How does Anglicanism address the Problem of Evil? Is there any doctrine regarding this or are there various opinions? Thanks
The problem of evil is a particularly 20th century "problem". While it existed on the peripheries of theology in prior centuries, it simply wasn't a central point of discussion and a huge flash point that people debated or left the faith over. So the big question is not merely, "What is the answer to the problem of evil", but what made the 20th century a unique moment in time when it became a real problem in the minds of many. Here's what I believe happened: there was a sea change in the basic moral understanding of Western peoples (you in England, us in the US, everyone). That basic sea change was this: "pain" became a "moral evil". That's it. At some point in time, the existence of pain became equivalent to an immoral state of affairs. So if person A caused person B some discomfort, then person A became immoral (even if he did nothing wrong by the classical standards of ethics). This is why we have safe-spaces, political correctness. This is why parents fear being severe on their children (they fear causing pain/discomfort, ie. becoming immoral!). BUT: pain is not a moral evil. It's just not. You will find centuries of Christian parents have zero qualms about being severe on their children. Spanking, causing tears, causing discomforts, all these were fine and celebrated in Christian homes. Christian societies were fine with some people experiencing pain; it was not seen as a moral condemnation of that society, if some people were discomforted in it. And zooming out to the world at large, Christian theodicy saw absolutely no problem with the existence of pain in the natural order. Death, suffering, torture, misery, these were seen as normal parts of the natural world. I believe a book still has to be written about it. Maybe I'll do it some day.
I have no idea if Stalwart addressed what you were thinking about evil. I hope he did. But if not.... here's my thinking. Christianity as a whole teaches that sin is evil, and all humans sin, so all are fallen from God's favor. But Christ came to save sinners. To those who accept this immense gift by trusting in the efficacy of Jesus' redemption, He clothes with His own perfect righteousness. Even when we mess up and sin again, we can confess our sins to Him and He forgives us; God is faithful even when we're not. It's God who addressed the problem of evil, because we are incapable of effectively addressing it.
I believe the world exists in opposites, and as such, there is good in the world and there is evil. There has always been good and evil, it just seems sensible then to deal with situations as they arise, rather than worrying about 'why is there evil in the world?' since that doesn't make any more sense to me than why is there darkness and light? Individuals have choices, they can choose to be good or to be evil. I do wonder why some people choose evil over good, but can only think they must have disordered feelings to enjoy evil. And that cause of those disordered feelings can be anything from a bad childhood to a bad connection in their mental faculties - a sickness perhaps. I don't think the Anglican Church has any more of an answer on this than anyone else but I could be wrong as far as doctrine goes. I tend to think it is more individual opinions however.
I think you are asking about the problem of theodicy. We have a God who is both all-powerful and all-good. Therefore, why does evil exist? Is God not powerful enough to prevent it? Is God not good enough to stop it? There has never been, as far as I am aware, an official Anglican teaching on theodicy. Anglicans seem to have adopted western theodical teachings. These hold that God created the world and all creatures on it and He created them all good. God did not create evil. However, God gave to some of His creatures free will, i.e., the freedom to choose. That is, to choose a relationship with God or to reject Him. Because God is entirely good and the source of all goodness rejecting Him is to reject goodness. Evil, therefore, is merely a corruption of the good, with no positive essence of its own. We must also remember the existence of the Devil who you do not hear mentioned in sermons very often these days. The Devil and his demons are constantly tempting us to choose evil over good. Therefore, we need our faith to remain strong and to resist the temptations of the Evil One.
I always like St. Thomas Aquinus' stance. "Part of the infinite goodness of God, [is] that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it, produce good."
If there was one name on the ballot paper, who would you vote for and would it matter? The corollary of no evil is no choice, no free will. God desires not robots to love him for he could surely have created them, yet he desires us, moral being with a capacity for choice, so that we may love him freely, not because we have to, not because of what we may attain from it, but simply because.
Well said, @Botolph. Free will is often cited as an important value to make obedience meaningful. But it gets me to thinking, is free will a biblical concept?
Yes, it is. We are created in God's image. God has free will; look at how many times He says in the Bible, "I will..." God calls upon us to make choices. "Choose this day whom you will serve," Joshua 24:15. "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live," Deut. 30:19. Liberty is the freedom to make choices by our will. Gal 5:13 "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." Even in the Garden, Adam and Eve were told that they had free will. Gen 2:16-17 "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
A Savior is needed because every human, from Adam & Eve on down, has sinned and cannot redeem himself/herself. We are separated from right relationship with God, and only Jesus made it possible for us to be restored to right relationship with Him, by grace through faith. (And we have free will to believe or not believe, to receive the gift of grace or to refuse it.)
If we can't freely choose to redeem ourselves, then we don't have free will. Scripture says we are slaves to sin and that no one comes to God unless drawn by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8). Free will is largely an illusion.
And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. John 3:19-21 The Christian life is a response to the encounter with the divine, that is why at the centre of liturgical gathering there is a 'Great Thanksgiving' that is why we 'Lift up our hearts'. If we reduce the gospel to a 'you better watch out you better be good' kind of message we ultimately are more closely alligned with the ancient a primitive practices of sacrificing to appease the gods, and this flies in the face of what we know to be true about God in the person of Jesus Christ. Now all of us know light and darkness, and way more than a mere fifty shades of grey. We are created as moral beings, like angels, with a capacity to choose, and yet we are also temporal beings with position and dimension on a time line where we cannot go back, as Sydney Carters says 'through the future, there, if anywhere the miracle must happen'. We share our mortality with the animal kingdon, and our morality with the angels. I have not chosen the redeem myself, I have simply responded to the awareness of that redemption. In the end redemption is all Jesus. Free Will is clearly not an illusion. If free will is an illusion, then none shuld be held accountable for many terrible things they have done, simply because they had no choice. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little ones to him belong, they are weak and he is strong. So in the wake of that I say, celebrate the Feast of Christmas, and Lift up your Hearts.
