Difference between revisions of "Theodicy" - New World Encyclopedia

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'''Theodicy''' is a specific branch of [[theology]] and [[philosophy]] that attempts to reconcile the observed existence of evil in the world with the assumption of the existence of a benevolent and powerful [[God]].  Any attempt to reconcile the co-existence of evil and God may thus be called "a theodicy". (See the article on the [[problem of evil]] for examples.)
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==Origin of the term==
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'''Theodicy''' is a specific branch of [[theology]] and [[philosophy]], which attempts to solve The Problem of [[Evil]]—the problem that arises when trying to reconcile the observed existence of evil in the world with the assumption of the existence of a [[God]] who is fully good (or benevolent) and who is also all-powerful (omnipotent). A "theodicy" also refers to any attempted solution to this conundrum.
  
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The term ''theodicy'' comes from the Greek ''{{polytonic|θεός}}'' (''theós'', "god") and ''{{polytonic|δίκη}}'' (''díkē'', "justice"), meaning literally "the justice of God".  The term was coined in [[1710]] by the [[Germany|German]] [[philosopher]] [[Gottfried Leibniz]] in a work entitled ''Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal'' ("essay of theodicy about the benevolence of God, the free will of man, and the origin of evil"). The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God, and that notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all ''possible'' worlds (see [[Panglossianism]].)
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Almost all traditional theodicies have attempted to [[logic|logically]] solve the contradiction amongst the three points—the omnipotence of God, the goodness of God, and the real existence of evil—by negating or qualifying one or another of them. Hence, traditional theodicies are of three types:
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# Denying or qualifying the omnipotence of God
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# Denying or qualifying the goodness of God
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# Denying the reality of evil
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{{toc}}
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In recent years, new theodicies have appeared which take a different approach: Rather than trying to eliminate an uncomfortable contradiction, one can accept the contradiction between the reality of evil and a God who is both omnipotent and good, and view it as pointing to a path toward the actual removal of evil, or as revealing a deeper understanding of the nature of God, or both. For example, one might theorize that God, because of his love, has given humans [[Free Will|free will]] through which they could make wrong choices and create evil, but has also given them, out of his omnipotence, the ability to use their free will to overcome evil, and that this path to grow to maturity through such a life of overcoming evil is the ultimate expression of God's goodness.
  
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==Outline of the problem of theodicy==
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==Origin of the term==
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The term ''theodicy'' comes from the Greek ''{{polytonic|θεός}}'' (''theós'', "god") and ''{{polytonic|δίκη}}'' (''díkē'', "justice"), meaning literally "the justice of God."  The term was coined in 1710 by the [[Germany|German]] [[philosopher]] [[Gottfried Leibniz]] in a work entitled ''Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal'' ("Essay of theodicy about the benevolence of God, the free will of man and the origin of evil"). The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God, and that notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all ''possible'' worlds.
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The problem of theodicy can be summarized in a set of statements or claims:
 
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* (1) God exists.
 
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* (2) God is the Unique Creaor or First Cause of the existing universe.
 
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* (3) God is fully good (or loving, or benign).
 
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* (4) God is fully powerful (or omnipotent).
 
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* (5) There is evil and suffering in the world.
 
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It seems, intuitively at least, that not all those statements can be true together, i.e. that at least one of them must be false. If God exists and God is fully good, then that would seem to imply that God would have an interest in seeing that evil does not exist in the world. If that is true, and if God has the power to eliminate evil from the world, or to create a world in which evil does not occur — and the doctrine of creation seems to imply that God indeed does have the power to do many things (and perhaps anything that He desires to do) – then why does evil nevertheless exist and persist in the world?
 
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All five statements are integral and central to most Christian understandings of God, as well as those of Judaism and Islam. In other words, fully devout Christians, Jews, and Muslims will have difficulty denying any of those four statements.
 
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And yet the seeming contradiction persists. Thus nearly all efforts at theodicy can be understood as the attempt to reconcile those statements, and most theodicies can be understood as attempts to show that at least one of those statements is false in some essential or important way, coupled with an attempt to show that the falsehood of that statement that is adjudged or argued to be false does not really go against the central religious dogma of whoever is creating the theodicy and that its falsehood does not really matter for an adequate theology and piety.
 
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*A way out of the problem is to hold that one of the conflicting assumptions (one of the statements 1 through 5) is wrong: Drop either the assumption that God is omniscient, or omnipotent, or perfectly good.  See the [[Omnipotence|entry on the subject of God and omnipotence]] for more details on this point.
 
  
 
==The problem of evil==
 
==The problem of evil==
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The problem of evil for theists consists in the existence of a contradiction amongst the following three statements or claims integral and central to them:
  
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The problem of evil has from earliest times engrossed the attention of philosophers. In his ''Dictionnaire historique et critique'', the [[scepticism|sceptic]] [[Pierre Bayle]] denied the goodness and omnipotence of God on account of the sufferings experienced in this earthly life. The ''Théodicée'' of Leibniz was directed mainly against Bayle. Imitating the example of Leibniz, other philosophers also called their treatises on the problem of evil ''theodicies''. In a thorough treatment of the question, the (alleged) proofs both of the existence and of the attributes of God could not be disregarded, and (supposed) human knowledge of God was gradually brought within the domain of theodicy.
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* 1) That [[God]] is omnipotent
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* 2) That God is fully good (or loving, or beneficent)
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Some have argued that the predetermined goal of theodicy (that of justifying the existence of God with the existence of evil) tarnishes any aspirations it might have to be a serious philosophical discipline because an intellectual pursuit having a predefined goal and preassumed conclusions cannot be deemed in any reasonable way to be methodical, scientific, or rational.  Should we respect an inquiry whose goal is not to find out the truth, but to prove ''by any means possible'' that a particular thing ''reasonably doubted'' (Bayle and all who follow him) is true? Proceeding from the proposition to be shown to find a proof of that proposition invites [[confirmation bias]] on the part of the theorist.
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* 3) That [[evil]] and suffering exist in the world
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Others argue that theodicy begins with a hypothesis about God, God's nature, and the observable facts about the world, and then tests the hypothesis to see if the hypothesis can be reconciled with experience and reason. Theodicy, according to that view, is a reasonable attempt to reconcile the ''hypothesised'' existence of God with the perceived existence of evil.  While theodicy cannot ''prove'' the existence of God, it can make belief in God ''reasonable'' by showing that the existence of God is not necessarily incompatible with the existence of evil. On the other hand, unlike in mathematics, in a philosophical project like a theodicy it is difficult to say what precisely constitutes a valid logical step, and though one proponent of a theodicy may be convinced of its rigour, another person may find it logically weak or reject some of its assumptions.  For this reason, theodicies tend to be controversial, even among theists.
 
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==Received Theodicies==
 
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Theodicy investigates the question of God's nature and attributes. While many grant that all our cognition of God is incomplete, theodicy attempts to explain those traits of God of which we have some understanding. It includes, for instance, the classical problem of how God can be infinitely good and yet allow evil to occur.
 
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===Calvinistic Theodicy===
 
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*[[Calvinism]] asserts that all events are part of God's righteous plan, and therefore, though they may involve true evil in themselves, they are intended by God for morally justified purposes (which are not always apparent to humans). Calvinists see the duality of intentions indicated in Genesis 50:20[http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genisis%2050:15-20;&version=31;] as the exemplar of this paradigm. Compare Augustine, ''Enchridion'' [''On Faith, Hope and Love''], 26:100.
 
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[[John Calvin]] and other [[Calvinism|Reformed Christians]] have held to a form of theological [[determinism]] and [[compatibilism]], and thus have denied that man possesses [[free will]] in the [[Libertarianism (philosophy)|libertarian]] sense. So for them the problem of evil could not find resolution in appeals to such freedom. For them, the issue had to be resolved within the very nature of the [[compatibilism|compatibilistic]] relationship itself.
 
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For God to hold man morally accountable, yet to [[Predestination|predestine]] everything that man thinks or does, something other than the "freedom of contraries" must ground this accountability. Calvinists believe that this something is the capacity of man to choose and act according to his moral state of being, the "freedom of choice". But man's moral state of being is presently subject to sin, and this fact, itself, is part of the problem of evil. So one must inquire as to the cause of man's subjection to sin.
 
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Reformed theology places the cause of this condition in the first man, [[Adam and Eve|Adam]], whom they believe to be the legal representative of the entire human race. This doctrine, called [[Federal Headship]], is also present in the doctrine of [[substitutionary atonement]] (and its corollary, [[Justification by Faith]]). As a representative of the race, when he [[sin|sinned]] against God by eating the [[forbidden fruit]], the entire race fell under the curse of God with him. Various explanations of the exact relationship of Adam to his posterity have been offered, but what concerns us at present is only the doctrine of Adam's legal representation of the race.
 
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Here another question presents itself. How could Adam be held accountable (and with him the entire human race), if he was not free to do other than he did do—if God really intended for him to do exactly as he did? With this question we come to the heart of the Reformed Theodicy. The main points are, first, that no one has ever been held accountable for what they ''could have'' thought or done, only for what they ''have'' thought or done, and for their purposes in thinking or doing it; and, second, that though both Adam and God intended that evil should come about, their purposes were distinct, God's being ultimately good, Adam's being ultimately evil.
 
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The Reformed Theodicy boils down to the distinction of purposes between the primary agent (God) and the secondary agents (humans). While it is true that God intends to bring about evil, God's purpose is not, of itself, evil (cf. [[Genesis|Gen.]] 50:20). This idea can be expressed by analogy:
 
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Picture a man holding down a child while other men stick pieces of metal into the child's eye, all the while the child is screaming in pain, crying out for them to stop. On the surface it seems like a horrible, cruel thing these men are doing to the child. But if we add the information that the child is bleeding to death from the nasal cavity, that there is no time for anesthetic, that the man holding him down is his loving father, and that the men sticking the metal into his eye are doctors trying to save his life, then the problem of evil disappears. The evil doesn't disappear, it is still there (just ask the child!), but the ''problem'' of evil is no longer present, because the intention is good.
 
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In other words not all actions which bring about suffering or even evil acts are necessarily evil themselves.  There is no problem of evil in the example with the father, and arguably no evil in the sense of moral failing, because his actions serve a greater good.  Similarly one can serve a greater good even if you know that your choice will bring about some immoral action.  In either case the Calvinist must still claim that God's choice to create a flawed man who would engage in sin or evil does serve a greater good.  Thus it seems this position allows us no choice but to accept that some mysterious good is served by having a world filled with imperfect and sometimes evil men as opposed to a world where only those souls who will choose to be good and holy are born.
 
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Opponents of this position have argued that it endorses an "ends justifies the means" system of ethics, but this charge is suspect since Reformed Christians claim that the means, ''of themselves'', are truly evil, and therefore subject to punishment, not justified by the ends to which God intends them.
 
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Proponents of the Calvinist view have argued that Free Will Theodicy (see below) is actually, in principle, no different from the Reformed Theodicy, it simply places the bare possession of [[Libertarianism (philosophy)|libertarian]] [[free will]] as the good that God intented to bring about by the existence of evil, and that the Reformed Theodicy does more justice to the Biblical account of God and man.
 
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In [[Hyper-Calvinism]], on the contrary, the parallel existence of the goodness of God, and evil, is not considered a paradox at all, and hence there is no acknowledgement of a theodicy within churches holding to such a theology. The idea here is that God is the active creator and instigator of all sin and evil, including the fall, using these as instruments to accomplish his plan. Satan, thus, is considered to have no power of his own but is merely God's puppet (citing e.g. the parallel Bible verses of 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1).
 
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An important part of Hyper-Calvinism is the belief in the absolute predestination of all things by God, i.e., nothing happens unless God actively makes something happen. One consequence of this view is that human beings, albeit separate entities from God, do not have a will separate from God. Now, it is generally agreed upon that a person can be held responsible only when that person made an active decision to commit perhaps a fellony; Hyper-Calvinists, however, do not agree with that assertion, instead saying that while man has no free will, God will still hold that man responsible for whatever sins he commits because he (God) has decided to judge mankind by his laws.
 
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Although they do not admit it, Calvinists — especially the Hyper-Calvinists — and the other Protestant Reformers really deny the truth of Statement 3 above: the claim that God is fully good. The Calvinist view of double predestination means that some people are predestined to damnation. That means that God has established and chosen evil for some people. The attempt to say that this is intended by God for morally justified purposes is incoherent.
 
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===The Free Will Defense (0f God)===
 
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*[[Open Theism]] asserts that God's goodness is displayed in the creation of beings with free will.  The decision of a free will is not determined and therefore the decision and its consequences do not exist until the decision is made. Given free will, even an omniscient God would not claim to know that which God had determined not to be knowable.  Therefore, free creatures may commit evil actions, but God's gift of freedom is still good.
 
