avatarBenjamin Cain

Summary

The article contemplates the philosophical and existential issues surrounding the concept of a deity who tests humanity, the problem of evil, and the role of faith in the face of suffering, while questioning the accountability of such a deity.

Abstract

The text delves into the age-old problem of evil and the nature of divine experimentation with sentient life, questioning the moral responsibility of a deity who tests human faith. It contrasts Eastern and Western religious perspectives, particularly the moralistic and judgmental characteristics attributed to Western gods. The narrative scrutinizes the Book of Job as a means to explore divine accountability and the reasons for unjust suffering. It suggests that theistic beliefs are often sustained by personal and narrative significance rather than rational argumentation, and that these beliefs persist as a form of self-reinforcing fiction that provides comfort and meaning in the face of life's hardships.

Opinions

  • The existence of a deity and the nature of divine creation are seen as tests of human fealty, with the universe serving as a potential stage for a divine experiment.
  • Western gods, particularly Yahweh, Jesus, and Allah, are portrayed as sanctimonious and overly concerned with human thoughts and purity, akin to a father who allows his child freedom but still holds her accountable for her choices.
  • The article posits that the question of God's existence may be irrelevant as human cognitive faculties are bound by nature and may not transcend to understand an ineffable realm.
  • It is argued that God's sovereignty places Him above the law, leading to a situation where He tests humanity without being held accountable, as seen in the story of Job.
  • The author suggests that theistic beliefs are upheld more by narrative and personal significance than by logical or scientific evidence, functioning as a form of art or storytelling that provides meaning and solace.
  • The article implies that the persistence of religious faith in the face of suffering is a testament to the self-reinforcing nature of theistic narratives, which are not easily dissuaded by rational arguments or contrary evidence.
  • The author reflects on the subjective nature of religious beliefs, comparing them

Who Punishes God for Experimenting with Sentient life?

The problem of evil and the stories we tell to make sense of life

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

What’s the point of arguing about whether something transcendent and mysterious like “God” exists beyond space and time?

Why should logic or science be expected to resolve that matter? We can think critically about whatever we like, but the question of whether a supernatural deity exists assumes that our cognitive faculties are limited since we’re confined to nature. So why should those faculties be able to transcend their limits to provide knowledge of an ineffable realm?

The sanctimonious gods

Theistic religions circumvent this irrelevance of reason by trusting that the deity would bridge the divide with miracles and divine revelations. No sooner, though, would that bridge enter nature than it would be subject to rational analysis and skeptical questioning.

For instance, you could trust that some ancient scripture was specially inspired by God in a way that no other artwork is, or you could read that text in its historical, anthropological context. In the latter case, the naturalistic explanation obviates the need to posit a miraculous bridge to a supernatural Heaven.

In the West, what decides whether you believe God left us a bridge to him is the presence or lack of “faith.” And in the East, what matters more is the practice of a tradition since the Eastern religions are more therapeutic than dogmatic. The Western gods, though, namely Yahweh, Jesus, and Allah are obsessed with our state of mind. Deriving from the Middle East, these gods want our thoughts to be as pure as the desert sand. We must believe the right god exists in the first place to be saved from a fate worse than death.

These Western gods are moralistic busybodies. Passive-aggressively, they leave us alone, free to “sin,” but without revoking their right to hold us accountable to the dubious divine commandments. This is like a human father allowing his young daughter to join the circus even though he would have preferred that she go to medical school, only to pounce on her decades later and punish her for that decision.

The act of divine creation would set up a test of our fealty. God wants us to think that nature suffices for a good life, that we should content ourselves with earthly interests that are subject only to human laws. Otherwise, why would God have created the universe and evolved life in a natural way, leaving people to eke out a living alongside animals? Evidently, if the Western God exists, he withdraws to see if we’ll pass the test and learn to downplay the entire physical universe, to live according to a religion’s supernatural standards and to realize that there’s no life outside of the deity.

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

God’s free pass

The wages of sin is death, says Saint Paul in Romans 6:23. But evidently saints die too; indeed, the wages of life is death since everything in nature changes. The religious hope is that if we adhere to God’s revealed plan, we’ll have an unnatural reward and avoid an unnatural punishment in the afterlife.

But who holds God accountable for having set up the test? If God holds us responsible for our choices that were made under conditions he created, exercising the freedom he gave us, or succumbing to the trick the serpent played on us (the serpent God would have put in Eden, as it were), shouldn’t our fate in Hell be mitigated by the fact that God would be our accomplice?

Evidently, God gets a pass because as a sovereign he’s above the law. As Paul says in Romans 9 (paraphrasing Isaiah), “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?”

Sure, the potter can do what he likes with his clay, but pottery is subject to aesthetic standards, not moral ones. If pottery were alive, and the potter were to abuse those creations such as by deceiving and cruelly testing them, we’d no longer take for granted the pious contention that the potter is a good and holy creator.

