Illinois Coll.

Is There a Problem with the Problem of Evil?

Eric O. Springsted

I T MAY be fairly assumed that in the philosophy of religion there are two problems
of evil which deserve our attention. The first is the philosophical, or logical, prob-
lem. When we discuss this problem we are seeking to discover whether or not there is
a logical contradiction in asserting that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and
wholly good God and in also asserting that there is evil in his creation. The second
problem is religious, or we might say existential. Here evil, whether felt personally or
simply perceived, is a problem insofar as it threatens the spiritual resolve of believers
or would-be believers. Depending upon whether one is a philosopher or a theologian
(or pastoral counselor) there is a tendency, I think, to reduce one form of the problem
to the other. I shall argue in this paper, however, that the two problems interpenetrate
each other. In order to do so I shall be concerned to point out that discussion of the
philosophical problem depends upon an understanding of a commensurating frame-
work for good and evil, but shall also point out that theists often believe in a sovereign
good which is not immediately commensurable with evil of any sort. Because of this
incommensurability, philosophical discussions of the problem of evil have often failed
to convince anybody who already has an inclination toward belief. In order, then, to
discuss the problem of evil most fruitfully it is necessary to come to some sort of
understanding of how the believer might regard evil. How he regards it may then help
determine a more genuine commensurating framework for the problem.

The logical problems of the philosophy of religion have, in general, been regarded
as problems concerning the truth and/or meaning of theistic claims such as God ex-
ists, is good, is omnipotent, etc. In this sense theistic claims are regarded as hypoth-
eses which need discussion of their confirmation, evidence, probability, and co-
herence. Because, however, the hypothesis of theism is multifaceted, it necessarily
requires a number of discussions which cover these facets, one of which concerns the
theistic claim that both God and evil exist. The arguments concerning this claim have
taken three basic forms: (1) Whether the bare existence of evil is compatible with
the claim that there exists a God who is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient;
(2) whether the existence of God as described is compatible with the quantity of evil
found in a world supposedly created by Him; (3) whether the existence of God as
described is compatible with the sorts or qualities of evil we find in the world.
In each of these forms of arguments evil is counterevidence to the theistic hypoth-
esis with a value that is disconfirmatory to the hypothesis; good, on the other hand, is
somewhat evidence for there being a God and has a value confirmatory to the hypoth-
esis. In the forms of argument #2 and #3, evil is thus regarded as the complement of
304 SPRINGSTED

good wherein both good and evil are regarded as evidence for or against the hypoth-
esis. Insofar as they are both so regarded they are consequently viewed as commen-
surate with each other since they can be described under the common heading, Evi-
dence, even if that is an abstract category. The inter-action of good and evil, then, in
discussing the theistic hypothesis can be described thus in the various forms of argu-
ment noted above:
1. Any evil counts against a rational belief in God, given that he is supposed to be
good, omnipotent, and omniscient. 1 The theistic defense replies that such evil is com-
patible with God's existence since such evil is caused by free-will agents and the ex-
istence of these agents is a good that the created world should not be without. 2 (I
regard Plantinga's free-will defence against Mackie to be conclusive on this score.)
2. Given that the defence in #1 is valid, a question is raised concerning the quantity
of evil in the world. Would God, if he exists, allow this much evil, even by agents of
free will? Here, more than in any other of the forms of argument, it is readily apparent
that good and evil are regarded as commensurate qualities for they are, metaphorical-
ly, the weights on each side of a balance. Now the theist in defending the hypothesis
has a number of options open to him. He may argue that good does in fact outweigh
evil in the universe (Leibniz) or that, in the case of moral evil, the amount of evil pro-
duced by freely willing agents created by God is compatible with the premise that God
exists in the described manner (Plantinga). 3
3. Or, the theist may argue that the qualities of good are such that they outweigh the
qualities of evils. This is to say, that while evils exist, they are of such an order that
they may produce higher order goods. The defence here runs into some difficulty
since every higher order good may have an opposing evil and thus there is no end to
the argument, unless, of course, God himself is a highest good in the series.
In each of these arguments the supposition of the commensuration of good and evil
is evident. In #1, although good is not necessarily brought into the discussion at first,
since what is being discussed is the coherence of a complex of assertions, it does arise
in the defence since a good of having free will agents is used to explain and to counter-
balance the evils that do exist in the world. In both #2 and #3 both good and evil are
given the same evidential status, although in #3 certain goods are claimed to be more
weighty than certain evils.
Now, in any formal argument concerning an hypothesis it is quite necessary to find
commensurate forms of evidence for each side. Clearly the argument could not pro-
ceed ifHume, for instance, began arguing that the amount of evil found in the world is
incompatible with God having created that world and a theistic defender in reply
began singing the praises of the Book of Common Prayer. There simply has to be a
common meeting ground on what counts as evidence, with x being confirmatory
evidence and -x being disconfirmatory. If, however, the common meeting ground is
not immediately obvious then one either has to be invented or discovered within limits
appropriate to the problem. Just as Eudoxus sought a system of real numbers which
could incorporate both the rationals and the irrationals, philosophers are obliged to

