Characters who don't know how the story will end: part 2
A perspective on "Why does God permit evil?"
The Epicurean logic discussed in part 1 of this series claimed that if an omnipotent “God”—which in fiction also applies to the author-creator of a fictional world and its characters—is able to prevent “evil” but is unwilling, then he or she is malevolent. The claim, however, is false because if the author-creator wants the characters to overcome their flawed beliefs to realize the deeper truth of the happy-ever-after (that is, eternal) ending, and if temporary suffering is the only way to break the miasma of those flawed beliefs, then allowing characters to suffer what they perceive as “evil” is, ironically, an expression of the deepest love. Unless one is writing pornography (where writing skills are no more necessary than acting skills), the author-creator’s job is never to pamper the characters and let them revel in some kind of unending hedonistic party.
Of course, the characters who are immersed in the story—like all of us who are acting out our roles on the stage of God’s creation—often argue otherwise. That’s because characters usually don’t know what the author has in mind or how the story will end. Like a child (or many adults, for that matter) getting a shot or suffering some dental procedure, they don’t allow that the universe in which they live just might have some meaning beyond making life easy and comfortable—for oneself, in particular. “Why must I suffer these pains and discomforts?” they demand. “Why doesn’t the omnipotent author-creator (God) just fix my problems? Why does the omnipotent author-creator (God), if he or she even exists, permit suffering at all?”1
These questions are worthy of closer examination because, as we’ll see in this post, they really aren’t the right questions!
“Evil” is generally relative to one’s perception
When a parent prevents a child from chewing on an electrical cord, the child might object and even throw a tantrum because the parent is thwarting an immediate desire. In the child’s immature mind, the parent’s action causes suffering. But the parent knows that the child will suffer a great deal more, and possibly be killed, if allowed to continue. The loving parent thus has a duty to inflict that suffering upon the child.
Fast forward a couple decades. The child is now an adult and perceives various actions of others and/or various events in the world as threats to his personal desires and his sense of “the way things ought to be.” He suffers as a result. But instead of identifying his desires as the root cause of his suffering, he instead points a bitter finger at those external factors. In his “adult” sophistication, and likely armed with any number of philosophical theories, religious doctrines, and political ideologies, the child-become-adult further labels those external actions and events as “evil.” And to varying degrees, he likely attempts to eliminate those evils from his life and his world through demonstration, mediation, legislation, litigation, subornation, revolution, or annihilation.
The problem, however, is that this child-become-adult is still locked into the idea that “good” and “evil” are defined solely by his personal desires, regardless of the nature of those desires. Sure, he’ll argue that his desires reflect those of “society,” that he’s speaking for some “greater good,” or representing God’s will. But in all honesty, his own story is the only one that matters. His desires are Truth so far as he’s concerned, all others be damned, including the God who apparently seems able but unwilling to grant his every wish (or even just a few of them).
“Evil,” in other words, doesn’t originate in the nature of events of circumstances: it rather originates in one’s perception of those circumstances as filtered through what one believes the story of life is all about.
Differing views on the purpose of life
“What is the meaning of life?” “What is the purpose of life?” Throughout history, humankind has climbed proverbial mountaintops in the quest for answers to these questions, answers that still seem elusive today. Such perennial uncertainty comes, I think, from the fact that different people have different motivations. What seems purposeful and meaningful to one may not be purposeful and meaningful to others, making the quest for a singular, timeless answer seem rather hopeless. Indeed, this apparent futility has led many people to throw up their hands and embrace Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy of radical individualism, claiming, in essence, that "The meaning of my life is up to me and me alone."2
Yet for as much Sartre’s erstwhile devotees want to believe that they are radically free to do whatever they want, their behaviors are somewhat predictable and pretty much fall into one of four broad patterns. We can summarize these patterns—which constitutes a spectrum, really—in terms of what people following that pattern seek, how they view the purpose of life, and what, for them, constitutes “evil”:
Sensualists
Seek to avoid pain and experience sensual pleasure with as little effort as possible.
