Evil in a One-Storey Universe

September 4, 2007 by kevinburt

In case you missed it, Fr Stephen has continued his “One-Storey Universe” series with a consideration of how we see evil in such a world. Read it here.

Posted in Orthodoxy, Theodicy | 9 Comments

9 Responses

on September 4, 2007 at 10:03 pm | Reply Craig Brown

There is only evil if there is free will. Is there free will? Really?

If the purpose of life is is to realize the Divine Plan and our perfect surrender into it, and if it is all envisioned beforehand, and the failure if the evil one is guaranteed, etc arguments for free will get tortuous.

Some moments I believe in free will and am a card carrying dualist. Other moments, from a non-dualist perspective I see that my fundamental sin, is to see myself separate and as “the doer”. God is the planner and the doer, and I am the machine He does with.

All Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all say that complete surrender and allowing the Divine to work through us is the highest goal and fulfillment.

Its as if only when we are separate and sinners do we have free will, if even then. When we get with the program we don’t.

then there is no evil because all is God’s Will and therefore cannot be evil. Only misunderstood. Maybe thats why we are not to judge.

Can anything resist God, really?
on September 5, 2007 at 12:37 pm | Reply David

Even Abraham argued with God.

Moses did, Jacob/Israel did, Job did, and Elijah did. John the baptist tried to refuse to baptize Jesus. Paul wished he could give up his own salvation for his people to turn and accept Christ. They and so many others in scripture at least admitted to having a different will than God’s.

Even Jesus asked that the cup might pass from him, but submitted to the will of the Father.

Islam is different. Islam doesn’t allow for the wrestling with God. I believe the Biblical message is that such wrestling is not just acceptable but intended by God.

Buddhism is a godless religion so their use of the word “divine” doesn’t mean what we mean by it. It is a philosophy of emptiness. The path is formed by ridding yourself of desire and its faithful servant suffering.

God calls us to be filled with Him, not empty.

Hinduism isn’t really a single faith at all but a word foreigners use to describe a collection of religions. I can’t speak to their relations to Christianity.

Equating the world’s religions in such a way does a disservice to those who in each who believe the differences are profound. It sounds enlightened, but is disrespectful.

I don’t mean to sound as harsh as these words read, my apologies.
on September 5, 2007 at 3:19 pm | Reply kevinburt

Craig,

As Orthodox, freedom of the human will is of paramount importance. Without free will, there can be no love, and love is supreme. My wife can love me, as can my children, but a computer programmed to love, still cannot. Love only exists where it is a path freely chosen, not coerced or unavoidable.

As far as dualism goes, I do assent to some degree of dualism. The Jews did, and Christianity always has, though it was taken to incredible extremes in some of the more fundamentalist veins.

Our “surrender” to the will of God…. is that a choice we must make? I believe so. And, just as I one day surrender to the will and purpose of God, I must continue to make that choice daily. Daily repentance, daily turning, daily submission to God, to the kingdom of Christ that is within us. This daily choice…. we are free to make it or to refuse the love God offers. That’s not to argue for some sort of absolute freedom of will , as if nothing in my environment or mind or prejudices affects it. It surely does, and thus we all pray for the Divine Mercy. But, without some degree of true freedom, things become a bit pointless, to me.

I don’t believe that there “is no evil.” My whole Christian Tradition and the Jewish tradition before it attests to such a thing as “evil.” Now, is evil a real “thing”, philosophically speaking? Many of the Fathers and theologians held and hold it to be the absence of God/good, rather than a true substance in its own right. But, if if it is a “nothingness,” a vacuum almost, there is still such a “thing.” I do agree that there is always an element of “misunderstanding” when men love evil rather than good.

And, yes, we are told to refrain from judging…. though I think it’s because we recognize our own sinfulness, our own utter “mistakenness” when compared with God. God is the one who can and will offer good, just, and merciful judgment. I am called simply to love and accept and offer hospitality to all.