'E.g. J.L. Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence," reprinted in The Philosophy of Religion, ed. Basil
Mitchell (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971).
2 Alvin Plantinga, "The Free Will Defence," in The Philosophy of Religion.

3Plantinga's assertion, however, that physical or natural ev il can be ascribed to the freely willing agency
of the Devil will not work, since whatever the Devil's function in Christian theology, if it still has one, that
function is not that of the cause of natural evils.
PROBLEMS OF EVIL 305

find a way in which dissimilar things can be considered evidence, pro and con, for an
hypothesis. In order to have discourse at all we must presuppose a commensurating
framework of meaning.
Yet at the same time, a great deal of care needs to be exercised in inventing or pro-
mulgating such a framework for there are two particularly troublesome problems that
may arise if care is not exercised. First, we may pre-critically assume mistakenly a
common ground that simply does not exist. Second, we may engage in a sort of il-
legitimate theory building that either abstracts so thoroughly from the elements being
studied that we have nothing but castles in the sky or which forces the elements into
an alien mode that ultimately sheds no genuine light on the problem. It is in light of
these problems that we need to unearth some of the ways in which theists actually
conceive the problem of evil when they believe in a good, omnipotent, and omniscient
God, for there may not be the easy commensuration of good and evil that many phi-
losophers and theologians assume when discussing the problem of evil. The incom-
mensuration between what a theist believes to be good and what others call good and
evil may in fact be deep.

II

A great deal of thought exercised on the problem of evil has assumed too easy a
commensurating framework. Hick, for example, claims that Hume takes the simple
pleasures of quotidian life to be the sort of good that God should ensure for his
creatures, when, in fact, he may have a higher purpose for them. 4 Elsewhere, philos-
ophers of religion have assumed a commensurating framework based either on scien-
tific discourse or on some other theory meant to provide epistemological foundations.
Often this excludes religious discourse as meaningful from the outset.
The attempt to force religious discourse into a scientific mold is particularly evident
in the commonly made assumption that theism is a hypothesis and that it must be
discussed in terms appropriate for an hypothesis. But at this point in the philosophy of
religion it is being increasingly recognized that theistic belief rarely arises from
philosophical argument. The theist is not a person who first proposes an hypothesis
and then searches for evidence necessary to confirm or disprove it. He waits neither
for the latest pronouncement on the ontological argument nor for the latest report on
the historical Jesus before he worships. Whatever the grounds or motives for his
belief, his belief does not appear to him as an hypothesis. 5 Although he may be entire-
ly wrong about the truth of the object in which he believes (and thus philosophical
argument is not ruled out of court) the way in which he believes in God is often quite
different than the way he believes in the truth of a geometrical theorem. His God is the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob if it is a god at all and not in the first place the god
of the philosophers. Given this, it is not at all surprising to suspect that he might
regard the question of good and evil as something other than commensurate evidence
for or against an hypothesis. How then might he regard it?
The first step is to examine the nature of the object of theistic belief vis-a-vis the ex-
4John Hick, Evil and The God of Love (London: Collins, 1968), pp. 293-94.
'Cf. Diogenes Allen, "Motives, Rationales, and Religious Beliefs," American Philosophical Quarterly,
3 (1966), and The Reasonableness of Faith (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968); Austin Farrer, Faith and
Speculation (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1967), Chap. I.
306 SPRINGSI'ED

