with an explanation for why the bad thing happened to the man. We might find an intelligible series of causes and effects that led to the bad thing's happening.
In the process of examining this series of causes and effects we might get an insight into the nature of evil. We might see that in addition to the series of positive causes that led to the man's death -- bad diagnosis, wrong medication, improper funding -- there was also a series of negative causes, things not done. Because I started this by saying the man died of a curable disease, it's clear that he was killed by a series of bad choices. A cure existed but it was overlooked. The people involved in any of the three series of suggested causes may indeed have done something positive (but deadly), but at the same time they failed to do another positive (and therapeutic) right thing.
Now this may seem so obvious that one may wonder why I even chose to write it. But backing off from the view of the situation as a medical question, and taking a look at it as a theological question, we see that in addressing evil just this way we have answered one of the most basic questions theologians have had to deal with. If God is all powerful, if God is the creator of all that is, then (as we have asked above) why does God permit evil? How do we equate an all-powerful God with the fact of evil?
By regarding evil as the effect of a failure to do the right thing, we have removed God from the chain of causes and effects that have led to evil things happening. It was not God who failed. It was us. For some reason -- which is bound to be ultimately intelligible -- we have failed to do something we might have done to avoid evil. The responsibility for evil rests squarely on human shoulders. Speaking positively, we see that there's a strong connection between the things we do and the things that happen to us. But speaking negatively, we see that there's an even stronger connection between the things we did not do and the things that happen to us. When we act at our best, we act positively on the basis of what we know to be the right thing to do, but in many, many cases, our best is not good enough. And it is not merely that we do not know the right thing, but that we think we do know the right thing.
But there is hope in this way of viewing God -- especially the all-knowing contents of her mind. If there exists an ultimate intelligibility, and if we identify that existence with the abstraction we have named "God," then it follows that the purpose of our religious commitment ought and must be to seek to know what God knows. The Jesuit philosopher/theologian Bernard Lonergan spoke eloquently (and exhaustively) of this commitment to God in his masterpiece, Insight. He found that not only does the intelligibility I spoke of exist but that humankind appears to be consciously self-compelled, by what he called an unrestricted desire to know, to seek God, that is to seek the same understanding of reality that exists in God's mind. He makes the claim that we are religious by nature, and that the object of our religious persuasion is to learn the will of God.
This seems a neat place to end this first excursion into "Mouseworld." Perhaps the spirit will move tomorrow upon the Mouse's watery brain and lead him to make a further statement about the transcendent nature of the human soul.
[Hmmm. You say you didn't think that's what I was talking about? Well, surely you didn't think God was dictating this stuff.]
posted by Benedict S. at 2:08 PM
15 Comments:
Why does God permit evil? is a question that can’t be answered by looking solely at the leaves and twigs of the tree, nor at the tree itself; is it answered by rising above the forest.
To begin with, God permits everything on this free will earth plane, including evil, which, by the way, is a topic of great confusion among humans. Without getting into the myriad of examples espoused by religionists and their followers, let it suffice to say that it is the opposite of “good”…whatever that is. It is my personal contention, however, that there is no such thing as evil, or an evil force. Is make more sense in my oafish mind that evil is simply the absence of “good”…whatever that is. To grasp that simple notion, you only have to consider that there is no such thing as darkness, which in reality is a condition without light. Understood in those terms, evil is a condition without “good”. Too, the condition comes in degrees, so we have to be careful when referring to something as ‘really’ evil or ‘really’ good, for in reality it may only be a ‘little’ evil or a ‘little’ good, depending, of course, on your philosophical perspective, and if you personally are affected.
It seems to me that the salient theme of this blog is not so much one about evil, but, as the first sentence asks, Why do bad things happen to nice people?, a question that arises every time there is a disaster, natural or man made, and thousands of “innocent” victims suffer. There could be many answers. The easiest one to throw out is just plain bad luck. For many of us who believe that, despite that awesomely wonderful organization that keeps the Cosmos together, randomness is an element that comes into play, although some advocate it comes under organized chaos- That in itself appears paradoxical, then there are a lot of paradoxes we deal with. Why did Joe Blow get struck by lightening, those standing next to him didn’t? Why did María Gomez win the lottery and Elmer Clodhopper didn’t, and both used the “Quick Pick method of choosing their numbers? I would attribute it to the randomness, organized or not, of the Cosmos.
It gets more complicated when we try to answer the question from a religious point of view. We could argue that these adversely affected people were, in reality, not ‘nice’ people, and they got their due in God’s playing out of justice.
