Sherab Zangpo: The Problem of Evil ~ Chapter Three

Leonard Cohen ~ Anthem

In the first chapter I have written that any single element of Perfection immediately present in the finite would destroy the whole dimension of the “finite”, and with that, of course, all of us as individuals (that is, as beings who enjoy the Gift of Free Will.)

And that means that when the atheist demands, as proof of the existence of God, a “perfect world”, he is asking for a reality in which only God exists. Such a “God”, who wouldn’t have created the dimension of the finite and Life and Freedom, would be a “God” who is NOT Infinite Love. A very strange “God” indeed.

(The other possibility for the atheist is to ask, as proof of the existence of God, for a “finite-but-perfect” world: in this case he would be asking God to be Almighty in the sense of being “able” to create a contradiction that can stand, but it is obvious that this argument is not conceivable and we cannot think it in any way because a “finite-but-perfect” world would be a world in which “the mortal is immortal and the immortal mortal” and so on and so forth. Even in this case, if it were thinkable and it is not, we wouldn’t have Free Will and therefore we wouldn’t be individuals.)

Strangely enough, it’s a passage by Kant that describes in the best way the mistake of the logical-theoretical structure of the first of these objections by the atheist: in saying that, if God existed and were Infinite Love, God would have created a perfect world, the atheist is thinking in the way described by Kant in the famous metaphor of the dove:

KANT,
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1787, B 8
Die leichte Taube, indem sie im freien Fluge die Luft teilt, deren Widerstand sie fühlt, könnte die Vorstellung fassen, daß es ihr im luftleeren Raum noch viel besser gelingen werde.
(Critique of Pure Reason,
"The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space.")

The Free individual who can live only if God is not IMMEDIATELY present would be impossible if the request of the atheist were answered positively.
The “resistance” that “hinders” the dove is obviously the same support that allows it to fly, without such obstacle the dove wouldn’t be a dove, and without the Freedom that only the dimension of the finite guarantees to the individual…the free individual wouldn’t exist.
So even this position leads to a radical contradiction.

In the first chapter of this discussion of the “problem of evil” I have further discussed the idea of the PERFECT participation of God in the suffering of every being.

Now we must say that these well known (but too often forgotten) answers and arguments against the “objections” of the nihilist do not exhaust the discussion of the problem of evil.
The discussion in the first article recalls VERY important philosophical and theological points, but such arguments confine the religious discourse in a theoretical limbo because they are somehow only “negative” answers. We have observed that in the last two or three centuries such a theoretical limbo has been useful to the nihilists to transform the religious discourse in a quiet, submissive position, something that is somehow “embarrassing” for those who support it, and the answers discussed until now have come to be seen as a weak last resort barrier against the objections of the nihilist. Actually, they are not weak at all, but it is true that every defensive stance tends, on the long run, to be seen as a lie or at least as a not thoroughly AUTHENTIC intellectual position.
Therefore a more complete discussion is necessary to reframe the whole problem in traditional terms and to show the true depth of the ignorance of the nihilist.

Let’s then start from the discussion of the ontological status of the finite: it is immediately evident that - if we are not followers of the cult of the nothing and, therefore, we do not accept that the absolute nothing can produce “something” nor that the non-being can produce the being – the finite has no ontological status in itself, it’s unable to create itself, it’s unable to support itself in the being.
And this means that, while the philosophical points already established in our first discussion are certainly true - i.e. “that any single element of Perfection immediately present in the finite would destroy the whole dimension of the “finite”, and, that God suffers PERFECTLY for the suffering of every being - it is at the same time true that without the continuous Miracle, the Miracle that is present everywhere and always, one single hair not supported NOW by the Infinite Power of God would mean the total catastrophe for the finite.
Any “absence” of God would destroy the world because only the Being, and the Being is the Infinite Being Who Is, supports the POSSIBILITY of the finite world. The nothing, the object of the cult of the nihilists, cannot be the field of possibility of anything.

As I have written in
“Freeing the words that have been kidnapped: “ORIGIN” / “ORIGINS” ” :
“The “possibility” is not an abstract philosophical word with which we can choose to play or not, the possibility is the root of the reality, it is the source of the reality, is what makes reality real: the POSSIBILITY of the universe is the ORIGIN of the universe, the POSSIBILITY is the present tense of the Creation, the “possibility” is the infinite miracle that supports the existing beings, the umbilical cord without which existence is impossible. The “possibility” is God as the Heart of reality: certainly God transcends the dimensions of space, time, and “things”, but the Infinite Being Who Is is the only root and origin of “reality” at any given time (i.e., at EVERY given time: now, the next split second and the next…!).”

All this means that a dimension of Mystery and Miracle is anyway PRESENT (if not “in”, then) TO the finite. Therefore, the two elements that, together and inseparably, allow us to discuss the “problem of evil” are these: on one side the Infinity of the Continuous Miracle, on the other, evil in humans’ hearts and the impermanence, the finitude of the finite.

Evil in the human hearts corresponds somehow to the “impermanence” (the finitude) of the finite: evil is Free Will in the humans that has become purely mechanical, unable to reach the true will that is love, and behaves “gravitationally”, like the so-called “laws of nature” described by modern science.

The not-immediate Presence of God opens the way to the existence of the world and of free will and free will opens the way to understanding the Presence of the Continuous Miracle. But only we, human beings, can choose to understand and in so doing can choose the TRUE Free will, that is love. Nature cannot “choose” by itself in the same way: although showing altogether and in every minute detail the Glory of God, it cannot in and by itself choose to behave NOT-gravitationally. But this of course means that it is always innocent, even when it kills us directly.

