Loose Ends in the Problem of Evil

I figured that someone would bring animals into the picture at some point and ask why God allows animals to suffer.  I checked, and sure enough others have been thinking the same thing: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100623113934AAowmvt  Fine then; let’s answer that question.  But first, a preface:

To rescue someone from a burning building is better than to refuse to rescue an innocent person from a burning building.  To rescue someone from a burning building is also better than to do nothing, inasmuch as the word “nothing” is non-referential and any (real) thing is better than something (as it were) that does not exist.  The opportunity to rescue someone from a burning building is better--at least contingently so--than a lack of opportunity to rescue someone from a burning building.

Again, a world in which acts of self-sacrifice, heroism, altruism, mercy and salvation is either contingently or necessarily (I’m speaking conservatively here in using the foregoing disjunction) better than a world in which no one can be saved from a burning building because the latter world is one where there is no danger, there is no element of risk, there is no fear, there is no peril, there is no suffering of any sort, and there is no discomfort of any sort.  Even if ours were a world in which discomfort were minimal, if the teleological ends or goals of this discomfort are acts of goodness and virtue (e.g. Christ’s laying down his life for his people) which exist in addition to acts of the relatively few sorts that would exist in a painless, discomfortless world, then everyone should be able to admit that our world was superior to the painless, discomfortless world.  (I believe I referred to the latter world as “Whoville” in a previous post.)

To save and redeem is better and greater, by definition, than an absence of this.  A world with redemption is greater than a world without it.  Nevertheless, this idea will likely have its naysayers, and someone may ask rhetorically “So why not create a world where evil is never put to an end?  Why not create a world where acts of self-sacrifice, heroism, altruism, mercy and salvation in the face of evil become numerically greater over the course of time?  Why insist, as Christians do, that on some day pain and moral evil will come to an end?”*  In response, and for starters, let’s assume that evil is put to an end according to biblical or Christian doctrine and philosophy.  If one will stop to think about it, couldn’t it be that it is better to have a light at the end of the tunnel and to eventually reach that light at the end of the tunnel than otherwise?  In other words, there is not necessarily much to be said of a world in which people long and yearn for future days when evil and suffering have passed away; however, there is certainly something to be said of a world in which people eventually get this very thing that they have longed for.  It is perfectly plausible that a world in which evil is conquered is better than a world in which either evil will never have been found or evil never ends.

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With that said, let’s touch on one last issue as it relates to the problem of moral evil and circumstantial evil.  Christians can appreciate the idea, however rightly or wrongly, that all people have sinned through their forefather Adam** and that sinners qua sinners deserve no favor, protection or gifts from God--if you turn your back on God then you should lie in the bed you’ve made, which means going it alone from now on.  Even children are descendents of Adam and have sinned, so even the suffering of children is something that is believed to be right or just in view of these young people’s moral standing before God.  However, one wonders about the pain and suffering that is experienced in the animal kingdom.  Animals are not believed to be sinners, but the misery that befalls any animal that is hunted down and mauled, strangled or bitten by predators--to say nothing of animals that are abused by humans--is something that does matter; I think everyone can agree on this.***  So the unarticulated thought behind all this is How is it just that God allows animals to suffer?

