Living In The Cosmos: Attitude, Adversity, and Affirmation

Occasionally the question is asked as to why "bad things happen to good people?" And usually accompanying this question comes another: "How could a loving God" allow such to happen? Theologians refer to this issue of evil in our life as the Theodicy Problem.

There have always been answers, rarely good ones, to the Theodicy Problem. Regardless, I thought I might present a set of answers that may seem provocative--since they seem so different from what we so oft hear.

I'll be quoting from the Stoic philosopher--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 b.c.e.-65 c.e):

[God] "does not treat the good man like a toy, but tries him, hardens him, and readies him for himself."

"Adversity [does] not affect the spirit of a stalwart man. He maintains his poise and assimilates all that falls to his lot to his own complexion, for he is more potent than the world without. I do not maintain that he is insensible to externals, but that he overcomes them."

"Good men...must not shrink from hardship and difficulty or complain of fate; they should take whatever befalls in good part and turn it to advantage. The thing that matters is not what you bear but how you bear it."

"No one is more unhappy, in my judgment, than a man who has never met with adversity. He has never had the privilege of testing himself."

"For self-knowledge, testing is necessary; no one can discover what he can do except by trying..."

"Why do you wonder that good men are shaken to make them strong? No tree stands firm and sturdy if it is not buffeted by constant wind; the very stresses cause it to stiffen and fix its roots firmly."

"Scorn poverty: no one is as poor as he was at birth. Scorn pain: either it will go away or you will. Scorn death: either it finishes you or it transforms you." [Above quotations derived from the following book: THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY OF SENECA, translated by Moses Hadas, W.W. Norton & Company, 1958, pp. 29, 36-37, 40, and 44.]

Seneca's approach to the Theodicy Problem is really about turning the bad into the good. It's about honing one's self. Rather than just stressing the stiff upper lip, Seneca sees this world and its challenge as a stage where we *learn* how to act out the play. For Seneca, the Theodicy Problem is a contingent of lessons that a good person will come to learn in order to evolve and prepare himself spiritually.

But, as always, Seneca's answer to the Theodicy Problem is commendable but incomplete--like all those, since, who have also tried to answer such. Seneca talks of bravery, courage, and maturity in meeting the challenge. But he does not broach the loss of innocents to what we perceive as evil in this world.

Still, Seneca's explanation is perhaps to be admired. He does not dally in victimization, but rather stresses courage, thinking, cunning, and fortitude in the face of these as of yet unexplained Forces of Nature. If a person has to go down, they should try to go down well. Perhaps this is what some of the old monks meant about the importance of "dying right?"

As that ancient Stoic philosopher discovered for himself--as do we--this business of living and dying isn't simple. Seneca endured years of Imperial-dictated exile on a stony, lonely island. Later, in the end, he was ordered to die by suicide by the Emperor Nero. In both situations, Seneca practiced what he preached bravely--overcoming the adversity involved, but surely it wasn't a simple matter.

Seneca and other Stoics, like Epictetus, talked about *attitude.* No doubt all of us have practiced this--overcoming adversity through our attitude.

But Epictetus warned that we must come to realize what we "can and cannot control" in this world. To attempt to exercise control where you really have none is truly vain and illusory, but exercising right control when you have the capacity to do so is a form of wisdom. The challenge is being able to discriminate the difference. And I think this has real significance when it comes to the Theodicy Problem--and our very own individual theodicy problem.

Some respond to Seneca saying: "Simple isn't it? Yes, but....!" Speaking out loud the ideas, how we can overcome the adversities of life, is the simple part. Living out such isn't as simple. According to Seneca there is a formula involved, which is about the measure of our *greatness.* The great souls somehow have learned how to "grow beyond" the fear and chaos of adversity.

I should think this process is linked with coming to a greater comprehension about that with which we are dealing in adversity, and it's about coming to know inside *who we are.* It's really somewhat akin to Carl Jung's idea of the "individuation process." Not simple, but rather very, very challenging!

And, "Yes, but...! " There's the trap of the Theodicy Problem. Perhaps Seneca was wise enough not even to allude to the disasters and death perpetrated upon innocents. How can one speak of attitude or challenge regarding such events as tornadoes sweeping people to their death--or air disasters that evaporate people in mid-air?

Perhaps the only attitude we can hold at this point, concerning the innocents, is to try to understand better what has happened, to not so quickly blame "God" or Nature and thus fall into the "victim syndrome," but rather investigate the event(s) more thoroughly for future prevention.

