God, Evil, and Redeeming Good: A Thomistic Theodicy [1 ed.] 9781003298847, 9781032288598, 9781032288604

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Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion

GOD, EVIL, AND REDEEMING GOOD A THOMISTIC THEODICY Paul A. Macdonald Jr.

God, Evil, and Redeeming Good

This book offers an original contribution to debates about the problem of evil and the existence of God. It develops a Thomistic, Christian theodicy, the aim of which is to help us better understand not only why God allows evil, but also how God works to redeem it. In the author’s view, the existence of evil does not generate any intellectual problem that theists must address or solve to vindicate God or the rationality of theism. This is because acknowledging the existence of evil rationally leads us to acknowledge the existence of God. However, understanding how these two facts are compatible still requires addressing weighty, wide-ranging questions concerning God and evil. The author draws on diverse elements of Aquinas’s philosophy and theology to build an argument that evil only exists within God’s world because God has created and continues to sustain so much good. Moreover, God can and does bring good out of all evil, both cosmically and within the context of our own, individual lives. In making this argument, the author engages with contemporary work on the problem of evil from analytic philosophy of religion and theology. Additionally, he addresses a broad range of topics and doctrines within Thomistic and Christian thought, including God, creation, providence, original sin, redemption, heaven and hell, and the theological virtues. God, Evil, and Redeeming Good is an essential resource for scholars and students interested in philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Paul A. Macdonald Jr. is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the United States Air Force Academy. He is the author of Christian Theology and the Secular University (Routledge, 2017) and Knowledge and the Transcendent: An Inquiry into the Mind’s Relationship to God (2009).

Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion

Ubuntu and Western Monotheism An Axiological Investigation Kirk Lougheed The Divine Nature Personal and A-Personal Perspectives Edited by Simon Kittle and Georg Gasser Philosophical Essays on Divine Causation Edited by Gregory E. Ganssle Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity Roberto Di Ceglie A Philosophy of Faith Belief, Truth and Varieties of Commitment Finlay Malcolm and Michael Scott Value Beyond Monotheism The Axiology of the Divine Edited by Kirk Lougheed God, Evil, and Redeeming Good A Thomistic Theodicy Paul A. Macdonald Jr.  Classical Theism New Essays on the Metaphysics of God Robert C. Koons and Jonathan Fuqua For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com / Routledge-Studies-in-the-Philosophy-of-Religion/ book-series/SE0427

God, Evil, and Redeeming Good A Thomistic Theodicy

Paul A. Macdonald Jr. United States Air Force Academy

First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Paul A. Macdonald Jr. The right of Paul A. Macdonald Jr. to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-28859-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-28860-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-29884-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847 Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

For my mother Janet Macdonald

Contents

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction

viii 1

2.  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God

21

3.  God, Evil, and the Good Creation

59

4.  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin

99

5.  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering

139

6.  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe

178

7.  Hoping in the Face of Evil

217

Works Cited Index

252 261

Acknowledgments

This book is the culmination of years of thinking about and writing on the topic of God and evil, which is why I would like first to express my gratitude for the permission to draw from some of my previously published work. Chapter 2 draws heavily from “The Problem with Evil,” Philosophia Christi 19 (2017): 59–81, co-authored with Joel Brown. Chapter 4 includes ideas and content from both my “In Defense of Aquinas’s Adam: Original Justice, the Fall, and Evolution,” Zygon 56 (2021): 454–66; and my “Original Justice, Original Sin, and the FreeWill Defense,” The Thomist 74 (2010): 105–41. Much of Chapter 6 is taken from my “Hell, the Problem of Evil, and the Perfection of the Universe,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 89 (2015): 603–28. And, much of Chapter 7 is taken from my “Hoping in the Face of Evil: A Theological Account,” The Heythrop Journal 60 (2019): 783–94. Chapter 7 also includes some ideas and content taken from my Knowledge and the Transcendent: An Inquiry into the Mind’s Relationship with God (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009) and my “The Epistemology of Faith in Augustine and Aquinas,” Augustine and Philosophy, eds. Phillip Cary, John Doody, and Kim Paffenroth (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 167–96. I am also extremely appreciative for assistance I have received along the way in writing this book. Joel Brown, my good friend and colleague at the United States Air Force Academy, has been extraordinarily generous over the years in both carefully reading my work and discussing it with me. I am appreciative to Joel for originally suggesting that we co-author an article in which we identify and discuss the “problem with evil.” And while I have developed our work and taken it in a much more decidedly Thomistic direction, I am grateful to Joel for helping form my approach to thinking about the existence of evil from a theistic and more narrowly Christian perspective. Similar thanks go to my other USAFA colleague Mike Growden. Mike read and provided feedback on Chapter 2, and over the years has been a true and trusted philosophical conversation partner, as well as a good friend.

Acknowledgments ix I owe a special word of thanks to W. Matthews Grant, who provided detailed and incisive commentary on Chapter 3. Section 5 of that chapter draws heavily on Matthews’s Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account, which is one of the best books in philosophy of religion I have ever read. I think Matthews provides the clearest and most powerful account of how to reconcile divine sovereignty with libertarian free will, and I draw on that account at various points in the book in order to explain how God exercises sovereignty in redeeming the evil he wills to include in our world and in our lives. I would also like to express my gratitude to Mark Linville and David Alexander, who, like Matthews, kindly responded to my request to engage my work in this book. Mark read and provided helpful feedback on Chapter 2, and David offered some helpful guidance and clarity on the topic of divine sovereignty and free will. Thanks, too, go to Andrew Weckenmann, editor for Routledge, for initiating and overseeing the review process for the book, and to all those at Routledge who helped bring the book to publication. I likewise extend my thanks to two reviewers for Routledge who provided very encouraging feedback on the proposal, and who thereby helped spur me to carry out the plan for the book that I laid out in the proposal. I could not have completed this book without the unwavering, patient support of my family. My wife, Jennifer Winslow Macdonald, provided incredible encouragement and love (her ongoing gifts to me) along with perceptive editorial wisdom, on which I leaned on heavily in revising both the proposal for this book and its introductory chapter. My mother, Janet Macdonald, who has supported my academic pursuits from the beginning, also provided invaluable encouragement as I wrote the book. She has exercised and displayed much virtue, and above all love, in the midst of personal suffering, and so her example helped inspire and inform the work that went into this book. I dedicate God, Evil, and Redeeming Good to her. Finally, the views expressed in this book are solely my own. They do not represent an official position of the United States Air Force or the Department of Defense.

1

Introduction

Traditionally, the existence of evil has been understood to pose an intellectual or theoretical problem for theists to address. How can the existence of a perfectly and infinitely powerful, wise, and good God be reconciled with the existence of evil in a world that is putatively created and sustained by God? Driving my book, however, is the belief that there is no singular, overarching “problem of evil” for theists to address or solve. In fact, in my view, the existence of evil does not pose a problem, as traditionally conceived, for theists to address or solve since I argue (in depth in the subsequent chapter) that affirming the existence of evil actually leads us to affirm the existence of God. However, I also recognize that there is a recurring, even pressing need to explore more deeply how these two facts—the existence of God and the existence of evil—are compatible, which, in turn, requires addressing weighty, wide-ranging questions concerning God and evil. Why does evil exist within God’s good world, and why are we, as God’s good creatures, liable both to do evil and to suffer on account of it? How does God deal with all of the evil that he allows to exist? How should we respond to or confront evil and specifically relate to God in the face of so much evil? In addressing these questions, I develop and defend a Thomistic, Christian theodicy, the aim of which is to help us see more clearly—with clearer intellectual and moral vision—not only why God allows evil but also how God brings good out of evil, and so redeems it, both cosmically and within the context of our own, individual lives. The main goal of this introductory chapter is to orient the reader to all of the work I carry out in this book in developing and defending this theodicy. In the first section of this chapter, I lay out the traditional argument from evil and begin to explain why I think that the existence of evil does not generate any intellectual problem that theists must address or solve. In the second section of this chapter, I discuss the difference between a “theodicy” and a “defense” as well as the nature, purpose, and value of theodicy as an intellectual project. In the third and final section of this chapter, I place my work in relation to other recent work on Thomism and the problem of evil. Here, my main goal is not to offer DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847-1

2  Introduction in-depth evaluations or critiques of this work but rather to help further orient the reader to the specific Thomistic approach I take in this book and all of the more specific work I plan to carry out in subsequent chapters of this book in developing and defending my Thomistic theodicy.

1.1  Arguments from evil In his Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas considers the following objection to the claim that God exists, writing: “If one of a pair of contraries were infinite, it would totally destroy the other contrary. But by the name ‘God’ one means a certain infinite good. Therefore, if there were a God, there would be no evil. But there is evil in the world. Therefore, there is no God.”1 Here’s one way of formulating this objection, which I’ll label the atheistic argument from evil: 1 If God exists, then it is not the case that evil exists; 2 Evil exists; 3 Therefore, God does not exist. The key premise in this argument is premise (1). But how should we interpret it? One could claim that premise (1) is not only true but also necessarily true. It cannot be the case that (1) is false. And that is because, as Aquinas suggests (on behalf of the objector), any world with a God of infinite goodness within it necessarily excludes the existence of evil (which is contrary to goodness) within that world. As a matter of logical or metaphysical fact, the existence of infinite goodness is simply incompatible with the existence of its contrary. And so, since evil exists, per premise (2), then God does not exist. Indeed, God cannot exist. In response to this objection, Aquinas (citing Augustine) argues as follows: As Augustine says in the Enchiridion, “Since God is maximally good, he would not allow any evil to exist in his works if he were not powerful enough and good enough to draw good even from evil.” Therefore, it is part of God’s infinite goodness that he should permit evils and elicit goods from them. (Hoc ergo ad infinitam Dei bonitatem pertinet, ut esse permittat mala, et ex eis eliciat bona.)2 Aquinas, then, does not deny the existence of evil: he affirms that premise (2) of the atheistic argument from evil is true. But he clearly denies that premise (1) is true. The existence of evil is not logically or metaphysically incompatible with the existence of a God who is infinitely good. And that is because “it is part of God’s infinite goodness that he should permit evils and elicit goods from them.” God demonstrates his infinite goodness—and infinite power and wisdom—not by excluding

Introduction 3 evil from the world but rather by eliciting good from the evil that he allows to obtain within his world. In fact, as I interpret Aquinas, God demonstrates his infinite goodness by eliciting good from whatever evil obtains within his world. Or, as I will continue to say, God only allows evil to obtain within his world that he redeems in the end. So understood, then, Aquinas has a ready response to what philosophers have come to call the “logical” problem of evil.3 The existence of evil in the world does not show that God (as traditionally conceived) cannot exist. But what about the “evidential” problem of evil? Here, one could argue that premise (1) of the atheistic argument from evil is not necessarily true but probably true, or likely true. And why? William Rowe, as a proponent of the evidential argument from evil, famously has called our attention to what he thinks are instances of gratuitous evil: evils that are unconnected to any redeeming goods, such as a fawn suffering a slow, isolated, painful death in a forest fire.4 The atheist (or skeptic), then, might slightly modify the atheistic argument from evil and then formulate it as follows: *  If God exists, then it is not the case that gratuitous evil exists; 1 2*  Gratuitous evil exists; 3  Therefore, God does not exist. Given Aquinas’s reasons for denying premise (1) of the atheistic argument from evil, I think that Aquinas would indeed affirm premise (1*) of this modified argument. And so, since he clearly thinks that the conclusion of the argument is false, he would deny that premise (2*) is true. Even if we cannot discern how it is, in every instance, God elicits good from evil, we should not doubt that God can and will elicit good from it. And that is because there are any number of ways a God of infinite power, goodness, and wisdom might redeem evil—if not for the individual fawn, say, then certainly cosmically, by ordering it to the goodness of the world, taken as a whole. As Aquinas says, “It is proper for a governor with foresight to neglect some lack of goodness in a part, so that there may be an increase of goodness in the whole.”5 Accordingly, granting that Rowe’s fawn suffers a genuine evil (so understood, as a privation of goodness, in Aquinas’s view), God as the good governor of the world will ensure that far from detracting from the goodness of the world as a whole, that particular evil actually will contribute, in its own way—per God’s providential ordering—to the goodness and flourishing of the world, taken as a whole. I will continue to explore and defend the nature of God’s work to redeem evil in the chapters that follow. But for the moment, I want to begin to show how I think it is possible to go even farther, from a Thomistic perspective, in challenging, and even undermining, the atheistic argument from evil, whether in its logical or evidential form.

4  Introduction Rowe himself suggests that it is possible to counter his own evidential argument, which focuses on the existence of (putative) gratuitous evil, by arguing from the existence of God to the nonexistence of gratuitous evil: if there are good reasons for thinking God exists, then there are good reasons for thinking that gratuitous evil does not exist since (both the theist and atheist would agree) a perfectly powerful, good, and wise God would not allow any such evil to exist.6 Aquinas, of course, offers multiple arguments on behalf of the claim that God exists (which he actually takes to conclusively demonstrate that God exists) and so possesses multiple ways of pursuing this strategy. But there is also another strategy that he offers: an argument that reasons from the existence of evil to the existence of God. This is an argument which, if successful, actually flips the atheistic argument from evil entirely on its head. Here is how this argument goes. Responding to the question, “‘If God exists, whence comes evil?’ (si Deus est, unde malum?),” Aquinas responds in kind: “It could be argued to the contrary: ‘If evil exists, God exists’ (si malum est, Deus est). For, there would be no evil if the order of good were taken away, since its privation is evil. But this order would not exist if there were no God.”7 In other words, as a privation of the good (privatio boni), evil does not exist in its own right as an independent substance or property but only exists as a lack of something that good things ought to have but do not have. But, says Aquinas, these things would not exist if there were no God; the whole “order of good” cannot account for its own existence and depends instead on God for its existence. Therefore, if there were no God, there would be no order of good. And, if there were no order of good, there would be no evil as a privation of that good. Evil would not and could not exist. But evil does exist; therefore, God also exists. There is also a somewhat broader (and I think even more compelling) way of making this argument, which takes its inspiration from what Aquinas claims is a “Fourth Way” of showing that God exists.8 According to traditional theistic metaphysics, God is the ultimate source, cause, and standard of goodness: all things that God creates reflect his perfect and essential goodness (to varying degrees), and all things that are evil or bad fail to reflect his perfect and essential goodness (to varying degrees). But what if there were no God? There would be no ultimate source and cause of goodness in the world, nor would there be any ultimate standard of goodness—what Aquinas thinks of as an unapproximating approximated Good9 —against which we finally could measure all good and bad things. There would therefore be no ultimate metaphysical basis on which we rationally could claim, for example, that an act that helps our fellow human beings is good and conversely that murder is bad or that physical health is good and conversely that cancer (or the effect cancer has on a given subject) is bad. And so, were there no

Introduction 5 God, then evil (along with good) could not and would not exist. But evil (along with good) does exist. Therefore, God exists. Let’s call this the theistic argument from evil, which we can formulate as follows: 1 If God does not exist, then it is not the case that evil exists; 2 Evil exists; 3 Therefore, God exists. Like the atheistic argument from evil, this theistic argument grants that evil exists. What it denies, however, is that evil would or even could exist if God did not also exist. Even gratuitous evil would not and could not exist if God did not also exist. Just as no goodness of any kind would or could exist if God did not also exist, no evil of any kind would or could exist if God did not also exist. Which argument is stronger: the atheistic argument from evil or the theistic argument from evil? Since both the atheist (who proffers the atheistic argument from evil) and the theist (who proffers the theistic argument from evil) think that premise (2) in each argument is true, then the question becomes whether there is a stronger reason for thinking that premise (1) from the atheistic argument is true or a stronger reason for thinking that premise (1) from the theistic argument is true. I argue the latter: there is a stronger reason to affirm than deny the claim that the existence of evil depends on the existence of God, and so, there is a stronger reason for those who affirm the existence of evil also to affirm the existence of God. To be clear: in my view, there is a stronger reason for those who affirm that there are genuine, objective instances of badness in the world—both moral and natural evil—to affirm rather than deny the existence of God. Those who deny that evil genuinely or objectively exists will, of course, reject premise (2) of the theistic argument from evil and so also reject its conclusion. But this, I think, is a tall price to pay: it requires holding, for example, that the genocide committed during the Holocaust was not objectively bad (or wrong) or that the harm that Rowe’s fawn suffered is not objectively bad. In defending the theistic argument from evil in the next chapter, though, I will argue that it is more reasonable to affirm premise (2) of the theistic argument than to deny it, just as I will argue that it is more reasonable to affirm premise (1) of the theistic argument than to deny it. What this all means, then, in my view, is that the existence of evil does not pose any problem for the theist to address: there is no need to vindicate God in the face of evil since evil could not and would not exist if there were no God. This may also lead us to think that in my view, theodicy is no longer necessary. In the next section of this chapter, though, I argue that this is not the case: even if theodicy is no longer needed to

6  Introduction vindicate God in the face of evil, as properly configured, it remains a valuable philosophical and theological enterprise.

1.2  The nature, purpose, and value of theodicy In order to begin to see why theodicy remains a valuable philosophical and theological enterprise, it is helpful to reflect first on a distinction that is often drawn in the contemporary literature between theodicy and what philosophers have come to call a “defense.” As Peter van Inwagen notes, “theodicy” “is put together from the Greek words for ‘God’ [theos] and ‘justice’ [dike],” and so, as traditionally employed, it “is an attempt to state the real truth of the matter, or a large and significant part of it, about why a just God allows evil to exit.”10 He then goes on to compare a theodicy with a defense, in terms of both its content and its aim: A defense is not necessarily different from a theodicy in content. Indeed, a defense and a theodicy may be verbally identical. Each is, formally speaking, a story according to which both God and evil exist. The difference between a defense and a theodicy lies not in their content but in their purposes. A theodicy is a story that is told as the real truth of the matter; a defense is a story that, according to the teller, may or may not be true, but which the teller maintains has some desirable feature that does not entail truth—perhaps (depending on the context) logical consistency or epistemic possibility (truth-for-all-anyone knows).11 Both a theodicy and a defense, moreover, are deployed in order to address what van Inwagen calls the “apologetic” problem of evil or “what to say in response to the argument from evil.”12 While a theodicy will “attempt to meet the charge that God’s ways are unjust” by aiming to tell a true story about God and his permission of as well as dealings with evil (in order to exhibit “the justice of his ways”),13 a defense, however, will attempt to meet this charge by telling a possible story (which is at least possibly true) about God and his permission of as well as dealings with evil. Now, given its aim of laying hold of the actual truth of the matter concerning God and the place of evil within God’s providential scheme, theodicy certainly appears to be more valuable, or attractive, than a defense. However, there is, I think, a trend (in contemporary philosophy of religion, anyway) to shy away from doing theodicy and instead to offer a defense (or something that is less ambitious than theodicy). One chief motivation for doing so typically is rooted in the theological conviction that God is a mystery and therefore the actual facts concerning God’s reasons for allowing evil and his final plan for dealing with it must remain wholly or at least largely mysterious to us. Most notably,

Introduction 7 Alvin Plantinga (who intentionally advanced a Free Will Defense versus a Free Will Theodicy when first addressing the logical problem of evil) blankly stated at one point in his career that “the Christian must concede he doesn’t know … why God permits the evils the world displays.”14 Similarly, although he doesn’t decry theodicy, W. Matthews Grant offers a defense rather theodicy in responding to the problem of moral evil (interestingly, without the Free Will Defense) since, in his view, “considerable modesty is called for in our attempts to pass judgment on what evils a perfectly good, all-powerful, and omniscient God would or would not permit (and why).”15 Moreover, one might argue that there is something misguided or presumptuous about aiming to spell out the actual truth regarding God and evil, as theodicy purports to do. Michael Murray writes that “even if one were capable of delivering on the promise of theodicy, it would be hard to know that one had succeeded. The theist’s insight into the explanations for God’s permission of evil is, by all accounts, simply too weak or impaired to give us any confidence that we have found a true explanation for evil, even when we have.”16 Murray further says that even if the theodicist were to find a true explanation for evil, it remains unclear whether it would move the recalcitrant skeptic who thinks it probable, say, that there is at least one gratuitous evil in the world. As Murray says, “Perhaps such true explanations would involve claims which the critic is nonetheless in doubt about (or believes false).”17 The theodicist, though, I think can offer a ready response to these concerns. First, he can recognize and respect the divine mystery while also humbly stating and defending what he thinks is the actual truth of the matter concerning God and evil. Notably, the theodicist happily can agree with Plantinga that the Christian (or anyone else for that matter) is not in a position to know (at least in this life) in every given instance why God allows evil and (I would add) how God wills to redeem it. But this should not prevent the theodicist from speaking in great detail— and seeking to speak truthfully in great detail—about why God would include evil in his good world and, beyond that, how God wills to redeem the evil he includes in his good world. Similarly, exercising “considerable modesty,” as Grant recommends, in specifying the kinds of evils God permits, and the kinds of redeeming goods he conjoins to those evils, is not antithetical to seeking to express the actual truth about these matters but remains perfectly compatible with it. There is nothing misguided or presumptuous about seeking to explore God’s relationship to evil in order to provide a true account of it, provided one recognizes that the truth one’s account conveys will be partial at best. I also think that it is simply unfair to say in advance that the explanatory insight theodicy seeks to provide is or will be (in Murray’s words) “simply too weak or impaired to give us any confidence that we have a found a true explanation for evil, even when we have.” Why should we

8  Introduction assume that such insight in all cases will be “weak or impaired”? The Christian philosopher and theologian, most notably, who offers a theodicy rooted in the wisdom of the Christian faith has a strong reason to think (given her own worldview) that she has landed on a true—even if partial—account of the existence of evil in God’s world. Granted, not everyone, especially the hardened skeptic, will be moved by the theodicy that the Christian offers, rooted as it is in truth-claims that the non-Christian does not accept, or perhaps even rejects. But again, it would be unfair to expect the theodicist to move all such persons, who may, for whatever reason, be opposed to the truth that the theodicist proclaims. All that we can reasonably expect of the theodicist is that she offers substantive reasons for thinking that her theodicy, and the insight it purports to offer, is genuine or true. Which reasons persons find persuasive will vary, but whoever is evaluating the theodicy regarding its claim to truth needs to take all of these reasons, as they support each element or aspect of the theodicy, into account. Consequently, I claim that theodicy, as properly configured, remains a valuable, even necessary intellectual project for the theist to carry out. As I will continue to argue moving ahead, I don’t think that it is necessary for the theist to construct a theodicy (or a defense for that matter) in order to respond to the argument from evil or, in van Inwagen’s words, “meet the charge that God’s ways are unjust” since she has strong, even better reason to think that God exists, given the existence of evil. Nevertheless, there remains real importance in telling a story that aims to convey the real truth of the matter about God and evil, and particularly God’s permission of and dealings with evil. And that is because successfully arguing that God exists, given the existence of evil, is not the same as showing how the truths concerning God and evil are, in fact, compatible. More specifically, even if the existence of evil points toward (rather than away from) God (or, we could even say, presupposes the existence of God), it still leaves unanswered important questions concerning why evil exists in the first place and how the existence of evil fits within God’s overarching, providential plan for the world and human lives. In my view, theodicy can and should help us address these questions, thereby affording us a deeper and more penetrating as well as comprehensive understanding, or wisdom, concerning God’s decision to include evil within his good world and God’s work to deal with, and specifically redeem, the evil he wills to include within his good world. So understood, while theodicy is not necessary to maintain God’s innocence in the face of evil, and so maintain the intellectual respectability of theism more broadly, it can play a vital role in helping us grow in our knowledge of God and his ways, including, on my Thomistic view, all of the ways he works to redeem evil. This is the main reason why, in this book, I will develop and defend a theodicy informed by Thomistic and more broadly Christian philosophy and theology.

Introduction 9 There is also value in telling a story about God and evil because philosophical and theological (or religious) traditions like Christianity, and Thomism more narrowly, indeed have something valuable to say about God and evil. I am therefore in full agreement with what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says regarding the “question of evil,” to which it says, “no quick answer will suffice”: Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.18 While I will not defend the claim that “only Christian faith as a whole” provides an answer to the question of evil (even though I do believe this to be true), I will answer this question drawing on central elements of a Christian philosophical and theological worldview, both because I am a Christian (and a Catholic) and because I think that incorporating the wisdom of Christian teaching enables us to tell a particularly powerful and illuminating story about God and his relationship to evil: both why God permits it and how he works to redeem it. Similarly, in developing and defending my theodicy, I will be drawing on central elements of Aquinas’s philosophical and theological worldview because I think that incorporating the wisdom of Thomistic teaching, or Thomism as a philosophical and theological tradition, enables us to tell this story in a particularly powerful and illuminating way. My final main reason for thinking that telling a story—indeed, a true story—about God and evil, and so constructing a theodicy, is valuable, and even necessary, is that as inquiring, rational beings we want to know, or better understand, why there is so much evil in the world and what God has done, is doing, and will do to ensure that evil does not have the last word within his world and especially human lives. In other words, even if we don’t doubt (as we shouldn’t) that the existence of God and the existence of evil are compatible, we still are naturally left wondering why God created a world in which evil comes to exist and what place evil has within his providential scheme and so ultimate plan for the world. We also face the practical challenge of confronting or responding to the evil we face in our own lives and see occurring in the lives of others: a challenge about which I think theodicy (as properly extended or applied) also has something important to say. Consequently, were we to leave the story about God and evil untold, or the question of

10  Introduction evil unanswered, then we would leave our own desire and even need for answers unfulfilled, thereby leaving a gaping hole in our intellectual and even moral and spiritual lives. Of course, a theodicy, given its aspiration to offer us true, wise insight into God’s relationship to evil, must be plausible: as I began to argue above, it must contain substantive reasons for thinking that what it tells us about God and evil is true. But those reasons can and will vary (indeed, they should vary). I think that a theodicy is plausible to the extent that it draws on and incorporates a variety of philosophical, theological, and empirical reasons in support of the truth-claims it makes about God’s permission of and dealings with evil. Or, as I also like to say, a theodicy is plausible insofar as it offers plausible (philosophically, theologically, and empirically informed and supported) answers to the important questions that I think invariably arise concerning God’s permission of and dealings with evil. The more plausible a theodicy is, the more reason we have to think that it is successful, and so, it offers us the deeper insight we seek concerning God’s permission of and dealings with evil: in my view, how God works to redeem all evil in the end. Throughout this book, I will highlight the various ways the various components of my multifaceted Thomistic theodicy are plausible, thereby giving us a strong reason to think that the theodicy as a whole is successful. For example, having argued in Chapter 2 that there are good philosophical reasons (which do not assume the truth of Christian revelation) for supporting the claim that God, as the Good, or highest good (summum bonum), exists, I argue in Chapter 3 that there are also good philosophical reasons for thinking that God, as the highest good, would only create a certain kind of world: a world like our own filled all kinds and levels of good things, which variously reflect his own perfect and essential goodness. These good things, in turn, can and do cause much evil and suffer on account of it, above all as a result of realizing their God-given natures and causally interacting with one another in a myriad of ways. In Chapter 4, I argue that Aquinas’s theological account of the creation and fall of the first human beings is fully consistent with what modern evolutionary science tells us about the origins of the human race. Moreover, this account explains not only how evil emerged within human history but also why we remain susceptible to suffering and doing evil of all kinds. In this sense, I say that there are good empirical reasons supporting the theological claim that there was a historical fall and that we are fallen beings. There are, furthermore, good theological reasons (of the sort proffered by Christian faith) for holding that God is our Redeemer, who wills to redeem the evil he allows to exist not only cosmically (as I argue in Chapter 3) but also within the context of individual, fallen human lives. This is the argument I make in Chapter 5, and continue to make in Chapter 6, in which I discuss the shape of redeemed living for human beings in heaven and God’s plan to redeem

Introduction 11 whatever evil obtains in hell. Chapter 7 presents what I think is a theologically and philosophically credible account of hoping in the face of evil, informed by the arguments I make throughout this book about God’s will and work to redeem each and every evil both cosmically and within the context of individual human lives. Here, I should note that my Thomistic theodicy does leave some important questions unanswered. Most notably, I think it is an open question whether God will redeem evil for all human beings in the end. However, I do argue that it is true God will redeem all evil in the end and that he will fill his world with all kinds of redeeming good, including the ultimate, personal good of life lived eternally with God, which we can hope that God will afford all human beings in the end. Moreover, I claim there are good reasons to believe and hope that God will redeem all evil in the end; however, he, in his infinite goodness and wisdom, wills to do so. I ask the reader, therefore, to weigh the merits of my Thomistic theodicy by weighing all of the reasons I marshal on its behalf. If this theodicy is successful, which I think it is, then it will offer us at least partial, true insight into God’s permission of evil and his work to redeem it and so the deeper wisdom concerning the truth about God and evil that we seek.

1.3  Thomism and the problem of evil In this final section of this introductory chapter, in order to further orient the reader to the work I will carry out in the rest of this book, I discuss in what ways my theodicy is Thomistic. I also discuss how my Thomistic approach to thinking about God and evil compares to some other prominent Thomistic approaches to thinking about God and evil in the contemporary literature on the problem of evil. To start, it is worth asking, what makes a theodicy “Thomistic”? I agree with Brian Davies when he says that Aquinas “never offers a stand-alone discussion of what contemporary philosophers have come to call the problem of evil.”19 Moreover, what Aquinas has to say about God and evil “comes scattered throughout almost the entire corpus of his writings and needs to be brought together … so that [we] can see what Aquinas does think with respect to the topic of God and evil.”20 Consequently, Aquinas does not offer a theodicy. Though, as I will continue to argue, what he does say about God and evil can be pressed into the service of theodicy so that we can better understand God’s reasons for allowing evil and his work to redeem it. Moreover, there are elements of Aquinas’s thinking—like his teaching on predestination, for example—that may not seem to be directly relevant to the concerns of theodicy but in fact prove to be very relevant to the concerns of theodicy. In Aquinas’s view, everything that occurs, including our salvation, falls under God’s providence and his eternally conceived, infallible plan for

12  Introduction our world and our lives. Accordingly, as I argue in Chapter 5, we have a strong reason to think that a God who predestines also can ensure that we come to possess fully redeemed lives in which all of the evil in which we each individually participate (whether by suffering or doing evil) is redeemed and so ordered to our good: indeed, our ultimate good, which is life lived eternally with God. I also think that a Thomistic theodicy need not be compliant with everything that Aquinas thinks or says on a given matter that bears on the concerns of theodicy. In fact, sometimes I think that it is valuable to go beyond what Aquinas explicitly says on the topic of God and evil and even go in directions that Aquinas himself would not have endorsed. For example, consider again Aquinas’s teaching on predestination. Aquinas thought that God predestines some but not all to salvation; those he does not predestine ultimately end up in hell. I do not share Aquinas’s confidence that this is true: while I agree with Aquinas that God predestining us is necessary for us to attain salvation, and ensures that we will attain ultimately good lives, I also think (and will argue in Chapters 6 and 7) that it is possible that God predestines everyone to salvation, which means all of us will attain ultimately good lives in the end. Moreover, I think that it is possible that God will afford nonhuman animals enormously good heavenly lives, even if they remain incapable of achieving the heights of heavenly beatitude, as we are. These are significant departures from Aquinas’s thinking about salvation and the afterlife, but not so significant, I think, that my theodicy ceases to be genuinely Thomistic. Even where I depart from Aquinas on specific (and sometimes significant) points, I continue to think and reason within a Thomistic framework. Moreover, any departure I make from Aquinas is only carefully made with the intent of strengthening my Thomistic theodicy overall. As someone who thinks and reasons within a Thomistic framework, I also aim to show how Aquinas’s thinking bears on contemporary issues relevant to theodicy, and Christian thought more generally. For example, in Chapter 3, I discuss how, on the Thomistic view of providence that I present and defend, it is fitting for God to create using an evolutionary process that is riddled with evil and how God redeems (or can redeem) all of the evil that occurs over the long course of evolutionary history. As I mentioned above (in Section 1.2), in Chapter 4, I also show how Aquinas’s conception of the creation and fall of the first human beings—which accounts for who we are as fallen, damaged beings—is fully compatible with what evolutionary science tells about the origins of the human race within natural history. One of the strengths of the Thomistic tradition, then, is that it proffers resources for constructing and defending a theodicy that is firmly at home in the actual world, as we both experience it to be and as it is described by modern science. This is essential, of course, since in aiming to tell a true story about God’s permission of and dealings with evil, theodicy must, of course, also aim

Introduction 13 to tell a true story about the sorts of evils that obtain in the world both presently and historically, including the emergence and occurrence of evil within natural history. What distinguishes my Thomistic approach to thinking about God and evil from other contemporary, prominent Thomistic approaches to the same? Let me begin with Davies, who, especially in his book, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil, offers what I think is the most provocative Thomistic approach to thinking about God and evil. For Davies, both the problem of evil and theodicy get off on the wrong foot by wrongly conceiving of God as being morally good. While Davies does not deny that God does good things, that God commands what is morally good, or that “the moral values we live by reflect God’s concerns,”21 he does deny that God is a moral agent who is “subject to moral praise or censure.”22 For Davies, God is not subject to any moral law that is binding on him or subject to any moral obligations. Therefore, to think that God needs to be morally justified in the face of evil is simply mistaken. This is not to say that Davies has nothing to say on the topic of God and evil. He just thinks that it is essential to approach the topic in the right way. Taking his cue from Aquinas, this requires showing both that we have a good, independent reason to think there is a God (since the universe cannot account for its own existence) and thinking of God in the right way, as incomprehensible and also metaphysically “odd,” or different from and incomparable to anything within the created universe. This is why Davies aims to shift our focus away from thinking about God as a moral agent like human agents. It is only by getting God and his goodness properly in view that we properly can get his relationship to evil in view. Once more taking his cue from Aquinas, Davies thinks that we ought to conceive of God’s goodness in terms of God’s perfection: God lacks nothing that God ought to possess that could make God better; God’s being is fully realized or actual. Moreover, says Davies, God is the maker of all creaturely goodness, the one who is the source and cause of all the goodness (or attractiveness) that his creatures possess. God, then, only causes and so brings about what is good in his creation; he in no way causes or brings about badness, at least not directly: whatever badness (qua privation) that occurs does so because God is directly causing something good to be or creatively producing everything that is in itself good. For Davies, then, we have a good reason to think that, despite the existence of evil, there is a God, that God is good (even if he is not morally good), and that God is the author of goodness, not badness, within his creation or all good things in creation that can and do go bad. My Thomistic approach both resembles and differs from Davies’s approach in important ways. With Davies, I obviously think that there is no need to vindicate God, given the existence of evil. In fact, taking my own cue from Aquinas, I argue that there is no need to vindicate God in the face of evil because the existence of evil itself provides evidence

14  Introduction for God: without God, no good or evil ever would or could obtain in God’s world. (I think Davies would affirm this, but he does not argue in defense of this claim.) However, I find Davies’s insistence that God lacks moral goodness vexing or, at the very least, misleading. If, as I argue in this book, God is the source, cause, and standard of all goodness within his creation, including moral goodness—which we uniquely exemplify in the natural, created order—then God’s nature must be moral and perfectly exemplify moral values such as love, justice, and mercy, all of which are attributes Aquinas specifically assigns to God. Additionally, it is possible to affirm that God possesses moral goodness without rendering God subject to any moral law or “subject to moral praise or censure.” In my view, which I also think is Aquinas’s view, God’s nature is the standard against which we measure all goodness and badness, including all morally good and bad acts. And so, there is no higher law or standard of goodness that God perfectly exemplifies. In the end, then, I think that God possesses both metaphysical goodness and moral goodness: as the source, cause, and standard of all creaturely perfections, or various ways created things succeed in being what they were created by God to be, God is clearly also the source, cause, and standard of all that we are when we succeed in being what we were created to be as moral beings. My other main criticism of Davies is that he does not say much about God’s reasons for allowing evil or God’s work to redeem it: the task to which I think theodicy should still set itself, even if it is no longer burdened with the task of vindicating God. He does say (not surprisingly) that he is “highly suspicious of the suggestion that God acts for reasons in any intelligible sense that we can attach to the expression ‘act for a reason.’”23 However, since God possesses both intellect and will, it certainly seems reasonable to me to ask, for example, why God created a world that has so much evil in it. This is a question concerning God’s reasons for creating, and so, even if God does not engage in practical reasoning as we do (Davies’s main point), surely he acts purposefully, with certain ends in view, which means that theodicy—as I conceive of it—can help us better understand why we live in the evil-ridden world that we do. Moreover, Davies seems to pass over what I take to be the foundational claim undergirding a Thomistic approach to thinking about God and evil: that God only allows evil to obtain from which he can and will draw good. Granted, Aquinas does not offer us an in-depth account of how God brings good out of evil. But I think it is possible for the Thomist to do so, which is why, in constructing my own Thomistic theodicy, I will discuss some of the major ways God carries out his redemptive work both in the world and in our very lives. Since carrying out this task consists of constructing a Thomistic theodicy of redemptive suffering (in Chapter 5), I should also discuss Eleonore Stump’s Thomistic approach to addressing the problem of

Introduction 15 human suffering, so as to compare it with my own. Like Davies, Stump does not offer a Thomistic theodicy. Instead, especially in her magisterial work, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering, she draws on Aquinas (especially his biblical commentaries) to construct a defense, thereby identifying a possible morally sufficient reason for God permitting suffering, of the sort endured by fully functional adult persons. In sum, as Stump reads Aquinas, God allows suffering in the lives of these persons in order to both ward off a greater evil—indeed, the worst thing for human beings, permanent absence of union with God—and bring about a greater good for the sufferer, “the increased degree of everlasting shared union with God,”24 which is the height of human happiness and flourishing. She further says that “which of the two possible benefits goes to a particular sufferer on any given occasion depends on the condition of the sufferer herself at that time.”25 For the person who has Christian faith, suffering is defeated by virtue of the contribution it makes to the sufferer attaining greater closeness with God in love, culminating in personal, permanent, and unending union with God in heaven. Suffering for the faithful, which is involuntary, only secundum quid, or in a certain respect (given the commitment to a life of faith), is therefore medicinal insofar as it contributes to their sanctification. For the person who does not have faith, and who is very alienated from herself and from God, suffering is defeated by virtue of advancing the sufferer on the path of salvation, and bringing her to surrender to God in faith and love. Suffering for those who lack faith, even though it is involuntary simplicter, is therefore also medicinal as it contributes to their forming an act of will (“for a will that wills the good”26) constitutive of their justification, or being justified before God. Like Stump, I argue on Thomistic grounds that God redeems the evil that we suffer by bringing good out of it, and specifically ordering our participation in it to the ultimate good of life lived eternally with God, who is our highest good. I also take this claim to be central not just to a Thomistic understanding of suffering but also to a Christian one. As John Bishop puts it, commenting on Stump’s work, “The idea that union with God is the supreme good in which we are fully what we ought to be, and that suffering may contribute to our achieving this supreme good by breaking down our natural egoistic fantasy of being in charge of our own lives and promoting our recognition of our closeness to God and utter dependence on him—these ideas are classic features of a Christian understanding of suffering as coming within the overall providence of God.”27 Consequently, insofar as my Thomistic theodicy of redemptive suffering resembles Stump’s Thomistic defense, it is not just because they are both Thomistic, but also because they are both Christian, or are rooted (in Bishop’s words) in “a Christian understanding of suffering as coming within the overall providence of God.”

16  Introduction However, the Thomistic theodicy I offer in this book is wider than Stump’s Thomistic defense in some important respects. Unlike Stump, I directly engage and employ Aquinas’s philosophical and theological reflection on creation, providence, sin, predestination, purgatory, and heaven and hell, in addition to what Aquinas says about redemptive suffering. I thereby situate my Thomistic theodicy of redemptive suffering within my larger Thomistic theodicy, which is informed as well as buttressed by Thomistic reflection on these important topics and doctrines, and which tells a larger story about how God redeems evil on a cosmic scale, not merely within the context of individual human lives. Again, what I think is clear in Aquinas’s view—a view I also endorse—is that God will redeem all evil in the end, by conjoining all evil to good, and so bringing about a world, which, in the end, is ultimately good, or good as a whole, even if it contains lots of evil within its various parts, including individual human lives. In developing my Thomistic theodicy of redemptive suffering, I also go deeper than Stump in some important respects.28 While Stump focuses on the role suffering plays in correcting a disordered fallen will, she also intentionally leaves “vague and unexplored the specific means by which Aquinas supposes suffering fills that role.”29 In contrast, I do explore, from a Thomistic perspective, how suffering is redemptive for us as fallen beings: God uses it not only to turn us away from sin, and purge us of our sinfulness, but also to cure us of our ignorance concerning himself (itself an effect of the Fall), and grow us morally and spiritually, above all by conforming us to himself in love, so that we can attain ultimately good, heavenly lives. This includes producing and nurturing in us the self-surrendering love of God and others, or “suffering love” paradigmatically manifest in the love of Christ, which I claim disposes the sufferer to suffer willingly on behalf of others in loving service to God’s redemptive plan in their lives. The final Thomist I’ll discuss here is John Knasas, whose work in Aquinas and the Cry of Rachel: Thomistic Reflections on the Problem of Evil in certain respects most closely resembles my own. Knasas agrees that since Aquinas reasons from the existence of evil to the existence of God (“if evil exists, then God exists”), then the real question concerning God and evil “is a how question,” viz. how the two facts concerning God’s existence and the existence of evil are related or compatible. 30 Moreover, Knasas agrees that for Aquinas that whatever evil obtains within God’s good world, God wills to redeem by ordering it to good. But Knasas is surprisingly agnostic in his reading of Aquinas about what goods God will bring out of evil, not because he thinks Aquinas has no idea concerning what those goods might be, but rather because he thinks Aquinas “has too many ideas.”31 There can be any number of possible redeeming goods that God might populate the universe with, given the various kinds of evil that occur, but theodicy

Introduction 17 cannot say definitively what they are. Referring to what he calls “cosmological” and “personalist” theodicies, Knasas says that “the Thomist must oppose both theodicies as the explanation of evil.”32 On the one hand, Knasas says that the Thomist must oppose personalist theodicies (like Stump’s), which demand that good must at least accrue to the sufferer, since they rely on an exalted understanding of the human person derived from religious revelation and not philosophical reasoning. In Knasas’s view, apart from revelation, while we can know that we are a “principal part” of the natural order, we cannot know that we have a supernatural destiny or a dignity that “catapults the human outside the whole of nature.”33 And so we cannot be sure that the good God brings out of evil will accrue to us rather than the cosmic order of which we are inextricably a part. On the other hand, Knasas says that the Thomist must oppose cosmological theodicies insofar as they claim to be definitive: it remains philosophically possible “that the human has been supernaturally raised to a divine life that makes the human more than a principle part of the whole.”34 This means that it remains philosophically possible that in a God-governed universe, good—even supernatural good—accrues to the individual and not simply the cosmos as a whole. I must admit that I find Knasas’s direction here for the Thomist to be both confusing and unnecessarily restrictive. Apparently, the Thomist is allowed to admit as possible various theistic explanations for the existence of evil, but never to regard any of them as definitive, and presumably this extends to Thomistic theodicy itself. If the goal of Thomistic theodicy is to defend a possible, but non-definitive explanation of God and evil, then the Thomist really can’t engage in theodicy at all, following Knasas’s model. Or at least, it becomes really difficult to do so, presuming that a non-definitive explanation cannot be advanced and defended as true. In what follows, I don’t pretend to offer “the explanation of evil” or the Thomistic explanation of evil, if that means saying everything that can and must be said from a Thomistic perspective about God and evil, or claiming to possess epistemic certainty that the explanation I am offering is true. But I do develop and defend a Thomistic theodicy that has both a “cosmological” and “personalist” dimension, and offers what I think is a true explanation of why God allows evil and how he works to redeem it, both cosmically and within the context of individual lives. Furthermore, I do so drawing freely on Thomistic philosophy and theology, as well as Christian philosophy and theology more broadly. Knasas speaks as a Thomistic philosopher, and so thinks that the Thomist philosopher in particular—who neither assumes nor denies the truth of divine revelation—must remain ignorant regarding the actual nature and scope of God’s redeeming work. However, I simply don’t see why the Thomist philosopher, qua Christian philosopher, must deny himself the resources of Thomistic

18  Introduction theology in constructing a theodicy, and why the Thomist philosopher, qua Christian philosopher, cannot reason from the truths of Christian revelation as freely and confidently as he reasons from the naturally discernible truths of philosophy. The goal of theodicy, after all, as I construe it, is to offer us wisdom concerning the truth about God and the truth about evil, and so the theodicist can and should draw freely on whatever philosophical and theological resources are available to help accomplish that task. At this point, I think I have done enough to orient the reader to the task ahead, which is to construct and defend a Thomistic, Christian theodicy. As promised, the first step in this process is to liberate the theodicist from the burden of having to defend God in the face of evil, so that he can pursue a deeper wisdom concerning the place of evil within God’s world and God’s providential work to redeem all evil. It is that first, important task to which I now turn.

Notes 1 Summa theologiae (ST) I.2.3 obj. 1. Translations of the ST (sometimes modified by me) are from Alfred J. Freddoso’s “New English Translation of the Summa Theologiae (Summa Theologica),” available online at https:// www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm, and Summa Theologica, by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York, NY: Benziger Bros., 1948; repr., Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1981), available online at https://www.newadvent.org/summa. Aquinas’s Latin works, which I reference throughout this book, are all available online at www.corpusthomisticum.org. 2 ST I.2.3 ad 1. 3 The locus classicus of the logical problem of evil in the philosophical literature is J.L. Mackie’s “Evil and Omnipotence,” Mind 64 (1955): 200–12. 4 See, most notably, William L. Rowe, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979): 335–41. 5 Summa contra gentiles (SCG) III.71. I am using the translation from Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Three: Providence, Part 1, trans. Vernon J. Bourke (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). 6 Rowe presents this argument (more formally) in “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” 339. 7 SCG III.71. 8 See ST I.2.3. We also could call the following argument a moral argument, or version of the moral argument, for God’s existence. See, for example, Chad Meister’s version of the argument in Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed (London, UK: Continuum, 2012), 75. 9 Here, I am drawing on Joseph Bobik’s description of Jacques Maritain’s understanding of Aquinas’s Fourth Way in “Aquinas’s Fourth Way and the Approximating Relation,” The Thomist 51 (1987): 24. More recently, in explicating and defending Aquinas’s Fourth Way, David E. Alexander has argued that from both cross-categorical and intra-kind comparisons (both of which compare things in terms of whether they are more or less good than other things), we can infer that there is something good that transcends all categories to which all things are related, with respect to

Introduction 19 which they are good, and which causes or explains their goodness. See Alexander’s Goodness, God, and Evil (New York, NY: Continuum, 2012), 114–9. 10 Peter van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006), 6. 11 Ibid., 7. 12 Ibid., 6. 13 Ibid. 14 Alvin Plantinga, “Self-Profile,” Alvin Plantinga, eds. James E. Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1985), 35. In “Supralapsarianism, or ‘O Felix Culpa’” (Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil, ed. Peter van Inwagen [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004]), Plantinga seems to change his tune: in addition to rebutting the argument from evil, “Christian philosophers should also turn to a different task, that of understanding the evil our world displays from a Christian perspective” (5). 15 W. Matthews Grant, Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account (London, UK: Bloomsbury, 2019), 124. 16 Michael J. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 37. 17 Ibid. 18 See the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 309, 2nd ed. (United States Catholic Conference, Inc.—Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), available online at https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/ catechism/IV/. 19 Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011), 6. 20 Ibid. 21 Brian Davies, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (London, UK: Continuum, 2006), 252. 22 Ibid., 88. 23 Ibid., 218. 24 Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010), 394. 25 Eleonore Stump, “Providence and the Problem of Evil,” The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and Elenore Stump (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), 405. 26 Ibid., 406. 27 John Bishop, “Response to Stump,” The Problem of Evil: Eight Views in Dialogue, ed. N.N. Trakakis (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018), 26. 28 I say “in important respects” because there are aspects of human suffering that Stump explores and addresses in her work that I do not explore here. In particular, Stump focuses on what she calls the loss of the “desires of the heart” or the heartbrokenness that is a source suffering. While she thinks that Aquinas’s theodicy (as she calls it) neglects this aspect of human suffering, she does think that it can be developed to take account of it. See in particular Wandering in Darkness, Chapter 14. 29 Stump, Wandering in Darkness, 398. 30 John F.X. Knasas, Aquinas and the Cry of Rachel: Thomistic Reflections on the Problem of Evil (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 145.

20  Introduction 31 Ibid., 148. In context, Knasas is specifically discussing what he calls “quandoque evils” (“unnatural corruptions in which the lower acts against the higher, for example, an earthquake or a hurricane destroying a city, a lion or shark mauling a human,” 46–7). These are evils that are merely “‘permitted’ by God for the sake of some good and that happen ‘sometimes’,” 46. But the point also seems to apply comprehensively for Knasas regarding any evils that exist. 32 Ibid., 154. Italics are in the original text. 33 Ibid., 146. 34 Ibid., 152.

2

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God

As I stated in Chapter 1, the existence of evil traditionally has been taken to pose a genuine problem for the theist to address. Accordingly, both theists and non-theists seldom reflect on arguably the more significant and fundamental problem that the existence of evil poses for skeptical non-theism: the position that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God does not exist. Responding to the perennial question, “‘If God exists, whence comes evil?’ (si Deus est, unde malum?),” Aquinas responds in kind: “It could be argued to the contrary: ‘If evil exists, God exists’ (si malum est, Deus est). For, there would be no evil if the order of good were taken away, since its privation is evil. But this order would not exist if there were no God.”1 I take Aquinas, then, to be arguing as follows: 1 If God does not exist, then it is not the case that evil exists; 2 Evil exists; 3 Therefore, God exists. In the previous chapter, I suggested making this argument—which I call the theistic argument from evil—in a way that appeals not just to the contingency of the order of good, or evil as a privation of good, but to the reality or objectivity of value (and disvalue), viz., genuine instances of goodness and badness (or good and bad states of affairs), in the universe. If there were no God, there would be no ultimate source and cause of goodness in the world, which accounts for there being goodness in the world, nor would there be any ultimate standard of goodness against which we finally could measure all good and bad things (which are bad by virtue of opposing or deviating from what is good). And so, were there no God, then evil (along with good) could not and would not exist. But evil (along with good) does exist. Therefore, God exists. In this chapter, as promised, I am going to develop and defend this argument, thereby engaging in the project of Thomistic natural theology, broadly conceived. 2 I will spend most of this chapter defending premise (1). My goal here, by way of mounting a cumulative case, is to show why it is more reasonable to affirm this premise of the argument DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847-2

22  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God than to deny it (or at least, refrain from affirming it), 3 given how seriously difficult it is for the skeptic—anyone who doubts or denies the truth of premise (1)—to make ultimate sense of the existence of evil on the presumption that there is no God, so understood as a personal being who is the ultimate source, cause, and standard of goodness and value.4 Later in this chapter, I will also defend the claim that it is more reasonable to affirm premise (2) of this argument than to deny it (even though it may strike us as obviously true and so not even in need of defense). My final, crucial move in this chapter is to argue that this theistic argument for the existence of God from evil gives stronger epistemic support for the claim that God exists than does the atheistic argument from evil for the claim that God does not exist. If there is stronger reason to affirm than deny the claim that the existence of evil depends on the existence of God, as I contend, then there is stronger reason for those who affirm the existence of evil to also affirm the existence of God. In the end, then, I argue that the existence of evil does not pose a problem, at least as traditionally conceived, for the theist to address: there is no need to vindicate God in the face of evil since evil could not and would not exist if there were no God. However, it still falls to the theist to help us see or understand more clearly, or in greater depth, how these two facts—the existence of evil and the existence of God—are, indeed, related or compatible. This is why, again, I claim that theodicy remains a valuable philosophical and theological enterprise: it enables us to address important questions that still arise concerning the existence of evil within God’s good universe. In subsequent chapters, I will construct and defend such a theodicy that is deeply informed by Thomistic and more broadly Christian philosophy and theology.

2.1  Pain and evil Why should we think that if God does not exist, then it is not the case that evil exists? I claim that our efforts either to identify something as evil or to define evil are ultimately unsuccessful unless we draw (either explicitly or implicitly) on the metaphysics of value that theism provides. In what follows, I defend this claim by analyzing a number of prominent ways to identify or define evil, and show how difficult it is to do so on the presumption that there is no God. To be clear (if it is not so already), I am working from the standpoint that evil really, truly exists and therefore is not an illusion, projection, or social construction. Consequently, the claim I am defending is that were there no God, and so no personal being who is the ultimate source, cause, and standard of goodness, then no objective badness would or could exist. And so, if objective badness exists, then God exists. This is why I also take premise (2) of the theistic argument from evil to express a mind-independent fact or truth about the world. Again, later in this chapter, I’ll defend this claim as well. But for now,

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 23 taking for granted that theists and many non-theists affirm it, I am going to focus on defending the first premise of the argument, which makes use of the concept of evil as something genuinely or objectively bad. Let’s begin our defense of premise (1) of the argument by focusing on the existence of pain. The skeptic who doubts or denies that this premise is true might argue that there is a strong reason to identify pain, whether physical or mental (in the form of suffering), as an evil, given how awful and difficult to endure it can be. Moreover, the existence of pain (perhaps more than anything else) motivates the problem of evil for many nontheists. Consequently, we should consider the following, basic principle: (P1) Pain is intrinsically bad. In defense of (P1), the skeptic might claim that (P1) is true, even obviously true. Pain is bad in and of itself, or bad simply as pain.5 I actually think that there is a real reason to dispute this claim. However, before I dispute it, I will first show in response to the skeptic why there is a real reason to doubt that the truth that (P1) purports to state would or could obtain in a Godless universe. If (P1) is true, it is because there are sentient beings in the world that are capable of experiencing pain, and in which pain occurs. But how did these beings come to be? According to a naturalistic worldview, they were produced by unguided, purely natural, and so valueless physical, chemical, and biological events and processes over the long course of our planet’s evolutionary history.6 (P1), however, if it is true, is a normative truth, concerning the realm of value—goodness and badness—and it is not at all clear how normative truths would or could obtain or emerge in a world whose constituents were produced by unguided, purely natural events and processes. There is simply no reason to think that from something utterly devoid of value, something of value can come since the realm of value is completely different in kind from the realm of nonvalue. Think about it this way: as F.C. Copleston has argued, even if you add up contingent beings to infinity, you still get contingent beings, and not a necessary being (which is why even an infinite series of contingent beings cannot account for its own existence).7 Similarly, I contend that even if you add up valueless things to infinity, you still get valueless things, not any value-laden thing. This is why error theorists like J.L. Mackie are not simply agnostic but actually atheistic (so to speak) about the objective existence of value: to posit a realm of value in addition to a realm of purely natural facts requires fitting into the universe “entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe.”8 And so how, on a naturalistic worldview, would or could badness (along with goodness) not only come to exist in our material universe but then also come to be associated with or instantiated by a purely natural property or phenomenon such as pain?9

24  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God In response, the skeptic could claim that there is no mystery regarding the existence or emergence of badness (along with goodness) in our material universe because badness is a moral property, which, like all other moral properties in the universe, necessarily supervenes on natural or nonmoral properties. For example, Richard Swinburne (himself, of course, a committed theist) claims that certain moral properties, like being morally wrong or being evil, logically supervene on certain nonmoral properties, like being an act of rape or being an act of genocide, in any world in which those nonmoral properties, as instantiated in certain actions, obtain, whether God exists in that world or not.10 And this is because “it makes no sense to suppose both that there is a world W in which [an action] a is wrong and a world W* exactly the same as W except that in W* a is good.”11 Employing this line of reasoning, the skeptic then could claim that badness logically supervenes on pain: it makes no sense to suppose both that there is a world W in which pain is bad and that a world W* is exactly the same as W except that in W* pain is good. However, in defense of the claim that badness logically supervenes on pain, the skeptic needs to explain why badness logically supervenes on pain. Regarding what makes killing, for example, morally wrong, Swinburne says, “My answer is simple—the very nature of the act itself. An act of killing being an act of killing (not in specified circumstances) entails that it is morally wrong.”12 But surely it is reasonable to ask why an act such as killing, simply by virtue of being an act of killing (which goes on all the time in the natural world), entails that it is morally wrong not only in our own world but also in every relevant possible world (those containing rational beings), including those worlds in which God does not exist. Perhaps once we assume that the moral property of being morally wrong supervenes on the nonmoral property of being an act of killing in the actual world, it makes no sense to hold that there are worlds that include identical acts of killing that are also not morally wrong. Similarly, perhaps once we assume that the moral property of being bad supervenes on the nonmoral property of being painful in the actual world, it makes no sense to hold that there are worlds that include identical painful experiences that are also not bad. But even if we grant this (and I am not saying that we should), we are still left wondering how and why these moral properties exist in the actual world in the first place. In fact, once we do not take for granted that moral properties do exist, we are left pondering the mystery of how and why the obtaining of a nonmoral property such as being painful entails (by way of logical necessity, mind you) that a further, moral property, being bad, utterly different in kind from that nonmoral property, also obtains. In Mackie’s terms, this is a relation “of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe.”

