Expert: Jeffrey Eldred - 2/16/2011

Question
Dear expert,


It's known that getting through WHATEVER hardship we have (even the hardest) by staying mentally strong till the end
is a virtue.

As a result, some religious groups claim that
God makes diseases and disasters just to test our endurance and patience.

Accordingly, WHEN these calamities occur to the believers:
if they have patience and endurance to the end,
they are virtuous, then God will finally reward them,

whereas if they get angry with God (and deny His all-goodness), they show impatience and will be punished.

Therefore, God is still all-good....according to believers.

But what you think of that argument?


Sincerely

Answer
Hello again Ed. For the benefit of anyone else reading this page I'm going to go ahead and keep linking things that I know that I've linked you for. There is a lot of overlap with this “Endurance” theodicy and with the “Soul-Making” theodicy [1], “Mysterious Ways” theodicy, and “Life's a Test” theodicy [2].

Biblical Precedent:
One thing that I like about this theodicy is that it is very Biblical in nature and therefore avoids a problem implicit in nearly every other theodicy. Often when someone comes up with a theodicy that has nothing to do with their religious traditions and I feel that it doesn't make for a very good religion even if they are right. If God relies on the inventions of theologians and philosophers to be understood than his original holy documents are necessarily incomplete and only elitists who can fill the gaps are granted salvation. But I think the case can be made that a form of this theodicy has been with the religion since the beginning.
The Book of Job comes to mind as a clear Biblical example of a test of hardship. Essentially God sets out to prove the good of humanity to Satan by torturing his favorite human, Job. Including economic ruin, physically torturing Job, and killing all his children, God permits Satan to make Job's life as worse as conceivable. Job finally confronts God, who contends that he reserves the right to treat Job however he wishes and that those ways can be inconceivable to humans. Job decides not to be angry at God after all and God rewards him with wealth health, and new children.
The story of Abraham and Isaac is another story that fits the mold. The Bible is literally filled with other examples in which God uplifts an individual who has previously had a poor fortune, or rewards an individual who has taken a big risk for God, or decides to create a situation just to test someone[3]. If you really think about it, the notion of salvation in the afterlife as a reward for faith in this life is the grandest example of all of God rewarding a certain attitude in life.

“Endurance” Theodicy:
It is unclear how one would optimize a system of rewarding individuals for enduring hardship. Certainly we would expect that the reward would be proportional to the hardship endured and having a pious attitude in hard times. But should an individual receive many small tests and small rewards or a few big important tests? Does every event in an individual's have to be either a hardship or reward, or are there neutral events that are permissible? Is it possible or desirable for God to test an individual in multiple ways at the same time? Is there different aspects of a person that have to be tested or is it all question that God is concerned with? How do these optimal test interact with naturalistic laws or the decisions of individuals? No matter which we answer these questions, we don't get system that matches the reality that we live in. For example even if the suffering caused by a large-scale disaster isn't intrinsically wrong, it doesn't make sense that the same divine plan of hardship (and later reward) would work for everyone. The burden of proof would be on the believer to show a system which would both match reality and also function as the optimal pattern of hardship and reward for individuals.

Again we use a standard skepticism test. Would you trust a human individual who told you he was going to take from you now and pay you after you died? If not, then it doesn't make sense to wait around for rewards from God in the afterlife? Would you think it is healthy for an individual to blame all their failures on themselves? Than why is it acceptable for God to hold individuals responsible for failing to keep a proper attitude during hardship?

As I've mentioned before, I think the case can be made that difficult circumstances, instability, and uncertainty increases, not decreases the religiosity of individuals[4][5]. So a better test of the resilience of someone's faith might be to put that person in a situation of safety and luxury and examine whether or not he or she still feels a need for piety. This might seem odd that misery might lead one to believe in God, as we are discussing the Problem of Evil which makes the logical case that misery is incompatible with God, but I would expect it to be the rare individual who believes in God for rational reasons.

If I can be permitted some “armchair psychology”, I think of religion as a coping mechanism. We have a strong sense of the way things should be (that is ethically and logically) and when everything goes horribly wrong it is natural to make sense of that by presuming the world is fair in a way that we yet can't see. The worse the tragedy of one's circumstances, the more compelling it is to find a way to believe that an individual can make a difference even when they feel powerless, that events happen for a just reason, and that pleasant things will occur in the future. But to an individual already living in paradise on Earth, images of heaven seem at once arbitrary and superfluous.

Just because religion is a coping mechanism doesn't mean that it is a healthy coping mechanism[6]. I haven't seen any good evidence that a belief in God actually allows an individual to resist hardship better or come to success in life. So if the belief is the reward for hardship, it does not appear to pay off in this life. Personally, I don't get through life by avoiding unpleasant thoughts - instead I think it is during hard times that it is most important to get an accurate grip of reality so that one can take steps to solve the problem (which will not only address the original harm, but give you a sense of control over your environment). I don't recommend faith for psychological purposes, and I think the entire reason why religions have this "Endurance" theodicy is for people who prefer to seek out pleasant lies over plausible explanations.

Links:
[1] http://en.allexperts.com/q/Atheism-2724/2010/8/soul-making-theodicy-follow-1.htm
[2] http://en.allexperts.com/q/Atheism-2724/2009/12/Best-best-1.htm
[3] http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=test&qs_version=NIV
[4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/dec/08/religion-society-greg...
[5] http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP07398441_c.pdf
[6] http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/coping.htm