I was thinking about the apologetics of theodicy (the reconciling of the problem of evil), and I realized that the whole notion is nothing more than kicking the can another one or two steps back in a shell game to try to absolve God from the problems of the world.
So, we start with the basic form of the problem of evil, and it basically comes down to saying that either God can't stop evil or he won't. The most common answer to this lately is the notion of free will. It's basically the idea that we're allowed to do evil because it's super important (typically because of some very creepy, narcissistic reasons).
Now, take the concept of heaven. I've mentioned before the problems of heaven and the problem of evil. In short, people assume there is no suffering in heaven. This leads me to believe that either people can't do evil in heaven or they won't. If they can't, then free will obviously isn't important. If they won't, then why can't we be set up on Earth to just "never be bad", even if we technically have the choice? So, the apologists will come sweeping in to say things like free will is super important on Earth to test us, but then once we're in heaven, it's served its purpose.
This makes me wonder why this test is so important. Now, I'm not going to harp on the notion of a future-seeing god needing to test people being pointless. It is stupid, but the the apologists will typically hand wave away some portion of God's omniscience to make this necessary (God's power frequently waxes and wanes depending on the proximity of skeptics). That's neither here nor there. My concern is with why the apologists think there needs to even be a test. What is God learning? Apparently, it's super important to God to know who really loves him. So, we need to be given the ability to rape each other so that we can make the choice to turn that down to show God that we really love him. Now, if that sounds incredibly selfish, creepy and narcissistic, it's because it is. This one isn't really explained except something about God really loving us in a very non-convincing fashion. Probably something about salvation and needing to save us from ourselves (the nature he gave us, because free will was super important).
So, God really loves us and sent Jesus to save us. Now, at this point, it looks like we've completely changed topics and are no longer discussing theodicy. And that's really it in a nutshell. Theodicy is nothing but kicking the can back one step at a time, hoping the person will stop asking questions, because, eventually, you're going to have to truncate the conversation with "mysterious ways" or change the subject all together. Nothing is ever resolved; it's just moved about with some sleight of hand, hoping no one will notice.
So, we start with the basic form of the problem of evil, and it basically comes down to saying that either God can't stop evil or he won't. The most common answer to this lately is the notion of free will. It's basically the idea that we're allowed to do evil because it's super important (typically because of some very creepy, narcissistic reasons).
Now, take the concept of heaven. I've mentioned before the problems of heaven and the problem of evil. In short, people assume there is no suffering in heaven. This leads me to believe that either people can't do evil in heaven or they won't. If they can't, then free will obviously isn't important. If they won't, then why can't we be set up on Earth to just "never be bad", even if we technically have the choice? So, the apologists will come sweeping in to say things like free will is super important on Earth to test us, but then once we're in heaven, it's served its purpose.
This makes me wonder why this test is so important. Now, I'm not going to harp on the notion of a future-seeing god needing to test people being pointless. It is stupid, but the the apologists will typically hand wave away some portion of God's omniscience to make this necessary (God's power frequently waxes and wanes depending on the proximity of skeptics). That's neither here nor there. My concern is with why the apologists think there needs to even be a test. What is God learning? Apparently, it's super important to God to know who really loves him. So, we need to be given the ability to rape each other so that we can make the choice to turn that down to show God that we really love him. Now, if that sounds incredibly selfish, creepy and narcissistic, it's because it is. This one isn't really explained except something about God really loving us in a very non-convincing fashion. Probably something about salvation and needing to save us from ourselves (the nature he gave us, because free will was super important).
So, God really loves us and sent Jesus to save us. Now, at this point, it looks like we've completely changed topics and are no longer discussing theodicy. And that's really it in a nutshell. Theodicy is nothing but kicking the can back one step at a time, hoping the person will stop asking questions, because, eventually, you're going to have to truncate the conversation with "mysterious ways" or change the subject all together. Nothing is ever resolved; it's just moved about with some sleight of hand, hoping no one will notice.
