א נחמה פאר א צעבראכענעם אבל - וועקער 18

והנה בארה התורה כי זאת העבודה האחרונה, אשר העירונו עליה בזה הפרק, לא תהיה אלא אחר ההשגה, אמר לאהבה את ה׳ אלהיכם ולעבדו בכל לבבכם ובכל נפשכם (דברים יא יג), והנה בארנו פעמים רבות כי האהבה היא כפי ההשגה, ואחר האהבה תהיה העבודה ההיא, אשר כבר העירו רז״ל עליה ואמרו זו עבודה שבלב (תענית ב.), והיא אצלי שישים האדם כל מחשבתו במושכל הראשון, ולהתבודד בה כפי היכולת.

Julius Guttmann and Marvin Fox, for example argue that Maimonides maintained two incompatible conceptions of prayer - a philosophical conception and a traditional halakhic one - in severe dialectical tension

Absolute transcendence, one must bear in mind, puts forth a concept of deity who is completely unknowable, who relates to nothing other than Himself, who cannot be said to know of humans or exercise providence over them, who cannot be related to through prophecy, prayer, or other actions, and who cannot be called upon in time of distress

The absolute transcendence concept of deity implies both the belief that God is not aware of humans and that He does not dispense reward and punishment to them. Maimonides states that the former belief disheartens pious persons and the latter belief leads to social disorder (III:19, 17; cf. 11:23). Accordingly, since the absolute transcendence concept has potentially destructive social consequences it must be withheld from the multitude

העדר הידיעה הפרטית הוא הקודם בעצמו והוא המתבאר תחלה מצד העליונות כלומר מצד היות העליוניות סבה להעדר הידיעה והעדר ההשגחה נמשך אחריו שאם אין ידיעה אין השגחה בהכרח והביאו ראיה על מציאות העדרה ר״ל העדר הידיעה ומציאות העדר ההשגחה כי מציאות המאוחר היה יותר הנגלה לבני אדם במקום הזה ממציאות סיבתן וברוב הדברים ימצא כן כמו שהתבאר בחכמת הדבר ועשו זאת להראות שהוא כמחוייב אצלם ומבואר מצד אחר שאם אין השגחה אין ידיעה ואם אינו מוכרח מצד הידיעה וההשגחה בעצמם ר״ל מצד הכללות והיחוד כי ידוע כי הידיעה יותר כוללת מן ההשגחה כי ידע היודע מה שלא ישגיח עליו ולא ישגיח משגיח על מה שלא ידע וידוע ג״כ שבהסתלק הכולל יסתלק המיוחד ולא בהסתלק המיוחד יסתלק הכולל כי לא בהסתלק האדם יסתלק החי אך בהסתלק החי יסתלק האדם כן בהסתלק ההשגחה לא תסתלק הידיעה בהכרח מזה הצד

והוא שיאמר למי שיאמין זה שהכל מפני זה התכלית כלומר מציאות האדם האם הבורא יכול שימציאהו מבלתי אלו ההצעות כולם או אי אפשר שימציא אלא אחריהם? ואם יאמר שאפשר ושהאלוה יכול להמציא אדם מבלתי שמים על דרך משל יש לשאול אם כן מה תועלתו באלה הדברים כולם אחר שאינם התכלית אבל הם מפני דבר שאפשר המצאו מבלתי אלה כולם? ואפילו אם היה הכל מפני האדם ותכלית האדם - לעבוד האלוה כמו שנאמר השאלה קימת - והיא מה התכלית בהיותו עובד והוא ית' לא יוסיף שלמות אם יעבדוהו כל מה שברא וישיגוהו תכלית ההשגה ולא ישיגהו חסרון אם לא יהיה זולתו נמצא כלל? ואם יאמר אין זה לשלמותו אבל לשלמותנו כי הוא הטוב לנו והוא שלמותנו - התחיב השאלה בעצמה ומה תכלית מציאותנו בזה השלמות? אי אפשר בהכרח מבלתי שיגיע הענין בנתינת התכלית אל "כן רצה האלוה" או "כן גזרה חכמתו" וזהו האמת.

כי השכר והעונש אינם הסכמיים רק טבעיים כי שכר מצוה היא המצוה בעצמה ושכר העבירה היא העבירה בעצמה וזה״ש [בפיוט יגדל] כמפעלו וכרשעתו וזהו שדייקו רז״ל בלשונם ואמרו בעוה״ב צדיקים יושבים ועטרותיהן בראשיהן ונהנים מזיו השכינה, לא אמרו ועטרות בראשם רק ועטרותיהן ר״ל מה שעשו הן עצמן.

Perhaps God has a different conception of evil from ours. Maybe what we think of as evil is good

We trust our own judgment on the evil of gratuitous suffering. No one can conceive of a reason God could have for allowing so much suffering. Why should we worship
a God who allows acts that we regard as unspeakable? If God has a different conception of evil from ours, then so much the worse for God. He is then nothing more than an evil potentate. He might have power, but he has no moral authority and no one should worship him. "Good" and "evil" are our words and they name our concepts. It is confused thinking to suppose that some God's opinion would make any difference in our concepts

Perhaps there is some underlying purpose served by all the evil in the world, but we humans are not smart enough to comprehend it. Have faith

What could that possibly be? Again, why should we blindly accept acts that go against our very nature? Why would God give us a nature that finds his actions so reprehensible?

If we simply weaken the definition of God, then the existence of God may be compatible with the existence of evil. Thus, for example, he might be unable to instantly eliminate all the evil

While the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God described in scriptures is hardly benevolent, the faithful of these religions are far more likely to ignore unpleasant scriptural passages than abandon belief in a benevolent God

Problems worthy of attack
prove their worth by fighting back

כי כשנעדרה ההשגחה הופקר ונשאר מטרה לכל מה שאפשר שיבוא ויקרה, ויהיה טובו ורעתו כפי המקרה.

וההשגחה הפרטית שבמין האדם נחלקה לשני חלקים, השגחה בו לידע כל פרטי מעשיו, והשגחה בו להגין עליו ולהצילו מן המקרים. ההשגחה בו לידע כל פרטי מעשיו היא בכל אדם מישראל או מן האומות, כענין שכתוב (תהלים לג טו) היוצר יחד לבם המבין אל כל מעשיהם, ההשגחה בו להצילו מן המקרים אין זה בכל אדם ואפילו בישראל כי אם בצדיקים שבהם.

דיש לדעת דשכר ועונש של המצוות אינם כגזרת מלך, שתלוי בדעתו ורצונו בכל שעה לעשות כמו שלבו חפץ, אלא כדבר הרופא המזהיר את האדם ממאכלים אלו שיזיקו, שאין הדבר תלוי ברצונו, אלא מודיע מה שנעשה בבריאת הטבע. וכך המצוות והעבירות, כך נוסדו מהבורא יתברך, שיהא שכר ועונש תלוי בקיומן ובביטולן... שוב אין הקב"ה עושה כלום, אלא המצוות עושות שלהן והעבירות עושות שלהן, שנאמר (איכה ג לח) מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב. והרי זה כמו שכר ועונש של הרופא, שאין הרופא מעניש כלל בידיעתו שעבר האדם על אזהרתו, אלא נענש מעצמו; ולא כעונש של המלך.

והוא שהרע שיגיע להם מצד שיעברו דברי השי״ת בהיותו מתייחד בהנהגתם אמנם הוא מצד המרי בדברו והעונש על עברם בדברו, ויגיע מזה חשש כליון לא הפסד דרכם לבד והוא אמרו פן אכלך בדרך וזהו עונש עצום ראוי לירא ממנו מאד. אבל הרע המגיע מצד עבור דבר המלאך אינו על צד העונש אבל על צד שיתבלבל השפע והסדור המגיע להם ממנו, וזה עם היות שאי אפשר תיקונו אין החשש גדול כל כך כמו שהיה בהיות השי״ת מתייחד בהנהגתם שיהיו מסוכנין מהכליון הגמור.

וביאור הענין הזה כי בהיות השי״ת מתייחד בהנהגתם אם ימרו את דברו אמנם היה משיג להם הרע מצד העונש, ויש בזה להקל ולהחמיר. אמנם להחמיר מצד מה שיראה ראוי עונש גדול מספיק לכלותם והוא אמרו פן אכלך בדרך. ואמנם להקל מצד שאם ירצה השי״ת לסלוח חטאתם יהיו מוכנים לקבל שפעיו והנהגתו כבראשונה, כי השפעים הבאים מהשי״ת בלי אמצעי אינם נתלים בהכנת המקבלים כמו שכתבתי, והשי״ת לחמלתו על ישראל ומיראתו פן ישיגם העונש הגדול שהוא הכליון הגמור רצה לשלוח לפניהם מלאך, ועל זה הצד יהיו שמורים שלא ישיגם הכליון על צד העונש. אבל הודיעם שהם צריכים ללכת כפי מה שינהיגם המלאך והוא אמרו השמר מפניו וגו'. ואין זה על דרך מצוה ואזהרה אלא על צד המשל, שאם תגיע הנבואה לנביא באמצעות המלאך הזה שילחמו ראשונה עם האמורי לא יעברו דבריו להלחם עם החתי והפרזי כי יגיעם מזה רע אי אפשר לקוות ממנו הסליחה. והוא כי השפעים המסודרים על ידי אמצעיים מיוחדים ומוגבלים אי אפשר שישתנו. ואינם כפעלים המסודרים שלא על ידי האמצעיים, ולפיכך עם היותם בטוחים מהכליון הבא אל צד העונש צריכים מאד להשמר מהרע המגיע שלא על צד העונש אבל על צד הפסד ההנהגה והסדור, אשר אי אפשר לקוות תמורתו אם תהיה הנהגת המלאך מתיחדת בעת ההיא בארץ מה והם ילכו אל ארץ אחרת, איך יקוו תיקון, זה אי אפשר בשום פנים.

