Gratuitous Love

{A Necessary Aside: There was an epoch in human existence when the great minds of the world argued with one another through letters to the editor, personal letters to one another, dueling books, chamber debates, and the like.  The distinct limitations upon those great minds with respect to their publication means perhaps deprived the world of countless volumes of thought.  Can we imagine if the Ontological Argument had first been posted to http://stanselm.blogspot.com (that is a working page, by the way, but obviously not one run by St. Anselm himself :-) ), and imagine if Gaunilo responded with a trackback at http://MonkOfMarmoutiers.blog-city.com.  David Hume and John Locke could have battled it out on a Webcast Debate at www.SkepticsVSEmpiricists.org....

It is my hope that such great minds will emerge on the Web one day, as I would love to watch intellectual history being made before my eyes.  For now, however, I must content myself with my own ramblings...}

The trouble with philosophy is that it always seems like whatever one thinks has already been said at least a hundred times before.  For whatever reason, this does not diminish my love of philosophical inquiry, but perhaps further enhances it, since the reality that such questions are still asked means that what has been said before has been insufficient to settle the debate.  Perhaps through some synthesis of previously-made arguments, or even (though less likely) through the concoction of a genuinely new argument we might find ourselves closer to an answer than before—and merely to be closer is a noble thing indeed.

That brings me to the topic of this post.  It is in response to Jody’s blogpost entitled “God: A kind-of, sort-of, in a couple of ways...overall nice guy” to be found at http://www.jdyates.net.  I shall proceed not on a point by point basis per se, but rather by building my response categorically through the major premises of the post, which are as follows: Gratuitous Evil, The Notion of the Greater Good, Fate, and finally, Gratuitous Love.

Gratuitous Evil

I tend to like Jody’s definition “violence and pain for the sake of violence and pain,” in the sense that it communicates the gravity of what gratuitous evil really is.  “Gratuitous” itself is defined by Random House Dictionary as “being without apparent reason, cause, or justification.”  If we match that word with “evil” then we get something akin to, say, the Holocaust, 9/11, etc.  Other things could be gratuitous evil on a smaller magnitude quantitatively but still significant from a qualitative perspective,  so perhaps a child with cancer or AIDS would qualify.  

So, when approaching the thesis “Does the existence of gratuitous evil in the world disprove the existence of a benevolent God?” one must take one of two directions.  The first would be to challenge the first premise of the question, that is, does gratuitous evil exist?  This seems to be a rather difficult proposition, considering that I have already given a couple of examples that most people would consider to fit the bill.  However, it is important to note that given the foregoing definition of “gratuitous,” then many of the traditional Theodicies ( http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theodicy&x=0&y=0) that have pervaded Christian Theology over the years would actual be considered to take that very approach.  I shall first give an example of this Theodicy before proceeding to my own, which directly tackles the question about gratuitous evil and the existence of a benevolent God.

Traditional Christian Theology (dating back to St. Augustine and then developing into Reformation Theology a la John Calvin and Martin Luther, and subsequently into Fundamentalist theology, which is less coherent on the subject) has approached the question of Theodicy by justifying the presence of Evil in the world based upon Man’s inherent Sinfulness, which is of course predicated upon the Fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. As the argument goes, God put Adam into the Garden of Eden, where there was a single rule, that of not partaking of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which was in the midst of the garden.  By defying God, Adam propagated the Fall of the entire human race, theoretically because he served as some sort of covenantal head of humanity.  Consequently, he imputed his Sin to all future generations, and as a result, Man is deserving of whatever ill or evil befalls him in his lifetime.  This also works with universal instantiation, that is, what applies to the individual man applies to humanity in general—natural disasters, disease, famine, war, are all just the collective versions of lost jobs, illness, loss of a family member, and so on.  Since what man did through Adam was so incredibly offensive to God, anything that happened after the Fall was perfectly justified—in fact, man deserved a lot worse.  That’s the argument at least.

This one still strains the credibility metric, though, since in order for it to be valid one must, by fiat, accept that Adam’s action was that offensive to God that it makes the Holocaust at least not unjustified.  It also presupposes the validity of a literal interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis—again, a stretch of the credibility metric.  

Now that we have examined briefly the notion of “gratuitous evil” and a Traditional Theodicy to explain it, I’d now like to move to another possible explanation.

