The Many Faces of Evil

Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil

Good News Publishers

Contents

Introduction

God said that Job was a righteous and blameless man, but he suffered anyway. He lost his children, his possessions, and ultimately his health. Job's friends believed that a loving, powerful, and righteous God would never punish a blameless man, so they urged Job to repent and make peace with God. Job maintained his innocence, but like his friends, he knew that God punishes the wicked, so he couldn't understand why he was suffering. Wracked by intellectual and spiritual questions and besieged by emotional and physical pain, Job wanted an opportunity to plead his case in God's courtroom. Eventually God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind and overwhelmed him with a sense of his power and grandeur. But he never explained why he hadn't used some of that power to protect Job from the evil that befell him, nor why once beset by tragedy upon tragedy, Job wasn't released from it by this omnipotent God who seemingly could do anything. Though God had bestowed his love upon Job bountifully before the affliction came and did so even more abundantly when he finally released Job from the evils he endured, he never explained how allowing those evils into Job's life squared with his love and benevolence.

Job's experience is a paradigm case for the riddle of God and evil, but it isn't the only instance of horrendous suffering and evil. And so, professional philosophers and theologians along with ordinary people wonder how God could allow such horrible things to happen and why he wouldn't stop them from taking such a heavy toll upon mankind. Doesn't he love us enough to remove these evils? Or, is the problem that he just isn't powerful enough to do so? Who hasn't asked such questions?

The problem of evil as traditionally understood in philosophical discussion and debate is stated succinctly in David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:

Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

In his article "Evil and Omnipotence," written some years ago, J. L. Mackie concurred with this traditional understanding of the problem. He claimed that though traditional arguments for God's existence don't work, theists can accept the criticisms against those arguments and still maintain that God's existence can be known in some nonrational way. Perhaps they have experienced God in a vivid way, so no amount of rational argument to the contrary will likely dissuade them from their belief in God. However, Mackie argued that there is a far more devastating objection to theism. All forms of theism, he argued, which hold that God is omnipotent and benevolent succumb before the Epicurean trilemma stated in the portion cited from Hume. Mackie wrote:

Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that the several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another, so that the theologian can maintain his position as a whole only by a much more extreme rejection of reason than in the former case. He must now be prepared to believe, not merely what cannot be proved, but what can be disproved from other beliefs that he also holds.

Mackie believed the traditional problem of evil deals a devastating blow to all theistic positions committed to God's omnipotence and benevolence and evil's existence. Later in life he modified his views somewhat, but he maintained to the end that the existence of evil poses an unresolvable problem for traditional theism. I believe these claims are mistaken and that it is possible to demonstrate so. That is the major burden of this book.

Many things can and will be said about why and how Mackie's and other atheists' claims err. However, I begin by pointing out that Mackie's critique ultimately rests on two false assumptions. The first is that all forms of theism that hold to God's omnipotence (in some sense of "omnipotence") entail that an omnipotent being can eliminate all forms of evil. Of course, if one defines divine omnipotence so as to allow God to actualize logically contradictory states of affairs, then God can eliminate all forms of evil. My point is that not all forms of theism understand omnipotence that way. Hence, not all theistic systems entail that God can remove all kinds of evil.

Mackie's second erroneous assumption is that conditions in our world which he considers evil are evil according to all forms of theism that hold that God is omnipotent. As we shall see, theistic systems incorporate different notions of evil. This is even true of systems committed to divine omnipotence. Moreover, it is simply wrong for Mackie, an atheist, to assume that all theological positions committed to God as omnipotent hold his views on the meaning and nature of evil.

These complaints about Mackie must not be misunderstood. They don't mean that the existence of evil poses no problem for theistic systems committed to divine omnipotence and benevolence. As we shall see, evil's existence poses a variety of problems for any number of theistic positions. Moreover, if a theology has an unacceptable view of divine omnipotence and/or an untenable account of evil, then the system is untenable, regardless of any alleged inconsistency between God's attributes and evil's existence as the system understands them. As Peter Geach says, any critic who attacks a theological position on the grounds of a problem of evil and any apologist who defends the system against a problem of evil are simply wasting their time, if the theology's notions of divine omnipotence and/or evil have already been shown to be untenable. There is simply no need to beat a dead horse, so to speak. Nonetheless, inadequacy of a theology because it holds unacceptable notions of omnipotence and/or evil isn't the same thing as untenability for failure to solve its problem of evil.

