St Augustine
The problem of evil is tied up with the idea of God as Creator. If God made the world, according to the problem of evil, then we would expect it to be markedly better than we find it to be. God, being good, would not create evil. Yet evil has come into being.
Part of St Augustine’s theodicy attacks this interpretation of the problem of evil. Evil, according to Augustine is not a thing; rather, it is a nothing, an absence of good. It therefore makes no sense to talk of God creating evil. We cannot complain that God’s creation is flawed; everything that God created is good. St Augustine summed up this thought as follows:
"Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'"
More recently, Brian Davies has explained the same thought like this:
"There are holes in walls, but holes have no independent existence. There are holes in walls only because there are walls with something missing. There are blind people. But blindness has no independent existence. There are blind people only because there are people who cannot see. In a similar way, evil has no independent existence. It 'is there' only in the sense that something 'is missing'. But what is not there cannot be thought to be made to be by the source of the being of things. It cannot be thought to be made to be by God." [Brian Davies]
|
