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December 3, 2008 1:44 pm PST

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God is only good, and He created a perfect physical existence. Genesis , anyone? (Hu)Man introduced the screw-up. Natural existence does tend to death and destruction and randomness. Spiritual existence enlists the aid and support of God to partake of the supernatural or metanatural existence. The redemption of Israel from Egypt was unique in its open involvement of God. God operates concealed by nature as hinted in the Hebrew root for the world or universe as ‘hidden’, and by the absence of references to God in the Book of Esther. Natural disaster is not generally an act of God so much as a withdrawal of God’s protection.

As far as Hagee goes, he has the task of justifying the Christian book of Revelation, as well as his tradition of Protestentism. We can’t hold him to too high a standard. The Jews have dozens of centuries of all kinds of people getting it wrong. The Reverend Wright incidentally has no such excuse, other then the bags of gold Khaddafi undoubtedly crossed his palms with when he visited with Farrakhan.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 5/24/08 at 9:05 pm

Though not a big fan of Hagee most times, there is only one question to ask in his remarks.

Is God Omnipotent, Omniscient, & Omnipresent? If so…

Then He knew the holocaust would happen before the foundation of the world, He was there amongst all the players (good & bad) every step of the way while it happened, and he could have chose any action to take, at any time of His choosing.

Either He is God, or He is not.
Can’t have it both ways.
Either He is sovereign or He is not.
Can’t have it both ways.

A hard pill to reconcile, let alone swallow. But a pill that must be ingested if you claim to believe Genesis 1:1

Comment by Guy Vestal on 5/25/08 at 2:39 am

The solicitation here was to discuss a reconciliation of God and evil, not Reverend Hagee’s and his tradition’s take on things. That is, Hagee may be right or wrong but his problems are his own, just as are yours.

While not claiming to solve the conundrum to your personal unsophisticated satisfaction, my post anticipated your qustion, and yours did not take mine into account.

I will point out that the concept of God’s existence and God’s plan are separate. I have an acquaintence who is rather bitter and has religious, maybe Holocaust ‘issues’. He once exclaimed “God must be a sadistic murderer!“. I replied, “Without conceding the point, so what? If God is a sadistic murderer, tough turd! But He isn’t, and it is your task to work it through the implications of God’s existence and will without copping out at your personal emotional reactions.“ “I Am That I Am”. It is what it is. Reality is. Tough turd.

So you are saying that if God is Almighty, then we would live in Candyland. However, the Bible (Jewish Bible, please, this the Jewish Journal) does not claim that. In Leviticus 26 (this week’s synagogue portion, by gum!) it is made clear that life will really suck under certain conditions. Similarly in Deuternomy, in the portion the Jews in hindsight clearly associate with the holocaust.

It is a bitter pill that we indeed do ingest. After all, if there was a simple obvious justification then any idiot could do it, and the some of the simplest physical realities are beyond our very best minds and hearts. You may consult http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philosophy/God_and_the_Earthquake.asp with profit, if not for closure than for insight as to why your college dorm bull session hilosophy dosn’t cut it.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 5/25/08 at 5:42 pm

In response to Guy Vestal, I would suggest reading The Doors of the Sea by David Hart.  It is the best treatment of the problem of Evil I’ve come across, and it’s a mere 100 pages.

Hart would certainly take issue with the “take it or leave it” notion of divine sovereignty.  After all, if God is creating man as “other” than himself, he is certainly free to give man a degree of autonomy.  At the very most, in Hart’s view, one can say that God works to bring good out of evil, but never “wills” evil itself.  I’m inclined to agree with him.