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 25 Maybe, though, we are missing the point. The skeptic might claim that the whole enterprise of accounting for the truth of (P1) is mistaken. According to Nick Zangwill: What explains the fact that pain is necessarily bad? The answer, I suggest, is that this moral necessity is explained by the conjunction of two facts: firstly, the fact that it is an essential property of all moral properties that when instantiated there are some natural properties that suffice for their instantiation; and secondly, the plain fact that pain is bad. Of course someone might then ask why pain is bad, to which the answer is probably that it just is, and that explanations must come to an end somewhere.13 If Zangwill is right, then (P1) counts as one of what Erik Wielenberg calls “substantive [i.e., non-trivial], metaphysically necessary, brute facts,” and specifically “basic ethical facts.”14 According to Wielenberg: [These] facts are the foundation of (the rest of) objective morality and rest on no foundation themselves. To ask of such facts, “where do they come from?” or “on what foundation do they rest?” is misguided in much the way that, according to many theists, it is misguided to ask of God, “where does He come from?” or “on what foundation does He rest?” The answer is the same in both cases: they come from nowhere, and nothing external to themselves grounds their existence; rather, they are fundamental features of the universe that ground other truths.15 Consequently, if the theist cannot provide an explanation for God because there is nothing external to God that can account for the necessary, brute fact that God exists, then the skeptical non-theist should not be required to provide for an explanation for a basic ethical fact like (P1) because (on her worldview) there is nothing external to (P1) that can account for it being a necessary, brute fact: it is a fundamental ethical truth that grounds other ethical truths. However, there are problems with this line of response as well. Zangwill emphasizes that moral properties such as badness supervene on certain natural properties only because objects possess certain natural properties. He writes, “The slogan might be: not just bad, but bad because: we judge not that something is bad period, but that it is bad because of certain natural properties.”16 In fact, on Zangwill’s view, while the metaphysical dependency of certain moral properties on certain natural properties itself depends on further metaphysical dependencies (A depends on B and B depends on C), certain metaphysical dependencies (or supervenience relations) are themselves non-dependent and so “bedrock.” Consequently, if we wonder why pain is intrinsically bad,

26  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God and necessarily so, the ultimate answer for Zangwill is: just because, and “explanations must come to an end somewhere.” But surely we can and should question whether this explanation is an adequate one, in the sense of being truly final. Even if we accept in some form or other what Zangwill calls the “Because Constraint”—we judge things to possess the moral properties they do because they possess certain natural properties—we certainly can and should ask the further question why natural properties, taken strictly by themselves, suffice for the instantiation of moral properties, and even more pointedly, why certain natural properties, such as being painful, suffice, at bottom, for the instantiation of specific moral properties, such as being bad, versus an opposing moral property such as being good. As Mark Linville, following Robert Adams, notes, the traditional theist can say “that things bear the moral properties they do—good or bad—insofar as they resemble or fail to resemble God.”17 What, though, can the skeptic say? “Just because” in a Godless universe is really no explanation at all. On Wielenberg’s view, moral properties such as goodness and badness, respectively, supervene on nonmoral properties because—and here is the purported explanation—nonmoral properties have the robust causal power to “make” moral properties simultaneously and necessarily be instantiated with them. He writes, “Secular views often ascribe to the natural world powers that theists are inclined to ascribe to God …. By ascribing non-moral properties rather than God the power to make moral properties to be instantiated, my view does this as well.”18 But here, again, is precisely the problem: why should we think that a nondivine, nonmoral property or state like pain has the divine-like power to “make” not just any moral properties but a particular moral property like badness to be instantiated? More specifically, why should we think that unguided, purely natural, and so valueless events and processes could produce valueless properties with this divine-like power? That God has the power to create and sustain all things, and imbue those things with certain causal powers, follows directly from who God is, as an all-powerful and all-knowing being. Moreover, as I just noted, that a certain natural property has the power to “make” a certain moral property simultaneously and necessarily be instantiated with it follows directly from the further metaphysical fact that its possessor resembles or fails to resemble God, who is essentially all-good. But it remains utterly mysterious how a power like this could emerge or obtain and perform its causal work in a universe in which there is no God.19 This is why, in further response to Wielenberg, I think it is simply mistaken to claim that a purported basic ethical fact like (P1) is ontologically on par with facts about the existence and nature of God. On a traditional theistic worldview, it is misguided to ask where God comes from or on what foundation he rests not only because his existence and nature are metaphysically necessary but also because God and God

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 27 alone is metaphysically and explanatorily ultimate. There simply is no cause or principle that is metaphysically prior to God’s existence and nature, which, in turn, can account for God possessing the existence and nature that he has (rather than any other kind of existence or nature), including, of course, his perfect and essential goodness. Instead, God and God alone grounds and so accounts for everything else that exists, and so all facts, whether contingent or necessary, concerning the realm of nature and value. No such claims can be made about Wielenberg’s basic ethical facts, which are not—or at least, certainly do not appear to be—metaphysically and explanatorily ultimate. Accordingly, it is perfectly reasonable to ask how and why not just (P1) but also any ethical facts, which we ultimately can account for in a theistic universe, would or could obtain in an atheistic universe. In a world devoid of any ultimate source, cause, and standard of value, there is no ultimate reason for thinking that any ethical facts ever would or could obtain. In response, the skeptic might then ask why we need to identify this ultimate source, cause, and standard of value with the theistic God. Perhaps there is, at bottom, a non-personal Law or Truth about the nature of things (what Buddhists call Dharma) that encompasses and accounts for both the realm of nature and the realm of value. 20 As a result, (P1) is true, and necessarily so because this metaphysically and explanatorily ultimate Law or Truth about the nature of things has determined that this is so. However, I don’t think it is at all clear what the skeptic gains by substituting this Law or Truth for the theist’s God. In fact, I think it is much clearer what she loses by doing so. Since this Law or Truth is non-personal, it lacks a nature and consequently attributes, like perfect and essential goodness. And if it (like a non-personal Absolute) lacks perfect and essential goodness, it cannot serve as an ultimate source of goodness. Nor can it ultimately account for things possessing the goodness that they do, or serve as an ultimate standard of goodness that things resemble as the good things they are and fail to resemble as the bad things they are. Were the skeptic then to identify this Law or Truth with an ultimate metaphysical and axiological principle like Plato’s Form of the Good, she would still need to explain how and why the Good ultimately accounts for things possessing the particular natural properties they do, in virtue of which they are good and bad, and so, respectively, resemble or fail to resemble the Good. 21 The skeptic might claim that all things necessarily emanate from the Good in the way that they do, and this explains how and why they possess the particular properties that they do, in virtue of which they are good and bad. Here, though, what emanation amounts to (how it works) and why, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, things must possess the particular properties that they do, in virtue of which they are good and bad, still needs to be explained.

28  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God Abandoning a monist conception of the Good in favor of cosmic dualism (like the Manichees of old) would not help the skeptic either. The most obvious problem here is explaining how two ultimate, opposing metaphysical principles of Good and Bad can coexist and interact in the same universe, given their ultimacy. A further problem, as even the consummate skeptic, Hume’s Philo, observes, is that “the uniformity and steadiness of general laws” in the universe speaks strongly against the claim that the universe is a battleground between the opposing forces of Good and the forces of Bad.22 Finally, even granting that both Good and Bad exist, the skeptic opting for cosmic dualism faces the problem of explaining how and why the various things that exist are, respectively, related to the Good and the Bad. Specifically, the skeptic would need to explain how and why a particular natural property or phenomenon like pain is necessarily related to the Bad rather than the Good. Rather than invoking a separate, ultimate metaphysical principle of Bad that is opposed to the Good, then, the skeptic would be better off claiming that there is a singular, ultimate principle of Good that possesses a mind and will, which the Good has employed in creating and ordering the world in a particular way, affording things the natural properties they have, in virtue of which they are good and bad—or, more specifically, can go bad, failing to be the good things that the Good intentionally has made them to be. But then, of course, the skeptic would effectively be drawing on theistic metaphysics to account for the particular, varied distribution of goodness and badness within the world, and so truths such as (P1). And this is tantamount to affirming premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil. In sum, then, I think it is very difficult for the skeptic to account for the truth of (P1) on the presumption that the theist’s God does not exist. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of this section of the chapter, the skeptic faces an even further problem since we have a real reason to think that (P1), as a specific claim concerning the badness of pain, is false rather than true. On the most plausible philosophical account of pain, pain is a complex experience that has both a cognitive and affective component. 23 The cognitive component of pain is the perception of bodily harm or the perceived threat of bodily harm. But there clearly is nothing evil or bad about the perception of harm in the body, just as there is nothing evil or bad about the perception of things in the external world. The affective component is the negative reaction to the perception of harm, and, as Patrick Lee writes, “of course repugnance or negative affective reaction is not a nature or property of badness.”24 Moreover, as Lee rightly contends, the aversiveness of pain, which consists in a subject’s feeling bad while in pain, is part of the healthy functioning of that subject, insofar as it presses it to avoid or tend to the harm represented by the pain.25 Were it not for pain, even severe pain, sentient beings could not adequately protect themselves, nor would they seek to remedy whatever harms or injuries, whether physical or mental, are the root cause

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 29 of pain, and which prevent them from achieving and maintaining their overall well-being. This is why (against what skeptics like Hume’s Philo assert, for example26), a mere lessening of pleasure, versus the actual experience of pain—the negative, affective reaction to injury—would be ineffective at enabling sentient beings not just to survive but also to flourish in the various roles they occupy in a material universe such as our own (and I suspect any material universe). In this sense, as Lee also rightly points out, pain—including its aversive aspect—is not bad but actually good since by its very nature it contributes directly to and so is positively oriented toward the proper functioning and so flourishing of sentient beings, when they experience actual or imminent harm. 27 In fact, even if pain far outstrips the positive function it ordinarily plays in the life of a sentient organism—alerting it to (at least the threat of) harm and impelling it to remedy harm—this does not mean that it ceases to be good, or becomes something bad, since pain only occurs in sentient beings that possess properly functioning nervous systems and emotional capacities. For example, the intense physical pain that an animal (like Rowe’s fawn) feels even while dying a slow death and the intense emotional pain that the rape victim feels years after she has been assaulted remain appropriate physical and psychological responses to the serious harms that they have suffered and continue to suffer. 28 Now, it remains true that since pain only occurs when harm, or at least the threat of harm, occurs, it is wrong to pursue and cause pain for its own sake. 29 And, since very intense and prolonged pain can disrupt the functioning of a sentient being, and cause it further harm, particularly on a psychological level, we can and even should, in certain circumstances, take measures to alleviate it. With David Alexander, I also think that there can be bad pains, in the sense that there are certain pain occurrences (such as phantom limb pain) that fail to represent genuine harm or the imminent threat of harm.30 But affirming these claims does not in any way require affirming that the pain experience is itself bad, as (P1) contends. Pain is good insofar as it does what it is supposed to do, which is to represent actual harm or the potential for harm. Of course, once we embrace the view that pain is not bad but actually good in at least some respect, it then becomes a challenge for the skeptic to give an account of why we should think that pain would or could be good, or that healthy functioning (of which pain is a part) would or could be good, in a universe in which there is no God. I will develop a version of this challenge later in this chapter, when I claim that it is ultimately not possible to account for evil as a diminution of flourishing or a privation of goodness in the absence of God. First, though, taking into account the close connection between pain and harm, I think it is worth exploring another move available to the skeptic: identifying harm as an evil, or (more ambitiously) conceiving of evil as harm. Can the skeptic

30  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God adequately account for the badness of harm—whether physical or mental, caused or suffered—without drawing on the metaphysics of value that theism provides? In the next section of this chapter, I give reasons for thinking that she cannot, thereby further defending premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil.

2.2  Harm as evil Against theists like William Lane Craig who argue that God is a necessary foundation for morality, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong claims that it is possible to offer a God-independent standard of morality, and hence also moral evil, by appealing to the harm that results from moral wrong-doing. He writes, “In my view, what makes it morally wrong to murder, rape, steal, lie, or break promises, for example, is simply that these acts harm other people without any adequate justification.”31 In the case of rape, “the victim feels pain, loses freedom, is subordinated, and so on. These harms are not justified by any benefits to anyone.”32 Here, Sinnott-Armstrong specifically is pointing to the unjustified harm that is caused by the morally wrong acts that we human beings commit. But going even further, the skeptic could argue that whatever harm of whatever sort—whether physical or mental—that any living being suffers or undergoes is genuinely evil or bad, whether it is justified or not (which means that we’re sometimes justified in causing harm in order to bring about something good). Naturally, the question then becomes: why should we consider harm of any sort—whether justified or unjustified, physical or mental—to be evil or bad? Clearly, there must be moral beliefs or principles that would lead us to think of evil in terms of harm, whatever form it might take. SinnottArmstrong says, for example, that “what makes rape immoral is that rape harms the victim in terrible ways. The victim feels pain, loses freedom, is subordinated, and so on.”33 Sinnott-Armstrong does not say anything further about why these features constitute an objective, moral state of affairs, and hence why rape is immoral. While there may be a deeper explanation available, he says that it is enough to say, from a skeptical, specifically atheistic perspective, “It simply is. Objectively. Don’t you agree?”34 Yes, I do agree! However, posing the question about whether I agree in a forceful and even dogmatic way hardly exonerates someone like SinnottArmstrong from explaining why, in a Godless universe, even the worst sorts of acts that cause the worst sorts of harms are genuine evils. So what sort of deeper explanation can the skeptic provide? She could argue as follows. While it is possible to damage all sorts of things, like cars or buildings, we generally do not deem these sorts of harm evil, or at least worry about them as evils. And this is because the things that are harmed either possess a lower intrinsic value or a purely instrumental value. In contrast, an instance of harm like rape is genuinely evil or bad

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 31 because it negatively affects a being of very high intrinsic value, or dignity and worth: a value we all possess simply by virtue of being human. In this sense, rape degrades or diminishes the victim; and, on a moral level, it degrades or diminishes the perpetrator as well. Similarly, the harm that a child experiences when suffering from cancer is evil or bad because it degrades or diminishes that child as a person, a highly intrinsically valuable being. And, at least to a certain extent, the harm that an animal experiences when it is killed by another animal is evil or bad because it ends the life of a being that has a high intrinsic value. Thus, the skeptic could argue that all life, but especially sentient life, should not be harmed (at least unjustifiably) because (P2) All life, but especially sentient life, possesses a high intrinsic value. Perhaps (P2) strikes us as true. In fact, I think that (P2) (unlike (P1)) should strike us as true. But surely, we will still want to know why, in a Godless universe, we should think that (P2) is true, or what makes it true. What the skeptic needs is a metaphysics of value that adequately accounts for the truth of (P2), but which of course does not appeal (either explicitly or implicitly) to the existence of God, if she is going to defend the claim that harm is evil, and would remain an evil even if there were no God. If the skeptic is unable to offer such an account, then we also have a real reason to doubt that it is possible to identify any instance of harm as evil or bad in the absence of God, and so a real reason to affirm (once again) that premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil is true. Consider once again the major metaphysical alternative to theism: naturalism. To properly defend (P2), the skeptic qua naturalist needs to explain how value itself came into existence through unguided and purely natural physical, chemical, and biological events and processes. Here, she could argue that value is an emergent property, which over the course of evolutionary history came into existence with or came to supervene on not simply all life but especially on those living things characterized by a certain degree of biological complexity—that is, sentient beings. But here, the skeptic needs to offer a coherent and plausible metaphysical explanation for why we should think that sentient life, versus any other kind of life, is highly intrinsically valuable, or at least, more intrinsically valuable than nonsentient life. The fact that certain organisms are able to experience pain or consciously suffer may distinguish them from other organisms on a biological level, but it does not necessarily distinguish them on an axiological level: the skeptic seems unable to provide a nonarbitrary reason for ascribing sentient beings any more value than nonsentient beings. And, for that matter, the skeptic seems to have no nonarbitrary reason for ascribing animate things more

32  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God value than inanimate things (presuming that the naturalist also wants to hold that inanimate things in nature also possess an intrinsic value). The skeptic might contend that (P2) doesn’t stand in need of an explanation because it is a necessary truth. The moral property of being highly intrinsically valuable may not be strictly identical with the natural property of being a living thing since it can and does supervene on a number of natural properties. But it is still dependent on certain natural properties, including the natural property of being a living thing. In particular, following and adapting Swinburne, the skeptic could claim that a high intrinsic value logically supervenes on all living things: it makes no sense to suppose both that there is a world W in which life has a high intrinsic value and that a world W* is exactly the same as W except that in W* life does not have a high intrinsic value. As such, (P2) is not only true but also necessarily true; and it is because (P2) is necessarily true that it is also necessarily true that harmful acts, like rape and genocide, and even other harmful states of affairs, like suffering from cancer, are evil or bad.35 However, once more, adding moral truths to the metaphysical stock of necessary truths will not help the skeptical proponent of (P2) unless she is able to give some compelling rationale for thinking that these truths are necessary, beyond merely stipulating this. She must explain not simply how those truths are necessary but also why they are necessary. So, say she argues that the moral property of evil or badness logically supervenes on harmful actions such as rape and harmful states of affairs such as suffering from cancer. And, we can further explain this supervenience relation—why rape and cancer are evil—by referring to further necessary truths: such evils necessarily entail the harming of sentient life, which, in turn, necessarily entails harming living things of high intrinsic value. Even so, at bottom, it still remains unexplained why a high intrinsic value logically supervenes on living things, such that necessarily those things also possess a high intrinsic value, and so ought not to be harmed (at least unjustifiably). Who or what is determining that a high intrinsic value logically supervenes on living things? If it is the natural property of being a living thing (or being alive), we still need an explanation why this supervenience relation holds, and in particular, why the moral property of being highly intrinsically valuable logically supervenes on the natural property of being a living thing but not the natural property of being a nonliving thing. Consequently, we need an explanation of why nature—presuming it is even capable of producing things of intrinsic value—has drawn an axiological line demarcating living from nonliving things, such that necessarily living things possess a high intrinsic value but nonliving things do not. If that line falls elsewhere, why does it do so? To use Zangwill’s terminology, which natural properties suffice for the instantiation of the moral property of being highly intrinsically valuable, and why? The claim that the nonmoral property of being a living thing suffices,

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 33 at bottom, for the instantiation of this particular moral property, “just because,” is once again not simply an inadequate explanation, but really no explanation at all. Wielenberg appeals to the brute metaphysical fact that the instantiation of certain intrinsic properties in a thing “make” intrinsic value be instantiated: “to claim that a given thing is intrinsically valuable is to claim that some of that thing’s intrinsic properties make it valuable, and that the intrinsic value of a given thing is whatever value it has that is explained by its intrinsic properties.”36 But there is more he says in defense of this claim: among “our common sense moral beliefs is the belief that some things distinct from God are intrinsically good; for example, the pleasure of an innocent back-rub, or the love between parent and child.”37 And how do we determine which things distinct from God are intrinsically good? Wielenberg proposes the following thought experiment: Imagine a universe in which the only things that exist are you and the other person participating in a loving relationship. Does it seem to you that something good happens in such a universe? When I conduct this thought experiment, it seems to me that the answer to this question is “yes.” Similarly, if I imagine my participation in a loving relationship being annihilated or erased from my life (without the other person being annihilated as well), it seems to me that something valuable for its own sake is lost. Such considerations suggest that participating in a loving relationship is intrinsically good.38 Following Wielenberg’s lead, the skeptic therefore could argue in defense of (P2) that when we engage in a similar thought experiment, imagining that the only things in the universe are living things (or sentient beings), or that all living things (or sentient beings) in the universe were annihilated, we would reach the same conclusion: things valuable for their own sake are lost, and that such things are intrinsically good, whether God exists or not. The problem, however, is that Wielenberg’s thought experiment still does not provide any kind of metaphysical justification for thinking that anything in a Godless universe would or could have an intrinsic value, and so thinking that in a Godless universe our common moral beliefs or intuitions about what things possess an intrinsic value—like loving relationships, or living things—would be true.39 Here, the skeptical proponent of (P2) is still stuck with explaining how, in Wielenberg’s words, “what makes [these things] good … lies entirely within their intrinsic nature.”40 All things (including ourselves, of course) derive their natures from somewhere; and, as I have been arguing, if that “somewhere” is purely natural and so valueless, then we have no reason to think that a thing’s intrinsic nature, which is itself valueless, could possess any power

34  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God of its own to “make” it have an intrinsic value. This is why when I engage in Wielenberg’s thought experiment, and imagine a world without God, I simply cannot, with good reason, imagine anything of intrinsic value existing (or going out of existence). And I still need an ultimate answer from Wielenberg as to why I should think otherwise.41 It seems, then, that if we are going to defend (P2) and so hold, with good reason, that things not only have an intrinsic value but also different levels of intrinsic value, we must somehow relate their intrinsic natures to an ultimate source, cause, and standard of value. We could say that in order to possess an intrinsic value to whatever degree, things must possess the fundamental property of being derived from and related to an ultimate source, cause, and standard of value.42 If no ultimate source, cause, and standard of value exist, then no such property would or could exist, and so nothing of intrinsic value would or could exist. The challenge here, though, for the skeptic—who, once more, doubts or denies the truth of premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil—is identifying this ultimate source, cause, and standard of value without drawing on the metaphysics of value that theism in particular provides. As I argued in the previous section of this chapter, it is very difficult to see how a non-personal Law or Truth (or Absolute) that itself lacks goodness and so an intrinsic value ultimately can account for anything in our world possessing an intrinsic value. It is not itself an ultimate standard of value nor does it possess the ability (as the theist’s God does) to create and order things such that they not only come to possess an intrinsic value but also the specific kind or level of intrinsic value that they possess, given the natures they possess as, say, living things versus nonliving things. As a cosmological dualist, the skeptic could argue that everything that has an intrinsic value is necessarily related to an ultimate principle of Good, whereas all other things of intrinsic disvalue are necessarily related to an ultimate principle of Evil or Bad. However, the skeptic then needs to explain why all life is necessarily related to the Good rather than the Bad; or, if she holds that nonliving things also possess an intrinsic value, why those things are necessarily related to the Good rather than the Bad. Holding instead that there is only one ultimate principle of Good, the skeptic could claim that all living things are necessarily related to the Good, whereas nonliving things are not, at least to the degree that living things are. Once the skeptic takes this step, though, she still needs to explain both how and why all living versus nonliving things are related to the Good, or how and why living things are more strongly related to the Good than nonliving things. If she then argues that living things share in the goodness of the Good, but nonliving things do not; or, that living things share to a greater degree in the goodness of the Good than nonliving things, then the skeptic needs to specify how and why living

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 35 things share in the Good in a way that nonliving things do not. Once more, she could argue that goodness necessarily emanates from the Good to various things in various ways. Here, though, what emanation amounts to and why the Good emanates in the way that it does, distributing goodness and hence value to various things in varying ways, still remain unexplained. Finally, the skeptic could argue that the Good, as a personal agent, rather than an abstract principle, freely imparts varying aspects of its own goodness, and hence intrinsic value, to all of these things, via an act of creation, out of sheer goodness and even love. But then, once more, she is clearly drawing on theistic metaphysics in order to account for the truth of (P2), and she clearly cannot draw on theism (either explicitly or implicitly) as long as she also denies that evil could not and would not exist without God. Let’s assume, then, that the skeptic does not want to go down the metaphysical road I just laid out, which leads her toward theistic metaphysics rather than away from it. What other options are available to her? She could abandon her efforts to account for the truth of (P2) and so endeavor to show how and why harm is evil or bad in a much more metaphysically parsimonious way. For example, she could argue as follows: the harm that any sentient being causes another sentient being, or which it experiences on account of another sentient or nonsentient being, is evil or bad because (P3) All sentient beings possess needs and interests, the satisfaction of which matters to them in a positive way, and the frustration of which matters to them in a negative way.43 So, on this account, while presumably not all harm is evil (since nonsentient, living beings presumably do not have interests), a lot of harm is still evil. For example, rape is morally wrong or evil because it frustrates the rape victim’s basic interest in being free, not being subordinated by another, etc., which matters to her in a negative way. And the harm that an animal experiences when it is killed by another animal is evil, at least to some degree because the killing frustrates its basic interest in staying alive, which, in turn, matters to it in a negative way. By appealing to (P3), then, the skeptic can ground the wrongness or badness of any harm done or experienced by a sentient being not in the intrinsic value of the sentient being that is harmed but rather in the frustrating of that being’s needs and interests, which matter to it in a negative way. However, by appealing to (P3), the skeptic cannot avoid making any evaluative claims whatsoever. Even if, on this proposed view, a sentient being, whether a human or nonhuman animal, does not possess an intrinsic value, the satisfaction of that being’s needs and interests has value, and their being frustrated has disvalue. That is to say, the skeptic must say that the satisfaction of that being’s needs and interests is good

36  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God (for it) and their being frustrated is bad (for it). For otherwise, there is no reason to think that the harms that frustrate its needs and interests are genuinely evil or bad. And perhaps this is just what the skeptic qua moral naturalist (who identifies moral properties with natural properties) wants to say: she identifies goodness with the satisfaction of a sentient being’s needs and interests (as varied as they may be) and badness with the frustration of its needs and interests.44 But then surely we should wonder why, especially in a Godless universe, it is good for a sentient being’s needs and interests to be satisfied and bad for them to be frustrated. The skeptic might answer: because the satisfaction of a sentient being’s needs and interests matters in a positive way to it, and their being frustrated matters in a negative way to it. By making this claim, however, the skeptic is in effect saying that goodness and badness are artifacts of a sentient being’s needs and wants, and do not exist independently from them.45 And a purely subjective property cannot be objectively good or bad. Even if it is true that rape, for example, violates the interests of all rape victims in a way that matters negatively to them (a fact about their particular psychologies), it does not follow that it is genuinely evil or bad for those interests to be violated (a moral fact). Even if being killed violates the interests of all sentient animals in a way that matters negatively to them (a fact about their particular psychologies), it does not follow that the violation of those interests is genuinely evil or bad (a moral fact). So, if it is indeed genuinely evil or bad for a sentient being’s needs and interests to be frustrated, then we need to give a substantive, nonarbitrary reason for thinking so, without appealing to the intrinsic value of the being whose needs and interests are thwarted. However, that strikes me as the only plausible move to make. And, if the skeptic does make that move, she once again faces all of the difficulties of accounting for the intrinsic value of sentient beings (or any being for that matter) without ultimately appealing to the metaphysics of value that theism provides.

2.3  Evil as a diminution in flourishing Perhaps, however, the skeptic who objects to premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil could press her case in another way. Drawing on Aristotelian metaphysics, she could argue that some beings in our world fail to flourish, or function well, as the kinds of beings that they are: plants and animals regularly fail to flourish on a physical level, animals regularly fail to flourish on a physical and psychological level, and we human beings regularly fail to flourish on a physical, psychological, and moral level. Evil or badness, therefore, consists (primarily) of the diminution of flourishing that a living thing suffers or is caused to suffer by another thing. Of course, the skeptic does need to defend this conception of evil, and give us a real reason for thinking that the various ways living

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 37 things in particular can fail to flourish, and cause other things to fail to flourish, are genuinely evil or bad. And this, in turn, requires defending the following principle: (P4) It is intrinsically good for living things to flourish and intrinsically bad for living things to fail to flourish. Moreover, in affirming the truth of this principle, the skeptic must answer what are by now some familiar questions. Why should we think that (P4) is true if there is no God? What reasons can the skeptic give for thinking that (P4) is true if there is no God? Evan Fales, a “naturalist moral realist,” reasons as follows. A “teleologically organized system” or “TOS” “is an entity organized so as to have some (or possibly more than one) end, goal or purpose.”46 While some TOSs have their teloi imputed to them (by way of human design, most notably), others’ teloi are intrinsic or original to them: these are “ITOSs.” Moreover, there are natural ITOSs, like an oak tree. And it is open to empirical inspection whether a given biological entity, or living thing, like an oak tree, achieves its natural ends—in particular, flourishing “in an oakish sort of way”—or not.47 Then, Fales goes on to say: “The natural ends of an oak are connected, obviously enough, with the things that are good for and bad for it. Flourishing, for example, just is an oak-tree good.”48 As a metaphysical naturalist, Fales thinks that what is good for and bad for a given biological entity ultimately can be accounted for in terms of that entity’s, respectively, attaining or failing to attain natural ends (or internal teloi) congruent with its biologically evolved nature. Based on what is good for and bad for a thing, then, Fales thinks that we also can discern how we, as moral agents, ought to act in relation to that thing. Accordingly, he clearly rejects the Humean dictum that “one can’t derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’”; though, he does think “that there is no formal entailment relation that runs from ‘is’ to ‘ought.’”49 He explains his position as follows: It is only certain facts about teleologically organized systems that carry such a normative burden. But even here the relation is certainly not one of formal entailment. Rather, it is a relation of conceptual or metaphysical necessity. More precisely, I should say that the following is a fair reconstruction. Teleological facts about teleological systems are related to nonteleological facts about them by way of metaphysical necessity (perhaps by way of a supervenience relation). Given certain nonteleological facts, teleological facts follow as a matter of metaphysical necessity. That those teleological facts, in turn, “entail” ought statements is a matter of conceptual necessity. It is a conceptual truth, given certain teleological facts about x, that

38  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God certain things are good for x, either intrinsically or instrumentally. And it is conceptually necessary that certain “oughts” follow from the facts about what is good for x.50 It’s worth unpacking Fales’s position a bit more both to better understand it and see where pressing difficulties within it lie. Regarding natural ITOSs, the teleological facts Fales is referring to are facts concerning what ends—in particular, flourishing—that an entity x naturally possesses. And it is metaphysically necessary that x has the ends that it does by virtue of what x is: those nonteleological facts about x. Furthermore, it is a conceptual truth that x’s achieving its naturally determined ends is good for x, and (we can add) failing to achieve those ends is bad for x. Even more specifically, x’s flourishing is intrinsically good for x and x’s failing to flourish is intrinsically bad for x. Perhaps, then, per moral naturalism, the moral property of being intrinsically good for x is strictly identical with or reducible to the natural property of x’s flourishing. Or, perhaps the moral property of being intrinsically good for x supervenes on (but is not strictly identical with) the natural property of x’s flourishing. It then further follows that what, morally speaking, we ought to do and not to do in relation to x is based on what is good for x and bad for x. So, perhaps the moral property of being right supervenes on (at least some) actions that contribute to what is good for x, and the moral property being wrong supervenes on (at least some) actions that cause what is bad for x. Properly analyzing Fales’s naturalist moral realism, and the reasoning he offers the skeptic in defense of (P4), first requires challenging his undergirding commitment to the existence of ITOSs in nature: that is, natural entities that have not only nonteleological properties but also teleological properties. On a naturalist worldview, there is no reason to think that an entity like an oak tree in fact has any ends, or any overarching goal or purpose to achieve. For example, Michael Ruse, a “naturalist moral nonrealist,” says that “I think we see the world ‘as if’ designed and go from there. It is not designed—at least … as far as science is concerned—but we treat it as if it were.”51 For Ruse, the world “is just matter in motion. It has no meaning. It has no values.”52 Now, Fales is confident that we gain genuine knowledge of how an ITOS like an oak tree is teleologically ordered through empirical investigation. But this begs the question: why should we be so confident? How do we know that empirical investigation is actually yielding genuine knowledge of an entity’s teleological properties, and so actual purpose, meaning, and value in nature, when it seems plausible that in a Godless universe, we are imposing these things on nature? 53 In fact, if there is no God, it seems more plausible that we are doing the latter rather than the former since there is no reason to think that purposeless, meaningless, and valueless events and processes could produce any purpose, meaning, or value at all.

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 39 Furthermore, even if we grant that there are cognizable teleological facts, and so ways for living things genuinely to flourish or fail to flourish, why should we also think that flourishing or failing to flourish have any relation to value, or genuine goodness and badness? Here, the skeptic could argue, or simply remind us, that it is a brute metaphysical fact that x’s flourishing is necessarily intrinsically good for x and x’s failing to flourish is necessarily intrinsically bad for x. As such, (P4) expresses a necessary truth that lacks any further metaphysical explanation. But clearly, it is reasonable to doubt that (P4) does express such a truth. I can imagine Ruse saying, “I think we see the world ‘as if’ it were good and go from there. It is not good—at least as far as science is concerned—but we treat it as if it were …. It has no meaning. It has no values.”54 And, it makes no sense to claim that in a world without value—which, in turn, lacks anything, living or nonliving, that has an intrinsic value—that the flourishing of living things, so construed as mere “matter in motion,” would have value and the failure of those things to flourish would have any disvalue.55 Consequently, there is no reason to think in a naturalistic universe that x’s flourishing would be necessarily intrinsically good for x and x’s failing to flourish would be necessarily intrinsically bad for x. Once more, in such a world, that goodness should be strictly identified with, or understood to supervene on, the flourishing of valueless living things, and badness should be strictly identified with, or understood to supervene on, the failure of those things to flourish—somehow as a matter of brute metaphysical fact—remains wholly mysterious. Taking this criticism into account, the skeptic could depart from Fales, or at least augment Fales’s position, in some significant ways. She could say that (P4) is true, and necessarily so because there is a non-personal Law or Truth (or Absolute) that determines that this is so. However, consistent with what I argued above, we have no reason to think that this Law or Truth ultimately could account for the goodness of living things flourishing and the badness of their failing to flourish if it itself is neither good nor bad. Nor can it serve as an ultimate standard against which we can measure the goodness of living things flourishing and the badness of their failing to flourish. An ultimate principle of Good may account for there being goodness in the world, and an ultimate principle of Evil or Bad may account for there being badness in the world, but on this dualistic cosmology, it still remains entirely unexplained why goodness, as derived from the Good, supervenes on a thing’s flourishing and badness, as derived from the Bad, supervenes on a thing’s failing to flourish, rather than the other way around. Abandoning dualism, the skeptic might contend that things, when they flourish, reflect the Good, and that when they fail to flourish, they fail to reflect the Good, and this is why their failing to flourish is bad. But then it still remains unexplained why a thing’s flourishing reflects the Good and a thing’s failure to flourish does not, rather than the other way around. If the skeptic

40  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God then says that the Good has freely and intentionally created things to flourish in a certain way—such that they reflect the Good’s own perfect and essential goodness when they flourish, and fail to reflect the Good’s goodness when they fail to flourish, thereby going bad—she effectively is drawing on theistic metaphysics to account for the truth of (P4). And this, once more, is tantamount to affirming premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil. Another option for the skeptic here is to claim that (P4) is necessarily true in virtue of the fact that (P2) is necessarily true: x’s flourishing is necessarily intrinsically good for x and x’s failing to flourish is necessarily intrinsically bad for x because x is necessarily intrinsically good or valuable in itself. And yet, we have already seen how difficult it is for the skeptic to account for the truth of (P2) without ultimately appealing to a personal being who is the source, cause, and standard of value: that is, the very metaphysics of value that theism provides. Additionally, appealing to (P2) will not help the skeptical defender of (P4) address another, daunting challenge. Let’s say it is necessarily intrinsically good for cancer cells to flourish, and bad for them to fail to flourish because, as living things, they necessarily have an intrinsic value (at least to some degree). And, it is necessarily intrinsically good for cats to flourish, and bad for them to fail to flourish because cats, like cancer cells, necessarily have an intrinsic value. And the same can be said for human beings. Should we regard the flourishing of cancer cells to be as intrinsically good as the flourishing of cats, and the flourishing of cancer cells and cats to be as intrinsically good as our own flourishing? In practice, we certainly do not: if the flourishing of cancer cells was as intrinsically good as the flourishing of cats, or own flourishing—and the failure of cancer cells to flourish as intrinsically bad as the failure of cats and ourselves to flourish—we would not seek to eradicate cancer so as to protect and promote the flourishing of cats, as well as our own flourishing. This presupposes, though (or is best explained by the fact) that certain living things are more intrinsically valuable than others, such that we protect and promote the flourishing of certain living things— most notably, ourselves—more so than others. But (P2), taken by itself, does not specify, certainly in any comprehensive way, how to rank living things on any scale of value. As such, even if (P2) were necessarily true (were there no God), it would not furnish the skeptic any metaphysical basis for making comparative evaluative claims about all of the various ways livings flourish and also fail to flourish. It will also not help the skeptic here to appeal to (P3). Claiming that it is (somehow) better for animal organisms to flourish than for cancer cells to flourish because animals have interests, and cancer cells do not, again begs the question about why, particularly on a naturalist worldview, the fulfillment of interests is good and the thwarting of interests is evil or bad. The fact that animals have interests and cancer cells do not

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 41 may be a readily observable empirical fact, but it by no means follows that we ought, morally speaking, to privilege the flourishing of animals over that of cancer cells; unless of course, we can place animals higher on an axiological scale than cancer cells. But again, on a non-theistic worldview, where there is no God who is the ultimate source, cause, and standard of value, this is extraordinarily difficult to do. Finally, if the Falesean skeptic fails to account for the truth of (P4) on her own, naturalistic worldview—or, for that matter, any metaphysical worldview other than the theistic metaphysical worldview—then she ultimately has no basis on which to claim that genuine moral obligations or “oughts” exist. And that is because, if it is not intrinsically good for x to flourish, or intrinsically bad for x to fail to flourish, then we have no obligations to do any of those things that promote x’s flourishing and not do those things that thwart x’s flourishing. None of our actions really, as a matter of metaphysical fact, can be right or wrong. So, if the skeptic cannot ultimately account for the truth of (P4), then we have even more reason to think that if God does not exist, then evil does not exist. And, taking into account all of the argumentative ground that we have covered in this chapter, this also means that we have significant reason—indeed, it seems, more reason than not—to think that premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil is true.

2.4  Evil as a privation of goodness There is, however, another conception of evil that someone skeptical of premise (1) of this theistic argument could offer and try to defend: Aquinas’s conception of evil as a privation of goodness, where “privation” is understood as a lack of goodness which a thing of its kind ought to have. In this view, then, a disease like cancer is evil or bad because the unregulated growth of cancer cells (itself a privation) leads to physical failure in a thing, so understood as the lack of physical health or well-being that an animal ought to have. Rape is evil or bad because it is an instance of moral failure, an act that lacks the requisite conformity to the particular moral standard, rape is morally wrong. Therefore, the skeptic might argue that evil qua privation of goodness can exist even if God doesn’t exist: the only thing that the privation account requires are things—particularly (though not exclusively) in the physical or moral domain—that are capable of not possessing the full measure of goodness that they ought to possess, simply as the kinds of things that they are. Driving the privation account, then, is a certain conception of or principle regarding goodness and evil or badness, which it is worth making explicit: (P5) A thing is good to the extent that it meets standards for the kind of thing that it is, or has what it ought to have as the kind of thing

42  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God that it is; a thing is bad to the extent that it fails to meet the standards for the kind of thing that it is, or lacks what it ought to have as the kind of thing that it is. To properly defend the conception of evil as privation, the skeptic must be able to defend (P5). More specifically, to properly defend the claim that evil as privation can and does exist even if God does not exist, the skeptic must be able to defend (P5) without drawing on a theistic metaphysical worldview. But is the skeptic able to do so? What reasons can the skeptic give for thinking that (P5) is true if there is no God? Privationists typically point to how the terms “goodness” and “badness” function linguistically: they are what Peter Geach calls attributive rather than predicative adjectives, which shift meaning based on what they are applied to.56 As W. Matthews Grant puts it, “the goodness of a pillow is quite different from the goodness of a hammer. The badness of an ankle is not the same as the badness of an argument.”57 A good pillow is soft, a good hammer is hard; a bad ankle is physically faulty, a bad argument is intellectually faulty. “Nevertheless,” Grant continues, “it is false to say that the term ‘good’ applied to a pillow and a hammer is used purely equivocally, without any common meaning.”58 He continues: An appealing solution is to say that an individual of type X is good to the extent that it fulfills the standards for an X, and so has whatever an X ought to have. We might add that something Y (e.g., a property, relation, or activity) is good to the extent that it is an achievement, actualization, or perfection of an individual, given its type. This solution affords the term “good” some common meaning when we predicate it of a pillow and a hammer—each has what it ought to have given the kind of thing that it is—while also denying that the goodness of a pillow and the goodness of a hammer consist in the same characteristic(s). The solution also suggests a privation account of badness or evil. If something is good to the extent that it has what a member of its type ought to have, then, very plausibly, it is bad to the extent that it lacks what it ought to have. Its goodness consists in its having what it ought. Its badness consists in lacking what it ought.59 So, even though the terms “good” and “bad” do not denote specific, shared properties of things, they nevertheless apply to all things insofar as these things, respectively, meet or fail to meet their respective standards or, respectively, have or lack what they ought to have given the kinds of things that they are. This suggests, even strongly suggests, that evil is a privation. Another way of making the same argument is by working from the premise that an essential aspect of goodness is desirability: as Aquinas

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 43 (quoting Aristotle) observes, “goodness is what all things desire (bonum est quod omnia appetunt).”60 To say that x is desirable is not simply to say something about us (that we, in fact, desire it), but something about x: that it meets the standards for the kind of thing that it is or has whatever it ought to have as the kind of thing that it is. It has what we’re looking for (or ought to look for) in the kind of thing that it is.61 Conversely, it follows that x is bad or undesirable insofar as it fails to meet the standards for the kind of thing that it is, or lacks what it ought to have as the kind of thing that it is. It lacks what we’re looking for (or ought to look for) in the kind of thing that it is. What this also means is that a thing is desirable and so good to the extent that it realizes or actualizes what it can and should be; a thing is undesirable and so bad to the extent that it fails to fully realize or actualize what it can and should be. Goodness and being are coextensive. So, evil is not only a privation of goodness but also a privation of being; or, the lack of being, or degree of being, that a thing of its kind ought to have. The skeptic might argue, then, that we can give a full metaphysical account of good and evil without presupposing or appealing to the existence of God. While goodness is not identical with any natural property, or set of natural properties, it supervenes on natural properties.62 Specifically, for every individual of type x, goodness supervenes on the natural property (or set of properties) of fulfilling the standard for an x, or having whatever an x ought to have. In short, goodness supervenes on being, and supervenes on being to varying degrees, depending on how well or fully a thing fulfills the relevant standard or has what it ought to have, as the kind of thing that it is. Furthermore, goodness supervenes on different kinds of beings to varying degrees: the greater the standard a thing can and ought to meet, the more that it can and ought to have, given the kind of thing that it is, the more goodness it possesses. Badness, however, does not supervene on any natural properties because badness is not a property or anything with being whatsoever. Evil or badness lies where goodness is absent (but should be present), when a thing fails to meet the relevant standard or lacks what it ought to have, given the kind of thing that it is. And a thing can be evil or bad to a greater or lesser degree depending on how badly it fails to meet the relevant standard or lacks what it ought to have, given the kind of thing that it is. Though, nothing that exists can be evil or bad in itself, which is also why, in this view, there cannot be an ultimate principle of Evil or Bad. All things, insofar as they exist, are good and valuable, even if they are very bad instances of the kinds of things that they are and ought to be. Granting that this metaphysical account of good and evil has genuine philosophical merit—which I certainly think it does—there is still serious reason to doubt that it can stand entirely on its own. To start, recall Aquinas’s claim from the beginning of this chapter: “there would be no evil if the order of good were taken away, since its privation is evil.

44  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God But this order would not exist if there were no God.” For our present purposes, I am going to rephrase this claim as follows: “there would be no evil in the natural and moral orders if there were no standards for things to meet, since evil consists in a failure to meet those standards. But things would have no standards to meet if there were no God.” Certainly, it makes sense to say that artificial objects have standards to meet because we gave them those standards. Creatively exercising our powers of intellect and will, we have designed them to work a certain way, in order to accomplish specific ends. And, it certainly makes sense to say that natural objects have standards to meet because God gave them those standards. Creatively exercising his intellect and will, he designed them to work a certain way, in order to accomplish specific ends. But, as I argued above, in a Godless universe, there is no reason to think that there is anything resembling actual design or purpose in nature. And so, there is no reason to think that what appears to be (or which we believe to be) things meeting the relevant “standards,” or having what they “ought” to have, or accomplishing certain “ends” is anything more than what Ruse calls “matter in motion.” In full defense of (P5), then, the skeptic needs to offer some explanation— which appears to be wanting—for how and why nature, working through blind, purely natural events and processes, could generate anything with standards that can and ought to be met. It is not enough to say that it is open to empirical investigation to discover that things have standards to meet, and what those various standards are, since that begs the question of why we should think that we, with our native cognitive powers, having been produced by those same events and processes, are suitably equipped to engage in such investigation successfully. There is no reason to think that we are actually discovering standards in nature rather than imposing them on nature and the “matter in motion” we observe occurring there. Relatedly, why should we think that a thing meeting the relevant standards—presuming there are such standards—is good and a thing failing to meet the relevant standards is evil or bad? Here, the skeptic could argue that since goodness supervenes on being, then a thing meeting its standards, or having what it ought to have, is necessarily good and a thing failing to meet its standards, or lacking what it ought to have, is necessarily bad. So, (P5) states a basic ethical fact for which there is no further metaphysical explanation. However, I think we should remain dubious that (P5) states a basic ethical fact, if, as very well may be the case in a Godless universe, the world is devoid of goodness even it contains much being within it. We may link being with goodness in our minds and as such “see” goodness in a thing being all that it can be (and, as a result, find it to be desirable) when in fact a thing being all that it can be is, in reality, a completely valueless occurrence or state of affairs. In the same way, we may “see” badness in a thing’s failure to be all that it

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 45 can be (and so find it to be undesirable) when in fact this failure remains, at bottom, a completely valueless occurrence or state of affairs. In a Godless universe, where there is no ultimate source, cause, and standard of being and goodness, who is Being and Goodness itself, there is just as much (if not more) reason for thinking that things being or failing to be all that they can be is neither good nor bad. But there is a further reason for doubting that (P5) is a basic ethical fact, which would obtain even if there were no God. If being is coextensive with goodness, it follows, as I said above, both that being, or existence, as such, is good, and that the more being something has, or realizes (given the increasing powers it has and levels of self-realization it can attain),63 the more goodness that it has. On this metaphysical worldview, then, there are not just different standards for things, respectively, to meet but also graduating standards for things, respectively, to meet. So, not only is it possible to rank existents ontologically and axiologically—human beings vastly outrank cancer cells on both counts—but also, as a result, it is possible to rank the kinds of evils that existents do and suffer. The death of human beings is vastly worse than the death of cancer cells, which is why we eradicate cancer cells in order to save human lives. However, not surprisingly, I think we have a real reason to think that ranking both goods and evils (qua privations of goodness) is only possible if there is an ultimate standard of being and goodness against which all worldly goods and corresponding evils can be measured. In a world without such a standard, while there could (perhaps) be varying kinds of things that possess the same grade of being and goodness, however diverse in kind those things may be, there could not be varying levels of things that, in turn, possess varying grades of being and goodness. As Aquinas recognizes, varying grades of being goodness belong to an ascending scale of being and goodness. But there seems to be no way for varying grades of being and goodness to occupy a distinctive place on the scale—as higher or lower on the scale—unless there was an ultimate standard of being of goodness in relation to which everything on the scale intelligibly could be placed, and which everything else on the scale approximates to varying (greater and lesser) degrees. A non-personal Law or Truth (or Absolute) cannot serve as this ultimate standard of being and goodness because it lacks both perfect and essential being and goodness. A non-personal, ultimate principle of Good seemingly cannot serve as this ultimate standard either because, divested of any intentionality or will, it—unlike the theist’s personal God—cannot ultimately account for why things have the specific kind and level of being and so goodness that they have, and so occupy the specific place on the scale of being and goodness that they do. This means that it once again falls to the skeptic to offer an ultimate explanation of the being and goodness of things without appealing in any way to theistic metaphysics. Given all

46  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God that I have argued in this chapter, I remain very skeptical that the skeptic will be able to do so. In the end, then, the skeptic aiming fully to defend (P5) and so a privation account of evil on non-theistic grounds faces several formidable challenges. First, she must account for there being standards that all things, respectively, ought to meet (but often fail to meet) without appealing to a personal being who set those standards. Second, she must account for the necessary connection between being and goodness, without appealing to a personal being who is necessarily and essentially good, and is the ultimate source and cause of all worldly being and goodness. Third and finally, she must account for the kinds and levels of being and goodness we find in the world without appealing to a personal being who is the ultimate standard of being and goodness that all good things approximate to varying degrees, and all bad things fail to approximate to varying degrees. In other words, the skeptic faces the challenge of accounting for the truth of (P5), and so defending a conception of evil as privation, without drawing on theistic metaphysics. This is a challenge that I think is simply too steep for the skeptic to meet.

2.5  Evil exists; therefore, God exists At this point, it is worth recalling the argument for God’s existence that I introduced in Chapter 1 and re-presented at the beginning of this chapter: 1 If God does not exist, then it is not the case that evil exists; 2 Evil exists; 3 Therefore, God exists. In defense of premise (1), I have spent significant time exploring how the skeptic might contest it, giving us reason to think that it is false rather than true. Having considered various prominent ways the skeptic might intelligibly identify or conceive of evil in non-theistic terms, I have found all of them wanting. Perhaps there are other, viable, markedly different ways that the skeptic might conceive of evil in non-theistic terms that I have not considered. Based on the cumulative case I have mounted, though, I am skeptical, for good reason, that such conceptions exist, which means that, at this point, we not only have strong reason to think that premise (1) is true but also more (and indeed, I think, much more) reason than not to think that premise (1) is true. Let’s turn our attention, then, to premise (2). Some might claim that (2) is evidently (even indisputably) true, which means that there is no need to argue for its truth. However, as we have seen, error theorists such as Mackie and moral anti-realists more broadly deny that it is true, insofar as it purports to express an objective fact or truth about the world. So (if

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 47 only for the purposes of the argument), let’s grant that it is philosophically possible to deny that (2) is true. The more important question then becomes, do we nonetheless still have more reason to affirm its truth than to deny it? I take this question to be on par epistemically with the following question: granting that it is philosophically possible to doubt the reality of the external world, is there still more reason to affirm that an external world exists than to deny that it exists? I answer as follows: just as there is greater reason (I think, much greater reason) for thinking that an external world exists, so there is greater reason (I think, much greater reason) for thinking that evil exists. To defend this claim, I appeal to what Swinburne calls the principle of credulity: in the absence of counterevidence, we should believe that things are as they seem to us to be.64 I see no reason to doubt the principle of credulity, and in fact every reason to affirm it, since it is clearly one of the most basic principles that governs and guides our epistemic lives. Applying the principle of credulity, we therefore can argue as follows. It persistently and even powerfully seems to us in the ordinary run of experience that the physical objects that appear to us in our experience exist independently of our minds and populate a world that exists independently of our minds. And, not only do we not doubt this but also we simply have no reason to doubt this (unless we find ourselves in specific situations where we do have good reason to doubt this). In fact, since we have this persistent and powerful experience, it would be irrational to doubt that it is generally veridical or hold that we are deluded in thinking that it is generally veridical, and that the world, in turn, is not, objectively, as it generally appears to us to be.65 This is why, I think, that we not only have reason for thinking that an external world exists but also actually much more reason than not for thinking that it exists. Similarly, I claim that we inescapably experience the world as shot through with value and disvalue. For example, to many if not also most of us, it seems as obviously true that acts of compassion and kindness are objectively good and that genocide and cancer (or the way cancer ravages a body) are objectively bad, as it does that there is an external world that exists outside of our minds. And so, according to the principle of credulity, if we readily trust our putative perceptual experience of the world, we should equally readily trust our putative moral experience of the world, at least regarding what appear to us, as morally sensitive individuals, to be obvious instances of both goodness and badness, in both the moral and natural realms.66 In fact, just as it would be irrational to doubt that our putative perceptual experience of the world is (normally) veridical, so it would be irrational to doubt that our putative moral experience of the world—which tells us that evil (however we might more specifically define it) really exists—is (normally) veridical, and that the world is, in reality, as it genuinely appears to us to be. Consequently,

48  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God we not only have reason for thinking that evil, along with good, objectively exists, but also actually more reason than not for thinking that it objectively exists. There are, of course, ways the moral anti-realist might dispute this claim. For example, a Mackiean might claim that since both moral facts and the cognitive equipment needed to track them are “queer,”67 then while we have reason to think that the principle of credulity holds in regard to ordinary perceptual experience of the world, we do not have reason to think that it holds in regard to our moral experience of the world. My response to this objection is two-fold. First, as I already have argued, I agree that on a non-theistic worldview, we have a serious reason to doubt that morals or values would or could obtain. And we have a serious reason to doubt that we would be able to access the moral realm, or form true beliefs and judgments about it, even if morals and values did somehow obtain. If the existence of morals and values is utterly out of place in a Godless universe, so is the moral faculty needed to afford knowledge of them. 68 So in this sense, the error theorist and moral anti-realist more broadly have every reason to doubt that their moral experience of the world discloses actual facts or features about the world to them—given their non-theistic worldview. But this leads to my second point. Since our moral experience often does bear the same features as our perceptual experience—the world appears to us in a powerful and persistent way as objectively containing both nonmoral and moral facts—then just as it would be irrational to doubt that our perceptual experience is generally veridical, so it would be irrational to doubt that our moral experience is generally veridical. Consequently, since the principle of credulity does hold in both cases, then just as the skeptic has more reason than not to abandon her view that the external world does not exist, so the moral anti-realist has more reason than not to abandon her view that a world filled with real moral facts does not exist. At the very least, the moral anti-realist needs to explain why we should think that our perceptual experience of the world is generally veridical, while also denying that our moral experience of the world is any way veridical, when it persistently and even powerfully appears to us that there is an external world that objectively contains nonmoral and moral facts. Interestingly, Ruse thinks that he can offer such an explanation. As an “ardent evolutionary ethicist,” he holds that morality exists only “to maintain and improve our reproductive fitness.”69 So, morality in fact has no foundation in reality. Though, from a naturalistic, evolutionary standpoint, “it is in our biological interests that we should think that it has”70 so that our confidence in and adherence to moral norms does not break down, and we, in turn, can maintain the harmonious social relations that adhering to such norms makes possible. This is why, regarding

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 49 our moral experience of the world, or at the “phenomenological level” of our moral experience of the world, Ruse claims that a statement such as “killing is wrong” means exactly what it seems to mean: “killing truly is absolutely, objectively wrong.”71 So we ought not to kill, even though (again) there is no foundation in reality for this moral principle and claim. In response, it seems to me that a moral nihilist like Ruse simply has not accepted the full philosophical implications of his position. If moral nihilism is true, then statements such as “killing is wrong” cannot be understood as meaning on any level that killing is “absolutely, objectively wrong,” or is a genuine evil. If this claim (and others like) is, strictly speaking, false, then it is simply not possible to continue to affirm it or continue to adhere to it in practice, presuming our aim is to live intellectually and morally consistent lives. And so, to be consistent, Ruse either has to say, with moral noncognitivists, that “killing is wrong” does not express or correspond with an objective fact or truth about the world, but rather expresses our negative attitude toward any action that involves killing or that “killing is wrong” does express or correspond with a genuine fact a world. Presuming he does not want to abandon his commitment to the objectivity of morality, and value more broadly, then he must abandon his commitment to nihilism. He is therefore in the same position as someone like Mackie. If, extending the principle of credulity, he has every reason to think that his moral experience of the world is generally veridical (again, at least concerning what appear to be obvious instances of good and bad, right and wrong), then instead of doubting his experience, he should abandon the very worldview that calls the veridicality of his moral experience into question. I recognize that I have not offered a definitive refutation of nihilism or any skeptical position that denies that evil genuinely exists. Just as I (or anyone else) cannot prove that our perceptual experience of the world is generally veridical, so I (or anyone else) cannot prove that our moral experience of the world is generally veridical. And so, although I think we have more reason than not for thinking that evil exists, based on the fact that I and others have a persistent and powerful experience of the world as containing evil (along with good) within it, I cannot convince hardened skeptics who think otherwise. But for the rest of us—indeed, I would think, the majority of us, whether theists or non-theists—who experience the world in the way that we do, there is in fact much more reason to affirm premise (2) of the theistic argument than to deny it. And if that is the case, then I still think that there is more (indeed much more) reason than not overall for claiming that premise (2) is true.72 It then logically follows, given the truth of premise (1), that premise (3) is also true: God indeed exists.

