Paper1 Evil

COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

MORALITY – RELIGION – PHILOSOPHY

GOD & MORALITY: Divine Command Theory and the Problem of Evil ARCHIMEDES CARAG ARTICULO, M.Phil. Chair, Department of Social Sciences & Philosophy College of Arts & Sciences Cagayan State University [email protected]

Section 1. If God is dead, everything becomes permitted

Most of us endeavor to do what is right or moral, and avoid doing what is wrong or immoral, out of our deep respect and obedience to God’s laws and commandments. For instance, we don’t kill; we don’t covet our neighbor’s house; we don’t commit adultery; we don’t steal; and we don’t bear false witness against our neighbor because God forbids them, and we honor our parents; for six days we labor and do all our work but on the seventh day we rest, and we refrain from idolatry because God commands them. Morality therefore becomes a basic question of obedience or disobedience to God’s will and commandments. Of course, there are those among us who find the aforesaid moral deliberation to be too simplistic and prefer to adhere to a more complicated Moral Philosophy. However, for the many faithful, God, the all-powerful (omnipotent), the all-knowing (omniscient), and the all-good (omni-benevolent), takes a central and personal role in 1 | Page

COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

their moral life, as the infallible law giver whose commandments are clear enough to be explained by any complicated explanations. The view that moral deliberations and moral obligation should flow from our obedience to God’s commands or character, and that the morally right action is the one that God commands or requires is called Divine Command Theory. The specific content of these divine commands varies according to the particular religion and the particular views of the individual divine command theorist, but all versions of the theory hold in common the claim that morality and moral obligations ultimately depend on God. Divine Command Theory is widely criticized, but it is not a position without good philosophical foundation. Because in addressing the questions of morality, many Philosophers point to the necessity of God. In his Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant, claims that morality necessitates the belief in God and an afterlife.1 According to Kant, we must believe that God exists because the high requirements of morality are too great for morally imperfect humans. In his Antimonies he showed that any thesis arguing for the non-existence of God finds an equivalently valid argument for the existence of God and vice versa. Since reason cannot guide us in determining which argument is logically correct, then the acceptance for the belief in a Divine Creator could be made without any contradiction and it is more “practical”: It will help us satisfy the demands of the moral law. Being moral does not guarantee happiness because, in itself, it offers no incentive. However, if there is a God and an afterlife where the righteous are rewarded with happiness and justice is obtained, the idea of trying to live the moral life becomes easier to bear. Divine Command Theory also provides an objective metaphysical foundation for morality. For those committed to the existence of objective moral truths, such truths seem to fit well within a theistic framework. The existence of objective moral truths (i.e. murder is always wrong or intrinsically evil) points to a moral universe: how could there be moral properties if the universe is non-moral? If the origin of the universe is a personal moral being, then the existence of objective moral truths are at home, so to speak, in the universe. By contrast, if the origin of the universe is non-moral, then the existence of such truths becomes philosophically perplexing, because it is unclear how moral properties can come into existence via non-moral origins.2

1

2

Kant, Immanuel. 1993. Critique of Practical Reason. Third Edition. Translated by Lewis White Beck. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Austin, Michael W. Divine Command Theory, http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/divine-c.htm [last accessed 21 May 2009]

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COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

Not only that Divine Command Theory provides a metaphysical basis for morality, it also gives the one holding it a good response to the common question in Moral Philosophy: why be moral? William Lane Craig argues that on theism, we are held accountable for our actions by God: those who do evil will be punished, and those who live morally upstanding lives will be vindicated and even rewarded. Good, in the end, triumphs over evil. Justice will win out. Moreover, on a theistic view of ethics, we have a reason to act in ways that run counter to our self-interest, because such actions of self-sacrifice have deep significance and merit within a theistic framework. On Divine Command Theory it is therefore rational to sacrifice my own well-being for the well-being of my children, my friends, and even complete strangers, because God approves of and even commands such acts of self-sacrifice.3 For most of us, it therefore makes sense to say that if God is dead, everything becomes permitted. Without God, morality and moral standards which, most of the time, requires sacrificing our selfish interest for the sake of others, would be incredibly difficult to observe. However, many usually miss to see that their obedience to God’s commands, simply because God commands it, rests on a very important presumption that God is morally perfect or all-good, that is, all of the commandments God asks them to do is always good because God, the law-giver, is all-good. If God is all-good and all of his commandments are always good, then, these commandments must be obeyed. But is God really that all-good? If God, the source of all the divine commands which all the faithful endeavor to observe, is all-good, how then the existence of evil could be explained or made consistent with the character or attributes of an all-good God? The examination of this philosophical question brings us to one of the most controversial problems in Philosophy of Religion and Moral Theology, that it must be addressed and confronted if the value of the Divine Command Theory could be preserved. Section 2. The Problem of Evil

Where was God? Where was the intelligent designer of the universe when 1.5 million children were turned into smoke by zealous Nazis? Where was the all powerful, 3

Hare, John. 2000. “Naturalism and Morality.” In Naturalism: A Critical Analysis. Edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland. New York: Routledge: 189-212.