Well, that makes some sense for some cases, but what about those truly ‘nice’ people that did indeed get whacked. Now we have to ratchet up a bit more the religious or esoteric element. We might offer up the notion that these people’s lives had run their courses, so it was time for them to depart. Such a notion takes us high above the forest.
So, people’s lives have plotted courses? For some, it couldn’t be imagined any other way. For others, still harnessed by certain religious beliefs, say, “Oh no, that couldn’t be, for it is we here on Earth who determines how long we live by what we eat, what we do, and how we think.” Reality doesn’t support such a hypothesis, notwithstanding that insurance actuary tables tend to.
Out there in the really rarified air of non-traditional thinking, we find what are called “soul contracts”. There are arrangements made by your soul for its upcoming incarnation on the earth plane, arrangements for deciding as to which gender you will be, maybe as a homosexual, whether race will be your curse or blessing, your parents, where you will come into this world, where you will spend your time, and of course, your mission. One’s mission is not measured by the length of it, as indicated by the young dying, but what is to be accomplished.
Before you traditional thinkers go into a tizzy about what I just said, remember I prefaced it by saying it was rarified air, so if you are not prepared to put on your oxygen masks to explore it, don’t worry about it; the system works perfectly well without your acceptance or that of atheist’s. I am not saying that there are “soul contracts”, for I simply don’t know. But that concept sure answers a lot of questions that we humans are grappling with, especially when no “makes sense” answers seem to be coming forth out of the traditional answer boxes for tough questions, like Why do bad things happen to nice people?
The idea of “soul contracts” sucks? No problem, give me a better one, and I’ll sign aboard.
The apparent randomness of events can be explained by an extention of the "leafs and twigs" image. Trees grow in many different directions, and there are many different trees, but each leaf and twig emerges from an intelligble series of causes and effects. But the branch that is in Gulfport, Mississippi, we'll say, may never connect to the branch in the fifth precinct of New Orleans. But people from those different branches of causality may be affected by the same catastrophic event. The fact that they were all harmed, while billions of others were not, may seem random, but examined closely, we will find an intelligible reason for every one of the effects. (And I wager it has nothing to do with the morality of either bunch.)
Turned on its head, though, and viewed from the POV of the individuals involved, that the hurricane happened to them, and not to someone else, may seem "random." They may resort to wondering, "Why me?" when the answer is obvious: (to paraphrase a line from The Godfather) "Nothing personal, just (nature's) business as usual."
Likewise, the lottery balls whirling around in the randomizer machine may seem to be moving in a chaotic fashion, but of course, they are not. They are, however, moving so swiftly that even if we were aware of the physical forces at work in the machine, we would be unable to predict the outcome. This is what might be called "latent intelligibility." It's there. It just cannot be measured.
Now, substitute for the 56 lottery balls the six billion human beings, and you can see why the human condition is the fucked up thing it seems to be. There are too many causes at work simultaneously for any possible prediction. Hence, the need for laws to impose a semblance of order upon us...and religion and other informal social forces to fill in the gaps not treated by the law.
I didn't understand the "soul contracts" thing.
The soul contracts thing is a reincarnation thing. I suspect that the collective consciousness of humanity believes on some level in reincarnation -- it's just too much a part of easy conversation to assume that everybody accepts it as no more than myth. They accept it, therefore they believe it, usually more literally than any other aspect of formal religion. "In another life I was...." whatever. We don't even discuss it. We actually believe it.
Not sure if I do or not. What I don't believe is that there is a guy out there doling stuff out to deserving folks. All this explanation of why bad things happen is not religion to me. That bad things happen is a part of life. Religion, or faith, or even reincarnation, is in another realm altogether. That is to say, it is not meant to be known.
Officious Oaf , I couldn't agree more with your view on good and evil.In fact God has nothing to do what-so-ever with bad things happening.Like benedict, I believe in the cause and effect senerio, if we build our houses in a flood plain then we are apt to be flooded by torrential rains.
For that matter...
Why do bad things happen to bad people?
Why do good things happen to bad people?
Why do good things happen to good people?
Why do things happen?
To have a body and an ego is to be subject to pain and pleasure, joy and suffering. That's all there is to it. There's no need for all this
strained conjecture.
Reincarnation makes much sense, if we choose this life then we are responsible for our own actions do to cause and effect.There are no good people. There are no bad people. There are skilled
actions and unskilled ones.