וגם כי ראוי לחוש פן ישיגם הכליון בהמרותם דבר השם יותר במדבר מבארץ ישראל, מצד היות המדבר מקום סכנה נחש שרף ועקרב וצמאון אשר אין מים, והמקום עלול שם יותר לקבל הכליון משאר המקומות. ולא כמו אותם שמתחסדים לומר כי יכולת ה' שוה בכל מקום להטיב ולהרע, כי אין הענין כן. אבל הש"י הטביע המציאות בענין שיהיו מקומות הסכנה יותר קרובים להפסד משאר המקומות. מפני שאם לא יתמיד שם השגחתו על האיש המנויין ההוא ויעזבנו למקרה הזמן ישיגנו הרע. ולא כן הדבר בשאר המציאות מכל זה כי אין ראוי לפחד עליהם שם כל כך.

A somewhat different approach to coping with the problem [of Foreknowledge] was taken by Abraham ibn Ezra. He affirmed the traditional view that God’s knowledge is all-encompassing because, as stated by the psalmist, it is He that teaches man knowledge (Ps. 94:10). That is, He who teaches man knowledge cannot reasonably be conceived as lacking knowledge. However, Ibn Ezra also implicitly suggested that divine omniscience could be defined in a manner that would preserve the critical principle of human free will. This may be seen in some of his comments on the nature of divine knowledge. In one place he observed: “The truth is that the All knows each part in general but not in particular.” He amplified this notion in another commentary where he wrote that God “knows the general, that which perseveres; but the elements thereof, which are the particular and change over time, these God does not know because they do not persevere.” As noted by Julius Guttmann, Ibn Ezra held that God’s knowledge “extended only to the general essence, to the formal laws, flowing from God, which govern all substances; the particular was included in this knowledge only insofar as it was a link within this chain of formal causality.”

The implication of Ibn Ezra’s conception of divine knowledge is that God has knowledge not only of matters that are essential elements of the divine plan but also of contingent events within the “chain of formal causality.” It may therefore be argued that God knows what individuals will do in response to contingent circumstances, but that He knows this only by virtue of His knowledge of the universal, of which the individual is a particular. Ibn Ezra may thus be understood as denying or, at the least, constraining God’s immediate and direct knowledge of the particular, thereby bolstering the doctrine of man’s moral autonomy. Simon Bernfeld went so far as to argue that Ibn Ezra maintained that God only has knowledge of what exists and thus has no knowledge of the future. Man therefore has the freedom to act as he chooses, although Ibn Ezra clearly assigns such freedom of choice exclusively to the religiously and morally enlightened. The ordinary person, in his view, remains subject to the influences of the constellations

Hayim Greenberg articulated the practical implications of this argument most forcefully in an article written shortly after the onset of World War II. Reflecting on the irrationality of the havoc and destruction that was then being wreaked in Europe, Greenberg took strong exception to the attempts that were being made to discover some divine purpose or scheme in the chaos and evil that was engulfing the continent. He categorically rejected the notion of God serving as “a cosmic police magistrate who doles out reward and punishment for good deeds and for transgressions.” As far as Greenberg was concerned, there was no sound theological basis for such a view. To the contrary, he asserted: “Religious thought must, once and for all, renounce rationalist interpretation and justification of the ways of God. There exists no science of God, and no way of studying His ways. . . . If one is to be honest with himself, one must either deny the existence of God or . . . learn from Job to believe without understanding, to trust without explanations.” In other words, there is no role here for human reason; one must either have unquestioning faith in God’s ultimate justice and goodness or reject the idea of providence entirely

A related and perhaps more intriguing approach to the problem is that suggested by Solomon Schechter. He observed, with regard to some of the classical texts cited in support of the incomprehensibility argument, that upon close examination these passages not only seem to repudiate any attempt to intrude into the secrets of God. They “also hint at the possibility that even God’s omnipotence is submitted to a certain law — though designed by His own holy will — which He could not alter without detriment to the whole creation.” That is, although God is held to be omnipotent by definition, and is therefore able to intervene in the course of events at will, His readiness to do so in any particular instance may be constrained by the unintended broader consequences of His actions. Such supernatural intervention may produce undesirable effects on the lives of others or, indeed, the universe itself

It should cause no surprise that the incomprehensibility argument represents a readily acceptable approach for those who feel more comfortable with the notion of absolute faith in a just God than with the doubts engendered by theological challenges. As the Hasidic master, Wolfe of Zhitomer is reputed to have said, “for the true believer there are no questions, for the non-believer there are no answers.” In essence, this perspective was reaffirmed recently by the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz who asserted that, for the person who has true faith, the problem of theodicy does not exist. He suggested that the assumption that there is such a problem is predicated on a fundamental misconception. This erroneous view derives from the tendency of many people to think of God “as though He were appointed as overseer of the affairs of the world, and as though He had a specific duty and you claim that there has been a failure to fulfill that duty.” But, he insisted, “God does not have such a duty.” Since God is not obligated to play the role of benefactor that we so readily ascribe to Him, Leibowitz considered the questioning of divine justice by man to be both inappropriate and irrelevant

Nonetheless, the incomprehensibility argument has come under sharp crit- icism from others who take issue with it because, as David Birnbaum puts it, such an approach compromises “the moral character of God’s actions . . . in order to preserve God’s ultimately unfathomable benevolence.” That is, if comprehension of the nature of divine justice is beyond man’s intellectual grasp, such incapacity must also necessarily diminish the significance of man’s attribution of moral qualities to divine acts. This surely would undermine the prescriptive importance of the concept of imitatio Dei and much of biblical and rabbinic teaching along with it. Viewed from this standpoint, it would seem reasonable to question whether the incomprehensibility argument, notwithstanding its foundation in the classical literature, is fully compatible with the ultimate purposes of the Torah as these are understood in traditional Judaic thought

Pursuing a radically different approach, Harold Schulweis recently advocated what also amounts to a semantic solution to the problem of theodicy, essentially ending up at the same point as Saadia, but reaching it through a substantially more complex argument. Beginning with an initial assertion strongly reminiscent of the classic incomprehensibility argument, Schulweis suggested that traditional “subject theology,” an attempt to grasp the essence of divinity, is basically an exercise in futility. “By definition no unknowable God can be known. Nothing can be said of that which in itself is beyond our comprehension.” Having thus disposed of the classical subject theology, he proceeded to argue that, “Whatever is claimed as knowledge of God must therefore be relational. God as revealed to human beings is not God-in-Himself.” Schulweis therefore proposed that the traditional approach to theology be set aside in favor of “predicate theology.” The latter would consider “God” not as a substantive noun that refers to an object as it is in its essence, but rather as a functional noun that can only be understood in terms of its relation to man. “God and person are each related to and dependent upon the other. To speak of God without person is akin to speaking of parents without children or shepherd without sheep.” Predicate theology would therefore be concerned with understanding human attributes in terms of their godliness, rather than with the divine attributes as such

The implication of what Schulweis refers to as “predicate theodicy” is that the dilemma of reconciling the coexistence of evil with providence becomes one that is fundamentally semantic in nature. The question of why the righteous suffer, which really asks for what purpose certain events have taken place, presupposes a subject theodicy which will attempt to respond to the challenge in terms of how the event relates to the divine purpose. “It calls for deciphering the hidden motives of a supramoral and suprapersonal Ego.” But, Schulweis insisted, “the tragic character of an event does not imply the presence of a purposive agent lurking behind it. It does not automatically indicate that there is a ‘who’ which directs such occurrences and whose intent it is our theological task to uncover.” According to this approach, the suffering of the righteous at the hands of other men results from the practical application of ungodlike attributes by the latter. Seen from this perspective, “evils are not the work of a malevolent suprapersonal will, but acts and events which threaten human growth, equilibrium and fulfillment.” In effect, Schulweis resolves the problem of theodicy by redefining God completely out of the moral equation, thereby making the entire issue irrelevant. In so doing, however, Schulweis limits the acceptability of his approach because he finds it necessary to redefine God in a manner that bears little relation to the traditional Judaic concept of a providential deity

Kaplan insisted that
Modern man cannot possibly view earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, devastating storms and floods, famines and plagues, noxious plants and animals, as “necessary” to any preconceived plan or purpose. They are simply that phase of the universe which has not yet been completely penetrated by godhood. Of course, this involves a radical change in the traditional conception of God. It conflicts with that conception of God as infinite and perfect in His omniscience and omnipotence. But the fact is that God does not have to mean to us an absolute being who has planned and decreed every twinge of pain, every act of cruelty, every human sin. It is sufficient that God should mean to us the sum of the animating, organizing forces and relationships which are forever making a cosmos out of chaos. This is what we understand by God as the creative life of the universe

In a later work, Kaplan proposed that the dilemma of reconciling divine omnipotence with the existence of evil might possibly be resolved “by assuming that God’s omnipotence is not an actually realized fact at any point of time, but a potential fact.” In other words, Kaplan would admit the “infinite duration of Godhood,” but defer its actualization to some point in the far distant future, when “the evil that now mars the cosmos will ultimately be elimi- nated.” In both of these arguments, Kaplan clearly limits the scope and range of divine power

