condensed: problem of evil

introduction

there has always been evil and suffering. it is the greatest objection to the existence of god. evil is in human nature, and pain is part of our existence. we are capable of great love and great evil. is there answer that does does not include god’s neglect? a theoretical answer doesn’t fit real pain.

defining the problem

logical problem

this is the deductive problem (if all premises true, then all true. but if one wrong, then all wrong). god’s existence is logically incompatible with evil.

the inconsistent triad. posed by Epicurus and J.LMackie.

1. if god were all powerful he would be able to stop evil
2. if god were all loving he would want to stop evil
3. but it exists

god therefore his either not all loving, not all powerful, or not both. maybe a deist creator created the world and then left it. maybe god who put evil to make it more interesting. but the abrahamic god is intimately linked to the world and is claimed to love it. 

responses to the problem

other responses are trivial. the cruellest is that we need evil to appreciate good. this is no explanation to a victim, or to the amount of evil. or why we should have evil at all? D.Z. Phillips argued this is a callous and hateful way to view other’s suffering. what good came from ww2 that allows so much suffering? 

theologians argue Jesus shows that god does not abandon us in our suffering but this doesn’t explain why we have evil in the first place.

issues

• assumes all suffering is bad, and that god would not allow some kinds of suffering. god may not want to stop all suffering. 
• does evil even exist? if it is just an absence of good, then doesn’t exist.
• maybe god is impersonal, then he cannot be loving, or good. 

evidential problem

this is the inductive problem. it makes god’s existence improbable, there is just too much evil: no reason can justify how much evil there is.

evil is always experienced by someone. if a million people die, a million people hurt and millions that love them too. it is not a theoretical problem. there are two kinds:

• moral evil: comes for human choices, why does god let us do that?
• non-moral, natural evil: natural sources like disease or hurricanes. why create evil things?

augustine’s theodicy

an attempt to justify god’s goodness in the face of evil is called a theodicy

he was a manichaean when he was younger, a take on plato’s teaching that takes the ‘soul is good and body, bad’ idea to extremes. matter and spirit were from two gods and the soul must escape the desires of the body by denying all material life. it is part of gnosticism, which is that all physical matter is evil. so if matter is from god and god is good then evil needs another explanation. 

original perfection

he thought the universe was made good, as it claims in genesis 1. it is not good like god, but in its own way. if everything was made good, evil must have come from something going wrong. he then says that evil must be the privation within something good. he calls this privatio boni. hitler was good in that he was human, but he was not fulfilling his potential, so he was not good.

the fall

he uses the fall of angels and the fall of man to explain the evil in a world made good. the fall of angels was by a choice to reject god, as was the fall of man. they rejected god and were punished with evil. augustine’s theodicy is described as a soul-deciding theodicy. we decide to obey god or not. evil is a test of faithfulness and goodness. it is a result of sin or a punishment for evil. we are also born into original sin through adam. god does not abandon us, but offers us salvation and redemption through jesus.

free will

there is emphasis on will. augustine said we can know good, and not do it because of our will. it essential to being truly good, because we must freely choose. love must be given freely to mean anything so we must freely choose god. augustine believed a world with evil from free will is better than a world without free will. this explanation says it was not a god’s choice.

JL Mackie claimed that some people have free will and always choose the right thing, so why not make everyone this way? this is not logically possible, but god’s omnipotence means he could have. we might say that this is not genuine love if we have to choose it.

summary

• god is perfect, so must have created perfect world. cannot create imperfect world. 
• privatio boni: evil is lack of good. 
• we have free will to choose how we act, we disobey god, so we have an absence of good in ourselves
• adam and eve destroyed state of perfect world, so now we have fall of man and original sin.
• god is loving and fair, his justice is not intervening and preventing evil: all evil is either sin or punishment for sin
• through jesus’ death, eternal life is available

objections

1. literal: augustine is reading genesis as history not poetry. his science is flawed too, in that he believed in homunculi. it would be unfair anyway to blame everyone for the actions of adam. it seems unjust that a loving god would do so. modern original sin is the idea of the inclination to sin. 
2. true perfection?: if creation were truly perfect, it would not go wrong. if god created hell as a place to send the wicked, then he made a place of suffering that is the opposite of good.
3. truly good?: does it make sense to call things like stones good? it is not in itself good. we place the value in it. can we also say that things are better than others? 
4. inconsistency: Augustine believed we were ignorant and therefore unable to overcome our wretched condition. if we are ignorant, how can we make informed choices? are we to blame for our evil? should we be punished? to be truly responsible we must have full awareness. if we sin for ignorance, our punishment is incredibly unjust.
5. his views on predestination, that god has already chosen our path in life also denies free will. only god can choose if we go to heaven, not us.
6. why do we choose to go wrong? perfect beings would not choose wrong.
7. richard dawkins says this is the world you would get if there was no god. nothing is evil, it’s just getting on with it. how do you know when we have no worlds to compare to?
8. is augustine just defending god? using this privatio boni sounds like trying to get god ‘off the hook’ for evil

irenaeus’ theodicy

he argues there is evil in the world so that people choose to do good to develop goodness and character. we must reach towards divine likeness.

we are made in the image of god but must grow through life into his likeness, with maturity and control. adam and eve, to irenaeus, were immature like children and disobeyed god. this was a part of growing up. god wanted humans to mature in this way, through history. he sent christ to help us learn. for irenaeus evil can serve a purpose. it is soul-making, not soul-deciding.

we learn to be good through experience, so god sends evil to help us in this. things that are worthwhile are gained through difficulty, and then we see their value. we must be patient for god making the world. irenaeus balances free will of humanity with god’s work. both are required for salvation. he suggests this continues into the next life. he also believes those who reject god are damned.

john hick

he took irenaeus’ theory of soul-making and explained its consequences. his version requires genuine freedom. god wants a genuine relationship, real choices we must have real consequences. hick says god creates an epistemic distance between us and himself, allowing to make rational conclusions.

his view of natural evil considers that these issues help us to grow and develop good virtues; without suffering we would be zombies. there is no true human life with value in that world. if god constantly intervened, we would not get to make our choices, and none of us would grow into the likeness of god.

instrumental evil

something’s goodness relies on its purpose. if god made the world to develop us. evil is an instrument that we use to make our souls mature. so it is a ‘vale of soul-making’. there is no room for dysteleological evils, because every evil serves to help us grow. this is potentially a controversial way of thinking. he admits dysteleological evil is an issue.

universal salvation

hell is part of the problem of evil for hick. if evil exists to produce good, we cannot explain hell. it does no good in itself and is eternal. hick takes the view that hell is purgatorial and temporary, so that we have chance to develop more before we get to heaven. this fits a god of love and mercy.

the problem lies in that soul-making requires choosing god, and if we are in eternity with god, we eventually will have to choose him, so this is not freedom.

the other view is that if we reject god, we do not get eternal life. for hick this does not allow further improvement and would make no sense. 

richard swinburne

briefly, he says we need to have previous knowledge of evils to be able to stop them or refrain from them. so evil is instrumental.

d.z. phillips on theodicy

against swinburne, he focused poignantly on the holocaust. how can the death of an innocent jew mean she is useful? no one can justify torture for some possible good is still evil. he claimed the following were not good enough reasons: evil gives opportunities to develop, evil is logically necessary, acts as a way to motivate people to do good, things aren’t actually that bad, suffering is never more than we can bear and all will be redeemed after death.

“would the world not be better off without such attitudes to the suffering of others?…here is..a theodicy..adds to the evil it seeks to justify.”

d.z. phillps