Things are neither good nor bad. There are welcome things and unwelcome ones.
To those who develop the skill of welcoming whatever happens, no event
is unwelcome.
And another thing, Robin. The mouse has stated as (I suppose) an example of a "bad" thing is that a man dies. If reincarnation is a part of the whole design, then death is just a transition to another plane.
When a person dies, it is "bad" only to the people left alive.
Wow. To me, death is about as bad as bad can get. But I guess, Miss FF, you're right. As my fictitious cousin Harold might say it, "Death don't matter a hill a' shit to them what's in the dreamless sleep of death." [Poetic ain't he?]
miss ff, I don't see death as being bad or good, but natural.If mouse truely believes in cause and effect then he should see that..We are born, we die. Of course nobody wants to die, fear of the unknown...You are right, death is only bad to those that are left behind but we can view it in three ways, either the one that's died is having one good time on another plane of existence, he or she is burning in hell or he or she knows nothing, like before we were born, we knew nothing.
Mr. Mouse- and others- the idea of “soul contracts” makes lot of sense, if you buy into certain premises, and that is where the rub lies for some, for many. Let’s see if I can outline a few…
• The soul is individualized and eternal.
• It is on a journey back to the Godhead.
• The why of the journey doesn’t matter for this exercise.
• Just as what the characteristics of the soul are and from whence did it come are incidental to the contract making process.
• The soul knows where it is on its journey, and also knows what it needs to learn, i.e., experience in order to advance on its journey and eventually make it to the Godhead. Imagine a point system; earning enough points at one stage allows you move on to the next.
• Earning certain points can only be done on the lower Earth plane through incarnation.
• There are other kinds of points to be earned on other planes and that too is incidental for this exercise.
• In its non-material state on another plane, and given that earthly points are needed, which can only be earned through an incarnation, the soul reviews its journey so far, and, in preparation for an incarnation, decides what learned lessons are lacking in the earth plane, in other words, earning the enough points in order to continue the journey on another plane.
• The Soul Contract- The earthly existence comes in all sorts of conditions from what gender, race, physical size, health, good and bad, talents, when, where, and economic wherewithal. It is from that menu of mixes that the soul chooses what is most likely to provide the lessons to be learned. Once the mission -what is to be accomplished- and conditions under which to do it are decided, a contract is entered into. Between whom? Between the soul, as the entity needing and earnestly committed to completing the mission, and the Cosmos, as guarantor of the conditions. There is a hesitancy to use the word God because that might imply that It cares about any loopholes that might in the contract or who is the signatory on the other side of the page. Let the “System” worry about the details.
• The soul knows before hand that there is no guarantee that the mission will be accomplished, but it is assured that the conditions will be there to do it. If you can’t trust the Cosmos to keep its part of the bargain, then who can you trust?
• This lack of guarantee comes from the fact that the soul enters the earthly realm with full knowledge that it will be torn between doing what is necessary to accomplish it mission, and what “feels good” to its earthly body or its individualized ego. Endowed with a free will or burdened with, as the case may be, the soul is free to choose what its actions are during this earthly portion of the “Big” journey.
• The soul can fall short of completing its mission –didn’t get enough points- which is the most likely outcome or it can intentionally renege on it contract, and nothing major happens, especially in the timeless and space-less realms where souls normally wander. Still needing those points, it is simply back to review time for the soul and the making of a new contract. Not exactly the same as the one before, for some things were learned, some points picked up.
Mr. Mouse and others, does that make the notion of a soul contract any clearer? If it sounds like a reincarnation scheme, well it is; the old adage of try and try again until you get it right. Viewed that way, it doesn’t seem to be so outlandish; viewed through the lens of traditional beliefs, it is nonsense of the first order. I’ll let you choose which it is. You do have free will and a mind, don’t you? In case you are wondering where I got the information, I found it in the trash can in the recreation room of the mental hospital where I was…
Mental hospital? Is that where good philosophers convene?
Look, either you buy it or you don't, oaf. I say this soul contract thing is a little hard to swallow, but deserves some contemplation. It's just all a little specific for me -- requires, as we say in the theatre, a suspension of disbelief. I believe it is a possibility, but where do those specifics come from, and why does it matter what an individual accepts? We can't possibly know these details about the journey to the Godhead and the "points" we make on this leg of the journey. The struggle between where our soul "knows" it must go on this round and where its earthly incarnation "wants" to go is artificial and cannot be ascertained. God's will is the fuel, and the journey is meant to be mysterious.
