THE
PROBLEM OF EVIL
From
GOD
AND
THE CHALLENGE OF EVIL (2001)
JOHN L. YARDAN
The Russian philosopher, Nicolas
Berdyaev, once said:
The
existence of evil is the greatest mystery in the life of the world and causes the
greatest embarrassment to official theological doctrine and to all monistic
philosophy.1
Evil
is an embarrassment to all monistic philosophy because the one (monistic)
principle, the source of all that happens in the world, has been traditionally
thought to be good, not evil. If the good is the source of all that is, where
does evil come from and how does it arise? The existence of evil is a mystery
because the One Creator of All is supposed to be a good and loving God.
In
the previous chapter we have seen that a more scientifically inclined person
might not consider earthquakes, tornadoes, floods and other natural disasters
to be evil. And we know that if we should try to catalog the worst evils of our
time, we will very likely have a special prominent place for the evils done by
man to his fellowman. The fact that humans do not have to harm their neighbor,
and that somehow they can avoid violence toward others gives a special bitter
character to human evil.
In
one sense the distinction between human evil and natural evils makes no
difference in the problem of God and evil. Critics can complain that God is
responsible for human evil because he gave us such a meaningful degree of
freedom. Or, . . . that humans are not free at all and, hence, God is responsible
for all the evil in the world. Or, . . . that God botched the world, that he
should have given us different laws of nature, ones that would preclude our
being hurt by the processes of nature.
A
recent writer, Richard Rubenstein, has expressed part of this shape of the
problem of evil. The problem for him revolves around excess human evil and is
rooted in man’s inhumanity to other men. For Rubenstein, far more harm has been
done by man down through the ages than by natural catastrophes. He thinks that
the real objection to the existence of a personal or theistic God is that God’s
tolerance of hideous human evil cannot be reconciled with his perfection. After
the horrible experience of the Nazi death camps, no Jew should accept the
omnipotent God of history or the doctrine of the election of Israel as God’s
chosen people. Jews can remain a religious community without such doctrines.
That God acts meaningfully in history is a terrible mistake, for if God acts
meaningfully in history, then he is the ultimate author of Auschwitz. Should
God tolerate the suffering of one little child, he would be infinitely cruel or
hopelessly indifferent.2 Rubenstein
is influenced by Fyodor Dostoevsky who, in The Brothers Karamazov,3 gives a number of examples of cruelty and
wickedness in the world.
Dostoevsky
tells of Richard the convicted murderer who grew up as a wild animal in the
mountains of Switzerland. An unwanted illegitimate child, he was given to some
shepherds who barely fed and clothed him and taught him nothing. He was cruelly
beaten when caught eating the garbage given to the pigs. When he grew up he
worked as a laborer and drank up any money earned. He robbed and killed an old
man, and was put in a Geneva jail to await death. While in jail he was attended
to by religious people who taught him how to read and write. Richard was
converted to Christianity, thereby becoming an object of great joy to the
inhabitants of the city who showered him with kisses on his way to the
guillotine. Grace had descended on him, and he was dying in the Lord. According
to the pious inhabitants, it should have been the greatest day of his life.
Ivan
complains about the cultured gentleman and his wife who flogged their
seven-year-old daughter. He says that there are people who get great pleasure
out of such things and when they are brought to court and declared not guilty,
the spectators cheer. He tells how a five-year-old was beaten and kicked.
Later, on the pretext that she soiled her bed, the parents smeared her face
with excrement and forced her to eat it. They locked her in the outhouse until
morning.
A
retired general lived on his estate with two thousand serfs, one of whom, a boy
eight-years old, injured the General’s favorite hound. The boy threw a stone
and inadvertently hit the dog in the leg, causing it to limp. The General took
the boy away from his mother and locked him up overnight. The next day at dawn
the General led a hunt with all his neighbors and serfs present. The boy was
brought out, stripped naked, and made the quarry of the hunt. As he started to
run the General shouted, "Sic `im," and the hounds tore the boy to
pieces before his mother’s eyes.