In the early part of the twentieth century, one of the great exponents of Liberal Judaism, Claude G. Montefiore, took strong issue with this entire approach. “There are those who have tried or try to reconcile the goodness of God with the evils of the world by supposing that God’s power is limited: he would wish to do better for his world, but he cannot. He, the eternal spirit, has to contend with stubborn refractory material. . . . But this attempt at reconcilement and explanation will probably be found to raise greater difficulties than it relieves: at any rate, it is not, and I do not think it can or ever will be, the answer of the Jewish religion.” There is a certain irony in this position, given the troubled history of the Jewish people, since the notion of a limited God would help explain the millennia of suffering experienced by them. As Montefiore put it, “there is no race which has drunk more deeply the brimming cup of sorrows; there is no race which can chronicle more martyrs and victims for its faith. Nevertheless, there is no race which has clung more devoutly and stubbornly to the doctrine of the goodness of God, and with the doctrine of the goodness it has always joined the doctrine of divine omnipotence

This suggestion has evoked cries of revulsion from a wide spectrum of commentators, including Robert Gordis who castigated this assertion as “nothing less than blasphemous. . . . Though maintained by some highly influential religious leaders, this defense of God must be pronounced a major offense to Him [particularly with regards to the suffering of infants]”

All that needs to be believed in order for us to allow our God to survive the Holocaust (along with a remnant of his people) is that his infinitesimal uncontrol be acknowledged to be as much a treasure of uncertainty to God as it is a kingdom of unknowing to man, that God can do almost everything, but not everything, that man’s freedom is not simply a gift, but an indispensable surd of the divine nature, and that man’s very existence reflects upon and corroborates God’s limit

One criticism of it raises a question about the relation between creaturely freedom and God’s activity as creator. J. L. Mackie has argued that if God is truly all-powerful, he ought to have been able to create creatures who possessed free will, but who never did wrong (1955, 209). If that were possible, then we would have had a universe free of moral evil, even though it contained creatures with free will. Perhaps the sinful populace that presently inhabits the world would have lost out on such a scenario: maybe God would have had to create an entirely different crowd. Still, moral evil would have been banished, and the condition of the world doubtless vastly improved. But could God have exerted such control over creation? Proponents of the free will defense have tended to think not. In order for God to provide creatures with meaningful freedom, they argue, God must relinquish control over how that freedom is exercised. Were it not so, libertarian freedom would be destroyed: our decisions and actions would not finally be up to us, but would instead be manipulated by God (Plantinga 1974, 41–42; Flint 1998, 84–90). Even if they were exempt from natural causation, they would still be determined by God’s will, and so would be unfree. Indeed, the argument runs, it would be logically impossible for God to create creatures possessed of libertarian freedom, and at the same time have the operations of their will fall under his creative fiat. Now it is not usually considered a failure of omnipotence for God to be unable to do what is logically impossible. We need not, therefore, relinquish the claim that God is all-powerful. Rather, the theist concludes, Mackie is simply mistaken in thinking such a God could create free creatures with a guarantee that they would never sin

It is fair to say that philosophers responding to these difficulties have been more concerned to preserve God’s omniscience than his sovereignty. Perhaps this is in part because philosophy is itself a matter of pursuing knowledge, so that philosophers are led to value omniscience more highly. Were we generals, say, or politicians, our priorities might be quite the opposite

Theologians have always agreed that the greatest evil they sustain is final and irremediable separation from God. Nothing could be worse than to be cut off from the love and friendship of a father whose power extends to every detail of the universe, and who invites us to a share in his very life. But if this is the greatest evil of damnation, then no one who ends that way is treated unfairly, for this separation is precisely what one chooses by insisting on a life of rebellion rather than seeking reconciliation with God. Indeed, having once created beings destined to be lost, it is hard to see how a loving God could do anything but honor their choice in the matter (Kvanvig 1993, ch. 4). What is troubling, rather, is that he should create such beings at all, much less will their performance of the very actions through which they reject him. It may be argued, however, that even here God’s love is at work. He cannot, of course, directly intend the rebellion of sinners, nor the destruction of the finally unrepentant. But the lost are full participants in securing their tragic destiny; and while a life ruined by final rebellion is morally indefensible, it is still morally meaningful. Through their actions, the lost carve out for themselves a character which, though not upright, represents a real option for a free creature. Thus, the argument runs, to the extent that moral autonomy is a good it can be willed for a creature by God even when it takes this form. Furthermore, it is claimed, it is a mistake to think that God is not lovingly involved in the lives of the reprobate, or that he would have been more loving had he not created them. On the contrary: what is meaningless is to suppose that God would have shown greater love toward the lost by omitting them from creation. What is not there cannot be loved. Equally, it is meaningless to think the lost would be better off had they not existed. What does not exist is neither well nor poorly off, nor anywhere in between; and it is as good for the reprobate to have life, the opportunity for salvation, and an autonomous choice as to whether to accept it, as it is for the saved. What is not good for them is the use they make of the opportunity, in choosing to be without God. But that is fully their decision, and its consequences are fully earned

If the sort of view outlined above is correct, there is ample reason for God to create a universe in which there is moral evil, for only through the presence of moral evil is it possible for creatures like us to develop a legitimate moral identity, and make an informed and responsible choice to accept or reject God’s offer of friendship with us

As usually formulated, the argument from evil is based on what appears to be a false presumption. It imagines that the ideal world for a loving and compassionate God to create must be what John Hick describes as a hedonistic paradise: a place devoted to human enjoyment, in which comfort and convenience are maximized, and pain and deprivation have little or no place (1966, 292–93). If not banished completely, they must be held to the minimum necessary to guarantee to God’s creatures the most pleasant existence possible. Now obviously, that is not the sort of world we have. The amount of suffering is immense — far more, certainly, than it would be if God’s aim were to maximize worldly joy. But the appropriate conclusion, the theist may argue, is not that the universe is not the creation of a provident God. For consider how we react to people whose lives have little to distinguish them except that they appear — perhaps deceptively — to be filled with enjoyment. There is a tendency, when we suffer one or another of life’s ills, to envy such people: to wish our own existence could be as theirs seems to be, rather than the painful drudgery of the moment. But the truth is that we seldom admire those who appear to have a life of ease, nor are we likely to consider that kind of life very well spent. What we admire are lives of courage and sacrifice: persons who overcome hardship, deprivation, or weakness to achieve some notable success; who stand, perhaps not even successfully, against some great evil; or who relinquish their own happiness to alleviate the suffering of others. How would such lives be possible if natural evil did not exist? (For a related view, see Swinburne 1978

Still less would we respect an entire world devoted to nothing but enjoyment. Imagine a society in which everyone has an electrode implanted in their brain, which, when a current is passed through it, causes intense euphoria, unmatched by any other pleasure. One simply needs to be attached to a power source, and the simple push of a button yields ecstasy. And that is all anyone cares about. Agriculture, commerce, government, and social institutions are organized toward but one goal: to maximize the time each person can spend plugged in, lost in self-stimulation. Individual lives are conducted with the same aim. Work is still necessary, but it is held to a minimum, and contact with fellow human beings has no purpose other than to keep things running smoothly, so that the pleasure of all can be maximized. Now if the antitheist ideal of creation were correct, this type of society ought to represent a high order of human existence — better by far than the world in which we presently find ourselves. In fact, however, it is beneath contempt, a level of existence so low as to be barely human. The enterprises we value most would shrivel to near nothingness in such a world: there would be no art or culture, no important public works, little technology and science — above all, no real human fellowship, no caring, no sacrifice (Hick 1966, 359–61). Perversely enough, in fact, all we have to add to a world like this is war, and we get a situation not at all unlike Hobbes’s state of nature, the very antithesis of anything we could value. Clearly, says the theist, we wish more for ourselves than this. A life without challenge is a life without interest.

If theism is correct on these matters, then a God interested in creating the best of worlds cannot have as his top priority the maximization of creaturely pleasure. Rather, a significant part of the enterprise of creation itself ought to be the confrontation and defeat of evil — an accomplishment far greater than merely guaranteeing the unperturbed pleasure of all. And if human beings are created in God’s image, and called to friendship with him, it is to be expected that they will have an important share in this enterprise

Perhaps the main fault which I find with the overall line which Weisberger takes lies in her appeals to the burden of proof. It seems to me that the right method here is to formulate the competing views – i.e. theistic and non-theistic theories of the world – and then to ask which one is best supported by the total available evidence. If theists can reasonably suppose that they have lots of evidence which supports the claim that God exists, then they may reasonably believe that there is a solution to ‘the problem of evil’, even if they do not know what that solution is. To insist, that theists have to provide a satisfactory theodicy or else abandon their theism, is to fail to pay proper regard to ‘the principle of total evidence’. Of course, this is not to say that non-theists cannot reasonably suppose that ‘the problem of evil’ helps to sway the weight of total evidence in favour of non-theism – indeed, I started out by claiming that this will very likely be the case – but that seems to me to be a very different issue

But often enough these adequate solutions are only almost adopted. The thinkers who restrict God's power, but keep the term 'omnipotence', may reasonably be suspected of thinking, in other contexts, that his power is really unlimited. Those who say that evil is an illusion may also be thinking, inconsistently, that this illusion is itself an evil. Those who say that "evil" is merely privation of good may also be thinking, inconsistently, that privation of good is an evil. (The fallacy here is akin to some forms of the "naturalistic fallacy" in ethics, where some think, for example, that "good" is just what contributes to evolutionary progress, and that evolutionary progress is itself good.)