perience of evil. I would here suggest that for many theists (I do not say all since I do
not believe the following is the case for "neo-classical theism," also known as "pro-
cess theology") their belief in God consists, not in a belief in a good, but in the Good,
and that this Good is not regarded by them as commensurate with any evil they ex-
perience or perceive. Their belief in the goodness of God is a belief in good that
transcends whatever evils they may experience. Thus their hope for eternal life and
communion with God is not a hope for a kingdom of pleasure or an absence of all
pains; it is, instead, a hope for a full and explicit relationship with God in all circum-
stances. This does not mean that the theist does not enjoy pleasure or dislike pain. It
does mean that when he prays "Thy will be done" he intends that whatever happens
should happen as God's will and that he, the believer, intends to accept that will since
he trusts in the complete goodness of God. 6
Let us take two examples of belief in God's goodness in the face of evil. The first is
that of a man who on Christmas Eve (at least a family holiday) loses his long wed and
much beloved wife to a long bout with cancer. He then that evening, in the midst of
his grief, attends Christmas Eve services and in the course of taking communion,
perceives what is called the Real Presence of Christ. It is implausible to suppose him
returning home and weighing the momentary happiness at the Eucharist against the
evil of his loss. It is far more plausible to see him continuing to grieve while yet firmly
holding on to his belief in a good God. His pain does not go away nor does he neces-
sarily conceive any purpose to his loss, but his communion with God does not depend
on either happening. His belief in God's goodness depends solely on his access to
him. (This question of access will be taken up below.)
The second example is that of the late French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil.
Weil describes an experience she had while attending the liturgical services of Holy
Week in Solesmes in 1938:

I was suffering from splitting headaches; each sound hurt me like a blow; by an extreme ef-
fort of concentration I was able to rise above this wretched fllesh, to leave it to suffer by it-
self, heaped up in a corner, and to find a pure and perfect joy in the unimaginable beauty of
the chanting and the words. This experience enabled me by analogy to get a better under-
standing of the possibility of loving divine love in the midst of affliction. 7

Sometime afterwards while reciting George Herbert's poem "Love" she claims that
"... Christ himself came down and took possession of me ... I only felt in the midst of
my suffering the presence of a love, like that one can read in the smile on a beloved
face."8
What Weil here describes is a sense of a good that does not obliterate the evil of her
pain. Rather, although she is in pain, the good she experiences is one that is in Plato's
words, "complete, adequate and desirable."9 This is a good that is to be loved and
adored for itself. Such good does not compete with lesser goods or with evils for it
simply is not commensurate with them, nor does the theist assume, in the first place,
that there is any final commensurating ground. In this regard, it is then not surprising
that a theist who believed in such a good would not find evil to be counter-evidence to

6Cf. Eleanore Stump, "Petitionary Prayer," American Philosophical Quarterly, 16 (1979).

7Simone Weil, »ailing for God (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 68.
8Ibid, p. 69.
9 Philebus 22b5.
PROBLEMS OF EVIL 3m