I think it is possible to resist God. Not because we can muster a strength greater than his, but because he has chosen to give us freedom of will/choice. I cannot force my children to love me and do my will; God could force me, but chooses not to. And my children love me by freely choosing to do so; and I do the same with God.

Jesus at times wept over the people whom he “wanted to gather under his wing,” but who “were not willing to come.” He was frequently met with rejetion, not because he lacked power to change us, but because he desires our love even more than our obedience.

At least, that is my understanding, from with my Orthodox Faith. At the end of the day, however, even though I do believe in the importance of free will, I fall not on that anthropological understanding, but on: “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Kevin
on September 6, 2007 at 10:20 pm | Reply Craig Brown

No harshness perceived here, only honest consideration of one of the most important questions of our existence.

both are thoughtful explorations of something that I am still trying to understand. You both may be right. In fact, viewed from some vantage points, I believe you are right. I mean that what we are dealing with in the Good/Evil Problem and with religions in general are concepts ( we call them doctrines and dogmas) that try to help our limited selves perceive the Divine Unlimited.

But is there a vantage point from which we are so surrendered that we are one with the Will of God and can no more depart from it than we can…….breath the vacuum of space? A place beyond concepts?

If we pay attention, we notice that 99% of our actions are not premeditated but arrive spontaneously. Neuro-science shows that when we move, our motor cortex fires off before our frontal lobes ( conscious observer) receive the signal; so that our minds may really be passive observers all or most of the time.

I have this nagging feeling that I am mostly a bundle of habits and tendencies, that I am the observer of.

So in your opinion, was Jesus already perfect and perfected from the beginning and just going through the motions, or was he too undergoing the heat of the crucible of Divinization?

Was his Theosis complete at birth or on the Cross or when?

It is interesting that the mystics of the church speak of God as the Divine Emptiness, and in many other terms that you meet in Buddhism and Hinduism ( particularly Vedanta).

Each path is very different in their praxis, but their highest fulfillments are often descibed in the same words.

Can they have different ultimate endpoints? Is there more than one game in town? Or are there just differing concepts and pathways through the forest of life?

And evil seems to drop away from view when gazing at Him in whome there is no darkness. As if it were of so little consequence as to have been a delusion all along.

May we be blessed to surrender more and understand the Truth, whatever it is.
on September 11, 2007 at 7:37 am | Reply kevinburt

Craig,

Your explorations into Eastern philosophies/metaphysics go places with which I’m just not very familiar. So, to some extent, I think I may not follow you on everything…. I assume that there are intricacies and nuances to your thinking that I ought not speak on, simply because I know I don’t understand it well.

So, take what I say as an answer from an Orthodox neophyte!

The ORthodox fathers certainly spoke very mystically and apophatically. However, apophaticism, for Orthodox, is not the same “emptying” as the emptying of Buddhism, from what I understand.

There is a union with God that is “beyond concepts.” One recent podcast I listened to by an Orthodox teacher was titled, “The Tragedy of Dogma,” in which he said that dogma was only there because we have gone astray. Perfect union with God necessitates no dogmatic pronouncements; they exist only to counter errors about God (errors which arose by speculations and new “concepts” about God) and to give us “fences” to help keep us safe. Largely, in Orthodoxy, dogmas are much broader than heresies, and that was a profound realization for me.

Regarding Jesus, we would not speak of him as undergoing theosis, at all. He is the eternally begotten Son of the Father. Lossky’s “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church” is very good on christology and trinitarian theology. The Son is “Very God of Very God…. Light of Light”….. all those Nicene terms are actuallly rooted in the Apostolic writings, and seek to affirm the eternal nature of Jesus as Very God. Just as we would not say that the Father underwent theosis (He is God from all eternity); so would we not say that of the Son, even though the incarnation.

In the incarnation, Jesus suffered, and “learned obedience,” but he was not “deified.” He was fully God, BY NATURE, from the moment of His conception. We BECOME “gods” or one with God BY GRACE, never by nature, as did Christ.

