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An attempt to reconcile the co-existence of evil and God is sometimes called "a theodicy". See the article on the problem of evil for examples.
The term theodicy comes from the Greek théos (meaning "god") and diké (meaning "right" or "just"), meaning literally "the justice of God". The term was coined in 1710 by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in a work entitled Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal. The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God, that, indeed, notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all possible worlds (see Panglossianism.)
The problem of evil has from earliest times engrossed the attention of Western philosophers. In his Dictionnaire historique et critique, the well-known sceptic Pierre Bayle denied the goodness and omnipotence of God on account of the sufferings experienced in this earthly life. The Théodicée of Leibniz was directed mainly against Bayle. Imitating the example of Leibniz, other philosophers also called their treatises on the problem of evil theodicies. In a thorough treatment of the question, the proofs both of the existence and of the attributes of God could not be disregarded, and the knowledge of God was gradually brought within the domain of theodicy, and theodicy came to be synonymous with natural theology (theologia naturalis) that is, the department of metaphysics which presents the positive proofs for the existence and attributes of God and solves the opposing difficulties. Theodicy, therefore, may be defined as an attempt to explain the nature of God through the exercise of reason alone. This is in juxtaposition to theology, which attempts to explain the nature of God using supernaturalThe supernatural refers to conscious magical, religious or unknown forces that cannot ordinarily be perceived except through their effects. This word is often used interchangeably with preternatural or paranormal. Unlike natural forces, these putative sup revelationFor information on the last book of the New Testament see the entry on the Book of Revelation. For the role playing game of this name, see Revelation (game In monotheistic religions, revelation is the process in which God makes himself, his will, and/or o and faithThis article discusses faith in a religious context. For other uses, see faith (disambiguation). The best starting point, before digging into subjective human associations with the heavily-loaded word, is reviewing the very simple dictionary definitions o.
Some have argued that the predetermined goal of theodicy (that of justifying the existence of God with the existence of evil) tarnishes any aspirations it might have to be a serious philosophical discipline, because an intellectual pursuit having a predefined goal and preassumed conclusions cannot be deemed in any reasonable way to be methodical, scientific, or rational. Would we respect an inquiry whose goal is not to find out the truth, but to prove by any means possible that a particular thing reasonably doubted (Bayle and all who follow him) is true? Would we accept similarly biased "analyses" from Flat Earth proponents, holocaust revisionists, etc.?
Others argue that theodicy, like all of science and reason, begins with a hypothesis, and then tests the hypothesis to see if the hypothesis can be reconciled with experience and reason. They assert that just as the existence of God may be reasonably doubted, it may also be reasonably believed, because the existence or non-existence of God is, by its very nature, beyond the realm of observable and verifiable phenomena with which science concerns itself. Therefore, since it is reasonable to believe that God exists, theodicy is a reasonable attempt to reconcile the hypothesized existence of God with the perceived existence of evil. While theodicy cannot prove the existence of God, neither can philosophical naturalismNaturalism is any of several philosophical stances, typically those descended from materialism and pragmatism, that reject the validity of explanations or theories making use of entities inaccessible to natural science. As described by W. Quine, who is in disprove the existence of God. Theodicy, however, can make belief in God reasonable, by showing that the existence of God is not necessarily incompatible with the existence of evil.
Theodicy, as an effort to reconcile God's existence with the existence of evil, presumes the existence of God; for without God, there can be no theodicy. The existence of GodMany arguments for the existence of God exist. Arguments for the necessity of God These arguments can be classified under two headings. First are the strictly logical or metaphysical arguments; these arguments seek to prove that the existence of a being w is asserted in a variety of ways.
After demonstrating the existence of God, theodicy investigates the question of to God's nature and attributes.
The latter are in part absolute (quiescentia) and in part relative (operativa). In the first class belong traits such as infinity, immutability, omnipresence, and eternity; to the second class the knowledge, volition, and action of God. The action of God includes the creation, maintenance, and government of the world, the co-operation of God with the activity of the creature, and the working of miracles. While many grant that all our cognition of God is incomplete, this branch of theodicy attempts to explain those traits of God which we have some understanding of. It includes, for instance, the classical problem of how God can be infinitely good and yet allow evil to occur.
