Problem of Evil Good, Evil,

Problem of Evil

Good, Evil, and the Knowledge Thereof

The divine nature of God is often described in superlatives: all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving. However, while these attributes can be logically consistent with the world we experience when we consider them in isolation, they can become problematic in combination. The so-called "problem of evil" is a good case in point. It is relatively easy to imagine an entity that can instantaneously realize its every desire or one that is motivated by perfect benevolence. In each case, we can simply start with the world of experience and define the will or the goodness of God on its terms so that every aspect of our lives either demonstrates the perpetual force of divine omnipotence or reveals the ongoing grace of divine love.

The problem arises when we contemplate God as the convergence of multiple superlative attributes. If God is the all-powerful divine power of deistic or pantheistic approaches, then what we consider "evil" exists because God chooses to hurt us -- but if God is the all-benevolent ethical absolute of conventional Christianity, then evil exists in opposition to divine will. Positing both at once generates the appearance of a logical contradiction. In theory, independent evil could exist if an omnipotent and good God were unaware of it, but this then negates the common assumption that divine knowledge is perfect.

Common responses to this apparent dilemma tend to reject either the reality of evil or the reality or God. However, denying evil is often unsatisfactory in itself unless we can entirely discount our encounters with pain, illness, sorrow, and cruelty or explain them away (that is, to clarify our definitions) as disguised forms of some greater good. This strategy generates a wide range of theological stances from the gnostic conviction that creation is fundamentally opposed to the divine order to various attempts to interpret present unhappiness as the necessary wellspring of a greater future good. If all falls are "lucky," then we truly live in the best of all possible worlds.

While we may avoid accusations of Candidean naivete by announcing that "God" must not exist, this all-or-nothing stance lacks rigor. The persistence of evil is incompatible with certain ideas of God, but in itself this only indicates that our ideas are imperfectly refined. At its best, this approach deepens our definitions of the divine and how it interacts with both our logical systems and our lives.

Perhaps, for example, God is perfectly benevolent but has voluntarily accepted constraints on divine omnipotence in order to express this perfect love in a more sophisticated way -- we could call one such constraint "free will" and assign it responsibility for various forms of evil. Or perhaps God's omnipotence, extent, and/or benevolence, while profound, are still approaching perfection, in which case evil reveals the as-yet-unfinished process of refining human nature, creation, or both. Or perhaps God transcends human reasoning and so apparent contradictions like the existence of what we would consider evil ultimately have no bearing at all on divine nature.