Good and Evil Article Swipe
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· 2023
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004503991_015
· OA: W4387136778
Good and EvilIn modern-day philosophy of religion, one of the most avidly discussed topics is the problem of evil.It poses a challenge for theists, namely that evil seems difficult to reconcile with the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God.Actually two versions of the problem are treated in the current literature.The "logical" problem of evil contends that there is a straightforward contradiction between the existence of evil and the existence of God.The "evidential" problem allows that while some evil might be allowed to exist by God-for instance, to facilitate meaningful free will-the amount and nature of suffering in the world is overwhelming evidence against God's existence.The medieval philosophical traditions also had two versions of the problem of evil, which we might call the "justification problem" and the "causation problem."The justification problem is the one that modern-day philosophers of religion worry about: given that God would seem to have the motive and ability to eliminate evil, why doesn't He do so?The causation problem is: how can evil derive, however indirectly, from a good first cause?This version of the problem is similar to other questions familiar from Avicenna's philosophy, for instance how multiplicity can come from Him given that He is purely one, or how matter or material things can come from Him even though He is immaterial.Avicenna's treatment of evil is complicated, in part because he seeks to address both problems.1A fundamental feature of his view, which he borrows from the Neoplatonic tradition, is the idea that evil is mere privation, a lack of some good, or of some perfection [T1].A paradigm example would be blindness, which is simply the eye's failure to have the power it ought to have.This 1 On the topic see M.
