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010 - The Problem of Pain · Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine of Theism or Atheism, The Great Alternative by
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  Speaker 1: Chapman Cohen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: The problem of pain, the problem of how to harmonize
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  Speaker 1: the existence of a God as believers picture him to
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  Speaker 1: be with a world such as experience discloses, is as
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  Speaker 1: old as theology, and the problem will disappear only when
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  Speaker 1: theology is given up as an aggregate of question begging
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  Speaker 1: words and gratuitous hypotheses based upon a foundation of primitive
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  Speaker 1: ignorance and inherited delusion. For the majority of those questions
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  Speaker 1: that are properly called theological are not of the necessary order.
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  Speaker 1: Questions such as those connected with the mutations of matter,
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  Speaker 1: the development of life, the growth of society, or the
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  Speaker 1: nature and clash of human passions cannot be evaded. They
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  Speaker 1: are present in the facts themselves. But the problems of
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  Speaker 1: theology are self created. They arise out of certain beliefs
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  Speaker 1: and have no existence apart from those beliefs. They are
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  Speaker 1: the joint product of beliefs which are wholly useless in
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  Speaker 1: conflict with facts with which they cannot be squared. What
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  Speaker 1: is known as the problem of evil is an apt
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  Speaker 1: illustration of the truth of what has been said here.
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  Speaker 1: There is created a problem which is not alone quite gratuitous,
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  Speaker 1: but it succeeds in inverting the real question at issue.
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  Speaker 1: For unless we accept the world as the product of
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  Speaker 1: a good and wise God, there is no problem of
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  Speaker 1: evil for us to explain the problem of evil is
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  Speaker 1: given such a deity, how to account for the existence
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  Speaker 1: of evil, or if it exists, how account for its continuance?
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  Speaker 1: The problem is created by the theory. Dismiss the theory,
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  Speaker 1: and no problem is left. And it is in line
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  Speaker 1: with what is done in other directions that, having created
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  Speaker 1: the difficulty, the theist should present it to the non
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  Speaker 1: theist as one of the questions that he must answer.
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  Speaker 1: In reality, there is no problem of evil in connection
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  Speaker 1: with ethics. The ethical problem is not the existence of evil,
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  Speaker 1: but the emergence of good. Not that is, why do
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  Speaker 1: men do wrong? But why do they do right? That
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  Speaker 1: life should cease to be is not at all wonderful,
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  Speaker 1: but that, with so many potential dangers around the organism,
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  Speaker 1: the actions of living beings should become so automatically adapted
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  Speaker 1: to their surroundings as to shun the actions which destroy
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  Speaker 1: life and perform such actions as maintain it, at least
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  Speaker 1: to such an extent as secures. The preservation of the
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  Speaker 1: species may well arouse surprise and give birth to inquiry.
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  Speaker 1: So with the question of evil and suffering in the world.
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  Speaker 1: That these exist is undeniable. But the enquiry, they suggest,
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  Speaker 1: is only on all fours with the enquiry suggested by
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  Speaker 1: any other natural fact. While the ethical problem centers not
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  Speaker 1: around the existence of wrong action, but around the emergence
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  Speaker 1: of right conduct, it is the evolution of happiness that
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  Speaker 1: forms the kernel of the ethical problem, not the evolution
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  Speaker 1: of pain. The earlier form of the Christian apologetic took
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  Speaker 1: the form of a dualistic theory of the world. There
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  Speaker 1: were two powers, God and the Devil, and between them
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  Speaker 1: they shared the responsibility for all good and evil. So
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  Speaker 1: far good, but this was clearly saving the goodness of
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  Speaker 1: God at the expense of his omnipotence. Moreover, if God
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  Speaker 1: was to be thought of as the creator of the universe,
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  Speaker 1: the theory, as mill said, paid him the doubtful compliment
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  Speaker 1: of making him the creator of Satan and therefore the
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  Speaker 1: creator of evil. Once removed, or if not, God and
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  Speaker 1: the devil were left as rival monarchs, quarreling over a
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  Speaker 1: territory that appeared to exist apart from and independent of either.
