The Problem of Evil

This seems to be the apparent proof of atheism . There are many arguments against theism , but there is only one argument that claims to prove that there is no God . The question is universal . Everyone wonders why bad things happen to good people ; some wonder why bad things happen at all . Their solution is to proclaim that such injustice cannot be the product of an all-good God and or that He simply does not exist because if He did , there would be no evil in the world .

 

There are three forms of this problem :

1. It may be claimed that any evil disproves an all-good God .
2. Or it may be claimed that the amount of evil , the superfluity and needlessness and pointlessness of much evil , disproves God .
3. Or it may be claimed that the unjust distribution of evil disproves God – not that bad things happen , or even that so many bad things happen , but they happen to good people just as much as to bad people or more .

The first claim is the most pertinent , so i will concentrate on it . However , i will also briefly indicate the lines of a solution for the second and third claim .

 

For the second claim , my question is this : how much evil is or would be too much ? Would a Holocaust of six million disprove God but not a Holocaust of six thousand ? Objectors seem to assume implicitly that since they cannot understand why so much evil is permitted , it could not possibly be permitted by God ; that is , they assume that the only evil which they can understand as necessary or justified is compatible with God . But if only such evil did exist , it would be strong evidence against God . But if there is a God , his wisdom must be infinitely superior to ours , and we will not understand all His ways . We cannot explain the particular evils we see , but we can explain why we cannot explain them .

 

As for the third form of the problem , the unjust distribution of evil , that sunlight and plague fall on the just and unjust alike , i turn to two of the most mysterious doctrines in Christianity : Original Sin and vicarious atonement .

 

Both doctrines are mysteries of solidarity , stemming from a time before modern individualism . Behind these two ideas is a vision of the human race as a single organism or body , which we are all apart of . Recapturing this ancient vision is our main doorway to understanding these two ideas and how they explain the problem of evil .

 

Unconsciously , we still preserve a little of this old vision . Suppose you suddenly found out that you grandfather was responsible for the Holocaust . Wouldn’t you feel ashamed ? But you did not collaborate in his atrocities . Yet you feel a family solidarity in sin . Or in virtue ; if your family member becomes a hero , you feel proud , even though you are not a hero .

 

What if i told you that we are all relatives , only a little less close than your grandfather maybe ? Even Mother Theresa . Everyone on earth is literally related to everyone else . Original sin is not a doctrine as foreign to our real lives as we initially may think . When a pregnant mother takes drugs , her baby is born an addict . That is original sin : spiritual and moral heredity . To think of heredity as exclusively material and biological is to assume an unreal dualism , as if we are soul-ghosts in body-machines . This means something simple and obvious : that when three or four generations live together , the great grandfather’s sins will affect his great grandchildren . Even with nuclear families , if your father was abused as a child , it will be harder for him not to abuse you and harder for you not to abuse your children . There is nothing ethereal about original sin .

 

There is another alternative where God could have avoided having the human race fall into this sin , which becomes hereditary innate : not to give us free will in the first place ; that is , to create us as animals or machines , not humans . There is a natural inclination for this thought to lead into a next question : Why did God give us free will and allow us to misuse it ? The question is misleading . One gives a polish to a table , or a pony to a schoolboy , but one does not give three sides to a triangle or free will to a human being . Free will is part of our essence . There can be no human being without it . The alternative to free will is not being a human being .

 

The other Christian doctrine that addresses the problem of unjust distribution of evil is , as previously mentioned , the doctrine of vicarious atonement . It is somewhat a bad news , good news scenario . Just as there is a solidarity in sin , there is solidarity in redemption . Just as the sins of the guilty can harm the innocent , so the sufferings and virtue of the innocent can help redeem the guilty . Vicarious atonement means that even the sufferings that do not seem to do anyone any good , may do someone some good , may help atone for sin in some invisible way , through human solidarity . Thus , i have always believed in the balance in the world , perhaps not in a just way , but certainly within the light of solidarity .

 

The most important definition in discussing the problem of evil is of course , evil itself . Evil is not a being , things , substance or entity . All being is metaphysically , or ontologically , good . How do we know ? He Himself declared everything He created good (Genesis 1) . And that is all the being there is . If evil were a being , the problem of evil would be insolvable , for then either God made it-and thus He is not all-good-or else God did not make it-and thus He is not the all-powerful Creator of all things . For instance , a sword is not evil . Even the stroke of the sword that severs off your head is not evil in its being-in fact , unless it is a ‘good’ stroke , it won’t chop your head off . Where is the evil ? It is in the will , the choice , the intent , the movement of the soul , which puts wrong order into the physical world of things and the acts .

 

Even the devil is good in his being – in fact , a very good thing gone very bad . If he had not the greatest ontological goodness , he could not have become as morally corrupt as he is . Even physical evil is not a thing . Blindness is a physical evil , but it is not a thing .

 

Is evil then merely subjective ? A fantasy ? An illusion ? No , for if it were a mere subjective illusion , then the fact that we fear this mere illusion would be really evil . Evil is real , but it is not a real thing . It is not subjective , but it is not a substance . As defined by Augustine ,

 

Evil is disordered love , disordered will .

 

It is a wrong relationship , a nonconformity . God did not make it ; we did .

 

Another response to the question of why bad things happen to good people is that there are among us no ‘good people’ , that is , innocent people . We are involved in a physical world with our evil , which is like that stone tossed into the pond .

To better understand this , we must now connect suffering and sin ; the Fall . So far , i have only explained why none of us are innocent through human solidarity . The immediate origin of suffering is nature , or rather , the relationship between ourselves and nature ; we stub our toe , or get pneumonia , or drown . Thus so far , God is off the hook for sin , but not for suffering , or so it seems – unless the origin of suffering can also be traced to sin .

Granted the principle that our souls or psyches or personalities are our form and our bodies the matter , much as in a poem the meaning is the form and the sounds or syllables are the matter , it makes sense that if the soul becomes alienated from God by sin , the body will become alienated too , and experience pain and death as sin’s inevitable consequences . These , are therefore , not to be confused as external arbritary punishments added on . Spiritual death (sin) and physical death go together because our souls and bodies go together .

To help understand Creation and the Fall , the image of three iron rings suspended form a magnet is helpful . The magnet symbolizes God ; the first ring , the soul ; the middle ring , our body ; and the bottom ring , nature . As long as the soul stays in touch with God , the ‘ magnetic life ‘ keeps flowing through the whole chain , from divine life to soul life , body life and nature life . The three rings stay harmonized , united and magnetized . But when the soul declares its independence from God , when the first ring separates from the magnet , the inevitable consequence is that the whole chain of rings is demagnetized and falls apart . When the soul is separated from God , the body is separated from the soul – that is , it dies -  and also from nature – that is , it suffers . For the soul’s authority over the body is a delegated authority , as humanity’s authority over nature . When God the delegator is rejected , so is the authority He delegated . Thus both suffering and sin are traced to man , not God .

The final definition i shall make clear is ‘goodness’ . It must be clear that goodness means more than kindness . Sometimes , to be good is not to be kind . Dentists , surgeons , athletic trainers , teachers and parents all know that . If goodness meant only kindness , a God who tolerated pain in his creatures when he could abolish it would not be an all-good God .