The Problem of Evil
The problem of evil lies in our attempt to understand the attributes of God, with this present world in mind. God's omnipotence, and his goodness do not seem to be reconcilable in this world. The problem can be laid out as follows:
Some conclude with a sixth line, saying "therefore God does not exist", and this will be examined later (Pojman 111). But certainly this proposes a problem in any deist religion. Epicurus was one of the early philosophers to examine this question. His thoughts on the matter are of interest to us. "Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he in impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" (Pojman 110). There is a need as some have coined it, to 'get God off the hook', otherwise known as Theodicy. An attempt to justify God permitting or creating evil in the world. Many have pondered this problem, and made attempts at answers. We will look through the main theodicies proposed and see if they are effective in their attempt to hold on to the classic idea, that 'God is good'. Before doing so we must define what we mean by a few terms.
My attempt here is to use a general form of the word 'good', without any religious attachments to it. Some may say this is impossible, but that is a different matter that this paper is not dealing with. Good could be defined by a person within a particular religion as conformity to what their particular deity demands. I am not leaning in such a direction. Where I do come from, is what the prominent mid 20th century Christian author, C.S. Lewis calls, "Natural Law" (Lewis 18). It is a law that can be found behind all religions and all peoples that we all know and are not taught. "If anyone would take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other..."(Lewis 19). It is this unexplained moral law that I am referring to. Along with just doing what is right, also goes a possession of virtues. Selflessness, love, justice etc. These are, as well, universally esteemed by all religions and peoples. With this understanding of good I try to avoid attaching myself to a morality proposed by one particular religion, however I do come from a Christian ethical background and thus certain assumptions may be made.
Having now defined good, it is easier to define evil. It simply the opposite, or working against good. It is engaging in the opposite of the positive traits mentioned above. Selfishness, hate, injustice etc. Included here will be cruelty which will be examined more in this paper.
The third important term we need to define is omnipotence. "Omnipotence means the capacity to do everything, to suppress everything that stands in opposition". (Van Bavel 141). I am assuming in this paper that it also includes omniscience (all knowing).
It is also of value to draw from Thomas Aquinas' 'First Cause' argument. This argument states that there is a cause for everything. It seems we are left with an infinite number of causes for everything prior to each effect. But, if there is no first cause, then there cannot be any causes at all. There needs to be one cause at the beginning that started it all, and there is nothing beyond this cause. That cause is called God (Poyman 74). I do not use this as evidence for the proof of God, but for clarification on the nature of the God. If he is God, then all things have come from him, and there is nothing that is before him. We could also call this sovereignty, he acts entirely independent of any other cause.
With these understandings of the terms being used here, we can now start our examination to see if God is really as good as the classical assumption has it. Before we do, we will consider one more clarification of the problem.
God's Intervention
A large problem that people have with the belief in God, mainly the Judeo-Christian type God, is his transcendence. How this is seen is in his lack of intervention when he is needed. Like the newspaper report mentioned earlier, "Where was God last night?" (Van Bavel 137). If he is so powerful and loving, how come he is not around when he is needed? Some claim that he actually was around when he was needed for them, and there was a miraculous salvation from death, or harm. But this further complicates the problem, now we have a God who selects favorites. These all measure up poorly with the understanding that 'God is good'.
Let us look at an analogy given by Louis Pojman, about the lack of intervention on God's part. "If, by the mere pressing of a button, I could have caused Hitler to have had a fatal heart attack before starting World War II, I would have been obliged to do so"(115). So why didn't God press the button when he had the chance? Can there be a justification for such actions on his part? When millions die from natural disasters, the 'loving' God, 'lovingly' watches them suffer? This is the problem that leads to the conclusion that God does not care or he cannot intervene. One or the other, this is the problem at hand. We now turn to the attempts to reconcile these two features of God.
Willing and Allowing
Many deists make the claim that God 'allows' but he does not 'will'. He is permitting evil, but he does not necessarily desire it to happen. But is this really possible? There is an expression, 'Silence is consent'. Meaning when no action is taken against something, it is an admission of agreement with the instigators of such actions. If God permits something, does that not really mean that he also wills it? If indeed he in omniscient, and sovereign, then he must be in control of everything, then things cannot happen that he does not want to happen. This also applies to the idea of free-will that will be discussed later. Mainly, in terms of God, if he allows it, then he really wills it.
