Fr. Nicholas Newman
“Often Christians of the present daydiscuss the ‘problem of evil.’ Why does a good, loving, and all-powerful God allow evil in the world? Perhaps this question itself is misguided or based on a false premise. Not only does it presume humanity is the innocent victim of evil, but also that evil is an external force from which, it is imagined, God is failing to protect us. The reality is precicely the reverse – evil enters creation as a result of humanity’s collusion with evil spiritual forces. Humanity is the vehicle through which evil comes into the world, anmd it is most often directly inflicted by humans upon one another rather than by impersonal forces of nature. God’s merciful and gracious action is why this evil does not consume the creation entirely.”
In this way, Fr. Stephen DeYoung, in his book God is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament, discusses the question that underlies the nest set of questions posed in the article by Krystal Smith. In the first set, Christians were asked about how one can know that God exists. In the second set of questions Christians are posed with what is, perhaps, the most common, but one of the most difficult, question about God. That is, if there exists a God, who is loving and good, how can suffering and evil exist in the world? These questions are:
- Do You Believe in Fate?
- Why Does Evil Exist?
- Why does God allow tragedies?
These three questions are certainly related, but they address the question of evil and suffering from slightly different angles, so it seems like it would be wise to go through each one separately.
- Do You Believe in Fate?
Particularly in Indo-European pagan religions, a human’s life is governed by a group of goddesses, the Graeae in Greek myth, the Norns of Norse myth, etc… These goddesses would measure out the length of the lives of humans, as well as what is to occur in their lives. There is no room in this understanding for separate human agency. This is the classic understanding of “fate.”
On the other hand, the Epicurean philosophers, reject the idea of gods who involve themselves in human affairs at all, a similar outlook to the theistic philosophies that became prominent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
While the Orthodox would certainly reject the first position, that we as human beings have no agency, and therefore, ultimately no will. The second position, that God withdraws Himself from human affairs entirely, and is not involved in human affairs, we would also reject. To understand how the Orthodox understand the concept of “fate,” one must understand how the Orthodox view the interplay of divine and human will, particularly in the context of Salvation.
The Orthodox view Salvation not as a prize, won through faith or works, that is solely through the free-will of the human being, or imposed upon certain chosen by God, by “fate.” Salvation is union with God Himself, it is theosis, “becoming like God by Grace.” God offers us Salvation, but we must accept it, it is in working together with God, in concert with God, in synergia, that Salvation is attained. After the fall, we were not able to be in concert with God, it was in the Incarnation that our nature was renewed, that we were able to once again have the “likeness” of God, as well as the “image,” as it says in Genesis. So, God does the majority, it was God who created us, God who became in Incarnate, God who died on the Cross, God who renewed us, God who gives us Grace, but it is we who must accept this grace, we who must do our part, otherwise we cannot partake in the Divine Nature.
Hieromonk Gregorios, in his book The Orthodox Faith, Worship, and Life discusses how this synergia applies to the question of free-will and vs. Fate: “The creation of man is the fruit of God’s love and the purpose of his creation was for him to become a partaker of divine riches…Man was created by God so that he may participate in His good things” (pg. 32). Humanity’s free-will has a certain limit, humans cannot will themselves into existence. Rather, it is God who is the source of humanity’s existence. There is also a purpose in the creation of humanity, a movement toward a particular goal, that is a participation in God, theosis. This remains humanity’s purpose, no matter what a human wills his purpose to be. “Man’s journey toward God must be an act of freedom and not of coercion. If a man did not have free will, he would have no enjoyment in divine gifts” (pg. 36). It is through the working out of our free-will that we can align ourselves to God’s will, and so progress towards Him. This means, however, that we are also able to act against our purpose as humans, to rebel, as it were, against our nature, and set ourselves at odds with God.
God, makes use of our sins, however, and in His mercy He builds them into His divine economy, His plan for our salvation. Adam and Eve fall by succumbing to pride, God cures this through the Incarnation. He gives us something better, the possibility of a closer relationship with Him through the renewal of our nature, and through the Eucharist, than we had in Eden. We see this even in Christ’s own ancestors. Christ is descended from King David and his wife Bathsheba. Their union begins in adultery and murder, but it is this wife, of all King David’s wives, from whom Christ is descended.
So, the Orthodox believe in synergia, a working together of God and man, in which humans are not radical free agents, but are created to a purpose, a purpose which we must freely accept, or work against.
If we are, as humans, meant to move towards God, then, if we do not do this, then we are not fully human, or at least, not acting out our full humanity. Additionally, we set our humanity against God’s divinity, instead of into concert with it. This rebellion against our nature, and the setting of ourselves against God, however, has consequences. These manifest themselves in the second question.
- Why Does Evil Exist?
It is sometimes a difficult thing to watch the news, full as it is with stories of humans causing misery to other humans, war, murder, human trafficking, slavery, on and on and on (in this section we will not be discussing things like disease and natural disasters, classifying them rather as tragedies and saving their discussion to question three). There are few who have not felt themselves, or have family or friends, who have not felt the cruelty of another human being.
In light of such a reality one can be led to wonder how a loving God can exist at the same time as such suffering? This is the foundation of the “Problem of Evil,” a philosophical proposition which seeks to show that a loving God and the existence of evil are mutually impossible. Already the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus discussed this, the logical argument made by Epicurus is summarized by Hume (in his work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) as: “Is [god] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” While, certainly, the argument has been refined since, it remains much the same in essence. Numerous theistic counterarguments have been made to this proposition, and its various iterations. The second century theologian and philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, deals with this problem by saying that evil does not exist, certainly this idea does not begin with him, Plato, for example, has a similar view.