My complaints about Mackie's view, then, don't mean that evil poses no problem for theistic belief, but rather that one must understand more accurately than Mackie has the nature of this problem and the "ground rules" for dealing with it. There are a number of theological positions with doctrines of divine omnipotence and benevolence, and the existence of evil poses a variety of serious and significant problems for those systems. Some of those problems deal with matters of internal inconsistency, whereas others question how probable it is that the theology's account of God and evil are accurate.

Granting, then, that it is legitimate for theologians and critics alike to talk about the problems that evil's existence creates for theistic belief, I want to address those problems in this book. I propose to do so by focusing my discussion around the articulation and defense of seven theses. They are: 1) The traditional understanding of the nature of the problem of evil considers it to be only one problem that attacks all theological positions in precisely the same way, but this is mistaken. There is in fact no such thing as the problem of evil, for at best, the expression "the problem of evil" stands for a host of distinct problems that confront theologies holding that (a) God is omnipotent (in some sense of "omnipotent"), (b) God is good in that he wills that there be no evil, in some sense of "evil," and (c) evil, in the sense alluded to in (b), exists; 2) Since a problem of evil in its logical form is about the internal consistency of the three propositions just mentioned (propositions [a]-[c]), anyone who attempts to discuss a logical problem of evil as it relates to a particular theology must show that the problem arises within that system's accounts of God and evil. It is illegitimate to criticize a theology for failing to solve a problem of evil which could arise only if the critic's notions of omnipotence and evil are incorporated into the system; 3) There are many forms of theism that can solve their logical problem of evil. Thus, the complaint that there is no rational way to demonstrate the internal consistency of any theological position that holds to an omnipotent and benevolent God and to evil's existence is false; 4) Evil's existence also poses an evidential problem that many theistic systems can resolve; 5) While many theologies can solve their logical and evidential problems of evil, they incorporate theological and/or philosophical commitments I find unacceptable. Thus, I shall present a theology whose intellectual commitments I accept, and I shall show how problems of evil arise for that system and how to solve them. In order to do this, I shall present an original defense that is compatible with the system's views of the divine attributes, human freedom, and evil; 6) Among the many problems of evil, one of the most challenging for theism is the problem of hell. Despite its difficulty, there are a number of systems that can solve this problem in its logical and evidential forms. I shall examine many of those answers and explain how, given my theology, I would handle this problem; and 7) The religious problem of evil is a different kind of problem from the rest; consequently, it requires a different treatment. I shall offer a variety of reflections that address that problem.

At this early point in this book the meaning of many of these seven theses is opaque to the reader. As the discussion moves along, however, each will be explained. In the rest of this chapter I want to explain the first two theses. This will allow me to set forth the ground rules for handling the problem of evil in its logical form. At the end of the chapter, I plan to present the structure for the rest of the book. In doing so, I shall indicate how I shall handle the remaining theses.

Before turning to my first thesis, I want to address two other preliminary but important matters. Readers who believe in God may be troubled by what I have said so far. Rather than resolving the problem of evil, I appear to be expanding it in that I am claiming that there is not just one problem of evil but many. This may be especially perplexing to some in light of a commonly held belief that the problem of evil is an attack on God's very existence.

To the first concern I reply that we shall see that by recognizing that there is more than one problem of evil, we don't make it harder to handle this issue. Rather, I shall show that by distinguishing the many problems of evil we make great headway in moving to their resolution. In fact, when theists do not distinguish among the many problems and identify the specific one they want to address, the likelihood of their resolving any of the problems is diminished.

As to the concern that the problem of evil is an attack on God, that isn't necessarily true. Any of the many problems of evil is actually an attack on some theological conception of God. To the extent that a given theology's conception of God matches the true and the living God, then, of course a problem of evil posed against that notion of God really does attack God. Suffice it to say that the burden of this book isn't to defend my conception of God as the correct one; I have done so elsewhere. Rather, my purpose in this book is to show that many different theologies committed to divine omnipotence and benevolence can solve the many problems evil poses for them. That is a tall enough order in itself. Deciding and defending which of these theologies most likely matches the true and living God is a task for another occasion.