Many individuals wonder why events occur or why an individual appears in a given cirumstance. For instance, suffering seems to be a universal phenomenon. Max Weber proposed that an answer to the question Why do people suffer? gives insight to the sociology of those who answer it. He also proposed that any religion's explanation for why events and circumstances must happen falls into one of into three categories: karma, dualism, and predestination.
Classical Christianity, i.e, from the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine, has also been called "modified Dualism", since the powers of good and evil are unequal, and the evil power is merely tolerated by the good power, who turns all the acts of the evil power into eventual good. Sts. Augustine and Basil the Great both explicitly mention this idea. St. John of Damascus proposed that God deliberately leaves some events "in our hands". In early modern times (1714) a modified Dualism was advocated by St. John (Maximovitch) of Tobolsk.
Resolutions to the problem of evil generally entail one of the following:
The following are detailed analyses of the above stated solutions.
Assume that both God and Man possess ultimate free will. Why should free will lead to evil? The traditional answer is that humans are corrupt at heart, and they consequently choose to harm their fellows, but that would assume a will that is evil rather than free. It is said to be true that, in order to be free, we must do evil, for God is traditionally said to be both free and morally perfect. Rather, as a matter of contingent fact, humans happen to choose evil by their exercise of freedom. And if God were to 'get involved' and start influencing human actions for the better, then the actions wouldn't be free any longer. Human freedom means that God cannot guarantee human perfection. (See incompatible-properties arguments).
Why should it be better for God to respect human freedom? What's so great about free will? The response is that free will is what makes us valuable moral agents, and that, if God were to deny us our freedom, human society would be like an assemblage of robots. Perhaps there would be some value in such a world, but it is said to be nothing compared to the free moral agency possessed by God and actual humans. All the cruelty that we humans freely perform is indeed regrettable, but it is a small price to pay for freedom.
No matter how successful this response, it can only explain evil caused by human free will. It does not explain any catastrophic horror that has nothing to do with human choices. Think of earthquakes, floods, and disease—so-called 'natural evil' or 'acts of God'. We cannot confront a paralyzed, demented, and blind Tay-Sachs child and his despondent parents and then chalk up the entire wretched scenario to free will. No one chose it. Healing that child wouldn't tread on anyone's freedom. At its best, the value of free will is relevant to, and can only excuse God for, a mere portion of the evil we find. Whether of not we call that 'evil', we must stick with the evil that we humans freely create—so-called 'moral evil'.
But there is another, similar problem. Some instances of moral evil already involve violations of free will—e.g., rape. For God to step in and deny the violator his freedom would also be to protect the victim's freedom. In such cases, it all comes down to whose free will is more valuable—which instance of coercion would be worse? And it is morally implausible that the best thing to do is to respect a rapist's freedom to rape unhindered rather than protecting the victim's freedom. So, for a large category of moral evil—all moral evil involving coercion—it's automatically implausible that the value of free will can justify God's inaction. We must then narrow the domain of admissible evil yet again.
With the candidate evil suitably restricted, we can ask: Is God off the hook? Many say no. Some deny the existence of free will, and so can dismiss the entire proposal as mere fiction. Compatibilists sometimes attack the essential premise that God cannot influence our choices without thereby cancelling our freedom. After all, compatibilists believe that determinism is consistent with human freedom. And if determinism can allow for freedom, perhaps so can appropriate divine meddling with our decisions. The upshot of these challenges is that, to absolve God, we need a reason to think that he really couldn't influence our choices without cancelling our freedom. The customary theistic appeal is to a libertarian conception of free will, but such a conception is under heavy fire from its rivals.
