This January this blog takes another swing at the the nature of evil and attempts to get some answers, in conjunction with a class full of bright students at MMC. When and where should we use this term, if ever? What are some of the different ways evil has been conceptualized, by philosophers, and within public/political/popular discourse?
Let's start this week with another fundamental question, one that's initiated by the Book of Job and carries through the philosophical/religious tradition in the West, all the way up to the present day: Is the presence of grievous suffering in the world ("seemingly unwarranted suffering," as I like to call it) compatible with belief in a monotheistic God?
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ReplyDeleteI know that it's not easy to see, but I think that all suffering is subjective (even the HIV torn regions of Malawi have a strong social network and the people there seem much happier than the people in Manhattan). If you choose to believe in God, I think that people's faith gets shaken when they witness unwarranted suffering and then ascribe human characteristics to God.
ReplyDeleteWhen people are suffering in the world, they look to God for answers, and his prayers. Therefore, when Job tries to understand human suffering and the ways of God, God then appears and teaches Job that we as human beings must endure the troubles that we are given because it is the will of God.
ReplyDelete- Natasha Moctezuma
Might be a little off track but,I think that this concept could be compatable specifically in the Christian spectrum. In the New Testament it talks about how Jesus, despite being sinless, was ridiculed, made to experience unwarranted suffering and eventually die. And I think that there is this belief (speaking from a Southern Baptist perspective) that people who subscribe the the Christian God, must also suffer, like Jesus had to suffer.
ReplyDeleteIn a sense that all the suffering a person can experience can be kept in check in comparision the the immense suffering that Jesus endured. As if "your suffering is nothing compared to what Jesus had to go through" kind of thing. People must suffer for Jesus suffer.
One can argue that suffering in the world can be the result of God teaching you a lesson, or the common answer " The good Lord works in mysterious ways". But then you must go back to the example of the two year old with leukemia. What lesson is that teaching? Bad things always seem to happen to seemingly good people. There really is no answer to this question, but rather what each individual chooses to believe. I choose to believe that everything happens for a reason, and the reason may not be evident at the moment, but one day it will hopefully make sense.
ReplyDeleteThese are nice comments, eloquently stated. But the problem I see in thinking about suffering as an exclusively subjective phenomenon (i.e., it's relative to the individual and what the individual makes of it) is the tendency to go from there to relativism, and thus to complacency. In other words, if someone undergoes serious suffering, we might be led to say, "Gosh, that's horrible, but I don't know what it means for that person to suffer, and how they respond is up to them." Kind of absolves me/us of responsibility to help, identify with, lament, or judge the perpetrators, maybe?
ReplyDeleteBut let me know if I'm wrong...
That last sentence should probably read: "Kind of absolves me/us of the responsibility to help, identify with, or lament the state of the victim, or judge the perpetrators, maybe?"
ReplyDeleteI don't really believe in god and one of my reasons is this. I don't think there would be as much suffering in this world if there actually was a god. If he is there, why would he not end all the suffering. It is very interesting to me though, when people who are very religious are suffering, they turn to god even more and believe in him even stronger than before.
ReplyDeleteI agree and disagree with the statement you made, "Kind of absolves me/us of the responsiblity to help, identify with, or lament the state of the victim, or judge the perpetrators." I agree with your statement because we can't always understand or relate to what a person is going through or has experienced. However, we can always try to. When Katrina happened, it was hard for the rest of the world to relate or even feel like it was our responsibilty to help the victims. However, most people pulled together to send help in any way they could. People volunterred their time to help rebuild New Orleans. Other people made generous donations with money, food, clothing, etc to aid the victims. So, while most people could not relate, as a community the majoirty of people felt it necessary to help others. The most important thing is to try to relate, or as cliche as it is "put yourself in their shoes." This provides insight and a glimpse into what these other people are going through, and then one might realize how they would want others to respond if they were placed in this situation. It all comes down to not just seeing the world from an egocentric perspective.
ReplyDelete-Ryan LoRusso
I think that when people suffer, they tend to ask the questions like why do they have to suffer? or why did this have to happen? Suffering, to me, is something that everybody goes through, whether they like it or not, of course to different degrees, but I also think that a lot of people come up with the answer of God to try to understand why they have to endure such pain. "God works in mysterious ways" "God has a bigger plan for us" These statements may help people cope with the problems that they go through, but I think that another question people could be asking is, "How can we pull ourselves back up?" or "What can we do to prevent this from happening again?" In other words, instead of leaving it up to a higher force that we do not understand, we, can take control of our situations. I agree with the "putting yourself in another person's shoes" idea. In the Katrina example, there were many people who were affected by this and as a result, people came together to try to help one another. In regards to what Ryan said, working together to try to fix problems and suffering is probably what God would want us to do anyways because it involves us making an effort to attain the greater good.
