David M: If someone asked you why God allows bad things to happen to good people, what would you say?

Alan: This question elicits some of the most amazing answers. "God doesn't exercise total control"—either because He can't, or because He chooses not to, for reasons best known only to Himself.  "Everything's really for the best—somehow."  Once in a great while you'll hear someone challenge the platitude that God is good, just, merciful, and loving—but not often.

I, personally, side with the challengers, to an extent.  Not to say that God isn't good, just, merciful, and loving, but to say that these are human concepts that we apply to God because they meet our emotional need. That's why people cling to them and invent excuses about God being something less than omnipotent and sovereign, or that everything's really for the best in some mystical way.

A God worthy of the name has a purpose for His creation, and rules it for that purpose. A God worthy of the name knows what may happen and chooses what will happen.  A God worthy of the name is not answerable to His creatures; indeed, He would waste His effort by giving us an account of Himself, because we wouldn't understand.

The point is that "bad" things happening to "good" people is our perception; it has nothing to do with God's character or purpose, which are both beyond our comprehension.

David M: Ah, but aren't we made in God's image? Didn't he instill in us the values that he has—justice, love, conscience, etc.? Many of our beliefs are based upon this premise. So I don't know if I'm convinced by the can't-understand-God theory.

Alan: Fair enough—if you believe that.  I don't, myself.  Remember, it's based on a discredited biblical myth, the creation story.  One might argue that the idea of man being created in God's image is one of the few things about that story that needn't be considered discredited, but I would want to know why.  No, I think that idea is just the reverse of man creating God in his own image, to which few in those days would have wanted to admit.

David M: All our conceptions of the Deity—and I'm talking classical Unitarian concepts—are based upon the assumption that God has given humans attributes that he himself possesses. God is love, justice, righteousness, etc. He has what we have, but to a superlative degree.  One of the reasons we reject the doctrine of hellfire is that it contradicts our view of a just God of love. It offends our conscience. Our conscience is what connects us to God. Our God is transcendent, but he is not a mystery. He is near to us and in us. So we need to have an explanation for why bad things happen to good people that coincides with our view of a just God.

Alan: Where does this assumption [that God has given humans attributes that he himself possesses] come from?  I submit that it comes from wishful thinking.

And there could be no worse reason for rejecting [the doctrine of hellfire]. To reject a belief because it offends our consciences is to dictate terms to God.

How do we know that [our conscience is what connects us to God]?  Consciences vary radically among people; they are not shaped by connection to God, but by conditioning.

You will look in vain for an explanation of the "problem of evil" that affirms a God who meets our concepts of the good, the just, the merciful, the loving, and yet who is still a God.  It's worth bearing in mind that human concepts of a good, just, loving, and merciful God are not universal; that is, different people have different criteria and definitions for these concepts. If such concepts came from God, either (1) they must be universal; or (2) perhaps a blessed few have all the right ones, and all else are in error.  I think it makes more sense to acknowledge that they are human concepts of human origin.

David M: How can we love something that we can't know or understand? For those of us who consider ourselves Christian, we have the conviction that Jesus' teachings are a reflection of Divine thinking. Jesus taught a God of love and justice. He said we should view him as we would a father.

Regarding conscience, I fully agree that it can be warped or give faulty testimony. (That's why I put a lot of emphasis on collective conscience.) But, it is one of our fundamental Unitarian convictions that God gave us conscience, a sense of right and wrong. Would he give us a sense of morality that contradicted his own? Why would he expect us to use our consciences if they could not be trusted or reflect his own way of thinking?

Keeping all this in mind, here is my explanation (though it is hardly original): God is a parent who has given us free will. Just like a human parent who agrees to allow his child to make some of his or her own decisions, God cannot countermand the choices he has allowed his children to make, even if he knows some harm may befall them. Like a human parent, he can try to persuade them to do otherwise, but ultimately the decision is up to the child. And sometimes young people foolishly get themselves in trouble. Sometimes they actually hurt someone else, someone who may not deserve to be hurt. God can discipline us afterward, but he cannot prevent it from happening without taking away the gift of free will. I like what J. F. Clarke says about this:

"The trials and sorrows of this life are a wholesome discipline, meant to unfold and strengthen the powers of the soul.  We are to learn here the difference between right and wrong, between truth and error, learn to form habits of goodness, learn to love and trust God, learn to live with our fellowmen as brethren.  To do this, we must often examine and prove ourselves, and thus find out our strength and our weakness." 

