writers, alongside sceptical philosophical heavyweights such as
David Hume and John Stuart Mill, as anti-theodicists.Obscuring Evil
I want to focus on the fact that there has been, for some time, a
reaction against the type of philosophical debate that argues
back and forth, critiquing and defending specific concepts of
God in relation to problems of evil. This reaction has come from
some philosophers who are themselves religious believers. Ter-
rance Tilley, for example, in his 1991 book The Evils of Theodicy
writes:“The usual practice of academic theodicy has marginalised, sup-
planted, ‘purified’, and ultimately silenced those expressing grief,
cursing God, consoling the sorrowful and trying practically to
understand and counteract evil events, evil actions and evil practices.
I have come to see theodicy as a discourse practice which disguises
real evils while those evils continue to afflict people.” (Tilley, The
Evils of Theodicy)Let’s consider two closely related points that Tilley makes
here. First, theodicy obscures the nature of evils actually occur-
ring in the world. I would like to broaden this first point and
add that on the other side of the debate the anti-theodicists are
just as guilty of this. Second, and implied by the first point, philo-
sophical debates about problems of evil and suffering in rela-
tion to God are problematic because they detract from other
ways of coping with suffering, coming to terms with it and coun-
tering it. Because these other ways are of moral value this is a
moral problem.
The first point here is to do with evil and suffering being
transformed from something one experiences into a third person
phenomenon. Awful physical or psychological realities for real
people are distanced from us as they become objects of rational
observation and analysis. The ‘phenomenological distance’
between the torture chamber and Auschwitz on the one hand,
and the philosophy seminar on the other, needs much greater
recognition if we are to be true to what is at issue. Acknowledg-
ing this involves accepting that academic debate all too easily
encourages some severe limitations of perspective and under-
standing. If the nature of debate about the problem of evil
obscures the nature of evil itself, then that is self-defeating.
This brings me to Tilley’s second point, that the debate
between the theodicists and anti-theodicists can detract from
other types of discourse, such as coming to terms with and coun-
tering suffering. Both the theodicist and the anti-theodicist canI
n the classic spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and The
Ugly (directed by Sergio Leone, 1966), three gunslingers
co-operate and compete with each other in search of a
cache of gold. None of them trusts either of the others,
and in the final shoot-out ‘The Good’ character (played by Clint
Eastwood) kills ‘The Bad’, leaving the third in the trio tied up
on top of his share of the loot.
In debates about whether or not a benevolent, omnipotent,
all-knowing God would allow evil and suffering in the world,
both more and less is at stake than for the characters in the film
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. On both sides there is the honour
of ‘winning’ or the indignity of ‘losing’ a public debate. But for
many of the disputants who are religious these arguments are
about matters of eternal significance for every person, whether
they appreciate that or not. For some atheists, too, the issues
have seemed imperative. Why waste one’s life on a delusion,
they ask, especially when this God delusion can be made abun-
dantly clear? Each party to this debate is engaged to some degree
in a life commitment, pursued with passion and conviction.
In this article I will not seek to rehearse the arguments for
or against the view that the existence of evil and suffering proves
that there is no God. Instead, I want to stand back a little from
such debates, observe them from a variety of perspectives and
consider their ethical character.
So let’s be clear at the outset what is at stake. Epicurus gave
us an early formulation of the ‘problem of evil’, a logical prob-
lem to do with believing in God. He wrote:“God either wishes to take away evils and is unable; or he is able
and unwilling; or he is neither willing nor able; or he is both willing
and able. If he is willing and unable, he is feeble, which is not in
accordance with the character of God, if he is able and unwilling,
he is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if he is neither
willing nor able he is both feeble and envious, and therefore not
God, if he is both willing and able, which alone is suitable for God,
from what source then are evils? Or why does he not remove
them?”In more recent times Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) coined
the term ‘theodicy’ to refer to systematic attempts to defend
belief in God in the face of evil and suffering, such as the argu-
ments offered by St Augustine. In the last twenty years the
New Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christo-
pher Hitchens, have brought such debates about theodicy to
the fore, excoriating the God of the Bible and the God of the
Qur’an for their alleged misdeeds. We might think of these28 Philosophy Now ●^ August/September 2019
The Good, The Bad and Theodicy
John Holroyd on the pitfalls of academic debates about God and evil.
Evil