―Which Thing I Never Had Supposed‖

The Problem of Evil and the Problem of ManLoyd EricsonClaremont Graduate UniversitySMPT 2010The problem of evil as a challenge to God's existence had led philosophers of religion tosee the problem as a call to defend God and seek for arguments through which both God and evilcould co-exist. This response, I will argue, is misplaced. The true challenge of evil is not in thequestion of God's existence in light of this evil but in the devaluation of the human individualwho experiences and/or witnesses suffering. Attempts to defend evil's existence and analogizeGod as a chess-master maneuvering through evil only exacerbate the problem by turningindividuals who suffer into valueless sacrificial pawns for God's ultimate win. A better responseto the evil in the world is not a defense of God through the justification of evil but rather a justification of the individual through the confrontation of suffering. The Atonement, especiallyas understood by liberation theology, is the paradigm of God's own response to the problem of evil.Part I

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The Problem of Evil

The problem of evil, in its various forms, is almost always viewed as a problem for God‘s

existence. The question posed is simply one of how it is possible for there to exist an all-

powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God in light of all of the evil and suffering we witness inthe world. If God is all-powerful, then he would be capable of preventing evil; if all-knowing,then he would know of potential evil to be prevented; and if all-loving, then he would have theloving desire to prevent evil. Because evil is present in the suffering we witness around us, it isconcluded that God (who is defined as being

—

among other things

—

all-powerful, all-knowing,and all-loving) does not then exist. While evil in this context is usually broken down into moraland natural evil, for the purpose of this paper I am simply going to define evil as the physical,emotional, and psychological suffering of human beings.The traditional responses to the problem of evil typically come in two forms: the free-willdefense and the soul-making theodicy. The former, the free-will defense, argues that free-will issuch a high good that God restrains himself from interceding into the world to allow his creaturesto be free. Human suffering is an unfortunate side effect of that free will. Thus God permits evils,even as horrendous as the Holocaust, in order to maintain free-will for his creatures. On theother-hand, a soul-making theodicy argues that God allows suffering and evil in order to eitherteach us something important, give us the opportunity to be (or learn to be) moral, bring us closerto God, and over-all improve the moral and spiritual quality of our souls. Such a theodicy isperhaps expressed in Doctrine & Covenants, section 122 when Jesus tells Joseph Smith, who wasunjustly suffering in Liberty Jail:And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and thesentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surgeconspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gatherblackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all thesethings shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. (D&C 122:7)In other words, whether we recognize it or not, the evil and suffering we witness in the world isallowed by God for the good of our souls.

Before moving forward, let‘s examine this with a quick example: Last week a young 13

year old girl

—we‘ll name her Jane—

was kidnapped while walking home from school. She wasbrutally raped, tortured, murdered, and left in a shallow mountain-side grave by her kidnapper. If we applied this to the problem of evil, that this occurred either meant that God was unable toprevent this from happening, did not know of it happening, or did not care enough about theyoung girl to prevent it. Thus, one might say

, that

this evil occurred is evidence that God doesnot exist.Those upholding the free-will defense might argue that, to the contrary, God was able,

knowing, and emotionally wanting to stop Jane‘s rape and murder. He, however, willed not to doso in order to maintain the greater good of the killer‘s and the rest of his creation‘s

free-will.Adding to this, those opting for the soul-making theodicy might also argue that God may haveallowed this horrendous evil in order to provide

either Jane‘s, the killer‘s,

and/or some or all of the rest of society an opportunity to improve their soul.There are, however, some key challenges for Latter-day Saints who wish to appeal to thefree-will defense. First, while the free-will defense may work in logically defending a certainview of God, the sterile God that does not interject himself to prevent suffering hardly seems tobe the God of Mormonism. Rather than not interjecting himself into the world and notinterceding into human affairs to prevent evil, the God of LDS scripture is one who is describedas miraculously preventing evil, alleviating suffering, and changing the hearts of his creations.This God who worked miracles to free the Israelites from Egyptian oppression, raised the dead,healed the sick, stepped in to transform Alma the Younger, protected the pioneers, and stepped in

to miraculously save Zion‘s camp seems entirely different from the free

-will defended God whochooses to stay his hand and not prevent evils in order to maintain human free-will. Furthermore,