The "Horrific God" Charge

C.S. Lewis on "Free Will and the Problem of Evil"

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Originally posted by JS357

A hurricane may serve ONE purpose to punish someones and simultaneously serve ANOTHER purpose to be a blessing to someone.

So is it fair to say that God can perform an act that has a horrific effect on some while having a benevolent effect on others?

Is there also an implication in this statement, that the negative effect a natural event has on people is always deserved by them?

Just asking.

So is it fair to say that God can perform an act that has a horrific effect on some while having a benevolent effect on others?

Is there also an implication in this statement, that the negative effect a natural event has on people is always deserved by them?

Just asking.

Originally posted by jaywill
C.S. Lewis on [b]"Free Will and the Problem of Evil"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2DEOxvaWk&feature=related[/b]

Originally posted by googlefudge
I will certainly watch these when I get a spare, 'however long they are', to watch them.

But I would point out, that 'the problem of evil' is not why I don't believe in god, or what I consider
to be the strongest argument for atheism.

The 'problem of evil' only works against a concept of an all loving omni-benevolent god.
Who takes an active int gatekeeper/s of an afterlife to which we go in some form or
another upon death.

And I am not an atheist with regards to 'a' god concept, I am an atheist with regards to all of them. (Excepting those who define their god to be 'love' or 'the universe' as both are patently real (in different
ways) although we have words for both of them already and I find it a bit silly to say they 'are god'.) When I talk about not believing in god/s, I am talking about god concepts that include an/some intelligent being/s with enormous power typically postulated to have created the universe and who is/are capable
of effecting what goes on in it and who is/are gatekeeper/s of an afterlife to which we go in some form or another upon death.

Originally posted by jaywill
[quote] And I am not an atheist with regards to 'a' god concept, I am an atheist with regards to all of them. (Excepting those who define their god to be 'love' or 'the universe' as both are patently real (in different
ways) although we have words for both of them already and I find it a bit silly to say they 'are god'.) When I talk about not believing i ...[text shortened]... e. I thought that you could only go the other direction - from Christian to Atheism.

Originally posted by googlefudge
People often 'convert' to the religion of their spouse, (in the case of Tony bair, may he rot in prison,
he switched to catholic because that was the religion of his wife) which is a move I see no sound theological
reason for. If you really believe that their is a god and which religion you are in matters so you can get into
heaven, you would have ...[text shortened]... hanging religion than because
you want to be able to marry the person you fell in love with.

Originally posted by twhitehead
What was his religion before that? Surely he was Christian and still is? If he was Anglican and is now Catholic, then he changed denominations not religions. And most Anglicans and Catholics do not believe that the other denominations members are going to hell.

I want to make a few “sideboard” comments:

First, Bennett’s reductio applies to a god who fits the two Os. Any theist can drop either O and escape the reductio. Many are unwilling to do so. But it is only that god who cannot exist as a conclusion of the reductio; as a nondualist, I find plenty of other reasons to reject the notion of the god of dualist theism (and I have presented them here over the years). [Well, they could drop the MP, but the problems with that are under discussion.]

Second, LJ points out that this whole thing depends on a “sufficiently literal” reading of the biblical texts. It has long been an annoyance to me how literalism is so predominantly asserted as the proper norm, and all others get marginalized as “spinning”, often for the purpose of making god “look better”. But this literalism-as-norm, by both theists and atheists, is a modern phenomenon that does not hold up under either literary criticism (my general approach) or, I think, historical criticism.

—I offer one of my favorite stories on this below; some of you will recognize it. Traditional Jewish Torah study requires not only argument, but hiddush: innovation. The basic principle is that one must bring her own torah to the written torah, and out of that engagement true Torah—which includes us—might be discovered; the written torah does not stand alone. (And the oral torah did not end with the setting down of shorthand versions of historical rabbinical arguments in the Talmuds and the Midrashim.)

Third, I also want to point out that this discussion has become, as usual, pretty much between Christian theists, exclusively, and atheists. In addition, there are traditions that use the “G-word” in a nondualistic way—for example, nondualism is a major stream within Judaism, including among Orthodox Jews; it is neither a marginal stream nor heretical.

—I do not mean that as a criticism. I once presented a long (for on here, even for me) and detailed exegesis of Second Isaiah from a Jewish perspective to show that Jewish options for identifying the “suffering servant” as somebody (in the main, klal Ysrael itself) other than Jesus can be well-supported by the text. I recall saying that I would not respond to comments from people who had not read the whole thing, because of the carefully layered and argument with mutually reinforcing textual references, etc. Jaywill patiently did, and offered what I thought was a valid counter—based on his acceptance of the New Testament as the proper hermeneutical lens to understand the Hebrew Scriptures. That put us at impasse, but it was a perfectly valid position for him—or any Christian—to take; I couldn’t reasonably expect otherwise, or, reasonably, be frustrated.