50  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God

2.6  The problem of evil and the problem with evil What, then, remains for the skeptic who affirms the existence of evil but still doubts or denies that God exists? She may once again return to the atheistic argument from evil for God’s nonexistence, and set it alongside the argument from evil for God’s existence that I have explicated and defended. That is, she once again could argue the following: 1 If evil exists, then it is not the case that God exists; 2 Evil exists; 3 Therefore, God does not exist. Accordingly, this skeptic qua atheist might claim, while the theist is justified in believing that God exists given the existence of evil, she is still justified in believing in the nonexistence of God, given the existence of evil since premise (1) in particular of this argument still possesses strong (even if not definitive) epistemic support. More forcefully, she could argue that while the theist is justified, at least to some degree, in believing that God exists, given the existence of evil, the theist is also not justified in believing that God exists, given the existence of evil. Consequently, the problem of evil for the theist remains. My response to this is that if the argument from evil for God’s existence is successful, which I believe I have shown it to be, then the problem of evil, at least as traditionally understood, does not remain. And here is why. Like the theistic argument from evil, the atheistic argument from evil contains the premise that evil exists. But in defense of the theistic argument, I have shown that the skeptic cannot simply take the existence of evil for granted, as a fact about the world that has a privileged, self-contained, and foundational ontological status. It is only possible to account for evil and so assert its existence in terms of a metaethical and so metaphysical framework rather than independent of such a framework, and, of course, whatever metaphysical framework the skeptic appeals to cannot itself draw or depend in any way on the metaphysical framework, especially the metaphysics of value, that theism provides. And, I have argued and shown, in defense of premise (1) of the theistic argument, how problematic it is to account for evil (however we might identify or define it) without ultimately appealing to the metaphysical framework that theism provides. Consequently, if the skeptic cannot account for the existence of evil without God, she cannot appeal to the existence of evil in order to deny God. Embedded within the problem of evil, then, is a more fundamental problem: the problem with evil, which is a problem that the skeptical non-theist, not the theist, must address. The skeptic might also make the following move. She could focus our attention on premise (1) in each of the theistic and atheistic arguments from evil, and claim that there is still greater reason for affirming premise (1) of the atheistic argument than premise (1) of the theistic

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 51 argument. And that is because, on a theistic worldview (given who theists affirm God to be), there is every reason to think that a God who is perfectly powerful, knowledgeable, and good would be both able and willing or motivated to prevent evil. Consequently, insofar as the theist affirms premise (2) of the atheistic argument, the theist is still saddled with addressing the problem of evil and so vindicating the rationality of theism. My response to this objection is two-fold. First, since I have argued at length that there is greater reason to affirm premise (1) of the theistic argument than to deny it, then I have provided substantive reason for denying that premise (1) of the atheistic argument is true. Consequently, there is not greater or even equal reason to affirm premise (1) of the atheistic argument. In fact, there is stronger reason to affirm premise (1) of the theistic argument than premise (1) of the atheistic argument. Once more, if it is not possible (or at least very difficult) to account for the existence of evil without God, then obviously the existence of evil cannot count against the existence of God. On the contrary, it furnishes evidence for the existence of God!73 Second, and relatedly, it is precisely by affirming that God is perfectly powerful, knowledgeable, as well as good that we are able to make sense of evil—the very thing the skeptic claims counts against the existence of the theist’s God. Based on everything that I have argued in this chapter in defense of premise (1) of the theistic argument from evil, it should be readily apparent how and why this is the case. Exercising perfect power, God creates and sustains all; exercising perfect knowledge, God knows all, which means that God and God alone, exercising perfect power and knowledge (or wisdom), determines for each created thing how it ought to function or flourish, or the standard of goodness that it ought to meet as the kind of thing it is, and what place in the created order it ought to occupy, given the kind and level of being and so goodness that it possesses (which, in turn, reflects God’s perfect being and goodness to varying degrees). This is also why it is intrinsically good for all created things to meet the God-given standard of goodness that God designed them to meet. And this is why it is evil or bad—especially bad for sentient beings, and the worst for human beings, who image God as rational beings—to fail to meet the standard of goodness (above all, for human beings, moral goodness) that God designed them to meet. Once more, then, were God not all of whom the theist claims him to be, then evil (however the theist might more specifically choose to identify or conceive of it) would not and could not exist. Of course, to the skeptic’s larger point, we might certainly still wonder how and why evil ever came to exist, and why an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God allows so much of it to exist. Why would God, who possesses perfect power, knowledge, and goodness, allow any evil to exist in his works? And, presuming a God of perfect and essential

52  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God goodness, in Aquinas’s (and Augustine’s) words, “would not allow any evil to exist in his works if he were not powerful enough and good enough to draw good even from evil,”74 then, how more precisely, does God do so? How, in other words, does God redeem evil? These are indeed important questions that still need to be addressed. However, in conclusion, I contend once more that they do not constitute or present any problem that the theist needs to address. Having established that affirming the existence of evil rationally leads us to affirm the existence of God, the theist safely can abandon the task of seeking to vindicate God in the face of evil. What he is left with is the admittedly still vital task—and challenge—of understanding better why evil exists and what God is doing to redeem it. In what lies ahead, then, I engage in the project of theodicy, properly configured as a philosophical and theological project aimed at addressing the most pressing questions that arise concerning the existence of evil in a God-governed universe. More specifically, I develop a theodicy drawing on the resources of the Christian philosophical and theological tradition, especially in its Thomistic vein. Here, my main goal in constructing this theodicy is not to show how it is superior to every other theodicy (a task which is simply too vast), but rather to display its overall plausibility and explanatory power. By meeting this goal, I show that we can go quite far in answering the question of evil. Of course, here, as throughout this book, we need to remind ourselves that our rational efforts in carrying out the project of theodicy, even at their best, never will disclose all of the truth, or the full depth of the truth, concerning the existence of evil and the existence of God. Though, this should come as no surprise: to be a creature is to not comprehend all of the ways of God.

Notes 1 SCG III.71. 2 As I present and defend it, the theistic argument from evil is not a demonstrative proof for God’s existence (of the sort that Aquinas claims to offer in his Five Ways), even if it has a deductive form. It constitutes what Scott MacDonald calls a dialectical argument, since its premises enjoy a significant degree of epistemic support even though (I do not claim) that their truth is rationally indubitable (by virtue of being evident). See MacDonald, “Natural Theology,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 6, ed. Edward Craig (London, UK: Routledge, 1998), 707–13. It’s also possible to reformulate the argument as a kind of inference to the best explanation, but I am not going to do that here. 3 Here, I agree with and follow Daniel Howard-Snyder and Michael Bergmann, who say that a good argument meets a minimal standard: “Every premise, inference, and assumption on which the argument depends must be more reasonable for us to affirm than to refrain from affirming” (“Evil Does Not Make Atheism More Reasonable than Theism,” Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion, eds. Michael L. Peterson and Raymond J. VanArragon [Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004], 14).

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 53 4 To be clear, the “skeptic” could be a theist or a non-theist, though I suspect that most theists affirm premise (1). Richard Swinburne is an exception; see Section 2.1. 5 This is how I will be using the word “intrinsic” throughout this chapter: referring to how something is in and of itself, simply as the kind of thing that it is. 6 Naturalism is not intrinsically wedded to evolution as a theory about the origins and development of life, but they typically go together. I take theism to be compatible with evolution as well, the difference being that in a theistic universe, evolution is not a purely natural, valueless process, insofar as it is directed by God. 7 See Bertrand Russell and F.C. Copleston, “A Debate on the Existence God,” The Existence of God, ed. John Hick (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1964), 167–91, in particular 167–78. 8 J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1977), 38. 9 According to a standard definition, supervenience is “a dependence relation between properties or facts of one type, and properties or facts of another type …. The idea [in ethics] is that if something instantiates a moral property, then it does so in virtue of, i.e., as a (non-causal) consequence of, instantiating some lower-level property on which the moral property supervenes” (Terence E. Horgan, “Supervenience,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi [New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 778-9; italics in the original text). See below for Erik Wielenberg’s account of supervenience, which does ascribe natural properties the power to cause or “make” moral properties to be instantiated. 10 See Richard Swinburne, “What Difference Does God Make to Morality?,” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough? A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics, eds. Robert K. Garcia and Nathan L. King (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 151–63. More technically, treating metaphysical necessity as a form of logical necessity, Swinburne says, “moral properties strongly supervene on non-moral properties …. In this sense a property of kind A supervenes on a property of kind B iff it is metaphysically necessary that for every object that has a property F of kind A, there is some property G of kind B, such that any object that has property G has property F and has property F because it has property G” (“Necessary Moral Principles,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 [2015]: 618; italics in the original text). 11 Swinburne, “What Difference Does God Make to Morality?,” 153. Italics are in the original text. 12 Ibid. 13 Nick Zangwill, “Moore, Morality, Supervenience, Essence, Epistemology,” American Philosophical Quarterly 42 (2005): 127. 14 Erik J. Wielenberg, Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014), 38. Italics are in the original text. 15 Ibid. 16 Nick Zangwill, “Moral Epistemology and the Because Constraint,” Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, ed. James Dreier (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 271. Italics are in the original text. Zangwill also notes, “This because is not just [a] metaphysical constraint on properties but also a constraint on our judgments (a ‘conceptual’ feature of them)” (ibid.; italics in the original text).

54  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 17 Mark D. Linville, “The Moral Argument,” The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, eds. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2012), 414. Robert Merrihew Adams writes, “Natural things that resemble God do so, in general, by virtue of their natural properties” (Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics [Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999], 61). 18 Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 20. 19 I therefore agree with William Lane Craig, who says that “The problem is that Wielenberg’s view, which is supposed to be consistent with scientific naturalism, imputes to physical objects causal powers that are mysterious and completely unknown to contemporary physics. It is, in fact, a sort of Voodoo metaphysics” (“Erik Wielenberg’s Metaphysics of Morals,” Philosophia Christi 20 [2018], 337). Craig in particular finds the causal connection between physical, concrete entities and moral properties as abstract entities to be wholly mysterious. In clarifying his view, Wielenberg claims instead that he posits “causal connections between instances of nonmoral properties and instances of [causally inert] moral properties” (“Reply to Craig, Murphy, McNabb, and Johnson,” Philosophia Christi 20 [2018], 365; italics in the original text). But then it still remains wholly mysterious how particular instances of nonmoral properties, or nonmoral property-tokens, possess the causal power to “make” particular moral property-tokens to be instantiated. 20 Here, I am drawing on Barbra R. Clayton’s description of Dharma in Buddhist thought: as “the ‘Law’ or ‘Truth’ of the nature of things” Dharma is “the universal order of reality that embraces both natural and moral laws,” including the law of karma, which reflects Dharma at the moral level (“Buddhist Ethics,” The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy, eds. Jay L. Garfield and William Edelglass [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011], 280). My larger purpose here is not to single out Buddhism, but to consider an alternative, non-theistic metaphysical framework that the skeptic might appeal to in order to defend (P1) and other normative principles. 21 As Linville points out, George Santayana makes a similar point in contesting the early Bertrand Russell’s atheistic moral realism. See Mark D. Linville, “Why Bertrand Russell Was Not a Moral Realist, Either,” Philosophy and the Christian Worldview: Analysis, Assessment and Development, eds. David Werther and Mark D. Linville (New York, NY: Continuum, 2012), 157–74. 22 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Richard H. Popkin (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1980), Part XI, 75. 23 See, for example, Michael Tye, “A Representational Theory of Pains and Their Phenomenal Character,” The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates, eds. Ned Block, Owen Flanagan, and Güven Güzeldere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), 329–40; and Murat Aydede, “An Analysis of Pleasure Vis-à-Vis Pain,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (2000): 537–70. 24 Patrick Lee, “Evil as Such Is a Privation: A Reply to John Crosby,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2007): 478. In this article, Lee defends a privation account of evil against the objection that pain is both something positive (not a privation) and also something that is clearly or self-evidently evil. He agrees that pain is something positive but denies that it is evil. (See also Patrick Lee, “The Goodness of Creation, Evil, and Christian Teaching,” The Thomist 64 [2000]: 257–60, where Lee originally defends this claim.) I am borrowing insights from Lee to

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 55 defend the claim that pain is not an evil without specifically appealing to the doctrine of evil as a privation—even though, as will become clearer as we move ahead in this book, I do subscribe to this doctrine. 25 See Lee, “Evil as Such Is a Privation,” 479–80. 26 For Philo’s claims here regarding pleasure and pain, see Hume’s Dialogues, Part XI, 69–70. 27 See Lee, “Evil as Such Is a Privation,” 475–6. 28 One could employ this fact to challenge Rowe’s evidential argument from evil: if the pain Rowe’s fawn experiences is not an evil (and, one could add, if Rowe’s fawn is not aware of itself as a subject that experiences pain and suffering), then the evidential argument from evil based on pain and suffering fails. B. Kyle Keltz makes this argument in Thomism and the Problem of Animal Suffering (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2020); see in particular Chapters 2 and 3. Of course, there are limitations to making this kind of argument since, certainly on a Thomistic view, there still is an evil present when Rowe’s fawn suffers pain: the harm it undergoes (which the Thomist understands to be a privation). And so, the problem does not dissipate entirely; unless, as I argue, it is not possible to account for evil as harm (or evil of any sort) apart from God. 29 Lee also underscores this point in “Evil as Such Is a Privation,” 474. 30 See Alexander, Goodness, God, and Evil, 101–2. Like Lee, Alexander defends a privation account against the objection that pain is evil though not a privation. 31 Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality,” Is Goodness without God Good Enough?, 101. 32 Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, “There Is No Good Reason to Believe in God,” in God? A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist, William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), 34. 33 Sinnott-Armstrong, God?, 34. Italics are in the original text. 34 Ibid. 35 Here, I agree with Craig that necessary truths can and do stand to one another in relations of explanatory priority. As such, it is entirely fitting and even necessary to ask why certain moral principles are necessary, and then to explain the necessity of those principles by appealing to other, more fundamental necessary principles. (See Craig, “The Most Gruesome of Guests,” Is Goodness without God Good Enough? 170.) 36 Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 13. 37 Ibid., 84. 38 Ibid., 4. 39 As Linville persuasively argues, on a theistic worldview, we have every reason to believe that our native cognitive equipment—as designed by God— is truth-aimed, and hence enables us to gain cognitive access to the realm of moral truth. On a naturalistic, evolutionary view, however, we have no such confidence since, as products of blind evolutionary forces, our moral beliefs and attitudes are fitness-aimed but not necessarily truth-aimed. See Linville, “The Moral Argument,” 393–417. 40 Wielenberg, Robust Ethics, 84. 41 More recently, Wielenberg has proposed another thought experiment involving a rose that came to exist through a carefully conceived plan and another rose that came to exist through sheer, dumb luck. He claims that “the two roses are equally beautiful and equally valuable; their origins are irrelevant to the intrinsic value that they carry within themselves”

56  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God (“Erik J. Wielenberg’s Final Remarks,” in A Debate on God and Morality: What is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?, William Lane Craig and Erik J. Wielenberg, ed. Adam Lloyd Johnson [New York, NY: Routledge, 2021], 211; italics in the original text). But this thought experiment still entirely misses the point. While we every reason to think that a divinely created rose has value, insofar as it comes from and resembles God, we have no reason to think that a rose that comes to exist in a Godless universe by means of unguided and purely natural and so valueless events and processes would have any intrinsic value. 42 I therefore disagree with Wielenberg that intrinsic value cannot be derived: things have an intrinsic value, or are valuable “for their own sakes,” because of the kinds of things that they are, and they are the kinds of things that they are because they have been created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God. 43 Here, I am drawing on Bernard E. Rollin’s conception of telos as applied to animals: “the fulfillment of telos [an animal’s genetically based and environmentally expressed needs and interests] matters in a positive way, and leads to well-being or happiness; the thwarting matters in a negative way and leads to suffering” (“On Telos and Genetic Engineering,” The Animal Ethics Reader, 3rd ed., eds. Susan J. Armstrong and Richard G. Botzler [New York, NY: Routledge, 2017], 451). Rollin also contends that telos is “at root a moral notion, both because it is morally motivated and because it contains the notion of what about an animal we ought at least to try to respect and accommodate” (452; italics in the original text). While I agree with Rollin that telos is at root a moral notion, I do so on (primarily) theistic grounds. Thus, the challenge for Rollin is showing why telos is a moral notion and why we ought to respect and accommodate it if there is no God. For more on telos, see the next section of this chapter. 44 Richard Boyd, a moral naturalist, identifies moral properties with all of those “homeostatically clustered” goods which satisfy human needs along with the “homeostatic mechanisms” (such as mutual respect, political democracy, and egalitarian social relations) that unify them. See Boyd, “How To Be a Moral Realist,” Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches, eds. Stephen Darwell, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997), 105–35, especially 122–4. 45 William J. Wainwright makes a similar point when critiquing the move to “identify goodness with the satisfaction of our more important wants and needs” (Religion and Morality [Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005], 51). Following Mackie, he says that “goodness” has “to-be-pursuedness” built into it. But the “to-be-pursuedness” of the satisfaction of our needs and wants “appears to be an artifact of our needs and wants” (52). Therefore, goodness so understood doesn’t have the requisite independence from our needs and wants. 46 Evan Fales, “Naturalist Moral Realism,” God and Morality: Four Views, ed. R. Keith Loftin (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012), 16. 47 Ibid., 17. 48 Ibid. Italics are in the original text. 49 Ibid., 77. Italics are in the original text. 50 Ibid. Italics are in the original text. 51 Michael Ruse, “A Naturalist Moral Nonrealism Response,” God and Morality, 37. 52 Ibid., 36.

The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 57 53 Mackie makes a comparable point about when, in an effort to explain our belief in the objectivity of values, he follows Hume by appealing to the mind’s “propensity to spread itself on external objects” (Ethics, 42). 54 Ruse actually defends an evolutionary ethic based on this idea; see Section 2.5. 55 In response to Fales, Keith E. Yandell rightly asks, “Why should the fact that something is good for x be of value significance if x itself has no worth? ... A world in which lots of things that possess no intrinsic worth flourish arguably is a world on which ethics has no purchase” (“A Moral Essentialism Response,” God and Morality, 41–2). While I certainly agree with Yandell on this point, I disagree with Yandell’s (and, for that matter, Swinburne’s) overall position, which is that moral truths, by virtue of being necessary, do not depend on God. 56 See the classic article, P.T. Geach, “Good and Evil,” Analysis 17 (1956): 33–42. 57 W. Matthews Grant, “The Privation Account of Moral Evil: A Defense,” International Philosophical Quarterly 55 (2015): 277. 58 Ibid., 278. 59 Ibid., 278–9. 60 ST I.5.1. 61 I’m drawing on Brian Davies’s explication of Aquinas on goodness in The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1992), in particular 85–6. 62 Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann explicitly make this claim in explicating Aquinas’s central metaethical thesis that being and goodness differ in sense but not in reference. See Stump and Kretzmann, “Being and Goodness,” Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, ed. Scott MacDonald (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 105–7. However, in this view, even though goodness supervenes on being, it is not a particular property common to all good things, since what is good for one kind of thing is not good for a thing of a different kind (recalling here that “good” is a logically attributive adjective). 63 John Haldane nicely captures this point in “Atheism and Theism,” J.J.C. Smart and J.J. Haldane, Atheism and Theism, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 140. 64 See, for example, Richard Swinburne, Is There a God? rev. ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010), 115. Swinburne wields this principle to defend the rationality of believing in God on the basis of religious experience. John Hick does this as well in Interpreting Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 214–20. Hick says, “In order for it to be rational for us to believe in entities which are ostensibly given in our experience … two conditions have to be fulfilled. One is that we have responsibly judged (or reasonably assumed) it to be possible for such an entity to exist. The other is that it seems to be given in our experience in a powerful, persistent and intrusive way which demands belief in its reality” (ibid., 221). I think that our belief in the existence of evil meets both of Hick’s conditions, though I focus on the second one here. 65 See Hick, Interpreting Religion, 215. 66 I am therefore using the phrase “moral experience” to refer to our (putative) experience or apprehension of value, broadly understood. 67 Mackie of course makes and defends both of these claims in his Ethics. 68 Once more, see Linville, “The Moral Argument,” 393–417.

58  The Existence of Evil and the Existence of God 69 Ruse, “Naturalist Moral Nonrealism,” 64–5. 70 Ibid., 68. 71 Ibid. 72 Perhaps the skeptic would dispute this claim as well. Then, we could modify it as follows: premise (2) is (much) more reasonable than its denial, at least for some (but perhaps also many) reasonable people. Here, I’m adapting some of what C. Stephen Evans claims about the goals of theistic arguments in “Moral Arguments for the Existence of God,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato. stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/moral-arguments-god/. 73 Chad Meister also makes this point in Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed, 75. 74 ST I.2.3 ad 1.

3

God, Evil, and the Good Creation

Granting that the existence of evil points us toward—rather than away from—the existence of God, we surely might wonder why evil exists within God’s world in the first place. Since God is all-powerful, then presumably he is able to create a world without evil in it. Since God is all-knowing, then presumably he knows how to create a world without evil in it. And so, since God also is all-good, or the highest good, then why would he create a world with evil in it, and indeed, so much evil in it, as he clearly has? Moreover, presuming it is consistent with divine goodness for God to create a world with lots of evil in it, then how does God also confront or deal with the evil that he clearly allows to exist, as part of exercising providence within his good world? My main goal in this chapter is to address these questions and thereby begin to develop a Thomistic, Christian theodicy that helps us better see or understand—with clearer intellectual and moral vision—both why evil exists within God’s good world and how God providentially confronts or deals with it. Here, I remind the reader (as I often will do in this book) that it is not the task of theodicy to address the problem of evil or respond to any argument from evil for the nonexistence of God, in an effort to vindicate God in the face of evil. The question before us is not whether God exists, given the existence of evil in the world. Instead, the question before us is, since God exists, and is the highest good, then why does evil also exist? And, again, since God exists and is the highest good, then how does God providentially confront or deal with the evil that he clearly allows to exist? Properly addressing these questions requires investigating (1) God’s reasons for creating a world with lots of evil within it; and (2) God’s providential role in bringing good out of all of that evil—that is, redeeming it—which entails bringing about a world that is good as a whole in the end. The primary theological focus of this chapter, therefore, is both the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of providence, especially insofar as these doctrines help illuminate for us the place of evil within the good world that God has made. In subsequent chapters of this book, I will appeal to other theological doctrines (original sin, salvation, purgatory, DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847-3

60  God, Evil, and the Good Creation predestination, and heaven and hell) in order to make even further sense of the existence of evil within the good world that God has made. In particular, I will continue to unpack how, on a Thomistic and more broadly Christian philosophical and theological worldview, God redeems evil both on a cosmic level and within the context of individual human lives. In this sense, the work that I carry out in this chapter is partial and preliminary. However, it is also foundational since the claims I make and defend in this chapter concerning God, evil, and the good creation will continue to inform the claims I will make in subsequent chapters, particularly as I further discuss God’s plan to redeem all of the evil that exists within the good world that he has made. This chapter unfolds as follows. In the first three sections, I lay down and defend some important, plausible theses concerning God, evil, and the good creation that I think are foundational for properly seeing or understanding both why God has created a world with evil in it—indeed, the very kinds and distributions of evil that obtain in our own world— and how God exercises providence in redeeming such evil. In the last couple of sections, building on the work I carry out in the first three sections, I address some more specific issues concerning God, evil, and the good creation. I first discuss how it is fitting for God to create using an evolutionary process that is riddled with evil. Then, in the final section, I explore how God can be fully sovereign over us and what we do without implicating himself in the evil that we do or overriding our free will (specifically libertarian free will). On my Thomistic view, it is because God is sovereign over the evil that we do—and all of the evil that obtains within his good world—that he is able to redeem it in the end. As always, my overarching goal is to show how the Thomistic tradition and broader Christian intellectual tradition provide valuable resources for addressing what I take to be perennial questions concerning God and evil. In one sense, then, I am not saying anything remarkably new: I am drawing on what Aquinas has said about God and evil. However, in another sense, I am engaging in something new since I am not only re-presenting Aquinas’s thinking on God and evil but also defending it and expanding it in some important ways. And, as always, I put Aquinas in conversation with contemporary philosophers and theologians working both inside and outside the Thomistic tradition on the topic of God and evil. In the end, everything I do in this chapter is directed on developing and defending what I think—and will continue to show—is a powerful and enduring theodicy.

3.1  The purpose of creation and the existence of evil Central to a theistic metaphysics of creation (certainly a traditional one) is the following claim: God only makes and causes what is good, not what is evil or bad as such. Consequently, evil only exists because

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 61 goodness exists: if God hadn’t made many good things capable of causing evil and suffering on account of it, then badness never could or would come to be. In this sense, goodness is metaphysically primary, and evil is parasitical on the good. Or, put another way, evil only comes to be when good things fail to be what they ought to be, according to their Godgiven design. This is why, as I discussed in the previous chapter, classical thinkers like Aquinas claim that evil is a privation or lack of goodness, and specifically, the lack of goodness that a thing ought to have, given the kind of thing that it is, or was made by God to be. Once more, then, if we ask why badness exists within God’s universe, it is not because God brought it into existence, or keeps it in existence, but only because God made and continually causes there to be good things that can and do go bad. It is therefore impossible to reflect on the amount of badness in the world without first reflecting on the amount of goodness in the world, or the many good things that God has made and continually causes to be. Of course, we certainly might reasonably wonder why would God make anything that can go bad when presumably he could do otherwise, thereby preventing any evil from ever existing. Regarding God’s power, Aquinas argues that God can bring about whatever is “possible absolutely,” or does not imply a contradiction in terms, but not what is impossible absolutely, or does imply a contradiction in terms.1 So, for example, in Aquinas’s view (which most theists, certainly within the Christian tradition, share), it is not within the scope of God’s power to bring it about that 2 + 2 = 5, or that one object is both circle-shaped and square-shaped at the same time. But presumably, it is entirely within the scope of God’s power to create a world in which none of the good things within it bring about evil or suffer on account of it. That is, it certainly seems both logically and metaphysically possible for God to create things that share in God’s goodness by virtue of being incapable of failing in goodness in any way, even if, by virtue of being creatures, they lack God’s perfect and essential goodness (which God alone possesses). And so, why didn’t God create a world filled with only these kinds of things, rather than the world he did create, which is clearly filled with lots of things that can and do fail in goodness in any number of ways? Properly addressing this question requires exploring the purpose of creation in Aquinas’s view. Since, for Aquinas, God is perfectly good, then there is nothing good that God gains by creating. God creates, therefore, not out of any need or lack, but out the superabundance of the perfect goodness that he possesses. The reason that God creates is therefore located in who God is as perfectly good. Since it is “the essence of goodness to communicate itself to others,”2 and God is the highest good, then God’s purpose in creating is to communicate his own goodness to something outside of God’s self, i.e., creation.3 But God cannot communicate his own, infinite goodness as the Creator to any one creature, or manifest it perfectly by creating just one, good, creature (or kind

62  God, Evil, and the Good Creation of creature), no matter how good.4 In his Summa theologiae, Aquinas writes: [God] brought things into existence in order to communicate his goodness to creatures and to represent his goodness through them. And since his goodness cannot be adequately represented by any one creature, he produced many diverse creatures, so that what was lacking in one’s representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another. For the goodness that exists in a simple and uniform way in God exists in a multiple and divided way among creatures. Hence, the universe as a whole participates in and represents God’s goodness in a more perfect way than any other creature does.5 And so, God communicates his own goodness within his creation by making not only many, many good things but also many, many, diverse, good things, each of which represents God’s goodness in its own way. Aquinas is also clear that in producing a wide diversity of things, God produced many “grades of things (gradus rerum),”6 “for the universe would not be perfect if just one grade of goodness were found among things.”7 That is, in order to represent his goodness adequately within his creation, God created both a multiplicity of individual things and a multiplicity of kinds of things that possess varying (ascending and descending) levels of goodness: a genuine hierarchy of being and so goodness. And so, while no world that God could create could perfectly represent his own, infinite goodness, any world he would create would contain a very large number and diversity of things of varying degrees of goodness, to reflect his own goodness as fully or precisely as possible. This further means that any world that God would create, in order to communicate his own goodness fully within it, would contain both those things that cannot fail with respect to the goodness they possess and those things that can fail with respect to the goodness that they possess. “The perfection of the universe,” Aquinas claims, “requires (requirit) that there be some things that can fail with respect to their goodness—from which it follows that they sometimes do so fail.”8 Or, more specifically, “the whole that is the totality of creatures is better and more perfect (melius et perfectius est) if it contains some things that are able to lose their good and do in fact sometimes lose their good when God does not prevent it.”9 And why does God not prevent these good things from losing their goodness, and therefore going bad (in some way)? First, “it belongs to providence to preserve nature rather than to destroy it, and the nature of things is such that things that are able to lose their good sometimes do lose their good.”10 Second, “as Augustine says in the Enchiridion, God is so powerful that he can make good even out of evil (quod etiam potest bene facere de malis). Hence, many goods would be destroyed if God did not permit evil. For fire would not be

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 63 generated if air were not corrupted; and the lion’s life would not be preserved if the ass were not killed; and if there were no wickedness, then vindicating justice and long-suffering patience would not be praised.”11 There is actually a lot packed into what Aquinas is saying here, which I will continue to unpack as this chapter unfolds. But for the moment, I am going to identify and focus on what I take to be one of the fundamental claims that Aquinas makes concerning the sort of world that we should expect a perfectly good God to create. Here is that claim: (C1) It is better for a perfectly good God to create a world W1 that contains all kinds and levels of good things that can—and do— cause evil and suffer on account of it, than to create a world W2 that only contains good things that cannot cause evil or suffer on account of it. (C1) therefore constitutes an answer (or part of an answer) to the larger question of why God would create a world with evil in it, including a world like our own with the very types and distributions of evil we see manifest within it. God cannot communicate or represent his goodness fully in a world like W2 in which he only creates things that cannot cause evil or suffer on account of it because this would require leaving out of that world all kinds and levels of good things that can and do cause evil and suffer on account of it. Accordingly, since God is perfectly good, and God’s overriding aim in creating a world that manifests his goodness as fully or precisely as possible, then any world that God would create would be a W1-type world. And, of course, the more types and levels of good things that God creates—or, the more God fills his creation with all types and levels of good things—the more evil will occur, when these things can and do cause evil and suffer on account of it, given the natures that they possess. Now, as Aquinas is well aware, God could prevent all of the good things that he created from losing their goodness, in any way, thereby preventing any evil from entering the world. But as Aquinas also readily (and, I think, rightly) notes, by doing so, God effectively would be undoing his own creative work. If it is within the nature of something to at least sometimes fail in goodness, then by fully preventing that thing from failing in goodness in any way (or at any time), God in effect runs interference with that thing being what he created it to be, thereby failing to preserve it in being what he created it to be, as is befitting divine providence. Moreover, Aquinas realizes (again, rightly, I think) that by preventing lots of good things from failing in goodness in any way (or at any time), God prevents lots of other good things from being the good things that he created them to be. This is particularly the case within the natural order. For example, if God prevented gazelles (or any other animal) from

64  God, Evil, and the Good Creation being eaten by lions, then lions could not realize their God-given natures as lions. In fact, if God prevented gazelles from being vulnerable to being eaten by lions, and actually being eaten by them, then lions eventually would cease to be—unless God miraculously kept lions in being. But, once again, by intervening in this way, God would still be undoing his creative work, which was not only to create a world filled with lions (and everything else he created) but also to create a world filled with lions realizing their God-given natures and so being the good things that he created them to be. Recognizing that there are many things that can only realize their God-given natures, and so be the good things that God created them to be, at the expense of other things failing in goodness, and so failing as the good things God created them to be, I think strengthens Aquinas’s metaphysical claim that things that can fail in goodness will fail in goodness. Certainly, this seems to be the case in a material universe such as our own, which is filled with all kinds and levels of living things. As John Haldane writes, “In general there cannot be a world of living things developing in accord with their inbuilt teleologies—growing, moving, sensing, reproducing and so forth—without interactions that are to the detriment of some individuals and species.”12 Or, following Aquinas, I would say that in general there cannot be a world of living things aiming to realize their God-given natures, and so exercising the powers they naturally possess, without doing so at the expense of other things, God not preventing this. Once more, were God to prevent all of these things from realizing their God-given natures, thereby also preventing other things from failing in goodness at their expense, then God would be contravening his own creative work. More broadly, and dramatically, were God to prevent all of the things he created from realizing their God-given natures, thereby stymying any causal interactions between them so as to prevent anything at all from failing in goodness, he would undermine the whole purpose of creating all of these things in the first place. Of course, this may cause us to wonder why God would create any of these things at all: that is, things that can only realize their own goodness at the expense of other things failing in goodness. Couldn’t God create a world filled with varying kinds and levels of good things, all of which can and do realize their own goodness without causing anything else to fail in goodness, and so experience any badness? Presuming that God’s creating a world filled with all kinds and levels of good things entails God creating a world filled with material, living things, which are capable of both causing evil and are vulnerable—even highly vulnerable, given their materiality—to suffering on account of it, then the answer, I think, is “no.” Were God to create only immaterial things, or only nonliving things, or only immaterial and nonliving things, God would thereby leave out of his creation not only a massive amount of

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 65 good things but also a massive amount of all kinds and levels of good things. Consequently, God simply could not communicate or share his goodness fully in a world that lacked all of these things. To be clear, this does not mean that any world that God created would contain exactly the same instances, kinds, and levels of things that our world contains (a claim we will explore in the next section of this chapter). But it would contain and be replete with the same, general kinds and levels of (immaterial and material as well as living and nonliving) things. It should not be surprising, then, that Aquinas also explicitly defends the claim that any world God would create would contain rational beings. Aquinas’s reasoning here goes as follows. To reflect God’s goodness fully, the world must contain things that are not only good but also—like God—act for the good of other things. But a creature is most like God when it not only acts for the good of other things but also does so in the same manner or mode in which God acts, which is by intellect and will. “It is therefore necessary,” Aquinas concludes, “for some creatures to have intellect and will,” i.e., be rational.13 But if this is the case, then among the worlds that God could and would create are those that contain a particular kind of evil: sin, which is the evil that rational beings commit misusing the powers of intellect and will that God gave them. Here, I don’t take Aquinas’s claim “that things that are able to lose their good sometimes do lose their good,” as it pertains to rational beings, to mean that in any W1-type world God would create, sin would, in fact, obtain. Rather, I take it to mean that among the W1-type worlds that God would create, are worlds in which rational beings do sin. In fact, we know this to be true since sin clearly occurs in our own world, the actual world that God did create. Furthermore, God has distinct reasons to create a world such as our own in which free, rational beings both sin and refrain from sinning: not simply to fill the world with different kinds and levels of rational beings (human beings and angels), many of whom do exercise their God-given freedom in sinning,14 but also—as I will continue to argue—to fill the world with goods that God draws from their sin, and which otherwise would not and could not obtain were God not to permit sin to occur. As it turns out, then, properly defending (C1), as I have sought to do, entails defending the claim that a perfectly good God would only create a certain kind of world. It is a world replete with goodness, but also, as a result, filled with much badness, which only occurs because many, many good things, acting in accordance with their God-given natures, can and do cause and suffer evil, in any number of ways. This also means that a perfect or complete world, on a Thomistic view, which fully reflects divine goodness, by virtue of containing an array of varying kinds and levels of good things, will contain much badness as well, even if not each and every perfect world God would create would contain the same amounts and kinds of badness. However, as I will argue, continuing

66  God, Evil, and the Good Creation to follow Aquinas’s lead, in a perfect world, God also orders all of the badness that occurs in that world to the goodness of that world, taken as a whole, thereby ensuring that such badness actually contributes to the goodness of that world, taken as a whole. And so, even if, as a result of creating much good, God allows much evil to occur, since God is the highest good, he only allows evil to occur from which he can and does draw good: indeed, ultimate good. In order to affirm and appreciate this claim, however, we first need to reflect on why God created our own world, when he could have created another world, with more good and less evil within it.

3.2 The perfection of the universe and the existence of evil While (C1) affirms that God, in deciding to create, would only create a certain kind of world, it does not affirm or even imply that among the worlds God would create (were he to will to do so), he is bound by his goodness to create only one of them. Aquinas explicitly claims that “it befits the highest good to make what is best” (summo bono competit facere quod melius est),15 which is why any world that God would make would contain many, varying kinds and levels of good things, including specifically rational beings. However, if, as Aquinas says, it is fitting, or in accordance with God’s own nature, for God “to make what is best,” it seems as if God, as the highest or best good, would make the best world among all possible worlds. And this, in turn, means that our own world—with all of the evil that it contains—is indeed the best of all possible worlds. Aquinas is actually well-known for arguing that when it comes to world-making, God always can do better than what he does (or did in creating this world). “God could make other things,” Aquinas writes, “or add something to the present creation; and then there would be another and a better universe.”16 And yet, importantly, he also argues that our own world “cannot be better, on account of the most beautiful order given to things by God; in which the good of the universe consists. For if any one thing were bettered, the proportion of order would be destroyed; as if one string were stretched more than it ought to be, the melody of the harp would be destroyed.”17 Given the things that actually exist, and the God-given order that these things possess— both in relation to one another and toward God, who is their ultimate end—the universe cannot be better than it in fact is. Thus, in a certain sense, any universe God might have created would be the best possible, insofar it possesses “the most beautiful order given to things [in that world] by God.” Norman Kretzmann explains all of this as follows. Consider a world consisting only of the parts A, B, and C whose “most beautiful order”

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 67 is alphabetical. Were God to make C into a super-C, he would clearly improve C, taken by itself, but he also would thereby destroy the proportion between A, B, and C. So God would not make an ABsuper-C world. Kretzmann then says, Still, God could create a whole set of better parts of super-A, super-B, super-C (such that super-A and super-B were improvements of the same sort as super-C and proportioned to super-C), in which case he would create an intensively better version of the ABC world. Or, he could create more parts—A, B, C, D, and E—in which case he would create an additively better version of the ABC world. Or he could create altogether different parts of X, Y, Z, each of which is intensively better than its counterpart in the ABC world, in which case he could create a different world, intensively better than the ABC world.18 To this, we can add the following. While God would not make a XYsuper-Z world, he could make a super-Xsuper-Ysuper-Z world, which is an intensively better version of the XYZ world. Or, he could create an VWXYZ world, which would be an additively better version of the XYZ world—itself a different world from the ABC world. As Kretzmann rightly observes, “No matter what possible world [God] actualizes, there must be infinitely many possible worlds better than the actual world in some respect or other.”19 Therefore, on the Thomistic view, God’s doing God’s best in creating— as is befitting a perfectly good God—does not require that God create a best of all possible worlds, so understood as a world better in all respects than any other world God could create because there is no such thing. What God’s doing God’s best does require is that God create a world like our own, filled with many kinds and levels of good things, characterized by its own, unique “beautiful order” given to it by God, even if there are infinitely more possible worlds God could have created that are better than our own, or are at least better versions of our own, in some respect. Building off of the work I did in the previous section of this chapter, I am going to call any such perfect world that God would create a good cosmic whole. While any good cosmic whole would of course fall infinitely short of representing God’s own, infinite goodness, no such whole that God would create, no matter how much goodness it contains (or would contain), would better succeed as a whole in representing God’s goodness than any other. 20 However, we still might think, surely there are good cosmic wholes like our own that represent divine goodness equally well but contain less evil than our own, even if, like our own world (or any world God would create), they contain lots of evil in them, like our own. It is certainly not difficult to imagine such a world. Consider, for example, an ABC world

68  God, Evil, and the Good Creation versus a super-Asuper-Bsuper-C world, both of which are good cosmic wholes, but the latter of which is an intensively better version of the former. Let’s assume that beings of types super-A, super-B, and super-C are each better than their counterpart beings of types A, B, and C in the sense that, given their increased goodness, they are less vulnerable to suffering any badness. The ABC world therefore presumably would contain more badness, even a lot more badness, than the super-AsuperBsuper-C world. And so, why would God create the former world rather than the latter world, if both are good cosmic wholes that represent God’s goodness equally well? I think Aquinas offers an answer to this question, even if he does not do so explicitly: The good of the whole exceeds the good of a part (bonum totius praeminet bono partis). It is proper for a governor with foresight to neglect some lack of goodness in a part, so that there may be an increase of goodness in the whole. Thus, an artisan hides the foundations beneath earth, so that the whole house may have stability. But, if evil were removed from some parts of the universe, much perfection would perish from the universe, whose beauty arises from an ordered unification of evil and good things. In fact, while evil things originate from good things that are defective, still, certain good things also result from them, as a consequence of the providence of the governor. Thus, even a silent pause makes a hymn appealing. Therefore, evil should not have been excluded from things by divine providence. 21 In this passage from the Summa contra gentiles, Aquinas equates the goodness and perfection of the universe with its beauty, which he says arises not merely from the way all of the good is ordered within it, but rather from the way in which all of the good and evil is ordered within it. Just as silence, taken on its own, is not beautiful, so evil, taken on its own, is not beautiful. In fact, aesthetically speaking, evil is ugly. However, by inserting silence at a certain point in a hymn, the musical composer ensures that far from detracting from the beauty of the hymn, taken as a whole, it actually contributes to the beauty of the hymn, taken as a whole. Similarly, when God, the perfectly good governor of the world, does not exclude evil from his creation, but conjoins it to other good things—drawing goodness out of the evil that occurs—he ensures that, far from detracting from the goodness of the world, taken as a whole, such evil actually contributes to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of the world, taken as a whole. Of course, the analogy, as Aquinas presents it, only goes so far. A hymn, simply by virtue of being a hymn, does not have to contain any silent parts within it to be a beautiful hymn. But we already have seen that

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 69 any world qua good cosmic whole that God would create would contain badness within it, by virtue of containing an array of good things that can and do go bad. And so, we can and should extend Aquinas’s analogy further. While a sufficiently trained and accomplished composer may not always insert silence into a hymn to make it a beautiful whole, we would expect him to be able to use silence—along with any number of discordant sounds—to create a beautiful hymn, or any number of beautiful hymns, taken as wholes. Similarly, we certainly should expect that a perfectly powerful, good, and wise God would be able and willing to use whatever evil exists in the world, and which he allows to obtain within the world (when he could have done otherwise), to create a good world, taken as a whole, no matter how ugly or bad that evil is, taken on its own. Accordingly, no matter the amount or kind of evil that exists in any given world qua good cosmic whole that God would create, God would ensure that all of the evil in that world contributes to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of that world, taken as a whole. The Thomistic view of creation and providence is therefore informed by a certain conception of good and evil: what John Lamont calls a “teleological conception of good and evil” versus an “accounting conception of good and evil.”22According to the accounting conception, which Lamont holds is the prevalent view among contemporary philosophers, “both good and evil are features of the world that can be thought of as quantities of some kind or other.”23 On this view, “A state of affairs A will be better than a state of affairs B if the good in A minus the evil in A is greater than the good in B minus the evil in B.”24 According to the teleological view, however, which Aquinas embraces, “both good and evil are functions of the ends of beings; goodness consists in a thing’s achieving its end, badness in its failing to do so.”25 Furthermore, according to this view, the parts of a thing, whether good or bad, bear a distinct relation to the whole of which they are a part, the whole itself having a function into which the parts fit. The good of a part can contribute to the badness of the whole, and therefore be bad, absolutely speaking; conversely, the badness of a part can contribute to the goodness of the whole, and therefore be good, absolutely speaking. To illustrate all of this, Lamont uses the following example. The massive increase of the number of rabbits in Australia is good for those rabbits, but bad for Australia as a whole. Conversely, killing the excess rabbits is bad for the rabbits, but good for Australia as a whole. Evaluating the increase of rabbits in Australia therefore does not require balancing the overall good of Australia with the badness of killing the rabbits (using the accounting conception). Instead, it requires determining whether the badness of killing the rabbits contributes to the goodness, and hence flourishing, of Australia as a whole; or, we could say, Australia attaining its overall telos or end. Thus, we may consider killing the rabbits to be bad, but we cannot say their deaths are bad, or evil,

70  God, Evil, and the Good Creation absolutely speaking. “It is an evil for them,” Lamont says, “but that very same evil for them is good absolutely considered, because it is good for the whole—the Australian ecosystem—of which the rabbits function as a part.”26 Employing the teleological conception of good and evil, then, we can say the following. God’s ultimate goal in creating is not primarily to bring about a world which, in the end, has a great surplus of good within it, or even just a distinctly favorable balance of good over evil within it (say, by virtue of containing evil of just one kind). God’s ultimate goal in creating, whatever specific creative route he takes, is to bring about a world which, despite whatever evil exists within it, is entirely good in the end; or, as I also will continue to say, is ultimately good or good as a whole. And an ultimately good world, per the teleological conception of good and evil, is one in which each and every evil within the world, along with all of the good within the world, contributes in the end to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty, of the world as a whole. Such evil is, of course, bad considered in itself, taken as a part of the much greater cosmic whole. But it is not bad absolutely speaking, and in fact, is good, absolutely speaking, precisely because it contributes in its own way, via divine providence, to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of the world as a whole. More specifically, insofar as any and all of the evil in a given world contributes, via divine providence, to the world realizing all kinds and levels of goodness within it—thereby enabling that world to attain its telos of fully reflecting divine goodness, as far as it able to do so—then such evil is a good thing absolutely considered. 27 What all this means, then, is that any world that God would create would be (or turn out to be) an ultimately good cosmic whole: a world, which, despite whatever evil it contains, is, in the end, good, perfect, and so beautiful, taken as a whole. Consequently, I think the following principle is true: (C2) It is entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create a world W1 versus a world W2—both of which are ultimately good cosmic wholes—even if W1 contains more evil than W2 would contain. Since any world God would create is an ultimately good cosmic whole, then both W1 and W2 are ultimately good cosmic wholes. And so, whatever reason God has for creating W2—even if it contains a lot less evil than W1—God has for creating W1. And a reason sufficient for creating either W2 or W1 is a reason sufficient for creating just one of them: say, W1 instead of W2.28 Therefore, even if our own world has more evil within it than other, comparable, possible worlds, God, acting in accord with his perfect goodness, has a sufficient reason for creating our own world versus these other worlds.

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 71 However, we may still think, insofar as both W1 and W2 are ultimately good cosmic wholes, and W1 contains more evil than W2, then W2 is a better world than W1, which means that God does have more reason to create W2 than W1. Perhaps this is true, according to an accounting conception of good and evil: the net goodness W2 would contain is greater than the net goodness in W1, given the greater amount of evil that exists in W1. However, even if it is true, on a teleological conception of good and evil, W2 is not a better world than W1, and that is because both W2 and W1 are the same in this regard: both worlds are ultimately good cosmic wholes. Moreover, there is presumably a world W3 that contains less badness than W2. Consequently, while W3 may be a better world than W2, according to an accounting conception of good and evil, insofar as it, too, is an ultimately good cosmic whole, then, according to a teleological conception of good and evil, it is not any better than W2, or W1 for that matter. In this sense, it remains entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create W1, W2, or W3; and so, God has no more reason to create W3 than W2 or W1. Put another way, since God’s own reason for creating is his own goodness, it is entirely and equally consistent for God to create W1, W2, or W3. Given God’s ultimate aim in bringing about an ultimately good cosmic whole, whichever world he creates, God has a reason sufficient for creating that world, and so choosing to create W1 rather than W2 or W3. Admittedly, claiming that God has a reason sufficient for creating our own, particular world qua ultimately good cosmic whole does not mean that we can grasp that reason, or the divine motivation for creating our own, particular world, versus any other particular world, in full (certainly in this life). And so, if we are still wondering why God created our own world when he could have created other worlds qua ultimately good cosmic wholes that each contains less evil than our own, then really, we are asking ourselves to understand the mind of God in a way that, as finite creatures (again, at least in this life), we simply cannot. Nevertheless, I will close this section of this chapter by briefly making two more points that also speak at least on some level to the question of why did God create this particular world, with all of the evil that it contains. First, as Aquinas explicitly contends (and most theists readily agree), creation remains a free choice on God’s part, as does his choice to create our own world versus any other number of other worlds that successfully reflect his goodness as ultimately good cosmic wholes.29 In fact, in the end, to explain why God would create any world, regardless of the amount of evil that it contains, we have to appeal to divine freedom since God could have chosen not to create at all.30 Second, I think that Aquinas alleviates the need to answer in full why God would create our own world with all of the evil within it by directing us instead to consider how God providentially confronts and deals with such evil. “Since God is maximally good,” Aquinas writes, quoting Augustine, “he would

72  God, Evil, and the Good Creation not allow any evil to exist in his works if he were not powerful enough and good enough to draw good even from evil.”31 As I will now argue in more detail, in any world God would create, God ensures that that world will, in the end, be an ultimately good world by bringing ultimate good out all such evil, ordering it all to the goodness of the world as a whole. And so, why would God create our own world with so much evil in it? Because he can and will redeem all of the evil that it contains in the end.

3.3  Divine providence and divine redemption of evil As I have argued, any world that God would create would be an ultimately good cosmic whole. And, God brings about an ultimately good cosmic whole by redeeming all of the evil within it in the end. The goal of this section of this chapter, then, in building on the work of the previous section, is to explicate and defend another, central thesis concerning God and evil, specifically as it pertains to divine providence: (C3) In any world W God would create, God would redeem each and every evil e in W by ordering e to the goodness of W as a whole, thereby also ensuring that e contributes in the end to the goodness of W as a whole. According to (C3), there is no evil that exists within any world that God would create which, in the end, is left unredeemed by God. That is to say, according to (C3), there is no evil in the end in any world from which God could not and would not draw good, and so no evil that God could not and would not incorporate into his plan to bring about a world that fully reflects divine goodness in the end (as far as it is able to do so, given the kind of world that it is). And, affirming the truth (C3), like affirming the truth of (C1) and (C2), follows from affirming the truth about who God essentially is. A God of infinite power is able to redeem all evil, a God of infinite goodness possesses the will to redeem all evil (a will set on redeeming all evil), and a God of infinite wisdom knows all evil and how to redeem it. However, I also think properly defending (C3) requires discussing how, more precisely, a God of infinite power, goodness, and wisdom will redeem all evil in the end, or would do so in any world that he created. In other words, properly defending (C3) also requires discussing the doctrine of divine providence. To start, one could argue as follows. Having created a world W1 and everything within it in its entirety, God knows for each and every thing that he has created and exists, both how it can behave and how it is likely to behave, given the nature and powers that God afforded it. Moreover, God knows all of the ways each of the good

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 73 things he has made can fail in being good. Consequently, God knows all of the ways that evil could and likely will arise within W1 since evil above all obtains when created things cause and suffer evil in relating to one another in multifarious ways. God formulates a plan, then, to redeem all such evil—ordering it to the goodness of W1 as a whole— based on his knowledge of what evils may and probably will obtain, and then carries out that plan in response to what evils do obtain. In fact, the more time progresses, and the more God learns about W1, and everything within W1 that he has made, the better equipped he becomes to respond to all of the evil that occurs within W1, finding more subtle and innovative ways of redeeming it. In the end, then, although God does not have absolute control over all of the evil that occurs within W1, God does possess the power, goodness, and wisdom needed to ensure that every evil that does occur will be redeemed by him in the end. God thereby also ensures that W1 is an ultimately good cosmic whole in the end. What I have articulated here is basically an open theist view of divine providence, which, I am suggesting, one could appeal to in defending (C3).32 The question before us, though, is whether the open theist’s model of divine providence and redemption of evil best serves our efforts to defend (C3) in full. I suggest that it does not, for the following main reason. In conceding that God does not have absolute control over all of the evil that occurs in W1, the open theist also must concede that much evil will occur in W1 that God may not specifically have planned for, or known (with certainty) would obtain in W1. As a result, much more evil than good may obtain within W1 in the end. Now, taken by itself, this possibility is not problematic since the open theist might argue that, per (C2), it is perfectly consistent for God to create W1 (versus other worlds besides W1 he could have created) because all that (C2) requires is that God ensures that W1—however much evil it will end up containing in the end—is an ultimately good cosmic whole in the end. However, this is precisely where the open theist faces a real problem. Given that God, on the open theist’s model of divine providence, is always responding (in real time) to the evil that occurs, and revising his providential plan accordingly, it seems quite possible that among all of the evil that proliferates in W1 at least one evil would fall outside of God’s ever-evolving plan to redeem all evil in the end, and which therefore God could not find a place for in his plan to redeem all evil in the end. (C3) stipulates, however, that in any world W God would create God would redeem each and every evil in W in the end. While the open theist might say it is unlikely—even highly unlikely—that any evil would obtain in any open theist world that God could not and would not redeem, he cannot guarantee this, given his open view of divine providence. And it is precisely that sort of theological guarantee that I think (C3) requires.