If we really want a philosophical answer then the answer is found partly in Romans 9.  To which of God’s creations is he indebted?  What does the Creator owe to anyone or anything?  What rights does anyone or anything have that God has not given to them?  If animals are fashioned to play the role that they play in the grand theodical plan to realize the best of all possible worlds, who is anyone to disagree with this?  Notice immediately and in the meantime that all events and affairs on planet earth are observed or known from the heavens.  Where angels themselves do not take notice of things and consider them (Hebrews 1.14; 13.2; 1 Peter 1.10-12), there are three members of the Trinity who know of them and, I would think, will themselves be satisfied with the coming Day in which pain and suffering is experienced by neither human nor animal any longer.  With a view to Isaiah 65.17-25, Lamentations 3.31-39 and Revelation 21-22, it seems clear that everyone on high and on earth would like to see the day when all evil is a thing of the past.  Yet pain and moral evils are those things which make a better tomorrow just as discipline makes a better person or better athlete in spite its inherent discomfort (Hebrews 12.3-11).
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* However, it is not clear--to me at least--that evil will ever end as opposed to evil’s simply being marginalized and consigned to that place where people already, according to biblical doctrine, endure everlasting punishment for the wrongs that they have done.  Yes, every knee will bow at the Parousia, but it is not clear to me that the pains and misery of hellfire and utter darkness are enough to stifle the slightest bits of moral wrongdoing which come naturally to people who lived their lives in rebellion against God on account of their fallen nature.
** Again, personally I think that Original Sin makes most sense according to traducianism.
*** For instance, see Numbers 22:21-35 and Proverbs 12:10.

Monday Two-fer

Re: AOMIN | Christians: You Must Deny the Lordship of Christ. It is the Price of Citizenship in this Secular Nation.

As a photographer (no, my best work is not posted on this website =) ), I personally would have welcomed the opportunity to be paid to shoot the “wedding” in question after first asking that these women selflessly go elsewhere to find a photographer for the sake of my conscience and sense of moral duty.  Because I can think of one hundred ways to do poorly done photography and I would have had plenty of fun in the process of putting it all together.  It’s like the fun you had as a child when you would draw mustaches and funny eyebrows over photos of people: good stuff.

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Over at http://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/bible-verse-of-the-day/ this was the verse of the day:

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Genesis 50.20, ESV)

I wonder how many Arminians, post-Arminians, Pelagians and semi-Pelagians would deny that the events of 9/11 or the death of Trayvon Martin, for two instances, are events that God meant for good, to bring about that many people be blessed.  After all, people were saying right after those events that the events were not of God, yet what good reason would Joseph have for saying that his ordeal was meant for good if his statement here--which Christians accept as being true--is not believed to be a prophetic utterance?  In Joseph’s mind was it a given fact that all events are things which God means for good, to bring about that many people be blessed?

Beyond the crude facts of homosexuality

This more or less dovetails a post that DB recently pasted; I’ve only now managed to organize my thoughts enough to post them, plus I have a new perspective on them.

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I don’t often divulge details of my personal life, but I’ll be painfully candid in this case for illustrative purposes.  For a host of reasons that I cannot get into, I do not like most people.  (Notice that I did not say that I dislike most people, but rather that I do not like most people, at least not as much as most people like other people.)  Now, there is a girl at work whom I do like, perhaps both platonically and otherwise; this person is also physically well-endowed, flaunts it, flirts...and already has a BF.  So, faced with the choice of either leading a tortured existence every day at work or making the problem go away, what’s a guy to do?  Whether figuratively or literally, the easiest thing to do is to just hurry up, get a hotel room and be done with it; or the easiest thing is to attempt to just push the other guy completely out of the picture in a way that brings about unnecessary strife or rifts between the boyfriend and this girl who still likes him anyhow.  However, what I know of Christ’s teachings on sexuality (cf. John 14.25-26, John 16.12-15, 2 Peter 3.15-16, 1 Corinthians 7.8-9, Mark 7.20-23) and what I know of the Golden Rule both have an impact on my decision-making processes: thus I choose the tortured existence.

Where there is fuel there is fire, which is why a day at work can be miserable in ways to which I already alluded.  But where there is not fuel there is also trouble.  In the absence of this person, or of a significant other in general, I am left to realize my solitary existence and what a solitary existence means.  I’m not a part of one of these happy couples that you see at the restaurant, theater, park, club, or whatever.  Instead, whenever I see these couples I am sadly made aware of that which I do not have but others do have.  (Sadness of this kind is only intensified in those cases where one realizes that his odds at finding someone with whom they have chemistry and a shot at becoming part of a lasting couple are one in a billion; because those who are not easy on the eyes or are unlikable are by definition unattrative.  With that said, there is also a word that denotes what is experienced when he or she deals with such a thing, and that word is “grief.”)