Rubenstein,
shocked by such examples of evil, blames God for not intervening and preventing
them. In a recent work, The Cunning of History, he suggests that in our
own time war was an instrument of an "automatic, self-regulating
mechanism" which was blindly yet purposefully experimenting with
alternative means of population reduction. It would seem that in his view, if
God exists, then he is both a cruel and an indifferent experimenter.4
There
are serious difficulties with Rubenstein’s view. He thinks that a good and
omnipotent God who cares about humans should have intervened to protect the
Jews during the holocaust. No doubt, man’s inhumanity to man is an important
problem even today. And yet, there is too much to be said for human
responsibility and its failure, and to blame God for man’s greed, incompetency,
carelessness, apathy and the like, is unfair. Another expression of what is
really the cause for many evils in the world is man’s willingness to place the
blame for his suffering on someone else. By making someone else the scapegoat
for his own evil actions he thereby gets rid of his own guilt. Ernest Becker’s
suggestion makes more sense here. Men have abdicated their natural rights over
goods and power, and have let others make crucial decisions for them. Mistaken
decisions lead untold masses of men to death and destruction.5 Human beings do not have to give in to
the tendency to engage in violence. Peaceful adventures can supply the
passionate enjoyment that some men find in the exciting events of war. The
deep-rooted apathy or greed that leads some men to ignore the plight of other
humans who need their help desperately is a clear-cut failing of which we
should not be proud. Perhaps Jung was right when he said "the principal
and indeed the only thing that is wrong with the world is man.6
While
Rubenstein holds God responsible for evil human actions during the holocaust,
history points clearly to man as the cause. Europe’s long history of
anti-semitism was a human failure. So too was the failure in scripture studies
or their misuse that led to seeing the Jew as a Christ-killer. The Allies
allowed economic conditions in Germany to so deteriorate after World War I that
the stage was set for a dictator like Hitler to seize power. The Nazi ideology
was unsound, bizarre, and brutal. Nazi propaganda involved a massive distortion
of the truth and was extraordinarily effective. The need for a rigid obedience
to authority had been drilled into the populace for years. Rubenstein himself
in The Cunning of History calls our attention to the very competent
bureaucracy that effectively controlled masses of stateless persons. He also
noted the element of greed that inclined management types and industry to
cooperate in slave labor schemes.7 Despite
these many human shortcomings and mistakes, Rubenstein is reluctant to blame
man for the terrible evils that occurred, and talks about an "automatic
mechanism" that actualized such evils. His suggestion is unconvincing and
strange in the face of the evidence. It is as if man had no obligation to his
neighbor and no capacity for the love of his fellowman, no obligation to be
just and decent to those around him, no duty to avoid cruelty to those around
him, to say nothing of the need to show compassion and at times to sacrifice on
behalf of those less fortunate than he. Difficulties also arise when Rubenstein
looks to Dostoevsky for support. We should not find comfort in the company and
complaints of Ivan Karamazov.
While
Rubenstein indicts God as cruel because he allows terrible human evil, David
Hume holds God responsible for all the evils of man’s existence, including
those resulting from natural disasters. Either God is not good because he does
not prevent such evil, or God is put down for lacking the power to prevent
evil, no matter where it is found. Hume expresses the traditional problem well
when he has Philo say:
Is
he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he
able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing?
whence then is evil?8
According
to Hume, if God’s power is infinite, then whatever he wills is executed.
However, neither humans nor animals are happy, and, hence, God does not will
their happiness. God has infinite wisdom and never makes mistakes, and yet, the
course of nature does not tend toward human happiness. Hence, God did not
intend man’s happiness. Later on Philo says that misery does not come about by
chance. Its cause cannot be God’s intention, for God is benevolent. Misery,
however, cannot occur contrary to God’s intention, for He is almighty.9
God’s
infinite knowledge together with the course of nature is what places the blame
for human unhappiness on him. Here Hume positions himself with those who would
see any evil at all in the world as a problem for the omnipotent and good God.
Later on, however, in Part XI of the Dialogues, he talks about God
making interventions in "the secret springs of the universe" and
turning all the accidents to the good of mankind and rendering the whole world
happy.10
A righteous armada of ships
might always meet fair winds. Good princes would enjoy sound health and a long
life. Persons born to power would have good tempers and virtuous dispositions.
