Transcript The Problem of Evil

HSID
Ancient Philosophy
The Problem of Evil,
Consolation of Philosophy,
Book IV
Lecture 14
Housekeeping
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Final exam details
The Problem of Evil
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Question: why does evil exist?
Why do bad things happen to
good people? Why do the
innocent suffer?
A problem for all. If you are an
atheist, an agnostic, a scientific
materialist, you have the
problem of how values
(good/bad, pretty/ugly, etc.) can
exist in a world of facts.
If values exist, then what is the
foundation or basis of them?
Science tells us what is the case,
not what ought to be the case.
The Problem of Evil
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Bk IV, Ch. 1, lns 3-7.
Lady Philosophy will show that:
The powerful men are in fact
always the good
The wicked are always the abject
and the weak
Vices never go unpunished
Nor virtues unrewarded
The good always achieve
success and the wicked suffer
misfortune.
A tall order!
The Problem of Evil
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Boethius, as a theist, has a
different version of the problem:
How is his image of God
consistent with the apparent
existence of evil in the world.
In other words, how can he
reconcile the image of God he
presents at the end of Book III,
with the fact that he is in jail
(awaiting a rather nasty
execution), while his accusers
are living it up in Rome?
Note
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She will do this without
reference to an afterlife (b/c
belief in an afterlife requires faith
and he wishes to present an
argument that even the nonfaithful can agree with)
(Bk IV, ch 4, lns 22-23)
Also, the argument has two
parts: Bks I-IV, and a different,
better argument in Bks V-VII
The first, weaker argument
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Q: What do all people seek?
A: A good life, something that
they think will make them happy.
Q: Is this true of what we call
“evil people”? Thieves, liars,
terrorists?
But notice, if the analysis
presented in Books II & III is
correct, we see that evil people
are going about seeking
happiness in the wrong way.
Relying on power, wealth, etc.,
won’t get you happiness!
The first, weaker argument
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So, if happiness is what they
seek, then only the good will
succeed (because they are the
only ones going about it in the
right way!)
All the evil seem to be able to do
ultimately is make themselves
more and more miserable.
The first, weaker argument
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“So since both seek the good, but
good men attain it while evil men
certainly do not, can there be any
doubt that good men have
capability, whereas evil men are
weak?” (IV, 2,15)
The first, weaker argument
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Further, Lady Philosophy argues
that the alleged “power” of evil
actions is no power at all. All it
can do is destroy.
It takes a skilled carpenter to
build a barn. Any moron with a
sledgehammer or a match can
destroy one.
The evil are not even fully human
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At several points, Lady
Philosophy argues that to the
extent that an individual pursues
evil, the less fully human he or
she becomes.
In one sense, those who are evil
don’t exist (their bodies exist, but
they don’t exist as genuine
human beings, IV, 2, 34-36).
In another sense, by pursuing
things not proper to humans, they
are more like animals than
humans (IV, 3, 17-21)
Chapter 4
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Some very counterintuitive things
about how punishment makes the
wicked happy (because it shows
them the error of their ways and
gives them a chance to turn their
lives around and start pursuing
what might actually make them
happy).
The Stronger Argument
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At chapter 5, Boethius-thecharacter basically says: “Yeah,
all that’s fine & dandy, but what
the heck am I [a good person]
doing sitting in this darn jail!?”
For all this discussion of the
nature of good and evil and their
respective power, there still
seems to be a lot of chaos in the
world; good and evil just all mixed
up together.
The world seems to be ruled by
Lady Luck (Fortune), not God.
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(IV, 6, 2-3): “Philosophy smiled
briefly, and said: ‘The topic to which
you challenge me is the greatest of
all to investigate; it is virtually
inexhaustible. It is the sort of subject
in which when one doubt is excised
countless others spring up like the
Hydra’s heads, and there would be
no limit to them if one did not
restrain them by applying the most
penetrating fire of the mind.” [Note:
she calls on reason here, not faith.]
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Ch 6, line 7-10: “The birth of all things, the entire
development of natures subject to change, and all that is
in any way stirred to motion, derive their causes and
order and shapes from the unchanging steadfastness of
the divine mind [i.e., "God" = being that created the
universe]. This mind… decides upon the complex plan of
the course of events. This plan, when envisaged in the
total clarity of the divine intelligence, is called
Providence; but as related to things which that
intelligence moves and orders, it has been labeled Fate...
That the two concepts are different will readily become
clear if we mentally consider the force of each.
