33 temp.

Pretend you are making the kind of toast where you raise your glass into the air.

If you were holding an average sized glass of ice water, how much do you think it would weigh?

While absolute weight does not vary, the perception of weight does. The glass will seem to be heavier in correlation to how long you hold it. If you hold it skywards for just a moment, it would seem light as a feather. Conversely, it would feel like a feat of Hercules if you had to hold it up and out until the ice had completely melted.

Back in 2007, in issue 09/40 of The 77% Weekly, I wrote about frogs and boiling water as an analogy for how we deal with stress. If you raise the temperature slowly enough the frogs wouldn’t notice (to their own detriment and boil to death). However, if you raised the temperature quickly or dropped the frogs into boiling water, they would save themselves and jump out. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

Let me offer the heavy glass of ice water as an analogy with a similar moral: the stress in our lives, in small increments, weighs down on us unless and until we put the proverbial glass down.

The stressors in our lives won’t stop happening. But we do have some ability to choose how we deal with them.

Let me repeat that: The stressors in our lives won’t stop happening. But we do have some ability to choose how we deal with them.

Stress is real. Ignoring it and pretending that it doesn’t weigh on us will not work. Imagine telling someone who has been holding up that glass of ice water with an outstretched arm for five minutes that the glass is light and they should ignore the discomfort they feel.

We need to learn to release our stressors before they cause us more harm than necessary.

Spiritual-religious exercise for the week: admit to yourself that all the little stressors in your life can add up.

With love,

Rabbi Brian

Test blog

tMPe

Theodicy

NOTE: This article is the last of an ongoing God-beliefs investigation. I wrote a part of my rabbinical school thesis on this subject. It's an annoying topic, but good to know. RB

---

Introduction

If God is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, how can there be evil?

Theodicy isn't a word a lot of people are familiar with. Theodicy — which rhymes with, but has no relation to, Homer's classic The Odyessy — means "an argument in defense of God's benevolence despite the existence of evil." Theodicy is a word that encompasses all the answers to the question:If there is only one all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God, how can there be evil?

But, before we can begin a discussion of God's goodness in the face of evil, we need to take a closer look at three concepts:

· monotheism

· why people don't want to associate "the bad" with God

· the definition of evil

1. Monotheism

In polytheism, dysfunctional relationships between deities explain why bad things befall good people. For example, if your farm got flooded, it might be explained that the God of rain was upset at the God of the harvest for some reason outside of your control and you were just an innocent casualty of their feud.

This isn’t so with monotheism — the notion that there is only one God. If that God is the one God of the whole world then all calamities must originate with that deity — there’s no one else to blame.

N.B. The early sections of the Bible are rooted in polytheism — 1) the Bible makes multiple references to the existence of other Gods. 2) The one God of the Bible might originally have been conceived of as more than one God and were later unified. This would explain why God has different names, why each name has different attributes, why the names are in the plural, and why, for example, Genesis records two stories of the creation of humanity — each favoring a different name of God.

2. But God can’t be bad!

British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein used the term "splitting" to describe a phenomenon that can happen when humans experience a heightened state of anxiety. Klein observed that while we may be aware that in good there is bad and in bad there is good — we nonetheless try to manage our discomfort by splitting our feelings, assigning the good ones to ourselves while projecting the bad ones onto other objects and people. This emotional ”splitting” also explains why we commonly view God as “all good” while eschewing anything that may be perceived as negative.

3. Evil

What is evil? Well, as it turns out, evil is relative.

Things are only evil based on comparison to other things. Evil is not an absolute — just as there is no absolute hot, absolute comfortable, or absolute sweet. (Still, it is fun to put the adjective "absolute" in front of the word evil to describe something you really, really, really don't like — but it makes about as much sense as saying that your car is absolute fast.)

The greatest evil has to be viewed in relation to what is considered the greatest good. So, if you consider the preservation of all life to be good, then you will probably define the extinction of any life as evil.

Evil is often defined as the absence of good. This is known as the privative theory of evil and is attributed to Augustine of Hippo. Privative means the indication of the absence or negation of. But there is a problem with the privative theory of evil (as with most any privative theory): a lack of something does not necessarily mean that the opposite exists. An individual without the strength of a lion is not necessarily a weakling. Not being or having good does not mean being or having evil.

For our purposes, we will use the word evil as a placeholder for those things of greatest repugnance.

God and Evil.

Back to the question:

If God is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, how can there be evil?

