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ABSTRACT
This article argues that the existence of horrendous evil calls into question not just the plausibility of the most popular theodicies on offer, notably sceptical theism, but the coherence of any agatheology–that is, any theology which identifies God or the ultimate reality with the ultimate good (to agathon in Greek) or with a maximally good being (Agatheos). The article contends that the only way an agatheologian can ‘save the face of God’ after Auschwitz and Kolyma is by endorsing a non-interventionist interpretation of the Divine providence which will amount to naturalisation of the discourse on evil by localising entirely in nature the causes of evil and the possible ways of its prevention. ‘Theodicy of justice as fairness’ is then presented as consistent with such naturalistic account of evils and yet compatible with a religious worldview. It justifies the Divine non-intervention by suggesting that it would not be just or fair for God to intervene on only some occasions to avert evil, if God is apparently prevented from intervening in all such cases (and we can think of good reasons why this is so). Since for Agatheos it is metaphysically impossible to do what is unjust or unfair, God never intervenes to avert evil.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This italicised qualification is of major importance, since the agatheological argument from horrendous evil in favour of non-interventionist interpretation of the Divine providence advanced in this article is strictly limited to the cases of the possible Divine intervention in the natural course of events in order to protect individual creatures by preventing particular evils from happening. Thus, for example, the argument of the article does not extend to the cases of the potential Divine intervention in the physical universe, if that would be a necessary condition of the possibility of a mystical experience of the Divine presence or a condition of the possibility of Divine inspiration leading individuals to forming inspired thoughts about God and God’s relation to the world. Moreover, the agatheological argument from horrendous evil has no bearing whatsoever on the question of ‘general providence’ (God’s sustaining the universe in being, etc.), since the argument relies on the consideration of potential unfairness of a preferential treatment by God of some individuals vis-À-vis other individuals, while ‘general providence’ by definition puts all creatures in exactly the same position vis-À-vis God.
2. The idea of ‘theodicy of justice as fairness’ was presented for the first time in somewhat different context in: Salamon, “Theodicy of Justice as Fairness,”249–78.
3. Agatheology brings into consideration a kind of non-empirical rationality that could be termed ‘agatheistic rationality’, because it presupposes that certain beliefs–namely all value-laden beliefs–may be held as rational in virtue of the goodness of the state of affairs to which they pertain (goodness which cannot be said to be confirmable empirically, because it cannot be confirmed objectively, without reference to values or preferences of the belief-holders). Accordingly, the doxastic structure of an agatheistic religious belief system that is grounded in axiology can be metaphorically envisaged as a ladder, but with descending, not ascending order of justificatory dependence, and the ladder hangs, as it were, from the ‘ceiling’ of the belief in God being maximally good and being the ultimate good. On this picture, religious beliefs of increasing particularity will draw their justification from the higher-level beliefs, being perceived as more or less rational against the background of antecedent probability of something being the case, given that we have accepted that the higher-level belief as true. Thus, for example, we may speak about antecedent probability of Divine self-revelation or of mystical experience of God’s presence relative to the higher-level belief in maximal goodness of God, which will play the role of the justificatory basis of particular beliefs grounded in one’s experience which one considers to be an instance of Divine revelation or of mystical perception of the Divine presence. Hence, particular religious experience constitutes a ground of a belief formed on its basis, but both subjective certainty regarding the veridicality of the beliefs grounded in such experience and inter-subjective justification of such beliefs are dependent on the antecedent probability of the higher-level beliefs, and without holding these higher-level beliefs a religious experience could not be even recognised as such by the subject of the experience.
4. I refer here to the most significant recent contributions to the debate about the problem of evil: Plantinga’s free will defence (cf. e.g. Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil); Hick’s ‘soul making’ theodicy (cf. e.g. Hick, Evil and the God of Love); van Inwagen’s proposal to think about the natural evil as resulting from the necessary regularities of the physical world governed by laws of nature (cf. e.g. van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil); arguments for necessity of Divine hiddenness put forward by various authors (cf. e.g. Howard-Snyder, and Moser, Divine Hiddenness; also: McKim, Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity).
5. An objection to theodicies which imply that God might use his creatures to achieve some very great good has been expressed by William Hasker, himself a philosophical apologist of a theistic point of view, who finds such fault in Alvin Plantinga’s ‘felix culpa theodicy’. Plantinga’s ‘supralapsarian’ theodicy sees human sinfulness and the resulting evil as the necessary condition of actualisation of the best possible world that is feasible, namely the world that contains divine incarnation and atonement. (Cf. Hasker, Triumph of God over Evil, 167–9.
6. Cf. e.g. Bergmann, “Skeptical Theism and the Problem of Evil,” 374–402; Alston, “Inductive Argument from Evil,” 29–67; Durston, “Consequential Complexity of History,” 65–80; and Wykstra, “Humean Obstacle to Evidential Arguments,” 73–93.
7. Quoted from The Bible. New Revised Standard Version, Harper Collins, 1989.
8. For an in-depth treatment of the important of the ‘nominalist controversy’ for the formation of the modern Western mindset, see: Gillespie, Theological Origins of Modernity.
9. Cf. Rawls, A Theory of Justice.
10. Cf. Salamon, “Light Out of Plenitude,” 141–75.
11. Agatheism as a pluralistic interpretation of religion is discussed at length in: Salamon, “Atheism and Agatheism,” 197–245; and also: Salmon, “In Defence of Agatheism,” 115–38.
12. The potential of this covenantal relationship of partners is sometimes conceived in very exalted terms, worthy of an agatheologian. For example, some of the mainstream Eastern Orthodox thinkers, such as Vladimir Lossky, Georges Florovsky, or John Zizoulas, elaborating on Ancient Christian patristic ideas, came up with a portrayal of the Divine-human relationship that couldn’t be more exalted. They see the Divine-human relationship as possessing a potential for infinite fulfilment–which they appropriately call deification (theosis)–and a most intimate participation in the Divine life (koinonia). It is worth noting that these ideas do not necessarily presuppose a belief that God intervenes in the natural course of events to prevent evils from happening.
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Janusz Salamon
Janusz Salamon is Senior Lecturer in Moral and Political Philosophy at Charles University in Prague, editor-in-chief of the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion and co-editor of Bloomsbury Studies in Global Ethics. He published recently Spheres of Solidarity: Value Pluralism, Religious Diversity and Global Ethics (2017) and as editor Companion to Philosophy of Religion: The Analytic Current (2016) and Solidarity Beyond Borders: Ethics in a Globalising World (2015).