Well - if some find that comforting; I suppose we all seek comfort where we may. But even this improvement over the original idea probably isn’t what somebody ought to lead with while trying to comfort the severely afflicted. Theodicy itself seems to be a most dubious of activities to me - no matter how ‘successful’ one imagines their own answer to it may be. The closest Jesus ever came to playing the theodicy game (at least from what I recall in the gospel accounts) seems to be to put down the disciples’ speculations about it with regard to the blind man and his parents and then, (astoundingly!) Jesus went on to announce that it was for God’s glory! … the glory ‘part’ being God’s imminent healing of the man, I suppose. Moral take-away there: Don’t blithely tell us that some heinous evil or suffering is all from God unless you’re planning on doing something pretty spectacularly effective about that affliction right then and there! Otherwise, probably just best to shut up and sit in silence or mourn with those who mourn like Job’s friends at least started with.
Laughter is good, but I was serious. It’s bad enough I keep getting spells where words make no sense.
For some weird reason I’m craving milk.
“Needlessly” is going to differ depending on who’s making the assessment. If Yahweh is God, then it’s His definition that counts – whatever it is.
Like, why allow a fever and headache and all on July 4th? The one that comes to mind is that we had a high heat warning today and the fever made sure I stayed inside, but that’s human thinking so I’m not betting on it. It also forced me to take a long nap; the other option was face-planting on the keyboard as my strength faded; I did that once in grad school and would not welcome another occurrence.
When Knox
hopped up on the bed with me he did something he doesn’t so very often – curled up with me.
And I had a “when you encounter various trials” moments.
If only puppy licks cured headaches!
Pain is the yardstick or rod useful in teaching those who only know good or evil from experience.
I think theodicies can be helpful for some people but, of course, are never meant to function as substitutes for sitting in empathetic grief with another. If offered off-the-cuff as a cold intellectual solution to someone suffering they can admittedly do damage. The appropriate time and method of offering a theodicy to a person (if ever) will probably depend on the nature of the interaction with that person. One must be sensitive to the relational context.
I don’t think Jesus offered much in the way of direct theodicies in scripture because that was not the main question his (Jewish) theist audience was asking.
It’s a somewhat puzzling statement, but I think a more nuanced appreciation of the Greek, and translational issues here may help flesh out the range of possible meaning. For example, other translations say “This” happened so that “God’s works might be revealed”. “This” could simply refer to the fact that Jesus encountered the blind man there (as opposed to the idea that God predestined and directly caused the man to be born blind). And so Jesus is simply stating, that coming across this unfortunate man, he is going to heal him and thus reveal God’s power working (as is true for every miracle Jesus does). i.e., God does not need the “glory” or ego-boost resulting from causing someone’s suffering and then publicly healing them.
I think there is a point where philosophy arguments fail, and this is it.
I think I sort of said that before, but what the heck.
I will throw the question to a wider audience
Can anyone come up with a viable alternative to what we have now?
(If they think they can they think they are superior to God (assuming He exists , of course)
Richard
I don’t see any way to allow pain as a teaching instrument but ban it for other reasons. An automatic cure for pain would be used to avoid any pain, helpful or otherwise.
Plus it is possible to learn from seeing others in pain, which complicates the issue!
BTW, a pint of orange sherbet worked to cool my head down and push back the nausea – as long as I was eating it!
That is the basic point I/we have been driving at. Much as severe pain and discomfort is distressing , it would appear to be unavoidable, at least technically. Obviously there are times when the cause could have been prevented but that is not due to the existence of pain and suffering itself…
Richard
Oh, well maybe you should get that checked out, I hope you’re feeling better.
That is true too. You would have to take into account all the opinions on what needlessly is in order to make that case I guess.
Agreed!
I doubt so. Considering human nature, any alternative is going to have serious, serious flaws.
Yeah, I mean I don’t necessarily think that God should’ve created a world without the possibility for evil, as any form of that kind of world would be one I wouldn’t want to live in, yet I wouldn’t be able to know I wouldn’t want to live in it.
