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Evil and divine sovereignty

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Abstract

Since at least the tenth century, some theists have argued that God’s sovereignty as creator exempts God from moral evaluation, and so any argument employing moral principles or the idea of God as morally perfect is fallacious. In particular, any argument contending that the occurrence of pointless evil presents strong evidence against the existence of God is flawed, as God morally owes his creation nothing. This appeal to divine sovereignty, however, fails to rescue any theistic tradition proclaiming that God loves humans, as no one would be indifferent concerning the pointless suffering of her beloved.

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Notes

  1. Set aside the issue of God existing in all possible worlds if God exists in any.

  2. Understanding a necessary evil as an evil that God must permit it in order to bring about a greater good, or to prevent a worse or equally bad evil from occurring. An evil is pointless just in case it is not necessary.

  3. See the various essays in Skeptical Theism: new essays, eds. T. Dougherty & J.P. McBrayer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

  4. See Peter van Inwagen’s essays, “The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: A Theodicy” Philosophical Topics 16/2 (1988): 161–187; and “The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence” Philosophical Perspectives 5, Philosophy of Religion ed. J. Tomberlin, (1991): 64, n. 11.

  5. William Hasker presents an argument something like this. See his Providence, Evil and the Openness of God (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 58–79.

  6. See Rowe, Philosophy of Religion: an introduction (Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2007, 4th edition), 119–120. See also, William Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 335–341.

  7. Rowe offered at least four different principles seeking to bridge the gap between (P) and (Q). The first was a simple inductive generalization principle—since all the Xs we have observed have property F, probably every X has F (see “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” pp. 337–338). The second was a “patient-centered” principle—God would allow a person to suffer only if that person shares in the greater good produced by the suffering, and would know this (see his 1986 essay, “The Empirical Argument from Evil” in Rationality, Religious Belief, & Moral Commitment: new essays in the philosophy of religion, eds. R. Audi & W.J. Wainwright (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986): 244). The third was a version of Phenomenal Conservativism—things probably are as they appear to be throughout a multitude of observations by different observers over an extended period, unless we have a positive reason to believe otherwise—(see “The Empirical Argument from Evil,” 244). The fourth and last was the “loving parent” analogy (see note 9).

  8. William Rowe, “Friendly Atheism, Skeptical Theism, and the Problem of Evil” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 59 (2006): 89. For additional employments of the “loving parent” analogy, see Rowe’s “The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look” in The Evidential Argument from Evil, ed. D. Howard-Snyder (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 275–277. Also see his “Skeptical Theism: a response to Bergmann” Noûs 35 (2001): 299–302. And see Rowe’s “Grounds for Belief Aside, Does Evil Make Atheism More Reasonable than Theism?” in God and the Problem of Evil, ed. W.L. Rowe (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009), pp. 130–32.

  9. For a critique of the “loving parent” analogy as a way of bolstering the evidential argument, see Jeff Jordan, “The Loving Parent Analogy” The International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 82/1 (2017): 15–28.

  10. See Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” 337.

  11. This point is due to an anonymous referee.

  12. It is of no relevance to the argument that our example has Jones causing the suffering of Smith. We could just as well invoke a more complicated example in which Jones is just a bystander, who could intervene to stop another from causing Smith needless suffering, but does not.

  13. A natural moral duty is a moral duty one has by virtue of the kind of being one is. There are also moral duties that one has by virtue of freely engaging in certain activities such as making promises, or entering into contracts. See Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 158, for an assertion of (A) in contemporary philosophy.

  14. Brian Davies contends that Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of what we have called the sovereignty strategy. See his Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Davies himself is also a proponent. See his “Is God a Moral Agent?” in Whose God? Which Tradition?: the nature of belief in God, ed. D.Z. Phillips (London: Routledge Press, 2008), pp. 97–122.

  15. The Theology of AL-Ash’ari, trans. R.J. McCarthy (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1953). Question 170, page 99.

