Does evil imply God’s existence?

Explanation of Aquinas’s statement

Aquinas’s claim that ‘[i]f evil exists, God exists’ initially seems self-contradictory, but such an interpretation presumes a non-Thomistic account of evil. ¹ Aquinas’s statement would be nonsensical if he believed that good and evil were opposite, coeternal entities. Aquinas instead holds that goodness, unlike evil, is eternal and exists necessarily. ² Evil is a lack of goodness that constantly gnaws away at the good, on which it is dependent. ³ If, with Aquinas, we maintain that God is the source of goodness, evil could not exist without goodness. As Augustine wrote: ‘Only something which is good can be evil.’ ⁴ Nothing can be wholly evil as it must contain some goodness to exist, this goodness just gradually decreases. ⁵

Arguments for Aquinas’s view

Evil’s existence indirectly relies on God’s existence because God uniquely provides an objective, universal measure of goodness, which evil corrodes. If God did not exist, man would be ‘the measure of all things’ (Protagoras) so we could not legitimately label cruel, senseless suffering ‘evil’ because it would just be a subjective feeling of pain, rather than objectively wrong. ⁶ As Susan Neiman writes, for ‘[atheistic] observers, earthquakes are only a matter of plate tectonics. They threaten, at most, your faith in government building codes or geologists' predictions.’ ⁷ Paul Copan concurs: ‘Non-theists, who wield the argument from evil against God’s existence, more often tend to assume the reality of evil than actually define it. But … the very definition of evil – a departure from the way things ought to be – presumes a … design-plan of the way things ought to be.’ ⁸ Copan continues: ‘[S]urely evil involves something deeper. Shall we dismiss as mere misfortunes events like the Holocaust?’ ⁹ Aquinas writes: ‘[T]here would be no evil if the order of good were removed, the privation of which is evil; there would be no such order if there were no God.’ ¹⁰ We need a universal, underlying conception of goodness to know what evil declines from and to understand its nature. While evil relies on the good for its existence, the reverse is not true as only goodness is eternal and supreme – we need real money to discern counterfeit money, not vice versa. ¹¹ We know a line is straight by seeing it – we do not need to compare it with a crooked line. ¹²

Aquinas notes:

If there were no evils in the world, man’s good would be lessened considerably, both in his knowledge and … love of the good … [T]hrough suffering evil his desire of doing good is kindled. Thus the sick know best what a great good health is, and they also burn more for it than those who have it. ¹³

Aquinas’s privation theory of evil supports his statement

Aquinas’s statement relies on two presumptions. The first, which I explore in this paragraph, is that evil is not an independent entity but a particular lack of a certain good (or goods) in a thing, corroding that good(s). The second, which I explore in the following paragraph, is that this is the best possible material world. One of privation theory’s main strengths is its uniquely clear revelation of evil’s harmful impact and our vulnerability to temptation. ¹⁵ This is because privatio boni argues that good is always the target of evil and its sole raison d’être is to corrode particular goods within certain things. ¹⁶ It prevents us from drawing blanket generalizations about the abstract concept of evil, which dualism can succumb to, instead forcing us to examine manifestations of evil within certain things. ¹⁷ Aquinas states that ‘[e]vil cannot be intended by anyone for its own sake’, as it is impossible to desire a lack. ¹⁸ Instead, people make mistakes in reasoning, leading them to seek apparent, rather than actual, goods. ¹⁹ However, this is a naïve view, and it seems not to account for the actions of serial child murderers such as Robert Black. They repeatedly and deliberately sin for its own sake in a premeditated manner. Aquinas mistakenly diverges from Augustine, who stated that he sinned by stealing pears, not because he made a mistake in reasoning or was ignorant, but because he enjoyed sinning. ²⁰

