The Problem of Evil, Church Edition

The classic formulation is of the problem of evil is that (1) God is all-powerful, (2) God is good, and (3) evil exists. How is it possible that (3) is the case if both (1) and (2) are true? Mormons, I think, tend to question (1), to posit a God who is not all-powerful, and to emphasize that humans have genuine agency and God rarely appears to override it. (Some also seem to move in the direction of questioning (3), saying things like “everything happens for a reason” or framing everything, including the negatives of life, as engineered by God, and thus essentially making evil illusory. I think this is hugely problematic, but that’s a tangent.)

I’m generally sympathetic to the move to make divine omnipotence limited (whether inherently, or because God chooses to make space for agency.) But here I want to consider the question in a context I find particularly challenging: the church. How do we make sense of it that God seems to be allowing all kinds of problems in the church? Just to clarify, I’m not talking about the kind of problems that arise in any human community, as flawed people with different temperaments and opinions do their best to work together. I’m talking about problems in the structure, in teachings and practices, in the scriptures and prophetic statements—the things that, if you take the church at its word, God is directly engineering.

I can think of a few responses to this. I’m sure there are people who are thinking, what are you talking about—there aren’t any problems in those things! In other words, arguing for a version of challenging (3): anything that’s apparently wrong with the church isn’t really wrong once you have the right understanding of it (and if you think there’s something wrong, that’s probably evidence of something wrong with you.) Since I do think there are real problems, however, I find that an unsatisfactory answer.

The explanation I find most persuasive is that just as God isn’t micro-managing the world, God isn’t micro-managing the church. This isn’t to deny the reality of inspiration—but the church is part of a mortal world that is ambiguous and limited, and it doesn’t escape from the limitations of the culture in which it exists. And as Laurel Thatcher Ulrich says in her classic essay “Lusterware”, if you can manage to find something that is as much as 10 percent divine, that’s worth sticking with.

But I have to admit that this raises some hard questions. If this is God’s church, why isn’t God more involved? The church, after all, is supposed to be different from the world. Why even have an authorized church of God if it’s going to be somewhat hit-and-miss when it comes to conveying God’s will? Why doesn’t God at least intervene to stop the most egregious problems? Does it turn out that the church isn’t really all that different from any other potentially inspired human institution? What sense, then, does it make to remain a member—especially if there are things that really, really bother you?

There is of course a third possibility—to challenge (2), the idea that God is good. Interestingly, I see versions of this on both the right and on the left. The latter (usually those who’ve left) argue that the Mormon god is sexist, racist, cruel, capricious, etc. The former argue that God might appear to be such things, but it’s okay, because our definition of “good” is different from God’s (presumably superior) definition.

My own view is that God is good, and good in a way that’s meaningful to us. But I am troubled by the fact that you can plausibly reach a different conclusion. To give the most obvious feminist example, the church teaches that patriarchy is the eternal order of things. If you take church teachings seriously—and if you are a believing member, it seems that you should (you’d think that point would be obvious, but I’m surprised by how often I’ve heard, why do you even take that seriously?)—you end up with the disturbing possibility that God is indeed sexist. Again, you can go the route of, “what we see as sexist is actually an eternal good.” But as I’ve said, I find that unsatisfactory, because I want to hold on to a connection between our sense of morality and God’s—otherwise, saying that God is good is essentially meaningless.

And what I find particularly disturbing is that while the church can do a lot of good—and I do believe that it does—it also has the potential to be incredibly destructive, precisely because it purports to be carrying out God’s will. If you get hurt by something in the secular world, you can (in theory, at least) turn to your religious beliefs for solace and healing. But if you get hurt by teachings or practices of the church, that’s likely to shake up your religious beliefs, leaving you spiritually stranded. Where do you turn for peace when God is the problem? (And ironically, the more you see the church as inspired, the more potential such a situation has to be devastating.)