The Greater Good

The theory of The Greater Good is that God allows certain actions that, in the long run, are beneficial to us in spite of their painful interim consequences.  For example, a lost job might ultimately prove to be a blessing as a much better job comes along a month later.  Or, perhaps, somebody contracting cancer that is then cured provides a new perspective and outlook on life that one would have been incapable of gaining any other way.  This seems to make sense in the context of smaller evils and pains, but I am not certain that we can extrapolate a justification for the Holocaust.  In order for the Greater Good theory to function properly, we would have to come up with something that was gained from the Holocaust that would explain its necessity—that is, what overarching good came from the vicious slaughter of 11 Million people?  Furthermore, whatever that hypothetical good is would have to, ipso facto outweigh the evil of the Holocaust itself.  It’s not enough for some good to come from the Holocaust (for example, it could be said that we now have a stronger awareness of genocide when it is occurring and consequently desire to stop it when we see it), but overall, is the world, or even a segment of the world, that much better as a result of that gratuitous event?

Fate

Fate is one of those curious concepts of the human mind.  From whence came this notion of fate originally?  The dictionary gives various interesting definitions of the term.  “Something that unavoidably befalls a person,” describes a specific event.  “The universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed,” names fate as a personal entity.  And then there is the verb form, “to predetermine, as by the decree of fate; destine.”  In the Calvinistic tradition, there is the notion of “predestination” as decreed by God.  Many (if not most) Fundamentalist Christians take an odd approach to the subject.  While pronouncing that we have Free Will to do what we choose, we are told that God is sovereign over all of the universe and orders everything from beginning to end.  I’m not precisely sure how Free Will is compatible with that view, unless we take the bent of pure “freedom of agency” where one is merely able to do what one chooses and one only chooses what God has already predestined.  

So the question is, where does God really play into this fate concept, and how does that relate to the notion of God’s benevolence.  Let me first by pitching an argument that I will soon refute, but it provides a point of reference for the next couple of paragraphs. (Note: the P’s below stand for “premise” and the C’s stand for “conclusion”)

P1. God is Omnipotent (that is, He has all power).
P2. God is Omniscient (that is, He has all knowledge)
P3. God is Omnibenevolent
C1. If a malicious event is going to occur, God knows that it will happen (Reference P2)
C2. If a malicious event is going to occur, God has the power to stop it (Reference P1)
C3. If a malicious event is going to occur, God has the will to stop it (Reference P3)
C4. Therefore, God will stop the malicious event.

This is where the concept of Fate becomes so prescient in the discussion of the Goodness of God.  The foregoing argument is only sound if you grant P1-P3.  If any of them is proven untrue, then you have an unsound argument.  

Consequently, following in the philosophy of the Open Theists, I shall redefine “omniscience” from P2, and proceed with why I too, like Jody, reject the concept of what I shall term Brute Fate.  If Omniscience is defined as “all knowledge” we must first know what “knowledge” is.  Essentially we are looking at Divine Epistemology.  If God can know everything that is knowable, is there anything that isn’t knowable?  I would contend, along with the Open Theists, that future events are not knowable, as they have not happened—and therefore are indeterminate.  Otherwise, future actions are not free actions.  If they are already fixed, then it could not be otherwise, and therefore it is not free.  Let us take this example.

P1. God knows that Bob will get out of bed at 6am tomorrow morning.
P2. If Bob chooses to get out of bed at 7am, God’s knowledge was wrong.
P3. If Bob chooses to get out of bed at 6am, God’s knowledge was right.
P4. God is Omniscient of all events past, present, and future.
C1. Therefore, God cannot be wrong.
C2. Therefore, Bob cannot do otherwise than get out of bed tomorrow morning at 6am.
C3. Therefore, Bob does not have Free Will with respect to getting out of bed tomorrow morning at 6am.

When extrapolated out beyond this single hypothetical example, we find that literally no action would be free.  Why would a benevolent God create puppets?  Of course, the Dogmatist might say “Who can know the mind of God?” and think they have just made an argument.  But rhetorical questions do not an argument make.

Philosophy must always be reconciled with practice, and in practice, it at least seems that I am free to do otherwise in many circumstances.  In fact, there have been times when I was about to do one thing, and then did otherwise.  Perhaps, one might argue, God merely gives us an illusion of Free Will, though in reality we are bound to His constant controlling authority.  If God is benevolent, then God does not deceive, and therefore, he would not deceive us with an illusion of Free Will.  Now, one might argue that God is being benevolent by deceiving us with the illusion of Free Will, since if we realized that we weren’t Free, then we would behave fatalistically.  But then we would be in a double bind.  Let me illustrate below:

P1. God is benevolent.
P2. Man does not have Free Will, but is rather bound by the Will of God.
P3. Free Will is defined as “being able to have done otherwise.”
P3. God gives us an illusion of Free Will.
P4. If we did not have the illusion of Free Will, then we would act fatalistically.
P5. Fatalistic behavior diverges from what would otherwise be normal behavior.
C. Therefore, Man would act differently if he did not have the illusion of Free Will.