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COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

all knowing, wholly good being whose very essence is radically opposed to evil, while millions of children were starved to death by Stalin, had their limbs chopped off with machetes in Rwanda, were turned into amputees by the diamond trade in Sierra Leone, and worked to death, even now, by the child slave trade that, by conservative estimates, enslaves 250 million children worldwide? Without divine justice, all of this suffering is gratuitous. How, then, can a wholly good, all-powerful God be believed to exist? The existence of evil is the most fundamental threat to the traditional Western concept of an all-good, all-powerful God. Both natural evil, the suffering that occurs as a result of physical phenomena, and moral evil, the suffering resulting from human action, comprise the problem of evil. If evil cannot be accounted for, then belief in the traditional Western concept of God is absurd.4 If God does not exist, the entire Divine Command Theory collapses for the law that is commanded to be obeyed loses its law-giver. The problem of evil (or argument from evil) is therefore a problem of reconciling the existence of evil in the world with the existence of an omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful) and perfectly good God. It is recalled that for Christianity: 1. God created the world and that he sustains it; 2. God knows all things and is capable of all feats; 3. God is perfectly good, and wants only the best for his Creation. If each of these claims is true, then it is difficult to see why God allows evil in the world to persist. The evil in the world thus appears to be at least strong and perhaps even conclusive evidence that at least one of these central claims of Christianity is false, or, that God does not exist. In simple terms, the problem of evil (or argument from evil) runs this way: P1 If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. P2 - If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil. P3 - If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists. P4 - If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. P5 - Evil exists.

4

Weisberger, Andrea M. The Argument from Evil, in Michael Martin (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 161-182.

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COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

P6 -

If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil. ___________________________ Therefore, God doesn't exist. The problem of evil is the most popular argument for atheism, but the widely recognize proponent of this argument is the philosopher David Hume who argued more for agnosticism rather than atheism. Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims — particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, spiritual-beings, or even ultimate reality — is unknown or inherently impossible to prove or disprove. Hume built his argument by following the set of questions which was originally raised by Epicurus (Gaskin, 1993): Is God willing to prevent evil but unable to do so? Then he is not omnipotent [or all-powerful]. Is God able to prevent evil but unwilling to do so? Then he is malevolent, or at least less than all-good. Is God able and willing to prevent evil but unknowing that evil exist? Then he is not Omniscient [or all-knowing]. If God is willing and able to prevent evil, and if God knows that evil exists, then why is there evil in the world? If evil exists, then God is less than his attributes – and hence, not a God. What is at stake here, Hume believed, is the possibility of vindicating God's moral attributes (that is, God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good) in face of the existence of evil in this world. It is clear that if this cannot be done, then the case for theism in any orthodox form will collapse. Many solutions have been proposed during the time of Hume aiming to address the problems of evil. However, Hume has successfully rebutted all these. For our purpose, let us study some of them and see how Hume exposed their weakness: 1.

The present evil phenomena are rectified in other regions, and in some future period of existence (God will punish evil doers in the next life). According to Hume, we are in no position to claim that we know that God will “rectify” the evil of this world in a future state, since the evidence of this world does not support such a conjecture. This predicament is like that of a person who stands in the porch that leads 5 | Page

COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

into a very different building or structure and must conjecture what the complete or whole plan is like. Here it is interesting to include Hume’s objections relating to the morally pernicious aspects of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. Among the several arguments that Hume puts forward on this score, four points are usually considered especially important. In the first place, Hume asks, what is the point or purpose of punishment in a future state? In this life we assume that punishment must not only be deserved, it must also achieve some relevant social end or value (e.g., contribute to the stability and peace of society). When we are removed from this world these goals are taken away and punishment becomes pointlessly retributive. Punishment without any further point or purpose is mere vengeance that lacks any proper justification. Second, Hume asks on what basis God determines the extent of our merit and demerit. Among human beings the standard of merit and demerit depends on our moral sentiments and our sense of pleasure and pain. Are we to suppose that God also has human passions and feelings of this kind? Third, the doctrine of eternal damnation clearly involves excessive punishment (which is un-Godly for a God)— even for the worst of crimes. Finally, the split between Heaven and Hell supposes “two distinct species of men”, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float between vice and virtue (where will they go?). 2.