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This is usually called the “free will defense” of God, and is based on a denial of Statement 4; this defense of God says, in effect, that God is not fully powerful because He has voluntarily limited Himself by giving humans choice and by agreeing to abide by those human choices. According to this view, evil is the consequence of God permitting humans to have [[free will]].
 
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There are several additional versions of this view:
 
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*God created perfect [[angels]] and perfect humans with a [[free will]]. Some of his creations chose independence and lost their perfection: they began to sin, which resulted in evil doing and death. For a while God will allow this to continue, so that it can be proven that his creations can not be happy while independent from God because this was the challenge which caused the rebellion in the first place. In due time God will restore the people who choose to depend on God to perfection and so bring an end to sin and with it an end to evil.
 
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*God is a righteous judge; people get what they deserve.  If someone suffers, that is because they committed a sin that merits such suffering. (This is also known as the [[just world hypothesis]]).
 
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====Response to the free will defense====
 
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Assume that both God and Man possess ultimate [[free will]].  This certainly entails the possibility of evil acts, making the free will theodicy plausible [[prima facie]].
 
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The central problem with this view is that it confuses freedom with causation. It may indeed be true that, if freedom exists for humans, then through the exercise of this freedom humans may choose evil. But this does not explain the origin of evil or the origin of the motivation to commit evil. Thus, this view does not address the causation problem, nor does it answer the question why, in a universe that is supposedly good because God is supposedly good, evil nevertheless emerges. It also does not absolve God of the charge that His universe somehow has evil in it inherently, which means that God’s work is not fully good. In other words, it does not really show how Statement 3 can nevertheless be true even though there is evil in the world.
 
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Must free will ''necessarily'' lead to evil? How did evil come to be in the first place? One explanation is that humans are corrupt at heart; but that would assume a will that is evil rather than free. It would also mean that God created evil because God created human nature.
 
  
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Another explanation is that to be free we must act differently from God, and if God is morally perfect, our free actions must then be evil; but this confuses free action itself, with a way that we might recognize free action. A simpler explanation is that it may merely be a contingent fact that humans ''happen to'' choose evil by their exercise of freedom. And evil, having once arisen even by chance, plausibly led to more evil.
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For how can an omnipotent and fully good God create such an evil world?
  
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The free will theodicy argues that if God were to 'get involved' and start influencing human actions for the better, then human actions wouldn't be free any longer. Human freedom means that God cannot guarantee human perfection (''see [[incompatible-properties arguments]]'').
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If it can be shown that one or another of those statements is false, however, then the "problem" of contradiction disappears. Consequently, nearly all traditionally received theistic theodicies can be understood as attempts to reconcile those statements, arguing that one or another of those statements is false in some essential or important way. Therefore, there are three major types of traditional theodicies: 1) A first type, which denies or qualifies the omnipotence of God; 2) a second one, which denies or qualifies the goodness of God; and 3) a third type, denying or qualifying the reality of evil.  
  
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This requires that free will be a good in itself, greater than the evil it costs to allow such freedom. Why should it be better for God to respect human freedom? What's so great about free will? The response is that free will is what makes us valuable moral agents, and that, if God were to deny us our freedom, human society would be in a deep sense, like an assemblage of robots: not only incapable of evil, but incapable of moral choice in general.... Though value would exist in such a world, the free moral agency possessed by God and actual humans is argued to be far greater. All the cruelty that we humans freely perform is indeed regrettable, but it is the price of freedom.
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But, these received theodicies have been criticized more recently by some insightful thinkers. There are two points of criticism. First, these traditional theodicies are ''merely'' [[logic|logical]] attempts to solve the contradiction of the three statements, without offering any real solution for the actual removal of evil; evil is still there. Second, when they merely attempt to logically solve the contradiction, their treatments of the omnipotence and goodness of God, whether they affirm or deny either of these divine attributes, are rather simplistic, external, and superficial, without being able to understand the nature of God any further. So, those who are critical towards the traditional types of theodicies go beyond the logical level of addressing the contradiction of the three statements; without even seeing any contradiction amongst the three statements, they rather attempt to find a solution on a different horizon, and their new solutions tend to be more insightful.
  
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Some instances of moral evil themselves involve violations of free will—e.g., murder or rape, and these present a more complex problem for those who favor the free will defense. For God to step in and deny the violator his freedom would also be to protect the victim's freedom. In such cases, whose free will is more valuable—which instance of coercion would be worse? It is morally implausible that, given that choice, the best thing to do is to respect a rapist's free choice to rape rather than the victim's free choice not to be raped.  
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==Three major traditional theodicies==
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The three major types of traditional theodicies are: 1) Finitism, which denies or qualifies the omnipotence of [[God]] in the context of dualism; 2) despotism, which denies or qualifies the goodness of God, because of its belief that God's absolute sovereignty lets him do evil things in the eyes of humans; and 3) a third kind, denying or qualifying the reality of [[evil]].
  
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So, for moral evil involving coercion—the value of free will may not justify God's inaction. However, all or nearly all evil involves people abridging each other's freedoms. But the problem the theodicy addresses is not whether the rapist abridges another's freedom (they do), but whether ''God'' will abridge anyone's freedom. For God to intervene on either side would abridge freedom. God's permitting a rape to occur is logically no different from God permitting any other moral evil to occur, making this criticism of free will theodicy circular.
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===Finitism: God is not omnipotent===
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Finitism denies or qualifies the omnipotence of God and says that the finite God cannot avoid evil. It takes various forms of [[dualism]]. Some religions, such as [[Zoroastrianism]], [[Gnosticism]], and [[Manichaeism]] presented the cosmic dualism of God and Satan. [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] were of the [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] dualism of God (or Demiurge) and prime [[matter]] (or Receptacle), where God is finite because he must have recourse to prime matter for the constitution of the world. [[Nikolai Berdyaev]] and [[Alfred North Whitehead]] suggested the mystical dualism of God and Uncreated Freedom (or [[Creativity]]), where God is finite because of the pre-existent principle of Uncreated Freedom. The American [[Methodism|Methodist]] [[philosophy|philosopher]] Edgar Brightman suggested a unique kind of finitism with his internal dualism of form and matter within God, where his power is restrained because of form. Finitism sometimes entails the so-called "[[Free Will|free will]] defense" of God (as in Berdyaev and Whitehead) because it gives free will to humans in the context of God's finitude. But this free will defense based on finitism is not the same as the more insightful free will defense proposed by the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga to be treated below.
  
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Others attack this theodicy on other grounds. Some deny the existence of free will altogether, and so have no need for the proposal in the first place. [[Compatibilism|Compatibilists]] sometimes attack the essential premise that God cannot influence our choices without thereby cancelling our freedom. After all, compatibilists believe that [[determinism]] is consistent with human freedom. And if determinism can allow for freedom, perhaps so can appropriate divine meddling with our decisions. Thus the question of exactly how God's intervention would undermine free moral agency is crucial. We need a reason to think that there are at least some, perhaps many, ways that God really couldn't override our choices without cancelling our freedom. The customary appeal is to a strong construal of free will.
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===Despotism: God is not fully good===
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This type of theodicy can be seen in staunch [[Calvinism]], and it presupposes the absolute sovereignty of God. God is so sovereign that although he may be a good God in principle, he does not look fully good in actuality. For God is the active creator and instigator of all sin and evil, including the fall, using these as instruments to accomplish his plan. Satan, thus, is considered to have no power of his own but is merely God's puppet. An important part of staunch Calvinism is the belief in the absolute predestination of all things by God, that is, that nothing happens unless God actively makes something happen. Whatever is is right, as long as God wills it. So, there can be no such thing as a problem of evil. In this view, humans have no free will. But, they will still be held responsible for whatever sins they commit because God has decided to judge them by his laws.  
  
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Another challenge focuses on different ways to interfere with freedom. One way is to 'jump in' and take control of the agent, dictating its every movement and thought. This is the kind of [[coercion]] we envision in mad scientist stories. But it might also be the kind of coercion that motivates our above intuition that if God got involved, we'd all be 'robots'. But there are other, softer kinds of coercion. Look to policemen and jailers. They don't directly take control of an agent's decisions. They just threaten the agent with physical force and restraint, and carry out their threats if necessary. Policemen and jailers restrict our freedom, but not in the same way. If God were to get involved as a Divine Policeman, making threats and enforcing them, then would we be 'robots'? Perhaps not, or at least not in the same way. Instead, we'd be citizens of a divine nation-state, and a very safe and reliable nation-state at that. But then the moral claim that God ''should'' hold back must be more refined: To just what extent could God (consistently) intervene, without abridging free will?
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Besides this Calvinist despotism, so-called "maltheism," the view that God is evil, also solves the problem of evil by attributing evil to God. But, maltheism is quite different from Calvinism because it says that God is simply evil himself without being necessarily despotic.
  
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Other challenges attack the idea that evil-eliminating divine interventions must cancel human freedom. These challenges suggest different ways for God to eliminate evil, all the while leaving our free will untouched—"innocent interventions". One proposal is for God to fortify humans as to render us less vulnerable to the sins of our fellows. We could be bullet-proof, invulnerable to poison, etc. That way, humans would retain the capacity for evil choices and activities; it's just that such evil behavior would be harmless to the 'victims' and futile for the evildoers. On the other hand, it is not obvious that such a system could be constructed. If people cannot do harm, then they are not free moral agents, though they may be free agents in some very restricted sense. Most supporters of a free will theodicy would argue that it is moral free agency, not a vacuous freedom that has no moral consequences, which is essential to making us truly different from automata.
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===Evil is not real===
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*'''Evil as "non-being"'''
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The non-being theme of evil started from [[Augustine of Hippo|St. Augustine]], who as a [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonic]] Christian regarded all being as good, thus referring to evil as non-being. Critiquing the [[Manicheanism|Manichean]] dualism, which he used to adhere to, he asserted that the universe, including matter and its unique creator, God, are unambiguously good. Evil, therefore, is non-being ''(non esse)''. It is the privation, corruption, or perversion of something that was previously or otherwise good. Evil has no substantial being in itself, but is always parasitic upon good. Evil entered the universe through the culpable free actions of otherwise good beings—[[angel|angels]] and humans. [[Sin]] consisted not in choosing evil (because there was no evil to choose) but in turning away from the higher good of God to a lower good. Natural evils were held by Augustine to be consequences of the fall too, and thus also consequences of human or angelic [[free Will|free will]]. When one asks what ''caused'' man to fall, Augustine answers through his doctrine of "deficient" causation. In his view, there is no positive cause of evil will, but rather a negation of deficiency. Augustine seems to mean by this that free volitions are, in principle, inexplicable—free willing is itself an originating cause, with no prior cause or explanation.  
  
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A very similar proposal is that God could allow sinful acts, but stop their evil consequences. So if I fire a rifle at your head, God allows me to make the decision, but then makes the trigger stick, or the rifle misfire, or the bullet pop out of existence. Such interventions would, happily, divorce evil choices from the subsequent suffering.  An objection to this solution is that without observing the evil consequences of our actions we would not truly be making moral choices at all. In other words it is not only important for us to have freedom to choose our actions but also to have freedom with consequences. Presumably, a world where guns only fired when aimed at just targets would not truly present us the option to choose evil since it would be apparent that no harm comes from our actions; and a world where all evil choices were grossly unattractive would likewise not leave us truly free moral agents.
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This Augustinian definition of evil as the privation of good ''(privatio boni)'' can be seen also in [[Thomas Aquinas|St. Thomas Aquinas]]. It constitutes much of the Christian tradition on the subject of evil.  
  
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===Maltheistic Theodicy===
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There are other ways of saying that evil is non-existent. According to [[Spinoza]]'s pantheism, there is no evil in the world which is divine. [[Mary Baker Eddy]], founder of [[Christian Science]], regarded evil simply as illusion, echoing [[Hinduism]] and [[Buddhism]]. Using relational [[logic]] and not [[theology]], [[Canada|Canadian]] [[Bahai|Baha’i]] [[mathematics|mathematician]] William Hatcher has argued that evil is not absolute but simply "less good" than good.
  
