Falling Rain & Theodicy

“Into each life some rain must fall” from Longfellow’s “The Rainy Day” 

Especially when the unbelievable atrocities strike (e.g., another shooting, “civil" war, genocide) or the unbearable close-to-home happens (suicide, bullying, child cancer, road-rage fatality, domestic abuse...) or the everyday heartbreaks reach consciousness (poverty, ecological crises, enormous economic inequities, addictions, animal cruelty, leaders lying…)—at such times we may question the possibility of a loving all-powerful God. A word for this complex is theodicy. From the New World Encyclopedia: 

Theodicy is a specific branch of theology and philosophy, which attempts to solve The Problem of Evil—the problem that arises when trying to reconcile the observed existence of evil in the world with the assumption of the existence of a God who is fully good (or benevolent) and who is also all-powerful (omnipotent). A "theodicy" also refers to any attempted solution to this conundrum.

        The Catholic Encyclopedia credits the introduction of the term to Leibniz in 1710, so I suppose I should know the word better by now. The “conundrum” is certainly familiar as indicated by about 20 blogs I've written that explicitly reference the problem of evil, the book of Job, or both. Kushner’s books on bad things happening to good people have been helpful. And now, Schuon’s treatment in Eye of the Heart, while dense, offers commentary of reassurance and guidance.

“As far as theodicy is concerned, it is important to realize that the Intellect perceives Universal or Divine Good a priori, that is, it perceives this Good possibly before understanding—or wishing to understand—the nature of evil; and if the contemplative metaphysician may possibly overlook the doctrine of evil, this is precisely because he is certain in advance—and in unconditional and as it were primordial fashion—of the infinite primacy of Good, under the three aspects of ‘Pure Being,’ ‘Pure Spirit’ and ‘Pure Beatitude.’ For him, theodicy will have the secondary role of ‘putting hearts at rest,’ itmi’nan al-qulub, as the Sufis would say; for him, it could not play the role of a proof sine qua non.” [p. 42]

        Schuon adds a footnote to this: “To say ‘Being’ is to say ‘Spirit’ and ‘Beatitude’; and let us remember that ‘Beatitude’ coincides with ‘Goodness,’ ‘Beauty’ and ‘Mercy.’” He continues with guidance on the nature of certainty:

   “The credo ut intelligam of Saint Anselm means that faith is an anticipation, by our whole being and not by reason alone, of the quintessential certainty we have just spoken of; faith already shares this intellection by anticipating it, without it being always possible to decide where faith in the elementary sense of the term ends and direct knowledge begins. This is one of the meanings of the blessedness of those ‘who have not seen but yet believe’ [John 20:29]; but this saying, thanks to its sacred character, applies at all levels and therefore includes that of gnosis because in fact, to believe is not only to accept with the will and the emotions, it is also—on the very level of complete and intellective certainty—-to draw the consequences of what one knows, and therefore to know ‘as if one saw’ and with full awareness of being seen by Him whom we see not. . . . for although they obviously cannot ignore the existence of evil, those who know that God is sovereignly good, know thereby that evil can never have the last word, that it must have a cause which is compatible with Divine Goodness, even if they do not know the nature of this cause. Whatever may be our doctrinal knowledge or ignorance, the best means of grasping the metaphysical limits of evil is to vanquish it in ourselves, and this is possible only on the basis of intuition of the Divine Essence which coincides with the Infinite Good.” [pp. 42-3]

        Schuon adds another footnote to these last sentences noting Buddhist teachings about goodness. He then proceeds to discuss how the problem of evil can be held and even with the removal of “its venom.” What, when caught in this world, we consider “reality” may better be known as “accident” in order to hold to the divine, the Substance, the Reality.

“He who has the intuition of the Absolute—which does not solve the problem of evil dialectically but puts it in parentheses by removing all its venom—is ipso facto endowed with a sense of the relationship between the Substance and accidents, to the point of not being able to see the latter without also seeing the former. An accident, that is, any kind of phenomenon or being, is good to the extent that it manifests the reabsorption of the accidental into the Substance. And conversely a phenomenon is bad—in this or that respect—to the extent that it manifests the separation of the accidental from the Substance, which amounts to saying that it tends to manifest the absence of the Substance—without being able to achieve this completely, for existence bears witness to the Substance.   God and the world; the Substance and accidents; or the Essence and form. Accident—or form—manifests the Substance, or the Essence, and proclaims its glory; evil is the ransom paid for accidentality, insofar as accidentality is separative and privative, not insofar as it is participatory and communicative. Knowledge of the immanent Substance is victory over the accidents of the soul—hence over privative accidentality itself, since there is an analogy between the microcosm and the macrocosm—and it is, for that reason, the best of theodicies.” [pp. 44-45]

        Schuon footnotes this section elaborating on the “accidental” in relation to the “Substance”:

"In the relationship of the ‘accident’ to the ‘Substance,’ one can discern a kind of continuity, whereas the relationship of the ‘form’ to the ‘Essence’ is more readily conceivable as being discontinuous; the first relationship refers more particularly—but not exclusively—to the Infinite and the Feminine, whereas the second evokes the Absolute and the Masculine. According to the first relationship, there is reabsorption, and according to the second, extinction; or again, according to the first relationship the soul meets the Substance by penetrating—but without concupiscence—the accident-symbol, whereas according to the second relationship the soul renounces—but without bitterness—the accident-illusion. All this is a question of emphasis for, in fact, the notions of ‘Essence’ and ‘Substance,’ or ‘form’ and ‘accident’ are broadly interchangeable." [pp. 44-45]

         In this book, “The Question of Theodicies” is followed with “Concerning the Posthumous States.” Perhaps the mind-stopping unbelievables and the heart-breaking realities are needed in order to bring recalcitrant humans who too often go insensitive, even inhumane, to one’s knees in order to detach oneself (the “animal soul”) from the perilous attraction to the material world. Humans depend on prayer vigils as well as actions big and small to build compassion and to sustain hearts that return continuously, leaning further into the other side, the True Reality.
        A friend posted today from a poem of Sanai that includes: "Don't speak of your suffering--He is speaking/ . . . He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones." While rainy days here often carry associations with teardrops, sadness, and broken hearts, these are vital to the beatitudes: life, growth, and preparing the move home into the next world.