A Good and Wise Creator in the Midst of Evil

by Evan Stewart, June 6, 2006

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Table of Contents

Introduction
A Possible Origin
Making the Assertions Agreeable
Conclusion
References
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This article is also available at Helium.com

Introduction
A problem common for any student of mathematics is the presentation of an equation to be solved when the solution is difficult to calculate. The answer to the problem may even be known but the task of the student is to discover and formulate the needed equation that will produce the one correct solution. In all my higher and secondary education math and science courses, the answers to some of the textbook exercises were provided in one appendix of the textbook. The answers were provided so that students may check their work for accuracy. Many times while completing the text exercises I would be faced with the dilemma of knowing the correct final answer but I would not know how to form an equation for the calculation of the answer. Even more frustrating were the times in which I worked out an equation using a method that seemed correct and yet the solution was not correct. My method of solving the problem did not produce the correct answer given in the exercise appendix. Sometimes my equation would not even be close to the correct equation needed to reach the correct answer and at other times my equation contained only minor errors. Either way, I could not easily produce the needed correct equation. At times, after many attempts to discover the correct equation, I concluded that the answer given in the textbook was wrong and that my incorrect answer produced by an incorrect equation was truly the correct answer and thus the correct equation. There were times when other classmates produced the same incorrect equation as I did and similarly protested that the answer provided in the textbook was obviously false. There were few exceptions where the provided answer was incorrect and my equation was indeed correct, but this rarely occurred. Most of the time my protest, as well as any other protest, would be met by the correction of my math teacher. He or she would testify that my solution was erroneous and that I needed to try again in order to discover the correct solution. If by the end of a lengthy attempt at correction my mind was unable to construct the needed solution, my professor would show me how to formulate the correct equation and indicate my errors. In the end, no matter how correct I assumed I was or no matter how similar my incorrect answer was to the correct answer, my conclusion was still wrong. All the while the correct answer stared me in the face.

My basic problem was a misunderstanding of the class material or I failed to see all of the elements needed for the correct answer. Ultimately, what I had been doing when meeting a dilemma such as this was trying to solve a problem using the wrong information. I could not understand how the given answer was calculated with the information that I did understand. Essentially, I was trying to create my own method of calculation to fit the problem at hand; I was trying to fit a square peg in a circular hole. Even though the answer was presented before me, since I could not understand how the given information was sufficient to produce the correct equation, I assumed, and at times demanded with certainty, that the correct answer was actually false.

After thinking about this problem that I met in my high school and college math courses, I discern that a similar error exists in the study of theodicy. The traditional Judeo-Christian affirmations about God have been the primary focus for much of the theodical discussion taking place. Four affirmations are investigated when considering this issue:

  1. God is all powerful (omnipotent)
  2. God is all knowing/wise (omniscient)
  3. God is completely benevolent/loving (omni benevolent)
  4. Evil exists

With these four affirmations in place, many philosophers and theologians studying theodicy want to argue that all four combined prove contradictory and therefore the Christian view of God is irrational and incorrect in light of the facts of life. Certainly, I agree that an apparent problem does arise. The question most often asked is, “How can evil exist if God is all loving and benevolent?” Surely this poses a problem to such an ancient understanding of God’s character. How can evil exist in tandem with an all loving and all powerful God? Similar to the frustration of the math student, the theologian and philosopher attempt to undertake the formulation of an equation that will explain rationally and clearly how this answer about God and the existence of evil can be correct. We take the given information in life, namely the physical and abstract reality of horrendous evil, and attempt to explain evil’s existence in union with a Christian definition of God. Seeing how such an answer of evil is difficult to comprehend and rationalize, many thinkers protest that the given answer is an incorrect answer, that the genuine answer is either evil does not exist and God still maintains His three characteristics or that evil does exist and God loses one, most, or all of His three characteristics. These thinkers demand that the Christian view, and any view that is similar, is wrong since they cannot come to an understanding of the answer’s formulation. I must admit, just as some text book answers were wrong in my text books, so too the traditional answer may be investigated with a hint of doubt. However, this doubt is seemingly more popular than it should be. I argue, and hope to indicate, that the traditional Christian affirmations of God and existing evil do not in fact contradict in the least, rather evil is a reasonable, although inconvenient, component in a world created and governed by the God of traditional theism. In order to do this, I purpose that an examination of each point of debate will show that a genuine contradiction does not exist.

A Possible Origin
To begin, where might the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omni benevolent God come from? Aside from theological claims of revelation, is there a more strictly rational method in which this idea of God is discovered? As CS Lewis puts it, “if the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator?”(The Problem of Pain, 13). This is an important question worth noting. If the world did not contain or allow for evil, then the acceptance of the traditional attributes of God would not be an issue. The only reason why traditional theism is in question is due to the presence of evil. In regard to this evil that everyone experiences, why did mankind ever try to justify an all good God if he could have just as easily and seemingly more reasonably decided that God is not good and He cares little for His creatures? As a matter of fact, why even a God? Was this concept of God created out of sheer ignorance? For man to look at the world and see the evils present and then conclude that the world is the product of an all wise and good Creator without any other rational or reasonable evidence seems a bit hard to believe. Borrowing the words of Lewis again, “Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that”(Ibid.) . No, the reasonable approach without some kind of compelling reason in counter would be to look at evil and assign it to evil; certainly not good.

