Generic and Specific Problems of Evil

(A reader requested a post on evil.  I am happy to oblige.  The following has some relevance to the recent soul thread.  So I'll leave the ComBox open in case Peter L. or others care to comment.  As usual, the default setting for cyberpunk tolerance = 0.)

Suppose we define a 'generic theist' as one who affirms the existence of a bodiless person, a pure spirit, who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and who in addition is perfectly free, the creator and sustainer of the universe, and the ground of moral obligation. This generic theism is common to the mainstream of the three Abrahamic religions. Most theists, however, are not 'generic' but adopt a specific form of theism. Christians, for example, add to the divine attributes listed above the attribute of being triune and others besides. Christianity also includes doctrines about the human being and his ultimate destiny in an afterlife. Generic theism is thus an abstraction from the concrete specific theisms that people accept and live.

Now the point I want to make is that, just as we ought to distinguish between generic theism and specific theisms, we ought to distinguish between the generic problem of evil and specific problems of evil. The generic problem of evil is the problem faced by the generic theist of reconciling his belief in a God possessing the standard omni-attributes with the existence of evil in the kinds and amounts encountered in the actual world. A specific problem of evil, on the other hand, is the problem a specific type of theist has in reconciling the existence of God with the existence of evil.

We need to examine whether the problem a theist of a specific stripe has in reconciling God and evil is easier to solve or perhaps harder to solve than the problem a generic theist has.

To see what I am driving at, imagine a version of theism — call it version A — that affirms God, immortal souls, and the eventual blissful communion of all souls with God. On this version of theism there is purgatory, but no hell defined as a state of everlasting separation from communion with God. Thus on this version of theism there is post-mortem evil, the pain of purgatory, but this purgatorial evil is instrumental for the achieving of a higher good and is to that extent redeemed by this higher good.

Now compare this theism-A with a theism-B which affirms God but denies post-mortem existence whether in the form of immortal souls or in the form of resurrected bodies. On this alternative the God of the generic theist (defined above) exists, but for human beings this life is all there is: at death a human being ceases to exist utterly. Now does it not seem that the theist-B faces a much tougher problem than the theist-A when it comes to reconciling a good God with the fact of evil?

For the theist-B, the horrendous evils of this life are not compensated for by any life to come. One suffers pointlessly, meaninglessly.  But for the theist-A, the transient evils of this short life are as nothing compared to the endless bliss of the soul's communion with God and with other purified souls. Thus gratuitous evil for the theist-A is a vanishing quantity.

Most atheists share the very strong intuition that the probability of this world's containing the amount of evil it does is much greater on the hypothesis that God does not exist than it is on the hypothesis that God exists:

Prob(E/~G) >> Prob(E/G).

They take this as evidence that there is no God.  For if there were a God possessing the standard omni-attributes, why would there be the amounts of evil that we actually encounter?  But to properly evaluate this inequality, how can one leave out the rest of what most theists believe? The amount and kinds of evil in this world enters the calculation, no doubt. But the absence of gratuitous evil, and the presence of unending bliss in the next world, are also relevant if the question concerns reconciling God and evil within theism-A.

Here is an  analogy.  Some of us had rotten childhoods but are enjoying very good adulthoods.  Suppose Sam is such a person, now age 60.  Up to age 23 Sam's life was on balance not worth living; after age 23 it became worth living.  Suppose Sam claims that his life is overall rotten due to his lousy first 23 years.  You would point out to him that his judgment is ridiculous and unjust.  The quality of one's life overall depends on the whole of it, not just on part of it.  There is also the consideration that there is a surplus of value due to the life's going from bad to good, rather than in the other direction (bonum progressionis.)  Similarlry, a just evaluation of the value of life in this world cannot be based solely on what goes on in this world, but must also take into consideration what goes on in the next.

To sum up:

1. Real live theists are not generic theists, but theists of some particular stripe or other. Generic theism is an abstraction.

2. The problem of evil, if it is to be a genuine existential conundrum and not a mere logic puzzle, is the problem of reconciling the existence of the God of a particular religion with the fact of evil as evil is understood from within this religion.

3. A theism that affirms God, post-mortem existence, and the eventual unending blissful communion of all souls (or resurrected persons) with God does not face the same problem of evil as a version of theism which denies post-mortem existence.  The problem of evil for the former type of theist is much less serious than it is for the theist of the latter type.