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  Speaker 1: But nowadays the devil has gone out of fashion. Very
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  Speaker 1: few of the clergy ever mentioned him, and although an
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  Speaker 1: attempt was made to reinstate him some years ago by
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  Speaker 1: the author of Evil and Evolution, the endeavor was a
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  Speaker 1: failure and bereft of the convenient scapegoat the devil. The
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  Speaker 1: present day theist is compelled to attempt an apology for
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  Speaker 1: evil that will appeal to natural and verifiable facts for confirmation,
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  Speaker 1: or which must at least not be in conflict with them.
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  Speaker 1: If theism is to stand a place and a meaning
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  Speaker 1: must be found for the evil in the world, and
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  Speaker 1: found in such a way that it either relieves God
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  Speaker 1: of the responsibility for its existence or its being can
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  Speaker 1: be shown to harmonize with his assumed character. It is
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  Speaker 1: no longer possible to fall back on Paul's position that
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  Speaker 1: the potter is at liberty to doom one pot to
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  Speaker 1: honor and the other to dishonor the moral responsibility for
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  Speaker 1: the kind of pots he turns out, cannot be so
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  Speaker 1: easily evaded, as Professor Sorely says. If as phs, theism
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  Speaker 1: is to stand the evil in the world cannot be
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  Speaker 1: referred to God in the same way as the good
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  Speaker 1: is referred to him. Somehow he must be relieved of
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  Speaker 1: the responsibility for its existence, or a purpose for it
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  Speaker 1: must be found. Now Curiously enough, modern theists hover between
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  Speaker 1: the two positions. Professor Sorely, representing one position, says that
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  Speaker 1: the only way to avoid referring evil to God is
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  Speaker 1: by the postulate of human freedom, moral values, and the
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  Speaker 1: idea of God page four sixty nine. This is also
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  Speaker 1: the way out adopted by Canon Green in the problem
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  Speaker 1: of evil, and it turns upon a mere play on words. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: Canon Green says that there is one thing God could
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  Speaker 1: not do. He could not force him to be good,
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  Speaker 1: that is, to choose virtue freely, For the idea of
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  Speaker 1: forcing a free being to choose involves a contradiction, and
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  Speaker 1: Professor Sorely says more elaborately that things occur in the
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  Speaker 1: universe which are not due to God's will, although they
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  Speaker 1: must have happened with his permission. A higher range of
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  Speaker 1: power and perfection is shown in the creation of free
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  Speaker 1: beings than in the creation of beings whose every thought
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  Speaker 1: and action are predetermined by their Creator, And while he
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  Speaker 1: admits there is limitations to man's power of choice, he
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  Speaker 1: holds that there is one form of choice that is
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  Speaker 1: always there, and that is the choice of good and evil,
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  Speaker 1: moral values, and the idea of God pages four sixty
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  Speaker 1: nine through seventy. In all this one can see little
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  Speaker 1: more than verbal confusion. To commence with Canon Green, which
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  Speaker 1: will also cover much that Professor Sorely says on the
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  Speaker 1: same point. When we are told man must choose virtue
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  Speaker 1: freely in order that what he does shall partake of
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  Speaker 1: the character of morality, it is plain that he is
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  Speaker 1: using the word forced in two senses. In the one sense,
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  Speaker 1: force may mean no more than a determinant. Thus we
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  Speaker 1: may say that our sympathies force us to act in
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  Speaker 1: such and such a way, or the religious man may
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  Speaker 1: say that the love of God forces him to act
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  Speaker 1: in such and such a manner. Force here means any
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  Speaker 1: consideration that will lead to action, and no one can
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  Speaker 1: object to its use in this sense. A second meaning
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  Speaker 1: of force is that of compulsion from without, as when
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  Speaker 1: a strong man gets hold of a weak one, and
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  Speaker 1: by exertion of physical strength, compels him to do something
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  Speaker 1: that he is disinclined to do, or when one forces
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  Speaker 1: another by threat of punishment. In this latter sense, no
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  Speaker 1: one dreams of harmonizing force with moral action. Neither law
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  Speaker 1: nor common sense does so. But compulsion in the sense
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  Speaker 1: of one's actions being forced by a mental or moral disposition,
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  Speaker 1: no one outside an asylum would dispute. And what Canon
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  Speaker 1: Green does is to ask us to reject the idea
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  Speaker 1: of a moral action being forced in the sense of
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  Speaker 1: external compulsion, and then uses it in the sense of
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  Speaker 1: an absence of dispositions that will lead to certain courses
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  Speaker 1: of conduct. It is probable that the canon would reject
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  Speaker 1: this interpretation of his statement. But if it does not
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  Speaker 1: mean this, then his argument is unintelligible. For if it
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  Speaker 1: is admitted that what man does is the product of
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  Speaker 1: his mental or moral dispositions, in other words, of his nature,
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  Speaker 1: and if, as is undeniable, the nature with which he
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  Speaker 1: fronts the world is the product of heredity and environment,
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  Speaker 1: he would no more be forced to do good had
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  Speaker 1: God given him impulses strong enough to overcome all tendency
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  Speaker 1: to evil, than he is now when his impulses come
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  Speaker 1: to him from his ancestors and his general social heredity
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  Speaker 1: All that is implied in a moral act is free choice.
