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JEROME A. WEINSTOCK*
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II
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III
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NOTES
!
By a traditional theist I understand someone who believes that God exists and is
the omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good creator of the world. I sometimes
refer to the traditional theist simply as a theist or a theologian, and for the
purposes of this paper these terms are interchangeable. I do not concern myself
with the distinction between natural and moral evils, though 1 do confine my
discussion to evils related to human suffering.
2 Hick's views are briefly sketched in his Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 40-47, and more fully given in his Evil and the God
of Love (New York: Harper & Row, 19661 esp. Pt. IV, pp. 279-400. Subsequent
references to Hick are to the latter work and cite only page number.
3 I do not mean to suggest that this is the whole of Hick's theodicy (he does, for
example, also bring in "eschatological dimension"), though it is clearly the domi-
nant theme and the only one I shall discuss.
4 "A fleet, whose purposes were salutary to society, might always meet with a fair
wind. Good princes enjoy sound health and long life: Persons born to power and
authority be framed with good tempers and virtuous dispositions." Hume, D/a-
Iogues Concerning Natural Religion, Pt. X! (quoted by Hick [363] ).
S Edward H. Madden, "The Many Faces of Evil," Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, XXIV (1963/4), p. 481.
6 Cf. Alvin Plantinga's claim (in God and Other Minds [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 19671, p. 155) that because there is no evidence against the
hypothesis that natural evils are caused by devils (using their free wills), one ought
consequently regard the claim that the quantity of natural evils in our world
provides evidence against God's existence as unclear or inconclusive.
7 Hick suggests something along these lines when he claims that the systematic and
immediate "elimination of unjust suffering, and the consequent apportionment of
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suffering to desert, would entail that there would be no doing of the right simply
because it is right and without any expectation of reward" (371). Though I think
this sort of Kantian claim needs more justification than Hick provides, it may be
plausible to claim that were there no apparently excessive suffering there would
be no need for virtuous acts. But other difficulties aside, this move can hardly be
used to cover all cases of apparently excessive evil. A similar method of attempt-
ing to show the need for apparently excessive evil is more fully developed by
Clement Dore, "An Examination of the 'Soul-Making' Theodicy," American
Philosophical Quarterly, VII, 2 (1970), 119-30. Dore argues that were all evils to
which we did not respond virtuously immediately rectified by God then the
"stringency" of our obligations would be reduced or eliminated. Interestingly
enough, however, to the objection that this does not suffice to account for all the
apparently useless suffering (for "plainly the loss of stringency which would result
from the loss of one or a few instances of apparently useless suffering would never
be more than imperceptibly s m a l l . . " [p. 127] ), Dore's answer is a version of the
iterability response: "But the trouble with this argument is that, if it is sound, it
proves that it is clearly true that God, if He exists, is morally obliged to abolish
each instance of apparently useless suffering which exists in our world and, hence,
a/! of the stringency which attaches to our obligations regarding suffering"
(p. 127).
8 This objection is suggested by Hick's remark that were God to begin eliminating
evils, "There would be nowhere to stop, short of a divinely arranged paradise"
(363, also quoted above).
9 I think it clear that Leibniz would have regarded such a situation as one which,
like the existence of two exactly alike bodies, is "contrary to the divine wisdom,
and which [consequently] does not exist." "Leibniz's Fifth Paper," par. 25, in
The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, ed. H.G. Alexander (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1956), p. 62.
10 Thus, in his essay, "On the ultimate Origin of Things," Leibniz first offers Some a
priori considerations for believing his extremely optimistic version of (PBT). He
then considers the inevitable objection: "But, you will say, we experience the
contrary in this world, for often good people are very unhappy . . . . This may
appear so at first glance, I confess, but if you examine the thing more closely it
evidently follows a priori from the things which have been adduced, that the
contrary should be affirmed..." (in Leibniz selections, ed. P.P. Wiener [New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951], p. 351). To be sure, Leibniz does go on to
offer grounds for thinking that this might be the case, even given what we ex-
perience. But that this is what he does is exactly my point. That we might affirm
(PBT) or theism in spite of the a posteriori evidence is one thing; but that we
should always do so quite another.
11 I would like to thank Richard Mendelsohn and Lewis Schwartz for their helpful
comments, and I am especially grateful to David M. Rosenthal for his invaluable
assistance.
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