Healing and Theodicy

The more I have discussed this, and believe me I have asked many church people what they think about healing in the past twenty-four hours, the more parallels I see between healing and theodicy.

When theodicy was the focus of our Sunday evening 'Thinking Theologically' services many of those who came were a bit twitchy because they'd heard the word before. But theodicy is merely a reasoned argument that examines and seeks to understand and perhaps justify (a legal term meaning ‘to prove or find ‘innocent’ of the charge) God in relation to suffering and evil. The word itself comes from the Greek for God ‘theos’ and justice ‘diké’. So, we’re looking at a Just God and the justice He brings, gives or maintains.

Let’s consider a few examples from the NT, starting with Lk 13: 1 – 5 and the tower of Siloam:

“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Often people will equate illness, disaster and the like with sin (confessed and unconfessed) as we can see with the man ‘born blind’ in Jn 9:1 -2: “As Jesus passed by, He saw a man blind from birth and His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” (Sin and illness - now there's an area for consideration - used to be a common theme when I was a Pente' Pastor)

The questions of God and justice, and His intervention (or absence) are recurring themes for Biblical and other writings and for life since it began (I assume) and brings forth some interesting and challenging debate. One of those who were so engaged was a chap called Epicurus (341-270 BC) who proposed the contraction:

“Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then he is evil.”

Epicurus extrapolated that if God is all-powerful and absolutely good then evil cannot exist, but if evil does exist than there cannot be an all-powerful and absolutely good God. This is extrapolated in the following ‘logical problem of evil’:

1. God exists.
2. God exists and is omnipotent (absolutely powerful), omniscient (infinitely wise or all-knowing) and is to be considered ‘perfectly good.
3. A ‘perfectly good’ being would desire to prevent all and every evil.
4. An omniscient being would know every way in which evil might exist or come into existence.
5. An omnipotent being, knowing every way in which evil might exist or come into existence would, being omnipotent, prevent that, or any evil, from existing.
6. A being who knows every way evil can come about and has the power to do so must be able to prevent that evil from existing if they so wish.
7. If an omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good being exists, then evil cannot exist.
8. Evil exists.

Rather than resort to theodicy, a nice man by the name of Alvin Platinga came up with his ‘defence’, which goes like this:

A world containing ‘significantly free’ people is more valuable, everything else being equal, to a world with no free creatures at all. God can create free creatures, but He can't ‘cause, determine or make them do right’. If He does then they are not ‘significantly free’ after all because they do not do what is right ‘freely’.
Therefore, to create creatures capable of moral good, He must create creatures capable of moral evil. If he give creatures freedom to perform evil then he cannot prevent them from doing so.

Plantinga argues that even though God is omnipotent, it is possible that it was not in his power to create a world containing moral good but no moral evil – this would be a logical and moral possibility.

So the question before us is this: Is God impotent, malevolent, evil, spiteful and the like (select those you think apply) OR are there grounds to assume (and prove) that God is, as His billing would have it, a ‘good (and healing)' God? for surely healing is a sign of his goodness, care, compassion and might?

Pax