In his most recent book,
Society and the Death of God (2021),
octogenarian social scientist-
cum-
philosopher Sal Restivo writes approvingly — glowingly, even — of the
problem of evil as an argument against
theistic models of
God — deeming it “
devastatingly” successful against “perfect God” models.
Rounding up various accountings for this problem, Restivo namechecks
Thomas Aquinas and the propositions that
evil experienced in life is outweighed by its absence in a sufficiently arranged
afterlife; or that evil within our Universe is, by some
wordplay, not a product of whatever set forth our Universe; or that evil is itself in some way an
illusion. And he further writes:
In the pandeism argument, an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God creates the universe and in the process becomes the universe and loses his powers to intervene in human affairs.
It is perhaps unfair to build too deep of a
disapproval on such a slender reed of reference as this, but there are some points to be contravened. One might
quarrel, firstly, with Restivo's characterization of the pandeistic Creator as “
omnipotent and
omnibenevolent” -- it assumes too much. The
potency of the entity modeled in
Pandeism is that which is required to set forth our Universe, but logically need not be one whit more than that. Interestingly, Restivo himself approaches this point earlier on the page where observes that one solution to
theodicy is "simply denying divine omnipotence," deeming the envisioned God as lacking the potency, the power, to prevent those evils. Restivo reads Pandeism slightly differently, assuming that the Creator proposed in that theory began as omnipotent, but became nonomnipotent, whereas a proper Pandeist would more likely frame it that the Creator began as precisely powerful enough to set forth our Universe as observed, and so become completely unable to act within that Universe by dint of the exhaustion of that power in that setting-forth (by becoming) process.
And as to omnibenevolence component, the open question here is: how can something fall into such a
categorization until it knows what benevolent
conduct constitutes? And how can it know this before experiencing anything other than a sole and solitary existence? An element of the pandeistic explanation is the proposition that becoming our Universe serves an actual purpose for the Creator so doing, beyond the entertainment of a whim. That our Creator, through this process, learns what it is like to be one being among many, to face actual obstacles, to fail to surmount them at times, and so to never know for sure which will defeat such efforts. Benevolence is a characteristic which inherently requires a diversity of beings. The lone existing entity has nobody to even have a notion of demonstrating benevolence towards, and so it is quite reasonable to exist the concept of benevolence to remain alien to any being who has not yet learned the lesson of existing among those both stronger and weaker than itself.
It is interesting, as well, to speak of a creator “losing its powers” to do something, as if we were discussing a comic book superhero having been stripped of some special abilities, as in that first
Thor film when
Odin cast his son down to Earth to prove his worth, or that one
Superman flick where he gives them up to be in a relationship with
Lois Lane. It leaves an image of a deity helplessly watching, but not quite of one fully experiencing, with no external point of observation remaining.
I credit Restivo for having the depth of theological knowledge to include the discussion of Pandeism at all, and may
temper my
criticism to the point of conceding that this is more a
quibble over wording than substance, and that for the discussion he is having he is getting the point essentially right. I would simply prefer to see the
formulation done not just essentially right, but fundamentally right. And
blessings to Sal Restivo for investing his thoughts in the conversation at all.