J.L. Mackie's 1977 essay begins by setting out the Problem of Evil & Suffering.
In section B, Mackie outlines the "Fallacious Solutions" offered by some religious thinkers. Mackie argues these solutions are 'fallacious' because they are (he says) logically contradictory or unsupported. Mackie's style is worth imitating. He makes a broad attack on an idea he disagrees with. Then he considers how a believer in that idea might respond. He looks at how a believer might refine their argument and he offers his own criticisms of each refinement. If he is successful, the believer is left "without a leg to stand on", with all his arguments defeated. |
Could you really have a world where everyone was absolutely good and happy? Wouldn't that be boring and uneventful? Doesn't a good universe require variety?
This idea of logically necessary evil was called metaphysical evil by Augustine of Hippo. Augustine argues that God creates a world with the complete range of creatures in it, which involves some being taller, stronger, cleverer or prettier than others. Augustine thinks this is necessary so that some of us can "count our blessings" and others can look up to and admire other people. He doesn't think this metaphysical evil counts against God's goodness and uses the analogy of a painter using areas of darkness as well as bright colours to create an overall effect. Someone living in an area of black paint might wish the painter had created something different - but they don't see the whole picture. |
Giovanni Baglione's "Sacred & Profane" love uses light and darkness - a painting technique called chiaroscuro
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Augustine of Hippo uses this idea to argue that, even in the Garden of Eden, there would have been metaphysical evil: dangerous animals, poisonous plants, thunderstorms, etc. However, the Fall of Man made this much worse in two ways:
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Disease inspires doctors to work on cures and nurses to go out to dangerous places to bring care to the sick.
Pauline Cafferkey is the Scottish nurse who went to Sierra Leone to help treat sufferers from the Ebola virus outbreak there in 2014. She contracted the virus and was in a critical condition (twice!) but recovered. She describes the care she received from staff at the Royal Free Hospital and well-wishes from the public. Are these the "spiritual goods" that are only possible in a world with disease in it?
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Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him - John 11: 14-15
A comparison with parenthood makes the point clearer. Parents want their children to be happy - but in a particular sort of way. Parents want their children to grow up to be successful, independent, fulfilled. Most parents are prepared for their children to be miserable on occasions along the way, which is why they force them to go to school, do violin lessons or mow the lawn - and why they punish them by 'grounding' them or taking away the X-Box. In other words, parents are working towards a second-order good (fulfilled, successful grown-up sons and daughters) rather than a first-order good (happy children who can watch all the TV and eat all the junk food they like).
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This leaves us with the awkward question of why God doesn't simply destroy the Devil - or at least restrain him from tempting people.
The idea that God doesn't do this because he wants a world where even the Devil has freewill will be considered next by Mackie. The idea that the world with the Devil in it is somehow better than a world with no Devil (or an ineffective Devil) seems to invite the sort of infinite regress that Mackie warns about. For example, if the world has the Devil in it, then people can be Devil-worshipers, worshiping evil for its own sake rather than just doing evil things on a casual basis. We now have a fourth-order good and a fourth-order evil to match it. And so on and so on. |
Freewill also explains why God would create a moderately dangerous universe. If God is good and perfect, he will not want to create a race of automata (beings with no freewill); he would rather create freewilled creatures who can make their own choices. If God always does what is best and this is best, then this is what God does.
Freewill is the third-order good, or good (3). It justifies the existence of second-order evils, like cruelty. Things like cruelty are a "necessary precondition" of true freedom. |
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This idea fits in with our notions of parenthood. Most parents want their children to grow up to make their own choices. They don't want their children to be their slaves or forever under their control. Parents that are this controlling are widely recognised as 'bad parents'.
Teachers also work towards encouraging students to be independent and make their own choices, even if some of these choices don't work out very well. If God exists, then he is certainly like a good parent or a good teacher - only even more so. It makes sense to think that he too would wish for humans to be freewilled. |
A lot of Science Fiction explores the idea of whether it's better to have freewill (and be unhappy) or be an automaton (robot)
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If you can't see Mackie's point, apply it to yourself. We know that, in this world, there are genocidal dictators, serial killers and sadistic torturers. But you're not like that, are you? The worst thing you probably do is steal towels from hotels, hand in homework late and smoke underage. So why couldn't God have made a world full of people like you? Why did he have to include the mass-murderers and serial rapists?
People's moral behaviour is linked to their character. If God had made sure that everyone had a kind and honest character, people would still be freewilled - they would just make better choices.
You'll look at the idea of a moral character when you study Virtue Ethics as part of Ethics.
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Imagine a person who decides all their actions by rolling a dice or tossing a coin. Their behaviour would be completely random - but they wouldn't be morally responsible for any of it. If a coin-toss told them to rob someone or kill someone, it wouldn't be a choice they'd made. Their actions would be "free" in a way, but their actions would also be outside of their control.
The 1971 cult novel "The Dice Man" explores this theme, when a man starts letting dice rolls make all his decisions for him
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Another view is that people decide their actions based on their character. Their behaviour is consistent and all of it expresses who they were as a person. Their actions are "free" so long as no one else stands in their way or blocks them from acting. They are responsible for their own actions. Their actions are their own choices.
In Shakespeare's plays, tragedy comes from the hero's character - not bad luck
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The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence - Psalm 11: 5
It's possible that God can and does interfere with freewill all the time, but of course we never notice. God (and perhaps his angels) might be continuously preventing all sorts of evil actions, round the clock. This might involve preventing the Devil from creating terrible destruction and influencing human beings so that they decide against wicked actions. Perhaps the world would descend into hell-on-earth if God stopped interfering with freewill for just one day.
C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" read as letter from a senior devil to a junior devil, with advice on "spiritual warfare" - how to tempt a human soul away from God.
This idea that there is "spiritual warfare" going on around us all the time is also very faithful to the message of the Bible.
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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places - Ephesians 6:12