Polkinghorne Quotes #13: Divine Action, Evil, and Slandering God

This is the 13th post in a series on the writings of John Polkinghorne.

Last Sunday morning Dave Toycen, president of World Vision Canada, was interviewed by our pastor. Dave had just returned from Haiti and was providing us with some first hand accounts of the devastation caused by the earthquake that had rocked Haiti a couple of weeks earlier. The stories were heartrending.

The first song we sang that morning was Indescribable. Now, this isn’t my favourite worship song and I usually simply stop singing when the second verse starts with “Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go …”. I’m always surprised that more people don’t find this line a little uncomfortable (Anyone here been hit by lightening? Anyone have someone they love killed by lightening?), but given current events, I was sure others must also see the problem.

Apparently not. The song continued without even a hint of irony. Ok, how about we change that line to “Who has told every tectonic plate when is should slide …”. Does that help illustrate the problem? Maybe we need to be a little blunter: “Did God kill all those people in Port-au-Prince?”

Divine Action and Evil
Polkinghorne is acutely aware of the problem of Divine action and evil. As he indicates:

The more strongly one is able to speak of God’s particular action in the world, the more firmly one asserts that world to be subject to his purposive will, so much the more forceful becomes the problem of the widespread evil within it. (Science and Providence, page 59)

As orthodox Christians (and in opposition to those who hold to process theology), we believe that God acts: he upholds his creation, he is continually creating, and he has acted in very particular ways in history (most notably the incarnation). But must we speak of particular “natural” disasters as “acts of God”? Was it “God’s will” that all those Haitians died? If God is good, why is there “natural” evil?

Free-Process Theodicy
I doubt that the “Problem of Evil” will ever fully make sense to us, at least this side of paradise. However, I do think that Polkinghorne’s free-process defence is the closest we may get. As he says:

I think the only possible solution lies in a variation of the free-will defence, applied to the whole created world. One might call it ‘the free-process defence’. In his great act of creation I believe that God allows the physical world to be itself, not in Manichaean opposition to him, but in that independence which is Love’s gift of freedom to the one beloved.
…
The Cosmos is given the opportunity to be itself. (Science and Providence, page 66)

Just as God gives humanity the freedom to be itself and to make choices (even when those choices are not the one’s God wishes his children would make), so too God gives the whole of his creation the freedom to be itself. And the evil in this world (both moral and natural), is the price of this freedom. I suspect the same reasoning that applies to the free-will defence (See Plantinga's “God, Freedom, and Evil” ) applies for the most part to the free-process defence.

Actually, that is NOT God’s Will
When evil occurs, Christians often say “It must be God’s will”. But I am not sure this is necessarily true. In fact, I am sure that many of the choices that God’s creatures make are not the choices God would make. As Polkinghorne notes:

God no more expressly wills the growth of a cancer than he expressly wills the act of a murderer, but he allows both to happen. He is not puppetmaster of either men or matter. (Science and Providence, page 68)

So in the face of tragedy, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to opine “It must be God’s will”. And just as we shouldn’t accuse God of causing the genocide in Rawanda, neither should we accuse him of causing the earthquake in Haiti.

And while we are at it, maybe we should make sure our worship songs do not slander God.

Polkinghorne Quotes #1: God the Fellow-Sufferer

“God is not a spectator, but a fellow-sufferer, who has himself absorbed the full force of evil. In the lonely figure hanging in the darkness and dereliction of Calvary the Christian believes that he sees God opening his arms to embrace the bitterness of the strange world he has made. The God revealed in the vulnerability of the incarnation and in the vulnerability of creation are one. He is the crucified God, whose paradoxical power is perfected in weakness, whose self-chosen symbol is the King reigning from the gallows”

From Science and Providence, page 68

Theodicy and the "Problem of Evil" are, I believe, the most difficult intellectual problems we face as followers of Christ. And it is more than just an intellectual problem since it has led many to abandon the faith, and their trust in God. I certainly do not have great answers. However, when we finally do get a satisfactory answer, I believe that answer will include Polkinghorne’s point that God is a fellow-sufferer.