In this learning process, we can hurt ourselves and others. But we do learn, and that's the good part of the experience.

Alan: If a person develops Alzheimer's disease, one wonders how that reflects any fault or failing of their own.  If a person develops colorectal cancer, ditto.  If scores or hundreds or millions of people die in a natural disaster, or in a terrorist attack, or in a holocaust, that's pretty stern discipline. This is the true meaning of "bad things happening to good people."

Upon reflection, it occurs to me that if one wished, one could indeed believe that "everything's really for the best—somehow"—granting that God is in charge and is good, loving, just, and merciful.  The idea is that God is working for good in the ultimate sense, though it may entail some individual (or mass) suffering.  I find my interpretation more practical.

David M: You make a good point. As far as I can tell, the ONLY reason an omnipotent God of love would refrain from helping people in these sorts of straits is because it violates one of his already-established laws. So, in my opinion, God has tied his own hands. There are physical laws and personal principles that he has set in place and over which he cannot cross. I like to believe he WANTS to help (and will see to it one day that we get what we deserve), but he is restricted by his own principles.

Charles S: The Gnostics had a solution to evil. The world is full of evil and thus God could not have created the world. They believed that a part of God, some might call Satan, created the world. But God him/herself did not actually create the world. To us this sounds strange but it does offer a solution to the idea of evil. The Gnostics believed that salvation would be obtained by knowledge and learning and not necessarily by faith.

David B: I must respectfully disagree with Alan on this. God created the universe and its laws.  As part of that creation, we have free will. God does not determine what we will do.  We can exercise this freedom for good or for ill.  Thus, we have an impact on the future of the universe and are co-creators of the future of the universe. In this sense, we are created in God's image. And in this sense, God is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. If it was otherwise, the world would, in effect, be dead. God did not create a dead Universe.

Channing said: "One of the greatest of all errors, is the attempt to exalt God, by making him the sole cause, the sole agent in the universe, by denying to the creature freedom of will and moral power, by making man a mere recipient and transmitter of a foreign impulse. This, if followed out consistently, destroys all moral connexion between God and his creatures. In aiming to strengthen the physical, it ruptures the moral bond, which holds them together. To extinguish the free will is to strike the conscience with death, for both have but one and the same life. It destroys responsibility. It puts out the light of the universe; it makes the universe a machine. It freezes the fountain of our moral feelings, of all generous affection and lofty aspirations."

Whitehead and Hartshorne say the same thing in a very different way with their process theology.

Alan: We've actually had this discussion before (before Mr. Miano began posting to the list), so at this point I'll defer to President Burton; though, of course, I stand by my beliefs, I accept the fact that I seem to be alone in them.

David B: Sometimes I cannot resist getting involved in the discussions we have on this list. When I post to this list, I try to make it clear when I am speaking only for myself and when I am speaking "corporately." 

In any event, on the point relating to free will, I was speaking for myself and there is no need to "defer" to me. Although I do hope that I can persuade you, we can obviously discuss and disagree on points of theology and learn from one another and still be part of the inclusive AUC family.

Alan: To tell you the truth, I just deferred at that juncture because I didn't see any point in going around in circles.

Kurt: I have to cast my vote with Mr. Cousin on this issue.  Any human interpretation of God's love, justice, compassion, or anything else could be nothing more than anthropomorphism.  We know better than to assume that God looks like us; why would we assume that God thinks or acts like us?

In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus describes the killing of Galilean worshipers and the accidental death of 18 people when the Tower of Siloam collapsed.  Jesus is clear that those who died were no more or less righteous than others, and by implication, there is no reason to think that their deaths were anything but random.  If God "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45), why would we assume that God chooses who will live and who will die?  And one must wonder why God would have allowed Adolf Hitler to live long enough to engineer the deaths of ten million people.

Alan: Ah, thank you!  This discussion reminds me again of Isaiah 55:8-9:  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."  In context, Isaiah may have been referring to specific ways and thoughts, but I think the principle applies universally.  God is a mystery; there is just no way that we, the finite, can comprehend the infinite; that we, the temporal, can comprehend the eternal; or that we, the imperfect, can comprehend the perfect.