his belief (nor certain goods to be evidence for it, either) since there is not a common
ground on which the two could possibly compete. 10
The theist's beliefs do not negate the need for philosophical discussion since the ac-
tual existence of the object in which he believes and its essential goodness is not
proven by his belief, although his experience may be a form of evidence among
others. What the nature of his belief does point to, though, is the need for us to be
careful to distinguish exactly what the problem of evil is and how it is understood by
the believer. Failure to do so will present an argument, on the one hand, against belief
that is hardly convincing to the theist, while, on the other hand, it will lay a mantle of
disinterested objectivity on the argument that simply does not exist. If there is no in-
coherency in the bare assertion that God exists as well as evil in his creation, as Plan-
tinga has argued, then the problem which evil presents to theistic belief must be
discussed in terms that take seriously the position of belief since that belief, at least
vis-a-vis evil, is not from the outset misguided. This is to say, that unless theism is
from the outset a mistake and thus its internal workings pointless to discuss, it is
necessary to discuss those problems and evaluate the argument from an understanding
of the inside (I do not claim it is completely necessary to be on the inside). Without
comprehension of the distinctions of good and evil that believers make there can only
be a distorted picture of the religion we are supposedly studying philosophically.
A prime example of the failure to distinguish can be seen in Antony Flew's con-
tribution to the University Discussion. 11 In this article Flew develops John Wisdom's
well-known parable in which two men come upon a clearing in the forest. One asserts
that it is there because a gardener takes care of it while the other says there is no such
gardener. Despite repeated tests to find the gardener the first can find no evidence of
him and so qualifies his original assertion to allow for an invisible, intangible garden-
er. Flew claims that theistic belief is like that; it dies the death of a thousand qualifica-
tions. He then goes on to claim that the theist does this in the face of evil; he claims
God is loving yet has to watch his eight-year-old son die of inoperable throat cancer
while God does not lift a metaphorical finger to intervene. The thrust of Flew's argu-
ment is that there is something wrong with this man rationally since he began with an
assertion that he refuses to give up in the face of counter-evidence. Yet, from our
previous considerations it is unlikely that the man ever thought God to be an hypoth-
esis to which evil is a counter-example. While, of course, Flew is really not concerned
with discussing the problem of evil as such in this passage, clearly he mistakes what
the believer is really doing. The reason the father in the example would not give up his
belief on counter-evidence is that there never was a question of evidence in the first
place. He may be entirely wrong in what he asserts about God's goodness but one is
not going to convince him of that by arguing pears when he is talking apples unless
one can convince him that pears is the necessary way to carry on the argument. But at
the outset there is no reason to think that this is the case.

'OGeorge Santayana caught the flavor of this thought when he wrote of the spirit and the perfect world of
Platonism: "It would not, in respect to that perfect world, be harassed by remorse, as it must be in an im-
perfect world when it counts the cost of existence and considers the dreadful sufferings which plagued it
like a nightmare, before something good and beautiful could appear even for a moment (Platonism and the
Spiritual Life [New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957], p. 269.) The incommensuration between good and
evil appears because there is no counting whether the perfect good is worth it or not.
"In New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. Flew & MacIntyre (New York: Macmillan, 1955).
308 SPRINGSTED

