What Is Evil? Theological & Philosophical Investigations - frederickuu.org/fsr
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What Is Evil?
Theological & Philosophical Investigations
Mondays, 1:00 - 3:00pm (- March 31)
frederickuu.org/fsr
Covenant • Use “I” statements: speak for yourself, from your own experience. • Ask permission before sharing other participants’ stories outside the group. (“Take the lesson, leave the details.”) • “Make/Take Space”: be conscious of the relative level of participation that you bring to the conversation. Allow everyone a chance to speak before you speak again. • Consent: You always have permission to “pass.”
Check-in • Attendance/Announcements • Question, Insight, Aha Moment • “Evil” Show & Tell
Outline 1. Why Study Evil? 2. Postmodernism & Evil 3. Evil & Theodicy/Freedom Evil & Conscience/Intention 4. Evil as Sickness; Evil as Distance: Us & Them 5. Evil & Authority 6. Personal Definitions of Evil, Takeaways, Insights, Commitments (~??? words)
(Believe in the Evil?!)
He Blames ‘Evil’ for S. Korea’s Coronavirus Surge.
Officials Blame Him.
To his followers: he is a
descendant of the ancient kings
who ruled Korea centuries ago,
“the angel” Jesus sent for mankind,
and
the one and only “counselor” who
can interpret the symbols and
secret codes hidden in the Bible’s
Book of Revelation.
nytimes.com/2020/03/02/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-shincheonji.htmlHe Blames ‘Evil’ for S. Korea’s Coronavirus Surge.
Officials Blame Him.
To officials and politicians: he is a
villain,
leader of a religious cult who is
thwarting the government’s efforts
to contain the exploding
coronavirus outbreak in South
Korea.
nytimes.com/2020/03/02/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-shincheonji.htmlHe Blames ‘Evil’ for S. Korea’s Coronavirus Surge.
Officials Blame Him.
Lee Man-hee
88-year-old
enigmatic founder of the
Shincheonji church,
now trying to defend his group,
while challenging the accusations
against it.
nytimes.com/2020/03/02/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-shincheonji.htmlHe Blames ‘Evil’ for S. Korea’s Coronavirus Surge.
Officials Blame Him.
South Korea > 4,800 cases of CV
At least 60% connected to
Shincheonji’s branch in a SE city.
Government: scrambling to contain
the epidemic,
Mr. Lee: failing to provide a full list of
its members to the government.
nytimes.com/2020/03/02/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-shincheonji.htmlHe Blames ‘Evil’ for S. Korea’s Coronavirus Surge.
Officials Blame Him.
Press Conference: “I offer my word
of deep apology to the people,”
knelt, and bowed.
Last week: blamed the epidemic on
“the evil who got jealous of
Shincheonji’s rapid growth….”
nytimes.com/2020/03/02/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-shincheonji.html“Science of Evil” (National Geographic)
youtube.com/watch?v=w_3RIIxpAJo (2 min)Theodicy
(Greek: theos ‘god’ + dikē ‘justice’)
“Tri-lemma”: Is it possible to reconcile the existence of
evil with a deity who is:
1. omnipotent,
2. omniscient, &
3. omni-benevolent?
Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing, good God
allow evil?God Tries to Kill Moses?! (Exodus 4) Exodus 4, “24 On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ 26 So he let him alone. It was then she said, “A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.’” Feet: euphemism for genitals [compare Is 6] thebricktestament.com
God Tries to Kill Moses?! (Exodus 4)
Prefigures the death of the Egyptian
firstborn and power of the Passover
blood to ward off the divine destroyer.
(Divine killing of Egyptian babies
also horrifying.)
Who is responsible for those babies
dying?
thebricktestament.comGod Hardens Pharoah’s Heart?:
• Ex 9:12 But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh he would not listen to them,
just as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
• Ex 10:1 - Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his
heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine
among them,
• Ex 10:20 -But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the
Israelites go.
• Ex 10:27 -But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was unwilling to let
them go.
• Ex 11:10 - Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; but the
Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of
his land.
• Ex 14:8 - The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued
the Israelites, who were going out boldly.)
