While my blog has not been altogether forgotten, it has suffered from a good amount of neglect. I am working on some posts, but in the meantime have another quote for you.
This one comes from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. It is one of my all-time favorite books. It is one of those long Russian novels that few people will read. If you don't read it try to at least find the time to read the two chapters "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor." They contain the best argument against Christianity I have ever read. Dostoevsky, a Christian, uses his character, Ivan, to share what Dostoevsky considered to be the irrefutable argument against Christianity.
I don't think I have heard anyone outright refute it.
Here's a taste...
After explaining his problem with the world Ivan explains to His brother, Alyosha, that he cannot accept the world on God's terms:
"That's rebellion," murmured Alyosha, looking down.
"Rebellion? I am sorry you call it that," said Ivan earnestly. "One can hardly live in rebellion, and I want to live. Tell me yourself, I challenge you - answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature - that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance - and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly.
"And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the fountain of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"
"No, I can't admit it Brother..."
[trans. by Constance Garnett]
Here it is!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!
2 months ago
4 comments:
Lukie,
I haven't read "Brothers" but everyone I know who has raves about it. About this argument, there are at least a few problems with it as I'm understanding it from this excerpt, most which I'm sure you see as well:
1) Jesus was not "a baby". That is, He was not a helpless victim suffering without choice, but "for the joy set before Him endured the cross." While on his way to be tortured and killed, the "baby" upheld the atomic particles for both his killers and their instruments of torture.
2) Further, Jesus was not even "other" than the designer. The designer is the victim. It can't be "divine child abuse", because it's not simply one person against the another, but a Trinitarian cooperation.
3) We all cringe at the idea of torturing a baby, and that's a viable argument but we should at least say that our sensibilities are so effected by sin that that it can't be ultimately convincing, at least to me.
Again, I haven't read the whole argument, but thoughts / reactions? Am I misunderstanding it?
Good points, Benji. I didn't think to clarify in my post that the baby Ivan mentions is not Jesus.
He isn't making the divine child-abuse argument, but is actually sticking with the classic problem of evil argument. Much of Ivan's speech focuses on gratuitous evil and senseless suffering. After listing a number of examples of pain he makes the comment, perhaps disingenuously, that it is not God he rejects by His world. He then asks his brother, Alyosha, this question.
The idea of his argument focuses on this point: Christians say that God has a plan to work all of this out for a good that we cannon understand. But, if you had the power to create a universe and if you could make it under whatever conditions you wanted to, would you ever agree to make a world in which even one person (perhaps "that baby beating its breast") would have to suffer in order for a greater good to come about? If I would never agree to create a world in which even just one child had to be abused and killed in order to bring about a greater good, why should I believe that there is a God that would do that? Yet, Ivan charges, Christians reprehensibly proclaim a God that created a world in which many people would suffer.
ahh yes... i considered that might be his point. I agree that's actually a tougher question to answer.
What say you, Luke? I vote for you posting a response to Ivan.
I hadn't planned to respond to Ivan, but I think it's a good idea. It will have to come in installments I think...
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