Paul Ricoeur, theism, and Holocaust

From "Philosophy and Religious Language," Journal of Religion, 54 (1974)

"In thus recognizing the hermeneutical constitution of the biblical faith, we are resisting all psychologizing reductions of faith. This is not to say that faith is not authentically an act which cannot be reduced to linguistic treatment. In this sense, faith is the limit of all hermeneutics and the non-hermeneutical origin of all interpretation. The ceaseless movement of interpretation begins and ends in the risk of a response which is neither engendered nor exhausted by commentary. It is in taking account of this prelinguistic or hyperlinguistic characteristic that faith could be called “ultimate concern,” which speaks of the laying hold of the necessary and unique thing from whose basis I orient myself in all my choices. It has also been called a “feeling of absolute dependence” to underscore the fact that it responds to an initiative which always precedes me. Or it could be called “unconditional trust” to say that it is inseparable from a movement of hope which makes its way in spite of the contradictions of experience and which turns reasons for despair into reasons for hope according to the paradoxical laws of a logic of superabundance. In all these traits the thematic of faith escapes from hermeneutics and testifies to the fact that the latter is neither the first nor the last word." [italics mine]

This was a difficult read for me, and I make the post somewhat to redeem the hour at Pancho's that I spent munching on a burrito and pulling my hair out trying to figure out what Paul Ricoeur was talking about. I include the paragraph along with the italicized sentence, both to contextualize the statement and as a taste of his knotty writing. He was a Christian, continental (European) philosopher in the tradition of Martin Heidegger.

I was perusing Wikipedia today and came across an article on John Williams, the composer, which led me to the long list of great movies for which he has written scores. Among them is Schindler's List, one of the most powerful and disturbing movies I've ever seen. That led, through several Wikipedia routes, to articles about the Holocaust, about the death camps, the gas chambers, the repose of the guards exterminating thousands of people per day, and the delight with which they picked through the gassed bodies looking for gold teeth. The largest gas chamber in Auschwitz was capable of killing 20,000 people per day.

I can't bring myself to theologize about the Holocaust. It seems to make a joke of theism, and of our prayers. Why would God help us with our small problems, when just over 60 years ago people were being murdered by the millions? I'm not interested in arguments describing when God does and does not act. Any statement that attempts to give some reason why God would not save victims of genocide is worthless. What I mean is, any attempt to say that God has complete power to act in the world and yet-for some reason that we can guess-chose not to act cannot be defended by decent people. If our theistic, all powerful God controls history, then He must be pretty horrible. Right? How could he eyes of God be in those gas chambers? How could God's presence dwell amongst such evil, without immediately fixing it? If anyone reading this is tempted to think that it must be due to something that the human being who is killed says, does, or is (i.e. they weren't Christians, this biblical prophecy said this, they didn't pray enough, etc.), I would kindly tell you that you are a horrible person.

This is an argument echoed for millenia. It's called the problem of evil. A good, all-powerful God in an evil world. Why hasn't it been solved? Because horrible stuff is still happening.

This isn't abstract speculation. It has direct bearing on how we live, how we pray. How do I pray for anything when I know about the Holocaust? I'd almost rather not know. In fact, a part of me that I'm ashamed of wishes I didn't know. I saw an advertisement recently for a Holocaust education film at a local library, and I remember having a strong reaction inside of me that, if it were verbal, would be "Do not watch that." I didn't want to see that film. It challenges my faith. It makes me think about horrors that mock my beliefs and the naive hope that someone is in charge, and that everything has a meaning. Try to give the Holocaust a meaning, I dare you. It defies purpose. The idea of contextualizing the Holocaust in divine history makes me physically ill.

This all leads to an even more ultimate question than the problem of evil, which is: what are we still doing here? The argument dissolves to that if you believe in a good, all-powerful God, because really the presence of any suffering is an affront to the Creator. Since suffering seems worked into the fiber of the world, and is present from small ill to genocide, and has been present from the beginning of history, the basic question must then be, what are we doing here? God's good, evil happens; shouldn't we just skip human life and go straight to a perfect heaven where no tear is shed and peoples aren't exterminated? Why does this earth even exist, and how can it co-exist with God? Theological insight on this matter depends on whether you start with God's power or you start with the world-as-it-is.

If you start with God's power, then all this horrible stuff happening every day must someone be part of God's plan. I'm not really interested in serving that God, even if He does exist, so that argument ends right there (it should be noted, however, that some Christians pursue this very line of reasoning, and end up serving what I'll call a "monster God." Don't worry though, they have a right to this: they're the elect). Starting with the world-as-it-is, I believe, yields a better but still worrying answer. The evil world is taken for granted, and our idea of God must be tailored to that fact. So, God has mysteriously ceded power over to the rulers and laws of this world, and is not acting for some reason. At least this limited God can still be good, in a sense. It might still be better if none of this existed at all (I mean existence, reality, since sometimes it sucks badly), but God has created it and here we are. And let's not underestimate the beauty of life as well.

So when we get sick, or have a family member in trouble, or see our government doing bad things, or need comfort, or want direction--should we pray? Is it presumptuous to think God will help us with our little problems when he didn't save all those people from the gas chambers? Yes it is. Yet we have to pray if we believe in the story about Jesus, because he tells us to.

The answer, if there is one, is to be humble about being able to cause God to do anything, and to realize that your situation is not unique. This probably feels de-humanizing and impersonal, I know, but at least it should prevent us from the idiotic self-centeredness of imagining there is some special thing we're doing that all those poor saps didn't get well or didn't get saved at the last moment forgot to do. The inexorable logic of human life contains suffering, even tragedy, even genocide. God may not help you. This has the effect of shrouding God in even more mystery for me and calling into question some much beloved Bible verses. But at least he still exists, and at least he's still good. I'd love to hear some other people's struggles with this, if you have struggled.

"Or it could be called “unconditional trust” to say that it is inseparable from a movement of hope which makes its way in spite of the contradictions of experience and which turns reasons for despair into reasons for hope according to the paradoxical laws of a logic of superabundance."

I believe in hope, in life, love, and Jesus Christ. Yet I wrestle with the dark contradictions that undergird so much of my faith. I refuse to leave the thick patina of turn-the-blind-eye ignorance (or perhaps laziness? or fear?) that encrusts the minds and hearts (for this, too, is a love issue) of too many believers. I hope and pray that my "paradox" is not just a more sophisticated, more rhetorical retreat from the callousness of reality.