74  God, Evil, and the Good Creation Also in defense of (C3), a Molinist might argue as follows. God knows all truths, including all of those truths concerning what each entity he might create would do in any circumstance in which it was placed. This includes, of course, us and our free choices: God knows via his “middle knowledge” all of those “counterfactuals of creaturely freedom” concerning us as his free creatures, or those contingent truths concerning what we would freely do—good or bad—in any circumstances in which we were placed, in any world we might exist. Consequently, working from his knowledge of all counterfactuals concerning his creatures (us as well as all other causes in nature), God would know all of the evil that not only could obtain in any given world W but also would obtain in W: evil that God knows would result from God placing his creatures in certain circumstances. Here, the advantage of adopting the Molinist’s view, in contrast to the open theist’s view, seems to be the following: guided in particular by his middle knowledge, God knows—and knows infallibly—once he has actualized a particular world W1 all of the evil that will arise in W1. And, it is because he possesses infallible knowledge of all of the evil that will occur in W1 that God is able from all eternity to form and then carry out an infallible plan to redeem it. However, I think the Molinist’s view of providence remains vulnerable to the same worry or danger to which the open theist’s view is vulnerable. On the Molinist’s view, God has absolutely no control over which creaturely counterfactuals there are: these truths obtain (or have the truth-value that they do) completely independently of God’s will. And so, when considering creating any world W, God is beholden to what his middle knowledge tells him would obtain—including any evil that would obtain—in any circumstances in which he placed his creatures in W. But if that is true, God may very well not be helped by his middle knowledge but actually hurt (or constrained) by it: it remains possible that in any world God might create, there is evil that would obtain in that world that he simply could not redeem. In other words, as the set of all creaturely counterfactuals, or the “fates” (so to speak) may have already decided, no combination of creatures, which God might instantiate, would yield a world in which each and every evil that obtains in that world is, in fact, redeemable by God.33 In fact, perhaps the best combination of creatures yields a world with still one irredeemable evil in it. There are no ultimately good cosmic wholes available for God to create. But if that is true—and it certainly seems at least possibly true— then the Molinist is in, arguably, no better position to defend (C3) than is the open theist. It seems, then, that in order properly to defend (C3)—which I think we should want to defend—we need a model of divine providence that gives God absolute control over which goods and evils obtain in any world he would create. And that is because it is only by affording God such control that we can be assured, per (C3), that no evil could or

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 75 would obtain in any world God would create that God could not and would not redeem in the end. So how, exactly, is God able to measure out, in a precise way, all of the evil that obtains within any such world: evil that I am claiming he could and would redeem in the end? Here, we might be tempted to think the following: in order to have absolute control over which goods and evils (or good and bad states of affairs involving his good creatures) obtain, God must directly will that particular goods and evils obtain. By doing so, and only by doing so, one might argue, can God ensure that only those evils obtain that he wants to obtain: again, evils from which he knows he can and will draw good. However, this view also faces distinct problems. A God who directly wills evil intends evil; and a God who intends evil cannot truly be the highest good, even if God only intends evil so that he can bring good out of it. Furthermore, insofar as God necessarily does or performs what he wills, then a God who directly wills evil necessarily does evil. But God, by virtue of being perfectly powerful and good, cannot do evil, insofar as (certainly on the Thomistic view) doing evil consists of failing or falling short in goodness in what one does. In fact, by virtue of being perfectly powerful and good, God cannot fail or fall short in any way in any of what God does, including directly willing whatever goodness that he does.34 Insofar, then, as evil obtains within God’s works, it is only because, in accordance with his perfect power and goodness, God directly wills and so intends the specific good that he does. Herein, then, lies what I think is the best way to defend (C3) using a robust model of divine providence. Begin with Aquinas’s claim that it falls to the divine will, and within the scope of divine power, to ordain not only that things obtain but also how they obtain, whether necessarily or contingently: Since God’s will is absolutely efficacious, it follows not only that the things God wills to be effected are in fact effected, but also that they are effected in the mode in which God wills them to be effected. But God wills some things to be effected necessarily and others contingently, so that there might be an order among things for the sake of the completeness of the universe. And so for some effects he has applied necessary causes which cannot fail and from which the effects issue forth by necessity, whereas for other effects he has applied contingent and defectible causes, from which the effects issue forth contingently.35 Similarly, concerning divine providence, Aquinas contends that, in order that all kinds and levels of goodness obtain within God’s universe, “God has prepared necessary causes for certain effects, so that those effects occur necessarily, whereas for other effects he has prepared contingent causes, so that they occur contingently in accord with the status of their

76  God, Evil, and the Good Creation proximate causes.”36 He continues: “And so if God’s providence disposes a thing to occur infallibly and necessarily, then it occurs infallibly and necessarily, whereas if the plan of God’s providence decrees that a thing should occur contingently, then it occurs contingently.”37 Next, consider again a specific world W1, which is very much like our own world. In W1, from all eternity, God directly wills not only that specific things come to be—with all of their powers and vulnerabilities— but also that they function in specific ways as the kinds of good beings God made them to be, whether as necessary causes (certain natural causes, like fire) that bring about their effects necessarily, or as contingent causes (such as ourselves) who bring about their effects contingently. This also means that in W1 God directly wills that a myriad of things realize their God-given natures in a myriad of ways, thereby bringing about a myriad of effects. Many of those effects will be good states of affairs, but many of them will not. As I already have argued, especially in a crowded, material world, it does not seem possible for a myriad of things capable of causing and suffering evil to exist, act, and interact with one another in accordance with their created natures without actually causing and suffering much evil as a result. However, God does not directly will that such evil occurs. He does not will or approve of it in its own right, as something he wants or desires to obtain in his creation for its own sake. Instead, God allows it to occur, and so (as I will continue to say) wills to include it in its entirety in W1 for the sake of all of the good such evil makes possible; good that arises from God’s directly willing and so intending that many good things exist and be what God made them to be.38 God, then, on this model, is not surprised by any of the evil that obtains within W1. In fact, just the opposite is true. By directly willing and so intending that specific things exist in W1 and exercise their Godgiven powers in specific ways, thereby bringing about specific effects, God foresees—or, more accurately, sees all at once, in one eternal, comprehensive act of knowing—all of the specific evils that will result in W1: evils both caused (or done) and suffered by the many good things he has made. Accordingly, by virtue of precisely measuring out, via his eternal and unthwartable will, all of the good things that will obtain within W1, God is also able to precisely measure out all of the evil that will obtain within W1; evil that he infallibly knows will obtain as a result of infallibly willing that it obtain—albeit permissively, as a result of directly willing that certain good things obtain (whether necessarily or contingently). But since God infallibly knows all of the specific evils that he infallibly wills to include within W1, he also possesses all of the control he needs to ensure that each of these evils is conjoined to good: in particular, those redeeming goods that God draws from all of the evil that he foresees will occur in W1 and for the sake of which he wills to include evil within W1 in the first place. It is by providentially conjoining

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 77 redeeming goods to all of the evil that God knowingly includes within W1 that God ensures that, per (C2), W1 is an ultimately good cosmic whole worthy of being created in which, per (C3), each and every evil is ordered to the goodness of the world as a whole and so contributes to the goodness of the world as a whole in the end. As I bring this section of this chapter to a close, let me make a few further points concerning the Thomistic view or picture of providence that I have explicated so far in defending (C3). Embracing this view of providence, and so defending (C3), does not require cataloging—certainly in any comprehensive way—what redeeming goods there are, or how God redeems all evil in the end. The primary reasons for thinking (C3) is true are philosophical and theological, not empirical, in nature. In other words, we begin with the philosophically and theologically defensible claim that God exists and is the highest good who possesses a sovereign will; and, from that claim, infer that God will redeem all evil in the end. Given that we are obviously not privy to God’s eternal plan of redemption, we cannot expect ourselves to build a case for (C3) based primarily on what we observe or think we observe about the various ways in which God carries out that plan. In this life, our vision of God’s redemptive work is imperfect because our understanding of God (and God’s ways) is imperfect. As I will argue later in this book, it is only from the privileged epistemic standpoint of heavenly glory that we can expect to see in full how God carried out his redemptive plan for the cosmos because it is only then that we will see God himself in full. That said, I certainly don’t think we should be agnostics concerning God’s redemptive plan and work. If (C3) is true (which I think it is), then we should be able to identify at least some of the different, prominent kinds of redeeming goods that God wills to obtain as part of his work to redeem all evil. There are not only concomitant natural goods, for example, that God brings out of natural evil, for individual animals—say, when predators flourish at the expense of their prey—but also consequent natural goods that he brings about for the larger, global community (across both space and time) of which those individual animals are a part. As I will argue in more depth in Chapter 5, there are consequent moral and spiritual goods that God brings out of the evil that we both do and suffer, in confronting and redeeming the evil of sin. And, God can and will redeem evil within the context of (at least some, but possibly all) individual human lives by ordering it all to the ultimate, personal good of eternal life with God. Accordingly, God’s plan to redeem all evil in bringing about an ultimately good cosmic whole, per (C3), includes and even features his plan to afford us ultimately good lives in the end. Furthermore, the ultimate good of any world God might create consists of redeeming goods that otherwise would not and could not obtain were certain, corresponding evils not also to obtain: redeeming goods that I

78  God, Evil, and the Good Creation think we should recognize to be of great value. Recall Aquinas: “many goods would be destroyed if God did not permit evil. For fire would not be generated if air were not corrupted; and the lion’s life would not be preserved if the ass were not killed; and if there were no wickedness, then vindicating justice and long-suffering patience would not be praised.” The point is worth emphasizing, in thinking not just about any world God would create but also our own world: the flourishing of predators, itself a great natural good, cannot obtain without God allowing the suffering of prey; vindicating justice and long-suffering patience, which are great moral and spiritual goods, cannot obtain without God allowing moral wrong-doing and the harm as well as suffering that it causes. And so, God’s will to include specific evils within his good world is always itself dependent upon or subsumed under his overarching good will and intent to bring about an ultimately good cosmic whole filled with not only many good things but also many, great redeeming goods. Finally, fully defending (C3) does require examining some of the claims I made in this section of this chapter in some more detail. On my Thomistic model of divine providence, God not only wills us to be but he also wills all of our actions to be; and it is because God wills both us and our actions to be that he knows all of the good and all of the evil that we will do: moral evil that he can and will redeem in the end. I therefore need to discuss in at least some detail how affirming all of this is consistent with affirming that God neither authors the evil that we do nor necessitates the evil that we do. However, I am going to wait until the final section of this chapter to carry out this important task since I first would like to build more concretely on the argumentative work I accomplished in this section of this chapter, addressing what I take to be a prominent question concerning the existence of natural evil within the world, and evolutionary history in particular. Why does such evil exist, and how does God redeem it?

3.4  The evolving good creation Current science tells us that the universe came into existence nearly 14 billion years ago; our own planet came into existence nearly 5 billion years ago; life on our own planet began close to 4 billion years ago. What current science, particularly in the realms of geology and biology, also tells us is that the extraordinarily long evolutionary process that produced life on our own planet, in all of its complexity, was riddled by evil. In particular, billions of nonhuman creatures, over the course of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history, not only died but also experienced significant suffering when they died, as a result of disease, disaster, and predation. In fact, as John Schneider writes, current science tells us that entire ecological worlds, and the nonhuman creatures they contained, have disappeared, and left this earth “most often in a

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 79 violently horrific, cataclysmic fashion, many of them without leaving so much as a genetic legacy to generations yet to come.”39 Schneider further points out that among those creatures that have existed within evolutionary history and continue to exist (as the products of evolution) are “certain horrific creatures whose existence remained undisclosed until fairly recent times.”40 These “anti-cosmic micro-monsters,” as Schneider calls them, inflict horrible suffering on the creatures they prey upon. Finally, Schneider says, all of the evil that occurred within evolutionary history was not incidental to the development of life on our planet, but was deeply inscribed into the “formative evolutionary process itself.”41 Collectively, these facts about our evolutionary history constitute what Schneider calls the “Darwinian Problem” of evil. The existence of such widespread evil within evolutionary history—even if it is caused and suffered by nonhuman creatures, and not ourselves—raises the formidable question (says Schneider) of why God would use evolution as part of the process by which he makes his creation. This is why Schneider says that theists must provide a “sufficiently plausible God-justifying account of Darwinian evil” which not only reconciles the existence of Darwinian evil with the existence of God but also, importantly, makes it possible to begin to “‘see’ the active presence of divine power and goodness” amidst such evil itself.42 Schneider offers his own account, or causa Dei, which I think is particularly interesting and important, and will accordingly discuss in due course. But first, I am going to show how the Thomistic theodicy I have developed so far—while not aiming to justify God in the face of Darwinian evil, in response to any “Darwinian Problem” of evil—nonetheless enables us better to see or understand why it would be fitting for God, or greatly in line with who God is as the highest good, to employ an evil-ridden, evolutionary process to create our own world qua ultimately good cosmic whole, when he could have done otherwise.43 To begin, it certainly seems to be within the scope of his power, and consistent with his goodness, for God to create a world which, from its inception, contains a fixed number of good things of all kinds and levels, able both to cause and to suffer evil. While these things may not evolve into further kinds and levels of good things, they certainly could reproduce and thereby continue to help perpetuate their own species or kind, thereby also helping to continue to manifest God’s goodness over time. Let’s call this kind of world a ready-made world. Current science, though, tells us that we do no inhabit a ready-made world. It tells us instead that there was another creative avenue available for God to take: making an evolving world that produces with God many, varying kinds and levels of good things over time. Let’s assume, then, that life has evolved from simple, humble origins (a common ancestor) and via an evolutionary process that consists of the interplay of necessity (or lawful regularity) and historical contingency (or “chance”) has produced life in all of its variety and complexity over a vast stretch

80  God, Evil, and the Good Creation of time: indeed, increasing variety and complexity over a vast stretch of time—billions of years.44 Evolutionary science, of course, conceives of this creative process as unfolding (and being capable of unfolding) independently of God and God’s control. However, it is not difficult to show how it can (and I think, does) fall under God’s control. Recall that on a Thomistic view of divine providence, it falls to the divine will, and within the scope of divine power, to ordain not only that things obtain but also how they obtain, whether necessarily or contingently. We should now add that on this view God is the First Cause of all that is and comes to be, who causes or brings about what he eternally wills to be: as Aquinas puts it, “every movement of both the will and nature proceeds from [God] as the first mover (primo movente).”45 This means that God is causally operative in every state of affairs, causing necessary causes causing necessary effects, and contingent causes causing contingent effects. From all eternity, then, God assigns the specific, secondary causes (or the entire network of secondary causes) he needs in order to bring about the specific effects he wills to obtain by way of those causes, over all stretches of space and time: necessary causes causing necessary effects at their appointed time, and contingent causes causing contingent effects at their appointed time. In an evolving world like our own, these secondary causes collectively produce with God as the primary cause many good things of all kinds and levels: that is, all of the varied effects of God’s creative work, or life in all of its diversity and complexity, that God eternally wills to be over the entire evolutionary stretch of space and time.46 I am not convinced that God had to create an evolving world such as our own. Perhaps there are ready-made worlds that God could have created which, as ultimately good cosmic wholes, manifest his goodness as well as—even if not in the same way as—an evolving world such as our own. Nevertheless, I do think it was fitting for God, and highly consistent with his creative aims, as expressed in (C1), to create an evolving world instead of a ready-made world, for the following two reasons. First, it befits God, as the highest good, to include creaturely causes in the process by which he creates over time. As Aquinas notes, by including a vast array of causes, or whole network of creaturely causes, in his creative work, he relies on them as “mediators of [his] providence,”47 “not on account of any defect in his power, but by reason of the abundance of his goodness; so that he might communicate the dignity of causality (dignitatem causalitatis) even to creatures.”48 And so, while God is the First Cause of everything that has being, he chooses out of his perfect goodness to afford his creatures genuine causal and specifically creative powers of their own so that qua secondary causes, and members of their own causal network, they can co-operate with God in carrying out his creative plan, itself part of his eternally conceived providential plan for the world that he has chosen to make.

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 81 Second, God can manifest his goodness in an evolving world in a way he simply cannot in a ready-made world. A ready-made world, as I conceive of it, contains a fixed number of different kinds and levels of good things from the start, many of which can and do replicate over time but do not (or need not) diversify over time. An evolving world like our own, however, can contain many more diverse, good things than a ready-made world. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco estimates that by virtue of using evolution as his creative mechanism, God was able to produce “four billion species … over a three-billion-year period rather than just the eight million extant species today.”49 And “it would have been ecologically impossible for all four billion species to co-exist on our planet, because there are only a limited number of ecological niches on the planet at a given moment in time.”50 Furthermore, since “there is a limit to the number of species and individual organisms that can be sustained by the planet at any one moment in time,”51 an evolving world arguably can produce more levels of goodness than a ready-made world, as creatures, in accordance with God’s eternally conceived, providential plan, and moved by God as the First Cause, not only diversify but also complexify—thereby becoming capable of ever higher levels of self-realization—over vast stretches of time. Of course, it follows that by using evolution to create an almost incalculable number of good things over billions of years, that many of those things—even entire worlds of things—had to pass away in order to make room for the emergence of other good things, especially those good things which, by virtue of being more evolved, possessed higher levels of being and so goodness. Moreover, many of the good, living things that God created could not fully realize their God-given natures—thereby “developing in accord with their inbuilt teleologies,” as Haldane puts it— without causing many other good things to suffer evil at their expense. As Haldane also rightly notes, living things which have open to them higher levels of self-realization, but which also can fall short in attaining those levels of self-realization, “are vulnerable to more and greater losses …. Those who have more, have more to lose.”52 This means that a divinely created, evolving world is going to contain much more evil, and arguably much more significant evil (given significant losses by a greater number of higher-order beings), than a ready-made world. However, according to (C2), it is equally consistent for God, in accord with his perfect goodness, to create a world W1, which contains more evil than another world, W2, would contain (if God created it), presuming that both W1 and W2 are ultimately good cosmic wholes. In fact, it is equally consistent for God, in accord with his perfect goodness, to create W1 rather than W2 even if W1 contains a lot more evil than W2 would contain. So, let’s say W1 is our own world, in which God uses evolution to create life in all of its variety and complexity. And, let’s say W2 is a ready-made world, with a lot less evil in it than W1. Whether

82  God, Evil, and the Good Creation God creates W1 or W2, he will ensure that all of the evil in the world he does create contributes in the end to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of the world as a whole. And so, while Darwinian evil in our own world is, of course, bad, even horrendously bad, considered in itself, it is not bad absolutely speaking—thinking now of the world, taken as a whole—and in fact, is good, absolutely speaking, precisely because it contributes in its own way, via divine providence, to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of the world as a whole. More specifically, insofar as all of the Darwinian evil in our world contributes, via divine providence, to our world realizing all kinds and levels of goodness (including Schneider’s “micro-monsters”!) over space and time, thereby enabling that world to attain its telos of fully reflecting divine goodness, as far as it able to do so, then such evil is a good thing absolutely considered. This brings us to (C3), and how affirming (C3) helps us better see or understand why God would choose to create by way of an evolutionary process that produces so much evil. In directly willing, from all eternity, that specific kinds and levels of good creatures populate all stretches of evolutionary history and flourish within it, God indeed accepts that many of his good creatures will suffer evil as a result, especially at the expense of other creatures flourishing as the good creatures God specifically made them to be. But he does not will or approve of Darwinian evil in its own right, as something he wants or desires to obtain in his creation for its own sake. Instead, God wills to include such evil in its entirety in his good world for the sake of all of the good such evil makes possible; good that arises from God’s directly willing specific kinds and levels of good creatures to obtain and be what God made to them to be within the specific space and period of time that God allots to them to be. Since God does foresee—or, again, sees all at once, in one, eternal, comprehensive act of knowing—all of the Darwinian evil that will obtain within his creation, and which he wills to include within his creation, then he possesses all of the control he needs to ensure that all of that evil is conjoined to good: all of those great, redeeming goods for the sake of which he wills to include it within our world in the first place. Most notably, God from all eternity wills not only to bring about the concomitant natural good of certain creatures prospering at the expense of others who suffer evil as a result (via predation, most notably) but also the consequent natural good of the existence and flourishing of higher-order creatures, and so states of affairs characterized by progressively wider and greater levels of goodness, within the space left behind by all of those lower-order creatures who suffered so much evil. By carrying out this redemptive plan, employing a vast multitude of providentially assigned, proximate (necessary and contingent) causes, God providentially ensures that Darwinian evil—including, of course, all of the death suffered by entire species within evolutionary history—contributes

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 83 in its entirety to the full realization of goodness within the created order. And so, even though widespread suffering and death are deeply inscribed within evolutionary history, none of it occurred in vain; none of it is wasted. By bringing so much good of all kinds and levels out of Darwinian evil, or conjoining so much redeeming good to such evil, God ensures that instead of detracting from the goodness of the world as a whole, it actually contributes to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of the world as a whole in the end. I find it surprising, therefore, that Schneider, en route to constructing his own, Christian response to the Darwinian Problem of evil, so quickly dismisses what he calls the “Aesthetic Theodicy” of classical thinkers like Aquinas and Augustine. Schneider claims that the aesthetic world into which God integrates evil on the Thomistic and Augustinian view is characterized by “harmony and balance,” and “the appeal to the beauty of harmony, balance, and integration of all parts into a pleasing whole barely applies to the natural realm as unveiled by evolutionary science.”53 But this claim is not only ambiguous but it is also misleading. Once more, on the Thomistic theodicy I have been expositing and defending, God’s fundamental aim in creating any world is not to create an overall favorable balance between good and evil, or a mere balanced harmony of good and evil parts. It is to communicate his goodness as fully as possible within a finite world—across both space and time—and order whatever evil arises in that world to the goodness of that world as a whole, thereby ensuring that that world is an ultimately good cosmic whole in the end. Consequently, even though I have not put forward this theodicy to justify God in the face of Darwinian evil, I do think it meets what Schneider calls the “Defeat Condition” for a plausible Godjustifying account of God and Darwinian evil. As Schneider explains the Defeat Condition, “The person (God) is authorized in causing/ allowing the evil so long as the agent defeats the evil, by integrating it into a greatly good whole that could not be as great as it is without the evil part.”54 But that is, in effect, what I have been claiming, employing (C3): while God does not directly will or cause Darwinian evil (or any evil for that matter), he redeems it by ensuring that, in accordance with his eternally conceived, providential plan, it actually contributes to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of the world as a whole in the end. The deeper objection Schneider has to Aesthetic Theodicy, at least as traditionally conceived, however, is that it does not adequately meet the Defeat Condition. Drawing on both the Book of Job and Saint Paul’s theology of election, Schneider claims that the God of Christian theism is already at work in defeating evil: bringing forth “cosmic life from the chaotic realities of suffering, disorder, and death”55 and artistically pruning a cosmic “Tree of Life” onto which he plans to graft humans and animals alike. And yet, says Schneider, God will not fully defeat evil until, in the life to come, or “an eschatological postmortem setting

84  God, Evil, and the Good Creation of some kind,”56 he does so for both human and nonhuman animals alike. It is not enough, then, for God to defeat Darwinian evil on a cosmic scale because, even if such “kenotic” or self-sacrificial animal suffering in particular makes possible the emergence and flourishing of other good species of creatures, with whom God wants to populate the universe, it does not benefit the animals themselves. Here, Schneider further appeals to Christian belief in the resurrection of Christ: just as God incorporated Christ’s own kenotic suffering into his final, transfigured form as the risen Christ, thereby defeating the evil Christ suffered within the context of his own life, so God (Schneider hopes) will defeat all of the kenotic evils that animals suffered throughout evolutionary history within the context of their own, resurrected lives. Schneider’s proposal for how God defeats evil for animals—making “suffering itself an essential contributor to the kind of heavenly happiness enjoyed by the animals postmortem”57—is both speculative and only partially fleshed out. He suggests that we think of animals as martyrs, whose kenotic suffering within evolutionary history makes them particularly close to Christ. Moreover, like human martyrs who made the “ultimate sacrifice for God,”58 these animal martyrs will receive “supremely high honor and praise in Heaven.”59 By interweaving the evil they suffered in their earthly lives into a heavenly life suffused with divine honor, praise, and gratitude for the sacrifice they made, God will defeat such evil within the context of their own lives. And such evil remains defeated even if the animals themselves cannot fully appreciate (or perhaps appreciate at all) why they are being so honored and praised by God. While it goes beyond the aims of the current chapter to deal with Schneider’s claims about divine defeat of evil for animals in full, I do think it is important to respond to his claim that for a Christian theodicy (on Schneider’s view, a causa Dei) “to be acceptably plausible, it will have to include grounds for believing that God will defeat Darwinian evils in an eschatological postmortem setting of some kind.”60 If Schneider is claiming that on any acceptably plausible Christian view God must defeat these evils for the animals that suffered them within the context of their postmortem lives, or that Christian theism must provide grounds for thinking that God will do so, then I think that he is requiring too much. Since I don’t take traditional Christian theism to unequivocally support universal redemption of evil for human beings (in fact, many if not most if its practitioners, like Aquinas, reject universal redemption of evil for human beings), then there is strong reason to think that it should not be required to support universal redemption of evil for animals. Even if we accept that animals have genuine moral worth (as both Schneider and I do), it does not follow that God’s showing goodness to them requires that he redeem evil for them in the end since God’s showing goodness to us, as creatures with even greater moral worth (or dignity), does not

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 85 require that he redeem evil for each of us in the end. (I will defend this latter point in Chapter 6.) Second, it remains debatable whether God even can redeem or defeat evil for the animals themselves, within the context of their own lives, as Schneider contends. I am not willing to definitively rule out that this is possible (even I am doubtful that it is); nor do I deny that there is value in aiming to show how it is possible, as Schneider aims to do. However, this is a far cry from demanding that the Christian do so, or hanging the success of a Christian theodicy on its ability to do so. It is much more reasonable, I think, to require a Christian theodicy to provide reasons for thinking that a perfectly good God, as the perfectly good governor of the world, can and will redeem all of the evil that animals suffered in their earthly lives by ordering it to the good of the world as a whole, as I have done here. Once more, within the divine economy, none of the evil that animals suffer is wasted; it all contributes to good—indeed, the world’s own ultimate good—and in that contribution we see the perfect goodness of God manifest. All of this said, I do think that any theist who is committed to holding that God is perfectly good should think more deeply about how God might ultimately show his goodness to all of those individual animals he allowed to suffer so much evil, over the course of evolutionary history, even if he does not redeem that evil for them within the context of their own lives. In particular, it’s possible and even rational, I think, to hope that God will bring these animals back to life not in order to defeat the evil they suffered (given that he has defeated it on a cosmic level) but rather to engulf it (in Marilyn Adams’s terms),61 thereby manifesting his perfect goodness to them, and so, in a way, honoring and thanking them for the ultimate sacrifice that they made in service to his redemptive plan for the whole world. As sentient beings, animals at the very least can experientially enjoy the great good of life lived eternally with God even if they are not martyrs, properly speaking (an honor reserved for human beings alone), and remain incapable of appreciating on any level how they sacrificially served God’s larger plan to bring about an ultimately good cosmic whole out of the evil that they suffered in their premortem lives. Granted, in making these admittedly speculative claims, I am departing from a traditionally Thomistic conception of God’s providential plan for animals since Aquinas denies that it is metaphysically possible for animals to inhabit any postmortem state.62 And so, I do need to make a further case for extending the Thomistic theodicy I have explicated and defended so far to make room for hoping that God will enable individual animals to attain a supernatural good in addition to the natural good he wills them to attain in this life by realizing their God-given natures. I will make this case in Chapter 7. For the moment, though, we need to turn from reflecting on the place of natural evil, and specifically

86  God, Evil, and the Good Creation Darwinian evil, within God’s sovereign plan to redeem all evil and think more deeply about the place of moral evil within God’s sovereign plan to redeem all evil.

3.5  Divine providence, moral evil, and free will Central to the Thomistic theodicy I have developed so far is the claim that God is sovereign over all states of affairs. It is because God is sovereign over all states of affairs, or events that occur within the world, that God is able to redeem all of the evil that occurs within the world. Consequently, on my Thomistic view, God is sovereign over us and what we do, and it is because God is sovereign over us and what we do that God is able to redeem all of the evil that we do. However, God’s being sovereign over all that we do neither makes God the author of the evil that we do nor does it undermine our freedom in doing the evil that we do. I now need to explore in more detail why we should think that this is the case. Recall that in the previous section of this chapter, I argued that God exercises his will as the First Cause by causing or bringing about with his creatures certain states of affairs: necessary causes causing necessary effects and contingent causes causing contingent effects. Since God always infallibly accomplishes what he wills, and, from God’s eternal standpoint, immediately accomplishes what he wills, I think that rather than conceiving of God’s willing as something distinct from God’s doing, we should instead conceive of God’s willing and doing as constituting the same act, which is why, in what follows, I will continue to refer to them as one act (in the singular rather than plural).63 Therefore, since we are contingent causes who bring about our own effects, then God’s willing that we cause certain effects, or perform certain actions—in line with his good, overarching providential plan for the whole world—just is God’s causing us causing those effects, or performing those actions. So, speaking more formally, let’s say that God’s willing that a rational agent S perform an action A consists of God’s causing or bringing about [S performing A], or as David Alexander puts it, God’s causing or bringing about [S A-ing].64 What we need to note, to start, is that these are two different acts: the former, God’s willing and causing [S A-ing], is an exercise of God’s primary causality, while the latter, S A-ing, is an exercise of S’s secondary causality. And, as Alexander notes, since they are different acts, then they require different evaluations. From the fact that S does wrong in A-ing—thinking now of A as a morally bad act—it does not follow that God does any wrong in willing and causing [S A-ing]. S does wrong in A-ing because S fails to meet the moral standard, or falls short of meeting the moral standard, that governs all of S’s actions; a standard S is obligated to meet. But in willing and causing [S A-ing] God does not fail

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 87 to meet any moral standard. In fact, I argue that it would be impossible for God to fail to meet any moral standard in any of God’s actions because, as I argued in Chapter 2, God (or the divine nature) is the moral standard against we measure the goodness and badness of all human acts. Another way of putting this, as I said earlier (in Section 3.3), is that God cannot fail or fall short in anything that God does, including willing and causing us acting wrongly or sinfully.65 Consequently, there is nothing that God ought to have done but failed to do in God’s willing and causing [S A-ing].66 I think we can strengthen this initial analysis even further by drawing on Aquinas’s theory of evil as privation. As W. Matthews Grant has argued, on the Thomistic view, while there clearly are good and bad actions, no action, considered just by itself, is bad (just as, we could add, no person, considered by himself, is bad).67 In fact, any action simply qua action, or exercise of our rational powers, as an actually existing thing, is good (given the convertibility of being and goodness), which means that its badness must consist in something else that is distinct from it. Since we have good reason to think that the moral goodness of an act lies in its conformity to the requisite moral standard, then we also have good reason to think that the badness of an act lies in its lack of conformity to the standard. Thus, an action is bad not in virtue of possessing some positive quality or property of badness, but in virtue of being morally defective or deficient: again, lacking the goodness that it ought to possess as the kind of act that it is. What this further means is that in willing that we exercise our powers of free will in the particular ways that we do, God directly wills and only causes what is good: us and our performing those actions employing our rational powers in the way that we freely decide. But God in no way directly wills and causes what is bad: the failure of our actions to conform to the requisite standard, which we ought to uphold but fail to uphold when we commit sinful actions. This is why, as Aquinas says, it is mistaken to say that God even indirectly wills or causes moral evil or sin since “it is beside the intention of the sinner, that any good should follow from his sin.”68 It is because God in no way shares the intention of the sinner that we should say instead that God wills to permit us to sin as a result of directly willing and bringing it about that we freely perform what Aquinas calls the “act of sin” (actus peccati).69 So, for any morally bad act A, God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] consists of God’s directly bringing about S and whatever it is in S A-ing that makes it good—as an exercise of S’s rational powers—but not what makes it bad, its lack of conformity to the moral standard. Therefore, God does not directly will and bring about the badness of A. Rather, God only directly wills and brings about S’s own, positive contribution to S A-ing (we could say). Furthermore, in willing and causing [S A-ing], God only intends what is good in S A-ing and not what is bad in S A-ing.

88  God, Evil, and the Good Creation Therefore, even though, for any morally bad act A, God wills and causes [S A-ing], God is in no way the author of the badness A. While S clearly falls short in A-ing, God does not fall short in any way in willing and causing [S A-ing]. It is entirely consistent with God’s perfect goodness for God to will and cause [S A-ing] even though he could not have willed and caused [S A-ing]. Actually, given all that I have argued in this chapter, I need to qualify this claim further: for each and every morally bad act A, it is entirely consistent with God’s perfect goodness for God to will and cause [S A-ing], when he could have done otherwise, given God’s infallible will and plan to redeem the badness of A and all of the badness that obtains as a result of S A-ing. As a result, God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] is always dependent on and subsumed under his infallible will and plan to bring about an ultimately good cosmic whole in which each and every evil that obtains within it is redeemed. In fact, as I will argue moving ahead, God only wills to permit moral evil, or include it in his good world, for the sake of certain redeeming goods—moral and spiritual goods—many of which, in the absence of such evil, otherwise would not and could not obtain. Thus, let’s say the following: God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] constitutes God’s willing to permit moral evil—the badness of A, as caused by S—in order to bring about those moral and spiritual goods he eternally wills to conjoin to that evil and all of the badness that results from S committing it.70 And, as I have been arguing throughout this chapter, God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] ensures that A, and specifically the badness of A, occupies a specific place within God’s eternally conceived, providential plan to bring about an ultimately good world populated by these great, redeeming goods. This is why, far from wanting to divest God of sovereignty over us and the evil that we freely do, we should want God to be fully sovereign over us and all of the evil that we freely do! With this key point in mind, let’s now finally turn to reflect on what I imagine is a lingering, pressing question concerning the place of free will in a world where, for each and every agent S and each and every action A, God wills and causes [S A-ing]. While God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] may indeed be compatible with S A-ing (and even guarantees that S is the proximate cause of A), it may seem flatly incompatible with S being the free, contingent cause of A, and so A being a free, contingent act. As a result, one could argue that the following two propositions are logically and metaphysically inconsistent: 1 God wills and causes [S A-ing]; 2 S exercises free will in A-ing. Actually, I think we need to refine this argument further because if compatibilism is true, then God’s determining [S A-ing] is compatible with S’s

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 89 freely A-ing, which means that (1)—assuming it entails determinism—is not incompatible with (2). I am not going to pursue this line of response here, not only because I am not a compatibilist but also because I think it is possible to show, in at least some detail here, how God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] does not determine [S A-ing]: it remains consistent with S possessing and exercising incompatibilist, libertarian free will. So, for our present purposes, what I really need to do is respond to the claim that the following two propositions are inconsistent: 1  God wills and causes [S A-ing]; 2*  S exercises libertarian free will in A-ing. The charge here is that while God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] does not prevent S from A-ing, it does prevent S from A-ing exercising libertarian free will. We now need to explore why we should think that this claim is true. To begin, consider how Alexander (himself a compatibilist) defines libertarian free will: Libertarianism about Free Will (LFW): S is morally responsible for action A only if A is ultimately up to S.71 Alexander continues, “To say that A is ultimately up to S is to say that S is able to act completely independently. If S has ultimate control over some of his actions, then S can act independently of his genes, environment, desires, beliefs, and even God.”72 Consequently, following Alexander, one might argue that since S A-ing is clearly not independent of God’s willing and causing [S A-ing], then S cannot be a free agent in the libertarian sense, and so S does not exercise libertarian free will in performing A. In response, and importantly, I do think that LFW, as Alexander defines it, is true: S cannot be morally responsible for A if A is not ultimately up to S. What I deny, however, is what Alexander says that LFW entails: A’s being ultimately up to S requires that S perform A independently of God’s willing and causing [S A-ing]. In other words, what I deny is the following, amended conception of LFW: Libertarianism about Free Will (LFW*): S is morally responsible for action A only if A is solely ultimately up to S.73 Clearly, if God wills and causes [S A-ing], then A cannot be solely ultimately up to S. However, even if A cannot be solely ultimately up to S, why cannot it be ultimately up to both S and God? If the skeptic thinks that (1) and (2*) are inconsistent, then he must give reason for thinking why this cannot be the case.

90  God, Evil, and the Good Creation Here is the route I expect such a person to take. Begin with what Eleonore Stump says about Aquinas’s account of human freedom: Human freedom is vested in human cognitive capacities and in the connection of the will to those capacities. As long as human acts originate in those faculties, those acts count as free …. On Aquinas’s account, the causal chain culminating in a free mental or bodily act cannot originate in a cause extrinsic to the agent just because it must have its ultimate source in the proper functioning of the agent’s own intellect and will.74 So here is the problem (it seems). If God wills and causes [S A-ing], then the causal chain culminating in S A-ing and so A itself originates not with S but with God. And, if it originates with God, and not with S, then A is ultimately up to God, not S. And so, it is not possible to affirm LFW after all. Given his conception of human freedom, Aquinas (and those such as myself who want to follow him) cannot affirm both that God wills and causes [S A-ing] and that S in A-ing exercises libertarian free will: (1) and (2*) are inconsistent. However, there is a fundamental flaw—or at least crucial oversight— in this reasoning. Let’s grant with Stump that if God wills and causes [S A-ing], the causal chain culminating in A does originate in God since causes are prior to their effects, and effects are downstream from their causes. In fact, the causal chain culminating in A originates with God and God alone. However, this does not mean that God’s act of willing and causing [S A-ing] is prior—either temporally or explanatorily—to S A-ing, and so is an extrinsic cause of S A-ing. It is perfectly reasonable to hold, as I think the Thomist should hold, that even if God is prior (and extrinsic) to S and S A-ing, God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] is not prior to S and S A-ing. Instead, it is concurrent or simultaneous with S A-ing.75 In fact, it is perfectly reasonable to hold that God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] from all eternity is concurrent with S A-ing since (certainly on the Thomistic view) from God’s eternal vantage point, there is no “before” and “after”: all of time, and so all of the acts we perform in time, are immediately present to God in his eternity.76 And, if God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] from all eternity is concurrent with S A-ing, then A is ultimately up to both S and God, which means that even though God eternally wills and causes [S A-ing], in performing A, S exercises libertarian free will. (1) and (2*) are consistent after all. In order to be able to see even more clearly how this is the case, let’s unpack what it means for A to be ultimately up to S (and God) even further. Following Grant, let’s say that “it is sufficient for an act’s being ultimately up to an agent … that it be within the agent’s power or control whether or not the act occurs.”77 And, let’s further say that “it is sufficient for its being within the agent’s power or control whether or not the

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 91 act occurs that the act be performed voluntarily and intentionally by the agent, with the agent’s having the ability voluntarily and intentionally do otherwise all antecedent conditions remaining the same.”78 On the model I endorse, A is “performed voluntarily and intentionally” by S, employing S’s own powers of intellect and will, even if S’s A-ing is also caused by God. Moreover, if God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] occurs concurrently with S A-ing, then S possesses the ability voluntarily and intentionally to do otherwise all antecedent conditions remaining the same. Once more, following Grant, let’s say that on the libertarian view, “an agent S who performs action A has the ability to do otherwise only if there is a possible world the same as the actual world in all factors or conditions prior to A, but in which S does other than A.”79 Let’s call this possible world W2. And let’s further suppose that in the actual world, W1, S performs A, and God wills and causes [S A-ing]. As Grant argues, it will only cease to be the case that W2 is possible if God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] introduces some factor that is both prior (temporally or explanatorily) to and logically sufficient for S’s performing A. But since God’s concurrently willing and causing [S A-ing] does not introduce any such factor, then it does not undermine S’s ability to do otherwise, all antecedent conditions remaining the same. God’s concurrently willing and causing [S A-ing] is indeed logically sufficient for S A-ing: it is not possible for God as the First Cause to will and cause [S A-ing] without S A-ing.80 However, this divine action simply comes too late (so to speak) to make S perform A, and not do otherwise. In fact, were S not to perform A, then God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] would not occur since God’s concurrently willing and causing [S A-ing] presupposes S A-ing as that in which it partially and essentially consists. Similarly, on this “Dual Sources” account (as Grant calls it), where God and S act concurrently, S’s A-ing comes too late (so to speak) to make God perform [S A-ing]. God could have done otherwise as well, all antecedent conditions remaining the same. Without S A-ing, employing S’s own powers of intellect and will, then God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] indeed does not occur; but, equally important, without God’s willing and causing [S A-ing], S A-ing does not occur either. God retains sovereign control over which creaturely acts obtain, but those acts only obtain as exercises of our own, God-given libertarian free will.81 Now, in response to these important claims, one could argue that if God is sovereign over which creaturely acts obtain, and S is not, then A is really only ultimately up to God, and not also up to S. And if A is really only ultimately up to God, then S cannot exercise libertarian free will in A-ing. Here, though, we need to be careful. In a certain sense, as any theist should maintain, everything is indeed ultimately up to God in a way it is not ultimately up to S. That the world exists is ultimately up to God. That S exists and has free will is ultimately up to God. And so, in this broader, theological sense—speaking now of God’s sovereignty as

92  God, Evil, and the Good Creation the First Cause of all that is—A is not ultimately up to S. But in the more specified sense that should matter to libertarians, A is ultimately up to S. It is just also ultimately up to God. S is the secondary cause of A, and God is the primary cause of A since God wills and causes [S A-ing]. But God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] (that is, the act of God’s willing and causing S [A-ing]) is, again, concurrent with S A-ing, and, in fact, would not obtain were S not to perform A. And so, both S and God retain the ability to do otherwise all antecedent conditions remaining the same. God remains free not to will and cause [S A-ing]; but, on the condition he does will and cause [S A-ing], then S exercises libertarian free will in A-ing. At this point, I suppose the objector committed to defending the incompatibility of (1) and (2*) could reassert the intuition guiding LFW*: for S to exercise libertarian free will in A-ing, A must be ultimately up to S alone, which means that A cannot be willed or caused by any agent other than S. Thomas Flint, for example, writes: The heart and soul of libertarianism is the conviction that what an agent does freely is genuinely up to the agent to do freely or refrain from doing freely; no external circumstance, no other agent, does or even can determine what I do freely. Physical determinism, which sees my actions as determined by physical laws and prior states of the universe, is clearly at odds with this core insight. But surely the Thomist picture of simultaneous divine determinism will strike the true libertarian as equally destructive of human freedom. And, indeed, if external determination is incompatible with human freedom, does it really make that much difference just how the determination is accomplished?82 What I have argued, though, is that simultaneous divine causation is not the same as simultaneous divine determinism, for determinism only holds if God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] obtains prior to S A-ing. And, it does not. But perhaps Flint is expressing the following intuition (or can be read as doing so): for any act A that S performs, S only can be free in A-ing, exercising libertarian free will, if S is the sole cause of A. But surely, given what I have argued here, this is a highly disputable claim, at least where God as the First Cause is concerned. In fact, we have good reason to think it’s false. Insofar as God’s role in willing and causing [S A-ing] is consistent with A being ultimately up to S in all of the ways I have described, then I simply don’t see what prevents us from ascribing S genuine, libertarian free will.83 Of course, there is much more I could do to defend this claim. But, given the larger purposes of this book, I cannot do so here. Having given at least some good, reason for thinking that God can be fully sovereign over all that we do, without divesting us of free will (and specifically

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 93 libertarian free will), I’d like to think more deeply about the role we human beings have played in freely introducing evil into the world, and why we do and suffer so much evil as a result. And, I’d like to think more deeply about why God would permit the “fall” of human beings into sin when he could have done otherwise. It is to these tasks that I now turn.

Notes 1 ST I.25.3. 2 ST III.1.1. 3 See also CCC 293: “Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: ‘The world was made for the glory of God’”; and CCC 294: “The glory of God consists in the realization of [the] manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created.” 4 See SCG II.25, where Aquinas claims both that God cannot create God (since the essence of something created is to be dependent on another cause) and God cannot create something equal to himself (since a dependent thing is inferior to a non-dependent thing, and God does not depend on anything for his existence). 5 ST I.47.1. 6 SCG II.45. 7 ST I.47.2. 8 ST I.48.2. 9 ST I.48.2 ad 3. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 J.J. Haldane, “Atheism and Theism,” Atheism and Theism, 139–40. 13 SCG II.46. Translations from Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Two: Creation, trans. James F. Anderson (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). 14 Perhaps the claim that a diverse universe contains rational beings who both sin and refrain from sinning needs to be supplemented with the further claim that what can fail in goodness at least sometimes does fail in goodness. Theodore J. Kondoleon makes this point in “The Free Will Defense: New and Old,” The Thomist 47 (1983): 33. I am wary, though, of pushing the point further since I don’t think that moral evil thereby becomes inevitable. God can still get metaphysical diversity among rational beings in any world that he might create without including rational beings who sin. 15 SCG II.45. 16 ST I.25.6 ad 3. 17 ST I.25.6. 18 Norman Kretzmann, “A Particular Problem of Creation: Why Would God Create This World?,” Being and Goodness, 232–3. 19 Ibid., 238. 20 As Kretzmann argues (ibid., 239), just as, at a certain point, no dotty representation of a geometrical straight line would, at least on a practical level, better represent that line than any other, even if there are still infinitely better theoretical representations possible, so, at a certain point, no good cosmic whole would better represent divine goodness to us than any other, even if there still are infinitely better cosmic representations of

94  God, Evil, and the Good Creation divine goodness possible. And so, God has a distinct reason to create our own world: as a good cosmic whole, it represents God’s goodness as well as any other whole that God would create. 21 SCG III.71 (translation slightly modified). 22 See John Lamont, “The Justice and Goodness of Hell,” Faith and Philosophy 28 (2011): 152–73, in particular 171–3. 23 Ibid., 171. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 172. 27 Aquinas does not speak this way, but I see Lamont’s point: any evil qua evil is bad, simply taken on its own, but insofar as it contributes to the goodness of the whole of which it is a part, it is good, absolutely speaking. 28 I’m borrowing this idea from Kretzmann, “A Particular Problem of Creation,” 240. 29 In his Quaestiones disputatae de potentia (DP), Aquinas claims, “We should say that we should hold without any doubt that God brought creatures into existence by a freely willed decision of his, not by any natural necessity” (DP 3.15). Translation in The Power of God, trans. Richard J. Regan (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012). See also ST I.19.3, where Aquinas says that even though God necessarily wills his own goodness, “since God’s goodness is perfect and can exist without other things—for no perfection is added to him by other things—it follows that things distinct from himself are such that it is not absolutely necessary that he will them.” 30 Kretzmann claims that there are, in fact, both “libertarian” and “necessitarian” strains in Aquinas, and even though Aquinas explicitly claims to be a libertarian regarding God’s decision to create, given his commitment to “Aristotelian self-sufficiency,” his appeal to the neo-Platonic principle that goodness (including divine goodness) is self-diffusive belies his commitment to libertarianism. This does not mean, though, says Kretzmann, that God does not still possess freedom in deciding which world to create. See Norman Kretzmann, “A General Problem of Creation: Why Would God Create Anything at All?,” Being and Goodness, 208–28. While it goes well beyond what I can do here to address Kretzmann’s interpretation of Aquinas in full, I don’t think holding to a conception of divine goodness as self-diffusive entails denying that God’s decision to create anything at all is free. We could say that the divine decision to create is fitting but not necessary, and so still free. See more below (in Section 3.4) on the fittingness of God’s decision to create our own world. 31 ST I.2.3 ad 1. 32 I take open theism to include any view that denies that God possesses infallible knowledge of the future as well as the ability (even if self-imposed) to control the future, or the unfolding of history, certainly in a particular or detailed way. On this view, God cannot exercise meticulous providence and also afford his creatures free will, specifically libertarian free will. I challenge this claim in Section 3.5. 33 I’m drawing here on Marilyn Adams’s description of counterfactuals of freedom: “they are fates … which—like necessary truths—God has to work with, and they restrict God’s options” (“Plantinga on ‘Felix Culpa’: Analysis and Critique,” Faith and Philosophy 25 [2008]: 124). 34 See ST I.25.3 ad 2, where Aquinas says that God cannot sin—fall short in any way in what God does—because he is omnipotent. 35 ST I.19.8.

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 95 36 ST I.22.4. 37 ST I.22.4 ad 1. 38 I do think it is possible to explore this line of reasoning further using the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE), but I am not going to do so here (at least not explicitly). Others, though, have done so. See, for example, John Zeis, “The Theological Implications of Double Effect,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 89 (2015): 133–8, and Heath White, “Theological Determinism and the ‘Authoring Sin’ Objection,” Calvinism and the Problem of Evil, eds. David E. Alexander and David M. Johnson (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016), 78–95. And, of course, Aquinas appeals to the DDE (or a version of it) in discussing self-defense in ST II-II.64.7. 39 John R. Schneider, Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 3. 40 Ibid., 38. 41 Ibid., 43. 42 Ibid., 78. 43 As Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco notes, theological arguments from fittingness “try to explain how God’s choice of a particular means allowed him to most appropriately attain the end of his actions” (“The Fittingness of Evolutionary Creation,” in Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, James Brent, Thomas Davenport, and John Baptist Ku, Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding Evolution in the Light of Faith, 2nd ed. [Providence, RI: Cluny Media, 2019], 142). Fittingness arguments do not, however, demonstrate that God had to choose that particular means in order to attain the ends of his actions. Consequently, unlike some other contemporary theologians, I do not think that evolution is the only route God could or would take in creating a world. For a discussion of the various ways, contemporary theologians have advocated the “Only Way Theodicy,” as Schneider describes it, see Chapter 6 of Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil. 44 In his work, John Polkinghorne frequently claims that evolution, on both the cosmic and planetary levels, consists of the interplay of necessity and chance—where the latter stands “for the particular contingencies of historical happening,” like one genetic mutation happening rather than another. (See John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998], 5.) He adds to this that “what we have come to understand is that if this process is to be fruitful on a cosmic scale, then necessity has to take a take a very specific, carefully prescribed form” (ibid., 6). I think the Thomist can even go beyond this, affirming the presence of precisely prescribed necessity and contingency within the created order, given his view of the divine will and divine power. And so there is no need to adopt Polkinghorne’s own “kenotic” model of providence, where God has to restrict his power and knowledge (most notably) in order to make room for creaturely contingency and causality. See John Polkinghorne, “Kenotic Creation and Divine Action,” The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, ed. John Polkinghorne (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 90–106. Craig A. Boyd and Aaron D. Cobb, aiming to hold on to the Thomistic distinction between primary and secondary causality, carve out a via media between Aquinas and Polkinghorne in “The Causality Distinction, Kenosis, and a Middle Way: Aquinas and Polkinghorne on Divine Action,” Theology and Science 7 (2009): 391–406. Their position is admittedly a revision of Aquinas’s position. 45 ST I-II.6.1 ad 3. See also ST I.2.3 where Aquinas claims that God’s being the First Cause is a conclusion of demonstrative, philosophical reasoning.

96  God, Evil, and the Good Creation 46 I do not mean to suggest that God does not directly act in evolutionary history at any point. As I will argue in the next chapter, at the very least, he directly intervenes in creating the first human soul, and uniting it to a human body, thereby creating the first human being (qua soul-body composite). And perhaps there are other times at which God must directly intervene: most notably, in effecting the transition from nonliving to living things and non-reproductive to reproductive things. Haldane argues that “natural selection cannot be the whole story” as an explanation of these things in Atheism and Theism, 88–96 (at 89). 47 ST I.22.3. 48 Ibid. 49 Austriaco, Thomistic Evolution, 147. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Haldane, Atheism and Theism, 140. 53 Schneider, Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil, 163. 54 Ibid., 194–5. 55 Ibid., 197. 56 Ibid., 220. 57 Ibid., 265. 58 Ibid., 266. 59 Ibid., 267. 60 Ibid., 220. 61 See Marilyn McCord Adams, “Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God,” eds. Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert Merrihew Adams, The Problem of Evil (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990), 211, 218. I’ll also develop this claim in Chapter 7. 62 See, for example, SCG IV.97. 63 In making this claim, I leave it open whether God’s acts are internal or external to God, and hence whether God’s acts are eternal or temporal. On what he calls the “extrinsic model” of divine agency (EM), W. Matthews Grant says that God’s acts consist of God’s effects plus the causal relation of dependency those effects have to God. While they are temporally indexed, they are performed by an eternal God (and so all at once rather than successively). See Grant’s Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 64. I should also note that on Grant’s view, God’s willing and causing constitute the same act (which is external to God); God’s willing that a creaturely effect obtain just is his causing that effect for a good reason or purpose (ibid., 58). 64 See David E. Alexander, “Orthodoxy, Theological Determinism, and the Problem of Evil,” Calvinism and the Problem of Evil, 136. I’m modifying Alexander’s notation a bit. Also, the point of including the brackets is to indicate what it is that God is willing and causing. 65 Grant also makes this point in Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 117. 66 This presumes God has obligations, but perhaps he does not (as Brian Davies has strenuously argued). 67 In this paragraph, I am drawing on Chapter 6 in Free Will and God’s Universal Causality. I am also indebted to Grant for the extraordinarily helpful and detailed feedback he provided in this chapter, particularly this section of this chapter. 68 ST I.19.9 ad 1. 69 ST I-II.79.2.

God, Evil, and the Good Creation 97 70 In making this claim, I’m drawing in part on what Grant says about God’s permission of moral evil in Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 137–8. 71 Alexander, “Orthodoxy, Theological Determinism, and the Problem of Evil,” 124. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (New York, NY: Routledge, 2003), 304. In the full passage, Stump notes that so understood Thomistic libertarian freedom does not have to include the agent’s ability to do otherwise. I’ll return to this point in Chapter 6 when discussing free will in heaven. 75 As Grant points out in Section 4.4 of his book, this is a key point: while God explains the obtaining of S A-ing, God’s act of willing and causing [S A-ing] does not. And so, God’s act of willing and causing [S A-ing] is not explanatorily prior to S A-ing. Especially on EM, Grant says, “we should think of God’s causal acts as consisting in his causing effects, not of God as causing effects by means of his causal acts. We should say that God brings about his effects in his causal acts, not by means of his causal acts” (Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 61–2; italics in the original text). 76 Similarly, as Aquinas argues in ST I.14.13, all of what God knows is immediately present to God in his eternity. If God’s willing that certain things occur contingently, in accordance with their contingent causes, does not undermine their contingency, then God’s infallibly knowing all of this (in accordance with his infallible will) does not undermine their contingency either. 77 Grant, Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 69. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid., 65. 80 According to Grant, “a is logically sufficient for b just in case it is not possible for a to exist (or occur, or obtain) without b’s existing (or occurring, or obtaining)” (ibid., 6). 81 Again, I leave it open whether fully defending all of this requires affirming EM. Grant makes a compelling case that it does, especially in comparing EM with what he calls the “scholastic intrinsic model” of divine agency (SIM) in Chapter 5 of Free Will and God’s Universal Causality. On SIM, God is identical to God’s acts; and, if God is identical to God’s acts, then God cannot exist without those very same acts. Consequently, on SIM, God literally cannot do otherwise than God does (even if, contra object essentialism, God’s acts could have taken different objects than they do, and in this sense could have been otherwise). This all presupposes, of course, that God is simple. If one were to deny divine simplicity (which is central to the Thomistic account), then one could affirm that God’s acts are internal to God but not identical to God, thereby preserving God’s literal ability to do otherwise. 82 Thomas P. Flint, “Two Accounts of Providence,” Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, Volume II: Providence, Scripture, and Resurrection, ed. Michael Rea (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009), 39. Italics are in the original text. 83 I think this argument could be extended to defend the existence of genuine, contingent causes within the natural order as well. If God can will and cause [S A-ing] consistently with S exercising libertarian free will in A-ing, then surely God can will and cause all contingent causes causing

98  God, Evil, and the Good Creation their own, contingent effects in the natural order. Granted, these contingent causes—however many there are in nature—lack free will, since they lack the powers of intellect and will needed to exercise free will. But to whatever degree they possess the power or disposition to move themselves in various ways, in accordance with whatever created tendencies that they possess, then God’s causing them causing their own effects does not prevent those effects from obtaining contingently either. In other words, for any contingent cause C, and act A that C performs, God’s willing and causing [C A-ing] remains consistent with A being a contingent effect, just as God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] remains consistent with A being a contingent effect—in S’s case, a free, contingent effect.

