The Problem of Evil

I just completed a Philosophy class at our local community college. This was the term paper I wrote for the class, which counted for 20% of my entire grade. My teacher, who is not a Christian, gave me an A.

A special thanks to my Dad for helping me in researching for this paper and for editing this paper for me.

I would appreciate any feedback you can give me concerning this paper. I hope it is an encouragement to you. :)

The Problem of Evil:
Can an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God exist if evil also exists?

Perhaps one of the most-discussed questions in philosophy is how can an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God exist if evil also exists in the world? Several people have tried to find the answer to this question, such as philosophers J.L. Mackie and John Hick. Each came to different conclusions regarding the Problem of Evil. In this paper, I will discuss their ideas and provide my own answer for how an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God and evil can both exist.

First, what is evil? John Hick, in his book “Philosophy of Religion, Fourth Edition,”[1] splits evil into two categories: moral evils and physical evils. Moral evils stem from the choices that we, as free beings, make: choices to rape, murder, make war, etc. Physical evils stem from sources outside of our direct control, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, disease, famine, etc.

When discussing moral evils, however, some may argue that we cannot know that we have free will. While that is another debate, one theodicy (the Augustinian theodicy) relies heavily on what is called a free will defense. But we will return to this subject later in this paper.

J.L. Mackie says that the Problem of Evil is “the problem of how a theist can consistently hold all three of the following propositions: God is all-powerful, God is all-good, and evil exists.”[2] Mackie claims that not all of these statements can be true and that the theist can solve the Problem of Evil with one or more of the following answers: “God has limited power (and therefore cannot prevent all evil), God has limited goodness (and therefore does not want to prevent all evil), or evil does not exist (it is merely an illusion).”[3] This, however, goes against the idea of God as an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, perfect being.

In an attempt to keep this idea of a sovereign God intact, some may argue there can be no solution to the Problem of Evil. One could say that good implies evil and that this is the solution to the Problem. Mackie, however, says that such a statement limits what God can do, because if He were to create anything good, He would also have to simultaneously create something evil.[4] This would mean that God is not omnipotent.

Another person might say that evil is a necessary means to good.[5] Mackie states that this still limits God, because, since God is omnipotent, He is not subject to what Mackie calls “causal laws,” which say you cannot have a certain end without certain means.[6]

There are two more solutions a person could hypothesize regarding the Problem of Evil: that the universe is better with evil in it[7] and that evil is due to human free will.[8] Mackie says that the first solution is no solution at all, because it makes God out to be an unbenevolent being.[9] A benevolent being, if it were wholly good, Mackie claims, would not want evil to exist at all, but would want it eliminated.[10] The second solution, likewise, is no solution at all, because Mackie cannot comprehend why a wholly-good God would give humans the free will to choose evil.[11] Mackie says, “There was open to him [God] the obvious better possibility of making beings who wold act freely but always go right. Clearly, his failure to avail himself of this possibility is inconsistent with his being both omnipotent and wholly good.”[12]

So, Mackie concludes that his study of the Problem of Evil, although it does not examine other possible solutions, “strongly suggests that there is no valid solution of the problem which does not modify at least one of the constituent propositions [God is omnipoent, God is omnibenevolent, and evil exists] in a way which would seriously affect the essential core of the theistic position.”[13]

However, John Hick, another philosopher who studied the Problem of Evil, disagrees with Mackie’s assertion that no solution can be found. He says there are “three main Christian responses to the problem of evil: the Augustinian response, hinging upon the concept of the fall of man from an original state of righteousness; the Irenaean response, hinging upon the idea of the gradual creation of a perfected humanity through life in a highly imperfect world; and the response of modern process theodicy, hinging upon the idea of a God who is not all-powerful and not in fact able to prevent the evils arising either in human beings or in the processes of nature.”[14]

The Augustinian Theodicy, Hick states, is the main traditional Christian response for the Problem of Evil, formulated by St. Augustine.[15] Augustine held that the universe is good, “that is to say, it is the creation of a good God for a good purpose.”[16] Hick goes on to explain this theodicy, which also states that “everything that has being is good in its own way and degree, except insofar as it has become spoiled or corrupted. Evil – whether it be an evil will, an instance of pain, or some disorder or decay in nature – has therefore not been set there by God but represents the going wrong of something that is inherently good.”[17] “All evil is either sin or the punishment for sin,”[18] since we, as free beings, choose evil, having been in sin since the time when Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Hick says the criticism to this theodicy is in “the idea that a universe which God has created with absolute power, so as to be exactly as God wishes it to be, containing no evil of any kind, has nevertheless gone wrong . . . This criticism agrees with Mackie’s contention . . . that it was logically possible for God to have created free being who would never in fact [choose evil].”[19]

