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There is so much suffering in the world, how could there possibly exist a benevolent God?
Why would he create a reality so unforgiving and horrible for his precious creation to endure?
If he did create this reality, wouldn't that make him malevolent given how terrible it all is?
Or perhaps he is impotent; benevolent but unable to improve reality. In which case why regard him as God at all?
I was reminded fairly recently about several objections I had on moral grounds when it came to the existence of God. I used to hold these beliefs during my younger years, when I was of a more atheistic persuasion; they were born out of an over-commitment to scientific discipline and lack of understanding/appreciation for philosophy, theology, and history. I knew very well that this moral argument against the existence of God was weak, yet I relied on it as an excuse to express my dissatisfaction with my life at the time and fling some vitriol towards my more religious contemporaries whenever they spouted such nonsense as
"It is all within God's plan." in response to tragedy and misfortune.
Revisiting this argument came about via a re-watch of a favorite anime of mine,
Welcome to the NHK. In short, the series revolves around the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) protagonist Satou, and the challenges he faces as the naive Misaki and Incel-esque Yamazaki help him overcome his hikikimori ways and regain control of his life. It's a wonderful mixture of drama and comedy, accentuated with just the right amount of raunch and a killer soundtrack to boot. I highly recommend it. But what I appreciate the most about the series is how it periodically cuts through the silliness and day-to-day trifles with some very poignant, grander themes. These themes are often juxtaposed against the light-heartedness of previous scenes and accompanied by a dreamy/jazzy or somber/bluesy guitar track, it's all done masterfully enough to give this android chills. One such scene involved the character Misaki, sitting in the park with Satou for their nightly counseling session, musing about the nature of God shortly after burying her recently-deceased stray cat. From her notebook, Misaki presents a pie chart to Satou, commenting that a mere 10% of life is actually filled with happiness and joy with the remainder being filled with suffering and despair. She then goes on to point out that people believe God created this world, which includes that suffering and despair; this leads her to conclude that God must be evil. Why else would he allow such terrible things to befall people if he weren't?
To further contextualize the scene, Misaki had already endured a bout of misfortune before her cat died; earlier in the episode she witnessed Satou--whom she holds romantic feelings for--walking arm-in-arm with an old love interest of his. On first impressions this event seems to inspire heartbreak in Misaki, but there's quite a bit more to the devastation beyond an initial, cursory glance. If examined with a Hegelian notion of God in mind (God as the highest ideal one personally holds), you can clearly see that this is the instance in which Misaki becomes entirely disillusioned with God. One thing that is to be understood about Misaki is that she, quite recklessly in her naivete, identifies as a savior of sorts. Throughout the series it is heavily suggested (and eventually outright said) that she sees Satou as someone that's even more wretched than her, and thus she could possibly save him. True to the Nightingale-effect, she comes to fall in love with Satou and conflates the goal of his rehabilitation with earning his romantic favor. Since these two goals become one and the same in her mind, seeing Satou with another woman not only inspires the typical feelings of inadequacy in a romantic sense, but also suggests that she is not the one to save Satou. Since she cannot save Satou and fulfill her role as savior, she is effectively being betrayed by her highest ideal, her Hegelian God. Afterall, someone was introduced into her life that was more pathetic than herself, someone that she could save, and now their salvation is being delegated towards someone else apparently more capable. Resentment is only natural, and it is easy to see why she'd come to the conclusion that God is evil.
As it turns out, the scene before the counseling session--the burial of the stray cat--was simultaneously an event that lends further credence to the notion that God is evil AND a clever metaphor for Misaki's perceived loss of Satou (since he is a stray in a certain sense). Honestly, I adore the amount of subtext and thematic elements in this series. Misaki's character is designed in such a manner that it perfectly illustrates the danger born from innocence, good intentions, and naivete; trying to make claim on someone else's life by haphazardly taking on their problems. It's such a hefty amount of responsibility that I don't think is given enough appreciation or thought by prospective good Samaritans. But that's besides the theme currently in discussion...