4. It is dialectically unfair for atheists to argue against all (classical) theists from the fact of the evil in this world when (i) not all theists are generic theists, and (ii) some theists believe that the transient evils of this short life are far outweighed by the unending bliss of the world to come.

5. It is arguable that there is no insoluble problem of evil for theists-A. Suppose this world is a "vale of soul-making" (the phrase is from John Keats) in which human beings, exercising free will, make themselves worthy, or fail to make themselves worthy, of communion with God. Combine this soul-making idea with post-mortem existence, and the existence of purgatory but not hell, and we have perhaps the elements of a solution to the problem of evil. (Cf. John Hick, Evil and the God of Love, Part IV)

Let me conclude by noting that a theism-C which holds to eternal damnation for some may exacerbate the problem of evil. Here I refer you to David Lewis' posthumous "Divine Evil" in Louise Antony, ed., Philosophers Without Gods, Oxford 2007, pp. 231-242. Lewis, may God rest his soul, maintains that the usual logical and evidential arguments from evil are a "sideshow" compared to a "simpler argument, one that has been strangely neglected" (p. 231) that focuses not on the evils that God fails to prevent, but on the one's he perpetrates. And then he goes on to speak of hell and eternal torment. You can guess what conclusion he comes to.

We shall have to examine Lewis' simpler argument from evil in a separate post. But I am happy that he in effect concedes one of my points, namely, that a serious discussion of the problem of evil must address the whole of a theistic position and not focus merely on God and his attributes.

Comments

[bgc]

Some clarifying analysis here, thanks.

On complication of the 'vale of soul making' idea, which first struck me in C.S. Lewis's Screwtape letters, is that throughout most of history it was (maybe still is) statistically unusual for someone to live their three score years and ten. Many or most people died around childbirth, in childhood and before sexual maturity - i.e. before having a chance to benefit from soul making.

This fact seems to have weighed much more heavily upon early thinkers than it does upon moderns (influencing e.g. the question of at what age baptism should happen) but it does require some analysis to understand, and I'm not sure that I do really understand it in terms of the 'plan of salvation'.

[Bill Vallicella]

BGC,

You're welcome. I hope you find equally clarifying my remarks on your atheism-as-a-delusion argument, which is the next post in line.

As John Keats sets forth the vale of soul-making idea, those who die at or near childbirth are reabsorbed into the Godhead: they never become individuals. Hence they do not end up in limbo (limbus infantium, to be precise) or any such 'place.' See here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm

One of the many advantages of blogging is that one meets interesting and intelligent people such as yourself. Happy New Year.

[bgc]

Thanks - that online Catholic Encyclopedia looks like a really good resource.

I found the orthodox Thomistic explanation fine, so far as I could tell, although I also found it surprising. It was surprisingly similar to the Mormon idea of an intermediate 'heaven' for good unbelievers - the terrestrial kingdom - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_glory.

Keats's idea sounds a bit unorthodox - rather animistic, like the recycling of a finite number of souls apparently characteristic of hunter gatherer spirituality - http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/animism.html. I suspect that Keat's idea of resorption of the infant soul must inconsistent with something important somewhere along the line...

My interest here is in answering the general question of 'what is the point of mortal life?' in a brief and approximate way that is relatively simple and self-contained.

[Courtmerrigan.wordpress.com]

In the spirit of Samuel Johnson's refutation of Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Vallicella says,

"It is arguable that there is no insoluble problem of evil for theists-A. Suppose this world is a "vale of soul-making" (the phrase is from John Keats) in which human beings, exercising free will, make themselves worthy, or fail to make themselves worthy, of communion with God. Combine this soul-making idea with post-mortem existence, and the existence of purgatory but not hell, and we have perhaps the elements of a solution to the problem of evil.";

and I refute it thus:

http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/ultimate_in_unfair.htm

[Bill Vallicella]

Court,

You are a nice guy, but please don't waste my bandwidth with stupid stuff like this. The ComBox is for serious discussion of serious questions by serious people. It is not a place for the incompetent or the unserious to spout off. You did not address anything I said in my carefully composed post. If you want to know what a good comment looks like, read the comments of Peter Lupu. He disagrees with me on many points, but he knows how to do it.

Anyone who thinks that Samuel Johnson refuted Bishop Berkeley is an idiot as I explained in an earlier post, an explanation which apparently was lost on you. As a literary writer you have picked up a few cliches from the history of philosophy, but you have no understanding of philosophy.