That Hideous Sense; Part V

4: "The Problem of Evil."

The Problem of Evil has been solved quite a few times by Christianity. Augustine solved it in the 4th Century AD, and his solution still works. Aquinas as well, and even I have solved it elsewhere. That being said, I will not here go to the full lengths necessary to deal with the Problem of Evil in its entirety. What I wish to deal with focuses on the main part of the Problem of Evil, that question asked, generally in our childhood, of "Why do bad things happen to good people?" or perhaps, "Why is there suffering?"

The reason I have saved the Problem of Evil for last is not because I believe it to be any more troublesome or valid than any of the preceding arguments, but because the preceding three arguments are all related. They all stem not only from our sense of entitlement, but from the Problem of Evil itself. At the end of the last section, we were left with the realization that the "genocides" of the Old Testament are skewed to our modern sensibilities because we have a false conception and sense of entitlement, both in regards to our lives, and to fairness. And it is at "fairness" that we must now look, and it's relationship with suffering.

One thing I wish to absolutely note about the idea of "fairness" in human terms is that it is, of course, about entitlement. Let us examine, to gain some perspective on this, the challenge of why God allows anyone, or even in particular, an innocent baby to die in the womb, or to die as an infant, having never experienced life. Why, exactly, is this a challenge? It is perceived as not being fair, and somewhere along the way, people have gotten it into their heads that God is about being fair, or that life is about being fair. And yet what is fairness?

Something being fair is something that is perceived as entitled. If it is not fair that someone dies young, it is because we have a perception that that person is entitled to a long life, that that person deserves a good life.

Now one Christian reply to this question of why people suffer, or why do people die young, etc. might be that old idea of sin. That death or suffering are punishment for sin. That we do not deserve a long life, happiness, pleasure, etc. etc. because we are sinners, and what we deserve is actually death and punishment. We have done no good to earn any of these things, we do not deserve them. We recall that they are gifts, as I noted before. This is indeed one side of the coin, and it can be argued reasonably well. One can note that our entitlement here is so purely selfish that it blinds us. For the Christian, one might stress that Christ called us expressly to selflessness, not to selfishness, and thus we must destroy and disavow this sense of entitlement.

But in our particular case here I noted that we would examine the instance of even a baby in the womb, or an infant. Surely these poor innocents cannot be said to have earned punishment and death, even if they did not earn the gift of their life. These children are innocent of all willful evil, and thus are not deserving of punishment. But then, if they are innocent, death is not a punishment. Now we must look at the opposite side of the coin. Our sense of entitlement is selfish here as well. We believe that all humans are entitled to life, that they deserve to have it. But humans are not capable of living forever in our present forms (And it would be a horrible thing if we could. Pause to contemplate, if you will, the results of a world where no one ever died; the poverty, over crowding, starvation and general misery would be immense). Even Christians must be justified, sanctified and glorified by and in Christ to have ever lasting life. We are not entitled to life, we realized as much before. It is just as much of a freely given gift to us as the Grace that saves us from our just and deserved damnation. It is a freely given gift, not something we are entitled to. And thus, all sense of "fairness" fails. It cannot be unfair that some people die young, or even as children, because there is no entitlement to a lifespan of a certain length. Likewise, it cannot be unfair that people suffer, or that people experience what an observer might consider to be a less worthy existence. Without our sense of entitlement, which is baseless, there is no fairness to debate, and there is no Problem of Evil.

Now, I noted before that we would examine the possible relationship between "fairness" and suffering. And indeed there is one. It is one of the oldest philosophical relationships there is, and one which is the source of at least one major world religion. I am speaking, of course, about Buddhism. We can first note this relationship by realizing that both suffering and fairness are generally rooted in selfishness. When you believe yourself to be entitled to something or deserving of something, you suffer when you do not receive it. When you want something, and you don't get it, you suffer. But selfish desires and self entitlement fail when examined in the light of selflessness which is the meaning of Agape love, the love we Christians preach. They also fail in light of everything we have already observed in these essays. If you'll forgive the expression, by what "right" are we so selfish? By what "right" are we entitled? The heart of the Problem of Evil is entitlement. Not only in that it is our sense of entitlement that makes us believe we deserve that which we do not deserve, but because in so doing, it is entitlement that becomes the source of much of our suffering, not God.

Solve the problem of entitlement, and the problem of pain loses its... shall we say, "sting?"