Thank you for that very overly gracious introduction.
Nothing challenges the rationality of our
belief in God or tests our trust in Him more
severely than human suffering and wickedness.
Both are pervasive in our common experience.
If this is not immediately evident, a glance
at the morning paper or the evening news will
make it so. On the larger scale and at the
moment, names like Oklahoma City, Columbine,
Kosovo, and Turkey evoke image upon image
of unspeakable human cruelty or grief. But
Auschwitz and Belsen still haunt our memories.
Closer to home, who can fathom the anguish
of family members in West Valley when they
discovered their precious little girls suffocated
together in the trunk of an automobile, the
tragic outcome of an innocent game of hide-and-seek.
Or the trauma of a dear friend of mine and
his five young children who day by day for
several months watched their lovely wife and
mother wither down to an emaciated skeleton
of 85 pounds as she endured a slow and painful
death from inoperable cancer of the throat.
Scenes like these are repeated daily a thousand
and a thousand times.
But we need not speak only of the sufferings
of others. Few of us here will escape deep
anguish, for it is apparently no respecter
of persons and comes in many guises, arising
out of our experiences of incurable or debilitating
diseases, mental illness, broken homes, child
and spouse abuse, rape, wayward loved ones,
tragic accidents, untimely death—the list
goes on and on. No doubt many of us have already
cried out, “Why God? Why?” And many of
us, often on behalf of a loved one, have already
pleaded, “Please, God, please help,” and
then wondered as, seemingly, the only response
we’ve heard has been a deafening silence.
All of us have struggled, or likely will struggle,
in a very personal way with the problem of
evil.
I say the problem of evil, but actually there
are many. Today I want to consider with you
just three, which I will call (1) the logical
problem of evil; (2) the soteriological problem
of evil; and (3) the practical problem of
evil. The logical problem is the apparent
contradiction between the world’s evils
and an all-loving, all-powerful Creator. The
soteriological problem is the apparent contradiction
between certain Christian concepts of salvation
and an all-loving Heavenly Father. The practical
problem is the challenge of living trustingly
and faithfully in the face of what personally
seems to be overwhelming evil.
Soaked as it is with human suffering and moral
evil, how is it possible that our world is
the work of an almighty, perfectly loving
Creator? So stated, the logical problem of
evil poses a puzzle of deep complexity. But
the conundrum evoked by our reflection on
this question appears to be more than just
a paradox: we seem to stare contradiction
right in the face. The ancient philosopher
Epicurus framed the contradiction in the form
of a logical dilemma: Either God is unwilling
to prevent evil or He is unable. If He is
unwilling, then He cannot be perfectly good;
if He is unable, then He cannot be all powerful.
Whence then evil? And 18th-century sceptic
David Hume expressed the contradiction in
much the same way:
Why is there any misery at all in the world?
Not by chance, surely. From some cause then.
Is it from the intention of the Deity? But
he is perfectly benevolent. Is it contrary
to his intention? But he is almighty. Nothing
can shake the solidity of this reasoning,
so short, so clear, so decisive.
Hume’s succinct statement has since provided
the framework within which the logical problem
of evil has been discussed. However, I believe
Hume’s way of formulating the problem is
far too narrow, unjust to both challenger
and defender of belief in God—especially
to the Christian defender. I do not believe
that for the challenger intent on disproving
God’s existence the problem has been stated
in its starkest terms. For in addition to
affirming that (i) God is perfectly good and
(ii) all powerful, traditional Christian theologians
commonly affirm two additional propositions
that intensify the problem: (iii) God created
all things absolutely—that is, out of nothing;
and (iv) God has absolute foreknowledge of
all the outcomes of His creative choices.
Although apologists for belief in God have
labored long to reconcile the world’s evil
with God’s goodness and power, they have
often overlooked the much more difficult task
of reconciling evil not only with His goodness
and power but with God’s absolute creation
and absolute foreknowledge as well. Twentieth-century
English philosopher Antony Flew takes these
additional premises into account in arguing
that any such reconciliation is impossible.