4

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin

In the previous chapter, I argued that God has absolute control over what evil obtains in his good world, and it is because he has absolute control over what evil obtains in his good world that he is able to redeem it: all of it. This means that had God so willed, he could have chosen not to include any moral evil in the world. Of course, insofar as God has included moral evil in the world, it is only for the sake of those great, redeeming goods he eternally wills to bring out of it. Therefore, on my Thomistic view, God is indeed ultimately responsible for the existence of moral evil within the world, just as he is ultimately responsible for redeeming it. However, he is not morally responsible for the existence of moral evil within the world (at least not directly so). We are. And that is because, as I argued at the end of the previous chapter (Section 3.5), God’s willing and causing us acting as we do, from all eternity, is compatible with us freely acting in the ways that we choose, exercising libertarian free will. Thus, God’s permitting sin to obtain within his good world when he could do otherwise remains fully consistent with our being directly morally responsible for bringing sin into the world when we could (and should) do otherwise.1 The goal of the present chapter is both to explore the origin of sin in the world and human history, and to discuss what effect the first sin, or primal sin, has had on us as members of the human race. This will entail constructing a Free Will Theodicy (FWT) and specifically what I call a Free Fall Theodicy (FFT) since it is based on the traditional Christian claim that we human beings were created good but freely sinned, or “fell” into sin, and live evil-ridden rather than evilfree lives as a result. However, consistent with what I have argued throughout this book, the main point of my FFT is not to exonerate God in the face of moral evil. Nor, I should now add, is it to divest God of any control over the moral evil that we do. 2 Rather, it is to help us better see or understand the original role we played in bringing moral evil into the world and why we all suffer certain consequences as a result. The questions before us, then, are the following. Granting that God exists (as I argued in Chapter 2), and that God DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847-4

100  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin made us good (as I argued in Chapter 3), then why did we commit evil in the first place, and why do we also remain so susceptible to doing so? Furthermore, why are we so susceptible to suffering on account of evil? In sum: why, as God’s good creatures, do we participate in so much badness, or evil of all kinds? While there may be multiple ways of constructing an FFT suitably equipped to address these questions, I am going to do so by drawing heavily on two important doctrines that are central to Thomistic (and, more broadly, Catholic) theology: the doctrines of “original justice” and “original sin.”3 According to the first doctrine, God not only created us so that we could function in the natural world we inhabit but he also supplied us with an additional gift and grace, original justice, that enabled us to function optimally, both internally and in our relationships with others, especially himself. According to the second doctrine, the first human beings lost the gift with which they were originally endowed, and we were meant to possess, when they freely abandoned their privileged relationship with God and thereby became susceptible not only to doing evil but also suffering on account of it. It is in this fallen state—a state of original sin—that we human beings, as the progeny of the first human beings, continue to exist, and from which we need to be redeemed.4 I will spend the majority of this chapter expositing and defending this Thomistic FFT, showing how I think it is theologically, philosophically, and empirically plausible. It is fully consistent with what traditional Christian theism tells us about the goodness and justice of God, or a God who providentially created the first human beings in an originally just state, free of sin and suffering, but who also permitted them to fall from that state and transmit a fallen nature to us as their progeny. It is grounded in reasonable philosophical claims about human nature and agency; and, so I will argue, it remains fully compatible with what evolutionary science tells us about the origins of the human race. Moreover, it possesses a high degree of explanatory power, accounting not only for why evil exists within human history but also why we, as created by a perfectly good God, are ongoingly susceptible to participating in the evils that riddle human history. In the final section of this chapter, I discuss how affirming my Thomistic FFT is consistent with affirming the Thomistic conception of providence I exposited and defended in the previous chapter. In particular, I discuss why God included the Fall in his good world when he could have done otherwise, creating a world in which moral evil does not exist. In doing so, I further shore up my FFT—linking it with the traditional Christian concept of a felix culpa, or “Happy Fall”—and provide further reason to incorporate it into a larger Christian theodicy that helps us better see or understand both why evil exists and how God works to redeem it.

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 101

4.1 Original justice, original sin, and the Free Fall Theodicy (FFT) Aquinas holds that Christian teaching, as founded on and informed by biblical teaching, tells us that the first two human beings—for convenience, let’s call them both “Adam”—were not only created in the image of God (imago dei) but also in a state of original justice. For Aquinas, original justice was a “supernatural gift”5 that God bestowed on Adam as a “principle of all human nature,” a habit (habitus) of the soul that perfected the whole of Adam’s nature, body and soul, or the material and immaterial components of our nature.6 Endowed by God with this gift, Adam, as a rational being, was wholly subject to God. And it is because he, as a rational being, was wholly subject to God that his sensory appetitive powers, or the lower powers of the human soul, were wholly subject to reason: that is, properly governed and moderated by reason (intellect and will). Therefore, given his right relationship with God, Adam was fully virtuous, and so lived a fully flourishing moral and spiritual existence. Moreover, since his body was wholly subject to and perfected by his immaterial and incorruptible human soul, Adam flourished physically, and so was internally immune to bodily corruption and even natural death. In Aquinas’s view, then, God not only created human beings with the requisite metaphysical parts (soul and body) and (cognitive and appetitive) powers but he also provided the additional gift of original justice, which ensured that our parts and powers would function harmoniously, when they were properly aligned or ordered: human reason (intellect and will) wholly subject to God, the lower powers of the soul wholly subject to the higher powers of the soul, and the body wholly subject to the soul. And it is because God, providentially, and out of his perfect goodness, provided Adam this gift—including sanctifying grace, as the “root” (radix) of original justice7—that Adam was able not only to flourish in this life, given his right relationship with God but also able to attain a distinctly supernatural end in the next life: eternal life with God, or full participation in the divine life. But of course, following what he takes to be clear biblical testimony, Aquinas holds that Adam did not remain in his supernaturally gifted state. He freely and pridefully defied God (inordinately coveting his “own excellence”8), and, as a result, not only was deprived of his own “proper and personal good—namely, grace, and the due order of the parts of the soul; he was deprived as well of a good related to the common nature.”9 In other words, “The first man sinning by his free judgment and choice lost this gift he had received in that same tenor, i.e., in the precise sense, in which it was given to him, namely, for himself and for all his descendants.”10 Born into the world, then, lacking original justice, and so possessing a fallen nature, we all lack the internal alignment

102  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin or “due order” of the parts and powers of the soul that Adam once possessed. And we remain subject to repeated, even disastrous, intellectual, moral, and physical malfunction and failure as a result. All of our rational and sensory appetitive powers have been “left, as it were, destitute (destitutae) of the proper ordering by which they are naturally ordered toward virtue.”11 No longer wholly subject to God, the intellect is deprived of knowledge, or its “order to the true,” and therefore is wounded by ignorance; the will is deprived of justice, or its “order to the good,” and therefore is wounded by malice (so understood as “a certain proneness of the will toward evil”12). No longer wholly subject to reason, our sensory (irascible and concupiscible) appetites are deprived of fortitude and temperance, and so are wounded by weakness and concupiscence, or desire unrestrained by reason. And because the body is no longer wholly subject to the immaterial and incorruptible soul per the ordering grace of original justice, we are naturally susceptible to bodily defects such as disease and death, and suffer accordingly. Like many in the Christian tradition, Aquinas also thinks of these various intellectual, moral, and physical defects as penalties: not only do we share in Adam’s guilt but we also possess a fallen, wounded nature because we share in Adam’s guilt. As Aquinas explains it, a voluntary and so culpable act can be attributed to an individual in one of two ways: certainly, “insofar as he is a particular person,” but also “insofar as he is a part of a community (collegium), which act he does not do of himself (per se) nor by his own choice, but which is done by the whole community or the majority of the community or by the head of the community.”13 Therefore, insofar as we, like the fallen Adam, lack original justice, it is not because we bear the guilt for Adam’s sin as individuals, taken in insolation from Adam. As individuals, we cannot be guilty of Adam’s sin since we did not personally commit it. However, Aquinas continues, “if [each of us] be considered as a member of the whole human nature propagated by the first parent as if all men were one man, the defect does have the nature of a fault, on account of its voluntary principle which is the actual sin of the first parent.”14 In other words, we can and do bear Adam’s guilt not qua individuals but rather qua members of the one human community, united to Adam as our first parent, from whom we receive our nature (or, again, one of its principal metaphysical parts) through the material process of generation. Even more specifically, qua members of the one human community, we are each connected to Adam’s will, and the sin he committed using his will. Accordingly, we do not bear the punishment for Adam’s sin, taken in isolation, but rather for Adam’s sin understood as “the common sin of all human nature.”15 Having summarized the main features of Aquinas’s account of original justice and original sin, let me now highlight the key features of my FFT as it is informed by Aquinas’s account. Not only is original justice a

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 103 supernatural gift from God but also it itself is supernatural—rooted in and requiring divine grace—even though it perfected Adam, and would also have perfected us, on a natural level, as soul-body composites and rational beings. Had Adam not fallen, God would have immediately conferred the gift of original justice qua supernatural grace on each of us once we received our nature from Adam through the material process of generation. To be even more specific, had Adam not fallen, God would have immediately conferred original justice on each of us when he infused the rational soul since, in Aquinas’s view, the natural generative process, while certainly capable of producing our bodily nature, is incapable of producing the soul as an immaterial and so materially transcendent effect.16 This also means, in my view (which I take to be consistent with Aquinas’s view) that original justice would not and could not have been transmitted by Adam himself, through his own natural power of generation since a natural process is also inherently incapable of producing a supernatural effect.17 However, since Adam did sin, when God creates the soul and unites it to the material part of our nature that we receive from the fallen Adam, he does so without also affording us the gift original justice. It is in this sense that the fallen Adam, as the true cause of original sin, transmits to us a fallen nature bereft of the gift that it once possessed and should possess but does not possess, given Adam’s fall. That we languish in a fallen state is not only a consequence of Adam’s fall but also something for which we are guilty. It is a state from which we need to be redeemed. My further claim is that this FFT is theologically, philosophically, and empirically plausible, which means that we have good reason to rely on it in order to help us better see or understand why we, as created by a perfectly good God, both do so much evil and suffer so much on account of it. This FFT is theologically plausible insofar as it is fully consistent with what the Christian tradition says about the creation and fall of human beings. With Aquinas, I take it to be a datum of Christian revelation (certainly traditional Christian teaching) that there was a historical Fall, and that we human beings not only commit actual sins but also, as a result of Adam’s fall, languish in a state or condition of original sin, from which we need to be redeemed. I also take it to be datum of Christian revelation (or, at least, broader Catholic teaching) that God created us in an originally just state. In fact, I think it is reasonable to infer that even if God was in no way required to afford us original justice, it befitted God to do so, in order to both manifest his perfect goodness more fully within the created order (as I argued in the previous chapter) and show his perfect goodness to us, as beings meant to ultimately enjoy full and uninterrupted union with himself.18 Consequently, working from this theological basis, we also reasonably can infer that God is not directly morally responsible for our being in our present, fallen state. Instead, consistent with what revelation tells us about the first human beings, we alone are directly morally responsible for being in this state.

104  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin This FFT is also philosophically plausible insofar as it does not make any metaphysically extravagant or mysterious claims about human nature, whether as supernaturally gifted or as fallen. In conferring the supernatural gift of original justice upon Adam, God did not afford him any extra, alien parts or powers beyond those we possess as embodied, rational beings, or soul-body composites who possess intellectual, moral, and bodily powers. Instead, God provided the governing or organizing principle Adam needed in order to be able to maintain the right order between his various native parts and powers—body and soul, passions and reason—and thereby function optimally as an, embodied, rational being. And, while as fallen beings, who lack this principle, we do remain susceptible to repeated and often egregious intellectual, moral, and physical failure, we can point to no part or power in ourselves that has been corrupted or destroyed by sin. We therefore have not undergone any alternation in our nature as a result of the Fall. Rather, as a result of the Fall, “nature was left to itself” (natura est sibi relicta).19 In other words, as fallen we are indeed damaged, but only because of what we have lost: the due ordering of the parts and powers within us that should be present in us but is in fact absent.20 Importantly, then, while living an embodied, rational life becomes arduous and even treacherous for us as fallen beings, it is not impossible as such. Finally, this Thomistic FFT is empirically plausible, insofar as it powerfully accounts for what we readily observe to be true about ourselves and our long history together: our efforts to live successful lives as embodied, rational beings are marked by deep struggle and conflict. Beleaguered by ignorance about what is true, we experience widespread moral and spiritual confusion concerning how to lead the moral and spiritual life successfully. Lacking justice in the will and possessing disordered desires, or unruly passions that rebel against and cloud our reason, we struggle (sometimes mightily) at pursuing the moral and spiritual life and leading it successfully, often choosing evil over good, both for ourselves and for those among whom we live. Furthermore, as Aquinas also observes, we can and do become even more predisposed to do evil by committing evil: “through sin reason is clouded, especially in matters of action; the will becomes hardened with respect to the good; more difficulty accrues to acting well; and concupiscence becomes more feverish.”21 And we remain vulnerable to experiencing a wide range of physical and mental defects or evils, and are oriented in our bodily and mental lives toward physical death rather than life. In sum, then, the Thomistic FFT I am expositing and defending accounts for the enduring truth that we are vulnerable to or inclined toward committing and suffering evil of any and all kinds. Admittedly, I still need to do more work in defending my claim that this FFT is theologically, philosophically, and empirically plausible. To begin, one might argue that while this FFT is consistent with what we

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 105 observe to be true about our condition as beings subject to repeated and even egregious intellectual, moral, and physical failure, it is not consistent with what we have come to know (or at least reasonably believe) about our origins, particularly as disclosed to us by modern, evolutionary science. In further defense of my Thomistic FFT, then, I am going to show in the next section of this chapter how the claims it makes about the first human beings and the origin of sin within human history are fully compatible with what evolutionary science tells us about human origins. This is especially important since, again, I take the story of creation and fall that Aquinas offers, and which I am pressing into the service of an FFT, to be true in the actual world: it is because Adam freely fell from grace at the dawn of human history that we, as his progeny, are susceptible to participating in so much evil. One also might argue on philosophical grounds that it was not psychologically possible for Adam to fall from his originally lofty state—or, that it is at least highly unlikely—which means that it is unreasonable to claim both that God created Adam in that state and that Adam subsequently ceased to exist in that state when he freely abandoned his just relationship with God. In a way, Aquinas anticipates this objection, at least in part, by denying that Adam enjoyed beatific intimacy with God. In Aquinas’s view, since no one voluntarily turns away from happiness (which we all naturally desire) and the vision of God that makes us perfectly happy, then “no one who sees God through his essence can voluntarily turn away from God, i.e., sin.”22 Consequently, Aquinas claims that while Adam did possess a higher knowledge of God in the state of original justice than we currently possess, 23 such knowledge still fell far short of the direct vision of God, and so it remained possible for Adam to sin even in his initial, privileged moral and spiritual state. However, we still might wonder what motivated Adam to sin while he was in this state, in which he fully and peaceably rested in God’s goodness, rather than his own. This is why, in the third section of this chapter, I am going to delve into moral psychology and explore more deeply the sinless Adam’s free choice to sin. Finally, concerning the internal, theological consistency of my Thomistic FFT, one might argue that there remains something fundamentally unjust about God withholding the gift and of original justice from us as Adam’s progeny since we did not personally commit (or concur with or condone) Adam’s sin. (And God, of course, cannot act unjustly.) As we have seen, Aquinas thinks that there is a real sense in which we do bear the guilt of Adam’s fall and so justly share his punishment: we each lack original justice since we, too, sinned “in” Adam. 24 I will explore, build upon, and offer a multifaceted defense of this claim further in the fourth section of this chapter. However, going beyond Aquinas, I also will suggest that it would in no way be unjust (or unloving) for God to permit us to suffer the consequences of Adam’s fall even

106  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin if we do not in any way bear the guilt of Adam’s fall. On this revised, Thomistic account, we bear original guilt insofar as we each possess a wounded nature lacking the gift and grace we ought to possess, which Adam forfeited for us when he fell. Either way, then, it remains possible to defend the traditional theological claim that our liability to both sin and suffer is a consequence of Adam’s fall and something for which we bear guilt. Having addressed what I think are the major objections to my FFT, I turn in the fifth and final section of this chapter to address lingering questions about divine providence and the Fall. This will entail discussing the place of the Fall in God’s providential scheme and how God does bear ultimate responsibility for the Fall and our being born into the world in a fallen state.

4.2  The Fall, original sin, and evolutionary science The Thomistic FFT I have developed and defended so far unabashedly affirms that the Fall took place historically. But one could argue that this particular account of the Fall is not compatible with what modern, evolutionary science tells us about human origins within natural history. Let’s frame this objection as follows: (O1) Thomistic (and traditional Christian) claims about a historical Fall are incompatible with (or at least rendered highly dubious by) the discoveries of modern evolutionary science. What can be said in favor of (O1)? First, according to evolutionary science, physical suffering and death predate the emergence of human beings in evolutionary history. Ian McFarland, for example, writes, “It is now beyond dispute that there was no point where human existence was characterized by immunity from death, absence of labour pains, or an ability to acquire food without toil …. The geological record makes it clear that natural disasters, disease, suffering, and death long antedate the emergence of the human species. It follows that such phenomena cannot be interpreted as the consequence of human sin.”25 Additionally, John Schneider claims that it is implausible to hold that, given their “psychosomatic genetic and social heredity,”26 the first human beings would “have been at all morally mature, much less spiritually regal, as in traditional Christian teaching on Adam and Eve.”27 According to Schneider, “Darwinian Adam,” as he calls him, who inhabited a “Darwinian World,” looks a lot different morally and spiritually from “Augustinian Adam”—and, we can add, “Aquinas’s Adam”— since they share so much in common. At best, Darwinian Adam, says Schneider, was “a morally equivocal sort of person,”28 who inherited his evolutionary ancestors’ proclivities to vice as well as virtue, at least of a

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 107 more primitive, animalistic form, both rooted (it seems) in the biological disposition “to engage in our own genetic self-interest and advantage.”29 It is much easier and better, then, Schneider says, taking into account common ancestry, along with recent animal behavior science, to find a place for “Irenaean Adam” in evolutionary history: a human being with the potential to develop morally and spiritually, but who was created morally and spiritually immature. As Schneider further points out, “genomic science—after mapping of the human genome—strongly supports a polygenetic account of human origins.”30 That is, human beings emerged from a group of reproducing pairs, probably numbering in the thousands, rather than a single pair. This seems to contradict what Aquinas believed (and what the Catholic Church in particular still teaches)31 regarding human origins: that we do descend from a single pair of human beings, the position known as monogenism. Relatedly, if one accepts the polygenetic account of human origins, it is much more difficult to explain the transmission of original sin. In light of what I argued in the previous chapter of this book (Section 3.4), let me first respond to (O1) by making clear that my Thomistic FFT in no way denies that animal suffering and death predate the arrival of human beings within evolutionary history. In fact, Aquinas himself takes the claim that predating animals did not engage in predative acts before the Fall to be “wholly unreasonable.”32 He writes, “For the nature of the animals was not changed through man’s sin in such a way that certain animals, e.g., lions and falcons, for whom it is now natural to eat the flesh of other animals, lived off plants at that time …. Therefore, there would have been natural conflict among certain animals.”33 Consequently, I think affirming Aquinas’s claim that Adam did not suffer or die does not require denying the claim that evolutionary history contains lots of suffering and death, or the more specific claim that Adam’s evolutionary predecessors in the genus homo, and whatever other hominins among whom he lived, did not suffer and die. Of course, affirming with Aquinas that Adam did not suffer and would not have died, had he remained sinless, also entails affirming with Aquinas that God specifically distinguished Adam from the rest of material creation on a distinctly metaphysical level. Again, in Aquinas’s view, we are spiritually and materially composed beings. And (certainly on this view), while a material, evolutionary process could have produced Adam’s material body, it could not have produced his immaterial soul. Consequently, God must have intervened in evolutionary history to create Adam’s soul, as he does for each of us.34 Perhaps this seems incongruous, at least from a purely scientific point of view. However, I contend that God’s directly intervening in this way in creating Adam (as he creates each one of us) does not undermine anything science tells us about the production of the first human beings on a strictly material,

108  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin and even more specifically biological, level. In particular, it is completely consistent with both Thomistic metaphysics and evolutionary science to say the following: at some point in evolutionary history, God directly infused a rational soul along with original justice in already existing hominins—even two specific hominins materially capable of supporting a rational soul—from whom all human beings as rational animals, or soul-body composites, descend.35 Granted, given what genomic science tells us about our origins, I need to (and will) explore these claims further. But for the moment, I see no metaphysical difficulty in claiming that Adam alone, among the creatures with whom he lived, was able to avoid having to experience suffering and death as long as he retained possession of the gift that God uniquely afforded him. What this also means is that had God not afforded Adam the gift of original justice, he would have remained vulnerable to suffering and death like all members of the animal creation. Aquinas indeed recognizes that in one sense suffering and death are natural to human beings (minus the gift of original justice) because the human being qua soulbody composite is naturally mortal.36 Divine goodness and providence therefore ensured that whatever natural defects Adam would have been subject to, by virtue of being a soul-body composite, would not impede his ability to attain his supernatural end. God supplied Adam the grace needed fully to order his soul to God, and his body to his soul, so that his body—which “was not incorruptible through any sort of vigor of immortality that existed within it”37—in turn, would be pervaded by the soul’s life-giving power.38 This also entails, I think, that Adam’s soul had the power to assist his body in maintaining itself over time, and thereby prevent damage from incurring at the molecular or cellular level, even if (per the “disposable-soma” theory of aging) his body had to expend significant resources on processes such as growth and reproduction.39 Accordingly, Adam (and his progeny, had they also been endowed with original justice) would not have succumbed to any age-related ailments or undergone the sort of aging that terminates in death (senescence). As far as I can see, then, there is nothing incongruous in claiming that Adam’s soul, as initially graced by and subject to the ever-living God, was capable of preserving his body from corruption and so prevented him from experiencing any suffering or death. Certainly, this claim is more intelligible on the supposition (which I take to be reasonable) that we are spiritually and materially composed beings. However, whatever one’s position on the nature of the soul and human persons, I once again see no metaphysical difficulty in claiming that this initial state of affairs obtained (or would have obtained, had Adam remained in a state of original justice). Metaphysical worries aside, perhaps the real worry behind (O1) is not that it would have been impossible for the prelapsarian Adam to remain immune to suffering and death (for how could we ever show

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 109 this to be impossible?), but rather that, on an empirical level, it is very unlikely that the prelapsarian Adam remained entirely immune to suffering and the threat of death. One might argue that even granting that Adam possessed original justice, and so remained internally immune to suffering and death, he still would have inhabited an environment filled with real dangers to his overall well-being. And so, the only way Adam realistically could avoid suffering and death is if he inhabited an Edenic paradise, completely walled off from any danger to his overall wellbeing. Since we have strong reason to doubt that such a paradise actually existed, we have strong reason to doubt that Adam remained free from suffering and the threat of death. However, I do not think that this claim is true. Notably, while Aquinas does hold that Adam inhabited a physical, paradisal place “fit for human habitation, in keeping with the state of initial immortality,”40 he does not also affirm that Adam, without any effort, was able to remain miraculously free from physical harm. “In the state of innocence,” he says, “man’s body was able to persist without suffering injury from anything hard—partly because of man’s own reason, through which he was able to avoid dangers, and partly because of God’s providence, which protected him in such a way that nothing unexpected would happen to him by which he might be injured.”41 Accordingly, extending Aquinas’s reasoning here, even if we grant that Adam did not inhabit an Edenic paradise, we do not need to deny that he had to protect himself from natural disasters or other animals (and perhaps other hominins), which would require that he exercise great practical, intellectual ingenuity and fortitude. Given his robust intellectual, moral, and physical constitution, successfully managing whatever dangers his natural environment posed to him would have been entirely possible, especially if he was further aided by the guiding and protective hand of divine providence. In fact, however challenging inhabiting and navigating Adam’s natural environment might have been for him, it would not have been a source of real harm or conflict, and so suffering, for him. Whatever effort Adam expended in meeting this challenge would not have compromised his virtuous pursuit of his assigned supernatural end. It is also worth noting that it is entirely consonant with the Thomistic picture that I have offered that human beings always have been susceptible to pain because pain, whether physical or mental, is part of the normal, healthy functioning of sentient animals, including human beings. Being susceptible to pain, however, is not the same thing as experiencing pain. By virtue of not experiencing sickness or disease, or any other substantial harm to his physical or mental well-being, Adam would not have experienced pain, or at least, the sort of significant pain associated with sickness and disease, as well as other physical or mental infirmities. And so, I think, if Adam experienced any pain at all, it either would not have posed a significant threat to his overall well-being, on a physical or

110  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin mental level, or it would have been the sort of minor, fleeting pain that proved useful to him in dealing with real or potential harms within his natural environment so that he could inhabit and navigate it successfully. Let us now turn to the further objection driving (O1), as voiced by Schneider: Aquinas’s morally and spiritually exalted Adam has no place in evolutionary history. In response, I once again think it is eminently possible to locate Aquinas’s Adam in the “Darwinian World” that Schneider describes. Like us, Aquinas’s Adam was a rational animal, and so would have inherited all of the traits from his evolutionary ancestors that aided them in the struggle to survive, including, most notably, the natural inclination to preserve our own being, which Aquinas claims we share with all substances.42 But such an inclination, insofar as it stimulates the production and conservation of life, is good. Moreover, Adam’s pursuit of sensual objectives like procuring food, water, and shelter—even if focused on his own survival—would have conformed with his overall aim of living in right relation with God and all other creatures among whom he lived. Similarly, whatever his sociobiological heredity, Aquinas’s Adam, as endowed with original justice, would not have experienced any tension or conflict between his reason and the pull of animalistic desire. Daniel Houck, in developing a “new Thomist” view of the Fall, has suggested that this claim “stands in tension with evolutionary theory,”43 since evolutionary theory tells us that human beings did inherit and so would have struggled against, most notably, a tendency to aggressive violence. Consequently, Houck considers (though does not necessarily favor) an alternative scenario that he says is more in line with evolutionary theory: God afforded the first human beings the grace they needed freely to resist the temptation to commit violent actions even though they continued to struggle against that temptation. Though, he also admits that embracing the latter view may also entail affirming “that evil is built into creation.”44 Unlike Houck (and Schneider for that matter), I do not see how denying that the prelapsarian Adam struggled against any inclination to engage in aggressive or violent behavior “stands in tension with evolutionary theory.” The only way this tension would arise is if one denied that Adam possessed such an inclination. But there is no need to deny this. We can affirm that Adam did inherit proclivities not just to aggression, but also promiscuous human mate choice, for example, since these proclivities were evolutionarily adaptive (at least in some ways) for his nonrational and subrational animal ancestors.45 However, since such proclivities would have impeded his ability as a rational animal not only to live the moral life successfully but also fulfill his unique, spiritual vocation of attaining beatitude in God, God afforded him the gift of original justice to ensure that he would not have to struggle against them.46 Consequently, on the Thomistic view I am defending,

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 111 God afforded Adam as the first human being (and human nature itself) original justice not to alter or worse yet annul his physical nature but rather to ensure that it was properly ordered to his spiritual nature (that is, his soul), which itself was properly ordered to God. Put another way, in Thomistic terms, “since grace perfects nature and does not destroy it,”47 God endowed Adam with original justice in order to perfect or complete him as a being composed of a spiritual and physical nature, thereby enabling him to remain free from experiencing any internal disorder or disturbance that would have hindered his ability to recognize and pursue his overall good, in total accord with what right reason and divine law prescribe for human life. What this also means is that the source or locus of sin within Adam was not his inherited animal nature. Rather, the source of sin within Adam, as a rational animal, who differed on a metaphysical level from all of his animal evolutionary ancestors, and whatever other hominins among whom he lived, was his will, so understood as a power of the rational soul that God had given him. As a result, had God not afforded Adam the additional gift of original justice, he would not have created him in a sinful state. Though, as I claimed in the first section of this chapter, he would have left Adam in a severely disadvantaged and perhaps even perilous state, teetering on the edge between good and evil. And so, once more, while God would in no way have acted unjustly or inconsistently with his perfect goodness if he did leave Adam in such a state—original justice was not owed to Adam or us as his progeny—he had every reason not to do so, especially given his specific, ultimate aim of bringing Adam and his progeny into full and perfect union with himself, as full participants in the divine life. We therefore intelligibly can locate Aquinas’s Adam in the Darwinian World of evolutionary history in another, important respect. In a way, as a result of the Fall, Aquinas’s Adam returned to a purely natural, morally and spiritually impoverished state and so would have experienced an “original fragility” of the sort that Schneider says Darwinian Adam experienced. Recall that in Aquinas’s view, human nature was not fundamentally altered as a result of the Fall; rather, “nature was left to itself,” shorn of the grace and help it once possessed. Consequently, Adam’s moral powers, which Adam possessed by virtue of being a rational being, were wounded but not corrupted by the Fall, given what they now lacked. Adam became subject to ignorance insofar as he lacked the robust moral and spiritual knowledge he once possessed; he became subject to malice insofar he lacked the robust will he once possessed to achieve what is good; he became subject to weakness and concupiscence insofar he lacked the robust ability he once possessed to harmonize his emotions or appetites with his reason.48 Moreover, since Adam’s nature was wounded but not corrupted as a result of the Fall, Adam did not lose his natural inclination toward virtue,

112  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin including (I would think) whatever rudimentary inclination toward virtue, including traits such as solidarity and cooperativeness, which he inherited from his evolutionary ancestors, and which were also part of his animal nature. Nor did he—or we—acquire a vicious tendency that directly disposed him to sin. Rather, he was inclined to sin, given what he now lacked. Aquinas writes, “even though an inclination toward a disordered act follows from original sin, it follows indirectly and not directly, viz., through the removal of something that had prevented it, i.e., original justice, which had prevented the disordered movements—in the same way that an inclination toward disordered bodily movements follows indirectly from sickness.”49 And so, for example, insofar as the fallen Adam was inclined (to whatever degree) to engage in aggressive violence or infidelity, it is because he lacked the moral and spiritual health or vigor he once possessed, when his passions were fully responsive to his reason. As such, in his fallen state, he would have remained susceptible to and struggled against committing these and other sinful acts and so meet the demands imposed on him by his reason and divine law in living the moral and spiritual life. Like a child, he became entirely dependent on divine grace—as we all now are—to heal his wounded nature so that he could attain the supernatural end of union with God for which he was created. Let’s now turn to the final overall problem that (O1) seemingly presents for the Thomistic FFT I have been articulating and defending: reconciling scientific claims about our polygenetic origins with traditional Christian claims regarding a historical Fall. In order to achieve the requisite reconciliation, one could argue the following. In creating the first human beings, God not only infused souls in a large number of already existing hominins but also afforded each of them the further gift of original justice. Subsequently, all of these humans—call them “Adam”—committed primal sin, if not together, then at some point within their respective lifetimes (before reproducing). As a result, they, in turn, transmitted a fallen nature to us as their progeny: a nature bereft of the gift God would have conferred on it had they not all sinned. I suspect that this proposed scenario is at least possible. However, I also think that we have reason to question how likely it is: it is difficult to imagine a sinful defection occurring en masse (even if not simultaneously), especially since the first human beings possessed original justice and therefore were fully morally and spiritually upright. Accordingly, there seems to be reason here for thinking, in line with the traditional Christian view, that God specifically created two human beings, distinguishing them metaphysically from the rest of the hominin population among whom they lived. And it is this aboriginal pair that subsequently sinned and then transmitted a nature bereft of the gift of original justice to the rest of the members of the human race as their progeny.

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 113 This still means, however, that we need to reconcile a theological commitment to monogenism with the scientific commitment to polygenism. Can such a reconciliation be achieved? In response to this question, Kenneth Kemp has argued the following. Begin with the claim, as advanced by evolutionary science, that the initial hominin or biologically human population numbered in the thousands. From that initial population, God chose two hominins and afforded them a rational soul along with the gift of original justice and the offer of divine friendship. 50 These first two theologically human beings (as Kemp calls them) then committed primal sin and ceased to exist in a state of original justice, even though they did not forfeit their supernatural destiny (and hence the hope of being reconciled with God). As the descendants of these first two human beings interbred (to some extent) with one another and the nonrational hominins among whom they lived, original sin spread within the burgeoning human population, presuming God also gave rational souls (without original justice, of course) to those individuals who had at least one human ancestor.51 Eventually, within a few centuries, a fully human population, whose members were all beset by original sin, replaced the nonrational, pre-human population in its entirety. If this account of human origins is true (and I have no reason to doubt that it is true), then all human beings have a polygenetic origin on the empirical or biological level, but a monogenetic origin on the philosophical level, as possessors of a rational soul (not just a human body), and the theological level, as persons capable of attaining their supernatural end of eternal life with God. In other words, while we cannot trace our genetic origins to a single couple, we nevertheless all can count the first two humans as our first parents, from whom we all, as philosophically and theologically human beings, have descended, and received our fallen nature. Distinguishing between the philosophical and theological species, on the one hand, and the biological species among whom human beings initially lived, and eventually replaced, on the other hand, helps resolve the apparent contradiction between evolutionary science (and its current commitment to polygenism) and traditional Christian faith (and its commitment to monogenism). To be clear, Kemp’s move to resolve this apparent contradiction shows, most basically, how it is possible for all human beings to descend from precisely two philosophically and theologically human ancestors, or how the theological commitment to monogenism is consistent with the scientific commitment to polygenism. And perhaps we might think that Kemp should do more: proffering actual evidence to support his claims. However, I remain dubious that there is, or perhaps even could be, any direct, empirical evidence supporting his claims: that the emergence and multiplication of human beings within evolutionary history did occur in the way that Kemp describes. However, the lack of empirical evidence here does not also constitute empirical evidence supporting the opposing

114  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin claim: that the emergence and multiplication of human beings within evolutionary history did not occur in the way that Kemp describes. Moreover, the claims that Kemp makes in order to reconcile theological and scientific commitments are metaphysical and not merely empirical in nature. Consequently, casting doubt on Kemp’s proposed reconciliation would require giving strong reasons for thinking not only that God does not exist but also that the soul does not exist (and is not immediately created by God), or that a dualist philosophical anthropology—which says that we are soul-body composites—is false. But this is a philosophical, not a scientific (or at least not purely scientific) enterprise. And distinguishing the philosophical (and theological) species from the biological species employing a theological metaphysics and dualist anthropology actually accounts for what otherwise, from a purely scientific (or materialist) perspective, is difficult to explain: why it is we do differ fundamentally as rational or intellectual beings from our biologically human (or human-like) ancestors. We are beings who transcend our animal nature in a number of ways: most notably, by engaging in abstract thought and reasoning and exercising distinctly moral agency, or making rationally contemplated, genuinely free choices. Thus, appealing to God’s intervention in human evolutionary history to afford two nonrational hominins (and their descendants) souls, even if not philosophically necessary, is clearly philosophically viable. At this point, I think I have done enough at this point to show, in rebutting (O1), how Thomistic (and traditional Christian) claims about a historical Fall can consistently be harmonized with what evolutionary science tells us, on an empirical level, about the origins of the human race. Why the first human beings ever would sin, and thereby make possible the spread of sin within human history, is a topic we now need to explore in more detail.

4.3  Moral psychology, free will, and the Fall Consistent with what I argued in the previous chapter, I claim that Adam fell exercising his own, libertarian free will. This means that Adam had the ability to do otherwise than he did all antecedent conditions remaining the same. Of course, God also had the ability to do otherwise than he did, all antecedent conditions remaining the same: willing not to permit Adam’s fall. I’ll discuss important issues pertaining to providence and the Fall in the final section of this chapter. In this section, though, I am going to address what I think are important questions surrounding Adam’s motivation to fall. According to my Thomistic FFT, while we, in our fallen state, retain libertarian free will—since no part or power we possess has been altered or destroyed as a result of the Fall—we nevertheless lack the full inclination to virtue, and tranquility of soul, that the sinless Adam possessed.

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 115 Consequently, while we are inclined to sin, the sinless Adam, who was fully virtuous, was not. Moreover, by virtue of possessing original justice, Adam possessed a privileged relationship to God, that we, as fallen beings, simply do not. And so, why would the fully virtuous, fully righteous Adam ever choose to sin and so fall from such a lofty state? Regarding primal sin, John Hick, for example, writes, “The basic and inevitable criticism is that the idea of an unqualifiedly good creature committing sin is self-contradictory and unintelligible” since “it is impossible to conceive of wholly good beings in a wholly good world becoming sinful.”52 Similarly, articulating what he calls the “Paradisal Problem” (or, more recently, the “Problem of Paradisiacal Motivation”53), Schneider asks, “How could anyone enjoying Beatific Personhood possibly become arrogant to the extent of defying God, self-deceived to the extent of seeing this as good rather than completely evil, a better existential course and not the ruination of everything?”54 Only a being who is “spiritually fragile in some key respect,”55 says Schneider, could have fallen in this blatantly defiant and destructive way. Against the Thomistic FFT I have been advancing, one therefore might advance the following objection: (O2) Rational beings created in a state of original justice would not have freely defied or rejected God, and so fallen into a state of sin. I have phrased (O2) this way since we already have seen that there is real reason to doubt in Aquinas’s view that Adam simply could not have sinned in his initial, privileged state. For Aquinas, Adam did not yet enjoy what Schneider calls “Beatific Personhood,” which means that falling away from God would have been psychologically possible for him. However, we may still wonder what led Adam to sin, and sin so egregiously since, in Aquinas’s view, he did initially possess a privileged relationship with God: he was wholly subject to God in both his will and his intellect. And so, in this sense, one might argue, the “Paradisal Problem” remains: why would Adam ever freely fall away from God and the privileged relationship with God that he possessed? In Aquinas’s view (which Aquinas shares with Augustine), no one chooses or pursues evil purely for its own sake: any action, sin included, remains intelligible insofar as it is directed at a genuine, desirable good. Moreover, sin consists not merely in loving or desiring a particular good but doing so inordinately, and acting accordingly, in a way that contravenes (or fails to conform with) God’s good law or rule for our lives. What we need to explain, then, is why primal sinners, who loved God fully, ever would contravene God’s good rule or law for their lives: in particular, the all-important rule that measured their self-love and subordinated it, like all of their other loves, to their love of God.

116  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin Here, Scott MacDonald, interpreting Augustine’s view of primal sin, has suggested the following: primal sin originated not in what primal sinners did but rather in what they failed to do: they did not “pay attention to the reason they had for loving God above all things, namely, their knowledge that God is the highest good.”56 While primal sinners surely could and did conceive of created things as distinct from God as their highest good, as long as they kept God as their highest good squarely in mind, they would have had no reason or motivation to turn away from him and love these things in place of him as their highest good. However, by failing to keep God as their highest good squarely in mind, they would have such a reason or motivation. “Since giving attention to certain truths can sometimes distract one’s attention from others,” MacDonald writes, “this sort of selective attention to what they knew about God may provide the most reasonable explanation of primal sinners’ inattention to the reasons they had for loving God above all things. The path to primal sin may have lain through primal sinners’ taking God into account in their practical reason but not qua highest good.”57 MacDonald further argues that such a choice fits with our common experience of ourselves as moral agents. As rational beings who are also finite and mutable, it is not that we merely forget certain reasons when acting in certain ways; we also often altogether fail to attend to the reasons we do possess. As a result, those reasons remain “inoperative” for us.58 So, on MacDonald’s reading of Augustine, culpability for primal sin lies in primal sinners’ choosing to act without having the requisite reason before their minds; a reason which, if fully attended to, would have prevented them from falling into sin. Of course, we still might wonder why primal sinners failed in their practical reasoning, and specifically failed to pay attention to the reason they had for loving God as their highest good above all other things. Kevin Timpe argues that on MacDonald’s “intellectualist” reading of Augustine, “it appears that … agents sometimes experience de novo failures of intellect that are themselves without reasons.”59 Thus, according to Timpe, although MacDonald is critical of a “voluntarist” reading of Augustine, according to which primal sin boils down to a bare, inexplicable act of will, he faces a similar problem of his own: namely, that the failure in practical reasoning that leads to primal sin “is simply something that happens to the agent”; a random, inexplicable event of its own for which the agent cannot be held morally responsible and which looks more like “a design flaw than moral agency in action.”60 To be fair, MacDonald readily admits “that there is something in Augustine’s account of primal sin that remains (and must remain) brute and unmotivated.”61 But it is not a brute and unmotivated act of will. The element of primal sin that remains brute and unmotivated is instead a manifestation or “rock-bottom” instance of moral agency, what MacDonald calls “primal moral agency”62: the ability we all have as

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 117 rational beings and agents to take full account of the reasons that we have for acting (or not acting) and the ability to fail to take those reasons fully into account. In choosing to act, primal sinners could and should have extended their practical reasoning to include the reason they had for loving God as their highest good, above all things. But in fact, they did not. Instead, they exercised their primal moral agency in failing to take this all-important reason into account. Accordingly, since primal sinners were manifesting primal moral agency, we do not need to provide any further explanation of why they failed in reasoning as they did. I think MacDonald is on the right track in explaining the moral psychology behind primal sin. But I also think it is helpful to turn to Aquinas to explore this moral psychology further. Consider the following well-known passage from Aquinas’s De malo: If then there is a craftsman who ought to cut a piece of wood straight according to some rule, if he does not cut it straight, which is to cut badly, this faulty cutting will be caused from this defect, that the craftsman was working without a rule and measure. Likewise, pleasure and everything else in human affairs ought to be measured and ruled according to the rule of reason and divine law; hence nonuse of the rule of reason and divine law is presupposed in the will before its disordered choice. And indeed there is no need to seek a cause of this non-use of the aforesaid rule because the liberty of the will itself (ipsa libertas voluntatis), thanks to which it can act or not act, suffices for this.63 In light of MacDonald’s analysis above, we can interpret Aquinas’s important remarks as follows. Although the craftsman has the tools necessary to enable him to cut properly (along with the knowledge of the rules concerning proper cutting), he nevertheless can fail to use those tools (and knowledge) in choosing to cut, leading him to cut in a crooked rather than straight manner. Similarly, Adam had knowledge of God’s law, but failed to incorporate the relevant aspects of that knowledge in choosing to act, leading him to act in a disordered rather than ordered manner—in other words, to sin. Furthermore, that Adam, on analogy with the craftsman, failed to consider a known rule is ultimately explicable in terms of “the liberty of the will itself.” Just as the craftsman can fail to have the tools needed for cutting rightly in hand, even though he is able to get them in hand (and should have them in hand when cutting), so Adam failed to keep the divine law and rule needed for acting in mind, even though he had the ability to keep it in mind and should have had it in mind when proceeding to act. As Aquinas also argues, while there is indeed a voluntary defect in the will that at bottom accounts not just for primal sin but all sin, this defect is not, in itself, sinful or evil: “just as the carpenter does no wrong in not

118  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin always having in hand a measure but in proceeding to cut without using the measure,” so “likewise the fault of the will does not consist in not actually giving heed to the rule of reason or divine law but in proceeding to choose without employing the rule or measure.”64 In other words, just as the craftsman is only obligated to have his rule or measure for cutting in hand when cutting because it is precisely then that he needs the rule in order to cut rightly, so finite, rational agents are only obligated to have the requisite rule in mind when choosing to act because it is precisely then that they need that rule in order to act rightly. We can and should make an important distinction, then, between (1) Adam’s initial, voluntary, but non-culpable failure to consider the requisite rule measuring his proposed action, and so prohibiting sin; and (2) Adam’s subsequent, voluntary, and culpable choosing to act “without actual consideration of the rule,” when he could and should have done otherwise.65 Pulling everything together, let’s use Thomistic moral psychology to explain Adam’s sin and so respond to (O2) as follows.66 Aquinas says that “the first thing that [Adam] willed in a disordered way was his own excellence. And so his disobedience was caused by pride.”67 Therefore, at an initial moment, T1, Adam dwelt on his own, desired goodness as distinct from divine goodness; and, having failed to keep in mind or perhaps even having set aside the all-important rule measuring his selflove (perhaps in order to dwell on his own goodness), he considered loving his own goodness completely independently of divine goodness. Consequently, at T1, Adam remained unaware of whether his proposed action of self-love fit with his pursuit of his overall good, which consisted in loving God as his highest good above all other things (including, of course, himself). Then, at a (at least logically) subsequent moment, T2 , the still sinless Adam faced a choice. Looking for the requisite rule, he could seek to determine the order of his proposed action to his overall good, thereby quickly discovering, upon laying hold of the rule, that realizing his overall good required subordinating his self-love to his love of God as his true, highest good. Unable to act knowingly in opposition to his naturally desired, overall good, he thereby would guard against sin. However, Adam had another option. He could perform his proposed action without looking for the rule, and so without knowing (as he ought to at that moment) whether this action contributed to his overall good. By taking this route, Adam would determine for himself what his overall good was: loving himself in place of God as his true, highest good. As it turns out (given divine revelation), Adam chose the latter route: he turned away from God as his highest good to (try to) find in himself his highest good, or (to try to) make himself, by his own power, the rule or measure of all things.68 As Aquinas puts it, Adam “sinned chiefly by desiring God’s likeness as regards ‘knowledge of good and evil’ … namely that by his own natural power he might decide what was good,

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 119 and what was evil for him to do.”69 Acting without the all-important rule measuring his self-love in mind, when he could and should have turned back to it so as to get it in mind (when choosing to act), Adam fell, and fell hard, plunging himself and his progeny into a fallen condition, the state of original sin. But why did Adam not seek out the rule so as to get it back in mind, thereby avoiding his catastrophic fall into sin? Once again, Aquinas says, “there is no need to seek a cause of this non-use of the aforesaid rule because the liberty of the will itself, thanks to which it can act or not act, suffices for this.” Therefore, it remained within Adam’s power to seek out and turn back toward the rule instead of acting without the rule, to determine whether his proposed action truly contributed to his overall good (which it did not). That he did not do so is ultimately due to the fact he exercised his will in the way that he did (acting without the rule), when he could have done otherwise, all antecedent conditions remaining the same. This is why we can say with Augustine and Aquinas that that there is no prior sin or flaw that existed prior to Adam’s sinful choice and which serves—or needs to serve—as a cause or explanation for Adam’s sin. We’ve reached what MacDonald calls a rock-bottom instance of primal moral agency. In response, a critic like Hick or Schneider might say that I’ve overlooked an important difference between Aquinas’s Adam, as I have described him, and ordinary moral agents such as ourselves. Even if he did not yet enjoy the beatific vision, Adam still possessed a privileged, intimate relationship with God in his prelapsarian state. And so, surely (one might argue), insofar as he was unaware of whether his proposed act of self-love contributed to his overall good, he still would have been highly motivated to figure this out, seeking out the requisite rule concerning self-love. In fact, given the relationship with God that he enjoyed, Adam presumably would have lacked any motivation not to seek out that rule, and naturally would have sought it out and recovered it quickly. Therefore, it still seems like Aquinas’s Adam never would have pridefully defied God and so fallen into a state of sin. However, what the objector fails to realize here is that insofar as Adam failed to possess or attend to the requisite rule, he possessed all of the positive motivation he needed in order to sin: the love of his own goodness. Presumably, the more Adam dwelt on his own goodness, or the more his own goodness impressed itself upon him, the more he would have been inclined to forsake investigating whether loving his own goodness fully was in conformity with his overall, desired good, and the more motivated he would have been to realize his naturally desired overall good in himself, making himself the rule or measure of his own acts. Since Adam also remained free to identify himself as his highest good, then he also remained free to forsake this investigation and turn instead to embrace himself as his highest good. This is also why Adam’s sin is so

120  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin egregious and his fall from grace is so great: despite possessing a privileged relationship with God, Adam did freely choose to seek his overall good in himself instead of God, as futile and destructive that choice proved to be, both for him and for us as his progeny. At this point, the proponent of (O2) could insist that we need to provide further explanation for Adamic sin. In particular, the objector may still insist that we need to posit some sort of weakness in Adam in order to fully explain his sin: without at least a rudimentary inclination to sin already present, primal sin would never occur. However, having now seen more clearly why Adam was able to sin (his ignorance of the requisite rule), and how he had all of the motivation he needed in order to sin (the love of his own goodness), then there is no need to explain his sin any further. Whether it would have been more likely that Adam would sin, had he possessed at least a rudimentary inclination to sin, is irrelevant. And so, having explained why and how it occurred, I have done all that I need to do to rebut (O2).

4.4  Original sin and original guilt On my Thomistic account, the reason we are liable to sin and suffer is because we possess a nature bereft of the gift of original justice. Given our connection to the sinful Adam—having received our nature from him, as the first (philosophically and theologically) human being, through the material process of generation—God refrains from doing for each of us what he would have done had Adam not sinned: affording us the gift of original justice upon uniting the soul to the body. In response to these claims, though, one could press the following objection: (O3) It would be unjust for God to withhold affording us, as Adam’s progeny, the gift and grace of original justice, since we did not personally commit (or concur with or condone) Adam’s sin. The most obvious way to read (O3) is as follows. Since, as Aquinas says, “a penalty is not justly inflicted except for a fault,”70 then the reason God withholds original justice from us when he creates us is because we share in Adam’s guilt. But then we face the following problem: as Oliver Crisp puts it, having Adam’s sin and guilt ascribed to me “seems unjust because I suffer for the sin of an ancestor from long ago with whose action I did not agree or concur. It is immoral because it is necessarily morally wrong to punish the innocent, and I am innocent of Adam’s sin (I did not commit his sin or condone it). It is also immoral because the guilt of one person’s sin does not transfer to another (I am not guilty of committing Adam’s sin).”71 “In analogous mundane circumstances,” Crisp continues, “we would think it a travesty of justice were innocent people to suffer a penalty because of the sin of another whose sin they

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 121 did not consent to and could not have prevented from occurring. And we would think it inconceivable that the guilt of one individual could be transferred to another.”72 This is why Crisp thinks that the doctrine of original guilt should be expunged from the doctrine of original sin. How would Aquinas respond to Crisp’s concerns, which drive this reading of (O3)? Once more, central to Aquinas’s view of human beings and moral agency is the following claim: “an individual person can be regarded in two ways: in one way as he is a particular person, in another way as he is part of a community.”73 This is why, in Aquinas’s view, it is possible to attribute a voluntary action to an individual in two respects: “insofar as he is a particular person” and “insofar as he is a part of a community, which act he does not do of himself (per se) nor by his own choice, but which is done by the whole community or the majority of the community or by the head of the community.”74 Furthermore, insofar as it is possible to attribute a voluntary action to an individual both “insofar as he is a particular person” and “insofar as he is a part of a community,” it is also possible to attribute guilt to an individual either “insofar as he is a particular person” or “insofar as he is a part of a community,” when the whole community, majority of the community, or head of the community commits a sinful act. A human person therefore can be guilty qua individual or qua member of a community when the whole community, majority of the community, or even just the head of the community commits a wrongful act. Similarly, Aquinas says, it is possible to view each of us as Adam’s progeny in two respects: qua individuals and qua members of the one human community united to Adam as our first parent or “head.” Clearly, qua individuals we did not commit Adam’s sin, nor did we consent to it, nor could we have prevented it from occurring. And so, qua individuals, we cannot possibly share in Adam’s guilt. In this sense, Aquinas would say, Crisp is absolutely right. However, qua members of the one human community, who have derived our nature from Adam and who are therefore each linked to Adam’s will, we can and do share in Adam’s guilt. His sinful action, the “common sin of all human nature,”75 is also, in this sense, our own. And there is nothing unjust about God punishing each us for a sin that is our own. Naturally, since Crisp thinks that “guilt is nontransferable”76 he probably would object in principle to Aquinas’s claim that I can be guilty of Adam’s sin even qua member of the one human community united to Adam as my first parent or “head.” “Guilt is intimately connected to a person’s moral agency,” Crisp says, and so since all of us who are “removed by a great distance in time” from Adam did not participate in his sin or consent to it (nor could we have prevented it), then we simply cannot be guilty of Adam’s sin.77 Nor, in turn, can God justly punish us for Adam’s sin. Once more, though, I think Aquinas readily would affirm that “guilt is intimately connected to a person’s moral agency” while denying that

122  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin a person qua individual moral agent actually needs to approve of or participate in a particular, wrongful act in order also to bear the guilt for it. In Aquinas’s view, while original sin is certainly not sin in the full, most robust sense of being a personal voluntary act, and so understood is not connected to our own agency, it nonetheless qualifies as voluntary, and as a result has “the nature of a fault” in each of us, “on account of its voluntary principle which is the actual sin of the first parent.”78 Accordingly, the further fact that we are separated from Adam by a great deal of time—and, as a community, remain spread out over vast stretches of space and time—becomes irrelevant. Adam exerts his influence on us not through a present exercise of will (he died long, long ago) but through the material process of generation which communicates human nature to us as his progeny. Consequently, even though for Aquinas none of us were literally present in Adam when he sinned (per Augustinian “realism”), we are still, in a real sense, united to Adam and his will. It is a unity, T.C. O’Brien says, “that may well be called continuity”79 insofar as the nature we each possess “is de facto derived from the one source.”80 The question then becomes whether this unity “that may be well called continuity” is sufficiently strong from not just a metaphysical but also a moral point of view to link each of us to Adam and his will. According to Aquinas’s favorite analogy, we each bear guilt for Adam’s sin given our link to Adam’s will in a similar way that the hand bears guilt given its link to the will of the person who uses the hand to commit homicide.81 This does not mean, of course, that I am united to Adam in the exact same sense that my hand is united to me; and so, the causal influence Adam exerts upon me (via the material process of generation) clearly differs from the causal influence I exert upon my hand (and other bodily parts) when I move it to act via the operation of my own will. Although my hand is a part of me, I am not a part of Adam at all: we are distinct beings or substances who possess our own rational powers of intellect and will. However, it also seems true that, in O’Brien’s words, “the unity of all men in human nature is really like the unity of an organism.”82 I am metaphysically linked with Adam (and uniquely so) as a result of sharing human nature as inherited from him as my first parent—again, the first philosophically and theologically human being—who lost the gift I was meant to receive as his descendant.83 Therefore, there is at least some reason to hold that upon inheriting my nature from Adam I came to share in Adam’s guilt since I, qua member of the one human community (like everyone else), possess a real connection with Adam’s will and so the actual sin that he committed. And so, God acts justly by punishing me—withholding original justice from me (and of course everyone else)—as a result. Let’s say, though, that the objector remains unconvinced: so understood, our connection with Adam is simply too “thin” metaphysically for us, as Adam’s progeny, to able to bear his guilt. Here, I think that

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 123 there is another option available to the Thomist: offering a more explicitly “representationalist” or “corporatist” account of original guilt that is at least Thomistic in spirit.84 On this account, Adam serves not only as our first parent, or the first philosophically and theologically human being, from we are all descended, but also our moral head, or head of the one moral community that is coterminous with the one metaphysical community of which we are all a part by virtue of deriving our nature from Adam as our first parent. Consequently, when Adam sinned qua moral head of the one human, moral community, he did not simply commit a personal sin. Representing all of us before God, he also sinned for each one of us qua members of the one moral community united with and under him as our moral head. As such, we each come to share in Adam’s guilt immediately upon receiving our nature from Adam, and so immediately upon joining the moral community that Adam “governs” via his will. Withholding original justice from us, God justly punishes us as a result. Of course, on this view, for God to be able to justly punish us for the common sin that Adam committed in his role as our moral head it must be the case that Adam justly served as our moral head. And we might question whether this even possible. Crisp certainly thinks it is not: even though he admits that “the idea that Adam may represent us and that we may be bound by his action is a familiar one in other, mundane contexts”—most notably, the political realm where our leaders “represent our views and make decisions on our behalf that bind us in certain ways”85 —he insists that just representation requires authorization. “If someone represents us without authorization,” he writes, “we would normally think this unjust.”86 In particular, Crisp claims that were someone to represent us without our authorization (like when we vote our political leaders into office) this would be unjust. As a result, even if God authorized Adam to act on our behalf as our moral head, in doing so he would be acting unjustly, for that arrangement “is not a decision to which we were party or to which we could assent as moral agents.”87 And “surely God would not act unjustly.”88 In response, even if it is true that we would normally think it unjust for someone to represent us without authorization, it is not at all clear (to me, at any rate) that there is something categorically unjust about someone representing us without authorization. On the Thomistic view I am now defending, Adam was utterly unique in this respect: gifted with original justice, and so endowed with all of the virtues, he exemplified what God intended for all of humanity to be and eventually to become, when he attained his beatitude in God. And so, one could argue that Adam served as a perfect representative for all of us: someone who, given his physical, moral, and spiritual constitution, naturally served both as our first parent and as our moral head.