As if it were not enough to have sadness and grief piled upon pain of other sorts, let’s also throw loneliness into the mix.  If someone is used to a solitary existence then they can, in God’s grace, adapt or otherwise erstwhile have the fortitude to flourish to some degree in their solitary existence.  However, if one is forced to taste of what life is like for most people on this earth, but later has that respite from solitude taken away, one must now deal with a new problem and a new sorrow: loneliness.

So there it is: a continual, daily, or weekly grind of loneliness piled upon grief piled upon sadness piled upon the experience of being teased.  Sounds great, right?  But this is exactly the sort of thing that Christians who hold fast to biblical teachings expect of gays and lesbians who either profess or do not profess to be disciples of Christ, is it not?  Of course, I do not criticize Christians on this matter, because they rightly acknowledge the fact that the Creator himself expects all people to be on the winning side of the war between the will of God vs. the desires of fallen, post-Edenic human nature (cf. 1 Peter 2.11); nonetheless, I think that people would do well to consider some of the pastoral and existential implications of contemporary culture wars as they pertain to homosexuality.  Why do I think that people should consider such things?  This is because if we as Christians counsel sinners with the words “Go and sin no more” or “Take up your cross daily and follow,” then both parties should know what they are getting themselves into in the entire process.

Unregenerate man, in large part, hasn’t the will or the interest to follow the exhortation “Take up your cross daily and follow.”  In fact, unless the meaning of the phrase and the means by which the phrase can be obeyed are explained, the person who attempts to counsel others with these words runs the serious risk of appearing to have no grip on reality or on what kinds of issues people actually deal with in life.  So I claim that such a would-be counselor should carefully consider and analyze his actions in advance, because Christianity ought not be more offensive than it already is, as one can glean from Titus 2.9-10, 1 Timothy 6.1-2, and 1 Peter 2.12.

Likewise, the phrase “Go and sin no more” does not strike me, for one, as a comforting set of words or the sort of things that good pep talks are made of: simple words and advice probably won’t be very useful to those people who are called upon to leave their same-sex significant others along with their incorrect sexual desires.  Keep in mind that in daily struggles against the flesh sometimes even the best of us apparently just give up and decide to stop fighting, which not too long ago seemed to be the case with Amy Grant and Gary Chapman (http://assets.baptiststandard.com/archived/1999/12_8/pages/grant.html) vis-à-vis the Difficult Teachings of Matthew 5, 19 and 1 Corinthians 7.  So I claim that any would-be biblical counselor should carefully consider and analyze his actions in advance and act accordingly, because sheer head knowledge of moral rights and wrongs is no guarantee that any of us will do the right thing and continue to do the right thing.

So any believer who is ready to stand up and begin to push back against the contemporary social forces that are encouraging everyone and every institution to sanction homosexuality should consider the pastoral and existential implications of their own deeds in advance; they should consider them and act accordingly for moral reasons and reasons of practicality.  Meanwhile, of course, I state the above not merely as a matter of brute facts and logic but also as a matter of someone who to some degree can begin to relate to what others might be going through.  With that said, I would urge any would-be counselor on this issue to choose his words wisely according to the time, place, person and circumstance.  For example, I think that Christ proves himself worldly-wise with regard to his words about eunuchs and the Difficult Teaching in Matthew 19 and I also find concepts and biblical teaching about theodical character-building to be somewhat comforting: these are the sorts of things that I would like to hear, somewhat, if someone were exhorting me not to choose the easy/evil solution to my own problems.  Of course, other people may respond differently to such words on an emotional or rational level, so other appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos may be helpful with other people.