It is perfectly proper in the face of apparently
pointless evil, he says, to look first for
some saving explanation that will show that,
in spite of appearances, there really is a
God who loves us. But Flew claims that believers
have assigned God attributes that block a
saving explanation altogether:
We cannot say that [God] would like to help
but cannot: God is omnipotent. We cannot say
that he would help if he only knew: God is
omniscient. We cannot say that he is not responsible
for the wickedness of others: God creates
those others. Indeed an omnipotent, omniscient
God must be an accessory before (and during)
the fact to every human misdeed; as well as
being responsible for every non-moral defect
in the universe.
To state Flew’s argument differently: If
God creates all things (including finite agents)
absolutely (that is, out of nothing), knowing
beforehand all the actual future consequences
of His creative choices, then He is an accessory
before the fact and ultimately responsible
for every moral and nonmoral defect in the
universe. And if, as some believers allege,
some human agents will suffer endlessly in
hell, God is also at least jointly responsible
for these horrendous outcomes. But if so,
how can He possibly be perfectly loving? Given
the traditional understanding of God, whatever
our consistency-saving strategies, in the
end, I believe, we must candidly confess that
they are not very convincing.
On the other hand, this exclusive focus on
reconciling evil with just a set of divine
attributes is unfair to the Christian defender.
For it fails to acknowledge the incarnation
of God the Son in the person of Jesus of Nazareth
and His triumph over suffering, sin, and death
through his atonement and resurrection. Any
Christian account of the problem of evil that
fails to consider this—Christ’s mission
to overcome the evil we experience—will
be but a pale abstraction of what it could
and should be.
I propose, then, to consider the problem of
evil from this broader perspective, confronting
it in terms of its starkest statement but
also in terms of its strongest possible solution:
a worldview centered in the saving acts of
Jesus Christ.
The Prophet Joseph Smith received revealed
insights that do address the problem of evil
in its broadest terms. His revelations suggest
what might be called a soul-making theodicy,
centered within a distinctively Christian
soteriology (or doctrine of salvation), but
both framed within a theology that rejects
both absolute creation and, consequently,
the philosophical definition of divine omnipotence
which affirms that there are no (or no nonlogical)
limits to what God can do. The Prophet’s
worldview, I believe, dissolves the logical
and soteriological problems of evil while
infusing with meaning and hope our personal
struggles with suffering, sin, and death.
To show (albeit briefly) that this is so is
my purpose this morning.
Theodicy (literally, God’s justice) is the
attempt to reconcile God’s goodness with
the evil that occurs in the world. In coming
to appreciate the power of Joseph Smith’s
revealed insights for such reconciliation,
it will be instructive to compare and contrast
them with the theodicy developed by contemporary
philosopher John Hick in his fine book Evil
and the God of Love, widely recognized as
the watershed work on the problem of evil.
In Evil and the God of Love, Hick constructs
a soul-making theodicy that retains the doctrine
of absolute creation. The soul-making component
in Hick’s theodicy is highly reminiscent
of Joseph Smith’s revelation. Both affirm
that God’s fundamental purposes in creating
us and our world environment include first,
enabling us, as morally and spiritually immature
agents created in the image of God, to develop
into God’s likeness; and second, enabling
us to enter into an authentic (that is, a
free and uncompelled) relationship of love
and fellowship with Him. To achieve these
ends, Hick says, God endowed us with the power
of self-determination (or, as he calls it,
incompatibilist freedom) and, to preserve
that freedom, epistemically distanced us from
Himself. God effects that distancing, Hick
suggests, by having us emerge as largely self-centered
creatures out of a naturalistic evolutionary
process; or, as Joseph Smith maintains, by
God’s “veiling” our memory of our premortal
existence. God also endowed us, Hick says,
with a rudimentary awareness of Him and some
tendency toward moral self-transcendence.
The Prophet identifies this awareness and
predisposition as the light of Christ, or
the Spirit, which “enlighteneth every man
through the world” (D&C 84:46). Soul-making
(that is, development into the moral and spiritual
likeness of God) occurs as we overcome our
self-centeredness by making moral choices
within an environment fraught with hardship,
pain, and suffering.