However, an advantage of Aquinas’s privation theory of evil is that it enables us to truly hold human individuals accountable for their evil deeds. ²¹ During the Holocaust, concentration camp inmates were deprived of the most essential goods necessary for human life. ²² This deprivation is held up as the twentieth century’s greatest example of evil, so deprivations are deeply wicked, not neutral. ²³ Applying dualist theories to the Holocaust would attribute evil misdeeds to some Manichaean cosmic force of evil, reducing human culpability. ²⁴ Aquinas’s view uniquely enables us to ask, ‘not where was God in Auschwitz, but where was man?’ (Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits). ²⁵ Privation theory states that evil can coexist within created things/beings, gradually eroding their goodness. ²⁶ Dualism sees good and evil as separate, opposite rivals, unable to coexist within one being or thing. ²⁷ That view, therefore, unlike privation theory, fails to truly acknowledge the corrosive harm evil causes, so privatio boni is more persuasive.

Another main strength of privatio boni is its compatibility with Christian orthodoxy, enabling the believer to defend a traditional view of God while truly acknowledging evil’s existence and deep harm. This contrasts with dualism’s conception of evil, which forces the believer to compromise on God’s sovereignty and omnipotence, and his already accomplished triumph over sin. Dualism argues that evil is an equal, coeternal rival force to God, implying that it may be equal to God. Here, it is necessary to make a broad distinction between the two main types of evil: natural and moral. Natural evils are ‘bad states of affairs which do not result from the intentions or negligence of moral agents’, such as hurricanes and earthquakes. ²⁸ Moral evils, such as stealing and rape, by contrast, ‘do result from the intentions and negligence of moral agents’. ²⁹

A common criticism of privation theory is that, because it does not see evil as an entity in itself, it trivializes the harm evil causes, patronizing sufferers. ³⁰ It supposedly sees evil as an illusion. ³¹ This criticism is an oversimplistic caricature, as privatio boni does not assert that evil is just a lack of goodness but a harmful process of the corruption of a certain good or goods in a particular thing or being.

Only privation theory fits with the workings of nature, providing a realistic grammar of evil, its operation and impact. ³² Augustine observes that dualism does not fit with our experience of nature. ³³ When we are ill, the proper function of a certain organ within our body is disrupted. ³⁴ In most cases, this ailment generally tends to be largely localized – the rest of our body functions well, so health and disease therefore coexist within the same body but, in a particular area, an organ has been corrupted. Once the illness has been cured, the malady seldom migrates elsewhere but instead ceases to exist as it is a defect in substance. ³⁵ Illness is not an entity, existing independently of health; its existence instead depends on corruptible organs within a thing or being and so it can corrode them and their functions.

On the surface, cancer initially seems to be an anomaly to this general rule, but, on closer examination, I believe that it too conforms to privation theory. ³⁶ Cancer is a privation but just not one of existence; it is instead a ‘process of enduring privation’ of a particular good within a specific thing – that is, it corrodes the proper function of one or more organs. ³⁷ If we, therefore, view cancer as a process of inducing privation, instead of a ‘privation of existence’, then it can be seen to fit with the privation theory as it leads to death, the ultimate privation. ³⁸ Rowan Williams helpfully argues that evil is not a noun describing an entity but is instead a verb and label we give to the incremental process of decay and dysfunction. ³⁹ Privation theory is, therefore, a ‘grammar of evil’. ⁴⁰ The presence of an excess of what would otherwise act as a good may therefore reorient organs to a negative end, just as a washing machine with too many clothes in it may malfunction. ⁴¹ Furthermore, Makan notes that another flaw with the idea that cancer is an exception to privation theory arises from the fact that it is a disease, a corruption of something good – it exploits and hijacks an existent good by redirecting the end of its functions. ⁴² He continues:

cancer is rapidly growing abnormal cells. The ‘abnormal’ is an indication that cancer is a deprivation from that which is normal, and the normal is determined by the essence. Cancer also hinders John from attaining or striving towards his inherent télos, to maintain his existence. Hence we conclude that cancer is evil because it is a deviation from that which is good … Cancer is the cause of particular evil when it is growing in [John’s] brain because the degeneration of [John’s] brain is not required for [John’s] perfection. ⁴³