First, it sets a limit to what God can do, saying that God cannot create good without simultaneously creating evil, and this means either that God is not omnipotent or that there are some limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. It may be replied that these limits are always presupposed, that omnipotence has never meant the power to do what is logically impossible, and on the present view the existence of good without evil would be a logical impossibility. This interpretation of omnipotence may, indeed, be accepted as a modification of our original account which does not reject anything that is essential to theism, and I shall in general assume it in the subsequent discussion. It is, perhaps, the most common theistic view, but I think that some theists at least have maintained that God can do what is logically impossible. Many theists, at any rate, have held that logic itself is created or laid down by God, that logic is the way in which God arbitrarily chooses to think. (This is, of course, parallel to the ethical view that morally right actions are those which God arbitrarily chooses to command, and the two views encounter similar difficulties.) And this account of logic is clearly inconsistent with the view that God is bound by logical necessities -- unless it is possible for an omnipotent being to bind himself, an issue which we shall consider later, when we come to the Paradox of Omnipotence. This solution of the problem of evil cannot, therefore, be consistently adopted along with the view that logic is itself created by God.

Not long ago I was sleeping in a cabin in the woods and was awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of a struggle between two animals. Cries of terror and extreme agony rent the night, intermingled with the sounds of jaws snapping bones and flesh being torn from limbs. One animal was being savagely attacked, killed and then devoured by another.

A clearer case of a horrible event in nature, a natural evil, has never been presented to me. It seemed to me self-evident that the natural law that animals must savagely kill and devour each other in order to survive was an evil natural law and that the obtaining of this law was sufficient evidence that God did not exist. If I held a certain epistemological theory about "basic beliefs", I might conclude from this experience that my intuition that there is no God co-existing with this horror was a "basic belief” and thus that I am epistemically entitled to be an atheist without needing to justify this intuition

Consider a world where the laws of physics, rather than being laws that admit of no exceptions, are instead probabilistic laws. Effective human action would still be possible in such a world, provided that the relevant probabilities were sufficiently high. But if so, then effective human action would be no less possible in a world with non-statistical laws where there were occasional miraculous interventions

Finally, the religious theodicy that we are considering also involves a number of very problematic moral claims. First, we are asked to believe that there is nothing morally problematic about a morally good deity making it the case that if one of the first two humans disobeys some command, all of the many billions of descendants of that human will, as a consequence, be subject to suffering and death to which they would not otherwise be exposed

In short, the religious theodicy that we have been considering in this section is very implausible, not only on scientific and historical grounds, but on moral grounds as well

The problem of evil may be described as the problem of reconciling belief in God with the existence of evil. But the problem of evil, like evil itself, has many faces. It may, for example, be expressed either as an experiential problem or as a theoretical problem. In the former case, the problem is the difficulty of adopting or maintaining an attitude of love and trust toward God when confronted by evil that is deeply perplexing and disturbing. Alvin Plantinga (1977: 63-64) provides an eloquent account of this problem:

The theist may find a religious problem in evil; in the presence of his own suffering or that of someone near to him he may find it difficult to maintain what he takes to be the proper attitude towards God. Faced with great personal suffering or misfortune, he may be tempted to rebel against God, to shake his fist in God’s face, or even to give up belief in God altogether… Such a problem calls, not for philosophical enlightenment, but for pastoral care

By contrast, the theoretical problem of evil is the purely “intellectual” matter of determining what impact, if any, the existence of evil has on the truth-value or the epistemic status of theistic belief. To be sure, these two problems are interconnected – theoretical considerations, for example, may color one’s actual experience of evil, as happens when suffering that is better comprehended becomes easier to bear

Being finite beings we can’t expect to know all the goods God would know, any more than an amateur at chess should expect to know all the reasons for a particular move that Kasparov makes in a game. But, unlike Kasparov who in a chess match has a good reason not to tell us how a particular move fits into his plan to win the game, God, if he exists, isn’t playing chess with our lives. In fact, since understanding the goods for the sake of which he permits terrible evils to befall us would itself enable us to better bear our suffering, God has a strong reason to help us understand those goods and how they require his permission of the terrible evils that befall us

The open theist therefore encourages the rejection of what has been called “meticulous providence” (Peterson 1982: chs 4 & 5) or “the blueprint worldview” (Boyd 2003: ch.2), the view that the world was created according to a detailed divine blueprint which assigns a specific divine reason for every occurrence in history. In place of this view, the open theist presents us with a God who is a risk-taker, a God who gives up meticulous control of everything that happens, thus opening himself up to the genuine possibility of failure and disappointment – that is to say, to the possibility of gratuitous evil

Open theism has sparked much heated debate and has been attacked from many quarters. Considered, however, as a response to Rowe’s [traditional] theological premise, open theism’s prospects seem dim. The problem here, as critics have frequently pointed out, is that the open view of God tends to diminish one’s confidence in God’s ability to ensure that his purposes for an individual’s life, or for world history, will be accomplished (see, for example, Ware 2000, Ascol 2001: 176-80). The worry is that if, as open theists claim, God does not exercise sovereign control over the world and the direction of human history is open-ended, then it seems that the world is left to the mercy of Tyche or Fortuna, and we are therefore left with no assurance that God’s plan for the world and for us will succeed. Consider, for example, Eleonore Stump’s rhetorical questions, put in response to the idea of a “God of chance” advocated in van Inwagen (1988): “Could one trust such a God with one’s child, one’s life? Could one say, as the Psalmist does, “I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety’?” (1997: 466, quoting from Psalm 4:8). The answer may in large part depend on the degree to which the world is thought to be imbued with indeterminacy or chance

A problem concerns the worship-worthiness of the sort of deity being proposed. For example, would someone who is not wholly good and capable of evil be fit to be the object of our worship, total devotion and unconditional commitment? Similarly, why place complete trust in a God who is not all-powerful and hence not in full control of the world? To be sure, even orthodox theists will place limits on God’s power, and such limits on divine power may go some way towards explaining the presence of evil in the world. But if God’s power, or lack thereof, is offered as the solution to the problem of evil – so that the reason why God allows evil is because he doesn’t have the power to prevent it from coming into being – then we are faced with a highly impotent God who, insofar as he is aware of the limitations in his power, may be considered reckless for proceeding with creation

Consider W4. Is it possible? Yes! Most people are tempted to answer “No” when first exposed to this description, but think carefully about it. Although there is no evil and suffering in this world, it is not because God causally determines people in every situation to choose what is right and to avoid what is wrong. In this world God has given creatures morally significant free will without any strings attached. If there is nothing bad in this world, it can only be because the free creatures that inhabit this world have — by their own free will — always chosen to do the right thing. Is this kind of situation really possible? Yes. Something is logically possible just when it can be conceived without contradiction. There is nothing contradictory about supposing that there is a possible world where free creatures always make the right choices and never go wrong. Of course, it’s highly improbable, given what we know about human nature. But improbability and impossibility, as we said above, are two different things. In fact, according to the Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve, it was God’s will that significantly free human beings would live in the Garden of Eden and always obey God’s commands. If Adam and Eve had followed God’s plan, then W4 would have been the actual world

God created the universe, but out of a pre-existent uncreated matter, which stubbornly resists God’s not wholly successful attempt to impose order and goodness upon it.  There is thus evil in the world, and it is not just an absence of good (as Maimonides and countless others would have us say), but real, thumping evil even if controlled and minimized by God to the greatest extent possible

אמר להו דהוה יתיב עמי הקב"ה ואמרי ליה עד מתי אצטער בהאי עלמא ואמר לי אלעזר בני ניחא לך דאפכיה לעלמא מרישא אפשר דמתילדת בשעתא דמזוני אמרי לקמיה כולי האי ואפשר? אמרי ליה דחיי טפי או דחיינא א"ל דחיית אמרי לקמיה א"כ לא בעינא אמר לי בהאי אגרא דאמרת לא בעינא יהיבנא לך לעלמא דאתי תליסרי נהרוותא דמשחא אפרסמון דכיין כפרת ודיגלת דמענגת בהו אמרי לקמיה האי ותו לא אמר לי ולחברך מאי יהיבנא אמרי ליה ואנא מגברא דלית ליה בעינא

With righteous indignation, Sam Harris
condemns
the “boundless narcissism” of those who survive a disaster only to “believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs” (p. 54

‏ועיין כאן.

In a world where evils strike indiscriminately, where villains prosper while children die of cystic fibrosis, anyone who credits an omnipotent God for their earthly fortune, as if God had selectively intervened on their behalf while leaving others to languish, is implying that God plays favorites in a decidedly pernicious way. The god of these faithful is no God worth worshipping but just another variant of the god of superstition

But is it even possible to believe in a God worth worshipping in a world where billions survive on less than two dollars a day?

This is just another way to pose the theological problem of evil. The problem is hardly new. Hume was paraphrasing the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus when he stated the problem as follows: “Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” (p. 84

It’s a question no theist should ignore: Whence then is evil?

But it’s also a question that should be juxtaposed against a related one. We live in a world in which all of us are implicated in what Marilyn McCord Adams (1990, 2006) has called “horrors”: crushing evils that seem to strip the lives of those caught up in them of any positive meaning. In such a world, is it possible to view life as worth living without believing in a transcendent good that redeems the world?

It may be possible for those of us lucky enough not to have experienced horror or witnessed it firsthand and callous enough that we can ignore its pervasiveness and our own complicity. But what about the rest of us?

What we have here are two interwoven problems. The theological problem of evil is, of course, no problem for atheists; it’s simply an argument against God’s existence. They call it the “argument from evil.” The problem is faced by theists who want to reconcile their belief in God with the world’s evils

But one reason why theists want to defend their faith is because of the second problem, sometimes called the existential problem of evil. This problem isn’t about how to reconcile God’s existence with the world’s evils but how to find positive meaning in life despite them. And for many, the only viable solution comes from the promise of a transcendent good that fulfills our ethico-religious hope – in other words, from God

The argument from evil is a challenge to the existence of God traditionally conceived as omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. But I have defined God less precisely – as a transcendent being who fulfills our ethico-religious hope.

