The Problem of Evil

Roy Jackson

'The reign of beasts has begun.'
-Albert Camus, 1939

At the beginning of Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas admitted that the existence of evil is the best argument against the existence of God. A tension exists between the beliefs about evil and the characteristics of the classical, theistic view of God:

Omnipotence. God is perceived doctrinally as 'all-powerful', but immediately we can see problems with this. Are we to say, as Descartes suggests, that God can do anything? Can he square a circle, or commit suicide? Can he create a being greater than himself? If so, why cannot God prevent evil?

Omniscience. God is 'all-knowing.' Does this mean he knows what has happened, is happening, and is going to happen everywhere (therefore, also omnipresent) and to every body? If this is the case, why did he not foresee the rise of Hitler and do something about it?

Omnibenevolence. In a narrow sense, God as 'all-good' refers to his moral character (as opposed to the wider definition of 'perfection'). If God is creator of all things, how could he have allowed the existence of evil?

Bearing these characteristics in mind, we seem to come to one of either the following conclusions:

Either

a. The 'Theistic God' exists
& Evil does not exist.

Or

b. The 'Theistic God' does not exist
& Evil does exist.

Now, a might strike you as plain ridiculous; of course evil exists! Both natural evil (that is, acts of nature beyond the control of humankind, such as earthquakes) and moral evil (acts committed by humans) occur in the news every day. Yet some have indeed attempted to justify a. Famously, and somewhat confusingly, Aquinas - following in the footsteps of both Aristotle and Augustine -
did not see evil as existing at all. He believed it was our nature to be good; God makes us that way. We can give the example of, say, a bird. What is its nature? To have wings and fly, to catch worms, and so on. We would not say that a bird has - or possesses - gills, or six legs. In other words, gills are an 'absence' for birds. In the same way, it is the nature of humanity to have goodness. Evil, therefore, is also an absence: it is not actually a part of humankind. For Aquinas, there is no such thing as pure evil because God did not make anything that way. However, this is a far cry from saying that evil does not occur, it is a way of taking the responsibility away from God and laying it at the feet of humanity.

The alternative is to adopt a Hindu or Buddhist attitude; evil is an illusion (a view also adopted by Christian Science). However, this seems somewhat detached from the harsh reality of human suffering. To be aware of someone inflicting evil upon another or, for that matter, evil inflicted upon your self seems only too real.

If we are to say that evil most definitely exists in the world, must we therefore conclude b? This does not necessarily lead to atheism; other religions have been quite successful at resolving the issue of evil with the existence of a higher being. Notably, Zoroastrianism adopts a dualist approach of good battling with evil. But this limitation on the power of the good God (Ahuramazda) would not be compatible with the omnipotent Christian God. Even the belief in Satan, and the hint of dualism this entails, has caused Christian doctrine to distance itself from the existence of a Devil. Besides which, problems are still raised as to why God would create the Devil in the first place.

If we are to maintain a belief in a theistic God, the understanding of his attributes need to be redefined. This can be done via a 'third way'; the doctrine of free will.

The Free Will Defence (FWD)

It goes something like this:

c. The 'Theistic God' exists.
Man has been given free will by God.
Evil does exist.

According to the FWD you can have your cake and eat it: God exists and so does evil. If we outline God's attributes again:

Omnipotence. God does have the power to stop us from doing evil, but if he did so he would be taking away our freedom to choose. By 'all-powerful', we do not mean that God can do literally anything imaginable. Generally, belief is that even God cannot do what is logically impossible otherwise, the argument goes, God could give us all free will to do as we wish and still prevent us from doing evil! The common and coherent definition (provided by such scholars as Aquinas and Maimonides) of omnipotence is that God cannot bring about an impossible state of affairs simply because it leads to a contradiction. God, like all agents, has a nature, and so omnipotence must be understood in terms of God's nature. Aquinas argued that God cannot commit evil, because evil falls short of God's nature, which is goodness.

Omniscience. One possible response is that the future is not yet known, even for God. Again, it comes down to free will; we make our own futures. Therefore, knowing the future is logically incompatible with free will; a free action cannot also be determined.

Omnibenevolence. If God were morally good, then surely he would not permit or ordain evil. However, if humans are given freedom to chose to either do good or bad, then God cannot interfere.

But why not have a world without evil and people without free will?

1) If all acts were pre-ordained then it takes away responsibility from humanity. How can people be blamed or punished for sinful acts if they aren't responsible?

2) Humanity is not perceived as an unthinking slave to God. The relationship is a mutual one, by which humans can choose to freely love God.