To this point, the understandings of Hick
and Joseph Smith seem strikingly similar.
Absolute Creation: Hick and Joseph Smith
With respect to creation, however, Hick and
the Prophet maintain decidedly different positions.
Hick affirms absolute creation (or creation
out of nothing), whereas Joseph Smith denies
it. And this difference brings us to a major
point of my address. With his affirmation
of absolute creation, Hick affirms all four
theological postulates—perfect goodness,
absolute power, absolute foreknowledge, and
absolute creation—which confront him head-on
with Flew’s divine complicity argument.
And Hick sees as clearly as Flew, and explicitly
acknowledges, the logical consequence of his
position: God is ultimately responsible for
all the evil that occurs in the world. Hick
explains why this is so.
One whose action, A, is the primary and necessary
precondition for a certain occurrence, O,
all other direct conditions for O being contingent
upon A, may be said to be responsible for
O, if he performs A in awareness of its relation
to O and if he is also aware that, given A,
the subordinate conditions will be fulfilled.
. . . [God’s] decision to create the existing
universe was the primary and necessary precondition
for the occurrence of evil, all other conditions
being contingent upon this, and He took His
decision in awareness of all that would flow
from it.
But given Hick’s admission that God is ultimately
responsible for all the evil that occurs in
the world, how can he possibly claim that
God is perfectly loving?
Hick sees one, and only one, way out. His
avenue of escape is through an appeal to a
doctrine of universal salvation. In Hick’s
view, all of us will finally achieve an authentic
relationship with God in a postmortal life,
the value of which will far outweigh any finite
evil suffered here. He explains:
We must thus affirm in faith that there will
in the final accounting be no personal life
that is unperfected and no suffering that
has not eventually become a phase in the fulfilment
of God’s good purpose. Only so, I suggest,
is it possible to believe both in the perfect
goodness of God and in His unlimited capacity
to perform His will. For if there are finally
wasted lives and finally unredeemed sufferings,
either God is not perfect in love or He is
not sovereign in rule over His creation.
Though I find Hick’s way out appealing,
its scriptural warrant is questionable, and
it engenders conceptual difficulties of its
own. Let us consider briefly just two.
1. Though in Hick’s view God endows us with
a strong power of self-determination, it does
not follow from his view that our choices
occur in a vacuum. They are always choices
of particular persons with particular natures.
Recall that Hick describes our primordial
nature as being largely self-centered with
a rudimentary awareness of God and some slight
tendency toward morality. Since in Hick’s
account God creates out of nothing these primal
natures (or, alternatively, the world process
that invariably produces these natures), I
see no reason, given Hick’s assumptions,
why God could not have made us significantly
better than we are. Why not, for example,
give us some significant reduction in our
sometimes seemingly overwhelming tendencies
to self-centeredness or some significant increase
in our natural aversion to violence? Such
creative choices on God’s part might have
narrowed somewhat the options over which our
own choices might range, but would apparently
negate neither incompatibilist freedom nor
soul-making objectives. Seemingly, Hick’s
absolute creator could have made a much better
world than ours.
2. On the other hand, it is hard to see how
it can be certain (as Hick claims) that God,
without compromising anyone’s freedom, will
inevitably lure every finite agent into a
loving relationship with himself. Given that
in Hick’s view we must have incompatibilist
freedom in order to enter into an authentic
personal relationship with God, how can it
be certain that there won’t be, as C. S.
Lewis suggested, “rebels to the end” with
“the doors of hell . . . locked on the inside”?
How can this possibility be precluded? Hick
suggests that although it is not theoretically,
it is practically precluded because
God has formed the free human person with
a nature that can find its perfect fulfilment
and happiness only in active enjoyment of
the infinite goodness of the Creator. He is
not, then, trying to force or entice His creatures
against the grain of their nature, but to
render them free to follow their own deepest
desire,which can lead them only to Himself.
For He has made them for Himself, and their
hearts are restless until they find their
rest in Him.