There is no real evil. Hume replied that this view is plainly contrary to human experience. He begins with animal suffering of various kinds (the strong preying on the weak etc.) and moves on to human suffering in its numerous forms (illness, emotional torments, war etc.). Unless all evil is essential or necessary, the religious position will collapse. Any degree or kind of unnecessary evil — however small — would tell against the existence of God as an infinitely powerful and perfectly good being (Gaskin, 1993).

3.

There are real evils in the world but they are all necessary evils — without which the whole system of nature would not be so perfect. Hume describes a fourfold catalogue of causes of evil in this world none of which “appear to human reason, in the least degree, necessary or unavoidable”. He asks, for example, why animal creation is not animated entirely by pleasure, as it appears “plainly possible to carry on the business of life without any pain”. Similarly, why could God not have 6 | Page

COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

been more generous in providing his creatures with better endowments for their survival and happiness (i.e., why is God not more of an “indulgent parent”)? Again, why does nature run into such extremes in relation to heat and cold, rains, winds, and so on? Surely things could have been arranged so that these extremes and their destructive consequences could be avoided? Finally, Hume asks why God does not act through particular volitions to prevent specific catastrophes and disasters (e.g., why not ensure there is no storm blowing when a fleet is out at sea)? In all these cases, Hume grants, there may “be good reasons, why providence interposes not in this manner; but they are unknown to us”. The implication of all this is not just that we have no reason to infer the existence of an infinitely powerful and good God but that we have considerable reason for doubting it. Again, it is important to take note that Hume’s philosophy is not atheistic, but tends more on agnosticism.

Section 3. Possible Solutions to the Problem of Evil Considering the old arguments that were exposed by Hume as problematic, modern Theists have devised contemporary and stronger arguments to address the problem of evil. In his book, Evil and the God of Love, John Hick argued that man needs to have a distance from God in order that man may have a real choice whether to love or not to love God, to do good or to do evil. Because if man is placed in a hedonistic paradise where no evil is actually possible to occur, would it still be possible for man to love and know God? For Hick, the answer is obviously not. For his part, Wykstra addresses the problem of evil by expounding on an analogy involving the vision and wisdom of an omniscient being such as God and the cognitive capacities of members of the human species. Clearly, the gap between God’s intellect and ours is immense, and Wykstra compares it to the gap between the cognitive abilities of a parent and her one-month-old infant.5 For as the aforesaid comparison

5

Wykstra, Stephen J. 1984. “The Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments from Suffering: On Avoiding the Evils of ‘Appearance’,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16: 73-93.

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COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

between God’s intellect and the human mind indicates, even if there were outweighing goods served by certain instances of suffering, such goods would be beyond our ken. Related to this argument is the argument from limited cognition. According to this argument, Human cognition is limited, there is no sound inductive argument that can enable one to move from the premise that there are states of affairs that, taking into account only what we know, it would be morally very wrong for an omnipotent and omniscient person to allow to exist, to the conclusion that there are states of affairs such that it is likely that, all things considered, it would be morally very wrong for an omnipotent and omniscient person to allow those states of affairs to exist. Perhaps the most popular mode of diffusing the argument from evil lies in the appeal to free will. The free-will defense runs as follows: 1.1. Humans have free will, and moral evil is a result of the exercise of free will. 1.2. A world, in which there is free will, even though it contains evil, is better than a world in which humans have no free will and are mere automata that always do good because they are determined to do so. 1.3. Free will is seen to be of such value that it justifies the existence of moral evil. Two major elements are needed for the free-will defense to succeed. First, it must be agreed that free will is this highly valuable asset without which humanity would suffer a great loss. Second, it must be shown that having free will is necessarily connected to evil in the world. The argument emphasizes that God knows in advance that human freewill may be misused, but in his great wisdom, has determined that the risk is outweighed by the value of giving mankind its freedom to bring about, and cause, good or evil. Building largely on the argument from freewill and limited cognition, Peter Kreeft, the contemporary Catholic apologist, claimed that there are four parts to the solution to the problem of evil, for our purpose, only the philosophical answer is considered here6: 1.1.