How, though, can evil not really exist? Do we not live with it every day? It is in this context, that the idea of synergia, and its place in Adam and Eve’s fall are so important. Adam is created by God and placed in Paradise, the garden of Eden. What was Adam’s purpose in Eden? The same as our purpose now, Adam was to work out his salvation alongside Eve. Together, they were to move ever closer toward God. As part of this movement, God makes Adam as the priest of creation, when He appoints Adam to name all of the creatures. So, Adam stands at the center of creation, offering it constantly back to the One who created it.
One thing only God forbids Adam and Eve to do in the garden, to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that stood in the middle of the garden. Why does God put this tree in the garden, then? Marcelo Souza discusses this, saying that: “St Maximos the Confessor argues that the creation of visible things was called the tree of the knowledge of good an evil because of its spiritual power to nourish the mind, and the natural power to charm the senses – and yet also having the power to pervert the mind. In other words, when spiritually contemplated, creation offers the knowledge of the good, while when it is received bodily it offers the knowledge of evil, i.e., it becomes a “teacher of passions,” leading men to forget about divine things..”1 Adam and Eve were eventually going to eat of this fruit, but only when they were ready for their participation in the visible, sensible world to be a means of movement towards God for them, rather than a “teacher of passions.”
In choosing to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil on their own terms, rather than in concert with God’s will, they trade what God has given humanity “our … likeness” for what Satan promises them, that they will be “like gods.” What Adam and Eve seek in eating the apple, that they will be “like gods” is, ultimately, what they are supposed to be striving for, to continuously become more like God. In doing so apart from the will of God, on their own, however, they have made this desire no longer about God, but about themselves.
Like Clement of Alexandria, Diadochus of Photike says that “good exists while evil does not exist, or rather it exists only at the moment in which it is practiced.” Evil has no existence of its own, no ontological being. It exists only as a perversion of what is good, when we fail to work in concert with God’s will, in synergia, and instead, in our pride, make ourselves the end, the telos, of our actions, rather than God. Christ says that He is the “way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Any action that is undertaken without Him as the center cannot remain good, no matter what the intentions seem to be at the outset, because in replacing God with ourselves, we replace that which is divine and eternal and good, with that which is fallible and transient. Evil deeds, even the most heinous, are symptoms of our sinful nature apart from God, and arise out of our passions, which are virtues that have been twisted by pride.
God does not create evil, we create it ourselves when we do not work in synergia whit him, but allow our pride to overcome us.
- Why does God allow tragedies?
Perhaps we can accept that God has given humans free-will, without which we would be unable to attain salvation, and when pride is inserted into this relationship what should be a virtue and a good thing can be twisted into something evil. How, though, can God allow the tragedies that beset humanity, which are not a result, or at least not a direct result, of human agency? Disease, famine, natural disasters, the death of a child, even lesser tragedies, such as the loss of a job, can bring doubt, especially if they affect us or one of our loved ones, as to the existence, or at least the goodness and love, of God. Scripture tells us, however, that “the Lord is gracious, and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 145:8-9).
Implicit in this question seems to be the idea that God, by “allowing” tragedy, is that He its cause, that when a tragedy befalls it comes as a punishment. Fr. Stephen DeYoung treats this question thoroughly in his book God is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament. This understanding of a wrathful God needs to be understood in the context of God’s mercy and compassion. While the Old Testament discusses the anger and wrath of God, which humans rouse through idolatry at their peril, this must be understood as the same kind of wrath or anger a human would show, human anger is normally sinful, driven by pride and God is by nature sinless. God is king, and as king He is the one who administers Divine Justice: “God’s justice is also one of the divine energies. God is just and is continuously working in His creation to bring about and preserve this state of justice. Therefore, for a human person or community to live in accordance with divine justice is to participate in His operation in creation…” (DeYoung, pg. 17).
God’s justice is a means by which He moves particularly the people of Israel in the Old Testament into participation with His divine energies, whether this is done through the working of a king, such as the king of Assyria, or of a natural disaster, etc… We see, however, in the Old Testament, that God does not delight in punishing Israel for the near constant idolatry and breaking of the covenant, rather God shows patience and mercy. So, for example, in the Book of Jonah. God sends Jonah to the city of Nineveh, where he is to preach to the Ninevites and prophecy to them of their impending destruction. Jonah goes, eventually, and he gives the prophecy. The Ninevites, up to the king repent, and God relents, saving the city. God, after, all “desires not the death of the sinner, but that he should repent and live” (Ezekiel 18:23). Why God uses these tragedies has to do with the shift in our nature following the fall. Our nature becomes corrupt, and more attune to the physical, rather than the spiritual. St. Maximus the Confessor talks about our natures in Paradise being more attune to the spiritual, that we were not yet ready to participate in the physical, but that we did so, of our own will, when we ate of the fruit. It is, then, through the physical that God steers humanity in the direction it must go to eventually be able to be reconciled with Him through Christ.
At the heart of this question is: why must we die, and suffer sickness and want? Death was not part of God’s creation, and only comes about because of Adam and Eve’s fall. In the fall, Adam and Eve put themselves in the place of God. Christ tells us that He is the “way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), outside of our relationship with God, we have no innate life. In replacing God, who is our life, with ourselves, humans cut themselves off from life, and so we die. Death and the frailty of the human being are on account of human sinfulness, a state we have inherited (not the guilt of the sin, but the effect of it – as if a wealthy family falls on hard times because of a gambler, his children are not guilty of the gambling, but feel its effects). Even as a natural consequence of our sin, however, God turns a curse into a blessing by destroying death in His own death and Resurrection. Without death, we would be unable to repent. Death means that we participate in time the way that we do, linearly, and in a constant state of change. That we can change means that we can repent, unlike the angels, who are fixed in their choice. Death, then, like suffering, can become a means by which we attain salvation and ultimately eternal life.
