The Problem of Evil | A Five Minute Summary
- Jane Orton
- 11 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Get to grips with Religious Studies and Philosophy in five minutes in this blog series! If you’re an A Level Religious Studies or Philosophy student, each of these blog posts is a five-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know.
In this post, discover the Problem of Evil and how theologians try to justify God!
In November 1755, a huge earthquake hit the city of Lisbon in Portugal. The earthquake was followed by a tidal wave and fire broke out, destroying much of the city’s infrastructure. Sixty thousand people lost their lives.
At the time, a popular explanation for the existence of evil was German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s idea of the “best of all possible worlds,” which he described in his Theodicy. This the idea that, of all the conceivable worlds, God has chosen to create the optimal one.
After the earthquake, this idea seemed untenable. The fact that these events happened on All Saints’ Day made the situation even crueller, because parishioners were attending mass people were preparing holiday feasts. Cathedrals were among those buildings that were demolished and some of the fires that broke out were caused by upturned votive offerings.
French enlightenment philosopher Voltaire was among those who challenged Leibniz’ idea. His novel Candide parodies the idea that this world could be the best of all possible worlds.
The Problem
The problem of evil can be phrased in two ways: logical and evidential. The logical problem of evil involves the inconsistent triad. As philosopher J.L Mackie points out, God supposed to be all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good. But if God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil; if God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. Yet evil exists. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all evil. Therefore, God does not exist.
The evidential problem of evil is the claim that, given the existence of evil, the most likely hypothesis is that there is no omnipotent, omnibenevolent God. This is the view taken by philosophers David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and William Rowe, who considers the example of a fawn caught in a forest fire, that lies in agony days before dying.
Many theologians see evil as a force in itself, perhaps exemplified by figures like the devil in Christian cosmology. Theologians St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas (influenced by Plato and Aristotle ) define evil as the absence of goodness. There is also a distinction between natural evil (things that humans do not control, like earthquakes and disease) and moral evil (evil that arises from human actions, such as the Holocaust or individual acts of cruelty).
Augustine sees natural evil as a punishment for moral evil, whereas some Darwinists see moral evil as a kind of natural evil. Richard Swinburne argues that natural evil is a precondition for moral evil, because natural evil gives us the knowledge necessary for making a moral choice. This is opposed to St. Augustine, who thinks that it is a consequence of moral evil, because the Fall of Man as described in Genesis allowed evil into the world.
Liberation theologians identify a kind of moral evil known as structural sin (social and economic organisation that causes alienation and injustice), which they say results from the capitalist economic system treating human life as though it is worth less than profit. A good example of this might be the aftermath of the Mexico city earthquake, in which the lives of working class people were treated as less important than companies’ profits in the aftermath.
Theodicies
Theodicies are attempts to justify the goodness of God given the existence of evil. Early examples of this include the free will defence and St. Augustine’s “soul-deciding” theodicy, which holds that God made everything good, but also gave us free will. This introduced evil into the world. Alvin Plantinga develops Augustine’s idea into his own free will defence.
Objections include J. L. Mackie’s argument that God could have given us free will and the character to choose to do the right thing. In addition, there are problems of a literalist interpretation: why is it fair that future generations of humans should suffer for Adam and Eve’s original sin?
Another kind of theodicy is the soul-making defence. Second century Greek Bishop Irenaeus argued that evil is there to help us build character.
More recent iterations of the soul-making theodicy include theologian John Hick’s argument, which uses a counter-factual thesis to try to solve the problem of natural evil. In a world with no natural evil, we would not have the opportunity to exhibit concern, courage and charity; much of human life would lose its meaning and as there would be no regularity in the world, science would be impossible. Hick sees the world as instrumentally (rather than intrinsically, as in the Augustinian theodicy) good – it is good for soul-making.
For Hick, free will is central to the solution to the problem of evil, because this is the only way to have a genuine relationship with God. God creates epistemic distance, allowing us to come to our own rational conclusions. However, Hick still faces the problem of dysteleological evil (evil that serves no purpose, like Roe’s suffering fawn example).
Another kind of theodicy is the afterlife defence, in which evil in the world is balanced by a greater good in the afterlife. An issue with this is the potential for eternal suffering in Hell, which for Hick is part of the problem of evil. Instead, Hick sees Hell as purgatorial but not permanent, giving further opportunity for soul-making.
Alternative theologies include process theology, in which God is a fellow sufferer. An example of this is the work of priest and theologian Hans Kung, who argues that Jesus suffered on the cross so that God could look suffering humanity in the face). There are also dualist perspectives such as the Manicheans, who argue that God competes with an evil deity. This linked to the Gnostic view that matter is evil and thus not from God, Irenaeus disputes in his Against Heresies.
Anti-Theodicy
Other philosophers have adopted an anti-theodicy approach, arguing that trying to justify evil In his Deliver Us from Evil John Swinton argues that Christians should focus on alleviating suffering, rather than trying to justify its existence. To the idea that evil exists so that we appreciate the good, D. Z. Phillips responds that this type of response actually adds to the evil in the world, especially because of the callousness displayed towards the suffering of others.
Click the links to read the five minute summaries of the arguments for God’s existence and our Good and Evil series!
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