Theodicy (The Problem of Evil)

Before Leibniz, the problem of evil was a logical problem; that is, it was considered that an all knowing (omniscient), all powerful (omnipotent), and all good (omnibenevolent) God was logically incompatible with the evil on earth. If God knows everything (knows every evil), can do anything (can eliminate evil), and is purely good, he would certainly not allow so much evil (suffering) as there is in this world. In fact, he would not allow any at all.

In any proof of God the burden of proof is on the theist. But with the problem of evil it is on the atheist. For the atheist's thesis is that God can be disproved by virtue of the evil in the world. Thus, if the atheist is claiming God to be impossible, it is up to him or her to prove God so. If the theist can show that God is possible given the evil in the world, the theist has won. If the theist shows how evil does not make God impossible, he or she hasn't proved that God exists, only that evil does not make God's existence impossible. A vindication of God's justice in the face of evil is called a theodicy. Leibniz's theodicy was constructed to combat a logical problem of evil (i.e., a problem of evil that shows God logically incompatible with evil); and it indeed works according to the general consensus. Thus, in the contemporary setting the logical problem of evil has been replaced with an evidential problem of evil, which Leibniz's particular theodicy does not combat. The evidential problem of evil is the atheist's attempt to show that it is irrational to believe in God due to the evidence of evil (rather than a logical contradiction between God and evil). Belief in God is shown to be irrational with this evidential argument from evil in the way that it is irrational to believe the earth is flat, not because deductive logic can prove it is round, but because of the evidence we have that it is round.

But on to Leibniz's reply to the logical problem of evil. Why, the atheist will ask, could not God have given Hitler a heart attack when he was 30 years old? Why, if God can create the world, could he not do this simple thing, which would have spared so many millions of lives? Why does God allow an electrical fire to start, which painfully burns a child to death? Why couldn't he just intervene and cool the sparks that started it? Why does God allow a child molester to rape children all his life? The man goes on raping children for 40 years. Why did not God just give him a stroke 40 years ago? Why was he allowed to go on living, causing all the suffering he does, when an innocent man somewhere else dies of leukemia, though he is harming no one? God created the cosmos and he could not intervene to stop all this horrible suffering? Would it not be the simplest thing for him to stop this agony, for a God who created the entire universe from nothing?

Leibniz's reply depends upon his distinction between necessary and contingent truths. Since the Scholastics God has been thought to be powerful enough not to do anything at all, but to do anything that is logically possible. Suppose God can do anything. Does this mean he can dig a ditch so wide that he can't jump across it? Either way there is something he cannot do. In the same way, Leibniz believed it was beyond God's power to make a circular square. This is the general consensus among theists today.

Leibniz was the first philosopher to my knowledge to introduce a coherent possible world theory. Suppose I say, "If I drop the pen, it will fall." Even if I don't drop the pen, I hold this proposition to be true. What does it mean for a counterfactual proposition to be true? That is, what exactly is the correspondent in nature to "If I drop the pen, it will fall" when I never drop the pen? There is no event "Ratcliff dropping the pen" for the true proposition to correspond to. And yet I have knowledge of this event: I know had I dropped the pen it would have fallen. Leibniz believed there was such a correspondent in a possible world, a world that could be actual according to logical possibility, but is not in fact actual. This possible world must have some ontology, that is, must in some sense exist, though perhaps not physically. In order for the proposition "If I drop the pen, it will fall" to be true, this proposition must have a correspondent somewhere. Leibniz believed its correspondent was an aspect of the psychology of God. God is aware of this possible world in which I do drop the pen--and all logically possible worlds--though he only makes one of those infinite possible worlds actual and physical. Thus, every world that is logically possible exists in some sense (in the psychology of God); but God only makes one of these worlds actual and physical.

Which one? The one that is the best—i.e., has the least evil. God can comprehend and evaluate every world that it is possible to make, and chooses the best among them, the one with the greatest good and least evil. Since God cannot create a true contradiction, there will be some evil in every possible world, insofar as the elimination of such evil is logically inconsistent with a greater good, or the elimination of a greater evil.

Look at it this way. Supposing we could go back in time, and stop the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Upon finding ourselves back in time, with the chance to stop the attacks, should we do it? There is, after all, no guarantee that stopping the attacks would not lead to a greater disaster. Perhaps the heightened security after the attacks avoided one of our cities being struck with a terrorist nuclear blast. Of course, from our limited perspective, perhaps we do not know whether it would be better or worse. But from God's perspective, he can see all the possible sequences of events, and knows just what sequence minimizes evil. Thus he allowed the September 11th attacks, and the Holocaust, because with these a greater evil was avoided. Perhaps human memory of the Holocaust will stop someone from coming into power 200 years from now who would have, had he come to power, killed a billion people, instead of the six million Hitler killed.

We human beings cannot verify that this is the best possible world. We do not know that the Holocaust avoided some greater evil. But God, seeing all, knows just what sequence of events is best, and this is the sequence he creates. Since the burden of proof is on the atheist, the atheist has to show how evil disproves God. But it is in fact possible for God and evil to coexist, insofar as the evil is minimized to the least logically possible level. Thus evil is logically consistent with God. It is possible for God and evil to coexist.

Leibniz argues quite convincingly as follows, to show that the tiny glimpse of the world we humans get is not enough to determine that things could have been better from the perspective of God.

Look at a very beautiful picture, and cover it up except for one small part. What will it look like but some confused combination of colors, without delight, without art; indeed, the more closely we examine it the more it will look that way. But as soon as the covering is removed, and you will see the whole surface from an appropriate place, you will understand that what looked like accidental splotches on the canvas were made with consummate skill by the creator of the work. ("On the Ultimate Origination of Things," p. 153.)

Thus from God's perspective the Holocaust was a necessary dark shade to bring out a beautiful image on the macro level of things. Humans cannot judge what the best world is, nor can we say for certain that the best possible world would be one without the Holocaust. But God, seeing all things that are possible, all events that are logically consistent with all others, can determine precisely the events that must happen, to create the best possible world for his creatures to inhabit.

It is an amazingly effective theodicy, one that sent the atheist away to disprove God by induction rather than the deduction that atheists had formerly supposed disproved God. But this in my opinion is a vain endeavor; for if God is not proved it is considered by most irrational to believe in him in any case; and if he is proved, the inductive argument from evil is in vain, given that it is merely evidential and not performed with deductive rigor. If God is proved by deduction, an inductive argument from evil can never trump the proof.

Angelhaunt.net: Because earth's madness is heaven's sense.