But this is a difficult problem for believers. Much more difficult than I had supposed when I was on my mission. If God is perfect and omniscient, then why does he permit evil to occur? If, as it says in Genesis 1:31, "God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good," then how do we reconcile this "goodness" with the evil that is all around us?
The answer to this question is never adequately answered in the Book of Job. At least not intellectually. In fact, God is a fickle being in this story. He enters into a wager with Satan (his creation) and allows Satan to tempt Job with horrible afflictions, including the loss of his friends, his riches, and his family. When Job prays for help, God gives him the "do you know who I am?" treatment: "Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." Job 38:4.
So why did God enter into a wager with Satan? Why does God delay the punishment of the wicked? And bring misery to the just? Job's answer to this question is: "I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not." Job 42:3. And from God's perspective, as written in the Book of Isaiah. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." Isaiah 55:8. In the end, we are to take it on faith that God can do what we mere mortals cannot. And God has his reasons for doing whatever he needs to do. For the non-believer, this is a convenient answer. A way for religious authorities to maintain control over their followers. For believers, this is a faith-promoting story designed to show people an example of faithful submission to God.
Augustine takes a more intellectual approach. Augustine really struggled with the problem of evil. "Whence is evil?" he asked in Book III, 12 (p. 16). Later, he lamented: "understood I not, clearly and without difficulty, the cause of evil." (Book VII, 4, p. 44). Augustine later considers the notion that "free-will was the cause of our doing ill..." (Book VII, 5, p. 44). But he is not initially satisfied with this answer. "Who made me? Did not my God, Who is not only good, but goodness itself?" he asks. "Whence then came I to will evil and nill good, so that I am thus justly punished?" In other words, if God is good, then why did he create man to commit evil? Augustine eventually comes to the conclusion that God did not make evil and that evil is not a substance:
"That evil then, which I sought whence it is, is not any substance: for were it a substance, it should be good. For either it should be an incorruptible substance, and so a chief good; or a corruptible substance, which, unless it were good, could not be corrupted. I perceived therefore, and it was manifested to me, that Thou madest all things good, nor is there any substance at all which Thou madest not all things equal, therefore are all things; because each is good, and altogether very good, because our God made all things very good." (Book VII, 18, p. 49).
As Adler argued, "[t]hus man cannot blame God for having created him evil. For man and everything else that God created are good insofar as they are. Evil comes into the world from free will which turns to something that is less good in preference to a greater good" (Adler 93). Augustine concluded that iniquity was composed "of no substance, but the perversion of the will, turned aside from Thee, O God, the Supreme, towards these lower things, and casting out its bowels, and puffed up outwardly." (Book VII, 22, p. 50). Thus, there is no evil that comes from God. "There are only greater and lesser goods. Evil consists not in choosing something intrinsically evil, but in choosing a lesser good rather than a greater one" (Adler 93).
Is Augustine's premise that there is no evil substance in the world correct? Are mosquitoes, dirt, and cancer "good"? Mosquitoes surely (or perhaps arguably) play some important role in nature, from dirt comes food, and cancer is merely an excess of cells (as I understand it correctly). What about the Christian conception of Satan? Is his fall from grace the result of will, or is this being inherently evil? Augustine (at least) gives a principled, logical, and interesting argument to help him reconcile the problem of evil with his belief in the divinity of God. While I do not find it completely satisfying, I do not pretend to have the intellect to refute this notion of free will as the cause of evil. I will have to revisit this issue.