If it feels good, try it. Your commitment will come in time, whether or not there is a contract signed by either side. All this business talk is out of place in the discussion.
Kind lady from Fairhope, when it comes to sincerely wanting to know the truth about something, one has to be willing to explore concepts that are not of a traditionally accepted nature. That, of course, means, as you pointed out, a suspension of disbelief, i.e., setting aside traditional mind sets (paradigms) and experiment with others. Since there is comfort in accustomed-to paradigms, like old shoes, one is somewhat reluctant to do away with them, but if you don’t, one remains limited in the search for truth. One can argue that the accustomed-to paradigm has worked for you and others, so there is no reason to switch to another, but that would be disingenuous with oneself, for it is apparent that the paradigm is not working, otherwise one would not be banging their head against the inside walls of the ‘box’ looking for answers to tough questions.
You say that “We can’t possibly know the details about the journey to the Godhead…”. If you are referring to ‘we’ as human consciousness, then I would agree to some degree. If it is ‘we’ as soul consciousness, then I wouldn’t. It is precisely that not ‘knowing’ with assuredness, yet ‘knowing’ intuitively that makes the earthly stage of the journey the lesson learning challenge that it is, the mystery, as you call it.
To explain something in terms of ‘business’ talk, as you call it, is solely to facilitate the grasping of it, therefore it does have a place in the discussion. Now, if one prefers the mumbo jumbo of impreciseness and inconsistency of traditional expressions of their box as their means to finding the answers, well, that’s their free will choice at work. Happy head banging.
Mental hospitals are great places to do research on why people are driven mad when using only traditional paradigms to search for the truth. Too, you’d be amazed at the valuable information thrown into trash cans.
Oaf: First, go read the last few paragraphs of today's blog. Than come back and answer (or answer there) this question: If you truly believe any of the constructs you're calling "soul contract," why do you believe it? It seems to me that -- take reincarnation -- if I believe something like that and someone were to ask me why I believe it, the best answer I could give them would be, "Just because." We can invent all manner of cosmologically appealing schemes, and honestly (but not responsibly) believe them. But to know something (anything) responsibly is to have followed what I outlined as Lonergan's trancendental process. First, then, what is the data you're making sense of when you might claim to believe in reincarnation? Answer (probably): "I read it somewhere, or it just came to me..." Then, what sense does that data make? "It sounds reasonable." Finally, what further questions have you asked to test the reasonableness of the sense you have made of the soul contract you have made? "Whadda ya mean? I already told you, it just makes sense." Lonergan offers several explanations for the human condition, one of which (the first he names) is "False belief." On the basis of false belief, if we're really sold on it, we can explain away almost every aspect of what's going on in the world. You know, like, God sent those airplanes to punish America for coddling liberals and homosexuals. Makes sense, doesn't it? Sure it does, to anyone who accepts the notion of divine providence.
Well, enough...Just state (to yourself) what your personal soul contract is, then follow Lonergan's advice. If you wind up satisfied then you can recommend the same soul contract to everyone knowing that you're doing the responsible thing. Otherwise ... hmmm ... time to rethink.
I'm glad you guys have all these elaborate ways to weigh your belief systems. Somebody somewhere has to have said it and proven it to your satisfaction, and then you preach your way as the truth and the light. How about the notion that we are all seeking, all our lives on this plane, and that that is simply the way it is designed to be? Why, in God's name, all these "Why's"?
Miss FF: You wrote this: "How about the notion that we are all seeking, all our lives on this plane, and that that is simply the way it is designed to be? Why, in God's name, all these 'Why's'?"
The notion that we are all seeking is a good one, and could be understood as a restatement of Lonergan's, unrestricted desire to know. And I whole-heartedly endorse the idea that our seeking is "on this plane," since we're more or less confined here. But your final question, "Why?" seems a put-down of your original assertion. Doesn't "seeking" often manifest itself as a series of why's? (I do not comment on the fact that your wondering why begins and ends with a wondering why. language has its restrictions.)
I'm certainly glad you found somebody somewhere to validate my thinking.
No, I don't think every question begins with "Why?" My "why all these why's" was intended as ironical, but that's probably covered by Lonergan as some other transcendental data process mechanism.
It is my contention that there is such a thing as evil, although admittedly true evil is rare. As for good, I don't know much about it, but I know what I like. Joke. I think it's time for a little levity here.
Yeah. Levity. (I've always wondered why Bush laughs so much.)
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