Providence is the divine reason itself, established within
the highest originator of all things, who disposes them all,
whereas Fate is the order imposed on things that change,
through which Providence interlinks each and every
object in their due arrangement….”
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“…Providence indeed embraces all things alike,
however different and however boundless,
whereas Fate organizes the separate movement
of individual things, and allocates them according
to place, shape, and time. [That is, in our
universe, like things seem to be associated with
like things. Dogs give birth to dogs, not zebras.
However, in a sense, God created all things, so
must be able to join together the most varied
objects in his Divine Plan of the universe.] Thus
when this arrangement of temporal order is a
unity within the foresight of the divine mind, it is
Providence, whereas when that unity is separated
and unfolded at various times, it is called Fate.”
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Ch. 6, line 53-56: “But—’how hard it is to say all this as
though I were a god!’ [a quotation from Homer]—for it is
not right for a man either mentally to grasp or to explain
in words all the workings of God's creation. [Although,
he's been trying hard for the past 92 pages!] It must be
enough merely to realize that God, the author of all things
in nature, orders all of them and guides them to the good.
He hastens to maintain in his own image the things which
he has brought to birth, and through the chain of
necessity imposed by Fate, he excludes all the evil from
the boundaries of his commonwealth. [God doesn't, in
fact, create anything evil.] So if you were to observe
Providence dispensing all the plenty which men believes
to exist on earth, you would not imagine that there was
any evil present at all there! [If we saw things from God's
perspective, we would see that all alleged 'evil' was
actually good.]”
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So, his solution to the problem
of evil is that all alleged evil is
merely an illusion created by
our limited perspective on the
world.
We can know that God exists
and that God must have a very
different vantage point on the
world than we do.
We can’t know what the world
looks like from that vantage
point, even though can know
that it is more comprehensive.
Therefore, it’s possible that
what seems evil to us is good
on the larger scheme of things.
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Consider this analogy:
The relationship between a fiveyear-old and an adult.
She knows that adults know a
heck of a lot more than she does.
(They can drive the car and make
dinner and fix toys.)
They also make her do things that
seem downright “evil” to her
(those darn brussel sprouts!)
But she can reason that they have
her best interest in mind even if
she can’t know what they now.
(And this need not be based solely
on faith.)
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This fate/providence argument and
the earlier argument about the
weakness of evil are Boethius’
explanation for reconciling his belief
in the consolation of philosophy with
his current situation.
He is confronting the consequences
of his beliefs and trying to address a
reader’s likely problems with it
Of course, he can’t stop now,
because his solution to the problem
of evil generates another problem…
The Problem of Free Will,
Consolation of Philosophy,
Book V
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Ch. 6, line 53-56: “But—’how hard it is to say all this as
though I were a god!’ [a quotation from Homer]—for it is
not right for a man either mentally to grasp or to explain
in words all the workings of God's creation. [Although,
he's been trying hard for the past 92 pages!] It must be
enough merely to realize that God, the author of all things
in nature, orders all of them and guides them to the good.
He hastens to maintain in his own image the things which
he has brought to birth, and through the chain of
necessity imposed by Fate, he excludes all the evil from
the boundaries of his commonwealth. [God doesn't, in
fact, create anything evil.] So if you were to observe
Providence dispensing all the plenty which men believes
to exist on earth, you would not imagine that there was
any evil present at all there! [If we saw things from God's
perspective, we would see that all alleged 'evil' was
actually good.]”
Argument against compatibility of
Divine Foreknowledge & Free
Will
Ch. 3, lines 3-6, p. 100: “There seems to be a considerable
contradiction and inconsistency… between God's
foreknowing all things and the existence of any free will.
If God foresees all things and cannot be in any way
mistaken, then what Providence has foreseen will
happen and must inevitably come to pass. So if God has
prior knowledge from eternity not only of men’s actions
but also of their plans and wishes, there will be no
freedom of the will; for the only action and any sort of
intention which can possibly exist in the future will be
foreknown by divine Providence, which cannot be
misled. If such actions and aspirations can be forcibly
diverted in some direction other than was foreseen,
certain knowledge of the future will no longer exist, but
instead there will be vacillating opinion; and I regard it
as sacrilege to believe this of God.”
The dilemma, in essence
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Boethius is presenting the problem of free will
as a dilemma pitting God's omniscience against
our free will: Either God has perfect knowledge
of everything that's ever going to happen
(which implies that every “moral” decision you
will ever make was already decided at the
beginning of the universe), or you have the
ability to make genuinely free decisions about
your life (which implies that there is something
that God doesn’t know, namely what the
outcomes of your free decisions will be).
