[341-270 B.C.] Epicurus, Greek philosopher:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Your quotation from Epicurus reminds me of what fascinates me about Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood (which my students are now wrestling with in my literature classes) because the protagonist, Hazel Motes, seems to struggle with a similar conundrum, though he cannot express it as effectively as Epicurus. Motes, of course, discovers that he is free to choose good or evil, even while God/Jesus continues to relentlessly (and graciously) pursue him. Motes' problem is I think the crux of the matter, and Epicurus--at least in the quoted excerpt--fails to frame the questions properly. It is not God who is making choices related to ability or willingness, but--at least in at least a Christian perspective--the human makes the choices. One does not have to go too much further into the logic of that concept to opine that evil is either chosen or rejected by humans, and that choice is wonderfully represented in O'Connor's novel. Sure, I'm probably comparing apples and oranges by attempting to find common ground between a dusty old Greek and a fiercely Catholic Southern woman, but it is nevertheless an intriguing exercise.
ReplyDeleteEpicurus sees things from a human perspective and assumes that is the only perspective there is. God, by definition, would see things from an altogether different perspective. See his answer to Job, which would also would be his answer to Epicurus: I'm God, and you're not. I'm not answerable to you or anybody else.
ReplyDeleteI rather like God as he appears in Job. No sentimentalist He.
Indeed! I have always been fond of Job. When I taught World Literature, I made sure I included it among the Hebrew scripture texts as mandatory reading on the syllabus. Many students in this part of the country (i.e., the Christ-haunted Bible-belt of the American south) have little exposure to the kind of God that Job encounters. For my part, reading Job tends to make me less impatient about not understanding all that is involved in the human-Divine relationship. After all, who am I to follow in Job's footsteps and receive the same rebuke. The awesome answers to whatever feeble questions I might ask are certainly "over my paygrade."
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