The conclusion of that argument leads to a contradiction, like so:

Man would act differently (that is “do otherwise”) knowing he could not do otherwise.  Inherent in this is that man actually could do otherwise, which we have just presumed (under P2) that he could not.

The ultimate conclusion, therefore, is that if God is benevolent, then Man must have Free Will, since we experience situations where it appears that we could do otherwise.

Now that we have gotten to the affirmation of Free Will, we can now look at the ultimate question that we set out to answer herein.  

Gratuitous Love

Thus far, I have shown that 1.) Man has Free Will, 2.) God does not have knowledge of the indeterminate future (though that does not necessarily mean He is clueless about the future, for example, He likely knows the future with a high order of probability given the behavior of man and individual people in the past), and 3.) There is, in fact, gratuitous evil in the world (the Holocaust, 9/11, Natural Disasters, War, Disease, etc.).  

This is where I would like to introduce the concept of Gratuitous Love, which I would define in the following way: “unmerited affection and compassion coupled with corresponding action.”  In the context of Christianity, the closest synonym I can think of is “grace,” but I think it is too weak a term, and so I shall employ “gratuitous love” instead.

Existing amongst all of the ills of the world are such wonderful examples of human compassion.  Human compassion was ultimately typified by Christ.  Conservative Christians would point to Christ’s death as the example of this—I would point to His life.  Here we truly see Gratuitous Love: The healing of the blind, the compassion towards the prostitutes, the lepers, the cripples and outcasts of society, the rejection of the selfish acquisition of power (when Satan offered Christ an earthly kingdom while Christ was fasting in the wilderness), money (he lived a life of poverty), and pride (dying a death of shame on the Cross).  He performed miracles to save people from their physical ailments, but He was also concerned with the spiritual—he forgave the lame man of his sins before giving him the power to walk again.  He offered the woman at the well “living water.”  The two-dimensional view Conservative Christians take of these stories is almost incredulous.  A Christian life is the life of the Beatitudes, the Fruit of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 13’s discussion of love.  

Wherever we find these attributes, whether in Christians or Buddhists, Hindus or Muslims, Agnostics or Atheists or anything in between, these attributes of love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control, and we do find them in all corners of the world, amongst all peoples...this is where we find the presence of Gratuitous Love.  The origin of the teaching is less relevant than the outcome.  There is existential Good in the world, unmerited, in many cases unjustified.  We see it most pronounced in times of crisis and disaster.  But that’s only because those are the times when it is big enough to come into the media’s attention.  Mother Theresa happened to have been publicized to the world by Malcom Muggeridge.  Imagine if Muggeridge had never visited India—it would have deprived the world of the knowledge of a shining example of Gratuitous Love, but it would have deprived the world of the Love itself.  How many similar examples go unnoticed everyday?  The cold cup of water given to a stranger, providing directions to a desperate and lost out of towner, forgiving a loved one of a transgression.  These things happen everyday, and when Mankind is so capable of gratuitous evil, and when it would so benefit him in many circumstances, but he refrains, and gives the cup of water instead of the sword, we see that this exemplifies how a Benevolent God can co-exist with gratuitous evil, for as the Proverb declares “love covers all sin.”  

If we lived in a world where there was only Gratuitous Evil that was not contra-posed with Gratuitous Love, then it would seem that a Benevolent God could not exist in such a world.  But because the power of love is greater than the power of hate and evil, because a gentle word can overcome a harsh one, we find that Gratuitous Love then overcomes all.  The reality is that we each can find that kind of love in our own lives, but it must start from within.  We must first give that kind of love, and show its power.  The more we give it, the more we will want to give it, too.  It is an intoxicating concept, and even more intoxicating in practice.  

Francis of Assissi understood this well, and explicates it perhaps better than any other I have read:

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is sadness, joy; where there is darkness, light.  O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; not so much to be understood, as to understand; not so much to be loved, as to love.  For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born against to eternal life.”

Gratuitous Love at its finest.  Now go and do likewise.