A Third Logic?

Sharing Divinity

 

The word Theodicy comes from two Greek words “theos” which means  "god" and  “dike” which means  "justice".  Theodicy is the reasonable justification of  God.   Instead of considering evil as a mystery, Theodicy tries to explain the reasons for its presence and seeks to explain why a good God could allow evil. The word "Theodicy" was invented by the eighteen centaury philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.  Leibniz’s thesis was that God, the highest monad, is almighty  and hence his creations are perfect  in that He is able to create  that which is logically possible given the character and nature of the creation he wants. Certain factors may each be independently possible but mutually incompatible, and, because God created the world under these limitations, the created world is indeed "the best of all possible worlds."

 

There is a third logic arising out of the creation of free will persons who share the divinity of God as Sons of God.  There are two possibilities.

1.      These free will consciousness are created by God  and is given the freedom.  This therefore creates the possibility of these beings try to elevate themselves to the status of gods.  This is the solution of Eastern Christian Churches.

2.       There is no God except these free beings.  This forms the New Age and Modern Hinduism.

The basic concept of evil in Christianity is different from most other religions where God is the author of both the good and the evil.  In those systems within the ultimate reality of the person of God there is a choice of Good and Evil.  If that is so, there is a standard, which decides what is right and what is wrong beyond God himself.  Since there is no standard beyond God, God becomes the standard.  Even when God express himself in existence and is considered as a unity of persons – a family or community of persons - it is this unity that determines what is right and wrong.  So all our ethics should proceed from this concept of God, which defines within it what is good and what is wrong.  Anything that is within the will of God is Good.   That is Sat. It is this Sat-chit that produce Ananda.  The only reality is this Brahman – this Sat Chit Ananda Murthy.

This Divine essence, the God who is before all things (Nirguna Brahman) and before being expressed (being Saguna Brahman) is  hidden, distant, withdrawn, secret, undifferentiated, uncreated, unborn, unmanifested, infinite, ineffable, incomprehensible, absolute, unknown.  It is beyond fullness & emptiness. A Supreme Cause beyond all possible affirmation or denial. God radically precedes & transcends all possible objectifications, which are always part of His creation. Divine existence or the Creator is First Cause of the cosmos and all  spirits, worlds, planes, layers, strata, fields, modalities, etc. This First Cause is Good, i.e. untainted by evil or chaos.

1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

Isa 45:21    And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me.

Isa 45:5-7  I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other.  I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.

Thus darkness is created by forming the light.  It is not formed but comes into existence by virtue of defining the light.  By defining God  also we define what is evil even when it does not exist in reality – as an absence and antithesis.

Thus evil is moving away from God’s standard.