Some thoughts about theodicy

An explanation for the existence of evil from a spiritual or theological perspective is called a theodicy. There are many theodicies, but they tend to fall into a handful of categories. Sometimes an individual theodicy might combine several of these categories.

There is the idea that we’re being punished for our sins and that we deserve what we get. The flipside is that we’re blessed when we’re righteous. Karma is a variation on this theme, and so is the modern prosperity gospel. The trouble is we often see people who aren’t all that righteous being blessed while the good suffer. With karma, it’s easy to justify that. Those suffering did something in a previous life. How can you argue with that? And in the Christian tradition, there’s original sin. According to this viewpoint, we’re all worthy of damnation and that it’s only by the grace of God that some of us are saved.

Some claim that evil is necessary in order to accommodate free will. But what about disease and natural disasters? Those things cause a lot of suffering, but they have little to do with our free will.

Duality is another explanation. The world or some aspect of reality is fundamentally good, but there is an evil force at work mucking things up. In Platonism, there is a realm of perfect forms, but something happens in their material expression, and they’re polluted. In Zoroastrianism, a good spiritual god is in battle with a nasty god. They are, more or less, evenly matched, so the struggle is ongoing. At some point the belief in duality made it’s way into ancient Judaism, and this version of duality is generally called apocalypticism. Of course, this concept became a cornerstone of Christianity. Adherents readily admit that the present world is unjust, and that’s due to a cosmic battle being waged between God and his army and Satan and the forces of evil. Eventually God will win, and humans will be resurrected and judged. Those who were righteous will be rewarded in an afterlife, and the meanies will be dispatched to hell. You might suffer in this life, but that’s only temporary. The good times are on the way. Sounds pretty good, I suppose, but I can’t figure out why an omnipotent deity would allow demons and devils to run amok. I guess some would claim even Satan was given free will, and all this suffering is the price we pay until things are put right.

There’s also the claim that suffering is somehow redemptive and that we can’t appreciate fully our blessings until we know pain. That’s interesting, but I wonder why some would need to experience more pain than others.

The explanation that I find the most plausible is that life and the world is a mystery, and we can’t possibly understand or know exactly why things have to be as they are. The Book of Job seems to offer this explanation. Job wants to know why all these awful things has happened to him when he has led a righteous life. God seems to say that we don’t see things from a godly perspective and never will, so just shut up and deal with it. Isn’t this pretty much what parents often say to their children?

Another explanation is that evil is a human concept and the universe is what it is. We might suffer, but it’s nothing personal. Things just worked out that way.