3) This world is not intended to be a perfect, blissful, evil-free environment; what Richard Swinburne termed a 'toy-world'. Humanity and its relationship with God is a developing, progressive enterprise, requiring humankind to make mistakes and to experience life's joys and pains in order to develop as a human being and, as a result, get closer to God.

Argument (3) is the most important here. There is a 'higher good' than suffering and, therefore, God is doing good in the same way a father causes a child to experience suffering in order to develop as a person. The difficulty here, of course, is in the degree of suffering: there is a massive difference between allowing your child to experience the pain of, say, missing one meal to help her understand those who go without food, and to actually starve your own child!

When Ivan Karamazov speaks of a Russian nobleman who had his hounds tear an eight-year old boy to pieces before the boy's mother then, he would argue, no amount of God's benevolence can be justified. This century alone: a century of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Hussein, Milosevic, AIDS, starvation, terrorism, drugs, etc., we have to wonder how such evil can be in any way justified for the 'betterment of our souls'. Further, the FWD does not really work in the case of natural evil; the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 that resulted in the death of tens of thousands seemed to be nothing short of a senseless tragedy.

Even if we accept the view that God cannot achieve a logical impossibility, surely - within what is logically possible - he would create the best of all possible worlds for humankind? In such a case, when we look at the world we live in, could we not imagine a better world than this? Some philosophers have argued that a better, logically possible world could exist which both allowed for free will and would not contain evil and suffering:

1) Antony Flew argues that an omnipotent being could have created a world in which people would be free, but also causally determined to perform only good actions. For example, I am free to carry on writing this article or to stop and have a coffee. In this sense, I am a free agent. However, my actions are, to a degree, determined by my genetic makeup and social conditioning: if I had been brought up in an environment which frowned upon receiving a higher education, then I would not be writing this article in the first place.

2) J.L. Mackie argues that God could have made people to be free from causality but would also freely refrain from committing acts of evil. In Evil and Omnipotence, he says: 'If there is no logical possibility in a man freely choosing the good on one, or on several occasions, there cannot be a logical possibility in his freely choosing the good on every occasion.'

Alvin Plantinga, in The Free Will Defence, has responded to these arguments:

1) He argues that Flew is using the word 'free' in a 'non-standard, unordinary way'. Surely a world in which humans can be absolutely free is a better world than one which is not, even if this results in acts of evil.

2) Regardless of what world God created, people who are significantly free to commit evil actions will at least do one wrong action. This, of course, gets at the very heart of the goodness of human nature; our souls all have an element of evil within them, because that is what makes us human. There is, of course, the additional difficulty of the varieties of goodness (and badness) in human life: should a ruler follow the divine command 'thou shalt not kill' if capital punishment is proven to reduce crime?

The Euthyphro Dilemma

Plato's Euthyphro was faced with the dilemma of whether to obey the gods or to obey what is perceived as a higher morality. The question of what it actually means when we say 'God is good' is central to the debate on the problem of evil. Presumably, we follow God's laws not simply because God is powerful. We need more of a reason than that. People believe that God is right; he is the standard by which morality is ascertained. If we are saying that the morality of God is not right, (and reading the Bible, one might well come to that conclusion in many cases) then what morality are we appealing to? Is it some Platonic reality independent of God, or is it more subjective?

How do we come to the conclusion that God is, in fact, good in the first place? As Kant states: 'But where do we get the concept of God as the highest god? Solely from the Idea of moral perfection.' But where does this 'Idea' come from? If we are talking of a set of standards separate from God then we are limiting God's sovereignty and independence.

As the writer J.R. Ackerley once wrote: 'I am halfway through Genesis, and quite appalled by the disgraceful behaviour of all the characters involved, including God.' By the gradual conversion of God into a source of pure goodness, it becomes difficult to justify why evil must exist at all. Aquinas, following the line of Aristotle, believed that good is, 'that to which all desire ends.' God, therefore, is the archetype of goodness; to worship God is to desire Good. As God is the goal of all creation (for God is creation), then so is the Good.

Yet many find evil - to different degrees - more attractive: Milton's Satan is far more charismatic than the squeaky clean God. Having said that, however, deep down many of us believe that the best world is one where there is no evil or suffering, yet are afraid of existing in some kind of Brave New World, devoid of passion. How far are we prepared to go to avoid the pains that seem such a part of life?

Suggested reading
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Chapter 3), Brian Davies (OUP)
The Philosophy of Religion (Chap. V & VI), Ed. Basil Mitchell (OUP)
A Companion to the Philosophy of Religion (Chap. 50), Eds. Phillip L. Quinn, & Charles Taliaferro (Blackwell)
The Puzzle of Evil, Peter Vardy, (Fount)