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Shawn M. Crawford Dr. Christopher Myers PHIL101 16 June 2011

A Summary of the problem of evil and a critical evaluation of how it is said to undermine the traditional characteristics of God.

This paper will attempt to review the philosophical quandary of the existence of evil and if evil exists can God exist and if so can this God still be declared perfect? The epistemological issue that arrises is Ones knowledge of God and the validity of Gods existence. Specifically this evaluation will focus on a Western-centric view including but not limited to Descartes, Leibniz and Aquinas.

What are the traditional characteristics of God? One could take Spinozas view of God:

Spinoza claims that when statements such as that God is one, eternal and immutable are said of God, they are said in consideration of all his attributes. (Shein)

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One would think that outside of academic or theologic circles Spinozas definition may be a bit cumbersome. Pecorino states:

The god or deity of the Jews and then of the Christian and Islamic peoples came to have these characteristics associated with it: Supreme Being. Eternal Being. All Perfect. Beneficent Being- All good. All PowerfulOmnipotent. All Knowing- Omniscient. All Good. All Present- Omnipresent. All Merciful, All Just. All Loving. (Pecorino)

A bit more simplistic approach to the attributes of God. For this paper Pecorinos attributes will be the guiding terminology.

Descartes, in his Meditations, takes great care to deconstruct the thought of man thus one could conclude in order to support an unflagging support for the existence of his God. Descartes approach to the theology of God and Gods existence may be attributed to his preconceived notions (having been raised in and amongst the Christian church of his time) and would be supported in his letter to the Sorbonne in support of his writing of Mediatations. The following offers support of Descartes inclination:

The vital importance of the cause and the glory of God, to which the entire undertaking is directed here compel me to speak somewhat more freely about my own achievements than is my custom. (Cottingham, 4)

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Descartes speaks directly to his enduring belief in his God, a God whose attributes are spelled out above in Pecorinos summation. Accepting the attributes of his God Descartes goes on to state in the Third Meditation:

That is, when I turn my minds eye upon myself, I understand that I am a thing which is incomplete and dependent on another and which aspires without limit to ever greater and better things; but I also understand at the same time that he on whom I depend has within him all those greater things, not just indefinitely and potentially, but actually and infinitely, and hence that he is God. (Cottingham, 35)

Descartes states above he ( and one might say he is speaking for all humanity)is dependent upon his God. This dependence is further illustrated in the following from the Fourth Meditation:

...I know by existence that there is in me a faculty of judgement which, like everything else which is in me, I certainly received from God. And since God does not wish to deceive me, he surely did not give me the kind of faculty which would ever enable me to go wrong while using it correctly

Here Descartes may indicate that humanitys inability to use the faculty which God has provided correctly thus indicating that humanity and not God is imperfect in turn enabling Descartes God to continue to fulfill the above requirements as outlined by Pecorino including the capacity of not being evil.

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Moving to Leibnizs theory of the existence of God and of evil one could look to the following as a very brief and informative description of Leibnizs theory:

Since God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, there is certainly nothing that can prevent God from creating the best world. And God's goodness further obliges God to create the best world. Thus, the actual world is the best world. (Murray)

Leibnizs contention is that the world, as it is, is perfect. The world is perfect because God created it and God is perfect.

Reflecting back to Descartes the approach of establishing a beginning from which to adjudicate all else that follows effectively eliminates any further questioning. In Descartes case establishing the thinking and existing man and in Leibnizs the acceptance of a perfect (and potentially only) world both provide a (in their mind) point that is irrefutable.

Thomas Aquinas was another devotee of the Christian church of his time much like Descartes and to a lesser degree Leibniz. Aquinas pursuit of the answer to the dilemma of Gods existence and the presence of evil also compelled him to ponder and further author writings on the subject.

King in his review of Aquinas and the problem of evil offers a relatively straight forward view of Aquinas approach:

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Aquinas presents his opponents view that is allegedly supported by appeals to reason, scripture, and tradition; however, Aquinas does not buy into it, and furnishes us with a response. Aquinas argues that it is true that God created everything, but evil is not a thing. Now of course Aquinas is not suggesting that evil is not real, rather he is arguing that it is not a substance. That is, it does not exist in-itself, but only as inhering in a good substance. Without a good substance there could be no evil.(King)

Thus Aquinas denies that evil is unto itself. Evil must exist as a reaction to good and that good does exist much in the same way that Descartes I exists and Leibnizs Perfect World exists. As King goes onto explain Aquinas privation theory speaks to the existence of things that are real. The following is a representation of Kings support of Aquinas:

1. 2. 3.

God is the creator of everything. Evil is not a thing, but a privation. Thus, God is not necessarily the creator of evil. [62] (King)

Again Aquinas supports his theory of privation as something that exists in itself.

In summation the recurring theme for Descartes, Leibniz and Aquinas is the existence of that which is known. In Descartes case his ability to hold himself as a thinking individual, in Leibnizs case his perfect world and in Aquinas case the existence of good are all irrefutable points from which their belief in a God and the lack of evil inherent in that God is exposed.

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Works Cited

Cottingham, J., Stoothoff, R & Mursoch, D. (Eds). (1989) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Print.

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King, B. (2002, Summer). Thomas Aquinas on the Metaphysical Problem of Evil. Quodlibet Journal, 4, 2-3. http//www.quodlibet.net/articles.net/king-aquinas.html Web.

Murray, M. (2011) Leibniz on the Problem of Evil. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Reveiewed from http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/spr2011/entries/leibniz.-evil

Shein, N. (2009) Spinozas Theory of Attributes. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Reviewed from http://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?

entry=spinoza-attributes