Some General Thoughts on the Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is the main and most powerful argument for atheism. While I think that this argument, ultimately, fails, I do not doubt the force that the argument has on many people. I do think, though, that once the proper principles are in place, the philosophical force of the argument significantly diminishes, perhaps even vanishes. In this post, I would like to elucidate my general response to various forms of the problem of evil.
To give an overview, I am broadly sympathetic to Brian Davies' approach to the problem of evil with some extra metaphysical principles to clarify that position. Davies argues that the problem of evil fails because it assumes that God is a moral agent and, as such, has moral obligations and this is false as God is not a moral agent for He is the ground of morality and so cannot be subject to moral laws (see here: https://www.amazon.com/Reality-God-Problem-Evil/dp/082649241X). While I think that Davies is right, I think he does not go into the metaphysics of his position enough to clarify possible objections and so I would like to explain the metaphysics a bit further. A key part of the Davies approach is privation theory, which is the view of that evil is not something that exists in itself, it is not something with positive ontological status, but is, rather, a privation of the the good, which does exist in itself and does have positive ontological status. This is a controversial view, but I think it makes the most sense of the fact that evil is parasitic on the good: it is possible to conceive of the good while not conceiving of evil, but not vice versa. To further this point, I think that good is, ultimately, identical to being and so evil is, ultimately, a modality of non-being: it is possible to conceive of an apple without conceiving of the apple as half-eaten, but not vice versa. I think the best formulation of the privation theory is that of Alex Pruss where evils are ultimately privations, distortions, or misarangements of the good (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYs0ompB0kk&t=223s). The privation theory seems to entail that there are no gratuitous evils because since evils are privations of the good and are parasitic on the good, then evils can never be willed in themselves as they only exist in a way that is dependent on the good and are ultimately modalities of non-being so to will evil would be to will nothing, which is nonsense. Given this, if privation theory is true, then evils can only exist as the result of the willing of some good, which entails that no evils are gratuitous.
I would like to briefly respond to two objections to this view that are in the literature. The first paper is “Evil, Privation, Depression and Dread” by Mark Ian Thomas Robson (see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10zzsgzd6n5ZvT8YzMtc0A_1H9yE02ne1/view). The main objections of the article are concisely summarized in the abstract:
“I put forward two arguments against this idea. The first claims that if evil is an absence it becomes causally powerless, which seems strongly contradicted by experience and revelation. The other argument says that the idea that evil is an absence cannot do justice to the evil of depression. Depression is a set of feelings which are all too real, and so cannot be understood as literally identical with a set of absences.”
The first argument that if evil were mere absence then it would be powerless simply rests on a misunderstanding of the view. The view is not that evils are complete absences or nothing at all, but rather privations, which presupposes some good that is privated. Evis have causal power not in themselves conceived of as non-being, but rather by limiting some good which has causal power in itself. I find this objection particularly weak because privations are actually seen as a good way to account for negative causation in contemporary metaphysics (see here: https://www.amazon.com/Metaphysics-Fundamentals-Philosophy-Robert-Koons/dp/1405195738 - see chapter 3). The second argument also fails because depression can be accounted for on Pruss’ privation theory where evil can also be a misrangement of the good. Depression is a very complex condition, but the emotions of sadness are not evil in themselves as sometimes it is appropriate to be sad, but rather the way in which the sadness is present when it is not appropriate, which is a misaragment. In terms of the neurological basis of depression, the way in which serotonin is reuptaken by the terminal button is a misarangment of the serotonin, which is the evil, not the serotonin in itself. So, these objections can be responded to by the privation theorist.
The second article is “Evil and Divine Sovereignty” by Jeff Jordan (see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DvWI4dyy5gjtexjeLGPpXj-PM3TyrMY6/view). Again, the abstract does a good job of summarizing the articles:
“Since at least the tenth century, some theists have argued that God’s sovereignty as creator exempts God from moral evaluation, and so any argument employing moral principles or the idea of God as morally perfect is fallacious. In particular, any argument contending that the occurrence of pointless evil presents strong evidence against the existence of God is flawed, as God morally owes his creation nothing. This appeal to divine sovereignty, however, fails to rescue any theistic tradition proclaiming that God loves humans, as no one would be indifferent concerning the pointless suffering of her beloved.”
There are quite a few things wrong with this argument. The primary issue here is that Jordan fails to understand that the privation theory simply entails that there are no pointless evils as I explained above: “since evils are privations of the good and are parasitic on the good, then evils can never be willed in themselves as they only exist in a way that is dependent on the good and are ultimately modalities of non-being so to will evil would be to will nothing, which is nonsense. Given this, if privation theory is true, then evils can only exist as the result of the willing of some good, which entails that no evils are gratuitous.” Given that this part fails, the second half of the argument also fails: Jordan is correct to think that if God allowed for pointless evil, then He would not be loving, but since God not does not, but, metaphysically, cannot allow for pointless evils this argument does nothing to show that God is not loving.
Now that these objections have been addressed, I would like to move onto the general form of the logical and then evidential problem of evil.
The logical problem of evil is one of the most famous arguments in philosophy. There have been many versions of it, but the general form goes something like this:
God, if He exists, is all-good and all-powerful.
If God existed, then evil would not exist.
But evil does exist
Therefore, God does not exist.
This seems like a very powerful argument, but most philosophers, including atheists, think that it fails. Premise 2 would be what most philosophers deny and I would too. The privation theory, though, allows the theist to deny premise 3 as on privation theory evil is a modality of non-being and so in the strict sense, it does not exist.
The more common, and powerful, version of the problem of evil would be the evidential problem. There are so many versions of this argument that I cannot possibly address each one, but I will address two versions that characterize many of the evidential problems of evil.
The first version would be something along the lines of what William Rowe argued in “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” (see here: https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil201/Rowe.pdf). In the paper, Rowe argues that given the amount of evil in the world, it is very probable that there is at least one instance of gratuitous evil, which entails that it is very unlikely that God exists given that God is all-good and all-powerful. The privation theory very quickly disarms this argument since it entails that gratuitous evils are impossible so no matter how much evil there is in the world, cannot be gratuitous, given the metaphysics.
The second version of the argument would say that even if none of these evils are, in fact, gratuitous, the extent of evil in the world is still unexpected on theism, which provides evidence for naturalism. Paul Draper and many others have argued along these lines (see here: https://iep.utm.edu/evil-evi/). The privation theory also provides some good principles for responding to this kind of argument. I think the theist can grant that certain cases of evil may seem unexpected on theism, but the metaphysics of the privation theory lends itself towards theism. As stated earlier, evil is parasitic on the good and evil does not have positive ontological status, only good does. It’s also very plausible to think that only things with positive ontological status are in need of explanation. Since this is the case, when one realizes that things with positive ontological status can only ultimately be explained by theism, given the contingency argument and other versions of the cosmological argument, one also realizes that evil cannot provide much evidence against theism since the existence of evil presupposes that which only theism can ultimately be explain. Given this, even if the extent of evil seems to be unexpected on theism, when one analyzes the metaphysics, one encounters the fact that evil provides little force against theism.
Now, there is much more that can be said on the problem of evil, and my last argument will be very controversial, but this is how I would respond to the problem of evil.
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