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[[Maltheist|Maltheism]] asserts that the "problem of evil" is not a problem at all because the initial question has a simple answer: there is no way that a benevolent omnipotent God would allow evil in the world. Therefore, they reason, God is either not benevolent or not omnipotent.  
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*'''Aesthetic conception of evil'''
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Augustine additionally held to what we can call the [[aesthetics|aesthetic]] conception of evil, and it can be still another important way of saying that evil is not real. It is a view derived from the principle of plenitude in [[Plato]]'s ''Timaeus'' 41 b-c. That principle holds that a universe in which all possibilities are being realized—a universe containing lower and lesser, as well as higher and greater things—is greater than a universe that contains only the highest type(s) of things. Lower beings thus are not evil as such, but merely different and lesser goods. According to that view, what appears to be evil is such only when seen in an isolated or limited context, but when viewed in the context of the totality of the universe it is good because it is a necessary element in that good universe.
  
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This view gets to the heart of what most devout theodicies need to deal with. Devout believers cannot deny Statement 1 (God exists), and no person can, without going through contortions of argument and denial of the obvious, really deny Statement 5 (Evil exists in the world). Devout believers also assume Statement 3 (God is the only Ultimate Cause). Thus devout theodicies are left with denying either Statement 3 or Statement 4 – such theodicies need to deny or curtail either the goodness (benevolence) or the power (omnipotence) of God. For that reason, theodicy is sometimes expressed as being about a conflict between the goodness and the power of God.
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This was held less [[philosophy|philosophically]] by many believers and theologians, such as [[John Calvin]], who asserted that all events are part of God's righteous plan, and therefore although they may involve evil in themselves, they are intended by God for morally justified purposes.
  
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Some religions such as [[Gnosticism]] and [[Manichaeism]], and even some Christian groups, dispense with the issue by embracing various forms of [[dualism]], in which God is opposed by an evil counterpart, and is therefore not omnipotent or the only original creator. In other words, these religions tend to deny Statement 2 and/or Statement 4.
+
==Theodicies on a different horizon==
 +
The above three types of received theodicies are merely logical attempts to solve the contradiction amongst the three statements of the omnipotence of [[God]], the goodness of God, and the reality of [[evil]], by denying or qualifying one or another of them. But these theodicies cannot offer any real solution for the actual removal of evil; evil is still there. Also, they seem to treat God's attributes, such as divine omnipotence and goodness, rather simplistically and superficially, without being able to have any deeper insights into God's nature. All this is due to the logical nature of these theodicies.  
  
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[[Eutheism, dystheism, and maltheism|Maltheists]] go even further than the Gnostics, in a sense, by saying that God simply is evil himself. To them, the problem of evil is not a problem at all, and is neatly resolved by acknowledging that an omnipotent benevolent God would not create a world in which there was evil, concluding that God, assuming he exists, is either not omnipotent, not benevolent, or perhaps both. (They frequently add that if God is not omnipotent but claims that he is, he is thus lying, and consequently is also justifiably deemed evil in nature.)
+
Thinkers who do not want to stay with the [[logic|logical]] level of removing the contradiction of the three basic statements, have attempted to find a solution at a different level. To them, the logical contradiction does not matter. They do not even see it. On a different horizon, they seem to be able to better understand the nature of God and seem to be able to better explain how evil is eventually removed.  
  
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===Modified Dualism===
+
===The Book of Job: Evil as a mystery of faith===
 +
The theodicy of the [[Book of Job]] is a good start because it suggests that the apparent contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God should not be handled logically but [[faith|faithfully]]. In spite of his initial complaint to the Lord and to his "comforters" that his sufferings have been inflicted on him unjustly, Job finally accepted the difficult situation by repentance and faith, when he was confronted by the overwhelming greatness and [[wisdom]] of God. This attitude of faithfully accepting it and not logically explaining it away can at least help open a new possibility of knowing the nature of God deeply, although the nature of God may yet to be revealed in Book of Job. Also, evil somehow disappears in the end: "And the Lord restored the fortune of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before" (Job 42:10).
  
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"Modified Dualism" holds that, since the powers of good and evil are unequal, the evil power is merely tolerated by the good power, who turns all the acts of the evil power into eventual good. Classical Christianity, i.e, from the Apostolic Fathers to Augustine, has been characterized as "modified Dualism".  Sts. [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] and [[Basil the Great]] both explicitly mention this idea. St. [[John of Damascus]] proposed that God deliberately leaves some events "in our hands". In early modern times (1714) a modified Dualism was advocated by [[John (Maximovitch) of Tobolsk|John of Tobolsk]]. Calvinism may be seen as a form of "modified Dualism" in the Augustinian tradition.
+
===John Hick: The world as vale of "soul-making"===
 +
The British [[philosophy|philosopher]] of [[religion]] John Hick is not interested in any logical solution of the contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God. Instead, his starting point is his deeper understanding and conviction of God's [[love]] of agape expressed in the life and work of [[Jesus Christ]]. This love of God, says Hick, is supposed to be completely realized in our personal relationships with him eventually. The reality of evil should be interpreted in view of this eschatological realization of God's love. If so, the world in which people really experience moral and natural evil can help them to grow to reach a point at which the enjoy their personal relationships with God. Thus, the world is vale for "soul-making."
  
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===Denial of the existence of God===
+
The process of growth might involve [[morality|moral]] evil because humans are imperfect. But from its undesirable outcomes they can learn about becoming better through their more responsible decisions. They can eventually become perfect creatures without moral evil only by going through "a hazardous adventure in individual freedom."<ref>John Hick, ''Evil and the God of Love'' (London: Macmillan, 1966), 201-3, 290-95.</ref> And this [[freedom]] was given them because of God's love. Even the natural harshness of the environment apart from human sin was given to humans out of the love of God, so that they may be able to grow through hunting, [[agriculture]], construction of shelter, and so on. This way, natural evil also will be gradually overcome. What is interesting is Hick's suggestion that if the eschatological goal of experiencing a personal relationship with God is not realized on earth, then it should be realized in the other world eventually.
  
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Some people have responded to the problem of evil by declaring that the existence of evil shown the non-existence of God. This is a denial of clause 1 (above). Many people have concluded, based on their observation of the evil in the world, that God does not exist. For obvious reasons, this tack is not available to anyone who believes in the existence of God.
+
According to Hick, his theodicy is of the "Irenaean" type, given the view of St. [[Irenaeus]] (c. 125-202 C.E.) that the pre-fall Adam was more like a child than a mature and responsible adult; that is, that Adam stood at the beginning of a long process of development because although he had been created in the "image" of God, he had to develop into the "likeness" of God.
  
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The existence of God, however, does not imply the goodness of God, even though many people have assumed otherwise and thought that if God exists then God is wholly good. But it is entirely possible that even though God exists, He may not be fully good. Thus, in that view, the existence of evil traces back to some evil or deficiency in God.
+
===Alvin Plantinga: The free will defense===
 +
According to the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga, it has never been shown logically impossible that God allows evil for a good purpose. So, there is no contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God. Plantinga thus accepts the omnipotence of God in his treatment of the problem of evil. Therefore, his [[Free Will|free will]] defense, which says that God has endowed humans with free will, not only defends God from being held responsible for their evil choices; it also defends the omnipotence of God. So, Plantinga's position is to be distinguished from some versions of finitism (such as [[Alfred North Whitehead|Whitehead]]'s finitism) which give free will to humans to the neglect of divine omnipotence. What is important is his belief that there may conceivably be a good long-term purpose of God for which the evil choices of free humans are temporarily permitted. The purpose of God is to have "the greater good of having created persons with free will with whom he could have relationships and who are able to love one another and do good deeds," although there may possibly be their evil choices.<ref>The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, [http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evil-log.htm The Logical Problem of Evil.] Retrieved December 16, 2007.</ref> This seems to be a profound insight.
  
−
Three additional variations on the denial of Statement 1:
+
Plantinga's free will defense has been criticized by Antony Flew and J. L. Mackie, who argue that such a God is still responsible because he has not created the world in which free human beings always in fact freely make right choices, and that such a God, therefore, is not omnipotent. To this, Plantinga has responded that although there ''may'' be such a fantastic world as a possibility, there also ''may not'' possibly be any such world. For what happens in this world in terms of choosing evil would happen in any other possible world. Thus, humans suffer from what he calls "transworld depravity." Also, God is still omnipotent, because divine omnipotence does not include the power to do what is logically impossible.
  
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* [[Atheism|Atheists]] resolve the apparent contradiction by rejecting the hypothesized existence of God (possibly for reasons other than the problem of evil). Some [[Atheism|atheists]] think that the problem of evil can be used to prove that no gods exist by the method of ''[[reductio ad absurdum]]''. This method does not prove the non-existence of all gods, rather it is an argument that if such a god exists then he is not both omnipotent and benevolent.
+
Perhaps Plantinga's position may not give much hope for the eventual removal of evil. Hence, one recent, friendly response from Daniel Howard-Snyder and John O'Leary-Hawthorne regarding this, claiming that the possibility of all persons being transworld depraved cannot be supported. After all, there is another ''prima facie'' possibility that all persons are in fact transworld sanctified (and so would do no wrong). So, Plantinga's argument should be repaired in order to incorporate this other possibility as well.<ref>Daniel Howard-Snyder and John O'Leary-Hawthorne, "Transworld Sanctity and Plantinga's Free Will Defense," ''International Journal for Philosophy of Religion'' 44 (1998): 1-21.</ref> Even so, Plantinga's original understanding of the reason why God has given humans free will in spite of possible evil can be appreciated.
  
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*[[Agnosticism|Agnostics]] believe that no answer to the question of religion will ever be found, so decide to ignore the problem altogether.
+
===Richard Kropf: Evil within an evolutionary natural order===
 +
Somewhat similar to Hick's position is the American [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] priest Richard Kropf's treatment of evil in the context of [[evolution]], although Kropf adds at least two more things in the discussion: the suffering of God during the process of growth in the world and the eventual [[redemption]] of non-human parts of the world as well as humans. Kropf specifically criticizes the traditional theodicies, by saying that they failed because they "simplified the problem" by trying to only address the logical contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God. He, therefore, maintained four "stubborn factors" that cannot be denied:
 +
# An omnipotent and good God
 +
# The reality of evil
 +
# Human [[freedom]] and responsibility
 +
# The world in growth and evolution
  
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* [[Nontheism|Nontheists]] claim that statements about God are unimportant or meaningless.
+
These can all be related to one another without contradiction, if they are centered on a key notion: The process of evolution. This approach, according to him, helps to "unlock the secrets of reality, including the problem of evil, on a much broader scale."<ref>Richard W. Kropf, ''Evil and Evolution: A Theodicy'' (London: Associated University press, 1984), p. 27.</ref> It is in this context that he suggests a newer understanding of God, which is that the God of compassionate love suffers over the miseries humans go through as a result of their evil choices in their revolutionary process of growth. He also suggests to include non-human creatures as part of the eventual redemption of the whole cosmos through Christ.
  
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===Denial of the existence of evil===
+
===Kenneth Surin: The "practical" approach===
 +
The British [[theology|theologian]] Kenneth Surin is still another thinker to stay away from the traditional theodicies that merely "theoretically" explain away evil without being able to make "practical" efforts to remove it.<ref>Kenneth Surin, ''Theology and the Problem of Evil'' (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986).</ref> The traditional theodicies are usually based on their adherence to classical theism, and they use it to theoretically justify God in face of evil. Surin, however, follows the theologies of the cross of Dorothee Soelle, Jürgen Moltmann, and so on, and believes that the suffering of the God of love is revealed through the crucifixion of Christ and experienced by those who suffer from evil, and that this God is available not as an object of theodicy discussion but rather as a real help for the removal of evil. This does not mean that God is finite, but rather that Surin is suggesting a new definition of divine omnipotence that can also explain God's accessibility for people. Through inner conversion, people are encouraged to become like Christ who shows the suffering love of God. We should accomplish the practical task of overcoming evil through our Christ-like commitment to, presence in, and solidarity with, the victim of evil. Surin's approach is so advanced in a practical direction that it even criticizes the quite innovative theodicies of John Hick and Alvin Plantinga among others of being still very theoretical; and Surin specifically makes use of Ivan Karamazov's moral frustration in [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoyevsky]]'s novel ''The Brothers Karamazov'' to criticize Hick's theodicy of theoretically justifying evil for the purpose of "soul-making," although Hick's intention has been to emphasize the love of God.
  