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  Speaker 1: But choice is free not when it is independent of
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  Speaker 1: organic promptings, that is absurd, but when those organic promptings
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  Speaker 1: are allowed to find expression. There is no other rational
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  Speaker 1: meaning to choice than this. Choice does not tell us
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  Speaker 1: how it is determined. On that point, it can say
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  Speaker 1: nothing any more than a child can say why it
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  Speaker 1: chooses sugar in preference to cayenne pepper. Its choice, we say,
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  Speaker 1: is determined by its taste, and its taste is determined
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  Speaker 1: by a question mark. To answer that question, we must
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  Speaker 1: call in the chemist and the physiologist, and they probably
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  Speaker 1: will tell us why our choice moves in one direction
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  Speaker 1: rather than in another. When men like canon Green talk
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  Speaker 1: of the morality of an action being dependent upon our
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  Speaker 1: choice between right and wrong, what they probably have in
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  Speaker 1: their minds is the perception of right and wrong. For
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  Speaker 1: we may perceive the possibility of one course while we
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  Speaker 1: are performing another. But the power of choice is clearly limited.
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  Speaker 1: A man cannot choose to be a mathematician, however much
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  Speaker 1: he may see the desirability of becoming one, and many
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  Speaker 1: a man may, in the moral sphere, see the advisability
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  Speaker 1: of his being different in character from what he is,
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  Speaker 1: but may altogether lack the capacity of becoming such. And
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  Speaker 1: the power of choice differs not only with each individual,
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  Speaker 1: but with the same individual at different times. Finally, the
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  Speaker 1: more fixed the character of the individual, the less conscious
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  Speaker 1: he is of choice or of a sense of freedom
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  Speaker 1: to do differently from what he actually does. And as
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  Speaker 1: this applies with equal force to character, whether it be
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  Speaker 1: good or bad, we reach finally the suicidal position that
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  Speaker 1: the more fundamentally moral a man becomes, the less moral
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  Speaker 1: he is. I have discussed this question at length in
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  Speaker 1: my Determinism or free Will. Now, seeing that all our
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  Speaker 1: educational processes aim at making the good character so to speak, automatic,
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  Speaker 1: that is, to quite fill the mind with worthy motives
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  Speaker 1: and wise power of choice, and seeing also that a
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  Speaker 1: character is good so far as this is done, will
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  Speaker 1: somewhat explain in what way moral character would have suffered
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  Speaker 1: had God so made man that he would have had
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  Speaker 1: intelligence enough to always choose the good and reject the bad.
