The Problem of Evil

Natural Evil: disharmony within the natural world; for example natural disasters, diseases.

Moral Evil: Evil which is caused by human action.

God as Classically Defined: Omnipotent; Omnibenevolent; Omniscient.

The Logical Problem of Evil

Logical Problems of evil are a priori arguments that state that evil and God (as classically defined) cannot coexist.
These arguments are powerful because they attempt to prove, not just suggest, that God CANNOT exist if evil exists in the world.
This is the nature of a priori arguments, they offer complete proof, but it takes less to disprove them.
These arguments are logical and a priori because the conclusions are established from an analysis of the definitions involved. We know that a traditional God must be omnibenevolent and omnipotent, without any reference to experience.

Epicurean paradox

This is a logical dilemma about the coexistence of God and evil.

It goes as follows:

"God," says Epicurus, "either wants to remove evils, but cannot; or he can, but does not want to; or he does not want to and cannot; or he wants to and can. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent; which is inadmissible in God. If he can, but does not want to, he is envious; which is also alien to God. If he does not want to and cannot, then he is envious and impotent; and this too cannot be attributed to God. If he wants to and can, which alone is proper to God, then where do evils come from? Or why does he not remove them?

Simply put:
- If God is able and willing to stop evil, why doesn't he?

- If he is it not able, he is not omnipotent.

- If he is not willing, he is not omnibenevolent.

- If god is neither able nor willing, then why do we call him a God?

The Epicurean Paradox is attributed to, well, Epicurus. However, it might be incorrectly attributed to him by someone named Lactantius, Christian author and advisor to Constantine I.

There is no actual text that confirms that Epicurus was the author of this paradox. Other options for authorship include Sextus Empiricus and Carneades.

Mackie's Inconsistent Triad

Mackie elaborated on the Epicurean paradox by creating the inconsistent Triad.
Mackie claims that evil, omnipotence and omnibenevolence are incompatible and therefore cannot all exist at the same time. One must be lost.
If God is omnipotent, he should have the power to eliminate evil.
If God is omnibenevolent, he should be want to eliminate evil.
Evil, therefore, cannot exist if there is a being with the power and want to eliminate it.

The Evidential Problem of Evil

Evidential Problems of evil are a posteriori, inductive arguments that offer evidence to suggest that belief in God is unjustified.
They are not as strong as logical problems of evil because they only suggest that God might not exist but there could still be a logical way in which God and evil could exist.
However while not as strong as the logical arguments, evidential arguments are easier to defend and do not fall apart as easily - you can just keep throwing evidence to suggest belief in God is unjustified.

Hume's Evidential Problems of Evil

Hume puts forwards different examples of a posteriori evidence that belief in God in unjustified:
Animal suffering: "But neither man nor any other animal is happy. Therefore he does not want your happiness."
Humans and Animals cannot guarantee their own happiness: "[God's] wisdom is infinite: he never errs in choosing the means to any end: but the course of nature tends to be contrary to any human or animal happiness"
Why is there Natural evil when God could prevent this? “Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”
Charles Darwin also writes about the suffering of animals: "A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time? This very old argument from the existence of suffering against the existence of an intelligent first cause seems to me a strong one"

William Rowe's Evidential Problems of Evil

We experience instances of such extreme evil and intense suffering that could have been prevented if a God, as classically defined, existed.
An omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent being would prevent the occurence of intense suffering unless it could not do so.
"In some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering."
What is to be gained or learned from this intense and unwitnessed suffering? This is known as dysteleological suffering
This sort of evil is also discussed in the book The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In this book, the character Ivan asks his brother Alyosha how an all loving, all powerful being could allow a world with such gratuitous evil. He points to the examples of extreme suffering of children and claims that no heaven could ever justify the amount of intense suffering some people face in this life.