Before we get into to the answers, I want you to be aware of two things: 1) We won’t finish this topic with much more clarity than we currently have here, at the start. 2) Most of the answers will seem terribly unsatisfying. (Sorry about that; as you might have surmised, this is a bit of an impossible question to answer.)

The classical answers to the problem of theodicy are:

· God made evil.

· There is no God.

· This is just beyond our understanding; faith, my child.

· God is limited.

· Something's gone awry.

Let’s explore each answer, and then I will present my own answer to the question.

God Made Evil.

Why? Why would God make evil? Is God a sadist? (Well, based on the early parts of the Bible it would appear so, but since we’re working with the assumption that God is all-good, this cannot be the answer.)

Classically, the answer that God made evil is explained as follows: God made evil so that God can test humanity's freedom of will. Of course, this presents a bit of a problem because freedom of will ignores God's omnipotence and omniscience. After all, how can God be all-powerful and control everything if we have freedom of will? Moreover, how can God be all-knowing if we have the ability to choose our own future?

Regardless, the notion that God — assumed to be all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing — made evil isn't a satisfactory answer.

There Is No God.

“If there is evil, then an all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God cannot exist.” The existence of evil is the lazy atheist's argument.

Although this line of reasoning might explain why there is evil in the world, it does not fit the definition of theodicy: "an argument in defense of God's benevolence despite the existence of evil." Therefore, we have to move on.

(I know, really unsatisfying.)

This Is Just Beyond Our Understanding; aka Faith, My Child.

A lot of folks give up on organized religion after having a question dismissed at some point by a religious authority figure with, "This is simply beyond your comprehension." We want to know but we are told that we can’t know. And we are told to just trust God and believe.

This answer also implies that the things we experience as bad aren’t really bad from God’s point of view. Being informed that we don’t know enough to recognize evil is disconcerting at best.

There is also a non-deistic, metaphysical version of this answer. It tells us that human perception is the only thing that makes something evil. In Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, William Shakespeare gives voice to this seemingly Zen line of thinking: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." In other words, only an all-good, all-powerful, and all knowing God can see the world as it truly is — it is beyond human thought and understanding.

Although somewhat disturbing and mainly unsatisfying, this line of reasoning is in fact the best argument in defense of God's benevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience despite the existence of evil. Yikes!

God is limited.

The kabbalists— a Gnostic-like Jewish group with roots in 13th century Spain — posit that God constricted some of God's omnipotence to allow for freedom of will. They reason that God isn't everywhere, evil exists, and that God needs humanity's help to repair the world.

This answer is a wonderful call to social action and encourages humanity to take part in repairing the world, but this philosophy blatantly ignores the premise of God's omnipotence, so it doesn’t fit as an answer to theodicy. (Again, sorry.)

Something’s gone awry

If you've ever been on a theme park ride, then you are familiar with the premise of “something has gone awry.” Most versions of this defense of God's goodness cast the devil as a fallen angel operating evil and badness outside of God's control.

This answer fails with regard to the notion of God that God is in control of everything. So it doesn’t work for our purposes.

Rabbi Brian’s Thoughts

I don’t have a waterproof philosophical argument in defense of God's goodness despite the existence of evil.

What I do know is that nothing is solely good and nothing is purely evil. An ancient rabbinic commentary on the Bible says, "There is no absolute good without some evil in its midst." This is true. There is no good without bad and no bad without good.

Nonetheless, I want: I want to be comforted when I’m scared. I know it’s juvenile, but I still want God to be an idealized parent — all good, all powerful, and nurturing me.

My life, like yours, can be scary — I will never be able to control enough of my world to feel completely safe and I will never know when a tragedy is going to befall me.

In conclusion

Is there an answer to the question of theodicy? Why do bad things happen? I think it has to do with our being attached to a specific outcome of reality and the future.

The simple truth is, things that fall outside of our sense of control and how we think the world should be will always be what we deem to be "evil."

Spiritual-religious advice for the week: Theodicy, shemodicy, it doesn't matter who is to blame for the mess in the kitchen (or the woes of the world), it's still up to us to clean it up.

With love,

Rabbi Brian

38/40 TEMP

NOTE: This article is the last of an ongoing God-beliefs investigation. I wrote a part of my rabbinical school thesis on this subject. It's an annoying topic, but good to know. RB

---

Introduction

If God is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, how can there be evil?

