Please note that I really am thinking out loud here. I've done absolutely no research on this thesis and precious little background reading. The upshot is that someone else very well may have come up with what follows and it all may very well have been shot down long ago. If so, I am willing to cheat a bit. Send me citations! I would love to read up on the topic. Some of this may sound somewhat familiar in places. For instance, I've heard, though never read, that Josiah Royce attempted to turn the problem of evil on its head in manner similar to what will follow. And of course the doctrine that goodness in bound up in being goes back to at Plato. So, here goes.
The existence of evil is supposed to make belief in God hopelessly problematic. If God is good, then God would prevent evil; if God is almighty, then God can prevent evil; if God is all wise, then God can see evil coming before its a problem. If God is all these things essentially, then God cannot exist. So the argument goes. However, the notion of goodness itself is problematic, and, I would suggest, that any solution to viewing the notion of goodness might point out a proper frame for viewing the problem of evil and the existence of God.
As mentioned above, goodness or the Good has long been seen as tied up with Being. That is to say that beings as beings are inherently good, that existing things have value by virtue of existing. So, how can Being admit to evil? Evil would seem to be non-being, but evil most evidently exists. One might immediately object that even assuming that all things are of some value and participate in the Good to a certain extent that there is a difference between this so-called metaphysical goodness and moral goodness. I think two replies could be offered here. First, a great deal of evil is natural evil and the sort of natural evil that cannot be traced back to any moral agent. So, we still have evil, even if we don't have moral agents. The second reply is that "goodness" when applied between Being as Being and morality may not be equivocal at all. The difference may be that moral agents are capable of comprehending goodness and able to direct themselves to realize potentialities in themselves and others (or by contrast, act in a way that is counter to the best end of others or one's self). So, the question remains, whence evil?
One answer that I think we can dispose with is dualism One can think of dualism in two ways (there are two kinds of people, those who divide things in two and those who don't--I'm among the former
) either that there this realm called "Good" and certain things are in that realm and other things are in a realm called "Evil." This is the view some have of God and the Devil, two eternal beings essentially occupying different realms. The other is that Good and Evil and separate properties that one may acquire in varying amounts. Either view has one major problem. Dualistic views make Good and Evil incongruent with each other. On such a view there is no reason to prefer one to another. Put another way, what is so good about goodness? In a weird way if evil has a positive existence, then it is of inherent value and so, well, good. This is clearly incoherent, but if it weren't the problem of evil evaporates. Either God cannot be omnipotent outside of the realm of Goodness or it really is all good and so there is no problem at all.
Another answer might be to reject the thesis altogether, namely deny that there is any such thing as metaphysical goodness at all. Where this leaves moral reasoning is an open question, however. At the very least it would seem to make all moral reasoning anthropocentric. Even that much seems to be in trouble. But let's set that aside for now. If goodness is not inherent, then it is more or less conventional. Goodness would not really exist. If goodness in not inherent in Being then it is impossible that it would be in God's nature because there is no such animal. Well then we can hardly complain if God lacks something that can't exist.
On the other hand, moral reasoning does seem to presuppose that there is something inherent, something that we cannot fully objectify (and so is transcendent) and make a means to an end but is an end in itself. For instance, let us say that human nature determines our moral obligations. However, if we understand such a nature so that we can manipulate it, human nature then becomes a mean to some other end that we can choose. (Please note, I haven't concluded on this basis that the transcendent thing is God--I would be happy with Being as Being for now). As far as I can tell, the only thing we cannot fully objectify is the nature of existence bare and simple or Being as Being, So, if the Good is inherent Being and Evil has no positive existence, how is it that Being suffers evil to exist?
Next time: A Rather Unoriginal Response. In the mean time, feel free to make any corrections.
Comments (12)
If God is good, then God would prevent evil.
Why would that be necessary? Why couldn't God be good and create us with the ability to both freely love and do evil for a limited amount of time?
If God is almighty, then God can prevent evil.
God can prevent evil but why does he have to? He can temporarily allow it in the grand scheme of having eternal love and fellowship with those that have freely chosen to love him.
If God is all wise, then God can see evil coming before its a problem.
He can foresee it but doesn't have to stop it right now. According to the bible, he will stop it and judge it on Judgement Day. He foresaw our sin and predestined that he would forgive our sins through the crucifixion of Jesus.
So, if the Good is inherent Being and Evil has no positive existence, how is it that Being suffers evil to exist?
The way I look at this is that God had a choice of whether or not to create man. He foreknew that in order to create man with the ability to freely choose to love him, that man would also have the ability to choose to do evil. Since God still went ahead and created us knowing that we would do evil, it must mean that to God, the temporary existence of evil was worth allowing in order that he could have eternal fellowship and love with those that choose to love him. We only have the ability to see evil right now and we judge things according to our finite and limited knowledge, where God has the ability to have an eternal perspective and judge things from an unlimited wisdom and knowledge.
