The Trinity and Theodicy

The Trinitarian Theology of von Balthasar and the Problem of Evil

Jacob H. Friesenhahn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138268326
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317013020
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Why does God permit the great suffering and evil that we see in our world? This basic question of human existence receives a fresh answer in this book as the mystery of evil is explored in the context of the mystery of the Trinity. God's permission of evil and the way in which suffering can lead human persons into the life of the Trinity are discussed in dialogue with the great Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. In the light of Balthasar's model of the Trinity as divine self-giving love, we gain a profound grasp of the nature of suffering in human life by placing our suffering in the context of the divine life of the Triune God.

PART I
The Problem of Evil

Chapter 1
Introduction to the Problem of Evil

The purpose of this book is to offer a theodicy—an account of why God permits evil—that takes as its framework the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The basic conviction behind this approach is that the central Christian doctrine of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, must guide the struggle of Christians to make sense of their lives and of their relationship with God in the face of evil. This process is in fact a struggle, and no intellectual argument can circumvent the struggle, but if we allow ourselves to be captivated by the mystery of the Trinity, then God’s self-revelation will lead us to the truth of our suffering and of our existence.

Our understanding of who God is must inform our understanding of the relation between God and evil. Christian theology must ground Christian theodicy. Too often the terms of the debate, especially the assumptions concerning God, have been defined in a non-Christian fashion that leads Christians away from the very resources of their faith that are required if a Christian answer to the problem of evil is to be articulated. The method of this book is to employ the core doctrines of Christian faith—the Trinity and the Incarnation—to provide an answer to the problem of evil. My argument is that the doctrine of the Trinity illumines the essence of God as love in a fashion profoundly relevant to the problem of evil.

The problem of evil presents the question, Why is evil present in the creation of an all-powerful and all-loving God? My thesis is that the doctrine of the Trinity, particularly as developed in the theology of the great Roman Catholic Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–88), provides us with the best framework in which to answer this question from a Christian theological point of view. Balthasar’s theology of the immanent Trinity (God in Himself) as a communal life of interpersonal, kenotic (self-giving) love and his grounding of the economy of salvation, especially the Cross, in the Trinity enable us to see that human suffering, joined to the suffering of Christ, becomes a mode of participation in the Trinity in a way that resolves the problem of evil. This answer to the problem of evil is unpacked throughout this book, especially in Chapters 5 and 6. The purpose of this opening chapter is to explain what the ‘problem of evil’ means and what I am attempting to do in offering a theodicy.

The Problem of Evil

Though we may struggle to agree on a common definition of ‘evil,’ one point on which people from a wide variety of perspectives would likely agree is: the world is full of evil. Philosophers typically parse this statement in terms of moral evil and natural evil. What most people think of as ‘evil’ are the malicious or harmful choices and actions of certain individuals or groups. Christians generally speak of these malicious choices as ‘sin’ or as willing what is contrary to God’s will. The category of moral evil includes the vicious choices of free agents, such as murder, torture, lying, stealing, and the effects of these choices. Both the choices themselves and the suffering that they cause are often spoken of in terms of moral evil (or formal evil).

Perhaps just as significant, and maybe even more difficult to analyze, is the suffering of sentient creatures (both human and non-human) caused by non-human factors. Natural disasters (earthquake, tsunami, hurricane) and illnesses or diseases (cancer, schizophrenia) can cause enormous suffering. These instances of considerable suffering are commonly referred to by philosophers as natural evil (or material evil). These philosophers are not confusing natural disaster or disease with sin by speaking of ‘natural evil.’ Rather, by using the term ‘natural evil’ instead of ‘moral evil,’ they are specifying a type of suffering that does not seem directly related to human sin.

Why would God permit evil, both moral and natural? Christians, along with most theists, typically speak of God as both omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-good or all-loving). If God’s power and goodness are unlimited, how then could there be so much evil in our world? Indeed, why is there any evil in God’s creation? God, as omnipotent, ought to be able to eliminate evil, and God, as omnibenevolent, ought to be willing to eliminate evil. Yet evil is quite evidently present in our world. The amount of evil that exists seems dreadfully extensive, both in terms of the magnitude of certain tragic events and in terms of the ubiquity of evil. There is no corner of creation unaffected by evil. Further, the forms that evil takes can appear horrific, even demonic, as well as inexplicable. Both the degree to which evil exists and the terrible types of evil that we find in our world compound the problem of evil. Finally, profound evil is not only ‘out there’ in the world but also within each of our own souls. In the words of Balthasar:

Everyone knows that the powers of evil are not simply alien and external to him; everyone knows that there is a shaft in him that reaches down to the deepest abysses. Thus he stands in a baffling solidarity with the powers and superior forces of negativity that are ravaging the world around him, while at the same time he is fighting off these same powers as far as he can.1

Elie Wiesel and the Nature of Theodicy

Discussions of theodicy frequently make use of Elie Wiesel’s powerful Holocaust memoir Night, but I would like to take a different approach and focus instead on Wiesel’s play The Trial of God, in which the nature of theodicy lies at the center of the drama. The play features three traveling actors who decide to spend the night at an inn in the remote town of Shamgorod on Purim night of the year 1649. Purim celebrates the events of the Book of Esther, in which Esther rescues the Jewish people from the attempted genocide of Haman, but the actors soon realize, to their horror, that they have come to entertain the Jews of a place where there has recently been a pogrom. The only two Jews left are Berish, the innkeeper, and his daughter Hanna, the victim of extreme abuse the night of the pogrom. Berish, who at first is nothing but annoyed by the presence of the actors, decides to have them perform a play after all, but this Purimschpiel will be different: they will stage a trial of God.

