bluegreen17 | a fluffy essay on the subject of theodicy

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a fluffy essay on the subject of theodicy

i take the stupidest things personally. just now i was eating a veggie pie pocket and i burned my mouth. and sometimes...well,okay,almost every day,which is dismaying,i get toothpaste on my shirt. stuff like that. i get really angry...and the irrational part of me gets angry at God or the universe...whatever. i have a low tolerance for frustration,if you couldn't tell. i'm constantly trying to improve myself,but i'm way behind the schedule i've created in my mind for where i should be at personally.

i've tried to develop a good sense of pronoia to offset this paranoia (which i suppose could be worse...at least i don't think anyone's out to kill me,though i suppose like everyone else,i will end up dead some day!) but i'm not making much headway. i guess,though,that i do have some things to balance it out...i say thank you when i hear a particularly inspiring song on the radio or when little things go right. so i guess i take that personally too,in a good sense.

what confuses me is that people who have faith in God will thank God when they are blessed,but they don't get mad at God when crappy things happpen. so if all the good things come from God,where does the bad stuff come from? i'm showing my propensity to think nondualisticly here,because if God is who we thank for good things,don't the 'bad things' come from God too? of course,philosophers have been debating this for thousands of years,and as far as i'm concerned,no one has come up with a very good answer.

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I have a friend who was diagnosed with asophegeal cancer. His daring surgeon at Johns Hopkins went in, against the advice of other doctors, and successfully removed ALL of the cancer, based on a hunch he had that it hadn't yet attached itself to the aorta.

All the comments at my friend's web site are along the lines of "Praise God" and "Thanks be to God."

I'm thinking "All praise to your skilled surgeon," but perhaps that would be perceived as a little cynical.

(I realize that asophegeal is spelled incorrectly, but oh well.)

But there is far more to it than just the surgeons skill.

Skill of not skill, something out of the surgeons hands could have gone wrong, but nothing did. Also, the patient in question is lucky to have gotten the particular surgeon he did, and not someone less talented. Also, the patient is lucky that society has advanced to the point where is surgery is operable.

And ultimately, it's much easier to say "thank God" than "Thank the seemingly-random-fluctuations-
of-the-space-time-continuum-that-may-or-may-not-have-some-
metaphysical-existence-outside-the-physical-universe-rather-
than-being-some-emergent-property-of-the-chaotic-system-we-
live-in."

my first thought was that the 'hunch'/inspiration was from God. who knows for sure? but when i get inspired,that's where i think it comes from,and where all inspired art and music and anything else comes from. maybe it's working 'with' God...God gave the idea,and the surgeon had the physical means to do it. i think that's wonderful that the surgeon trusted his hunch. so i would give thanks to both of them!

Don't a lot of people think they have sinned or that they are undeservintg if something bad happens?

BTW I have a very low tolerance for frustration too. Always have.

when my mom was growing up,if she did something like stubbing her toe,her mother would say to her 'god's punishing you'. i don't know what my grandmother's motive was,or if she was even conscious of one,but she really programmed that kind of attitude into my mother,which made my mother fear God for years. some folks think we should fear God,but i think the word translated to 'fear' should have been more accurately translated as 'respect'. i can understand respect for God,but not fear. so,yes,some people think that. and though i don't consciously,i think subconsciously i do think i must have done something bad...

sometimes i think i'm not a very good person at all,and hate myself. other times,i think i 'deserve' a much better life than i have. i think it's not so simple. and i have to remember though i can imagine a lot of ways my life could be better,i forget all the things i take for granted.

i'm reading an excellent book right now called lessons for living by daniel johnston. he's very down-to-earth and has some practical suggests regarding depression,motivation,and quite a few other things. i'm hoping he has something to say about addiction and tolerance for frustration as well. he also has a website at http://www.lessons4living.com which i am very impressed with.

The view that God causes both good and evil is one that is strongly held by Muslims, but Judaism is also much more comfortable with that concept than Christianity.

I think the problem western minds have with it is simply the idea that if God is truly "all good" then how could God cause or be a source of evil too? (Dualistic) The most common (western) answer is free will...our ability to choose evil (as we do) is the source of evil. I would take it a step further and say that not everything that seems "bad" is ultimately evil, but also that God is limited to stop evil because of our free will...God -chooses- not to interfere with free will. Even so...it can be said that since God created beings with the ability to choose evil, somehow God can be blamed evil. However, if we say that, then we share the blame everytime we procreate...knowing full well that life could choose to do evil, etc.

My personal theodicy is simply that it is all a mystery beyond human comprehension.