−
Some people have attempted to solve the problem of theodicy by denying Statement 5 by asserting that what humans consider evil or suffering is an illusion or is unimportant. Christian Science and some forms of Hinduism take that tack.
+
==Oppositions to theodicy==
 +
===Antitheism: God does not exist===
 +
[[David Hume]] shows his celebrated antitheistic response in his ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion'' (1779). According to him, the reality of [[evil]] is undeniable because in the world, one can see "four circumstances" on which evil depends: 1) That pain motivates creatures to action; 2) that laws of nature cause collision, drowning, burning, and so on; 3) that humankind is so fragile for perseverance; and 4) that rain, wind, heat, and so on, in nature are excessive. This is logically "incomaptible" with an omnipotent and fully good [[God]]. So, one has to believe that God does not exist, instead of securing the justice of God. This is usually called the "logical argument from evil." It has been followed by [[philosophy|philosophers]] such as J.L. Mackie and H.J. McCloskey, who reject all traditional theodicies.<ref>J.L. Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence," and H.J. McCloskey, "God and Evil," in ''God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil,'' ed. Nelson Pike (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 46-84.</ref>
  
−
There are numerous ways that approach has been formulated. One is to hold that events thought to be evil are not really so (such as deaths by natural disaster). Another is to say that God's divine plan is good, so what we see as evil is not really evil; rather, it is part of a divine design that is actually good, and it is our limitations that prevent us from seeing the big picture.
+
A little less straightforward than the [[logic|logical]] argument is the "evidential argument from evil," which contends that evil is evidence against the likelihood of God's existence. According to [[William Rowe]], for example, the fact of gratuitous evil, which is more than the necessary level of evil which is potentially useful for a good purpose, makes it unlikely that God exists.
  
−
An approach that is much like an outright denial of the existence of evil is to claim that suffering is merely an appearance, similar to the [[Buddhist]] teaching that suffering is illusion (for example, see this [http://www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8045_1.html summary on BeliefNet]). Presumably an omnipotent God could isolate each of us in a 'virtual' world where others appear to suffer but in reality are soulless, experience free imitations of life, i.e., each soul could inhabit its own matrix filled entirely with programs imitating human suffering but not actually experiencing it.  Admittedly, [[Brain-in-a-vat|nothing prevents one from believing this is actually the case]] and it does appear to solve the dilemma.  However, a theology which rests on a huge deception orchestrated by the supreme being (namely, the false appearance that our acts can do evil), is unattractive to those concerned with knowledge of the deity, which requires revelation and the veracity of god.
+
===Theodicy has a predetermined goal===
 +
Some have argued that the predetermined goal of theodicy (that of justifying the existence of God with the existence of evil) tarnishes any aspirations it might have to be a serious philosophical discipline because an intellectual pursuit having a predefined goal and pre-assumed conclusions cannot be deemed in any reasonable way to be methodical, scientific, or rational. Should one respect an inquiry whose goal is not to find out the truth, but to prove ''by any means possible'' that a particular thing ''reasonably doubted'' is true? Proceeding from the proposition to be shown to find a proof of that proposition invites confirmation bias on the part of the theorist.
  
−
There are numerous variations on this theme of denying the existence or permanence of evil, or of asserting that evil is some part of a larger divine plan that is inherently good:
+
===Theodicy is immoral===
 +
One argument that has been raised against theodicy is that if theodicy were true, it would completely nullify [[morality]].<ref>Strong Atheism, [http://www.strongatheism.net/library/atheology/immorality_of_theodicies/ The Immorality of Theodicies.] Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref> If theodicy were true, then all evil events, including human actions, can be somehow rationalized as permitted or affected by God, and therefore there can no longer be such a thing as "evil" values, even for a murderer. Indeed, this is the basis of the "moral argument from evil" by Dean Stretton.<ref>Dean Stretton, [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dean_stretton/mae.html The Moral Argument from Evil.] Retrieved December 16, 2007.</ref>
  
−
*A perfect God is not only good but also evil, since perfection implies no lacking, including not lacking that which is evil.  A lacking of evil would imply that there is something external to his all-encompassing perfection. This is related to [[monism|monistic]] philosophies such as [[advaita]], or [[pantheism]].
+
===Ivan Karamazov: Theodicy is morally difficult===
 +
In [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Fyodor Dostoyevsky]]'s novel ''The Brothers Karamazov,''<ref>Fyodor Dostoyevsky, ''The Brothers Karamazov'', trans. David Magarshack (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1958).</ref> Ivan vehemently challenges the legitimacy of theodicy by pointing out a number of cases of extreme and excessive cruelty in the world. Ivan accepts God's existence, purpose, and wisdom and understands the eternal harmony God plans to bring about eventually. But, he cannot accept the reality of too much cruelty and evil in the world: "I refuse to accept this world of God's… Please understand, it is not God that I do not accept, but the world he has created. I do not accept God's world and I refuse to accept it." One particular case of intolerable cruelty which Ivan mentions is that an army general let his hounds eat an eight-year old boy because the child had injured his favorite dog a little bit with a stone. Ivan's complaint is that if people including innocent children have to go through this kind of torturous suffering in the world so as to purchase eternal harmony in the future, it is entirely incomprehensible. Ivan concludes:
  
−
* God may intend evil and suffering as a test for humanity. Without the possibility to choose to do good or evil acts humanity would be nothing but [[robot]]s.
+
<blockquote>I don't want harmony… too high a price has been placed on harmony. We cannot afford to pay so much for admission. And therefore I hasten to return my ticket of admission… It's not Go that I do not accept, Alyosha. I merely most respectfully return him the ticket.</blockquote>
  
−
*Evil is the consequence, not cause, of people not observing God's revealed will. Universal reciprocated love would solve most of the problems that lead to the evils discussed here.
+
The devastating nature of Ivan's challenge for theodicy cannot be neglected. According to A. Boyce Gibson, "Henceforward, no justification of evil, by its outcome or its context, has been possible; Ivan Karamazov has seen to that."<ref>A. Boyce Gibson, ''The Religion of Dostoevsky'' (London: SCM, 1973), p. 176.</ref>
  
−
*God's ultimate purpose is to glorify Himself (which He alone is infinitely entitled to, without vanity). He allows evil to exist so that we will appreciate goodness all the more, in the same way that the blind man healed by Jesus appreciated his sight more so than those around him who had never experienced blindness.
+
Ivan is not an [[atheism|atheist]] in the sense of being a person who finds it impossible to believe that there is a God. His real problem is the moral question of why people, including very cruel people, are content with the belief that God expects such an unthinkably terrible price to be paid for humanity's final salvation: "And what is so strange… is not that God actually exist, but that such an idea—the idea of the necessity of God—should have entered the head of such a savage and vicious animal as man." 
  
−
*Evil is one way that God tests humanity, to see if we are worthy of His grace.
+
In his comments, [[Albert Camus]] has noted that Ivan's rebellion goes beyond that of previous more-or-less individualistic rebels against God, goes beyond reverential blasphemy, and puts God himself on trial. Camus writes, "If evil is essential to divine creation, then creation is unacceptable. Ivan will no longer have recourse to this mysterious God, but to a higher principle—namely, justice. He launches the essential undertaking of rebellion, which is that of replacing the reign of grace by the reign of justice."<ref>Albert Camus, ''The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt'', trans. Anthony Bower (New York: Knopf, 1956).</ref>
  
−
*Evil and pain exist in this world only. This world is only a prelude to the [[afterlife]], where no pain will exist. The scales of justice are balanced in the afterlife.
+
Dostoyevsky's own response to Ivan's indictments is not a direct philosophical or theological argument, but occurs primarily in the contrast between the two priests in the novel: Father Ferapont and Father Zosima. In fact, Dostoyevsky himself saw Ivan's indictments and the accounts of the two monks as ''pro'' and ''contra'' on this issue of divine goodness or evil. Father Ferapont possesses the trappings of genuine religion and spirituality—fierce asceticism, fervent prayer, wearing chains under his robes to mortify his flesh—but nevertheless spreads discord and dissension among the monks. However, Father Zosima, although he does not exhibit those signs of spirituality of Ferapont, nevertheless spreads dignity, blessings, counsel to the ordinary people, and well-being to all. He has a strong sense of the mystery of faith, as well as good humor and good feeling for all. He recommends to Alyosha that he leave the monastery and marry, suggesting that he realizes that intimacy is one of the primary paths to good faith and true spirituality. Ivan goes mad in the end, but those who follow the way of life of Father Zosima undergo inner transformation to a higher state of consciousness and way of life.  
  
−
*The world is corrupt and of itself shouldn't have been created, but the work of [[Christ]] (or some savior figure) redeems the world and thus God's creation of it.
+
Although Dostoyevsky himself may have felt much more comfortable with the position of Father Zozima, nevertheless he was able to successfully have Ivan show a moral rebellion.
  
−
*''Absolute'' evil is not actually real. Rather, it is only the condition of lack of goodness. William Hatcher's explanation is an example of this approach.
+
===Antitheodicy===
 +
The late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder wrote an unfinished essay entitled, "Trinity Versus Theodicy: Hebraic Realism And The Temptation To Judge God" (1996).<ref>John Howard Yoder, [http://theology.nd.edu/people/research/yoder-john/documents/TRINITYVERSUSTHEODICY.pdf Trinity Versus Theodicy: Hebraic Realism And The Temptation To Judge God.] Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref>  This can be understood as a subtle version of the ''ad hominem'' attack upon the problem of theodicy. He argues that "if God be God," then theodicy is an oxymoron and idolatry.  
  
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*Evil is relative to good; neither good nor evil could exist without both existing simultaneously.
+
Yoder is not opposed to attempts to reconcile the existence of a God with the existence of evil; rather, he is against a particular approach to the problem. He does not deny that "there are ways in which forms of discourse in the mode of theodicy may have a function, subject to the discipline of a wider setting." He is deeply concerned and engaged with the problem of evil; specifically, the evil of [[violence]] and [[war]] and how people resist it. Yoder's "case [is] against garden variety 'theodicy'"—in particular, theodicy as a judgment or defense of God.
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*[[Karma]]: Evil is caused by past bad deeds, either in one's current life or one's previous lives. It is only when this karmic chain of causation is broken that [[reincarnation]] ends.  This explains why an infant may be born into misery, due to actions that may have been perpetrated in previous lives.
 
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* [[Evolution]]ary theodicy, suggests that the plan that God has involves the elimination of all evil at the end of time, but that the means by which creation occurs always leads to the presence of evil in the interim.  This theory is linked to the evolution of God himself as present in the cosmos.
 
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'''Evidential arguments from evil''' seek to show that the existence of evil provides evidence for God's nonexistence, rather than implying the logical impossibility of God.  Philosophers arguing against this point of view often believe that deductively valid arguments based on assumptions of evil will not succeed or must rest on "dead" hypotheses.  Such philosophers frequently argue that it is simply impossible for one to know ''for sure'' which things are evil because of man's limited foresight.  The theist may always postulate some unknown, distant good that cannot be seen, and this will always be possible since there will always theoretically be something that God can know that we cannot.  For instance, although improbable, there could be some natural law in virtue of which any instance of suffering could cause some distant, unforseeable good to occur.  Hence, such philosophers focus instead on whether evil provides evidence for or against the existence of God. Their line of argument is: the existence of God may be logically compatible with the existence of evil, but the logical possibility of his existence does not mean that we are justified in believing that He does in fact exist. For such a belief to be justified, evidence is needed, and in the balance of evidence for and against the existence of God, the facts about evil weigh heavily on the negative side of the scales.  The classic proponent of this line of argument is William Rowe.
 
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===Relativity of goodness &mdash; evil is not absolute===
 
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A less well known approach has been that of the mathematical logician  [http://www.onecountry.org/e144/e14416as_Minimalism_Review.htm William Hatcher].  He has written about the problem of evil from a relational logic point of view.  Hatcher has argued that the problem may be resolved with a minimum of theological assumptions.  This is quite appealing because it does not tie the traditional problem to any particular brand of theology.  It is part of an approach to traditional philosophical problems that Hatcher calls Minimalism (not to be confused with the use of the same term in art and pop culture).
 
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Briefly, Hatcher uses relational logic to show that very simple models of moral value that include a minimalist concept of "God" cannot be consistent with the premise of evil as an absolute, whereas goodness as an absolute is entirely consistent with the other postulates concerning moral value. In Hatcher's view one can only validly talk about an act A being "less good" than an act B, one cannot logically commit to saying that A is absolutely evil, unless one is prepared to abandon other more reasonable principles. 
 
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===Human nature===
 
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Another, more subtle proposal is for God to alter human nature for the better. Now, talk of improving our nature immediately strikes us as coercive — surely, it would rob us our freedom as moral beings! But remember that we already have a nature, a bundle of tendencies that influences our choices. Now, the most ardent determinist must grant that human nature alone does not determine our choices. But the most ardent libertarian must in turn grant that our choices are significantly influenced by our natures. It is easier for a sociopath to kill a child than it is for the rest of us. It is easier for us to send money to help our children than to help complete strangers. This is true, even if ultimately we each have final say on our decisions. Now note that this human nature is flawed. We are disposed to be cruel and callous in many ways. The world might be a better place if humans shared a more virtuous and generous nature.
 