At least, that is the Orthodox Faith, and mine. It certainly is the faith of the Church since Nicaea, while I know that there is disagreement over whether it was the faith earlier than that. But, I think the historical evidence is quite good for holding that St Paul and the Apostolic Fathers believed the same thing, and ultimately, that it is how Jesus viewed himself.

Best to you,
Kevin
on September 11, 2007 at 9:43 pm | Reply Craig Brown

“….Perfect union with God necessitates no dogmatic pronouncements;…”

I really like this, because it says what I was trying to say better than I did. That is the point we fall silent and just exist in worship and gratitude. A point where our awareness of separate self falls away.

At least my understanding is that this is what the Buddhists call Nivana and the Hindus samadhi ( merging with Brahman)—-

in both those states, one cannot conceptualize or “word” God as the ground substrate of our being. Non-duality.

One step back, God becomes personalized ( Father Son Holy Spirit, and we become individuals. Qualified Non-duality

One step further back and we become polarised and recognise good and evil. Duality

“At least, that is the Orthodox Faith, and mine. It certainly is the faith of the Church since Nicaea, while I know that there is disagreement over whether it was the faith earlier than that. But, I think the historical evidence is quite good for holding that St Paul and the Apostolic Fathers believed the same thing, and ultimately, that it is how Jesus viewed himself.”

Where it comes down to it, then is How do we conceptualize Jesus? Is the Son and Jesus identically synonomous? was Jesus as much of the Son as flesh could bear?

When Jesus was incarnate was he temporarily absent from the rest of the Universe Omnipresently speaking? ( which makes no sense to me.)

As eternally part of the Omniscient Omnipotent Omnipresent Trinity, how could he “learn obedience”? He was already fully perfect and perfectly full. As part of everything how could he become more of anything?

And can we really rely too much on Paul, who knew him not at all in the flesh, and was always at odds with those who did? Reliance on Pauls writings was a phenomenon of the gentile church, not the Jeruselum church.

I can go as far as saying He was/is an incarnation of the Son, and as much of the Son as can be incarnated.

But I think the Church has granted itself too much authority to tell us in detail what He was and was not. It did this by anathematizing the Jewish Church which had more direct knowledge and traditions of Jesus than the Roman Church did. When Peter died, the roman church lost is direct link.

Eusebuis records Rome reluctantly allowing that the Eastern church of John might have legitimate differences ( see the arguments over the dates of Easter). I can’t say I trust Rome under Constantine much. When the Bishops couldn’t agree, the Emporer Constantine would break the ties. I can’t base my faith on the wisdom of a Roman Emporer/General.

The Churches duty is to tell the good news, and hold the sacraments out for each to come and be transformed through His grace.

I think the core of what being a Christian is to want to be with Him in the Kingdom now and forever.

The tools are meditation, prayer, and the sacraments along with the intent to let the Holy Spirit lead us where are supposed to go.

Talk of good and evil, doctrines and dogmas, belief checklists, may produce the external resemblance of the Holy Spirit indwelling, but sometimes nothing more.

It is surrender, surrender, surrender. which ironically is a free will choice to end further free will choice.

I would rather be fully surrendered that perfectly theologised and dogmatically correct.

Thanks for being patient with my ramblings, and thank you for your insights which I treasure.

Peace

Craig
on September 13, 2007 at 8:13 am | Reply kevinburt

Craig,

My insights are not worth much, I think. But, here they go again… ha. I’ve read enough Orthodox Theology, prayed with the Church long enough now, and worshipped the Trinity in the Liturgy enough to *feel*, not just emotionally, but noetically, a beauty to the Church’s Trinitarian thought. I have read Orthodox theologians — notably John Zizioulas (Metropolitan of Pergamon) and Vladimir Lossky to see the theological beauty and coming together of theology and mysticism (to Orthodoxy, the two are one…. separate them and you get the dry, academic and abiotic formulations of Western Scholasticism), and how Trinitarian language safeguards and even makes possible true personhood, as opposed to being merely an ontological “individual.”