Another challenge focuses on different ways to interfere with freedom. One way is to 'jump in' and take control of the agent, dictating its every movement and thought. This is the kind of coercion we envision in mad scientist stories. But it might also be the kind of coercion that motivates our above intuition that if God got involved, we'd all be 'robots'. We should remember that there are other, softer kinds of coercion. Look to policemen and jailers. They don't take control of an agent's decisions. They just threaten the agent with physical force and restraint, and carry out their threats if necessary. Policemen and jailers restrict our freedom, but it is a restriction we're willing to accept, for our own protection and safety. Now, return to God. If he were to get involved as a Divine Policeman, making threats and enforcing them, then would we be 'robots'? Seemingly not. Instead, we'd be citizens of a divine nation-state, and a very safe and reliable nation-state at that. But then the moral claim is dubious—it's no longer clear that God should hold back. Taking total control of our decisions would be wrong, but laying down the law might be right. So why hasn't God done it?
Several further challenges attack the idea that evil-eliminating divine interventions must cancel human freedom. These challenges suggest different ways for God to eliminate evil, all the while leaving our free will untouched—"innocent interventions". One proposal is that God allow sinful acts, but stop their evil consequences. So if I fire a rifle at your head, God allows me to make the decision, but then makes the trigger stick, or the rifle misfire, or the bullet pop out of existence. Such interventions would, happily, divorce evil choices from the subsequent suffering. Another proposal is for God to fortify humans as to render us less vulnerable to the sins of our fellows. We could be bullet-proof, invulnerable to poison, etc. That way, humans would retain the capacity for evil choices and activities; it's just that such evil behavior would be harmless to the 'victims' and futile for the evildoers.
For God to hold man morally accountable, yet to predestine everything that man thinks or does, something other than the "freedom of contraries" must ground this accountability. Calvinists believe that this something is the capacity of man to choose and act according to his moral state of being, the "freedom of choice". But man's moral state of being is presently subject to sin, and this fact, itself, is part of the problem of evil. So one must inquire as to the cause of man's subjection to sin.
Reformed theology places the cause of this condition in the first man, Adam, whom they believe to be the legal representative of the entire human race. This doctrine, called Federal Headship , is also present in the doctrine of Substitutionary Atonement (and its corollary, Justification by Faith). As a representative of the race, when he sinned against God by eating the forbidden fruit, the entire race fell under the curse of God with him. Various explanations of the exact relationship of Adam to his posterity have been offered, but what concerns us at present is only the doctrine of Adam's legal representation of the race.
Here another question presents itself. How could Adam be held accountable (and with him the entire human race), if he was not free to do other than he did do—if God really intended for him to do exactly as he did? With this question we come to the heart of the Reformed Theodicy. The main points are, firstly, that no one has ever been held accountable for what they could have thought or done, only for what they have thought or done, and for their purposes in thinking or doing it; and, secondly, that though both Adam and God intended that evil should come about, their purposes were distict, God's being ultimately good, Adam's being ultimately evil.
The Reformed Theodicy boils down to the distinction of purposes between the primary agent (God) and the secondary agents (humans). While it is true that God intends to bring about evil, God's purpose is not, of itself, evil (cf. Gen. 50:20). This idea can be expressed by analogy:
Picture a man holding down a child while other men stick pieces of metal into the child's eye, all the while the child is screaming in pain, crying out for them to stop. On the surface it seems like a horrible, cruel thing these men are doing to the child. But if we add the information that the child is bleeding to death from the nasal cavity, that there is no time for anesthetic, that the man holding him down is his loving father, and that the men sticking the metal into his eye are doctors trying to save his life, then the problem of evil dissappears. The evil doesn't disappear, it is still there (just ask the child!), but the problem of evil is no longer present, because the intention is good.
Perhaps a better analogy is that of a prison warden, call him Bill, who hires a guard, Chuck, to execute a condemned rapist and murderer, Spike. Now suppose that Chuck derives some perverse pleasure from killing Spike, and Bill knows this. Does this involve Bill in the evil of Chuck's action? Not unless either the action of killing Spike is evil in itself (which it is not), or Bill shares the same purpose as Chuck (gratification of some perverse desire) in killing Spike (which he does not).
Opponents of this position have argued that it endorses an "ends justifies the means" system of ethics, but this charge is suspect since Reformed Christians claim that the means, of themselves, are truly evil, and therefore subject to punishment, not justified by the ends to which God intends them.
