Leibniz has been more or less closely followed by many who have since treated the subject from the Christian point of view. With regard to the nature of evil, it should be observed that evil is of three kinds — physical, moral, and metaphysical. it cannot be solved by a mere experimental analysis of the actual conditions from which evil results. Secondly, to the question why God should have chosen to create, when creation was in no way needful for His own perfection, St. Thomas answers that God‘s object in creating is Himself; He creates in order to manifest His own goodness, power, and wisdom, and is pleased with that reflection or similitude of Himself in which the goodness of creation consists. 1:v; Const. . The Hegelian Monism, which reproduces many of the ideas of Eckhart, and is adopted in its main features by many different systems of recent origin, gives to evil a place in the unfolding of the Idea, in which both the origin and inner reality of the universe are to be found. Cf. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Patricia Massia-Kellog, H. Jason Krim, Jes Bahn, and Yaqoob Mohyuddin. Nom., iv, 31; St. Augustine, City of God XII). Further, admitting that metaphysical evil in itself may be merely nature's method, involving nothing more than a continual redistribution of the material elements of the universe, human suffering and wrongdoing still and out as essentially opposed to the general scheme of natural development, and are scarcely to be reconciled in thought with any conception of unity or harmony in nature. Evil has been attributed to one of two mutually opposed principles, to which respectively the mingled good and evil of the world are due. Schiller, Humanism, London 1907.) Leibnitz founded his views mainly on those of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and deduced from them his theory of Optimism (q.v.). Derham (Physico-Theology, London, 1712) took occasion from an examination of the excellence of creation to commend an attitude of humility and trust towards the Creator of “this elegant, this well-contrived, well-formed world, in which we find everything necessary for the sustentation, use and pleasure both of man and every other creature here below; as well as some whips, some rods, to scourge us for our sins”. St. Thomas also provides explanations of what are now generally considered to be the two main difficulties of the subject, viz., the Divine permission of foreseen moral evil, and the question finally arriving thence, why God chose to create anything at all. Since it is of faith that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and all good it is difficult to account for sin in His creation. But on the question of the origin of evil there has been, and is a considerable diversity of opinion. Hence, the various forms of Socialism; the idea conceived by Nietzsche of a totally new, though as yet undefined, form of social morality, and of the constitution and mutual relations of classes; and the so-called ethical and scientific religions inculcating morality as tending to the general good. Dei, xii). ii) points out the educative purposes served by evil; and St. Augustine, holding evil to be permitted for the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, shows that it has, under this aspect, the nature of good, and is pleasing to God, not because of what it is, but because of where it is; i.e. In the light of Catholic doctrine, any theory that may be held concerning evil must include certain points bearing on the question that have been authoritatively defined. Plato held God to be "free from blame" (anaítios) for the evil of the world; its cause was partly the necessary imperfection of material and created existence, and partly the action of the human will (Timeaus, xlii; cf. Thus, animal and vegetable organisms are variously influenced by climate and other natural causes; predatory animals depend for their existence on the destruction of life; nature is subject to storms and convulsions, and its order depends on a system of perpetual decay and renewal due to the interaction of its constituent parts. It will be observed that St. Thomas’s account of evil is a true Theodicy, taking into consideration as it does every factor of the problem, and leaving unsolved only the mystery of creation, before which all schools of thought are equally helpless. The Stoics conceived evil in a somewhat similar manner, as due to necessity; the immanent Divine power harmonizes the evil and good in a changing world. As darkness is nothing but the absence of light, and is not produced by creation, so evil is merely the defect of goodness. Transcription. But the Greek temper was naturally disinclined to a pessimistic view of nature and life; and while popular mythology embodied the darker aspects of existence in such conceptions as those of Fate, the avenging Furies, and the envy (phthónos) of the gods, Greek thinkers, as a rule, held that evil is universally supreme, but can be avoided or overcome by the wise and virtuous. . Thus the Manichaean dualism has no foundation in reason. Similarly, we are unable to imagine why God chose to manifest Himself by the way of creation, instead of, or in addition to, the other ways, whatever they may be, by which He has, or may have, attained the same end. 2; and I, Q. xxi, a. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. If animal suffering is excluded, no pain of any kind is caused by the inevitable limitations of nature; and they can only be called evil by analogy, and in a sense quite different from that in which the term is applied to human experience. ii) points out the educative purposes served by evil; and St. Augustine, holding evil to be permitted for the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, shows that it has, under this aspect, the nature of good, and is pleasing to God, not because of what it is, but because of where it is; i.e. (Greg. Enlightenment thinkers endeavoured to push the figure of the Devil out of Christian consciousness as being a product of the fantasy of the Middle Ages. Its chief representatives are Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, both of whom hold the actual universe to be fundamentally evil, and happiness in it to be impossible. The nature and degree of pain in the lower animals is very obscure, and in the necessary absence of data it is difficult to say whether it should rightly be classed with the merely formal evil which belongs to inanimate objects, or with the suffering of human beings. Since sin is a moralevil, it is necessaryin the first place to determine what is meant by … Thus it has often been supposed that animal suffering, together with many of the imperfections of inanimate nature, was due to the fall of man, with whose welfare, as the chief part of creation, were bound up the fortunes of the rest (see Theoph. Proverbs 26 and Conc. 9; De Malo, I, 4). 2; cf. No system of philosophy has ever succeeded in escaping from the obscurity in which the subject is involved; but it is not too much to say that the Christian solution offers, on the whole, fewer difficulties, and approaches more nearly to completeness than any other. it consists not in the acquisition of anything, but in the loss or deprivation of something necessary for perfection. Each was independent of the other; but eventually the good were to be victorious with Ormuzd, and Ahriman and his evil followers were to be expelled from the world. But on the question of the origin of evil there has been, and is, a considerable diversity of opinion. Div. Of this kind, of the whole, were the doctrines of the Ionic Hylozoists, whose fundamental notion was the essential unity of matter and life; and on the other hand, also, that of the Eleatics, who founded the origin of all things in abstract being. In this mode of thought the individual necessarily counts for very little, as being merely a transient manifestation of the cosmic force; and the social aspects of humanity are those under which its pains and shortcomings are mostly considered, with a view to their amelioration. Descartes and Malebranche held that the world is the best possible for the purpose for which it was created, i.e. Nyss., De. What is evil in some relations may be good in others; and probably there is no form of existence which is exclusively evil in all relations, Hence it has been thought that evil cannot truly be said to exist at all, and is really nothing but a "lesser good." The problem of evil is the most serious problem in the world and the one serious objection to the existence of God. Nevertheless, there is no department of human life in which its presence is not felt; and the discrepancy between what is and what ought to be has always called for explanation in the account which mankind has sought to give of itself and its surroundings. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Further, admitting that metaphysical evil in itself may be merely nature’s method, involving nothing more than a continual redistribution of the material elements of the universe, human suffering and wrongdoing still stand out as essentially opposed to the general scheme of natural development, and are scarcely to be reconciled in thought with any conception of unity or harmony in nature. Dei, XI, xii, De Vera Relig. Such was the view of King (Essay on the Origin of Evil, London, 1732), who insisted strongly on the doctrine of the best possible world; of Cudworth, who held that evil, though inseparable from the nature of imperfect beings, is largely a matter of men's own fancy and opinions, rather than the reality of things, and therefore not to be made the ground of accusations against Divine Providence. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Nihil Obstat. Moral evil, in particular, arises from error, and is to be gradually eliminated, or at least minimized, by improved knowledge of the conditions of human welfare (Meliorism). If God is all-benevolent, why did He cause or permit suffering? 1, 3). If He is all-Powerful, He can be under no necessity of creating or permitting it; and on the other hand, if He is under any such necessity, He cannot be all-powerful. God‘s pleasure is the one supremely perfect motive for action, alike in God Himself and in His creatures; not because of any need, or inherent necessity, in the Divine nature (C. G., I, xxviii; II, xxiii), but because God is the source, center, and object, of all existence. There is therefore no "summum malum", or positive source of evil, corresponding to the "summum bonum", which is God (I, Q. xlix, a. Spinoza united spirit and matter in the notion of a single substance, to which he attributed both thought and extension; error and perfection were the necessary consequence of the order of the universe. No system of philosophy has ever succeeded in escaping from the obscurity in which the subject is involved; but it is not too much to say that the Christian solution offers, on the whole, fewer difficulties, and approaches more nearly to completeness than any other. Nevertheless, there is no department of human life in which its presence is not felt; and the discrepancy between what is and what ought to be has always called for explanation in the account which mankind has sought to give of itself and its surroundings. With Aristotle, evil is a necessary aspect of the constant changes of matter, and has in itself no real existence (Metaph., ix, 9). Admitting that evil consists in a certain relation of man to his environment, or that it arises in the relation of the component parts of the totality of existence to one another, how comes it that though all are alike the results of a universal cosmic process, this universal agency is perpetually at war with itself, contradicting and thwarting