I thought I would repost something I wrote quite a number of years ago now. It is about thanksgiving rather than Thanksgiving, but the latter gets a mention and so I thought it appropriate for this occasion\u2026<\/p>\n
Thanksgiving reduces the need for theodicy.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mean the holiday that is celebrated in the United States today \u2013 although presumably one could attempt to formulate an argument for the existence of a supremely benevolent deity on the basis of turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing. But those with scarcely enough to survive could legitimately question whether the argument is valid, based as it is on such a small segment of human experience. Nevertheless, even if it wasn\u2019t the most persuasive argument for the existence of God, it might well be the\u00a0most delicious<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nWhat I\u2019m talking about, however, is the fact that many of those who are making do with little are nevertheless thankful<\/i>\u00a0for what they have, sometimes more so than those who have an abundance. It seems to me that it is more often those\u00a0observing<\/i>\u00a0the suffering of others who lose their faith in God, than those actually passing through hardship. It is possible, in the midst of any situation, to find something to be thankful for. This doesn\u2019t mean to accept the situation as just, nor to assume that God has ordained it to be so and thus to accept one\u2019s lot in life and not challenge the status quo. Being thankful even when hungry doesn\u2019t mean one necessarily stops hungering and thirsting for justice.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nBut what preachers sometimes call \u2018an attitude of gratitude\u2019 can change one\u2019s outlook; while on the other hand, it is possible to be ungrateful even in the midst of abundance.<\/p>\n
As a rule, I don\u2019t thank God for things the same way I might thank a benevolent donor who gave me a large sum of money to support my blogging habit (That hasn\u2019t happened yet, but it can\u2019t hurt to fantasize \u2013 and to drop hints). When someone remains healthy when everyone else around them gets sick, or survives a plane crash when others were killed, and thanks God and talks of how good God has been to them, I have serious problems with the implicit corollary: that God has been bad<\/i>\u00a0to the other people in the situation. For me, the point is to be thankful \u2013 not to thank God as though you have been singled out for abundance and others singled out for want. It is something of an accident of history and circumstance that some in our time have born into relative affluence and others into extreme poverty. The appropriate response is to be grateful for whatever one has, and to realize our own responsibility for ensuring that resources are equitably shared. It is easy to point to the billions in India and China and blame population size. But the truth is that all of them together do not consume what we do in North America. Let us all be thankful that we have a world that provides for us in abundance, and let us all work together to figure out ways to ensure that, with all this abundance available, no one has to do completely without the basic necessities of life.<\/p>\n
\nI discussed the problem of evil with colleagues recently. Yesterday as I revisited the subject in my mind, I found myself thinking about Pakistan\u2019s democracy. Pakistan has made a number of attempts to get a genuinely democratic government on its feet, but each time issues or inklings of corruption, threats to national security and other destabilizing factors have led the military to intervene. I can\u2019t help wondering if that is what people wish God did. Imagine if during World War II, as atrocities were planned and nations prepared for war, a voice came from heaven saying \u201cGo to your rooms and don\u2019t come out again until you\u2019re ready to play nice.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\nDoes this scenario take the idea of God as parent a bit too far? Perhaps it doesn\u2019t take the metaphor quite far enough. If our parents never let us fail, never let us mess things up, there are some lessons we will never learn. I have long felt Dietrich Bonhoeffer\u2019s ideas to be incredibly challenging. Bonhoeffer suggested that God desires\u00a0mature<\/i>\u00a0children, who can get along without him. God, according to Bonhoeffer, wants us to live before God as though God were not there \u2013 etsi Deus non daretur<\/em>. It is a shocking idea when one first hears it, but the more one reflects on it, the more it seems obvious rather than shocking.<\/p>\n
Skeptics who reject the idea of God on the basis of the problem of evil sometimes remind me of adolescent children \u2013 begrudging a parent\u2019s intervention as meddling, begrudging lack of intervention as lack of concern, unhappy and complaining either way. For those who look on the world without thankfulness, neither the idea that God is acting nor the idea that God isn\u2019t is satisfying. But they do have a point. In one sense, it is all too easy to attribute one\u2019s abundance to God \u2013 certainly much easier than treating it as simply good fortune, which comes accompanied with responsibility for those who have been less fortunate.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to offer a free-will defense that seeks to protect God from blame for various misfortunes and disasters that humankind has experienced. I simply want to be thankful \u2013 for a universe that has produced not only life but us, with the free will that we so often use so poorly, and with enough resources to sustain us all if we can only figure out how to deal with them and with one another equitably.<\/p>\n
It is a great responsibility and a great challenge. But it is also a lot to be thankful for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I wrote something else, much shorter, on this topic here:<\/p>\n