But now Hick is waffling, for it appears that
we are not free after all. If so, Hick’s
position is inconsistent. To account for moral
evil, Hick posits God’s giving us incompatibilist
freedom and genuine independence to choose
for ourselves—even contrary to His desires
for us. But given his affirmation of absolute
creation and absolute foreknowledge, Hick
sees that God’s perfect goodness is possible
only if not one soul is lost. To salvage God’s
goodness, Hick is forced to accept some mode
of determinism that undermines his free-will
defense. Hick’s way out, as appealing as
it first appears, seems on analysis to be
incoherent.
Joseph's Way Out.
Joseph Smith’s way out of the conceptual
incoherency generated by the traditional theological
premises is to not go in. His revelations
circumvent the theoretical problem of evil
by denying the trouble-making postulate of
absolute creation—and, consequently, the
classical definition of divine omnipotence.
Contrary to classical Christian thought, Joseph
explicitly affirmed that there are entities
and structures which are co-eternal with God
himself. On my reading of Joseph’s discourse,
these eternal entities include chaotic matter,
intelligences (or what I will call primal
persons), and lawlike structures or principles.
According to Joseph Smith, God’s creative
activity consists of bringing order out of
disorder, of organizing a cosmos out of chaos—not
in the production of something out of nothing.
Two statements from Joseph’s King Follett
sermon should give some sense of how radically
his understanding of creation departs from
the classical Christian notion. With respect
to the Creation, Joseph wrote:
You ask the learned doctors why they say the
world was made out of nothing; and they will
answer, “Doesn’t the Bible say He created
the world?” And they infer, from the word
create, that it must have been made out of
nothing. Now, the word create came from the
[Hebrew] word baurau which does not mean to
create out of nothing; it means . . . to organize
the world out of chaos—chaotic matter. . . . Element
had an existence from the time [God] had.
The pure principles of element are principles
which can never be destroyed; they may be
organized and reorganized, but not destroyed.
They had no beginning, and can have no end.
More particularly, with respect to the creation
of man, Joseph added:
The mind of man—the immortal spirit. Where
did it come from? All learned men and doctors
of divinity say that God created it in the
beginning; but it is not so. . . . I am going
to tell of things more noble.
We say that God himself is a self-existent
being. . . . [But] who told you that man did
not exist in like manner upon the same principles?
Man does exist upon the same principles. God
made a tabernacle and put a spirit into it,
and it became a living soul. . . . How does
it read in the Hebrew? It does not say in
the Hebrew that God created the spirit of
man. It says, “God made man out of the earth
and put into him Adam’s spirit, and so became
a living body.”
The mind or the intelligence which man possesses
is co-equal [co-eternal] with God himself.”
Elsewhere Joseph taught that there are also
“laws of eternal and self-existent principles”—normative
structures of some kind, I take it, that constitute
things as they (eternally) are. What are possible
instances of such laws or principles? Lehi,
I believe, made reference to some such principles
in the enlightening (and comforting) explanation
of evil he provided to his son Jacob as recorded
in 2 Nephi 2 of the Book of Mormon. (I call
that explanation Lehi’s theodicy.) “Adam
fell that men might be,” Lehi told Jacob,
“and men are, that they might have joy.".
But to attain this joy, Lehi explained that
it must needs be, that there is an opposition
in all things. If not so . . . , righteousness
could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness,
neither holiness nor misery, neither good
nor bad. . . .
And [so] to bring about his eternal purposes
in the end of man, after he had created our
first parents . . . , it must needs be that
there was an opposition; even the forbidden
fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the
one being sweet and the other bitter.
Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that
he should act for himself. Wherefore, man
could not act for himself save it should be
that he was enticed by the one or the other.
According to Lehi, there are apparently states
of affair that even God, though omnipotent,
cannot bring about. Man is that he might have
joy, but even God cannot bring about joy without
moral righteousness, moral righteousness without
moral freedom, or moral freedom without an
opposition in all things. With moral freedom
as an essential variable in the divine equation
for man, two consequences stand out saliently:
(i) the inevitability of moral evil; and (ii)
our need for a Redeemer.