@musterion99 - I didn't say that I agreed with the atheologian's argument from evil (as implied by my aside), I simply gave a loose presentation of it. My point in that rave was to illustrate that the notion of evil is difficult to account for even without a deity, and yet evil shows itself most forcefully. The idea (that I hope to come to) is that before one can even ask why God should allow evil is to ask what evil is in the first place and just how can it be possible.
--jimm
@jimm_wetherbee - I didn't say that I agreed with the atheologian's argument from evil (as implied by my aside)
Yes, I realized that. I was just giving my own opinion on that.
@musterion99 - I suppose then all I can say is that you've jumped way ahead of me. I haven't even gotten to the Free Will Defense and so am not really in a position to comment. Like most raves, these things take a while to work through.
At the moment I am more interested in critiques of the relationship I've proposed between Being and the Good. If there is something substantially wrong with my analysis then a good deal of what follows (including the any view of the Free Will Defense) may face a metaphysical difficulty. I also want to make sure that I'm getting my point across and replies to comments might clarify what I am getting at.
--jimm
@jimm_wetherbee - I suppose then all I can say is that you've jumped way ahead of me.
Yeah, I guess I did. I just responded to particular things that were said in this post.
I haven't even gotten to the Free Will Defense and so am not really in a position to comment.
That's ok. I'll just have to wait until you get there.
At the moment I am more interested in critiques of the relationship I've proposed between Being and the Good.
It seems to me that it's just a statement of relativism in regards to good and evil.
@musterion99 - You wrote:
It seems to me that it's just a statement of relativism in regards to good and evil.
Gee, I was hoping it was a little more sophisticated than all that
--jimm
@jimm_wetherbee - Gee, I was hoping it was a little more sophisticated than all that.
I wasn't trying to make it seem like that. Yes, it was more sophisticated. I didn't feel like commenting more in depth and just narrowed it down to relativism. You say - "First, a great deal of evil is natural evil and the sort of natural evil that cannot be traced back to any moral agent. "
According to who? Christians don't believe that. It all started with Adam's moral choice to disobey God. If he wouldn't have made that decision, there wouldn't be natural evil.
@musterion99 - I believe the exemplar I had in mind was put forward by William Rowe where a fawn suffers an agonizing death from a forest fire caused by a lighting strike. Natural evils go on all the time and it would be stretch to assign their activity on agents, human or otherwise. I think you also need to distinguish between remote and proximate causes. I was dealing with proximate causes.
Incidentally, not all Christian (not even all orthodox Christians) would trace all natural evil to the Fall and even if we did, it would be far too early bring into play (after all, I really haven't brought God into the argument yet, save for incidental asides).
While I do want to look at natural evil at some point (though following convention, that would likely be after thrashing about the with the Free Will Defense), the idea in the section was to note that the idea of goodness and by extension evil is more than a moral category and that metaphysical and moral goodness are linked.
--jimm
@jimm_wetherbee - I believe the exemplar I had in mind was put
forward by William Rowe where a fawn suffers an agonizing death from a
forest fire caused by a lighting strike. Natural evils go on all the
time and it would be stretch to assign their activity on agents, human
or otherwise.
Yes, I understand what natural evil is and my answer is still the same. It's not a stretch to assign their activity to evil coming into this world through Adam's sin. In fact, it's the only biblical explanation I can see. Of course I am answering under the presupposition that the bible is true. Again, if Adam had not sinned, there wouldn't be any natural evil. It's a result of evil coming into this world that we live in. Do you think there will be any natural evil in heaven?
Incidentally, not all Christian (not even
all orthodox Christians) would trace all natural evil to the Fall.
I would like to hear then their explanation for it. Before Adam sinned, God looked upon his creation and said it was "very good". We don't read or hear of any bad until after Adam sins. The bible tells us that all of creation was affected.(Romans 8:22) Genesis 3:17 says the ground was cursed. Why was the ground cursed? The ground didn't sin against God. And then we see God saying to offer animal sacrifices. Why? The animals didn't sin.
Even if we did, it would be far too early bring into play (after all, I
really haven't brought God into the argument yet, save for incidental
asides).
Those incidental asides brought the responses that I gave. Without bringing God into it, as I said, to me it's a matter of relativism in defining what is good and evil.
I think you are still either ignoring proximate causation or simply ignore its relevance. Just because Adam sinned doesn't let you or me off the hook. Moreover, since God would be the ultimate cause, proximity must count for something or God would be ultimately responsible. The point still remains, however, that if natural evil exists, that to say something that can be regarded as inherently bad but does not affect a moral agent (unless plants and animals count as moral agents) then goodness is inherent.