To fulfill that hope, God would have to be good, and He would have to be greater than any evil (in the sense that, given God’s existence, evils would cease to have ultimate significance). But this isn’t the same as being all-powerful. So why can’t we just sidestep the problem of evil altogether by admitting that God isn’t omnipotent?

Unfortunately, the problem won’t evaporate so easily. Even if we accept that God is not all-powerful, we may still ask: Why does evil look so significant if it isn’t? If reality is fundamentally on the side of goodness, why don’t we all have a clear sense of God’s redemptive work, an awareness that evils are fleeting while the good eternal?

[left/]For what it’s worth, my own view is that, insofar as everything in the world depends absolutely on the creative and sustaining work of the creator, the world’s integrity as a separate reality, something in its own right apart from God, may depend on a radical abdication on God’s part. The act of creation may be inseparable from an act of radical divine self-restriction. Self-imposed limits on what God can legitimately do in relation to the world may constitute the very condition for the world’s existence as a reality separate from God. And this may be especially true for the independent existence of free beings. If so, then when moral horrors are perpetrated, God may be constrained so radically that all He can do is look on and weep[/left]

God’s goodness may not demand that He prevent all evils; but it may well demand that He redeem them all, so that evil will never be the final word in any human life – an insight which leads Hick as well as others (such as Marilyn Adams 2002 and 2006, and Thomas Talbott 2001) to insist that a doctrine of universal salvation is essential to any successful theodicy

It may well be that many of the atheists who pose the argument from evil are envisioning the evils of the world as they look from an atheist perspective. In other words, they are begging the question: they are assuming that God does not exist, attaching to the evils of the world the significance they would have, given that assumption, and then demanding a reason why God would permit evils which have such overwhelming significance. But if a redeeming God exists, they do not have such overwhelming significance after all

To say that God defeats horrors is to say that God responds by making them an integral part of something valuable – which, I should note, is nothing like claiming that horrors were never really bad at all. It is one thing to say that God is so resourceful He can turn a monumental evil – say the Holocaust – into an element of a greater whole that gives positive meaning to the experiences of its victims. It is something else to say that the Holocaust is part of the “best of all possible worlds,” and that the Nazis were therefore agents of the good. The latter is appalling. The former – which says that God can take the worst that we can throw at Him and find a way to turn it to the good – is not

It has been suggested that this story was temporarily suppressed
because it portrayed David in a bad light, or because it tells of child sacrifice (Arvid Kapelrud), an institution that was condemned by the first redactor(s) of the deuteronomistic history. It has further been suggested that the material between 2 Sam. 20.23 and 2 Sam. 24.25 "is neither part of the Deuteronomistic history nor related to the earlier literature it embraced'. If this story proved to be alien to the deuteronomistic history, then one could object to any attempt to use it to as an example of corporate thinking by the deuteronomistic historian. It could be posited that this narrative was dropped out of the original edition precisely because it contained ideas of divine retribution that were seen as untenable to the deuteronomistic historian

Kapelrud looks to the connection between royalty and fertility to
explain the nuances of this narrative. Obviously, David would have very good reasons to eliminate Saul's descendants, as they were rivals to his throne and as long as they lived they were a continuing threat to the stability of his dynasty. But if David purged them because they were a threat to the stability of his throne, it would reflect badly on him. As Kapelrud notes, the king in the ancient Near East was responsible for the general fertility of his country (Ps. 72). When fertility failed, it called into question the legitimacy of the ruler and often forced the ruler to take extraordinary measures. These measures might include human sacrifice or, if things were particularly bad, royal human sacrifice (2 Kgs 16.3). By killing Saul's progeny, David could accomplish two ends with a single action: he would restore the kingdom's fertility by offering a royal sacrifice and would eliminate several other legitimate claimants to the throne at the same time.

The greatest weakness in this explanation is that it ignores the logic of the narrative which informs us that the famine is due to the improper treatment of the Gibeonites by Saul. Clearly there are elements of Canaanite mythology in the background of this passage (they both point to factors such as the time of the year in which the execution occurred, the connection between the mourning rights of Rizpah and the rites surrounding Baal's death, the exposure of the corpses until the rains arrive, and that the particular form of execution may be a type of dismemberment related to the way Anat deals with Mot), but Kapelrud gives them too great an emphasis. Kapelrud's conjecture calls for one to read motives into the text that are not explicitly there, and at the same time to disregard the rationale that the text supplies to explain these executions

ושמתי אני את פני באיש ההוא ובמשפחתו (ויקרא כ ה) ותניא אמר ר"ש אם הוא חטא משפחתו מה חטאת לומר לך אין לך משפחה שיש בה מוכס שאין כולה מוכסין ושיש בה לסטים שאין כולה לסטים מפני שמחפין עליו

The Hebrew [Israelite], it may be suggested, realized as well as we do that, if a particular person commits a crime, he is responsible for it, in a way that even those closest to him, his wife or his son, really cannot be. But his basic recognition was qualified, as far as the operation of the law was concerned, not so much by ideas of 'corporate personality', as by the notion that a man can possess persons in much the same way that he possesses property and by early religious beliefs about the contagious nature of blood, holiness, sin and uncleanness. That we do not share these concepts no doubt makes our recognition of individual justice more equitable than it often could be in practice in Old Testament times

apologists cannot accept that ancient Israelite religion would advocate the idea that God may have an amoral or capricious dimension. Heschel argues that 'there is no belief in divine arbitrariness, in an anger which consumes and afflicts without moral justification'. Heschel, The Prophets, p. 77. Eichrodt similarly states 'that in the case of God there can never be any question of despotic caprice striking out in blind rage'. Eichrodt, Theology, p. 265. While I agree that in many instances of divine retribution, the Hebrew Bible does make a strong connection between God's punishment and the specific misdeeds of those who receive the punishment, I find it difficult to assent to the argument that there are no cases in the Hebrew Bible in which God's action is either completely inscrutable to those being punished, or is vastly out of proportion to the human error that released the punishment. Additionally, it should be noted that this is only one of several texts that speak about God as a dangerous power who is apt to strike out at those who are around him in a highly volatile manner (Lev. 10.1-7; 1 Sam. 6.19-7.2; 2 Sam. 24). The severity of God's reaction does not always match the deed that set it in motion; thus the language of divine dread and terror (Isa. 63.2-6

It is patent from many passages in the Old Testament that this wrath has no concern whatever with moral qualities. There is something very baffling in the way in which it is kindled and manifested. It is, as has been well said, 'like a hidden force of nature', like stored-up electricity, discharging itself upon anyone who comes too near

With the prophets of the eighth and seventh centuries [mainly Jeremiah and Ezekiel] there is a transition from primitive collectivism to moral individualism

Certainly, exact retribution in an afterlife or a resurrected existence in which accounts are set right is an excellent way in which to balance out the injustices apparent in this life, and thus to justify God. But instead of developing a concept of individualized resurrection or of an individualistic afterlife in which the injustices of this world could be set aright, much of the literature of this period, including eschatological texts that are particularly concerned with the problem of evil, are focused upon God's intervention for the community as a whole or for a purified remnant. The few texts that speak of a resurrection of the dead (e.g. Ezek. 37) portray it as a communal concept. It is not until 400 years later that the idea of resurrection is applied in a more individualistic fashion (Dan. 12) and even here it still occurs in a text that is concerned with the fate of the people Israel. Even rabbinic Judaism, which fully accepted the resurrection of the dead and also the immortality of the soul, continued to stress that communal aspects still operated within these notions that might at first glance appear to be radically individualistic

One should also be aware that the prophets were not systematic theologians and that they tailored their oracles to specific situations and therefore their messages were bound to vary from situation to situation. And finally one might ponder the question of whether teaching people about the way in which God operates in the world inherently involves the use of contradiction. (Note the way in which Maimonides, in his introduction to The Guide of the Perplexed, explains that certain types of contradictions are necessary in order to teach obscure philosophical and/or theological matters

. . .

Theologians often affirm two premises that are in contradiction with each other, and they label this affirmation of contradictory notions with the rather benign term paradox. (A classic example of the way a religion might openly affirm two mutually exclusive theories about the way in which the world operates is: 'Everything is foreseen [by God], yet freewill is granted; the world is ruled with grace, and yet all is according to the number of [man's] deeds

This doctrine [merits of the fathers] plays an important part in Jewish theology, and has its counterpart in the belief that under certain conditions one person has also to suffer for the sins of another person. We have thus in Judaism both the notion of imputed righteousness and imputed sin. They have, however, never attained such significance either in Jewish theology or in Jewish conscience as it is generally assumed. By a happy inconsistency, in the theory of salvation, so characteristic of Rabbinic theology, the importance of these doctrines is reduced to very small proportions, so that their effect was in the end beneficial and formed a healthy stimulus to conscience

That in the case of a man who is righteous, his wicked posterity is not liable to suffer for their own sins so quickly, the punishment being suspended for a time by the merits of their fathers; but in the case that a man is wicked, the visiting of his sins upon his wicked posterity will hasten the judgement of God, so that his children will at once be punished for their own evil deeds. In no case, however, will they suffer for the sins of their fathers

While not as systematic as Marcion, some Gnostic authors similarly sought to denigrate the Old Testament God by highlighting His injustices. For example, the author of Testimony of Truth, a Coptic Gnostic text found at Nag Hammadi, states: “Surely, he [the biblical God] has shown himself to be a malicious envier. And what kind of a God is this? For great is the blindness of those who read, and they did not know it. And he said: “I am the jealous God; I will bring the sins of the fathers upon the children until three and four generations” (Exod. 20:5). This anonymous Gnostic author criticizes the biblical God for the Decalogue’s unjust principle of punishing children for the sins of the parents “until the third of fourth generations.” Because of this doctrine, God is described as a “malicious envier.”

