4 ms·

Not to be cruel, but the preexisting, running total of human suffering and tragedy in this world points to the fact that transcendent reality, the realm of God

Not to be cruel, but the preexisting, running total of human suffering and tragedy in this world points to the fact that transcendent reality, the realm of God or a God, must have an alternative interpretation for human events, one which humans cannot fathom. So for example, the tragedies which occur in your nightmares, after you wake, are given a different interpretation- the interpretation of "non-reality", i.e. it didn't really happen in some basic way that puts them into the category of "life non-tragedy". From God's (or "a god's", for our dedicated atheists) POV, there is some enclosing context to the events of our lives that makes this mess we call reality "make sense". We don't have that perspective, so we think we suffer, pointlessly. Along the chain from amoeba to goldfish to humans the understanding of events in our shared environment by each species changes. We think of that change as progressively achieving a "deeper understanding" of reality. The zinger in this recitation of prosaic facts is: your consciouness is not the last one in the chain. This is what Christians experience (and think of) as "faith". Faith in the wisdom or sense-making of a transcendent God and His plans.

Igelau 6y ago
> the preexisting, running total of human suffering and tragedy in this world points to the fact that transcendent reality, the realm of God or a God, must have an alternative interpretation for human events You're begging the question. It doesn't point to that at all. Furthermore, I'd feel terrible accepting that "fact" if I were faithful. It would reduce my faith to that in a demiurge who can't (ergo impotent) or won't (ergo ignorant or malicious) build/maintain a reality that (1) makes sense in the enclosing context and (2) doesn't require the depth of horror and pain for its components/participants that this one does.
- abbadadda 6y ago
  Aren't there more than two explanations for "won't" beyond (1) ignorance or (2) malice? Perhaps we are the ones who are ignorant for why things are this way.
  - Igelau 6y ago
    Barring either of those, see "can't".
- chromanoid 6y ago
  Exactly, unless one sees the suffering of others as suffering of NPCs or punishment for a former life, I cannot understand how one can believe in a benevolent omnipotent god. The cruelty that some have to endure is simply not explainable with a such a god. It cannot be benevolent AND omnipotent by definition. It becomes far far far more likely that there is simply no such a god. It's not like this dilemma is new so there should be a better explanation by now.
  - cyber_zhuangzi 6y ago
    It's a deep problem with a long history of attempts at answering it, some more satisfying than others. One answer that appeals to many faithful is the idea that all this suffering will be "redeemed", or made to be worth it at the end. Augustine, for example, would take the "NPC" prong of your dilemma by saying that our earthly existence "in time" is not a full experience of reality at all. Indeed, you can find this view, that our conscious experience of reality-in-time is somehow illusory, in many non-Christian sources anywhere from Buddhism to Daniel Dennet. In Augustine's view it's only outside of time, with God, that human beings can fully exist - thus earthly suffering is nothing compared to the joy of being in Heaven. Obviously this is not a foolproof argument, but HN deserves to know the best answers Christian thinkers have come up with.
    - chromanoid 6y ago
      It always seems to me that faithful people just don't confront themselves with the suffering that is happening and has happened. When you know about such events it seems to me to be either a lame escape or maliciously ignorant to claim there might be a god who sees the big plan and is still omnipotent. When there is not even a glimpse of a reason for certain acts against children I refuse to accept any far fetched esoteric excuse.
    - david_w 6y ago
      All religions have a mystic branch which describes an awareness , usually transient, of a higher order to reality in which the suffering of people is "redeemed" or put into perspective or somehow negated. One interesting thing is that the language and imagery used by the mystics of these different and separated religious traditions are often indistinguishable from each other- it's not clear if it was St. John of the Cross or Augustine or Zen Masters Ikkyu or Dogen who is saying them. On thing they refer to in this transcendent reality is apprehension of "the coincidence of opposites". So for example, the obvious fact that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time is itself contradicted or "resolved". In logic we say "not both A and not A" (or else a contradiction is permitted and from there literally anything can be proven). If I were a goldfish, no matter how right the math you read to me was, I would not understand it, you or anything it referred to. Even as the atomic bomb it described exploded, I still would not understand the nature of reality which now quite literally impinged itself on my flesh. What would it feel like to be confronted with that kind of knowledge? Would we recognize some formulation of it but reject it, as in: both A and not A? Would it be something impossible, existing outside of what appears to us to be exhausted possibilities? Not A Not not A Not both A and not A Not not both A and not A. etc? We can feel the limits of our own thinking when we reach something which is logically impossible. We just can't get our thinking around these things; contraditions seem like an absolute dead end, leading everywhere and nowhere. Are there things in our lives which we literally experience, like an atomic bomb disntegrating a goldfish, which even as they touch us and we feel them, we simply fail to comprehend the "real" meaning of them? The breeze? A look? A birth? Suffering? Spirtual insight may be a thing like mathematicqal talent- some people have a talent for it and some people don't. Such a talent may be completely disconnected from normal intelligence. To people who don't have it, it seems like garbage, i.e. self-contradictory, self-pacifying wishful thinking.

