tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4846270808622210589.post6777900940289365563..comments2023-08-21T08:54:36.565-06:00Comments on The Face of the Other: The Problem of EvilBruce Younghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975464286394973580noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4846270808622210589.post-90988507881331178302011-09-15T17:56:01.586-06:002011-09-15T17:56:01.586-06:00Hi, Caleb. I haven't read Levinas's "...Hi, Caleb. I haven't read Levinas's "Useless Suffering" (and I should read it). But knowing much of his work, I could make some guesses as to his view. I'll approach the issue, though, by doing some personal pondering.<br /><br />Obviously, theodicies (like explanations in general--but maybe more so) are of limited usefulness. I think we engage in these sorts of explanations because we want to understand, we want some kind of comfort when we feel threatened or confused. So maybe we engage in theodicies in part for our own sake--to make sense of our own suffering and to make sense of the suffering of others insofar as we ourselves are bothered or pained or confused by it.<br /><br />I think we also want to come up with explanations so we can be of help to others: so we can comfort or alleviate confusion. And I think our explanations can be useful to an extent in accomplishing such aims. But of course any explanation is limited and imperfect.<br /><br />What I suspect Levinas would want us to see also is that ANY explanation of the meaning of someone else's experience runs to risk of being impertinent and unhelpful because (as you've said) we simply cannot comprehend the other's suffering. We might be able to make some semi-accurate guesses about it. But even then, it is HIS suffering, not ours. Our attempt to understand it, to set it in a meaningful context, to explain it, runs the risk of seeming to "explain it away," trivialize it. And it runs the risk of our acting as if we have taken possession of the other's suffering--reduced it to an image or a concept (even if it's a complicated, multifaceted one) grasped by our consciousness. But of course such a "possession" (whether we realize it or not) is illusory: what we've reduced the other's suffering to is not the same as the other's suffering, which we could understand (if at all) only by experiencing it along with him. If we think we've actually comprehended the other's suffering, we are mistaken, and that mistake will impede our capacity to be of help. And if the person who is suffering sees us as trying to take possession of his suffering, he may easily feel that his experience is being falsified and trivialized in our rendition of it.<br /><br />So yes, I see great dangers in our attempts to come up with explanations and rationalizations of evil and suffering. As C. S. Lewis says in a book that attempts something like this very sort of explanation: "A little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all."<br /><br />If explaining the "meaning" or "purpose" of suffering is thus fraught with danger, what should our response be? I think Levinas would say we are responsible to help alleviate suffering (even if we don't understand it or can't justify or explain it), to give comfort, to ease pain, to try to bring healing, to seek to help others move through and beyond suffering in such a way that their existence can be meaningful. Most of that service to others has got to be practical, and as we've all learned, just "being there" usually is more helpful than trying to say something helpful. People appreciate our presence and our compassion far more than our attempts to justify or explain what is happening to them. In fact, such explanations often fall flat and wound rather than help. <br /><br />Nevertheless, theodicies (with all their dangers and imperfections) can perhaps be at times--in the right circumstances, if offered in the right way--a kind of gesture of generosity, an attempt to ease pain and to bring healing. And sometimes they do actually help.Bruce Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01975464286394973580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4846270808622210589.post-27962686536159436762011-09-15T14:26:42.442-06:002011-09-15T14:26:42.442-06:00Dr. Bruce, I deeply appreciate your blog on "...Dr. Bruce, I deeply appreciate your blog on "the Problem of Evil." It was a very compassionate and sensitive post. I do wonder though, as a devout reader of Levinas, what your perspectives are concerning his short essay "Useless Suffering" in which he takes up the problem of evil in a very direct fashion. Levinas' primary argument is that any attempt to explain away or justify the suffering of another (i.e., any theodicy) is an inherently violent endeavor. Given the absolute alterity of the other we simply do not means of comprehending his suffering--and we do him an injustice when we seek to totalize his unknowable pain. In this way, Levinas sees in the useless suffering the end of theodicy. <br /><br />How does your theodicy withstand the Levinasian critique?Caleb Sandersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4846270808622210589.post-9107583434353216692008-09-09T18:39:00.000-06:002008-09-09T18:39:00.000-06:00I just made this comment today on "By Common Conse...I just made this comment today on "By Common Consent" (<A HREF="http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2008/09/god-broke-his-covenant/#comment-191434" REL="nofollow">http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2008/09/god-broke-his-covenant/#comment-191434</A>. <BR/><BR/>As usual, my wife Margaret sent me a link urging me to read this. I've done so very quickly (so my apologies if I missed anything essential).<BR/><BR/>Just a couple of quick comments: (1) I'm still feeling troubled by comment #3 ("I’m waiting for the day somebody bears testimony that God lives and is just because He gives us what we deserve"). I believe God lives; I know he is loving and just. But isn't the whole point of atonement that he offers us MORE than we deserve? As Shakespeare had Hamlet put it: "Give every man according to his deserts, and who shall 'scape whipping?" Or as he had Portia put it: "In the course of justice [i.e., mere justice, untempered by mercy], none of us should see salvation."<BR/><BR/>(2) I find many of the comments insightful and thought provoking (even the ones some call "despicable"). It's pretty clear that none of us--including those with the most insightful or moving comments--fully understands this problem of suffering. In some respects, the problem appears to be an unfathomable mystery. Yet some of those who have commented reject out of hand certain explanations (such as that God might use suffering as a scourge or to help bring about some greater good) while not rejecting other explanations (that God is helpless, that God has abandoned some of his children, etc.). <BR/><BR/>Since all of us are in a state of relatively abysmal ignorance, I think we might do well to be more cautious in deciding what is possible and what isn't. I worry that we may cut ourselves off from deeper understanding by too easily dismissing anything we initially find offensive. As I read him, Ivan Karamazov had that very tendency: because he found the suffering of innocents so disturbing, he rejected God and God's world rather than humble himself enough to at least consider that it all might somehow make sense, or at least be truly and fully redeemable. He chose despair over redemption because he couldn't make sense of redemption.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, I also believe any potentially "despicable" explanation should certainly be prefaced by a humble acknowledgement of uncertainty and an affirmation of charity--we take no delight in the destruction of our fellow beings (D&C 109:43), and all we understand about God would indicate that he doesn't either.<BR/><BR/>I've had more to say on the problem of evil at <A HREF="http://faceofother.blogspot.com/2008/04/problem-of-evil.html" REL="nofollow">http://faceofother.blogspot.com/2008/04/problem-of-evil.html</A>.Bruce Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01975464286394973580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4846270808622210589.post-9938866607158359172008-04-26T16:46:00.000-06:002008-04-26T16:46:00.000-06:00I just read the entire thing this time around, and...I just read the entire thing this time around, and I loved it! I love that quote by C.S. Lewis, "A little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all." That's a good one, I love that C.S. Lewis guy :)Julie Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07971389044709396659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4846270808622210589.post-59877300250657471042008-04-22T20:00:00.000-06:002008-04-22T20:00:00.000-06:00Wow, that was a long post. I didn't read all of th...Wow, that was a long post. I didn't read all of that, but great job for posting another blog.Julie Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07971389044709396659noreply@blogger.com