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Another attempt to let God off the hook is to say that God is omniscient in the sense that God knows everything that happens in the universe at the present time, but not what will happen in the future because God has created the universe such that there is non-determinancy in it.. God winds up the universe as it were (ie. creates the "laws" of physics, starts up the Big Bang, etc) and lets it run, without knowledge of the ultimate outcome or even everything in the next moment. Then, in some theologies, God withdraws. One could question what kind of God is one that would let the universe run like this and not interfere to, say, save the innocent from harm? Or what kind of God would withdraw from the world? There's a lot of theological hand-wrining about such questions. Another attempt is that of the Gnostics, who thought that the ultimate, perfect God did not create the world. Instead there were a great number of intermediate beings or gods that emanated from the ultimate God, each lesser and more imperfect than the last, and it was the lowest and most imperfect of these (the demiurge) which created the world, in ignorance, madness, or stupidity. Thus the blame for suffering is shifted on to this ignorant/mad/stupid god instead of the ultimate, perfect God. Despite such efforts, of course, there remains the question why any imperfection would or even could come from the ultimate, perfect God in the first place. |