A beautiful example of theological reasoning

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Richard Swinburne was a theologian at Oxford university.

I said it was a beautiful example.

Looking at the first two sentences we get a realization of the banality of it. [My suffering...... provides you with the opportunity.... to help alleviate my suffering].

WHAT? You suffer so that someone can mitigate your suffering? This is the sort of paradoxical circular reasoning that makes atheists fume. Not only is it nonsensical, but it is pointless.

Further in... [Some people badly need to be ill for their own sake]. [some people badly need to be ill to provide important choices for others]

Again, what? The elimination of the first condition would eliminate the need for the solution. Again, hes walking in circles. and the final sentence shows what he really thinks.

[For other people, illness is not so valuable.]

Right. The pious and talented(and presumably Richard Swinburne) need not concern themselves with the unfortunate. They have attained a state of grace precluding the need for awful afflictions and would not accrue further benefits from helping others.

Aspies, hes saying that you get to be autistic to provide people the opportunity to be nice(specifically to you). What hes suggesting is that even if you dont deserve such a thing, you get to bear it for the sake of others. We know how well that works right?

And it doesnt matter that they could easily suffer some affliction of their own so as to improve their character. No, they get good health, popularity and a lack of empathy and you are their proxy.

Have you ever heard the term whipping boy? Thats what you are. A whipping boy was a servant assigned to a prince. When the prince misbehaved, one could not punish him(it just wouldnt be seemingly), so the whipping boy took the licks instead.

If god exists, you are the whipping boy for his pious princes and princesses.

As an atheist I am not particularly responsive to theology but life for each of us is a different set of experiences and some can be pleasant and some quite the opposite. To be able to face all variations in the spectrum of experience and gain from each some fortitude to move on to the next has been, for me, worthwhile. I do not need religion for this attitude but the mere ability to consider all sides of temporal confrontations. The concept of guilt and punishment and reward is, to my mind, one of the most evil gifts of religion. To exist means that each experience has various aspects and one must endure to stay alive and function.

That's one of the more pathetic attempts at resolving the problem of evil that I've seen.

If that's the standard at Oxford, I'm glad I turned them down.

haha! I'm obviously confused somewhere because your reactions to this passage are totally different to mine. So it's most likely another case of me misinterpreting something - but hey! - may as well advertise it to the world of WP!!

The way I see it is suffering is pointless and cruel unless we make it otherwise. Unfortunately in maybe most cases it can hardly be alleviated. So by changing our perspective it doesn't have to become so pointless at least.

Perhaps it's just me, but I definitely don't envy all those people with social lives and careers and mortgages and families. But maybe that's because I wouldn't be able to cope with those things anyhow. I've spent the majority of the past 10 years in some sort of a stupor interspersed only with random manic states which makes me both unfit for society but also the home I'm living in apparently. I'd love to just crawl out of this condition I've found myself in and fly away like some sort of butterfly but I think we all know that's not possible as evidenced in this suckful reality.

So my only only only hope has been to find some sort of meaning through all this. I have no one else to rely on other than my own mind. And it hasn't always been there for me in the past but hey! - we let bygones be bygones! lol

So anyhow, if you would allow me to get to the point perhaps I'll just do that! And it goes like this - I would not have had the opportunity to strengthen my own character if I wasn't forced into this situation by the ever-so-lovely and dear AS. I still don't exactly know who that character is but I'm pretty sure it is more authentic than any superficial society creation. So I guess the suffering makes me feel real. If I was going through one of my worser states I wouldn't be wording it like that though. And that's the whole thing about it - as much as we all wish for there to be no suffering whatsoever - it can allow us an appreciation for life, and the suffering of others can help us develop compassion. I don't want people to suffer but I do want to develop compassion for them - so how's THAT for a paradox?! Maybe I'm evil - oh no!! !

If there was no suffering there would be no need for compassion and that of course would be ideal. But until that ideal is realised, we may as well make the most out of the suffering by using it to develop compassion. That's my interpretation at least.

I prefer justice to compassion.

ruveyn

There, fixed the title to be more accurate.

Yeah, sorry. I should have defined my usage of compassion. I don't mean pity. By compassion I simply mean 'a wish for the suffering to be alleviated'. Through its development it's supposed to make one's life be of benefit to others, not just one's self. It brings about a transformation so that one's life seems to have more purpose. Also one's own suffering feels insignificant in comparison - thus alleviating it. Justice is an honest and fair way of seeing things - but I doubt it has the same potential to transform one's state of mind.

Suffering is a personal response to events. It is realistic when there is real physical pain involved but a good deal of pain can be mere psychological disappointment at an unexpected outcome and some real pain and some psychological pain can be accepted as indications that attitude changes are in order.

Except it isnt stereotypical. The man that said what I quoted is like the Tony Attwood of Christian theology.He is not some country bumpkin priest nor a loud mouthed member of the laity.

I'm not sure I'd agree he has as prominent a role as Attwood. Academic theologians may not be representative of the church as a whole. Certainly relatively few Christians will turn to a university professor for guidance about their faith.

No I expect more that pastors would seek such a person out for deeper answers than they can answer to their congregations, just as a parish priest would ask his bishop. And I suspect that Swinburne would be a little more well read than the average bishop.

I seem to be missing something here and it's confusing for me. Can someone explain to me why this passage is so wrong? The guy is also referring to his own suffering in this so I don't interpret it as others being the whipping boys. The sentence about some people badly needing to be ill is very open to interpretation. But other than that I'm struggling to see what is so wrong about it. Is it the vagueness? Is it the positive slant to suffering?

Given the variance of theological beliefs (referencing those that stem from the same document--in this case the Holy Bible), regardless of the man's status, it still represents a stereotype. Theologians disagree on a great many a thing, as well as reasons for said disagreement and the method for which they use to come to their conclusions.

Well, his argument for the resurrection is also terrible.

http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2009 ... roves.html

However, Fuzzy is right in that Swinburne is an academic theologian/philosopher of religion and a relatively respected one.

Also, this is not a terrible example of how theologians tend to address the problem of evil.

There seem to be a few responses:
1) Epistemic humility (We just don't KNOW whether the evils we see are not justified)
2) Greater goods (Each suffering is for a greater good that promotes some betterness)
3) Free will (Man has free will and therefore suffering exists)

Swinburne argues point 2 for the sake of arguing that certain good things require bad things, and these bad things outweigh the good. More importantly, I think to his point is character building, we need times where we face evil in order to have a good character. The argument isn't a *terrible* rebuttal to the problem of evil given all of the rebuttals that exist, but Fuzzy is right to call this a pretty typical example of the type of reasoning.

Perspective. Its about perspective. My current perspective is far more reasonable and understanding than it was before experiences with suffering left me with empty canvases to start over and hopefully get it right.

At least I don't think this theory contradicts my philosophy in any significant way, although it is driving home points which I would leave as footnotes. Suffering is pain and pain plain sucks. So I am not interested in advocating it. I Beleive in Happyness.
happy happy joy joy enter the pain! happy happy, joy joy