But just as one’s own heterosexual affects and emotions are not activated and deactivated as easily as the flick of switch, so it is with gays and lesbians who need to leave behind whatever sin they need to leave behind but, yes, may still have to lead their lives in the meantime amid the same temptations and same strong urges, desires and drives of the flesh which they had before, because struggles in life do not necessarily go away when someone repents.  Let everyone remember this.

For some, the Twilight Zone is real.

For anyone with time on their hands and nothing to think about I present the following problem for you to consider: What does it mean when uncanny, too-bizarre-to-be-fictional strings of events continue to occur in a person’s life?  What if one series of events provides for a recurrent cheating of death and physical injury, while another series slaps you in the face time and again thus reducing you to a mere shell of a person, while still another series manages to put you in the most curious ephemeral circumstances at the right time?

What if there were no discernible patterns of human behavior involved which would allow one to theorize “Oh, this person did wrong, and that’s why these things happen” or, to the contrary, “Oh, this person is being rewarded, and that’s why these things happen”?  And to what degree should people plan their future activities with the expectation that such events will only continue to occur as they have been occurring?  For example, if the evil events that Job experienced in the first few chapters of the Book of Job continued for a longer period of time--say ten years--before ending, then in year five should Job have given up on the idea of having a family and riches ever again?

Re: Jesus and Same Sex Marriage | Joe Dallas Online

For anyone who missed this clever post from Joe Dallas: Jesus and Same Sex Marriage | Joe Dallas Online.

Citation corrections are provided over at Triablogue: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/06/jesuss-teachings-on-marriage-in-light.html.

Regarding Rick Warren's Son

This is probably the best web page on the subject: Triablogue: Perseverance and suicide.

Notice that in the comments section someone mentions the Scripture that I would also mention in discussions where it is denied that suicide is an “unpardonable sin”: 1 John 3.15.  With that said, my thinking is that a person would have to work to prove that any Christian who has considered suicide was in fact regenerate when he died; any Christian who has died in this way would have done mental and logical gymnastics to work around the problem of ending his life without intentionally killing himself: something which can be done though presumably no one commits himself to such a project before he puts himself to death.

Re: Huckabee on the Newtown massacre

Triablogue: Huckabee on the Newtown massacre

Additional thoughts:

1) Then again, isn’t God mentioned in the pledge of allegiance which students make at the beginning of the school day?

2) Sadly I cannot think of the Scripture which Dr. Ross mentioned long ago which seemed to suggest that early deaths are actions of mercy or relief: relatively beneficial things.  Nevertheless, bear in mind that even young people who have met a terrifying or violent to their lives are people who will not have to suffer illness and disease, or experience an increasing amount of decay and poor health associated with aging, or suffer any of the grief or pitfalls that people experience as they pass from one age to the next or from one stage of life to the next.

"The Passion of the Christ" and Commentary on the Problem of Evil

So “The Passion of the Christ” was on TBN a few nights ago.  I watched as Jim Caviezel was tied to a cross and I thought about how divine wrath was poured out on the real Christ when he was on the cross two thousand years ago (Isaiah 53.5).  But then I thought that there was love there and not just wrath.  Christ lay down his own life according to the command of the Father (John 10.17-18) and according to the love of both his Father and the sheep for whom he died to save and to bless (John 14.28-31, Ephesians 5.25-27).  Then I remembered John’s teaching that God is love and the scholarly opinion that every act of God’s is a loving act in some way or another (1 John 4.7-12).

Now, in considering the problem of evil we wonder why bad things happen to people of all sorts: both the righteous and the unrighteous.  We know for starters that all events are of God (e.g. see Lamentations 3.38, Romans 11.36) and that bad things which happen to the righteous benefit them in some way, considering Romans 8.28-39, other passages (e.g. Romans 5.3-4, Hebrews 12), and maybe previous thoughts on the matter.  So it becomes easier to see love in all trials and tribulations of the saints in particular.

