Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Schöpfung, Problem des Bösen (Argument gegen die Existenz Gottes); Unterschied: Leid - das Böse, physisches Übel - Kontingenz des Universums; Buddhismus (dukkha); Augustinus: das Böse als Privation des Seins

Kurzinhalt: Suffering is a privation of the fullness of being proper to a conscious being. It indicates a diminishment of our being. However, this is not evil in the proper moral sense of the word.

Textausschnitt: THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AND SUFFERING

13a So far we have been presenting a classical "strong" understanding of the nature of creation and of divine transcendence and its implications in terms of God's efficacious providence. The big question that hangs over our whole discussion has been, What about evil? How do we account for the "presence" of evil in a creation that has been deemed to be "very good" (Gen 1:31)? Indeed the presence of evil undermines our arguments that the universe is an ordered cosmos, since evil injects a pall of meaninglessness into our human experience that threatens to overcome whatever sense of order we might claim to be present. It is not surprising that people turn to dualist accounts of evil as a way of escaping from the obvious dilemmas posed by classical Christian faith. (Fs)

13b The problem of evil is perhaps the most pressing existential issue that we face in proclaiming the gospel. Indeed, it may lead us even to doubt the existence of God. The classical rejection of arguments for the existence of God runs along the following lines: You say God is all good and all powerful; yet evil exists, and God does nothing to stop it. Therefore either God is all good, but not all powerful; or God is all powerful but not all good. Therefore your concept of God is incoherent and so God does not exist. My own experience tends to indicate that behind such argumentation lies a more pressing existential context of personal suffering and experience of evil. This leads us to the first important issue. Are we dealing with the problem of evil or the problem of suffering? (Fs) (notabene)
Suffering or Evil?

13c Popular author Scott Peck, when planning People of the Lie, his study of the nature of evil, was asked by a friend, "Maybe you will help me understand my son's cerebral palsy?" His response was to say he was writing on evil, not suffering.1 Is there a difference? Is the problem of suffering the same as the problem of evil?
13d A similar question arises in relation to Buddhism. Buddhism identifies the fundamental problem of human living as one of suffering, or dukkha, sometimes now translated as "unsatisfactoriness."The saving message of the Buddha is one of the elimination of suffering through the extinction of desire, which is viewed as the source of all suffering. Nirvana is the total elimination of desire, and so the total cessation of suffering. Given the current popularity of Buddhism in Western countries, this analysis of the human condition deserves deeper reflection. (Fs)
14a The question of suffering and evil requires both delicacy and firmness in response. The two are related but distinct; however, the existential linkage is strong. Evil can and does lead to great suffering, but evil may also involve little or no suffering whatsoever. In fact, some evil may even be perpetrated in the name of reducing suffering, such as in cases of euthanasia, where life is taken to alleviate suffering. On the other hand, some suffering may be freely entered into as good, not as a masochistic thing, but like the training of the athlete who must "break through the pain barrier" in order to achieve success. Pain is also an important indicator for the presence of harmful activities-if we did not feel pain, would we pull our hands out of a fire? Pain serves a useful purpose in such cases. Then there is the ultimate pain, the "pain" of death, involving bodily pain, psychological pain, and the pain of separation from friends and loved ones. (Fs)

14b We shall begin with an "ontological" examination of the question of pain and suffering. A finite being, such as a human being, will always "suffer" the impact of other beings upon it; that is, a finite being will be passively affected by other beings, precisely because it is limited. Because of its limitations there will be occasions when limits are reached that threaten the existence of a finite being. Then a finite being faces damage or destruction. When a finite being is conscious, it will consciously experience the reaching of its limits; this conscious experience is felt as pain or suffering. It occurs when a conscious finite subject reaches physical, chemical, biological, and psychic limits, when it is pushed to these limits by forces in its environment or its own free actions. The suffering incurred indicates that limits have been reached, and unless we act to protect ourselves we may incur serious damage. Limits may not be absolute, however, but relative to a current state of development. In this case we may overcome our limits through a developmental growth or act of self-transcendence, which moves us, with some discomfort, beyond our current limits. On the other hand, other limits are absolute, and we transgress them only at the cost of serious suffering and possible death. (Fs)

14c In all these ways we can identify a certain intelligibility to suffering. Suffering has an intrinsic relationship to finitude. The only way to avoid the possibility of suffering is to avoid finitude. It is not suffering per se that is a problem, but suffering that is without any apparent meaning, suffering that is caused by callous indifference, or malicious intent, suffering that is caused for no good reason. This is meaningless suffering. This is where we find an overlap with the problem of evil. (Fs)

15a We have already considered some of the "solutions" to the problem of evil when we considered different approaches to creation. When we consider evil "ontologically," in terms of determining its causes, we have limited options:

1. Evil is caused, and caused by some anti-God being such as the devil-this is dualism. (Fs)
2. Evil is caused, and caused by God-this seems blasphemous. (Fs)

3. Evil is uncaused-this is the classical Christian ontology of evil, that evil is privation, the privation of the good (frivatio bonum). (Fs)

15b The fundamental privation involved is a privation in the will, that is, sin. The decisions of the will are meant to be caused by "good reasons." A privation of that causation is where the will is moved by something other than good reasons. This absence of "good reasons" is the basic experience of the meaning-lessness of evil. When we look at acts of terror, such as the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, we simply cannot find any "good reason" why anyone would do such a thing. It is evil because it is so pointless. The classical exposition of this in the Christian tradition is found in Augustine's Confessions, book 2, where Augustine examines his own childhood motivations for stealing pears from his neighbor. Each possible motivation evaporates on examination, leading him to conclude that his act has no good reason whatsoever. Book 7 of the Confessions then gives a more ontological analysis of evil as the privation of the good, of being. Evil has no substance, no being; rather, it is the privation of being, the being of meaningfulness. (Fs)

15c The complexity here is that suffering can be viewed as a privation too. Suffering is a privation of the fullness of being proper to a conscious being. It indicates a diminishment of our being. However, this is not evil in the proper moral sense of the word. It is sometimes referred to as "physical evil" as distinct from "moral evil." Nonetheless, the ground of so-called physical evil is finitude, and even finitude itself can be considered a privation, the privation of unlimited being-hence the temptation of the serpent, "you will be like God" (Gen 3:5). But to view finite being primarily in terms of privation is to go down the path of various dualistic accounts that are implicitly suspicious of the goodness of finite created realities. (Fs)

15d On the other hand, much of what we identify in terms of physical evil-for example, earthquakes and other natural disasters, diseases, malformations, and so on-arise out the real contingency of the universe, because it is constructed on the basis of both deterministic and statistical causation. Because God chooses that there be real contingency, including the most highly valued contingency of human freedom, there will always be a statistical spread of outcomes. What is possible, with however small a probability, becomes inevitable over long periods and for large numbers. The very processes that drive evolutionary development allow for the possibility of genetic deformations and diseases (e.g., Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and so on) with all their painful consequences. In that sense God wills these sufferings because God wills the world to be a world in which such things can and will happen. The fact that people overcome such illnesses and disabilities is a constant reminder that suffering is not the greatest evil, and even in these sufferings meaning can be found. There can be dignity for us even in times of great suffering. To quote Pope John Paul II:

Suffering as it were contains a special call to the virtue which a human being must exercise on her own part. And this is the virtue of perseverance in bearing whatever disturbs and causes harm. In doing this, the individual unleashes hope which maintains in her the conviction that suffering will not get the better of her, that it will not deprive her of her dignity as a human being, a dignity linked to awareness of the meaning of life. (Salvifici Doloris 23)