Thus it is here held that no inconsistency exists among the propositions that God is both omnipotent and omnibenevolnet, and that evil exists. It is even admitted by Mackie in the same article that these premises alone present no immediate contradiction, and that “some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules” are needed to demonstrate the set to be what Alvin Plantinga in his God, Freedom, and Evil designates in direct reference to Mackie’s article as being “implicitly contradictory,” found contradictory by “adding a necessarily true proposition,” this fulfilling the absent explicit contradiction. It is rather uncertain; however, what such a proposition should be, and none has yet satisfactorily formed such a contradiction. Now, having brought Mackie in, he shall not simply be dropped, for he proposes to complete his argument that “good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can,” and that “there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do.” Thus that which is both omnibenevolent and omnipotent must eliminate all evil, but still evil exists, he says. Plantinga’s response is to add to the proposition that “God creates a world containing evil and has a good reason for doing so,” which he proceeds to explain is a possibility; all that it must be to function. This is the essence of the defense, that there is a possible formulation that allows for both Divine omnipotence and omnibenevolence and evil. Leaving off there, this paper proceeds with its own attempt to show that such is a coherent and probable formulation.
In addressing such claims as Mackie’s, it is imperative that evil itself be established, for surely it is the most nebulous premise as far as precise meaning goes. Evil can be moral evil or natural evil, though some, Plantinga included, propose that all evil may well be moral evil, usually by a theological adventure of some kind. Before treating these varieties of evil specifically, though, it seems apt to treat evil in general. Evil itself is something of a problem for the atheologian, for in an atheistic frame, God is lost as the source of absolute morality, begging questions on such matters as the axiological difference between eating a breakfast of cold cereal and serial murder. Does not the atheologian then have to turn to the denied God in order to define the evil that is supposed to negate his existence? Morality from some lesser source cannot very well be applied to Omnibenevolence, after all. So where the theist can understand both that evil exists and what evil is, the atheist must formulate some moral paradigm to show that evil exists, and even succeeding in that, there yet lurks the question as to its basis, which is its own matter entirely. The only immediately visible way around this trouble, at least in advancing an atheological argument from evil, is to base it entirely upon internal inconsistency with the theist’s own establishment thereof, contrary to the traditional (รก la Hume) claim that evil is obviously everywhere. This is the paradigm that shall be hereby assumed in this treatment of the argument: that the problem of evil must be purely based on internal inconsistency, for the atheologian should in reality hold none of the beliefs in the supposedly incoherent set.
Back to the two varieties of evil, the existence of which is here granted on theistic grounds, moral evil is the most pertinent, for it is rooted in the actions of moral entities, humans. This is highly conducive to a free will explanation of evil, but natural evil is much less so. Natural evil consists of those apparent evils beyond the conscious control of humans, so it seems that human will is not involved. Though it is far from certain, the existence of natural evil shall be granted for argument’s sake. Both of these appear with great prominence in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and one instance for each shall be considered. In the famed chapter “Rebellion,” Ivan describes to his brother Alyosha a little girl aged five years who “was subjected to every possible torture by [her] cultivated parents” (V; IV, 224). This is moral evil is committed by the will of humans, and this accounts for the torture, even if it truly happened to be utterly senseless. On what grounds, though, could the complete senselessness of these sufferings be established? Therein lays the trouble in advancing such a claim. Ivan argues that such suffering of an innocent being is not at all worth moral freedom or knowledge, for “Why should [man] know good and evil when it costs him so much?” (V; IV, 224). So even granted free will, according to Ivan Karamazov, perhaps God was wrong in granting it as he did, and a wrong God is no God at all. Before making such a judgment as that, though, further axiological consideration of human existence is required, as addressed by the end of Dostoyevsky’s novel and in relation to natural evil.
A free will solution is not so simple when it comes to natural evil, though, granted its existence as distinct from moral evil and its actually being evil (as opposed to amoral), either of which are conceivable. The Brothers Karamazov contains the example of the illness and death of the child Ilusha, which is easily taken as an example of natural evil according to its definition. Despite the great suffering of both the child, and it is no coincidence that these are children so prominently featured, and his loved ones, the result of Ilusha’s passing had a striking effect on Alyosha and the boys whose community had grown around him. The final chapter of The Brothers Karamazov is laden with Christological parallels, notably Ilusha having died and Alyosha being the risen Messiah, soon to depart for an indefinite period of time. Most significantly, though, is Kolya’s statement shortly after Alyosha’s arrival, that he “‘should like to die for all humanity’” (Epilogue; III, 695), expounding concisely the possibility of and nobility in suffering for the sake of goodness and growth. This is the position of Leibniz in his Theodicy: A Defense of Theism, in which he memorably advances that the fall of man was a felix culpa, or “happy sin,” for it allowed for the advancement of humanity through Christ. On a purely Christian note, also, do the sufferings of Christ not also serve to exemplify this thought? The use of suffering from both moral and natural evil seems to be perfectly acceptable for a God over free Creation, a creation which he means to restore.
Though man may be free to will, man is not perfect, and he has not achieved the fullness of his being, where the fullness of his being should be his likeness to Being which no greater can be conceived, God, so far as man’s nature allows. As far as morality goes, certainly a man endowed with free will has the potential to do good always, though the reality seems different. It is a frequent and egregious error that the aim of human existence is pleasure, and indeed pain is much too often equated with evil for the atheologian’s argument from evil. While such a view should not be injurious to the atheological argument, it is certainly not conducive to a proper understanding of this theistic paradigm, in which the travails of fallen man are intended to aid in forging a fully human being. This view is basically represented in John Hick’s Evil and the God of Love, as in the statement that “our theodicy must find the meaning of evil in the part that it is made to play in the eventual outworking of its purpose; and must find the justification of the whole process in the magnitude of the good to which it leads.” Eschatologically speaking, Hick means that no amount of evil is not worth the end result of this world of becoming. To cite the example of Christianity once more, Paul writes to the Corinthians, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (II Corinthians 4:17-18). From such a perspective as this, evil and the suffering it entails begin to seem downright insignificant in relation to the whole of existence.
The evils can be purposeful, even pedagogical, or senseless, and Creation as becoming remains, for the absence of evil would mean that Creation has fully become in the moral sense. To illustrate, Leibniz compares human existence to a piece of music in his Theodicy, saying that some discords provide a vastly superior Art. It is certainly beneficent to consider all Creation as a Divine Art, if for nothing else than to better reflect on the continued creation, or more specifically in the Christian frame of a fallen world, continued recreation that is the becoming of humans. Should further creation not be expected of a God already known to create, especially in the interest of perfecting his creation? Furthermore, why should he not make use of time to do this? It seems that from the very start a problem presented itself for such a creation as this world, and that is freedom. How and why should free beings freely pursue the fullness of being? This world, it is now reasonable to say, is the answer, even in progress.
Thus it should first and at the very least be clear that the theistic position that God is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent and that evil exists is defensible. On deductive grounds, the problem of evil does not necessarily expose any contradiction, as Plantinga demonstrates of Mackie’s argument. The current, therefore, is now with a probabilistic problem of evil, and this is what the preceding theodicy sought to address. As essentially as can be, Creation is becoming, and only having become should evil not be expected. Creation must become because man is endowed with free will, and this is the problem to be solved in Creation as Art.
Bibliography
Bible. II Corinthians. New International Version. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1984.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Constance Garrett, tr. The Brothers Karamazov. Barnes and Noble, New York: 2004.
Pojman, Louis P. Michael Rea, ed. Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology. Fifth Edition. Thomson, Belmont, CA: 2008.
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