In his speech mentioned in an earlier post, Pope Benedict XVI spoke again about his favorite theme: the evils of relativism.
"A particularly insidious obstacle to education today," he said, "is
the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism,
which recognizes nothing as definitive, leaving as the ultimate
standard only the individual and his or her desires."
As a skeptic and card-carrying relativist, I am sick and tired of being blamed for all of the evils in the modern world. Therefore it was with some great relief that I found this short essay by Norman Mailer on Jean Paul Sartre and the existential God:
If existentialism is to flourish (that is,
develop through a series of new philosophers building on earlier
premises), it needs a God who is no more confident of the end than we
are; a God who is an artist, not a law-giver; a God who suffers the
uncertainties of existence; a God who lives without any of the
pre-arranged guarantees that sit like an incubus upon formal theology
with its flatulent, self-serving assumption of a Being who is All-Good
and All-Powerful. What a gargantuan oxymoron–All-Good and All-Powerful.
It is certain to maroon any and all formal theologians who would like to
explain an earthquake. Before the wrath of a tsunami, they can only
break wind. The notion of an existential God, a Creator who may have
been doing His or Her artistic best, but could still have been remiss in
designing the tectonic plates, is not within their scope.
This is one response to the theodicy: the flawed God. A new doctrine of ‘Not-So-Intelligent Design"?