I argue that the rabbinic acceptance of confrontation was, in part, fueled by a radical conception of God that was distinctive of the late rabbinic period. Assuming a humanlike body and emotions, the rabbinic God was not understood to be an unapproachable being, but a relational character who participates as a member in society, albeit a privileged one. Indeed, the divine is not reflected upon in isolation as in medieval Jewish philosophy or mysticism, but rather characterized as an entity yearning to be in direct relation to others. Going beyond the moderate anthropomorphism of the Hebrew Bible, the rabbinic God suffers, laughs, cries, kisses people, studies Torah in a yeshiva, follows the commandments (mitzvot), and even spends His time matchmaking and sporting with Leviathan, the monster of the sea. In short, this study proposes that the late rabbinic valorization of theological protest is animated by a distinctive rabbinic theology that reflects the heightened humanity and personality assumed by the rabbinic God

Finally, this book posits that some sages in the late rabbinic period took the theology of divine humanization to its extreme. They did not automatically assume a morally perfect deity. While fundamentally good, God, like His human creations, does not always make the correct ethical choice. Hence, the act of protest was not deemed a futile expression but one that, in the imagined biblical period at least, could propel God to recognize His ethical shortcomings. Indeed, the widespread motif of divine moral concessions, particularly in the midrashim of Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu, suggests that scholars ought to consider modifying and nuancing their assumption that the sages always imagined God to be morally perfect. For example, in the first half of the twentieth century, Arthur Marmorstein argued that the tannaim (early rabbis) adamantly defended the existence of an ethically infallible God to counter the Marcionite heresy that viewed the Hebrew Bible’s God as ruthless and unjust. Here, Marmorstein does not take into account the possibility that this rigid Jewish attitude may have waned over time. Similarly, David Weiss Halivni asserts that the rabbis never consciously set their own sense of morality above a straightforward reading of a “difficult” biblical law since that would have implied that God’s morality was in error — and the “Perfect Law Giver” could never err. And, as noted above, Halbertal has argued that the ancient rabbis conceived of God in perfectly righteous terms. For Halbertal, even those early sages who granted interpretive weight to their own moral convictions did so only because they confidently believed their ethical values intuited God’s perfect morality.

However, as some late rabbinic passages show God acquiescing to a number of moral critiques, they present a radically different conception of God from the rabbinic texts adduced by Marmorstein, Halivni, and Halbertal. Constructing a “human” God who is not morally perfect, these images sharply contrast with the unchanging and morally infallible God championed by much of ancient Greek philosophy, early Christian thought, and medieval Jewish philosophy. In some aggadot, although God is concerned with and committed to justice and morality, He also recognizes His limitations and fallibility. Most radically, in some of these aggadot, God is willing to reform His methods of governing the world after receiving human input. Thus, in this study, I suggest that, unlike the image of God presented throughout most of the Bible, this late rabbinic God is not the ultimate moral sovereign. Rather than imitating God’s own actions, the rules of ethical conduct now emerge through dialogues between God and various biblical heroes. In addition, while these texts imply a profound lesson about divine morality and the possibility of change, they also point, in accordance with the thinking of the late religious humanist David Hartman, to human dignity and empowerment. God, according to some rabbis, reaches the pinnacle of ethical action through His dialogues with mortals. In this way, they grant significant religious value to human moral sensibilities

I argue that the pro-protest position was nurtured and fueled by a distinctive rabbinic theology, one that culminated in the post-amoraic period. And that theology can be described as the humanization of God. It is only against this conceptual backdrop that some sages could comfortably accept the protest motif

. . .

In the 1990s and 2000s, however, revisionist scholars such as Michael Fishbane and Moshe Idel sought to break Maimonides’ philosophical hold on rabbinic theology. As part of their larger projects treating Jewish myth and mysticism, respectively, they stressed the discontinuities between early rabbinic and later philosophical thought. Reading talmudic and midrashic texts without the guiding hand of Maimonides, Fishbane and Idel have shown that the rabbis of old conceived of God as an evolving, mythical, and corporeal deity who is a player in the world’s events rather than merely its determiner. In these moments of divine transformation, what Idel calls “theurgy,” God not only affects humans via His decisions but, like the mythic gods of antiquity, God is also deeply affected by the actions of humans. Fishbane and Idel argue that the rabbinic God is not an unchanging, transcendent, and omnipotent being like the God of Maimonides, but a highly protean and vulnerable God who seeks and yearns for acts of human righteousness to solidify His power. Because they refuse to sideline vivid anthropomorphic imagery or reinterpret it as metaphor, Fishbane and Idel designate the rabbis as mythmakers rather than philosophers. As such, they reject Gershom Scholem’s famous assertion that medieval mystical “Kabbalism” represents a sharp break from the anti-mythic stance of “Rabbinism.”

Not surprisingly, in over two dozen cases the rabbis appropriate parables when crafting their challenges to God. In these instances, the King of the World is often compared to a human king who abuses his power, applies disproportionate justice, or, in a general sense, acts irrationally and capriciously. But God is likened to other characters as well, such as a hypocritical teacher; an absent-minded father or husband; an insensitive creditor; or an incompetent owner, watchman, or craftsman. According to [David] Stern, these parables and analogies serve as the “best index of standards by which to measure God’s deeds” as the problematic nature of God’s actions emerges more vividly and concretely when presenting them in human terms.

God is astonishingly described as being corrected on moral grounds, admitting his mistake, and righting the morally flawed situation for which He was responsible . . . Leah’s confrontation is cited as a model of religious conduct. According to the Tanhumah, one is not supposed to suppress prayers of anguish, or to always accept the dreadful as the work of a perfect judge. On the contrary, God, the Tanhumah all but states openly, is simply not the all-perfect judge, and should not be treated as such by anyone! To act in supreme religious righteousness is to act like Leah, and call God to task whenever one suspects He has ruled wrongly

The use of [moral protests] . . . reveals a decidedly ethical, normative conception of God and of His relationship to man, predicated on the assumption of a stable ethical order in the universe that was established by God and is sustained by Him. Justice is the fundamental concept in the Jewish ethico-religious worldview

Of course, it is very likely that a deeper sociological concern (whether conscious or not) also played a role: a rabbinic concern for protecting their own power and authority. Were critiques of God an acceptable act, the rabbis themselves might be exposed to critiques as well. We have already seen this teaching in BT Sanhedrin 110a: “Rabbi Abahu said: Whoever critiques his Rabbi, it is as if he critiques the Shekhinah [God]. Could one not make the reverse claim as well: Whoever critiques God it is as if he is critiquing the rabbis? Indeed, the rabbinic project to establish and heighten their authority in the centuries after 70 Ce has recently received an abundance of attention

. . .

Beyond entertaining the synagogue audiences (rhetorical dimension), rabbinic protest narratives also serve to bolster rabbinic authority (sociological function). The rabbis, to varying degrees, saw themselves as successors to biblical heroes and prophets. Accordingly, the exegetical move to intensify the dialogical power of biblical characters in relation to God might also serve to heighten the sages’ own power in the eyes of the masses. This claim — that human challenges to God elevate the challenger in the eyes of the people — is offered by Rabbi Judah bar Ilai (second century) in the context of Moses’ dialogues with God: “In order that the people may hear when I speak with you [Exod. 19:9]: Rabbi Judah [bar Ilai] says: From where can you say that the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses, ‘Behold I will say something to you, and you will challenge Me, and I will accede to you, in order that Israel will say, “Great is Moses, for God acceded to him.”’ As it is said: And so trust you ever after (Exod. 19:9)” (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Baḥodesh, 2 and 4). According to Judah bar Ilai, God and Moses at Sinai were engaged in a fake debate in order to bolster Moses’ authority in the eyes of the people. In each of these staged give-and-takes, God ultimately “concedes” to Moses’ point of view. Similarly, the rabbis themselves may generate protests as a means to strengthen their own authority

What is clear is this: the book of Job insists that suffering may be left unexplained. If we hope to offer actual justifications of God's justice, we are bound to fail. We are forced, if we follow the Jobian direction, to be agnostic with respect to the matter of theodicy.

But Job's narrative raised another problem: How are we to respond to apparent injustice? Does piety require absolute acceptance, or is it legitimate to question and challenge?In the end, it is the Lord who answers this question by affirming the position of Job: "I am incensed," the Lord says to Eliphaz, "at you and your two friends, for you have not spoken the truth [or, better, "properly"] about Me as did my servant Job" (42:7, 8). So, whatever the nature of God's substantive answer to Job's plight, we are left with the unambiguous realization that the explanations offered by Job's colleagues were not necessary! God does not require that we blindly defend the divine system of justice. The pious individual may legitimately challenge and question, and God approves of doing so. Whether or not later Jews would agree, the canonical status of this view meant that protest would never again have to be judged unacceptable

while recognizing the prohibition of hirhur, some rabbis deeply desired to engage with God in hirhur. While defending the absurdity of critiquing God conceptually, some rabbis yearned to do so emotionally

On the rabbinic reception of transgenerational punishment, see Arthur Marmorstein, The Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinical Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1920); Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, 185–89. Whereas Schechter attempts to accentuate the rabbinic denial of transgenerational punishment, Marmorstein attempts to show the punishment’s acceptance. (One can see that each author had an agenda, for rarely do they cite the same texts

As Michael Fishbane has thoroughly documented, this doctrine posed serious theological problems to subsequent Israelite exegetes. Within the Bible itself, Israelite authors struggled with, revised, or rejected outright the earlier doctrine. For example:

The author of Lamentations (5:7) accentuates the injustice of transgenerational punishment when declaring, in light of the destruction of the First Temple, that “our fathers sinned . . . but, as for us, the punishment of their iniquities we must bear.”

