When I saw the article title “Why does God allow evil to succeed?” I was hoping that the Kansas City Star was going for some sort of hard-hitting, Pulitzer-aspiring exposé involving several reporters and months of investigation, culminating in a 5-day multi-part series. (“Part 3: Evil in Our Community.”)
Unfortunately, once I clicked through I discovered that they simply allowed two local religious leaders to give insipid stock answers for a few paragraphs each.
First we have Reverend Fran Cary:
I do not believe that God has allowed evil to succeed. Many will disagree with me when they think of the likes of our current economic crisis and crime rates. I will concede that evil does hold a major place in our world today; however, what we see now will not always be.
We can sum this answer up as “the Bible says things are going to get better in the future, therefore evil has not technically ‘succeeded’.”
This is a clever trick that I hope to use in my own life:
SYDNEY
Why do you treat me so terribly?
JOEL
In the future I’m going to treat you better, therefore I don’t actually treat you terribly.
For an alternative point of view, we visit Rabbi Mark Levin:
Knowing the divine mind is always tricky business. If we primarily know what God is not (via negative), then how can we possibly claim to understand God’s purposes for creation?[...]
God, who witnesses the big picture over centuries rather than our limited time and space perspective, understands how justice plays out when we do not.
We can sum up this answer as “Evil doesn’t succeed, it only seems like it does, mostly because of your poor cognitive skills.”
This is also a clever trick:
BOSSMAN
Your report doesn’t even make sense!
JOEL
It makes complete sense! You just don’t understand it because of your limited time and space perspective.
It’s too bad that they didn’t ask the question to a broader variety of faith traditions, as it would have been more enjoyable reading answers like “because people aren’t sufficiently diligent about exorcising their body thetans” and “because naturally-occurring emotions like pain and anger inexorably lead to Bogan, the dark side of the Force,” and “because you didn’t sacrifice enough goats.”
Maybe I’ll write a letter to the editor. (“As a practicing Jedi, I’m quite disappointed in your latest column…”)
Joel,
My local paper, The Ottawa Citizen, unfortunately doesn’t do much better. They devote a page in every Saturday’s paper to “Ask the religionist” (“Ask the religion experts”). Here’s a typcially insipid article with the topic basically being “Eveyone else’s religion is false”. Rick Reed’s comments are the most (unintentionally) entertaining.
Well … time’s flying here and must start planning dinner. Perhaps some flying spaghetti with delicious noodly appendages.
and the link
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/ask-the-religion-experts/faith+claim+know+thereby+excluding+others/1866379/story.html
Those “religionists” in Ottawa are very good at making my eyes glaze over; at answering the actual question, maybe not so much.
As for the original issue, concerning evil: really? That’s all ya got? “Don’t worry your pretty little head about climate change, economic hard times, or the Holocaust? Jaysus got yo’ back? It’ll all get sorted out in the end?”
What a happy little bubble these people must live in.
Dude, I think you just single-handedly solved the housing crisis.
MORTGAGE COMPANY
Why are you two months behind on your mortgage payments?
HOMEWONER
In the future I’m going to pay you, therefore I’m not actually behind on the payments.
Nice.