CPHL201: Introduction to Philosophy

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CPHL201Introduction to Philosophy

• The Problem of Evil

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• The philosophical problem of evil is one of
  reconciling two seemingly incompatible religious
  beliefs
• 1. God exists
• 2. evil exists

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• By 'God' we mean
• a supernatural being who is the omnipotent,
  omniscient and all-good creator of the universe.

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• By 'evil' we mean, roughly, any sort of
  imperfection in the universe.
• Philosophers and theologians commonly classify
  evil into two kinds
• Moral evil "The evil that men do" imperfections
  brought about due to human action
• Natural evil imperfections inherent in nature or
  brought about through natural events, e.g.
  suffering caused by earthquakes, or suffering in
  the non-human animal kingdom

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• It has seemed apparent to many people that given
  the existence of evil in the world, either
• (i) it is impossible that God exists or
• (ii) it is unlikely that God exists

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• Those who espouse position (i) espouse what is
  often called the logical or deductive argument
  from evil. One version of it goes something like
  this
• If God were to exist then there would be no evil
  in the world.
• The world contains some evil.
• __________
• 3. God does not exist.

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• Those who espouse position (ii) espouse what is
  called the evidential or inductive argument from
  evil. This amounts to a somewhat more tentative
  inference that
• 1.The world contains evil.
• ________
• 2.It is improbable that God exists.

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• Mackie's "Evil and Omnipotence
• Like all proponents of deductive or logical
  arguments from evil, Mackie assumes that beliefs
  in God and evil are logically inconsistent. Thus
  anyone who believes in the existence of both God
  and evil is irrational

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• "Here it can be shown, not that religious
  beliefs lack rational support, but that they are
  positively irrational, that the several parts of
  the theological doctrine are inconsistent with
  one another."

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• COMPARE
• "There is alien life near Alpha Centauri
• "There are alien civilizations near Alpha
  Centauri moreover, civilization requires water
  and there is no water near Alpha Centauri"

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• To say
• 1. God is omnipotent.
• 2. God is wholly good.
• 3. Evil exists.
• is to contradict oneself, says Mackie.

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• However, the contradiction is implicit rather
  than explicit. To see the contradiction clearly,
  we need two "quasi-logical rules"
• 4. Good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a
  good thing always eliminates a bad thing as far
  as it can.
• 5. There are no limits to what an omnipotent
  thing can do.

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• From 4 and 5 is follows that
• 6. A good omnipotent thing eliminates evil
  completely.
• From 6 it follows that 1, 2 and 3 are
  inconsistent.

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• Adequate Solutions
• Give up one of beliefs 1 through 5. For example,
  concede that God is not all-powerful, or assert
  that evil is unreal.

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• Fallacious Solutions
• These try to retain all of beliefs 1 through 5,
  but unsuccessfully.
• Evil is necessary as a counterpart to good.
• Places limits upon God's power God cannot do the
  logically impossible. It thus calls for a
  modification of belief 5.
• This approach rejects belief 4, that good always
  tries to eliminate evil.

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• Evil is necessary as a means to good.
• This approach implies a severe restriction on
  God's power, i.e. a rejection of either belief 1
  or 5.

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• (iii)The universe is better with some evil than
  it could be if there were no evil.
• The higher-order goods are perhaps not really all
  that good we would be better off in a pain-free
  world.
• God seems a little cold on this view his
  goodness does not really involve trying to
  eliminate all evil, but rather focuses on
  promoting the higher-order goods.
• The higher-order goods seem to have counterparts
  in higher-order evils.

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• Evil is due to human free will.
• God could have made free beings who never in
  fact choose to do evil

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• Plantinga God, Freedom, and Evil
• A defense against the deductive argument from
  evil is just an attempt to show that it is
  possible that God and evil co-exist.
• In other words, a defense against the deductive
  argument is an attempt to show that beliefs in
  God and evil are not logically inconsistent.

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• An inconsistent set of beliefs is a set whose
  members cannot all be true at the same time. It
  is logically impossible that an inconsistent set
  of beliefs be completely true.
• We can distinguish logical impossibility from at
  least two other kinds
• 1. Natural / causal impossibility impossible
  given the laws of nature
• 2. Practical impossibility impossible given the
  interests of those involved

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• Logical impossibility typically involves some
  sort of a contradiction. So is it
  contradictory to assert both that God exists and
  that evil exists?
• For the contradiction to arise, we need to
  accept Mackie's two "quasi-logical rules", one of
  which is
• 4. A good thing always eliminates evil as far as
  it can.

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• Counter-example to 4 You can eliminate a
  painful bruise on your knee by having the leg
  amputated.
• Definition To properly eliminate an evil is to
  eliminate it without thereby destroying a greater
  good or bringing about a greater evil.
• Thus to get a formal contradiction in theism we
  must replace Mackie's "quasi-logical" rules with
  this one
• 1. If God is (omniscient and) omnipotent, then he
  can properly eliminate every evil state of
  affairs.

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• But (1) is not necessarily true. Consider this
  counter-example to claim (1)
• God cannot eliminate person P's physical pain
  without also eliminating P's magnificent, heroic
  bearing of that pain.
• Thus the logical argument from evil fails,
  because God and evil are not logically
  incompatible. We only needed one counterexample
  (the heroic bearing of pain) to show this.

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• Rowe The Inductive Argument from Evil
• An inductive (or "evidential") argument from
  evil does not claim that it is logically
  impossible for God and evil to co-exist. Rather,
  it claims that the amount of evil in our world
  makes it appear unlikely that God exists.

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• "The variety and profusion of evil in our
  world, although perhaps not logically
  inconsistent with the existence of the theistic
  God, provides, nevertheless, rational support for
  atheism."

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• 1. There exist instances of intense suffering
  which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have
  prevented without thereby losing some greater
  good or permitting some evil equally bad or
  worse.
• An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent
  the occurrence of any intense suffering it could,
  unless it could not do so without thereby losing
  some greater good or permitting some evil equally
  bad or worse.
• __________________________
• 3. There does not exist an omnipotent,
  omniscient, wholly good being.

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• Responses to Rowe
• Response (i) Rowe outlines what he calls the
  indirect response to his argument from evil.
• 1. There does exist an omnipotent, omniscient,
  wholly good being.
• An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent
  the occurrence of any intense suffering it could,
  unless it could not do so without thereby losing
  some greater good or permitting some evil equally
  bad or worse.
• ______________
• 3. There do not exist instances of intense
  suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being
  could have prevented without thereby losing some
  greater good or permitting some evil equally bad
  or worse.

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• Response (ii)
• It seems that our cognitive powers would be
  vastly inadequate for grasping the purposes of an
  omnipotent, omniscient being. Therefore, if God
  exists, it is no surprise that many instances of
  evil appear gratuitous to us.