THEODICY

With the relentless barrage of tragedies and disasters, the current epidemic, acts of violence, even wars and rumors of wars, which we personally experience or hear of in the 24/7 news media,  people need to find some explanation of why these things are happening and who or what may behind them. 

This is a big topic, one addressed by philosophy and religion for millennia.  I hope you stay with me and take time to think it through.

Many explanations are tendered. Some people in our time blame it all on ‘climate change’ caused by the ‘carbon footprint’ which humanity leaves on the planet. Some blame it on some ‘ism’—communism or capitalism or some other ‘ism’; others blame it exclusively on the devil or  bad people concluding that man is inherently evil; others attribute it to sunspots or asteroids, on ‘nature,’ or on bad governments.  I concede that many of these things may be involved.  

Or, people may attribute our troubles and tragedies to God. I reject that view.  

It is to this attribution that I write this essay.

Theodicy is a word philosophers and religious scholars use to address the problem of good and evil (theo=God / dicy [or dike]= evil) and how God is related to it. It is the strongest increasingly secular (without God) or cultural objection to belief in a purposive and worthy-of-worshiping deity.  The basic argument of the secularists and agnostics is:  'If there is a god and God is "good" and all-powerful as "religionists" say,  why does he allow these atrocities to happen—especially to good or innocent people-- especially if he created them?'  A good question.

These are my answers and assumptions and premises as a Christian:
  

As one who believes in the Christian (and only true and revealed and universal) God, I am convinced He is real and He is good.  My belief in the Bible, its teachings, and in the credibility of its many witnesses (prophets and apostles and God’s firstborn son Jesus Christ) carries great weight.  Likewise my testimony of the truthfulness of other books of scripture, The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ and its many human witnesses (I have carefully read, studied, pondered and prayed about it; most critics have not) even more strongly supports this view, and the books of Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price, give strong Historical evidence and are available for examination for those who will look at them without bias. My own personal testimony by the Holy Ghost cements these other testaments (it follows that I also believe the Holy Ghost is real, as I do the divinity of Jesus Christ). 

·       The problem is, people do not exercise the faith to come to know the character of God; they do not know that His work and His glory is to "bring to pass the immortality and Eternal life of man."   God is grieved by these tragedies as are we. He did not cause the tragedies, but he does allow many to occur and play out to their natural conclusions. (And some, when we get the bigger picture, may not be the tragedies we think they are.)  The scriptures support this.

·        God may have the power to prevent tragedies and atrocities from happening but generally won’t intervene. One reason is that God, Himself, operates under divine pre-existing Law and Eternal principles; he cannot violate them and still be God. He may invoke some other law (yet undiscovered by man) which creates or allows 'miracles to happen, but these are clearly the exception because miracles do not create spiritual growth and spiritual growth is one major reason why we were sent to this earth.

     Another reason is because He sent us here to exercise our moral agency for good or for ill, to prove ourselves and ‘work out our own salvation’ in an environment of many options and conditions—from the best to the worst.  Work and even pain or other opposition is necessary to growth. Those who are not accountable and suffer (e.g., little children and the mentally or otherwise seriously handicapped) will be saved by the grace of Christ’s Atonement.  The rest of us will be ‘saved’ by obedience to the conditions of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—the plan of happiness—and the gift of His Atonement. All will be redeemed (made immortal) but not will be 'saved' in the Kingdom of God because of their choices. God is merciful as well as just. 

·       The earth itself, as were all people, as the Bible tells us, was created good by God (actually ‘organized’ pre-existing matter, not created ‘ex nihilo’—meaning ‘out of nothing’).  The earth and all things placed upon it, however, ‘fell’, or was removed, from the direct influence of God by the consequence of broken law (for all broken laws have consequences) but could, in their own time, be redeemed by Christ (through the resurrection commemorated on the day we call 'Easter').

·        As to the present ills caused by man himself, or the nature of Nature—the earth itself, its geology and entropy over time—the Atonement of Christ, in congruence with man’s obedience to the Law which covers all things, became the remedy to all of man’s temporal and spiritual challenges—even those caused by natural processes or by other people. But remedies are not always painless until healing or wholeness occurs. 

     Evil is real. There is a real devil (not the cartoon variety) called Satan. Suffering is real and none will escape it. Even Christ did not. Suffering is not always (and usually isn't) a form of Divine punishment or even discipline. Christ did not live and die to end all suffering, but to end all needless (self-imposed or self-generated) suffering.  Sometimes we, like Christ himself, need to "learn obedience by the things He suffered." And Christ, unlike ourselves, was sinless.  

·       This life and this earth is not a playground, but is a laboratory and testing center.  We come to it by choice (we signed a ‘contract’ as it were) and we come with the preparations and attitudes we developed in our pre-earth life.  We knew that it was worth it to come—as difficult as it might be.

·        Notwithstanding the challenges, some of which are horrific, people can succeed with the help of Christ and the help of each other. Pain is not permanent. Death is part of the plan. Life is worth living.  “Man is that he might have joy.”  “All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection provided you continue faithful.” (Joseph Smith, Jr.)

·        Man is confronted with the bitter--there is much of it-- so he can appreciate the sweet--which will overcome all human tragedy and bitterness —and through trial and obedience come to know his Redeemer and Savior and thus receive a far more abundant life. 

Those are my thoughts what it is all about.