That said, I cannot explain all of that in words to others very well at this point. I figure I never will be able to… especially given the existential nature of how Orthodox “do” theology and experience God noetically, in the “nous”…. how the Kingdom of God is found not in books or councils or hierarchies (though all those things are enveloped within the Kingdom and useful and needed), but “within you” (Aside: repentance is ever before us as Orthodox…. in the Greek, “metanoia,” a changing of the nous, or inner mind…. not the same as the brain or thinking faculty, but the deepest existential reality of man in the soul….. so repentance, to us, is not based on knowledge, but on inner conversion and constant experience of God and communion with Him).

On another note, I don’t really see the same barrier between Paul and Peter as you do. I certainly recognize the “messy” character of the early Church… various “schools” of thought and of trying to figure things out (it took several centuries to really “figure out” the Church’s present Christology, or at least to fully protect it against deviations which detract from God’s beauty and our theosis/salvation). I think the picture painted by Luke is one of numerous confrontations and an underlying tension, but one which both Peter and Paul knew were simply “growing pains.” Without Peter and James, you get the sickly mixture of Paul and Calvin which characterizes so much of American Christianity (or some other pseudo-gnostic/dualist fundamentalism). Without Paul, you get neo-Ebionitism. Many traditions have clung more to one than the other; the Orthodox Church says we need them both. Chesterton said that the only way to avoid heresy was to cling furiously to all extremes.

I’ve read a bit of the history surrounding Nicea and Constantine (as well as the future councils). While I am fully aware that the Emperor sometimes called a council, or intervened, I don’t think history shows that the emperor determined the dogmas. Those dogmas were hammered out by Bishops (and sometimes pre-bishops like the young Athanasius, only a deacon and in his mid-20s at Nicaea) over years (decades and centuries). They continued to develop in a logical way, even while emperors came and went from every theological extreme. Many bishops who are now Saints and Fathers spent much of their time in exile by heretical emperors. The Faith of those Fathers, not of the Emperor, is now the Faith of the Church.

I do agree, really, with your view of the “duty” of the Church. However, Orthodoxy really sees the Church more ontologically rather than pragmatically. The Church does not have a duty to “do,” but to “be.” “The Church is Salvation,” we say, not because we are “intolerant” or “exclusive” but because the Church is Christ. It is His mystical presence. As a forshadowing of complete theosis, we even now make up Christ’s presence. It is the stepping stone to full deification.

And so, what is “the good news”? At the very least, it must be admitted that, to the very earliest Christians, the good news was that “Jesus is Lord.” Not Caesar. But, what does that mean? We all know that words must have meaning. What is “Lord”? What is “Jesus”? How does He offer salvation? How is this possible? From what and to what? So many questions naturally arise from even the simplest declaration of the “good news.” And, the Fathers said, if you answer wrongly, instead of with the fullness of Christological truth, you get heresy, which is always a shrinking, a selection from the whole. Arius did it. Nestorius did it (though not as badly). Marcion did it. All the well known heretics shrunk from believing the *whole* Christ, says Orthodoxy. When we take away from Christ, do we take away from our own divinization? Yes, says the Church.

That’s where I’m at. I’m sure one could raise numerous objections that I could not answer well. My blog is new, but like my old one said, I’m still a neophyte. :-/ This makes the most sense to me, and rings true deep within me. I wish I had more insight into the things of which you’re speaking.

Thanks for being patient with me, as well.
The peace of Christ be with you, too.
Kevin
on September 13, 2007 at 8:12 pm | Reply Craig Brown

Beautifully said. We are not far apart, and indeed, we are together In Him, if an old Methodist is allowed that Grace.

Blessings

Craig
on September 16, 2007 at 3:32 pm | Reply kevinburt

Thanks Craig. If God gives this not-so-young Orthodox grace, then I feel certain He would give grace to a good, kind, old Methodist. But who would that be? You’re not old yet, are you???

And with your spirit,
Kevin