A question of choice

Someone asked me recently if it was my time in Africa that made question my faith, and it got me thinking. I suppose that was a part of it, although I don’t know if it was the root cause of my questioning so much as a mere catalyst that kicked off a train of thought that would have taken place sooner or later anyway.
It’s relatively cliché, I think, to ask whether a loving, omnipotent god could really allow the amount of suffering we see in the world. I can understand people’s frustration in dealing with the seemingly boundless approaches that could be taken in answering that, but for me the issue goes deeper than simply querying whether god would allow it. It also raises the issue of free will, and choice.

Let me give you an example – Haiti has been in the news a lot over the past fortnight, what with the earthquake recovery effort and the enormous human suffering. But the people of Haiti were suffering long before the earthquake of almost a fortnight ago. I don’t say that to belittle the damage and pain that the earthquake has caused – but it is one of the world’s poorest countries, and like so many other developing nations, the people there struggle every single day with hunger, preventable disease, and crime. One of the documentaries I watched on Haiti talked about the issue of kidnapping, and how it has been such a problem in recent years. Largely, I would imagine, out of desperation, people turn to crime to make money – it’s not unique to developing countries, but in many cases it is more prevalent. Even in Malawi, I often found myself getting frustrated because as an obvious foreigner I felt constantly targeted by people who were after something, namely money., although luckily they were not so malicious as Haitian kidnappers.

Watching the documentary, I found myself so sickened by the levels of violence and brutality being employed by the kidnappers. I felt so angry, so disgusted with them, as I generally do when confronted with violence.

But for me, the thing is, it’s very easy to take the moral high ground. I have a good home, enough to eat, a solid education, and good friends. I’m not starving or immediately dying. Can the people I observe, whose families and lives are crumbling around them, whose incomes are non-existent, really be considered as having the same level of choice as I do? Their actions can still be considered universally bad or wrong, I suppose, but what about them, as people? We can only be considered responsible for that which we can reasonably control, and while we can always control our behaviour, we cannot always control the factors which dictate and drive it.

I guess what I’m really querying is whether it’s fair to hold to the same moral – normally religious – standard, those whose circumstances are wildly different? I guess you could argue that an omniscient god would judge each person individually based on their circumstances, but really when I examine any religious doctrine, it is by its’ very nature universal. Take stealing, for example. Universally wrong, but does a person whose family is starving really have the same amount of choice and concurring responsibility for their actions as someone who robs cardigans from TK Maxx? I don’t think so.

What also makes me question the validity of a universal moral code is the fact that, without a higher order (i.e. god), what do we base this system on? Human opinion varies wildly, and is popular consensus really reliable for dictating our behaviour? It can be influenced by so many variables. Adolf Hitler was one the most influential leaders of the 20th century, as was Josef Stalin. Both of them, particularly Hitler, manipulated the political and economic atmosphere of their time. Post-Versailles treaty Germany was an economic disaster zone, and Hitler used this to his advantage, and to further his own political agenda – he had the backing of the electorate. Their desperation fuelled his popularity, and adversely influenced their priorities, and their perception of morals.

I think, at the end of the day, it really is a question of priorities. There are certain pivotal things which are central to our survival – security, food, etc – and when these priorities are jeopardised, everything else (including moral codes) tend to suffer. As such, can those whose primary needs are jeopardised be judged according to the same criteria as those whose aren’t?