III

The aforegoing discussion may appear as a fideistic tour de force which denies the
possibility of philosophical discussion of the problem of evil by, a priori, placing the
good in which the theist believes beyond any commonly received commensurating
framework. It may even have the effect of appearing to make the believer deny that
evil is a problem at all, and thus to make him take one horn of the dilemma which
Mackie offers. Such conclusions are not tenable, however, for, although the believer
may believe in an absolute Good which has no negative and commensurate counter-
part, this Good has to come into contact with him if he is to know or to worship it. It
must therefore contact him in some way which affects his c:onsciousness, emotions, or
will. The effect of that contact is surely a finite good which is in some sense commen-
surate with the evil he experiences in the world. Although the joy which the believer
claims is his from contact with God may not be the same as any happiness he might
experience in other circumstances, by a Eudoxean turn, it is a possible locus for
philosophical discussion of the problem of evil. As Plato noted of pleasure, it cannot
be the Good since a life of pleasure per se, without consciousness, judgement or
memory, is the life of a shellfish. Belief in the good without consciousness or effect is
similarly pointless. In order, then, to discuss fruitfully th(! Good we must discuss the
good for man and for this reason the good of Good for us must bear certain marks
which would allow the theist to claim that God is, indeed, the Good. Thus philo-
sophical argument about the problem of evil cannot be rukd out of court.
In order, however, to see how we might most fruitfully discuss the problem, two
things need to be noted about the philosophical discussion. First, there must be
caveats in the discussion which are: (1) It must be kept from assuming that theistic
belief is a belief in a good commensurate with any other good or evil the theist might
encounter and thus direct counter-evidence to his belief. (2) It must also not be
assumed that the finite good of contact is automatically e:quivalent to commonly ac-
cepted forms of happiness and thus subject to a commensurating framework which
allows a simple calculation of that good with others. If there is any contact at all, its
good, although finite, may be quite disproportionately weighty when compared to
other goods or to evils. The reports of believers who hav(! experienced the 'vision of
God' is that all else pales in front of that vision. (3) Given that the theist believes that
contact of some sort with God is possible, the discussion of evil needs to examine
seriously what sort of problem evil is, given that belief. This is something that is rare-
ly done. If we are going to talk about the problem evil presents to theistic belief, we
would do well to examine the problem somewhat from the inside for if there is no
belief or serious question of it, there is no significant problem. It is to a preliminary
examination of what sort of problem evil is to thestic belief that we shall now turn.
There are two sides to the way theists take evil, one positive, one negative. Both
operate at the same time, although we shall take each in tum.
Positively, Diogenes Allen has argued that it is appropriate to introduce as evidence
to the discussions of evil the reports of some believers "That suffering, instead of be-
ing contrary to the love of God, is actually a medium in and through which his love
can be experienced."12 Allen cites arguments from Epictetus and the reports of
Simone Weil and Sister Basileia Schlink that, if in the course of suffering, one con-

12D. Allen, "Natural Evil and the Love of God," Religious Studies, 16 (1980), 439.
PROBLEMS OF EVIL 309

sents to such suffering as the will of God, then such consent "leads to a reception of a
gracious love in the midst of suffering." 13 Allen is here not concerned with preaching
a passion mysticism nor is he denying that evil is a problem for the believer; rather:

Suffering is almost always discussed primarily as counter-evidence to a theistic world

view ... (but given these reports) we do not. .. have to have a satsifactory account of why
suffering exists and so remove an apparently crippling objection to theism before we can
have a rational faith. Without such an explanation, a humble person finds nature good in
spite of the serious adversities it brings; and a humble person can find God's love precisely
by yielding to suffering as his will. 14

Thus the theist does not ignore evil; rather he simply does not regard it as any sort
of commensurate counter-evidence to his belief in the goodness of God. He may do
this because he may find in evil an opportunity to respond to God's will and a situa-
tion in and through which his contact with God may be maintained. In fact, evil may
be a unique opportunity to respond to God's will without reservation. But this does
not mean that he desires evil, except by a perversity which theists themselves recog-
nize quite well. There is therefore a positive side to evil in which a believer may ex-
perience the love of God.
But what of the negative side, which is precisely the side which makes the situation
evil and not just a joke in bad taste? How does the believer here view evil? I would
suggest that in the first instance he may regard it as a sort of obstacle placed between
him and the object of his belief.
How evil might be regarded as an obstacle can be made plain from Basil Mitchell's
well-known contribution to the University Discussion. In his paper, Mitchell admits
with Flew that evil does count against theistic belief; through his parable of the rela-
tions of the partisan and the stranger, however, he develops that 'counting against' in
terms of trusting or not trusting the stranger, not in terms of distinterested intellectual
evidence. Mitchell tells his parable in such a way that there is an initial trust of the
stranger by the partisan which arises from a particularly felicitous encounter. This
trust, in turn, is then maintained by help the partisan receives in his endeavours from
the stranger. Yet, at times, the stranger acts in a manner contrary to expectations. To a
certain extent, the partisan must regard this latter behaviour as 'counting-against' his
trust. But, as Mitchell points out, in facing this problem the partisan already "has
committed himself to trust the stranger."15 Here he claims the so-called counter-
evidence is less the sort of thing a detached observer would decide upon, and more
the sort of thing in the face of which fidelity is to persevere or not. This is counter-
evidence more for the will and less for the intellect since one cannot wait in suspend-
ed judgment for additional data, even if that data were obtainable. The 'counter-
evidence' is an obstacle in the sense that it acts to check the natural intentionality of
the will. If such an obstacle arises, the believer then must seek to find the benefits of
his belief in and through that obstacle or he must give up his belief. He may reason-
ably give up his belief but he may just as reasonably continue in it. Without continued
belief, however, the benefits of belief would be lost, and, given that he believes in the