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  Speaker 1: For be it noted, the apology put forward for the
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  Speaker 1: present state of affairs is that man is in a
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  Speaker 1: state of probation. He is passing through a course of
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  Speaker 1: moral discipline, and it is essential that he should experience
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  Speaker 1: the possibility to do wrong, and even to occasionally do
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  Speaker 1: the wrong. And the end of the process of tuition
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  Speaker 1: is what the production of a perfect being, in whom
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  Speaker 1: there shall not be a proneness to do wrong, to
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  Speaker 1: whose purified moral nature wrongdoing shall be quite foreign. That
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  Speaker 1: is to say that we are to reach, as a
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  Speaker 1: result of this long, roundabout process, with all its waste
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  Speaker 1: and bungling, just what might have been established at the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: For either the perfect moral being is without the quality
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  Speaker 1: which we have just been assured is essential to morality,
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  Speaker 1: or the whole argument is reduced to nonsense, for it
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  Speaker 1: is impossible to assume that the bad man chooses to
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  Speaker 1: be bad with a full perception of the consequences of
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  Speaker 1: his actions, and at the same time with the power
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  Speaker 1: to do Otherwise. We all agree that the right choice
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  Speaker 1: is ultimately a wise choice, and that if we could
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  Speaker 1: all trace out the consequences of all we do, we
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  Speaker 1: should realize that it was to our real interest to
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  Speaker 1: act rightly. And if that is admitted, it follows that
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  Speaker 1: the choice to do evil is the product of short sightedness,
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  Speaker 1: or of some defect of temperament which prevents our standing
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  Speaker 1: up against the temptations of the moment, and our ethical
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  Speaker 1: education is mainly directed to making good this defect in
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  Speaker 1: our makeup. But suppose that amount of wisdom or strength
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  Speaker 1: had been an endowment of our nature from the outset?
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  Speaker 1: Is there any conceivable way in which we should have
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  Speaker 1: been the worse for it? For even as it is,
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  Speaker 1: there are some people who do make a fair, fairly
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  Speaker 1: wise and right choice, and whose high water mark of
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  Speaker 1: excellence is not reached through the crime and folly of
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  Speaker 1: the revival meeting? Convert, are they the worse because they
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  Speaker 1: have never yielded to evil? Is the naturally good man
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  Speaker 1: really a less worthy character than the one whose comparative
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  Speaker 1: goodness is only reached through and after a lengthy course
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  Speaker 1: of evil living? And if not, in what way would
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  Speaker 1: the race have been worsened had we all been as
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  Speaker 1: fortunately circumstanced. If it was really God's purpose to have
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  Speaker 1: a race of men and women who should be both
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  Speaker 1: good and wise, it remains for the theist to show
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  Speaker 1: in what way the plan would not have been as
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  Speaker 1: well served by making them at once with a sufficiency
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  Speaker 1: of intelligence to act in the real interests of themselves
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  Speaker 1: and of all around them. Coming closer to earth. The
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  Speaker 1: theist attempts to find a justification for the existing order
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  Speaker 1: of things by finding a use for pain and suffering,
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  Speaker 1: in their educational influence on humannas nature, and in the
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  Speaker 1: impossibility of altering for the better the consequences of natural law.
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  Speaker 1: The real question at issue, says one of the most
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  Speaker 1: eloquent of modern theists, the late doctor Martineau, is whether
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  Speaker 1: the laws of which complaint is made work such harm
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  Speaker 1: that they ought never to have been enacted, or whether,
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  Speaker 1: in spite of occasional disasters in their path, the sentient
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  Speaker 1: existence of which they are the conditions, has in its
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  Speaker 1: history a vast excess of blessing. Study of Religion II,
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  Speaker 1: Page ninety one, and Canon Green, who uses some of
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  Speaker 1: doctor Martineau's ideas without the latter's eloquence or power of reasoning, asks,
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  Speaker 1: if God were to say, you condemn me for this suffering,
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  Speaker 1: will take my creative power and recreate the world to
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  Speaker 1: please yourself and to suit your own sense of justice
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  Speaker 1: and mercy? Could we think out a world that would
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  Speaker 1: be better than this one problem of evil? Page forty eight.
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  Speaker 1: Now both these methods of raising the question, and they
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  Speaker 1: are representative of a serve, but to confuse the issue,
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  Speaker 1: for no one denies that some benefit may result from
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  Speaker 1: the present cosmical structure, but that does not touch the
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  Speaker 1: complaint that the structure is not such as fits in
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  Speaker 1: with the existence of a presiding intelligence, such as theism
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  Speaker 1: asks us to accept, and the question of Canon Greens
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  Speaker 1: whether we could turn out a better universe than the
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  Speaker 1: one that actually exists is wide of the mark. Also,
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  Speaker 1: if I purchase a motor car as the work of
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  Speaker 1: a genius in car building, and find when I get
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  Speaker 1: my purchase home that it cannot be made to run,
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  Speaker 1: it does not destroy the justice of my complaint to
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  Speaker 1: ask whether I could build a better one or not.