124  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin However, let’s say, with Crisp, that Adam needed to be justly authorized to serve as our moral head: just representation does require just authorization. Even so, I don’t take it to be an obvious moral truth that just authorization always requires our authorization. Or, even more specifically, I don’t take it to be an obvious moral truth that God can’t justly authorize Adam to represent us without our authorization or “assent as moral agents.” On a traditional Christian conception of God, God and God alone is our rightful sovereign—someone who exercises legitimate moral authority over us—and as our rightful sovereign God can and does justly exercise his rightful sovereignty in relation to us in a myriad of ways without our consent. Most notably, God acted justly in bringing us into existence without our consent, and then acted justly in affording us the gift of original justice without our consent. And so, why, exactly, would it then be unjust for God to authorize Adam to serve as our moral head without our consent? To say that God, having authorized Adam to serve as our moral head, ends up punishing us for a sin that we personally did not commit misses the mark because on the theory being considered, God punishes us not qua individuals but qua members of the one human community united with and under Adam who is not only as first parent but also our moral head. And qua members of the one human community united with and under Adam as our moral head (but not qua individuals) we share in Adam’s guilt, and so are justly subject to divine punishment as a result.89 What the objector needs to provide, then, is a reason for thinking that God’s unilaterally authorizing Adam to serve as our moral head is intrinsically unjust, and so does not constitute a just exercise of divine sovereignty. If the objector cannot provide such a reason (and I am dubious that he can), then there is no reason to doubt that this particular exercise of sovereignty is, in fact, just. Another way to rebut (O3) is by arguing on behalf of the claim that we bear Adam’s guilt, which does not also require explaining how we bear Adam’s guilt (even though it does not prevent us from explaining how we bear Adam’s guilt). In his Summa contra gentiles, Aquinas offers the following argument for the existence of original guilt in us: 1 All human beings possess various defects: we are liable both to sin and to suffer; 2 These defects are punishment for sin: not personal sin, but Adam’s sin; 3 Only the guilty can be justly punished; 4 Therefore, we as Adam’s progeny share in Adam’s sin and guilt, and are justly punished as a result.90 Premise (1) is supported by universal human experience; and so presumably no one would doubt that it is true. In support of premise (2), Aquinas claims there is good reason to hold that a perfectly good and

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 125 providential God would not create or leave us in a defective state, in which we are liable to do evil and suffer on account of it. So our condition must be penal. But, since we are all born into this condition, we do not suffer from it as a result of any personal sin. And so this possibility remains, which Christian revelation affirms: we are in a defective, penal condition as a result of the sin of another: Adam, who is our first parent. But, per premise (3), we cannot be justly punished for Adam’s sin unless we are also at fault for it. God, who is perfectly just, would not punish us for Adam’s sin unless we all shared in Adam’s guilt. Consequently, we, as Adam’s progeny, bear his guilt, and are justly punished as a result. What might one say in opposition to this argument? Presumably, one would not want to challenge premise (3) since the principle motivating (O3) is, in Crisp’s words, “it is necessarily morally wrong to punish the innocent.” So that leaves premise (2) since, again, premise (1) is supported by universal human experience. The objector could challenge this premise by claiming that we have strong empirical reasons—given what evolutionary science tells us about human origins—for thinking that the defects to which we are subject are not the consequence of any historical fall from grace. These defects are purely natural, and not also penal. However, as I already argued in Section 4.2, affirming that God created Adam in an originally just state is entirely compatible with affirming what evolutionary science tells us about our origins: Adam experienced an “original fragility,” as we all now do, as a result of his fall. Furthermore, by denying the historical Fall, the objector must admit that God created and left us in a highly disadvantaged moral, spiritually, and physical state. And, as I argued in Section 4.2, while God would in no way have acted unjustly or inconsistently with his perfect goodness if he did leave us in such a state—original justice was not strictly owed to Adam or us as his progeny qua human beings—he had every reason not to do so, especially given his specific, ultimate aim of bringing Adam and us as his progeny into full and perfect union with himself as our highest good. Consequently, there is at least more reason than not to think that premise (2) of the argument is true.91 The other main route to go here in challenging premise (2) is to argue that we do suffer certain consequences of the Fall, but these consequences are not penalties, properly understood. Crisp argues that as a result of the Fall, we inherit from our first parents (or members of a first human community) a “morally vitiated condition,” which, though non-culpable, “normally inevitably yields actual sin” for those old and capable enough of committing actual sin.92 Crisp further contends that this condition “will lead to death and exclusion from the presence of God without the application of the relevant treatment,” i.e., the atoning work of Christ.93 The idea here, Crisp says, is that being in a morally corrupt state, while it does not render us guilty, still renders us “unfit for the presence of God.”94

126  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin However, in response, one could argue that on Crisp’s model, it still seems like our being in a “morally vitiated condition” is penal in nature. If we are corrupt because we lack the grace of original justice, then it seems reasonable to ask why we lack this grace, and so the original moral integrity we would have possessed, and which God intended us to possess as Adam’s progeny. Why would God leave us in the morally corrupt state into which we were born, unless we, too, shared in Adam’s guilt? Furthermore, if the inherited moral corruption is in no way linked with guilt, it is difficult to see why we should think of it as sin, properly speaking, and therefore why we should think that, taken on its own, it merits separation from God. The more reasonable explanation seems to be that insofar as we are barred from being in God’s presence apart from any sin that we do, it is because we are still (“original”) sinners who share in Adam’s guilt. Or, at the very least, we are barred from being in God’s presence because we are sinners who are guilty before God, having been born into the world in a damaged or corrupt state. The final move available for the Thomist to make, then, in seeking to rebut (O3), is to argue as follows. Let’s say God makes the possession of original justice by each of us as Adam’s progeny contingent on Adam retaining his right relationship with God. When Adam sins, sundering his right relationship with God, he also forfeits the gift of original justice for himself as well as for us. God therefore refrains from doing what he otherwise would have done had Adam not sinned: affording each of us the gift of original justice when we each inherit our nature from Adam.95 The true cause of God’s denying us original justice, then, is Adam’s sin: Adam is directly morally responsible for our being in our sinful condition, not God. However, while Adam is directly morally responsible for our being in our sinful condition, we do not share in Adam’s sin or his guilt. We are guilty before God because we are born into the world lacking a right relationship with God: a justice or righteousness we ought to possess but do not possess and would have possessed had Adam not sinned and retained his right relationship with God. Thus, on this revised, Thomistic account, we are guilty because Adam sinned, but we do not in any way bear the guilt for Adam’s sin, and so are not punished for it—though, we indeed suffer the consequences for it. And so, the chief concern driving (O3) no longer holds.96 However, on this revised account, isn’t God’s denying us original justice still unjust since we do not bear any guilt for Adam’s sin? I don’t see why we should think so. Although God intended that all of us would possess original justice, none of us legitimately can claim, especially in light of Adam’s fall, and the damage he caused by his fall, that we are somehow now owed the same gift that Adam once possessed. Moreover, since God is the giver of this great, highly valuable gift, which rendered Adam (and would have rendered us) just and righteous before God, it

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 127 seems that he has every right to make our possession of it, like Adam’s possession of it, conditional on Adam retaining his right relationship with God. Indeed, it would befit God, given his perfect justice, to do so.97 Finally, we also surely have good reason to think that a perfectly good and loving God, going beyond the strict demands of justice, would not leave us in our fallen state, but would also work in our lives in to redeem us from this state, and provide the assistance we need to attain lives that are eventually free of any sin and suffering. And this is precisely what Christian revelation or teaching tells us that God has done, is doing, and will do in our fallen lives. In sum, I think there are multiple, viable ways available to the Thomist to rebut (O3), and only the final way requires revising Aquinas’s own position on original guilt (while retaining the broader concept of original guilt). At this point, then, having explored these pathways, I think it is necessary to reflect on how God bears ultimate responsibility for the Fall, even if he bears no direct moral responsibility for the Fall. It is to that final task in this chapter that I now turn.

4.5  Divine providence and the Fall Central to my Thomistic FFT is the claim that we are liable to do and suffer evil as a result of the Fall, a primal abuse of free will. And, one might argue, as many Christian philosophers have, that by endowing us with free will, and specifically libertarian free will, God put outside of his control whether the Fall occurs.98 I suppose philosophers and theologians who think this way still have reason to endorse my FFT since it is possible to claim that we justly languish in a state or condition of original sin as a result of the Fall, deprived of the gift our first parents once possessed, while further claiming that there was nothing God (having afforded us free will) could have done to prevent the Fall from freely occurring. However, this is not the Thomistic view. Or, at least, it is not consistent with a full-blown Thomistic view of providence, according to which God’s will encompasses all states of affairs whether necessary or contingent, good or bad. Since, as I argued in the previous chapter, we have very good reason to adopt this view of divine providence, especially insofar as we want to affirm God’s willingness and ability to redeem all evil, what should we now say about the place of the Fall within God’s providential scheme? To begin, we need to reflect on how the Fall both contravenes God’s will and falls within the scope of God’s will—specifically, his will to permit the Fall and include it within our world when he could have done otherwise. Here, I think it is helpful to employ Aquinas’s distinction between God’s antecedent will and his consequent will: a distinction, Aquinas says, which “applies not to God’s will itself, in which there is nothing prior or

128  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin posterior, but instead to the things that are willed.”99 God’s antecedent will, which Aquinas says is better described as a wish (velleitas) or a desire on God’s part, is what God wills in the abstract, prescinding from any particular considerations or circumstances. God’s consequent will refers to what he actually wills, taking into account particular considerations or circumstances. And so, Aquinas says, God antecedently wills that all human beings be saved, but—taking into account the particular reality of human sin—consequently wills that some be damned “in accord with the demands of his justice.”100 Importantly, then, while God’s antecedent will may be left unfulfilled, his consequent will is always fulfilled. Leaving aside for the moment the question of how far God’s salvific will extends (a topic I’ll address in future chapters), I suggest, for our present purposes, that we employ Aquinas’s distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will as follows. God antecedently wills that no free creature sins since sin opposes God’s good will and law for us as human beings: the moral standard that we ought to meet as the kinds of beings God created us to be. Accordingly, God antecedently wills that Adam never sins, and that none of us suffer the consequences of his fall. And it is because God antecedently wills this that we also can say that God would have conferred the gift of original justice on all of us had Adam not fallen. In fact, were God to exercise his consequent will differently—willing not to permit Adam’s fall, or any of us to fall—then he indeed would have conferred original justice on all of us. But since God does permit Adam to fall in the actual world, in line with his actual, consequent will, God’s antecedent will remains unfulfilled. But of course, God’s consequent will, which includes God’s permitting Adam to fall, is not left unfulfilled. And God only permits Adam to fall because, in further accordance with his consequent will, he eternally wills to bring good out of it, and populate the world with particular redeeming goods that otherwise would not and could not obtain had he not permitted Adam to fall. On a Thomistic understanding of providence, then, this is what it means to say that the Fall is part of God’s will, and so does fall squarely within his control, along with his eternally conceived, providential plan to redeem all of the evil that we do and suffer as fallen beings. So that I can further defend God’s decision to include the Fall within his good world when he could have done otherwise, I’m going to draw on the principles concerning creation and providence that I exposited and defended in the previous chapter. According to the first of these principles (from Section 3.1), (C1) It is better for a perfectly good God to create a world W1 that contains all kinds and levels of good things that can—and do— cause evil and suffer on account of it, than to create a world W2 that only contains good things that cannot cause evil or suffer on account of it.

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 129 Extending (C1) to address our current concerns, let’s say the following. W1 is a world that contains rational creatures such as ourselves who are psychologically capable of sinning along with rational creatures who are psychologically incapable of sinning. Here, I am thinking of rational creatures whom God creates in a fully beatified state, and so who already enjoy the beatific vision, directly cognizing and enjoying God’s perfect goodness. Aquinas holds that such creatures, the blessed in heaven, possess and exercise free will even though they cannot will evil: given their direct intellectual apprehension of divine goodness, which they also fully love, they always freely choose the good, employing their own, uncoerced powers of intellect and will.101 For now, let’s assume these creatures possess and exercise libertarian free will in always doing the good (a point I will defend in Chapter 6). Next, let’s postulate a world W2 that contains these beatified creatures but no creatures such as ourselves who are psychologically capable of sinning. Applying (C1), and with Aquinas, I claim that it is better for God to create W1 rather than W2 since W1 manifests God’s goodness more fully than W2: the former world contains two kinds of rational creatures, only one of which cannot will evil, while the latter world only contains one kind of rational creature, which cannot will evil.102 Furthermore, God’s choosing to create W1 instead of W2 fits with what Aquinas says about the way God chooses generally to exercise providence in the cosmos, employing genuine, secondary causes so understood as “certain mediators of God’s providence.”103 As we saw in the previous chapter, Aquinas claims that “God’s providence governs lower things by means of higher things—not on account of any defect in his power, but by reason of the abundance of his goodness; so that he might communicate the dignity of causality even to creatures.”104 That causal activity includes the free choices that we human beings make and execute employing our rational powers. So were God to create all rational beings in a state of beatitude, he would leave out of the world rational creatures who possess a particular kind of dignity and so goodness, which comes from freely adhering to God in pursuit of beatitude, so understood as the ultimate end for which God created us. Further extending (C1), I also think it is helpful and important to appeal not only to the intrinsic goodness and so value of freely working toward and attaining heavenly beatitude, in co-operation with divine grace, but also the intrinsic value—and, I think, greater value—of the virtue attained by freely working toward and attaining heavenly beatitude, in co-operation with divine grace. As we have seen, Aquinas does think that the first human beings were created in a state of moral and spiritual rectitude, and so possessed all of the virtues. But since they did not yet enjoy the beatific vision, they were not yet fully morally and spiritually perfect. As Aquinas recognizes, “the more perfect a habit of virtue is, the more forcefully does it make the will tend to the good of

130  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin virtue …. So that, if it reaches the end of perfection, it confers a certain necessity of acting well, as in the case of the blessed who are not able to sin.”105 Accordingly, while God could have created human beings in a fully blessed state, in full possession of fully perfect virtue, “readymade,” so to speak, by divine grace, such virtue is arguably not as intrinsically valuable as perfect virtue gained through personal effort in full co-operation with divine grace: virtue understood, in Charles Journet’s words, “as the completion of a venture” or “an end-product or fruit” of the first human beings’ moral and spiritual journey toward beatific union with God in perfect knowledge and love.106 This is particularly evident if we focus on the crowning virtue of charity (caritas) or love of God. Thinking now of our own world, had God created Adam in an already beatified state, he certainly would have loved God above all things, including himself, without fail. Moreover, once more, he would have loved God freely, employing his own, uncoerced rational faculties of intellect and will, even though there would be no psychological possibility of him failing to love God freely. Nevertheless, only loving God with a free but unchangeable will is arguably not as valuable as both loving God with a free yet changeable will and subsequently loving God with a free but unchangeable will. The first sort of loving act only can be produced by a rational being created in a good but not yet perfected state; it cannot be replicated by a rational being created in an already perfected state. Accordingly, the intrinsic value of the perfect love a rational being comes to possess and exercise (when that being attains heavenly beatitude), through the exercise of free will, is arguably greater than the intrinsic value of the perfect love a rational being created possesses and exercises right from the start. Of course, insofar as God is sovereign over our free choices, God could have enabled Adam freely to love himself, and eventually attain beatitude, without Adam—or any of us—ever having to fall (insofar as God did not will to permit any fall). This is why we need to appeal to the second principle I articulated and defended in the previous chapter (Section 3.2): (C2) It is entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create a world W1 versus a world W2—both of which are ultimately good cosmic wholes—even if W1 contains more evil than W2 would contain. Extending this important principle, let’s now say the following. W1 is our own world, in which God creates Adam in a state of original justice and the Fall occurs: Adam sins. W2, had God created it, is a world in which God creates Adam in a state of original justice and the Fall does not occur, nor does it ever occur: no one sins in W2. Although not created in a beatified state, everyone in W2 eventually

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 131 freely comes to inhabit that state when they enter heavenly glory, fully perfected in their knowledge and love of God. Let’s then further say that W1, as a fallen world, contains a lot more evil within it than W2 would contain, were God to create it: a world that has no moral evil within it. Even so, according to (C2), since both W1 and W2 are ultimately good cosmic wholes, God has a reason sufficient for creating both W1 and W2. And a reason sufficient for creating either W1 or W2 is a reason sufficient for creating just one of them—say, W1 instead of W2. Therefore, even if our own, fallen world has a lot more evil within it than other, comparable, unfallen worlds would have (worlds containing no moral evil), God, acting in accord with his perfect and essential goodness, has a reason sufficient for creating our own world versus these other worlds. Another way of putting all of this is that it is entirely consistent for God to create W1 because God would not allow any evil to exist within the created order unless he were powerful, good, and wise enough to draw ultimate good from that evil, thereby redeeming it in the end. Here, then, it is worth appealing to the third main principle concerning divine creation and providence that I explicated and defended in the previous chapter (Section 3.3): (C3) In any world W God would create, God would redeem each and every evil e in W by ordering e to the goodness of W as a whole, thereby also ensuring that e contributes in the end to the goodness of W as a whole. I defended (C3) by following Aquinas’s lead in affording God absolute sovereignty over what we do, including all of the evil that we do. For any agent S and morally bad action A, God’s concurrently willing and causing [S A-ing]—which is entirely consistent with S A-ing, and so sinning, exercising libertarian free will—constitutes God’s willing to permit moral evil—the badness of A, as caused by S—in order to bring about those moral and spiritual goods he eternally wills to conjoin to that evil and all of the badness that results from S committing it: great, redeeming goods, many of which otherwise, in the absence of any such badness, would not and could not obtain. Similarly, thinking now of Adam and his fall from grace, we can say the following: God’s concurrently willing and causing [Adam falling]—which is entirely consistent with Adam falling, exercising libertarian free will—constitutes God’s willing to permit Adam’s fall, or sin, in order to bring about those moral and spiritual goods he eternally wills to conjoin to it and all of the badness (or evil both done and suffered by us as fallen beings), which results from it. These moral and spiritual goods are great, redeeming goods many of which otherwise, in the absence of the Fall, would not and could not obtain.

132  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin This is why, consistent with the classical Christian tradition, we can call the Fall a “happy” one. Fully in line with this tradition, Aquinas says, “there is no reason why human nature should not have been raised to something greater after sin. For God allows evils to happen in order to elicit something better therefrom; hence it is written (Romans 5:20): ‘Where sin abounded, grace did more abound’. Hence, too, in the blessing of the Paschal candle, we say: ‘O happy fault (felix culpa), that merited such and so great a Redeemer!’”107 Not only, then, does the Fall occasion God’s work as Redeemer in the person of Christ but it also, as a result, occasions God’s redeeming work in our individual lives: ordering all of the evil in which we each participate as fallen beings to our ultimate good, which is eternal life with God. Therefore, in the end, we must say that God opposes the Fall and so in no way endorses it, taken on its own (which means that it contravenes his antecedent will). However, taking into account the specific kind of good world that God (consequently) wills to bring about, and the specific kind of good that God ultimately wills to bring about in that world—which includes fashioning great, moral and spiritual good for us and in us out of all of the evil we do and suffer as fallen beings—we also can say that God wills to permit the Fall in order to bring about that good. In conclusion, then, I readily admit that my Thomistic FFT cannot stand on its own: it does not address nor can it address all of the questions that inevitably arise concerning the ultimate responsibility God bears for allowing the Fall and the work he does to redeem all of the evil that follows from it. But, in my view, it is not meant to stand on its own. It does need to be incorporated into a larger theodicy that explains how God redeems the evil in which we participate. I will be constructing and defending this larger theodicy in the chapters that follow.

Notes 1 In making these claims, I am not denying an angelic fall which, according to traditional Christian teaching, precedes the human fall. But my focus is on the advent of moral evil within human history (and so our natural or material world). All of the claims I have made about God’s sovereignty over moral evil includes the evil that the fallen angels do, exercising their own, libertarian free will. 2 Here, I agree with W. Matthews Grant, who claims that that any Free Will Defense, or FWT (as I call it), that pits divine sovereignty over moral evil against our possessing and exercising libertarian free will is a failure. For more, see Chapter 7 of Grant’s Free Will and God’s Universal Causality. See also the main criticisms Brian Davies levies against the Free Will Defense in Chapter 5 of The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil. 3 For an official exposition of these doctrines, see CCC 374–406. 4 According to Aquinas and Catholic teaching, there are two exceptions here: neither Christ nor Mary, the mother of Christ, was born in a state of original sin, nor committed any actual sin. However, according to

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 133 Aquinas, both Christ and Mary were subject to certain effects of the Fall, like suffering and death, neither of which incline us to sin. (See ST III.14 and ST III.27.3 ad 1.) 5 Quaestiones disputatae de malo 4.1. All translations of De malo (DM) are taken from On Evil, trans. John A. Oesterle and Jean T. Oesterle (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). 6 Ibid. For more on original justice as a habit, see T.C. O’Brien, trans. and ed., Summa Theologiae, vol. 26, Original Sin, Blackfriars ed. (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; London, UK: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965), appendix 8. 7 ST I.100.1 ad 2. 8 ST II-II.163.1 ad 1. 9 SCG IV.52. All translations of Book IV of the SCG are from Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation, trans. Charles J. O’Neil (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). In this case, Aquinas is specifically referring to the first man, Adam. Interestingly, he holds that if only Eve had sinned, original sin would not have been contracted by us. And this is because Adam “moves” in his progeny through the “active power of generation” (ST I-II.81.4), a power he says belongs to the man, not the woman (see ST I-II.81.5). Elsewhere, though, Aquinas refers to our first parents as “the principles of the whole human nature to be transmitted by them to their posterity” (ST II-II.164.1 ad 3); so we as their posterity became subject to death through “their sin” (eorum peccatum). 10 DM 4.1. Michael C. Rea argues in response to this claim that “it is hard to see why Adam’s first sin was a sin committed with his whole nature, as it were, rather than a sin that simply involved him as an individual” (“The Metaphysics of Original Sin,” Persons: Human and Divine, eds. Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman [Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 2007], 331; italics in the original text). Aquinas’s answer to this in ST I-II.81.2 is that the gift of original justice was conferred not just on Adam’s person but on human nature itself, so that when Adam sinned, he lost that gift not just for himself but also for all of us. And so, having lost that gift, then there was nothing more Adam could have done to affect human nature: whatever other sins he committed would be strictly personal in nature. 11 ST I-II.85.3 (translation modified slightly). 12 ST I-II.85.3 ad 2. 13 DM 4.1. 14 Ibid. 15 See DM 4.1 ad 19. 16 See in particular ST I.90.2-3, where Aquinas argues that the soul can be produced only through creation, and so God alone. 17 At least, I take the model I am proposing here to be consistent with the mature Aquinas’s position on original justice, since, certainly in his earlier major work, the Scriptum super libros sententiarum (SENT), Aquinas conceives of original justice as separable from grace and so as something naturally transmittable. To what extent Aquinas continued to hold on to this position is unclear; it certainly seems inconsistent with his explicit, later claims that original justice includes and requires grace. (See, for example, ST I.100.1 ad 2 and DM 5.1.) Conceiving of the transmission of original justice along strictly biological lines (as something transmitted through generation) also requires holding that the body itself would have caused original justice in us. But, as Daniel W. Houck points out in Chapter 2 of his book, Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020), this also means that had Adam not sinned, the body transmitted from him would

134  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin have been able to cause grace, which is absurd, and certainly not in line with Aquinas’s views on grace (and, I would add, the soul). This is why I think the Thomist should hold that original justice is supernatural rather than natural, and would have been our habitual condition insofar as God infused it along with the soul upon our receiving our bodily nature from Adam. For more on the historical debates between Thomists on this point, see also Chapter 2 of Houck’s book. 18 See SCG IV.52. 19 ST I-II.17.9 ad 3. 20 Aquinas does say that original sin “is not a pure privation, but a corrupt habit” (ST I-II.82.1 ad 1). However, this habit is not the sort of habit “whereby power is inclined to an act” (ST I-II.82.1); rather, it “is an inordinate disposition of nature” (ibid., ad 2), or the internal disorder resulting from the loss of original justice. 21 ST I-II.85.3. 22 ST I.94.1. 23 Ibid. Aquinas says here that Adam knew God through his “intelligible effects” and not merely his “sensible effects.” 24 See SCG IV.52. Following the Vulgate, Aquinas is thinking of Adam as the one “in whom” (in quo) all sinned (Romans 5:12). 25 Ian McFarland, “The Fall and Sin,” The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, eds. John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain Torrance (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 143. 26 John Schneider, “The Fall of ‘Augustinian Adam’: Original Fragility and Supralapsarian Purpose,” Zygon 47 (2012): 953. 27 Ibid., 954. 28 Ibid., 953. Italics are in the original text. 29 John Schneider, “Recent Genetic Science and Christian Theology on Human Origins: An ‘Aesthetic Supralapsarianism,’” Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith 62 (2010): 196–212, in particular 202. 30 Schneider, “The Fall of ‘Augustinian Adam,’” 953. 31 See in particular Pius XII, Humani Generis 37, available at https:// www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_ enc_12081950_humani-generis.html. 32 ST I.96.1 ad 2. 33 Ibid. 34 Aquinas further claims in ST I.91.2 that it was necessary for God, in creating Adam, to produce the body directly as well, since it had not previously been formed. But, given what I am arguing here, I think this claim is not central to a Thomistic account of human origins. 35 When did this occur? It is difficult to say, though I favor a later date in the evolution of our ancestors in the genus homo, when there is stronger evidence of the existence and use of rationality. For more on the possibilities, see Kenneth W. Kemp, “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85 (2011): 217–36, in particular 233–5. 36 See ST I-II.85.6. 37 ST I.97.1. 38 I am adopting the phrasing here from Rudi A. te Velde, “Evil, Sin, and Death: Thomas Aquinas on Original Sin,” The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, eds. Rik van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 162. 39 Similarly, presuming Adam’s soul in the state of original justice was able to preserve his body from corruption, it would also have been able to prevent pleiotropic genes in his body (with good effects favored by evolution) from

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 135 having subsequent, adverse effects. For more on evolutionary theories of aging, see Thomas B.L. Kirkwood and Steven N. Austad, “Why Do We Age?,” Nature 408 (2000): 233–8. 40 ST I.102.2. 41 ST I.97.2 ad 4. 42 ST I-II.94.2. 43 Houck, Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution, 205. 44 Ibid. 45 See Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, “A Theological Fittingness Argument for the Historicity of the Fall of Homo Sapiens,” Nova et Vetera 13 (2015): 651–67, in particular 658–63. 46 Austriaco suggests that Adam possessed “preteradaptive gifts” in addition to (or as a subset of) his preternatural gifts “to remedy and perfect those evolved adaptations that in themselves would have hindered human persons from attaining their beatitude in God” (ibid., 658). Those adaptive limitations include promiscuous human mate choice, biased human cognition, and the human proclivity to aggression. 47 ST I.1.8 ad 2. 48 Brian J. Shanley makes this point in The Thomist Tradition, Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, vol. 2, ed. Eugene Thomas Long (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), 101. 49 ST I-II.82.1 ad 3 (emphasis in Freddoso’s translation). 50 For the details of the account and a defense of it, see Kemp, “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” 230–5. For a remarkably similar attempt to reconcile monogenism as a theological doctrine with polygenism, see Martin Lembke, “Pious Polygenism and Original Sin,” Faith and Philosophy 30 (2013): 434–8. 51 Kemp thinks that the interbreeding that occurred early in our history, enabling the proliferation of the species on both a philosophical and biological level, is more akin to promiscuity than bestiality (“Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” 232–3). But it is sin nonetheless. 52 Hick, Evil and the God of Love, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 62–3, 250. 53 See Schneider, Animal Suffering and the Problem of Darwinian Evil, 88–91. 54 Schneider, “The Fall of ‘Augustinian Adam,’” 962. 55 Ibid. Italics are in the original text. 56 Scott MacDonald, “Primal Sin,” in The Augustinian Tradition, ed. Gareth B. Matthews (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 120. MacDonald is thinking here primarily of angelic sin, though his insights also apply to primal, human sin. 57 Ibid., 121. 58 Ibid., 122. 59 Kevin Timpe, Free Will in Philosophical Theology (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2014), 45. 60 Ibid., 46. 61 MacDonald, “Primal Sin,” 133. 62 Ibid., 132. 63 DM 1.3. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Here, I am drawing on and adapting some very helpful analysis of Aquinas’s account of the first cause of moral evil, or “proto-sins” (sins not caused by other sins), in Steven J. Jensen, “Proto-Sin: A Case Study,”

136  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 93 (2019): 161–71, and “Aquinas’s Original Discovery: A Reply to Barnwell,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92 (2018): 73–95, in particular 88–91. It was Jacques Maritain who originally called Aquinas’s account of the cause of moral evil one of Aquinas’s most original discoveries. 67 ST II-II.163.1 ad 1. 68 Consequently, we intelligibly can picture Adam acting in defiance of the rule measuring the love of his own goodness by considering it and then abandoning that consideration in order to dwell on—and then choose for the sake of—his own, desired goodness, as he sought to find in himself his highest good, or make himself the rule and measure of all things. I’m adopting this point from W. Matthews Grant, “Aquinas on How God Causes the Act of Sin without Causing Sin Itself,” The Thomist 73 (2009): 472. 69 ST II-II.163.2. Aquinas also says here that Adam “sinned by desiring God’s likeness as regards his own power of operation, namely that by his own natural power he might act so as to obtain happiness.” 70 SCG IV.50. 71 Oliver D. Crisp, “On Original Sin,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 17 (2015): 257. Crisp makes comparable claims in “A Moderate Reformed View,” Original Sin and the Fall: Five Views, eds. J.B. Stump and Chad Meister (Downers Grove, IN: IVP Academic, 2020), 35–54. 72 Crisp, “On Original Sin,” 257–8. 73 DM 4.1. 74 Ibid. 75 DM 4.1 ad 19. 76 Crisp, “A Moderate Reformed View,” 44. 77 Ibid. 78 DM 4.1. 79 O’Brien, Original Sin, 138. 80 Ibid., 139. 81 See, for example, ST I-II.81.1 and DM 4.1. 82 O’Brien, Original Sin, 137. 83 I don’t think this means that we need to hold, as Rea does in interpreting Aquinas, that there is a physical object “Humanity,” such that “when Adam sinned, Humanity—the body of which all human beings are parts— sinned” (“The Metaphysics of Original Sin,” 330). Holding that there is a real link to Adam’s will via our metaphysically shared nature does not also require holding that there is a distinct object, Humanity, of which we are all a part. Nor does it require (however) treating our link with Adam, and so the idea of a single human body or community as a mere metaphor. Perhaps it is more apt to conceive of the one body of humanity as more like one political or moral body, with Adam as our head—an idea I continue to explore in this section. 84 Peter King offers a more “corporatist” reading of Aquinas’s account of original guilt in “Damaged Goods: Human Nature and Original Sin,” Faith and Philosophy 24 (2007): 247–67, in particular 261–2. 85 Crisp, “A Moderate Reformed View,” 40. 86 Ibid., 41. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 I am not going to explore further whether original guilt on this view properly should be deemed “alien” versus “personal” guilt. Even if God judges us to be guilty, treating us “as if” we had sinned with Adam as our moral head, it still remains true that we are guilty of Adam’s sin since

Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin 137 we are directly accountable for Adam’s sin. For more on the distinction between personal and alien guilt, particularly as it relates to the distinction between realist and representationalist (or “federalist”) conceptions of original guilt, see Thomas H. McCall, Against God and Nature: The Doctrine of Sin (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), Chapter 4. 90 See in particular SCG IV.52. Oswin Magrath calls this Aquinas’s “rational argument,” or a “‘suasio’ from reason,” in support of the claim that original sin exists in us. And there are other arguments Aquinas offers as well (from Scripture, and from baptism) in support of this claim, which I won’t pursue more here. See Oswin Magrath, “St. Thomas’ Theory of Original Sin,” The Thomist 16 (1953): 161–89, in particular 164. 91 This is especially true if we take premise (2) to be supported by revelation: it is a truth of the faith (as Aquinas thinks it is) that we were created in a state of original justice, as compared to the fallen state in which we are now. 92 Crisp, “Original Sin,” 264. 93 Ibid., 262. 94 Crisp, “A Moderate Reformed View,” 47. 95 Houck (who, on his “new Thomist” view, conceives of original sin as a privation of sanctifying grace) argues that it is much easier to defend this claim if we adopt a “generationist” versus “creationist” account of the soul, according to which humans have the power to bring it about that their children have souls. Otherwise, “it seems hard to avoid the implication God is causally involved in the transmission of original sin” (Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution, 207). However, on the creationist account, all God is causally involved in is producing the soul and uniting it to the body; the reason he does so without also affording us original justice is Adam’s sin, and because we are Adam’s progeny. Furthermore, on the generationist account, it still remains true that God withholds original justice from us when our parents generate not only our bodies but also our souls. And so, once more, the generationist also has to appeal to the kind of argument I am making here that the true cause of God’s decision is Adam’s sin, and that this decision is just. 96 Unlike the traditional Thomistic account of original guilt that I first defended, this revised account therefore relies on a “mediate” rather than “immediate” view of original guilt. As McCall explains the difference, “where immediate theories say that we are guilty for what Adam did, mediate views hold that the only guilt we bear due to original sin is guilt for our corrupt state” (Against God and Nature, 168). In this sense, the revised account is similar to the account that Anselm offers in De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato (On the Virgin Conception and Original Sin, trans. Camilla McNab, Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works, eds. Brian Davies and G.R. Evans [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998], 357–89). For example, Anselm writes, “Each man is burdened with the sin or debt of Adam, each being propagated from Adam, although he is not implicated in the sin itself” (ch. 10). As far as I can tell, this account of original guilt is also consistent with current Catholic doctrine. 97 In his Compendium theologiae (CT) I.195 (translated as Compendium of Theology by Richard J. Regan [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009), Aquinas writes, “If a king should give an estate to a soldier to be transmitted by him to his heirs, it cannot subsequently devolve to his descendants if the soldier commits a crime against the king so as to merit forfeiture of the estate. And so the crime of the parent justly deprives his

138  Free Will, the Fall, and Original Sin descendants of the estate.” Since the estate is not something owed to the soldier or his heirs by the king, the king does nothing unjust in taking it back from him and them—especially assuming the king fittingly made the retention and transferring of this gift conditional on the soldier’s continued loyalty and obedience to the king. Based on the view I am presenting here, one could argue that the king acts justly even if none of the soldier’s heirs bear his guilt. 98 See, for example, Richard Swinburne, who writes, “It is not logically possible—that is, it would be self-contradictory to suppose—that God could give us such free will and yet ensure that we always use it in the right way” (Is There a God?, rev. ed. [Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010], 86). 99 ST I.19.6 ad 1. 100 Ibid. 101 See, for example, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (DV) 22.6. 102 Specifically, Aquinas claims in DV 24.1 ad 16 that in order to manifest divine goodness fully, the universe is better with both sorts of good creatures in it—those creatures who are capable of adhering and not adhering to God, and those (beatified) creatures who adhere unchangeably to God—“than if only one or the other were found.” Translation in Truth, vol. 3, trans. Robert W. Schmidt (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1994). 103 ST I.22.3. 104 Ibid. 105 SCG III.138. Translation (and all subsequent translations) from Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Three: Providence, Part 2, trans. Vernon J. Bourke (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). Here, Aquinas also distinguishes between two kinds of necessity, the necessity of coercion, which is repugnant to freedom of the will, and necessity of inclination, which is not. The latter sort of necessity “does not diminish the value of a virtuous act, but increases it, for it makes the will incline more intensely toward an act of virtue.” 106 Charles Journet, The Meaning of Evil, trans. Michael Barry (Providence, RI: Cluny, 2020), 132. In context, Journet is speaking about beatitude; I am extending the claim to include virtue. 107 ST III.1.3 ad 3 (translation slightly modified).

5

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering

In the last chapter, I offered and defended what I think is a plausible account of why, generally speaking, we human beings do lots of evil and suffer on account of it. In accord with his perfect justice, God has left us in a very vulnerable state as a result of Adam’s fall: since our shared nature lacks the order of original justice, we remain especially susceptible to committing and suffering evils of all varieties and severities. We continue to abuse our free will in egregious ways, causing real harm to others as well as ourselves, and we continue to suffer grievously at the hands of other human beings along with the non-personal forces of nature which, while not evil themselves, do cause evil to occur, and so often seem to be working against us. God, however, has not left us on our own to contend with the evil and suffering that we unceasingly face in our world. As I will continue to argue, a God of perfect power, goodness, knowledge, and love not only can and does bring cosmic good out of evil but he also brings personal good out of evil: that is, he redeems evil both cosmically and within the context of individual human lives. The question then becomes: how does God do so? How does God bring good out of evil within the context of our own, fallen lives? In this chapter, I address this question. Specifically, I explicate and defend the following overarching principle or thesis concerning God’s redemptive work in our lives, which I’ll label (R): (R) God redeems each and every evil e in which a person S participates (suffers or does), within the context of S’s own life, by (a) ordering S’s participation in e to S’s ultimate good, which is life lived eternally with God; and (b) bringing S to see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God ordered S’s participation in e to S’s ultimate good, which is life lived eternally with God.1 In order to explicate and defend (R), I take the following important steps. In the first section of this chapter, I provide an initial exposition and defense of (R), working (as usual) within a Thomistic framework. DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847-5

140  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering In subsequent sections of this chapter, I develop and defend my own Thomistic Theodicy of Redemptive Suffering (TRS), which I claim helps us better understand or see how God uses the suffering we undergo in order to redeem evil in our respective lives. This will include discussing the virtue of what I call “suffering love”: a love for God and others that disposes us to suffer willingly in service to God’s redemptive work not just in our own lives but also others’ lives. I also discuss how God redeems sin and uses suffering in the postmortem state of purgatory in order to redeem sin within the context of our respective lives. And in the final section of this chapter, appealing to and building upon Aquinas’s doctrine of predestination, I argue that a God who has sovereignty over our salvation can ensure that we attain—and freely attain—fully redeemed, ultimately good lives. In the end, all of the work I carry out in this chapter explicating and defending (R) helps advance my larger mission of explicating and defending my Thomistic, Christian theodicy.

5.1  An initial exposition and defense of (R) As a thesis concerning God’s redemptive work in our lives, (R) actually consists of two main claims, or sub-theses, which I label (Ra) and (Rb): (Ra) God redeems each and every evil e in which a person S participates (suffers or does), within the context of S’s own life, by ordering S’s participation in e to S’s ultimate good, which is life lived eternally with God; (Rb) God redeems each and every evil e in which a person S participates (suffers or does), within the context of S’s own life, by bringing S to see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God ordered S’s participation in e to S’s ultimate good, which is life lived eternally with God. As I see it, (Ra) and (Rb), respectively, describe the objective and subjective sides to God’s redeeming evil—indeed, all evil—within the context of our lives. What does each of these sub-theses say about the nature of God’s redemptive work in our lives, and why should we think that each of them is true? Let’s start with (Ra). We have already seen that Aquinas takes it to be axiomatic that “whatever happens in the world, even if it be evil, accrues to the good of the universe; because, as Augustine says in Enchiridion, God is so good that he would permit no evil, unless he were powerful enough to draw some good out of any evil.”2 In Chapter 3, I developed and defended this overarching claim about divine redemption of evil by focusing on God’s work to redeem all evil on a general or cosmic level. However, as Aquinas understands it, this claim also pertains to and includes the redemptive work God carries out in individual human lives.

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 141 Incorporating Christian revelation, and reflecting on what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:28 (“And we know that to those who love God all things work together unto good”), Aquinas argues that while “evil does not always accrue to the good” of everything that is in the universe, “whatever happens to the noblest parts [of the universe] is ordained only to their good, because [God’s] care for them is for their sake.”3 And the noblest parts of God’s universe are those human beings whom Paul identifies as God’s saints (sancti dei): those whom God eternally wills to share eternally in God’s own life. Regarding the saints, Aquinas writes, “God is said to exercise a special care (specialem curam) over [them] … inasmuch as he takes care of them in such a way as to permit no evil to affect them without converting it to their good (eorum bonum).”4 God’s redemptive work in human lives (and specifically the lives of his saints) therefore consists of converting all of the evil in which we each participate—both the evil that we suffer and the evil that we do—to our good. In fact, for Aquinas, God’s redemptive work in our lives consists of converting all such evil to our ultimate good since, by bringing about moral and spiritual good for us and in us out of such evil, and so conjoining great, redeeming goods to such evil, God aligns us with himself as our highest good, in whom our highest happiness and flourishing consist. For example, Aquinas says, out of the evil that we suffer, whether it is weakness, affliction, opposition, or hatred, God, respectively, elicits humility, patience, wisdom, and good will. And out of the sin we have committed, God not only elicits repentance, and the forgiveness he offers us, but also a greater, more enduring love of God along with a greater, more humble dependence on God, rather than “in [our] powers to persevere.”5 Furthermore, Aquinas says, suffering on account of evil frees us from evil: “pains purge sins”—all of which separate us from God—and thereby also “provoke good people to the love of God (provocant bonos ad amorem dei).”6 Accordingly, when God “chastises, or scourges,” he does so “not unto condemnation, but unto salvation.”7 It is by suffering evil for heavenly glory that “we arrive at glory (ad gloriam pervenimus),”8 and so attain eternal life with God. I take all of these claims (which I plan to unpack further in this chapter) to be central for understanding and appreciating (Ra), as a thesis concerning divine redemption of evil. As we saw in Chapter 3, according to a teleological conception of goodness, which Aquinas adopts, the goodness of x consists in x’s attaining its end. And so, even if a part of x is evil or bad, taken by itself, it nevertheless is good, absolutely speaking, insofar as it contributes to the goodness or flourishing of x, taken as a whole. The universe contains lots of evil within it, but insofar as the evil that occurs within it contributes to the universe realizing all kinds and levels of goodness—thereby ultimately fully reflecting divine goodness, as far as it is able—then such evil is a good thing, absolutely speaking. Similarly, as Aquinas of course realizes, human lives contain lots

142  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering of suffering and sin within them. But evil suffered, while bad taken by itself, is a good thing absolutely speaking insofar as it is by undergoing suffering that we are able to attain eternal life and so live a sin-free, fully virtuous life with God in the end. Even the evil of sin, while of course bad taken by itself, still can be considered good, absolutely speaking, insofar as God conjoins it to great redeeming goods like forgiveness, repentance, increased humility, and love, and integrates into a whole human life lived eternally with God that is fully good and perfected in the end.9 (This is why God permissively wills to include the evil of sin in the lives of his saints). Therefore, just as an ultimately good world, as I have defined it, is one that is not necessarily free from evil, but one in which all of the evil that it contains contributes to the goodness, perfection, and even beauty of the universe, taken as a whole, so an ultimately good human life, as I define it, is one that is not necessarily free from all evil, but one in which all of the evil it contains contributes to the goodness, perfection, and even beauty of that life, taken as a whole. And so, according to (Ra), it is by bringing good—indeed, ultimate good—out of all of the evil that afflicts S’s life, or which S’s life contains, and so ordering all such evil to S’s ultimate good, that God ensures that S’s participation in evil, far from detracting from the goodness of S’s life, actually contributes to the goodness, perfection, and beauty of that life, viewed as a good, perfect, and beautiful whole. Having offered an initial exposition of (Ra), as a thesis concerning God’s redemptive work in individual human lives, I now need to identify some reasons for thinking that (Ra) is true. Since I have drawn a comparison between an ultimately good world and an ultimately good life, it’s worth recalling (C3), which I defended in Section 3.3 (when discussing creation), and then appealed to in Section 4.5 (when discussing the Fall): (C3) In any world W God would create, God would redeem each and every evil e in W by ordering e to the goodness of W as a whole, thereby also ensuring that e contributes in the end to the goodness of W as a whole. Taken by itself, (C3), unlike (Ra), says nothing about God’s redemptive work in individual human lives. Accordingly, one might argue that affirming (C3) does not also require affirming (Ra): a God who orders all of the evil in W to the goodness of W, taken as a whole, need not also order all of the evil in S’s life, in which S participates, to the goodness of S’s life, taken as a whole. Put another way, while a perfectly good God would only create and bring about an ultimately good world W, he need not create and bring about an ultimately good life for any person in W. However, this assumes that a perfectly good God would be primarily interested in creating an ultimately good world, but not also creating

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 143 ultimately good lives, as part of creating an ultimately good world. But surely we have reason to think that a perfectly good God would care about creating ultimately good lives as part of creating an ultimately good world, especially since, as Aquinas argues, we human beings occupy the noblest place or level within the natural, created order, and that God made us this way. What this means, I think, is that we human beings, unlike anything else within the world, are, in a sense, worlds unto ourselves. And so, whatever work a perfectly good God would perform on the macro level for the universe as a whole, he would also perform on a micro level—that is, within the context of individual human lives. Or, as I also like to say, it befits a perfectly good God who redeems evil on the macro level, per (C3), to redeem evil on the micro level, per (Ra). Moreover, it certainly seems to fall within the scope of divine power and knowledge to do so: just as for any world W, God possesses both the power and knowledge needed to redeem all evil in W— on the macro level—so for any person S, God possesses both the power and knowledge needed to redeem all evil for S, within the context of S’s own life—that is, on the micro level. Consequently, I argue that even if affirming (C3) does not also require affirming (Ra), it certainly gives us a real reason for affirming (Ra) and so thinking that it is true. Another reason for thinking (Ra) is true is God’s perfect love. Aquinas says that while God loves all existing things, in virtue of willing them some good, he does not love all things equally since he wills certain things more good than others.10 Thus, on one level, God loves us the most of all of things he has made and placed within the natural, created order because God wills that we exist and flourish as embodied, rational beings. However, on another level—according to Christian revelation— God loves us the most insofar as he wills that we possess the ultimate good of eternal life with God, and so a fully perfected, fully flourishing and beautified life lived in full communion with God. This means, I think, that a perfectly loving God, insofar as he wills our salvation, would not include any evil in our lives that he would not and could not order to our ultimate good, per (Ra). Or, put another way, insofar as God, out of his perfect love, wills to redeem S, and so bring S to eternal life, he also, out of perfect love, wills to redeem all of the evil in S’s life so that S, as one of God’s saints, comes to possess and live an ultimately good life for all eternity with God. This also assumes, of course, that God is sovereign over S’s salvation, a claim that I will defend in the final section of this chapter. But insofar as God is sovereign over S’s salvation, then exercising his perfect power, goodness, knowledge and love, God would ensure that “all things work together for good” in S’s life and that, despite whatever evils S suffers or does, S attains an ultimately good life lived eternally with God. Let’s now consider (Rb). This sub-thesis of (R) stipulates that God’s plan to redeem evil for S has a subjective side, and not just an objective

144  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering side: God’s bringing S to recognize and value for herself, ultimately from the standpoint of heavenly glory, all of the ways that God ordered all of her participation in evil to her ultimate good, and so redeemed all evil for her within the context of her own life. While on this side of heavenly glory it is indeed possible to see and appreciate at least some of the ways that God has and continues to redeem evil within the context of our own lives—eliciting moral and spiritual goodness for us and in us out of our participation in evil—I take it to be a fact of human experience that none of us fully see, and consequently cannot fully embrace, all of what is God is doing to redeem evil within the context of our own lives. In other words, on this side of heavenly glory, none of us ever obtains the cognitive vantage point on our lives needed to recognize the true scope and depth of God’s redemptive work in our lives. Therefore, none of us can value and so embrace all that God has done, is doing, and will do to redeem evil within the context of our own lives. Why, then, should we think that divine redemption of evil has a subjective side in addition to an objective side, and that (Rb) is true, in addition to (Ra) being true? The late Marilyn Adams consistently argued that it is not enough for God to redeem—or, in her words, defeat—evil within the context of S’s life by integrating that evil into S’s relation to a great enough good (beatific union with God). “For a person’s life to be a great good to him/her on the whole,” Adams writes, “the external point of view (even if it is God’s) is not sufficient. Rather the person him/ herself must value, and actually enjoy, his/her relations to enough goods and to goods that are great enough.”11 Now, unlike Adams, I am not convinced that S’s possessing an ultimately good life, per (Ra), requires that S fully value that life, and all that God did to bring it about, per (Rb): affirming (Ra) does not also require affirming (Rb). Nevertheless, I agree with, and am admittedly influenced by Adams, in this respect: it does seem true that S’s seeing and willingly embracing all of the ways God afforded S an ultimately good life directly contributes to S enjoying that life, and so its being an ultimately good life for S. As the “noblest parts” of God’s universe, we human beings possess intellect and will. Consequently, unlike anything else in the natural, created order, we naturally want to understand and, in turn, seek to understand not only our world but also our own lives. Moreover, as created for an ultimate end— life lived eternally with God—we naturally want to live ultimately good and so fulfilling lives: lives, which, despite whatever evil they contain, are ultimately good in the end. It makes sense, then, that God would ultimately bring us to see and willing embrace in heavenly glory all of the ways that he redeemed evil within the context of our own lives, ordering it to the ultimate good of eternal life with himself. Put another way, it makes sense that a God who, in Aquinas’s words, “takes care of [the saints] in such a way as to permit no evil to affect them without converting it to their good,” would show his perfect goodness and love

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 145 to his saints on the most personal of levels by bringing them to see and willingly embrace all of the ways that he converted their participation in evil to their good—indeed, their ultimate good. Lest we doubt that this is possible, we should remind ourselves that, certainly on a Thomistic and larger Christian worldview, even though we now see through a glass darkly, we will, in heavenly glory, see “face to face” and so “know fully” God himself, “as he is.”12 Fully united to God in knowledge, we will directly behold, with utmost clarity (though never comprehensively) God himself, and so God’s perfect power, goodness, and love. But if this is true, it also reasonably follows, I think, that in beholding God’s perfect power, knowledge, goodness, and love, we also will behold all of the ways in which God exercised his power, knowledge, goodness, and love within the context of our lives; and this includes, of course, God’s redeeming evil within the context of our own lives. Moreover, in the beatific vision, we will be perfectly united to God in charity (caritas) or love as well as knowledge. This is a love, which, as Aquinas points out, perfectly conforms our will with God’s will.13 Consequently, having come to possess and exercise a perfect love of God, we will fully and also unfailingly embrace and celebrate for all eternity all that God did in redeeming evil within the context of our lives, however riddled by evil they may be. Therefore, since, as (Ra) states, God’s redeeming evil for S consists in ordering all of S’s participation in evil to the ultimate good of personal union with himself in heaven; and, as I just argued, we have reason to think that being personally united with God in heaven, and so possessing and living an ultimately good life, includes S’s seeing and willingly embracing the entire scope of God’s redemptive work in S’s life, then, as (Rb) states, God’s redeeming evil for S also consists of God bringing S to see and willingly embrace the entire scope of his redemptive work in S’s life. God’s redeeming evil for S on a subjective level reasonably follows from God’s redeeming evil for S on an objective level.

5.2 A Thomistic Theodicy of Redemptive Suffering (TRS) Having offered an initial exposition and defense of (R), I now need to explicate and defend it in more detail. This first requires discussing the suffering we undergo since suffering is such a pervasive and often distressing feature of our lives. The more detail we can provide concerning how God uses suffering to redeem us, and the evil that we suffer, the better equipped we are to understand and defend (R), and so the claim that there is no evil that we suffer that God cannot redeem within the context of our own lives. In what follows, then, I develop and defend a TRS, which I will continue to develop and defend in the sections of this chapter that follow.

146  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering Recall that on a Thomistic view, even if we suffer as a result of the Fall, suffering is not, in itself, an evil. Rather, suffering qua physical and/ or mental or emotional pain is a response to evil, whether an evil that is present in one’s own life or, by extension, the life of a person whom one knows (or at least knows about). Furthermore, the evil on account of which we suffer is not some actual feature or property of badness that is present in our own lives or the lives of others. Rather, we suffer because we lack some good thing, or others whom we know lack some good thing—whether health, pleasure, money, power, security, friendship, etc.—that we normally ought to possess, insofar as it contributes, in proper measure, to our flourishing as human beings.14 However, none of these good things, either individually or collectively, is our highest good.15 Rather, God, and God alone, is our highest good. Consequently, even if it is bad for us to suffer, insofar as it is bad for us to lack certain good things in our lives that we normally ought to possess and enjoy as the kinds of beings that we are, it also can be good for us, absolutely speaking, to suffer their loss, insofar as doing so is conducive for us attaining God as our highest good and so enjoying the ultimate good of life lived eternally with God. In particular, it is good, absolutely speaking, for us to suffer insofar as God uses such suffering as an instrument in order to align us with and conform us to himself as his highest good, in whom our highest happiness and flourishing consist. In what follows, then, I argue the following on behalf of (R), and specifically (Ra). For a person S, God redeems the evil that S suffers by using S’s suffering, at various times, in various ways, and to varying degrees, to (1) attune S to the truth about himself as S’s highest good and S’s status as a sinner separated from himself as S’s highest good; (2) detach S from sin so that S can attain himself as his highest good; and (3) form or develop S in ways that more closely align S with himself and actually conform S to himself as S’s highest good. This overarching claim constitutes the core of my Thomistic TRS. Let’s now explore it—and so the dynamics of redemptive suffering—in more detail. With Aquinas, I take it to be a central feature of our fallen condition that we are beset by serious, even debilitating, and often self-inflicted ignorance concerning God as our highest good and his good law for our lives, which directs us to himself as our highest good. In particular, beleaguered by ignorance concerning God as our highest good, we mistakenly identify lower, finite goods, as our highest good, and treat them as if they were our highest good according to whatever law we have made for our own lives. Turning back toward God as our highest good therefore requires recognizing that the lower goods with which we seek to fill our lives, and around which we often order our lives, are neither individually nor collectively our highest good. As lower goods, they simply cannot provide the true, perfect, and lasting happiness that God, and God alone, as our highest good, can provide.

