A God-Centered Theodicy

A common attempt at reconciling the existence of evil with the existence of an all-good God has been to say something like the following: God allows various kinds of evils because they are necessary conditions for various sorts of goods. More concisely, for every evil x God intends to bring about a good y which could not exist otherwise, and is therefore justified in allowing x. The examples of what sorts of goods these might be have been many, but I intend to point one out which seems to sum the others up, and which comes from a distinctly Reformed perspective.

Let us first examine a proposition which could be said to be the foundational one for these sorts of theodicies:

P1- For every evil x, x is justified iff x is necessary for bringing about a good y which outweighs the evil of x.

What constitutes the idea of "outweighing" in this premise is, admittedly, quite vague. But it could possibly mean something like this: A good y outweighs an evil x iff y results in effects more morally great than x is morally evil. This is still vague, but I don't think it's vagueness is that much of an issue, since we intuitively recognize when a good outweighs, or is greater, than a particular evil, even if we don't recognize exactly what constitutes this "outweighing'. So let us content ourselves with moral intuition on this point.

Now take another, widely accepted, theological premise:

p2- The greatest possible creaturely good is to magnify the glory of God (who is the paradigm of goodness).

Given these to premises, we can formulize the following argument (assuming God's existence for reductio):

1. Any evil x is justified iff it is necessary for bringing about a good y, and y is sufficiently greater than x.
2. The good of magnifying God's glory is always sufficiently greater than any evil x.
3. There are evils which are necessary conditions for bringing about a magnification of God's glory g.
3. God's providence insures that every evil x brings about a g.
4. Therefore, any evil x is justified.

This argument implies that individually, and collectively, all the evils that exist in the world are serving to magnify God's glory, the greatest possible creaturely good. The reason I say "individually and collectively" is because it may be hard to see how one particular, small, evil serves to magnify God's glory in any significant way. But, in a collective sense, it may serve to achieve that goal. For instance, a child hitting his or her sibling may not appear to magnify God's glory in a very apparent, or exemplary, way. But that one evil, under the Christian story, is a contributing factor to Christ's eventual (if this happened before 33 A.D.) death on the cross. Jesus' death on the cross is an exemplary display of God's glory in His mercy for sinners, and therefore all that contributes to it is justified. Similarly, there are some goods which individually, regardless of their collective significance, magnify God's glory. For example, say a soldier gets shot in battle. As he dies he cries out to God for mercy and salvation, and finally sees the beauty of God's power and etc. This good is greater than the evil of the man getting shot because he acknowledges the great glory of God, and is then ushered into His eternal kingdom. So this would seem to be justified apart from God's plans overall for exemplifying His glory at the end of the age, or whatnot.

One weakness of this argument is that it will primarily appeal to those who already believe in Christianity, but to few who don't. This is because the premise that exemplifying God's glory is the greatest possible creaturely good seems utterly incoherent to those outside the faith (and, sadly, many within). Goods like caring for someone with cancer, getting honor in battle, and other standard examples that come from this theodicy make more sense to the unbeliever. So I suppose this argument should function more as a comfort to the believer who is struggling with why God allows evil in the world. I think that he or she would find that this answer is Scriptural, coherent, and is a great comfort for the Christian (since God works all things for their good, as Paul says). Put in a better way, all the evils which occur in the life of the Christian serve to magnify God's glory in love and mercy, as opposed to wrath and judgement.

Soli Deo Gloria

-Ben C.