I also do not understand the charge of relativism. Relative to what? If Being qua being is transcendent, then it is absolute. If so the Good is absolute and morality is then "relative" only to an absolute rather than a contingent. This hardly sound like relativism to me, and I should be very much surprised if any non-theistic ethicist did did not accuse me of smuggling in the idea of God into the notion of Being. Indeed, Thomas Aquinas argued that God is Infinite Being and the only existent thing that enjoyed being absolutely (creatures merely participated in being). That would be tantamount to saying that God is Being.
I would therefore ask you present a case for your charge. I would also ask something else. This entire line of discussion seems tangential to the argument I am trying to present. As it stands it is suppose to run something like this.
1. Being entail the Good
2. Evil denies the Good (you may read this as Good entails not-Evil)
3. Evil exist
4. Evil denies Being
5. Being does not exist
Clearly this is preposterous, but why? And if it does not hold for Being, perhaps it should not hold for God either. One might not even need to resort to the Free Will Defense (that is not so say that it is not valid or sound--I may come to that later--only that it is not the only horse in the stable). Now, if you can either show the relavance of your charge of relativism or point out a problem in my procedure to date, I would be happy to continue this conversation. But I should like to stick to the thread from now on.
--jimm
I'm pleased to see that you're subjecting this particular issue to your critical attention. I always find your treatments and perspectives very beneficial.
My own reading of late, including discussions with an astute, well-read atheist (via facebook), has brought the intrigue and import of this and related questions before me for a fresh look. To echo (one of) your intentions for the current rave, I'm also considerably interested in investigating this historical association of being simpliciter with (metaphysical) goodness. As the thesis was defended by eminent thinkers as Augustine and Aquinas, among others, I wish to scrutinize their arguments, along with the strongest and most important arguments offered on behalf of this thesis, and whatever merit they may feature.
While reading these two raves, several comments and questions occurred to me, but I think it'd be most appropriate to concentrate on or two of them for the purposes of this entry. (I have a tendency not only to get ahead of myself, but to utterly lose myself completely.)
Looking at the condensed, formalized version of your argument:
1. Being entails the Good.
2. Good entails not-Evil.
3. Evil exists.
4. Evil denies Being
5. Being does not exist.
Concerning this argument, you wrote:
Clearly this is preposterous, but why? And if it does not hold for Being, perhaps it should not hold for God either.
To echo again one of your sentiments, I believe the project of assessing good, evil, and their relationship to God will profit from an understanding (or a definition) of the relevant terms. Especially since some apologists assail the atheologian's employment of the problem of evil by requesting that he define evil objectively without reference to a metaphysically transcendent entity - a right, it's held, exclusively reserved for theists. The claim is a familiar one: God's existence is logically prior to evil's "existence" and its being objectively definable. Otherwise, evil becomes a subjectively imposed phenomenon on reality--one artificially manufactured by and therefore contingent upon human agents' minds--the "existence" and characteristics of which don't happen to coincide with the preferences of the majority of humans. (For example, it's evil and therefore wrong to rape because of the harm it inflicts upon the victim.) Without a metaphysical anchor point, so goes the argument, evil isn't truly an objective component of reality, and the problem of evil dissolves entirely after being suffocated by meaninglessness, as the term "evil" has no actual referent at all.
Returning to your argument, I wonder if some qualifications would assist in framing it in a more accessible light. For instance, we may regard (1.) as potentially enunciating two propositions:
1. Being entails the Good
and
1.* Absolute Being entails the Good
or
1.** Absolute Being entails the Absolute Good.
(1.), then, seems susceptible to (4.), but (1.**) doesn't. The former may be true with respect to human agents, say, and the latter may be true with respect to God. And since God is distinct from His creation, some or all aspects of God's creation are such that they admit of being corrupted by the invasion of evil, whereas God Himself is such that He doesn't similarly admit of being corrupted. Hence, (1.) is vulnerable to (4.), but (1**.) is necessarily immune.
(As a brief aside: I understand you haven't begun to examine evil in itself yet, but your preliminary argument appears to treat evil as a substance with positive ontological status. But if my estimation is incorrect, and your argument isn't actually referencing or making use of positive evil, then (4.) and (5.) strike me as incoherent. If Being doesn't exist, and evil doesn't in any fashion participate in Being, evil consequently doesn't exist and can't, in the first place, extinguish Being.)
I apologize, Jimm, that my comment lacks clear direction and a central point. I seem to have just compiled a handful of disorganized thoughts.
Peace,
-- Marc
@Menexenus - I think I am treating Being (or what might be called being qua being) as equivalent to Absolute Being. You may have noticed that this analysis is fairly well steeped in Neo-Platonism. Are you looking at being with a small "b" in a fashion similar to that of Thomas Aquinas? If so, if would follow one of my comments that beings don't so much have being but participate in it (though that is a tricky notion). At any rate, following from the doctrine that from nothing, nothing comes, one still has to see how evil might be possible since it would seem to be non-being.
--jimm