Lecture 9: Evil

1. Lecture 9: Evil Dr. Ann T. Orlando 13 November 2008

2. Biblical Approach to Evil • Natural Evil • Suffering and difficulties are teachers • God’s response to Job: there is no answer that man can understand • Moral Evil • Result of man’s freedom to choose • Proclivity to evil and original sin

3. Background: The Key Question • How can there be a good, omnipotent creator God and evil in world • Basic formulation by Epicureans • Either God is good and not omnipotent or God is omnipotent and not good • Their result: God(s) are neither good nor omnipotent. God does not care about cosmos

4. Gnostic Solution • Two gods • One good spiritual god • Evil creator god • Mankind is aligned with one or the other • Some affinity for Platonism • Manichaeism included this solution to evil

5. Plotinus (207-270 AD) • Alexandrian philosopher, considered himself a Platonist • Contemporary of Origen and Mani • Subsequently referred to as a ‘Platonist’; • Term Neoplatonism an invention of 19th C • Developed a metaphysics of the One • Good spiritual creator God • Simple, self-caused and cause of all else • Problem: Then how can there be evil • Solution evil is the absence of a good that should be there • Evil does not have an independent existence • Ethics based on soul’s return to the One • Spiritual progression in steps to the One • Sin is turning away from approaching the One

6. Augustine • Evil the key question for Augustine; it is what prevents him from being happy • Starts his turn away from Catholicism over this question (Confessions Book III) • Return begins with the solution found in the books of the Platonists (Confessions Book VII) • Recall “On Free Choice of the Will” begins with the question of evil.

7. Augustine and Human Distorted Desires • Human proclivity to sin is a result of original sin • Without grace, man always will fall into sin • Charity (grace, gift of the Holy Spirit) is the only virtue • To be discussed more next week, justification

8. Medieval Response • Basically Augustine • Example: Aquinas in ST Ia 48-49 addresses evil in general • Evil has no existence in reality • Evil cannot exist without the presence of some good • Note: Church still follows Augustine in this, see definition of evil in CCC glossary

9. John Calvin • Basically Augustine • But emphasis on man’s fallen state • Evil is a direct result of man’s now nearly completely corrupt nature • Institutes II.3

10. Early Modern Wrestling with Evil: Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) • Pierre Bayle wrote one of the first modern Dictionaries • His Dictionary was the most widely read book in the 18th C; having enormous influence on philosophes. • Voltaire’s Dictionary • Diderot’s Encyclopedia • Bayle was pessimistic about a solution to the theodicy problem • Raised objection to all solutions, including Manichees (2 gods), Plotinus (evil does not exist) and Epicurean (God does not exist) • Pessimistic about human nature; more evil than good in the world • Usually considered one of the first early modern skeptics

11. Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) • Born into a prominent Lutheran family • Studied Church Fathers and ancient history and scholastic theology • Desperately wanted to reconcile Lutheran and Catholic theologies through philosophy • Made original and brilliant contributions to • Mathematics (calculus) • Physics • Logic • German jurisprudence • Philosophy • Metaphysics

12. Some Principles of Leibniz’s Philosophy • Opposed to materialism and atheism (revised Epicureanism of Hobbes) • God always acts for the best • Thus we must live in the best world • Nothing happens without a reason or cause • Although we may not know the reason, and see only the effect • All substances are interconnected, even if we cannot know those connections • These connections, past present and future, are contained within each substance • Each substance thus is a ‘mirror’ of the entire universe • The universe was created in and remains in harmony • Body and mind each follows their own laws, but are synchronized through universal harmony • Body subject to efficient causes • Mind to final causes • Mind (soul) has innate ideas based on universal harmony • Note, only about half of Leibniz’s works have been published; the only book he published during his lifetime was Theodicy

13. Leibniz and Theodicy • Written as a reply to Bayle in 1710 • How can this be the best world when there is evil, when people are unhappy • Leibniz answer,: earthly happiness of every individual may not be the right way to judge ‘best’ • God creates limited things which taken in aggregate reflect God’s perfection. • But this implies that individual things may suffer some evil or suffering due to their limitations • Limitations as a type of privation

14. Alexander Pope and Optimism • Cease then, nor order imperfection name:Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.Know thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.Submit. In this, or any other sphere,Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.All nature is but art, unknown to thee;All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;All discord, harmony not understood;All partial evil, universal good.And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, 'Whatever is, is right.'

15. Lisbon Earthquake and Voltaire • Crushing earthquake on All Saints Day, 1755 • Resulting fires and tsunami destroy most of Lisbon • Raises profoundly the question of natural evil and human suffering • Voltaire writes his poem to refute Leibniz and Pope, using the Lisbon earthquake suffering as his primary example • See Rousseau reply to Voltaire, http://geophysics.tau.ac.il/personal/shmulik/LisbonEq-letters.htm

16. The Shoah • Human moral evil on an unprecedented scale • An event in human history that has been documented and reported in detail • How could this happen in the most ‘enlightened’ and scientific country in Europe? • Either ‘proof’ that God does not exist, or that the Enlightenment is a false philosophy, or both

17. Albert Camus (1913-1960) • Born in North Africa • Wrote doctoral thesis on Augustine and Neoplatonism • Fought in French resistance against Nazis • Evil exists, but God does not

18. The Plague • Evil is real, God is not • Main character, a doctor (atheist), narrates the story as an objective observer • On of key figures is a priest, Augustinian scholar • Pivotal moment: death of a child • Neither religion nor science can relieve pain • Near end, doctor and mother stare out the window and see…nothing • Hero of story continually asks, without answer from doctor, ‘how can I be a saint without God?’

19. John Hick (1922 - ) • Conscientious objector during WWII in Britain • Studies philosophy after the War, especially Kant • Concerned with real as opposed to counterfeit religious experiences (Faith and Knowledge) • Ultimate Divine cannot be known in the world • Valid religious experience is determined by long-term effect on believer • Both God and evil exist

20. Evil and the God of Love • Detailed examination of Augustine on evil and the impact of Augustine’s thought • Aquinas • Calvin • Leibniz • Given the reality of evil, a questioning of the privation model • Hick Suggests an ‘Irenaean” approach • Man always learning and moving forward • Read his criticism of Augustine, Chapter VIII

21. Assignments • Augustine, Confessions VII • Aquinas ST Ia 48-49 • Calvin, Institutes II.3 • Leibniz, Summary of the Controversy Reduced to Formal Argument, in Theodicy, trans. E.M. Huggard, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1985, pp 377-388. • Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, in The Enlightenment, A Sourcebook and Reader, Ed. Paul Hyland, London: Routledge, 2003, pp75-82. • Hick, Evil and the God of Love, Chapter VIII