Thesis 1

My first thesis is that there is no such thing as the problem of evil. This is true in at least three distinct respects, the first of which is that it is possible to distinguish a host of different problems that can arise over the issue of God and evil. There is initially a distinction between what I shall call the religious problem of evil and the theological/philosophical problem of evil.

A religious problem of evil arises from a particular instance of suffering and evil that someone is actually experiencing. Faced with such affliction, the sufferer finds it hard to reconcile what is happening with his beliefs about God's love and power. This precipitates a crisis of faith. In the midst of this turmoil, the sufferer asks, "Why is this evil happening to me now?" "This just isn't fair. What did I do to deserve this?" "How can a loving God let this happen to me?" and, "In view of what's happening, how can I worship a God who won't stop it?" It is the religious problem of evil that Job confronted.

In contrast, the theological/philosophical problem of evil is about the existence of evil in general, not some specific evil that someone encounters which disrupts her personal relation with God. In fact, the theological/philosophical problem of evil is sufficiently abstracted from instances of experienced evil that it could be posed even if there actually were no God and no evil at all. One could ask how the existence of an omnipotent, all-benevolent God, if he existed, would square with the existence of evil, if there were any.

Attempts to solve a theological/philosophical problem of evil may not help someone at all with his religious needs. In response to the pain and suffering someone undergoes and bemoans, suppose some well-meaning but misguided friend says, "Stop your complaining; evil is just an illusion, an illusion that soon will pass." Or, "I know things are hard now, but you must see that there really couldn't be less evil in the world, because this is the best of all possible worlds."

Such remarks have philosophical sense and may even have a certain philosophical plausibility for some, but they are no help to someone who wonders whether God is worthy of devotion in view of actual suffering being experienced. If you were suffering greatly, would such pronouncements comfort you? Of course not! As Plantinga says, after the philosophical discussion ends, the person with problems about his personal relation to God needs pastoral care, but his questions don't belong in a philosophical debate.

There is also a distinction between the problem of moral evil and the problem of natural evil. Moral evil or sin is evil that arises from human or angelic actions (though the problem is normally posed in regard to human action alone). The problem of moral evil asks why there should be sin in a world created by an all-powerful, all-loving God. The problem of moral evil is actually the theological/philosophical problem of evil.

Natural evil includes various phenomena like pains and diseases, earthquakes, fires, floods, pestilences, hurricanes, and famine. Though some of these evils result from human activity, many natural evils occur apart from the direct actions of any agent. Like the problem of moral evil, this is a problem about evils in general, not about specific natural evils. If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, why doesn't he remove natural evils?

In addition to these problems of evil, there are also problems about the quantity, intensity, and apparent gratuitousness of evil. The problem about quantity grants that there may be a satisfactory explanation as to why God would allow evil in general. However, this problem asks why there should be so much evil in our world. Whatever God's point in allowing evil, couldn't he make it with much less evil than there is? A variation of this problem focuses not on the amount of evil produced by many different people, but the amount stemming from the actions of one person. Consider the serial killer who murders ten helpless people. Some might argue that the killer must be allowed to do these evil deeds, because it is only by the exercise of his free will that his character becomes set. However, the critic of this reply will ask why God didn't stop the killer after the fourth or fifth murder. By that point, hasn't the killer's character been determined? Why are the other five or six murders necessary to establish his character? If four or five murders would be enough to set his character, than even one more murder, let alone another five or six, is just too much evil.

The problem of the intensity of evil grants that it may be possible to justify the existence of evil in general and even in the amounts present in our world. Still, why are some evils as bad as they are? For example, if someone has to get cancer, why must it be excruciatingly painful and so resistant to any medication that would remove even some pain? In other words, why are certain evils so evil?

Then, there is the problem of the apparent gratuitousness of many evils. Some evils seem attached to some good end, but others seem to serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. If there are evils that really are purposeless, not just apparently so, it is difficult to imagine why an omnipotent, all-loving God wouldn't remove them.