My investigation for the center (if not one of the many
“centers”) of the problem of evil began with the recognition of a certain
pattern within the internal dialogue of the book God and Evil itself. A great
many chapters followed the general shell of the Atheist claiming, “Clearly, no
all-good, all-powerful God exists because blah blah blah,” followed by the
Christian response, “I see what you mean, Mr. Atheist, but it is quite possible
that God had perfectly good reasons for allowing blah blah blah.”[1] It is noteworthy that we are not, in such
instances, debating with hard-and-fast logic, but much more on the grounds of
inductive reasoning and probability. In
other words, there is a surprising amount of subjectivity to the situation.
The Christian considers it quite plausible that God has his reasons; the
Atheist does not. One considers evil to
be quite worth it; the other does not.
Who is right?
Technically, both are. Bearing in
mind that both positions acknowledge that God exists, since that is the
required presupposition in order to get the concept of evil off the ground,
each position on the “worth it” value of evil is, in fact, intellectually feasible. A cynical
theist has valid reasons for thinking
that evil is not worth it. The Christian
has valid reasons for thinking to the
contrary. However, investigation should
tell us that only the latter of the two positions is emotionally feasible.
Now, whatever we think of God, we are forced on all
sides to acknowledge that he believed that evil was worth it. Why so?
Consider if God created a world within which he knew that evil would
emerge and further believed that evil would not
be worth it in such a world. Such a God
would clearly not be omnibenevolent. But
hold – once again, we are bringing in some standard of omnibenevolence and
comparing it to this less-than-perfect God.
We end up with an endless recession of almost-but-not-quite-good
standards once again. God is necessarily perfect; if he is imperfect,
then he is being compared to a standard of perfection which is more worthy of
being called “God”. And in order for God
to be perfect, he had to think that evil was worth it when he created a world
within which evil emerged.
Therefore, the insistence of the cynical theist that
evil is not worth it is revealed to be contrary to the analysis of a Being with
far greater knowledge – infinitely greater knowledge, in fact – than the
cynic. This simply won’t do. If a Being with infinite knowledge makes an
assessment on something, the attempt of a being with pitifully less knowledge
to make a different assessment on the matter demonstrates a degree of arrogance,
despair, cynicism, and denial capable of tearing the soul asunder. A theist should
think that evil is worth the accompanied good, not because the position is more
intellectually true than the other,
but because doing so demonstrates an emotionally
healthy degree of humility and self-knowledge.
The fact of the matter is that if God, a Being of infinite perfection
and wisdom, thought that evil was worth it, then I, a being of imperfection and
fallible knowledge, should probably agree.
We therefore conclude that the emotional problem of evil
results when one disagrees with God about whether or not evil is worth it, and
is solved when that individual realizes that only agreement with God in regards
to evil can steer one clear of being emotionally shipwrecked by arrogance,
despair, and the like.
This is a summary of the issue: the acknowledgment of
evil logically requires the acknowledgment of God. But it does not logically require one to agree with God’s decisions regarding
evil. If the logic has been demonstrated
to a man, yet still he holds to the conviction that evil is not worth it, he is
sold to his pride and anger towards God and, more depressingly, his despair
towards evil. He has thrown up his
hands, thrown in the towel, cried Uncle; he has simply and decisively given up and surrendered to the problem
of evil. The Christian, on the other
hand, has accepted that evil is worth it and that God has his reasons. He too has, in a sense, given up, but not
towards the horror of evil as opposed to the wisdom of God. It is the latter, and not the former, who has
the fortitude required to thrive in the face of evil.
[1]
the first 10 chapters of God and Evil
follow this pattern particularly closely, with other chapters sharing this
posture to varying degrees
No comments:
Post a Comment