The problem of evil is a problem. Anyone who doubts this should consider the wrenchingly haunting protests of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov. Reading it again today, I was struck by the reasonableness of it all. He accepts as just the sufferings of "grown-up people," for they have eaten of the apple and has the knowledge of good and evil. And of course there's the promise that the wrongs will be righted, that the lion will lie down with the lamb, that there will be no more tears or pain. But, Ivan protests, "If all must suffer to pay for eternal harmony, what have children to do with it...?"
He shares a couple ghastly stories to bolster his point. There's the Turkish soldiers throwing babies up in the air and catching them on their bayonets--all in front of the mothers. Or the five year old child whose parents beat her for no reason, smearing her face and filling her mouth with excrement, and leaving her alone in the night to her groaning and misery. How does the meaningless suffering of even just that one child justify the creation of a world where sin abounds?
Listen to Ivan's protest: "Do you understand why this infamy must be permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs him so much?" And, "It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpected tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears are unadorned for...if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price."
Ivan accepts God. He accepts that God could have created the world, given us free will, and allowed suffering and evil as a necessary condition for free will to truly exist. But it's too high a price, he insists. "And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket...It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return Him the ticket."
Those are haunting images accompanied with a haunting conclusion: most respectfully return Him the ticket. His protest demands the Christian's full engagement. But here is the curious and perplexing further problem: just where the Christian is confronted with so massive a problem, the Christian community has at least two responses with different premises. I am, of course, thinking of the Calvinists and the non-Calvinists response to Ivan. Thus, the problem of evil is compounded by the Christian community's own unique problem: just where a unified, coherent response is most needed, it has church divisions; just where the church should be a witness to God's shalom, it demonstrates conflict.
Whatever the case, the piquancy of Ivan's protest shows why the debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinists (what exactly are we to call them?) is so often heated and contentious. The beauty and truth of our Christian witness is at stake. Dostoevsky’s response to Ivan's protest is not an intellectual argument (as important as that is), but the incarnational, Christ-like living of Father Zossima and Alyosha. And this is why the real problem right now may well be the problem of the fractured Body.
Thursday 27 December 2007
Wednesday 5 December 2007
Career is so overrated
Why do you go to school? Why do you work at the job you work at? I find myself often unconsciously schooling and working so that I can get into that career I want to get into. And I supsect that once one is in his desired career, it is very tempting to go to work every day to get the promotion and the raise.
We moderns like productivity; we value efficiency (often even worship it!). When we meet someone new, one of the first questions we ask is "What do you do for a job?" And of course what else would we ask?! Well, as Robert Hadas observes in his provactive new book Human Goods, Economic Evils,
“…higher concerns made premodern societies economically conservative—they often rejected innovations which would lead to better labor and greater consumption in order to preserve what they perceived to be higher goods of culture and religion. In modern societies, however, the current social order is more often sacrificed for the sake of a greater economic mastery. Indeed, one of the marks of industrial economics is a shift in the balance—to a greater acceptance of the economically efficient and better and to less loyalty to the socially established and virtuous” (70-71).
Premoderns knew better than we do that economic life should be subordinated to the higher things of life. For moderns, however, career defines people. We increasingly find our identity in our career. Thus, the high school grades, the college degree, the master’s studies, the internship, the low-level job, the management-level job are often done out of the hope that we will advance in our desired career. But is career really the end-all and the be-all? As Mother Theresa reminded us, “God has not called us to be successful, but faithful.”
Career is not so important as attention to the really human things of life: loving, creating, caring, giving. Attention to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful is infinitely more important than scoring that great job. Jobs are good; but being human is even more important.
So here’s a wild idea: perhaps loving your roommate, next-door neighbor, coworker, boss, sibling, parent, friend, spouse is more important than getting a great job. And here’s a challenge: when you’re at your job tomorrow, stop and think about the significance of your work. Ask yourself, “Is what I am making of any truly good benefit to man?” Or “does this service really and truly help my fellow man. Does it not help just his body but his soul?” Why shouldn’t we ask those questions? If it is a terrifying question, I suspect it is only because we would find that so many of our jobs are not so important. If you cannot conceive of any possible way how your job is not serving your fellow man, ask God to show you how you can. And ask people whom you respect for ideas on how to do that. If you still find that your job isn't serving people in any meaningful way, drop it. Find another job. If it is really true that the soul is more important than the body, then why do we not think about the effects that our daily work has on the souls of people (and on our soul)?
Now we must always remember: work is beautiful and good. This is not a diatribe on work. Indeed, in our work we can do one of the most human things of life: create, make, produce. But we should always subordinate our career, our job to the really important things. So long as we do our work simply to earn the paycheck, or simply to pay the bills, or to put food on the table, or to advance to the "better" position, we are missing out on just how beautiful work can be.
Career is overrated. Faithfulness is what matters. Love God, love people. In all your typing, reading, writing, teaching, playing, eating, talking, producing, serving--in all these things, pay attention to the important things of life.
We moderns like productivity; we value efficiency (often even worship it!). When we meet someone new, one of the first questions we ask is "What do you do for a job?" And of course what else would we ask?! Well, as Robert Hadas observes in his provactive new book Human Goods, Economic Evils,
“…higher concerns made premodern societies economically conservative—they often rejected innovations which would lead to better labor and greater consumption in order to preserve what they perceived to be higher goods of culture and religion. In modern societies, however, the current social order is more often sacrificed for the sake of a greater economic mastery. Indeed, one of the marks of industrial economics is a shift in the balance—to a greater acceptance of the economically efficient and better and to less loyalty to the socially established and virtuous” (70-71).
Premoderns knew better than we do that economic life should be subordinated to the higher things of life. For moderns, however, career defines people. We increasingly find our identity in our career. Thus, the high school grades, the college degree, the master’s studies, the internship, the low-level job, the management-level job are often done out of the hope that we will advance in our desired career. But is career really the end-all and the be-all? As Mother Theresa reminded us, “God has not called us to be successful, but faithful.”
Career is not so important as attention to the really human things of life: loving, creating, caring, giving. Attention to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful is infinitely more important than scoring that great job. Jobs are good; but being human is even more important.
So here’s a wild idea: perhaps loving your roommate, next-door neighbor, coworker, boss, sibling, parent, friend, spouse is more important than getting a great job. And here’s a challenge: when you’re at your job tomorrow, stop and think about the significance of your work. Ask yourself, “Is what I am making of any truly good benefit to man?” Or “does this service really and truly help my fellow man. Does it not help just his body but his soul?” Why shouldn’t we ask those questions? If it is a terrifying question, I suspect it is only because we would find that so many of our jobs are not so important. If you cannot conceive of any possible way how your job is not serving your fellow man, ask God to show you how you can. And ask people whom you respect for ideas on how to do that. If you still find that your job isn't serving people in any meaningful way, drop it. Find another job. If it is really true that the soul is more important than the body, then why do we not think about the effects that our daily work has on the souls of people (and on our soul)?
Now we must always remember: work is beautiful and good. This is not a diatribe on work. Indeed, in our work we can do one of the most human things of life: create, make, produce. But we should always subordinate our career, our job to the really important things. So long as we do our work simply to earn the paycheck, or simply to pay the bills, or to put food on the table, or to advance to the "better" position, we are missing out on just how beautiful work can be.
Career is overrated. Faithfulness is what matters. Love God, love people. In all your typing, reading, writing, teaching, playing, eating, talking, producing, serving--in all these things, pay attention to the important things of life.
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