On the other hand, when we ask why unbelievers fall prey to murderers, brutes, thieves, rapists, etc. it is all too easy to say “It is because they sinned.”  After all, such a response shows no immediate sign of one’s having considered that regardless of the individual rap sheets of unbelievers, no murderer has a right to do what he has done, no rapist has a right to do what he has done, etc.  Granted: if one turns his back on God then that person should expect to forfeit divine protection from various evils.  (Likewise, if you’re a teenager who moves out of his parents’ house to avoid authority, then don’t come asking them for money to pay rent outside in the real world.)  However, it is intuitively clear that no one had a right to kill the unbelieving victims of the Holocaust because of ethnicity or religious beliefs, none of the unbelieving victims of the torture of Uday Hussein during Iraq’s Baathist days deserved to be tortured, people did not have a right to chop off the hands of other people to coerce political support in Liberia and Sierra Leone’s diamond wars, etc.  So the response “It is because they sinned” is at best a lackluster response.

It is also an incomplete response.  For one thing, it says nothing of unborn infants who are burned or dismembered as victims of abortion before they have individually committed any sort of evil.  Of course, if one will assert that they are unrepentant sinners undeserving of divine protection in view of teachings of Original Sin, Romans chapter 5, and the gloss of “federal headship,” then fine: let them do so.  However, let the record show that apart from biblical exegesis--and even with biblical exegesis--the idea of inherited guilt does not have much in terms of other proofs.  In other words, in the world of Christian apologetics amid a broader world of skeptics who question Christianity the mere appeal to Romans 5 and certain other Scriptures is not very helpful.  Likewise, current extra-biblical proofs of corporate guilt--at least that I have seen--simply are neither cogent nor valid.*  However, even if they are valid it is not necessarily clear that corporate guilt theoretically can be predicated in cases where certain guilty parties did not even exist yet when their crime was committed, as with Adam before the fall.

Then again, maybe someone wants to argue for traducianism (e.g. see Genesis 46.26, Hebrews 7.9-10) such that we could see that all futurate human beings have existed since Adam’s time such that billions of people were parts of Adam even at the dawn of human history and thus perhaps were agents of that same individual.  Fine, but the point is this: people have their work cut out for them if they want to formally justify God’s allowing and causing what is (relatively) undeserved suffering of unbelievers.

Nevertheless, suppose that all philosophical and apologetical loose ends are tied in this case.  If God is love and if every act of his is a loving act in some way or another, then where is the love in the suffering of unbelievers either on the earth or in hell?  In terms of logos the answer is found by analogy human interpersonal relationships, I suspect.  It is not uncommon to hear that evil exists for God to demonstrate various attributes of his, including justice or justness.  That he would do such a thing as an end in itself or merely because he feels like doing so is not something that I am claiming.  However, stop and think about all the different people with whom you are acquainted and how well each of those people know you.  Chances are that you are acquainted with people that you dislike but have to deal with anyhow: chances are also pretty good that you do not divulge much personal information to them either.  On the other hand, think about the people that you like and are familiar with: you’re more willing to talk to them about current troubles, financial woes, bad days at work, interests and interesting anecdotes that you have.  And when it comes to the people that you love, usually the amount of personal information that both parties share and possess is rather high, especially among marital couples.  So people tend to open up to people that they’re cool with.

From the very beginning of time God in his wisdom has known what evil is or would be like, how bad evil is, what types and amount of destruction evil can cause, what (ethical/moral) goodness is, how excellent the members of the Trinity are, how much the same persons are capable of acting in accord with good during any and all circumstances, how wise they are and how they can use this wisdom perfectly in any situation, etc.  To know these propositions merely directly or through brain power is one thing.  To have both propositional and experiential knowledge of them is greater.  Consequently, if one member of the Trinity launches the current course of human events--with all its evil and pitfalls but also good things such as mercy, grace, and favor--it is conceivable that it is done to the benefit of other members of the Trinity who then come to have new experiential knowledge of various facets of God’s wisdom and goodness.  Of course, this is done among persons among whom there is no antipathy.

