Suffering, Evil, and Theodicies

See, the Lord’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. Rather, you iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

--Judaism: Isaiah 59:1-2

As he walked along, [Jesus] saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned,this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

--Christianity: The Gospel of John 9:1-3

Suddenly Master Lai grew ill. Gasping and wheezing, he lay at the point of death. His wife and children gathered round in a circle and began to cry. Master Li, who had come to ask how he was, said, “Shoo! Get back! Don’t disturb the process of change!” Master Lai said, “A child obeying his father and mother goes wherever he is told, east or west, south or north. And the yin and yang--how much more are they to a man than father or mother! Now that they have brought me to the verge of death, If I should refuse to obey them, how perverse I would be!”

--Taoism: Chuang Tzu

Ngewo sent two messengers to a certain town to carry news of death and life. On the way, the dog met a woman cooking food for her child. He lay down and waited. But the toad had not stopped along the way. He reached the town first and entered, crying “Death has come!” Then the dog came running, crying, “Life has come!” But he was too late. The toad had brought death first. That is why people die.

--Mende Tribal Myth

As the Isaiah passage suggests, perhaps our suffering, including our separation from God, is our own fault. in the story of Noah’s ark, human suffering is again due to human “sin,” and God is justly angry. Do you think humans are to blame for their own sorrows? If there is a God, would God be rightly angry at human behavior?

In the Mende myth, the coming of death is attributed to an almost whimsical error on the part of the dog. Does it seem that death is much more serious than this?

Master Lai seems to accept his suffering easily. Job, ponders his agony and wonders why God would inflict him with this terror. Why do you think these two pictures are so different?

If you were to take some religious view, how might you explain the similarities and differences between the depicted tornado and the death of the students at Columbine High School?

It seems in the end that Job’s suffering was not divine punishment, and Jesus says explicitly that the blind man in the story is not suffering because of sin. What other reasons might there be for God to give or allow suffering?

The Buddha is shown in the process of starving himself as a means of gaining spiritual development. How might suffering be something a religious person would seek?

Does this make sense to you?

If you try to take no religious position how would you talk to a suffering Job?

What would you say to the starving Buddha?

To Master Lai?

Two Categories of Evils

• Moral evils• Natural evils

Two Categories of Evils

• Moral evils: result from the perverted actions of humans

• Natural evils

Two Categories of Evils

• Moral evils: result from the perverted actions of humans

• Natural evils:result from the action of nature upon humans

Why did the lightning strike my friend?

Why did my child get leukemia?

Why did I have to get a flat tire?

According to Peter Berger, religion arises as a social response to suffering and evil. We want to make this chaos a cosmos. Religion aims to provide a sense of meaning in the midst of chaos (and suffering).

This answer is, in theological terms, “theodicy.”

Origins of Evil

• “The Fall”-- disobedience (Kierkegaard and Tillich)

• Trickster Myths (coyote, serpent, Iblis?, Satan?)

• Dualism• Ignorance (Asian religions)• Don’t worry about where the arrow came

from; remove it. (Buddhism)

Suffering and Monotheism• According to monotheistic religions, who is in

charge of everything in the universe?• Breaking and keeping covenant• Struggles as tests• Opportunities to grow• John Hick and C.S.Lewis: human freedom and the

need to develop real character seem to require suffering and evil

• The story of Job

Other Explanations

• Spirits• Karma• Buddhism and Dukkha• Zoroastrianism• Gnosticism

Balance and Acceptance

• Jesus and the dead child• Kisa Gotami• Master Lai

Responses to Suffering

• Acceptance• Resistance• Seeking it Out (e.g., fasting, Jainism’s itvara,

monastic suffering)• Religious views of suffering insist on placing

them within a proper relation to the Absolute.

Chuang Tzu, Basic WritingsSuddenly master Lai grew ill. Gasping and wheezing, he lay at the point of death. His wife and children gathered round in a circle and began to cry. Master Li, who had come to ask how he was, said, "Shoo! Get back! Don't disturb the process of change!"Then he leaned against the doorway and talked to Master Lai. "How marvelous the Creator is! What is he going to make out of you next? Where is he going to send you? Will he make you into a rat's liver? Will he make you into a bug's art?" Chuang TzuConfucius was seeing the sights at L?-liang, where the water falls from a height of thirty fathoms and races and boils along for forty li, so swift that no fish or other water creature can swim in it. He saw a man dive into the water and, supposing that the man was in some kind of trouble and intended to end his life, he ordered his disciples to line up on the bank and pull the man out. But after the man had gone a couple of hundred paces, he came out of the water and began strolling along the base of the embankment, his hair streaming down, singing a song. Confucius ran after him and said, "At first I thought you were a ghost, but now I see you're a man. May I ask if you have some special way of staying afloat in the water?" "I have no way. I began with what I was used to, grew up with my nature, and let things comet o completion with fate. I go under with the swirls and come out with the eddies, following along the way the water goes and never thinking about myself. That's how I can stay afloat." Confucius said, "What do you mean by saying that you began with what you were used to, grew up with your nature, and let things come to completion with fate?" "I was born on the dry land and felt safe on the dry land - that was what I was used to. I grew up with the water and felt safe in the water - that was my nature. I don't know why I do what I do - that's fate."

The Four Noble Truths

Whilst seated beneath the Bodhi tree the Buddha experienced the four noble truths:

Dukkha: All existence is unsatisfactory and filled with suffering.

Trsna: The root of suffering can be defined as a craving or clinging to the wrong things; searching to find stability in a shifting world is the wrong way.

Nirvana: It is possible to find an end to suffering.

The Noble Eightfold path is the way to finding the solution to suffering and bring it to an end.

The Eightfold Path

• Right View• Right Thought• Right Speech• Right Action

• Right Livelihood• Right Effort• Right Mindfulness• Right Concentration

samma = right,