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 147 Suffering, I submit, teaches us this truth (or reminds us of it) in a unique and especially powerful way. In particular, when we suffer the loss of the various goods that we naturally desire and seek to possess, or suffer because others have lost these goods, we learn, in a unique and especially powerful, experiential way, that these goods are imperfect and impermanent; for, otherwise, they could not be wrested from us, and often become so difficult to reattain. Indeed, all of the finite, temporal goods that we naturally desire and seek to possess—however good they are, and to whatever degree they contribute to our flourishing—are marked by imperfection and impermanence. The true, perfect and lasting goodness, and so happiness, which we also naturally desire, must therefore lie elsewhere: our highest good is, in fact, a transcendent good. We should expect, then, that God would exploit suffering, and its pedagogical value, for his redemptive purposes, using suffering to attune us both to the truth about the imperfection and impermanence of earthly goods and to the truth about himself as our highest good. Undergoing suffering is also highly conducive, I think, for overcoming the ignorance we experience as fallen beings concerning the true state of our souls, or our own, sinful lives. And that is because when we suffer— having been separated (or having witnessed others been separated) from the good things with which we seek to fill our lives, often in a sudden and dramatic way—we are naturally led, and perhaps even forced, to evaluate the overall state of our lives, including the very meaning of our lives. We are therefore in a prime position to engage in the sort of deep, purposeful self-examination or introspection capable of and necessary for uncovering our status as sinners separated from God, and who, as (or while) sinners, are incapable of attaining an ultimately good life with God. By using suffering, therefore, to afford us knowledge not only of himself as our highest good but also ourselves as sinners separated from himself as our highest good, God redeems such suffering, and whatever evil we have suffered, within the context of our own lives. By using suffering to spur us to repent of the sin that we discover within ourselves and our own lives, and accept the offer of divine forgiveness for that sin, God draws even further, great goods—repentance and forgiveness— from it, thereby redeeming the evil we have suffered within the context of our own lives. In fact, by drawing such good out of the matrix or crucible of our suffering and our sin, God redeems both the evil that we suffer and the evil that we do, within the context of our own lives.16 On my Thomistic TRS, “pains purge sins” (as Aquinas puts it), in a further significant way. As fallen beings, we not only suffer from a malady that afflicts our intellect (ignorance concerning God as our highest good, and ourselves as sinners separated from God as our highest good) but also maladies that afflict our appetitive powers: that is, our passions and our will. Specifically, we possess disordered appetites— passions that rebel against reason, and a will hardened against doing

148  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering what is good—that become even more disordered when we sinfully contravene God’s good law for our lives, pursuing and enjoying lower goods inordinately. When we painfully suffer a loss of those goods in our lives, though, we no longer can satisfy our disordered appetite for them. Moreover, suffering the loss of particular goods, like physical or mental health, stymies, or at least hampers, our ability to pursue and enjoy any number of other goods, such as power, or security, which we otherwise would seek to possess and enjoy inordinately (whether out of greed, or envy, or in ways that are unjust and so injurious to others) were we not preoccupied with our suffering, and constrained or debilitated by it. Accordingly, insofar as undergoing suffering constrains, and even starves, our passions and especially our will, it helps us learn to relinquish our excessive grip on such goods—especially when we recognize their true, limited value—and pursue and enjoy them in a way that is consistent with pursuing and enjoying God as our highest good, and living in accordance with his good will for our lives. It is also by willingly accepting and undergoing suffering as a kind of corrective punishment (as divinely dispensed medicine for the will and the soul) that we are able to fully detach ourselves from sin and undergo the deeper reform in our wills necessary for becoming (re)united with God. The way Aquinas explains this, it is by willfully pursuing and enjoying lower goods inordinately, often under the sway of the passions, that we become unduly attached to those goods. Consequently, it is only by performing “certain penances,” and so suffering some evil or “injury” qua privation of the good against our will—thereby “moving in a contrary direction from those movements whereby [the will] was inclined toward sin”—that we become free of our inordinate attachment to those goods, and so also fit to pursue and attain God as our highest good.17 Granted, such suffering, in Aquinas’s view, even if voluntarily accepted, still remains involuntary in a certain respect (secundum quid): not only is it the nature of punishment to be contrary to the will18 but also any suffering that reforms the will, and frees it from the negative influence of sin, must counteract whatever inclination the will has to sin. In other words, it is precisely because undergoing suffering, and bearing it willingly under God’s direction, is painful, just as an athlete’s undergoing intense physical training or rehabilitation is painful, that we have real reason to think that it is capable of purging us of the negative influence of sin over our lives. This is why we can be confident that, in Aquinas’s words, when God “chastises, or scourges,” and so subjects us to suffering, or wills to include it in our lives, he does so, as Aquinas says, “not unto condemnation, but unto salvation”—that is for the sake of affording us fully redeemed, and so fully cleansed, God-centered lives.19 By using suffering to purge us of our sinful dispositions and tendencies and thereby reorder our passions and our wills, God redeems sin and the evil that we suffer within the context of our own lives.

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 149 While there is more I will say in Section 5.4 about God’s work to redeem sin within the context of our own lives, for our present purposes, I need to discuss the final, main way on my Thomistic TRS that God redeems the evil that we suffer within the context of our own lives: using suffering to build genuine moral and spiritual virtue and so value into our lives. To begin: in a unique and especially powerful way, suffering not only exposes the hard truth that we are vulnerable and dependent beings incapable of living wholly autonomous, self-directed lives (thereby once again displaying its pedagogical value for us as fallen beings) but it also presses us to abandon our efforts to live such lives, especially when we lose control over our lives and the good things we want our lives to contain. Additionally, it is by undergoing suffering that we learn to abandon our own efforts to live genuinely good, God-centered lives in our own way, or on our own terms, relying on what Aquinas calls own “powers to persevere”20 rather than the divine help we need in order to live such lives. We should expect, then, that God would use suffering in order to develop the foundational virtue of humility within us: tempering our appetite for complete autonomy (itself part of our larger appetite for things that are beyond our power to attain)21 and frustrating our efforts to live according to whatever law we have set for our own lives so that we learn instead to rely on his help in order to live according to the good law he has set for our lives. Furthermore, while I have indeed argued that suffering the loss of lower goods in our lives deeply attunes us to their imperfection and impermanence, and purges us of our inordinate attachment to them, I also think that it is by suffering their loss, even if only temporarily, that we can become more deeply attuned to and appreciative of their goodness, and the ways they contribute to our possessing and living genuinely good lives. In fact, even as suffering attunes us to the imperfection and impermanence of these goods, and purges us of our inordinate attachment to them, it also can engender gratitude within us both for the value they provide our lives and for the great goodness and value our lives still possess even as we suffer their specific absence from our lives. More specifically, since gratitude as a virtue disposes us to express or show thanks toward others for the goodness they bestow upon us, and which we owe them as our benefactors, 22 then by suffering we become more deeply attuned to and appreciative of what others do in adding goodness to our lives (especially as we suffer), including the goodness they themselves add to our lives. And most importantly, we become more deeply attuned to and appreciative of God’s goodness toward us since God, as our highest good, is “the first principle of all our goods” (primum principium omnium bonorum nostrorum), 23 and so the giver of all the good things we possess in our lives. Once more, then, we should expect God to use suffering not only to grow within us a general gratitude or thankfulness for whatever goodness we possess in our lives but also gratitude for all

150  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering of the goodness he has afforded us and which he himself, as our highest good, adds to our lives. In doing so, God also develops and deepens our reverence for him as the author of all of the goodness within our lives.24 None of what I am arguing here requires denying that suffering is, or very well can be, debilitating for the sufferer, and so very difficult to endure. However, it is precisely because it can be so difficult to endure that it possesses the raw potential to strengthen us as fallen beings beset by weakness who shrink from pursuing goodness in the way that we ought to, according to what reason, and God as the author of reason, identify as God’s good law for our lives. We should expect, then, that God would employ suffering in order to cultivate fortitude, and specifically what Aquinas calls the virtue of patience (as a form of fortitude), within us: a virtue that disposes us to endure suffering well, and continue to live well—pursuing what Aquinas calls the “good of reason” (bonum rationis), 25 and not receding from “the good of virtue” (bono virtutis)26 —in the midst of suffering. Moreover, since patience enables us to live well in the midst of suffering, and even grow in goodness in the midst of suffering—displaying our virtue all the more brightly, given our suffering—I also think that those who develop patience through suffering and exercise patience in their suffering are especially disposed to identify with and assist others who are suffering. Therefore, we should expect God to use suffering to develop other-regarding virtues within us such as justice, which disposes us to afford others who are suffering the goodness that they are due, and mercy, which disposes us to relieve the suffering of others. 27 In doing so—using suffering to grow us morally and spiritually in all of these ways—God redeems the evil that we suffer within the context of our own lives. The ultimate goal of suffering redemptively on my Thomistic TRS is to grow in charity or the love of God: the greatest of all the virtues, and so the highest level of goodness God can produce in us and our lives. And so, all of God’s efforts in using suffering to educate us, cleanse us, and produce virtue in us are directed, in the end, toward fostering a deep and abiding love of himself as our highest good that unites us to himself as our highest good, and most closely conforms us to himself as our highest good. We simply cannot love God when we do not know God, or when our love is divided—that is, as long as we love other things in place of God. Nor, I think, can we love God fully unless we humbly subject ourselves to God, render God the gratitude and reverence he is due, and learn to patiently endure whatever suffering God allows us to endure, in just and merciful service to God and those whom God loves. Consequently, I also claim, and will continue to argue, that there is a particular kind of love, or aspect of charity, that suffering not only engenders but also uniquely makes possible: what I call suffering love. Suffering love is the virtuous disposition to suffer willingly in service to God’s redemptive work not just in one’s own life but also the lives of

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 151 others, especially those who witness or learn about our suffering and respond redemptively to it, in ways that genuinely advance their own salvation. That persons who possess and exercise the theological virtue of love would willingly serve God in their suffering in order to help him further his redemptive work not only in their own lives but also in the lives of others I take to follow from the nature of charity itself. Charity consists not only of loving God for his own sake but also loving one another insofar as we are created by God and are capable of enjoying God for all eternity. 28 Moreover, to love as God loves—certainly on a Christian worldview—consists of loving self-sacrificially, as Christ loved us. It is by suffering out of love that we most closely imitate Christ, and thereby become like Christ, who carried out the consummate act of self-sacrificial love on our behalf, for our own, ultimate redemption. Therefore, given God’s ultimate aim in uniting and conforming us to himself in virtue and above all love, we should expect God to use suffering to develop the virtue of suffering love within in us, and allow us to suffer so that we might exercise such love, thereby redeeming the evil that we suffer within the context of our own lives. At this point, having laid down the essential tenets of my Thomistic TRS (and so having explored the dynamics of suffering from a Thomistic perspective), I’d like to say a few things on its behalf, as I bring this section of this chapter to a close and look ahead to subsequent sections in which I will develop and defend it in greater detail. First, I think that this TRS offers a plausible account of how God redeems the evil that we suffer within the context of our respective lives. On a theological level, it is plausible to hold that God redeems the evil that we suffer in the various ways I have described since it is plausible to hold (based on what I argued in Chapter 4) that we are morally and spiritually bent and impoverished beings who need to be redeemed in the various ways that I described: cured of our ignorance, freed from the presence and influence of sin in our lives, and developed as moral and spiritual beings who otherwise live morally and spiritually bent and impoverished lives. Furthermore, driving this TRS is a claim that I think, on both a philosophical and empirical level, is eminently plausible: it is not only beneficial but also sometimes necessary, as Aquinas puts it, to suffer “a loss in some lesser good in order to gain an increase in some greater good”: for example, “when someone suffers the loss of money for the sake of bodily health.”29 Indeed, the greater the good to be gained, such as a life purged of sin and replete with virtue, the more we are (and should be) willing to suffer the loss of lesser—albeit important—goods, such as money, and bodily health, in order to attain it. It follows, then, a fortiori, that we can and should be willing to suffer the loss of much goodness in our lives, and so suffer great evil in our lives, in order to attain God as our highest good, in whom (once more) our highest happiness and flourishing consist.

152  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering Second, and relatedly, on my Thomistic TRS, it is no accident that we do, in fact, observe lots of suffering, even great suffering, in many, many human lives across both space and time since it is by undergoing suffering that we fallen beings become capable of attaining fully redeemed, ultimately good lives. Put even more strongly: we should expect to find lots of suffering within lots of human lives not only because we possess fallen lives (and suffer as a result of the Fall) but also because it is God’s overarching, redeeming will to populate our fallen lives and world with many, great redeeming goods, many of which would not and could not obtain were God not to allow us to suffer, or will to include suffering, even great suffering, in our lives. In particular, while charity certainly can exist without suffering also existing (as it did in our pre-fallen world), the deepest form of charity, suffering love, obviously cannot exist without suffering also existing, or any of us undergoing suffering. Thus, insofar God wills not only to populate his world with the virtue of suffering love—which Christ exemplified on the cross—but also to populate many lives within his world with the virtue of suffering love, the more suffering he has to allow in those lives. Suffering is the great cost of being able to possess and demonstrate the greatest or deepest of loves in our lives. This brings me to my third and final main point, which concerns the scope of God’s work to redeem the evil that we suffer within the context of our own lives. While I do think that God uses suffering in the major ways I have described to draw and conform us to himself as our highest good, I heartily admit that there may be other ways that God does so, which, by virtue of being more subtle and even mysterious, are difficult (if not also impossible) for us to identify. In addition, whether God will, in the end, redeem each and every evil suffered (and, for that matter, each and every evil done) for each and every person, within the context of his or her own life is not something I think we are in a position to know, or ever will come to know, certainly in this life. Christian revelation does not tell us this. Nor is it something we ever could come to know on our own because, certainly in this life, we lack the requisite epistemic vantage point on our lives to be able to determine whether we each will, in the end, attain fully redeemed, ultimately good lives. However, I do think that God will redeem all evil suffered by us in the end, and that if God does not redeem a particular evil suffered by a particular human being within the context of his or her life, he will do so within the context of another’s life. For example, my suffering on behalf of an evil that you suffer can be redemptive for me, even if it is not redemptive for you—though, of course, it may be redemptive for you, as it is for me. And it may be not just redemptive for me and for you but also others who suffer on your behalf. Consequently, it remains open to God to draw great good out of an evil present within one human life within the context of multiple human lives, thereby redeeming it within

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 153 the context of multiple lives. In fact, I think that this is just what a God who wills to redeem all evil would do.

5.3  Suffering love and anonymous redemptive sufferers In discussing his “saint-making theodicy” (which he presses into the service of a theodicy of animal suffering), Trent Dougherty observes that the saints in the Christian tradition possess and exercise a certain kind of love: “a love-generated … willingness to suffer for the sake of others and to glorify God, to give oneself wholly to God and abandon oneself to his plan.”30 Even more specifically, the saints who possess and exercise this love “have a disposition to want to be included in God’s plan of salvation regardless of cost, and a disposition to see God’s goodness to them and the goodness of their lives when they find out that their suffering was a cost of their participation in God’s plan of salvation.”31 The value of this self-transcending, self-sacrificial love—and the saints who embody it—is, for Dougherty, “almost inestimable,”32 which is why Dougherty thinks God would be drawn to create a world in which it was fostered. In particular, God would be drawn to foster the highest of loves in the lives of many of his saints, despite the fact that the personal cost for them is very, very high. As should now be clear, I endorse what Dougherty claims here about what I have called “suffering love.” But in order to further develop and defend my own, Thomistic TRS further, I would like to think more deeply about the nature of this highest of loves and the ways in which I think it can be instantiated and exemplified within our own, individual lives. In particular, going beyond what Dougherty explicitly claims, I claim that although suffering love is a specifically Christian virtue, there are persons who nonetheless suffer redemptively and exercise this virtue, in an anonymous way—that is, in a way unknown to us and even to them. Affirming that there are “anonymous redemptive sufferers,” as I call them (adapting Karl Rahner’s concept of an “anonymous Christian”33), also enables us to deal with and make sense of particularly egregious and seemingly gratuitous instances of suffering, which, from God’s point of view, count as genuine, albeit anonymous, expressions of Christian love. Defending all of these claims will require specifically appealing to (Rb), and so the claim that S’s eternally and lovingly embracing God’s redemptive work in S’s life includes S willingly embracing in perfect love all of the ways God used her suffering to advance his redemptive work in the lives of others; something S recognizes and embraces as a great good for herself, as the fully loving person she has become, and God has made her to be. As I began to argue at the end of the last section of this chapter, it is plausible to think that a redeeming God would employ suffering in order to carry out his redemptive purposes in multiple human lives: not

154  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering only on behalf of persons who suffer, given the presence of evil within their lives, but also on behalf of those who suffer alongside them. It also seems plausible, I think, that God would employ suffering to carry out his redemptive purposes in the lives of those who know about, and are sensitive to, the suffering that others are undergoing, or have undergone, and are in a position to respond redemptively to it, in ways that are clearly redemptive for them (certainly according to my TRS), even if they do not suffer alongside these persons, or undergo any suffering on their behalf. For example, by witnessing or learning about the suffering of others—even those who are greatly removed from us, by both space and time—we can become greatly attuned to the fragility of life, including the fragility of those lower goods with which we have filled our lives, and around which we have ordered our lives. We can be spurred to reflect on the state of our own lives, thereby becoming aware of, and repentant for, the sinful indifference and complacency that plagues our lives. And when we engage in acts of mercy, justice, and above all love on behalf of those who are currently suffering (perhaps inspired by accounts of those who have previously suffered), we pursue the higher good of virtue in our lives and more closely and deliberately align ourselves with God and his good law for our lives. These are all ways, then—and presumably just some of the many ways—that God can use others’ suffering in order to advance those of us who witness or learn about such suffering on the path of redemption: expunging sin from our lives and pouring genuine moral and spiritual goodness into our lives. Now, those who suffer, out of the love of God that God has poured into their hearts, may have no knowledge of the ways in which God has used, is using, or will use their suffering in order to carry out his redemptive work in others’ lives. And even the greatest of saints may not have explicitly or deliberately willed to align any particular instance of suffering with God’s redemptive work in others’ lives. However, I do think that in exercising their love of God, along with those whom God loves, these sufferers at least implicitly will to align their suffering with God’s redemptive purposes in others’ lives, or God’s work to carry out his redemptive work in others’ lives. Following Eleonore Stump, I therefore think that the suffering that the saints undergo, as repugnant and disconcerting as it may be, is only involuntary in a certain respect (secundum quid). Stump explains this as follows: Aquinas takes a person of faith to be someone who has committed to living a life like that of Christ, with the explicit recognition that such a life includes suffering for the sake of greater spiritual good. And so a person of faith has in effect given consent to living a life which includes suffering. Any particular suffering on the part of a person of faith may in fact be involuntary; but, in virtue of the fact that she has voluntarily chosen a course of life in which (involuntary)

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 155 suffering has a central role, her suffering is not involuntary simpliciter. Because of her commitment to the life of faith, her suffering is involuntary only in a certain respect.34 What Stump claims here about the consent of faith applies, a fortiori, I think, to the consent offered in love since the love of God for Aquinas consists of willing the good that God wills, or willing to help God realize God’s good will and purposes within the world.35 And this, in turn, means that persons of love will not only that God bring about great good for themselves out of their suffering but also that God use their suffering (indeed, their very lives) in order to bring about great good—indeed, ultimate good—for all of those whom God loves, and whom they, in turn, are called to love, and do love. So understood, suffering love—the virtuous disposition to willingly suffer in service to God’s redemptive work not just in one’s own life but also the lives of others—may seem to mostly benefit God (or God’s work), and those whom God loves, but not the person exercising suffering love. It is true, both on Aquinas’s account and on my account (my TRS), that the person of love does not gain anything from God, other than God himself (unlike faith, which gains knowledge of the truth, and hope, which expects the future good of eternal life36). However, this is precisely the point: love is the greatest of the virtues, and so a great good for the person of love to possess and exercise because it “attains God most” (magis Deum attingit)37 and “adheres to God for his own sake” (inhaeret Deo secundum seipsum), 38 rather than for the sake of anything else to be gained thereby. To this, I add the following: the person who possesses and exercises suffering love, and so loves self-sacrificially, in service to God and neighbor, attains God the most all, or adheres to God the most closely, insofar as she most closely imitates the love of God as paradigmatically manifest in the suffering love of Christ. Consequently, I contend that it is a great good for the sufferer to suffer redemptively out of love. Indeed, as Dougherty points out, that is exactly how the saints see things as well: “suffering is a sine qua non of who they have become in a way they accept as integral to the persons they have become.”39 In other words, from the point of view of the sufferer, such suffering is integral, not accidental, to the love of God, and those whom God loves, that she has come to possess. In further support of this claim, I remind the reader that according to my TRS, and so the thesis (R) on which it is based, God’s redeeming the evil that S suffers includes God ultimately bringing S to see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God ordered S’s suffering, and whatever evil S suffered, to S’s ultimate good, which is eternal life with God. And so, given the truth of not just (Ra) but also (Rb), I think we readily can affirm that it is a great good for S to suffer out love not only because such suffering is redemptive, objectively speaking, for S (it most closely

156  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering conforms S to God as S’s highest good in love) but also because we have every reason to think that S herself, once united to God in perfect knowledge and love, will see and willingly embrace her role in suffering for the sake of others, as constitutive of her own ultimately good life with God, which she will have come to possess. Thus, even if, in this life, S cannot see, and so cannot willingly embrace, any of the ways God has used, is using, and will use her suffering to advance his redemptive purposes in her own life or the lives of others, from the standpoint of heavenly glory, S will see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God used her suffering to advance his redemptive purposes in her own life and in the lives of others. Affirming this claim also allows us to go one step further, I think, in recognizing the existence of those persons who are serving larger God’s redemptive plan in their suffering but who do not know or even believe this: persons who, in this life, do not actively, or explicitly, believe in God, or love God, but who God knows will ultimately come to see and lovingly embrace their role in his redemptive plan, once they reach heaven and come to know and love God fully. In my view, then, determining whether a person S consents to a life of suffering, and, moreover, willingly suffers out love in service to God’s larger redemptive plan for others, ultimately requires taking into account not our (or S’s) earthly perspective on S’s life, but God’s perspective on S’s life, and so who God eternally sees or knows S to be. We can explain this as follows. Suppose that S is someone who, as far as we can tell, did not possess and actively exercise faith in God or the love of God (Christian charity) in her earthly life, but whom God, out of his love for S, still decides to bring to heavenly glory after converting S and so bringing S into a relationship with himself at her death. Once fully united to God in perfect knowledge, S, looking back on her life, sees all of the ways that God used her suffering to carry out his larger redemptive plan for others (presumably to her great surprise). And once fully united to God in perfect love, S fully embraces all of the ways God used her suffering to advance his larger redemptive plan, and so her role as a sufferer within that plan. While it may look to us like S’s willingness to undergo such suffering, and to do so in love, comes “too late”—God already has used S’s suffering to advance his redemptive work in others’ lives—in fact, it has not, once we look at S from God’s eternal perspective on S and S’s life. On a Thomistic conception of divine eternity since God knows all of the events that occur in S’s life, including all that God eternally wills to bring about in S’s life, not successively but simultaneously, in one, all-embracing act of knowing or “glance,” then God sees S undergoing suffering in her earthly life, and her lovingly embracing her role as a sufferer within God’s larger redemptive plan in her heavenly life, as occurring not successively but simultaneously, in one, allembracing act of knowing or “glance.” And so, from God’s eternal

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 157 perspective, there is no ultimate distinction between who S was, in her earthly life, and who S has become, as a perfected lover of God, in her heavenly life. God sees the whole person that S is in terms of who S has become, and who S truly is: a person of love.40 And importantly, so does S, to the extent that she, united to God in perfect knowledge and love, shares God’s perspective on her life. What this all means, then, I think, is that S did not truly suffer unwillingly or unlovingly in her earthly life. Like the suffering undergone by those who explicitly commit themselves to a life of love (and faith) in their earthly lives, S’s suffering was only involuntary in a certain respect (secundum quid). This is why S, in my view, is an anonymous redemptive sufferer: someone who, in her earthly life, suffered lovingly and so redemptively in service to God’s redemptive plan, even though she did so unbeknownst to others and even S herself while she was alive.41 So that I may better illustrate the phenomenon of anonymous redemptive suffering, consider the following, more concrete example. A very young child is suffering greatly from a particularly pernicious form of cancer, and is eventually confined to a cancer ward in a children’s hospital. After suffering greatly in the hospital for several weeks, the child eventually succumbs to the cancer ravaging his body, and dies. Out of his mercy and love, God then brings this child into beatific intimacy with himself in heaven (which he remains capable of enjoying as a rational being), thereby also bringing him to see and willingly embrace all of the ways he used his suffering to advance the salvation of others who knew (about) him and the egregious suffering he underwent: first, family members and friends; next, hospital workers and fellow patients in the hospital, whom God then relied upon to advance his redemptive work in the lives of even more persons, and so on. Since, from God’s perspective, the child’s being a person of love, and a willing participant in God’s larger redemptive plan, is not something that changes—God sees the child’s undergoing egregious suffering and his fully and lovingly embracing his role as a sufferer in God’s larger redemptive plan occurring simultaneously—then, in a real sense, there is no ultimate distinction between who the child was, when he underwent egregious suffering, and who he has become, as a perfected lover of God, who fully embraces his role as a sufferer in God’s larger redemptive plan. This is why it is reasonable to hold, I think, that the child, in his earthly life, suffered lovingly and so redemptively, albeit anonymously, presuming (as I am for our present purposes) that neither he nor anyone else here below who knew (about) him was aware of the fact that he did undergo his suffering redemptively. Affirming that there are anonymous redemptive sufferers like this young child enables us to make sense of those especially hard cases where the sufferer not only suffers greatly but also, it seems gratuitously, in ways unconnected not only with the sufferer’s own good but also the good of others (when these connections can be difficult, if not

158  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering impossible, for us to trace). In my view, even the most egregious (or in Marilyn Adams’s terms, horrendous) instances of suffering, which occur as a result of the sufferer experiencing the most egregious of evils, or harms, may be expressions of the greatest and most perfect of loves that the sufferer has, in her heavenly life, come to possess. And so, while it may seem unreasonable, and even unconscionable, to hold that it is a great good for the sufferer—like this young child—to suffer in an egregious way, we have to remind ourselves that he may be suffering redemptively in an anonymous way, in ways that the sufferer himself, exercising his perfected love of God in heaven, embraces and so wills to undergo in loving service to God’s larger redemptive plan. In fact, we have particular reason to think that persons, like this young child, who suffer in especially egregious ways, are anonymous redemptive sufferers since the example these sufferers provide has the greatest potential to elicit powerful redemptive responses, such as acts of justice, and mercy, and of course love, from those of us who know (about) them. In other words, the more powerful, or heroic, and even tragic, the instance of suffering, the more likely it is to move others to respond to it in significant ways that are redemptive for them. And, as a result, the more likely God is to include it within his good world.42 This is also why, going one, final step further, I submit that there are not only anonymous redemptive sufferers but also “anonymous martyrs”: those who, from the standpoint of heavenly glory, willingly embrace in perfect love their role in God’s redemptive plan, even though that role entailed suffering greatly—and anonymously—unto their own death. Not only is there arguably no greater suffering to endure, and so no greater example for these sufferers to leave, than suffering, especially great suffering, that terminates in death, but there is also “no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”43 And so, God has good reason not only to enlist anonymous martyrs in his work to redeem evil within the context of many, many individual human lives but also to perfect and beautify his world with the most excellent of loves that these martyrs have come to possess, and share with those martyrs who, in their earthly lives, confessed Christ and suffered willingly for God’s sake unto their own deaths. Out of evil, God always draws great good, including the greatest of loves: the suffering love of his saints and martyrs, which he himself, in Christ, most deeply and beautifully expressed. Naturally, we may wonder how widespread the phenomenon of anonymous redemptive suffering and anonymous martyrdom is. Clearly, this is difficult to determine, or know with any certainty, since both anonymous redemptive suffering and anonymous martyrdom are, by definition, anonymous. Furthermore, as I underscored at the end of the previous section of this chapter, we obviously do not share God’s perspective on our earthly lives, nor do not know the scope of God’s redemptive plan, which means that there is no way for us to know how many anonymous redemptive

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 159 sufferers and martyrs there are or whether or not in any given case a particular person is an anonymous redemptive sufferer or martyr. In the end, then, what we must do, I think, is appeal to the reasonable hope that, given God’s will to redeem all of the evil that we suffer, not only within the context of our others’ lives but also within the context of our own lives, there are many, many persons from all stages and walks of life who have undergone their suffering lovingly, and so redemptively, in an anonymous way, which means that the world is replete with not just anonymous redemptive sufferers but also anonymous martyrs.

5.4  Redeemed sin and redemptive suffering in purgatory Having discussed how God redeems the evil that we suffer within the context of our individual lives, in further support of (R), and specifically (Ra), I am now going to discuss in greater detail how God redeems the evil that we do within the context of our own lives. This will include building on some of the claims I have made about redemptive suffering, and so further developing my Thomistic TRS. In particular, a central task in this section of this chapter is to explain how God redeems sin by subjecting sinners to punishment, and thereby ushering them through a program of redemptive suffering, in purgatory. As I argued in Section 5.2, since the act of sinning creates a disposition or tendency to sin, then it is by willingly undergoing suffering as a kind of punishment—either by taking “upon himself the punishment of his past sin, or bear[ing] patiently the punishment which God inflicts on him”—that the sinner is purged of the disposition to sin and so more fully aligned in his will with God.44 It is also true, though, in Aquinas’s view, that all sin is deserving of punishment, and so carries with it the debt of punishment. He explains this clearly as follows: Since human acts are subject to divine providence, just as things in nature are, the evil which occurs in human acts must be contained under the order of some good. Now, this is most suitably accomplished by the fact that sins are punished. For in that way those acts which exceed the due measure are embraced under the order of justice which reduces to equality. But man exceeds the due degree of his measure when he prefers his own will to the divine will by satisfying it contrary to God’s ordering. Now, this inequity is removed when, against his will, man is forced to suffer something in accord with divine ordering. Therefore, it is necessary that human sins be given punishment of divine origin and, for the same reason, that good deeds receive their reward.45 Since sinning consists of satisfying our own wills contrary to God’s just ordering, or good law for our lives, with which our wills ought to be

160  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering aligned, God’s redeeming our sin consists of subjecting us to punishment, and so suffering, against our will, thereby restoring “the order of justice which reduces to equality.” Since sin ruptures or disturbs the divine order of justice, then the sinner must pay the debt of punishment, in order “to maintain the justice of God.”46 Now, so understood, God’s redeeming sin by punishing the sinner does not necessarily benefit the sinner, or advance her salvation. In Aquinas’s view, unrepented, mortal sin that causes an “irreparable disorder in the order of divine justice”47 irrevocably separates the sinner from God and so carries with it a debt of eternal punishment in hell for the sinner to pay. And so (as I will argue in the next chapter), the good that God draws from the matrix of sin and eternal punishment in hell is the good of justice itself. However, God’s punishing the sinner certainly can and does benefit her, insofar as God integrates it into the sinner’s relationship with himself and uses it to purge her both of the disposition to sin and of the debt of punishment, so as to align the sinner with himself, in both justice and love. Following Aquinas, then, let’s call any punishment that is redemptive in this way for us sinners satisfactory punishment (poena satisfactoria).48 This means, on my more complete, Thomistic picture of God’s redemption of sin (and so my more complete TRS), that God’s redeeming sin for a sinner S consists of not only forgiving S and bringing S to repent of her sin but also (and as is necessary, as part of S’s repentance) subjecting S to satisfactory punishment because it is by subjecting S to such punishment that God completely separates S from sin—both the disposition to sin and the debt of punishment that she carries—and thereby fully unites S to himself, not only in justice but also in love. In defense of this claim (or, at least, to prevent unnecessary misunderstanding of it), let me say, first, that undergoing satisfactory punishment in order to become free of the debt of punishment, while distinct from undergoing such punishment to become cleansed of the disposition to sin, is not at all at odds with it since the goal for the sinner is the same in both cases: to become fully united to God in both justice and love. In fact, I take both dimensions of satisfactory punishment to be fully complementary,49 especially since, from a Thomistic point of view, undergoing such punishment is an exercise of virtue. As a species of justice, the virtue of penance disposes the penitent not only to grieve for her sin qua offense against God, as she ought to (according to right reason), but also to will to make amends for the offense she has committed: not only by “ceasing to offend” God by desisting from sinning but also by making “some kind of compensation, which obtains in offenses committed against one another.”50 Moreover, making satisfaction for the sin we have committed is not only something that we do to satisfy divine justice (lest we construe satisfaction as a purely legal transaction conducted between God and ourselves). It is also something that we do out of love in order to become more closely united to God in love.

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 161 “Charity,” Aquinas writes, “demands that a man should grieve for the offense committed against his friend, and that he should be anxious to make satisfaction to his friend.”51 And so, just as there is good reason to think that a true friend, grieving for an offense committed against a friend, should lovingly make amends—and want to make amends, or satisfaction—for that offense, then a fortiori there is good reason to think that the sinner, grieving for her sin qua offense against God that she has committed, should lovingly make amends—and want to make amends, or satisfaction—for the offense she committed against God. In both cases, not making amends, and not wanting to make amends, would constitute not just a failure of justice but also (and equally importantly) a failure of love. Second, undergoing satisfactory punishment is not something we do in order to save ourselves, or make up for what is lacking in the saving work of Christ, but is rather the mechanism by which we appropriate the saving work of Christ within the context of our own lives: cooperating with divine grace (and specifically the grace Christ provides) “unto the destruction”52 of our own sin and its influence over our lives. Furthermore, given the power of Christ’s saving work, it is not always necessary for us as sinners to undergo such punishment. As Aquinas explains it, since God, in Christ, through his passion and death has made satisfaction for all sin, 53 then those whom God unites to Christ in baptism are freed not only from the guilt of sin (including the guilt of original sin) but also whatever debt of punishment they owe as a result of personally sinning. “He who is baptized,” Aquinas writes, “is freed from the debt of all punishment due to him for his sins, just as if he himself had offered sufficient satisfaction for all his sins.”54 And, in discussing the sacrament of penance, Aquinas writes, “there can be a turning of the mind toward God, and to the merit of Christ, and to the hatred of sin which is so vehement that a man perfectly achieves the remission of sin, not only with regard to wiping out the fault, but even with regard to remission of the entire punishment.”55 In this case, God redeems sin by eliciting from the repentant sinner an act of contrition (as part of performing penance) that is so powerful and contrary to sin that it separates her entirely from her sin, eliminating the need for any additional, satisfactory punishment entirely. However, I think it is fair to say that many if not also most of us, even if we do turn to God in expressing contrition for our sins, do not do so in a way that “perfectly achieves the remission of sin.” And even if we do perform such acts of perfect contrition, the fact remains that, as we continue to sin, we build up further debt for sinning (having violated the order of God’s justice), and strengthen our disposition to sin, giving sin a deeper and more entrenched foothold in our lives. Consequently, to whatever degree we are still prone to sin and carry the debt of punishment for having sinned, we must undergo satisfactory punishment in

162  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering order to attain ultimately good, sin-free lives. And while we certainly can, and I think, do, undergo such punishment in this life, per the directives of divine providence, and availing ourselves of the grace God, in Christ, provides (above all through his Church), it also remains the case that we may, and probably will, need to undergo it, in at least some way, and to some degree, after this life as well, insofar as God wills that we attain ultimately good, sin-free lives. This, then, is why my Thomistic TRS affirms the existence of purgatory. We simply cannot attain a fully just and loving union with God as our highest good and so live ultimately good lives with him for all eternity, as long as we are still attached to sin. Accordingly, insofar as God wills to bring us into personal union with himself, and we leave this life still attached to sin, he must lead us through a punitive, but still redemptive, program of postmortem suffering in purgatory: a program that requires our co-operating with God’s grace “unto the destruction” of the sin we have committed. In what follows, therefore, I am going to discuss how God, by virtue of leading us through this program, redeems whatever sin remains in our lives when we depart from this life (along with whatever evil qua deprivation of goodness we suffer by virtue of being punished), thereby rendering us fit to attain and live ultimately good, sin-free lives. In Aquinas’s view, which I share, purgatory is for those persons who leave this life in a state of grace, with charity in their hearts (or wills), and who, while destined for heaven, must undergo satisfactory punishment before gaining entrance to heaven. Moreover, since, in Aquinas’s view, the immaterial and incorruptible soul separates from the material and corruptible body at death, the journey through purgatory for these persons—and, more specifically, their souls—is disembodied. Now, contrary to what I just claimed, this may seem to undermine any chance we have of undergoing postmortem redemptive suffering in purgatory especially if, as “corruptionists” argue on Aquinas’s behalf, we, as soul-body composites, or human persons, do not actually survive our deaths—only our souls do.56 However, I do not think this is the case. Even if S does not survive S’s death, and only S’s soul does, I still think that undergoing postmortem punishment and so suffering still can and will be redemptive for S insofar as it is S’s soul that undergoes it. And that is because it is S’s will, as a power of S’s soul, that is the subject or source of all of S’s acts, whether in this life or the next.57 Therefore, as I see it, what is redemptive for S’s soul, as the subject or source of all of S’s acts, is redemptive for S, especially since, in Aquinas’s view, after the general resurrection, S will exist again as a soul-body composite and so possess numerically the same soul that underwent satisfactory punishment and so redemptive suffering in purgatory. (S will possess numerically the same body as well.) In what follows, then (and at the risk of seeming like I am siding with “survivalists,” rather than corruptionists, on our ontological status

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 163 after death), I am going to speak of our undergoing redemptive suffering in purgatory in a disembodied state, rather than our souls undergoing such suffering since (even if the corruptionists are right) I take our souls undergoing such suffering to be redemptive for us as persons. My further and more important claim, though, is that however odd, metaphysically speaking, it may be for us to exist in a disembodied state in purgatory, it is actually to our advantage to be in this state, insofar as the principal aim of purgatory is for us to undergo punishment, and so suffering, that is redemptive for us. In Aquinas’s view, “the soul is, of course, in a mutable state so long as it is united to the body, but it will not be after it has been separated from the body.”58 And that is because after death, there is nothing in the soul’s disembodied state, such as emotions, or sense experiences, or anything else in its environment, that would or could motivate it to pursue any other end than it, and specifically the will, had chosen and adhered to at the time of death.59 This is, of course, bad news for those who chose evil as their ultimate end. However, it is good news for those who enter heaven and those who, while still detained by whatever attachment to sin they still possess, nevertheless enter purgatory having chosen good, and specifically God, as their ultimate end. Accordingly, while in purgatory, we cannot make the sort of sinful choices that would deter us from ultimately attaining God as our highest good.60 And so, committed to doing what is good, we willingly and unwaveringly pursue God as our highest good, and so willingly and unwaveringly follow the program of postmortem redemptive suffering God has laid out for us: a program which, because it is has been designed by for each of us by God, is guaranteed to be redemptive for us, as difficult and painful as it may be for us to endure. Furthermore, since we live a disembodied existence in purgatory, we can think and act in ways that are especially conducive for accomplishing the main, redemptive task for which purgatory exists and has been designed. In fact, there is really nothing for us to do in purgatory but to think and to act in ways that are conducive for accomplishing the main, redemptive task for which purgatory exists and has been designed. The way Aquinas explains it, the thinking we engage in is no longer informed by or tethered to sense experience; rather, it is directly informed by intelligible “species” or content given to it by God, via “the influence of the divine light.”61 Given the direct influx of the divine light, which grants us a more direct share in the divine knowledge, we therefore can know or see ourselves, and specifically our own souls, in a clearer and more complete way than we ever could in this life while our souls are conjoined to our bodies. This also means, I think, that in purgatory God grants us the unsullied self-knowledge we need in order to recognize the true depth of our own sinfulness, including those ways in which our wills remain attached to the particular goods that we enjoyed inordinately when our souls were conjoined to our bodies, and our reason was

164  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering influenced by the passions, in our earthly lives. Accordingly, armed with this self-knowledge, we can undergo the deeper, concentrated reform in our wills needed to correct any disorder that lies there as a result of our desiring and pursuing certain goods inordinately in our embodied, earthly lives. Once we are cleansed of this disorder, we become capable of living resurrected, glorified lives in which our minds and wills, fixed on and sharing in God’s goodness to the highest degree, properly govern the passions, now wholly aligned with and responsive to the direction of our minds and wills. In other words, we become capable of living internally harmonious, sin-free heavenly lives. The kind of redemptive suffering we undergo in purgatory as satisfactory punishment is also especially effective, I think, in enabling us to fully abandon any lingering attachment to sin and become fully united to the justice and love of God. Souls in purgatory love God, and are destined to attain union with God in the beatific vision, but are detained by their sin from doing so. Yearning for personal union with God, they therefore also experience that loss—even if it is recognized as only temporary—as an intense form of suffering, what Aquinas calls the “pain of loss” (poena damni). Consequently, the more intense the yearning we, while in our disembodied state in purgatory, have for God as our highest good, the more intense the suffering we experience in being held back from attaining God as our highest good. And, I submit, the more intense suffering we undergo in experiencing this loss, the more we learn to relinquish our inordinate grip on lower, finite goods and fully align ourselves with God as our highest good. The more suffering we undergo in experiencing this loss, the more we also are able to make reparations for the sin that we have committed and for which we want to make reparations in order to become fully aligned with God as our highest good, both in justice and in love. Aquinas further holds the separated soul in purgatory experiences the “pain of sense” (poena sensus), and specifically “punishment by corporeal fire,”62 which he says consists of the soul’s being bound to an actual fire, which it painfully perceives to be harmful to itself.63 My own view is that the pain of sense, even if it does not consist of our being united to an actual fire, is something that is analogous to passing through an actual fire. Athletes willingly subject themselves to rigorous and painful training—sometimes including performing extreme acts of selfsacrifice and self-denial, and so suffering real losses of goodness within their lives—both in order to free themselves of whatever weaknesses or deficiencies are holding them back from attaining their ultimate goal, the prize of victory, and in order to hone their athletic abilities so that they can attain those goals more easily and effectively. Similarly, I suggest, whatever further, redemptive suffering we undergo (and need to undergo) in purgatory, in addition to the suffering we undergo by virtue of yearning for the beatific vision as an end yet to be attained, consists of

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 165 undergoing a particularly focused form of moral and spiritual training that we simply could not undergo in this life while our souls are attached to and limited by our bodies, and which is therefore particularly efficacious for us becoming free of those sinful weaknesses and deficiencies— both the disposition to sin and the debt of punishment—that prevent us from attaining the ultimate goal and prize of personal union with a perfectly just and loving God. By subjecting us to this training in purgatory, therefore, God fully detaches us from sin so that he can fully unite us to himself as our highest good, and ultimate prize, in justice and love.64 At this point, having explained how God redeems sin in purgatory on my Thomistic model, and why I think undergoing satisfactory punishment qua redemptive suffering, according to this model, is particularly effective for our attaining ultimately good, sin-free lives, I’d like to conclude this section of this chapter by making a few more remarks on its behalf, in further, overall support of my Thomistic TRS. First, although I clearly have not established the existence of purgatory (or, for that matter, demonstrated the supremacy of Aquinas’s model of purgatory over other models of purgatory), I do think I have shown why we have good reason to think that purgatory exists, on the presumption that our attaining ultimately good, sin-free lives requires our willingly undergoing the postmortem punishment and so suffering necessary to attain such lives. Even those who think that forgiven sinners in no way carry any debt of punishment that needs to be paid, have good reason to think that we are afflicted by a propensity to sin, which we have built up through committing sin. Consequently, attaining holiness of will—a will undivided and unwavering in its love of God, above all other things—requires undergoing the painful moral and spiritual training needed to reorder the will; an exercise that must be painful if it is going to contravene and so correct the sinful orientation of the will. It follows that whatever disposition to sin we still possess upon leaving this life must be cleansed in the next life (again, if we are going to attain ultimately good, sin-free lives). Second, and relatedly, purgatory, and all of the punishment qua redemptive suffering that it contains, is an expression of the love, justice, and mercy of God. Purgatory not only exists because sin exists but it also exists because God wills to redeem the sin that exists—all of the sin that exists—not only cosmically but also within the context of our very lives. Whatever suffering we undergo in purgatory, therefore, no matter how long or severe (and it may very well be long and severe for many of us), thereby serves God’s wholly just, loving, and merciful purposes of affording us ultimately good, sin-free lives. Third, I think it is possible and reasonable to hope that purgatory serves God’s wholly just, loving, and merciful purposes of redeeming sin within the context of many, many human lives. It is true, as I already mentioned, that for Aquinas only those whose wills are fixed on goodness, and who die in a state of grace, with charity in their hearts, gain

166  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering entrance to purgatory. However, we are not in any epistemic position (given both our ignorance and our finitude) to determine in any comprehensive way who—and who has not—died in a state of grace and so gained entrance to purgatory. Only God fully knows the human heart, and so the epistemic limitations we possess in this life prevent us from fully appreciating the depth and scope of God’s redemptive work in our respective lives. And so, perhaps many persons have progressed much farther along the path of redemption than we think, even if they have fallen short of attaining the full moral and spiritual transformation needed to enter heavenly life. Additionally, as I will continue to argue, since God is sovereign over our salvation (as he is sovereign over all things), then God can convert even the most hardened sinners, whether during their lives, at their deaths, or even in their deaths (presuming this is metaphysically possible, which I think that it is).65 And so, purgatory is, has been, and will be inhabited by souls from all times and places, for whom God has designed varied—and for many, we can imagine, difficult, even severe—programs of postmortem redemptive suffering, all of which enable (or have enabled, or will enable) God to fully separate these souls from sin and fully unite them to himself in both justice and love. To be clear, in making this claim, I am not defending universalism, or denying the existence of hell, or affirming that hell is empty (at least of human souls). Nor am I denying the reality of mortal sin. Instead, in affirming an arguably more permissive conception of purgatory, I am appealing, in the end, to the sovereignty of God.

5.5  Sin, suffering, and the predestination of the saints So far, all that I have argued supports the claim that God can redeem all evil within the context of our own lives. But I think a full defense of (R) requires providing reasons for thinking that God also will redeem all evil within the context of our own lives. As I have stated throughout this chapter, Aquinas confidently claims, specifically regarding the saints of God, that “God … takes care of them in such a way as to permit no evil to affect them without converting it to their good.” And, in Aquinas’s view (which Aquinas also takes to be the biblical view), the reason we can be sure that God not only can but also will take care of his saints in this way is because he predestines them. From all eternity, God wills that the saints attain salvation, and his will is always efficacious. It cannot ultimately be thwarted. This also means that God’s plan to redeem all evil within the lives of the saints is efficacious and cannot ultimately be thwarted. In the final section of this chapter, then, I further buttress our confidence that (R) is true by drawing and building upon Aquinas’s doctrine of predestination. I also extend some of the reasoning I employed in Chapter 3 (particularly Section 3.5) in defending the claim

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 167 that God’s being fully sovereign over our lives is fully compatible with our freely choosing the direction of our own lives, exercising libertarian free will. In doing so, I also will bring us one step further to discussing another important, pressing question, which will occupy us in the next two chapters: how far the scope of God’s plan to redeem evil within the context of individual human lives extends. Aquinas locates the doctrine of predestination within the larger doctrine of divine providence.66 All things fall under God’s providence, which, Aquinas says, concerns God’s ordering all things toward their intended end. God has created human beings for a distinctly supernatural end, eternal life, which they cannot obtain by their own, natural powers. Consequently, just as an arrow cannot reach its target without being sent there by an archer, so a human being cannot reach its target, or the ultimate goal of eternal life, without being sent there by God. And just as an archer has a plan in mind to send the arrow to its target, so God has a plan in his mind to send the human being as a rational creature to the ultimate end or goal of eternal life. Predestination (praedestinatio), then, “is a plan, existing in God’s mind, for ordering certain persons to eternal salvation.”67 Aquinas also contends that “predestination logically presupposes election, and election logically presupposes love.”68 God possesses a plan for ordering certain persons to the end of eternal life with God because God, from all eternity, wills that they attain that end, and his willing that they attain that end, which is their ultimate good, is an act of love since “to love is to will a good for someone.”69 Moreover, since the divine will is always fulfilled, it is certain that those whom God predestines will, in fact, attain that end. Aquinas contends, then, that it is not God’s foreknowledge that ensures that that the predestined will be saved: if it did, “predestination would not take place by the choice of him who predestines.”70 Rather, “the ordering of predestination has an infallible certitude of its own—over and above the certitude of foreknowledge.”71 This is what Aquinas calls “the certitude of ordination” (certitudo ordinis), which concerns the relation between cause and effect. “The relation of a cause to an effect,” he says, “is said to be certain when the cause infallibly produces its effect.”72 Aquinas also insists, however, that even though “predestination attains to its effect infallibly and with utmost certainty,” “it does not impose necessity in the sense that its effect issues forth by necessity.”73 As we saw in Chapter 3, Aquinas claims that it falls to divine providence not only to ordain that certain things occur but also how they occur. While God wills that some effects occur necessarily within his world, in accord with necessary causes, for other effects he wills that they occur contingently, in accord with contingent causes: in the case of predestination, the proximate, contingent cause of free will, along with “whatever helps [a] person towards salvation … whether it be one’s own prayers or

168  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering those of another; or other good works, and such like, without which one would not attain to salvation.”74 Aquinas further explains all of this in a key passage from his De veritate: We find that an ordering is infallible in regard to something in two ways. First, an individual cause necessarily brings about its own effect because of the ordering of divine providence. Secondly, a single effect may be attained only as the result of the convergence of many contingent causes individually capable of failure; but each one of these causes has been ordained by God either to bring about that effect itself if another cause should fail or to prevent that other cause from failing …. [And so] even though free choice can fail with respect to salvation, God prepares so many other helps (adminicula) for one who is predestined that he either does not fall or, if he does fall, he rises again …. Consequently, if we were to consider salvation only in regard to its proximate cause, free choice, salvation would not be certain but contingent; however, in relation to the first cause, namely, predestination, salvation is certain.75 The idea here is that since one’s own free will, as the proximate, contingent cause of one’s salvation, can and does fail, God providentially ordains any number of other converging, contingent causes—“helps” such as “exhortations, the support of prayer, the gift of grace, and all similar things”76 —as part of his plan of salvation to ensure that one will attain one’s salvation even if one does “fall” along the way. What guarantees one’s salvation, however, is not free will, or these other, contingent causes—which, taken by themselves, are each “individually capable of failure”—but God, who, as the first cause of one’s salvation, orders them all in such a way that they bring about the “single effect” of one’s salvation, in accordance with his eternal and unassailable will. How should we make sense of what Aquinas says here about both the certainty of predestination and the contingency of the process by which we attain it? One could argue that a God of infinite power, goodness, and wisdom does not need to rely on necessary causes, which produce their effects by necessity, to ensure that he sends or brings us to himself. A God of infinite power, goodness, wisdom, and so resourcefulness can ordain as many converging, contingent causes, as are needed, as part of his eternal plan of salvation, in order to bring about the same effect, or to accomplish that same goal. And yet, we still might wonder how even an infinitely resourceful God can infallibly bring about the effect of predestination working with contingent causes that are each “individually capable of failure.” If these causes are each individually capable of failure, then how does God’s resourcefully weaving them together on our behalf ensure that we receive all of the help we need to achieve the

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 169 certainty of salvation? An open theist, I presume, would (happily?) concede that even an infinitely resourceful God cannot guarantee us the certainty of salvation; though, he can and will do everything in his power to bring this about, for as many persons as he can. The open theist’s God seemingly can accomplish his salvific purposes in many human lives, but not in any life that he pleases. At least, there is no theological guarantee that God can and will do this. A Molinist, I suppose, would claim that God has sovereignty over our salvation in the following respect. God infallibly knows how a person S would freely act in response to the help—and specifically the grace— that God offered S, and specifically how S would freely respond in a positive way to that help so as ultimately to attain salvation. And so, insofar as God wills to save S, God would ensure that S possess that help, in any world in which he placed him or her. The problem here, though, is that even if God infallibly knows how S would avail herself of the help he furnished her, God lacks any control over how S would respond, whether positively or negatively, to all of the help he provides. Perhaps, then, there are certain persons whom God simply cannot save: no matter what combination of helps God provides S (in any feasible world in which S exists), it remains true of S that S will, at some point, stumble and fall, and remain fallen. And there is nothing God can do about this. Insofar as both the open theist and the Molinist are led to accept this conclusion—God does not, in fact, have total control over our salvation—it is because they both are operating with the mistaken assumption that insofar as we have libertarian free will, there is nothing God can do to guarantee that any particular individual is saved, short of violating libertarian free will. However, given what I argued in Chapter 3 (with the help of W. Matthews Grant), it does remain possible to affirm both the certainty of predestination and the contingency of the process by which we attain salvation. Let’s say, consistent with what Aquinas says above, that God’s predestining S, as one of God’s saints, consists of God’s willing and causing, from all eternity, S to possess all of the help S needs in order to attain salvation, in accordance with God’s eternally conceived plan for S. Some of these helps dispose or incline S (by virtue of putting S in the requisite moral and spiritual position) to perform those actions, or all instances of S A-ing (whether praying, repenting for sin, performing virtuous deeds, etc.) that are conducive, and even necessary, for attaining salvation. But, by themselves, however efficacious or necessary these antecedent helps are in enabling S (especially as a fallen being) to attain salvation, they do not logically suffice for S attaining salvation. For God to ensure that S attain salvation, God must also provide S further help: he must will and cause all instances of S A-ing that are conducive, and even necessary, for S attaining salvation. And so, among the helps that God provides S, and must provide S, in order that S infallibly attain the

170  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering effect of predestination are those actions themselves as graces given to S by God.77 Does this action on God’s part undermine the freedom of S A-ing, and so the contingency of the process by which S attains salvation? Only if God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] obtains prior (in the order of causality and not just time) to S A-ing. However, on the model of providence I already have defended (what Grant calls “Dual Sources”), every instance of God’s willing and causing [S A-ing] is concurrent or simultaneous rather than prior to S A-ing. This, in turn, means that S’s A-ing, while ultimately up to God, is also ultimately up to S, and consistent with S doing otherwise, all antecedent conditions remaining the same. The same now applies to predestination, properly understood. As Grant puts it, “the essential feature of predestination is that a person’s attaining salvation is God’s choice and within God’s power, and not that God’s choice is prior to the person’s doing what is needed to attain salvation.”78 And so, any instance of God’s willing and causing [S A-ing], as part of his infallible plan to save S, is consistent with S’s A-ing being free in the libertarian sense. Consequently, looking just at S, and all that S does in freely responding to the help that God provides S, so that S can attain salvation, we can and should say that S’s salvation is, in Aquinas’s words, “not certain, but contingent.” But, taking into account God’s predestining S, and so willing and causing all instances of S-Aing that contribute to S’s attaining salvation, we can and should say that S’s salvation is certain. Adapting and extending what Aquinas says about predestination, and specifically this model of predestination that I have just offered on Aquinas’s behalf, I now argue the following on behalf of (R). God’s redeeming all of the evil that S’s life contains consists of God’s ordering S’s participation in that evil to S’s ultimate good, which is eternal life with God. And it is by predestining S (and only by predestining S) that God ensures that S attains an ultimately good life lived eternally with God in which all of S’s participation in evil is ordered toward, and so contributes to, S’s possessing and living an ultimately good life. God’s predestining S consists of God’s willing and causing or bringing about, from all eternity, in accordance with God’s eternally conceived plan for S, all of the help S needs in order to attain an ultimately good life lived eternally with God, in which all of the evil in S’s life has been redeemed. Furthermore, God’s predestining S consists of bringing S ultimately to see in perfect knowledge and willingly embrace in perfect love all of the ways that God ordered all of S’s participation in evil to S’s ultimate good, and S’s possessing an ultimately good life lived eternally with God. So understood, God’s predestining S, and so God’s ensuring that S, as one of God’s saints, attains an ultimately good life, also clearly includes S’s participating and so co-operating in important ways in the divinely ordained, and so infallible redemptive process by which S attains that

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 171 life. For example, S cannot grow morally and spiritually as a result of suffering, without freely responding, in virtuous ways, to the suffering that S undergoes; nor can S attain an ultimately good life without freely forsaking sin and willingly embracing the order of justice that demands satisfaction for sin, whether in this life or in purgatory. Indeed, S cannot attain an ultimately good life unless S freely turns toward God in love, even if S only does so at death or in death. Even anonymous redemptive suffers, on my Thomistic TRS, cannot be construed as exercising suffering love in this life unless they freely (and fully) embrace their role in God’s larger plan of redemption in the next life. But since God can will and cause all instances of S A-ing that are conducive, and even necessary, for S attaining salvation, without violating S’s libertarian free will, then, by virtue of predestining S, God can will and cause all instances of S A-ing that are conducive, and even necessary, for S attaining an ultimately good life with God, without violating S’s libertarian free will. And that is because God’s predestining S includes both God’s willing and causing, from all eternity, all of those antecedent helps qua contingent causes S needs to attain an ultimately good life and God’s concurrently willing and causing all of those actions qua contingent causes—whether S’s responding virtuously to the suffering she undergoes, S’s repenting for sin, or S’s embracing her role in God’s larger redemptive plan in love—that contribute to S’s attaining such a life. Thus, by virtue of predestining S, God possesses total sovereignty over S’s life; and it is by virtue of having total sovereignty over S’s life that God can ensure that S attains an ultimately good life in which all of the evil within S’s life is redeemed by God. Moreover, affording God total sovereignty over S’s life is consistent with affirming that the redemptive process by which God brings about an ultimately good life for S is characterized by genuine contingency: in particular, S’s participation in that process exercising her own, libertarian free will. Actually, it is because God has total sovereignty over everything that occurs in S’s life that God is able to work with S in affording S an ultimately good life. Since God’s willing and causing [S sinning] constitutes God’s willing to permit the sin that S commits, when he could do otherwise, then God is in total control over the amount of sin that exists within S’s life. And as I argued in Section 3.5, God only wills to permit S’s sin when he could do otherwise insofar as he possesses an eternally conceived, infallible plan for bringing good out of that sin. Insofar as God predestines S, we now can go even one step further: God only permits those instances of sin, or wills to include those instances of sin, within S’s life, which, in accordance with his eternally conceived, infallible plan for S, he will bring ultimate good out of for S, and specifically great, redeeming goods such repentance, forgiveness, humility, and love. Furthermore, insofar as God is in total control over the amount and distribution of suffering that occurs within the world, then God only

172  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering wills to include those instances of suffering in S’s life from which God will draw good for S: most notably, the great, redeeming good of a life purged of sin that is also fully conformed to himself in love. In fact, it is by willing to include suffering in S’s life that God is able to draw the greatest of loves—suffering love—out of S’s suffering; a great, redeeming good that S otherwise would not and could not possess were God not to include suffering within S’s life. It is precisely because God has total control over what good and bad S’s life contains, then, that God is able to ensure that S possess an ultimately good life in the end; a life that God also brings about with S’s free co-operation in the end. Now that we have reached this chapter’s end, I suspect some may be wondering whether it is possible to defend (R) without having to appeal to Aquinas’s doctrine of predestination, or the Thomistic model of predestination that I have articulated and defended. At the very least, I think that properly defending (R) requires appealing to a robust conception of divine sovereignty and providence. Either God is sovereign over our salvation or he is not. Either it is part of divine providence to order us to our final end (thereby affording us, in the end, an ultimately good life in which all evil has been divinely redeemed), or it is not. If it is not, then it seems that God’s will to save and redeem can be thwarted by causes and forces external to himself. And it is then difficult to buttress our confidence that God not only can and will redeem evil in our lives. Furthermore, we are left wondering why God would allow us to suffer and do so much evil that he is seemingly unable to redeem. The viability of theodicy as a project dedicated to illuminating for us God’s redemptive work within the world, and human lives, is thereby undermined. My final point concerns the scope of God’s plan to redeem evil within the context of our own lives. A God who predestines has it within his power to redeem evil within the context of any human life. And so, since we cannot know, from our current epistemic vantage point, how far God’s salvific will actually extends, then it may be true that God, in fact, eternally wills to redeem evil within the context of every human life, which means (R) is true for each and every human being, all of whom are (or will be) God’s saints. Certainly, it is possible and reasonable to hope that this is the case. I explore and defend these claims, along with other claims concerning God’s plan to redeem evil, particularly on a cosmic scale, in the final two chapters of this book. It is to these tasks that I now turn.

