The Problem of Evil Revisited, On the Corner of Good-ness and Epic-ness, The Urge to Montage and The Infinite Key Lime Pie

If God is akin to a film producer, might this actually be the "Best of all Possible Worlds"? What if that which makes creation 'good', as with a good movie, isn't that it's all sweetness and light?

Ed Harris plays the character of a (nearly) all-knowing, all-powerful director Christof in “The Truman Show” (1998), until Truman (Jim Carrey), the unwitting authentic everyman of Christof’s show evolves and transcends Christof’s domain.

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts”

- Shakespeare, “As You Like It”

There’s an old argument for atheism called “the problem of evil” that goes something like this:

If God is assumed to be the (1) all-powerful, (2) all-knowing and (3) all-good creator of our universe, then it shouldn’t be possible for evil to exist. Any instance of clear evil— such as an act of war, a murder or a massive fraud or genocide— forces one to conclude that either God was unable to prevent it (not all-powerful), didn’t know about it (not all-knowing) or didn’t want to prevent it (not all-good). Therefore, the existence of evil proves such a God doesn’t exist. Q.E.D.

The most common rebuttal is to suppose that God allows humans to do evil things because there is some greater good that is served by allowing humans to make mistakes in the name of “free will”. But, does this argument really let God off the hook? In the same way that corporations are legally liable for the actions of their employees on the job, isn’t God morally liable for the actions of the people She creates? And if, alternatively, we suppose there is a supernatural evil being, such as a Devil who tempts people to act in evil ways, then God must have created whatever Devils exist and is still liable for the evil they perpetrate or else the Devil is beyond God’s control and God is therefore not all-powerful.

Although the “free will” argument isn’t really sufficient to acquit God of all the crimes in creation, it does hint at something else. Is there a greater good served by the existence of evil? Or, put another way, can we, as lesser beings— creations who are often weak, ignorant and mean—can we really claim to understand the nature of good and evil as well as God? Eden’s serpent said humanity would obtain knowledge of good and evil if we ate the forbidden fruit, but was the serpent trustworthy? Could it be that there is a larger scheme of things that we are completely oblivious to? Could it be that we really know next to nothing about what is good and what is not?

What if, for example, God the creator is more like a film producer than a Sunday School teacher?

Let’s say God takes a lunch meeting with us and lets us pitch a film idea to him. We go in, sit down, order lunch and I start the pitch saying, “This will be the greatest film ever made. There will be a cast of thousands. Everyone is happy, healthy, shows love and kindness to one another, lives in balance with nature and loves what they do.”

God swallows a bite of turkey club sandwich, takes a sip of His martini and asks, “Okay. Then what happens? An attack? A flood? An earthquake?”

You pipe in, “No, no, nothing like that. There’s no war or terrorism or crime and everyone lives in areas that are safe from natural disasters—they are THAT in balance with nature!”

God glances back and forth between us disbelievingly. “Oh, I see.” He says. “This is to be a comedy then!”

“Um, not so much. There’s laughter, certainly, but only tangentially from pleasure and a few simple everyday jokes. Nobody gets played or deceived or made into the butt of a joke—everyone is just super kind to each other, never awkward or conniving, so kind to one another that most of the foils from traditional comedy tropes just have no opening to get traction. You know how they say tragedy plus time equals comedy?”

“Yeah,” says God, “I think I said that first. Just make sure it’s in red type if it’s in the script.”

“Well, what I’m saying is there is no tragedy in this film either. There’s not even back-story tragedy. We’re talking about an ideal society where all tragedy is so far in the past no one even remembers it. It’s a serious film about a positive vision of humanity’s future.”

God strokes His beard and smiles. “Ah, I get what you mean. We’re talking about an adult film, right? I don’t usually produce them myself, but I have a holding company in Vegas. I can get you a meeting with--“

“Nope. Not an adult film. But we can add some sex scenes if you’re looking for ‘R’ rating” you add helpfully.

God frowns, musing “not an adult film… not a comedy… nothing bad happens… a… musical? ... extravaganza? ... perhaps?”

“No, ‘LA LA Land’ sucked all the oxygen out of that room for a couple decades” I admit.

“Sounds like ‘Heaven’” says God.

“So you’re in, then?” You ask.

“No,” says God. “I’m referring to the Talking Heads’ song ‘Heaven’, you know, ‘Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.’?” ¹

“Well, some things happen… just good things though. It’s a very, um, GOOD movie.” I try to pull up.

“I get it.” Says God. “It’s kind of like the first fifteen minutes of ‘Lost Horizon’ depicting the idyllic city of Shangri-La in the remote Himalayas with art and prosperity and culture and love… and then no plane crash, no discovery by westerners, no clash of cultures, no conflicted people aching to leave their past lives and try something new… no plot!... and no musical numbers. Listen, I love your idea, but I absolutely must get to a studio execs meeting now. Feel free to leave your script with my assistant. We’ll be in touch!”

And, thus spake God as He exited the restaurant, leaving us to pick up the check.

What if God is like a film producer and insists that our movie must have car chases and gunfire and death and lust and all that gritty stuff that make a movie something you just can’t look away from? What if what we’re constantly striving for—peace, love, happiness, security, simplicity, health—what if all these are as beside the point of making a “good” earthly realm as they are beside the point of making a good movie? What if the earth, such as it is, really is perfect in some inscrutable way that we just don’t understand yet?

The essential idea here is that what makes Creation “good” is simply that Creation is interesting— what makes our life “good” is that our life is deeply interesting. Alan Watts said it better than I’ve ever been able to in his talk “The Dream of Life”:

So, given all of that, here’s an interesting question to ponder: “Why is this existence we have on Earth so completely and surprisingly perfect?” Try not to laugh too hard!

