The problem of evil
pp. 123-134
in: Leroy Rouner (ed), Philosophy, religion, and the coming world civilization, Berlin, Springer, 1966Abstract
No doubt it may be thought that what is called the problem of evil can be of interest only to the theologians and those who think like them, and that it cannot be of interest to non-theistic or naturalistic philosophers. In the opinion of naturalists, presumably, we can ask questions about what exists and what happens, but not questions about why anything exists or happens in the sense in which the word "why" means "for what purpose." For to ask "why" in this sense is to imply the acceptance of some kind of teleological view of the world. And even the belief that there is a world-purpose is not enough to force the problem of evil upon us. We could quite well believe in some kind of world-purpose, for instance an evil purpose, without there being any problem of evil. For that question to arise there is necessary, not only a belief in purpose, but also a belief in the existence of an absolutely good and all-powerful personal creator. Moreover this creator must be anthropomorphically conceived. He must be a mind which plans and aims at ends, and therefore, presumably, has desires, or at least a desire for those ends. There must, in short, be the sort of God whom, if I remember rightly, Tennyson spoke of as "an infinite clergyman." Of what interest then can this problem of evil be to the majority of those highly sophisticated individuals who are students of philosophy?