In the end, I would formulate my own take on the problem as (1) God is good, (2) God is somehow involved in the church, and (3) there are real, serious problems in the church. I believe all three, but I think (2) is kind of a black hole (involved how? when? where? how do you know? why in x but not y? etc.) So I’m still working on this one.

12 comments

  1. I think it’s like the problem of evil, where I believe God voluntarily limits his omnipotence to see what we will do with our agency. Maybe all churches are like shopping carts with bad wheels: the fact that we believe God (instead of someone else) is pushing ours doesn’t mean it’s going 100% in the direction the driver wants.

    In other words, I don’t know if I can separate things like the structure, teachings and practices, scriptures and prophetic statements, that God is supposedly directly engineering from, the “problems that arise in any human community, as flawed people with different temperaments and opinions do their best to work together.” All the structure, teachings, prophetic statements, etc. weren’t written by the finger of God on stone tablets; they were transmitted by flawed people. So far, God seems content to be constrained by our flaws, instead of taking a more direct hand in church leadership.

  2. I very much agree with you about everything being transmitted by flawed people. And you’re right that the separation I’m making is problematic. The point I was trying to make is that I think this goes beyond the level of, I had a fight with Sister X, so the church is imperfect.

    And I think where it get tricky is that the church doesn’t understand itself as flawed in this way–that’s not at all the picture you get from what the leaders say, at least. Instead it’s reassurances along the lines of, the prophet will never lead us astray. I confess that I tend to let such statements go right over my head, but I’m not sure I’m not just engaging a form of denial. It would be less complicated, I think, if the church didn’t present itself as being very directly run by God.

  3. Many members go through a paradigm shift where they come to view the institutional church as a flawed, human institution with some limited, divine inspiration. But that can be a very uncomfortable place to be in when the church leaders, the correlated message, and the vocal membership insist that the church is basically perfect in its current structure and actions. The problems don’t get fixed in part because of the attitude that there are no problems. And the people pointing out the problems or being harmed by the problems are seen as the enemy.

    Calling it “evil” still feels a little strong. I see it more as misguided, imperfect, or harmful. Evil, to me, implies a bad intent that I don’t really see in the church, at least not on a large scale.

  4. There is a fourth step in the Christian response to the argument of evil – that the Atonement solves everything. In Job, the scriptures say we are always punished less than our iniquity deserves, and I believe that is true. We may be punished in a different way than our iniquity deserves – rather than suffer through eternal damnation we may have an offensive local leader or insensitive comments in Sunday School – but when the final tally is made, because of the Atonement, we will all be in the position of being better off than our iniquity demanded.

    It helps to deal with frustrating situations in mortality to remember that if we held others to a standard of perfection we would find ourselves condemned by those very same standards. This helps me to let go of the little things, and even (with effort) let go of the really big things and rest in the emotional position of being grateful.

  5. Joel, regarding calling it evil, I don’t think Lynnette was suggesting necessarily bad motives. I think she was just using this term because that’s what the problem has historically been called by theologians and philosophers: the problem of evil. See, for example, the Wikipedia article on the issue:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil

  6. I love this post, Lynnette! At one point in my life, I concluded that men mattered more than women to God; this seemed obvious from the scriptures, the structure of the church, and the whole church culture. Since then, I’ve come to believe that the scriptures and church are largely human products that only sometimes exhibit God’s will and involvement. I’ve decided it’s healthier and more accurate to abandon the notion of his direct micromanaging of this institution, and better to cling to the testimony that the spirit whispers to me – that he loves me, and he is good. I do still have a testimony that something unique and important and true is happening here win the LDS church, but no longer assume that most of what we’re taught is directly from his lips; it’s all filtered through humans. We’re left to pan for gold amid the dirt and gravel.

  7. We just had a conference where the leaders we are told are recieving ongoing revelation spoke to us, and I was not aware of one new revelation, or claim of revelation, and haven’t for many years.

    And yet if a question arises so many members are convinced the Lord is constantly communicating with the Prophet, and will tell him what he wants done.