Perhaps its true that the problem of evil has become more prominent since mass suffering has become more visible, but there's still plenty of pre-20th century analysis of the problem in depth and disagreement on the right answer. See the competing schools of Augustinian and Irenaean answers to the problem as an example that the church has indeed discussed the problem in depth since its foundation. If it is true that we care more now about the problem of evil than in the past I'd probably say it is more a consequence of the visceral images and comprehensive documentation of events so evil it is challenging to even fathom (see: the atrocities of the second world war), and less so on a cultural shift across the entire globe that sees pain as bad. Perhaps it's the case in the US that pain being evil is not disputed, but that's not universally the case. Australians still romanticise pain, Germans still believe pain is an important part of the healing process, the Japanese still see withstanding pain as honourable. I think I would struggle to find people in my friends circle that believe all pain to be evil. To answer your question there is no doctrine, an Anglican is free to believe what they will. Based on my personal exposure I think most Anglicans rest on the two old defences from Saint Augustine and Saint Irenaeus, but I've seen some new books talking about an "Origenian Theodicy". This is new to me, I haven't read into what the Origen defence is, perhaps it is also popular in Anglican circles but not in my experience. Augustine said that humans have free will. Humans used that free will and let sin into the world (by disobeying God). Evil in nature is the product of this disharmony in creation we introduced, and was not originally found in God's creation. Although God could correct the evil in the world, He does not, because we deserve to suffer due to the consequences of our own actions. Irenaeus said that humans have the obligation to leave our animal ways behind and become true children of God. In this sense humanity still has much to learn. Suffering is an important part of the educational process. Hunger might cause suffering for someone starving to death, but it's also hunger pain that tells us when to eat. If hunger did not exist we might all starve. If we know what it is like to be hungry, perhaps we might learn empathy, and when we have the means to help another we might sacrifice some small comfort to feed those in much less comfort. If starvation brings humanity closer to god, generation by generation, is it truly evil? Hence God brings suffering into the world to do good, not to do evil.
Well, look at it this way: would you say that if we can't freely choose to become divine by our own merits, then we don't have free will? You see, we don't have the ability to become gods by our own abilities (the Mormons would disagree, of course) any more than we can become 25 feet tall (if one chooses to become 25' tall, good luck with that!). By the same token, we are too weak and flawed by our fallen, sinful natures to earn our own righteousness or to merit our own redemption. Paul's letter to the Galatians explains in detail about this. Also, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (James 2:10). Therefore, the matter of 'redeeming ourselves' does not go to the issue of free will (free choice), because one cannot "choose" to successfully accomplish that which is impossible to do (even though he can choose to make the attempt). We do have from God the ability to freely choose whether to trust Him for the gift of righteousness or whether instead to trust our own ability to earn right-standing with Him. Since the latter is totally impossible, those who (in exercise of free will) choose to attempt it are doomed to failure; however, they do indeed have the right of choice to "die trying."
I don’t know that there is a distinctively Anglican approach to this problem. I am, however, convinced that the Problem of Evil is a far more serious conundrum than has been traditionally recognized, and represents a genuine obstacle to certain forms of theistic belief.
Only if pain is seen as a moral evil. Do you see a reason why it should present a serious conundrum if pain is not a moral evil? Say there's lots and lots of pain in the world -- is there anything morally wrong with such a world (if pain is not a moral evil)? That's not persuasive for me, since in the ancient world, pain and death were a far more regular occurrance, indeed almost everyone took part in committing death upon someone else. How many people do you know that have personally killed someone else? Far less likely today, than back then. Plus a regular occurrance and observance of capital executions. Plus weekly attendance at the bread and circuses. Plus warfare where you literally stood right up against your enemy and stuck your sword in his eye socket, seeing his fluids and life go out of him. Does anyone have that much encounter with suffering today? No, something else changed in the 20th century, something that doesn't have to do with media or a greater awareness of suffering. Indeed our elderly never die in our homes anymore; we hide them away to die in nursing homes; less and less do people attend funerals with an open casket, to see the corpse, like they used to. If anything, we've never had as little personal encounter with suffering as at the present moment. We are positively terrified of encountering even a bit of discomfort or suffering in the world around us; prior ages were saturated with it.
Pain is a natural evil. If we assume a consequentialist ethic, it is a moral evil to cause a natural evil.
Natural evils are not evils. Tigers are not immoral for killing the deer. Rocks are not immoral for crushing those on whom they fall. Asteroids were not immoral for wiping out 95% of life on earth. If it's in nature, in the natural workings of the universe, and outside the realm of human will, then it is automatically not an evil. Animals consistently cause a holocaust upon one another; the world does not become an evil or immoral place as a result of this fact. The word "evil" only and ever has been used in the context of human choices, indicating those which were egregiously vicious. The word "evil" means nothing more than an amplification of "vicious".
The notion of evil here is partly equivocal. “Evil” is what we call it when something bad happens. The Christian view of evil is that they are privations rather than entities. Although all evils are privations, some are the result of nature while also being in some way against nature (e.g., being born blind), while others are the result of will (e.g., being rendered blind by another’s action). The nature/will distinction is exhaustive, as it is a restatement of the voluntary/involuntary dichotomy: an event can only be one or the other. It is thus not a moral evil that a person is born blind (though it is a privation or “natural evil”), but intentionally causing blindness in a person would be a moral evil.