Theodicy isn't a word a lot of people are familiar with. Theodicy — which rhymes with, but has no relation to, Homer's classic The Odyessy — means "an argument in defense of God's benevolence despite the existence of evil." Theodicy is a word that encompasses all the answers to the question:If there is only one all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God, how can there be evil?

But, before we can begin a discussion of God's goodness in the face of evil, we need to take a closer look at three concepts:

· monotheism

· why people don't want to associate "the bad" with God

· the definition of evil

1. Monotheism

In polytheism, dysfunctional relationships between deities explain why bad things befall good people. For example, if your farm got flooded, it might be explained that the God of rain was upset at the God of the harvest for some reason outside of your control and you were just an innocent casualty of their feud.

This isn’t so with monotheism — the notion that there is only one God. If that God is the one God of the whole world then all calamities must originate with that deity — there’s no one else to blame.

N.B. The early sections of the Bible are rooted in polytheism — 1) the Bible makes multiple references to the existence of other Gods. 2) The one God of the Bible might originally have been conceived of as more than one God and were later unified. This would explain why God has different names, why each name has different attributes, why the names are in the plural, and why, for example, Genesis records two stories of the creation of humanity — each favoring a different name of God.

2. But God can’t be bad!

British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein used the term "splitting" to describe a phenomenon that can happen when humans experience a heightened state of anxiety. Klein observed that while we may be aware that in good there is bad and in bad there is good — we nonetheless try to manage our discomfort by splitting our feelings, assigning the good ones to ourselves while projecting the bad ones onto other objects and people. This emotional ”splitting” also explains why we commonly view God as “all good” while eschewing anything that may be perceived as negative.

3. Evil

What is evil? Well, as it turns out, evil is relative.

Things are only evil based on comparison to other things. Evil is not an absolute — just as there is no absolute hot, absolute comfortable, or absolute sweet. (Still, it is fun to put the adjective "absolute" in front of the word evil to describe something you really, really, really don't like — but it makes about as much sense as saying that your car is absolute fast.)

The greatest evil has to be viewed in relation to what is considered the greatest good. So, if you consider the preservation of all life to be good, then you will probably define the extinction of any life as evil.

Evil is often defined as the absence of good. This is known as the privative theory of evil and is attributed to Augustine of Hippo. Privative means the indication of the absence or negation of. But there is a problem with the privative theory of evil (as with most any privative theory): a lack of something does not necessarily mean that the opposite exists. An individual without the strength of a lion is not necessarily a weakling. Not being or having good does not mean being or having evil.

For our purposes, we will use the word evil as a placeholder for those things of greatest repugnance.

God and Evil.

Back to the question:

If God is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, how can there be evil?

Before we get into to the answers, I want you to be aware of two things: 1) We won’t finish this topic with much more clarity than we currently have here, at the start. 2) Most of the answers will seem terribly unsatisfying. (Sorry about that; as you might have surmised, this is a bit of an impossible question to answer.)

The classical answers to the problem of theodicy are:

· God made evil.

· There is no God.

· This is just beyond our understanding; faith, my child.

· God is limited.

· Something's gone awry.

Let’s explore each answer, and then I will present my own answer to the question.

God Made Evil.

Why? Why would God make evil? Is God a sadist? (Well, based on the early parts of the Bible it would appear so, but since we’re working with the assumption that God is all-good, this cannot be the answer.)

Classically, the answer that God made evil is explained as follows: God made evil so that God can test humanity's freedom of will. Of course, this presents a bit of a problem because freedom of will ignores God's omnipotence and omniscience. After all, how can God be all-powerful and control everything if we have freedom of will? Moreover, how can God be all-knowing if we have the ability to choose our own future?

Regardless, the notion that God — assumed to be all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing — made evil isn't a satisfactory answer.

There Is No God.

“If there is evil, then an all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God cannot exist.” The existence of evil is the lazy atheist's argument.

Although this line of reasoning might explain why there is evil in the world, it does not fit the definition of theodicy: "an argument in defense of God's benevolence despite the existence of evil." Therefore, we have to move on.

(I know, really unsatisfying.)

This Is Just Beyond Our Understanding; aka Faith, My Child.

A lot of folks give up on organized religion after having a question dismissed at some point by a religious authority figure with, "This is simply beyond your comprehension." We want to know but we are told that we can’t know. And we are told to just trust God and believe.

This answer also implies that the things we experience as bad aren’t really bad from God’s point of view. Being informed that we don’t know enough to recognize evil is disconcerting at best.

