A Theodicy for the 21st Century.

One of the great intellectual barriers to faith in a good, omnipotent and omniscient God has been the presence of evil in the world. The question is "if God is totally good and totally omnipotent why does he allow evil in the world?" As there is evil in the world such a God, it is argued, cannot exist. Such arguments were particularly devastating to faith after the carnage of the first and second world wars and the peculiar evils of the Holocaust when man perpetrated evil upon his fellows (moral evil) or at the time of the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami on All Saints day in 1755 when 90,000 people died, many in churches celebrating Mass (physical evil).

Medieval ideas of Luis de Molina (1) chime with modern conceptions (2) of the possibilities of multiple universes or multiple worlds: these allow a tight intellectual defense of faith for the 21st century believer along the following lines:


The Problem:

1. If God is omni-benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent then his creation must necessarily be good.

2. From everyday observations the world seems to have much evil in it.

3. Arguments 1 and 2 are incompatible.


How can the world we know be the product of an omni-benevolent God who is also omnipotent, and omniscient ? Is this possible?


A Solution:

4. God possesses middle knowledge eternally. (Middle knowledge, Molina's scientia media, allows God to know what will happen in all potential situations and at all times whether such situations or times occur or not.)

5. God therefore knows timelessly of all possible worlds in which good may exist.

6. To prevent the existence of good would be an evil act

7. As God is omni-benevolent he cannot commit an evil act

8. God therefore necessarily creates all worlds in which there is good:

8. There is good in our world

10 God necessarily creates our world.

Therefore 3 is shown to be false.


Furthermore there is no such thing as a perfectly good world because, paradoxically

11. There may be worlds in which there is total good and no evil:

12. In such a world people would be unable to undertake good acts to reduce the impact of evil or evil itself.

13. A world in which there is no evil would lack these good acts

14 Therefore a world with no evil can never be totally good

15 Therefore 11 is untrue and a totally good world cannot exist


Counter Arguments and Inadequacies:

The arguments set out in 1 to 10 may seem unsatisfactory to individuals who have suffered great evil. They might reasonably ask "why does God not intervene to make things entirely good?" The logical answer is that such intervention may occur in another world which may be better, or not, than this one, but if it occurred in our world it would not be the same world. This reply may seem unsatisfactory in the context of Christianity's conception of a personal and loving God. On the other hand the world which we know may be the world in which God intervenes in response to prayer, this is the promise of Jesus in the Gospels that "where two or three are gathered together God will grant their requests".



Some suggest that the idea of multiple universes in this context implies infinite numbers of different worlds many of which would only be marginally different from each other and that this conception is unsatisfactory.


A Consequence:

The location of ultimate good is not to be found in a created universe but in the mind of God where all possible forms of good are known and from where all may be realised. God must also know of all possible evils but these He would limit in their realisation and allow the creation of the good that would neutralise or eliminate the evils that he does allow. Perhaps that is why the contemplative spends the hours in attentive contemplation to the ultimate good and why such contemplation is the ultimate reward for the virtuous in heaven -see for example Dante's Divine Comedy III Paradise -. That contemplation must also encompass the possibility of evil and its neutralisation or elimination, just as those in monastic communities read and listen to the news day by day and enter into the world of those suffering hardship when they pray for them, for example using the form "For these let us pray to the Lord".

(1) Luis de Molina 1535 - 1600 in: De liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia (4 vo., Lisbon, 1588). e.g. cyberef: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Molina

(2) Leslie, J. 1989 Universes. Routledge London and NY 228pp. See for example p.186.

The above arguments have been developed from my essay The Biologist Redeemed: submitted as part of the requirement for the Postgraduate College Diploma in Theology and Religious Studies of King's College, London in 1999. I would like to acknowledge the help of Jessie Munton during disucussions of the original arguments.

Paul Munton 21st August 2007.