Aquinas’s view that this is not the best possible material world undermines his statement

I will now evaluate the second pillar undergirding Aquinas’s statement: that this is the best possible material world. If Aquinas is to argue that evil’s existence points us to God’s existence, he must believe that this is the best possible material world. Otherwise, it is very difficult to see why a perfect, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God with certain foreknowledge would create a corruptible world. Aquinas’s refusal to affirm this seems to be his Achilles’ heel, undermining his argument that there needed to be varying degrees of goodness within creation for it to be perfect, as this world is not perfect anyway. ⁴⁸ Aquinas writes: ‘God cannot make a thing better than it is itself; although He can make another thing better than it; even as He cannot make the number four greater than it is; because if it were greater it would no longer be four.’ ⁴⁹ He reiterates this by writing:

it is not of the nature of anything created, that it should be better than it was made by God … The universe … cannot be better, on account of the most beautiful order given to things by God … For if any one thing were bettered, the proportion of order would be destroyed. ⁵⁰

I prefer Gottfried Leibniz’s view that this is the best possible material world and that is why it has to contain varying degrees of goodness. ⁵¹ Aquinas, however, makes a similar argument to Leibniz’s elsewhere: ‘the perfection of the universe requires that there should be inequality in things, so that every grade of goodness may be realised … [and] that there should be corruptible beings’. ⁵² This seems to contradict his earlier view in the same work that this is not the best possible world: ‘it is not of the nature of anything created, that it should be better than it was made by God’. ⁵³ However, Aquinas may be arguing that differing levels of goodness are required for the ‘perfection’ of this world. He writes that, ‘the present creation being supposed’, the world ‘cannot be better, on account of the most beautiful order given to things by God … [I]f any one thing were bettered, the proportion of order would be destroyed.’ ⁵⁴ He further writes: ‘The order which follows essential goodness would not be able to be better, unless other parts, and another universe were to come about.’ ⁵⁵ In other words, this is ‘the best possible this-world’. ⁵⁶ However, this claim seems to be virtually meaningless, stretching the definition of ‘perfection’. ⁵⁷

Having said that, Aquinas explains: ‘God cannot make a thing better than it is itself; although he can make another thing better than it; … he cannot make the number four greater than it is; because … it would no longer be four.’ ⁵⁸ Although Aquinas makes it clear that this is not the best of all possible worlds, it is difficult to infer whether he believes that this is the best possible material world. ⁵⁹ However, personally, I think that Aquinas would probably have also disagreed with the latter, due to his understanding of the limits that ‘possible’ seems to imply for him here. He seems to interpret it as presuming that there are only a finite number of worlds God could have created, thereby placing restrictions on God’s infinite creative freedom. Aquinas writes: ‘Since then God necessarily wills His own goodness, but other things not necessarily, as was shown above, He has free choice with respect to what he does not necessarily will.’ ⁶⁰ This means that no possible world is so God that God must choose to create it. ⁶¹ I would respond that there were indeed an infinite number of possible worlds that God could have created, but only a finite number of material, spatio-temporal ones. In other words, by choosing to create a material world, God has freely chosen to limit his own creative freedom.

Aquinas’s argument would be more persuasive if he had explicitly affirmed this as the best possible material world. He writes: ‘[T]he order of the universe requires … that there should be some things that can, and do sometimes, fail. And thus God [indirectly] … by accident, causes the corruption of things’ ⁶² – just as a boulder rolling down a hill does not intend to crush trees on the way but accidentally causes this evil to them as collateral damage.

Aquinas tries to vindicate God’s allowance of evil on the basis that it is the indirect, accidental consequence of his creating a corruptible world. However, this defence relies on this being the best possible material world. Otherwise, God could have created a superior material world without evil. It is possible to understand why God did not create the best possible world but it seems impossible to understand why he did not create the best possible material world.