Is there any hope of a straightforward answer to that?

You might want to stop reading and write down your own thoughts about it for a while.

There’s an old joke about a boy who received a room full of manure for his birthday. He began eagerly and excitedly digging out the room because, as he saw it, “With so much manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere!”. Let’s suppose we are that boy and the creation we are confronted with seems like a room of manure, but we have a perspective that allows us to be eager and excited about the situation. Why are we excited? Why are we eager to dig through it? What is the perfection in this world we are experiencing? What is the nature of our pony?

I have one possible answer. It’s one that seems to have guided some of the happiest, if not most successful, people I’ve ever heard of.

“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” – Albert Schweitzer

There are so many quotes about how the greatest joy comes from serving others. ²

My best guess is that the perfection of this world lies in its seemingly endless opportunities to show love and compassion to others. It isn’t necessarily what we want or think we want, but it may be what we need and may be what gives us the feeling that we’ve really done something worthwhile. This world might reward us with gratitude or money or fame, but maybe none of that is the point. If God loves us enough to give us such a ‘perfect’ world, He certainly understands the concept of unrequited love—for each devoutly spiritual person who truly loves God, how many are there who would curse this existence and have nothing but ingratitude and disbelief? It is possible that when we are NOT rewarded, when our love of others in this world is unrequited, perhaps especially when we do good works anonymously, that we are closest to God in our hearts.

Here, now (in late 2020, as I’m writing) the world seems in a hellish bind. The COVID-19 pandemic is sickening and killing millions, the economy is in free fall as millions of jobs are lost, small businesses go under and people become less and less connected with each other as gathering places are closed and even most families dare not risk meeting for holidays. There’s a whole litany of worldly ills that I won’t go into. I’m sure you could add a page or two of serious problems in our world.

If we follow our supposition that God is akin to a film director a little further, what would a cosmic film director make of our world at this point in time?

If our Earthly realm were, in fact, a movie and we are the actors, I think it’s safe to say we would be at a moment of peak tension in the plot line. We are at the climax of the narrative arc. We are at that point in the movie where transformation of characters is required to overcome fears, to discover and develop superpowers, to say things they’ve been unable to say before.

In short, we’ve arrived at the perfect time for a “montage” scene.

A montage scene is a compressed-time depiction of a slow change that happens over many hours, days or, sometimes, years. My favorite montage scenes are the ones in which the protagonist of the movie digs deep within themselves to become a better version of themselves— stronger, more fit, a better dancer, a better fighter (especially in the Kung Fu genre), an expert in a difficult field like Medicine, closer to a loved one— there are so many ways we, characters in this Earth theater, can become better versions of ourselves. And this changing into a better version of themselves allows them to better meet a coming challenge. One of my very favorite examples is the training montage of young Zorro (Antonio Banderas) by old Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) in “The Mask of Zorro” (1998), because it includes the idea of an expanding circle of mastery— start small, master yourself, or, rather, just your mind and then, proceed to expressing that mastery with what is within arm’s reach of you, then within sword-striking distance, whip-striking distance and, eventually, a whole situation surrounding you.

This is what makes life exciting for me and what makes me eager to start each day, to talk to people, to go places, to interact— I know we are at a critical point in human history where we might follow one path to extinction or another path to an abundant and actualized sustainable society that sets the stage for humanity’s evolution for the next millenium. I believe that 7.8 billion of us want to find a way to take the latter path to survive and thrive. Our challenge is to overcome greed, pride, hate and egotism to a degree that’s unprecedented in human history so far, but will, I pray, become humanity’s new normal. If I were merely asking humanity to choose to be better, I would feel daunted, but because all I’m asking is for humanity to NOT choose extinction, I feel more hopeful.

As, Dr. Martin Luther King, observed, it’s not like we have a choice. Extinction is not an option.

That is definitely a challenge, and it’s a big one. It’s so big, most of us are too afraid to think about it very often. And this is our calling to become better versions of ourselves so we can help humanity take the right track at this critical time.

We could choose to feel burdened by these circumstances and this work.

We could decide that these are terrible times to be alive.

We could choose to resent the folly of our ancestors and contemporaries for bringing humanity to this knife-edge of a dilemma… OR…

Yes! “OR”, I say… Or we could joyfully seize this once-in-an-million-years’ opportunity to embrace the better versions of ourselves waiting to walk this Earth and play our roles helping to evoke the better versions of the beautiful people around us to open up hidden possibilities that will enable us all to survive, thrive and create a better world for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren’s grandchildren’s grandchildren…

Because, maybe, that is the whole point of this movie we’re in. And, maybe, it’s not just another tragicomedy. Maybe it’s a glorious story of heroism and deep love and sacrifice and the kind of joy that makes you cry and sends shivers down your spine.

And maybe, being alive right now, for this, is the greatest imaginable privilege for a multitude of souls who’ve been training not just for hours and days and years, but maybe for many lifetimes.

Just.

For.

This.

Because this is what it takes to really, truly, deeply learn the lesson of what it means to Love people. It’s not so easy as the story books would have us believe.

Whether or not your cosmology admits the possibility of soul journeys like that, I invite you to cultivate a sense of the epic scale of the set-up of this point in history and our potential to make it a springboard into something even more amazing.

Don’t worry about the details of how or when right now. We’ll get to that soon. For now, just hold in your head and heart how awesome it is to be alive right now.

We can make this a truly amazing movie— one we’ll all be talking about for a long time after the credits roll, and we’ll go out to an all-night diner where the coffee is inexplicably better than you’d expect and the server has blue hair and calls everyone “hun”, and they never run out of key lime pie.

1. Talking Heads, “Heaven”, 1984.

2. Quotes about the joy of serving others. https://quotessayings.net/topics/serving-others/