6

If God is the Creator of all things and evil is a thing, then God is the Creator of evil, and he is to blame for its existence. But evil is not a thing, an entity, a being, but a wrong choice, or the damage done by a wrong choice. It is therefore not God’s creation. However, if the origin of evil is free will, and God is the origin of free will, isn't God then the origin of evil?

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0019.html [last accessed 22 May 2009]

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COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

Only as parents are the origin of the misdeeds their children commit by being the origin of their children. The all-powerful God gave us a share in his power to choose freely. Would we prefer he had not and had made us robots rather than human beings? 1.2.

The origin of evil is not the Creator but the creature's freely choosing sin and selfishness. Take away all sin and selfishness and you would have heaven on earth. Even the remaining physical evils would no longer rankle and embitter us. Saints endure and even embrace suffering and death as lovers embrace heroic challenges. But they do not embrace sin. God is the source of all life and joy. Therefore, when the human soul rebels against God, it loses its life and joy. Now a human being is body as well as soul. We are single creatures, not double: we are not even body and soul as much as we are embodied soul, or ensouled body. So the body must share in the soul's inevitable punishment—a punishment as natural and unavoidable as broken bones from jumping off a cliff or a sick stomach from eating rotten food. Kreeft reiterates that the connection between spiritual evil and physical evil has to be as close as the connection between the two things they affect, the human soul and the human body.

Then Kreeft puts the problem of evil on its popular form, he asked: Is it not logically contradictory to say an all-powerful and allloving God tolerates so much evil when he could eradicate it? Why do bad things happen to good people?

According to Kreeft, the question makes three questionable assumptions. 1. Who's to say we are good people? The question should be not “Why do bad

things happen to good people?” but “Why do good things happen to bad people?” The best people are the ones who are most reluctant to call themselves good people. Sinners think they are saints, but saints know they are Sinners. The best man who ever lived once said, “No one is good but God alone. “ 2. Who's to say suffering is all bad? Life without it would produce spoiled brats

and tyrants, not joyful saints. Rabbi Abraham Heschel says simply, “The man 9 | Page

COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

who has not suffered, what can he possibly know, anyway?” Suffering can work for the greater good of wisdom. It is not true that all things are good, but it is true that “all things work together for good to those who love God.” 3. Who's to say we have to know all God's reasons? Who ever promised us all

the answers? Animals can't understand much about us; why should we be able to understand everything about God? The obvious point of the Book of Job, the world's greatest exploration of the problem of evil, is that we just don't know what God is up to. What a hard lesson to learn: Lesson One, that we are ignorant, that we are infants! No wonder Socrates was declared by the Delphic oracle to be the wisest man in the world. He interpreted that declaration to mean that he alone knew that he did not have wisdom, and that was true wisdom for man. Kreeft used this now common “fireman” analogy in explaining the point in item 3: A child on the tenth story of a burning building cannot see the firefighters with their safety net on the street. They call up, “Jump! We'll catch you. Trust us. “ The child objects, “But I can't see you.” The firefighter replies, “That's all right. I can see you.” We are like that child, evil is like the fire, our ignorance is like the smoke, God is like the firefighter, and Christ is like the safety net. If there are situations like this where we must trust even fallible human beings with our lives, where we must trust what we hear, not what we see, then it is reasonable that we must trust the infallible, all-seeing God when we hear from his word but do not see from our reason or experience. We cannot know all God's reasons, but we can know why we cannot know.

Kreeft concluded his response to the problem of evil that the worst aspect of the problem of evil is eternal evil, hell. Does hell not contradict a loving and omnipotent God? Kreeft answered no, for hell is the consequence of free will. We freely choose hell for ourselves; God does not cast anyone into hell against his will. If it is intellectually dishonest to disbelieve in evil just because it is shocking and uncomfortable, it is the same with hell. Reality has hard corners, surprises, and terrible

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COMPETENCY PROGRAM IN LOGIC & MORAL PHILOSOPHY – Part 2 Cagayan State University Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs

dangers in it. We desperately need a true road map, not nice feelings, if we are to get home. Kreeft has a very convincing point in saying that. The argument of Kreeft is one of the most down-to-earth and well understood modern responses to the problem of evil today, (for the problem remains debated and will be debated for many centuries to come). What makes it widely recognized, and what makes it unlike the other apologetics, is its boldness to confront the problem head on without any metaphysical twaddle which the apologist who makes them only understands. And for the many Moral Philosophy teachers out there who are troubled with the Problem of Evil but who deeply think that the Divine Command Theory still serves its purpose, the argument of Kreeft comes handy.

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