Side-stepping Solutions—Liberals

Liberal scholars, on the other hand, have much more to say about both suffering and the problem of evil than do conservatives.

One answers the fundamental question of “why did God let this happen or that happen?” in writing: It’s because “God does not have the power to insure that this happens in every situation.” He notes that while God doesn’t choose, will, or want bad things to happen, some things are out of his control. He “is not able to prevent them. . . . They just happen.” He also cites the “misuse of human freedom” and “existence of laws of nature.” Not surprisingly in this liberal approach, prayer, too, is only of limited, self-talking value, and we must be willing to “forgive the imperfections in God” (Book review essay: When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner, reviewer Rufus Burrow, Jr. in Encounter (Vol. 55: 69-76 Winter 1994).

Another, in attempting to address the question of, “How are God’s power and goodness to be understood in the face of tragedy?” attacks God’s omnipotence. In order to explain “why suffering was so pervasive and evil so powerful in a world that God has created and governs,” she calls for “a reconstructed doctrine of omnipotence based upon a new meaning for power is both desirable and possible.”

She suggests that this should be “along the lines of . . . feminist-process proposal¾i.e. changing the kind of power we attribute to God from that of “God as king” to that of “God as mother.” She does admit, however, that “there are problems with this image. . . and I do not cherish any illusion of having conclusively settled the problems surrounding divine power” (“What Do We Mean When We Affirm That God Is ‘All-Powerful’?” by Anna Case-Winters in Encounter (Vol. 57: 215-230 Summer 1996).

A third liberal attempts to resolve the problem of evil by Self-limiting God. He says that God lets us be because He emptied and limited Himself (kenosis), just as Christ did. Hence, God’s divine omnipotence is redefined to mean He chose to limit Himself because his love for us, which is his “defining characteristic,” and this overrides all else. His explanation further contends that evil “ultimately results from the freedom given by God in the creative process.” Thus, evil becomes a by-product of that freedom. And the more freedom, of course, the more evil; the more evil, the more suffering¾and all this from a loving God.

He summarizes that while “God is responsible for . . . evil because he created the kind of world in which, for example, wars and tornadoes can occur . . . . Kenotic love refuses to intervene.” So, “the origin of evil is due to God’s self-limitation of divine power and the freedom of all creatures.”

A good question to ask at this point is why pray if God never intervenes? This liberal answers, it will “show us ways of coping and sustains us in our efforts to cope . . . rather than to enlist God’s direct, magical intervention in the situation.” In other words, we serve a “laissez-faire” and “deistic God . . . .  [a] God totally non-involved in the course of history” (“A Kenotic God and the Problem of Evil” by Warren McWilliams in Encounter (Vol. 42: 15-17 Winter 1981).

Of course, the application of kenosis to the totality of God’s nature and behavior is without biblical support. Interestingly, eschatological aspects of a future resolution to the problem of evil (as conservatives advocate) are rarely, if ever, mentioned in liberal articles on this subject. Some liberals even scold evangelicals for coming up with a “comfortable notion of God as our warm protector” and thinking that God will someday “make all things right . . . When this, our world, shall be no more” (“Master of the Universe, Why?” by Frederick Sontag in Encounter (Vol. 50: 141-149 Spring 1989).

Another liberal simply throws up his hands and concludes that “there is no completely satisfying answer.” In the “Believe it or not” category – and to the contrary – another liberal believes that God did not create ex nihilo, but the creation was “the result of a dynamic victory of God over the forces of chaos.” For this “scholar,” the evil forces pre-dated creation, still survive, and must be subdued. They are the source of evil (Book review: Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence by John D. Levenson’s, reviewer J. Gerald Janzen in Encounter (Vol. 50: 101-103 Winter 1989).

Finally, in Rabbi Kushner’s popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Kushner, also assumed that God did not create the world from nothing, but created it from chaos. And these “pockets of chaos remain.” They are the source of the random and arbitrary occurrences of much human suffering¾people struck with cancer, earthquakes, airplane crashes, etc. Human lawlessness is another source. Of course, Kushner feels that these occurrences pain God. But God is unable to prevent all of them. The forces of chaos are too powerful for a good God. Once again, Kushner’s conclusions “lack any kind of scriptural support.” But if Kushner is right, “Why bother with a God who will not or cannot help us?” (From a book review: “’My God Is Not Cruel’: The Theodicy of Harold S. Kushner,” reviewer Michael J. Latzer in Encounter (Vol. 57: 139-147 Spring 1996).

Once again, what is rarely if ever addressed in these theories on the problem of evil is the question of the origin of evil.

Source:

1 Why Not Evil? (future book – est. 2014) by John Noe