A case in point is mechanical neglect or human negligence involved in aircraft disasters. More careful attention to one's duty or more careful workmanship perhaps could prevent such tragic disasters. As for the Forces of Nature, human efforts are busy at work trying to learn the processes and course of these forces--but long-range forecasting and alert still remain in its infancy.

Nonetheless, the above effort towards greater comprehension and prevention falls into Seneca's idea about *attitude.* A courageous and intelligent attitude can bring us a long way towards comprehending and thus defeating both our individual and our collective Theodicy Problem.

But it's not simple! Courage is required to maintain such a Stoic attitude against adversity on the part of an individual.

Paul Tillich, the great theologian best known for his concept of the "Ground of Being," takes this Stoic attitude a few steps further. He shows the transformation from individual courage in the face of adversity to an affirmative courage expressed at the cosmic or "God" level. To quote:

"Stoic courage is neither atheistic nor theistic in the technical sense of these words. The problem of how courage is related to the idea of God is asked and answered by the Stoics...The courage to be transcends the polytheistic power of fate. The [Stoic's] second assertion is that the soul of the wise man is similar to God [hence a microcosm]...who is indicated here [as] the divine Logos in *unity* with whom the courage of wisdom conquers fate..." [Paul Tillich, THE COURAGE TO BE, Yale University Press, 1952, p. 15.]

"Seneca says that while God is *beyond* suffering the true Stoic is *above* it. Suffering, this implies, contradicts the nature of God. It is impossible for him to suffer, he is *beyond* it. The Stoic as a human being is able to suffer. But he need not let suffering conquer the center of his rational being. He can keep himself *above* it." [Ibid, p. 16.]

But Tillich takes these steps into another place! "Courage of wisdom and resignation [can] be replaced by the courage of faith in salvation, that is by faith in a God who paradoxically participates in human suffering. But [ancient] Stoicism itself can never make this step." [Ibid, p. 16.]

And Tillich takes yet another step! Though Stoicism seemingly disappeared by the 3rd Century c.e., there was a... "revival of the ancient schools of thought at the beginning of the modern period...not only a revival but also a *transformation.*" [Ibid, p. 18.]

"While the ancient world valued the individual not [just] as an individual but as a representative of something universal, [e.g. a microcosm, a virtue]...the rebirth of antiquity [especially during the Renaissance period] saw the individual as a *unique expression of the universe,* incomparable, irreplaceable, and of infinite significance." [Ibid, p. 19.]

Later--in Neo-Stoicism, particularly as expressed by Spinoza, 'the courage to be is not one thing beside others. It is an expression of the essential act of everything that participates in being, namely self-affirmation." [Ibid, p. 20.]

"Virtue is the power of acting exclusively according to one's true nature...Self-affirmation is, so to speak, virtue altogether. But self-affirmation is affirmation of one's essential being, and the knowledge of one's essential being is mediated through reason, the power of the soul to have adequate ideas." [Ibid, p. 21.]

And "self-affirmation, according to Spinoza, is participation in the divine self-affirmation." [Ibid, p. 22.]

"If the soul recognizes itself...it recognizes its being in God... Perfect self-affirmation is not an isolated act which originates in the individual being, but is participation in the universal or divine act of self-affirmation which is the originating power in every individual act..." [Ibid, p. 23.]

Reading through this small section of Tillich's thought, he illustrates the historical development of ideas about the movement from just suffering and adversity to learning and overcoming to self-affirmation. And as the human soul does, so does "God." Echoing from the ancient world to our own times, the microcosm and the macrocosm is all of the same fabric: God is Kosmos!

This above idea that "God is Kosmos" permeated the ancient world--and, today, this great consideration is returning to enrich not only our concepts of relationship between our self and "God," but of our relationship with what we deem as Creation.

The original meaning of Kosmos was the patterned nature or process of all domains of existence, from matter to math to theos, and not merely the physical universe, which is usually what both "cosmos" and "universe" has meant until recently.

The Kosmos contains the cosmos (or the physiosphere), the bios (or biosphere), nous (the noosphere), and theos (the theosphere or divine domain)--none of these separately being foundational. This holistic view was held by the great ancient philosophers right through to Hegel. And, happily, work in Holistic Science and the new philosophical paradigm, Deep Ecology, has led in part to systems thinking, to ecological thinking, and to thinking directed towards a new organic worldview. We are slowly returning to Kosmos! And towards a new, greater affirmation of self in relation to the universe! [see Ken Wilber's SEX, ECOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY: THE SPIRIT OF EVOLUTION, Shambhala, 1995, sections on Kosmos.]