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God Must Be Evil
A philosophical look into the problem of evil
By: Sarah Cordoba
PHIL-1000-009
Jeffrey Wood
7/28/2011
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The problem of evil is one which has plagued philosophers since the fourth century BC.
How can God and Evil both exist in the world? To be able to understand this question we must
first gain knowledge of what evil is. Evil is often defined as something that is immoral or
categorically bad, but can also be defined as suffering or pain. For the purpose of
understanding the problem of evil it is best to think of evil in the latter context, or even more
specifically as needless suffering. The second key to understanding the problem of evil is to
understand the concept of God. The concept of God has three parts, God is omnipresent or all
knowing, God is omnipotent or all powerful, and God is omnibenevolent or all good. Knowing
these three things about God, combined with the definition of evil as suffering gives us the
basis of the problem of evil.
The problem of evil is assumed to be a logical one. Logically God cannot be all three of
those things (tri-omni) and still allow needless suffering in the world. In the book 2000 Years of
Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt James Haught quotes the ancient Greek
philosopher, Epicurus, as saying “Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but
does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to,
he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the
world?” This quote seems to best summarize the problem of evil, although it seems to leave
out the possibility that God doesn’t know of the evil in the world, in which case he is not
omnipresent. To better understand, we can look at this as an equation consisting of four
statements: God is all knowing. God is all powerful. God is perfectly good. And evil exists.
Logically if three of these statements are true, the fourth cannot be. For example, if God is all
knowing, all powerful and evil exists then God mustn’t be perfectly good or he would not allow
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evil to exist. Our reasoning tells us that all four statements cannot be true at the same time;
this is (in essence) the problem of evil.
The seemingly simplest solution to the problem of evil involves expulsion of at least one
of the contradicting parts of the problem. If we were to say God doesn’t exist, then we would
have no problem of evil. Contrarily we could say evil doesn’t exist, and again our problem
would go away. It is also possible to discard the problem by abandoning the thought that God
is a tri-omni being. The problem with these solutions is that they aren’t solutions at all, they
don’t do anything to solve the problem of evil, they simply take away an aspect of the problem
thus eliminating the contradiction of the problem and thereby eradicating the problem itself.
In looking for a solution to the problem we must hold that the problem itself exists. For the
problem of evil to exist we must conclude that God not only exists, but exists as a tri-omni
being, and that evil also exists. As we are looking for a solution to the problem of evil, and not
merely trying to eradicate the problem, we will hold these conclusions as self evident truths.
Alvin Plantinga came up with a solution to the problem of evil that does not involve
denying the existence of any of its components. This is often referred to as Plantinga’s free will
defense, as the basis for the argument rests in the human capacity of free will. “God’s creation
of persons with morally significant free will is something of tremendous value. God could not
eliminate much of the evil and suffering in this world without thereby eliminating 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” (Beebe 2003, online). The free will Plantinga
refers to is morally significant free will, which varies from the basic definition of free will- being
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one’s ability to make a choice. Plantinga’s center argument is that God chose to give us morally
significant free will, rather than a world free of evil. Morally significant free will is the ability to
act upon a choice that involves morality. We can think of this as a person being faced with
three choices, two are morally good and the other morally bad. In morally significant free will
the person has the ability choose any of the options, be it good or bad. If there were an all
good world (free of evil) where the person did not have the ability to choose the morally bad
option, then this would not be considered morally significant free will as the person is now
choosing between 2 morally right choices. The person still has free will and the ability to
choose, but it is no longer a morally significant choice. Plantinga believes that people are fully
free and morally responsible for their actions and conditions. (Beebe 2003, online)
Plantinga is not arguing that God allows evil to exist in our world, but instead that God
allows free will to exist in our world. In fact he has said, “… we cannot see why our world, with
all its ills, would be better than others we think we can imagine, or what, in any detail, is God's
reason for permitting a given specific and appalling evil. Not only can we not see this, we can't
think of any very good possibilities. And here I must say that most attempts to explain why God
permits evil — theodicies, as we may call them — strike me as tepid, shallow and ultimately
frivolous” (Tooley 2009, online). If God does not permit evil to exist, but permits free will to
exist, by trying to abolish evil he would be taking away fully free will. This is to say that God
knows of evil (omnipresent), could act upon it (omnipotent), but chooses not to because taking
away morally significant free will would be worse. So God is still choosing the best (most good)
option and is therefore still omnibenevolent. So we now have a solution in which God exists as
a tri-omni being, evil still exists, and there is no logical contradiction.
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This solution, naturally, is not completely sound- otherwise it would be generally
recognized as the only solution and the problem of evil would no longer exist. The biggest hole
in Plantinga’s argument is he fails to address the problem of free will. The problem of free will
being that if we are all made of natural substances (such as atoms), and all natural substances
follow the laws of nature, then does free will exist at all? Or are we predetermined to choose
the choices we make and we could never have made the opposite choice, because we are
merely following the laws of nature? I suppose Plantinga would assume that free will does
exist, but it seems to me that’s a very crucial piece of his argument that is missing.
Another issue with Plantinga’s solution is that not all evil is a result of free will. He does
not address at all any type of natural suffering. Cancer for instance, causes pain and suffering
but is not the direct effect of someone’s freewill. It is a natural occurrence that I’m sure would
be considered evil, however does not seem to relate at all to Plantinga’s free will defense. If
God is allowing free will and that is why we have evil, then how do we explain suffering like
cancer?
Perhaps the most significant of the limitations to this proposed solution stems from the
definition of good. If God chose to create a world with morally significant free will, rather than
a world free from evil, how can we determine s/he made the right choice? Plantinga says free
will carries tremendous value, and that having persons with free will is a greater good than
eliminating evil (Beebe 2003, online), but can we be certain it is for the greater good? God is
omnipresent so s/he should know what is for the greater good, but how is good defined? When
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there are two choices and both are good, where does one draw the line of more good vs. less
good?
Although solutions have been offered to the problem of evil, one solution that satisfies
all has not been found and thus it remains a problem today. How can an all knowing, all
powerful, perfectly good God allow evil to exist in the world? There may never exist one
answer to that question, perhaps the question itself is completely subjective. For some, who
don’t believe in God or in evil, the question does not even pose a problem and is completely
inconsequential. For others the question may bring doubt to their former beliefs and faith. And
for still others it may strengthen their resolve in their religion. Until the question has the same
significance and meaning to all people any answer will not satisfy the masses and a solution will
not be reached.
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Works Cited
Beebe, James R. “Logical Problem of Evil.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 August 2003. Web. 04
August 2011. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/evil-log/#H4>
Tooley, Michael. “The Problem of Evil.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2009. Web. 04 August
2011. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/#Arg>