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But would it violate our freedom for God to have given us a better nature? Perhaps not. We might choose a kinder nature, if, for example, virtue came in pill form. We might wish it were easier for us to do good. This suggests that an improved nature may be ''in accordance'' with our free will, and not contrary to it. Moreover, if God exists, then surely he had a large hand in crafting human nature. As long as he's giving us ''some'' nature or another, why not shoot for a virtuous nature? If it's wrong to make humans virtuous, then why should it be less wrong to make humans corrupt?
 
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One salient theistic reply is that our corrupt nature is due to the [[Original Sin]] of the first human couple. Their free choice changed us for the worse, and for God to change us for the better would be to disrespect their free choice. But this reply raises too many troubling issues of its own. First, the wholesale corruption of mankind was, for Adam and Eve anyway, an unforeseeable consequence of Original Sin; one can no more allege that they truly chose human corruption than that [[Gavrilo Princip]] truly chose to plunge Europe into war. Big mistakes don't count as freely chosen outcomes. Second, even if Adam and Eve really did choose human nature for the rest of us, why should their choice count for so much? Don't the rest of us have a say? Invoking Original Sin only makes God look more and more morally confused.
 
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===God is not omnipotent or omniscient===
 
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The problem of theodicy exists only when one simultaneously holds that God is omnipotent (all powerful) and benevolent (all good). The problem of evil does not exist if one gives up any of these two beliefs.
 
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Some schools of the [[Kabbalah]] (esoteric Jewish mysticism) argue that the creation of the universe required a self-limitation on the part of God, and that evil is a consequence of God's self-imposed exile from the universe He created. In some readings of this theology, God has deliberately created an imperfect world. The question then arises as to why God would create such a world, and the standard response is to maximize human freedom and free will. Other readings of the same Kabbalistic texts one can hold that this is the best world that God could possibly create, and that God is not omnipotent. Given this reading, the problem of evil does not exist.
 
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In some theistic [[Unitarian Universalism]], in much of [[Conservative Judaism|Conservative]] and [[Reform Judaism]], and in some liberal wings of [[Protestantism|Protestant Christianity]], God is said to be capable of acting in the world only through persuasion, and not by coercion. God makes Himself manifest in the world through inspiration and the creation of [[possibility]], and not by [[miracle]]s or violations of [[Physics|the laws of nature]]. God relinquishes his omnipotence, in order that humanity might have absolute [[free will]]. In this view, the problem of evil does not exist.
 
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The idea of a non-omnipotent God was developed by philosophers [[Alfred North Whitehead]] and [[Charles Hartshorne]], in the theological system known as [[process theology]]. But process theology also dispenses with the notion of God as creator, and thus gets around the problem that the doctrine of God as Creator seems to imply that God is supremely powerful. Process theology thus is internally consistent: In its view God is not all-powerful, thus God cannot solve the problem of evil even if He wants to do so.
 
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In the [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical]] movement of some [[Protestant]] churches, [[Open Theism]] (also called ''Free Will Theism''), similarly asserts that God acts under His own power, but the future following truly free acts does not yet exist and therefore cannot be known even to an omniscient God.
 
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===Mackie and Plantinga===
 
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[[J. L. Mackie]], in his now classic article "Evil and Omnipotence", argued that human freedom is consistent with human perfection, and that God should have opted for both. Mackie asserts that human misconduct is a contingent matter&mdash;we can choose to do good or evil, with both alternatives being possible. He then asks us to imagine a world in which everyone always chooses good and never chooses evil&mdash;a virtuous and sinless world. Finally, he notes that God could have chosen to bring about any possible world, from the one that ''is'' actual, to a world in which people choose more wickedly, to the good world Mackie just described. So why not go with the good world? The only reply can be that, in choosing to bring about that world, God would thereby deny humans their freedom. But that can't be true. For if it were, then God would have denied us ''our'' freedom by bringing about the actual world. Bringing about a world in which people make choices is not freedom-cancelling, and so God should have brought about a world in which people make better choices. This argument is the seed of contemporary discussions of the [[logical and evidential arguments from evil|logical argument from evil]], which aims to show that theism and evil are logically incompatible.
 
−
 
 
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[[Alvin Plantinga]], in a response that has also achieved 'classic' status, answers Mackie. Plantinga's view is a version of the "free will defense." He argues that evil is consistent with God's existence, because there are some possible worlds that God cannot bring about. This seems curious enough, if we assume that God is omnipotent. Shouldn't he be able to bring about any possible world he wants? But Plantinga reminds us that there are always trivial limits on omnipotence&mdash;God can't make 2+2=5 or create a married bachelor. Plantinga's work extends these trivial limits to very non-trivial results.
 
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Step one: Plantinga proposes that there are logical truths&mdash;so-called "counterfactuals of freedom"&mdash;about our free choices in various possible situations, with one choice dictated for every situation. On Plantinga's example, where S is a situation in which Curley is free to take or refuse a bribe, it is either true that "If Curley were to be free in S, he would take the bribe" or "If Curley were to be free in S, he would refuse the bribe" (assume that exactly one can be true). These truths about what we would freely do in possible situations help make us what we are, and are timelessly and necessarily true&mdash;and so, crucially, out of God's hands. Consequently, if the first proposition is true (and Curley would take the bribe), then God cannot bring about the possible world in which Curley refuses the bribe. God can only bring about S and sadly watch Curley's freely chosen venality manifest itself, as timelessly reported by that unchangeable counterfactual of freedom.
 
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−
Step two: Plantinga argues for the possibility of a person who will sin at least once, no matter what situation God puts him in. Such a person suffers from so-called "transworld depravity". Though he ''can'' choose to do good in each situation, though it is ''possible'' that he does good in each situation, it is nevertheless true that he will choose to sin, a sad fact reported by his counterfactuals of freedom. And God can do nothing to bring about the sinless possible worlds&mdash;that's up to the sinner, who will, as a matter of fact, choose otherwise.
 
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−
We've arrived at the conclusion that perhaps even God cannot bring about Mackie's virtuous and sinless worlds. God may be omnipotent, but he can't change people's free decisions, and he can't change the fact that they will freely choose as they do. And if people will make nasty choices, then those possible worlds in which they choose good are beyond God's reach. Plantinga proposes that perhaps all persons suffer from transworld depravity, that perhaps the actual world, though not the best possible world, is the best one that God could bring about, if he is to respect the free choices of the creatures therein. Natural evil? Perhaps it's also the result of sinful actions&mdash;the actions of invisible, powerful moral agents like demons. And this scenario is one in which God's moral perfection is squared with having created a horrid world like our own.
 
−
 
 
−
Here another problem arises, related to God's claim (in many religions) that, after the end of the world, a paradise will be created where evil is defeated. The whole argument that God in his omnipotence could not create the "virtuous sinless world" described above seems to be contradicted by his own claim to plan to do this very thing! [[Heaven]] is the promised paradise of infinite bounty that fully matches the criteria of this virtuous sinless world. If such a world is not possible, then God is lying about the promise of Heaven. If such a world ''is'' possible, and God plans to make one world that way, why wasn't our world also made this way?
 
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−
One recent, friendly response to Plantinga is from [[Daniel Howard-Snyder]] and [[John O'Leary-Hawthorne]]. They claim that, to show the compatibility of theism and evil, Plantinga needs to support the possibility of his sketched scenario &mdash; it mustn't be reasonable to doubt its possibility. And they claim that the possibility of all persons being transworld depraved is unsupported. After all, there is another ''prima facie'' possibility, that all persons are in fact transworld sanctified (and so would do no wrong). Both 'possibilities' seem equally possible, and since they rule each other out, only one of them can be possible. Thus it is reasonable to doubt the possibility of either, and it is reasonable to doubt that Plantinga's scenario is possible; so it is reasonable to doubt that God really is consistent with evil. The two critics take to repairing Plantinga's argument, by replacing the "it is possible that" propositions with similar "for all we reasonably believe, it is possible that" propositions. The conclusion is then not that theism and evil are compatible, but that, for all we reasonably believe, theism and evil are compatible. The compatibility is not proven, but the incompatibility isn't reasonable, either. Mackie is still rebutted.
 
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Another, stronger challenge comes from [[Richard Gale]]. In Plantinga's scenario, God's decisions cause human behavior and the psychological makeup whence that behavior stems; consequently, Gale maintains, human freedom gets cancelled by God's decisions. Ironically, then, Plantinga's "free will defense" story is a story without human freedom. Now, as Gale notes, Plantinga's God can't change peoples' counterfactuals of freedom; the truth of these propositions is up to the relevant people. But, by Plantinga, God ''does'' decide which possible persons get actualized, knowing full well their counterfactuals of freedom; it's up to God who gets to exist and then do their stuff. Moreover, God crafts his creatures' psychological makeup, which in turn exercises significant influence over their decisions. This is freedom-cancelling, even if our psychology doesn't ''determine'' our decisions, for it makes God like a mad scientist who implants a test subject with new dispositions and preferences to make her more agreeable. And to decide who gets instantiated is to be a sufficient cause of what decisions get made, even if the persons themselves are sufficient causes in their own right. The result is that Plantinga's God is in charge of too much, robbing humans of their freedom. Or so Gale avers.
 
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In his book ''[[The Problem of Pain]]'' the literary critic and popular theologian [[C. S. Lewis]] called pain "God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world".
 
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===General problems with all theodicies===
 
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An argument that has been raised against theodicies is that, if a theodicy were true, it would completely nullify morality. If a theodicy were true, then all evil events, including human actions, can be somehow rationalized as permitted or affected by God, and therefore there can no longer be such a thing as "evil" values, even for a murderer (indeed, this is the basis of the [[moral argument from evil]], by [[Dean Stretton]] [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dean_stretton/mae.html]).
 
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===Hindu answers to the problem of evil===
 
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{{main article|Hindu answers to the problem of evil}}
 
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Hindu philosophers, especially those from the [[Vedanta]] school, have also attempted to craft solutions to the problem of evil. The whole notions of [[karma]] and [[reincarnation]] were possible explanations - that is, bad things happen to good people because they have been reincarnated in a lesser place due to their misdeeds in previous incarnations (which they cannot remember). [[Shri Madhvacharya]], with his beliefs of dualism, has crafted his own solutions to the problem of evil that persists in spite of an all-loving omnipotent supreme Being.
 
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===Existential Theodicy===
 
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So far we have considered philosophical and theological attempts to deal directly with the problem of theodicy. There is at least one additional approach that we might call an "existential" one. The best locus for such an approach occurs in Dostoyevsky's novel, ''The Brothers Karamazov'' and in various commentaries on that novel, especially that of Albert Camus in his book ''The Rebel''.
 
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The existential problem is whether rebellion against God may be preferable to union with God, even if this rebellion leads to damnation.
 
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==Natural Evil==
 
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Many philosophers make a distinction between what is usually called "moral evil" and what is usually called "natural evil." Moral evil is evil that results from human action and agency, and includes such thigs as murder, war, theft, rape, fraud, lying, and adultery. Natural evil is evil that does not involve human agency or choice, but results from what are sometimes called "acts of God." This includes natural events such as tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, volcanos, hurricanes, and other natural events that kill thousands of children and other innocent people. It also includes plagues and diseases such as smallpox, typhus, malaria, polio, influenza and other sicknesses that also kill thousands of people. The free will defense, if successful, works only for moral evils; it does not work for natural evils. Moreover, the attempt to explain natural evil by the fall of man or some other account of human depravity can be successful only if ''all'' natural evils come about in that way, but tha is implausible. Thus those who favor the free will defense almost always deny that natural evils are truly evil. In other words, they deny Statement 5 in dealing with natural evils.
 
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But denying that natural evils are really evil does not solve or respond to the suffering it brings about. We cannot confront a paralyzed, intellectually disabled, and blind [[Tay-Sachs disease|Tay-Sachs]] child and his despondent parents and then chalk up the entire wretched scenario directly to free will. No one chose it. Healing that child wouldn't obviously tread on anyone's freedom. Free will does not account for all the evil we observe, but only certain evil such as that we humans freely create&mdash;so-called 'moral evil'.
 
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The existence of natural evils implies that the creation made by God cannot be wholly good, at least not in any simple way. God must be responsible for at least some natural evil, and no attempted theodicy answers that problem well.
 
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==Anti-Theodicy and Ad Hominem Attacks==
 
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Some efforts to deal with the problem of theodicy amount to ''ad hominem'' attacks on those who attempt to raise and deal with the issue. Those attacks take some form of "Who are you, unworthy creature, to think that you have the ability or authority to challenge God and ask questions of or about Him in this way?" (Interestingly enough, the two places in the Bible where the problem of theodicy is dealt with directly, in ''Job'' 40 and 41, and in ''Romans'' 9: 14-21, the answers given are of that form, namely "You, human, are unworthy to question God and his ways; God is higher and more powerful than you and He can do as He pleases.")
 
