Oprah Winfrey has interviewed this immensely popular New Age writer and speaker on her show. In one of his more recent books, he had this to say about evil: “There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness.”

For many, this statement (and perspective) is something of a refuge from the fury they feel towards an unknown deity.  If I WAS GOD… (we think) I would never let a child suffer like that…

Thoughts like these may drive us to discard our belief in a just God (or any god) and gladly accept that evil can be explained away as a manifestation of nothing more than human blindness and stupidity.

At least (we think) I don’t have to swallow that guff about a devil and a helpless Deity.

Laying the blame for pain and evil at the feet of ignorant men does indeed explain some of the suffering we see and experience, but it leaves many other questions unanswered.

Does this mean that all suffering is an illusion— a manifestation of nothing more than ignorance?  Then why does pain feel so real?  And do we simply dismiss human atrocities as nothing more than conscious numbness?

While it is true that ignorance and selfishness cause much suffering, neither explain the deeper reality of malevolent evil– or the horror of chronic pain.

To watch a baby dying of cancer, or witness the torture inflicted on innocent children in Rwanda, is to feel a grief and helplessness no words can relieve.

Sometimes those same feelings stir up a fury against this unknown God.  That fury often hardens into a resolve to distance ourselves from what many see as a medieval world view regarding evil.  And that same resolve is also spurred by the thought that if any of that heaven and hell stuff contains a grain of truth… Then maybe churches and temples not only have some legitimacy, but have also failed to protect us from pain and injury? 

“God forbid!”  Muttered an atheist I once knew, when I presented that thought.  He looked around, startled by his sudden exclamation.  “That would be bad enough” he said, “but it would also mean that priests and Rabbis might have genuine authority!”  He shuddered at the idea and went on to explain to me that some he had known were first class hypocrites.

Religious abuse and hypocrisy are often the primary reasons we’d prefer to distance ourselves from anything to do with organized religion.

But that brings us back to the essential question: if this God is all powerful, how come he (or she) allows such agony and evil to endure?  If we can’t adequately explain evil as nothing more than human blindness, surely that leads to the horrific idea that God… Must also be the devil?

Although this conclusion has been debated for centuries, (and used as a justification for all manner of alternative and humanistic explanations), the answer is not as complicated or obscure as we may think.

Here’s a brief summary of the human condition:

We find ourselves in physical bodies.  From an early age, self awareness grows.  And with that maturing consciousness comes repeated encounters with pleasure and pain.  Maybe our first experiences are of hunger and indigestion.   But at every turn of human growth, one truth hits us in the face: we don’t often get what we want.

Our bodies and emotions tell us when we hurt, when we’re ignored or humiliated.  Sometimes embarrassment and rejection are more painful than a broken leg.

Faced as we are with such trials, how could a divine being spare us from all forms of suffering?  How could an immortal and all powerful entity eliminate the pain of denial, frustration, rejection and powerlessness… (not to mention all manner of physical injury and illness)?

Only two options exist.  The first: we’d have to be relieved of our bodies (death).  That would certainly spare us from further suffering, although it hardly works for those left behind in our family.

If that option doesn’t sound too palatable, the second is this: we must be given sufficient power to overcome every physical and emotional obstacle.

That means being empowered to immediately receive anything we want: the perfect body, for instance.  Freedom from age.  Unlimited wealth and the ability to move anywhere on earth– instantly (no more waiting for a security pat down from TSA).

There’s no margin for compromise here.  I don’t ever want to be delayed or frustrated again.  My enemies?  One snap of the finger, and they’re all wearing cement boots.  Terrorists?  Greedy politicians?  Talk show hosts who don’t agree with me?  Snap– problem solved.

Starving babies?  Pollution?  Global warming?  If I’m grieved, they’ll all be fixed in seconds– my way.

But what if you don’t agree with me?  Hmmm. Let’s see, you have divine power and so do I.  Which of us is right?

