An Ethical Musings' reader framed a question about
evil in an interesting way, prefacing the question with the observation that
people often thank God for having spared them or their property from being harmed
by a natural disaster such as a hurricane or tornado. The reader then asks,
"What about their neighbor who did suffer from the natural disaster's
destructive power? Did the neighbor receive a just punishment for being
bad?"
Incidentally, one of the first sermons I preached
happened to be in a farming community during a drought. I argued that praying
for rain was a waste of time and effort. More rain in one place necessarily
meant less rain elsewhere because only a limited amount of water on the ground evaporated
into the atmosphere. Do we have the wisdom to know what pattern of rainfall is
optimal? Should we have the hubris to think that God loves us better than God
loves those who would receive less rain? Do we think that God will answer our
prayers for rain yet ignore the equally (and probably more) fervent prayers of Christians
who live in lands parched by multi-year droughts, Christians who with their
children and neighbors are not just suffering economic hardship but actually
dying because of the drought? The congregation was surprisingly more receptive
than I had anticipated, but even then, I knew that their attitude was more one
of charity toward a youthful preacher than actual agreement.
Thanking God for sparing (or blaming God for
striking) one with any of the evils that result from a natural disaster,
disease, etc., as traditional Christian theology teaches, is nonsense. Evil, as
the Bible reminds us, happens to both good and bad people, to those who appear
to merit punishment and to those who appear to merit something better. In the
vernacular, we might say, cancer is no
respecter of persons.
Nor would a good, loving God capriciously strike both
the just and unjust. Pervasive evil and the apparently innocent suffering
egregious injustice have led traditional Christian theologians to insist that
justice will be done, if not in this life then in the next.
Consequently, the God of traditional Christian theology
resembles an imaginary being more than pointing towards a credible concept of the
cosmos' creator. Psychological research confirms philosophical speculation from
the last two centuries: people tend to imagine God as a heavenly parent.
Persons who have had loving, caring parents tend to see God as a loving, benevolent
being that helps them overcome adversity and protects them from evil. Persons
who have had more distant, judgmental parents tend to see God as more remote
and judgmental. I, for one, want nothing to do with an imaginary being; I do
not need an imaginary being in order to feel safe or to thrive.
Nobody has ever articulated a satisfactory explanation
of why evil exists. Obviously, much evil results from human actions or
inactivity. Human actions are responsible for murder and rape; human failure to
act responsibly results in people starving to death in a world that has ample
food to feed every human now alive. Humans, however, are not responsible for
most cancer, most disease, most earthquakes, and most severe weather.
Process theology rejects the idea of an omnipotent
God. In creating the cosmos, God shared power with creation, ceasing to be all-powerful.
Whether this is the best of all possible worlds, it is the world that God
created and in which we exist. That the cosmos exists suggests the existence of
a creator. That people sometimes experience a profound awe, a sense of presence
or power of one who is wholly other, suggests that the creator continues to
engage with the cosmos.
Seeking God's preferential treatment, especially if
doing so will disadvantage or harm others, is immoral, a conclusion that most
of us along with the Ethical Musings' reader whose question prompted this post intuitively
recognize. Praying for rain, praising God for having spared one from suffering
the destructive power of a natural disaster, or beseeching God to cure a person
of cancer are all illogical. God is not supernatural (and therefore does not
act supernaturally, performing miracles at supplicants' behest) but is present
in the cosmos' nature. Indeed, nothing is more or can be more natural than God is.
Far too often, Christian hope for ultimate justice becomes
what Marx characterized as the opiate of the masses. We cannot know with
certainty if there is another world or in what way ultimate justice may
prevail. My doctoral adviser, for example, believed that our life after death existed
entirely in God's mind. In short, justice deferred is not justice. Thus, we
must persevere in trying to make this life and this world the best that we can.
These more limited claims of process theology cohere
better with our knowledge of the cosmos and offer the best explanation of evil
that I've seen, much better than the answers found in traditional Christian teachings.