If my interpretation of 2 Nephi 2 is correct,
then it seems as if we ought to reject the
classical definition of omnipotence in favor
of an understanding that fits better with
the inspired text. Given that text, how ought
we understand divine omnipotence? B. H. Roberts
plausibly proposed that God’s omnipotence
be understood as the power to bring about
any state of affairs consistent with the natures
of eternal existences. So understood, we can
coherently adopt an “instrumentalist”
view of evil wherein pain, suffering, and
opposition become means of moral and spiritual
development.
God cannot prevent evil without preventing greater goods:
soul-making, joy, eternal (that is, God-like) life.
Armed with this definition of divine omnipotence (at least as a working theological hypothesis),
and with Joseph's explicit repudiation of the doctrine of creation out of nothing,
let us consider again the logical problem of evil and Flew’s argument
charging God with complicity in all the world’s
evil. From Joseph Smith’s theological platform,
it does not follow that God is the total or
even the ultimate explanation of all else.
Thus it is not an implication of Joseph’s
worldview that God is an accessory before
the fact to all the world’s evil. Nor does
it follow that God is responsible for every
moral and nonmoral defect that occurs in the
world. Within a framework of eternal entities
and structures that God did not create and
that He cannot destroy, it seems to me that
the logical problem of evil is dissolved.
Evil is not logically inconsistent with the
existence of God. Within the Prophet’s worldview
there can be saving explanations of the world’s
evil—explanations that in no way impugn
God’s loving-kindness. To see what such
explanations might be like, we need to fill
out the picture considerably. And to do so
it will be useful to move from argument and
analysis to narrative. Time does not allow
me to do it, but I invite each of you, in
reflecting on these matters, to rehearse again
the old familiar and yet ever new and renewing
story of the plan of salvation. To do so is
to articulate a Mormon theodicy.
Earlier, when I first introduced the logical
problem of evil, I argued that most discussions
of the problem were too narrow and especially
unfair to the Christian believer in that they
failed to take into account the problem’s
strongest possible solution—the incarnation
of God the Son in the person of Jesus of Nazareth
and his triumph over sin, suffering, and death
through His atonement and resurrection. But
ironically, what I referred to as “the strongest
possible solution” to the problem of evil
when understood in traditional terms becomes,
itself, part of the problem. How can this
be?
This—the soteriological problem—arises
out of the New Testament teaching that salvation
comes through and only through Christ. For
instance, John reports Jesus as having claimed
this very thing: “I am the way, the truth,
and the life: no man cometh unto the Father,
but by me." Similarly, Peter: “Neither is
there salvation in any other: for there is
none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved."
Thomas Morris, professor of philosophy at
Notre Dame, in his book The Logic of God Incarnate,
discusses the difficulty that Peter's teaching gives rise to. In fact he calls it a scandal. Quoting Morris,
"The scandal . . . arises with a simple set
of questions asked of the Christian theologian
who claims that it is only through the life
and death of God incarnated in Jesus Christ
that all can be saved and reconciled to God:
How can the many humans who lived and died
before the time of Christ be saved through
him? They surely cannot be held accountable
for responding appropriately to something
of which they could have no knowledge. Furthermore,
what about all the people who have lived since
the time of Christ in cultures with different
religious traditions, untouched by the Christian
gospel? How can they be excluded fairly from
a salvation not ever really available to them?
How could a just God set up a particular condition
of salvation, the highest end of human life
possible, which was and is inaccessible to
most people? Is not the love of God better
understood as universal, rather than as limited
to a mediation through the one particular
individual, Jesus of Nazareth? Is it not a
moral as well as a religious scandal to claim
otherwise?
This problem can
be stated in the form of an inconsistent triad,
a set of three premises—all of which are
apparently true, yet the conjunction of any
two of which seemingly entails the denial
of the third:
1. God is perfectly loving and just and desires
that all of His children be saved.
2. Salvation comes only in and through one’s
acceptance of Christ.
3. Millions of God’s children have lived
and died without ever hearing of Christ.
Number 3 is indisputable, forcing us, it seems,
to give up either 1 or 2—both of which seem
clearly warranted on biblical authority. So
how to resolve the puzzle?