Dualism
One attempt at solving the 'Problem of evil', is called Dualism. "Dualism means the belief that there are two equal and
independent powers at the back of everything, one of them good, and the other bad, and this universe is the battlefield in
which they fight out an endless war" (Lewis 48, 49). Compared to our earlier discussions about omnipotence, this argument
holds little water. If there are two powers in control, one good and one bad, then there is a standard that one reflects, and
the other does not. This leaves room for someone higher, that created that standard that these two are fighting about, so
clearly these 'god's' are not of our concern, for they are not God at all. This may seem like a fairly frivolous idea that hardly
requires mentioning, however, it is necessary because a great many people subscribe to this belief. It is manifested in
several different ways, through mysticism, obsession with Angels and Demons in Christianity and in many tribal or animistic
religions. Dualism fails to find the answer to the question 'Is God good?', for it fails to event talk about God, whom must
be higher, and beyond Dualism (Lewis 47-51).
Free Will Defense
The most popular defense as to why God allows evil in the world (Theodicy) is for the purpose of free-will. This is an attempt to solve the problem of evil by adding a seventh line to the argument described earlier. "It is logically impossible for God to create free creatures and guarantee that they will never do evil" (Pojman 113). This starts with the premise that 'free will' is a good above any other and a remarkable gift from God that is required so that love can exists. Since humans are allowed to choose, evil exists. This seems like an acceptable solution to our problem, and a great many subscribe to this idea. Nevertheless, upon further inspection we can see that this argument has many holes that leave God much less then what we see as 'good'. We will look at three of these areas.
First of all the question needs to be asked, 'Why this much evil?' Did God really need to let humans make this much of a mess for themselves? "Could God have made us a little bit wiser and less reckless to begin with, still with free-will but a little more intelligence?" (Solomon 64).
We can apply the analogy that the Bible uses to clarify this point, imagine God as a 'Father'. Parents need to let their children make decisions, and accept responsibility on their own. But how far would you be willing to let your child go? A child being bitten by a hamster can be a valuable lesson about properly caring and not being rough with animals. But would letting your child fall off of a high ledge be justified by saying that the child chose the dangerous path and so brought it upon himself? Only a dreadful parent would allow a child to follow such foolish decisions. Yet, we see God, our "Heavenly Father" behaving in that manner, for humans are suffering well past limits that they can tolerate.
Is all the evil in the world here because humans have created this mess and we now have to sit in it? Does God watch from a distance, the horrible suffering of humanity and dismiss
himself of any responsibility by saying 'They made the mess, they can clean it up' "Such a view leads us immediately to a cruel God" (Van Bavel 140).
Perhaps he cannot do anything about it, and he is watching the suffering go on with a heavy heart. This fits well with the emotional pleas of religious services that attempt to convert people based on this free-will understanding, but it is talking about a God who is not omnipotent.
So again we are left with the predicament, "we are not able to combine God's omnipotence and love in our thinking, or reconcile them with one another" (Van Bavel 140). We are left at an impasse, either God is powerless, or he is merciless.
Secondly, when we look at all the suffering in the world, all the horror and atrocity that humans have done, felt or seen, the constant, nagging question is screamed allowed in the minds of the sufferers, "Is this worth it?" Is the price of all this suffering worth the supposedly glorious free-will? Could we not have had a degree less free-will, that meant less suffering? The question is hypothetically answered as 'It could have been a lot worse.' Which simply makes God all the more cruel. He did not tear our limbs off, he merely gave us a severe beating. If God could foresee that humans would create this 'mess' for themselves, why did he not then change the plan so that it would not be so dreadful? Did he really need to go through with creation, and then (as the Judeo-Christian ethic explains) create an elaborate and complicated plan of saving a small few of the people who have the fortunate chance of hearing about it? Is this free-will worth the present state of the earth? (Pojman 111). Religious tracts always place free will in opposition to being 'robots' or automatons walking about like zombies. But does there have to be this great of a distinction? Can there be some place in between?