Proponents have argued that the Free Will Theodicy is actually, in principle, no different from the Reformed Theodicy, it simply places the bare possession of libertarian free will as the good that God intented to bring about by the existence of evil, and that the Reformed Theodicy does more justice to the Biblical account of God and man.
A less well known approach has been that of the mathematical logician William Hatcher. He has written about the problem of evil from a relational logic point of view. Hatcher has argued that the problem may be resolved with a minimum of theological assumptions. This is quite appealing because it does not tie the traditional problem to any particular brand of theology. It is part of an approach to traditional philosophical problems that Hatcher calls Minimalism (not to be confused with the use of the same term in art and pop culture).
Briefly, Hatcher uses relational logic to show that very simple models of moral value that include a minimalist concept of "God" cannot be consistent with the premise of evil as an absolute, whereas goodness as an absolute is entirely consistent with the other postulates concerning moral value. In Hatcher's view one can only validly talk about an act A being "less good" than an act B, one cannot logically commit to saying that A is absolutely evil, unles one is prepared to abandon other more reasonable principles.
Another, more subtle proposal is for God to alter human nature for the better. Now, talk of improving our nature immediately strikes us as coercive -- surely, it would rob us our freedom as moral beings! But remember that we already have a nature, a bundle of tendencies that influences our choices. Now, the most ardent determinist must grant that human nature alone does not determine our choices. But the most ardent libertarian must in turn grant that our choices are significantly influenced by our natures. It is easier for a sociopath to kill a child than it is for the rest of us. It is easier for us to send money to help our children than to help complete strangers. This is true, even if ultimately we each have final say on our decisions. Now note that this human nature is flawed. We are disposed to be cruel and callous in many ways. The world might be a better place if humans shared a more virtuous and generous nature.
But would it violate our freedom for God to have given us a better nature? Perhaps not. We might choose a kinder nature, if, for example, virtue came in pill form. We might wish it were easier for us to do good. This suggests that an improved nature may be in accordance with our free will, and not contrary to it. Moreover, if God exists, then surely he had a large hand in crafting human nature. As long as he's giving us some nature or another, why not shoot for a virtuous nature? If it's wrong to make humans virtuous, then why should it be less wrong to make humans corrupt?
One salient theistic reply is that our corrupt nature is due to the Original Sin of the first human couple. Their free choice changed us for the worse, and for God to change us for the better would be to disrespect their free choice. But this reply raises too many troubling issues of its own. First, the wholesale corruption of mankind was, for Adam and Eve anyway, an unforeseeable consequence of Original Sin; one can no more allege that they truly chose human corruption than that Gavrilo Princip truly chose to plunge Europe into war. Big mistakes don't count as freely chosen outcomes. Second, even if Adam and Eve really did choose human nature for the rest of us, why should their choice count for so much? Don't the rest of us have a say? Invoking Original Sin only makes God look more and more morally confused.
The problem of evil only exists when one simultaneously holds that God is omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful) and omnibenevolent (all good). The problem of evil does not exist if one gives up any of these three beliefs.
Some schools of the Kabbalah (esoteric Jewish mysticism) argue that the creation of the universe required a self-limitation on the part of God, and that evil is a consequence of God's self-imposed exile from the universe He created. In some readings of this theology, God has deliberately created an imperfect world. The question then arises as to why God would create such a world, and the standard response is to maximize human freedom and free will. Other readings of the same Kabbalistic texts one can hold that this is the best world that God could possibly create, and that God is not omnipotent. Given this reading, the problem of evil does not exist.
In Unitarian Universalism, in much of Conservative and Reform Judaism, and in some liberal wings of Protestant Christianity, God is said to be capable of acting in the world only through persuasion, and not by coercion. God makes Himself manifest in the world through inspiration and the creation of possibility, and not by miracles or violations of the laws of nature. God relinquishes his omnipotence, in order that humanity might have absolute free will. In this view, the problem of evil does not exist.