Faith is not so much about belief but trust, trust in the living God who is the foundation of our being. Questions and doubt are an integral part of faith, not its opposite. As human parents, we encourage our children to ask questions. A child that asks no questions is disintrested or worse.

So when faced with the problem of evil, in which type of God do you wish to place your trust: A “Designer God” who designed all things in their intricate detail, including things that bring pain, suffering, death, and destruction? A “Philosopher God” who answers all your questions including why there is so much pain, suffering, death, and destruction? Or a suffering God, a crucified, resurrected God who has experienced pain, suffering, and death, and in so doing has destroyed the very power of death? For me, the answer to that question is easy.

Other Polkinghorne Quotes: [Introduction] [Next]

Theodicy and Evolution

The problem of evil has haunted humanity from ancient times and it is a frequent topic in the ancient scriptures (eg. Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes). Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the wicked seem to prosper, oblivious to, or unfazed by, the pain and sorrow they are causing? How can an all powerful, all loving, all knowing God allow evil to exist? Traditional theology states that evil originated with human sin / rebellion. However, this view is impossible to reconcile with the evidence of modern science, and it is not even clear that this is a good theological statement. So where does evil originate? If God is all-powerful and all knowing, why did he not prevent it? Is the benefit of “free-will” actually worth the price of evil?

This is the problem of theodicy, and it still perplexes modern Christians today. It perplexes me. Over the centuries, Christians have provided many lines of reasoning to address the theodicy issue. However, no single argument has captured Christian minds, probably because none comes without its flaws.

Those who wish to expose Christianity as a sham delight in highlighting the problem of evil. For atheists it is a good strategy since, in my opinion, it is their best (and maybe only good) argument. The other arguments frequently put forward (eg. “I can’t see any evidence for God, therefore he doesn’t exist.”, “There are lots of errors in the bible, therefore Christianity must be wrong”, and “The scientific evidence supports evolution, so God didn’t create the world”) pale in comparison. But theodicy is very difficult, and I suspect that a debate limited only to theodicy would prove very uncomfortable for any Christian.

Opponents of evolution like to state that, since it demonstrates “nature red in tooth and claw”, evolution makes the problem of evil even worse. After all, how could a loving creator be so inefficient and allow so much death and destruction? But is this so? I really don’t see how evolution increases the theodicy difficulty. It adds details to the process of how we have been created, but is irrelevant to the central problem of long eons of death and extinction. Whether one explains the fossil record by many progressive creative acts, or the gradual creative process of evolution, the fact remains that much pain and death have occurred.

I certainly do not have a complete answer to the problem of evil. So rather than articulate a partial solution to the puzzle, I’ll simply provide some pointers to resources I’ve found helpful so far:

1. Probably the closest thing I’ve found to a satisfactory answer is John Polkinghorne’s “Free Process Theodicy”. The best place I’ve seen this outlined is in “Science and Providence: God’s Interaction with the World” pages 59-68. (I do not have a link to a good overview on the net – can anyone help me here?)
2. William Dembski has an interesting article entitled “Christian Theodicy in Light of Genesis and Modern Science”. I am not very comfortable with Dembski’s solution but it is a well reasoned and consistent proposal. I would like to hear the opinions of others on this. For some reason, I haven’t seen much discussion on this paper. This is odd since, to me, it seems much more interesting than some of the other things Dembski has written.
3. Since sin and evil are so intertwined in Christian theology, I’d also like to point to an excellent article on the origin of sin by George Murphy entitled “Roads to Paradise and Perdition: Christ, Evolution, and Original Sin”.
4. I’ve previously mentioned Cliff Martin’s series on the relationship of entropy to evil. Cliff has just posted the second part of his “Theodicy: A New Approach”. If you are interested in discussing the question of theodicy, I highly recommend you visit his blog, as it is indeed (I think) a new approach. My suggestion is to read the following posts in order:

• Theodicy: Evil’s Riddle
• Theodicy: Standard Christian arguments
• Theodicy: A New Approach (Part 1)
• Theodicy: A New Approach (Part 2)

Finally, I have put “The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami?” by David Bentley Hart on my “To read” list after seeing two shining reviews (here by Cliff and here by Chris Tilling).