The Book of Job deals with these doubts without resolving them, leading most Jews to a pragmatic, social kind of religious outlook, the kind that’s promoted in Ecclesiastes. God tests the righteous man Job’s faith by afflicting him with all manner of hardships, and Job keeps his faith in God but demands at least to know why his life’s been ruined, and why bad things happen to good people. Instead of answering him directly, God cows Job by boasting about his greater knowledge and power. In short, God implies, there’s a reason for everything, but a mortal man can’t be expected to fathom all the answers.

Yet this crafty scripture implicitly undermines God himself by supplying the reader with the answer that God hides from Job. The reader knows exactly why Job suffered: because Satan egged on God to test Job’s faith, and the pair made a wager whether Job trusted in God only because God kept rewarding Job’s righteousness with a carefree life. Would Job still love God even if the moral order were to break down? What would faith in God be good for without the covenant with God, in which case good people would suffer along with the bad?

Again, God tested Job’s mettle, and that’s why Job suffered. Satan used Job as fodder in an experiment to teach God whether his creation was as impressive as he’d like to think.

Where, then, is God’s accountability for having made a potentially flawed natural order, one in which religious faith might indeed be tied to earthly consequences, given the pragmatic standards we mortals need to do the best we can under these imperfect circumstances? Why does God berate Job for his smallness without feeling guilty about having used a sentient creature in a cruel experiment? If God’s morals are flawed, which higher deity condescends to him in turn?

The point is that reason has little to do with religiosity or spirituality. In theology, stories matter more than arguments, including stories that serve as conservative propaganda, that shame us for asking too many questions.

Image by G.C. from Pixabay

The self-reinforcing taste in dubious fiction

We see this, for example, in the liberal Christian Dan Foster’s account of why he still believes in God despite the suffering he’s recently endured due to his wife’s cancer diagnosis. He turns this suffering into a listicle for the audience’s edification, giving seven reasons why his wife’s apparently unfair suffering renews rather than weakens his religious faith.

Suffering, he says, makes you ask hard questions and demand answers, which requires a deity to answer them. Suffering entails a moral order, which requires a lawmaker. Suffering brings out the best in people, which points the way toward a benevolent source of that cooperation. Suffering reminds us of what’s truly important, namely the existential questions which again lead us to God. Suffering reduces our egoism, humbling us and thus casting doubt on the sufficiency of our rational doubts about religion. Suffering sets our mind squarely on the present where God is found (as Eckhart Tolle says.) Lastly, suffering brings with it strange moments of peace, and ‘Some, like me, call that sense of peace “God.”’

Now, as theistic arguments these reasons to keep up the faith would be inconclusive at best, and embarrassingly fallacious at worst. But the subtext is that these aren’t arguments at all. What Foster’s doing is demonstrating not God’s existence despite the contrary evidence, but the self-reinforcing nature of theistic belief. What Foster calls “seven reasons” don’t function as reasons. Reason — as in critical thinking or the scientific method of inquiry — has nothing to do with why Foster says he retains his Christian faith despite his personal troubles. Foster’s only telling stories to boost his spirits.

And that’s fine since we all do the same. As children we could take the most humdrum fact and spin a wacky narrative out of it. I’ve written elsewhere about how I co-authored such a story with my young niece. She likes unicorns and she has an enormous, unclimbable tree in her backyard, so one day I told her a unicorn might be living at the very top of that tree. She played along, of course, because why wouldn’t she? Children love stories.

But so do adults, as the prevalence of novels, movies, jokes, and gossip demonstrates. Just add religious myths to that list. So, Foster is committed to the importance of the Christian narrative since he finds meaning in that story. Likewise, I’ve drawn up a list of my favourite films, and the ones at the top of the list are especially important to me. They contribute to making sense of the world for me, supplying some life lessons and metaphors that help me process what I daily experience. That’s a function of art.

I could have told my niece that a dragon lives in that tree, rather than a unicorn. In just the same way, I could look at Foster’s personal situation (his wife’s cancer diagnosis) and interpret it in nontheistic terms. Instead of “pointing the way” to God, unjust suffering might indicate that morality is a fiction we invent to keep ourselves sane as fallible social mammals that emerged in a cosmic wilderness. The choice of whether to think that a deity lies in wait for us, having created the natural order as an experiment or a playground depends on your aesthetic sensibility.

Is theism a good story? Is this talk of deities, angels, miracles, and sins still meaningful or is it archaic and clichéd? As always with art, the set and setting matter. If you watch a film and you happen to be in a foul mood, you might not be giving the movie a fair chance to work its magic. And if you grow up in a religious household, you’ll likely favour your parents’ theological narrative no matter what happens to you later, because we’re all liable to be nostalgic about our formative years.

So, Foster still likes the Christian story no matter what. He can look at what others would regard as damning contrary evidence and vindicate his myths with the power of his imagination. Those myths, then, are unfalsifiable. They’re not rational explanations, and there are no compelling arguments for why everyone should agree with Foster’s taste in fiction. The Christian story comforts him in times of trouble, just as I’m glad the movies “Brazil,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Bad Santa,” “mother!” and “Mulholland Drive” exist.

Why can’t Christians and skeptics leave it at that? It’s art all around.

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Christianity
Atheism
Philosophy
Religion
God
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