In Judaism the most popular works espousing this point are from Rabbi Harold Kushner; many of his works have also become popular with Christians as well.
The idea of a non-omnipotent God was developed by philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, in the theological system known as process theology.
In the Evangelical movement of the Protestant churches, Open Theism (also called Free Will Theism), similarly asserts that God acts only cooperatively, and lacks omniscience concerning the future.
Step one: Plantinga proposes that there are logical truths—so-called "counterfactuals of freedom"—about our free choices in various possible situations, with one choice dictated for every situation. On Plantinga's example, where S is a situation in which Curley is free to take or refuse a bribe, it is either true that "If Curley were to be free in S, he would take the bribe" or "If Curley were to be free in S, he would refuse the bribe" (assume that exactly one can be true). These truths about what we would freely do in possible situations help make us what we are, and are timelessly and necessarily true—and so, crucially, out of God's hands. Consequently, if the first proposition is true (and Curley would take the bribe), then God cannot bring about the possible world in which Curley refuses the bribe. God can only bring about S and sadly watch Curley's freely chosen venality manifest itself, as timelessly reported by that unchangeable counterfactual of freedom.
Step two: Plantinga argues for the possibility of a person who will sin at least once, no matter what situation God puts him in. Such a person suffers from so-called "transworld depravity". Though he can choose to do good in each situation, though it is possible that he does good in each situation, it is nevertheless true that he will choose to sin, a sad fact reported by his counterfactuals of freedom. And God can do nothing to bring about the sinless possible worlds—that's up to the sinner, who will, as a matter of fact, choose otherwise.
We've arrived at the conclusion that perhaps even God cannot bring about Mackie's virtuous and sinless worlds. God may be omnipotent, but he can't change people's free decisions, and he can't change the fact that they will freely choose as they do. And if people will make nasty choices, then those possible worlds in which they choose good are beyond God's reach. Plantinga proposes that perhaps all persons suffer from transworld depravity, that perhaps the actual world, though not the best possible world, is the best one that God could bring about, if he is to respect the free choices of the creatures therein. Natural evil? Perhaps it's also the result of sinful actions—the actions of invisible, powerful moral agents like demons. And this scenario is one in which God's moral perfection is squared with having created a horrid world like our own.
(Here another problem arises, related to God's claim (in many religions) that, after the end of the world, a paradise will be created where evil is defeated. The whole argument that God in his omnipotence could not create the "virtuous sinless world" described above seems to be contradicted by his own claim to plan to do this very thing! Heaven is the promised paradise of infinite bounty that fully matches the criteria of this virtuous sinless world. If such a world is not possible, then God is lying about the promise of Heaven. If such a world is possible, and God plans to make one world that way, why wasn't our world also made this way?)
One recent, friendly response to Plantinga is from Daniel Howard-Snyder and John O'Leary-Hawthorne . They claim that, to show the compatibility of theism and evil, Plantinga needs to support the possibility of his sketched scenario—it mustn't be reasonable to doubt its possibility. And they claim that the possibility of all persons being transworld depraved is unsupported. After all, there is another prima facie possibility, that all persons are in fact transworld sanctified (and so would do no wrong). Both 'possibilities' seem equally possible, and since they rule each other out, only one of them can be possible. Thus it is reasonable to doubt the possibility of either, and it is reasonable to doubt that Plantinga's scenario is possible; so it is reasonable to doubt that God really is consistent with evil. The two critics take to repairing Plantinga's argument, by replacing the "it is possible that" propositions with similar "for all we reasonably believe, it is possible that" propositions. The conclusion is then not that theism and evil are compatible, but that, for all we reasonably believe, theism and evil are compatible. The compatibility is not proven, but the incompatibility isn't reasonable, either. Mackie is still rebutted.