ReplyDelete- Vanessa Norkus
For me, suffering need not be incompatible with monotheism. Problems arise only when we then move forward and suggest that our one God is also 1) benevolent (or omni-benevolent) and 2) actively involved in the maintenance of the cosmos.
ReplyDeleteI read a fantastic quote by the contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer yesterday: "It is perhaps possible that gods exist who have no relationship with humans." However, perhaps it is only after the ghastly sufferings of the twentieth century that we even conceive of such uncaring gods.
"Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind."
ReplyDelete- Aristotle
In response to BH, Ryan, and Natasha-I understand the problem that BH sees with subective suffering, like if there is a whole village who has a generation that is missing an entire generation because of HIV/AIDS, yet they are happy (by happiness, I mean strong community, laughing, comming together to greive, help eachother out) this may bee seen by others as a reason not to help. However, I think that to avoid microscopic and thus problematic views of suffering is necessary. We (as a planet) need to realize that the suffering of a orphan 10,000 miles away or a kid with lekemia is not an event that we should see as "lucky that we ahve avoided" or "gee, I'm glad that's not happing to me". It IS happening to all of us, all the time. Maybe they point of suffering is to remind us that we are all in this together.
ReplyDelete"I am because we are."-Malawi proverb
-nicole luna
The way I see it is that we wouldn't have happiness without suffering. The suffering and pain are what remind us of the value we place on the good. Without the comparison good would be meaningless and the same goes for bad. I don't know how suffering of the innocent can be justified because we are such emotional beings, but at least it can serve a purpose to those not suffering. That purpose being a reminder and/or a cry for help and proof that our understanding of good and bad is subjective.
ReplyDeleteMy response goes along with Christina. Without good AND bad, we cannot value and/or reap the rewards of the good. The sense of good is lost and therefore unseen. However, I, in my personal religious studies, cannot fathom the purpose of God allowing so many people to suffer in an event such as a genocide. I completely agree that man must experience pain and suffering in order to prevail and to make him who he is, but this all vanishes when it comes to the point of an event such as Rwanda, The Holocaust, or even the natural occurrence such as the event in Haiti that just took place. I really cannot wrap my mind around this idea, and it makes me question a lot of things. I guess we must have balance in our world, and that is truly the key. I find this even in my own life, that balance is the most important thing, and I guess God believes this too. Therefore we can say, "We must have the colors black and white in order to see all shades of gray".
ReplyDelete-Kathleen Voss
Balance definitely is what our society was based off of. Even to a a greater extent God teaches us wisdom by giving us good and bad things in our lives. And learning that discernment we learn wisdom.
ReplyDeleteThis may be off topic, but it talks about the Book of Job in it and I thought you guys might find it interesting.
ReplyDeletehttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2528412371399195162&ei=EdNbS6u5FpmYqwKyns2hCg&q=bill+gibbons+dinosaur&hl=en#
if the link doesnt work you can look for "bill gibbons dinosaur" google videos. It's a seminar given by Kent Hovind about dinosaurs and the bible.
-Vanessa Norkus
I think that this balance exists to let us know that we're in control, but of only ourselves. With things like natural disasters, disease any sort of "naturally existing evil" we are reminded that there is only so much we can do to protect ourselves from them. In terms of things like a Holocaust and genocides, they are reminders that we are in control of our choices. The impossible and unlawful have been written in history time and time again, proving to us that we have a certain power in our control.
ReplyDeleteAs far as evil being caused by someone, I agree that it is absolutely wrong and evil but, there is a way to see the good that comes out of it. Augustine pointed out that there is a possible good that can come out of evil; we see what is bad and therefore try to detract from it. From tragedy, togetherness can be brought. We tend to realize more important things after a tragic event has occured. We can think of this as an evil act. From something natural or from a human, we learn from it.
ReplyDeleteAfter reviewing a few points of Delattre, it is is hard to beleive that there would be such a god that would allow the tragedy of the Columbine shooting to occur. This two men that conducted this evil act were able to go into this school and kill many people and they didn't really have a plan of who they were going to kill which makes it even more horrible to think about.
ReplyDeleteThese innocent students and faculty were killed for no purpose. Even one student was asked if she beleived in god and when she said yes, Eric Harris shot her dead. Even more so, for this one victim, where was god to try to stop this?
Tragedy impacts each an everyone of us everyday. whether it with our own situation or in passing. It impacts us daily. with responding to Ryans comment about putting yourself in their shoes. whether it is natural disastors, or self inflected pain, we as human beigs need to be more compationete, the kid with lukimia could be our child, or rather the goat getting slaughtered could be us in another life. We simply put need to be more compationete towards people.
ReplyDelete