Theodicy, Armstrongism and Performance Christianity: The Attempts to Figure Out the Puzzle of Evil

 

I Don’t Like Puzzles

Theodicy, Armstrongism and Performance Christianity

The Attempts to Figure Out the Puzzle of Evil

By Scout

“But who indeed are you, a human, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?”  Romans 9:20, NRSV

Some parts of Christianity I have thought a lot about.  Other parts, not so much.  This is mostly a matter of interest but sometimes it can be a matter of perplexity.  I am bothered by theodicy.  I do not believe that Christianity has made much of this important, nay critical, part of Christian doctrine. And I think Armstrongism is similar to other denominations on this topic but not worse. 

Theodicy is a study of why there is a good and perfect God yet an evil world.  For me, this topic has been the elephant in the room I didn’t want to talk about.  Because I had no answers and I mostly found the answers of others to be inadequate.  In Christian theology, theodicy has a forensic flare.  Theologians seek to justify God, as if he is being sued in court, for the existence of an evil world.  So they come up with various justifying arguments.  Mankind holds the same perspective as Job – God needs justification.  What binds all these arguments together is the perpetually troublesome concept of anthropomorphism.  Armstrongism, strong in anthropomorphism, of course, is in the fray.  So, I don’t have an answer for this, but I do have a viewpoint.  Let me give you my line of reasoning.

A Theodicy Sampler

If God is perfectly good, why is this world a vortex of evil?  A number of attempts have been made to unravel this perplexing issue.  David Bentley Hart has asserted that God has nothing to do with evil.  Rather, Thrones, Principalities and Powers are the source of evil in the Cosmos.  (I am never sure if I actually understand what Hart writes.)  My opposing view is that all sentient beings, whether good or evil, operate under the license of God.  Nobody can exercise any level of free will without permission from God either implicitly or explicitly. 

Another view is that God is engaged in soul-making.  The world is a boot camp and we are all being put through the exercises that will produce the good character that will serve us and others throughout eternity. But often the outrageous evil of this world does not build people but crushes them into uselessness.  Living on this planet is not a pleasant trip to the exercise salon to build biceps. Another problem is that not everyone is put through a prescribed regimen that is the same for all even though the ultimate purpose must be the same.  Some people have an easy ride and others ride in terror.  What’s that about?

Others believe that God defends the free will of people and this naturally results in the generation of evil.  God wants people to have the free will to choose good.  Only if good is freely chosen is it a product of good character.  Coercion doesn’t count.  If we are all Calvinist automatons, our actions are empty of genuine heart except once in a while as a matter of coincidence.  So, if humans are accorded free will, they may produce both good and evil.  You can’t let people do what they want to do and learn from it unless there is the potential for them to screw up.  And we have screwed up widely.

Yet, others believe that God is a Cosmic Accountant who offsets debits against credits.  He assures that if an evil is committed it is matched to some good that accrues. And because the books will be balanced in the Eschaton, all is well that ends well.  The problem with this is that it connects good to evil as if evil is a necessary principle in the Creation. Evil has a necessary place at the table which denies the perfection of a loving God.

Then there are those that reject typical beliefs about God and evil.  Often cited is the character Ivan in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov.  Ivan accepts the idea of God.  He even believes that one day evil could yield some kind of a good outcome.  He just does not believe that any outcome is worth the horror of a tortured and murdered child.  It is a cost/benefit problem.  There is no benefit that makes the cost acceptable.

I am not familiar with all conjectures concerning theodicy.  But of the ones I have examined, including the Armstrongist view which I will turn to later, seem to be burdened to the point of collapse with anthropomorphism.  They assume that God is a human-like being, who thinks like a human, acts like a human and who, like a human, must be defended in the court of theology for permitting evil where it should not be.  I believe this viewpoint is in error. 

After reviewing and seeing the flaws in a number of theodicies, maybe theologians are barking up the wrong tree.  Maybe this is something that nobody is going to figure out this side of the Parousia.  Like dark matter in the Cosmos.