  16. The Theology of AL-Ash’ari, Q169, p. 99. One might wonder if God could lie given Al-Ash’ari’s theory of divine commands. Al-Ash’ari held that there is no moral prohibition against lying that binds God, but that God’s nature precludes lying. See The Theology of AL-Ash’ari, Q172, p. 100. It was not just Ash’arites who held that a perfect being owed humans nothing and could therefore inflict eternal pain on a child. For example, in Pensées 131, Pascal held that:

    It is, however, an astounding fact that the mystery furthest from our ken, that of the transmission of sin, should be something without which we can have no knowledge of ourselves… What could be more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than the eternal damnation of a child, incapable of will, for an act in which he seems to have so little part that it was actually committed 6000 years before he existed?

  17. On the notion of the defeat of good, see R. Chisholm, “The Defeat of Good and Evil” in The Problem of Evil, eds. M. McCord-Adams & R.M. Adams (NY: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 53–68. A proponent of a thoroughgoing divine command theory might deny that anything other than God is intrinsically good or evil.

  18. God could not create a horrid world if standard theism were true.

  19. Adams, “Ignorance, Instrumentality, Compensation, and the Problem of Evil” Sophia 52/1 (2013): 16. See also her Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, pp. 158, and 192; and her “A Modest Proposal: Caveat Emptor! Moral theory and problems of evil” in Ethics and the Problem of Evil, ed. J. Sterba (Indiana University Press, 2017), p 24.

  20. Adams, “Ignorance, Instrumentality, Compensation, and the Problem of Evil,” 17; and “A Modest Proposal: Caveat Emptor! Moral theory and problems of evil,” 22.

  21. Adams, “Ignorance, Instrumentality, Compensation, and the Problem of Evil,” 24.

  22. See her “What Wideness, Whose Strictness? The Scope and Limits of Divine love for Humankind” in Love, Human and Divine: Contemporary Essays in Systematic and Philosophical Theology eds. J. Arcadi, O. Crisp, & J. Wessling, (T&T Clark Publishers, 2019), pp. 125–126. See also her Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, pp. 21, 31, 155.

  23. Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, p. 29.

  24. As others have noted, it is not obvious that compensation is morally sufficient for allowing nonconsensual pointless evils.

  25. See Adams’ discussion of the idea of divine gratitude in Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, pp. 162–164.

  26. Mark C. Murphy, God’s Own Ethics: norms of divine agency and the argument from evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). On page 108, Murphy seems to accept that creaturely suffering is intrinsically bad. In fact, he does not.

  27. Murphy, p. 49.

  28. Murphy, p. 58.

  29. Murphy, p. 59.

  30. Murphy, pp. 105 & 168.

  31. Murphy, pp. 71–72, 77, 194–195, footnote 10.

  32. Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” p. 337.

  33. Murphy, p. 105.

  34. Could preventing suffering, even if not a moral duty, be a supererogatory act on the part of God, such that a world in which God prevents suffering even though he need not is better than a world in which God fails to prevent suffering?

  35. Might God have Interests (projects or goals) that take precedence over God’s preventing or mitigating the suffering of humans? Might some event that advances a divine interest be bad for some human? For all we know—sure. However, suffering allowed in order to advance a divine project or goal would not be pointless suffering.

  36. Re-tasking Rowe’s evidential argument as directed toward Christian theism would look something like the following:

    1. 8.

      If the Christian God exists, then God loves all humans. And,

    2. 9.

      If God loves all humans, then there are no pointless evils involving humans. And,

    3. 10.

      There are evils involving humans for which we know of no justifying reason. And,

    4. 11.

      If God loves all humans, either we would know the justifying reasons for God to allow those evils, or God would make himself known to those experiencing evils if they are incapable of comprehending the reasons that justify God in permitting those evils. And,

    5. 12.

      Many who suffer report no sense or knowledge of God’s comforting presence. So,

    6. 13.

      Probably, there are pointless evils involving humans.

      Therefore,

    7. 14.

      Probably, the Christian God does not exist.

    The sovereignty strategy employed by a Christian theist seems ineffective against this version of the evidential argument.

  37. I thank Ibrahim YILDIZ, Brian Davies, Edward Martin, and Douglas Stalker for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. I also thank two anonymous referees for their comments. A version of this paper was read at the 2019 meeting of the Society for the Philosophy of Religion.

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Jordan, J. Evil and divine sovereignty. Int J Philos Relig 88, 273–286 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-020-09751-1

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