Abstract
According to the most recent articulation of her view, Marilyn Adams’s reply to the problem of horrendous evils states that God offers compensation to those who experience horrendous evils. This compensation includes the good of the incarnation of God and the good of identification with God in virtue of suffering horrendous evils. Andrew Gleeson has raised a series of objections to Adams’s recent articulation. I argue that all of Gleeson’s arguments fail or fail to pose a distinct challenge. I then present a different challenge: that her view provides insufficient compensation for horrendous evils. I conclude by suggesting a development of her view.
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Notes
According to Adams, one can participate in a horrendous evil by suffering it or by doing it. The lives of those who have perpetrated horrendous evils are also prima facie not a great good to them on the whole. God can defeat their involvement in horrendous evils as well, although that defeat will of course look different than the defeat of horrendous evils that one has suffered. This paper, following Gleeson, focuses on the latter.
For the other models, see chapter 8 of Adams (1999).
Adams characterizes God’s incommensurable good as an infinite good, better than any merely finite good, so good as to be able to defeat horrendous evils (Adams 1999, p. 82).
Adams (1999), 54.
I am not going to address Phillips’s own original arguments; nor will I discuss whether Gleeson’s interpretation/development of Phillips’s arguments are fair to Phillips’s original arguments.
Gleeson allows for this exception at Gleeson 2015, p.7.
Italics are Gleeson’s.
Italics are, once again, all Gleeson’s.
See (Parfit 2011, pp. 151–154) for several related distinctions.
So long as being good to you does not also require God to wrong someone else. But this qualification is clearly met on Adams’s model.
This interpretation is supported by the passage on God’s love that I quoted earlier in the section on argument 1. What I have to say about this interpretation also mutatis mutandis responds to the argument in that quotation.
Certain passages on pp. 8 and 12 from Gleeson’s article suggest that this is his root concern.
Cobb (1997) briefly pushes an objection like this, although not in terms of compensation.
Thanks to two referees for raising this worry.
See (Fales 2013, pp. 353–354) for an objection much like this.
I hasten to add that I do not assume that Paul’s attitude of rejoicing is normatively binding for all who have undergone suffering. Nor do I assume that all who have endured HEs and come to accept them as meaningful parts of their life with God must rejoice in the HEs they have suffered.
See also 2Cor 1:3–7. See Hurtado (2004) for a nice overview of passages in the New Testament indicating that early Christians regarded Jesus’s death is paradigmatic for the Christian life. Those who have suffered HEs might be seen as martyrs of a certain sort. It is notoriously difficult to define the notion of a martyr as it is actually used in religious traditions (see Middleton 2014), but one way someone can be a martyr is by dying (or suffering) for the sake of God, or God’s ends. In that sense, those whose suffering of HEs brings about greater human unity in love (or some other related salvific end) are martyrs. Many will not, during their suffering of HEs, be aware of—much less intentionally endure and embrace their HEs for—those ends. Those people will not, at the time of their suffering, be intentional or self-aware martyrs. But if later on they begin to accept that they suffered their HEs for salvific ends and see that as a means of serving God and imitating him, they can become at least self-aware martyrs. (See (Moss 2012) for an explanation of how imitating Christ played an important role in defining the martyr for some in ancient Christianity.) Adams has discussed how martyrdom fits into her response to the problem of horrendous evil (see Adams 2006, pp. 263–281), although what I have said here goes beyond what she says there.
For further discussion of this concern about insufficient compensation, see Thurow (2018).
References
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Thurow, J.C. Problems with Compensation: Gleeson on Marilyn McCord Adams on Evil. SOPHIA 59, 513–524 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0721-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-019-0721-x