Lecture 9: Evil

Dr. Ann T. Orlando

13 November 2008

Biblical Approach to Evil

Natural Evil– Suffering and difficulties are teachers– God’s response to Job: there is no answer that

man can understand

Moral Evil– Result of man’s freedom to choose– Proclivity to evil and original sin

Background: The Key Question

How can there be a good, omnipotent creator God and evil in world

Basic formulation by Epicureans– Either God is good and not omnipotent or God is

omnipotent and not good– Their result: God(s) are neither good nor

omnipotent. God does not care about cosmos

Gnostic Solution

Two gods– One good spiritual god– Evil creator god

Mankind is aligned with one or the other Some affinity for Platonism Manichaeism included this solution to evil

Plotinus (207-270 AD)

Alexandrian philosopher, considered himself a Platonist– Contemporary of Origen and Mani– Subsequently referred to as a ‘Platonist’;– Term Neoplatonism an invention of 19th C

Developed a metaphysics of the One– Good spiritual creator God– Simple, self-caused and cause of all else

Problem: Then how can there be evil– Solution evil is the absence of a good that should be there– Evil does not have an independent existence

Ethics based on soul’s return to the One– Spiritual progression in steps to the One– Sin is turning away from approaching the One

Augustine

Evil the key question for Augustine; it is what prevents him from being happy

Starts his turn away from Catholicism over this question (Confessions Book III)

Return begins with the solution found in the books of the Platonists (Confessions Book VII)

Recall “On Free Choice of the Will” begins with the question of evil.

Augustine and Human Distorted Desires

Human proclivity to sin is a result of original sin

Without grace, man always will fall into sin Charity (grace, gift of the Holy Spirit) is the

only virtue To be discussed more next week, justification

Medieval Response

Basically Augustine Example: Aquinas in ST Ia 48-49 addresses

evil in general– Evil has no existence in reality– Evil cannot exist without the presence of some

good

Note: Church still follows Augustine in this, see definition of evil in CCC glossary

John Calvin

Basically Augustine– But emphasis on man’s fallen state– Evil is a direct result of man’s now nearly

completely corrupt nature

Institutes II.3

Early Modern Wrestling with Evil: Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)

Pierre Bayle wrote one of the first modern Dictionaries His Dictionary was the most widely read book in the 18th C;

having enormous influence on philosophes.– Voltaire’s Dictionary– Diderot’s Encyclopedia

Bayle was pessimistic about a solution to the theodicy problem– Raised objection to all solutions, including Manichees (2 gods),

Plotinus (evil does not exist) and Epicurean (God does not exist) Pessimistic about human nature; more evil than good in the

world Usually considered one of the first early modern skeptics

Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)

Born into a prominent Lutheran family Studied Church Fathers and ancient history and scholastic

theology Desperately wanted to reconcile Lutheran and Catholic

theologies through philosophy Made original and brilliant contributions to

– Mathematics (calculus)– Physics– Logic– German jurisprudence– Philosophy– Metaphysics

Some Principles of Leibniz’s Philosophy

Opposed to materialism and atheism (revised Epicureanism of Hobbes) God always acts for the best

– Thus we must live in the best world Nothing happens without a reason or cause

– Although we may not know the reason, and see only the effect All substances are interconnected, even if we cannot know those connections

– These connections, past present and future, are contained within each substance– Each substance thus is a ‘mirror’ of the entire universe

The universe was created in and remains in harmony Body and mind each follows their own laws, but are synchronized through universal

harmony– Body subject to efficient causes– Mind to final causes

Mind (soul) has innate ideas based on universal harmony Note, only about half of Leibniz’s works have been published; the only book he published

during his lifetime was Theodicy

Leibniz and Theodicy

Written as a reply to Bayle in 1710 How can this be the best world when there is evil,

when people are unhappy Leibniz answer,: earthly happiness of every

individual may not be the right way to judge ‘best’ God creates limited things which taken in aggregate

reflect God’s perfection. – But this implies that individual things may suffer some evil

or suffering due to their limitations– Limitations as a type of privation

Alexander Pope and Optimism

Cease then, nor order imperfection name:Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.Know thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.Submit. In this, or any other sphere,Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.All nature is but art, unknown to thee;All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;All discord, harmony not understood;All partial evil, universal good.And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, 'Whatever is, is right.'

Lisbon Earthquake and Voltaire

Crushing earthquake on All Saints Day, 1755– Resulting fires and tsunami destroy most of Lisbon

Raises profoundly the question of natural evil and human suffering

Voltaire writes his poem to refute Leibniz and Pope, using the Lisbon earthquake suffering as his primary example

See Rousseau reply to Voltaire, http://geophysics.tau.ac.il/personal/shmulik/LisbonEq-letters.htm

The Shoah

Human moral evil on an unprecedented scale An event in human history that has been

documented and reported in detail How could this happen in the most ‘enlightened’ and

scientific country in Europe? Either ‘proof’ that God does not exist, or that the

Enlightenment is a false philosophy, or both

Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Born in North Africa Wrote doctoral thesis on Augustine and

Neoplatonism Fought in French resistance against Nazis Evil exists, but God does not

The Plague

Evil is real, God is not Main character, a doctor (atheist), narrates the story

as an objective observer On of key figures is a priest, Augustinian scholar Pivotal moment: death of a child

– Neither religion nor science can relieve pain Near end, doctor and mother stare out the window

and see…nothing Hero of story continually asks, without answer from

doctor, ‘how can I be a saint without God?’

John Hick (1922 - )

Conscientious objector during WWII in Britain Studies philosophy after the War, especially Kant Concerned with real as opposed to counterfeit

religious experiences (Faith and Knowledge)– Ultimate Divine cannot be known in the world– Valid religious experience is determined by long-term effect

on believer

Both God and evil exist

Evil and the God of Love

Detailed examination of Augustine on evil and the impact of Augustine’s thought

– Aquinas– Calvin– Leibniz

Given the reality of evil, a questioning of the privation model

Hick Suggests an ‘Irenaean” approach– Man always learning and moving forward

Read his criticism of Augustine, Chapter VIII

Assignments

Augustine, Confessions VII Aquinas ST Ia 48-49 Calvin, Institutes II.3 Leibniz, Summary of the Controversy Reduced to

Formal Argument, in Theodicy, trans. E.M. Huggard, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1985, pp 377-388.

Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Disaster, in The Enlightenment, A Sourcebook and Reader, Ed. Paul Hyland, London: Routledge, 2003, pp75-82.

Hick, Evil and the God of Love, Chapter VIII