God did not create an incorruptible world as doing so would not have allowed the world to be rational, ordered, predictable or scientifically intelligible, and would not have allowed for human freedom. ⁶³ It might also not have been able to be a material world, as Herbert McCabe states. ⁶⁴ Richard Swinburne makes a similar point in his argument from providence. ⁶⁵ He argues that, given finitude, space, time and the Fall, this world is optimum in terms of the precise amount of freedom, responsibility and power humans have been granted. ⁶⁶ Without God, the world might have instead been a loveless, totally atomized one: for example, a world with minimal human freedom, power, responsibility or potential for growth. ⁶⁷ This side of eternity, collateral evil is the price of that optimal order and natural regularity. ⁶⁸ Concerning natural evil, Tom McLeish similarly argues, for the essentially corruptible nature of the world and human humility in the light of this acknowledgement, that ‘[t]he message of Job is that chaos is part of the fruitfulness of creation; we cannot hope to control it any more than we can bridle Leviathan but by understanding we might channel it’. ⁶⁹ He continues that we must ‘seek the “fear of the Lord”, where this is understood to be a participation in a creator’s deep insight into the structure of what he has made’. ⁷⁰ John Polkinghorne agrees, arguing that we are all, as human creatures, tempted to think that we could have done a better job at creation than God by eradicating evil and leaving only good. ⁷¹ However, the more we come to scientifically understand the universe and its highly complex, interlocking web of cosmic natural laws, the more we are forced into self-deprecating humility and awe at the complex balance God has made and continues to sustain. ⁷² Polkinghorne continues: ‘The physical universe … is not just the backdrop against which the human drama … is being played out.’ ⁷³ No; instead we emerge from and are characters within and surrounded by nature – the context of our natural world is essential context, not merely accidental. ⁷⁴ Polkinghorne concludes: ‘Perhaps only a world endowed with both its own spontaneity and its own reliability could have given rise to beings able to exercise choice.’ ⁷⁵ Aquinas’s allowance of the possibility that this is not the best possible material world, therefore, makes his counterargument to evil less persuasive. ⁷⁶

Aquinas’s argument that God permits evil to allow him to miraculously bring good out of it

Aquinas responds to the objection to God’s existence from evil by arguing that God permits evil so that he can display his ‘infinite goodness’ by miraculously bringing good out of it. ⁷⁷ This seems to align with Romans 8.30 – ‘all things work together for good for those who love God’ – and Jesus’ statement that ‘he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him’ (John 9.3). Conversely, I think that, as evil is a privation, it can never have a part to play in helping accomplish God’s purposes, even if, in a finite, postlapsarian world where evil is already present, God can use it to bring about his purposes. ⁷⁸ With John 9.3, Jesus’ statement is circumstantial, applying only to this particular situation where Christ’s power and identity could be revealed – it could not be applied to a post-Ascension miracle. We are saved despite our sufferings, not because of them, by them or through them. ⁷⁹ As Mindy Makant writes: ‘Suffering is not the cause of redemption; it cannot and does not bring about redemption. Redemption is God’s intention. Suffering disrupts – but does not thwart – that intention.’ ⁸⁰ God’s redemptive intention towards creation is supreme and eternal, preceding suffering’s interruption. We are therefore saved by and through the power of Christ, despite and during our sufferings – he alone has the final word, regardless of the raw, challenging circumstances. God never foreordains evil to accomplish his will because this would imply that his power were limited. He would be reliant on evil, treating humans as mere means. If God had created a finite, material world where he could achieve his purposes only by letting his creatures suffer, he would arguably have been better off not creating a material world; such an act could arguably be seen as a negligent oversight. However, as Herbert McCabe argues, that would not be ‘a very damning charge’ as ‘most people are rather glad that he did so and even sometimes thank him for it’. ⁸¹

Conclusion

In conclusion, Aquinas’s statement ‘If evil exists, God exists’ means that, when one objects to something as deeply evil, one is inadvertently and implicitly affirming the objective, natural goodness of the divinely created order. Consequently, instead of leading us to reject God, evil points us to his existence. I find Aquinas’s counterargument to evil convincing, although it would be more persuasive if he had affirmed this as the best possible material world.