#the problem of evil

[biblioflyer]

Sanderson, Tolkien, Christianity, and Redemption

No spoilers for any Cosmere books

After 5 full length novels (that are more like ten in length) and 2 novellas of Stormlight Archive, one thing that has become very clear to me is that - while knowing very little of his publicly expressed sentiments - Brandon Sanderson is someone who is deconstructing and rebuilding his faith in front of us.

Sanderson, so far as I know, started Stormlight Archives a billion words ago as a practicing Mormon. He remains, so far as I know, a practicing Mormon. In that context, I find it interesting that he is so obsessed with the idea of characters who are not Evil with a capital E. There's a quote I'll drop here without context that says everything "I do not see evil here, just confusion."

I bring Tolkien into the picture here because, as is inconsistently but somewhat widely known, Tolkien struggled with how he depicted good and evil in his work. He wanted his characters to be susceptible to doubt, fear, and anger but ultimately to be capable of rising above these things when it counted to perform almost supernatural feats of very mortal decency.

But the mass slaughter of Orcs and "Corrupted" Men troubled him. Tolkien wanted a story that followed the basic framework of an epic poem and giving the enemy moral agency would, in Tolkien's religious framework, imply that his heroes were cutting down mobs of beings who theoretically had immortal souls that could, in different circumstances, be eligible for divine redemption. For Tolkien, killing the unrighteous who were unrighteous because of circumstance not intrinsic nature, was maybe not necessarily a mortal sin for his heroes but still deeply troubling.

That evil isn't innate but a product of circumstance and habit is where Sanderson really starts reminding me of Star Trek in its various incarnations. Its probably what makes me turn Sanderson's pages compulsively where I find the likes of George RR Martin and Steven Erikson to have compelling world building, but their profound cynicism makes them slower reads for me. I think its the millennial in me. I paid my dues in the years after 9/11 accepting the idea that we are irrevocably damned and doomed to repeat zero sum, nihilistic patterns indefinitely but I came out the other side believing its dangerous to believe nothing can ever be better. That people we think are monsters can't have a change of heart: not by accepting the divinity of a guy who may have been executed by the Romans, but understanding what the choices of their lives have wrought for them and wanting to do better.

In the infinite diversity and infinite combinations of science fiction and fantasy, I love various ways of playing with social expectations and cosmology. But I notice when its assumed that redemption isn't real and mercy is for suckers. And that just feels like sadness porn. An anesthetic to make a self centered worldview in a world gone mad go down a little smoother. And to be absolutely clear, when I say self centered, I do not mean that you don't put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others. You absolutely do that. Then you help the others.

To extra, extra clear for those in the back, I am also not advocating for the necessity of supernatural consequences for pro and anti-social behavior to be a good person. I'm just not dragging people who are noodling about these concepts in public so as to give permission to reconstruct their beliefs to other people who are trying to square what they've been told they believe with how others practice those beliefs and with what they actually believe in their heart.

[thepatristictradition]

Suffering is not What You Think

(The Penitent Magdalene)

So often you hear, when people leave their churches, their gripes surround suffering. Why would God allow suffering? Why would God allow babies to be murdered and die of cancer? Why would He allow war and cannibalism and pedophilia? Why did God allow me to see my mother die? Why did he allow this or that?

What I cannot help but notice is that the people saying this are never talking about their own suffering.

"Why does God allow war?" said a cowardly young man who has never seen bloodshed. "Why does God allow cancer?" said a woman who is perfectly healthy. "Why does God allow abuse?" said a man who had the privilege of watching the sex abuse crisis of the RCC play out on the TV screen and not in the sacristy. "Why did God allow my mother do die?" said a daughter who is still alive.

We may mourn, and we ought to mourn, the sorrows and the fallenness of this world, but witnessing suffering is not the same as suffering.

(Just Take Them and Leave Me Alone)

This was never more clear to me than when I spent a summer arguing with my anti-natalist, atheist sister. She would spend hours berating my poor mother and father for the heinous crime of having children. During one of these spats, my sister turned to me and said, "How can you support natalism?" which she said like a slur, "your grandmother abused you from the moment you were born."

