(from Baker Encyclopedia of
Christian Apologetics: Baker, 1999)
If God is absolutely good, then why is there
evil? The problem of evil is a serious challenge to the defense of
Christianity. Actually there are many problems relating to evil, for
example, the problems about its origin, nature, purpose, and
avoidability. The problems of evil can be divided among moral,
metaphysical, and physical.
Worldviews and Evil.
Although every worldview has to deal with the
problem of evil, it is an especially acute problem for theism. Of the
three major worldviews, Atheism affirms the reality of evil and denies
the reality of God. Pantheism affirms the reality of God but denies
the reality of evil. Theism affirms the reality of both God and evil.
Herein is the problem; how can an absolutely good Being (God) be
compatible with evil, the opposite of good?
As compared with the other worldviews that affirm
both God and evil, theism would seem to be in a more disadvantageous
position. Finite godism, for example, can claim that God desires to
destroy evil but is unable to because he is limited in power. Deism,
likewise, can distance God from evil by stressing that God is not
immanent in the world, at least not supernaturally. We are on our own.
And for panentheism evil is a necessary part of the ongoing progress
of the interaction of God and the world (his body).
The problem for theism is that it not only believes
God is all-powerful and could destroy evil, but he is all-loving and
should destroy it. Further the theistic God is all-knowing and created
this world fully aware of what would happen. What is more, God created
the world freely, so that he could have done otherwise.
It is in the context of this kind of theistic God
that we approach problems of evil.
The Origin of Evil.
Where did evil come from? An absolutely good God
cannot create evil. Nor, would it seem, can a perfect creature give
rise to imperfection. Whence, then, evil? The problem can be
summarized:
1. God is absolutely perfect.
2. God cannot create anything imperfect.
3. But perfect creatures cannot do evil.
4. Therefore, neither God nor his perfect
creatures can produce evil.
However, in a theistic universe these are the only
two sources for moral evil. Therefore, there seems to be no solution
for the origin of evil in a theistic universe.
The basic elements in the theistic response to this
problem are found in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Theists since then
have followed the contours of their thought. Both agreed on the
response that can be stated as follows:
1. God is absolutely perfect.
2. God created only perfect creatures.
3. One of the perfections God gave some of his
creatures was the power of free choice.
4. Some of these creatures freely chose to do
evil.
5. Therefore, a perfect creature caused evil.
God is good, and he created good creatures with a
good power called free will. Unfortunately, they used this good power
to bring evil into the universe by rebelling against their Creator. So
evil did arise from good, not directly but indirectly, by the abuse of
a good power called freedom. Freedom in itself is not evil. It is good
to be free. But with freedom comes the possibility of evil. So God is
responsible for making evil possible, but free creatures are
responsible for making it actual.
Of course, other questions attach to this free
choice solution to the origin of evil. One is, what caused the first
creature to choose evil?
Theists distinguish between the primary cause of a
free action (God) and the secondary cause (a human being). God gave
the power of choice. However, God is not responsible for the exercise
of that free choice to do evil. God does not perform the free
action for us. Human free choice is not a mere instrumental cause
through which God works. Human beings are the efficient, albeit
secondary, cause of their own free actions. God produces the fact
of free choice, but each human performs the act of free
choice. God then is responsible for the possibility of evil,
but we must bear the responsibility for the actuality of it.
God neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done. He
wills to permit evil to be done, and this is good.
But if God cannot will evil, then what is the cause
of it? No action can be uncaused, since this violates the first
principle of causality that demands that every event has a cause.
To respond to this question it is necessary to
unpack the nature of free choice. There are three basic views of the
nature of free choice: In determinism, a free act is caused by
another; in indeterminism, it is uncaused, and in self-determinism it
is caused by oneself. Determinism would eliminate human
responsibility, since another caused the action, not ourselves.
Indeterminism is irrational, since a fundamental rule of reason is
that every action has a cause. It follows, then, that every free
choice must be self caused.
Of course, a person uses the power of free
choice to make free choices. However, the person is not free choice.
He simply has free choice. It is wrong to say I am free
choice; I simply have free choice. So, l am the efficient cause
of my own free actions, but the power of free choice is the means by
which I freely act.
The Nature of Evil.
There is another dimension to this difficulty. What
is the nature of evil? That is, what is the essence or identity
of evil? This too, is a particularly pesky problem for a classical
theist. For God alone is eternal, and everything he created was
good. What, then, is evil?
Theists reject dualism. Evil is not a coeternal
principle outside of God. For not all opposites like good and evil are
first principles. This wrongly assumes that just because something can
be essentially good (God), something can be essentially bad. But once
dualism is rejected, one has great difficulty explaining the reality
of evil. If evil is not something outside of God, and it cannot be
anything inside of God, then what is it? The problem can be summarized
this way.
1. God is the Author of everything.
2. Evil is something.
3. Therefore, God is the Author of evil.
Rejecting the first premise leads to dualism.
Likewise, denying the second leads to illusionism which denies the
reality of evil. Neither is acceptable to a theist. What, then, is the
solution? To agree that God did not create all things is to deny his
sovereignty. To say evil is nothing denies reality. However, to admit
that God caused all things and evil is something is to acknowledge
that God caused evil—a conclusion rejected by Aquinas. But this
conclusion seems to follow logically from these premises. Unless one
rejects the truth of one of the premises, he must accept the truth of
the conclusion.
(To be continued in the next article)