—I find the Jewish expression of nondualism to be especially aesthetically pleasing; a purely subjective finding. But it does not require me to (a) deny that acts ascribed to YHVH in the written Torah are morally horrific; or (b) to accept such a god; or (c) to offer any apologetic whatsoever—especially since I do not accept any “sufficiently” literalistic/historicistic reading.

Ultimately, all that means that I really stand outside this whole argument. But I do appreciate it. (After all, the primary mode of Torah study in Judaism is—argument! ) If I were to put myself in the argument, I would have to agree with bbarr and LJ. Horrific acts are horrific acts, whether committed by Gail or Greg or God--and part of our "torah" as human beings is to define and condemn them. Period.
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A brief midrash on Exodus 17:14 (well, not really a midrash, since it only goes to the level of remez, the so-called homiletical reading):

“Then YHVH said to Moses, "Write this as a reminder in a record [document, book] and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”

Now the irony here should be evident. But imagine the recounting of the tale as it is done every year in synagogues as part of the annual cycle of torah reading. The rabbi (or whoever has been called to read) finishes the reading—and someone, perhaps a teenage bat-mitzvah student, raises her hand and asks: “Then why are we remembering them every year?!” The rabbi’s response? “Exactly! Go to the head of the class!” Applause all ‘round. Here the written torah, at the level of p’shat (the “plain”, though not necessarily literalistic, reading) God has given a nonsensical command that contains its own contradiction.

What does this teach? (Here is my own torah, a remez.) Not to take the written torah at face value, or to blinker contradictions, even if ascribed to god. Or even to offer an apologetic trying to relieve god of the contradiction (although some might: that is their midrash; but it is not required). The narrative sweep of torah (and the whole Tanach) often has little jewels hidden in the folds; and, in my hermeneutic, they are generally more important than the narrative context.

The same principle applies to other passages that present a horrific god: applying my torah (which includes my own moral judgment) to the text, I have no need to accept them or engage in apologetics for such a god. This is a pretty general principle in Judaism as a whole. (Again, others may apply a different torah to the written torah—and I am free to argue with them.)

[Note: as a midrash, this is a very close reading, and I don’t pretend that it addresses any of the other elements of the story; although a deeply midrashic reading would employ hiddush.]

—I should note that I do not find the basis for my own ethics in halakhah (the commandments; what can be called “the law” ). “Torah” does not mean “law”; “teaching” is a better translation, and broadly, it is like the Tao.

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My favorite story about how torah is mostly story, and not a collection of “propositional truth claims”, (and one which I repeat often) is told by Rami Shapiro, in one of his books, Hasidic Tales. Shapiro is a Reconstructionist rabbi, but the “Reb Reuven” in the story was Orthodox—so this is not a "liberal wing of Judaism" thing.

One Shabbos afternoon, Reb Reuven called me into his study. He was sitting behind his desk and motioned me to take the chair across from him. A volume of the Zohar was lying open in front of him.

“Do you know what the Zohar is?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said. “It is a mystical commentary on Torah written by Moshe deLeon, a thirteenth century Spanish kabbalist who....”

“Nonsense!” he yelled at me, half rising out of his chair. “The Zohar isn’t just a commentary; it’s a Torah all by itself. It is a new Torah, a new telling of the last Torah. You do know what Torah is, don’t you?”

Suspecting that I didn’t, and afraid to invoke his wrath a second time, I waited silently, certain that he would answer his own question. I was not disappointed.

“Torah is story. God is story. Israel is story. You, my university-educated soon-to-be a liberal pain in the ass rabbi, are a story. We are all stories! We are all Torahs!...Listen, Rami,” Reuven said in a softer voice. “Torah starts with the word b’reisheet,* ‘Once upon a time!’” [All bolds mine.]

* Conventionally translated as “in the beginning” or “with beginning” or “when God began…”.

I realize that this is outside the pale for most Christian exegesis; but it is part of what makes Judaism (dualist-theist or nondualist) such a different paradigm. It took me a long time to get into it. I’m sure that there will be charges of “relativism”, but no matter: I prefer the inclusiveness that allows for my own torah to be expressed vis-à-vis the written text.

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With that overlong sidebar, I take my leave again. I am going to spend the winter reading the Zohar. I have the first 5 volumes of Daniel Matt’s translation with detailed commentary; I have read in them, but I have not read them through. When I get to the end, I’ll order the next volume.

Be well, all my friends!

Originally posted by jaywill
[quote] And I am not an atheist with regards to 'a' god concept, I am an atheist with regards to all of them. (Excepting those who define their god to be 'love' or 'the universe' as both are patently real (in different
ways) although we have words for both of them already and I find it a bit silly to say they 'are god'.) When I talk about not believing i ...[text shortened]... e. I thought that you could only go the other direction - from Christian to Atheism.