Hume is not proposing the elimination of all evil in the world by means of some
divine interventions unknown to man. Rather, he should be classed with those
thinkers who would propose a reduction in the world’s evil as quite acceptable.
Later on, Hume seems willing to accept a "cure" for most of the evils
of human life. He says he would be content if man had a greater propensity to
industry and labor, used his mind more, and was more diligent in applying
himself.11
He thinks that almost all of
the moral as well as natural evils of human life come from idleness.
When
Hume talks about making the whole world happy and curing most of the natural
and moral evils in the world, he is willing to accept a world with some evil as
not posing a problem for a good and omnipotent God. Modern writers speak in
terms of a person being happy even though he might suffer slightly from time to
time.
There
are other difficulties in Hume’s discourse. It is possible that an infinitely
powerful God might will that some things happen because a truly free human
being wills them. If this is so, then it is likewise possible that at least
some of man’s unhappiness might be due to man’s free decisions. Hume’s view
seems to presuppose a rigid determinism that cannot be justified as an accurate
account of the way things are.
Again,
Hume’s presupposition that nature does not tend toward human happiness is
questionable. One might argue that each man has much to say about his own
happiness, that the subjective aspect is very important in such matters.
Again,
divine interventions in the secret springs of the universe, turning all
accidents to the good of humankind, is hardly a convincing possibility, given
the great complexity of the universe and our ignorance of many causal
relations. Hume of all philosophers should be aware of man’s difficulty in
reaching causal knowledge. If we really cannot attain a proper cause of something
which will allow us to predict rigidly about the future, then how can we tell
when God intervenes and when he does not? For all we know, he might be
intervening here and now to prevent even greater evils from occurring. For all
we know, we might be asking God to do the impossible, or to do something that
would bring about an even greater evil. Hume talks about tinkering with causes
that are unknown. This is most dangerous and appears to betray a commitment to
acting upon ignorance. His examples of the fleet whose purposes are salutary to
society and the prince whose life should be healthy and long are not much help.
The fleet is involved in war, and war is more properly attributed to the
failure of man, rather than blamed on God. While some thinkers might be
convinced that man is destined to wage war upon his neighbor, their case is not
very strong. One might argue that just as a rich, talented, and healthy person
might make his life a hell on earth, so too, humans through their greed and
selfishness are responsible for war. If so, then how can we establish a
clear-cut obligation on God’s part to rectify that which humans can correct by
themselves?
David
Hume believes that man’s life is full of misery and suffering. In the Dialogues,
Demea and Philo agree that man’s life is characterized by unhappiness, misery,
the unsatisfactory enjoyment of pleasures, riches, and honors, and the general
corruption of his nature. Demea says that the whole earth is cursed and
polluted. Fear, anxiety, and terror agitate the weak and infirm. The stronger
prey upon the weaker, imaginary enemies trouble the innocent. Diseases and
disorders of the mind are found everywhere. If a stranger from another world
dropped in on us, he would see a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded
with evildoers and debtors, a field of battle littered with dead bodies, a
fleet floundering at sea, and a country suffering under tyranny, famine, or
pestilence.12
Ordinarily
we consider the above kind of thinking as the mark of a pessimist. Not that the
extreme opposite outlook is more accurate, for anyone who says that the world
is made up completely of pleasantries is off the mark. And yet, many people are
not terribly bitter about their lot in life. Many are thankful for the simple
things such as reasonably good health and a chance to work at something
constructive. Also, many of Hume’s complaints above can be attributed to man’s
abuse of his freedom. Hume’s pessimism seems to be the result of the human
tendency to ignore or take for granted many of the good realities of life.
It
is interesting that Hume is ready to accept a good God if his existence could
be established a priori, without recourse to an empirical basis.13 If we could establish God’s existence a
priori, then all the evils Hume has complained about would not detract from
God’s existence and might easily be seen to be reconcilable to it. We would
assume that God has good reasons for allowing so much evil in the world even
though such reasons are unknown to us.14 Nelson
Pike has pointed out that Hume’s conclusion should be stated more firmly. From
the existence of suffering and the existence of a good, omniscient and
omnipotent God we should conclude that there must be a good reason for God to
allow evil.15
This kind of necessary
conclusion can also be reached in those theologies which accept the existence
of the good God on faith. There the problem loses much of its force. Hume’s
view of the world as permeated by suffering is only a part of the story, and if
taken as decisive, is misleading.
