When I was in undergrad at the University of Tulsa, my History of Economics professor was a Marxist* and he made a rather entertaining argument that a market economy where everyone sought to give their property and time away rather than hoard it would work in rather the same way as our current one does - we would simply pay people to take our stuff rather than to get it. Which is interesting and gave this budding economist many hours of fun arguing the intricacies of a ridiculous hypothetical - the most fun a serious economist can have with his clothes on.
But it occurrs to me: is this true of our moral economy? I mean does it make a difference whether God is Pure Good or Pure Evil? Would we here on good 'ol Terra Firma experience life differently if the God of the Universe was Mr. Nasty-Bad rather than Mr. Ultra-Swell? And for purposes of this hypothetical I will assume that he's Yahweh - sorry Buddhists, get your own philosophical tradition, and you Hindus: dude, that shit's just crazy. Anyhoo, having successfully insulted a big chunk of Asia in only the second paragraph, I shall now address the hypothetical.
So the general theory of God and our relations to him - at least for the 'ethical' religions and no I don't know why ours is particularly ethical, I just think we got the copyright on the word. Buddhists and Hindus got 'mystical' instead which I think is cooler - is that God preexisted everything, that God is perfect and that perfection is good. He then for his own inscrutable reasons created Heaven and Earth and ultimately us through processes that are effectively unknowable thereby guaranteeing biologists and rural peckerwoods the same hours of pointless fun arguing creation's whats and hows that we economists get from irrational Marxist blather (see above). When we got here we sashayed around for a while and then through our greed and arrogance loused the joint up. Loused it up so bad that God had to throw us out into a world with no bar, no waitresses, no jukebox, no nothing. What Adam and his termagent wife Eve did was so bad that God feels compelled to keep us 'conscious' and torture us forever. All for messing up his lousy little Eden one day - talk about touchy.
Now Jews and Muslims believe that by working your ass off and nodding or squatting in the right direction and putting certain types of hankies or boxes on your head or not eating the naughty bits of certain animals and staying away from bacon completely you can work your way back into God's good graces and he'll reserve a spot for you somewhere that won't suck the way hell does. Some Muslims actually believe that if they do enough good deeds like slaughter infidels - what the Jews call a mitzvah - not the infidel slaughtering but the good deed - then they will not only get a nice place they will get 72 virgins or raisins of particular clarity and flavor to diddle for eternity. Me, I'd take the virgins but some Muslims are evidently really big on raisin diddling. Go figure.
So where was I? Ah, yes, God and whether He's ultra swell cool and good and all or a rat bastard of the first degree and whether anyone should care either way. Wait, that doesn't sound so good. Lemme try again: God and whether He's a force for ultimate good or whether He in His Wisdom could just as easily become a force for Ultimate Evil and whether that choice should matter to those of us who...matter. There. That sounds nice and academic and clever and all.
So what about it? The God who is ultimate good says in effect: "I am the ultimate Gooodoodooodoood (I'm going to turn of the Moses/BenHur effects...just a sec...OK, now, let's go) and if you aren't then I am going to send you to hell where you're going to learn just how painful pissing Me off is. Forever. With no parole. No chance for probation. No trusty status. No emeritus wing, just wastage. Cruel, vicious, agonizing wastage for the rest of eternity. And boy is eternity a long time, capiche?" Which, admittedly, would stink. But "wait!", he says, "There 's a special deal!", "This day only we have a deal that I just can't believe we're offering. I mean we've never done this before, not that before means a lot when you live outside of space and time but anyway it's an awesome deal. Today we are contributing one full 'Son of God' to a special redemption program (redemption program code: God2Go) whereby if you 'accept' this particular (and only God knows how many there are) 'Son of God' as your 'personal Savior' you will be entitled to one free pass out of Hell and to the Eternal Retirement Village of your choice." Exlusions and conditions apply, including if you are someone that God really, really wants to waste or if God is having a bad millenium or if Jesus trips and drops your redemption token on the ground or if for some other reason that we haven't defined God just decides that He, being the God of All thinks that he'd have rather more fun torturing you forever than watching your stupid mug giggle for eternity.