Here is a key exerpt:

At its most unfortunate, this exaggerated adoration of God’s sheer omnipotence can yield conclusions as foolish as Calvin’s assertion, in Book III of the Institutes, that God predestined the fall of man so as to show forth his greatness in both the salvation and the damnation of those he has eternally preordained to their several fates. Were this so, God would be the author of and so entirely beyond both good and evil, or at once both and neither, or indeed merely evil (which power without justice always is). The curious absurdity of all such doctrines is that, out of a pious anxiety to defend God’s transcendence against any scintilla of genuine creaturely freedom, they threaten effectively to collapse that transcendence into absolute identity - with the world, with us, with the devil. For, unless the world is truly set apart from God and possesses a dependent but real liberty of its own analogous to the freedom of God, everything is merely a fragment of divine volition, and God is simply the totality of all that is and all that happens; there is no creation, but only an oddly pantheistic expression of God’s unadulterated power. One wonders, indeed, if a kind of reverse prometheanism does not lurk somewhere within such a theology, a refusal on the part of the theologian to be a creature, a desire rather to be dissolved into the infinite fiery flood of God’s solitary and arbitrary act of will. In any event, such a God, being nothing but will willing itself, would be no more than an infinite tautology - the sovereignty of glory displaying itself in the glory of sovereignty - and so an infinite banality.

This is why I say that, within Ivan’s arraignment of God’s design in creation, one can hear the suppressed but still prophetic voice of a deeper, truer, more radical and revolutionary Christianity. For if indeed there were a God whose nature — whose justice or sovereignty — were revealed in the death of a child or the dereliction of a soul or a predestined hell, then it would be no great transgression to think of him as a kind of malevolent or contemptible demiurge, and to hate him, and to deny him worship, and to seek a better God than he. But Christ has overthrown all those principalities that rule without justice and in defiance of charity, and has cast out the god of this world, and so we are free (even now, in this mortal body) from slavery to arbitrary power, from fear of hell’s domination, and from any superstitious subservience to fate.

Comment by Wonders for Oyarsa on 5/25/08 at 6:53 pm

Wow! With prose like that, I can see why that book is only 100 pages. Your link doesn’t work, but I was able to see a preview on Google Books at http://books.google.com/books?id=MpGTHnGcM4wC&dq=the+doors+of+the+sea+by+david+hart&pg=PP1&ots=irOVgicNfg&sig=M07-CR24z0HbAgl75kYTYSv3SxQ&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Doors+of+the+Sea+by+David+Hart&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPP1,M1 (hope that link works).

I am not sure what Christ’s role is in all this, because from the statement a better question would be “Where was Christ during the Holocaust?“ rather than “Where was God?“ From the Jewish point of view declaring evil as long-vanquished sounds like Nixon declaring victory and going home before the deluge in Vietnam.

But the piece does develop the point that our free will which by necessity is Godly in origin is instrumental in co-creating natural reality with God. Whether you call the supernatural aspect of our souls of God or a part of God, the world of quantum physics has finally likewise reached the conclusion that reality originates at the interface of the synapses, and most specifically in the form of our individual and collective decisions.

Hitler’s agenda was reflected in the words to the songs of the Hitler Jugend (Youth) promoting a rejection of Judeo-Christian theologies and calling for a pagan renewal. Yes, it is possible to relinquish one’s humanity. Hitler was not an unnatural phenomenon. Hitler was an uber-normal phenomenon. Hitler was cool no less than violent and agressive and exploitative and dare we say evil social forces are today. Hitler had a lot of support. The world had to be dragged into he conflict, one by one, against their wills. It was not logical or realistic for Hitler to be defeated, and certainly not in the way that he was, and even more so at the very doorstep of the Holy Land. The plans for concentration camps staffed by Arabs and gas chambers and crematoria in the Holy land were complete to follow Rommels victory. If people like Hagee promoted helping Hitler as an aid to God’s will, then he would be like Hitler. Hagee is not a hater. He is just trying to make sense of things in his own terms. Let me just say that God places before us the blessing and the curse so as to choose. God says, “it can be the easy way or the hard way, but it will be My way”. God does not need Hitler to accomplish His will. We people do that and allow it. While we chat here, Hitlerian actions are taking place in North Korea, in the Congo, in Haiti, in the Sudan. A minute ago, right now, and tomorrow.