The next theodicy Hick discusses is the Irenaean Theodicy. St. Irenaeus, the creator of this theodicy, puts the creation of the human race into two stages.[20] In the first stage, human beings are created and endowed with “the capacity for immense moral and spiritual development.”[21] These human beings weren’t perfect, as the pre-fallen Adam and Eve of Augustinian tradition were,[22] “but immature creatures, at the beginning of a long process of growth.”[23] In the second stage of the human race’s creation, which is what Irenaeus believes is taking place now,[24] we are gradually “being transformed through [our] own free responses from human animals into ‘children of God.’”[25]

The Ireneaen Theodicy also states that the origin of moral evil stems from the fact that it is “a necessary condition of the creation of humanity at an epistemic distance from God, in a state in which one has a genuine freedom in relation to one’s Maker, and can freely develop, in response to God’s noncoercive presence, toward one’s own fulfillment as a child of God.”[26] Put simply, moral evil has arisen because God has allowed us to make our own decisions and because He has distanced Himself from us in order to allow us to make our own decisions.

Some may still argue that a good God would create a perfect world for us to grow in. But how can we really grow if everything is perfect around us? Hick says that God’s purpose was not to make a perfect world, but a place of “soul making . . . in which free beings, grappling with the tasks and challenges of their existence in a common environment, may become ‘children of God’ and ‘heirs of eternal life.’ Our world, with all its rough edges, is the sphere in which this . . . harder stage of the creative process is taking place.”[27] This imperfect world, this place of “soul making,” would also explain why we have natural evils, because an imperfect world with natural evils “could constitute an effective environment for the second stage (or the beginning of the second stage) of God’s creative work, whereby human animals are being gradually transformed . . . into ‘children of God.’”[28]

The last response to the Problem of Evil Hick examines is Process Theodicy. This theodicy, Hick states, “holds that God cannot be unlimited in power but interacts with a universe which God has not created but is nevertheless able to influence.... God is subject to the limitations imposed by the basic laws of the universe, for God has not created the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing), thereby establishing the structure, but rather the universe is an uncreated process which includes the deity.”[29] Hick cites David Griffin in his explanation of this theodicy, telling us that Griffin says “God is responsible in the sense of having urged the creation forward to those states [good and evil] in which discordant feelings could be felt with great intensity.”[30]

Process Theodicy seems to agree with Mackie’s solutions to the Problem of Evil, limiting God’s omnipotence and omnibenevolence. Hick says the God of Process Theodicy is “the God of the elite, of the great and successful among humankind. God is apparently the God of saints rather than of sinners; of geniuses rather than the dull, retarded, and mentally defective; of the cream of humanity rather than of the anonymous millions who have been driven to self-seeking, violence, greed, and deceit in a desperate struggle to survive. This is not the God of those millions who have been crippled by malnutrition and have suffered and died under oppression and exploitation, plague and famine, flood and earthquake, or again of those – perhaps numbering about half the sum of human births – who have perished in infancy...”[31]

This, however, goes against the idea of God as being a God of all – a God over everything in this universe, both the sinner and the saint, the genius and the retarded, the successful and the downtrodden.

After analyzing the arguments of both Mackie and Hick, it is time to consider some other possibilities they did not discuss. Perhaps we will find the answer to the Problem of Evil in what Mackie and Hick may not have considered.

Yes, as Mackie argued, God could have created a world in which we, as human beings, could always choose freely to do good. But would that make us truly free? Isn’t the essence of free will the ability for us to make choices on our own? To say in the same breath that someone who was created to always choose one thing and that that person is free is a contradiction. How can that person truly make free choices if they were created to choose only one thing?

Also, God can maintain His sovereignty despite the existence of evil. “Man is not forced to act against His [God’s] will in choosing evil, but has freely acted, unknowingly resulting in the fulfillment of the decrees of God.”[32] Because God is sovereign, He has allowed evil to come into the world, to ultimately bring Himself glory. If man had not fallen into evil and sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, how could we possibly understand His love, grace, and mercy, manifested in Christ’s innocent sacrifice on the cross?