I think the idea that we are co-creators with God implies that God was somehow incomplete, and required a creation (with co-creators!) to complete himself (but who should that be, if he existed from eternity before creating it?); that he was muddled about his purpose for creation, and therefore required his creatures to direct it (but how should that be, if he inhabits eternity and sees the end from the beginning, because he is above and beyond and outside time as we know it, as well as within it?).

I just can't get my poor little brain around that notion of a God.

David M: Why, if I didn't know any better, I would think you two were rejecting the very foundations of Unitarianism. We certainly allow for a multitude of beliefs, and I respect yours truly, but we do have certain central tenets that tie us together, one of which is that "true religion consists in proposing, as our great end, a growing likeness to the Supreme Being" (Channing, “Likeness to God”—I suggest you reread the whole sermon—it's a great one). How can we aspire to be like God, if we don't know what God is like? Why be moral if God isn't?

As Channing says: "In ourselves are the elements of the Divinity. God, then, does not sustain a figurative resemblance to man. It is the resemblance of a parent to a child, the likeness of a kindred nature."

Alan: To me, being a Unitarian means believing in one, unitary God.  If it means anything else, perhaps I don't qualify.

Kurt: Theologians have wondered about the nature of God for centuries.  I'm glad you've cleared it all up.  Har har har.

Seriously, no one—not even Channing—could know with certainty just what God is like. So, any "growing likeness to the Supreme Being" has to be based on a great deal of assumption.  And even if we contain "elements of the Divinity," those elements are only a fraction of our total makeup.

Now, if we assume that Jesus provides a human representation of God's nature (and if we also assume that the descriptions in the Bible are reasonably accurate), we have a place to start.  But this is still a human representation.  We don't know what this looks like in non-human terms.

Alan: Let's do a sort of thought experiment (not precisely the right name for it, but it'll suffice for the moment).  I give you three scenarios: (1) a God creates a universe not knowing what will become of it; (2) a God creates a universe knowing what will become of it, and not necessarily liking it, but resolving to create it anyway and not to interfere in it; and (3) a God who creates a universe with a purpose, knowing how he will achieve that purpose.

What might God have thought when he created any of these universes?

Scenario 1:  "I shall now create a universe. I don't know what will become of it, but I'm going to create it anyway and see what happens."

There are still unanswered questions here:  Why would God do this?  Was he lonely?  Was he bored?  Was he in a bad mood? Or was he just curious?

Call Scenario 1 the Silly God Scenario.

Scenario 2:  "I shall now create a universe.  I know that millions of my creatures will live in misery, suffer and die—often at one another's hands, often through forces I'm about to set in motion—but it can't be helped, because I will not interfere once things get going, and I want my creatures to be free to do as they will."

The unanswered questions here are:  Again, why would God do this?  Again, was he lonely, bored, or feeling cranky?  Or did he, perhaps, create the universe in an unguarded moment, and then say to himself, "Oh, me!  Now look what I've gone and done!"?  Is it really fair to ascribe to such a God any degree of justice or love or mercy for his creatures thus created and abandoned?

Call Scenario 2 the Capricious God Scenario.

Scenario 3:  "I shall now create a universe.  I know what will become of it, and I know how, because I'm creating it for X purpose, and it must be so.  I know that millions of my creatures will live in misery, suffer and die—often at one another's hands, often through forces I'm about to set in motion—but it can't be helped, because (with my infinite knowledge and wisdom) I know that only thus can my purpose be truly achieved."

The unanswered questions here are:  What is God's purpose, and what role does each of us play in it?

Call Scenario 3 the Sovereign God Scenario.

I vote for #3.

We are all on this list because we value faith.  To me the best faith is faith that accepts and embraces the perfection and infinity of God's wisdom and judgment, even though I may not (read: cannot) understand it myself.

Consider, too, that humankind has spent the past 10,000 years trying to resolve the "problem of evil."  It began with a postulate that people had somehow displeased the gods.  It evolved into a postulate that people had somehow displeased the One God.  Greater minds than ours have grappled with it.  But we are no closer to resolving the issue now than we were 10,000 years ago.  Isn't that evidence enough that the answer is beyond our comprehension?  And isn't that evidence enough that all the answers espoused to date are answers of human invention, which have simply evolved as man's concept of God has evolved?

