40. On The Sixth Impossible Thing to Believe Before Breakfast -- Theodicy

Dearly Beloved,

This is one of those letters containing one of the Alice in Wonderland White Queen's six impossible thoughts before breakfast, but we all need to think about impossible things, especially the mind numbing concept of the perfections of God.

One of the great intellectual barriers to faith in God has been the presence of evil in the world. The question is "if God is totally good and totally omnipotent why does he allow evil in the world?" Luis de Molina (1535-1600) is my favourite Theologian who is reputed to have carried around his theology books in a hessian sack. Perhaps his humbling of theology books freed him to have some good ideas about God and the nature of existence. His ideas foreshadow modern ideas about the possibilities of multiple universes and multiple worlds.

The problem is that if God is omni-benevolent, all knowing and omnipotent then his creation must necessarily be good; but since we observe that the world has much evil in it then that does not appear to be true.

How can the world we know be the product of an omni-benevolent God who is also omnipotent, and omniscient ? Is this possible? Molina presents a solution to this problem. He says that God possesses middle knowledge eternally. Middle Knowledge, (scientia media), allows God to know what will happen in all potential situations and at all times, whether such situations occur or not.

More to the point, God therefore knows timelessly of all possible worlds in which good may exist. To prevent the existence of good would be an evil act and as God is omni-benevolent he cannot commit such an act. God therefore necessarily creates all worlds in which there is good. There is good in our world so God necessarily creates our world.

The consequence is that, in a sense, so long as our world is good, God will create it despite evil being present too. Is our world good enough for us to want to live in it?

There are some other consequences of this argument too; one is that there is no perfectly good world. That is because there may be worlds in which there is only good and no evil, but in such a world people would be unable to undertake good and charitable acts to reduce the impact of evil. Therefore certain sorts of good would be absent, so therefore that world would remain imperfect too. Of course that leaves space for us humans to use our free will, which is important to our idea of being, we are after all not automatons. We can mock God and our fellows and fellowesses or we can praise God and his creation.

The arguments may seem unsatisfactory to individuals who have suffered great evil. They might reasonably ask "why does God not intervene to make things entirely good?" The logical, but perhaps not very compassionate answer, is that such intervention may occur in another world which may be better, or not, than this one, but if it occurred in our world it would not be the same world but another of possible multiple worlds. This reply may seem unsatisfactory in the context of Christianity's conception of a personal and loving God.

The location of ultimate good is not to be found in a created universe but in the mind of God where all possible forms of good are known and from where all may be realised.

Perhaps that is why the contemplative spends the hours in attentive contemplation of the ultimate good and why such contemplation has often been regarded as the ultimate reward for the virtuous in heaven but also on Earth. Also, when we are together in prayer Christ promised “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” Matthew 18:20.

Our contemplation and prayers must also encompass the possibility of evil and its neutralisation or elimination, just as those in monastic communities read and listen to the news day by day and enter into the world of those suffering hardship when they pray for them, for example using the form "For these let us pray to the Lord".

There is nothing new under the Sun but little of it is easy to discern.

Peace,

Paul.

Completed 14th November 2020

 Photo: Paul Munton.
The River Dart, Devon in late Autumn.



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