Meanwhile, there are angels whom God has rejected and there angels who have remained in the heavenly realm and who have not rebelled (Matthew 25.41, 2 Peter 2.4, Jude 1.6, Revelation 12.7-9; cf. Luke 10.18).  The current course of world history and human events--from start to finish--may also benefit the holy angels if they are capable of observing human events, God’s interaction with human events, and what their implications are.  Interestingly enough, the Scriptures speak of angels’ desires to learn of such things (1 Peter 1.12).

Finally, if God were to create human beings whom he loves but were to withhold in divulging to them much of what can be known about him, this would make for a peculiar relationship among people that he loves.  Again, if God were to create human beings but ensure that there be no Fall and no act of rebellion against God at any time in the future, there would be much of God that these humans would never know.  There would be much of his wisdom, justice and power that they would never know.  There would have been a case where to some significant degree someone did not open up to people that he’s cool with.

However, as reality now stands God has indeed informed all people that sin is bad, that rebellion is bad, that deviations from goodness and his commands are unworthy of pursuit and acceptance.  Of course, throughout human history people have rejected this knowledge and been given over to the natural results of deviation from what is good in God’s sight.  In the process God’s wisdom is proven time and again: a lesson which the saints learn and recognize yet which unbelievers often do not see.  Indeed, God has allowed the occurrence of evil acts throughout human history and has time and again punished those who choose to do what is evil while also recurrently restraining the amount of evil that may be committed under the sun: a cause for the saints’ experientially knowing of God’s goodness, righteousness and mercy while unbelievers often learn nothing from this.**  (For an example of all of this see Romans 1.18-32.)

So the problem and existence of evil are consonant with the ideas that God is love and that every act of his is somehow beneficent.  Again the question was “Where is the love in the suffering of unbelievers either on the earth or in hell?”  We already took at look at an answer which is conceivable on an intuitive and rational level.  However, it is sentimentally or emotionally unsatisfying simply to say “One group suffers miserably on earth and in hell so that another group is benefited.”  True it is that sinners choose to do that which is wrong, are undeserving of divine protection, and ultimately are punished exactly according to their crimes.  Still, true it is that God could have created a world in which people either by their nature or by divine protection had neither will nor ability to sin and that some might say that such a world is the best possible world.  In any case, there is probably no reason that a malcontent should be pleased with any world in which God creates a human race.  Of a possible world where the human race’s hands are tied from sinning, someone will claim that such a world is distasteful for lack of freedom, growth and maturity.  Of a world where people’s hands are untied, someone will complain about the freedom that does exist there and which allows evil.  Sentimentally or in terms of pathos there can be no absolutely satisfying answer for malcontents.  The bottom line of the matter is that in this world sinners get what they want, are punished exactly for the injustice that they wanted, and serve as a means of benefiting those whom God saves from themselves--all such that nothing in this universe goes to waste.

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* The idea that all citizens of a given country are at war when its leaders declare war is questionable; for instance, dissenters and war protestors do not seem to be at war with anyone.  Likewise, to say something like “The Luftwaffe dropped thousands of bombs on England during the Blitz” does not seem to be an accurate statement about each member of the Luftwaffe during the WWII: not every Luftwaffe pilot and mechanic would have been tasked with handling Britain at the time as opposed to patrolling other parts of German-held territory.  In fact, to treat someone favorably because he is your friend’s friend seems not to speak of transferable merit but of treating one favorably in order to please your friend.  A better case might be made in terms of republican forms of government and action where someone is tasked to act on someone’s behalf and the chosen party ends up misusing his power and authority behind the backs of those who sent it.

** Even more will be learned on the final day when “God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Romans 2.16) and when the world is judged by the saints (1 Corinthians 6.2).

