Why Is There Evil In The World (and so much of it) by Greg Welty

I just finished reading Why Is There Evil In The World (and so much of it) by Greg Welty. It provides a theodicy that is accessible to readers of many backgrounds. You don’t need to have read a lot of philosophy to understand this book. At the same time, more well-read readers will be given a sustained argument to consider. Unlike many writers, Welty appeals to the Bible in forming his arguments.

One weakness in the book is that it does not address how to reconcile divine predestination with human free will or moral responsibility in much detail. At the very least, the skeptic wants to know whether the two can be reconciled. If they cannot be reconciled then Welty’s theodicy may seem unpersuasive despite its other strengths.

What follows is a summary of his argument taken from the end of each chapter:

Chapter 1: What is the Problem of Evil?

• We must distinguish between merely asking questions about evil and proposing an argument against God from evil.
• Both the critic and the Christian bear a burden in this argument: the critic to spell out the argument and the Christian to reply to it.
• David Hume and Epicurus provide accessible statements of the problem of evil.
• Arguments are claims made in support of a concluding claim, and the problem of evil can certainly be stated as an argument.
• ‘Evil’ will be defined as ‘any significant case of pain and suffering’.
• The ‘you can’t define evil’ retort to the problem of evil fails to take the argument seriously. Indeed, it fails to engage with the argument at all!
• Both Christians and skeptics of Christianity recognize a distinction between moral evil and natural evil.
• Christians shouldn’t get out of the problem by denying the perfection of God’s attributes, or by affirming that God is weak.
• But one way to get out of the problem is to clarify that perfect goodness can permit evil as long as there are justifying reasons for permitting it. These reasons are called ‘theodicies,’ which are stories that spell out the reasons God has for permitting the evil he does permit, and in this way attempt to justify the ways of God to men.

Chapter 2: The Greater-Good Theodicy: A Threefold Argument for Three Biblical Themes

• A ‘theodicy’ gives a reason God could have for permitting evil, a reason that justifies God in permitting the evil, and that is consistent with God’s attributes of perfect power and goodness.
• The ‘Greater-Good theodicy’ says that the pain and suffering in God’s world play a necessary role in bringing about greater goods that could not be brought about except for the presence of that pain and suffering. Since the world would be worse off without that pain and suffering, God is justified in pursuing the good by these means.
• There are two assumptions behind all theodicy: the dependence of the goods and the weightiness of the goods. That is, the goods God is aiming at must depend on and therefore require the evils, and the goods aimed at must be so great that they outweigh the evils.
• There are three themes in the Bible that support a Greater-Good theodicy: the goodness of God’s purpose, the sovereignty of God’s providence, and the inscrutability of God’s ways. We see these three themes brought together when the Bible describes the sufferings of Job, Joseph, and Jesus.
• In order to respond to two key objections to this approach, the Greater-Good theodicy will be both ‘licensed’ and ‘limited’ in the next two chapters.

Chapter 3: Licensing the Greater-Good Theodicy: God’s Sovereignty over Evil

• Christians are licensed to use the Greater-Good theodicy as a general response to the problem of evil, for the passages examined in this chapter show that the relation God sustains to evil in the Job, Joseph, and Jesus passages is not an anomaly, but part and parcel of a more general view the Bible takes on the subject, with respect to both natural and moral evil.
• While natural evil comes from how ‘nature goes on’ — being caused by impersonal objects and forces quite independently of human choices — the Bible presents multitudes of examples of God intentionally bringing about these types of events (rather than being someone who merely permits nature to ‘do its thing’ on its own).
• God’s own intentionality stands above and behind the responsible choices of his creatures, without erasing or suppressing their intentionality, deliberations, reasoning, and choosing between the alternatives they consider and reflect upon.
• The distinction between primary and secondary causality not only preserves but argues for God’s moral innocence in the midst of his sovereignly intending evils for good.
• The Greater-Good theodicy is not a case of God ‘doing evil that good may come.’ It is not evil to ordain that evil be, especially if one has the requisite knowledge and power to ensure the greater good, and the right to impose the suffering.

Chapter 4: Limiting the Greater-Good Theodicy: The Inscrutability of God’s Purposes

• There are four kinds of Greater-Good theodicy: punishment (God displaying his justice), soul-building (God displaying his goodness), pain-as-God’s-megaphone (God displaying his mercy), and higher-order goods (God aiming at goods that are good precisely because they respond to and overcome the evils of the world).
• Christians do not know enough to ‘rule in’ one of these four theodicies as applying to any particular case of evil.
• But critics do not know enough to ‘rule out’ any of these four theodicies as applying to any particular case of evil.
• Six kinds of analogy argue for our cognitive limitations in discerning divine reasons for permitting suffering: perceptual, scientific, moral, linguistic, aesthetic, and parental.
• There are many passages in the Bible that similarly encourage recognizing our cognitive limitations in this respect.

Chapter 5: Can Free Will or the Laws of Nature Solve the Problem of Evil?

• The free-will theodicy says that moral evil is due to human abuse of free will, whereas the natural law theodicy says that natural evil is due to the laws of nature.
• Put together, the theodicies claim that the evils of the world are the unintended by-product of God’s aiming to provide us with two great goods: the good of free choice, and the good of having a stable environment in which to exercise that free choice.
• Both theodicies are supposed to avoid the view that God intends that evils come to pass as the required means for goods that he also intends to come to pass.
• The free-will theodicy is subject to the problems of restricted free will, God’s lack of free will, and heavenly lack of free will.
• The natural law theodicy is subject to the problems of choice-making in the Garden of Eden, and choice-making in heaven.
• Neither theodicy avoids the view that God intends and even ensures that evils come to pass for a greater good.
• Unlike the four theodicies presented in the previous chapter, the Bible never hints that the free-will and natural law theodicies are God’s reasons for permitting evils.

Chapter 6: Objections

• This book has defended the view that God is the sovereign creator and providential sustainer of the world who, without committing any sins, ensures that natural and moral evils come to pass as necessary means for bringing about great goods that outweigh those evils.
• There are a number of objections to this ‘Greater-Good theodicy’: (1) it motivates fruitless searching, (2) it’s pastorally counter-productive, (3) it denies God’s goodness, (4) it destroys moral motivation, (5) it treats persons as means, (6) it makes us moral skeptics, (7) it promotes divine hiddenness, (8) it’s an apologetic cop-out, and (9) it allows the view that things aren’t for the best.
• Each of these objections can be answered, as long as the doctrines of divine sovereignty and inscrutability are considered together, rather than isolated from one another.
• A world without God would generate an even worse, because intractable, problem of evil.