Poker analogy: Boethius is going “all-in” at this point
A tempting (but false) start
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Chapter 1 raises the issue of
chance or randomness.
Philosophy argues that strictly
speaking, there is nothing random
in this world, although our
ignorance makes us think there is.
Example: the buried treasure.
This sets up the latter solution
Boethius presents, but ultimately
randomness is not the same as
freedom.
The Three Components of
Boethius's Proposed Solution
1) A theory of knowledge
2) The distinction between
eternity and time
3) The distinction between
simple and conditional
necessity
1) A theory of knowledge
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Once again, keep in mind that God's position and pointof-view on the world is vastly different from ours. He
takes from Aristotle this break down of the nature of
knowledge (which differs somewhat from Plato)
Sensation: all living things have this to a degree.
Imagination: higher animals possess this; dogs can
remember where the food is when in the cabinet.
Reason: humans possess this; they not only build up an
image of a thing, but can abstract them and hold them in
their minds, while comparing the relationships between
them. However, this form of knowledge must proceed
step-by-step, as in logic and math.
Intelligence: souls, or spirits separate from a body, can
know truth without having to reason about it. They can
see truth immediately without having to go through
steps. Analogy: intuition.
2) Eternity vs. Time
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All created beings are temporal. We
live within time. One thing happens
then another. You come into
existence. You live a while. You go
out of existence. (At least, your body
does!)
God, on the other hand, is the
creator (by definition). He created
everything that exists in time. He
created time itself. God transcends
time. God is not a temporal being,
but rather is eternal. He must live in
“the eternal present”.
2) Eternity vs. Time
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Ch. 6, ln 16, p. 112: Philosophy
says, “…your judgment will be
more correct should you seek to
envisage the foresight by which
God discerns all things not as a
sort of foreknowledge of the future,
but as knowledge of the
unceasingly present moment.”
3) The distinction between simple
and conditional (or logical)
necessity
What we commonly call “necessity” really
comes in two forms. Consider the two claims:
a) There will never exist a sphere of pure gold
1,000,000 miles in diameter
b) There will never exist a sphere of enriched
uranium (U235)1,000,000 miles in diameter.
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Both of these statements are (probably) true,
and in a sense, both are necessarily true. But
the truth of A) is only conditionally true. B),
however, is a simple necessity.
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3) The distinction between simple
and conditional (or logical)
necessity
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The “walking” example (p. 113). If I
see somebody walking, it is
necessary (in a sense) that she is
walking (otherwise, I wouldn't be
seeing this!). But this action
(walking) is voluntary on her part.
Given that she chose to walk (this is
the “condition”), she can be said to
be conditionally necessarily walking.
Putting it all together
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Ch 6, ln 18-24, p. 112. P: “Why, then, do
you demand that things surveyed by the
divine light be necessary, when even men
do not pronounce as necessary the things
they see? Surely, when you observe
things before you, your seeing them does
not impose any necessity on them?”
B: “Of course not.”
Putting it all together
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P: “But if it is appropriate to compare the
divine present with the human, then just as
you men see certain things in this temporal
present of yours, so God sees all things in
his eternal present. Hence this divine
foreknowledge does not change the nature
and character of things; God sees them as
present before his eyes as they will emerge
at some time in the future. Nor does he
make confused judgments about things;
with a single mental glance he
distinguishes those future events which
will occur by necessity from those which
will not. …”
Putting it all together
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“…Consider this parallel. When you observe at
one time a man walking on the earth and the
sun rising in the sky, even though you see them
simultaneously, you distinguish them, and you
judge the first movement to be voluntary, and
the second to be necessary. So it is with the
divine reason, as it looks out on the whole
world; it certainly does not dislocate the nature
of those things which for God are in the
present, but which in their temporal aspect are
in the future. So when God knows that
something is about to take place, something
which he is well aware need not come to pass,
this is not an opinion but knowledge which
rests on truth.”
Putting it all together
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In other words, if Boethius is
correct, God's foreknowledge/
omniscience need not conflict
with our free will. He is in a
position to know things without
forcing them to happen. He can
know the outcomes of our free
choices.
Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite
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AKA: “Pseudo-Denys”
5th-6th century author thought
in Medieval period to be either
The “Dionysius” converted by
St. Paul or “St. Denis” a French
theologian
Forgery? Well, that’s a modern
concept.
Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite
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Key concepts:
Positive vs. Negative Theology
(“via negativa”--Apophatic
theology)
“Unknowing”
Two senses of knowing