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lavendersparkleThis weeks J prep class was a discussion about G-d. Actually it made me feel a lot more spiritual than I have been mainly because I disagreed with all of them of them and it made me realise how passionate I felt about the topic.
Some of you may know that some of my views of G-d come across as a bit odd. I think some of my ideas of G-d are influenced a lot by certain Midrashim and parts of the Bible, especially Job, post-Shoa theology, medieval Hebrew poetry, the question of how an omnipotent G-d allows suffering to happen and my interest in BDSM.
Basically my view on G-d and suffering can be summarised thus:
Axioms: G-d is good. G-d is omnipotent. G-d is omniscient.
Observation: Bad things happen.
How do we reconcile the axioms and the observation. Well some people claim that only good stuff comes from G-d and the bad stuff comes from people/the devil/whatever. However, G-d is omnipotent so G-d could stop the bad if G-d wanted to.
Some people claim that G-d doesn't stop us doing bad stuff because of free will. For a start this isn't a very good explanation of the bad stuff which isn't anyones fault. Most bad stuff at least to some extent can be blamed on people: you should have built a tsunami early warning system, you should have had safe sex, you should have evacuated those people, you should have exercised more etc. but even then there have been times in history when genuinely no one could have averted disaster. I also object on a more subtle point. Before G-d began creation there was nothing, so all of creation, including the rules of the game, were purposely created by G-d. So even when we act in free will, because we are influence of the way creation was created on our desires, G-d made the world in the way which led to us doing what we are doing, knowing what the consequences would be. For instance, if the sky weren't blue (or grey a lot of the time but anyway) the world would be slightly different and we would act in slightly different ways. We don't know what the world would be like if the sky were pink but you can reason that it wouldn't be as good as if the sky were blue because G-d made the sky blue so that must have been the best choice of sky colour. When you take into account that there are an incomprehensible number of decisions G-d made in creation you see that free will doesn't really get G-d off the hook for suffering.
So how do I explain it? Put simply, everything is for the good in a way we are far too tiny and stupid to understand. If this is G-d's plan, and G-d is good, it must be good. We don't know how it all fits together, all we can do is trust that it does, taking into account that this life and the world we see is probably not all there is.
I like to use the analogy of a sick pet. The animal knows that its owner loves it so it can't comprehend why, at the moment that it is feeling weakest, it gets taken to the place it fears most The Vets. How could a loving owner do this to it? I just doesn't understand enough to see why.
Some of you may know that some of my views of G-d come across as a bit odd. I think some of my ideas of G-d are influenced a lot by certain Midrashim and parts of the Bible, especially Job, post-Shoa theology, medieval Hebrew poetry, the question of how an omnipotent G-d allows suffering to happen and my interest in BDSM.
Basically my view on G-d and suffering can be summarised thus:
Axioms: G-d is good. G-d is omnipotent. G-d is omniscient.
Observation: Bad things happen.
How do we reconcile the axioms and the observation. Well some people claim that only good stuff comes from G-d and the bad stuff comes from people/the devil/whatever. However, G-d is omnipotent so G-d could stop the bad if G-d wanted to.
Some people claim that G-d doesn't stop us doing bad stuff because of free will. For a start this isn't a very good explanation of the bad stuff which isn't anyones fault. Most bad stuff at least to some extent can be blamed on people: you should have built a tsunami early warning system, you should have had safe sex, you should have evacuated those people, you should have exercised more etc. but even then there have been times in history when genuinely no one could have averted disaster. I also object on a more subtle point. Before G-d began creation there was nothing, so all of creation, including the rules of the game, were purposely created by G-d. So even when we act in free will, because we are influence of the way creation was created on our desires, G-d made the world in the way which led to us doing what we are doing, knowing what the consequences would be. For instance, if the sky weren't blue (or grey a lot of the time but anyway) the world would be slightly different and we would act in slightly different ways. We don't know what the world would be like if the sky were pink but you can reason that it wouldn't be as good as if the sky were blue because G-d made the sky blue so that must have been the best choice of sky colour. When you take into account that there are an incomprehensible number of decisions G-d made in creation you see that free will doesn't really get G-d off the hook for suffering.
So how do I explain it? Put simply, everything is for the good in a way we are far too tiny and stupid to understand. If this is G-d's plan, and G-d is good, it must be good. We don't know how it all fits together, all we can do is trust that it does, taking into account that this life and the world we see is probably not all there is.
I like to use the analogy of a sick pet. The animal knows that its owner loves it so it can't comprehend why, at the moment that it is feeling weakest, it gets taken to the place it fears most The Vets. How could a loving owner do this to it? I just doesn't understand enough to see why.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 06:56 am (UTC)I like to use the analogy of a sick pet. The animal knows that its owner loves it so it can't comprehend why, at the moment that it is feeling weakest, it gets taken to the place it fears most The Vets. How could a loving owner do this to it? I just doesn't understand enough to see why.
Axioms: G-d is good. G-d is omnipotent. G-d is omniscient.
Synthesis: the reason we are going to The Vets is that God has decided that it is good (a highly debatable word)* that we go there despite being omnipotent and omniscient and therefore able to get the results it wants without sending us to the vet.
So how do I explain it? Put simply, everything is for the good in a way we are far too tiny and stupid to understand.
Yes... And is there anything you can't explain using that rationale?
If this is G-d's plan,
and G-d is good,
Damnit! You're a Jew, not a Christian - or I'd really be able to undermine that one (although I'm sure you can see how hell does it for you).
it must be good.
For some value of good.
* I outline my understanding here
** Yes, I know enough Jewish theology to know that that isn't the core of everything (and that you need to go into the commentary and the commentary on the commentary...).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 07:21 am (UTC)good=what G-d wills
G-d is omnipotent therefore: everything that happens=what G-d wills
therefore: everything that happens=good
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 07:35 am (UTC)I simply see little evidence to support the first premise (or even the second one). (In some theologies, often preached by by *ICCU, good != what God wills (or more accurately God sometimes wills evil) is almost provable).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 07:41 am (UTC)|
V if you want to read it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 07:34 am (UTC)Actually most Jews don't believe in anything which would be recognisable as the Christian view of Hell. Mainstream Jewish views of Hell are more similar to Purgatory than Hell and by tradition (bring on Topel) no matter how bad you are you can't stay there for more than a year. In fact Jewish views on the afterlife vary hugely and can include not believing in an afterlife at all, reincarnation and bodily resurrection. Most Jews, however, when asked about the afterlife will tend to just say that we don't think about it much.
Personally I don't have much idea about the afterlife except for a belief that G-d has it sorted and that it is all for the good. (Are you sensing a theme?)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 07:40 am (UTC)The comment that you were a Jew was me cursing that I couldn't use that line of argument because it wasn't against something I knew you to believe. It may be a few years since either I was the agnostic in Oxford's CCJ or studied the bible in Chevrut (sp?) with part of that group - but I haven't forgotten everything :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 07:46 am (UTC)go to shul
keep kosher
make regular burnt offerings (no, wait we abolished that one)
in a one woman personal Chabad still way.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 08:19 am (UTC)I'm not - just interested :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-04 04:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-04 04:59 am (UTC)Suffering
Date: 2007-05-24 08:39 pm (UTC)Suffering