Pain, Suffering, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas

“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” was on ABC yesterday. I watched it but skipped the movie that followed it; this seemed like a good idea since the cartoon needed only 30 minutes to cover what the movie dragged out for 2 hours or so.

So I watched this cartoon, and I thought the same thing I’ve always thought about the Whos in Whoville. I hate the Whos in Whoville--always have, probably always will. Bear in mind that this is not even to say that I was ever a fan of the pre-repentant Grinch, which I am not. No, I still hate the Whos and after watching the show yesterday I think I know why.

Just look at the Whos. It’s not so much that they look smug or condescending with their eyes shut as they dine at the dinner table, looking like they think they’re too good to look at the others around them. No, the reason I dislike them is different I think. The Whos of Whoville are the kinds of persons you would never want you or others to be like: innocent.

That is, the Whos have no appearance of being anything more than naïve, ignorant, non-world-wise, sheltered, untested creatures who know nothing but happiness, perfection and convenience. They go about with their eyes shut and a dumb smile on their face completely unaware of the dangers of the world around them and completely without any inkling of what it is deal with any degree of trials, tribulations, trouble, suffering or inconvenience. Even real-life infants are less sheltered and less pathetic than Whos, because when infants cry you know that not all is well with them.*

Now, imagine for a moment what the world would be like if all persons were as sheltered and ignorant as are the Whos--creatures who have never so much as chipped a fingernail, stubbed their toe, spent more than 10 minutes on homework, broken a sweat during exercise or manual labor, etc. Perhaps you would not mind if everyone were like this and if you too were such a person. Personally, I would despise everyone around me if all people were like this; I would equally despise myself if I would look at myself from a third-person perspective and see an alternate reality version of myself as such a creature.

With only a few exceptions, no one on this earth likes pain, discomfort or inconvenience. At the same time, there really is something to be said of what pain, discomfort and inconvenience can do to and for a person. For there is something to be said, for instance, for objects which suffer a trial by fire and survive such a thing, like silver put to the fire and cleared from dross. The bottom line is that objects which survive fiery trials--whether literal and figurative--are relatively better than objects which have not done so, pure and simple. In fact, this fact of intuition (or so I claim it is) is one reason, for example, that we place such high value on objects in a museum: any sword which was forged one thousand years ago and survives the ravages of decay and time is in some way greater than something you might shape today with your own hammer, anvil and blast furnace. That’s the way it is.

Again, no one on this earth likes pain, discomfort or inconvenience all that much, especially when those things are still in progress and have not yet run their course. Nevertheless, that same pain, discomfort and inconvenience improves both humans and the human condition on this earth. These things produce patience, perseverance, strength, and character when they are suffered or otherwise mastered. They also enhance the culture around us; for the phrase “Necessity is the mother of invention” speaks at least of inconvenience, and something as simple as the invention of a toothbrush would not have come about were it not for some particular rotten tooth or some particular instance of bad breath that someone had way back when. Moreover, they allow those of us who have passed through the fire to be of help to those who are passing through the fire, as anyone who has been paying attention to the apostle Paul’s epistles will recall.

So at the end of the day, pain, discomfort or inconvenience often have the result of benefiting the human race. Even the annoying traits of the residents of Whoville that I suffer through in watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” gives me (to mention just one person) the opportunity either to better understand why God allows evil or at least to exercise some brain power in composing this blog post.

So the world in which we live is actually not as bad as one might think. Nevertheless, never forget that even this world is not the best of all possible worlds. The best of all possible worlds is one which is populated by individuals who are battle-scarred yet no longer have to face the trials, tribulations and battles of old. Be cheerful because that world currently is not far away.

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* Apparently even the angels of heaven do not lead an entirely unsheltered existence, judging from Revelation 12.7.

The Best Sermon I've Heard in Years

Actually, it’s not a sermon at all! Still, in my mind it played like a sermon. On the problem of evil:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/providence-divine/#Suf