Biblical Responses to Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil: 1the Problem of Evil: 1

Comunicación y Gerencia

1.1. Biblical Studies & Patristics: towards a reunion?Biblical Studies & Patristics: towards a reunion?2.2. Different types of answers to suffering. Different types of answers to suffering.

Reference Works Reference Works

1. Allenbach, J. et al. Biblia patristica. 2. Oden, Thomas C., ed. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.

3. Kannengiesser, Charles, ed. Handbook of Patristic Exegesis.

Forthcoming:

McGinn, Bernard et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010?).

Different types of answers:

• Etiological Narrative• Lament, Reproach• Wisdom Saying• Apocalypse

• Silence• Ritual Activity (prayer; burial ceremony) • Evil-Destroying Action• Salvation History

Basic Presuppositions

1. God is in control of history and individual human destiny.

2. Connection between moral and ontological categories.

3. Collective vs. individual responsibility.

Divine justice and knowledge questioned:

“And they say, ‘How can God know?

Is there knowledge in the Most High?’

Such are the wicked;

always at ease, they increase in riches.

All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

For all day long I have been plagued,

and am punished every morning.” (Ps. 73: 11-14).

Problem solved:

“But when I thought how to understand this,   it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God;   then I perceived their end. Truly you set them in slippery places;   you make them fall to ruin.” (73: 16-18)

“I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.” (Ps. 37: 25).

2. Life and Death Under the Mosaic Covenant

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Deut. 30: 15-20.

Moral Evil brings about Natural Evil:

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually…And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Gen. 6: 5-6.

How did Yahweh act?..

Flood

Florence, Duomo Baptistery mosaic.

Questions about God’s impending destruction of Sodom:

“Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?...

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” Gen. 18: 23, 25.

3. Collective retribution

The second commandment: “[F]or I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Exod. 20: 5-6.

Collective retribution: more examples

1. After issuing the second edition of the tablets: “The Lord passed before [Moses] and proclaimed: The Lord…[who is] keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Exod. 34: 7. Cf. Num. 14: 18; Deut. 5: 9.

2. Pharaoh’s son killed for his father’s sins.3. David’s son killed for his father’s adultery.

Collective retribution questioned:David protests God’s destruction of the Israelites

“I alone have sinned [i.e., by taking a census], and I alone have done wickedly; but these sheep [Israelites], what have they done? Let your hand, I pray, be against me and against my father’s house.” 2 Sam 24: 17.

Individual responsibility

“The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.” Ezek. 18: 20, cf. Jer. 31: 29-30.

Moses offers to be punished together with the guilty Israelites:

“Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written.’ But the Lord said to Moses, ‘Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.” Exod. 32: 31-33.

Do you recognize this picture?

The Suffering Servant

• “Surely he has borne our infirmities   and carried our diseases;yet we accounted him stricken,   struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,   crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the punishment that made us whole,   and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray;   we have all turned to our own way,and the Lord has laid on him   the iniquity of us all.” Isa 53: 4-6.