This play within a play (metadrama) forms the core of the work, and Wiesel bases this fictional trial of God on the real-life exercise that he himself witnessed while in Auschwitz at the age of only 15.2 As Wiesel’s characters begin to choose their roles, we find that Berish is eager to act as prosecutor, and the three actors are willing to make up the jury. The only trouble is that no one can be found to play the part of God’s defense attorney (the play’s theodicist)—no one, that is, until a mysterious stranger named Sam arrives and without hesitation accepts the part.

Sam’s first move in the defense of his client is to suggest that God’s justice is not the same as human justice. Berish is outraged by the suggestion; if God’s justice is not the same as ours, then of what use is it to us? Berish insists that justice is justice, but Sam seems pious in arguing that we ought not to drag God down to the level of man. We cannot presume to judge God by human standards of justice. God has His own justice, which we cannot fully understand, though we ought to try to elevate our sense of justice to that of God. Similarly, Sam suggests that God’s truth is higher than that of man and dismisses Berish’s feelings of suffering and pain as worthy of sympathy but as insufficient evidence against God. Sam, like many others when faced with the question of the problem of evil, urges a sort of pious agnosticism:

He [Berish] is asking, Why murder—why death? Pertinent questions. But we have some more: Why evil—why ugliness? If God chooses not to answer, He must have his reasons. God is God, and His will is independent from ours—as is His reasoning.3

We cannot know God’s reasons for permitting evil, but the mind of God is not for man to know; rather our place is to abide in our trust in God.

Sam’s next move is the equivalent of the common free-will defense. Enormous human suffering has in fact been caused by other human beings, not by God. Why blame God for what we have freely chosen to do to one another? We should instead look to ourselves, as we condemn man’s inhumanity to man. To this line of thought Berish retorts, “You want to leave Him out? Turn Him into a neutral bystander? Would a father stand by quietly, silently, and watch his children being slaughtered?”4 Sam’s response to this strong challenge from Berish consists in an argument often associated with Wiesel’s Night.5 Sam argues, “When human beings kill one another, where is God to be found? You see Him among the killers. I find Him among the victims.”6 Berish is not swayed by this move, and when Sam later speaks of God Himself as suffering, Berish angrily replies:

Don’t talk to me of His suffering—leave that to the priest. If I am given the choice of feeling sorry for Him or for human beings, I choose the latter anytime. He is big enough, strong enough to take care of Himself; man is not.7

While Sam speaks of God as on the side of the victims and as Himself suffering, Berish brushes aside such moves as asking us to feel sorry for an omnipotent God when it is really vulnerable humanity who suffers.

The last argument that Sam offers in his defense of God is his attempt to speak of the victims of evil as dying with gratitude to God and as now enjoying heavenly union with God. There is no sense in using these lovers of God as evidence against God. Further, the Jews of the past, throughout various historical contexts, have often suffered and died under unjust persecution, but they nonetheless remained faithful to God, and the Jews of today must do the same. Contrary to Sam’s urgings, Berish rejects any call to remain calm in the face of the tremendous suffering that he has witnessed. Even if Jews of the past chose to die silently or while praising God, Berish will continue to cry out against God until the end.

As we listen to the debates between Berish and Sam, the anger of Berish seems justified, and his protests against God appear fitting and even courageous, given the horrors that he has seen. On the other hand, Sam’s counterarguments seem at least equally sensible. Why blame God for the sins of man against man? Must we not trust that God is just and that His reasons for permitting suffering are valid, even if these reasons are not known to us? We seem led both to sympathize with Berish, even to admire Berish, and to find Sam’s rebuttals reasonable and attractive. The two most compelling aspects of Wiesel’s play—both deeply paradoxical—are Berish’s refusal to renounce his Jewish faith, even in the face of death, and the revelation that Sam, God’s only defender, is Satan.8

Wiesel does not depict Berish’s loyalty to his Jewish faith as reflective of some residual trust in God. Sam is eager to cast Berish’s talk of refusing to betray his faith, following the tradition of his fathers, as Berish speaking “of faith, of sacrifice, of martyrdom” and as contradicting all of Berish’s previous accusations against God, but Berish corrects Sam: “This has nothing to do with you or your client. (Pause) It’s a personal decision.”9 Berish’s unshakable Jewish faith is “a personal decision” that has nothing to do with either Satan or God. When Sam suggests that Berish’s resolution to keep his faith indicates that his case against God has been dropped, Berish declares, “Not at all! I have not opted for God. I’m against His enemies, that’s all.”10 Wiesel offers us, with irony and dark humor, a striking example in Berish of protest theology. Unflinchingly accusing God of guilt in relation to the suffering of His innocent people becomes an act of Jewish faith.

The case of Sam (Satan) is the inverse of Berish’s faith. Sam, in a way reminiscent of Job’s three friends, defends God only to emerge dramatically as the real enemy of God. The fact that none of the Jews present is willing to argue God’s case might appear to be indicative of their lack of faith, but Wiesel portrays their unwillingness more as a matter of their virtue. The three traveling actors, and especially Berish, seem too honest and too aware of the gravity and extent of innocent suffering to take on the task of theodicy. Perhaps they are also simply too humble to presume to act as God’s defenders. Only Satan desires to perform the task of theodicy.

Why would Satan want to defend God? One possibility is that Satan seeks to divert attention from himself to God. When Sam finds himself que...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I The Problem of Evil
• Part II A Trinitarian Theodicy
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index