We cannot even begin to comprehend God’s plans, but we can be assured that everything will work together for good and for His glory, even if we can’t see that at present. “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or has become His counselor?”[33] “For this very purpose I [God] have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”[34]

“Through God allowing and foreordaining evil, God works this together to accomplish the work of revealing His person. If God had not allowed sin to enter the world, could man truly know God and worship Him for all that He is? Would man be able to know the grace of God that extends blessings to sinners who deserve wrath? Could man know the love of God had God not displayed it in the greatest manner by laying down His life for those still dead in their sins? God's holiness and justice are displayed through His wrath upon unrighteousness.”[35]

John Frame stated that “we cannot always understand why God has chosen evil events to accomplish these good purposes. We do know that God never foreordains an evil event without a good purpose (Rom. 8:28). There may be other reasons than the ones we have mentioned, either to be found in Scripture or to remain locked up in God's own mind. We know that God has a reason for everything he does. Everything he does reflects his wisdom. But he is under no obligation to give us his reasons. Nevertheless, as we see evil used for good again and again in Scripture, can we not accept in faith that those evils which are yet unexplained also have a purpose in the depths of God's mind? Again, we do not have a complete theoretical answer to the problem of evil. What we do have is a strong encouragement to trust God even amid unexplained suffering. Indeed, the encouragement is so strong that one would be foolish not to accept it.”[36]

“[Because] God's chief end is to bring glory to His name and God does whatsoever He desires to do, then the existence of evil must be allowed and decreed by God ultimately bringing glory to His name. This does not necessarily mean that each instance of evil can be clearly understood by finite man today, but God can be trusted as He maintains His sovereignty, omniscience, and goodness.”[37]

Some may argue, though, that because the Bible says God has preordained everything since the beginning, that they are not responsible for their evils and that God is the one behind their sin, having created them that way. God did not create us to love sin. He gave each of us free will and we, in our fallibility, chose sin. “Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”[38]

People may say that all of this evidence is unreasonable, but is it truly about reason? How can we, as imperfect human beings, really have any good “reason”? We are so finite that we cannot comprehend all God really is or His purposes. So, no, it is not about reason, not as the world defines it. It is about faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”[39]

Full comprehension has alluded the human race since the dawn of time, because of our finiteness, despite all efforts by J.L. Mackie and John Hick to discover the solution to the Problem of Evil. The true solution lies in a person’s submission to the sovereign God of the universe and putting their faith and trust in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God who works all things out for good to His glory, recognizing that faith in Jesus Christ is more than reasonable. It is the gift of God to fallen, sinful man.
______________________________________________

[1] Cahn, Steven M. “God, Reason, and Religion” p.10
[2] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 64
[3] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 64
[4] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 67
[5] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 69
[6] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 69
[7] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 69
[8] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 71
[9] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 70
[10] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 70
[11] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” p. 71
[12] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” pp. 71-72
[13] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Mackie, J.L. “Evil and Omnipotence” pp. 74
[14] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 76
[15] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 77
[16] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 77
[17] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” pp. 77-78
[18] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 78
[19] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” pp. 78-79
[20] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 79
[21] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 79
[22] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 79
[23] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 79
[24] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 79
[25] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 79
[26] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 80
[27] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 80
[28] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 82
[29] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 82
[30] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” p. 84
[31] Abel, Donald C. “Fifty Readings in Philosophy – Second Edition” Hick, John “The Problem of Evil” pp. 84-85
[32] Blue Letter Bible Help and Tutorials “The Problem of Evil – Foreordination and Man’s Responsibility”
[33] The MacArthur Student Bible Romans 11:34 (NKJV)
[34] Blue Letter Bile Help Tutorials “The Problem of Evil – All Things for Good”
[35] Blue Letter Bible Help Tutorials “The Problem of Evil – All Things for Good”
[36] Blue Letter Bible Help Tutorials “The Problem of Evil – All Things for Good”
[37] Blue Letter Bible Help Tutorials “The Problem of Evil – All Things for Good”
[38] Blue Letter Bible Help Tutorials “The Problem of Evil – God’s Goodness” James 1:13-15 (NKJV)
[39] The MacArthur Student Bible Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)