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  Speaker 1: The important thing is that the car is not what
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  Speaker 1: it should be, and judging by the product, the builder
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  Speaker 1: is not what he is represented to be either. Doctor
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  Speaker 1: Martineau was far too keen a controversialist to adopt Canon
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  Speaker 1: Green's foolish retort, but he does seek to parry the
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  Speaker 1: force of the atheist's criticism by saying that God, if
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  Speaker 1: once he commits his will to any determinate method and
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  Speaker 1: for the realization of his ends, selects and institutes a
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  Speaker 1: scheme of instrumental rules. He thereby shuts the door on
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  Speaker 1: a thousand things that might have been done before study
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  Speaker 1: page eighty five. To that one may reply so much
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  Speaker 1: the worse for his judgment. While if the fact of
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  Speaker 1: his having once adopted a determinate method caused him to
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  Speaker 1: resolve to stick to it in spite of its consequences
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  Speaker 1: in practice, and irrespective of the beneficial results that might
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  Speaker 1: have followed its modification, we can only regret that the
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  Speaker 1: deity was not acquainted with Emerson's opinion that a foolish
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  Speaker 1: consistency is the bugbear of little minds. Even what is
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  Speaker 1: said to be the greatest mind of all might easily
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  Speaker 1: have benefited from the warning. Cannon Green tries another line
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  Speaker 1: of reply, which is not in the least more convincing.
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  Speaker 1: He pictures to us a father who, by misappropriating trust funds,
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  Speaker 1: brings disgrace to the whole of his family. The mother
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  Speaker 1: is driven to despair and drink, the sister dies for
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  Speaker 1: want of food, the brother finds his career ruined. The
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  Speaker 1: disaster is complete, and canon Green says it is inevitable
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  Speaker 1: because we cannot have a world in which the relations
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  Speaker 1: of parents and children exist without having them suffer from
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  Speaker 1: each other's faults. So far as the present world goes,
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  Speaker 1: that is true. But it is certainly a strange reply
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  Speaker 1: to the complaint that an arrangement is unjust to say that,
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  Speaker 1: as the injustice results from the arrangement, therefore we have
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  Speaker 1: no cause for complaint, and that we are unable to
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  Speaker 1: make a better world. Is beside the mark between the
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  Speaker 1: perception of an injustice and the ability to remove it.
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  Speaker 1: There is a world of difference, and although we may
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  Speaker 1: be unable to remedy the defect, the defect remains. But
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  Speaker 1: indeed human nature does try to produce a world in
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  Speaker 1: which such happenings as those depicted shall either not occur
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  Speaker 1: or their constant sequences shall be reduced to a minimum.
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  Speaker 1: We do not hang a son for his parents crime,
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  Speaker 1: nor do humane people blame children for the shortcomings of
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  Speaker 1: their parents. To some extent, we try to correct the
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  Speaker 1: consequences that follow, And even though the endeavor be futile,
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  Speaker 1: that is in itself an indictment of the existing order.
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  Speaker 1: Man does at least try to correct the injustices his
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  Speaker 1: God is said to have created. It is overlooked also
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  Speaker 1: that the evils which follow from wrong actions are not
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  Speaker 1: confined to those immediately connected, and who may conceivably have
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  Speaker 1: their resentment to some extent dulled, if not lessened, by
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  Speaker 1: that fact. People in no way connected, and who can
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  Speaker 1: have no perception of the cause of their suffering, who
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  Speaker 1: are unconscious of everything save the one fact that they
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  Speaker 1: are suffering, feel its consequences. When a great war spreads
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  Speaker 1: devastation all over the world, can it be said that
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  Speaker 1: any useful purpose is served by the sufferings of millions
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  Speaker 1: who are not in the lightest degree aware of the
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  Speaker 1: cause of their agony. When a shady financial operation brings
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  Speaker 1: an innocent man to ruin and affects all the consequences
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  Speaker 1: which Canon Green imagines resulting from the defaulting parent, how
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  Speaker 1: can it be said that the catastrophe admits of ethical justification.