A
present-day thinker, Edward Madden, sees the problem of God and evil as
revolving around the existence of an excessive amount of evil in the world. The
existence of some evil in the world would not constitute a problem for the good
and omnipotent God, for it could be needed as a means for developing character
or for appreciating the good. The trouble is that there is too much of it.
According to Madden:
No
one would deny that some evil is necessary or desirable. Some evil may be
necessary for building character, some for understanding or appreciating good
by contrast, and so on.16
For
Madden, the problem of evil arises because we cannot easily explain the
necessity or desirability of all evil.17 Gratuitous evil, evil that is prima facie
unwarranted, is the source of the problem. There would be no problem if the
universe were changed to eliminate this evil, while the other necessary evil
remained.18
Such
writers, as we saw in Hume, are accustomed to give some idea as to what changes
they would make in order to get rid of unnecessary evil in the world. Their
criticisms revolve around the concept of better possible worlds which, in their
opinion, a good and all powerful God must bring about. A weakness of this kind
of approach to the problem is the great difficulty facing anyone who tries to
spell out what this better world would be. Oftentimes, the suggestions made are
relatively few, and the consequences are not elaborated. This is not enough to
establish a serious objection to the good and all powerful God. In later
chapters I will consider some of these proposed possible worlds.
The
problem of evil has been stated eloquently by the Jesuit theologian, G.H.
Joyce:
The
existence of evil in the world must at all times be the greatest of all
problems which the mind encounters when it reflects on God and His relation to
the world. If He is, indeed, all-good and all-powerful, how has evil any place
in the world which He has made? Whence came it? Why is it here? If He is
all-good why did He allow it to arise? If all-powerful why does He not deliver
us from the burden? Alike in the physical and moral order creation seems so
grievously marred that we find it hard to understand how it can derive in its
entirety from God.19
Joyce
emphasizes the idea of the human mind reflecting on God and his relation to the
world. This is important, for it opens up the possibility that the problem of
evil is rooted in man’s conception of the world, as possibly a problem unique
to the human mind which makes value judgments. Moreover, Joyce points to the
role that evil might play in the world, and suggests the possibility that there
is a reason for it. Also, we see that God might merely allow evil, and we are
reminded of the way in which all of us, good intentions though we might have,
allow something evil to occur as we insure the actualization of a greater good.
Then too, for Joyce, God is always present to us and able to remove the evil
that burdens us. This evil is, again, not only the physical evil of natural
catastrophes and disasters, but also the moral evil of man’s inhumanity to man.
We seem to be dealing with an imperfect, flawed world. Hume talked about the
creation of the world as a botched job. Joyce talks about it as
"grievously marred." The question, then, is, "How can the good
and all powerful God produce such an effect?
Two
other thinkers approach the problem in a slightly different way. The
theologian, Dom Mark Pontifex asks:
How
indeed can there be even the possibility of evil when God is absolutely good,
or how can the idea of evil ever have occurred to anyone?20
Pontifex
points to the importance of the absolute character of God’s goodness. If God is
absolutely good, and the source of all that exists, then how can he be the
source of evil? Or, how can evil have any basis at all in reality? How can evil
exist if all that exists comes from the absolutely good God?
This
view focusses attention on the problem of physical evils such as earthquakes,
hurricanes and other natural disasters. It avoids the uneasiness and suspicion
that is attached to any attempt to excuse God from any responsibility for the
disasters of the world. Pontifex points to the importance of the absolute
character of God’s goodness in the problem. If God is absolutely good, then how
can there even be the possibility of evil?
