Theodicy

            Theodicy has to do with God and evil.  The term was first coined by German philosopher Gottfied Leibniz who contended in an essay that “the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God.”  However, skeptics argue that suffering in the world is proof that God is not good and omnipotent, if in fact He exists. 

            From the position of semantics theodicy has to do with vindicating God, preserving His omnipotence and goodness, while allowing the existence of evil.  In any event it is a mighty interesting subject to explore. 

            If God really exists and is all knowing and all powerful, then why does He allow innocent women and children to suffer?  If we look to the Bible for answers, the stock answer is that God punishes sinners.  In fact there are numerous accounts where God punishes sinners, and numerous contradictions.  For one, He commands the Hebrews, “thou shalt not kill,” yet He arranges for Joshua to slaughter all men, women and children at Jericho. If God only torments sinners, then what sin did the children at Jericho commit?  Some apologists suggest the “thou shalt not kill” commandment only applies to Hebrews wanting to kill Hebrews.

            If there is such a thing as evil and God is all powerful, then God can control evil – or God is both good and evil.

            Most Christian based religions rely on the Bible for what we know about God.  Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, expanded upon the Bible and tells us even more about God and how God wants us to live.  But even Mormons hold that the Bible is the word of God or inspired by God.  Joseph Smith rewrote the Bible, calling it the Inspired Version, allegedly correcting errors that occurred in translation.

            Following are a few thoughts concerning the Bible:

            “The Bible is the final authority for all matters of faith, religious practice, and morals.”      Islam says the same thing, going one step further, the Koran is all that is needed to run governments as well.  Islam is a theocracy.  So are Catholicism and Mormonism.  I suspect if all theocracies had their way, presidents, senators, mayor and all the other political offices would be abolished and we would be ruled by popes, prophets, priests, pastors, imams, etc. for it is presumed that these godly guys are infallible.

            “Although the Bible was compiled over 1500 years by over 40 authors it is considered inspired.” 

            The Bible was put together by the vote of at least 220 Christian bishops in what is known at Constantine’s Council of Nicaea (Turkey) in 325 AD.  I read somewhere that the Book of Revelations made the Bible by one vote.  Apparently there were hundreds, maybe thousands of alleged scriptures to chose from.  Many of those discarded were burned or otherwise destroyed.  The Gnostic Scriptures found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945 and the Dead Sea Scrolls give us an idea of the many versions of Christianity the bishops at Nag Hammadi had to choose from.  It is presumed by some scholars that the Nag Hammadi and Qumran scrolls were hidden so the Nicaea bishops could not destroy them.  Overall, it makes one wonder just how inspired our Bible is.  Is it possible that the books chosen were selected to reinforce the authority of the Catholic Church?

            “True Believers point to the prophecies in the Bible as proof that it’s God’s word.” 

            Some Christians claim there are over 300 references in the Old Testament predicting the coming of Jesus Christ.  However, these are all subjective interpretations and I suspect that Judaism would disagree with this assessment.

            The unique power and authority of the Bible is said to be proof that it is the word of God.  Proponents claim it is authentic history and that archeology confirms that it is authentic history.  It is further stated that the integrity of the authors is additional proof.  And of course the proponents cite the millions of lives that have been improved by the Bible.

            The above paragraph is to be taken as faith alone for it is all subjective conjecture.  Archeology can confirm that Egypt, Megiddo, the Jordan River, etc exists but it cannot confirm Jesus, Moses, David, and other biblical characters existed.  As far as the many lives that have been comforted and made better by the Bible, what about the Inquisition, the Crusades, the witch hunts, and the persecutions that have occurred because of interpretations of Bible by so called, pious, infallible priests, popes and prophets? 

            A rational view of the Bible must acknowledge it is the work of men.  Were they inspired, who knows?  Sure there are a lot of good things, a workable philosophy of sorts, and most of the “thou shalt nots” in the Ten Commandments are good rules; but what I get from it is that the biblical God is capricious, of limited knowing and power, with all of the attributes and foibles of his creations.  If He allegedly communicated with or inspired the popes, prophets and priests, why were they so tyrannical, cruel and so often wrong in their decrees and judgments?