The Reasonableness of not Knowing

We know God by analogy and anthropomorphism is just one big analogy.  God is described in human terms, mostly, in scripture because that makes him understandable to humans.  Some mistakenly believe that the analogy, an instructional literary device, is actually God’s essence and this leads them to believe in a limited, human-like God.  For some, the limitation of God is useful in that it makes the idiosyncratic idea that humankind’s destiny to become God-as-God-is-God much more plausible. 

Analogy is very useful if it is understood to be analogy. It is the principal means we have of understanding God.  But the clarity is lost if we believe that analogy is essence.  God is absolute and we are relative.  Yet, analogy works because we are made in his image (not his essence).  Everything in the created, relative realm is an analogy of the Divine realm. Even wording that seems technically precise is really anthropomorphic.  To say God is all-powerful is to take the limited human concept of power and escalate it far beyond human experience.  Though this is an ardent sublimation, the meaning still remains rooted in humanness.  It is just much larger on the relative human scale ― a scale that does not pertain to God at all because he is absolute and not relative.  

The point is that we as relative beings will still be relative beings when we are resurrected.  We are relative because as created beings we are contingent on the Creator who prescribes limits for us. God, on the other hand, is uncreated and unlimited.  Hence, God transcends us and we will never know God in the fullness of his essence. Isiah 55 says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways."  Our understanding of the absolute God is naturally apophatic.  We can characterize the relative through analogy but our metaphors for the absolute are spare.  

So, what does this apophatic view mean for developing theodicy?  It means that we cannot develop a theodicy.  God transcends us.  He is of a different category that we are.  It is presumptuous to believe that we can justify God.  And this justification is the driver behind the formulation of theodicies. We cannot even understand his plans, purposes and principles beyond what he has revealed to us in our limited and contingent condition.  

Carefully note that I am not asserting that there is no theodicy.  I am agreeing with the idea developed by some theologians that the true theodicy is in the divine realm and it transcends our understanding.   God does not act without purpose; it is just that we do not understand his purposes.  We enjoy a scaled down understanding, dependent on analogy, but in theodicy we bump up against its limits. I had an Armstrongist commenter on this blog once say that if we can’t understand God, what is then the value of being a Christian.  There is a difference between having and exhaustive understanding and having a working understanding.  We have the latter.

The Armstrongist View – Maybe

This must be conjectural.  I searched one of the online archives of Armstrongist literature and the word “theodicy” was not found by the search engine. So, I will rely on my 30 years of experience as a one-time Armstrongist.  It is safe to say that Armstrongists believe that people have free will and can do either evil or good.  Otherwise, the Armstrongist view aligns mostly closely with soul-making.  God is producing righteous character in his followers and the potential for evil is a tool in this process.  People must learn that evil is destructive and they must not follow evil. 

Earlier, I mentioned some of the flaws with the idea of soul-making.  Theologian Robert Fortuin expands this further.  He points out that soul-making treats atrocities as if they were useful lessons, like classroom exercises.  In my mind this flaw belittles the empathy of God for humanity.  Another flaw he identifies is the mistaken belief that we can actually understand the logical connection between human suffering and divine purpose.  Instead, this is a mystery to us with our limited capabilities.  Further, it makes evil a useful constructive tool instead of a parasitic tragedy on human existence.  So, the idea that evil exists so we can all develop character fails.

Conclusion

My belief that God’s intents are far beyond our ability to understand when it comes to evil in our world has a name.  I have seen it termed Apophatic Non-theodicy. It sounds like a denial and it is.  The denial is inescapable.  And the reason why theologians cannot come up with a cogent, credible theodicy is not a problem of persuasive logic in the justification of God but a problem of the doctrine of God.  We, Christians and Armstrongists, have the doctrine of God wrong.   God is absolute and we cannot apply our relative categories to him.  We find ourselves in a place of humility.  Like it says in Job 40, “Then Job answered the Lord: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.” If someone asks me why the kid in our neighborhood, who everyone agrees was a great kid, got runover and killed in the street, I will say, “I don’t know.”