I remember one time talking with a man who told me that he was an Atheist first and then became a Christian. This really surprised me. I thought that you could only go the other direction - from Christian to Atheism.

Originally posted by vistesd
I want to make a few “sideboard” comments:

First, Bennett’s reductio applies to a god who fits the two Os. Any theist can drop either O and escape the reductio. Many are unwilling to do so. But it is only that god who cannot exist as a conclusion of the reductio; as a nondualist, I find plenty of other reasons to reject the notion of the god of ...[text shortened]... em through. When I get to the end, I’ll order the next volume.

Be well, all my friends!

Originally posted by googlefudge
I will post something longer in response later, but I just wanted to say, nice post.
It's a fascinating read.

Originally posted by googlefudge
However they still differ in what they believe in significant ways, and 'because I want a quiet
life from my wife' is not really a good reason to justify changing the doctrines you believe will
got you into heaven.

And their are people who change completely like from Christian to Muslim for example.

Another midrash (the first one I ever attempted; midrash usually pays attention to the poly-meanings of Hebrew). This was in 2005 on here. I just remembered it because the story was brought up recently in a thread here (I forget where). It is based on 2 Kings 2:23,24—

23 He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!"
24 When he turned around and saw them, he cursed them in the name of YHVH. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.


My exploration was prompted by this question by bbarr: “Why 42 children rather than some other number? Normally the numbers used in the OT have metaphorical significance.” And a follow-up a few posts later: “Why 42 children, dammit! There has to be a reason!”

My midrash (slightly edited) is presented below:
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In Hebrew, each letter also stands for a number (there are no numerals in Biblical Hebrew). Now, the word for bear is spelled dalet bet (DB, pronounced dob; there were no real vowels in Hebrew either: sometimes a consonant could also have a vowel sound, and vowel markings were added later). Dalet is the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, bet is the second letter: 4 and 2.

The words used to identify the number of children in the story are arba’im v’sheni. arba’im is the plural form of arba, which means four-fold, quadruple, a four-count; hence, arba’im was used for the word “forty.” v’sheni means “and a double.”

A reader fluent in classical Hebrew [which I am not] would recognize the complex pun on the word dob, meaning bear, but also the numerals 4 and 2. (Again, there are no numerals in classical Hebrew.)

Since Hebrew is based on a consonantal root system (usually three, but in this case two), words with the same consonantal roots can be related, regardless of the order of the letters. Now, the word spelled bet-dalet (BD), also means idle talk or prattle. It would not be outside of midrashic exegesis to propose that this verse means, symbolically, something like, “idle chatter ate them up.”

Traditional midrashic exegesis gets a lot of mileage out of such word-plays. Basically, in Talmudic and Midrashic exegesis, Jews do not look for “the one right meaning,” but all the possible meanings, looking for symbolism, metaphor, word-plays, even puns.
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So, in this case, the story is really a fable, with a symbolic pedagogical meaning, likely aimed at “idle talk” among children. Read literally, it is inescapably horrific. I just don’t think that this story was ever intended to be taken literally—or even gravely. The pun is too obvious (and I had learned just enough Hebrew to see it). That does not make this the only possible, or “the one right”, reading/midrash by any means—a notion that I reject in principle.

But I also don’t think there is any way to impose a literalistic reading on this story that (1) is true to the original language, and (2) is not morally objectionable. One apologetic attempt to render a literal interpretation of the story less horrific that I read once claimed that yeledim (children) really meant, in the Hebrew, something like “teenage punks”. Someone else pointed out that, if that was true, Isaiah 9:6 would have to read: “For unto us a teenage punk is born.”

I want to stress again that I do not reject literalistic/historicistic readings just when I don’t like them. (And I do think that such readings are sometimes the p’shat.) I feel no need to do that.

This midrash seems more on point to this thread (though still as a side-bar) than the one I tossed out above (which, again, was not really a midrash per se).
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As I say, I am not planning on being here much for awhile. So if I don’t respond to something one of you says, I’m not deliberately ignoring you.

Be well.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Okay, but let us be clear. If Jeffrey Dahmer had created this universe and set in motion all that is; then his raping boys, dismembering their bodies, having sex with whatever is left of the corpses, and so on; this would all have been good and just. Right?

Is this really an implication of your view? That as long as X is the creator ...[text shortened]... r bodies, and having sex with the corpses would be X's right?

Am I missing something here?

Originally posted by LemonJello
Okay, so let us return to the subject of, for example, God's sanctioning genocide; or His directing the slaying of babies. He does do such things within the biblical accounts, right? So, according to you, He was right and just to do such things not because whatever He does is simply definitive of rightness and justice, but rather because doing those thi ...[text shortened]... t there were reasons, independent of God, that made this right and just? If so, what are they?