Thinking About Evil (Part 2)

Theodicies* often raise more questions than they answer.

In attempting to sketch out a brief theodicy, I make no claim to providing all the answers. In fact, I suspect if there can ever be one - the most satisfactory answer I have heard being was a Christian apologist's final admission of "I don't know".

In a way, it doesn't hurt to say that you are ultimately ignorant of God's intentions (God being God, this is quite understandable).

Here, I will argue that an "imperfect" ("Imperfect" here is an extremely relative term) world may actually be one that is the "best" (Again, a relative term).

The Role Playing World

Almost all role playing games (offline and especially online) have a leveling system whereby a character starts at the level 1 and works his or her way up to a maximum level (or in some cases, there is no limit).

The character often starts without anything and works their way up. They gain experience, items and money.

This is considered to be quite enjoyable, rewarding and even fulfilling for most people.

Yet it raises an interesting question - why don't we have a perfect world where everybody is equal in level and has unlimited money, experience and items? Ask any RPG player and most, if not all, would give you a bewildered look.

This is because anyone who has played such games know that the most fun comes from building up your character and that a character that starts out with a maximum of all possible benefits will bore the player very very quickly.

In my personal experience of cheating to get a maximum of everything immediately, the game gets old very quickly. The excitement and challenge is gone, there is nothing left to do.

Granted, RPGs mimic real life. Yet, if it is so much better to live in a "perfect" world, why do people find such worlds immensely boring, indeed, even silly or "bad"?

And there is a limit to this analogy. People don't really die or get hurt in these games. Yet the basic premises are there and the results are intriguing.

An objection would be that God could create a perfect world where people won't get bored.

Firstly, some religious scriptures do claim this, just not yet.

Secondly, could he actually? Or, would he actually? After all, if he could and if it was better, we would be living in a perfect world right now. Perhaps a world where people need to learn and build themselves up is somehow a better one.

True, the end goal might be perfection or as close to it as we can get.

Yet from experience, an immediate state of perfection often leaves people somehow unsatisfied.

I offer this as a preliminary sketch. My thinking on this, of course, constantly develops.

If, however, I was asked where is the point of a little child being brutally murdered - either for the sake of the sanctity of free will, of learning from experience or for some other higher purpose I would still honestly say, "I don't know".

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* That is, a reconciliation of God and evil.