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The late [[Mennonite]] theologian [[John H. Yoder|John Howard Yoder]] wrote an unfinished [http://web.archive.org/web/20030517030243/www.nd.edu/~theo/jhy/writings/philsystheo/THEODICY.htm essay] entitled "Trinity Versus Theodicy: Hebraic Realism And The Temptation To Judge God" (1996). This can be understood as a subtle version of the ad hominem approach to the problem of theodicy.
 
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Yoder argues that "if God be God" then theodicy is an [[oxymoron]] and [[idolatry]]. Yoder is not opposed to attempts to reconcile the existence of a God with the existence of evil; rather, he is against a particular approach to the problem. He does not "deny that there are ways in which forms of discourse in the mode of theodicy may have a function, subject to the discipline of a wider setting."  
 
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Yoder was deeply concerned and engaged with [[the problem of evil]]; specifically, the evil of [[violence]] and [[war]] and how we resist it. Yoder's "case [is] against garden variety 'theodicy' "&mdash; in particular, theodicy as a judgment or defense of God.
 
  
 
Yoder asks:
 
Yoder asks:
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*c) If you think you are qualified for that business, how does the adjudication proceed? [W]hat are the lexical rules?
 
*c) If you think you are qualified for that business, how does the adjudication proceed? [W]hat are the lexical rules?
  
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Yoder's argument is against theodicy, strictly speaking. This is the narrow sense [http://www-hl.syr.edu/depts/religion/braiterman.html Zachary Braiterman] mentions in ''(God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought'' (1998). He writes, "Theodicy is a familiar technical term, coined by the German philosopher [[Gottfried Leibniz|Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]] to mean 'the justification of God.' " In his book, Braiterman coins the term "antitheodicy" meaning "refusing to justify, explain, or accept" the relationship between "God (or some other form of ultimate reality), evil, and suffering."
+
Yoder's argument is against theodicy, strictly speaking. This is the narrow sense Zachary Braiterman mentions in his ''(God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought'' (1998). In this book, Braiterman coins the term "antitheodicy" meaning "refusing to justify, explain, or accept" the relationship between "God (or some other form of ultimate reality), evil, and suffering." He uses the term "in order to account for a particular religious sensibility, based (in part) on fragments selectively culled from classical [[Judaism|Jewish]] texts, that dominates post-Holocaust Jewish thought." Braiterman asserts, "Although it often borders on blasphemy, antitheodicy does not constitute atheism; it might even express stubborn love that human persons have for God. After all, the author of a genuine antitheodic statement must believe that an actual relationship subsists between God and evil in order to reject it; and they must love God in order to be offended by that relationship."
 +
 
 +
Two of the Jewish post-Shoah thinkers that Braiterman cites as antitheodicists (Emil Fackenheim and Richard Rubinstein) are also cited by Yoder. Yoder describes their approach as "the Jewish complaint against God, dramatically updated (and philosophically unfolded) since [[Auschwitz]] … The faithful under the pogrom proceed with their prayers, after denouncing [[Jahweh|JHWH]]/Adonai for what He has let happen." Yoder sees this as a valid form of discourse in the ''mode'' of theodicy but he claims it is "the opposite of theodicy."
  
−
Braiterman uses the term "in order to account for a particular religious sensibility, based (in part) on fragments selectively culled from classical Jewish texts, that dominates post-Holocaust Jewish thought." Braiterman asserts, "Although it often borders on blasphemy, antitheodicy does not constitute atheism; it might even express stubborn love that human persons have for God. After all, the author of a genuine antitheodic statement must believe that an actual relationship subsists between God and evil in order to reject it; and they must love God in order to be offended by that relationship."
+
==Assessment==
 +
Unlike the three types of traditional theodicies: 1) finitism, 2) despotism, and 3) the position that denies the reality of [[evil]], theodocies such as those of the [[Book of Job]], John Hick, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Kopf, and Kenneth Surin see no [[logic|logical]] contradiction between evil and a [[God]] of omnipotence and goodness, and shift the problem of evil to a different horizon. They still believe that God is omnipotent and good, while evil really exists. But, they seem to be able to address the problem evil more effectively because they come up with a path towards the eventual removal of evil and a more insightful understanding of the nature of God in terms of his love. Among them, however, Surin's approach is the most advanced one in the "practical" direction perhaps because Surin has taken Ivan Karamazov's [[morality|moral]] opposition to theodicy most seriously. To explain his move, Surin refers to the following comment from A. Boyce Gobson's ''The Religion of Dostoevsky'':<ref>Kenneth Surin, ''Theology and the Problem of Evil'' (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 104.</ref>
  
−
Two of the Jewish post-[[Shoah]] thinkers that Braiterman cites as antitheodicists ([[Holocaust theology#Emil Fackenheim|Emil Fackenheim]] and [[Holocaust theology#Richard Rubinstein|Richard Rubinstein]]) are also cited by Yoder. Yoder describes their approach as "the Jewish complaint against God, dramatically updated (and philosophically unfolded) since Auschwitz ... The faithful under the pogrom proceed with their prayers, after denouncing [[Jahweh|JHWH]]/Adonai for what He has let happen." Yoder sees this as a valid form of discourse in the ''mode'' of theodicy but he claims it is "the opposite of theodicy."
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<blockquote>Theoretically, Ivan's criticisms are unanswered: Alyosha, in particular, simply agrees with him: And Dostoevsky himself held them to be "irrefutable." The answer is to go forward from theory to practice: and Dostoevsky distinguished in the end between the yearning love which does nothing and submits, and the active love which has power to save.</blockquote>
  
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==Cacodaemony==
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Richard Kropf is another theodicist who takes Ivan Karamazov's moral opposition seriously. This illustrates how important it is for any theodicist to understand the agony and rebellion of opponents to theodicy. Any superficial theory might be blasted by those opponents. Interestingly, Surin and Kropf both speak of the suffering of God over the misery of humans in the world in which evil and suffering have emerged from their wrong choices of the will. God suffers because of his love. Hick and Plantinga may not talk about the suffering of God, but they at least speak of God's love, because of which God has given free will to humans, thinking that it is a greater alternative for the happiness of humans. All these seem to constitute new insights into the nature of God. Also, for Hick, Plantinga, Kropf, and Surin, the free will of humans does not mean that God is finite. God is still unquestionably omnipotent, although he may not be able to violate his own principle of love by which he has decided to give free will to humans. Alan Richardson, who served as the Dean of York in Northern England, greatly supports this point, when he says: "God is not limited by anything external to himself (as in dualism or pluralism)," although "God's power is limited by his own character of righteousness, truth and love."<ref>Alan Richardson, "Evil, The Problem of," in ''The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology,'' ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster press, 1983), p. 195.</ref>
  
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An extension is cacodaemony- attempts to reconcile the existence of good in the world with the assumption of an onnimalevolent omnipotent Demon. This was a philosophical exercise by [[Steven M. Cahn]] in his essay entitled "Cacodaemony." which, through the weakness of the concept of cacodaemony, the weakness of theodicy is underlined.
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Despite opposition to theodicy, there are arguments for the resolution of its core challenge. Humans are endowed with the free will required for the arising of genuine creativity and genuine love. This condition for an infinite horizon of joy has the shadow of "wrong choice" possibility. The prospect of "[[Redemption|redemption]]" and full [[self-realization]] ([[Sanctification|sanctification]]) recreates the arising of freedom and joy.  There are systems that reasonably envision an end to evil.
  
 +
==Notes==
 +
<references/>
  
 +
==References==
 +
*Braiterman, Zachary. ''(God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
 +
*Camus, Albert. ''The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt''. Translated by Anthony Bower. New York: Knopf, 1956.
 +
*Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. ''The Brothers Kamarazov''. Translated by David Magarshack. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958.
 +
*Eby, Lloyd. "The Problem of Evil and the Goodness of God." In ''Unification Theology in Comparative Perspectives.'' Edited by Antony J. Guerra. Barrytown, NY: Unification Theological Seminary, 1988.
 +
*Farrer, Austin. ''Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited''. New York: Doubleday, 1961.
 +
*Gibson. A. Boyce. ''The Religion of Dostoevsky''. London: SCM, 1973.
 +
*Griffin, David Ray. ''God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy''. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976.
 +
*Hartshorne, Charles. ''Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes''. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1984.
 +
*Hick, John. ''Evil and the God of Love''. London: Macmillan, 1966.
 +
*Hick, John. "The Problem of Evil." In ''The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.'' Edited by Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
 +
*Hoitenga, Dewey J., Jr. "Logic and the Problem of Evil." ''American Philosophical Quarterly'' IV (1967).
 +
*Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and John O'Leary-Hawthorne. "Transworld Sanctity and Plantinga's Free Will Defense." ''International Journal for Philosophy of Religion'' 44 (1998): 1-21.
 +
*Hume, David. ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion''. FQ Classics, 2007.
 +
*Kropf, Richard W. ''Evil and Evolution: A Theodicy''. London: Associated University press, 1984.
 +
*Mackie, J.L. "Evil and Omnipotence." In ''God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil.'' Edited by Nelson Pike, 46-60. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
 +
*McCloskey, H.J. "God and Evil." In ''God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil.'' Edited by Nelson Pike, 61-84. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
 +
*Madden, Edward H., and Peter H. Hare. ''Evil and the Concept of God''. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1968.
 +
*Madden, Edward H. "Evil and Inconclusiveness." ''Sophia'' XI (1972).
 +
*Penelhum, Terence. "Divine Goodness and the Problem of Evil." ''Religious Studies'' II (1966).
 +
*Pike, Nelson (ed.). ''God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil''. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
 +
*Pike, Nelson (ed.). "God and Evil: A Reconsideration." ''Ethics'' LXVIII (1958).
 +
*Plantinga, Alvin. ''God and Other Minds''. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967.
 +
*Richardson, Alan. "Evil, The Problem of." In ''The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology.'' Edited by Alan Richardson and John Bowden. Philadelphia, Westminster press, 1983.
 +
*Surin, Kenneth. ''Theology and the Problem of Evil''. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
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* [http://christiancadre.org/topics/evil_suffering.html Christian Cadre, Theodicy]
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All links retrieved April 30, 2023.
 +
 
 
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia: Problem of Evil]
 
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia: Problem of Evil]
 
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia: Leibniz on the Problem of Evil]
 
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-evil/ Stanford Encyclopedia: Leibniz on the Problem of Evil]
 
* [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/evil.html Evidential Arguments from Evil]
 
* [http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/evil.html Evidential Arguments from Evil]
 
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17147 Project Gutenburg: Leibniz, Theodicy (English translation)]
 
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17147 Project Gutenburg: Leibniz, Theodicy (English translation)]
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===General philosophy sources===
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*[http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
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*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
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*[http://www.bu.edu/wcp/PaidArch.html Paideia Project Online]
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*[http://www.gutenberg.org/ Project Gutenberg]
  
 
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Latest revision as of 17:55, 30 April 2023


Theodicy is a specific branch of theology and philosophy, which attempts to solve The Problem of Evil—the problem that arises when trying to reconcile the observed existence of evil in the world with the assumption of the existence of a God who is fully good (or benevolent) and who is also all-powerful (omnipotent). A "theodicy" also refers to any attempted solution to this conundrum.

Almost all traditional theodicies have attempted to logically solve the contradiction amongst the three points—the omnipotence of God, the goodness of God, and the real existence of evil—by negating or qualifying one or another of them. Hence, traditional theodicies are of three types:

  1. Denying or qualifying the omnipotence of God
  2. Denying or qualifying the goodness of God
  3. Denying the reality of evil

In recent years, new theodicies have appeared which take a different approach: Rather than trying to eliminate an uncomfortable contradiction, one can accept the contradiction between the reality of evil and a God who is both omnipotent and good, and view it as pointing to a path toward the actual removal of evil, or as revealing a deeper understanding of the nature of God, or both. For example, one might theorize that God, because of his love, has given humans free will through which they could make wrong choices and create evil, but has also given them, out of his omnipotence, the ability to use their free will to overcome evil, and that this path to grow to maturity through such a life of overcoming evil is the ultimate expression of God's goodness.

Origin of the term

The term theodicy comes from the Greek θεός (theós, "god") and δίκη (díkē, "justice"), meaning literally "the justice of God." The term was coined in 1710 by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in a work entitled Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal ("Essay of theodicy about the benevolence of God, the free will of man and the origin of evil"). The purpose of the essay was to show that the evil in the world does not conflict with the goodness of God, and that notwithstanding its many evils, the world is the best of all possible worlds.