its own efforts in the mutual hostility of its progeny? . Ecclesiastical approbation. He probably derived the notion from the Gnostic sects, which, though they differed on many points from one another, were generally agreed in following the opinions of Philo, and the neo-Platonist Plotinus, as to the evil of matter. This was also, among Greek philosophers, the view of Hegesias the Cyrenaic (called peisithanatos, the counsellor of death), who held life to be valueless, and pleasure, the only good, to be unattainable. The first example of such religions was that of Auguste Comte, who upon the materialistic basis of Positivism, founded the “religion of humanity”, and professed to substitute an enthusiasm for humanity as the motive of right action, for the motives of supernatural religion. Haeckel advances a dogmatic materialism, in which substance (i.e. (St. Aug., In Gen. as lit.) Schiller, Humanism, London 1907.) 3). Leibniz grants sensation to animals, but considers that mere sense-perception, unaccompanied by reflexion, cannot cause either pain or pleasure; in any case he holds the pain and pleasure of animals to be parable in degree to those resulting from reflex action in man (see also Maher, Psychology, Supp't. Hence, the various forms of Socialism: the idea conceived by Nietzsche of a totally new, though as yet undefined, form of social morality, and of the constitution and mutual relations of classes; and the so called ethical and scientific religions inculcating morality as tending to be generally good. 10; Q. xlix, a. But the Greek temper was naturally disinclined to a pessimistic view of nature and life; and while popular mythology embodied the darker aspects of existence in such conceptions as those of Fate, the avenging Furies, and the envy (phthónos) of the gods, Greek thinkers, as a rule, held that evil is universally supreme, but can be avoided or overcome by the wise and virtuous. Empedocles, again, attributed evil to the principle of hate (neikos), inherent together with its opposite, love (philia), in the universe. ; its cause is the abuse of free will by angels and men (I-II, Q. lxxiii, a. These have, for the most part, emphasized the evidence in creation of the wisdom and goodness of its Author, after the manner of the Book of Job, and have been content to leave undiscovered the reason for the creation, by Him, of a universe in which evil is unavoidable. Evil. Evil is threefold, viz., "malum naturæ" (metaphysical evil), "culpæ" (moral), and "paenæ" (physical, the retributive consequence of "malum culpæ") (I, Q. xlviii, a. This mythological dualism passed to the sect of the Manichees, whose founder, Manes, added a third, but subordinate principle, emanating from the source of good (and perhaps corresponding, in some degree, to the Mithras of Zoroastrianism), in the "living spirit", by whom was formed the present material world of mingled good and evil. Bourdeau has asserted in express terms the futility of seeking a transcendental or supernatural origin for evil and the necessity of confining the view to natural accessible, and determinable causes (Revue Philosophique, I, 1900). Giordano Bruno made God the immanent cause of all things, acting by an internal necessity, and producing the relations considered evil by mankind. 3; C. G., III, 15; De Malo, I, 1); evil being not “ens reale” but only “ens rationis”—i.e. the assignment of a moral and retributive cause for suffering in the, the unhesitating assertion of the beneficence of, that suffering is the penal consequence of wilful disobedience to the. 65:a. The origin of the phenomenal universe is attributed by Schopenhauer to a transcendental Will, which he identifies with pure being; and by Hartmann to the unconscious, which includes both the Will and the Idea (Vorstellung) of Schopenhauer. The relation between the two is variously represented, and ranges from the co-ordination imagined by Zoroastrianism to the mere relative independence of the created will as held by Christian theology. According to the Epicurean Lucretius (De Rerum Natura, II, line 180) the existence of evil was fatal to the supposition of the creation of the world by God: Giordano Bruno made God the immanent cause of all things, acting by an internal necessity, and producing the relations considered evil by mankind. Thus fire could not exist without the corruption of what it consumes; the lion must slay the ass in order to live, and if there were no wrong doing, there would be no sphere for patience and justice (I, Q. xlviii, a. Huxley was content to believe the ultimate causes of things are at present unknown, and may be unknowable. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York. A, London, 1903). Manes held that matter was essentially evil, and therefore could not be in direct contact with God. The problem of the origin of evil is thus merged in that of the origin of being. Moral and physical evil are due to the fall of man, but all evil is overruled by God to a good purpose. Rosmini, closely following Malebranche, pointed out that the question of the possibility of a better world than this has really no meaning; any world created by God must be the best possible in relation to its special purpose, apart from which neither goodness or badness can be predicated of it. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. On the one hand, it is scarcely consistent with the belief in the Divine omnipotence; and on the other, it fails to account for the permission (or indirect authorship) of evil by a good God, to which Bayle had specially taken exception. 