2) A Response to the Problem of Evil: What Do We Mean When We Say That Something is Evil?

First off, what do we mean when we say that something is evil?  At minimum, it means that we dislike that thing.  At maximum, it means that we think something is really wrong, that it should not be the way that it is, that it is unjust, etc.  Wherever we put evil within this range, one assumption regarding evil remains: a standard.  The minimum end presupposes a personal standard of what one likes.  The maximum end presupposes a standard of what is really right, or how things should be, or justice, respectively.  Regardless of where we place evil on the spectrum, or how pervasive we think it is in the world, the necessary standard for it to fall short of remains.  Injustice implies justice.  Lies imply truth.  Flaws imply a standard of perfection for the flawed thing.  Evil, then, can be broadly defined as anything, any experience, etc. which falls short of a “standard of good”.

Viewpoints such as Manichean Dualism might object.  It is, roughly, the belief that a wholly good God and a wholly evil Prince of Darkness exist eternally, and that the universe is the product of their ongoing war.  In the established view, evil is parasitic on the standard of good; truth can exist without lies, but lies cannot exist without truth.  Dualism denies this – it holds that evil and good are coeternal and coequal, with neither subdued to the other.  Such a viewpoint, however, immediately falls apart when we ask the question, “What or who has decided that the Prince of Darkness is evil?”  With the idea of Dualism, we have not succeeded in metaphysically defining evil – we have only assigned a deity which wholly represents evil.  We still need to know what standard has judged the Prince of Darkness to be evil.  (When I say “judge”, I do not mean it in a verbal sense.  It is not as if the standard is “here” and “judging” something “over there”.  When I say “the standard has judged this thing to be evil”, I mean, more accurately, that the standard has shown this thing to be evil.  The term “judge” will, throughout this essay, be used in this sense).  Does it, pray tell, exist quite apart from God and the Prince?  If so, then why not simply worship that standard, rather than God, since it is more powerful than, and exerting its judgment on, both the God of Manicheanism and the Prince of Darkness?

Thus we maintain that evil is that which falls short a standard of good.  What exactly is this standard?  Isn’t this definition being a little obscure?  That is exactly what I am going to set out to solve – we are going to see what essential qualities must be possessed by this standard in order to make sense of evil.