“The problem of evil” — A theistic reconciliation.
“If God exists, why does evil exist?”
The above question is a question that has been thought out by many great philosophers and have tried to solve this so called “paradox”. There are several answers to this posed question. However there is also a hidden presupposition that needs to be rectified before attempting to answer this.
Many theists are caught off guard by this question and start to try and answer this question. Many fail to realize that this so called “paradox” that is posed by non theists is based on the false premise that somehow the existence of evil and the existence of God is a paradoxical concept, a mere contradiction. However, from a theist perspective, there is no paradox. Hence why theists sometimes can have trouble answering this question, and the mistake they mostly make is that they start to attempt to solve a paradox that does not exist to begin with in the context of their world view without addressing the fact that in their world view, this isn’t a paradox. However, by attempting to solve this posed question without addressing the false premise the questioner has, you have subconsciously given in to an argument that isn’t a valid argument. By attempting to solve and answer this question, you have half way entertained the idea of the existence of God and evil are a paradox. Despite that, we can answer the question while keeping in mind, that even if all the answers do not suffice, the question posed as a paradox, is simply semantics and is not much of a paradox. We can address this supposed paradox (we will call it paradox for the sake of this discussion).
“Free will”
Good and evil in the world is a result of human beings, not necessarily God. Although yes, God is the creator of all things we do, that does not change the fact that the evil that exists in this world is a result of human beings choosing to commit evil, that merely exist. The question of why God does not simply take away evil and intervene when a man is robbing a store by having a lightning strike him is basically asking why does God not simply take away our free will. However, should this happen, we human beings would not be humans. We humans would be merely in a vegetative state basically being forced to make decisions, almost like programmed robots. This will simply take away our free will and will reduce life to being meaningless. After all decisions in life and free will is what makes us who we are.
Theists affirm that life is a test, and just like a test in a school in a multiple choice question, the examiner gives you both the wrong and the right answers. You are free to choose the answer, but if you ask the examiner for all the answers and if he/she gives you all the answer, the test becomes meaningless. Similarly, in real life, the right and the wrong has been distinguished, you are to choose. By taking away your free will (equivalent to an examiner giving you all the answers) your life becomes meaningless., just like the test for which you are given the answer keys.
“The value of doing good”
What makes good, in fact good, and bad, in fact bad? The reason one is even able to ask the question “if God exists then why does evil exist?” is because of the fact that both evil and good exist. Without evil, you would lose the value “goodness” has as you would be deprived of a measuring stick to differentiate between the two. A man who has only seen a straight line his whole life, will never know that the line itself is defined as “straight” unless he has some reference as to what a crooked line is.
The difference in morality of earning a living through permissible and ethical means has value not necessarily only because of the act itself, but also because the opposite of earning a living honestly, is stealing. In comparison, the latter is obviously an immoral thing to do. The issue is, without one, the other loses it’s “value” and it’s weight that it carries. Compare this with the act of turning the TV on. The act of turning on the TV does not exactly hold any value in terms of a “moral landscape”. The act of turning the TV on is merely an act which does not have any “moral weight”. It holds neither a virtues value nor an evil one. This is how all our deeds would be internalized in a world where evil did not exist, and only goodness existed or vice versa.
“Evil is only what the human intellect can perceive as evil”
There was a story of a girl who could not feel pain as her nervous system did not allow her to do so. Here, “pain” in isolation may seem something negative (evil in a sense). However given the context and the purpose of such an existence known as “pain”, we can see the function it serves. A painful response plays a roll to alert us of the greater harm that we could be causing to ourselves. This theory may not sit will with someone but I like to call it the “divine wisdom” theory. The purpose of this is to illustrate the fact that every occurrence has a reason behind it, we may or may not know about. The future is inconceivable and the wisdom of God being infinite having no beginnings and no ends, evil can sometimes have future context that us humans stuck in the paradigm of time may not be able to understand.
“If everything has a divine purpose, including evil, then why stop evil from achieving it’s purpose?”
This is not to say that we pass on every evil with that excuse, neither is this an excuse to brush off evil under the carpet. The purpose of this is to contemplate the idea that the existence of evil does not have to contradict the idea of existence of God.
In fact, we act to stop such evil acts because they are in fact evil, and cause obvious harm (going back to my point about value of evil) because we can determine due to the existence of both good and evil, what is the case and what ought to be the case since we human beings can only judge by what is apparent. This act is part of what we, as humans should do and use our free will to do so. We human beings do not know the future or what the divine wisdom is, however this brings me to the divine command theory of moral ethics. We prevent evil because we know that preventing evil is a good thing and that is part of, for theists, what is a command to do.
In light of that, the question of “If everything has a purpose, and evil that happens has a purpose, shouldn’t we let evil happened as trying to evade that evil will deter the divine purpose from being achieved”? This stems from the point of view of someone who denies the existence of God. For theists, there is no contradiction between evil happening, and doing good to prevent that evil while simultaneously affirming that everything, including evil, may have divine purposes which we may or may not know of. The reason this objection comes up from the non theist side, is due to the unbelief. The answers given above are meant to show that the the idea of God and evil in this world existing is not contradictory and it is consistent within the paradigm of theism. From an atheistic world view, such a question may very well make sense, but not from a theistic point of view. So in order to understand theistic answers, you have to evaluate them in context of theism.
Overall these are simply attempts of answering questions to the problem of evil. To conclude, the “problem of evil” is not much of a problem, in the sense, within the paradigm of theism, existence of evil is not an inconsistency.