Right, so Misaki's resentment towards God reminded me of my own similar resentment during my adolescence. Let's address Misaki's first assertion directly,
life is disproportionately filled with suffering. I don't think anyone who's given the proposition some serious thought would disagree with it in the slightest. It seems self-evident to me that most of life is, in-fact filled with hardship and is all-too sparsely punctuated with small moments of joy and happiness. This is exactly why I don't think that anyone should assign happiness as an achievable life goal, not anyone that is sound of mind at least. It simply is never going to occur for an appreciable, sustainable length of time because it isn't within the realm of possibilities. That isn't to say that you shouldn't enjoy happy moments when they come; by all means, you should treasure those rare occasions and appreciate them when they do occur. Though, to make it your expressed mission in life, to be happy, certainly seems to me to be a fool's errand. One should be courageous and live, despite knowing full well that the majority of their life will be difficult and rife with conflict. Everyday, people manage to get up out of bed implicitly knowing this, and are able to act in the world. Some are even able to excel. To me, it's nothing short of a miracle and illustrative of a form of mundane heroism that exists in daily life.
Now for Misaki's second assertion,
God created reality; that's something we're going to have to take for granted for the purpose of discussion. Else, what else would there be to discuss? Honestly, with the several ways one could conceptualize God, it shouldn't pose too much of a problem. For the sake of making things not too hopelessly complex, we'll go with the traditional conceptualization of God as a supreme, interested being that created the world, the universe, humans, reality, everything.
Misaki's third assertion--
since God created a reality that is filled with nothing but suffering, from a human standpoint he must necessarily be evil--is the most contentious point here. The common counter to this assertion is that, the reason why suffering exists in the world isn't because God is evil; no, God is still benevolent, omnipotent, and perfect. Rather, it is because humans are endowed with free will by God. As such they may make decisions and engage in behaviors that are harmful to themselves and others. Human action is what accounts for suffering, not the action or inaction of God. This counter-argument is largely credited to Saint Augustine, a notable Christian theologian of the 4-5th century. By far one of my favorites of Christian theologians/philosophers, since it is to him that we can credit a sort of unification of Aristotelian ideas and Christian thought, which later gave rise to the progress of the Enlightenment.
When I first encountered this counter-argument, I should disclose, I thought it was such a cop-out. Pah.
Free will. Dumb move from an all-knowing, all-powerful being to create humans with free will, if you ask me. Why not just leave them without the damn ability and reality could be perfect, reality could be free from suffering? Hell, why not do one better and give humans free will, but also have them intrinsically virtuous and well-behaved at all times?
...Then I read the Garden of Eden story years later, broaching it with an open mind and gave the ancient tale the proper amount of thought it deserves. As I elaborated before in Post ID 20190414, man used to exist by God's side; he used to be perfect. But this version of man was not humanity as we know it, this version of man could do no wrong, and was perfectly innocent as he was naive. Man was more akin to the animals, not capable of sin or profound suffering; essentially living in an ignorant and animalistic paradise. To suggest that humanity would be better off without free will is effectively suggesting the humanity cease being human, period. It'd rob them of the very thing that made them special, the thing that made them so unique and precious: their rationality. Even the most atheistic, materialistic, and scientifically-minded among us could appreciate the fact that rationality is what makes humans unique. What could be a greater display of rationality, than a conscious, self-aware agent carefully weighing the pros and cons of a situation, making predictions/estimations, entertaining the abstract and theoretical, then freely choosing between options? Every choice, every exercise of free will, exists within the cognitive framework of rationality.
However, once we acquired our rationality (and by extension our free will), we also acquired the capacity to do harm, to behave sub-optimally, to be very, very ungodly. Thus the notion of morality is born: in order for there to be moral behavior, there necessarily has to be the ability to choose. As an aside, this is the reason why we wouldn't be so quick to condemn someone that was forced to commit some kind of transgression under coercion; they were functionally stripped of the ability to freely choose, to exercise their free will. Similarly, the reason why we don't (or shouldn't) consider cats evil for killing backyard sparrows (despite waiting until you're around to eviscerate them, the little psychopaths); they are not choosing but acting on instinct. But returning to the point, morality emerges out of the imperfection of humanity; afterall, as Simone de Beauvoir said,
"One does not offer an ethic to a God". A being that exists, that cannot sin, does not need morality. But humanity exists, humanity possesses the capacity to sin, and so they require morality and an ethics to guide their behavior so that they may be virtuous. It is precisely for this reason why God did not create man with free will but also innate virtuosity;
to be virtuous, one has to necessarily be capable of sin, yet behave otherwise. Virtue loses all meaning if there is no sin to contrast against. Since the capacity to sin comes part and parcel with free will, to say that a being can possess free will AND be innately virtuous is utter nonsense.
