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The Problem of Evil: The “Good Reason†Theodicy
Timothy H.
Theodicy is the attempt to reconcile the existence of an omni-benevolent God with the existence of evil. Though there are many different approaches to theodicy this essay will cover the good reason theodicy. The good reason theodicy attempts to reconcile the existence of an omni-benevolent God and moral evil by asserting that God has morally sufficient reasons to allow evil to exist. Inspiration for the good reason theodicy comes in part from the account of Joseph. In it, Joseph goes through difficulties and hardships in his life only to have a good result come about in the end. Genesis 50:20 reads:But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
It is reasonable for one to assume that since God was omni-benevolent and evil exists, God must have a good reason for evil to exist. Moreover, as seen in the account of Joseph it can be shown that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil. Now the atheist has not been able to demonstrate that God does not have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil. The Christian philosopher William Lane Craig remarked:
You see the atheist presupposes that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil the evil in the world. But that assumption is just not necessarily true. So long that it as is even possible that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil, it follows that God and evil are logically consistent [1]
So therefore it is more reasonable to assume that God has morally sufficient reasons for evil rather than to assume that God does not have morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil. Why? Because the atheist has not been able to offer a shred of evidence that shows that God does not have morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil.
Another way to view this theodicy is to analogize it. Suppose we're walking alongside a wooden fence one day and you spot a small hole in that fence. You go toward that hole to investigate and look through the hole. Upon doing that, you see a man with a gun pointing at something and about to fire. Immediately, you assume that he is going to kill someone. However you look on and see what happens. You then see that your initial assumption was false, as the man was not attempting to kill something but instead he was shooting at a target to improve his marksmanship.
This is the way that we as humans view things. We see things from a narrow perspective and not through a wide perspective. Had the hole been bigger, you would have most likely seen that the man was firing at a target and not intending to kill something earlier. However this isn't the case. We as finite humans are limited in what we can see. Thus we may initially see assume certain events to be so bad that it disproves the existence of an all loving God. However often times we neglect to see the long term effects and instead we focus on the short term effects. As outlined in the account of Joseph, he endured hardship only to have God use him to save the lives of the people of Egypt. Gregory Koukl remarked:
Now the real question at this point is, "Was it worth it? Good can come out of evil, but was it worth it in the long run, the measure of good that comes out of the measure of evil in the world?" And my response is that the only One who could ever know that is God. You and I couldn't know that because our perspective is too limited. Only God is in a position to accurately answer that question. [2]
But what about events which have no apparent long term benefit? Well let me introduce you to a branch of mathematics which is called chaos theory. A basic tenet of chaos theory is that our environment is so sensitive that events which may seem insignificant to us now may have a profound effect on determining the future. For example, an insignificant event such as the flapping of a butterfly's wings could very well set off a chain reaction of events that end with a hurricane forming in the Atlantic ocean.
Taking this into account we can reason that events which may have no seemingly apparent long term benefit may cause a chain reaction of events in which God's morally sufficient reason for allowing that evil is manifested decades later halfway around the world in a seemingly unrelated event.
In conclusion, the good reason theodicy is adequate in reconciling the existence of an omni-benevolent God with the existence of evil. Although I personally do not hold to this approach to theodicy, it is most certainly a valid approach to solving the problem of evil.
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Works Cited:
1. http://www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=...amp;CategoryID=
2. http://www.str.org/s...Article&id=5093
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