The prophet Ezekiel openly rejects the problematic doctrine altogether. Justifying its abrogation through a revelatory experience, he declares: “A child shall not share the burden of a parent’s guilt, nor shall a parent share the burden of a child’s guilt” (Ezek. 18:20). According to Jon Levenson, by innovating this new theology Ezekiel communicates to the Judeans “that the guilt of the ancestors which caused the destruction of the Juhadite kingdom and the ensuing exile does not condemn their current descendants to unending misery.”

Jeremiah (31:28–29) also abrogates the theology, although he argues that the abrogation will take place at some future time

Deuteronomy 7:9–10, which scholars date to the exilic period, has Moses rejecting transgenerational punishment, positing that those who hate God will be punished immediately

As Michael Fishbane and Bernard Levinson have shown, these inner-biblical rejections of transgenerational punishment are quite subtle, if not subversive, as they never openly admit revoking the older authoritative dictum. Ezekiel rhetorically draws on language from Deuteronomy 24:16, which rejects transgenerational punishment only in human courts and simply extends it to the divine realm. On this move, see the contrasting formulations in Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 338–39; Levinson, “You Must Not Add,” 33, 34. Moreover, Ezekiel only claims to abrogate a well-known folk saying (“fathers eat sour grapes and their children’s teeth are set on edge”) rather than a previous divine revelation. As Levinson puts it, “Ezekiel . . . uses the proverb as a strategic foil to the far more theologically problematic act of effectively nullifying a divine law.” Levinson, “You Must Not Add,” 33. And, quite cleverly, as Fishbane notes, the exilic author of Deuteronomy 7:9–10 camouflages its radical rejection of the earlier doctrine of Deuteronomy 5 by citing that very verse, Deuteronomy 5, but citing it incorrectly. Fishbane puts the point this way: “With one stroke, later tradition thoroughly controverted an earlier revelation, and authenticated its novel viewpoint by means of a presumptive misquote”

God is astonishingly described as having produced a morally deficient early draft of the Torah, [and then] Moses is portrayed as having refused to comply, and having challenged it on moral grounds. . . . [The theology] is subsequently described as having been happily revised by virtue of God accepting Moses’ superior moral judgment

Why would the rabbis reject the notion that innocent children are punished for the sins of their parents when interpreting Exodus 20 but at the same time produce new teachings that promote ancestral guilt? While this inconsistency might point to differences of opinion among individual rabbis, it more probably reflected internal tensions within rabbinic culture at large. Indeed, the rabbis privileged individual responsibility as a default position, but they also argued for familial responsibility, even for the innocent, when responding to certain impulses, pressures, and concerns, such as those mentioned above: theodicean, polemical, rhetorical, and hermeneutical. These varying rabbinic agendas naturally generate inconsistent teachings. Competing rabbinic voices and values inhere comfortably within the literary discourse of nonlegal Midrash, which, by its very nature, is terse, fragmentary, and unsystematic

One is reminded of a story by Eli Wiesel about a trial of God by three Talmudic scholars at Auschwitz. They listened to witnesses and weighed evidence for several evenings, finally issuing a unanimous judgment. "The Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, was found guilty of crimes against creation and humankind.” And then, after what Wiesel calls an infinity of silence, the Talmudic scholars looked at the sky and said, 'It's time for evening prayers,' and the members of the Tribunal recited Maariv, the evening service

In the end, theoretical treatments of theodicy do not suffice, for concepts of God that do not accord with reality, however inspiring, amount to little more than proverbial whistling in the dark

Here a protest against the severity of the punishment seems implicit, inspired by the Torah's pervading vision: it is wrong to punish the innocent

. . .

The central thesis of this paper is that an analysis of the sources dealing with the punishment of Amalek will enable us to reach conclusions regarding the status of morality in the Jewish tradition. These conclusions rest on two assumptions, which at times are made explicit and at times are accepted implicitly. First, it is not assumed that a normative conflict prevails between morality and religion, and no attempt is made to justify Amalek's punishment in terms of this conflict. Second, it is not assumed that morality is dependent on religion, and no attempt is made to claim either that the punishment was morally justified because God commanded it or that God determines morality.

God's command is assumed to rely on moral reasons, and these moral
reasons endow the command with moral value and determine its normative, halakhic articulation. In other words, Jewish tradition acknowledges the autonomy of morality and assumes that divine commands abide by moral considerations.

. . .

In other words, not every religious obligation necessarily expresses a moral good to which we should aspire, and therefore a religious obligation is not necessarily a criterion for what is morally right

. . .

evidence points to the presence of a trend seeking to reformulate halakhic norms so as to bring them in line with morality

The moral approach is preferred by its supporters on the grounds that a literal reading may at times cast doubts on the notion that God is a good God. Advocates of the literal trend take issue precisely with this point. Although they accept that the text is usually read within a broader context, they do not believe that this context — including an assumption of God's goodness — can be used to change the text's clear meaning. The context might be useful in instances of textual ambiguity, they argue, but the punishment of Amalek is an explicit command and, therefore, we must assume that it is also morally correct

The difference between the moral and literal trends is not that one endorses a thesis claiming that morality depends on religion while the other endorses moral autonomy. Both trends argue that the Torah's commands must accord with moral considerations, but whereas the literal trend strives to justify the text as is, the moral trend strives to reinterpret the text in the light of moral assumptions. Echoes of this dispute can be detected not only in canonical talmudic texts; this is a polemic that, not surprisingly, continues to be relevant today. When believers are committed to the canonical text as well as to their own moral understandings, this dialectic process is inevitable. While all approaches agree in assuming that the instructions of the Torah correspond with morality and that morality is independent of religion, they reflect different views of the relevance of moral consciousness to the interpretation of the text and to the norms compelled by it

It has frequently been observed that whatever their purely philosophical successes, classical theodicies sometimes seem to have little relevance in the lives of many religious believers, even philosophers, whose faith, so far as I can tell from reading and experience, seems untouched by their philosophical subtleties

In Judaism, he [Soloveitchik] writes, the fundamental question is: What obligation does suffering impose upon man? This question is greatly beloved by Judaism, and she has placed it at the very center of her world of thought

while authenticity may be a virtue, speculation per se is hardly a vice. It may very well be that speculation will yield no authentically satisfying human response to the problem of evil and suffering. But why isn't speculation itself considered an active, creative response to the human condition? Why isn't the courageous human effort to understand the mysteries of the cosmos itself a reflection of the undauntable human intellect — a point Soloveitchik himself makes in his essay "U-Bikashetem Mi-Sham"?

. . .

If there is good evidence against God's existence, traditionally conceived, then simply asserting that Judaism provides reasons for sticking my head in existentialist sand does not get me very far

the atheologian maintains that belief in an omni-benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient being is inconsistent with empirical evidence that evil exists. The usual strategies for solving this problem, as noted above, have been to deny the existence of evil on metaphysical grounds, or to qualify in some way one or more of God's "omni-" attributes. Are these the only strategies available? Might there not be resources, beliefs, or attitudes within a particular faith tradition that themselves eliminate the purported inconsistency? The argument of the atheologian will work only if he or she demonstrates an inconsistency among beliefs that the theist in fact holds. If the theist doesn't hold those beliefs, then the atheologian has failed to demonstrate any irrationality. Consider, for example, the following imaginary atheological argument against Judaism: Judaism must be false because it maintains that God maximizes aesthetic pleasure, but empirical evidence shows that aesthetic pleasure in our world is not maximal. Now it is perfectly obvious that this argument fails, since one of its premises is false. Judaism does not, after all, maintain that God is an aesthetic plea- sure maximizer. Therefore we have no evidence that Judaism is false

In an important essay, Marilyn McCord Adams, who developed and popularized this way of thinking about the problem of evil, formulates the point this way: "Where the internal coherence of a system is at stake, successful arguments for its inconsistency must draw on premises internal to that system or obviously acceptable to its adherents.” While the strategy limned here, which might be called "internalist," is designed specifically to address the atheologian, it highlights an important feature of religious belief systems generally: they provide a comprehensive picture of the world to their adherents. Canons of logic are surely relevant to those who are both religious and rationalist. Nevertheless, what counts as problematic for the system depends upon what the system itself teaches. While this might seem a truism, its implications are far reaching

The internalist strategy outlined thus far appears promising enough as a strategy, and indeed it is by now widely acknowledged. Troubles arise, however, when the Jewish philosopher reads on. For the applications of this strategy in the literature smack strongly of Christian values and beliefs, altogether foreign to Judaism. Thus, McCord Adams, who in her essay addresses the problem of horrendous evils like the Holocaust, argues that certain goods "engulf horrendous evils and are incommensurate with them. These include the good of identifying with Christ, who himself, Christians believe, suffered horrendous evil for all humankind; the good of heavenly beatitude that is the reward for suffering horrendously; and the vision of God that may come by way of horrendous suffering. Based on the autobiographical writings of Simone Weil, Diogenes Allen likewise argues that suffering can yield the most perfect experience of Godly love to which humans have access, and that this good is incommensurate with the evil of suffering. Eleonore Stump suggests that evil is what she calls the mirror of good, that it is only the experience of evil that yields the most profound appreciation and experience of God's very goodness

All of these approaches share a common Christian appreciation for suffering following upon the model sufferer, Jesus himself. For exactly this reason, all of these approaches might seem problematic to the non-Christian, just as it is foreign to the spirit of Judaism, in which the predominant view is that suffering is bad, as Soloveitchik himself observes along with many others. But if the approaches developed by Marilyn McCord Adams, Diogenes Allen, and Eleonore Stump are Jewishly and — some might even wish to argue — morally problematic, the overall strategy is not. In fact, I think that the best way to read "Kol Dodi Dofek" is as a precursor to, and a Jewish version of, internalism