    When in this dispensation has the Lord initiatedcommunicationwith a Prophet?

    There must be some mental/spiritual disconnect that allows some of us to continue to believe the continuing revelation thing, and see those who question as spititually inferior.

    My take is that the restored Gospel is here, the priesthood is here, and mostly when we all stick to the basics of Christs teachings we are good.

    The Prophet holds the position, but for various reasons is incapable of recieving revelation. Before the 1978 revelation the Prophet was praying to overcome his prejudices so he could impliment the will of the Lord. It also seemed to take a lot of his energy. It even took it out of JS.

    Perhaps our Prophets are too old/weak, or their culture will not allow the will of the Lord to be heard?

    I continue to hope, but I don’t expect to hear any revelations announced until we have a Prophet who is under 75. The succession system won’t acheive this, so until there is a retirement age for ApostlesI don’t expect much.

    I am 66, my father is 89, he has just gone into a nursing home, because he needed help, when he fell over, and even with mothers help couldn’t get up. His mind is still good but he doesn’t have the strength to do anything.

  8. This is such a rudimentary philosophical debate, but it is really the one I am stuck on. I mostly consider myself agnostic now because I can’t figure out how to answer this debate with the evidence available. For me, the most comfortable conclusion is that God does not involve himself with this world, certainly not often, and perhaps not at all. For many that is probably a sad conclusion, but it takes away worse conclusions I would have to believe if I thought God is very much involved with this world. That would mean that God is okay with how things are (at least in the church if not the whole world), and I can’t believe that. If God allows some mistakes but corrects on other issues, then it makes me wonder why he is okay with some bad things that he still allows. I just don’t want to go there.

  9. Jay Jay, I’m in the same place as you. Though I think I am teetering a little more on the edge of atheism or humanism. Lately I feel like if there is a God (and that’s a BIG if for me right now) He/She doesn’t much care/interfere with the workings of humankind.

  10. Thanks for the comments, all!

    Joel,

    Many members go through a paradigm shift where they come to view the institutional church as a flawed, human institution with some limited, divine inspiration. But that can be a very uncomfortable place to be in when the church leaders, the correlated message, and the vocal membership insist that the church is basically perfect in its current structure and actions.

    Yes, I think that’s very much the dilemma.

    (And yeah, as Ziff said, I used the term “evil” because I’m approaching it in the context of the classic philosophical problem, not because I’m attributing malicious intent. In general, I think there’s a lot more obliviousness than malice.)

    Jonathan,

    I’ve heard that response, that the atonement is what ultimately solves the problem, and I don’t know that it’s entirely satisfactory. I do think there’s something powerful there—but I also think we’re still stuck with the problem of why God intervenes once in a while, but doesn’t seem to do much about most of the horrific things going on in the world.

    It helps to deal with frustrating situations in mortality to remember that if we held others to a standard of perfection we would find ourselves condemned by those very same standards. This helps me to let go of the little things, and even (with effort) let go of the really big things and rest in the emotional position of being grateful.

    I don’t disagree that this is often then the case, but I think it gets more complicated when you’re dealing with things like commandments that violate your conscience.

    Jane.d, I think I’ve ended up in a similar place, with the view that the church isn’t being divinely micro-managed, and that ultimately I have to trust in my personal religious experience. (What that means for my view of the church is very much still evolving.)

    Geoff-Aus, I wonder too about continuing revelation, and what it means to say that it’s “continuing.” My sense is that we generally use the term now to talk about changes in practical matters, as well as continuing inspiration regarding the revelation we already have. But we don’t really have new revelations. I also think there’s a tension between the impulse to locate all our teachings in antiquity as a way of legitimizing them, and the idea that many things are yet to be revealed.

    JayJay and Nona, I hear you. And I’m actually wary of proposing any definitive answer to the problem, because I think it always runs the risk of legitimizing evil, of making it okay in some ultimate sense—and I think that’s ethically disastrous.

