Goals Fulfilled:
HONS 361, The Problem of Evil, which I satisfactorily completed during the Fall 2020 semester, fulfilled the fourth of my eight Honors course requirements as well as my Civitae course requirement for Historical & Contemporary/Behavioral & Social Perspectives.
Reflection:
I began this class at a point in time when I sincerely questioned my belief in God’s goodness. And that was exactly what this course addressed: Is God good? Now that I have completed this intellectual journey, I cannot say I have been swayed in any particular direction; I simply do not know exactly what I believe.
I will admit that our readings by C. S. Lewis genuinely changed the way I view spirituality and religion. For years, I sat in on sermons at church with my parents and grandparents and never felt a thing. But reading Lewis’s writings, especially his Grief Observed, made me feel like I am not alone in my doubts and reservations toward God and Christianity. For me, the most impactful unit of our course was on the existential problem of evil. I particularly liked the definition of my professor, Dr. Blincoe, as it related to Lewis, that at its base, the existential problem of evil is a dissonance between intellectual belief and one’s inability to accept God’s ways and worship Them. I can say with little hesitation that I do believe in the existence of some higher power, at least intellectually, but I cannot say whether or not I agree with Their ways even if They do exist. Their actions I still refuse to accept as good all the time.
Another of the most impactful moments from our time together during this course came during our discussion of Lewis’s liar/lunatic/lord argument concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Prior to the start of the course, as I had matured in my own religious beliefs I began to treat Jesus as this sort of wonderful spiritual teacher and religious revolutionary as opposed to the literal Son of God, as I had been taught early on in my childhood. Lewis’s argument, however, made me seriously question that belief, though I refuse to say I agree with him. I like Jesus. As a self-proclaimed Christian (in the loosest possible sense of the word), I at least acknowledge that Jesus had some really great ideas. I would never call him a liar, nor would I refer to him as a lunatic. But was he the literal Son of God? I still have reservations. But the great thing is, this course and Dr. Blincoe have taught me that I am allowed to have reservations. And that has been profoundly eye-opening.
As the Fall semester of 2020 came to an end and I prepared to spend an entire month at home in isolation as a pandemic raged across the commonwealth of Virginia and the United States of America during the most wonderful time of the year, it is safe to say I continued to ponder a great deal more about the problem of evil. Is God good? I still do not know. But am I allowed, even encouraged, to question Their divine intentions? After participating in this course, I believe I am.
I want to thank Dr. Blincoe for exposing me to so many new ideas. I am perhaps most surprised at the number of other human beings who have thought the same things I have been thinking for so long a time. Growing up in a religious private school, I had very few opportunities to dig deeper into the philosophy of Christianity. Thanks to this course, I can look forward to broadening my horizons by asking hard questions about my Creator for many, many years to come. Nothing is stopping me now.
Below you will find a collaborative dialogue from this course in which a fellow student and I tackled the problem of evil on our own via a Thanksgiving conversation between a grandmother and her young grandson. Kelly and I may not be philosophers, but I think we had a few ideas to contribute to the ongoing philosophical dilemma of God’s goodness.