Hey, Josh here. I had the chance to sit down with John Hamer after the 2016 Sunstone Symposium to revisit the topic of the problem of evil-suffering after Carla had and excellent discussion with Tony and Charmaine about why bad things happen to good people. At one point in our conversation I say that I find the idea of a non-intervening God to be more comforting than a God that only intervenes selectively. John mentions that God can work through our wisdom to find ways to end needless suffering. I want to share a thought that didn’t happen in the conversation organically that I had since our conversation. Even though I don’t think God intervenes with the world/universe in a unilateral, physical way, I do leave space for the relational aspect of working through our intellects in a revelatory, inspirational, intuitive way. A heightened state of wisdom would be one such way. Yes, I believe God can work through our minds because it’s happened to me a few times. One summer I was selling alarm system contracts door to door near Chicago during the summer of 2008. I was walking on a dirt road that joined up with another street that I was going to start knocking. I had a sudden alerted, heightened sense that I needed to get to the next door as fast as I could to knock it. I looked up and saw a man in a hooded sweatshirt, hood up, looking down, hands in his pockets heading my way. I started working the street. About four or five houses down it started down-pouring rain. The house I just knocked on locked their door and drew the shutters. At the entry of the road police cars arrived. By the dirt road I walked in from some men at a local restaurant shot a woman to death over money she had selling Obama t-shirts and hats. The same man heading my direction was involved. On another occasion I was riding my dirt bike heading for a jump when I had the distinct impression something was not right. That time I didn’t pay attention and I went for it anyway resulting in a compound fracture on my leg requiring a rod and screws through my left leg. So even though it’s not direct intervention, I believe through our minds God can work with us if we are willing. Sometimes we are attentive and other times we are not. I’ve heard the “God of the lost keys” narrative used many times because it stirs a knee-jerk emotional response from people. It posits that God is so busy answering the prayers of the girl praying over her lost car keys that God overlooks starving kids in Africa. Setting the emotional response aside, it’s easy to see the logic employed is an informal fallacy called “false equivocation.” In the one circumstance someone is recalling where she left her keys whether aided by prayer or not; whereas, the other would require a direct intervention whether by miraculous appearing of food ex nihilo or some other way no less miraculous from God having a direct physical impact on human circumstance. So it may seem capricious that we can have where we left our car keys recalled to our attention when focusing our mind on it when other people may have lack of resources in another country due to famine, a corrupt government, weak economy, etc. Just like putting our mental focus on finding our keys we can put our mind’s focus on helping hungry people, though, while employing many other tactics to change the circumstances. We can also have an impact that way using our best wisdom, but it has to be us doing it. I hope you enjoy our conversation and hope it adds to the discussion on the problem of evil-suffering.