So...wow! I mean what a deal. It's not often that you get offered a piece of the "Peacethatpassesallunderstnding" so to speak. It's a great deal - any Consumer Reports would five star double plus it. But what happens to the chaps that, you know, don't take the offer or don't fulfill the fine print? As unlikely as that would be. Well then the force for ultimate good and perfection and joy and truth and all will torture them forever. And when I say forever, I mean for-EVER. God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, he's so good to....well not to you or you and I'm sorry about you. But I got mine so isn't He swell?
So the result of an ultimately good God is some of us swanning around in comfort forever because God says so and some of us howling in agony forever because....God says so. Hmm.
So let's reverse the polarity on this morality tale: let's say God is Captain Nasty-Bad, the 'worst of the worst of the worst, Sir!' so to speak. And Captain Nasty-Bad decides that he's going to (surprise, surprise) fuck everyone up. Completely, with no chance for unfuckage, no chance for a break in the Auschwitz level cruelty. Just ouch baby, very ouch forever and ever Unmen. But "wait!", he says, "There's a special deal!", "This day only we have a deal that I just can't believe we're offering. I mean we've never done this before, not that before means a lot when you live outside of space and time but anyway it's an awesome deal. Today we are contributing one full 'Son of God' to a special redemption program (redemption program code: God2Go) whereby if you 'accept' this particular (and only God knows how many there are) 'Son of God' as your 'personal Savior' you will be entitled to one free pass out of Hell and to the Eternal Retirement Village of your choice." Exlusions and conditions apply, including if you are someone that God really, really wants to waste or if God is having a bad millenium or if Jesus trips and drops your redemption token on the ground or if for some other reason that we haven't defined God just decides that He, being the God of All thinks that he'd have rather more fun torturing you forever than watching your stupid mug giggle for eternity.
So...wow! I mean what a deal. It's not often that you get offered a piece of the "Peacethatpassesallunderstnding" so to speak. It's a great deal - any Consumer Reports would five star double plus it....But wait...gee, haven't we heard this offer before? Not from God who's Nasty Bad but from God who's Swell as Hell, well not hell, but you know what I mean. Isn't this the same deal: get out of agony free? And isn't Nasty God just doing what Swell God did for the the same reasons? He wants to? Or He feels like it? Or it suits Him? Or He just digs watching people grovel and pray and tithe on the off chance that they not get the hot poker forever the way that He's promised? And doesn't God get off on the shrieking and grovelling the same way whether we call Him Nasty Bad or Swell and Good? Indeed isn't He just the same 'cat either way? Indifferent to us His creatures who he created to entertain Himself which sometimes requires our joyful giggling and other times (sorry gang) requires our agonized shrieking? And isn't his schtick and story stuff here on earth just designed to amp our longing and desperation and fear so when he wants a show it really is 'mega praise' or 'mega shriek' all the time? Do Good and Evil really matter to the only creature that matters? Or is it all the same bloody thing?
Except for the Sales Team who know that pitching God and Jesus and all as 'good' generates vastly more revenue that a God that just "is" or heaven forbid, God that is "Evil". We desperately want to believe that there's a point to all the brutality that God, of course, created. We really want an happy ending and the sales team need to make its numbers so a want and a need come together to create a Truth.
The question is is it a real Truth or simply a convenient one?
Now the rebuttal to my butting in to the theology business without a license is that our very preference for good and morality demonstrates that God who made us in His image, after all is indeed Good. But I wasn't trying to ascertain the actual "goodness" if God I was simply asking should "goodness" matter more than a hill of beans to those of us doing the living and dying (and shrieking, don't forget shrieking)?
And the thing is, I can't see how it does.
*My History of Economics prof in grad school at Chicago was Nobelist Bob Fogel and he definitely was neither a Marxist nor a fan of entertaining but pointless hypotheticals (he favored painful but pointless integral and differential equations instead) - so there is some use for a Marxist economist. Incidentally, Mr. Marx had a cute daughter and he allowed me to date her - emphasis on allowed - so it's not true that Marxists are completely opposed to private property. He was also an ex-Texas A&M Cheerleader whose prized possession was a photograph of he and the rest of his cheerleading squad (all male at the time) standing in their cheerleader getups holding their testicles in faux agony over some blown call by the referee. No, I don't understand it either.
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