Kurt: I would have to vote for Option #1.  The very nature of our universe is random.  Not only are natural forces (e.g., earthquakes, lightning) unpredictable, but humankind provides the ultimate wild card.  We can be co-creators, or we can destroy anything we touch.

Now, of course, we also have to remember that we and our planet are but a small part of the universe.  Even if mankind destroys the earth, we have not destroyed the universe, nor have we destroyed God.  And if you accept the notion of a higher purpose, you must also accept the possibility that mankind is not part of that higher purpose.  Perhaps the inhabitants of some distant planet are the Chosen People.

Alan: Now there's a random creation indeed!  A universe created for a purpose, but with inhabitants who aren't part of the purpose?

David M: Alan, I think we are closer than you think on this matter. I also would opt for #3. And I agree that it may be difficult to ascertain what God's purpose might be. That purpose is the key here to the question of evil. It prevents him from stepping in and stopping evil (here and now, anyway). So, I must point out that you yourself are saying that God would do something about evil if he could.  Indeed, can any being who is wise and just not be good?

I wasn't trying to say that we can know everything about God. I was only saying that we can know something about him, because we are his offspring and we have inherited some of his attributes.

Alan: “You yourself are saying that God would do something about evil if he could.”

That wasn't exactly what I meant to imply.  I meant to imply that God has chosen the purpose and the means to achieve it, knowing that those means would be painful for his creatures.

Kurt: Does every organism have to be part of the purpose?  Were dinosaurs part of the purpose?  Is the AIDS virus part of the purpose?  Is every organism from amoeba to whales part of the purpose now?  If not, why do we assume that humankind has a special purpose but other organisms do not?

(I’m not saying we don't, but the question needs to be asked.)

David M: Well, for one, we are the only living creatures capable of even conceiving of a God and his purpose.

Jacqueline: And just how do we know that? If one can know God, does one have to know God in our human way of knowing or can other creatures/plants ("his creation") know the creator, too? We assume too much, perhaps. The dolphins smile at us....

Alan: Perhaps it is an assumption, but it's based on our belief that we are far more sentient than other creatures—that we have an ability to conceptualize that they lack.  I think it's a valid assumption, though I'm sure I've run across animals who were a lot smarter than you'd expect! :-)

Kurt: You're sure about this?  You've ruled out the possibility that there are other creatures somewhere in the universe capable of conceiving of God?  And are you also assuming that one must be able to conceive of a higher purpose to have a part in it?

David M: I was speaking of known creatures. Of course, there could be other intelligent life—I'm not ruling that out—but the fact is that we have the ability to conceive of a God and worship him, and we received that ability from him. That's meaningful.

Alan: I would say that every organism is part of the purpose; each contributes to it in some way, however minuscule or far in the past.

John: This response is part of the "teleological" argument, which dates back at least to late antiquity.

David B: The "problem of evil" arises because God is postulated to possess the following attributes:

1. Perfection (which is taken to mean [a] God is "good" and [b] God would intervene to stop "evil")

2. Omnipotence

3. Omniscience

Relax any of these postulates, and the "problem" of evil goes away — or largely so.

If God is not “perfect” or “good” in the sense that God's justice is our justice or if God can be “good” or “perfect” but still not intervene in human affairs, then the problem goes away. “Good” or “perfect” may mean something a little different to God than it does to us.

If God is not omnipotent, then the problem goes away since God cannot be held accountable for things God has no power to change.

If God is not omniscient, then the problem goes away since God cannot be held accountable for things God could not foresee.

Personally, I am comfortable relaxing all three postulates. 

I think it is plausible that God's sense of goodness or justice is different from our own since, to put it mildly, God has a different perspective.  It may be, for example, that freedom, the source of much suffering, is a more important good than many people seem to think.  Or it may be that in the "greater scheme of things" (e.g. an eternity with God) that the suffering on earth is an acceptable price to pay toward some other aim.

I do not believe, personally, that God is omnipotent. Or, if God is omnipotent, the power is not in practice exercised.  God has granted freedom to creation.  It is a live creation.  The choices made by us are not God's but our own. 