(Note for the Reader: of course, I chose the adverb “gravitationally” because it allows us to think together the natural “falling” in Nature and the moral “fall” of evil, since “catastrophe” – kata-strephein – means in fact “fall”).

So, in thinking about the “problem of evil”, we come to a choice:
will we center our thoughts (and so, our lives) on the Continuous Miracle, hence on Truth and on love, or on despair ?
The Continuous Miracle by the Infinite Being supports at every given time the possibility of the finite. At any given time, this Truth calls us to the responsibility of acting morally and of remaining in the Light of the Infinite Love, abandoning despair ( Joshua 1 and passim in other chapters of the same Book “…do not fear, do not lose resolve…”).
The nihilist chooses despair.

The despair of the nihilist who yells at God “because” of the catastrophes (e.g., Voltaire and Lisbon’s earthquake, or any other “argument”) forgets not only what is written in the first chapter of this series - i.e. the infinite Love of God and God’s perfect and absolute suffering for all of our pains - but wants to forget also that the King of the world is not death but God, and that all beings are always embraced by the Infinite Being Who is Infinite Love.

The discussion of the ‘problem of evil” as led by the atheist wants to focus on the immediate consequences of the impermanence of the finite and of the evil in the hearts of men but always forgets the Immense Love and the Perfect Pain of God for every suffering AND forgets the immense Miracle of Continuous Creation.

Instead, the discussion of the “problem of evil” in Job [ see the text, Hebrew and Greek and many modern languages, at www.biblos.com ] aims at the Vision that is present and living Memory of the Continuous Miracle. The final answer given by God to Job is the vision - that Guido Ceronetti [Il Libro di Giobbe, a cura di Guido ceronetti] has rightly compared to the answer of Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita - the Immense Vision of the Immense Miracle.

Without this Vision, without this understanding, without a deep and rich reflection on all the dimensions of the human Life and its calls, we are doomed to fall into the pit of ignorance and despair and we are going to be enrolled in the cult of the nothing, the most absolutely blind, irrational faith.

The nihilist, deep in his heart, knows all this.
The nihilist INVENTS reasons to deny God only because he has already decided to disobey, to forget the Way.
He will say that the Holocaust proves that God doesn’t save the Righteous. Instead it is true that the demented folly of the nazi demons torturing the Jew is nothing else than the rage and the hatred of the powerless destitute satanic being who deeply knows that he can’t change the Destiny of Light of the Righteous.

Nor the crumbling stones and the cracks in the ground during a quake can change the Destiny of Light of the Righteous.

Through the valley of death, the Righteous walks with no fear, because he knows that after receiving Life, he will receive more Life, and more Life, and always more Life. Infinitely more Life.

Life is Birth to Life.

Light at the end of ANY tunnel, singing of Angels, long Birth to Life.
Infinite Myriads of Angels who play and Gracefully dance in the Immense Miracle.

Quite because of the terrible suffering that is evoked by it, the “problem of evil” is a subject that must evoke in us our subtlest and deepest capability to choose:

will we choose the Truth of God Who Is Infinite Love and suffers PERFECTLY for each and any of our pains and AT THE SAME TIME will we choose to accept the Immense Vision that sees that God Is the Only Foundation - and the True Nature - of every“thing” in every split second and everywhere, and will we dance with the Myriads of Angels ?
OR
will we choose to use the Freedom that God gives us - with Life - to cultivate despair ?

The second choice requires a blind faith in the cult of the nothing, requires the belief that the nothing produced Life.
The first choice requires intellectual honesty, a serious morality, courage, deep thought, and the ability to grow and to learn to love. And inspires true Joy, the deep Joy of Wisdom.

A POST-SCRIPT (yes, it is probably redundant, Tradition has always a lot to do with MISHNAH, to study and review…) :

The fool tends to answer materialistically to the “problem of evil”, thus failing to see the true scope of the Traditional answer: how many times will we have to read that the “meaning of the Book of Job is mysterious” ? just yesterday I was reading the essay of someone who adds to that unfortunate sentence this : “his (scilicet, Job’s) wife in the end is still dead”. It would probably be impossible for this kind of person to understand that the meaning of the Vision in Job is exactly the opposite: the Vision at the end of the book of Job shows exactly that God SAVES and saves in a NOT worldly, not finite, way, and instead eternally and eternally out of the grasp of ANY evil. How does the Vision show this ? By showing the Infinite, the Immense Continuous Miracle, the Almighty as True Nature of every “thing”.

No, Job has not “lost” his wife. The nihilist has lost something. His mind.
The Righteous instead has found a new sky and a new land…
REVELATION 21:1 “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth…”
(KING JAMES)

And maybe these Lands ( I use the plural to hint at the teachings of the Pure Land school of Japanese Buddhism, at the teachings about the NirmanaKaya – SambhogaKaya - DharmaKaya of the VajraYana [see a simple introduction here, etc.) are nearer than most think, if Parousia in fact has to do with “being near”…(Parousia: “presence, to be present”, but interestingly it means: “goods”, “fortunes” too, besides of course – Advent – the Coming as “making himself present”) (FROM: pareinai, to be present, from para +einai).

Near. Maybe quite “here”, if God is ultimately the true Nature of the “here” and of the “time” of every possible “here” and “time”.

Thank you for you attention.
~ Sherab Zangpo