“The purpose of life is to have fun (have sex, get drunk, be entertained, etc.).”
Evil = “Whatever gets in the way of my pleasure.”
Self-servers (egotists)
Seek to advance themselves in the world through creative self-effort, achievement, and acquisition.
“The purpose of life is to get mine.”
Evil = “Whatever gets in the way of my success in the world.”
Self-sacrificers (idealists)
Seek to serve and even sacrifice themselves for others and/or a greater cause.
“The purpose of life is to act nobly and uphold honor.”
Evil = “Whatever is dishonorable.”
Saints (aspiring or actual)
Seek transcendence (God, Truth, Beauty, etc.), which is to say, they seek to understand the story as the author-creator sees it.
“The purpose of life is to know God.”
Evil = “Anything that separates one from God.”
In terms of fiction, these patterns represent the differing degrees of separation between the perspective of characters and the perspective of the author-creator. The narrower the separation, the more characters understand the deeper purpose of everything that happens, including any and all suffering. The wider the separation, the more characters miss the point and complain bitterly about that whatever befalls them. (We can also say that positive arc characters are those who narrow that gap in some way, no matter where they start on the spectrum; negative arc characters, on the other hand, fall farther away. See Mystical character arcs in fiction.)
In stories that aspire to express spiritual, devotional, and mystical realism, these motivations and separations translate easily into a character’s perception of the story world and thus, by extension, influence a reader’s perception of our real world. With these varying outlooks—which is to say, the varying degrees of faith in the happy ending that the author-creator intends and even the desire to have that faith at all—each group (meaning its members) will have a different take of the same events, whether minor inconveniences, the loss of possessions, the loss of personal freedom, or even death. (They even perceive “fortune” differently, but that’s a separate topic from “misfortune” or “evil.”)
Consider losing one’s home in a fire. For the sensualist, it’s an unmitigated tragedy, possibly leading to depression and despair. For the self-server, especially one who took out a large insurance policy, such a loss might lead to a greater gain for themselves (so what if it incurs a cost to others?). Self-sacrificers, for their part, might be inspired to help prevent others from having to experience such suffering. And saints are likely to celebrate their sudden liberation from so many possessions and responsibilities. A story that demonstrates these perspectives and their consequences could thus be spiritually inspiring by allowing readers to entertain the different ways to respond to such an event.
Similarly, sensualists and self-servers would consider imprisonment and starvation as evils because both impose severe restrictions on fulfilling what they believe is the purpose of their lives. Self-sacrificers and saints, on the other hand, might consider imprisonment and starvation as welcome means to fulfilling their respective purposes. To give a real-world example, Gandhi deliberately subjected himself to imprisonment and inflicted great suffering upon himself through fasting in the cause of India’s freedom as brilliantly depicted in Sir Richard Attenborough’s 1982 movie. In the clip below, for example, Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsly) challenges the British court to “inflict upon me the severest penalty possible.”
Consider also the story of Benvenuto Cellini, an Italian artist of Renaissance times whom the pope threw into prison for demanding back payments for work. In his autobiography, Cellini describes the abysmal conditions in the dungeon: a damp mattress, a cold cell, rats running about freely, and only enough light from a high window to permit him to read the Bible for one hour a day. For the rest of the time he prayed, the result of which was profound joy. As he later wrote, “If you want to know what true happiness is, arrange to be thrown into a dungeon…and spend your waking moments praying to God.” (A work of historical fiction built upon Cellini’s story, indeed, would provide a great opportunity to go into his inner experience and his connection to God.)
The key word isn’t “evil,” it’s “permit”
Given that what constitutes “evil” is highly dependent upon one’s worldview, the key word in “Why does the author-creator (God) permit evil?” is not “evil” but rather “permit.” The word assumes that the author-creator is the one who controls whether people suffer and does so even on a case-by-case basis. That’s why characters, and real-life people, ask, “Why me? Why now?”