A third area to examine that the Free-will Theodicy is little help with, is that of Natural evil, or non-moral evil. "The great earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, in which thousands of innocent people were killed while they sat in church on Sunday morning, is a non moral evil" (Solomon 62). How does human free-will cause such a catastrophe? Did somehow, the moral decisions of mankind affect the physical earth itself? There is little scientific evidence of this other then things like the depletion of the ozone layer. But how do human actions create earthquakes, floods, disease, or famines? We can even look into the question of pain itself. "Biologically pain serves as a part of the bodies defense mechanism preventing further injury by means of, say, a reflex action" (Tinker 53). Pain is helpful in thwarting further bodily problems, but why does it remain after the human is aware of the problem and has intervened? When I burn my hand there is pain to tell me to take it away, so I do. But now that I have removed my hand from the flame, the pain continues. The pain now serves no purpose, it is just pain for the sake of pain.
Free-will Theodicy has little success at solving this part of the problem. Perhaps it is a result of mans will and God inflicted this on mankind as a punishment. Has he sentenced us to a world of dangers, terrors and suffering because of the actions of the first humans? This again leads to the conclusion of a cruel God.
We can see the Free Will Theodicy sounds like a perfect answer to the great problem, but really comes up quite short in the end. If anything, we have been given a damnable free-will that is a punishment in itself, that is, if we indeed have free will.
The Question of Free-will
Let us turn aside from the question of evil for moment to look at the question of 'Free-will' itself. A credible argument can be proposed that humans are entirely bereft of any free-will whatsoever. This is seen in several ways. Let us first look at what is involved in human decision making. We have stimuli all around us at all times, whether it be our environment, our memories, or heredity, these things always affect our decisions. It is impossible to make a decision separate from these factors. A person can hardly leave the universe, his mind, his memories, and then make a decision. So all these things affect us, or 'cause' our decision. In the material world, we understand that nothing is without cause (Pojman 231). If something is missing, we will understand that someone must have taken it, or if there is a hole in a new garment, something must have put it there. Nothing suddenly happens on its own without cause, this is a widely accepted scientific fact. The same laws apply to mental activity. Our decisions, and even our personalities are caused by our environment, and heredity. There is no choice in this matter, we, like any natural event, are caused by many factors in our lives. In the same way we have no choice as to what family we are born into.
Turning back to religion, the question is asked, 'who gave you that environment, and heredity?' The answer would have to be God alone, the first cause. Looking at it this way it seems he creates our lives, personalities and character.
Let's take a look at this yet another way. We understand that God is omniscient, and omnipotent, and outside of time. When God created humans, he knew everything that they would ever do from beginning to end and he created their environment that would affect them. My question is, how could he have given free-will to humans while knowing all this? Was there a small moment of time when he did not know what they would choose, and let them freely choose on their own, and then he just foreknew what that would be? If there is such a brief moment, then God is firstly, not outside of time, and secondly, not omniscient, if there was something that was a surprise to him. This then, is not the sovereign God that is the first cause.
How then is God giving humans free-will an adequate justification for God permitting evil in the world? If God is truly God, then he made this world the way it is. Not one ounce of responsibility can be laid upon humans, it must all be pointed right back at God. If responsibility is put upon God, what statements does this make of his character? He does appear to be a rather sadistic puppeteer,
a sudden jerk here and someone dies, a jolt there and an accident occurs, a twitch here and a handicapped child is born, or an earthquake takes place. The upshot view of such things is obvious: God is responsible for all suffering. He is much more akin to an unjust despot than a loving father. (Van Bavel 142)
Utilitarian View of Evil
The view that evil has a purpose in the process of humans growing, is what I have called the Utilitarian view. This view includes several theodicies, one of them being the 'virtue defense'. This includes three basic points. Firstly, the idea that in the best possible world, human beings need to be able to practice virtues, like generosity, and courage. Secondly, a world without evil and suffering would require no virtue. For example, one cannot show courage if there is no danger. And thirdly, suffering then, is necessary for people to become virtuous. God did not want to create a perfect little incubator for his people, he made things rough so that they could learn and grow through their troubles. However, "...to insist on suffering in order to have virtue is absurd; it contradicts the very nature of virtue... It is like stealing from someone so that you can give that person some needed item" (Davis 95).
Again, we can pull in the comparison how we, as humans, would treat our children. Perhaps some dangers are good for teaching, and lessons are learnt best from failures. But this would only be to a small extent that they are not seriously hurt. Yet our 'Heavenly father' seems to have no limits, we can destroy ourselves with no intervention from God. The lesson itself tears down and kills when it is meant to build up character.
Another utilitarian use of evil is that it exists so that humans can have an option of something to choose from, so that free will can exist. As we concluded earlier, this idea does not help God seem any less evil.