Igelau 6y ago

> the preexisting, running total of human suffering and tragedy in this world points to the fact that transcendent reality, the realm of God or a God, must have an alternative interpretation for human events You're begging the question. It doesn't point to that at all. Furthermore, I'd feel terrible accepting that "fact" if I were faithful. It would reduce my faith to that in a demiurge who can't (ergo impotent) or won't (ergo ignorant or malicious) build/maintain a reality that (1) makes sense in the enclosing context and (2) doesn't require the depth of horror and pain for its components/participants that this one does.

abbadadda 6y ago
Aren't there more than two explanations for "won't" beyond (1) ignorance or (2) malice? Perhaps we are the ones who are ignorant for why things are this way.
- Igelau 6y ago
  Barring either of those, see "can't".
chromanoid 6y ago
Exactly, unless one sees the suffering of others as suffering of NPCs or punishment for a former life, I cannot understand how one can believe in a benevolent omnipotent god. The cruelty that some have to endure is simply not explainable with a such a god. It cannot be benevolent AND omnipotent by definition. It becomes far far far more likely that there is simply no such a god. It's not like this dilemma is new so there should be a better explanation by now.
- cyber_zhuangzi 6y ago
  It's a deep problem with a long history of attempts at answering it, some more satisfying than others. One answer that appeals to many faithful is the idea that all this suffering will be "redeemed", or made to be worth it at the end. Augustine, for example, would take the "NPC" prong of your dilemma by saying that our earthly existence "in time" is not a full experience of reality at all. Indeed, you can find this view, that our conscious experience of reality-in-time is somehow illusory, in many non-Christian sources anywhere from Buddhism to Daniel Dennet. In Augustine's view it's only outside of time, with God, that human beings can fully exist - thus earthly suffering is nothing compared to the joy of being in Heaven. Obviously this is not a foolproof argument, but HN deserves to know the best answers Christian thinkers have come up with.
  - chromanoid 6y ago
    It always seems to me that faithful people just don't confront themselves with the suffering that is happening and has happened. When you know about such events it seems to me to be either a lame escape or maliciously ignorant to claim there might be a god who sees the big plan and is still omnipotent. When there is not even a glimpse of a reason for certain acts against children I refuse to accept any far fetched esoteric excuse.
  - david_w 6y ago
    All religions have a mystic branch which describes an awareness , usually transient, of a higher order to reality in which the suffering of people is "redeemed" or put into perspective or somehow negated. One interesting thing is that the language and imagery used by the mystics of these different and separated religious traditions are often indistinguishable from each other- it's not clear if it was St. John of the Cross or Augustine or Zen Masters Ikkyu or Dogen who is saying them. On thing they refer to in this transcendent reality is apprehension of "the coincidence of opposites". So for example, the obvious fact that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time is itself contradicted or "resolved". In logic we say "not both A and not A" (or else a contradiction is permitted and from there literally anything can be proven). If I were a goldfish, no matter how right the math you read to me was, I would not understand it, you or anything it referred to. Even as the atomic bomb it described exploded, I still would not understand the nature of reality which now quite literally impinged itself on my flesh. What would it feel like to be confronted with that kind of knowledge? Would we recognize some formulation of it but reject it, as in: both A and not A? Would it be something impossible, existing outside of what appears to us to be exhausted possibilities? Not A Not not A Not both A and not A Not not both A and not A. etc? We can feel the limits of our own thinking when we reach something which is logically impossible. We just can't get our thinking around these things; contraditions seem like an absolute dead end, leading everywhere and nowhere. Are there things in our lives which we literally experience, like an atomic bomb disntegrating a goldfish, which even as they touch us and we feel them, we simply fail to comprehend the "real" meaning of them? The breeze? A look? A birth? Suffering? Spirtual insight may be a thing like mathematicqal talent- some people have a talent for it and some people don't. Such a talent may be completely disconnected from normal intelligence. To people who don't have it, it seems like garbage, i.e. self-contradictory, self-pacifying wishful thinking.