As a forward, I think the necessity of real agency – not ‘I want to rape someone so God stops me’ – solves many of the problems of heavenly intervention; ‘all these things shall give thee experience’ solves many of the suffering problems, whether you want to believe in custom-tailored problems or an open future.

And, if God operates by rules and laws, perhaps, like the moral rule of private property discussed below, any inadequacy in certain situations – presuming such are extreme, relatively uncommon, and perhaps insoluble – does not negate the existence or benevolence of God, merely show He is finite.

“IT IS OFTEN CONTENDED that the existence of extreme, or “lifeboat,” situations disproves any theory of absolute property rights, or indeed of any absolute rights of self-ownership whatsoever. It is claimed that since any theory of individual rights seems to break down or works unsatisfactorily in such fortunately rare situations, therefore there can be no concept of inviolable rights at all. In a typical lifeboat situation, there are, let us say, eight places in a lifeboat putting out from a sinking ship, and there are more than eight people wishing to be saved. Who then is to decide who should be saved and who should die? And what then happens to the right of self-ownership, or, as some people phrase it, the “right to life”?

“In the first place, a lifeboat situation is hardly a valid test of a theory of rights, or of any moral theory whatsoever. Problems of a moral theory in such an extreme situation do not invalidate a theory for normal situations. In any sphere of moral theory, we are trying to frame an ethic for man, based on his nature and the nature of the world—and this precisely means for normal nature, for the way life usually is, and not for rare and abnormal situations. It is a wise maxim of the law, for precisely this reason, that “hard cases make bad law.” We are trying to frame an ethic for the way men generally live in the world; we are not, after all, interested in framing an ethic that focuses on situations that are rare, extreme, and not generally encountered.”

http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twenty.asp

1. Decide if there is a God or not.
2. Decide if God is truly loving and competent or not.

For those of us Christians who decide “yes” on both of the above, when it comes to God failing to stop evil on earth we are eventually left to lean on the first principle of the gospel: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically faith in his existence, love, and competence. We can guess about why he intervenes sometimes and doesn’t intervene at other times but it seems to me that we must concede we are just guessing on those things.

I’m not sure if that is really a theodicy at all. Perhaps it is a concession of ignorance more than anything else.

This is a variation on the “God may not always intervene to stop atrocities but he does help people heal” approach to a theodicy. I am not opposed to using that approach.

Of course all of the guesses on why God chooses to intervene or not require some faith that he 1) exists, and 2) doesn’t stink at his job. Eventually it all gets back to having faith in those things. That has become abundantly clear to me.

Is that all you got from what I said?

Rich

Rich

Rich