Sounds like a druggie high and I am not interested in the slightest. If I was then frankly the atheist idea of nonexistence would sound good enough to me. The Buffy series suggested that a heaven like this would make us weaker and less capable of fighting evil, and I agree. I cannot believe in a heaven like that.
What I believe in is “eternal life” which Jesus spoke of many times. I think it means a relationship with God where there is no end to what God has to give us and no end to what we can receive from Him – an eternal parent-child relationship of becoming more like Him. This would mean we would keep getting stronger and I think it unlikely that is something you can get from pure bliss. I think this idea blows such notions of “bliss” heaven out of the water.
That is what life has to offer. It gives us the chance to better the lives of people we love and people within our community.
It’s not so much a drug high as a lobotomy. You like it because you know no better.
I sort of agree with you inasmuch as my intellect now says that Heaven is a false high. But, if we kno no better, it would be like the idea of battery hens knowing no other life. The concept is wrong for those who value freedom, but not necessarily those who are actually in it.
The problem being i can’t see a way of heaven working within the parameters of life as we know it. Defining evil is hard enough now. Likewise the “good” option is not always as obvious as we would like.
My answer is to ignore the afterlife. What comes will come and I have little or no control over it anyway. At least I can control this life to greater or lesser extent. I do not see the value of dreaming of a bliss that may not live up to my expectations.
If God (Jesus) promises Heaven I guess I can just believe Him and move on.
Richard
Yeah I mean I agree that you could probably still grow, and an eternal relationship with God is definitely what Jesus alluded to I think, but I think he also alluded to the fact that there will be no more pain, suffering, and death (revelations 21:4, 2 peter 3:13, acts 3:21, etc). That is what I was trying to say. To me that is purely blissful. I mean of course the ability to be aware and interact with God too, but I don’t see how it could not be purely blissful I guess.
Right, I was saying that if you think like that, you almost long for something greater than your own life. It’s a hunger for something after your life ends, even if your own life doesn’t. Almost like you want an after life. My point was if all there was was this one life, and nothing more, I don’t see why we should care about what happens to people after we die. It’s almost like you want yourself to live on via other people and what you did for them. That’s how I view it at least.
It is just that close interaction that I consider makes it Heeaven.
I remember a monologue whereby a person dies and goes to her ideal place but is shown God and then denied Him. Her Heaven becomes Hell. Not because of what she has, but of what she cannot have.
Richard
That is a fantastic way of putting it. Are you perhaps suggesting that evil and suffering will still exist, but is parried by God though?
No. To be honest I do not see the existence to resemble life on earth at all. I have no desire to eat, sleep and cr@p through eternity.
Richard
I’m not against an afterlife, I just have no reason to believe one exists. I think everyone wants to have a lasting impact on the world, and I don’t see why that is anything close to an afterlife. But hey, that’s just me. 
I don’t think so. Only the revelation’s passage says anything like this using the word ponos which can mean lots of different things. Pain is not something bad or a product of the fall of man. It serves an important purpose without which, not only does its opposite becomes completely meaningless, but where body cannot even function.
RichardG compared bliss (i.e. drug high) with a lobotomy. There is a very good reason for this. It is a chemical lobotomy short circuiting the brain to feel good when there is no good reason to feel that way. To say there is no pain in “heaven” is the same as saying there is no life, no learning, and no accomplishments to feel good about. Because if it is all the same with feelin good no matter what you do then the life, learning, and accomplishment becomes nothing. Again I say that the atheist idea of nonexistence sounds better to me than such an existence as you describe.
So like I said before. What will be gone is evil and the self-destructive habits of sin, hopelessness, and despair – where not only is there no druggie high to feel good when there is no reason, but there is also no depression to feel bad when there is no good reason, and none of the millions of other things in life which get in the way of feeling good for ones accomplishments or making you feel bad for things which are not a good reason for you to feel that way. That I can believe in, because that is something which is actually wrong with the world. But pain is not one of them.