Why do bad things happen? Why the earthquake in Haiti that killed thousands upon thousands? Forget the French evangelist who claimed it was God’s punishment for their Voodoo practices: there were hundreds of children who would beat the good preacher to heaven if the trumpet was to sound this moment. But wait…..It was a punishment for their deeds, right? That is exactly the point: God is not that all loving, after all!
However, what perhaps relates to the issue at hand is when, in the Book of Genesis, God created enmity between the woman’s offspring and that of the serpent. At a literal level, the serpent would bite man’s heels, and the latter will clobber the former’s head; which is normally the case. In the wider scheme of things, there is a connection between the evil forces (symbolized by the serpent in the context of Genesis) and human suffering.
While the initial pronouncement of suffering as a punishment was a form of retribution for man’s sins, the circumstances under which it is effected (as portrayed by the fate of the fawn) sometimes pities man as a victim of forces beyond his control, most of which he is not accountable for. In the biblical story of Job, for instance, Job losses his possessions and is afflicted with a skin ailment for no apparent reason at all, besides the fact that God allowed Satan to do it. This is not the character of a loving God.
Maybe God is as powerless and helpless as His creatures in the face of evil forces, huh? Why couldn’t he stop a mere slip of the world from its natural course to avoid an earthquake? Or, closer home, why didn’t he stop the lightning from striking the tree? It was an accident, perhaps? Then He could have, in His omnipotence, somehow prevented the poor fawn from dying!
Whichever way the issue is interpreted, it leads to two glaring possibilities: either God is not very merciful, as assumed, or, He doesn’t have the powers to intervene. Either He won’t: He possesses the power but is not willing to intervene, or He cannot- He is thoroughly powerless. Period!
And there lies the dilemma of a believer.
The faithful know a very powerful and equally loving God. Accordingly, because He is omnipotent, he can stop misfortune; and for His wonderful grace, He would not allow it to afflict His creatures. But it does happen, time and again!
To explain the fate suffered by the fawn would require a theodicy that reconciles God’s loving and omnipotent nature and the reality of evil in the world. St. Augustine’s theodicy, particularly, argues that the free will accorded to man implies that God doesn’t have to intervene in every aspect of human existence. The presence of evil, according to Augustine, is designed to achieve a greater good, namely to lead men towards a quest for goodness and God’s perfect nature. However, this is an evil that does not lead to any good, for no human beings witnessed it to learn.
Hick’s theodicy posits that the existence of evil is to lead men in their soul building, to grow towards spiritual maturation (Rowe and Trakakis 102). He compares it to the child-parent relationship, where the parent lets the child confront difficulties so as to learn from experience. That is why you limit the amount of money your kid can spend on his fancies: you can afford it, but he should learn some responsibility. Likewise, God can shower humanity with His love and protection, but He exposes mankind to suffering so as to develop desirable virtues such as endurance and patience.
Nonetheless, the issue in question does not serve any such purpose, since humans are not involved. A dead fawn cannot learn anything from its misfortune, right? One limitation of Hick’s theodicy, therefore, is its failure to recognize that some suffering and misfortunes, such as the death of the fawn, “could have been prevented without either diminishing our moral and spiritual development or undermining our confidence that the world operates according to natural laws” (Rowe and Trakakis 103).
Finally, it leads to Wendy Doniger’s explanation of karma, which he calls “the transfer of merits” (Doniger 8). He observes that misfortune, such as the death of the fawn, implies a rebirth to a better after-life. In relation to human life, he says that the existence of evil is to “exhort the worshipper to undertake remedial actions in order to swim like a salmon upstream against the currents of karma” (Doniger 14). In this light, it appears that evil is caused by fate, but nonetheless to serve the same purpose as outlined by Hick: to lead humanity to a desirable state, the rebirth of a better life. The fawn’s fate, accordingly, is a wake-up call for man’s consciousness about the existence of evil, and like a salmon, to swim against its currents.
Works Cited
Doniger, Wendy, O., Wendy, Doniger. Karma and rebirth in classical Indian traditions. California: University of California Press, 1980.
Rowe, William L., Trakakis, Nick. William L. Rowe on Philosophy of Religion: Selected Writings. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007.