Yael Naim ~ New Soul
There is no doubt that the “problem of evil” is always present to the mind of the individual thinker, in the reflection of the philosophers in search for the Truth, and in the debate between followers of the Way of the Sacred and proponents of any form of nihilism.
But in this case more than in any other, nihilism has found the way to create a common sense dense of lies and ignorance and it is rather easy to understand how: the “impermanence” of the finite world is impossible to miss: tragedies and catastrophes of all kinds devastate the individuals and the families, the society, the human world and the planet itself. The heart of the grieving suffers unbearably and it naturally, although mistakenly, asks for “answers”. The abyss opens in front of the suffering but the Depth of the true answer is inevitably reduced, by the same pain, to the shallowness of irrationalism and despair.
Moreover, immense tragedies like the Holocaust seem to be easy to use as a model and an example for cheap propaganda hits, since the nihilists are not shy of reducing everything and anything to a tool for their cultural (or anti-cultural) war. The nihilists of course don’t care to discuss the fact that horrors like the Holocaust are entirely a human creation and have appeared in history exactly when nihilism has conquered the West. Instead, the believers of the great cult of the nothing go on happily teaching that there is no God and at the same time asking blasphemous questions about “why” God “has allowed” such horrors as the Holocaust.
Why is that a “blasphemous question” ?
Because it aims at hiding the Truth: and the Truth is that God suffers for each and every evil, with any and every pain, and this is only a little part of the Truth and we must not allow the nihilists to stop us at this first, although fundamental thought. We must dive into the Depth of truth and imagine, although we cannot in any way form a clear and complete idea of this, that - God being Infinite Love - the suffering of God for each and every evil, with any and every pain, is Infinite too and it is not even comparable to our pain, however terrifying that may be, because it is PERFECT.
We can’t even imagine this Truth, we can only shake at the words that express it.
And no, this Truth cannot be countered by saying that the pain and the sorrow of human beings remain unchanged by the immense and absolute pain and sorrow of God because it is true that the heart of the grieving can feel the balm of consolation when the griever KNOWS that God is living with him or her the pain, the Infinite pain.
And this, consolation, is what we care for, isn’t it ?
But, to the utter dismay of the nihilist, there is another reason to call blasphemous his question (“Why does God allow such horrors ?”) – and, with it, a large part of what the philosophers of the age of nihilism have written and said about the “problem of evil”.
The nihilists accuse God of “allowing” evil and in doing so they presume to know what is the All Might of the Almighty and they presume to reveal a contradiction between All Might and evil and, with that, an inevitable crisis in the same idea of “God”.
Do they know this ? Is the All Might of God well understood by these “holier than God” questioners ?
No, they don’t. No it isn’t.
The All Might of God is precisely Almighty in this, that it opens the finite world to Freedom, gives Life to the World “retiring” from an immediate presence in the finite while at the same time supporting it.
Without the Infinite Power of Donation that this “retiring” from an immediate presence is, there would be no world and no you and me and no infinite multiplicity of individually existing beings. Thanks to and because of this “retiring”, Freedom can exist and with Freedom you and me, while in the immediate Presence of the Infinite there could be no Freedom and with that, again, no you nor me.
The Infinite All Might is so Almighty that Freedom - and, with it and because of it, personality - can stand, independent, in the Creation.
This Infinite Gift is what we receive every split second from the Infinite Love.
The nihilists deny God, but at the same time they call for God to launch the Myriads of Angels from the Truth to delete tragedy from history, delete physics and the laws of the universe to make “miracles” that wouldn’t be such: the nihilists don’t understand that any portion of immediate presence of the Absolute would destroy all the finite and with it all Life for all the beings in the finite world.
The nihilists want to counter all this by saying that God should have created a Paradise where evil is impossible.
Surely God does that. But even Paradise would be deserted of anyone except God if time and space and the whole Creation did not exist. And it must be a REAL Creation, with real persons. And real Persons are Free, they are not subjects (no “islam” here, its translation being “submission”) to the immediate Presence of God.
The Almighty God whom the nihilists want to invent is like themselves, a total egotistical being who would be happy to look at himself in a mirror that would be himself and see, in it, only himself.
God is not such. God is Infinite Love. And, being Infinite Love, God created a finite world where you and me, and not only God, can exist. Free, real, persons. Independent. So independent that they can even become fool nihilists and they can go around denying their own intelligence with their own words.
The nihilists interpret the power of the Almighty in terms of the miserable worldly power and cannot see that the Infinite Power of God is the Infinite Power of Infinite Love.
We cannot but cry when the tragedy strikes, and God is crying with us, with Infinite pain.
That is the true Power of God.
Now the nihilists will say that in these pages I affirm that God is NOT present. And that too is a lie. I have written, repeatedly, not “immediately” present.
The nihilist lies: the world is not opaque to the Light of God, it is transparent. And so is the person.
The cry of the “problem of evil” is, in the end, an idiot cry that yells:
"The finite is finite !"
Yes, see the wonder of it, stand in awe at it: the Doors of Life have been opened for you.
The Immanu-El עִמָּנוּ אֵל is with you in your life, in your pain, and forever.
~ Sherab Zangpo
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