THE PROBLEM OF EVIL:

Exonerating God

Part II

The Problem Summarized
... and why we must respond to it

Before we begin our attempt to arrive at an answer to the problem of evil, we must first clearly summarize and completely understand the nature of the problem itself.

While this may appear obvious, all too often our efforts to make sense of the experience of evil in our lives and in the world fail to adequately address implicit or unstated premises apart from which no answer is either forthcoming or possible. Failing to follow the premises, we fail to reach a conclusion. Instead, we reflexively seize what is incontrovertible (the occurrences of evil) and, understanding nothing of its antecedents, satisfy ourselves that it is entirely a mystery --- in other words, utterly incomprehensible to us --- in fact, so opaque to our ability to reason it through (which we do not) that we throw up our hands in either frustration or despair , declaring that either it is the will of God in a way we do not understand, or that there can be no God in light of the enormities that we experience. In either case --- whether we affirm that God exists despite them, or deny that He exists because of them --- we confront the experience of evil as an impenetrable mystery. Such a facile answer, I suggest, is not a satisfactory state of affairs at all.

While it remains true that we can only speculate upon the origin of evil (in the Creation Narrative, the parallel existence of the serpent with man (and I say parallel, because it is a supernatural existence parallel to and concomitant with, created nature much in the way that the supernatural being of Angels coexists with the natural being of men) --- we are not, for that reason, absolved from explaining not only how evil came to obtrude upon the affairs of men, but why it is not incompatible with our conception of God as all good and all powerful. Philosophy calls this endeavor a theodicy. We needn’t be intimidated by this, nor think ourselves unequal to it, as we shall see.

To further compound the issue, the problem is no mere academic matter from which we can stand aloof as so many theorists to hypothetical abstractions. It is a problem that vexes us, lacerates us, at every turn, believer and unbeliever alike. It has a direct and painful bearing upon us; it affects us, afflicts us, and, yes, sometimes crushes us. Despite the refuge that the believer has taken in the notion of mystery, or the cynicism to which the unbeliever consigns himself in hopeless resignation, each cry out, equally and withal, “Why …?” --- especially when the evil experienced or perpetrated is an effrontery to justice, or a violation of innocence.

The skeptic, most often a casualty of evil, cannot reconcile the occurrence of evil with the existence of God. The two appear incompatible. What is more, the empirical evidence of evil is far more preponderant and far more compelling than any evidence that can be adduced to the existence of God. The believer, on the other hand, is painfully perplexed, and sometimes deeply scandalized, by this seeming incompatibility which often buffets the faith which alone sustains his belief, the faith that, somehow, the occurrence of evil and the existence of God are not, in the end, irreconcilable.

First and foremost, it is critical to be clear about the context in which the problem first occurred, and from which all subsequent instances follow. Even before this, however, and as we have said, we must be absolutely clear about the problem itself which, in summary, follows:

The Problem Summarized:

Until we are perfectly clear about this, we can go no further. Unless we fully grasp the magnitude of this problem we cannot hope to understand the reasons why men either fail to believe in God, or having once believed, no longer do so. The occurrence, the experience, of evil, as we had said in our opening, appears as nothing less than a scandal to believers, and the cause of disbelief in unbelievers. It need not be so. For our part, we must be prepared to follow St. Peter’s exhortation, “being ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you” (1 St. Peter 3.15). Hence, we begin.

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• Part III:
  Exonerating God: the Solution to the Problem of Evil

• Return to Part I:
  Prefacing the Problem of Evil