So why a good and wise God in spite of evil? A very common answer finds its foundation in the modern theory of evolution. According to this popular theory, through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today (An Introduction to Evolution). In line with this conclusion, mankind began as a less complex life form and over the long period of “modification” the human mind began to form and pursue complex thought. Respecting this claim, ancient man therefore is considered to be ignorant indeed and much less sophisticated than modern man. Therefore, the human beings who initiated this idea of God were certainly ignorant and could have easily misunderstood the evidence of life and nonetheless decided that God was good and wise. The early minds of science are also considered by many to be lacking much cogent ability in comparison to the super minds of today and held to long believed notions of spirits and demons as means of explaining the source of those tiny dots in the midnight sky and any other mystery that modern science has since established as known physical fact. Again, in agreement with Lewis, “you will read in some books that the men of the Middle Ages thought the Earth flat and the stars near, but that is a lie. Ptolemy had told them that the Earth was a mathematical point without size in relation to the distance of the fixed stars-a distance which one medieval text estimates as a hundred and seventeen million miles”(The Problem of Pain, 13). On the contrary, evil was well known by early man and early civilization certainly knew that evil and good were two opposing forces and yet at the same time in existence.

Something led the first humans to accept the idea that although evil was a daily nuisance, some kind of better good existed. In spite of the existence of evil which surely would have been first known to all mankind, the notion of a higher goodness triumphed. Maybe this is where a piece of the origin lies, behind or underneath the reality of evil. Let’s say that evil was first recognized by man before the full awareness of good surfaced in early human thought. Clearly, as made clear by personal investigation and historical fact, the battle against evil has been waging from the beginning. With the concept of evil known, mankind instinctively battles to counter all evil effect. No sane person in history could be argued to have idly sat by and enjoyed evil overcoming all that he knew and had. The fact that evil has been battled and fought against shows quite clearly that action is taken when what is cherished is threatened. Mankind fights what is known as evil in pursuit of what is or what is thought to be good. Another way of explaining this is that the way evil is identified is by the threatening of what we know as good. Maybe goodness is not fully appreciated without the danger and threat of evil, but the moment goodness is threatened, whether it be the goodness of an individual or society, man acts against it. Even if evil was recognized first by early man, good was present long before because evil is only known in relation of good. Once again looking to Lewis, “[evil] does not come from desiring evil as such, but from perverted sexuality, inordinate resentment, or lawless ambition and avarice. That is precisely why it can be judged and condemned from the standpoint of [innocence]”(God in the Dock, 23).

For this reason, good has been known as long as and possibly even before mankind was made aware of evil. According to this understanding of good, evil can only exist in relation to good. In other words, the existence of evil is dependent upon the existence of good, but good can stand alone and is certainly not dependent upon a relation to evil. Again, goodness may be more appreciated once evil is encountered, but goodness can stand alone all the same. Goodness implies the possibility of evil, to be assured, but existing good does not demand the existence of evil.

A possible origin, then, to the idea of a good and wise God in light of this brief consideration of good and evil aside from theological doctrine could certainly be the very existence of good. Man seeks good as the better and detests evil as the worse and undesirable. We are therefore fighting to pursue goodness. If we are seeking the goal of goodness, then there must be some standard of comparison to which we can evaluate our process. The standard of goodness, then, is the beginning of any idea of a good God. For the sake of time, I will conclude this introduction to the problem at hand by saying that existence of good at least indicates and at most leads us to a higher source of good and ultimately the highest source of good; God. If the highest good can be attributed consciousness (which I argue that further investigation will provide this conclusion) then the best attributes will be attributed to this all good Being. And now we have the three attributes of God in question.

One final note on this question of origin. The experience of the supernatural (I assume that rational evidence for the supernatural exists) is also one if not the main source for belief in God. Every culture in the world has some story or historical account of the experience with, what we know as, the supernatural. One of the most compelling accounts is the life, death, and reported resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth; the Christ. I mention this as most compelling not only because of personal conviction but also because it has persuaded many people to similar conviction. Of course, other religious stories have done the same, not in the same way as Christianity I believe, but nonetheless other stories are compelling all the same; and this is my point. Not only might have the instinctive concept of good led to the acknowledgement of God but most certainly so has the experience of the supernatural by a countless number of people.

Making the Assertions Agreeable
Now that we have some reason as to why the three traditional attributes came to be considered and accepted, how can these assertions still maintain support in light of the problem of evil? The first mistake that I think is made in the rejection of one, most, or all of the three assertions after accepting the reality of evil is the mistaken idea that evil is a foreign concept to goodness. How could evil come about if an all good Creator was in charge? Free-will is a common answer to this question and I think that this argument holds much water. Some other traditional theist will also argue that some kind of harmony between good and evil exists, that what we consider as evil, although very much evil, is actually working out for the good of all things. This view is supported by Boethius’ explanation of Providence and Fate in The Consolation of Philosophy. Right now, however, I am not too concerned with the explanations trying to conclude the ultimate source of evil, but this idea that evil negates the existence of divine good. The traditional assertions of God handle quiet well this idea of evil and when each is considered I do not see why evil is seen as such a problematic complication. Certainly the presence of evil begs many questions of why and for what reason, but I argue that the three traditional assertions are not in jeopardy within the context of existing evil.