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  Speaker 1: In many cases, the thought of the injury experienced acts
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  Speaker 1: itself as a fresh cause of degradation. It creates a
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  Speaker 1: rankling and a bitterness, which depresses and inhibits the power
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  Speaker 1: to struggle, unless it be the desire to struggle for
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  Speaker 1: revenge against a condition of things of which the evil
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  Speaker 1: results are only too apparent. People are not merely punished
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  Speaker 1: for the evil they do, they are punished for the
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  Speaker 1: evil that others do, and the punishment, so far as
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  Speaker 1: we can see, bears no observable relation to the wrong done.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: There is no ethical relation between actions and consequences. Not
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: alone is the incidence of an action dependent upon personal qualities.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Some will suffer more from having accidental told and untruth
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: then others will suffer from having committed gross and deliberate fraud.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: But nature is absolutely careless of whether what I do
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: is motivated by good or bad intentions. If I get
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: a wedding through going out to help someone in distress,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the consequences will be exactly the same as though I
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: had got wet going out to commit a burglary or
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: a murder. And when doctor Martineau talks of the natural
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: penalties for guilt and adds that sin being there, it
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: would be simply monstrous that there should be no suffering,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and would fully justify the despair which now raises its
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: sickly cry of complaint against the retributory wretchedness of human transgression,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Study two, page one oh six. The reply is that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: there are no such things as natural penalties for guilt.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: There are only consequences of actions and they are the same,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: whatever be the moral quality of the actions performed. In
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the same way that nature may, in the course of
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: an earthquake, destroy the homes of a dozen worthy families
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and leave a gambling hell untouched, so it will, in
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: other directions, punish where a man, from good intentions places
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: himself in the path of punishment, and refrain from afflicting
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: one whose selfishness or greed has guarded him against attack.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: There are natural consequences of actions. There are no natural
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: penalties for guilt, and there are no natural rewards for innocence.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Rewards and penalties are the creation of man, and it
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: is only in the form of a figure of speech
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that we can apply them to nature. It is equally
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: idle to speak of pain as a form of discipline.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Professor Sorely says that if the pain in the world
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: can return to the increase of goodness, then its existence
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: offers no insuperable objection to the ethical view of reality.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: So doctor Martineau says that suffering is the moral discipline
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: through which our nature arrives at its true elevation. It
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: is needless to multiply quotations. Such statements are are the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: commonplaces of theistic controversy, and almost any book that one
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: cares to pick up will supply further illustrations. If they
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: be required. None can reject them, because no theist can
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: afford to candidly admit that the world we know offers
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: no justification for his belief. The belief in the goodness
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of God, as Canon Green says, is a belief that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: is absolutely fundamental to all religion, and if the facts
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: as we see them do not support the belief, some
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: apology must be found that will marry the theory to
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the fact. Nevertheless, the belief in the disciplinary power of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: pain or suffering is, if not quite illusory, so nearly
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: so that it is useless for the purpose for which
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: it is brought forward in the first place. It does
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: not require a very profound study to see that, whatever
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: are the lessons taught by suffering, they are seldom proportionate
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to the conduct which cause them. Nor do those who
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: suffer reap the alleged disciplinary break benefit of their suffering.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Let us take a common case. A mother goes out
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and leaves a child near an unguarded fire. The mother
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: returns to find the child burned to death. Where is
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the discipline here? Certainly the child cannot have gained any
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: But there is, of course the mother. The mother has
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: learned such a lesson that she will never forget it
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: and will never again commit the same blunder. There we
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: have it. A child is allowed to die by a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: hideously cruel death in order that a mother may learn
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a lesson in carefulness. It is good to learn from
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: other sources that God's ways are not our ways. A
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: man who tried to imitate them, and who burned one
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of his children in order to teach its mother how
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to look after the rest, would soon find himself in
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the criminal court or in an asylum. But what would
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: be insanity or criminal cruelty in the case of man
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: becomes in the alembic of religious apologetic goodness and wisdom
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: in God. The theory that it is the function of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: pain to elevate and to discipline is simply not true.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: One has only to look to see that in countless
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: cases the effect of pain is disaster. The world's best
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: work is not born of pain, but of pleasure. There