13Ibid, p. 446.
l4Ibid, p. 447.
lSBasii Mitchell, "The University Discussion," in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, p. 104.
310 SPRINGSTED

absolute goodness of those benefits, it is unlikely (althoUlgh possible) that he would

want to cease believing.
In this regard, evil is a real problem for the believer insofar as it acts, as it were, as a
brick wall erected between him and the object of his belief. The wall does not count
evidentially against the existence of the object on its olther side. It can, however,
frustrate contact between the two sides, perhaps even to the point of a believer losing
any desire to break through or to scale the wall, or, finally losing desire for the object
at all. Yet, although the wall exists it need not ultimately frustrate desire; as Allen has
suggested, it may provide a way for a renewed and transformed contact. Or, as Simone
Weil writes:

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall.
The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. It is
the same with us and God. Every separation is a link. 16

Evil as a sort of brick wall between the believer and the object of his belief is only a
metaphor and a first picture of the way evil might be considered an obstacle to belief.
A wall is something that can be scaled and left behind; filflthermore, it is simply exter-
nal to the believer. Evil for the believer, though, is not necessarily external; instead, it
also tends to have internal consequences. If evil were to be only or merely external,
the commensurating framework would easily be obtaim~ and one could calculate
simply whether the effort of overcoming it would be worth the end result, assuming,
of course, that one has some idea of what the end result is . Evil, though, can be inter-
nal in a number of ways. It may first be an overwhelming consciousness of suffering
(and thus a form of suffering itself) that results from something that is no fault of the
suffering subject. Here, even if there is good in the world, because of what has hap-
pened to him and the effect it has had on him, the subject is in such a condition that
he cannot perceive that good or appreciate it. Second, it may be the result of guilt,
actual or not, which makes the subject feel unclean and unworthy of any beneficence.
In fact, this may be extreme enough for him to react in a very ungrateful way to any
kindness. In both these cases, the effect of evil makes it difficult for the subject to
move his will to assent to a higher good. Finally, the internal obstacle may be, as
Christians claim, sin, in which case one's will is deficient and to a greater or lesser
degree naturally unappreciative of a higher good. In all three of these cases, evil does
not leave the subject unspoiled in his intentionality. If contact is then to be initiated or
maintained in evil, it must be done so in and through the internal state of the believer.
If theism's view of good and evil is not entirely misguided, God must be able to have
some effect on the believer even through instances such as these. 17

IV

It needs to be pointed out that there is nothing in the aforegoing description of the

I·Simone Weil, The Notebooks o/Simone Jteil (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956), 11,497.
I7The Platonic-Augustinian description of evil as a "privation of good," when stripped of some of its
metaphysical assumptions, is a profound intuition of evil as an obstacle. Because evil does not have the ef-
fect of obscuring and frustrating the vision of the good it is essentially negative and to experience evil is to
experience a lack of good. The value of the Augustinian theodicy is to point out that good is sovereign and
even when evil is encountered it need not be ultimately frustrating.
PROBLEMS OF EVIL 311