The problem of evil

The problem of evil for theists consists in the existence of a contradiction amongst the following three statements or claims integral and central to them:

  • 1) That God is omnipotent
  • 2) That God is fully good (or loving, or beneficent)
  • 3) That evil and suffering exist in the world

For how can an omnipotent and fully good God create such an evil world?

If it can be shown that one or another of those statements is false, however, then the "problem" of contradiction disappears. Consequently, nearly all traditionally received theistic theodicies can be understood as attempts to reconcile those statements, arguing that one or another of those statements is false in some essential or important way. Therefore, there are three major types of traditional theodicies: 1) A first type, which denies or qualifies the omnipotence of God; 2) a second one, which denies or qualifies the goodness of God; and 3) a third type, denying or qualifying the reality of evil.

But, these received theodicies have been criticized more recently by some insightful thinkers. There are two points of criticism. First, these traditional theodicies are merely logical attempts to solve the contradiction of the three statements, without offering any real solution for the actual removal of evil; evil is still there. Second, when they merely attempt to logically solve the contradiction, their treatments of the omnipotence and goodness of God, whether they affirm or deny either of these divine attributes, are rather simplistic, external, and superficial, without being able to understand the nature of God any further. So, those who are critical towards the traditional types of theodicies go beyond the logical level of addressing the contradiction of the three statements; without even seeing any contradiction amongst the three statements, they rather attempt to find a solution on a different horizon, and their new solutions tend to be more insightful.

Three major traditional theodicies

The three major types of traditional theodicies are: 1) Finitism, which denies or qualifies the omnipotence of God in the context of dualism; 2) despotism, which denies or qualifies the goodness of God, because of its belief that God's absolute sovereignty lets him do evil things in the eyes of humans; and 3) a third kind, denying or qualifying the reality of evil.

Finitism: God is not omnipotent

Finitism denies or qualifies the omnipotence of God and says that the finite God cannot avoid evil. It takes various forms of dualism. Some religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism presented the cosmic dualism of God and Satan. Plato and Aristotle were of the metaphysical dualism of God (or Demiurge) and prime matter (or Receptacle), where God is finite because he must have recourse to prime matter for the constitution of the world. Nikolai Berdyaev and Alfred North Whitehead suggested the mystical dualism of God and Uncreated Freedom (or Creativity), where God is finite because of the pre-existent principle of Uncreated Freedom. The American Methodist philosopher Edgar Brightman suggested a unique kind of finitism with his internal dualism of form and matter within God, where his power is restrained because of form. Finitism sometimes entails the so-called "free will defense" of God (as in Berdyaev and Whitehead) because it gives free will to humans in the context of God's finitude. But this free will defense based on finitism is not the same as the more insightful free will defense proposed by the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga to be treated below.

Despotism: God is not fully good

This type of theodicy can be seen in staunch Calvinism, and it presupposes the absolute sovereignty of God. God is so sovereign that although he may be a good God in principle, he does not look fully good in actuality. For God is the active creator and instigator of all sin and evil, including the fall, using these as instruments to accomplish his plan. Satan, thus, is considered to have no power of his own but is merely God's puppet. An important part of staunch Calvinism is the belief in the absolute predestination of all things by God, that is, that nothing happens unless God actively makes something happen. Whatever is is right, as long as God wills it. So, there can be no such thing as a problem of evil. In this view, humans have no free will. But, they will still be held responsible for whatever sins they commit because God has decided to judge them by his laws.

Besides this Calvinist despotism, so-called "maltheism," the view that God is evil, also solves the problem of evil by attributing evil to God. But, maltheism is quite different from Calvinism because it says that God is simply evil himself without being necessarily despotic.

Evil is not real

  • Evil as "non-being"

The non-being theme of evil started from St. Augustine, who as a Neoplatonic Christian regarded all being as good, thus referring to evil as non-being. Critiquing the Manichean dualism, which he used to adhere to, he asserted that the universe, including matter and its unique creator, God, are unambiguously good. Evil, therefore, is non-being (non esse). It is the privation, corruption, or perversion of something that was previously or otherwise good. Evil has no substantial being in itself, but is always parasitic upon good. Evil entered the universe through the culpable free actions of otherwise good beings—angels and humans. Sin consisted not in choosing evil (because there was no evil to choose) but in turning away from the higher good of God to a lower good. Natural evils were held by Augustine to be consequences of the fall too, and thus also consequences of human or angelic free will. When one asks what caused man to fall, Augustine answers through his doctrine of "deficient" causation. In his view, there is no positive cause of evil will, but rather a negation of deficiency. Augustine seems to mean by this that free volitions are, in principle, inexplicable—free willing is itself an originating cause, with no prior cause or explanation.

This Augustinian definition of evil as the privation of good (privatio boni) can be seen also in St. Thomas Aquinas. It constitutes much of the Christian tradition on the subject of evil.

There are other ways of saying that evil is non-existent. According to Spinoza's pantheism, there is no evil in the world which is divine. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, regarded evil simply as illusion, echoing Hinduism and Buddhism. Using relational logic and not theology, Canadian Baha’i mathematician William Hatcher has argued that evil is not absolute but simply "less good" than good.

  • Aesthetic conception of evil

Augustine additionally held to what we can call the aesthetic conception of evil, and it can be still another important way of saying that evil is not real. It is a view derived from the principle of plenitude in Plato's Timaeus 41 b-c. That principle holds that a universe in which all possibilities are being realized—a universe containing lower and lesser, as well as higher and greater things—is greater than a universe that contains only the highest type(s) of things. Lower beings thus are not evil as such, but merely different and lesser goods. According to that view, what appears to be evil is such only when seen in an isolated or limited context, but when viewed in the context of the totality of the universe it is good because it is a necessary element in that good universe.

This was held less philosophically by many believers and theologians, such as John Calvin, who asserted that all events are part of God's righteous plan, and therefore although they may involve evil in themselves, they are intended by God for morally justified purposes.

Theodicies on a different horizon

The above three types of received theodicies are merely logical attempts to solve the contradiction amongst the three statements of the omnipotence of God, the goodness of God, and the reality of evil, by denying or qualifying one or another of them. But these theodicies cannot offer any real solution for the actual removal of evil; evil is still there. Also, they seem to treat God's attributes, such as divine omnipotence and goodness, rather simplistically and superficially, without being able to have any deeper insights into God's nature. All this is due to the logical nature of these theodicies.

Thinkers who do not want to stay with the logical level of removing the contradiction of the three basic statements, have attempted to find a solution at a different level. To them, the logical contradiction does not matter. They do not even see it. On a different horizon, they seem to be able to better understand the nature of God and seem to be able to better explain how evil is eventually removed.

The Book of Job: Evil as a mystery of faith

The theodicy of the Book of Job is a good start because it suggests that the apparent contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God should not be handled logically but faithfully. In spite of his initial complaint to the Lord and to his "comforters" that his sufferings have been inflicted on him unjustly, Job finally accepted the difficult situation by repentance and faith, when he was confronted by the overwhelming greatness and wisdom of God. This attitude of faithfully accepting it and not logically explaining it away can at least help open a new possibility of knowing the nature of God deeply, although the nature of God may yet to be revealed in Book of Job. Also, evil somehow disappears in the end: "And the Lord restored the fortune of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before" (Job 42:10).

John Hick: The world as vale of "soul-making"

The British philosopher of religion John Hick is not interested in any logical solution of the contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God. Instead, his starting point is his deeper understanding and conviction of God's love of agape expressed in the life and work of Jesus Christ. This love of God, says Hick, is supposed to be completely realized in our personal relationships with him eventually. The reality of evil should be interpreted in view of this eschatological realization of God's love. If so, the world in which people really experience moral and natural evil can help them to grow to reach a point at which the enjoy their personal relationships with God. Thus, the world is vale for "soul-making."

The process of growth might involve moral evil because humans are imperfect. But from its undesirable outcomes they can learn about becoming better through their more responsible decisions. They can eventually become perfect creatures without moral evil only by going through "a hazardous adventure in individual freedom."[1] And this freedom was given them because of God's love. Even the natural harshness of the environment apart from human sin was given to humans out of the love of God, so that they may be able to grow through hunting, agriculture, construction of shelter, and so on. This way, natural evil also will be gradually overcome. What is interesting is Hick's suggestion that if the eschatological goal of experiencing a personal relationship with God is not realized on earth, then it should be realized in the other world eventually.

According to Hick, his theodicy is of the "Irenaean" type, given the view of St. Irenaeus (c. 125-202 C.E.) that the pre-fall Adam was more like a child than a mature and responsible adult; that is, that Adam stood at the beginning of a long process of development because although he had been created in the "image" of God, he had to develop into the "likeness" of God.

Alvin Plantinga: The free will defense

According to the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga, it has never been shown logically impossible that God allows evil for a good purpose. So, there is no contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God. Plantinga thus accepts the omnipotence of God in his treatment of the problem of evil. Therefore, his free will defense, which says that God has endowed humans with free will, not only defends God from being held responsible for their evil choices; it also defends the omnipotence of God. So, Plantinga's position is to be distinguished from some versions of finitism (such as Whitehead's finitism) which give free will to humans to the neglect of divine omnipotence. What is important is his belief that there may conceivably be a good long-term purpose of God for which the evil choices of free humans are temporarily permitted. The purpose of God is to have "the greater good of having created persons with free will with whom he could have relationships and who are able to love one another and do good deeds," although there may possibly be their evil choices.[2] This seems to be a profound insight.

Plantinga's free will defense has been criticized by Antony Flew and J. L. Mackie, who argue that such a God is still responsible because he has not created the world in which free human beings always in fact freely make right choices, and that such a God, therefore, is not omnipotent. To this, Plantinga has responded that although there may be such a fantastic world as a possibility, there also may not possibly be any such world. For what happens in this world in terms of choosing evil would happen in any other possible world. Thus, humans suffer from what he calls "transworld depravity." Also, God is still omnipotent, because divine omnipotence does not include the power to do what is logically impossible.

Perhaps Plantinga's position may not give much hope for the eventual removal of evil. Hence, one recent, friendly response from Daniel Howard-Snyder and John O'Leary-Hawthorne regarding this, claiming that the possibility of all persons being transworld depraved cannot be supported. After all, there is another prima facie possibility that all persons are in fact transworld sanctified (and so would do no wrong). So, Plantinga's argument should be repaired in order to incorporate this other possibility as well.[3] Even so, Plantinga's original understanding of the reason why God has given humans free will in spite of possible evil can be appreciated.

Richard Kropf: Evil within an evolutionary natural order

Somewhat similar to Hick's position is the American Roman Catholic priest Richard Kropf's treatment of evil in the context of evolution, although Kropf adds at least two more things in the discussion: the suffering of God during the process of growth in the world and the eventual redemption of non-human parts of the world as well as humans. Kropf specifically criticizes the traditional theodicies, by saying that they failed because they "simplified the problem" by trying to only address the logical contradiction between evil and an omnipotent and good God. He, therefore, maintained four "stubborn factors" that cannot be denied:

  1. An omnipotent and good God
  2. The reality of evil
  3. Human freedom and responsibility
  4. The world in growth and evolution

These can all be related to one another without contradiction, if they are centered on a key notion: The process of evolution. This approach, according to him, helps to "unlock the secrets of reality, including the problem of evil, on a much broader scale."[4] It is in this context that he suggests a newer understanding of God, which is that the God of compassionate love suffers over the miseries humans go through as a result of their evil choices in their revolutionary process of growth. He also suggests to include non-human creatures as part of the eventual redemption of the whole cosmos through Christ.

Kenneth Surin: The "practical" approach

The British theologian Kenneth Surin is still another thinker to stay away from the traditional theodicies that merely "theoretically" explain away evil without being able to make "practical" efforts to remove it.[5] The traditional theodicies are usually based on their adherence to classical theism, and they use it to theoretically justify God in face of evil. Surin, however, follows the theologies of the cross of Dorothee Soelle, Jürgen Moltmann, and so on, and believes that the suffering of the God of love is revealed through the crucifixion of Christ and experienced by those who suffer from evil, and that this God is available not as an object of theodicy discussion but rather as a real help for the removal of evil. This does not mean that God is finite, but rather that Surin is suggesting a new definition of divine omnipotence that can also explain God's accessibility for people. Through inner conversion, people are encouraged to become like Christ who shows the suffering love of God. We should accomplish the practical task of overcoming evil through our Christ-like commitment to, presence in, and solidarity with, the victim of evil. Surin's approach is so advanced in a practical direction that it even criticizes the quite innovative theodicies of John Hick and Alvin Plantinga among others of being still very theoretical; and Surin specifically makes use of Ivan Karamazov's moral frustration in Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov to criticize Hick's theodicy of theoretically justifying evil for the purpose of "soul-making," although Hick's intention has been to emphasize the love of God.

