[Vision2020] The Good Lord Just Done Gave Us a Whupping' (really?)

[Nicholas Gier]

Good Morning Visionaries:

I dusted off this exercise in the philosophy of religion from the time of
Katrina and I'm reissuing it once again.

One Oklahoma official said that it was wonderful that God saved those who
survived.  But if God was the cause of the storm, then why didn't he save
those who did not make it?  I address the issue of Satan below.

The problem of evil and the very unsatisfactory answer from the Abrahamic
religions is one of the primary reasons why good, rational people become
atheists.

On this Memorial Day I send out my own tribute to those were served, and
also those, such as Rosie the Riveter and my UP train master father, who
made sure that war machines were built and that those machines and soldiers
got to where they were needed.

Nick

*THE GOOD LORD JUST DONE GAVE US A WHUPPIN’!*

*NATURAL DISASTERS AS THE WRATH OF GOD?*

I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.

~Isaiah 45:7 (Anchor Bible)

            Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the wicked get
away with murder and the innocent die in disasters such as tornadoes,
hurricanes, and terrorist attacks?

            After Katrina hit, a man gave this explanation to NPR: “The
Good Lord just done gave us a whuppin’.” This is the Pat Robertson answer:
all of us are being punished for the sins of homosexuals, abortionists, and
their liberal supporters.  Most of us, however, are repulsed by such an
outrageous and poisonous diagnosis.

            In Agatha Christie’s *Then There Were None*, one of the
characters opines that those who had been murdered were “struck down of the
wrath of God.” Justice Wargrave was not convinced: “Providence leaves the
work of conviction and chastisement to us mortals.”

            Justice Wargrave is a good Confucian in holding a doctrine of
General Providence.  In this view, held also by Presidents Washington and
Lincoln, God presides over a world that operates by natural laws and in
which humans govern their own affairs.

            On the other hand, the Abrahamic religions--Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam-- believe in Special Providence.  This means that
God chooses particular prophets or saviors that embody divine authority,
and God then intervenes in history as an expression of divine will and
judgment.

            There is a difference between moral evils and natural
evils.  The first is the result of humans choosing to do good or evil.  For
orthodox Christians the prototypical moral evil was Adam and Eve’s choice
to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.

Natural or physical evil is defined as that which is not the result of any
human will: disease (both physical and mental) and natural disasters.  In a
theology in which God is all powerful, it must be God who wills these
conditions and events to happen.

Recently some Christian legislators in Oklahoma tried to change the
language of their insurance law, which called natural disasters “acts of
God.” For them Satan was the cause of all evil, and they thought it was
blasphemy to make God responsible for these horrible events.

Orthodox Christians, however, have always rejected the heresy of
Manicheanism, a view that undermines God’s power by holding that there is
another cosmic power that competes with God.

Following the Book of Job, where it is clear that Satan operates only with
the permission and delegated power of God, Christian theologians have
consistently declared that even Satan is empowered by God.  In the end
Job’s brothers and sisters “comforted him for all the evil the Lord brought
upon him” (42:11).

Martin Luther expressed the point most clearly: “Since God moves and does
all, we must take it that he moves and acts even in Satan and the godless;
. . . evil things are done with God himself setting them in motion.”

How do Christian theologians justify God doing evil?  Here is one
rationale: God cannot abide the moral evils committed by humans, so God
must show that justice must prevail.

Natural disasters are simply dramatic previews of the Last Judgment, when
divine justice will finally be done.  If God is performing justice, then
God is doing *good*, not evil.  We would call a judge who let all criminals
off the hook a bad judge, wouldn’t we?

Let’s take a closer look at this solution to the problem of evil.  There is
something important that has been forgotten.

When the former Manichee St. Augustine discussed the Fall of Adam and Eve,
he made a very interesting concession: “Our first parents fell into
disobedience because they were already secretly corrupted.”

Adam and Eve were already corrupted because they had “deficient
wills.”  But who was responsible for their deficient wills?  They could be
only if they had created themselves.  The only answer is that God created
them finite, fragile, and corruptible.

I submit that General Providence is a much more coherent view if people are
going to continue their belief in God.  The Confucians and Stoics also
believed that God is not a Creator.  Rather, God is coeternal with a
universe that operates according to natural laws and contains rational
beings that freely choose their own destinies.

Following Justice Wargrave, we are solely responsible for our own
“convictions and chastisements.” Louisiana and New Orleans government
officials are responsible for not being prepared for the big storm they
knew was coming.  And God had nothing to do with it, and she certainly does
not stand ready with a whip to punish her children.

Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
years.
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