Now, this is true. Truer than she knew, or, if I have it my way, will ever know. My grandmother (who was my and my sister's primary caregiver) always despised me because I was born with a deformity. Her hatred only intensified when my sister was born. My sister was, in her eyes, perfect. As a child, my sister would ask for me to be abused in front of her, for her amusement, by my grandmother.

My sister witnessed plenty of my suffering, but she experienced not an iota of it. And yet, she used my suffering as a way to say that all of human life is suffering. She used it to discredit the worth of all human life.

(Ophelia)

I find this is always the case. When I was an atheist, I was confused by people who brought up the "problem of suffering". I never viewed my suffering as something that made my life worse. Even as an atheist and a child, I saw clearly how the suffering I experienced and was experiencing was driving me toward a larger purpose. This pattern of thought followed me into the sexual abuse I experienced in middle school and into my conversion.

My atheist associates, whose suffering I know well, likewise never cite their suffering as a reason for their disbelief. When you really get down to it, "God is a big meanie" is not a reason to reject His existence, say these associates of mine.

It is only being a witness to suffering-- usually an impotent witness-- that causes this specific kind of apostasy. Even if my sister had stopped encouraging it, I still would have been abused. Her behavior would have made little difference. It is the same for the sufferings I listed earlier. Regardless of what we tell ourselves, no boycotting, no Instagram post, and not even tax evasion or immolation will stop the Genocide Israel is purporting against the Palestinians. We, far removed, poor, and powerless foreigners, are impotent. We can do nothing to help someone with a terminal illness not die-- it's terminal. We can do nothing to help the kidnapped children we see on the news, taken from their homes halfway across the country. We cannot bilocate, live forever, or have infinite money.

When these people say, "Why does God allow suffering?" they are actually asking, "Why does God allow my impotence?" The implication is that, of course, they would solve these sufferings if only they were not impotent. Is this the case? I don't know; who am I to judge the heart of another man?

Whatever the case, it is clear to me that witnessing suffering is of some different metaphysical nature than the actual experience of suffering. I've written a little about this privately, so I will get around to expanding upon it in further posts.

[eri-pl]

It will be chaotic, because I can't force myself to make a structured post about it, I don't know why. Also sorry if my autocorrect does something stupid, I'm writing on the phone.

So, the Legendarium and causality, and good deeds, bad deeds and their results. This is the main topic of this post.

Is this post about the Legendarium? About real life? Both? Well, it surely is about the Legendarium, but not only. It's fuzzy. One of the things I like with tolkien is that such discussions get fuzzy and thinking about the books gives me insights about life.

There is a rule which I try to follow when writing or even planning something more serious (in the Legendarium context, but in general too, unless specifically going for a genre that's different): if a long-term success (in something that matters) is achieved by doing something morally wrong, those conditions must be fulfilled (not necessarily all clearly written out, but I must at least have a vague idea):

1. It could have been achieved in a good way, and it wouldn't be lesser. Or it wasn't really that important. (Because I refuse to accept "necessary evil")

2. Either something bad came out of it, or someone has to put effort into it not happening. I'm not sure how to explain it better (see later about handling other people's bad choices)... Anyway this makes the story feel more satisfying, more interesting.

3. How much of 2 is needed is proportional to how bad the thing was. Also if the character couldn't be expected to know much better, point 2 is less intense, though it's often still more interesting to have it.

I wonder how close to canon is this rule. Anyway I like it. Also, I tend to assume at least 1 when interpreting the canon, which likely influences my opinion about the Feanorians and the whole Silmaril business.

I'm not saying this is a 100% rule in real life, or even a technically 100% rule in te Legendarium, because omniscience is tricky… but it is a good rule in writing, I think, and even more so it definitely is a good rule in approaching decisions. If something can't work in a moral way, it won't work anyway or is not worth it. Nothing really worthy can be permanently lost by making the right choice. And so on.

It seems like there would be a symmetrical rule of good deeds not resulting in bad events but then we have the Children of Hurin. And what did Hurin do wrong? I have no idea.

But then, the Men are generally... And you could also look at Maedhros, but then, the exiled Noldor, and SoF in particular are also, hmm, I think "marred" is the word I should use here.

Still, I really prefer if there is something good coming of from good deeds, even distant and not seen by the person doing the good deeds.