Omnipotence. An omnipotent God means that God has unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; He is all-powerful(The American Heritage Dictionary). Since evil is not only an inconvenient nuisance but also the source of horrendous pain and suffering, the honest question raised is, “If God is all-powerful could He not have created a world without evil?” If this question is issued out of a motivation to criticize traditional theism, the assumption that is made by this question most commonly is that evil is an inferior element of design and creation. In other words this question is more of an assertion, “Since evil is a flaw and obviously not the best choice for creation, God must not have had the power to have created a world void of evil. If He had the power obviously evil would not exist.” However, I do not see this as an adequate denial of God’s power. The existence of evil in no way proves or even strongly indicates that God is some how limited in power and might. Even in regards to free-will, God’s power is not limited by the presence of evil. It can be as easily argued that God has allowed evil to exist and might as well have eradicated evil but has merely chosen not to. To say that the existence of evil proves a limited and ultimately none good God only devalues and undermines the origin of a good and wise Creator and certainly this notion of evil was dealt with by our early ancestors. If God is all powerful, limited by nothing, then certainly evil cannot limit God for He is limitless.

Omniscience. The questions raised in response to God’s omnipotence lead us into the next attribute, His omniscience; having total knowledge; knowing everything(Ibid). God is considered to be all knowing and all wise. Again a criticism is made similar to the one posed against omnipotence and the criticism is, “If God is all knowing, then could He not have devised a plan for creation that excluded evil?” Both free-will and harmony theories offer fine reasons as to why God did not devise a plan excluding evil. However, like the objection to omnipotence, an assumption lies behind this question. The assumption again is that evil is a flaw and therefore great wisdom, knowledge, and power would most certainly create a world without evil for that would be the best. However, this is not necessarily true. Evil does not reasonably limit complete and total knowledge and wisdom. If God is omniscient, then clearly the all wise Creator, regardless of whether He could devise a world without evil, chose to create a world containing evil or at least a world with the possibility for evil. Therefore, our current circumstances, no matter how inconvenient and painful, are a product of wisdom; wisdom that is higher than our own. By claiming that this is certainly not the best condition for the world, the critic assumes that he or she knows more than omniscience. We may ask whether or not there is a better way, but we certainly have no place to demand that there is a better way. As the Apostle Paul writes in regards to an omniscient and omnipotent God, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men”(1 Co. i, 25). If ultimate and pure wisdom created a world containing the possibility of evil, then similar to Leibniz, this is the best of all possible worlds.

Omni benevolence. After establishing the first two attributes, any criticism raised against omni benevolence, the property of being perfectly or absolutely good/loving(The American Heritage Dictionary), is answered in context with the two previous claims. Any criticism will similarly involve an assumption that love and goodness would eradicate evil. However, we have seen that pure wisdom certainly could have chosen for evil to exist, complete power and strength can allow evil to exist by instruction of wisdom, and God can certainly still love mankind and pour out goodness on us in spite of evil. He may not pour as much as we would like every time we desire it, but evil does not limit God’s ability to love and show goodness. Just as a limited human parent can show goodness and love to a child in midst of evil, so to can a limitless God show love and goodness in a world with evil. Like the other claims, God’s love and goodness is prefect and so despite the existence of evil, He still remains good and loving, just not in the way we would prefer.

Conclusion
Returning to my introductory example, the answer to theodicy is staring at us in the face and yet we have become frustrated because we have not quiet figured out the universally accepted formula to get us to the answer. The answer is that God is all wise, all powerful, and all loving, and we are stuck on the issue of evil. Foolishness and folly charges the answer as erroneous. A lack of understanding does not give permission for the student to demand that the answer is wrong. I do not have the right nor I am correct to assert that Einstein was a fool simply because I do not understand his theory of relativity. I say the traditional attributes of God hold fast in light of the problem of evil. Even though I have not found a way to neatly package the truth of God’s character, this does not in any way necessarily prove that the assertions are false. As I had to do in my math courses, the philosopher has the answer in front of him/her and must continue to probe and reason if he/she is to find the equation that makes sense out of it all. Consequentially, I will also argue that since much of the discussion of God’s character lies in the realm of theology, the philosopher must knock on theology’s door to find the final equation; quiet possibly, “the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God planned for evil to occur, and He uses it for His own good purposes”(Tabletalk, 10).

References

  1. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 4th ed. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.
  2. “An Introduction to Evolution”. accessed 2006. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_02.
  3. Beisner, E. Calvin. “The Potter’s Freedom”. Tabletalk (June 2006). 8-11.
  4. The Holy Bible. New American Standard Bible. California: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
  5. Lewis, C.S. “Evil and God”. God in the Dock. Ed. Walter Hooper. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970. 21-24.
  6. Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain. New York: Touchstone, 1996.