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: is no pain and no suffering. There is hardly even
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: toil in the work of a genius. In all the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: higher walks of music, of art, of literature, the work
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: is perfect in proportion as the worker finds himself in
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: agreeable and pleasant surroundings. And what is true of the
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: higher aspect of art is true also of life in general.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Life may be lived in spite of pain, as good
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: work may be done in spite of discouraging circumstances. But
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: one might as well talk of a plant flourishing because
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of poor soil or sharp frosts, as to speak of
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: life becoming better because of pain. The normal function of
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: pain is to depress, that of pleasure is to heighten.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: As Spencer said, every pain lowers the tide of life,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: every pleasure raises the tide of life. It is one
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: of the commonest of sights to see those suffering from
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: illness becoming more self centered, less careful of others, and
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: to see the disintegrating consequences of disease on character. Here
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and there one may find a character that has had
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: its rough edges smoothed down by suffering. But for every
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: case of that kind one may find a score of
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: an opposite order. It is not the under fed, badly closed,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: neglected child that is likely to make the best citizen,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: but the one that has the best chance of developing
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: itself in healthy surroundings. And it is a curious commentary
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: if it were true to argue that a good and
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: wise God so arranged things that pain and suffering, even
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: undeserved suffering, should be the main way for the development
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of character. A strange but not uncommon argument is used
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: by Canon Green in dealing with the suffering incidental to
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the various disasters that overtake mankind from time to time. Suffering,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: he says, has a certain element of martyrdom about it.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Even evils, due to human greed and carelessness, bring some
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: benefit in their train. Thus apropos of the Titanic disaster,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: every such disaster tends to produce some improvement for future generations.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Ship owners are forced to supply more boats. Wireless installment
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: is required on all ships. The idle rich are led
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to think less of saving useless time and more of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: saving lives their own and those of men in the stokeholds.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: In a sense, those who perish may be said to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: be unwilling martyrs, who, by their deaths purchase some advantage
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: for others. It will be said that it is a
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: great price to pay for a small advantage, and one
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: which might have been cheaply gained in some other ways.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: That is so, but so too the ways of nature
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: are cruel. So many seeds must be sown, so many
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: young animals or birds or fishes born, So many must
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: be trampled out of existence, that only the best may survive.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Problem of evil Pages one, sixty three and four. That
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: certainly puts all the owners of slum property, all the
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: grasping shipowners, all those who batten and fatten on other
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: people's welfare, in a most favorable light. We have been
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: thinking them almost criminals when they were in reality public benefactors.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: They lead to many improvements, and even though the improvements
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: come too late to benefit those who suffer from the evils,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: yet they do come sometimes. Certainly, it might give some
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: comfort if the sufferers knew what it was they were
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: being sacrificed for, and that others would be benefited by
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: their death. But they do not, and we are therefore
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: bound to conclude that whatever satisfaction is felt is by
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: those who survive. When a Titanic sinks, it must be
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the people on shore who see the element of goodness
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: in it, since it makes traveling easier for them, and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the kindness developed in one who can excuse the brutalities
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of nature because brings some benefit to himself is of
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: a rather startling nature. The fundamental fault in all reasoning
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: of this order lies in the assumption that pain ceases
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to be pain if it can be shown to bring
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: good to some one. But that is not so. Pleasure
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and pain are not quantitative things, increments of which can
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: be carried on from generation to generation, and a balance
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: struck at the end, much as one strikes a balance
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: between the profits and losses of a year's trading. All
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: suffering and all enjoyment are of necessity. Personal suffering is
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: not increased by extending it over a million instances. There
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: was not more pain because a larger number happened to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: be killed in the European War than are killed in
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: a borderland skirmish. There were a larger number of people
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: involved in the one case than in the other, but
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: that is all. Multiplying the number of cases makes a
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: greater appeal to a sluggish imagination, but it adds nothing
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: substantial to the fact. Feeling, whether it be pleasant or painful,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: is a matter of individual experience, and that being so,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: it is not the number of people who suffer through
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: no fault of their own, and so far as one