Many of you in the audience are, no doubt,
smiling, recognizing that adding a premise
4 to the triad resolves the puzzle:
4. Those who live and die without having a
chance to respond positively to the gospel
of Jesus Christ will have that chance postmortemly.
Thank God for Joseph Smith! And not merely
for resolving one more thorny problem of evil—which
he surely did (or, God did, through him)—but
for being the instrument through whom God
restored the knowledge and priesthood powers
that make the redemption of the dead possible.
Elder John Taylor wrote truly when he penned
these words: “Joseph Smith, the Prophet
and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save
Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this
world, than any other man that ever lived
in it."
III. The Practical Problem of Evil
I want to finish by considering the Prophet
Joseph Smith’s contribution to the practical
problem of evil—the challenge of living
trustingly and faithfully in the face of what
personally seems to be overwhelming evil.
Joseph left us much by way of revelation that
speaks to this problem of evil, but perhaps
his own life speaks more powerfully than the
words.
Joseph was no stranger to sorrow. He spoke,
though inspired by God, from the crucible
of his own experience. In D&C 127:2, the Prophet
reflected: “The envy and wrath of man have
been my common lot all the days of my life.
. . . Deep water is what I am wont to swim
in.” Indeed, Joseph faced continual persecution.
He was tarred and feathered, subjected to
numerous lawsuits, and confined in intolerable
conditions in dungeon-like jails. He was deeply
affected by the deaths of his brothers Alvin
and Don Carlos, and his father also died prematurely.
Four of his 11 children, including twin sons,
died at childbirth, and a fifth died at 14
months. Joseph was never financially well-to-do
and was often impoverished. For much of his
life he had no regular place to call home.
After the failure of the bank in Kirtland,
many of his friends turned against him. Members
of the Church published the Nauvoo Expositor
for the purposes of denouncing him, and this
event eventually culminated in his martyrdom.
Even Joseph, who walked so closely with God,
on occasion in his life experienced the troubling
sense of God’s absence when he felt God
should have been there for him.
A case in point: the dark days of 1838 when
the Saints were driven from Missouri. The
setting was as follows: A vast number of Mormon
families had been burned out of their homes
by mobs. Fathers were tied to trees and bullwhipped.
Thirty-four people, including men and children,
had been massacred at a settlement known as
Haun’s Mill. Shortly thereafter, the Mormon
settlement at Far West, Missouri, was besieged
and sacked by the state militia. Soldiers
raped some of the women so many times that
they died from the torture. Joseph Smith had
been betrayed by a friend and turned over
to military mobsters to be killed. He was
taken to a small dungeon called Liberty Jail.
During the four months of imprisonment, Joseph
and his companions were abused, fed human
flesh, and left in filthy conditions.
Joseph Smith felt abandoned by God. In a prayer
Joseph questioned from the depths of his soul:
O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion
that covereth thy hiding place?
How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine
eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal
heavens the wrongs of thy people?
In response to this prayer of the soul’s
desperation, Joseph heard God:
My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity
and thine afflictions shall be but a small
moment;
And then, if thou endure it well, God shall
exalt thee on high. . . .
. . . Know thou, my son, that all these things
shall give thee experience, and shall be for
thy good.
The Son of Man hath descended below them all.
Art thou greater than he?
Confronted with what seemed to be overwhelming
evil, Joseph found meaning in his suffering,
maintained hope, trusted God, and kept the
faith. And God spoke peace.
As I have perused the philosophical literature
on the problem of evil, noted men’s perplexities,
and then returned to once more ponder the
revelations and teachings of Joseph Smith,
I have been constantly amazed. Joseph had
no training in theology, no doctor of divinity
degree; his formal education was at best scanty.
And yet through him comes light that dissolves
the profoundest paradoxes and strengthens
and edifies me through my own personal trials.
The world calls him “an enigma,” but I
know that the inspiration of the Almighty
gave him understanding. I bear witness that
he was a prophet of God. In the sacred name
of Jesus Christ, amen.
