This essay is an attempt to deal with the "problem of evil".  Of
course in classical Christian theology God didn't exactly create evil.
That is, Satan wasn't evil as created.  Rather, what God created was a
world where people (and other intelligent entities) had enough rope to
hang themselves, i.e.  enough freedom to choose that eventually they
would choose evil.  Thus the issue isn't quite why God created evil,
but a somewhat more abstract one of why he created a world designed in
such a way that other entities would eventually choose evil.

The basic argument of theodicy is based on God's omnipotence and his
goodness: If he is really good, and he could do anything, why didn't
he create a world where evil wouldn't happen?  For the moment I'm
going to mention three considerations:

1) I don't have an answer.  This involves second-guessing a design
when I don't know the design parameters, the constraints faced by the
designer, or even all of his goals.  Thus I'm probably never going to
be able to give a complete answer.

2) In the opposition of good and omnipotent, I rather suspect that
both are going to have to be qualified somewhat.  The Bible doesn't
really use the idea of omnipotence in quite the form it appears in our
current discussions.  The Bible clearly sees God as someone who can do
what he wants.  But we're dealing with things on a more abstract level
than the Bible does.  We're talking about not just whether God can do
things, but his ability to design systems of laws that will have
certain outcomes.  Did he have complete freedom to set up the system
at all levels?  While Christians tend to say yes, I don't think this
is really something the Bible says.  It may be that at some level of
abstraction, even God has to make tradeoffs.  It may be that even God
can't set things up so that people are both free and guaranteed to
make the right decisions.  It may also be that there's a certain level
of real danger needed to accomplish his ends, whatever they are.  (I
don't claim to know all of God's final goals.)  I don't see anything
in the Bible that requires me to say that he is free of such
constraints.

3) On the other side of the paradox, God's goodness: I think God is
good, in a sense that should have some reasonable correspondence to
what the word good means to us.  As I've said before, I don't believe
that God tortures people throughout eternity because they didn't think
there was convincing evidence for his existence.  But God is not
entirely a harmless old gentleman.  He is portrayed in the Bible as a
fire.  A vision of him can be deadly.

God's idea of good may not be entirely the same as mine.  At a
minimum, I think it's clear that an easy life is not his ultimate
value.  Whatever constraints he may operate under, I have to assume
that the fact that he chose to deal with sin by accepting crucifixion
shows us that he accepts suffering.

He also operates from a different perspective than we do.  It's easy
to make fun of "pie in the sky bye and bye".  But if there is really
eternal life, it does change our perspective.  What we see here is
only the beginning of the story.  I will be very disappointed if we
don't eventually see that his plan makes sense.  Ultimately that's one
of the major implications of the doctrine of judgement: Judgement
means that God's purposes will be vindicated.  There have been
concepts of judgement that I think are overly simplified.  At one time
people were satisfied with thinking that in the end God would reward
the good and punish the evil.  (One often gets the impression in the
OT that many Israelites saw God's judgement primarily as meaning that
Israel's enemies would be defeated.)  I think the fact that we now
demand more is a good sign.  God's grace is a lot more complex than
simply rewarding good and punishing evil.  That all non-Christians
will be thrown into eternal torture seems so unjust to me that I find
it hard to believe that it's really the whole story.  I expect more
from God's judgement.

One problem is that it's hard to know what God may do in the future.
While many OT prophets had visions that we can identify with Jesus,
few people beforehand would have predicted the way God would choose to
deal with human sin.  I think there's every reason to think that God
has more surprises up his sleeve.  I am reluctant to state as a matter
of doctrine that God will save everyone.  Jesus' talk about judgement
seems hard to reconcile with that.  But I persist in the hope that he
will come up with something as satisfying.  In my opinion, the record
of God's dealings with humanity so far provides reason to trust what
he will do in the future.  I know many people disagree.  God seems
responsible for all sorts of slaughter and other mayhem, primarily in
the OT.  But I see the tribal war-god as the starting point for
Israel's understanding of God, not the final picture.  I see the OT
and NT together as showing us God leading people to a way of dealing
with each other and with God that is finally epitomized by Jesus'
life.  To me the final picture of God in the Bible is of one who can
be trusted with the future, but also one who does the unexpected often
enough that it's probably not safe to say exactly what he is going to
do.

None of this absolves God of responsibility.  If we assume that he's
responsible (even if there are limits at some level, as I suggest
above), then he is responsible for the fact that the world is a
dangerous place.  Ultimately I think I fall back on what amounts to
"the free will defense".  Yes, God created a dangerous world, and we
can hold him responsible for that.  But he may not have been able to
create a safe world and still end up with results that he thought were
worth having.

Note that the only book in the Bible that deals with these issues at
length is Job, and in Job it seems to be considered perfectly
legitimate for someone to be upset at God for what he has done. The
stories of the patriarchs and the Psalms are full of people protesting
against God's actions.  I believe that God cares, and that he will
help us live through the dangers he has created, but ultimately I'm
not sure Christians can avoid the concept that God is not entirely
nice.  A science fiction book, "A Canticle for Liebowitz", ends with
the poignant question of whether it is appropriate for someone to say
that they forgive God for what he has done to them.  Can God need
forgiveness?  In an ultimate sense, if you understand all of his
motivations, maybe not.  But from our point of view, I think maybe so.

---- 

The following comment from one of our users expands on this:

From: jim@doink.b23b.ingr.com (Jim "Nonstandard" Reed)
Subject: Re: theodicy
Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

I have a few comments on the very ending of your article.
Otherwise, I think it's quite good.  (This is intended
as a private message, but you may post it if you like.)

You seem to address "forgiveness" as something that benefits only
the recepient, but there are times when forgives benefits only the
giver.

Suppose, for example, you interpreted some action of mine as
harmful to you and I had no intention of causing you any harm,
furthermore, I didn't realize your perspective.  Basically,
suppose that you are upset at me for some reason to which I
am oblivious.  I may notice a change in our relationship, but
have no clues as to the root of the problem.  I wouldn't feel
a need to be forgiven, however, you would still have a need
to forgive me.  Until you forgave me our relationship could
not be fully restored.

I think that's how it is between us and God.  We misinterpret
his actions as harmful when His intention is for our good.
We have a need to "forgive" Him, not for His benefit, but
so that we can benefit from the restored relationship.