Humanity is to be found not in technology or culture or even love that is a function of our animal selves, but in the recognition and acknowledgement and commitment to the totality of reality, natural and supernatural that is God. We humans are the crown of creation, just a we Cro-magnons are the true King of Beasts. With our free will, let no one say with Flip Wilson ‘the Devil made me do it’.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 5/26/08 at 12:28 am

The link I posted before went here:

http://wondersforoyarsa.blogspot.com/2008/05/doors-of-sea.html

Regarding Christ’s redemption, I am reminded of the quote (the source I can’t recall) that “to the Jew the Christian is the incomprehensibly daring man, who affirms in an unredeemed world that its redemption has been accomplished.“ 

One thing I would add is that, with our free will, let no one say “God made me do it” either.

Comment by Wonders for Oyarsa on 5/26/08 at 2:38 am

@Ben:

Whether you like the fact, or refuse to believe the fact that God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent makes it no less real.

God is not the author of evil. But He has the ultimate control of the who, what, when, where, why, and how’s of it.

Think not? Then let us turn to that “Jewish Bible” (seeing as this is a Jewish Journal of course.)

Job 1:12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.“ So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

God did not author that evil, but Satan NEEDED His green light to proceed with it.

Need reinforcement of that authority?

Job 1:21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.“

Job himself gives credit to where credit is due!

Who did what? “The LORD gave”

who did what? “the LORD has taken away”

What is the LORD deserving of for such a decision? “blessed be the name of the LORD”

Job 2:6 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.“

Yet again, He does not write the book, but only “He” can publish it.

Ben said: “While not claiming to solve the conundrum to your personal unsophisticated satisfaction, my post anticipated your qustion, and yours did not take mine into account.“

Ben also said: “if not for closure than for insight as to why your college dorm bull session hilosophy dosn’t cut it.“

Actually your comment was addressed by me, but as either a modern day Pharisee, or a supporter of their piety, you chose to write me off as some “Christian that has no concept of YOUR G-d” And like the Pharisees, your anticipation of my response was as easily shot down as one who is told that “He who is without sin should cast the first stone.“

College bull session? Is that what you call reading the “Jewish Bible”, and believing it? I guess that is why the מָׁשִיַח was so easily missed. No one actually read the scriptures?

Comment by Guy Vestal on 5/26/08 at 3:38 am

Wonders - What is incomprehensible to the Jew is that whole quote. Surely you must see that the affirmation of the promised redemption is unimaginably abstract to the Jew of all people, and as illuminated by the Christians of all people. As in; “we ain’t feelin’ it”. When in Time and Space has here been a truly Christian society? If there was a kind, tolerant, forgiving, loving, Christ-like society anytime or anywhere - we would know it. It would certainly help support your point. In an environment of true confidence in your position of being redeemed there is no reason why we all can’t just get along even given that little disagreement. But aside from one little ancient lapse (not sanctioned by the religious authority) Jews will historically say ‘You’re wrong, but have a nice day’, while the Christians… never mind. And I don’t mean only to us. Most of the history of the Western world is delineated by Christians killing each other or conquering and enslaving and exploiting others. When I get into these discussions I find that every Christian rejects all the others as ‘not real Christians’, so that they cannot agree on even one real Christian since the original disciples. Not speaking here about you who seems to be a splendid fellow and undoubtedly your spouse and your pastor and best friend. Something on a larger, more influential scale if you don’t mind.

