The Problem of Evil and Mindfulness
The problem of evil has been stated in many ways but the essence of the objection is that the amount, intensity, and distribution of the evil in the world is inconsistent with the existence of a God that is perfectly good and all-powerful. The standard theistic rejoinder is that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing that amount, intensity, and distribution of evil that we do, in fact, find. Thus, the theist concludes, the evil in the world does not provide a reason to disbelieve/doubt God’s existence.
As a theist, it seems to me that non-theistic skeptics frequently draw their skeptical conclusions without expending a great deal of effort in trying to understand the ways that evil and suffering might lead to greater goods. For those willing to look, one can find different elements for a theodicy appearing in some rather surprising places, including cold water surfing.
This morning I was watching a TED Talk by surf photographer Chris Burkard as he described the lure of surfing in harsh, bone-chilling conditions. Burkard reflected,
“When it comes to pain, psychologist Brock Bastian probably said it best when he wrote, ‘Pain is a kind of shortcut to mindfulness. It makes us suddenly aware of everything in the environment. It brutally draws us in to a virtual sensory awareness of the world much like meditation.'”
As painful as his experience of surfing in the Arctic could be, Burkard also found it a portal to a depth of experience, a connection with reality, that he could never find in the comparatively benign warmth of the tropics.
Bastian’s insightful quote reminded me of a famous passage from C.S. Lewis’s book The Problem of Pain. Lewis wrote:
“We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shovelling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
Lewis’s gastronomic reference calls to mind my own modest experiences with fasting. On two occasions in the past I fasted from food for one week. During that time I predictably suffered physical deprivation. But the loss of food was accompanied by a deepened awareness of food, my physical environment, and a mindfulness of myself. How often had I been the glutton shoveling down foods without really tasting and experiencing them? The fact is that it was through a period of fasting that I became more deeply acquainted with the sensory delight and physical nourishment of mundane meals.
How many pains could be permitted as means to greater mindfulness, as an occasionally brutal means to draw us into a greater sensory awareness of our world, our selves, and our God?
This is a complicated question, and like so much in life, it does not admit to a simple or easy answer. But it does suggest the value of an epistemic humility on the side of the skeptic.
