The Philosophical Problem of Evil

1. The Philosophical Problem of Evil • The only effective argument against the existence of a maximally perfect God is rooted in the existence of evil. • The existence of evil is thought by some to: • Be logically inconsistent with the existence of a maximally perfect God. (The Logical Problem of Evil) • Constitute conclusive evidence against the existence of a maximally perfect God. (The Evidential Problem of Evil)

2. Logical Problem of Evil • Some believe the claims ‘A maximally perfect God exists’ and ‘Evil exists’ canNOT both be true in the same reality. • Some believe these two claims cannot both be true in the same reality just as the claims ‘All the students in Mrs. Smith’s class are girls’ and ‘The best student is Mrs. Smith’s class is a boy’ cannot both be true in the same reality.

3. The reason some believe these two claims cannot both be true in the same reality is succinctly stated by St. Thomas Aquinas: • “It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But, the word ‘God’ means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable, but there is evil in the world. Therefore, God does not exist.” Summa Theologica, I, 3, iii (obj. 1)

4. Rebutting the Logical Problem of Evil • How to show that the two claims are not logically inconsistent: • Show there is a possible reality in which both claims are true. • This reality need not be actual, nor even plausible. • The reality need only be possible and be one in which both ‘A maximally perfect God exists’ and ‘Evil exists’ are both true.

5. The Absorption Principle • “Since God is the Highest Good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His Omnipotence and Goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.” Saint Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion • Any evil that exists is the logically unavoidable side-effect(s) of the production of greater good(s).

6. Plantagina • A possible reality in which ‘A maximally perfect God exists’ and ‘Evil exists’ are both true. • All the evil that exits in Plantagina results from the free, but immoral, choices of moral creatures. • Evils such as murders, thefts, and rapes result from the free, but immoral, choices of creatures like you and me.

7. Evils such as sickness, earthquakes, and hurricanes result from the free, but immoral, choices of fallen angels (demons). • God cannot force any of the free creatures in Plantagina to choose good. • A “forced, free choice” is a logical impossibility, just like a “square circle.” Thus, God’s “inability” to bring either about is not a blow against His omnipotence.

8. In Plantagina, all the evil produced by the free, but immoral, choices of moral creatures is outweighed by the goodness of the creatures’ ability to make free and moral choices. • The moral creatures in Plantagina cannot make free and moral choices unless they can also make free, but immoral, choices. • Plantagina is a possible reality and, in it, ‘A maximally perfect God exists’ and ‘Evil exists’ are both true.

9. Thus, these two claims are NOT logically inconsistent. • What is the upshot of all this? • The Logical Problem of Evil is easily rebutted because it overreaches. • It tries, as it were, to hit a grand slam against theism. • As a result it can be struck out by a story as facile as Plantagina.

10. Evidential Problem of Evil • Given the amount and type of evil that exists in the actual world, it is highly unlikely (and, therefore, irrational to believe) that a maximally perfect God exists. • The existence of evil counts as conclusive evidence against the existence of a maximally perfect God.

11. Responses to the Evidential Problem of Evil • Direct Theodicy • A plausible explanation for all the evil that actually exists. • Evil is the Privation of Goodness • At root, goodness and being are the same. • To lack goodness is, to some degree, to lack being.

12. To be evil is NOT to BE as one ought. • For example, a hammer without a head is a bad hammer because it lacks (suffers from a privation) of what it should have. • All created beings, by the very fact they are created, lack some degree goodness and, therefore, being.

13. “All things that exist, therefore, seeing that the Creator of them all is supremely good, are themselves good. But, because they are not, like their Creator, supremely and unchangeably good, their good may be diminished and increased.” St. Augustine of Hippo, Enchiridion

14. “[St. Augustine] did hold broadly to the Platonic idea that the world is necessarily a mixture, as it were, of being and non-being: It is becoming. And, one of the hallmarks of [the world] . . . is its multiplicity and change, [i.e] the absence of full being . . . . But this multiplicity and change give rise to natural processes, and these in turn give rise to famines, disease, plagues, etc., and these in turn give rise to suffering . . . .

15. “Moral evil, or sin, likewise may be traced to an absence of goodness. It results when something goes wrong with the will; when it breaks down; when it falls short; when it fails to will the good; when it is derailed and turns aside from the the good; when it is corrupted. As disease is the absence of health in the body, so sin is the absence of health in the will.” Miller and Jensen, Questions that Matter, pp. 354-55

16. From the very fact that creatures are creatures, they are limited in both being and goodness. • In other words, by their very natures, creatures are incomplete. • The fulfillment and completion of creatures lie outside themselves • St. Augustine, like all theists, maintained that the fulfillment and completion of creatures lie in God. • “Our hearts, O Lord, are restless until they rest in Thee.” (TheConfessions)

17. Given their limitations in knowledge, creatures may seek fulfillment and completion in something other than their true fulfillment and completion – God. • Take as an extreme example Satan. • In Christian theology, Satan started out as the archangel Lucifer. • But, instead of seeking his fulfillment and completion in serving God, Satan chose to seek his fulfillment and completion in attaining power.

18. In the words that John Milton put on the lips of Satan in Paradise Lost, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” • Despite what Satan might have thought (or thinks), says St. Augustine, he cannot find fulfillment and completion by ruling in Hell. • He could only find fulfillment and completion by serving in Heaven.

19. “It is not Satan’s bare existence which is evil, but the bareness of his existence . . . . Instead of fulfilling the being God had given him, he, in a sense, vacated that being, emptied it of all of its once scintillating possibilities. There is an enormous emptiness residing at the very core of Satan’s being, a huge and tragic lack of what-could-have-been, of what should-have-been. He is evil, not for what he is, but for what he is not.” Professor D. Q. McInerny

20. In Christian theology, it is this tragic lack of what should-have-been at the core of Satan that causes him to inflict suffering on others. • As with Satan, so with all other who inflict suffering on others. • What is the upshot of all this? • As a Direct Theodicy, “Evil as a Privation of Good” is reasonable, but not conclusive.

21. Since it is reasonable, however, despite the existence of evil in the actual world, it is not irrational to believe in a maximally perfect God. • Indirect Theodicy (The G. E. Moore Shift) • G. E. Moore was a 19th Century British Philosopher whose work with Ethics has inspired a response to the Evidential Problem of Evil.

22. How it works. • Gratuitous Evil: Evil that is not the logically unavoidable side effects of greater goods. • Both theists and atheists agree that this material implication is true: • If gratuitous evil exists, then a maximally perfect God does not exist. • Atheists maintain that it’s more reasonable to argue this way.

23. If gratuitous evil exists, then a maximally perfect God does not exist. Gratuitous evil exists. Therefore, a maximally perfect God does not exist. • Theists maintain its more reasonable to argue this way: • If gratuitous evil exists, then a maximally perfect God does not exist. A maximally perfect God does exist. Therefore, gratuitous evil does not exist.

24. Both of these arguments are valid, but only one can be sound. • Atheists say it’s more reasonable to believe in the existence of gratuitous evil than it is to believe in the existence of a maximally perfect God. • Theists say, given all the evidence (for example, the theistic proofs we’ve looked at) it’s more reasonable to believe in the existence of a maximally perfect God than to believe in the existence of gratuitous evil.

25. Both the atheistic and theistic views seem reasonable. • It, therefore, in the end, becomes a matter of faith. • This leads us to the Existential Problem of Evil.