Letters From a Skeptic, by Greg Boyd and Edward Boyd.
I copied this page from the book Letters From a Skeptic (Chariot Victor publishing 94). This is the third correspondance (of 29 total) in its entirety and should be read in conjunction wwith my page on the theodice problem.
Edward Boyd's Question:
Correspondence 3
April 8, 1989
Dear Greg:
I trust all is going well with you and the family. How is your Muslim debate shaping up? Sorry I was a bit slow in responding to your last letter but it required a good bit of thought.
Your point about the relationship between freedom and responsibility may have something to it. It's most intriguing. But I have another nagging question. One has to question the wisdom of a Creator who would wager so much for freedom. Is it all worth it? To create a world in which mad men like Hitler or Stalin can use their freedom to take away the freedom-and the lives-of millions of others, is quite frankly, very poor management. If He values freedom so much, why the hell did God make is so tenuous that the will of one could destroy the freedom of millions?
Is the whole thing worth it? Freedom's nice, but I don't know if it's worth all the evil and pain we see in this world. I'm sure if we could ask that girl who was raped and mutilated, she'd say it wasn't worth it. If you could talk to the Jewish victims of Auschwitz, they'd say to hell with Hitler's precious free will. If you could talk to the Ethiopian mother of the kid dying as he tries to suck one more drop of milk from her dehydrated breast, I doubt she would say it was worth it.
Sorry to be such a tough nut, but it seems like a valid question.
Lots of love,
Dad.
Greg Boyd's Response:
Correspondence 3
April 11, 1989
Dear Dad:
I appreciate the seriousness with which you're taking our correspondence. You're clearly putting a lot of thought into these letters, and I love it. Your question is certainly valid.
There are four points I'd like to discuss in response to your question. First, I would argue that the risk of freedom must be exactly proportional to its potential for good. If I have the freedom to love one person only, I have the freedom to hurt one person only. If I have the freedom to love them a little, I have the freedom to hurt them a little. If I can love them a great deal, I can hurt them a great deal. And so on.
The fact that we humans have such an incredible amount of potential for evil, then, is to my mind indicative of the fact that we also have an incredible amount of potential for good. Yes, there are Hitlers and Stalins in the world. But there are also the Ralph Walenbergs, the Mother Teresas, the martin Luther King, Jrs. And I don't see how you could have the latter without at least risking the possibility of the former. If we have the potential to oppress or slay millions, it's because we also have the potential to liberate and love millions.
I can understand why you might see this as "bad management," and perhaps it would be if there were some other way of doing things. But I don't believe there is. In my view the proportionality between the possibilities of good and evil inherent in freedom is what's called a metaphysical truth. It's like the three sides of a triangle. If you have freedom, you have to have this risk.
So is it all worth it? This is my second point. Under the impact of nightmarish tragedy, it is certainly understandable that one might think not. But consider three things: first, in our own lives we all know that love can hurt. In loving another person, in raising kids, in developing deep friendships, we often suffer a great deal. I know you've experienced your share of this in your own life. people reject us, they die, kids rebel, etc. And yet, we continue to love. We normally regard it as cowardly, as tragic, and as terribly unhealthy not to do so. If a person never loved, he'd never suffer. But then again, he'd never really live.
But isn't God in this same position, only on a cosmic scale? To refuse to create a world where love was possible because the risk was too great seems to be beneath God. Love is really the only reason worth creating! It's not freedom for the sake of freedom that God values-it's love. Freedom is simply the only possible means to this end.
This leads to my third point. From a Christian perspective, the risks involved in creation are not only, or even primarily, for human beings. God himself risks a great deal in creating in creating the world. The Biblical perspective on God reveals a God who throughout history has suffered from the ill choices of human beings, and He suffers because He loves. In the book of Hosea, God portrays Himself as one who is married to and deeply in love with, a wife who will not be faithful. She harms herself, her husband, and her children by prostituting herself. So, with a great deal of pain, God continually attempts to call his people, his bride, back to a faithful relationship with him.
In fact, so risky is the creation for God, according to Scripture, that it involved Him in becoming a human being and dying a hellish death on the cross. In spite of our rebellion against him, God loved the world so much he was willing to go to this extent to have an eternal relationship with us. On the cross of Calvary, God took upon Himself all the sin of the world, and all the pain and punishment that sin produces. He didn't have to. He did it out of love-because love is worth it. It's worth dying for, even in God's view.
And this leads to my fourth point. We need to ask the question of whether love is worth it from the broadest possible perspective. If this short life is all there is, if the suffering death of victims spelled the complete end of their existence, then perhaps we might legitimately argue that the risk is not worth it-at least not for the victims. But if Christianity is true, this simply is not the case. Our earthly, temporal lives are but a brief prelude to a life that is going to go on forever. For a great many this life is indeed filled with nothing more than pain and suffering, but from an eternal perspective, this is only a small part of the whole story. Jesus died on a cross so humans could exist eternally in the peace and joy of God-heaven-and the promise of Scripture is that this state of being will be such that our present sufferings can't be compared to it (Rom. 8:18). In the light of Auschwitz, it must be incomprehensibly beautiful-which is exactly what Scripture says it is (1 Cor 2:9).
If there is no heaven, Dad, then all the sufferings, tears, and cries of the dying children go unanswered. Life is finally tragic for all of us. All of our hopes, longings, strugglings, striving come to nothing, pure nothing! "Life's a bitch, then you die." But isn't there something in the depth of your heart which refuses to accept this as the whole truth? Isn't there something within you which resonates with the biblical proclamation that this story must have a happy ending?
I have a lot of reasons for believing in God, and a lot of reasons for believing that Christianity is true-things I hope to share with you some time in the future. But even apart from this, I simply refuse to accept that existence can be the senseless nightmare it appears to be, if in fact this short life is the only life there is.
I look forward to your reply.
I love you, Dad.
Greg