There is also a non-deistic, metaphysical version of this answer. It tells us that human perception is the only thing that makes something evil. In Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, William Shakespeare gives voice to this seemingly Zen line of thinking: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." In other words, only an all-good, all-powerful, and all knowing God can see the world as it truly is — it is beyond human thought and understanding.

Although somewhat disturbing and mainly unsatisfying, this line of reasoning is in fact the best argument in defense of God's benevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience despite the existence of evil. Yikes!

God is limited.

The kabbalists— a Gnostic-like Jewish group with roots in 13th century Spain — posit that God constricted some of God's omnipotence to allow for freedom of will. They reason that God isn't everywhere, evil exists, and that God needs humanity's help to repair the world.

This answer is a wonderful call to social action and encourages humanity to take part in repairing the world, but this philosophy blatantly ignores the premise of God's omnipotence, so it doesn’t fit as an answer to theodicy. (Again, sorry.)

Something’s gone awry

If you've ever been on a theme park ride, then you are familiar with the premise of “something has gone awry.” Most versions of this defense of God's goodness cast the devil as a fallen angel operating evil and badness outside of God's control.

This answer fails with regard to the notion of God that God is in control of everything. So it doesn’t work for our purposes.

Rabbi Brian’s Thoughts

I don’t have a waterproof philosophical argument in defense of God's goodness despite the existence of evil.

What I do know is that nothing is solely good and nothing is purely evil. An ancient rabbinic commentary on the Bible says, "There is no absolute good without some evil in its midst." This is true. There is no good without bad and no bad without good.

Nonetheless, I want: I want to be comforted when I’m scared. I know it’s juvenile, but I still want God to be an idealized parent — all good, all powerful, and nurturing me.

My life, like yours, can be scary — I will never be able to control enough of my world to feel completely safe and I will never know when a tragedy is going to befall me.

In conclusion

Is there an answer to the question of theodicy? Why do bad things happen? I think it has to do with our being attached to a specific outcome of reality and the future.

The simple truth is, things that fall outside of our sense of control and how we think the world should be will always be what we deem to be "evil."

Spiritual-religious advice for the week: Theodicy, shemodicy, it doesn't matter who is to blame for the mess in the kitchen (or the woes of the world), it's still up to us to clean it up.

With love,

Rabbi Brian

Plato for Nancy

NOTE: This concept, Plato's Caves, is one of my all time favorites! - RB

---

What follows is a modern, updated version of Plato’s allegory of the caves:

Some people, immediately following their birth, are strapped into seats in a movie theater. They can only see the screen in front of them and they are never allowed to leave their chairs.

They believe, consequently, that the flat pictures on the walls in front of them are the totality of reality.

Then, one day, one of these people leaves the theater, stumbles outside, and experiences the three-dimensional life that you and I call reality. This person spends a considerable amount of time surprised, suspicious and incredulous. But, eventually, the reality outside the cave is understood to be "true" reality.

The freed, "enlightened" person now feels compelled to return into the theater to try to "liberate" and "educate" those still bound by the delusion that cinema is reality. The people in the cave (the old way of seeing things) deem the self-proclaimed liberator a heretic.

So it is with us.

We have all grown in our lives.

Everything that was true for us in the past does not continue to be true for us now.

St. Paul wrote, "When I was a child, I thought as a child…" And he’s right.

We may want to believe that this isn’t the case — that we have always had a homogeneous consistent world-view — but it’s simply impossible.

Reality isn’t monolithic.

Reality — as much as we might crave for it to be otherwise — isn't fixed.

We often come to new understandings.

And once we come to new understandings, we can't go back to our old, comfortable ways of thinking.

It’s amazing how often we all willfully pretend otherwise — we continue to associate with people and engage in activities that we know are no longer beneficial to us, purely for nostalgia's sake.

Moreover, I am amazed by how frequently we all try to "save" people and get them to see reality as we see it — assuming that they will thank us — only to discover, yet again, they didn't want our help.

Spiritual-Religious advice for the week: remember that dealing with reality has been hard for people for at least the past two thousand years.

With love,

Rabbi Brian

Footnote with regard to the Bible:

I’ve never encountered anyone who has been upset with me for telling this parable with the inclusion of modern media as opposed to Plato’s original presentation: people chained in a cave with a fire behind them and people walking between the fire and them, thereby projecting shadows on the wall. Plato’s allegory of the caves is a truth story, not a true story. The setting is modern as opposed to ancient does not take away from the truth of the story. I believe the same is true of Bible stories— they are not meant to be read as true stories, but as truth stories.