Faith

This is part of a series of blog entries...I'm just feeling as if I only have the time and attention for short posts right now, but read all of the posts so you can get what I mean. Of course, I'll need to start from a beginning...now which beginning will it be???

Why don't we start with christian dogma?

From my experience, many christians would consider the following statments dogma:

• God is omniscient (all-knowing)
• God is omnipotent (all-powerful)
• God is benevolent

This, of course, leads to all sorts of doctrine that is meant to explain what in philosophy is commonly called the "Problem of Evil." The Problem of Evil, or what I believe should be more accurately described as the Question of Evil, is basically, how can one claim that there is a being (God) that possesses all three of these attributes when we know that evil events occur? After all,

1. if a being knows something evil will happen, and
   
2. that being has the power to stop this evil event, and
   
3. that being is good,

then said being will prevent the evil event from happening.

Neo-orthodoxy would have us believe that all three statements are true but that we simply don't understand the greater plan in which something we see as evil is good, or might claim that this "lesser" evil is allowed so that a "greater" good can come about...after all, a seed must die to bring forth a plant, right?

Some post-modern christian theologians might say that we don't really understand the three attributes or God, for that matter, and that it is our lack of understanding in this greater metaphysical sense that answers the question. After all, we know from math and logic that there can be a great difference between logical and physical infinity.

However, I think that both sides have missed the point. Framing an existential question as an academic question does little good. Further, I don't believe that this question...a sort of "why do bad things happen to good people"...is an academic question. I believe that we each must face this question personally and find an answer in the existential crisis that occurs when our karma runs over our dogma...and for some of us, we must face this question again and again.

So, that's where I find myself now...in the road considering the dogma I claim as my own...and it's all the more troubling to me because I thought I had resolved this question, at least for myself, with my own answer...but maybe life is troubling me because I, like everyone else, want desperately for life to be at least a little fair and to show at least a little mercy. Life should be a little fair and a little merciful, at least to us...we deserve that much, don't we?

The answer that each of us finds to the Question of Evil will be different. You almost certainly would not agree with my answer...and I would doubt that I would agree with yours...and that's OK, because while an academic question may have one right answer, an existential question doesn't...and an answer that is the right answer at one time may not be the right answer later in our existence.

Often, however, the answer that is right for us will require that we, as I have long been saying, "pop the clutch during the paradigm shift," causing us to lurch down the road, bucking and stuttering, but moving forward as long as we keep the throttle open. Maybe that's where faith comes in. It just might be that grace draws us to a destination that looms ahead, and while karma and dogma have made the road of life buck and stutter, faith makes us stomp on the gas anyway.