Another, stronger challenge comes from Richard Gale . In Plantinga's scenario, God's decisions cause human behavior and the psychological makeup whence that behavior stems; consequently, Gale maintains, human freedom gets cancelled by God's decisions. Ironically, then, Plantinga's "free will defense" story is a story without human freedom. Now, as Gale notes, Plantinga's God can't change peoples' counterfactuals of freedom; the truth of these propositions is up to the relevant people. But, by Plantinga, God does decide which possible persons get actualized, knowing full well their counterfactuals of freedom; it's up to God who gets to exist and then do their stuff. Moreover, God crafts his creatures' psychological makeup, which in turn exercises significant influence over their decisions. This is freedom-cancelling, even if our psychology doesn't determine our decisions, for it makes God like a mad scientist who implants a test subject with new dispositions and preferences to make her more agreeable. And to decide who gets instantiated is to be a sufficient cause of what decisions get made, even if the persons themselves are sufficient causes in their own right. The result is that Plantinga's God is in charge of too much, robbing humans of their freedom. Or so Gale avers.
In his book The Problem of Pain pop theologian C. S. Lewis called pain "God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world".
Main article: Holocaust theology
In light of the magnitude of evil seen in the Holocaust, many people have re-examined the classical theological views on God's goodness and actions in the world. How can people still have any faith after the Holocaust? There is a separate entry which discusses the theological responses that people have had in response to the Holocaust.
The late Mennonite theologian, John Howard Yoder, wrote an unfinished essay entitled "Trinity Versus Theodicy: Hebraic Realism And The Temptation To Judge God" (1996). Yoder argues that "if God be God" then theodicy is an oxymoron and idolatry. As is evident from the subtitle, Yoder is not opposed to attempts to reconcile the existence of a God with the existence of evil; rather, he is against a particular approach to the problem. He does not "deny that there are ways in which forms of discourse in the mode of theodicy may have a function, subject to the discipline of a wider setting."
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Yoder's life and work would realize that he was deeply concerned and engaged with the problem of evil; specifically, the evil of violence and war and how we resist it. Yoder's "case [is] against garden variety 'theodicy' "--in particular, theodicy as a judgment or defense of God.
Yoder asks:
Yoder's argument is against theodicy, strictly speaking. This is the narrow sense Zachary Braiterman mentions in (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (1998). He writes, "Theodicy is a familiar technical term, coined by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to mean 'the justification of God.' " In his book, Braiterman coins the term "antitheodicy" meaning "refusing to justify, explain, or accept" the relationship between "God (or some other form of ultimate reality), evil, and suffering."
Braiterman uses the term "in order to account for a particular religious sensibility, based (in part) on fragments selectively culled from classical Jewish texts, that dominates post-Holocaust Jewish thought." Braiterman asserts, "Although it often borders on blasphemy, antitheodicy does not constitute atheism; it might even express stubborn love that human persons have for God. After all, the author of a genuine antitheodic statement must believe that an actual relationship subsists between God and evil in order to reject it; and they must love God in order to be offended by that relationship." (Though again, it must be recognized that there is a presumptive bent in this assertion: it is not God that such people would love in order to be thus offended, but rather good. The whole basis of theodicy, if it is to be regarded as a genuine intellectual pursuit and not a rationalizing source of pro-God cheerleading propaganda, is that God just might be distinguishable from good. As a discipline, theodicy by all means ought to logically demonstrate that there is such a distinction or there isn't, and to carefully explain why or why not. It is disappointing that historically it has done neither.)
Two of the Jewish post- Shoah thinkers that Braiterman cites as antitheodicists-- Emil Fackenheim and Richard Rubinstein--are also cited by Yoder. Yoder describes their approach as "the Jewish complaint against God, dramatically updated (and philosophically unfolded) since Auschwitz ... The faithful under the pogrom proceed with their prayers, after denouncing JHWH/Adonai for what He has let happen." Yoder sees this as a valid form of discourse in the mode of theodicy but he claims it is "the opposite of theodicy."
The conclusions of such so-called anti-theodicists can be summed up as follows:
It seems we need to distinguish between two varieties of "antitheodicy":
Given that the nature of objective intellectual pursuit requires that those seeking answers must not have a desired conclusion already mapped out in advance, perhaps we need a new word to describe the objective discipline of determining God's associations (or lack thereof) with good.
(Needs list of religions which support each rationality)
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