God as good—or capricious?: whim, impulsive, unpredictable—free
“I AM who I am.” (Exodus 3:14)Augustine of Hippo (354-430) If not for free will, we humans would be robots and incapable of choosing to live as God wishes us to live. Evil: unfortunate (but unavoidable) consequence of free will. God is neither responsible for evil nor guilty of neglect. Would it have been better not to create universe if only option was to have one with evil (such as the suffering of children)?
Gottfried Leibniz’s Theodicee
(1710)
“Best of all possible worlds” with
its suffering & joy.
Gift of a somewhat pre-determined,
but benevolent deity.
Evil as inextricable part of the ‘most
optimum’ world.Voltaire’s Candide (1759) Satirized Leibniz as a vapid apologist for a world defined far more by the presence of suffering, than the possibility for salvation. Evil: error that is born of humanity’s insurmountable yearning for power & privilege.
In 1924, Nathan Leopold (age 20) and Richard Loeb (age 19), two college graduates in Chicago, each from a wealthy family, kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy from their neighborhood. Tried to extort a ransom from the boy’s family. The two youths were neither deprived nor mistreated. They could look forward to a brilliant future. Why this seemingly senseless crime?
They sought the thrill. They planned this crime over a long period of time. Hoped it would demonstrate that they could conceive and carry out a perfect crime. Demonstrate their superiority to and exemption from the ordinary laws of humankind.
Lawyer: Clarence Darrow (who aso defended John Scopes for teaching evolution in a Tennessee school) Summation: cited Nietzsche as a mitigating influence. On Loeb: “It is hardly fair to hang a 19-year-old boy for the philosophy taught to him at university. On Leopold: that he lived and practiced the superman myth was evidence of a “diseased mind.” Sentence: life + 99 years.
Process-Relational Theodicy Process: reality is messy, complex, ever-evolving, emerging, organic Relational: always-already intra- related becomings “The divine/sacred” lures/prompts us toward justice, beauty, and creativity. Persuasion, not coercion. [“God is not God’s name.” Above our pay grade. Special Revelation after Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein, Freud, Hubble, etc.]
Process-Relational Theology
Some: God makes a hurricane to
punish people.
Others: Natural evil (“acts of god”)
proves that idea of “God” is absurd.
Both: assume that “God" is all-
knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful
—that is, planning out and
controlling each event.
The Rev. Jake MorrillProcess-Relational Theology Augustinian theodicy: blames evil on human free will. Irenaean theodicy: bad stuff is to ultimately strengthen us humans. Some: stop the exercise of trying to square evil with reason [“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you” - Neil deGrasse Tyson] Focus: tend to those who suffer, or bring the fight to evil in working for justice. [Mr. Rogers: look for the helpers.]
Process-Relational Theology After the Holocaust (“anti-theodicy”): beyond our human capacity to fathom or describe the relationship between God & evil Job 38: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? …“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”
Process-Relational Theology What if divine power isn't about control, but evolution/ growth/interdependence What is the signature trait of the sacred is creation/ creativity. [Rent: “The opposite of war isn’t peace; it’s creation.]
Maybe the sacred/divine
moves like the Dao
The Dao that can be told / is not the eternal Dao
The name that can be named / is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real….
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations / arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness. / Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.Daodejing 58 It is upon bad luck that good luck depends. It is upon good luck that bad luck depends. Who knows where it ends?
Process-Relational Theology
How might we understand “God”
other than the extremes of
1. Cruel puppet-master
2. Nothing at all.
Suffering is far from all that there is.
Even in the storm, there is healing
and grace.
The Rev. Jake MorrillTheodicy Exploring the contradictory biblical explanations for why an all-powerful God allows us to suffer.
Does the Universe Have a Purpose?
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
youtube.com/watch?v=7pL5vzIMAhs (2 min)What is your theodicy?
Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
youtube.com/watch?v=6wRYjtvIYK0
(6 min)Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”:
A Creative-Responsive Theodicy
“Ring the bells that still can ring”
A dismal situation is no excuse for
an abdication of your own personal
responsibilities toward what you
can change within your spheres of
influence.Leonard Cohen, “Anthem” “Forget your perfect offering”: That is the hang-up, that you’re gonna work this thing out. “You are saved from perfection!” (It doesn’t exist. There is no one permanent solution for all times/places.) “Whatever has the nature to arise, has the nature to pass away.” - The Buddha
Leonard Cohen, “Anthem” “There is a crack in everything. That’s where the light gets in” Kintsugi (⾦継ぎ, "golden joinery”): Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum Treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
Outline 1. Why Study Evil? 2. Postmodernism & Evil 3. Evil & Theodicy/Freedom 4. Evil & Conscience/Intention 5. Evil as Sickness; “Us & Them: Evil as Distance” 6. Personal Definitions of Evil & Commitments (~500 words?)
Jim Carroll
punk, poet, author
Conscience is not more than the
dead speaking to us
(1949-2009)Conscience
Aptitude or judgement that assists in
distinguishing right from wrong.
Psychological terms: feelings of
remorse when a human
commits actions that go against
the human’s moral values
rectitude or integrity when a
human commits actions that
conform with the human’s moral
values.Ox Bow Incident
Dead man speaks directly to the
men who just hung him for a crime
he did not commit.
“They’re the ones I feel sorry for,
because it’ll be over for me in a little
while,
but they’ll have to go on
remembering
1943Evil, Conscience & “Ox Bow” Effect Oxbow lake: formed when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut, via a process of erosion, to create a lake. Lake is then, suspended in place, no longer connected to the current, to the ever changing flow.
Evil, Conscience & “Ox Bow” Effect People (family, group, nation) becomes insulated by ideas, laws, prejudices, hatreds, etc. Cut off (physically, emotionally, intellectually) from those that once shared their banks, their flow—cut off from the unity of life. Child soldiers, terrorism, “rules” of war, Heaven’s Gate, (Amish?)
Evil, Conscience & “Ox Bow” Effect “Certain aborigines of Australia, thought it entirely permissible to kill a man if you encountered him while wandering in the Outback and he was not personally known to you.”
Evil & the “Ox Bow” Effect Do you trust your conscience to detect evil? (Why or why not?) Anne Lamott: “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
“Crystallization” of Conscience
Military term for the process by
which active duty soldiers become
Conscientious Objectors
(What does it mean to have un-
crystallized, malleable conscience?)
“reflexive fire”: bypass the
conscience—or conscious thought.
(Conscience literally means “with
knowledge or awareness.”)
youtube.com/watch?v=0-
sKvPb5qG4 (3 min)
2007“Crystallization” of Conscience What would happen if we… developed a new nonviolent peacekeeping force of 100,000 persons ready to move into violent conflicts and stand peacefully between warring parties in Central America, Northern Ireland, Poland, Southern cpt.org//resources/writings/sider Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan?
“Crystallization” of Conscience
Frequently we would get killed by
the thousands.
But everyone assumes that for the
sake of peace it is moral and just for
soldiers to get killed by the
hundreds of thousands, even
millions.
cpt.org//resources/writings/sider
Do we not have as much courage
and faith as soldiers?“Crystallization” of Conscience PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder): typically caused by exposure to trauma in the outside world. Moral Injury: internal struggle resulting from the violation of one’s conscience.
“Crystallization” of Conscience “Feeling terrible about killing someone is a sign that I’m a moral person, and I don’t want to feel better about it because that would be a sign that I’m not a good person anymore.”
“Crystallization” of Conscience “There's a boot camp to prepare for war, but no boot camp to reintegrate veterans to civilian life. They were taught reflexive fire shooting, but not how to recover a shredded moral identity”
What is evil? A 21st-century perspective What is/are the source(s) of evil? (Why does evil exists in history? Why does evil exists in the human heart?) What is/are the nature(s) of evil? (How is evil at work?) How we might best respond individually & collectively? Do you use the word evil? (Why or why not?) Should I/you/we/ they be using the word evil more or less in such a time as this? Do you have a felt sense of what you mean when you regard something as “evil?” Can you describe what it is that makes something “evil?”
Outline
1. Why Study Evil?
2. Postmodernism & Evil
3. Evil & Theodicy/Freedom
Evil & Conscience/Intention
4. Evil as Sickness;
Evil as Distance: Us & Them
5. Evil & Authority
6. Personal Definitions of Evil, Takeaways, Insights,
Commitments (~??? words)You can also read
