Beyond Christianity & The Problem of Evil

June 2008

I was brought up as an atheist by my parents but I attended a Christian primary school. I remember my father catching me at a very early age praying. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Praying to Jesus to help me at School" I replied. "Study", he said, "it will do much more good!"
 
In fact my father had been a devout Christian in his youth, and had at one time even considered the priesthood as a carer. Later he had abandoned Christianity, as so many intellectuals do, because of the problem of evil. Indeed, the presence of evil, pain and suffering in our world is the most persistent argument raised against theism. The argument runs as follows:

1. If God is perfectly loving, He must wish to abolish evil
2. If He is all powerful, He must be able to abolish evil
3. But evil exists. Therefore, an all powerful, loving God does not exist

The conventional Christian response is:

1. God created a world of free will
2. Although God therefore made evil possible, man makes evil actual
3. Eventually God will defeat evil

Nevertheless, although these points about free will and the future have some value, these arguments fail to explain why a loving parent would create a Darwinian world, which, in its very essence, is about selfishness, competition and the survival of fittest rather than the most loving. Arguing that evil is the result of man’s free will alone is not enough, a Darwinian world of flesh eating animals, disease, disability, earthquakes, inequality and heartless competition demands a better explanation.

We must accept the usual argument:

1. God is the author of everything
2. Evil is something
3. Therefore God is the author of evil

And even extend it to:

Why did a loving intelligent and all powerful God create a 'dog eat dog' world of untold pain? Why, as Richard Dawkins point out, does God appear to be "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: an ... unjust... bloodthirsty... capriciously malevolent bully".

As a teenager I became interested first in parapsychology and then eastern mysticism. In my 20s I became a believer in God. Amongst my friends, mostly educated intelligent and European, I am almost alone in believing in God. Even those I know who claim to believe appear to do so only the surface; they show, for example, an incompatible fear of death. I was at a dinner party the other day with 11 other guests, one of whom claimed to be an occasional Christian church goer. A question came up: if your blood contained the cure for Aids and the government needed to take your life to mass produce the cure would you volunteer? I was shocked to find myself the only one happy to do so. Of course, being the only person I know to really believe in God has involved me in many debates on the subject, and from these this article stems.

Religious faith plays, in fact, no part in my belief in God. Religious faith, along with many of the things we hold dear, is, in my opinion, an irrational and often primitive belief instilled at childhood and insufficiently questioned. What separates the enlightened thinker from the masses is his ability to re-examine and overturn any inherited opinion or behaviour no matter how firmly instilled. I believe, with Socrates, in faith in human reason. It is reason, not instinct, not emotion, and not love that separates humans from animals. "God is love" say the Christians, a popular messages but "God is reason" is perhaps closer to the truth. If reason tells us God is illogical or unlikely we must discard any belief in him.

How then to properly answer the problem of evil?

Although the answer is in fact well known and fairly obvious, it is nevertheless incompatible with Christianity, and therefore has been given insufficient attention by most Western thinkers. Incompatible because if we accept that God deliberately created an evil, selfish and painful world, then he could hardly send its people to an eternal hell for transgressing when they get there. The concept of reincarnation and karma are also not enough, at least on their own. Even if the deformed child who dies an early and painful death is only suffering a just and reasoned punishment for past misdemeanours, why did a loving God create a Darwinian World so perfectly designed to imbue selfish behaviour? And what of the first humans who must have eked out a pitiful and short existence on this terrible planet, surely they had no previous sins to atone for?

In fact God brought this terrible world in existence in order to educate the souls who inhabit it. By creating a world of evil God created a school in which, with time and intelligence, man can learn to overcome his selfish nature and discover his divinity. Mankind is gradually learning to move from the negative to the positive, from the darkness into the light. Like the child who can not understand why his parents would cast him from the loving home into a competitive school, man can not understand why God has created this world to educate him. Also, like the child who lives entirely in the moment and has little concept of time, man can not understand that what he feels is a lifetime is not even a blink of God's eye. Like the child who does not understand that the bruises he takes will heal, man does not understand that death is an illusion. This terrible world is no more than a training school for Soul to develop. A perfect world, like a school without hardship, can not educate. One day man will learn to conquer Earth completely, to cure all disease and fashion the world in any way he pleases, indeed compared to the primitives many nations have already made much progress. Nevertheless, man's ultimate purpose is to one day leave the world for good and take his place in heaven, so in fact this hardly matters.

Earth is not the only training ground for Soul. The development of Soul takes place in many places, our world is just one of many schools, and many are less dreadful. The number of students rises and falls and new students come here for the first time, or come here from other schools, or leave here for other schools. Death is only an illusion. Just as one forgets ones early years as a baby/child one forgets ones memories of other lives, but that does not mean these years were wasted. Coming to Earth, like going to school, is a serious undertaking that often requires much preparation. The challenges we face gradually educate us and bring us to enlightenment. Some say it’s possible to absorb the lifetimes of others who have lived here as well, so no life is wasted on one soul alone. At higher levels the differentiation between us begins to disappear and we realise we are all the same. If God is water, they say, we are the atoms that make up the sea.

Long before I began understanding the rational framework and purpose of life, I became a believer in something more by reading about parapsychology, near death experiences, past life hypnotic regression etc. Having been brought up to believe this stuff was all nonsense, the incontrovertible evidence came as a real eye opener. Later I was inspired by the concept of consciousness and vibration; then “As above, So Below” (The idea laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus which Carl Jung called Synchronicity); then spirit; and for me God came last. First one understands, then one knows, then one experiences. Once it has really sunk in you loose absolutely all fear of death. Indeed for me, without a family to leave in the lurch, death is welcome, my fear is instead a wasted life. Then again, sometimes I feel that even if would be nice to head back now it would be embarrassing, I have more I should do.

Long ago the primitive religions of the Romans and Greeks lost their hold on the intellectuals of the day. A few very brilliant ones, such as Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato had advanced beliefs, but lesser intellectuals became atheists. Eventually the Roman religion even lost its hold on the masses. Their religion taught neither justice nor love, the Gods simply personified psychological forces. The Judaic religion taught the more advanced concept of justice - "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". Christianity added love. This more advanced religion rekindled the belief in God. For a couple of thousand years Christianity served its purpose but unlike the beliefs of Socrates, Jung and other great thinkers Christianity does not embrace logic. The idea of a single lifetime on earth followed by an eternity in either heaven or hell is patently ridiculous. Today, like Ancient Rome before Christianity, we live in a godless world. Eventually a new more advanced religion will take hold and, even if it's low brow stuff for the masses, the world will probably be a much better place for it.