Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
10An attempt might be made to use this solution again, at a higher level, to
explain the occurrence of evil (2): indeed the next main solut ion t hat we shall
examine does just this, with the help of some new notions. Without any fresh
not ions, suc h a solut ion would have lit t le plausibilit y: for example, we c ould hardly
say that the really important good was a good (3), such as the increase of
benevolenc e in proport ion t o c ruelt y, whic h logic ally required for it s oc c urrenc e t he
occurrence of some second order evil. But even if evil (2) c ould be explained in t his
way, it is fairly c lear t hat t here would be t hird order evils c ont rast ing wit h t his t hird
order good: and we should be well on the way to an infinite regress, where the
solut ion of a problem of evil, st at ed in t erms of evil (n), indicated the existence of
an evil (n +1), and a further problem to be solved.
- ‘Evil is due to human free will.’
Perhaps the most important proposed solution of the problem of evil is that
evil is not to be asc ribed to God at all, but to the independent ac tions of human
beings, supposed to have been endowed by God with freedom of the will. T his
solut ion may be combined with the preceding one: first order evil (e.g. pain) may
be justified as a logically necessary component in second order good (e.g.
sympat hy) while sec ond order evil (e.g. c ruelt y) is not just ified, but is so ascribed
to human beings that God c annot be held responsible for it. T his c ombinat ion
evades my t hird c rit ic ism of t he prec eding solut ion.
T he free will solut ion also involves t he prec eding solut ion at a higher level. To
explain why a wholly good God gave men free will alt hough it would lead t o s o me
import ant evils, it must be argued that it is better on the whole that men should act
freely, and sometimes err, than that they should be innoc ent automata, ac ting
right ly in a wholly det ermined way. Freedom, that is to say, is now treated as a
t hird order good, and as being more valuable than second order goods (such as
sympat hy and heroism) would be if t hey were det erminist ic ally produc ed, and it is
being assumed that second order evils, such as cruelty, are logically necessary
a c c o mp a n ime n t s o f f reedom, just as pain is a logic ally nec essary pre-condition of
sympathy.
I think that this solution is unsatisfac tory primarily bec ause of the inc oherenc e
of the notion of freedom of the will: but I c annot disc uss this topic adequately here,
although some of my c rit ic isms will t ouc h upon it.
First I should query t he assumpt ion t hat sec ond order evils are logic ally
necessary accompaniments of freedom. I should ask this: if God has made men
suc h that in their free c hoic es they sometimes prefer what is good and s o me t ime s
what is evil, why c ould he not have made men suc h that they always freely c hoose
the good? If t here is no logic al impossibilit y in a man’s freely c hoosing t he good on
one, or on several oc c asions, t here c annot be a logic al impossibilit y in his freely
choosing the good on every occasion. God was not, then, fac ed with a c hoic e
between making innoc ent automata and making beings who, in ac ting freely, would
sometimes go wrong: there was open to him the obviously better possibility of
making beings who would ac t freely but always go right. Clearly, his failure t o avail
himself of t his possibilit y is inc onsist ent wit h his being bot h omnipot ent and wholly
good.