Btw...I don't think there's any good precedent for -not- getting angry at God about bad things that happen...just look at the Psalms...lots of ranting in there! :)

i didnt' realize that islam viewed God as the source of both good and evil,as well as judaism. it really does seem that christians invented 'the devil' at some point. which is interesting,since christianity springs from judaism,and then jesus preached the gospel of love. where did the devil come from? i don't necessarily think jesus confronted the devil as a persona in the desert,or even if that necessarily happened.

good point about the psalms. i'm not a big fan of the old testament (except for in my first bible,a children's bible i had with beautiful illustrations and good stories that didn't disturb me like they do now!) but i love the psalms. a friend of mine who used to be an episcopal priest told me when i asked him once about being angry with God,that many of the prophets were angry with God a lot,so then i didn't feel so bad about it.

i'm having trouble believing in a personal God,though i really want to. i think i know too much about eastern religions,but i'd say it's all good. ha! i think a personal God is a good way of envisioning or relating to God (though i only seem to relate to God in a very vague,sometimes even comical way) but i have a tough time doing that. nonduality seems to be the most natural thing to me,but it doesn't give me much structure,so i'm sort of in between this and that.

anyway,i enjoy your comments,because it gives me a more expanded view of looking at things,and you communicate your ideas so well.

thanks.

I'm frequently mad at God for things that happen. I believe he's merciful but mercy doesn't equal always having happiness, unfortunately. I wish it wasn't so, but meh...not much we can do about it.

I'm irrationally reminded of a scene from Lethal Weapon. don't know if you've seen that movie (I do recommend it if you haven't, it's quite nifty with a dark sense of humor) but Riggs (Mel Gibson) is a suicidal cop who gets teamed with an older guy (whose character name escapes me at the moment, but he's played by Danny Glover). the rough transcript goes something like this:

Danny: so do you or do you not have a death wish?
Riggs: you better believe I do.
Danny: I'm too old for this shit. God must hate me.
Riggs: hate him back. it works for me.

it's actually funnier in the movie, trust me. heh.

yeah,i saw that movie a long time ago. that's a great line,and of course fits right in with this discussion! thanks!

It's very easy to frustrate me. Seriously frustrate too, not the average expected heavy sighs brought on by minor annoyances, but the big dramatic flowing tears and thoughts of death usually only sparked in most people by highly traumatic experiences. Almost everything gets a “last straw” reaction from me. My cat jumps on my desk, breaks something totally insignificant and replaceable and it feels like the end of the world to me. I yell and curse, and find my thoughts turning towards God... I blame God for it and resent him for damning me so. I wonder what I did to deserve the situation at hand and the consequent aftermath my mind creates over such a little and absolutely resolvable problem.
It’s so easy to blame God for life’s little set backs, but in my heart I know they aren’t meant to harm me or punish me for something I did. They’re actually just another blessing from God, in my mind at least. After whatever incident that’s responsible for my over exaggerated reaction and my disconcertment is over logical reasoning returns and I realize then that God isn’t trying to mess with me or make me lose my mind. My problem solving skills kick in, my resolve is induced, and my gratitude for possessing such skills is provoked. I thank God for the resources he has instilled in me that allow me to overcome most problems, big or small, and I ask for forgiveness for placing the initial blame on him. I try to remember this chain reaction of thoughts for future reference, but find the pattern repeating itself each time. If whatever set back had never occurred, if life was perfect, we’d never get the chance to enact some of our best skills. The skills of survival, the skills God has given us. I think in some way God wants it that way; he wants us to have problems to solve and annoyances to surmount. They remind us of our fragile humanity and of course of him, his omnipresence and availability towards us.

It’s so easy to blame an outside force, a higher power, God, but I honestly believe that these bad things in life cannot be blamed on God. Nor can they really be blamed on us. It just happens; that’s it. Life happens, shit happens. Whether life’s bad things are brought on by someone else’s free will, or own simple mistakes, or for no clear reason at all, God is there to give us hope and guide us. We thank God for the good things in life, but never for the bad. I think we should. Why not.
“... Things which seem evils, hardship, toil, discipline, unpopularity, even persecution, are seen in their glory when they are seen in the light of God.”
William Barclay (1907-1978), The Revelation of John (Vol.II)

yeah,i think sometimes the light is all around,but we can only notice it from the dark..that makes sense.

even little frustrations can somehow lead me to suicidal thoughts pretty quickly too...like a domino effect...so i think i know what you mean. and things tend to get 'stuck' in my head sometimes,in a loop.

i know i've said this before,but you are very wise. i'm sure you don't always feel so,but it shows right there in this comment. how you look at so-called 'bad' things once you pause to reflect,and also the point of why don't we thank God for the bad things too? because who's to say they're bad? it reminds me of a couple of zen stories i've heard. so that's very wholistic,nondualistic kind of thinking,which i think is a wise perspective.

thanks for sharing your good thoughts with me.

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a fluffy essay on the subject of theodicy

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how about both?

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"Sometimes to see the light you have to risk the dark."

Re: "Sometimes to see the light you have to risk the dark."