Q&A: On the Problem of Evil/Suffering
On the Problem of Evil/Suffering
Question
Hello Rabbi, I wanted to challenge your reasoning regarding the problem of suffering in Daniel Doshi's podcast.
A) You made a distinction between evil from nature and human evil, and you answered regarding human evil that God gave us free choice and gave us the option to behave morally or not. But one could ask: according to the principle of sufficient reason, God could have engineered us so that biologically we would be unable to do evil, and the trial in this world would be only in matters between a person and God, and not between one person and another. Even so, according to this, the question of evil still stands.
2) And regarding the problem of suffering from nature, I didn't understand exactly how the Holy One, blessed be He, could not logically have built a better world (if I remember correctly, Leibniz said something similar). What contradictions would there be in a hypothetical world with no suffering at all? After all, we are not God; we have no access to knowing what the best possible world is. Also, as I understand it, most suffering in the universe is a physical problem: there are earthquakes, tsunamis, our bodies are built in a way that makes them vulnerable, and there are processes in our brains that cause suffering, etc. And according to the principle of sufficient reason, God could have built a physical system without all these bugs, and God could have made one more small change—not in the whole universe, but just that we would be built in such a way that nature would not harm us (for example, we would be like Superman). How exactly does the Rabbi conclude that there is a logical limitation?
3) And finally, returning to the problem of evil caused by human beings,
Stanford prison experiment
According to this experiment, in my interpretation, the evil and suffering that the guards caused the prisoners was not of their own free will; they were swept into abusing the prisoners.
And one small final question: if a person is flooded with negative emotions, does he at that time have free will?
I apologize for the length of the questions, and I apologize if what I say reflects some misunderstanding of your views or if my arguments are presented unclearly (sometimes that happens to me not of my own free will), and I wanted to say that I really appreciate the Rabbi and his thought, even if I do not agree with everything.
Answer
- But He wanted to give us choice also in matters between one person and another. By the same token, He could have given us the possibility to choose only regarding Sabbath observance, and in everything else program us in the right direction.
- You didn't listen carefully to what I said. You can find it here on the site in the columns about evil. Search here.
- I didn't understand the question.
- He does have free will, except in rare cases where the emotions completely prevent one of the options. That is what is called an irresistible impulse, which exempts a person from criminal responsibility.