[American Thinker] Anyone who is ignorant of intellectual history is doomed to repeat intellectual errors. So with the Problem of Evil, which is: "If God exists and is All-Good, why does He permit evil to exist?" Someone always raises the Problem of Evil whenever a natural disaster kills the innocent, like the girls drowned in the recent Texas Flood. The Problem of Evil is obviously connected to the idea of Providence, the claim that whatever happens is the Will of God. Trump turning his head at the precise instant required to dodge the bullet is cited as an act of Providence. But if God can cause Trump to turn his head, then surely, He could have saved those Texas girls.
What was Plato’s solution?
God, being all Good, must actualize all possibilities, all possible worlds. In one world, ours, Trump turned his head, and the Texas girls died. In another world, Trump died, and the Texas girls lived.
Plato claimed goodness required all possibilities be created because goodness requires maximum diversity. Nine hundred years ago, the Christian theologian Peter Abelard expanded on Plato’s explanation by arguing that existence itself is a good. Therefore, God, being All-Good, wishing to maximize goodness, maximizes the size of reality by actualizing all possible worlds. The Texas girls who died in this world still had eight years of existence, and this is better than not existing at all. Further, the same girls will live their full lives in another world.
Arthur Lovejoy, in his book The Great Chain of Being, based on lectures he gave at Harvard a century ago, after discussing Plato’s and Abelard’s solution, pointed out (p. 74) that St. Thomas Aquinas, who wrote 800 years ago, and is the greatest Roman Catholic theologian ever, agreed with this solution to the Problem of Evil.
This solution to the Problem of Evil was presented by four of the greatest minds in history 2,300, 900, 800, and 100 years ago. Since everyone at some point in their lives wonders about the Problem of Evil, there is no excuse for educated people to be unaware of this solution, whether they accept it or not.
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