Augustine's Theodicy

The following theodicies are an attempt to reconcile the existence of evil with the God of classical theism.
Before the Fall (pre-lapsarian humanity), Augustine believed Adam and Eve were created good, rational, and rightly ordered.
Their desires were properly aligned under reason, and reason was properly aligned under God. There was no inner psychological conflict.
Even bodily desires, including sexual desire, were under rational control.
They had posse non peccare, which is the ability not to sin. But, humans were free which meant they were capable of sin.
"Man in paradise was able not to sin, but not unable to sin" (On Rebuke and Grace)
The Fall of humanity brought the two elements of body and soul into combat with one another. This meant that now, we have non posse non peccare, we are incapable of not sinning.
Augustine developed his Doctrine of Original Sin, meaning that the sin of Adam is transmitted to all of humanity, as if it were a genetic trait. This means that all of humanity is inclined to sin due to our corrupted nature.
"All men were in that one man, since all were that one man" (City of God)
Because of how corrupted we are due to the Fall, we are not able to not sin. The Fall fundamentally altered human nature and therefore there is a logical reason as to why evil can still exist with a God.

Plantinga's Free Will Defence

Plantinga offers a development of the Augustinian Theodicy.
Moral evil arises from human actions - from the misuse of our free will.
There is a choice: either we have free will and evil, or God removes our free will but in doing so also removes evil.
However, life would have no value if we did not have free will. So, despite the fact that it is misused by people, an omnibenevolent God would still allow this misuse even if it means evil continues to exist.
It is logically impossible to remove evil without removing the greater good of free will.

Irenaeus' Theodicy

This is another attempt to show that a God as classically defined can exist in the face of evidence of evil in the world.
Irenaeus claimed that humans are still in development and we are not currently morally perfect.
We were created in the image of God, and we still are. The part that is missing is that we are supposed to made in the likeness of God as well.
Developing into the likeness of God is a process that is still in development.
This development takes place by allowing humans to have free will and therefore the possibility of choosing evil. Suffering and evil helps draw people closer to God. We learn from pain and suffering and therefore it is a useful means of character development.
Irenaeus uses the example of Jonah in the Bible: Jonah experiences suffering which brings him closer to God as he repented for his sins and he and his people turn towards God.

Hick's Development on Irenaeus' Theodicy

While very similar, there are some key distinctions between Hick's Theodicy and Irenaeus'.
The first distinction is that Hick claims that humans were not created perfect, nor did they fall away from perfection. Instead, humans are still in the process of creation and development.
Humans currently are immature spiritually but they will develop into spiritual maturity. Humans will develop via the experience of evil but it's important that humans choose to develop due to their own free will and not just for the outcome of knowing God.
This is the Eschatological Distance. There is an intentional gap in awareness of God placed between Him and humans. This allows humans to utilise their free will for genuine love and spirituality. Love that is not freely chosen is valueless. A genuine relationship with God requires the possibility of rejecting Him.
The second distinction that is important is that Hick believes in Universalism. All humans will eventually go to heaven and so the spiritual development does not stop at death, but continues in Purgatory.

Hick's Theodicy is the strongest of the three because Augustine cannot account for immense or pointless evil as it is unfair.

Irenaeus cannot account for the suffering of children who are not given the time to develop whereas Hick can - spirituality continues after death.

However, William Rowe's fawn story is still a problem for Hick.

Process Theology

This is a somewhat controversial take on God's omnipotence and omnibenevolence, developed by David Ray Griffin.
Process Theology argues that God's power over creation is not absolute but persuasive. Thus God is actually unable to prevent certain evils from happening.
This means that God is indirectly responsible for evil but it maintains that he cannot be to blame because he does everything in his power to bring about goodness.
Griffin rejects the soul making theodicies as it implies that God purposefully inflicts evil and suffering for a purpose (and that purpose includes his own gain of bringing humans closer to him), and that is immoral.
Process theology also denies the classical definition of omnipotence because that implies dominance and overpowering creation.
Evil, then, occurs due to the free will of humans and free entities within natural laws. God suffers alongside creation. God and the universe have a panentheistic relationship which means God is not transcendent but the soul of the universe.

Extra Resources

Here are some extra resources for this topic. Things like essay plans for A* answers. They are paid for, sorry! They're £2 each because they take me a really long time to make :)

[OCR] Logical vs Evidential Problem of Evil Essay Plan

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[OCR] Problem of Evil Essay Plan

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