Christianity in the Modern World Writing (3-4 pages)

But where was Christ in the death camps? In his memoir of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel relates an incident in which he witnessed the execution of a young boy. According to Wiesel, this was a particularly troubling execution, and even the Nazi guards seemed disturbed at the prospect of hanging a young boy in front of the other prisoners. The scene grew worse, as the child did not die right away, but rather remained suspended in midair, struggling for some thirty minutes. In response, someone in the crowd asked “Where is God?” Wiesel reports his own answer, from an inner voice: God was there, hanging with the child.6 Wiesel’s inner voice is related, as he indicates elsewhere, to the tradition of Jewish mysticism. But many Christians would affirm a similar notion, in response to the question “Where was Christ in the death camps?” The answer: With those who suffer. As one writer put it, the Holocaust might be considered “the crucifixion of the Jews.”7 In this way, the incarnation is taken as an affirmation that God in Christ has become one with humanity, especially with those who suffer. If that is the case, then Christians at least may affirm that the Holocaust is not meaningless. Nevertheless, problems remain, because those who died did not die freely, as the New Testament indicates in the case of the Christ. The victims of Auschwitz had no inkling that their deaths might have a redemptive purpose. More than that, the killers were Christians, in some cases motivated by the idea that Jews deserved punishment for the crucifixion of Jesus. If the Christ was present in the death camps, and present as one of the victims, what does that make of the Christian executioners? Responses to Evil: Some Classic Patterns The identification of evil is thus not a simple matter. Certain experiences characteristic of human existence—cruelty, indifference, and the like—constitute the brute facts of evil. But the reasons why such things count as evil vary somewhat, depending on the notions of sacred reality that persons and communities bring to such experiences. Remembering that “the problem of evil” occurs whenever people perceive a contradiction between the facts of ordinary experience and the reality suggested by their notions of the sacred, we now turn to a discussion of responses to evil in religious traditions. We identify certain characteristic patterns of response. We discuss four classic approaches to the problem of evil: karma, characteristic of the religions of India; the consolation of promise, characteristic of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the appeal to sovereignty, especially as it appears in the Hebrew Bible; and dualism, of which Zoroastrianism provides perhaps the clearest example.8 Evil and Karma: The Indian Context In an earlier discussion of sacred time (Chapter 3), the notion of karma was tied to Buddhist and Hindu ideas of the cycle of existence (samsara). Karma , we noted, signifies the moral “weight” of one’s actions. Good or proper action results in good karma and in progress toward the goal of enlightenment. In connection with the problem of evil, karma is a kind of inexorable reality that explains the destiny of human beings. People get what they deserve—at least, over the long cycle of time. Samsara signifies the way human beings work out their destiny through a long process of birth, death, and rebirth—the goal being to achieve enlightenment and be liberated from the cycle, never to be reborn again. The inexorability of karma is the problem addressed in the Buddhist story of “The Death of Moggallana.”9 The story begins with a saying of the Buddha on the law of karma: Who striketh him that striketh not, And harmeth him that harmeth not, Shall quickly punishment incur, some one among a list of ten.

A number of types of retribution are listed: The wrongdoer will experience “cruel pain, or drear old age,” or “failure of the vital powers”; if these do not occur, then disease or madness “him shall overtake”; the king will punish the wrongdoer or, as a last resort, “when his frame dissolves in death, In hell the fool shall be reborn.”10 According to a standard commentary, the Buddha spoke these words on the occasion of the death of Moggallana, one of his chief disciples. Known for his miraculous powers, Moggallana had been brutally murdered by a rival religious sect. The Buddha’s saying referred to the law of karma as a way of indicating that justice would ultimately be done. According to the commentary, it was so: Moggallana’s murderers were arrested while fighting in a tavern. In captivity, they revealed their connections with the contrary sect, whereupon the king seized the murderers, buried them in pits “up to their navels,” covered them with straw to which he set fire, “and after thus burning them, he took iron plows and plowed them into bits.”11 Evil never goes unpunished. Such is the moral of the tale. Such a moral provides only a partial response to the problem of evil, however. And thus the story continues with the questions of Moggallana’s companions. Perhaps, they say, we can perceive the workings of karma in the punishment of the killers. But how can we affirm the eternal law in the case of Moggallana? Karma means “one gets what one deserves.” What then can be said of the brutal murder of the saintly Moggallana, whose association with the Buddha seemed to lead him to the very brink of enlightenment? Here it seems there is a contradiction: The “facts” of experience run counter to the reality proposed by Buddhist notions of the sacred. What is the proper response? According to the story, the Buddha said: “The death of Moggallana was unsuited to his present existence, but suited to his karma of a previous existence.” There follows a tale concerning a youth who, faced with the duty of caring for his parents, took a wife as a helpmate. His parents had insisted on this, knowing their son needed help. But soon the wife told her young husband, “It is impossible to stay in the same house with your parents.” Eventually the young man’s resolve broke in the face of his wife’s insistence, and he conspired to take his parents into the forest where he killed them in the manner of a highwayman. Thus, it is not only the death of Moggallana’s killers that is appropriate, fulfilling the law of karma; Moggallana’s death also exemplifies that inexorable law, for he “was” the youth in the story. That which is experienced as evil may in fact be right and proper. From the Buddhist perspective, evil is located in the self, with its passions and desires. The brute facts of cruelty and pain are not simply the “luck of the draw,” nor are they connected with the will of God. The Buddha’s teaching points toward Nirvana, the state of mind that is beyond such notions. One who attains enlightenment sees through such illusions. He or she knows that the resolution of the experiences associated with evil does not depend on gods or goddesses, nor does it depend on other human beings. In the fundamental sense, the solution to the problem of evil depends on each individual person. Beginning with the awareness that life itself is painful and filled with suffering, one starts down the road that leads to enlightenment. At the end of the road lies Nirvana. In between initial awareness and Nirvana there is discipline: the way of the Buddha, summarized in the Noble Eightfold Path (Chapter 2). Ultimately, one “solves” the problem of evil by overcoming one’s self. The approach associated with karma is characteristic of most types of Hinduism, as well as Buddhism, yet it takes diverse forms. In Vedantic, or philosophical, Hinduism, for example,