The idea that evil is used by God has certain philosophical problems that cannot be avoided. If evil is used by God, then it is, in a sense, good. It is a means to goodness, whether that be for free-will or character building. As Epicurus' stated his problem, "Whence then is evil?"(Pojman 110). This is an uncomfortable idea that puts God on the negative side rather then the good. Dorothee Sölle points out that "as far as the holocaust is concerned, it is unthinkable that God should choose the side of the executioners rather than that of the victims" (Van Bavel). If evil is a use for good, then God has sided with the Nazi's. He is then, not one that desires to help people, but inflicts evil and pain to test them or to let them choose. In reality, any irate feelings one has toward Hitler, should really be directed to the person who ordained it for a purpose; God. In this light, he does not seem so benevolent.
Denial of God
Upon inspection of all that has been discussed here, some have come to the conclusion that there is in fact no God. This may be a valid conclusion, which certainly gets 'God off the hook'. But is does not necessarily solve problem of evil. It is a switch from blaming it on God, to humans. If God does not exist cause he allows evil, do we then not exist cause we allow it? All we have now is the problem of 'anthropodicy'. This idea may solve the tension of the characteristics of God, (by getting rid of him altogether) but the problem of evil remains. The evil issue does not determine his existence, but perhaps how we see God, and understand him. Elie Wiesel's has put it; "One does not understand Auschwitz with God, one does not understand Auschwitz without God" (Van Bavel 138).
Rating God
Another way to look at the situation, (and confuses all the more) is as follows. In our earlier discussions on the sovereignty of God, it was mentioned that God is the first cause. Everything in the universe comes from God in some fashion. Now applying this to the idea of good or evil, we arrive at a problem in itself. If I were to measure the length of a piece of wood, I would require a measuring device that is longer then the piece of wood, or at the very least the same length and I can acquire the proper measurement. However, we come to a different sort of problem when we try to measure something that is infinite and the first cause of all. We might be tempted to say that God is good, or extremely good, and if we had a scale, we would put him considerably high on it. If we do put him anywhere on the scale, the possibility remains of there being a higher position then where he is located, which makes him finite. The question also remains, 'How can you judge something that created everything?' If he is the first cause, then he cannot be anywhere on any scale, cause he made the scale. God is the very scale itself, so if we attempt to put God on trial for his 'goodness', there is no judge big enough for the case. There is no way to determine if his actions are good or bad, there is no higher standard. God then, does not need to make moral decisions, he just does what he wills. God is not good, he is not bad, he just is.
Conclusion
The problem of God's goodness is a exhausting question to tackle. Everywhere we look there seems to be something that comes up short in any answer. Some may try to avoid the question all together, but this hardly removes the problem. This "problem of evil [is] perhaps the most important issue humankind has ever faced" (Goldberg 265). Is there any comfort to offer a recently married young woman with a small child and another on the way, after the tragic death of her husband she adored? The belief in God seems at first, to be a relief from such misery, but when a second glance is taken, the problem is not improved. Evil is here and people still suffer and die as God watches. I provide no answer to this dilemma, as perhaps no one can. I offer the possibility that our understandings of a 'good God' are perhaps not quite as grounded as we may presume. What it comes down to, is that people will continue to suffer, and evil will thrive, whether we call God good or evil, existent or not. Why do bad things happen to good people? We don't know. It is my estimation that our answer can never come any farther then this.
Works Cited
David Basinger, Randall Basinger. "The Problem with the Problem of Evil." Religious Studies. 30 (1994): 89-97.
Gellman, Jerome, I. "A New Look at the Problem of Evil." Faith and Philosophy. 9 (1992): 210-116.
Goldberg, Carl, "An Inquiry into the Problem of Evil." Pastoral Psychology. 42 (1994): 265-276.
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Touchstone, 1943.
Pojman, Louis P. Philosophy: The Pursuit of Wisdom. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1998.
Radler. Melvin, Gill, Jerry H. The Enduring Questions. New York: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1956.
Rodd, C.S. "Questions People Ask: The Problem of Evil and Suffering." The Expository Times. 107 (1996): 35-39.
Solomon, Robert C. The Big Questions. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.
Tinker, Melvin, "The Suffering of Man and the Sovereignty of God." Churchman 109 (1995): 50-60.
