Yesterday, when I said I would be making posts throughout the day, what I obviously meant was I would be posting about the various vehicles of Buddhism eventually. Yes, that’s right… eventually.

In the meanwhile I had an interesting question come to mind today. Why do we not forgive God for all the evil and suffering in the world?

We, in this context is a general term, meaning those who I would imagine being in this position, inferred from the various conversations about God and evil which I have had over the years. A very classic position to take on God, as you will see. In any case, the point I want to make is that it seems that every response to the problem of evil seems to avoid making God culpable.

The problem of evil is the problem of reconciling an obvious abundance of immoral action, suffering, and general badness in a world that is supposed to be created and/or governed by an all knowing, all powerful, perfectly good deity. There are many answers to this apparent paradox- that God allows evil acts so that there can be free will, so that we may choose what to do with our lives instead of always doing good by default. There is also the argument that how we suffer just makes us better, allows us to enjoy the good moments, or better prepares our souls by building character and such. It is an old problem and has many arguments on both sides, some claiming it to be a crippling argument against such a conception of God, or of no consequence, or perhaps further proof for God.

But what I finally realized today while ruminating about the subject, is that every defense avoids making God culpable for these pains and horrors inherent in the problem of evil. If it is for the sake of free will, then it is excused. If it is all part of a big Divine Plan, then it is not to be understood, and again it is excused. When trying to puzzle through the problem of evil, why do we bother trying to make excuses for God? Why not just admit that God was wrong, that He made a mistake?

This doesn’t seem like a conceivable conclusion for those who want to hold onto a conception of God as a perfect being. But the existence of the problem of evil as well as other theological fine points challenges this concept of God. From here we have two conceivable routes- we can paint God as a being that is beyond our understanding, as something Zen that is beyond all definitions and languages, as something the defies all reason. Or we could conceive of God as something imperfect, as a being that makes mistakes and judgments, who can be just as fallible as we are.

But this is getting a bit off topic. What I am getting at is that no matter how you conceive of God or our justification of evil, you still have to come to the inevitable realization that God is responsible for evil. Whether it be knowingly allow it to happen, or through His own incompetence, God is linked to horrible things happening to us.

And now we come back to my question- if we know God is responsible, why make excuses for God instead of forgiving Him? Most of the religions we have practiced have taught of the value of forgiveness and understanding, and Christianity makes this point extremely apparent in the role of Jesus Christ. God forgave us our sins, why can’t we do the same for God’s sins?

When I wrote this post I kept imagining the stereotypical funeral or the consul of a priest as they explain that God ‘has a plan’, that our lost ones are in ‘a better place’, and that it is not for us to understand. Why would we play these games, why not just cut across the bullshit and admit the frightening and difficult conclusion- that if we believe in such a divinity, we will eventually need to forgive Him for what He did to us.