Fr Ernesto on the Theodicy Meme
15 June 2008 - 13 סיון 5768 by Huw
1. It is my assumption that God wishes to maximize the number of people saved but not at the cost of creating robots. That is, it seems to me that there are at least two imperatives at work. God wishes all to be saved. God wishes all to have free will. I suspect that there are a few more imperatives than that. For instance, it may very well also be a value for God that those people of free will who are saved also have a desire for holiness and service.
2. There is the additional problem that we would see those as competing values, which would tug at us were we to be in God’s position. However, that is indeed an anthropomorphic way of phrasing it. For, we also believe that God is the only truly integrated personality. That would be my personal updating of the medieval statement that God is “simple.” Thus, for Him, these values would not be competing values that pull and tug at him as they would at us.
3. On top of that because He is a fully integrated personality, each of those things that we would see as separate values, which added together form the “set” of our values, when applied to Him somehow express his nature in full. That is, when we speak of God and say, “God is Love,” or say, “God is Justice,” we do not mean that He is somehow partially love and partially justice. It is obvious that when we speak and say that “God is Love,” we mean that God is totally and fully Love in a way in which we cannot understand, for it is a fully integral and integrated part of his nature. The same is true when we say, “God is Justice.” And yet, these are in Him without contradiction. This is where those who enjoy saying that “God is Love,” therefore He would not do some action, are mistaken. They have picked out what is, for us, one value and separated it out from His nature while excluding that which is equally part of His nature, which is His justice, and His [fill in the blank]. He is Love / Justice / Wrath / Healing / Judge / Lord / King / Master / Shepherd / Friend as one unseparated integrated nature. This is where we hit our limits as human beings because we cannot really conceive of that in our minds.
4. At least one philosopher, Alvin Plantiga, has made an argument with which I think I agree. “This is not the best of all possible worlds, but this is the best of all possible ways to get to the best of all possible worlds.” Apparently the suffering in this world is of the type and intensity that maximizes the number of people to be saved who also will fit whatever other parameters God has. In other words, despite its apparent evil, the total level of human suffering at this time (and in the past, and in hell in the future) will be more than matched by the resulting joy of the numberless crowd from every people, tongue, tribe, and nation which will be with Him in the future. Unfortunately, this is a faith statement on my part. It is the type of statement that can neither be proved nor disproved at this point in time, though if it is correct, it will be demonstrable in the future. However, while not immediately demonstrable, it is nevertheless a philosophically sound position. I think it is also Biblically sound. But note that, like all philosophical positions, it is a human construct and derivation from Scripture, so it has some strong limits.
Fr Erenesto Obregon is an Orthodox priest in Florida.
“He is Love / Justice / Wrath / Healing / Judge / Lord / King / Master / Shepherd / Friend as one unseparated integrated nature.”
I don’t see - in our tradition (scripture, fathers, etc) - a comparing of “God is Love” with any of these other things. I do see these other things, of course, but his nature is love that tempers all these others, yes?
The way I worded it was a rather “Western” way to word it. A good number of Orthodox would say that even the phrase “God is Love,” is simply an expression of how we experience His energies. In fact, all descriptions of God, such as Justice, King, Shepherd, etc., are shorthand ways of speaking of how He works with us.
But, the totality of His being is unknowable to us. We experience a type of “overload” when we delve into the divine nature. The words used in Scripture are true, but point to the unknowable.
Having said that, I feel a kinship with the “Western” scholastic description of God as “simple,” meaning what I commented above. In the “Western” description, all the “God is. . .” statements in Scripture are of equal value, none is pre-eminent.
I feel a bit of frustration with myself in that I love philosophy, yet nowhere feel its limitations—and mine—as much as when I try to address hypothetical questions regarding God.