But the whole assumption is flawed: the author-creator designs the story world to give characters themselves the choice of whether they suffer or not. Whether as characters in a story or in real life, people suffer when they believe that their desires, according to what they believe is the purpose of life, aren’t being fulfilled in the way they think they ought to be. The lesson is thus: don’t wait for God or the author-creator to “fix things”—to fulfill your desires according to your expectations—but instead adjust your desires more and more to align with the highest purpose of life (the point of the story).
When writing a good story, an author-creator pressures characters to grow and change to relinquish whatever flawed beliefs prevent them from lasting fulfillment that comes with realizing the that point. And, like parents, author-creators do this from a sense of love because they want their characters to find that fulfillment, to find the greatest joy possible.
Author-creators love their characters
Indeed, I’ve never heard of an author who says, “You know, I really hate my characters, so I’m just going to inflict endless misery upon them for no reason.” (Who would read such stories?) Instead, authors talk about how much they love their characters. Sabaa Tahir, for example, is reported to have said that she could write about the characters in her An Ember in the Ashes series for the rest of her life.3 J. K. Rowling, similarly, once said that if she was to meet Harry Potter in real life she’d apologize for all the hardships she put him through.
In my own draft of A Gift for King Felix (see The privilege of writing inner experience, part 2), I put my young shepherdess, Ba, through all kinds of hell. Did I do that because I hated her? Quite the opposite: she is very dear to me, so dear, in fact, that I want her to become everything she can possibly be. As I also wrote in that other post, my plan is for her to become a saint over the course of four books. Put another way, she’s simply not designed to be content with tending sheep all her life. Yet I can’t just wave my omnipotent authorial wand and make her jump from point A to point Z. I have to build her strength and draw out her saintly qualities little by little as I drive out every flawed believe that prevents her from realizing that destiny. And yes, she’ll most assuredly have to suffer in the process.
So, let me say this ahead of time: I’m sorry, Ba, for hurting you. But I know you won’t lose heart—like Samwise Gamgee, you’ll hold onto the faith in the happy ending, that “there’s some goodness in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.” Readers, then, experiencing your tenacity amidst extreme tests and trials, might be inspired to apply this faith in real life, to take their own steps toward a higher destiny. And that makes your story—and all of your suffering—deeply meaningful. Thank you, Ba. I love you.
If I, a regular old human being, can say this to a character of my own creation, how much more can God say it to one of his own? He “permits” us to suffer from so-called evil because, unlike most of us, he knows that the end of the story is something beyond our imagination. And he knows that our ultimate fulfillment—divine Joy— will never be found in sensual pleasure, in ego-aggrandizement, or even service and self-sacrifice. It will never be found in art, culture, politics, science, or even outward religion. It will be found only in him, in God.
That’s the destiny that’s demonstrated in the real lives of the saints: those men and women of all cultures and creeds who, throughout the ages, have reached the end of the story. Whether they called it salvation, rapture, mystical union, ecstasy, enlightenment, liberation, samadhi, moksha, nirvana, etc., etc., none of them got there and declared, “What a scam!” No, in every case the story of human striving comes to a wholly satisfying and blissful conclusion. Everyone who has gotten there has said, “It was all worth it. Everything we endured along the way, every suffering and every ‘evil,’ no matter how intense or painful it was at the time, was worth it.”
Many books have been written on these matters, such as Why Bad Things Happen to God’s People by Derek Prince and Why God Permits Evil and How to Rise Above It by Paramhansa Yogananda. Similarly, the popular though controversial book, The Shack: Where Tragedy Meets Eternity, by Wm. Paul Young, explores the question through a fictional meet-up between the protagonist and personifications of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. It’s less a “novel” than a self-help book, however. It has little action and is primarily composed of lengthy conversations between the protagonist and the others in what amounts to a drawn-out counseling session. But a book that gives direct voices to the three persons of the Holy Trinity has to be presented as fiction, because it’d be quite presumptuous in non-fiction.
For a thorough dismantling of Sartre’s nihilism, refer to Out of the Labyrinth by J. Donald Walters.
See https://www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archives/book-review-an-ember-in-the-ashes.