Thank you for this article. Though I believe that all this is good and true, I still think it leaves certain points unresolved, which, of course, comes to no surprise considering how short it is. Accordingly, I do not refer here to the many perspectives from which one might speak of suffering or evil to intellectually challenge the Christian religion, but rather to an addition in the metaphysical or ontological framework allowing us to answer the detailed charges that I perceive to be important.
Firstly, while one might indeed characterize evil as privation, to avoid more modern criticisms, it is necessary to reconcile this with the concept of "evil as misarrangement," which becomes feasible when one speaks of a "privation of order" if considering misarrangement. Thus, evil is not merely a privation of substance, or rather existence, but also of any effect or manifestation of the divine act or energy depending on the case.
Secondly, there remains the significant problem that a world containing more evil than good, thereby inclining more towards the negative, would be such that God, who is Goodness itself and, as dogmatically affirmed, could also create no world at all, would then choose not to create it, for such a choice would be of more value in the weight. After all, even if we say humans must have free will defined as the ability to choose otherwise and to choose evil (while considering that such a free will appears to be not necessary for love since the divine persons love each other without the possibility to choose evil,) God would've known how bad it would go and not create humans in the first step one might say.
So, why did He create a world knowingly that evil will happen and dominate the good? There are three answers it appears to me. Either one denies one of the premises, by for example a denial of observable reality and a downplay to the great suffering in it by saying it all serves a greater good or absolute harmony or by saying God must've created, which, of course, is anti-orthodox. Secondly, one gives a coherent answer (thus following from classical notions of God and not merely being compatible with them) why this measure of evil must have been possible to come about. Thirdly, one gives an account how the good and bliss will indeed be much greater than the evil and pain in the eschaton. While I also argue for the third, the second still is necessary to avoid many pitfuls or charges against the Christian religion that may approach us in this topic, when defining free will and why it needed to include a turning-away from God etc.
Thank you for this article. Though I believe that all this is good and true, I still think it leaves certain points unresolved, which, of course, comes to no surprise considering how short it is. Accordingly, I do not refer here to the many perspectives from which one might speak of suffering or evil to intellectually challenge the Christian religion, but rather to an addition in the metaphysical or ontological framework allowing us to answer the detailed charges that I perceive to be important.
Firstly, while one might indeed characterize evil as privation, to avoid more modern criticisms, it is necessary to reconcile this with the concept of "evil as misarrangement," which becomes feasible when one speaks of a "privation of order" if considering misarrangement. Thus, evil is not merely a privation of substance, or rather existence, but also of any effect or manifestation of the divine act or energy depending on the case.
Secondly, there remains the significant problem that a world containing more evil than good, thereby inclining more towards the negative, would be such that God, who is Goodness itself and, as dogmatically affirmed, could also create no world at all, would then choose not to create it, for such a choice would be of more value in the weight. After all, even if we say humans must have free will defined as the ability to choose otherwise and to choose evil (while considering that such a free will appears to be not necessary for love since the divine persons love each other without the possibility to choose evil,) God would've known how bad it would go and not create humans in the first step one might say.
So, why did He create a world knowingly that evil will happen and dominate the good? There are three answers it appears to me. Either one denies one of the premises, by for example a denial of observable reality and a downplay to the great suffering in it by saying it all serves a greater good or absolute harmony or by saying God must've created, which, of course, is anti-orthodox. Secondly, one gives a coherent answer (thus following from classical notions of God and not merely being compatible with them) why this measure of evil must have been possible to come about. Thirdly, one gives an account how the good and bliss will indeed be much greater than the evil and pain in the eschaton. While I also argue for the third, the second still is necessary to avoid many pitfuls or charges against the Christian religion that may approach us in this topic, when defining free will and why it needed to include a turning-away from God etc.
So I wonder, how would you answer it?