David Capes
Part of what you do in this paper, and a part of what you’re working on with your broader project that I hope one day will be published in a book, is to not necessarily say, okay, anti-theodicy is completely wrong. But you say it’s mostly wrong. There are some things about it that we ought to listen to, and there are some things about it that, in fact, are wrong. And part of that is the question of, does theodicy actually harm people? You’re looking at psychological studies. Tell us a little bit about that and how that
research is developing for you.
Jahdiel Perez
My research project is trying to intervene into this debate between theodicists and anti-theodicists, primarily from a psychological perspective. I can say this because I started as a philosopher. I still am a philosopher. I absolutely love philosophy, but we’re not often aware when we are making empirical claims, a claim about the physical, observable, measurable universe. Sometimes we just like to say things about human beings, but we don’t realize that this is an empirical claim, not just a philosophical speculation.
So my first move is, let me track the empirical claims that keep going back and forth in this debate. Instead of just philosophically debating them why don’t we look at the psychological studies? What can they tell us, if anything, about the way human beings respond to suffering and trauma? So it’s very important that I shift from horrendous evil to talking specifically about trauma and PTSD. That’s the way psychologists speak about hurt, and it’s evil. I think it’s yielded very interesting insights.
I’ve found areas where anti-theodicies are correct. They’re just absolutely correct. One of their main points is called the argument from insensitivity. It’s the idea that theodicy is inherently insensitive to people who are suffering. That there’s no time, there’s no place where you can articulate a theodicy, and it will be helpful. It’s always going to be harmful. It’s always going to be insensitive.
I think that they take that a little too far, but they’re correct that people who are suffering from PTSD, almost universally have a common symptom called hyper-arousal. It’s hypersensitivity. Somebody who’s traumatized can get triggered at the smallest cues, at the smallest remembrance. Sometimes just the tone of your voice, sometimes just your facial expression, sometimes if you just use the wrong word, it can trigger them and remind them of the imprints of their trauma. And anti-theodicists are picking up on this. Their concern about sensitivity is exactly correct that people who have suffered horrendously and have been traumatized tend to be hypersensitive. Not just our level of sensitivity, but they tend to be hyper-aroused, hyper-sensitive. So maybe we need to be very careful with how we talk about God and how we talk about theodicy.
In my research, I have found almost the opposite, that theodicy doesn’t just help people who are suffering, but helps even caregivers that are giving medical or therapeutic care to victims of horrendous evil. If you have some kind of meaning that you can give to suffering that’s going to make it less potentially traumatic for you. One way of defining trauma is an event that you cannot make meaning of, you cannot integrate it into the overall story of your life or your overall worldview. And insofar as that event or that suffering remains that way, remains senseless, the imprints of trauma are going to continue. They’re going to affect you physically. They’re going to affect you cognitively, psychologically, spiritually.
But if you have a framework that can try to make meaning of suffering, even horrendous suffering, you’re more likely to be able to cope with it better. What I found so far is that some of the empirical claims in the debate are not what the anti-theodicists think. If theodicy hurts individuals, it is not necessarily because theodicy is harmful, but because those individuals are in a very particular, very specific moment of processing their loss. They’re in a very specific moment of their grief. It’s very clear that your sensibilities and your needs change depending on which stage you are at.
So, my argument is, what if the Theodicy is harmful and theodicy is offensive at the earliest stages of grief. Of course, you don’t want to hear about God when you just lost your loved one or when you just experienced trauma. Who cares about God in those moments, right? Sometimes you don’t want to hear about it. Sometimes it’s defensive. It’s hurtful. But what the anti-theodicists think is that that’s the only stage of grief, and that if you feel that way immediately, you’re bound to feel that way 10, 20, or 30 years after the event. And psychologists have shown that’s just not the case. The way we make judgments about our meaning in life changes and can change very dramatically based on many different factors. But one of them is, which stage of grief are you in?
David Capes
Yes, that is huge. That is fascinating. One of the things that you talk about is the fact that it is important at some stage, at some point in grief, that a person actively maintain a distancing. That it’s helpful to distance yourself and to think theoretically about that, because you said that it helps to reduce stress and anxiety and negative emotions. It reduces the blood pressure, it reduces cardiovascular activity etc. And here’s a statement that you made that I thought was interesting. That “self-immersion in stressful
events can lead to maladaptive reflection, more anxiety, more worry, more saying this is catastrophic, higher blood pressure, higher cardiovascular activity. That a part of what philosophers do and theologians do is to conceive of these things Theoretically, and that it’s helpful for people who are in some stage of grief to look at it from that perspective. Would you comment on that?
Jahdiel Perez
This relates to another major argument of anti-theodicists and it is called the “argument from detachment”. The more you abstract away from the specific, embodied suffering, the less clearly you’ll be able to see the suffering and to evaluate it correctly. So. the further you are away, the more harmful you are going to be to someone who’s suffering. If you’re suffering, you want to know you’re not alone, right? You want people to come close to you. Maybe not to talk to you, but at least to be present. So that doesn’t make some sense.
However, what psychologists have found is that there’s two ways of looking at any specific moment in life, especially trauma. One is from a self-immersed perspective, which uses “I” statements, which means this is happening to me right now, at this very moment. I’m reliving, reenacting the trauma. Another is from a self-distance perspective, which is trying to create some sort of psychological distance between who you are now and the you that suffered the trauma.
What psychologists have found is that trauma is overwhelming. What it does is that it keeps you trapped in the moment. It affects the way you perceive time. So even years after the event, you might think you’re still suffering. And one of the interventions that therapists like to make is precisely to create psychological self-distancing from this event. Because if you cannot distance yourself specifically from that traumatic stress, all those factors that we mentioned, anxiety, heart rate, depression, reactivity of your heart and all these biological markers tend to increase without this kind of psychological self-distancing.
What if the theodicy provides the kind of distance that individuals need to cope better with suffering, and this is something that I think there’s enough evidence to suggest. But what if it’s not the argument per se that helps us cope better? What if it’s just the distance from the trauma and the meaning that it can give that can help us live better with suffering?
David Capes
It’s a fascinating study Jahdiel. Thank you for being with us today on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
Jahdiel Perez
I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me any time.
A Nugget of Wisdom from Jahdiel Perez
One of my favorite sayings is that if you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room. I think it’s very important to surround yourself with people that are ahead of you, that are smarter than you. I never want to be the smartest person in the room, the most spiritual person in the room. I found that every time I’ve grown in life, or anytime I’ve succeeded or have been promoted, it’s because I have mentors around me that can help me grow.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