Also, there seems to be is another rule, it's outright said. Things always turn out into a good ending, and you can either go with it or fall under it.

Example: gollum. He could have cooperated and jumped with the Ring willingly. He chose to betray Frodo, fell with the Ring anyway.

You also can, obviously, do a creative mix of going along and falling under. (Must I say: the two oldest Feanorians, it is this obvious?)

And falling under makes things more difficult for everyone, not just the person doing it.

Darn, I made this sound ugly and tyrannical. It's not. But I remember when I would say it is, and I can't explain why it is not. It's kinda like when you do a weird thing with your eye muscles and start seeing double. It's just not. I just can't explain it in a way this deserves. My apologies.

Anyway, bad choices make things difficult for everyone. Because we are connected to each other. I've already made a post about it long time ago, but generally...

Maybe if Saruman wasn't such a jerk weed have a Sauron redemption. (Maybe, it's always a maybe)

Maybe if Maglor didn't take pity on the twins, Númenor would fall much earlier and Sauron would be more successful. And so on and do forth.

It's always a maybe, and nobody determines anybody else's choices, but still, we do impact each other. It's hard to think about, because it's over if the places where a) it's worth to try b) there's no guarantee of anything... (Which are most places, I guess). Both on the Silm and in life, people are interconnected. But also everyone is responsible for their decisions.

It's hard to not blame characters (or people) too much. It's hard... In general it's wonderful but difficult, the whole concept.

And another thing tired to this very closely, tied to the interconnectedness (is this a word?) is unearned suffering and Hurin and Nienor and Miriel (both tbh) and Feanor back before he was a jerk and many others.

Sometimes we get the outcome of someone else's bs without even consenting to it. Why? I suppose it's because the connectedness is now important than "not getting random bs thrown in your life". Maybe. Probably. I'm not wise, ok? I'm not sure it's my heart, but something's telling me it's something like this reason.

And what can we do

Argue. Rebel. Just take it. There are many things we can do. I'm not going to go on a rant about what Feanor (or Finwe) should have done and so on because I don't want dfw and others to have a bad time listening to me criticizing their guy, and also I wasn't in his position so I shouldn't be ranting. I should go rant at myself or something.

But the things aren't going to solve themselves or disappear. So yes, just taking it is a very noble and beautiful thing to do (and hard as... Idk what's hard. A Silmaril is hard, I guess)

Because it's so very infuriating when someone else's bs lands on your head.

Oh how I wish I could handle it better.

Back to the Legendarium. Someone handling it better generally yields results, see: the Long Peace. And probably many other situations.

And of course there are situations when the bs you have to handle is your own and if you don't handle it, it will fall of everyone else's heads. This doesn't necessarily make it easier to handle. :( Sometimes someone helps, and that's nice.

Yet another question is how realistic a book should be.

Should it portray lots of undeserved suffering, of badly handled undeserved suffering (CoH), because it's part of life? Should it portray hope triumphing against reason (B&L, and remember that Beren was just as much a Man as Turin was), to give people an escape?

I think (maybe it's rather obvious) that we need both, because depending on personality and circumstances, we need both validation and acknowledgement of our pain, and hope that things can be better. Both kinds of stories are necessary.

It may sound untrue, and sometimes I wish I was a kind of person who can live with only hopeful stories, because the day ones are what I need when I'm not doing well— but no. We do need both, at least in terms of "what most of the story consists of". We need ways to express pain without an immediate answer.

It's a sad song.

But we're gonna sing it anyway.

Until we finally get it right and the sad parts start making sense.

And let's not even get into "sad stories where people mess their lives up so much because that's how freedom works, yes, they can do that" because I have absolutely no idea what to say about those.

[a-queer-seminarian]

[id: an image labeled “the problem of evil: why does a good God let bad things happen?” A Popsicle stick triangle with duct tape shoddily holding it together has text in the center reading “pick 2,” the options being the three sides labeled “God is good & just,” “God is all powerful,” and “evil & suffering exist.” Text at the bottom of the image reads, “Let’s talk about it: Thursday May 5, 2022, 1pm EST live at Blessed Are the Binary Breakers on YouTube” / end ID]

Most, if not all, religions seek to answer the question of why suffering exists.