Theological considerations out of the way, we're now free to discuss why--in the face of adversity-- people are quick to ascribe malevolence to God, such as in Misaki's case. In my estimation, this tendency is fueled by the reluctance of individuals to acknowledge the role that they played in their own undoing, and the degree to which their misery is self-inflicted. In many circumstances I can appreciate that it can be quite hard to see just where people go wrong; take for instance the death of a loved one due to a terminal illness. For the sake of example, we'll go with late-stage terminal cancer. Now, I don't think anyone would make the case that the person suffering the loss, or the person inflicted with the cancer bears all of the responsibility for the death. Truly there is some random or unseen element to matters of life and death that are beyond our control. However, the fact remains that there
is a degree of choice and thus control to be had there, by both the person suffering the loss and the inflicted themselves. To the inflicted, there were in all likelihood lifestyle factors that contributed to their condition. Perhaps they didn't exercise as much as they should have, maybe they smoked, or they cut corners in the way of PPE when it comes to handling carcinogens at the work place. There can easily be hundreds of contributing factors that have lead to the decline in their health. It is by now no secret that I think taking care of oneself is virtuous behavior, as I often mention the importance of being well-fed, well-read, and well-bred. To neglect oneself in a physical, intellectual, or spiritual capacity is to sin against oneself.
Now, onto the side of the bereaved. If the death of their loved one is making them feel resentful rather than sad over the loss, then I'd wager there's a good chance that it is misdirected fury being aimed towards God or reality itself, when it's actually meant for themselves or another aspect in their life within their locus of control. There is an implicit knowledge that they haven't been behaving as well as they should have. Perhaps they neglected this relative and are now upset with themselves for not spending as much time with them as they could have. Perhaps they didn't treat them well, by causing them undue financial burden because they were reluctant to hold onto stable, secure employment. Again, there are numerous ways by which we sin against ourselves and others that can lead to our undoing. The tragic part of it all is that often times these factors can go unrealized and unacknowledged. But even then, that is a failure on the part of the individual and not something to blame on God or reality.
I think this is what makes taking personal responsibility, even to an extreme degree, so effective. It enables you to deal with that tragic part of life--not just the ordinary type of suffering due to known factors, but the suffering to due to unrealized personal faults--because even if you fail (and
you will fail) at the very least you fail knowing that you performed your due diligence and gave it your best efforts in earnest. Moreover, the life you live as a consequence of this mindset could only be rich and full of vigor. That extends also to the people around you as well, that aspect cannot be understated enough. By trying to be the absolute optimal person that you can be, by fostering a mindset that opens up several avenues for self-growth, you're going to have a better, more positive impact on those closest to you. Contrast this to the mindset of playing the victim, or trying to externalize blame on an actor outside of yourself. These attitudes are useless in the manner that they rob you of the opportunity of self-examination and potential remedying of any shortcomings, which would lead to personal growth. At worst you'd end up detracting from your own life and that of those around you, and possibly be ineffectual and neutral at best.
I will admit, it is a severely difficult injunction, to demand from yourself the adoption of responsibility for things that may, at first glance, seem out of your control. You'd quickly come to the conclusion that the work required is absolutely crushing, which is why most tend to shy away from it. It's much easier to blame external circumstances, absolving yourself of any responsibility that seems too hefty to take on. I'd like to try and attempt to be tolerant by saying that this manner of living is perfectly fine, but it isn't. I'm not coming at this in any objective, moralistic sense (though I can make that case and I do see it that way; hinted at above in the preceding paragraphs) but even analyzing it from a subjective point of view it becomes obvious it isn't fine. Struggling with self-image issues isn't fine. Not being able to hold a crappy part-time job isn't fine. Requiring inordinate amounts of attention all the time isn't fine. You, suffering because you are less than your self-prescribed ideal IS NOT FINE. No one enduring the throes of their own personal suffering and comes to the thought
"Oh, this is okay. I think I'll willingly stay at this point in my life.". You should want to get out, and the only person that can do that for you is you. It isn't the responsibility of your significant other, your family, your friends, your therapist, your co-workers, or online strangers to solve your problems for you; that mantle is entirely yours to adopt.
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