Halakhocentric
Judaism teaches, according to Soloveitchik, that to be truly human is to act to make oneself and the world better, and not to ponder fruitlessly the metaphysical mysteries of the cosmic economy. The very posing of the question in metaphysical terms betrays a profound misunderstanding of what it means to be a human being, indeed, makes no human sense at all. But, the atheologian might object, this is irrational. For, on the one hand, you admit that evil exists, and, on the other, you affirm belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent God. These propositions are inconsistent. If you accept the basic standards of rationality, then you must qualify or deny one or more of these beliefs

To this objection Soloveitchik would respond: Judaism teaches that to require a rational resolution of this inconsistency is itself irrational. For human rationality — the only sort to which humans have access — mandates a behavioral, not a metaphysical, response. The formulation of the problem as metaphysical rather than experiential is, according to Judaism, a profound category mistake. Therefore, there is no irrationality to the Jewish belief system. But, the atheologian would in turn object, haven't you committed a logical fallacy here by begging the question against theistic belief through appeal to a Jewish, and therefore theistic, value? To this objection Soloveitchik would respond in true internalist spirit: Your atheological argument rests on the claim that the theistic system is irrational, either because it affirms inconsistent beliefs or because it begs the question. But I have just shown you that the Jewish belief system neither affirms inconsistent beliefs nor begs the question, and is not irrational for the reasons you adduce. No one requires me to accept the Jewish belief system. But if I do, for reasons of my own, then I am not guilty of your charge of irrationality

How does one construct a Jewish theodicy? A simple and tempting answer goes like this: One takes Jewish sources – Bible, Talmud, Midrash, medieval and modern Jewish philosophies – and extracts from them the dominant opinion about why there is evil. Voilà – there is your Jewish theodicy

The task, unfortunately, is hardly this simple. First, there are many theodicies in Jewish tradition, and it is difficult if not arbitrary to isolate one as dominant. Jewish theodicies contradict one another with respect to such major questions as the extent of divine intervention in the world and the correctness of divine approval theories of goodness. Second, numerous traditional sources despair of ever coming up with a correct theodicy. Third, the method I described seems to be purely historical and interpretive, rather than philosophical. The Jewish philosopher wants not only to describe and interpret what Jews have thought (both formidable tasks, to be sure), but also to do normative work – to assess whether what they have thought is convincing

I propose that, for a Jewish philosopher, a Jewish theodicy should satisfy two desiderata: (1) overlap or at least connectivity, or at the very least, compatibility with Jewish tradition, and (2) philosophical cogency. There is no guarantee that the theodicy that is the most cogent philosophically is dominant in Jewish tradition, or even connected with it at all, or even compatible with Jewish theological ideas; in the last two cases, it is not clear in what sense it is a Jewish theodicy. If a theodicy is constructed as a fusion, however cohesive, of scattered elements in the tradition, its Jewishness is diminished because the theodicy per se is not in the tradition. Thus, whereas many philosophers look for explanations of evil that “work” without asking whether they can work within particular religious traditions, the Jewish philosopher’s task would be to either find a theodicy with a reasonably loud voice in tradition and show it is philosophically cogent, or take a cogent theodicy and locate it reasonably well in the tradition, or build a theodicy out of elements in the tradition. The “Jewishness” of the theodicy will be a matter of degree, and the Jewish philosopher might compromise on Jewishness for the sake of cogency

even if Judaism has no special answers to the challenge of theodicy, it carries the burden of a special question. Time after time, God announces that He has a special relationship and covenant with the Jewish people; time after time, as the prophets and the psalmist and innumerable later authors painfully bemoan, He seems to break His promises and renege on the covenant. Over and over the Jewish people endure large-scale persecution and destruction. For Judaism, therefore, the problem is dual: one, evil to individuals and groups, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, and, two, evil to Jewish communities in particular. Post-Holocaust Jewish thought is especially rife with theologies that focus not just on evil per se (sufferings, deaths, and murders), but on the seemingly broken promise, and Jewish thought in general deals heavily with Jewish communal suffering and death

the ancient sources that classically were, and still are, vital in assessing Jewish authenticity – Bible, Talmud, and Midrash – generate a pool of approaches to evil that were elaborated and treated more rigorously in subsequent times. The classic sources are not philosophical treatises. Theological views often have to be teased out of stories and anecdotes, and explicit theological statements in the classic sources tend to be pithy, aphoristic, ambiguous, cryptic, tantalizing, and contradictory – which makes interpretation immensely challenging and interesting

Finally, while knowing that some Jewish sources say otherwise, I will assume here that there is a standard of goodness independent of God’s will and God’s approval, a position effectively argued for by Leibniz (Discourse on Metaphysics, 2). To add to Leibniz, “God saw that all He made was very good” (Genesis 1:31), says more than “God saw that He very much approved of what He had made.”

The Bible and the Sages thus observed that the retributivist theodicy does not coordinate with experience. In addition, retributivist theodicy can become an exercise in blaming the victim

. . .

Nevertheless, we must ask: How would a Jewish thinker who rejects retributivism explain the many texts in the Talmud and countless later sources that mandate that, when people or communities are struck by suffering, they must “examine their deeds” and repent (e.g. Berakhot 5a)? How can sufferers be so sure they have sinned, if we reject the retributivist theodicy? In reply, recent Jewish thinkers maintain that these sources are not urging the sufferer to find a causal account of his or her suffering, but to use the suffering as an opportunity for spiritual repair and improvement (e.g., Hartman 1985, 196). The person acts as if the suffering were punishment, and therefore scrutinizes his or her faults. I have dealt with this approach elsewhere – it is not easy to elucidate, and is not the texts’ obvious meaning – and touch on it later here (Shatz 2009a, 294–297; see also Stump 1997). Note, though, that Jewish texts which presuppose that suffering is retribution deal with self-examination. Talmudic sages strongly tend to attribute sins to others only if the sufferer asks them to explain the cause of the suffering. (See, e.g., Avot de-Rabbi Natan 2, 38. See also Cohen 2000

The axiological-shift theodicy, however, does not readily apply to children, nonhuman animals, and adults lacking certain capacities; furthermore, it would make evils that destroy the capacity for morally significant behavior even more difficult for a theist to explain. Thus, the axiological-shift theodicy cannot be a comprehensive one; it must be complemented by other theodicies

Perhaps the most startling Talmudic statement on theodicy is that “Length of life, children and sustenance depend not on one’s merit but on mazzala [astrological influence]” (Moed Katan 28a). Here the sage Rava removes these three important types of goods or tribulations from the realm of direct divine activity and places them in the hands of what were in his time considered the laws of nature. Rava came to his view by contrasting the radically different lives of two equally righteous sages with regard to the three goods he named. Although Rava here provides a causal explanation of tribulations, his view is not a justification of God’s ways. For he does not explain, as a theodicist would, why God runs the world in this way – why does He not distribute longevity, children, and sustenance based on merit, instead of letting nature take its course? Like the aforementioned Rabbi Jacob, who saw an innocent child fall and die, Rava was persuaded by experience to abandon (in certain areas) a retributivist theodicy

Most likely discomfited by Rava’s semi-naturalistic approach, and buttressed by another Talmudic discussion (BT Shabbat 156a), some commentators posit that a righteous person can override the constellations by good deeds. But if good deeds override the constellations, why did not the two sages whose lives Rava compared enjoy identical boons? Both Rava’s and Rabbi Jacob’s dicta open up space in Judaism for a theodicy that views God as an infrequent intervener in this world – even though neither sage explains why God restrains Himself, but only gives evidence that He restrains Himself, and even though their views do not entail that He does not intervene much in nature. A metaphysics that allows little divine intervention gains considerable Jewish authenticity from the large degree of naturalism in medieval Jewish philosophy, for example, in Maimonides. Some thinkers restricted direct divine reward and punishment in this world to a small group – the exceptionally righteous and the exceptionally wicked – and even those exceptions were explained in a sense naturally

Reading and judging God’s thoughts, even challenging God, are not per se objectionable. What a theodicist should also say in response to the arrogance objection is this: there are cases and there are cases. The arrogance objection is right that one’s approach to theodicy can sometimes reflect a religiously objectionable attitude, for example, judging God. But others might be humbly seeking understanding of His ways, just as they do by trying to find teleology in the physical universe. There is no good across-the-board objection to producing theodicies – it all depends on attitude. Theodicists must approach the project with a consciousness of human fallibility and a measure of trepidation. Establishing the religious permissibility of trying to read and judge God’s mind requires that the theodicist privilege some sources over others, but privileging is inevitable in a rich and complex religious tradition

What we walk away with from our survey-cum-analysis of classic Jewish sources is that, although retributivist themes are very common, there is precedent for all of the following:

Denying that all suffering and death is punishment for sin

Explaining evils (some or perhaps many) by reference to laws of nature. (Of course human free choice is another recognized explanation)

Embracing the core claim of the Soul-Making Theodicy that evil promotes certain virtues. Philosophers argue that evil is logically necessary for the development of certain virtues

מי אני

ער מאכט א חילוק צווישן 4 סארטן טעאדיסיס:

‏1). יוּניווערסאליסט - וואס די הנחות דערפון וואלטן אפילו אטעאיסטן אָנגענומען [צב״ש אז די טוב פון בחירה חופשית איז מער ווי די רע פון די צער בעולם; דאס דערמאנט נישט בעצם ״ג-ט״ אין די הנחה]