This
theologian mentions another way of stating the problem: An evil thing tends
toward a decrease in its perfection. Hence, where there is evil there is
frustration. But, why should God create a world in which the powers he gives to
creatures will be frustrated? This seems to contradict the fact that he has
given them.21
Pontifex points up the
realization of evil. While evil might be conceivable, why should God allow it
to be realized? The only answer is that it is a means to some greater good
which outweighs the evil. If so, then the question is: How can evil be an
unavoidable condition for good?22
The
Indian philosopher, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, like Dom Pontifex, has difficulty
reconciling evil with a good and omnipotent God who stands above the universe,
ruling and watching. This is especially so if the inexorable law of karma
holds. If we take pain as a trial and an ordeal, then we are led to an all-powerful,
cunning, psychologist-God who is cruel or morally insensible. The same would
hold if moral evil is the result of ignorance. If pain is a punishment for
moral evil, then we can ask why moral evil exists or must entail such pain and
suffering? Such difficulties led the Buddha to reject the existence of a free
and all-governing, personal God.23
For
Aurobindo, all things that exist are what they are in terms of an ultimate
reality; Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, a consciousness that is both creative
and infinite self-delight. This leads him to ask, how can pain and suffering
exist at all if this is so? If this ultimate reality, called Sachchidananda,
is God, then he is all good. If so, however, who created pain and evil?
Aurobindo’s
answer to the problem of evil is that the Divinity also bears the evil and
suffering that we find in the creature in whom he has embodied himself.
Aurobindo points out that the law governing the world takes no cognizance of
good and evil, but only of the force that creates, the force that arranges and
preserves, the force that disturbs and destroys impartially. We do not blame
the tiger for ripping apart its prey, nor the storm because it destroys
whatever is in its path. The urge of Sachchidananda towards
self-expression is central. This satisfaction of the conscious-force of
existence develops itself into forms and seeks in that development its delight.
Delight of being--universal, illimitable, self-existent-- seeks to realize
itself as delight of becoming. This delight seeks in mind and life to realize
itself by emergence in the becoming, in the increasing self-consciousness of
the movement. As it seeks new forms of itself, pain and suffering occur.
If
God and the world are so close as to be identified, then Aurobindo has an attractive
solution to the problem of evil. But that is a big "if." A
competitive partial solution is available in the more classic view in which God
is basically other than the world. If created individuals are genuinely real
and not mere concentrations of the Divinity, then pain is unavoidable in a
world with biological life. If we are to have life as we know it, things must
break down. If we are to have the variety of living and non-living things, then
the way they act must have real consequences on human beings. Humans are part
of the physical world, not that different, not so high on the scale of being
that they must be isolated from all suffering. Other things in the universe are
more perfect in certain respects than humans and necessarily predominate when
the two types of creatures come into contact. Pain does not have to be seen as
a divine punishment for moral evil. It might be a natural consequence of our
treating somebody badly, or something necessary because of the world, an
indicator that steers a person away from greater evils. Pain can also be a
means to offer us an opportunity to attain great dignity. Or, . . . a reminder
to man that his true destiny does not lie in the material world which he must
leave at death, trials are not necessarily evil. Tests give meaning to life.
So
far we have seen a number of ways of conceiving the problem of evil:
The
world is full of misery and suffering from human and natural causes, and God is
responsible for it.
The
real problem is man’s inhumanity to man, and God’s tolerance of it as a cost of
freedom.
The
real problem arises not from some evil in the world but from an excess of evil.
How
can evil in any way come from the Creator who is absolutely good?
The
problem of God and evil is a pseudo-problem, for only the One really exists,
and it must suffer as it seeks new forms of itself in an ever expanding
consciousness.
One
might say that the problem of evil is not one single problem but a cluster of
problems. Central to these problems is the need for evil to be accepted as real
if there is to be any problem at all. If the designation of something as evil
says nothing about reality, or if it is the mere free expression of an emotion,
then we cannot be justified in blaming God for it.
Underlying
all is the difficulty in seeing how a reasonable person could at the same time
maintain that 1) God is omnipotent and omniscient, 2) God is good, and 3) evil
exists. These ideas are not contradictory in themselves as would be the case if
we were talking about a square circle or a married bachelor. There is always
the possibility that a good and all powerful God has a reason for bringing
about a world with evil in it. Good and powerful persons sometimes cause pain
and suffering in order to bring about a greater good, as when a surgeon
operates or parents rightly discipline their children.
Attempts
to defend God’s goodness are couched in language that tries to show how what
happens in the world is compatible with the actions of a good person. Attempts
to defend God’s omnipotence take the form of showing how even an omnipotent
being should not be expected to bring some things about. If either defense
fails, then the believer’s faith is challenged. The powerful, good and loving
Creator whom he worships appears as basically evil or indifferent, or less than
all powerful.