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: can see, without any benefit proportionate to the suffering experienced.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: But the fact of there being this suffering at all,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: that is the point the theist must face. It is
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the one point he systematically avoids. Another form of the
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: same argument meets us in the familiar plea that bodily
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: pain sounds the alarm bell of disease in time for
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: its removal. In some sense, it may be admitted that
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a painful feeling in certain circumstances does act as a
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: warning that persistence will lead to disaster. But it is
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: not universally true in the sense and in the degree
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: that is needed to justify the argument, and it is
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: a warning out of all proportion to the danger faced.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: In the first place, pain cannot be a warning again
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: against disease. It can only be an indication of its presence.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: It does not warn us against the dangers of a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: contemplated course of conduct, nor can it tell us what
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: conduct has led to the pain experienced. And in the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: case of contagious diseases, what amount of warning is there given.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: In some case, the victim is stricken and is dead
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: in so short a time as not to know with
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: what it is he has been afflicted, and certainly without
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: any chance of being warned. What warning is there in
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: the case of a violent poison, or what relation is
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: there between pains felt and dangers run. The most dangerous
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: diseases may have painless beginnings and be well rooted in
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: the system before the victim is driven by discomfort to
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: seek medical advice. On the other hand, a corn or
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a toothache, neither of them. Very deadly ailments create pain
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: out of all proportion to their gravity. And if we
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: take the case of excessive cold, we have here an
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: instance where instead of pain acting as a warning, the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: danger just acts as an anesthetic. The victim is oppressed
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: by drowsiness, sinks into insensibility, finally death. Here it is
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: not the approach of death that is painful, but the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: return to life, the pain of restoring circulation being very severe. Indeed, fear,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: which may be classed as a species of pain, appears
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to act in the majority of instances as an enemy
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: rather than as a friend to the animal experiencing it. Thus,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Professor Mosso points out that in the animal organism there
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: exists a number of harmful reactions that increase in number
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: the graver the peril becomes. We have all read of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the fascination of the bird by the serpent, and there
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: are other animals that, in the presence of an enemy,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: become so palsied with fear as to become incapable of defense,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: even that of flight. And with man, it is not
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: as the danger becomes most acute that his nerves become
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: steadier and his courage. The opposite is probably more often
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the case. In all these cases, it is as though
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: nature had lured the animal or man into a position
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: of grave danger, and then does its best to divest
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: him of adequate means of defense against it. Common sense
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: revolts against the doctrine that pain is a good thing,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: and the fact of this is everywhere seen in the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: attempt of man to get rid of it. No one
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: trusts it as a sure warning against disease. No one
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: turns to it as a means of purifying character. All
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: these pleas are the mere platitudes of a religious apologetic
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: trying to harmonize a primitive theory of things with a
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: larger knowledge and a more developed moral sense. Pain and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: suffering in the world remain facts, whether we believe in
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the existence of a God or not. But we are
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: at least freed from the paralyzing horror of the belief
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: that all the suffering and pain in nature is part
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: of a plan. If man realized all that that belief involved,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: it might indeed rob his mind of all strength to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: struggle against the forces that make for his destruction. Fortunately,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: no race of people could act upon the logical implications
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: of the theistic theory and maintain its existence in practice
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: as well as in theory. Theism has had to come
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to terms with facts, and now the series of adjustments
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: have almost reached their end. The belief in God has
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: been traced to its origin, and we know it to
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: have issued in an altogether discredited view of the world
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and of man. We know that man does not discover God,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: he invents him, and an invention is properly discarded when
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: a better instrument is forthcoming to day. The hypothesis of
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: God stands in just the same relation to the better
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: life of to day as the fire drill of the
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: savage does to the modern method of obtaining a light.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: The belief in God may continue a while in virtue
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: of the lack of intelligence of some, of the carelessness
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: of others, and of the conservative character of the mass.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: But no amount of apologizing can make up for the
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: absence of genuine knowledge. Nor can the flow of the
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: finest eloquence do aught but clothe in regal raiment the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: body of a corpse. End of Chapter nine.