Victims of the 1918 Spanish Flue Pandemic
To recap: the theistic view of God affirms that He is all-powerful, that He can do whatever He wants. Therefore, there is no theoretical limit on God's power. However, there can be limits on what He actually does--these are limitations of character.
So, what is the theistic view of God's character? What motivates His actions? This is where theists of various stripes may start to diverge. Before, however, I start looking at specific scriptures, I'll take a moment to look at what natural revelation suggests about God's character. Because, no matter how lovely a theoretical system you build might appear, if it flies in the face of the reality we see around us, it is just pretty words.
To begin, once we acknowledge that God can do anything, then we should acknowledge that the universe around us is exactly as He wishes it to be. That is, if God wanted to, He could step in and change things. Forget whether or not God knows the future (as Open Theists deny); if He is all-powerful, if He sees something happening right now that He doesn't like, He can step in and change it.
Another factor: not everything in this universe is "good", as I understand this term to mean. Indeed, by the standards of my culture (a terribly limited historical perspective, as well as one where there is not full agreement on what constitutes "good"), the universe has some things that seem very bad.
We could go through the litany of usual suspects: evil humans en masse achieving evil (ISIS being the current bugbear, but Hitler has been in our popular vocabulary for decades now); individual humans doing evil to others (murderers, rapists, child molesters, and other universally condemned criminals); oppressive human systems (whether political, social, economic, or religious, technically not illegal, but causing great human suffering); intentional and unintentional consequences of human action (such as pollution causing birth defects); and any other human evil one can think of.
Beyond these human-caused pollutants on the moral landscape, there are other things that, from a human perspective, can be viewed as "evil". Diseases that are not caused by human malice, such as small pox or malaria; earthquakes; and volcanic activity. These events we really can't chalk up to "free will" (more on this term in future posts), but they nonetheless cause great human suffering. As an example, the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic killed 50,000,000 to 100,000,000--while the First World War, fought for four years at the same time, killed a "mere" 5,000,000 or so. At best, our evil is pretty limited, compared to what happens "naturally."
Yet, if we theists are right, it is within God's character to allow this. It really doesn't do any good to say that God doesn't want the universe to be as "messed up" as it is--if He wanted to end all suffering, He would.
So what, then? Does natural revelation paint that God is some kind of monster? Or is something else at play here?
Remember Col. Flagg and the electric cattle prod? We humans sometimes do things that hurt us on one level to achieve another, greater result (or at least what we view as "greater"). Every slightly insane person who laces up in the morning to run does so--the pain of exercise is judged worth it to improve one's health (alternatively, to get an endorphin high). Or slapping a child's curious hand away from a hot stove--the temporary welling of tears is judged worth it to prevent greater harm to the child.
So--sometimes we do things that, in and of themselves, we would like to avoid; but because the universe is made the way it is, we acknowledge that we need to go through a certain amount of pain or other unpleasantness to achieve what we want.
Now, I chose that wording carefully: because the universe is made the way it is. Theists claim that the universe is created the way it is by an all-powerful God. He's the one that made the universe the way it is--He is the one who decided the write the "rules of the game" as it were. So He's the one that made the "rule" that to get into shape you need to exercise, or that cooking food requires hot stoves that sometimes can burn curious little hands.
Some things to consider about the "rules of the game": some rules are seeming necessities, logically speaking. Others, may be logical necessities, but we really don't know. But of course, that assumes that God is limited by the rules of logic...but does that mean that God says "I really want to do this, if it weren't for those meddling rules of logic!"? (Cue the Scooby Doo's villain's lament.)
As a theist, I seriously doubt it. If rules of logic limit God's actions, they can't be a "higher law" above God to which He must conform. They would be expressions of His very character--or else why wouldn't we just worship the rules of logic, since they seem more powerful than God Himself? Unlike the pagan view of the gods being overruled by the fates, the theistic God is greater than anything imaginable.
So, I think we're faced with an inescapable conclusion: the universe is the way it is, because God wants it to be that way. And if we left our analysis there, we would be faced with a God who has ideas of morality that are alien to our own (or even evil as we would define it). We imagine that if we had the power of God, we would start smiting evildoers before they have a chance to do evil, stop earthquakes from killing people, and generally make this world more like Disneyland and less like the Thunderdome.
But is that the end of the story? Is God capricious, or evil, or has an alien sense of morality (or the atheist's stance, non-existent?) Well, it's not the final word as I see it...as we'll see in the next part, where we start looking at theistic explanations that maintain that yes, God could stop all evil if He wanted to, and no, He doesn't, and no, this doesn't make Him evil. Stay tuned.
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