The
Eastern thinkers who claim that anything beyond the One is not real thereby
deny the reality of evil. This way out of the difficulty asks us to give up a
truth that is at the heart of Western thought: the reality of the individual
being. If they are right and our judgment that evil really exists is only a
misguided illusion, then the problem of God and evil would be merely one of
correcting our way of looking at things. I do not believe there is much support
for this position.
Other
non-starters are the basically subjective view of evil (as we have seen in
Chapter I) and the idea of good and evil as the free expression of an emotion.
Here again, the designation of something as evil would say nothing about
reality outside of us, and, under such conditions, to blame God for evil would
be strangely unwarranted. It would be another matter altogether if the judgment
of good and evil were a non-free expression of emotion, that is, if humans were
determined by the Creator to express that emotion.
The
objection to the existence of the traditional God can be put in the following
way: If we accept the actual existence of evil, we have to reject either the
goodness of God, his omnipotence, or his omniscience. If we reject his
goodness, then we are left with a powerful Creator who is cruel and uncaring,
someone who might now be toying with us. To worship such a being would be
foolish. If we reject his omnipotence, we would have a good and loving God who
was unable to help us should we need him, someone in whom we could place no
hope.
Since
omniscience and omnipotence are intertwined, a rejection of God’s omniscience
would downgrade his power. If God were not omniscient he would not know fully
the consequences of his actions and hence could not be in full control. We
would in effect be committed to worship a being who in a sense did not know
what he was doing.
In
order to be able to make a legitimate inquiry into either God as good or God as
omnipotent, we must clarify what we mean by these concepts. The ideas of
goodness and omnipotence, then, will be our focus in the following chapters. I
will try to articulate meanings that are based in the theist tradition. My
approach will not be historical, but that my findings should be consonant with
the general theist tradition which forms the basis of the problem.
NOTES
1.
Nicolas Berdyaev, The Divine and the Human (London: Geoffrey Bles,
1949), p. 86.
2.
Richard Rubenstein, After Auschwitz (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966),
pp. 69, 86-87, 204.
3.
Fyodor Dostoevsky,"Rebellion," The Brothers Karamazov (New
York: Bantam, 1970).
4.
Richard Rubenstein, The Cunning of History (New York: Harper and Row,
1975), p. 10.
5.
Ernest Becker, Escape from Evil (New York: The Free Press, 1975), p. 62.
6.
C.G. Jung, "After the Catastrophe," Collected Works, vol. 10
(Princeton, N. J. Bollingen, 1970), p. 216.
7.
Rubenstein, The Cunning of History, Ch. 2 and 4, pp. 7, 79.
8.
David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part X, Essential
Works of David Hume, ed. Ralph Cohen (New York: Bantam, 1965), p. 363
9.
Ibid., pp. 363-365
10.
Ibid., p. 370.
11.
Ibid., pp. 371-372.
12.
Ibid., pp. 358-361.
13.
Ibid., p. 373.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Nelson Pike, "Hume on Evil," God and Evil, ed. Nelson Pike
(Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p.98.
16.
Edward Madden, "The Riddle of God and Evil," Current Philosophical
Issues, Essays in Honor of Curt John Ducasse, ed. F. C. Dommeyer
(Springfield, Ill.: C. C. Thomas, 1966), p. 196. Cf. also, Edward Madden and
Peter Hare, Evil and the Concept of God (Ibid., 1968).
17.
Edward Madden, ibid.
18.
See also Tan Tei Wei, "The Question of a Cosmophoric Utopia," The
Personalist, vol. 55 (Autumn, 1974, pp. 401-406, p. 405.
19.
George H. Joyce, Principles of Natural Theology, 3rd ed. (London:
Longmans, Green, 1957), p. 583.
20.
Mark Pontifex, "The Question of Evil," Prospect for Metaphysics,
ed. Ian Ramsey (New York: Philosophical Library, 1961), pp. 122-123.
21.
Ibid.
22.
Ibid.
23.
Sri Aurobindo Ghose, The Life Divine (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
1982), pp. 91-96.
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