Oppositions to theodicy

Antitheism: God does not exist

David Hume shows his celebrated antitheistic response in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). According to him, the reality of evil is undeniable because in the world, one can see "four circumstances" on which evil depends: 1) That pain motivates creatures to action; 2) that laws of nature cause collision, drowning, burning, and so on; 3) that humankind is so fragile for perseverance; and 4) that rain, wind, heat, and so on, in nature are excessive. This is logically "incomaptible" with an omnipotent and fully good God. So, one has to believe that God does not exist, instead of securing the justice of God. This is usually called the "logical argument from evil." It has been followed by philosophers such as J.L. Mackie and H.J. McCloskey, who reject all traditional theodicies.[6]

A little less straightforward than the logical argument is the "evidential argument from evil," which contends that evil is evidence against the likelihood of God's existence. According to William Rowe, for example, the fact of gratuitous evil, which is more than the necessary level of evil which is potentially useful for a good purpose, makes it unlikely that God exists.

Theodicy has a predetermined goal

Some have argued that the predetermined goal of theodicy (that of justifying the existence of God with the existence of evil) tarnishes any aspirations it might have to be a serious philosophical discipline because an intellectual pursuit having a predefined goal and pre-assumed conclusions cannot be deemed in any reasonable way to be methodical, scientific, or rational. Should one respect an inquiry whose goal is not to find out the truth, but to prove by any means possible that a particular thing reasonably doubted is true? Proceeding from the proposition to be shown to find a proof of that proposition invites confirmation bias on the part of the theorist.

Theodicy is immoral

One argument that has been raised against theodicy is that if theodicy were true, it would completely nullify morality.[7] If theodicy were true, then all evil events, including human actions, can be somehow rationalized as permitted or affected by God, and therefore there can no longer be such a thing as "evil" values, even for a murderer. Indeed, this is the basis of the "moral argument from evil" by Dean Stretton.[8]

Ivan Karamazov: Theodicy is morally difficult

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov,[9] Ivan vehemently challenges the legitimacy of theodicy by pointing out a number of cases of extreme and excessive cruelty in the world. Ivan accepts God's existence, purpose, and wisdom and understands the eternal harmony God plans to bring about eventually. But, he cannot accept the reality of too much cruelty and evil in the world: "I refuse to accept this world of God's… Please understand, it is not God that I do not accept, but the world he has created. I do not accept God's world and I refuse to accept it." One particular case of intolerable cruelty which Ivan mentions is that an army general let his hounds eat an eight-year old boy because the child had injured his favorite dog a little bit with a stone. Ivan's complaint is that if people including innocent children have to go through this kind of torturous suffering in the world so as to purchase eternal harmony in the future, it is entirely incomprehensible. Ivan concludes:

I don't want harmony… too high a price has been placed on harmony. We cannot afford to pay so much for admission. And therefore I hasten to return my ticket of admission… It's not Go that I do not accept, Alyosha. I merely most respectfully return him the ticket.

The devastating nature of Ivan's challenge for theodicy cannot be neglected. According to A. Boyce Gibson, "Henceforward, no justification of evil, by its outcome or its context, has been possible; Ivan Karamazov has seen to that."[10]

Ivan is not an atheist in the sense of being a person who finds it impossible to believe that there is a God. His real problem is the moral question of why people, including very cruel people, are content with the belief that God expects such an unthinkably terrible price to be paid for humanity's final salvation: "And what is so strange… is not that God actually exist, but that such an idea—the idea of the necessity of God—should have entered the head of such a savage and vicious animal as man."

In his comments, Albert Camus has noted that Ivan's rebellion goes beyond that of previous more-or-less individualistic rebels against God, goes beyond reverential blasphemy, and puts God himself on trial. Camus writes, "If evil is essential to divine creation, then creation is unacceptable. Ivan will no longer have recourse to this mysterious God, but to a higher principle—namely, justice. He launches the essential undertaking of rebellion, which is that of replacing the reign of grace by the reign of justice."[11]

Dostoyevsky's own response to Ivan's indictments is not a direct philosophical or theological argument, but occurs primarily in the contrast between the two priests in the novel: Father Ferapont and Father Zosima. In fact, Dostoyevsky himself saw Ivan's indictments and the accounts of the two monks as pro and contra on this issue of divine goodness or evil. Father Ferapont possesses the trappings of genuine religion and spirituality—fierce asceticism, fervent prayer, wearing chains under his robes to mortify his flesh—but nevertheless spreads discord and dissension among the monks. However, Father Zosima, although he does not exhibit those signs of spirituality of Ferapont, nevertheless spreads dignity, blessings, counsel to the ordinary people, and well-being to all. He has a strong sense of the mystery of faith, as well as good humor and good feeling for all. He recommends to Alyosha that he leave the monastery and marry, suggesting that he realizes that intimacy is one of the primary paths to good faith and true spirituality. Ivan goes mad in the end, but those who follow the way of life of Father Zosima undergo inner transformation to a higher state of consciousness and way of life.

Although Dostoyevsky himself may have felt much more comfortable with the position of Father Zozima, nevertheless he was able to successfully have Ivan show a moral rebellion.

Antitheodicy

The late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder wrote an unfinished essay entitled, "Trinity Versus Theodicy: Hebraic Realism And The Temptation To Judge God" (1996).[12] This can be understood as a subtle version of the ad hominem attack upon the problem of theodicy. He argues that "if God be God," then theodicy is an oxymoron and idolatry.

Yoder is not opposed to attempts to reconcile the existence of a God with the existence of evil; rather, he is against a particular approach to the problem. He does not deny that "there are ways in which forms of discourse in the mode of theodicy may have a function, subject to the discipline of a wider setting." He is deeply concerned and engaged with the problem of evil; specifically, the evil of violence and war and how people resist it. Yoder's "case [is] against garden variety 'theodicy'"—in particular, theodicy as a judgment or defense of God.

Yoder asks:

  • a) Where do you get the criteria by which you evaluate God? Why are the criteria you use the right ones?
  • b) Why [do] you think you are qualified for the business of accrediting Gods?
  • c) If you think you are qualified for that business, how does the adjudication proceed? [W]hat are the lexical rules?

Yoder's argument is against theodicy, strictly speaking. This is the narrow sense Zachary Braiterman mentions in his (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (1998). In this book, Braiterman coins the term "antitheodicy" meaning "refusing to justify, explain, or accept" the relationship between "God (or some other form of ultimate reality), evil, and suffering." He uses the term "in order to account for a particular religious sensibility, based (in part) on fragments selectively culled from classical Jewish texts, that dominates post-Holocaust Jewish thought." Braiterman asserts, "Although it often borders on blasphemy, antitheodicy does not constitute atheism; it might even express stubborn love that human persons have for God. After all, the author of a genuine antitheodic statement must believe that an actual relationship subsists between God and evil in order to reject it; and they must love God in order to be offended by that relationship."

Two of the Jewish post-Shoah thinkers that Braiterman cites as antitheodicists (Emil Fackenheim and Richard Rubinstein) are also cited by Yoder. Yoder describes their approach as "the Jewish complaint against God, dramatically updated (and philosophically unfolded) since Auschwitz … The faithful under the pogrom proceed with their prayers, after denouncing JHWH/Adonai for what He has let happen." Yoder sees this as a valid form of discourse in the mode of theodicy but he claims it is "the opposite of theodicy."

Assessment

Unlike the three types of traditional theodicies: 1) finitism, 2) despotism, and 3) the position that denies the reality of evil, theodocies such as those of the Book of Job, John Hick, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Kopf, and Kenneth Surin see no logical contradiction between evil and a God of omnipotence and goodness, and shift the problem of evil to a different horizon. They still believe that God is omnipotent and good, while evil really exists. But, they seem to be able to address the problem evil more effectively because they come up with a path towards the eventual removal of evil and a more insightful understanding of the nature of God in terms of his love. Among them, however, Surin's approach is the most advanced one in the "practical" direction perhaps because Surin has taken Ivan Karamazov's moral opposition to theodicy most seriously. To explain his move, Surin refers to the following comment from A. Boyce Gobson's The Religion of Dostoevsky:[13]

Theoretically, Ivan's criticisms are unanswered: Alyosha, in particular, simply agrees with him: And Dostoevsky himself held them to be "irrefutable." The answer is to go forward from theory to practice: and Dostoevsky distinguished in the end between the yearning love which does nothing and submits, and the active love which has power to save.

Richard Kropf is another theodicist who takes Ivan Karamazov's moral opposition seriously. This illustrates how important it is for any theodicist to understand the agony and rebellion of opponents to theodicy. Any superficial theory might be blasted by those opponents. Interestingly, Surin and Kropf both speak of the suffering of God over the misery of humans in the world in which evil and suffering have emerged from their wrong choices of the will. God suffers because of his love. Hick and Plantinga may not talk about the suffering of God, but they at least speak of God's love, because of which God has given free will to humans, thinking that it is a greater alternative for the happiness of humans. All these seem to constitute new insights into the nature of God. Also, for Hick, Plantinga, Kropf, and Surin, the free will of humans does not mean that God is finite. God is still unquestionably omnipotent, although he may not be able to violate his own principle of love by which he has decided to give free will to humans. Alan Richardson, who served as the Dean of York in Northern England, greatly supports this point, when he says: "God is not limited by anything external to himself (as in dualism or pluralism)," although "God's power is limited by his own character of righteousness, truth and love."[14]

Despite opposition to theodicy, there are arguments for the resolution of its core challenge. Humans are endowed with the free will required for the arising of genuine creativity and genuine love. This condition for an infinite horizon of joy has the shadow of "wrong choice" possibility. The prospect of "redemption" and full self-realization (sanctification) recreates the arising of freedom and joy. There are systems that reasonably envision an end to evil.

Notes

  1. ↑ John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (London: Macmillan, 1966), 201-3, 290-95.
  2. ↑ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Logical Problem of Evil. Retrieved December 16, 2007.
  3. ↑ Daniel Howard-Snyder and John O'Leary-Hawthorne, "Transworld Sanctity and Plantinga's Free Will Defense," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (1998): 1-21.
  4. ↑ Richard W. Kropf, Evil and Evolution: A Theodicy (London: Associated University press, 1984), p. 27.
  5. ↑ Kenneth Surin, Theology and the Problem of Evil (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
  6. ↑ J.L. Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence," and H.J. McCloskey, "God and Evil," in God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil, ed. Nelson Pike (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 46-84.
  7. ↑ Strong Atheism, The Immorality of Theodicies. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
  8. ↑ Dean Stretton, The Moral Argument from Evil. Retrieved December 16, 2007.
  9. ↑ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. David Magarshack (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1958).
  10. ↑ A. Boyce Gibson, The Religion of Dostoevsky (London: SCM, 1973), p. 176.
  11. ↑ Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, trans. Anthony Bower (New York: Knopf, 1956).
  12. ↑ John Howard Yoder, Trinity Versus Theodicy: Hebraic Realism And The Temptation To Judge God. Retrieved December 17, 2007.
  13. ↑ Kenneth Surin, Theology and the Problem of Evil (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 104.
  14. ↑ Alan Richardson, "Evil, The Problem of," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster press, 1983), p. 195.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

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  • Camus, Albert. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. Translated by Anthony Bower. New York: Knopf, 1956.
  • Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Kamarazov. Translated by David Magarshack. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958.
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  • Farrer, Austin. Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited. New York: Doubleday, 1961.
  • Gibson. A. Boyce. The Religion of Dostoevsky. London: SCM, 1973.
  • Griffin, David Ray. God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976.
  • Hartshorne, Charles. Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 1984.
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  • Hick, John. "The Problem of Evil." In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Paul Edwards. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
  • Hoitenga, Dewey J., Jr. "Logic and the Problem of Evil." American Philosophical Quarterly IV (1967).
  • Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and John O'Leary-Hawthorne. "Transworld Sanctity and Plantinga's Free Will Defense." International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 44 (1998): 1-21.
  • Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. FQ Classics, 2007.
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  • McCloskey, H.J. "God and Evil." In God and Evil: Readings on the Theological Problem of Evil. Edited by Nelson Pike, 61-84. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964.
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  • Madden, Edward H. "Evil and Inconclusiveness." Sophia XI (1972).
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External links

All links retrieved April 30, 2023.

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