Board index ‹ The Problem of Evil and Suffering

[MP King]

Title says it all.

[jimwalton]

Because people have free will. Simple answer says it all.

[Pyro]

Is all evil the consequence of free will? I'm mainly asking about things like cancer, hurricanes or other forms of suffering without a human cause.

[jimwalton]

In my perspective, things like cancer and natural catastrophes are not evil and cannot responsibly be labelled as evil because they are nothing other than scientific cause and effect. If a tree falls in the woods, we say it's a natural occurrence. But if a tree falls in the woods and kills a person, is the tree evil? I think not. I think there's a distinction that must be made between moral evil and natural occurrences (volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc.) Natural “evil” is only generally considered such if there is collateral damage. In other words, a volcano that doesn’t kill anyone or anything is an event worthy of scientific inquiry, but if a person gets killed or injured, it is interpreted as natural evil. This is false thinking because for the latter to be truly evil, there has to be an immoral intent from a personal cause in creating the lava flow with the specific objective of bringing about suffering. A tree falling in the woods isn’t evil, nor is a volcano on a deserted island (or one that creates an island). Therefore “natural evil” is a misnomer, and if people get caught in natural events as circumstantial victims, we cannot accuse the volcano, or nature at large, of being evil. We can only attribute the title of “evil” to that which has been perpetrated by a personal force against what is understood as “good.” Therefore moral evil and willful evil are the only true kinds of evil.

At its most focused, then, the accusation of “evil” should be reserved solely for the outworking of a conscious and personal will in opposition to an objective moral standard of “good” and “right.” After all, if everything that happens in the world is just natural occurrences, and we are nothing more than the current stage of an evolutionary sequence, the word “evil” is meaningless because matter, chemistry, physical laws, and biological structures assembled by chance cannot be deemed evil or good, but only “existent.” Events either “are,” or “are not,” that’s all. By the same token, natural “evil” can only be construed as evil only if one assumes (or can prove) a moral agent perpetrated the action without the possibility of there being a greater good at stake.

[Pyro]

New but related question; why does suffering exist?

[jimwalton]

Suffering exists because we live in a world of cause and effect. The process of evolution is not a straight line upward; nature depends on death to continue; pain is a beneficial part of our nervous system to warn and help heal, though it also, both as an event and sometimes in perpetuity, causes suffering. Suffering is inevitably part of the biological picture.

[Dominator]

So if there is no evil in heaven that means there is no free will either?

[jimwalton]

Nope, that's a false conclusion. Heaven will not be a biological environment like we now live in, so the dynamics of life will be different. There is free will in heaven, but everyone who is there will have submitted their free will to the will of God. Therefore we will voluntarily use our free wills to approve the elimination of all moral evil. Ta-da. Free will but no evil.

[MP King]

Could god create a universe with free will but without evil?

[jimwalton]

No. Free will that can't just as easily choose evil as well as good is not free. That should be pretty obvious.