The J of BB IX: The Mystery of Decency

It used to be that news of genocide, ethnic cleansing, or the NY Yankees got me thinking about the problem of evil. I wondered how a good God allows evil to flourish (and especially concentrate itself in the NY Yankees)? God brought home the groceries of creation, and it was all good stuff, but somehow the dinner of life is bitter and sometimes poisonous.

Now I think about the problem less, perhaps because I doubt we're in the hands of a good God.

I therefore worry less about the problem of evil, at least as a polemical problem (it certainly exists as an annoyance, especially when the Yankees win). Bad things don't happen under the watchful eye of a good God; bad things simply happen because that is the way of the world.

And that causes a problem. A world without either a divinity, or a "God of the Completely Indifferent" (see Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan) must contend with a different problem: the problem of good. That is, how did goodness come to exist in a completely indifferent universe?

I have found some goodness on the plate of life (after I scraped off the broccoli). Can I call it good in any transcendent sense of the word? Or do I merely mean when I say "good" that x is "liked by me"? I merely say, with Macbeth, that "there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so."

The question, then, is which of the two problems--of good and of evil--is more significant?

A nine dollar check. Made me think about this. I won the bid on a Dura Ace crank and, in addition to the price, paid the $9.00 shipping and handling charge. The seller lives up the street from me, and was kind enough to deliver the crank to my door. Though I had not mentioned reimbursement, the seller sent me a check for $9.00.

This was surprising, especially since it was anonymous and will in all probability be without consequences. I would expect this from a lot of people I know, most believers in God, but not someone I don't know.

And here we come to another issue--I prefer to live in a world where people believe in God, where the problem of evil exists. The rules of that world exist in perpetuity and goodness is more than an expression of personal taste. That's appealing.

And, of course, I like $9.00 checks. Most people do, which is why most people believe in a good God, and why, for most people, the problem of evil exists. Such a world, where evil must be explained as an anomoly, is appealing. It assumes a basic goodness in the universe, and this offers immense comfort.

Comforting ideas have a tendency to be wrong, though. That the Cubs will win the World Series. That Barack Obama will revive America. That unicorns exist and yearn to give rides through lands of pixee dust to lonely girls. That I am a unique and beautiful snowflake. That God listens.

Thank goodness, some comforting ideas are actual. That I love my family, and they love me. That a stranger will send me $9.00.

When it is 5:30am and I am twisting my stationary indifferent machine with my indifferent body, and my cadence is 96 rpm, and my heart rate is 165 bpm, and the whine of the trainer is almost as loud as my breath, I pass by God. Maybe he's the God of the Completely Indifferent, or maybe he's just God. He's riding a unicorn, wearing a Yankees jersey and sporting an "Oh Mama, Obama!" button. I thank him for the $9.00.