Courtesy of St. Augustine and St. Irenaeus Global Theodicies Courtesy of St. Augustine and St. Irenaeus

Evil is a privation only… St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) regarded evil as having no metaphysical standing. Evil is parasitic, living off the good. Evil is the absence of the good, not anything itself sustainable. Evil is the lapse of being back into nothingness Evil is only a mirage in history, it will not abide the test of eternity

Evil is necessary for moral maturity St. Irenaeus (130 – 202 AD) speaks of evil as a necessary ingredient to moral maturation. Original innocence was not perfection. Perfection is the goal of the spiritual quest. Evil provides the needed resistance to develop moral muscle. The atheistic appearance of the world is critical to the rise of real faith.

A Theodicy of Humility Faith is rational even if we don’t know the reason. There is a difference between having a reason and knowing a reason. I am justified in believing that there is a prime number larger than 3.096 x 10 even if I don’t know what it is. We humbly trust authorities all the time.

Don’t you trust your physician?

But do you understand them? If your doctor tells you that you have some kind of weird medical problem that requires surgery right away, are you going to trust their judgment or not? You might get a second opinion, but still, you are trusting that they have a good reason for what they are doing even if you don’t know what that reason is.

“Learned ignorance…” (J. Calvin) We trust authorities all the time…car mechanics, dentists, plumbers, government, etc…to have a justification for their actions even if we don’t really know what that justification is. If evil really is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day, God is the only solution to the problem.

“I don’t know” is an answer. We don’t know why God permits evil. We don’t know what ultimate purpose it serves in the cosmic scheme. But we know that if God does not exist then we are locked in a world filled with gratuitous and nihilistic suffering. But if God exists, then we have hope even in the face of evil…we are not left in despair.

One final quote… “The mysteries of existence do not decrease but instead increase with the adoption of unbelief. And the unease of the heart grows larger.” H. Bavink