Dear Ivan

Dear Ivan,

I agree.  The torture of the vulnerable, for which we can fathom no logical reason, seems just cause for rejecting the ‘goodness’ of God’s world.  Even if at a future moment of “eternal harmony”, there becomes “manifest something so precious that it will be sufficient for all hearts, for the soothing of all indignation, the redemption of all men’s evil-doings”, the suffering has been and has been borne and I morally object to being part of an end to which it is the means.  Such a price for eternal harmony is too high.

But Ivan, I struggle thereafter.  If God’s ‘goodness’ is rejected, do we then find good elsewhere or do we conclude there is no good, hence nothing by which to measure its opposite - evil?

Looking for good outside ourselves loops back to God, that Anselmian entity which nothing greater can be conceived.  Do we look inside ourselves, constructing a veritable Tower of Babel?  No, I agree with you there too.  We will “never, never” share - our money, let alone a view of and an ability to do good.  History shows we can’t agree and can’t be trusted to remain uncorrupted.  

Must we then conclude we don’t care about good?  As you say “why recognise that devilish good-and-evil, when it costs so much?

I like this option, as you, but I tried it and couldn’t live it.  Intellectually assenting that nothing matters and actually living like nothing matters are not the same.  

If nothing has any ultimate measure of goodness, what is the reason for living?  You say yourself “the secret of human existence does not consist in living, merely, but in what one lives for”.   I had eliminated anything to live for and there was nothing left to love with - I craved annihilation.  I could not claim to enjoy empty debauchery before my cup was dashed, as you claimed you could.  

But I retreated from the brink.  The teaching of God whom we claim to accept, despite rejecting his world, is that death is not the end. So reaching for death would not annihilate sufferings or ourselves. 

God also teaches that there is good. Jesus! your brother says, Jesus taught what is good and showed us how to live it.  He acknowledged the presence of evil and wept over it.  He sacrificed Himself to it and called us to follow Him in eternal harmony.  He alone, as God, can atone for all the suffering we witness.

Yes, his method angered me too. He rejected the temptation to force us follow him, not wanting to “deprive man of freedom”, leaving us forever squabbling over “terrible fundamental and tormenting spiritual questions.  What a burden!  How is that love? How can we find the strength to “disdain the earthly bread for the heavenly sort” and what “of the … millions of creatures who are not strong enough?” 

I feel it Ivan, I do but does freedom really mean full autonomy?  

Jesus teaches not that we are autonomous, just responsible. He also teaches that He is sovereign. Both operate together in a way we cannot understand (yes, frustrating!). We are partakers in the divine nature when we follow Him and it is not to ourselves we need look for strength to seek heaven and eternal harmony but Him.

You foresaw that science would lead us “into such labyrinths” and up against such “unfathomable mysteries” and I wish I could show you the developments last century.  Nothing, even in the logical and physical world, is as independent and autonomously ‘free’ as it first seems. 

Ivan, I think we are stretching our Euclidean minds too much.  Logic has brought us far, but we both know reason can’t answer all questions.  The truth is bigger than us so one aspect of us, like our mind, is only going to get us so far grasping it. Listen to your brother.  Our minds are not the only way of knowing. 

We know from our deepest heart and experience that love builds harmony, that love in suffering builds harmony.  We can partake in the divine nature and slowly unravel the cycle of evil NOW, today, by serving the suffering.  

We know from reason that there is order to our world and historical evidence for Jesus.  So though reason will not reveal everything, it does lend credence to that which is beyond reason, and to the Him that claims an answer for suffering.

We know in our soul that living without good is intolerable.

So let us use all our ways of knowing to orient us on the path where we might learn to trust there is one who is greater, who knows the rest.  Even when it’s horrifically painful.   

Thank you for going mad trying to live with no good so I didn’t have to.

Jessica