God does not know our choices before we make them, so God is not omniscient either.  On this third point, however, a mathematical point is interesting.  There is reason to believe that the physical characteristics of this universe can be explained by a 4-dimensional model (Einstein's space-time) or by a 10-dimensional model or a 28-dimensional model.  I do not understand the math re: the 10- or 28-dimensional models but evidently those are the 3 options.  If, we live in a 10- or 28-dimensional universe, all bets are off with respect to anything related to our ordinary conceptions of time.

All of which is by way of saying that the "problem of evil" is a function of a particular conception of God that, in my view, cannot withstand the pressure put on it.  It can be solved by changing one's conception of God.

Alan: I think God is perfect, but not in this sense; rather, in the sense of being complete, lacking nothing, absolutely whole, self-sufficient, self-existent, and infinite. In my view, omniscience, omnipotence, and perfection go together; God could not be perfect if he were not omniscient and omnipotent; he would not be truly omnipotent unless he were omniscient. I agree [that the problem of evil goes away when you relax the postulates]; because my definition of "perfect" pertains to "natural" attributes rather than "moral," I personally don't acknowledge a "problem of evil." Here again I agree [that God's sense of goodness or justice is different than our own].  It is possible to believe that God is good—even, generally, as we understand it—if we accept that God's transcendence to mean that his goodness and his eternal aims transcend what we consider good. These points are where the idea of God breaks down to me.  I can't conceive of a perfect (i.e., complete), eternal, infinite God without perfect, eternal, infinite power and knowledge.  It may be my failing, but to me it just seems like an irreconcilable contradiction.  Of course, inconceivability does not equal impossibility, but it does mean, for me, that the probability of the existence of an eternal, self-existent Being who is not perfect, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, etc., is, as I like to say, "vanishingly small."

David M: I agree with Alan that perfection suggests omnipotence and omniscience. And a further problem that arises, I think, from relaxing any of these postulates is that God somehow becomes more human and then we should wonder how much he deserves to be revered.

To me, we can only adjust the "omnipotence factor," and yet maintain God's excellence, in one way: by making God subject to his own power. It's the old "Can God make a rock so big he can't lift it?" routine. God has the power to do anything except defy his own power. I think the problem of evil is tied up in this somehow.

Alan: But there's a paradox, if not a contradiction, between God being sovereign, and his sovereignty being limited, even by his own choice. God is not like a human king, who might limit his own sovereignty out of understanding his own personal limitations and fallibility.  God is not fallible or limited, so there is no reason for him to limit his own sovereignty. He knows what is best for his own creation, and it would seem to me that he owes it to himself to enact it; if he creates a universe with a purpose, and allows that purpose to be frustrated, he has betrayed himself.

David M: But you're practically saying the same thing that I am. If his purpose is what governs his actions, if, as you say, "he owes it to himself," then his power is still being limited by something that he determined beforehand. He betrays himself if he interferes. He still looks on at the evil taking place, and it must affect him somehow emotionally—at least I'd like to think so. But he is powerless to act, because he made a pact with himself.

Alan: Yes, in this instance we are practically "on the same page."  We both seem to be saying that God could intervene if he wished, but has chosen not to do so, for reasons of his own. But to someone who believes in a "good" God (as we define "good"), I don't see that that answers the problem.

Stephen: The answer is not as complicated as we make it out to be. Evil is not a mistake, it is a side-effect of free will. God knows that if humans have no free will then concepts of virtue, and the soul have no meaning. If human beings cannot choose to be evil they cannot choose to be good.

Alan: There is some disagreement among us about free will. I, for one, do not believe in it, because I believe it is incompatible with God's omnipotence and omniscience.  I make a distinction between free will on the metaphysical level and free will on the physical level, maintaining that it does not exist on the former, while it (apparently) exists to us on the latter.

Bear in mind that there are two types of evils: human evils and natural evils.  Human evils are, ostensibly, a by-product of free will, but in reality they result from a lack of good—a lack of love, a lack of tolerance, a lack of understanding, or a lack of economic goods.  Often they result from fear. These "evils" have defined God's earthly creation since humans first walked upright and gathered in groups.

Natural evils, such as natural disasters or unpreventable illnesses, are, of course, not a by-product of free will.  If there is a "problem of evil," this is it.

David M: Natural evils are just that: natural. If we humans just so happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (to catch a virus or to encounter an earthquake or fall off a cliff), the evil