2). Pessimism, as a metaphysical system, is the product of modern times. as counter-balancing the deordination of sin, has the nature of good (II, Q. ii, a. This is accordingly the sufficient reason for the existence of the universe, and even for the suffering which moral evil has introduced into it. The problem of the origin of evil is thus merged in that of the origin of being. "God is the author of all that is right and good and just; but men have sometimes chosen good and sometimes evil" (Fragm. St. Thomas also provides explanations of what are now generally considered to be the two main difficulties of the subject, viz., the Divine permission of foreseen moral evil, and the question finally arising thence, why God chose to create anything at all. God's pleasure is the one supremely perfect motive for action, alike in God Himself and in His creatures; not because of any need, or inherent necessity, in the Divine nature (C. G., I, xxviii; II, xxiii), but because God is the source, centre, and object, of all existence. My email address is webmaster at newadvent.org. The features which stand out in the earlier Christian explanation of evil, as compared with non-Christian dualistic theories are thus the definite attribution to God of absolute omnipotence and goodness, notwithstanding His permission of the existence of evil; the assignment of a moral and retributive cause for suffering in the sin of mankind; and the unhesitating assertion of the beneficence of God's purpose in permitting evil, together with the full admission that He could, had He so chosen, have prevented it (City of God XIV). Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se: and the errors of mankind, mistaking the true conditions of its own wellbeing, have been the cause of moral and physical evil (Dion. Hence it has been thought that evil cannot truly be said to exist at all, and is really nothing but a “lesser good.” But this opinion seems to leave out of account the reality of human experience. Plato held God to be “free from blame” (anaitios) for the evil of the world; its cause was partly the necessary imperfection of material and created existence, and partly the action of the human will (Timaeus, xlii; cf. Rosmini, closely following Malebranche, pointed out that the question of the possibility of a better world than this has really no meaning; any world created by God must be the best possible in relation to its special purpose, apart from which neither goodness or badness can be predicated of it. Hobbes regarded God as merely a corporeal first cause; and applying his theory of civil government to the universe, defended the existence of evil by simple assertion of the absolute power to which it is due--a theory which is little else other than a statement of materialistic Determinism in terms of social relations. Thus fire could not exist without the corruption of what it consumes; the lion must slay the ass in order to live, and if there were no wrong doing, there would be no sphere for patience and justice (I, Q. xlviii, a. These points are (I) the omnipotence, omniscience, and absolute goodness of the Creator; (2) the freedom of the will; and (3) that suffering is the penal consequence of willful disobedience to the law of God. Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se : and the errors of mankind, mistaking the true conditions of its own well-being, have been the cause of moral and physical evil (Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, De Div. Bourdeau has asserted in express terms the futility of seeking a transcendental or supernatural origin for evil, and the necessity of confining the view to natural, accessible, and determinable causes (Revue Philosophique, I, 1900). 1, 3). Bourdeau has asserted in express terms the futility of seeking a transcendental or supernatural origin for evil and the necessity of confining the view to natural accessible, and determinable causes (Revue Philosophique, I, 1900). Again, the excellence of God's works in nature is insisted on as evidence of the Divine wisdom, power, and goodness, by which no evil can be directly caused. But since all methods of social improvement that have any value must necessarily represent a nearer approach to conformity with Divine laws they are welcomed and furthered by the Church, as tending, at least indirectly, to accomplish the purpose for which she exists. Thus, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist” (St. August, Enchirid., xxvii). 2; and I, Q. xxi, a. (1909). On Catholic principles, the amelioration of moral evil and its consequent suffering can only take place by means of individual reformation, and not so much through increase of knowledge as through stimulation or redirection of the will. Nyss., De. Schiller, Humanism, London, 1907.) With him, mankind in the present state, is "the animal not yet properly adapted to his environment". St. Thomas replies (C. G., II, xxviii) that God cannot change His mind, since the Divine will is free from the defect of weakness or mutability. Leibniz has been more or less closely followed by many who have since treated the subject from the Christian point of view. (James, Pragmatism, London, 1907. Cooperation with evil, a classic concept in Catholic moral theology, has recently been invoked by some US bishops to discourage Catholics from voting for pro-choice politicians and supporting health care re form.1 These arguments are criticized by some Catholic theologians for lack Such action, when it proceeds solely from ignorance, is not to be classed as moral evil, which is properly restricted to the motions of the will towards ends of which the conscience disapproves. To what, then, is the evil of human life, physical and moral, to be attributed as its cause? Lactantius uses similar arguments to oppose the dilemma, as to the omnipotence and goodness of God, which he puts into the mouth of Epicurus (De Ira Dei, xiii). Lactantius uses similar arguments to oppose the dilemma, as to the omnipotence and goodness of God, which he puts into the mouth of Epicurus (De Ira Dei, xiii). This article was transcribed for New Advent by Patricia Massia-Kellog, H. 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