problem that evil presents to the believer which obliges us to believe that the means or
the effect of this contact obliterates the obstacle, at least not any further than is neces-
sary to establish and maintain contact through the obstacle. The obstacle may, in fact,
be obliterated but I do not see that it must be and thus there is no need to have re-
course to eschatological claims. Any further specification is an in-house theological
issue. Luther's simul iustus et peccator, for instance, argues that sin is not obliterated;
it is forgiven and righteousness is simply imputed. Roman Catholic theologians, on
the contrary, have argued that there is actual righteousness in the process of sanc-
tification (although this is not perfected in this life). Similarly, certain forms oftheism
may not claim a heaven of perfection where "Every tear is wiped dry," while Chris-
tian theism may. There is nothing, however, on the other hand, in this description
which precludes the possibility of an eschatological heaven and the improvement of
contact at some future point. The theist claims that God is the Good; his experience
need only be sufficient to make clear the claim that this good commands his love even
in cases of evil. That his experience may be intensified thus remains a possibility.
While no theist can claim to have yet experienced perfect good perfectly, he may be
perfectly in his rights to claim that he has experienced a good that has so transcended
evil that he has cause to believe the eschatological claim. Because the claim remains
eschatological, it need not further concern us here.
If I am correct, though, in claiming that the theist believes in a Good which is in-
commensurate with any sort of evil and in claiming that the believer sees evil as a sort
of obstacle between him and the object of his belief then at least two points concerning
the problem of evil ought to be kept in mind for any discussion of that problem. First,
any solution of the logical problem of evil that falls short of deductive certainty need
not, and probably will not, destroy theological resolve nor will it make theism irra-
tional. Second, because of the peculiar nature of the Good in which the theist be-
lieves, the problem of evil needs to be discussed through an approach which takes
seriously that belief and which finds also an appropriate level of commensuration on
which to conduct the discussion. This commensuration need not be on any grandiose
metaphysical level nor need it imply a theory of God or of man. I have suggested that
the appropriate place to look for this commensuration is at the level where evil con-
stitutes a serious obstacle to the will to believe. If the transcendent good is not touch-
able through the weighing of finite good and evil, the finite good of contact is.
This last observation can raise at least one important question in the discussion that
has rarely been raised before: namely: "Is there any evil in human life so horrible that
it presents an insuperable obstacle between the theist and the object of his belief?"
Such an obstacle need only be described in the practical terms of the willing agent's
will to believe. We may therefore put the question thus: "Are there any instances of
evil such that faithful perseverance in the face of them is either impossible or shows
only obduracy and no effect of good for either sufferer or those around him?" If there
are, then clearly must not only the believer fail to believe in such instances but there is
also extremely strong evidence for the non-existence of the deity in which the theist
believes, although a deity of another sort remains still a possibility. If, on the other
hand, as Simone Weil suggests, for example, in her analysis of the Cross,18 one can
describe the man Christ as being at the extreme point of having received evil and yet

18Cf. D. Allen & E. Springsted. "Le Malheur: Une enigme (Simone Wei! et Epictete), Cahiers Simone
Weil, I, no. 3 (1979).
312 SPRINGSTED

as one who continues to love God, and through that, is loved by God in turn, then the
Christian is fully justified in persevering in his belief even in the face of extreme evil.
If there is the possibility of contact between the believer and the Good in which he
believes then it may very well be the case that there is no evil that can count against
that belief for the theist and he is not irrational in so thinking.
But in discussing this issue, one cannot attack it from a presupposed commensurat-
ing background of common experience, for inherent in the discussion of what con-
stitutes the extreme form of evil for the believer is the fact that he believes. This is to
say, he does not begin from a background of common experience alone and does not
call belief forward from a previously unused reserve naturally possessed by all people
when he faces evil. Rather, in facing evil he faces it from a position of belief already
practised and contact already established. In this case we cannot simply cite an exam-
ple of evil and assume it too awful without taking seriously the fact that the believer
may have prepared for (but not predicted) the evil in question by already having com-
mitted himself to God's will. Although examples of evil can be cited in which people
obviously do not persevere, including believers, there should not be any shallow
criticism of divine arbitrariness without taking seriously a prevenient offer of spiritual
life, or the acceptance of that offer and the consequent actions taken upon the basis of
belief. I think recognition of this affects not only how philosophers might discuss the
problem of evil and theistic belief, but also should affect what theologians and pas-
toral counselors do with the problem as well.