Religion: Classical Theism, Part 6 (Evil and Goodness in the World)

hello my name is Elmer Kramer I'm a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Toronto this is the sixth in a series of talks on classical theism in the last talk I pointed out that according to classical theism God wills the existence of the entire world of created things by the same will whereby he loves himself that conclusion makes the nature of evil problematic if as Agustin says we and all other creatures exist because God is good what can evil be the question forced itself on Augustine partly because he was a convert to Christianity from monotheism according to which there are two gods a good God and an evil God once a Gustin became convinced that there is only one God and He is good the question what is evil was unavoidable and Agustin developed an answer which has become a central part of classical theism Augustine's answer is that an evil is not something that exists but rather an absence of something that ought to exist it is a lack or defect in something that does exist and to that extent is good a paradigm case of evil is blindness a lack of sight in something that ought to have sight saying that an animal say a dog ought to have the power of sight is equivalent to saying that a dog who does not have the power of sight is defective by contrast the absence of sight in an oak tree is not a defect and it's not true that an oak tree ought to have the power of sight a lack of a good which ought to be present is called a privation and Augustine's account of evil is often called the privation theory of evil blindness is an example of natural evil moral evil by contrast is the lack of conformity of human action with moral principles such an action is defective yet the moral agent and his or her action insofar as they exist are good even if they are defective indeed a sinful action might have good effects suppose for example that Tom Rob's dick Tom's action though failing to conform to moral principles might have the good consequence of preventing dick from carrying out his plan to murder his neighbor in contrast to classical theists theistic personalists provide no general account of the nature of evil they provide lists of examples go on to distinguish between natural and moral evils and claim that pain is the paradigm natural evil but give no explanation of what evil is their emphasis on pain as the paradigm example of natural evil poses a challenge to the classical theists theory that what is evil is always the absence of good the absence of a good which ought to be present for the sensation of pain is not an absence a classical theists can reply that the sensation of pain is not evil in the same important sense in which blindness disease and sin are evils certainly a mild pain hardly more than a sensation of pressure is not an evil in that sense but when pain is intense and prolonged it causes a significant evil namely the absence of normal conscious life thus someone in the grips of intense and prolonged pain is prevented from enjoying a good book carrying on a conversation performing any useful work etc it is the absence of the capacity for normal conscious activity rather than the sensation of pain itself that is the real evil when the sensation of pain itself is called bad or evil that just means that it is aversive that is animals are hardwired to avoid it in the similar way of smell that is aversive may be called an evil smell any smell is given as an example of the use of the word evil in the oxford english dictionary but neither the smell of rotten eggs no the sensation of pain is evil in the same important sense in which blindness disease and sin are evils classical theists hold that although some parts of the created world are defective the world as a whole is not Aquinas quotes the famous saying of Augustine since God is the highest good he would not allow any evil to be in his works unless he worse omnipotent and good as to make good even out of the evils suppose an old and weakened wildebeest is caught and eaten by a lion in East Africa the lack of good health is an evil and it wildebeest but it serves the good of the lion and beyond that the good of the great panorama of animal life in East Africa so a created thing that is defective when considered by itself can be part of a larger reality that is good but the world as a whole is by definition not part of a larger whole and so it cannot be defective that is why Aquinas insists that although God could have made a better world by making better things the things that exist could not be more perfectly ordered than they are you