  11. My father tells an anecdote about a time when he was with an apostle. This apostle (name withheld) pointed up at the Church Office Building and exclaimed “There’s not a damn bit of revelation in that building!”

    Now, the reason for that anecdote is to present the point that God permits error for His own reasons, even within His church. One reason for this might simply be to allow the members of the church to make the “leap to faith”; perhaps a too-perfect church would not allow for us to develop saving faith in Christ. Faith in an organization isn’t enough.

    Another point I might bring up invokes Kierkegaard’s three stages: the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious. The problem of evil works only in the realm of the ethical, or that “good” which reason can reveal. The “religious”, however, transcends the ethical. Is it ethical for Abraham to kill Isaac? I can’t present the entire thing here, but Kierkegaard postulates that in order to become familiar with God (the Universal) we “leap” from the “ethical” to the “religious”.

    The last thing I’d mention is this: we do not see clearly. “Through a glass darkly,” as Paul put it. This doesn’t mean that I endorse at all the view that if we saw more clearly, we’d endorse everything that comes out of Salt Lake. It’s clear that much of the structure and bureaucracy of the church is broken and just lurching along without the benefit of revelation. Why does God allow this? I don’t know. Maybe this is just the “everything happens for a reason” explanation, but here we are. God does allow it.

    The crisis of many a member’s faith, including probably the most severe crisis of faith I endured, comes when we see the fallability of our church and our leaders. My resolution was the realization that the particular failures I encountered seemed engineered to challenge me to new faithfulness. Others may have different experiences, of course.

    In the end, I generally set #2 (in your last paragraph) aside and trust that God sorts things out. There’s more to this trust than I’m saying; in spite of the problems with the church, in particular with the bureaucratic side, there’s lots of eveidence for God’s hand in the way things actually work out.

    I’ll make a note on patriarchy. This is more a thought experiment, and I’m not taking a position here. Is it possible, if we could see perfectly and imagine perfect, resurrected people acting in complete harmony with light and truth, that the one who presides and the one who submits are, in fact, perfectly equal? As Jesus, in submitting to the Father, gained all the Father has? I don’t know. The idea is too big, and I haven’t considered it enough. I also consider myself unable to empathize properly with the perspective a woman might have on the topic. I have three sisters and three daughters, but I don’t imagine I can comprehend how they might understand or feel about being asked to submit to even a perfect man (let alone the fallen and foolish men of this world).

  12. Lynette, I think we are kindred spirits. I wrestle with this same thing, and I worry about “the things that, if you take the church at its word, God is directly engineering.”

    If I widen my scope on this to include all of Christianity, then I also have to ask why God let things get so bad that the Reformation was needed, and then kept letting things go to the point that “the restoration” was needed. Then kept letting things go so that our current problems exist. I’d also really like someone to explain to me why the people of the Old Testament were so obsessed with linage, as though the only way a person could have faith is through inheriting the right DNA. That’s so counter to all things after Jesus.

    I really don’t know. It’s very easy to read God’s lack of involvement as evidence for non-existence (if there is such a thing as evidence for non-existence). But love makes me a believer. I don’t think it’s that I’m just unwilling to examine my irrational beliefs, it’s that there is something besides rational thought that brings us truth, which is also real, but which can’t be rationally expounded, at least not fully.

    Anyway, why the church, if love is what brings us truth? The church still works for me, I think it still holds truth enough, but I do wonder (painfully wonder) why God doesn’t shake things up more often and more thoroughly. The only sort-of answer I have is that God wants us (like, really wants us) to learn to trust ourselves, trust our ability to discern and embrace truth, and to love (like, really love) our neighbor. The Church serves as a test in some ways because it has the double challenge of presenting strands of gold in a gold-colored ball of wax, and then saying the whole thing is solid gold, not because it’s a liar, but because it’s not the church’s job to tell the difference, it’s mine.

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