Let’s talk about it — this Thursday, May 5 2022, at 1pm EST at youtube.com/blessedarethebinarybreakers.

Without offering any definitive answers, I’ll take you through the responses of various biblical authors and theologians across the ages.

I’ll be tackling this topic from my own Christian context, but I welcome persons of any (or no) faith to join — the more perspectives present, the richer the discussion!

Some other things of note:

I’ll aim for this discussion to go about 1.5 hours. Coming late or leaving early is totally welcome.

Accessibility: I’ll have auto-captions on for the live-stream, and I’ll do my best to describe any images that I show. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to make this event more accessible for you!

Participation: The nature of YouTube live is that I will be on video with sound and visuals (and I’ll be sharing a PowerPoint); while attendees are invited to participate with comments, or just listen in quietly. I will make lots of space for questions, ideas, and reactions!

Bigotry won’t be tolerated. Mistakes in wording happen of course, so don’t be afraid of making honest mistakes — but if it becomes clear a person is being intentionally bigoted in any way, including against non-Christians, I’ll kick them off.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

In-Depth: The Problem Of Evil — A Topic Upon Which You Can Build Gospel Conversations With Anyone - Harbingers Daily

They reason that if God created everything (and if evil is a thing), then he must have created evil—so they blame God for all the evil in this world.

by Calvin Smith | To be honest, answering the exact same questions over and over again gets a little bit tedious. “Could God create a rock so heavy he couldn’t lift it?” “If everything needs a creator, who created God?” Now, I know these questions are always new for the person asking...

[quakerism]

Because the Christian tradition cannot abide death, it explains death as the consequence of sin rather than the result of nonnegotiable physical processes. “In Indian religions,” by contrast, “death is a natural occurrence and not a special punishment from an arbitrary God.” Death in this context is a sadness to be mourned, but not “an occasion for probing the rationale of whatever reality exists beyond ourselves.” It calls for a lived response, not a “series of logical syllogisms.” [141] Pantheologically speaking, then, if we begin with multiple, finite, and immanent forces rather than a single anthropomorphic deity, we can stop wasting time on abstract justifications and set about trying to change the conditions that produce suffering in the first place (Pratt), and to create rituals of mourning wherever change is not possible (Deloria). As James summarizes the matter, “in any pluralistic metaphysic, the problems that evil presents are practical, not speculative.” [142]

Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters (2018, p.178)

141. Ibid., 120.

142. William James, A Pluralistic Universe (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996 [1908]), 124.

Deloria, Vine, Jr. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. New York: Macmillan, 1969.

[star-anise]

Sending out a quick and hearty FUCK YOU to Christians who are like “Trust God and you’ll be free from all worries! If you have faith nothing can harm you!”

If anyone ever promises you that converting to their religion, receiving their therapy, taking up their hobby, joining their group, buying their product, etc. will take away your cares forever and prevent you from ever feeling pain or fear or doubt, treat them with great suspicion. Part of the human condition is things sucking sometimes, and while we can improve our lives, we cannot change the fact that they will always be imperfect and vulnerable to bad shit. Therefore, producing the appearance of a life without grief or pain or guilt is a stage illusion that requires the sometimes-violent manipulation of lived reality.

All that the belief that faith in God fixes every ill achieves is that once people end up weeping brokenly in my office, they blame themselves because somehow they lacked faith in God and therefore caused the evil thing to happen to them, and then caused their own resulting fear, anger, and anxiety. So then we have EXTRA layers of damage to work through before we can get to the normal trauma and distress of having a bad thing happen.

(Special extra little “fuck you” to every Christian who responds to posts like this with “well MY church doesn’t do this/I don’t think this is a true idea about God/this isn’t REAL Christianity” like no shit. I, a Christian, am of a similar opinion. But it isn’t actually reassuring to bring that to the table when someone’s airing their damaging experiences with horrible Christians and churches. It either comes off as 1) “Well you were bad and stupid and believed wrong” or 2) “Shut up and stop making Christianity look bad.”)

[an-actual-box]

If he exists, the Christian god has heard many prayers for bread and given stones. He is a fucking hypocrite.