By now, I suspect you are seeing that we not only need to be made “like God”… You and I could also have a major disagreement as to how we each think the world should be straightened out.  Because… If we expect (and demand) that God must come through for us and remove all pain and suffering, so that neither he, the universe, matter and time… can resist us in any way, (because our experience of resistance is a form of suffering…) Then, only one answer exists.

 

God will have to make me God (but not you– sorry!)

So until (and unless) we all become God (not in word, but in power), our inability to get what we want will cause us continual suffering.  Are you following me?

I present to you that not even a divine, omnipotent being could accomplish something like that.  Such a world, peopled by “Gods” in their independent universes, while certainly the stuff of extreme fantasy (not to mention the promise of some religions), cannot exist in any form we might recognize.

Once you see the absolute truth of the above, it leads to a second, and equally inevitable conclusion regarding the appearance and existence of pain and evil.

Because God, as long as we are incarnated in a physical, material world, cannot eliminate all suffering unless we are made into Gods ourselves, therefore… our finite physical bodies will continue to be subject to all the limitations inherent on planet earth.

These are obvious at a visible level. As C. S. Lewis wrote years ago, the knife you use to cut a steak will not turn to rubber if a madman grabs it from your table and tries to stab you.  Such a world, where motive would change the very nature of matter, is inconceivable.

Similar limitations exist at sub cellular and genetic levels.  Just as knives rust and break, so too our genes are damaged by chemicals and radiation. To dwell within matter is to be subject to a spectrum of forces, some of which will be destructive.

Why is that?  Why doesn’t God intervene within our cells to annihilate cancer? Or to eliminate aging? Or toxins? Or gravity?  Because to do so continually would require the elimination of this physical world.

Take away aging… So how does a baby grow to adulthood?  Remove all disease and cancer… And you must remove the cells and tissues that experience such things.

We think we can imagine a perfect material world, and therefore God can surely create it, but we do not realize that our imaginations pull visions of perfection from other dimensions.

Remarkably, in the western world, although instant physical healing is uncommon (but not unknown), in some third world countries, occasionally as many as seventy percent of those who seek healing prayer are healed.  These healings (hundreds of thousands of them) are medically validated, and yet, (amazingly!), our western world ignores and rejects the hard evidence.

I have seen these healings with my own eyes.  It is a terrifying and wonderful experience.  As Winston Churchill said many years ago, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”

Although we often overlook unexplored healing opportunities, even as we may resent even the possibility of suffering, both are part of our inherent capacity of free will.

God, (as I think you will agree), is neither powerless, or the source of evil, but has created a world where the free will we get to exercise comes with an inevitable price tag.  That price tag is the risk and consequence of pain and suffering.

The two are entwined, opposite sides of the same coin.  Choice, to be choice, must have consequence.  If all my choices, good or bad, lead only to good (or bad) results, then choice has been erased.

This same ability to choose, to exercise free will, must also extend to the very edges of perception: to the interface between thought, motive and the sub atomic energies which then transfer our decisions to neurons, minds, and eventually, muscles.  We then speak or act what was conceived within our souls and spirits.

Therefore, all those realms within us, as they are part of a seamless process that manifests in our choices, must also be subject to consequence.

And that brings us back to ground zero: what do we choose?  Good… or evil?  Forgiveness or judgement?  If we are secretly furious with this unknown God, will we choose pain and evil?  Probably not.  But if we choose to believe that God has failed us because pain is a reality, that choice too… Will have consequences.

We may then find ourselves in the difficult position of blaming God for bad things, even as we also benefit from all that is good. And while God is not surprised by our anger, he knows it will be a barrier to healing, for just as anger fuels rejection and denial, both are always a manifestation of inner pain.

In conclusion, I have noticed (with all due respect) that philosophers who believe ignorance is the source of evil, are not only in disagreement with Jesus’ own words, but are not having much success healing the sick.

From my own years of actual experience, genuine emotional and physical healing comes when malevolent (as against mindless) evil is overcome.

I’m a realist.  If an idea sounds good, but doesn’t work… I’ll go with the one that does.

© 2013 C. S. McMinn