Sorry, back to the point, congruent to the one raised by Guy Vestal. First of all, I apologize for my tone with you. I misunderstood you to say that if God is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent, then things would be different and therefore you challenged those fundamentals. It was that I referred to as a ‘bull session’. I certainly did not write you off as a Christian since the subject did not come up, and you should know that in a Jewish dictionary, ‘Pharisee’ is not an insult. We are all Pharisees, and all the others are all gone. (The Nazarenes disappeared the quickest incidentally.) The word Pharisee means ‘Seperatist’, because in the days of violent assault by pagan and Hellenist and assorted foreign colonial powers, of post Samaritan terrorism and corrupt Saducee domination of the Temple service, with thousands of crosses and corpses dotting the landscape and blood running in the streets, the remaining grassroots religious authorities took their football and stayed home, circled the wagons and built a virtual Temple, a conceptual Ark of the Law in which to traverse the impending dark and interminable exile. Which it has. That’s us. As for being hypocritical and superficial? There are of course people like that. At worst or at least, it is better to do the right thing for the wrong reason than the reverse. Somehow I think the Jews do just fine and better in the sincerity and integrity competition with… any and everyone? Don’t forget, with regard to Christianity, I am an atheist. I honestly don’t see either Jesus himself or any of his disciples as any finer in character than the Pharisees. The whole Jesus/Pharisee scenario reminds of a black friend who cracked me up describing himself watching old Tarzan movies; one white guy yells and a hundred black guys clutch their chests and collapse, throw down their spears, run screaming into the woods. Right.

My warm and witty response was to express that theological thought required not so much an unquestioning faith as a suspension of disbelief and a granting of a benefit of doubt, certainly for the duration of the investigation. Now you appear to be saying the opposite so I don’t really get your first point. Just by the way, there is a man named Stan Tenen who has founded an institute (Meru Foundation) and makes a living off of Genesis 1:1.

I do think that there is a difference between God and the devil in this respect. While it is true that God does not ‘make’ us do things, he does motivate us with direct advice and instruction. The devil in Jewish thought is an angel, that is he has no independent existence and will other than as an agent of God to provide the traction or resistance against which to exercise our free will. That takes the form of an evil inclination, a prosecuting attorney, and an angel of death. The work of the devil primarily consists in undermining our inclination to obey God, or to face reality if you prefer that formulation. ‘Satan’ is not a name but a job description, it means ‘Adversary’. Anyway, it is not profitable to consider these dialogs anyway as purely literal, with a devil having an office and nameplate or to consider God Himself as an entity with an office and a nameplate.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 5/26/08 at 12:21 pm

He is a rewarder to those that seek Him dilengtly. He is not the author of confusion. His Spirt is a Comforter and His mercies are renewed daily don’t complicate your mind pray,fast and ask it’s really that simple.

Comment by gregg ward on 5/26/08 at 4:43 pm

Ben,

To see the world as one where the evil one has been cast down and the God of Israel and his Christ are exalted to high Heaven certainly takes the eyes of faith - I’ll give you that.  It’s as absurd as the empty tomb, or indeed of the nomad Abraham possessing Canaan, and if Sarah laughs I certainly understand. 

Anyway, a productive and friendly Christian-Jewish dialog probably will take more time and space than we have here.  You seem like a thoughtful guy though - can I take this opportunity to invite you to drop by my site?  I’m blogging through the Bible (a la the Jewish columnist David Plotz) and having a Jewish interlocutor call me out on some of my shameless Christian revisionism is always welcome.

Comment by Wonders for Oyarsa on 5/27/08 at 10:52 am

His comments, his literal interpretations of the bible, are politically incorrect to say the least.  But his words should be far lees shocking than the fact that many of our leaders today engage in, and listen to, this type of thinking.  You can’t get elected as president unless you profess a belief in the word of the bible. The bible of course lends itself to this kind of lunacy.

Comment by oliver on 5/28/08 at 2:06 pm

Wonders; I might do that. Though we would not call it faith but denial in light of the Crusades, pogroms and Holocaust. It’s not quite believeable that if either the Jews or their murderers had more or proper faith these things could have been avoided. More like Not Ready for Prime Time which as you know we still are holding out for in the future.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 6/01/08 at 3:43 pm

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