No, I didn't squish him - I did, however, evict him from my mirror and relocate him into the bushes.
To be honest, I don't know why the idea of squishing the spider made me think of what I did, but it fit well enough with the theme of exploring God and his nature over this week, that I decided to run with it for today's post.
One of the chief complaints I hear from intellectual dissenters to the Christian mindset is that God cannot be all-loving, all-powerful, and all-good and STILL allow the suffering that occurs in this world. This is a massive and overarching problem that is, in my opinion, best examined in C.S. Lewis's work The Problem of Pain and Peter Kreeft's Making Sense of Suffering. Pick them up if you've never read them, they're totally worth it.
The specific issue that I wanted to look at it the right of God as a creator over his creation. Philosophically, this is going to require that we beg several questions (I'm sorry, but to build this case properly, I'd likely have to write an entire book, and I have no intention of doing so on this blog) specifically that God IS the creator, and that his nature (personal, exists outside of space/time, etc) is that as defined by the Christian theology.
Have I made enough of you angry yet?
If I were to create an elaborate computer program, even going so far as to develop artificial intelligence. As the architect of this program, what rights do I have over it? Can I give it commands? Let's assume for a moment that I've also decided to take the idea of "playing God" a little further and grant the program free will - for the sake of avoiding confusion, I'm going to call the program "Bob". If Bob does something I don't like, can I alter his programming?
Yes. I have that right.
The question of whether or not I will/should is one that depends on my nature. Having granted Bob free will, my alteration of his program would be a direct contradiction of my nature as a benevolent creator (remember, we're taking the whole "playing God" thing to an extreme - I'm assuming that with my knowledge of the limited construct of Bob's world, I could fit the bill as all-knowing and all-powerful. My Christian perspective inclines me to pursue the "benevolent" part of that).
So if I, being a benevolent creator who has granted Bob with free will, refuse to alter his nature simply because of his actions as an extension of a right that I granted him, then why is it so odd to some people that God himself doesn't do the same?
It drives me nuts when people say that if God was all-powerful, He could just reprogram our DNA to select out the harmful aspects of our nature.
I take two primary issues with that statement - first, it presumes that we are purely physical creatures designed and controlled through DNA only. And secondly, it presumes an amoral God. God is nothing of the sort. He is perfectly moral, and just. The question of morality then falls into the realm hinted at by the title of this post - Power vs Authority.
Morality/immorality can be loosely defined as the enactment of power by one entity over another within the construct of authority. Is it immoral for a police officer to handcuff a criminal and place him/her in the backseat of a car? Is it immoral for a criminal to do the same to the police officer? The question boils down to that of authority.
Why don't we see more murders than we do? Individuals generally have the power/ability to take a life. We don't see it as often because we lack the authority/right to do so. This authority is granted through legal and social methods, but the concept extends to a universal platform.
There is a certain authority/right that God maintains that we as his creation do not. Imagine that I give Bob a friend (we'll call him Frank), and explicitly state that one of my rules is "no murder" and that if anyone breaks this rule there will be consequences. Now assume that Bob chooses (through the free will I've granted him) to ignore my rule and murders Frank.
Bob, how could you?
As stated earlier, it's not right for me to enact an internal change to Bob's nature to avoid him breaking my rules. However, do I have to right to erase Bob, or even more drastically, to erase his world? I believe so. I built it, and consequences were explicitly warned against. I have the power to do anything I want to within the construct of the world, but due to the nature of the relationship between me and Bob, I don't have the right to alter Bob's nature - precisely because I gave him that nature.
This feels a little incongruous, I'll admit, but it also demonstrates the respect and love that God shows toward us, that he will not go back on his word. I promised Bob free will, and ALL that it entailed.
Now, many people would claim that I'm not fulfilling my role as benevolent if I were to destroy Bob in this scenario. And they would be right, because in this scenario there is only Bob (there was Frank, but Bob screwed that up). Examining the broader reaching implications of such actions; however, tends to create a moral event horizon wherein the destruction of a smaller group is necessary for the ultimate good of as many as possible.
In a system where free will is allowed to grow, optimization does not mean that all things will work out for the best of each individual, but rather for the whole. We, being unable to perceive the whole (something that can only be done outside of the constraints of time) often find ourselves in the part of the system that suffers at the demands of ultimate optimization.
So, yeah, next time you think life sucks and you wouldn't have to suffer like this if God REALLY loved you, remember that perhaps your suffering is necessary for the salvation of multiple people. Puts a whole new spin on the question of selflessness, doesn't it?
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