I am a confirmed Anglican who was schooled (but not reared) by Roman Catholic Irish Christian Brothers. I confess that I still have a soft spot for Anglicans, the vast majority of whom I am convinced are closet atheists. In any event, this recent quote by the Anglican Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, the Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser, is priceless:
The word "theodicy" describes the intellectual attempt to justify the existence of God in the face of human suffering. Coined by Leibniz at the beginning of the eighteenth century, he argued that out of the various possible worlds that God could have created, he might have created the best of these, a world containing less suffering than all the other options available. With this suggestion, Leibniz sought to explain how it's at least logically possible that a merciful God could create a world with the suffering that it has.
And then, in 1755, some years after Leibniz published his famous argument, a massive earthquake hit Lisbon on the morning of the first of November, the popular feast day of All Saints. A 15ft crack opened down the middle of the street. Locals watched the tide disappear only to return as a huge wave that drowned most of the city. 30-40 thousand people were killed.
It was in the face of this terrible disaster that Voltaire came to mount his celebrated attack upon Leibniz in Candide. Voltaire cast Leibniz as the foolish Dr Pangloss, ready to trot out the absurd idea that this is the best of all possible worlds whatever misfortune befell him. The satire was biting. He was claiming that all theologians seem to care about in the face of human misery is getting God off the hook. Theodicy, Voltaire insists, is a moral disgrace and a sick joke.
Well, I have no answer to the question of how God can allow so many innocent people to die in natural disasters, like the earthquakes of Lisbon or Haiti. And indeed, I can quite understand that many will regard these events as proof positive that religious people are living a foolish dream like the idiotic Dr Pangloss.
And yet, I still believe. For there exists a place in me - deeper than my rational self - that compels me to respond to tragedies like Haiti not with argument but with prayer. On a very basic level, what people find in religion is not so much the answers, but a means of responding to and living with life's hardest questions. And this is why a tragedy like this doesn't, on the whole, make believers suddenly wake up to the foolishness of their faith. On the contrary, it mostly tends to deepen our sense of a need for God.
What many believers mean by faith is not that we have a firm foundation in rational justification. Those, like Leibniz, who try to claim this are, I believe, rationalizing something that properly exists on another level. Which is why, at a moment like this, I'd prefer to leave the arguments to others. For me, this is a time quietly to light a candle for the people of Haiti and to offer them up to God in my prayers. May the souls of the departed rest in peace.
Thank-you to English philosopher Stephen Law for alerting me to this quote on his website at: http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/
2 comments:
This may sound surprising, but I actually find this somewhat refreshing.
I feel so because this is one of the first times that I have witnessed a prominent Bibleist admit that faith is primarily to help heal in the face of tragedy; that is its value in spite of its irrationality.
We all know this. But Bibleists rarely admit it. We all have had family or friends who have suffered immense personal tragedy (nothing more so than the death of a child) and who have turned to Church and prayer for relief from their sorrow. I have said this many times on this website - I have no difficulty with that. How could I?
What I do have great difficulty with are (i)those that spout the Bible, Church and religion generally as having a monopoly over morality, (ii) those who suggest that the Bible is historically accurate, and (iii) those that try to indoctrinate others, especially children, to subscribe to their religious beliefs.
Otherwise, if, for example, you are a Haitian who has lost your home and your family in the earthquake and you want to turn to the Bible to help you survive in the face of the inexplicable, then you certainly do not need someone like me criticizing that choice.
I suppose praying is OK once you have taken every practical measure you can to alleviate suffering. For most this will probably be giving as much money as one can afford to a well-chosen charity. For others depending on circumstances it might be giving one's time either directly to the people in distress or to a charity working to serve them.
The important thing is that praying shouldn't be a substitute for these activities.
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