karma explains the major events and the overall setting of a person’s life. Did a person’s father die early? The explanation lies in past deeds—in this life or another. Was a person born in poverty? Each life illustrates the law of karma. The destiny of beings is the consequence of past actions. According to Buddhism, one overcomes such evils by dealing with one’s self. By contrast, the way of Vedanta stresses that such evils are ultimately illusory and therefore have no real existence. Seen from the point of view of enlightenment, terms such as “evil” and “good” have no referent. Such distinctions simply do not exist. In this way, the problem of evil is “dissolved.” Further variations within the framework of karma may be found in popular Hinduism. As Wendy O’Flaherty indicates, the notion of evil as the outworking of an inexorable law may not answer all the questions raised by the facts of pain and suffering. Even those who do affirm the law of karma may ask who or what created the law in the first place. By what logic or force can one declare a world governed by karma the best or most meaningful of possible worlds? It does not suffice—at least, necessarily—to say that evil is an illusion. After all, even those who are enlightened do not seek after hunger or misfortune. Beyond this, it seems that the circumstances of some people’s lives give them a better chance to attain enlightenment in the first place. Thus, popular Hindu mythology points to the role of various gods and goddesses in the origin and resolution of the problem of evil, even within the framework of belief in karma.12 Dualism Among the many fascinating aspects of the story of Job, the character of Satan has captured the attention of many religious minds over the centuries. When joined with other biblical passages, the story of Job has contributed to a lore about Satan that points to a last response to the problem of evil, which may be called dualism: The postulate that evil is the result of a conflict between good and evil powers, both of which share some of the characteristics of sacred reality discussed in Chapter 2. Both God and “the devil” are set apart, to some extent, beyond the volitional control of human beings, and exercise a special prominence with respect to human welfare. Only God, however, does so by right, pointing to the importance of moral concern in dualism. From the perspective of dualism, God is good but God’s sovereignty faces a severe challenge from those powers that do evil in the world. To a certain extent, the Bible reflects the concerns of dualism. Thus, in the Gospel according to Luke, the devil tempts Jesus in the following way: Then the devil led him [Jesus] up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I will give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” (4:5–7) That the kingdoms of the world have been handed over to the devil is a sign of the power of evil. Jesus’ rejection of this temptation is a sign of his choice to be on the side of God in the struggle against evil. Luke’s gospel does not, however, illustrate dualism in the fullest sense, nor does the book of Job or the Bible as a whole. No matter how powerful “the devil” is, it is ultimately subject to the sovereign will of God. In the passage from Luke, the kingdoms of the world are said to be “handed over” to the devil. In the book of Job, Satan is an “accuser” whose primary concern is the glory of God. Martin Luther expressed quite well the biblical approach to the devil: “The Devil is always God’s devil,” for the devil, like human beings, is created. A fully developed dualism requires that good and evil be on a more equal footing. Thus, the best representations of the position may be

Zoroastrian stories of the struggle between Spenta Mainyu (“beneficent spirit”) and Angra Mainyu (“hostile spirit”), whose conflict stems from the beginning of all things and continues to the end of time. These stories, which by tradition originated with the founding teacher Zarathustra around 1000 b.c.e., exerted a strong influence on pre-Islamic Iran and on aspects of biblical and Islamic traditions. They continue as important components in the religious understanding of Zoroastrian communities in Iran, India, and Pakistan. Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu are twins, offspring of the “wise lord” Ahura Mazda, the creator of all things. Ahura Mazda’s twins represent the moral choice set before all creatures. Evil comes into the world as a result of wrongful choice, and the proper response is thus to fight against it. The two primordial Spirits, who are twins, revealed themselves in a dream. They have two ways of thinking, of acting: the good and the bad. And, of the two, the one who acts well has made the right choice, not the one who does evil. And when these two spirits met, they established, at the beginning, life and nonlife, and the consequence, in the end, of the Worst Existence for evil, and Best Thought for good. The evil one of the two Spirits chose to do bad things, and the Most Bounteous Spirit, clothed in hardest stones, chose Truth, as is also true for all those who constantly strive to please the Wise Lord with honest actions.14 The hope is that human beings, choosing to participate in the work of the beneficent spirit, will eventually transform themselves and the world. That this would be right and is to be fervently desired is clear. It is less clear that it will be accomplished. The suggestion is that the transformation will take place, for the “wise lord” is ultimately on the side of good. But the principle of choice and the equality of good and evil make this answer somewhat more tentative than in some other traditions.