Notes 1 I am borrowing the concept of “participation” in evil from Marilyn McCord Adams (Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999], 26). Similarly, I am borrowing and employing the idea of “willingly embracing” God’s redemptive work from Trent Dougherty, who contends that saintly love in the Christian tradition

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 173 is a particular kind of virtuous disposition: “a turning over of the will to God, and willing embrace of what one wishes not to do, trusting that an all-knowing, all-good God has their good and the good of all creation in mind” (The Problem of Animal Pain: A Theodicy for All Creatures Great and Small [New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014], 108). 2 Lectura super Epistolam Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos (In Rom.) 8.6, translation in Commentary on the Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, trans. F.R. Larcher, eds. J. Mortensen and E. Alarcón, vol. 37, Latin/English Edition of the Works of St. Thomas (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012). Italics are in the translation. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum 1; translation is my own. 7 Lectura super Epistolam Pauli ad Hebraeos (In Heb.) 12.2, translation in Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, trans. Chrysostom Baer (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2006). 8 In Rom. 5.1. 9 I think C.S. Lewis affirms this overall picture of divine redemption of evil as well. He writes, “In the fallen and partially redeemed universe we may distinguish (1) the simple good descending from God, (2) the simple evil produced by rebellious creatures, and (3) the exploitation of that evil by God for His redemptive purpose, which produces (4) the complex good to which accepted suffering and repented sin contribute” (The Problem of Pain [New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2001], 111). 10 See ST I.20.3. 11 Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, 145. Others endorse there being a subjective side or dimension to divine defeat of evil as well. See, for example, Dougherty, The Problem of Animal Pain, 113–7, and Kevin Timpe and Aaron D. Cobb, “Disability and the Theodicy of Defeat,” Journal of Analytic Theology 5 (2017): 100–20. 12 1 Cor. 13:12 (NABRE). For Aquinas’s treatment of the beatific vision, see ST I.12. 13 See SCG IV.92. 14 As John Paul II puts it in Salvifici Doloris (SD) 7, “Man suffers on account of evil, which is a certain lack, limitation or distortion of good. We could say that man suffers because of a good in which he does not share, from which in a certain sense he is cut off, or of which he has deprived himself. He particularly suffers when he ‘ought’—in the normal order of things— to have a share in this good and does not have it.” SD is available online at https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1984/ documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris.html. Italics are in the original text. 15 See ST I-II.2 for Aquinas’s extended reasoning on why our beatitude does not lie with any created good. 16 A paradigm case here from Scripture (Luke 15:11-32) is the prodigal son, who, having squandered his inheritance in sinful deeds, and fallen into deep suffering, confronts his own sin and repentantly returns to his father, who offers him forgiveness. 17 SCG III.158. 18 In DM 1.4, Aquinas claims that there are three characteristics of punishment: (1) “it has regard to fault”; (2) “it is contrary to the will”; and (3) “it consists in a kind of suffering or undergoing.” 19 See, once more, In Heb. 12.2.

174  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 20 See, once more, In Rom. 8.6. 21 Here, I am drawing on Aquinas’s claim that “it belongs properly to humility, that a man restrain himself from being borne towards that which is above him” (ST II-II.161.2). Aquinas also says that humility has a specifically spiritual dimension, insofar as it “properly regards the reverence whereby man is subject to God” (ST II.II.161.3). 22 See ST II-II.106.3, where Aquinas claims that since “every effect turns naturally to its cause …. the natural order requires that he who has received a favor should, by repaying the favor, turn to his benefactor according to the mode of each.” 23 ST II.II.106.1. 24 Aquinas thinks that thanking God is part of the virtue of religion, which disposes us to give God due honor and reverence. See ST II-II.82.2. 25 ST II-II.136.1. 26 ST II-II.136.4 ad 2. 27 Here, I am drawing both on what Aquinas says about the virtue of justice in ST II-II.58.3 and the virtue of mercy in ST II-II.30.4, where he says that “it belongs to mercy to be bountiful to others, and, what is more, to alleviate the needs of others.” 28 See ST II-II.25.1. 29 ST I-II.87.7. 30 Dougherty, The Problem of Animal Pain, 134. 31 Ibid., 181. 32 Ibid., 134. 33 See in particular Karl Rahner, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions,” Theological Investigations, vol. 5, trans. K.H. Kruger (London, UK: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1966; New York, NY: Crossroad, 1966), 115–34. 34 Eleonore Stump, “Providence and the Problem of Evil,” 405. Italics are in the original text. 35 Paul J. Wadell does a nice job underscoring this point in “Charity: How Friendship with God Unfolds in Love for Others,” Virtues and Their Vices, eds. Kevin Timpe and Craig A. Boyd (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014), 369–90. See in particular 377–8. 36 See ST II-II.23.6. 37 Ibid. 38 ST II-II.17.8. 39 Dougherty, The Problem of Animal Pain, 108. Italics are in the original text. 40 Commenting on Stump’s claim that a person of faith “has in effect given consent to living a life which includes suffering,” Dougherty writes, “In a sensible way of looking at it, whether a person is a person of faith is something that, from God’s perspective, does not change throughout a person’s life. So if, from our perspective, they become a person of faith, in the relevant sense, only long after death, then the whole continuant person will be considered as a person of faith for God and their consent will be ‘retroactively’ applied to their whole life, including the portion of their career where, from our perspective, they do not appear to be, perhaps even to themselves, a person of faith” (The Problem of Animal Pain, 116, n. 16). Here, Dougherty is appealing, as I am, to a Boethian conception of eternity (which Aquinas also adopts), to explain how God might permit persons to undergo suffering he knows they will endorse when they understand their role in God’s plan. I am making a comparable claim here about S, who, even if she possesses a basic or budding love of God at her

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 175 death, offers her full or most complete assent to a life of suffering in her heavenly, glorified state. And so, God sees the whole person that S is, at all stages of her life, in terms of who S eternally is (from God’s perspective) as a perfected person of love. 41 Perhaps, like Rahner’s anonymous Christians, these sufferers have been touched by divine grace (the grace of Christ), which positively orders them to God, even though they (and others) are not aware of it. And perhaps having this grace is necessary for being an anonymous redemptive sufferer. These more specific theological matters are worth thinking about further. 42 Grant makes a comparable point regarding moral evils: “God may well have permitted even horrendous moral evils of the sort we find in the world in order that there be great instances of mercy, repentance, forgiveness, atonement, conversion from evil, and perhaps even just punishment” (Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 126). 43 John 15:13 (NRSV); I’m tweaking the phrasing of the verse a bit to fit with the phrasing of the sentence. 44 ST I-II.87.6. 45 SCG III.140. 46 SCG IV.72. In this passage, Aquinas is specifically discussing the need to maintain the justice of God in penance, but the principle applies more generally. 47 ST I-II.87.5. 48 See ST I-II.87.6, where Aquinas says that satisfactory punishment “loses something of the character of punishment”: considered by itself, it is contrary to the will, even if voluntarily undertaken for a particular purpose. 49 In evaluating Aquinas’s position on punishment and purgatory, Jerry L. Walls astutely observes that “It seems clear that [Aquinas] sees no tension between the two elements of satisfaction and sanctification, and views them as fully compatible, indeed as complementary” (Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012], 74). I suggest that Aquinas did not see any tension because there is no tension there to be seen. Furthermore, it is worth noting here that I don’t think that making satisfaction for sin, in this life or in purgatory, can be reduced to or equated with becoming sanctified (though it includes it). In “Sanctification, Satisfaction, and the Purpose of Purgatory,” Faith and Philosophy 26 (2009): 167–85, Neal Judisch claims that the two are equated, at least according to current Catholic teaching. While it goes well beyond what I can argue here, I also think that Aquinas’s view expresses the traditional Catholic view, and remains fully consistent with it. 50 ST III.85.3. 51 ST III.84.5 ad 2. 52 ST III.84.5. 53 See in particular ST III.49.3, where Aquinas claims that “Christ’s Passion was sufficient and superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the whole human race.” 54 ST III.69.2. Interestingly, Aquinas also says that while baptism “has the power to take away the penalties of the present life” that are associated with original sin, it does not, for reasons consistent with God’s permitting us to suffer for the sake of our redemption: suffering for Christ (as one of his members) and more broadly engaging in the “spiritual training” that will earn us the “crown of victory” in heaven (ST III.69.3). Aquinas also says that it is fitting for baptism not to take away the penalties associated with original sin since we might otherwise seek it for that purpose, rather than the aim of attaining heavenly glory.

176  God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 55 SCG IV.72. 56 While I will not enter into the debate between “corruptionists” and “survivalists” on the separated soul—the former of which deny that the separated soul is a person, the latter of which affirm that the separated soul is a person—I do think that there are real reasons for thinking that the separated soul is at least an incomplete person. Daniel D. De Haan and Brandon Dahm make a compelling case for this position in “Thomas Aquinas on Separated Souls as Incomplete Human Persons,” The Thomist 83 (2019): 589–637. 57 In “St. Thomas Aquinas on Punishing Souls,” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 71 (2012): 103–16, Patrick Toner makes the case on behalf of the corruptionist view that it is just for the separated soul to be punished for the sins we commit because it is the soul (and specifically the will) that is the source of our sinful acts that merit punishment. Similarly, I’m suggesting on behalf of the corruptionist that the punishment the separated soul undergoes in purgatory will be redemptive for us because the soul is the source of all of those acts in purgatory that are redemptive for us. 58 SCG IV.95. 59 I am drawing on Lamont’s very helpful defense of Aquinas’s claim here about the separated soul in “The Justice and Goodness of Hell,” 168. 60 I phrase the point this way because souls in purgatory do not yet enjoy the beatific vision, and so are not yet psychologically incapable of sinning. However, I expect God to providentially ensure that purgatory remains a sin-free zone, given the primary purpose of purgatory, which is to purge sinners of their sin (the debt of punishment and the disposition to sin). 61 ST I.89.3. 62 ST Supp. III, Appendix 1, 2.1. See also SENT IV.21.1.1.3. 63 Aquinas explains in ST Supp. III.70.3 how the separated soul can suffer from a corporeal fire: “the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of divine justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit, and thus the soul seeing the fire as something hurtful to it is tormented by the fire.” 64 This is also consistent, I think, with what Aquinas says in SCG IV.72 about some of the ways we make satisfaction for sin in this life, by engaging in spiritual disciplines such as prayer and fasting. 65 Consider Benedict XVI’s description of those who are candidates for purgatory: “For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains, and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul” (Spe Salvi 46, published as Saved in Hope: Spe Salvi [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius, 2008], 45). 66 See ST I.23.1. 67 ST I.23.2. 68 ST I.23.4. 69 Ibid. 70 DV 6.3. Translation in Truth, vol. 1, trans. Robert W. Mulligan (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1994). 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 ST I.23.6.

God the Redeemer and Redemptive Suffering 177 74 ST I.23.8. 75 DV 6.3. 76 Ibid. 77 Grant deems such help “concurrent grace”: “a meritorious act given by God in an instance of concurrent divine action” (Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 161). He also distinguishes concurrent grace from “antecedent grace,” which is prior to S A-ing but not logically sufficient for S A-ing, as concurrent grace is. He extends this account of concurrent grace to include God’s act of predestining S, which just is God’s bringing about S’s accepting God’s offer of salvation. I am drawing once more on Grant’s very helpful analysis here. 78 Ibid., 176.

6

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe

So far in this book, working from a Thomistic and more broadly Christian philosophical and theological perspective, I have engaged the doctrines of creation, providence, Fall, and redemption in order to develop a Thomistic, Christian theodicy, the main goal of which is to help us see or understand more clearly why evil exists within God’s world and how God brings good out of evil, both cosmically and within the context of individual human lives. In the last chapter of this book, I appealed to some more specific doctrines concerning our redemption— the doctrine of purgatory and the doctrine of predestination—both to further explain how God redeems evil for us as fallen beings and to further buttress our confidence that God not only can but also will redeem evil for us, ordering it all to the ultimate good of life lived eternally with God. In this chapter, I continue to employ this methodology in developing my Thomistic theodicy. I delve deeper into Christian eschatology in order to illuminate both the nature and scope of God’s redemptive work, since, on my view, there is no evil that God allows to exist within his good world that he leaves unredeemed, or unordered to redeeming good. Specifically, I explore the doctrines of heaven and hell. Heaven, in my view, is populated by all of those persons whom God has redeemed, and who therefore possess an ultimately good life which, despite whatever evil and suffering it contains, is good, perfect, and beautiful, taken as a whole. But what are the central features or characteristics of an ultimately good, heavenly life? Up to this point, I have emphasized the centrality of the beatific vision: the perfect beatitude of life lived in perfect communion with God as our highest good in knowledge and love. In this chapter, though, I go even further. First, I discuss and defend the impeccability of the saints in heaven, who, by virtue of having attained perfect beatitude and perfect virtue, not only live sin-free, heavenly lives but also remain permanently incapable of sinning during the entire duration of their heavenly lives. I then discuss how an ultimately good heavenly life is free from suffering. Here, I emphasize that an ultimately good life on my Thomistic view is, in the DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847-6

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 179 end, embodied, and explain why it is reasonable to hold that the saints in heaven possess a body numerically identical to the body that they possessed in life—albeit a glorified body that is permanently invulnerable to suffering evil of any kind. In the remainder of the chapter (in fact, for most of the chapter), I address pressing questions surrounding the existence of hell. In Aquinas’s view, hell is a place where God punishes those human beings who die unrepentant of whatever mortal sin they have committed in this life. Furthermore, hell is a place where God punishes those sinners who, by virtue of possessing wills unalterably fixed on doing evil, continue to sin and so continue to merit divine punishment. And yet, I argue that regardless of how many unrepentant sinners, and however much unrepented sin, that hell contains, God nonetheless redeems all of that sin by justly punishing it, and those who commit it, thereby ordering the evil of sin (and whatever evil is suffered by the damned in hell as divine punishment), to the justice, and so goodness, of God’s world, taken as a whole. I also show how God can be good to those whom he justly punishes in hell, even if he elects, as part of his providential plan, to permit them to live lives permanently separated from himself in hell. One of my most important claims in the chapter is that it is equally consistent for a perfectly good God to create a world containing a populated hell or a world where hell is empty (at least of human beings). This leaves room for hoping that our own world, even it contains hell within it, contains no damned human beings within it; and so hoping that God will redeem all human beings in the end. I end the chapter, then, on a hopeful note: while affirming the reality of hell, I recognize that hell may very well be empty (again, at least of human beings), and that heaven, in contrast, eventually will be inhabited by every human being. Our own ultimately good world may, in fact, be a world in which every human being comes to possess a fully redeemed, ultimately good life in the end.

6.1 Redeemed living in heaven: impeccability and perfected freedom According to (R), God’s redeeming evil for a person S consists of God’s ordering all of S’s participation in evil to S’s ultimate good, as well as bringing S to see and willingly embrace all of the ways God ordered S’s participation in evil to S’s ultimate good. I have identified S’s ultimate good as life lived eternally with God because God is S’s highest good, in whom S’s highest happiness and flourishing consist. And since God is S’s highest good, who is “completely separate from evil,”1 S’s living life eternally with God necessarily entails living an evil-free life eternally with God. Put more strongly: by virtue of attaining personal union with God

180  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe as S’s highest good, S lives a life—ultimately, a fully embodied life—in which it is impossible for evil to have a place, since S is incapable of sinning and suffering evil of any kind. Let’s now explore this remarkable claim in more detail. To begin, Aquinas makes multiple arguments on behalf of the claim that the blessed in heaven are incapable of sinning, or are impeccable. One main important argument, from his Compendium theologiae, goes as follows: For, inasmuch as the object of the will is the good, the will can be inclined to something only under an aspect of good. But something can be lacking in any particular good, and this leaves the knower free to seek the good in something else. And so the will of the one perceiving any particular good does not necessarily rest content only in that good so as not to turn outside its order. But God, who is the universal good and goodness itself, lacks nothing good that can be sought elsewhere …. Therefore, those who see his essence cannot turn their will away from him without tending to all things according to his plan. 2 In other words, since the intellect is united to God in perfect knowledge of God’s perfect goodness, it cannot conceive of any reason to seek goodness elsewhere. And so, there is nothing that might motivate the will to “seek the good in something else”: God, “who is the universal good and goodness itself,” lacks nothing that the will might otherwise seek to possess. Another related argument from the Summa contra gentiles focuses on heavenly beatitude as the fulfillment of what we naturally desire: When what one has suffices him, he seeks nothing beyond it. But whoever is happy has what suffices him in true beatitude (vera beatitudo); otherwise, his desire would not be fulfilled. Therefore, whoever is happy seeks nothing which does not belong to that in which true beatitude consists. But no one has a perverse will unless he wills something repugnant to him in whom true beatitude consists. So there is no one of the blessed whose will can be changed to evil. 3 It is only when we become personally united to God in heaven, enjoying the beatific vision, that we attain “true beatitude.” But those who possesses true beatitude, having achieved what they most deeply desire, want nothing that is incompatible with “that in which true beatitude consists,” and specifically anything “repugnant to him in whom true beatitude consists,” i.e., sin. So the blessed, having achieved true beatitude, are unable to sin.

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 181 In defending the impeccability of the wills of the blessed, Aquinas also appeals (as I already have appealed) to the nature of perfect love, and God as the perfect object of such love: The good, furthermore, is precisely as good the lovable. Therefore, that which is grasped as the best is the most lovable. But a happy rational substance that sees God grasps him as the best. Therefore, it loves him the most (maxime ipsum diligit). But this is an essential of love: the wills of those who love each other are in conformity. Therefore, the wills of the blessed are most in conformity with God, and this makes rightness of will, since the divine will is the first rule of all wills (prima regula omnium voluntatum). Therefore, the wills of those who see God cannot be rendered perverse.4 Grasping God as “the best,” and so “the most lovable,” the blessed love God the most. We even could say: loving God the most, the blessed also love God without fail, which means that they also follow God’s will, “as the first rule of all wills,” without fail. Thus, given their love of God (as caused by their knowledge of God), it is impossible for the blessed to sin: their wills “cannot be rendered perverse.” There are, then, substantive reasons for claiming that the blessed not only live sin-free lives but also are incapable of sinning, and so contaminating their lives with sin, which is why they live sin-free lives. But is being impeccable compatible with being free? As Kevin Timpe observes, the following two theses—“(i) the redeemed in heaven have free will, and (ii) the redeemed in heaven are no longer capable of sinning”—appear to be in tension with one another.5 “For instance,” Timpe writes, “one may wonder: how can someone be free and yet incapable of sinning? If the redeemed are kept from sinning, their wills must be reined in, at least in some way. And if their wills are reined in, it doesn’t seem right to say that they are free.”6 The Thomistic response to this problem—what Timpe calls the “Problem of Heavenly Freedom”—goes as follows. First, as I think the textual passages I just cited from Aquinas make clear, the blessed are unable to sin not because they lack the native capacity to sin, but rather because they lack any intrinsic motivation to sin. Given their direct or immediate grasp of divine goodness, and their resting happily in divine goodness, which they love the most above all, they simply have no reason, and never could have any reason, throughout their heavenly lives, to sin: that is, to seek goodness in anything other than God and God’s good law for their lives. Accordingly, it is not metaphysically impossible for the blessed to sin but rather psychologically impossible for the blessed to sin. Timpe explains psychological impossibility generally in terms of what he calls the “reasons-constraint” on an agent’s free choice:

182  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe If, at time t, S has neither any motivational intellectual reasons for A-ing nor any motivational affective reasons for A-ing, then S is incapable, at t, of freely choosing to A.7 Let’s say, then, that S is one of the blessed. Since S eternally enjoys the beatific vision, there is no moment during S’s heavenly life when S ever would have any motivational intellectual or affective reasons for sinning (even when S’s soul is reunited with S’s resurrected body). And if S has no such reasons for sinning during the whole of S’s heavenly life, then S remains psychologically incapable of sinning throughout that life, even if, on a bare, metaphysical level, S, as a rational creature, remains capable of sinning. And so while it is true in one sense that S, qua rational creature (who possesses powers of intellect and will), is capable of sinning (meaning it is causally open to S to sin),8 it is also true that S, qua beatified creature, is incapable of sinning. In sum: S possesses the inherent capacity to sin even though S is psychologically incapable of sinning. Second, and relatedly, Aquinas draws an important, plausible distinction between two kinds of necessity, only one which is repugnant to freedom of the will. This first kind of necessity, which results from external coercion, “decreases the value of virtuous acts, because it is contrary to the voluntary, for what is done under coercion is what is against the will.”9 The other kind of necessity, though, which is in no way repugnant to the will, “results from interior inclination (interiori inclinatione).”10 This kind of necessity “does not diminish the value of a virtuous act, but increases it, for it makes the will incline more intensely toward an act of virtue. Indeed, it is evident that the more perfect a habit of virtue is, the more forcefully does it make the will tend to the good of virtue, and less likely to fall short of it. So that, if it reaches the end of perfection (finem perfectionis), it confers a certain necessity of acting well, as in the case of the blessed who are not able to sin.”11 In other words, the ultimate goal of growing in virtue is to obtain a will that is irrevocably set on doing what is good and refraining from doing what is evil. Once we attain moral and spiritual perfection in heaven, then, we do not lose free will but rather gain the ability to infallibly exercise our free will in perfect, unwavering conformity with virtue, and in particular the supreme virtue of love. Third, as Aquinas also says, if “any creature adheres unchangeably to God, it is not on this account deprived of free choice, because it can do or not do many things while adhering to God.”12 Perfectly beholding God’s goodness (with their intellects), and perfectly loving God’s goodness (with their wills), the blessed act in perfect, unwavering conformity with God’s will, “as the first rule of all wills,” for their heavenly lives. But acting in perfect, unwavering conformity with God’s will for their heavenly lives is consistent with performing any number of good actions—I would think, a vast array of good actions—all of which the

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 183 blessed are free to perform or not perform. Another way of putting this is that while the blessed are unable to perform certain kinds of actions— evil ones—they remain free to perform any number of actions that are good in kind. And I contend that they remain free to perform those actions exercising specifically libertarian free will. It is not difficult to illustrate this, given what I have argued in this book.13 Say S is a saint in heaven who performs a particular, good action A: S intercedes with God on behalf of a loved one here below. In performing A, S does so voluntarily and intentionally for reasons that S finds compelling: A’s conformity with God’s perfect goodness and love (which S perfectly beholds), as the standard to which all of S’s free acts ought to conform, and the perfect virtue (especially love) that S has come to possess. Furthermore, even though S, in her fully redeemed and so beatified state, is unable to perform any actions that are bad in kind, and only able to perform actions that are good in kind, there is no factor prior to and logically sufficient for S performing A (including God’s willing and causing S [A-ing]) that would determine or coercively necessitate S’s A-ing. Thus, S retains the ability to do otherwise than A, or perform any number of good actions other than A, all antecedent conditions remaining the same. And insofar as S performs A voluntarily and intentionally, while possessing the ability to do otherwise, all antecedent conditions remaining the same, then S is ultimately responsible for A: S’s A-ing is ultimately up to S (and God), something over which S has power or control in terms of whether or not it occurs. Now, since being in a fully beatified state is compatible with exercising libertarian free will, we might once again wonder whether it would have been better for God to create all of us in this state right from the start. Interestingly, Timpe’s response to this concern is straightforward: “Given my incompatibilism, I think that if God (or any other agent) created an agent with a specific character which determined that she did particular actions, she would be neither free nor responsible in performing those actions.”14 And so, were God to create S in an already beatified state, with a perfected character over which S had no control in forming, then something external to S—in this case, God—would determine S to act as S does, insofar as it was God, not S, who ultimately accounts for S’s being unable to perform bad actions and only able to perform good actions. On Timpe’s view, S qualifies as being free and responsible in infallibly performing good actions, and refraining from performing bad actions, only if S “previously freely formed her moral character into one that precludes sin.”15 While I actually think that God could create us in a fully beatified state without divesting us of libertarian free will, since all of the good actions we would perform while in that state still would be ultimately up to us (and God), per my understanding of libertarian free will, I agree

184  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe with Timpe at least to this extent, in that I don’t think (and argued as such in Section 4.5) that God would do so, especially given God’s larger aims in creating a world with diverse kinds and levels of goodness and so value within it. Not only, as Aquinas argues, is the universe better with both kinds of beings in it—rational beings incapable of willing evil, and rational beings who are capable of willing evil—but also, there is a unique kind of goodness and value that the world, and we, would lack were God to create us in an already beatified state. There is goodness and value in God creating a world in which perfect, heavenly virtue is a reward that God bestows upon us, and which we work to attain by freely co-operating with all of God’s efforts to redeem us. And there is goodness and value in freely growing in virtue (as even Adam would have done, in pursuit of heavenly glory, had he not sinned) as we pursue that reward, and so becoming the kind of persons who, perfected in our knowledge and love of God, no longer possess any motivational reasons to will anything that is contrary to what we know and love in God. We might also wonder whether it would be better for the blessed to possess the ability to do good as well as evil, presuming this is consistent with them always freely choosing to do the good. W. Matthews Grant, who, like me, claims that God exercises sovereign control over our free actions, and remains free to cause or refrain from causing any of those actions, contends that God could have created us this way: “it was possible for God to have given us libertarian free choice to perform or refrain from an indefinitely large number of morally bad acts while ensuring that moral evil never occurred.”16 Instead, Grant suggests, God chooses to permit moral evil in order to realize much good in the world (such as repentance, forgiveness, and mercy) that otherwise would never and could never obtain. Extending this view, then, one could argue as follows. Having already brought about this good on earth, God has no need to bring it about in heaven. Nor would God want heaven to be contaminated by moral evil, or evil of any kind. And so, God could ensure that heaven remained a sin-free zone simply by refraining from causing all of the citizens of heaven to commit moral evil of any kind (which means not that the citizens of heaven can’t commit any moral evil, only that they don’t do so). And once more—so the objection goes—it would be better for God to do so because he would enable those in heaven to retain a more robust kind of libertarian freedom in heaven, the ability freely to do good as well as evil. My response to this objection is two-fold. First, especially given how prone we all are to sinning, and how much sin marks, even dominates, our earthly lives, I think we should (and actually do) want to become persons who not only don’t sin (given God’s sovereignty over our free choices) but who actually can’t sin: persons for whom sinning is no longer psychologically possible. And this is exactly the sorts of persons that I claim that God, redeeming all of the sin within our respective

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 185 lives, and conforming us to himself in knowledge and love, is making us to be. Moreover, the freedom only to do good, and the freedom from being able to commit evil, is precisely the sort of freedom we should expect the blessed, once perfectly conformed to God in knowledge and love, to want to possess and exercise for all eternity. As Aquinas says, “that which is grasped as the best is the most lovable.” Thus, I claim that happy persons in heaven not only grasp and love God as best, but also grasp and love the perfected freedom they possess as best: that is, as the best kind of heavenly reward they could receive. Consequently, they love such freedom the best, and so would not want to possess freedom of any other kind. Second, and even more importantly, I think that the only way for God to preserve the ability of heavenly citizens to do good as well as evil is to deny them the beatific vision: that is, to prevent the blessed from becoming truly blessed. And so, even if God could ensure that heaven remained a sin-free zone without having to afford the citizens of heaven the beatific vision, he would not want to do so because the cost simply would be too high. Again, not only would God leave out of his good universe a certain kind of good creature—indeed, the best kind of creature, the one who, perfected in the knowledge and love of God, adheres unchangeably to God—but he also would deny the citizens of heaven the perfect happiness for which they naturally long. Heaven, therefore, would not simply be filled with creatures who only freely do what is good. It would be filled with unhappy creatures who only freely do the good, or, at least, creatures who, in the end, for all eternity, would not be as happy (even as close to being happy) as they otherwise would and could be. And a heaven filled with unhappy creatures, or a heaven devoid of perfect happiness, is really no heaven at all.

6.2 Redeemed living in heaven: impassibility and the glorified body An immediate consequence, or entailment, I think, of affirming that the blessed in heaven are happily impeccable is that the blessed in heaven are also incapable of relating to one another (or their heavenly environment) in any way that causes harm. There will be no acts of hatred, envy, greed, violence, or injustice, and so no war, poverty, exploitation, or any suffering caused by these things. All of our actions will be driven by and infused with love: the love of God as our divine good and the love of others as members of the community or society of the blessed who share collectively in and seek to promote that good. This is why Aquinas says that the love we exercise in this life prepares us to live well—indeed, live the best possible lives, both with God, and with one another—in the next life: “loving that good [that the blessed share in] for its own sake—wanting it to endure, to spread, and for nothing to be

186  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe done against it—this makes us well disposed toward that society of the saints.”17 He continues: “This is charity, which loves God for his own sake and loves our neighbors, who are capable of happiness, as ourselves, and which fights against all obstacles to this, both in ourselves and in others.”18 In full conformity with traditional Christian teaching on the afterlife, Aquinas also affirms that our heavenly lives ultimately will be embodied when God resurrects the body—for each of us, numerically the same body we possessed in this life—and reconjoins our bodies to our souls. In fact, everyone ultimately will rise with numerically the same body we each possessed in this life; though, now to live a life permanently free of bodily corruptibility. By a unique exercise of divine power, God will subject the body entirely to the soul, thereby also disposing our bodies to share directly, and everlastingly, in the incorruptibility of the soul, and its life-giving power. Having risen from the dead, none of us will ever die again. Moreover, Aquinas says, God’s fully restoring the body to life—and fully restoring us to life, as soul-body composites—entails fully restoring our bodily integrity and completeness. Since all natural defects “derogate from the integrity of nature,” then “it is appropriate that God wholly restore human nature in the resurrection,” and so take away any and all defects “from the bodies of those who rise.”19 Possessing an incorruptible and fully restored body, though, does not suffice for possessing and living a life free of suffering. Only the blessed in heaven, who are personally united to God in glory, and so elevated to the absolute, ontological height of human existence, will possess a glorified body, and live a life free of suffering. In fact, as Aquinas argues, the blessed, by virtue of possessing beatified souls “at the height of excellence and power,”20 will be incapable of suffering, just as they are incapable of sin. Aquinas also argues that body will be incapable of suffering given its perfect submission to the desires of the beatified soul. He writes: Of course, just as the soul which enjoys God will have its desire fulfilled in the achievement of every good, so also will its desire be filled in the removal of every evil, for with the highest good no evil has a place (quia cum summo bono locum non habet aliquod malum). Therefore, the body perfected by the soul will be, proportionally to the soul, immune from every evil, both in regard to act and in regard to potency …. It will be potentially so … because [the blessed] will not be able to suffer anything which is harmful to them. For this reason they will be incapable of suffering (impassibilia erunt). 21 In fact, it is because the resurrected bodies of the blessed will be perfectly subject to their glorified souls that other recognizable features of their bodily existence will be perfected and transformed as well. Not only will

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 187 their bodily appetites, or passions, be wholly subject to the direction of the soul (and so the power of reason), but every bodily movement will be subject to the direction of the soul, or “the spirit’s slightest wish.”22 Their senses will be heightened, and the body will possess a certain “spiritual lightsomeness,” or beautified luminosity.23 In sum, the glorified, resurrected body will share in “the soul’s very own characteristics so far as possible … in the all-round perfection of nature.”24 While Aquinas’s reflection on the resurrected body, and particularly the glorified body, is certainly speculative—as all such reflection is inherently speculative—it is also firmly grounded in his metaphysics, and specifically the metaphysics of the human person as a soul-body composite. One of the main arguments Aquinas offers on behalf of the resurrection is that “the soul is naturally united to the body,” as the very form of the body, which means that it is “contrary to the nature of the soul to be without the body.”25 And since “nothing which is contrary to nature can be perpetual,” then “the immortality of souls seems to demand a future resurrection of bodies.”26 Nor, since we are soul-body composites, can we attain “ultimate happiness unless the soul be once again united to the body.”27 Just as being ultimately happy requires that we attain personal union with God as our highest good in perfect knowledge and love, so being ultimately happy requires that our souls reunite with our bodies, so that we can live again as soul-body composites, and so metaphysically whole or complete beings, in whom no perfection is wanting. Moreover, Aquinas’s conception of the resurrected body, as rooted in his metaphysics of the human person a soul-body composite, is characterized by what I think is a desirable feature of any metaphysical theory: parsimony. 28 As Robert Pasnau correctly points out, on Aquinas’s account, “It is not that resurrected bodies are made out of different, imperishable material, nor that God miraculously preserves the bodies of the resurrected, nor that some kind of quintessence will be added to our bodies, making them imperishable.”29 Rather, the glorified, resurrected body possesses the properties it does—incorruptibility and impassibility, most notably—because it permanently remains perfectly subject to a glorified soul, as the vivifying form of the body, at the height of its excellence and power. And so, just as in conferring the supernatural gift of original justice upon human nature, God did not afford us any extra, alien metaphysical parts or powers beyond those we possess as embodied, rational beings, so in reuniting the body to a glorified soul God will not afford us (that is, the blessed in heaven) any extra, alien metaphysical parts or powers beyond those we possess as embodied, rational beings. To be sure, in order not just to preserve us from suffering or death but actually render us permanently incapable of suffering or dying, God has to bring us to glory, and elevate the soul to a supernatural state, beyond what it can attain by its own, natural powers. But God does not have to alter our nature itself: he does not need to alter the soul

188  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe or the body in themselves (say, by adding anything to them or subtracting anything from them) in order to afford us each an ultimately good, evil-free heavenly life, free from both the presence of sin and any harm that we might otherwise suffer, or be capable of suffering, while living an embodied existence in this life. Of course, once more, in order to afford each of us this life, God must reunite numerically the same body to numerically the same soul. More specifically, God and God alone must reunite the soul to the body, not only because the soul separates from the body at death, but also because the body undergoes corruption at death. But here a pressing philosophical question arises: how can God bring numerically the same body back to life once it has undergone corruption and ceased to exist? If no entity can sustain a temporal gap in its existence, or possess a “gappy” existence, then presumably not even God can bring numerically the same entity—the body included—back into existence once it has perished. Recognizing this worry, specifically as it concerns the resurrection of the body, Aquinas argues as follows: The power of nature fails the divine power, as the power of an instrument fails the principal agent. Granted, then, that the operation of nature cannot bring it about that a corrupted body be restored to life, the divine power can bring it about. The reason nature is unable to do this is that nature always operates by a form. But what has a form, already is. When it was corrupted, of course, it lost the form which was able to be the principle of the action. Hence, by nature’s operation, what was corrupted cannot be restored with a numerical identity. But the divine power which produced things in being operates by nature in such a way that it can without nature produce nature’s effect (absque ea effectum naturae producere potest) …. Hence, since the divine power remains the same even when things are corrupted, it can restore the corrupted to integrity.30 Here, Aquinas seems to be arguing that since the divine power surpasses the power of nature, then God can accomplish what nature cannot. While nature has to rely on something already existing in order to bring something about—namely, the form of a thing—God does not. And so, while nature cannot restore something that has been corrupted, and so lost its form, on which nature is reliant to act, God certainly can do so: against what some might think, even if “by nature’s operation, what was corrupted cannot be restored with a numerical identity” it does fall within the scope of divine power to “restore the corrupted to integrity.” And so God can bring numerically the same object that has previously perished back into existence. Interpreting this passage, Christina Van Dyke says that if this is what Aquinas is claiming—“God can recreate anything which has been

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 189 corrupted as the very same thing”—then his position “seems doubtful at best, and blatantly false at worse.”31 And this is because even if God did recreate a physical object once it was destroyed, “the recreated object wouldn’t possess the right sort of causal connection with the original …. In order for a material object to count as the same thing over time, its later states must be causally dependent on its earlier states in some way.”32 However, Van Dyke says that Aquinas’s point in the passage is much more focused. Aquinas is saying that while nature cannot act on the form of a human being—the separated soul—once it has been sundered from the body, God certainly can do so: God can restore the body to the soul as its “principle of action.” And that is because the “appropriate causal paths remain intact”33 after a person dies and her soul continues to subsist. As a corruptionist, Van Dyke’s thinks that in Aquinas’s view a human person S ceases to exist at death: once S’s soul separates from body, S as a person ceases to exist, “properly speaking.”34 However, S’s esse (“being” or “actualized existence”), which remains in the separated soul, does persist after death. If we think of S’s esse as the “self-sustaining structure”35 peculiar to S that S’s soul preserves during S’s life, then there is no reason, Van Dyke thinks, that S’s soul cannot preserve that same self-sustaining structure after S ceases to exist. And so, the existence of S’s soul after S ceases to exist ensures that the appropriate, immanent causal relations exist between S’s earlier temporal stages—the original S—and S’s later temporal stages—the resurrected S—despite the temporal gap that separates them. Therefore, when God reunites matter with S’s soul, as the substantial form (and unique form) of S’s body, God brings numerically the same person, S, back into existence. Furthermore, God brings numerically the same body back into existence, since S’s body “just is the physical organism resulting from the union of his substantial form with matter.”36 The latter point is important because even if, despite what Van Dyke thinks, S does survive S’s death (insofar as S’s soul survives S’s death), one might still wonder how S’s resurrected body is causally related to S’s earthly body: if no such immanent causal relation obtains, then S’s resurrected body cannot be numerically identical to S’s earthly body. It makes sense that Van Dyke would answer here as follows: since S’s body just is the physical organism resulting from the union of S’s soul as S’s substantial form with matter, then the matter that constitutes S’s resurrected body is the same matter that constitutes S’s earthly body by virtue of the fact that it is united to the same, particular substantial form, which is S’s soul. And so it is S’s perpetually existing soul that ensures that the matter configured by S’s soul in both S’s premortem existence and postmortem, resurrected existence is numerically the same.37 The issue, here, though, is the soul, even as the form of the body, is still metaphysically distinct from the body (which is one reason why it

190  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe can subsist independently of the body). And, as Trenton Merricks claims, there is reason to doubt that “the identity of one physical object (such as a body) might be entirely a matter of the identity of a second object (such as a soul) when that second object is not itself part of the first object.”38 As such, one could argue that even if spatiotemporal continuity is not necessary to sustain bodily identity over time, the appropriate, immanent causal relations presumably must exist in order to sustain bodily identity over time: that is, the way S’s body is during S’s earthly life must appropriately cause the way S’s body is during S’s resurrected life in order for S’s resurrected body to be identical to S’s earthly body. But can this sort of causation occur across a temporal gap? Merricks sees no reason not to think so. We can imagine, for example, you entering a time machine with a tattoo on your leg and exiting that time machine at a future date with that same tattoo on your leg (the time machine’s having caused a temporal gap in the career of your body). The tattoo’s being on your leg upon you arriving in the future and exiting the time machine is caused by you having that same very same tattoo on your leg before entering the time machine. Now, granted, such speculative reasoning is far from conclusive, as Merricks readily admits. Perhaps, for some, this time machine story—or any like it, that purports to show that causation across a temporal gap in a body’s career is possible—is absolutely impossible. But all this just shows that philosophical perspectives (or, Merricks says, “hunches”) concerning causation across temporal gaps, and bodily identity across temporal gaps, differ. Moreover, Merricks says, those who believe in bodily resurrection do not do so on the basis of (or, I would say, at least solely on the basis of) philosophical reasoning, but rather on the basis of revealed teaching. And so, he says, “to the extent that revelation justifies belief in the resurrection, I think it also justifies belief in bodily identity across a temporal gap.”39 Another way of putting all of this is that even if we cannot specify how bodily resurrection, and so bodily identity across a temporal gap, is possible, there is no reason to doubt that it is possible. Consider, for example, another traditional Christian teaching: creation ex nihilo. As far as I know, no one within the tradition has shown exactly how such an unparalleled event is possible. But it certainly has not struck those within the tradition as beyond the power of God to bring about. And why not? On a traditional conception of omnipotence, which Aquinas endorses, it falls within the scope of divine power for God to do anything that is “possible absolutely” and so does not involve a contradiction (or whose description does not involve a contradiction).40 And there is no obvious contradiction entailed by God’s creating the world out of nothing, as there is, say, by God’s creating a square circle. There is nothing about “creation” per se that precludes creating something from nothing. Thus, the fact that it is difficult (if not also impossible) for us to conceive

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 191 how God created in this way does not provide us with any reason to doubt that this is, in fact, how God did create (given our belief in divine power). Similarly, I think, there is no obvious contradiction entailed by God’s restoring numerically the same body for each of us. Resurrection is a form of creation—making something (the same thing) anew—and again, there is nothing about “creation” per se that, as far as I can tell, precludes making something (the same thing) anew. And so, the fact that it is difficult (if not also impossible) for us to conceive how God will bring this about does not provide us with any reason to doubt that God will, in fact, bring it about (given the same belief in divine power). This is why I think it is also possible and even reasonable to claim that the restoration of not just the human body but any material body within nature that is destroyed, while not possible by nature’s power, is indeed possible by divine power. Just as there is no obvious contradiction in God’s restoring numerically the same human body to life, so there is no obvious contradiction in God’s restoring numerically the same animal body, say, to life; even if animals do not possess immaterial souls. I recognize, of course, that this is a disputable (even highly disputable) claim, both as a reading of Aquinas, and generally speaking. But the fact that it is disputable does not make it unreasonable. What is, in toto, “possible absolutely” for God is, I think, a matter of genuine philosophical and theological debate. And so, where there is room for reasonable philosophical and theological disagreement, there is room for reasonable philosophical and theological divergence of belief. In conclusion, then, I think that there are multiple ways for the Thomist to offer a reasoned defense of the claim that the same person qua soulbody composite who participated in evil in his earthly life can and will enjoy an ultimately good, evil-free, heavenly life in numerically the same body he possessed in this life. Perhaps the soul can entirely account for bodily (as well as personal) identity across a temporal gap. But even if it cannot (at least all by itself), this does not mean that belief in bodily identity across a temporal gap is unreasonable, especially given our belief in divine revelation, and, moreover, divine power. There is no reason to doubt—and there is even positive reason to think—that there can be bodily causation across a temporal gap, and that whatever conditions necessary for bodily identity over time can be satisfied across a temporal gap, and will be satisfied across that gap when God resurrects our bodies and reconjoins them to our souls.

6.3  Punishment in hell and the perfection of the universe Having reflected on and addressed important questions concerning the nature of an ultimately good life lived eternally in heaven, I now need to reflect on and address important questions concerning the nature and purpose of hell, and life lived eternally in hell. In particular, given the

192  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe larger purposes of this book, I need to address important questions concerning the place hell has within God’s providential scheme and his overarching plan to redeem all evil—including the evil of hell—in the end. Aquinas argues that hell, as a place (or state) of eternal punishment, is occupied by those who have sinned mortally and therefore sundered themselves (that is, their wills) from God as their highest good and ultimate end. By committing mortal sin, and remaining in a state of mortal sin, a person rejects friendship with God and therefore deprives himself “of the good against which he acts, for by this action he renders himself unworthy of such a good.”41 To explain this logic, Aquinas draws a helpful analogy. Just as those who commit an egregious offense against the state permanently exclude themselves (or at least can permanently exclude themselves) from participating in the life of the state (either by suffering death or “perpetual exile”), so those who commit an egregious offense against God permanently exclude themselves from participating in the society of the blessed who “share in the ultimate end eternally.”42 We also could say, just as committing a single act of betrayal can permanently doom a friendship, so committing a single mortal sin permanently can doom friendship with God, presuming that, in each case, the offending party does not do what is necessary to repair the friendship: repent and ask for forgiveness from the person one has betrayed.43 Furthermore, in defense of the claim that committing a single sin (even if short in duration) can warrant eternal punishment, Aquinas argues as follows: He who has turned aside from his ultimate end for the sake of a temporal good, when he might have possessed his end throughout eternity, has put the temporal enjoyment of this temporal good above the eternal enjoyment of the ultimate end. Hence, it is evident that he much preferred to enjoy this temporal good throughout eternity. Therefore, according to divine judgment, he should be punished in the same way as if he had sinned eternally. But there is no doubt that an eternal punishment is due an eternal sin (aeterno peccato aeterna poena debeatur). So, eternal punishment is due to him who turns away from his ultimate end.44 The idea here is that God judges the sinner not on what God expects the sinner to do eternally, but on the nature of the choice the sinner has made: S’s turning away from S’s ultimate end for the sake of a temporal good means that S loves this good more than God, and so “has put the temporal enjoyment of this temporal good above the eternal enjoyment of the ultimate end.”45 Consequently, even if S has not consciously or deliberately chosen against God by sinning, still, by acting gravely contrary not only to the love of God, but also the justice of God, and God’s good law for her life, which subordinates all finite goods (including S’s

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 193 own goodness) to God’s goodness—S has, in effect, chosen to live her life apart from God, and direct all of her actions, and enjoyments, to a final end other than God. And so, given the nature of mortal sin qua “eternal sin,” by committing such sin, S warrants eternal punishment in hell. Here, I think, it is important to note (lest we misunderstand Aquinas’s position) that in Aquinas’s view “since moral acts derive their character of goodness and badness, not only from their objects, but also from some disposition of the agent,”46 then whether a sin qualifies as mortal also depends, in part, on the disposition of the agent committing that sin. Most notably, “it can happen on the part of the agent that a sin that is mortal by its genus becomes venial, viz., because the act is imperfect, i.e., not deliberated by reason, which is the proper principle of a bad act.”47 In fact, since rational deliberation is the proper principle of free, culpable actions, whether good or bad, Aquinas thinks that ignorance— say, of the sort possessed by the insane or the mentally disabled—can exonerate someone entirely of sin. For example, “he that commits fornication in a state of such ignorance, commits no sin either mortal or venial.”48 This means that S is only deserving of eternal punishment in hell if S commits a serious, unrepented sin with full knowledge and consent: that is, a sin that is a product of S’s own rational deliberation, and so is rooted in S’s own reason, or faculties of intellect and will.49 This presumes, of course, that S, exercising her own, rational powers of intellect and will, is capable not only of grasping God’s good law for her life—at least according to what right reason tells her about how to live such a life—but also freely following or flouting that law. But presuming S is so capable (even as a fallen being), then if S commits mortal sin and dies having not repented for it (and so not being sorry for it), then God is perfectly just in subjecting S to eternal punishment in hell. The latter point is also crucial, since in Aquinas’s view, if S dies in a state of mortal sin, then S remains eternally set on doing evil (acting against God as S’s highest good and ultimate end) rather than doing good. Not only would S (or S’s soul), in her disembodied state, not possess any motivational affective reasons to alter her will, but S also, I think, would fail to possess any motivational intellectual reasons for altering her will as well (genuine reasons for turning away from sin and not merely the punishment S undergoes for sinning) since by committing mortal sin (and not being sorry for it) S has demonstrated that she wants to perpetually pursue and enjoy whatever temporal good she has chosen in preference to God. Even when God reunites all souls to their bodies, the damned will not be capable of turning back toward God, just as the blessed will be incapable of turning away from God, since “the bodies in the resurrection will be disposed as the soul requires, but the souls will not be changed by means of the bodies.”50 Accordingly, just as it is psychologically impossible for the blessed to turn away from God, so it

194  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe is psychologically impossible for the damned to turn back toward God, even though, like the blessed, they remain free, since there are many routes open to them to try in vain to attain whatever good they turned away from God to enjoy in perpetuity. (In other words, there are many ways open to the damned to sin, just as there are many ways open to the blessed to do what is good.) This is why Aquinas thinks that the punishment the damned undergo is so painful: not only do they suffer the loss of eternal union with God (the poena damni) as that which they desire by nature (but through their own personal choice have rejected), but they also suffer the loss of whatever it is they had chosen for themselves and “desired as best” in preference to God, and continue to desire as best in preference to God for all eternity.51 Whether, in the end, one finds Aquinas’s explanation and justification of damnation plausible depends, I think, on whether one accepts that there is such a thing as mortal sin and that dying in a state of unrepented mortal sin renders one psychologically incapable of turning back to God and so ever choosing a life for oneself that has God (and so eternal life with God) as its final end. In my view, once we do accept that mortal sin obtains, I think we are ineluctably led to affirm that damnation, and so eternal punishment in hell, obtains, or at least possibly obtains: that is, that eternal punishment in hell awaits those who commit such sin and die not being sorry for it. In this sense, entering hell and undergoing punishment eternally in hell is a natural consequence of committing mortal sin and remaining in a state of mortal sin. 52 Once more, mortal sin is eternal sin, and eternal sin is deserving of eternal punishment. Moreover, by committing mortal sin, and dying in a state of mortal sin, one ceases to possess any psychological motivation that would render genuine repentance and so genuine conversion from sin in hell possible. It is true, of course, both for Aquinas and the larger Christian (particularly Catholic) tradition that he represents, that someone who commits mortal sin is not necessarily irrevocably bound for hell and doomed to suffer the punishments of hell. As I have been arguing throughout this book, since God is sovereign over the ultimate fate of every human being (and indeed, all beings), then in any world in which there are damned human beings, had God predestined these persons, then, despite whatever mortal sin they committed in their earthly lives, they would have freely co-operated with God’s gracious efforts to save them and so escaped the punishment they otherwise would have had to endure in hell for committing such sin (and continuing to sin in hell). Having canvassed Aquinas’s views, then, on mortal sin, and presented them in a way that I think renders them plausible, I am going to address what I think are even more pressing issues concerning God’s sovereignty over the fate of those who do end up in hell. And so, granting, then, on my Thomistic view that (1) there is such a thing as

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 195 mortal sin, (2) unrepented mortal sin by definition warrants eternal punishment in hell, and (3) it falls within the scope of God’s power to redeem all of the unrepented mortal sin that puts sinners in hell, why would God ever choose to create a world in which he permits any unrepented mortal sin to obtain: a world in which he also permits certain human beings to put themselves in hell? Put even more pointedly: how is it fully consistent with God’s perfect goodness for God to create a world that contains a populated hell—let’s call this a particularist world—when he could have done otherwise, creating a universalist world in which all, and not just some, are saved? In order to address these questions—which, again, I think are the most pressing questions for the Thomist who affirms Aquinas’s doctrine of predestination to address—I need to draw once more on the foundational work that I carried out in Chapter 3. Recall that in that chapter, drawing on what John Lamont calls a teleological conception of good and evil, I argued that God’s ultimate goal in creating is to bring about a world which, despite whatever evil exists within it, is ultimately good or good as a whole. And an ultimately good world, per the teleological conception of good and evil, is one in which each and every evil within the world, along with all of the good within the world, contributes in the end to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty, of the world as a whole. Such evil is, of course, bad considered in itself, taken as a part of the much greater cosmic whole. But it is not bad absolutely speaking, and in fact, is good, absolutely speaking, precisely because it contributes in its own way, via divine providence, to the goodness, perfection, and so beauty of the world as a whole. What this all means, then, is that any world that God would create would be (or turn out to be) an ultimately good cosmic whole: a world, which, despite whatever evil it contains, is, in the end, good, perfect, and so beautiful, taken as a whole. And it means—applying this argument now for our present purposes—that any particularist world that God would create that contains a populated hell would be (or turn out to be) an ultimately good cosmic whole. Here, I find what Augustine says to be particularly instructive. He writes, The fact that there are souls that will be unhappy if they sin and happy if they do not sin means that the universe is complete and perfect with respect to every nature that it contains. Sin and the punishment for sin are not natures, but characteristics of natures, the former voluntary and the latter punitive. The voluntary characteristic that comes about when one sins is disgraceful, so the punitive characteristic is used to place the soul in an order where it is not disgraceful for such a soul to be, forcing it to conform to the beauty of the universe as a whole, so that the ugliness of sin is remedied by the punishment of sin.53

196  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe In other words, a universe that is good as a whole will contain good, happy souls that are rewarded for their goodness and bad, unhappy souls that are punished for their badness. Good souls crowned with the ultimate good of eternal life clearly contribute to the goodness of the world as a whole, but so do bad souls that are eternally punished. Not only does punishment and suffering in hell bring the disordered, willful state of sin back in line with God’s justice and goodness; but in so doing, it also restores the order, or justice and goodness, and hence perfection as well as beauty of the world as a whole. This is why Lamont argues, while the evil of unrepented (and, we should add, ongoing) sin in hell is a bad thing, that very same evil, as punished by God, is good absolutely considered because it is good for the whole created order of which sinners in hell damned human beings function as a part. “The fact that this punishment is just,” Lamont writes, “means that the evil that the damned are guilty of and the evil of their punishment together contribute to the good of the whole of creation, by making the order of creation a just one.”54 Let’s now push this argument even farther. In Chapter 3 (Section 3.2), I advanced and defended the following thesis concerning God’s creative work: (C2) It is entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create a world W1 versus a world W2—both of which are ultimately good cosmic wholes—even if W1 contains more evil than W2 would contain. Since any world God would create is an ultimately good cosmic whole, in which God orders all evil to the goodness of that world, taken as a whole, then both W1 and W2 are ultimately good cosmic wholes. And so, whatever reason God has for creating W2—even if it contains a lot less evil than W1—God has for creating W1. And a reason sufficient for creating either W2 or W1 is a reason sufficient for creating just one of them: say, W1 instead of W2. Thus, even if our own world has more evil within it than other, comparable worlds, God, acting in accord with his perfect goodness, has a sufficient reason for creating our own world versus these other worlds. If (C2) is defensible, which I think it is, then the following, related thesis concerning God’s creative work is also defensible: (C4) If God has a choice between creating a particularist world W1—an ultimately good cosmic whole in which God saves some but not all human beings—and a universalist world W2—an ultimately good cosmic whole in which God saves all human beings—it is entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create W1 or W2.

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 197 God has a distinct reason to create W2 because it is fully consistent with and reflective of his goodness for him to save all of the human beings who inhabit W2, all of whom ultimately co-operate with God’s will to save and therefore justly reap their heavenly reward. God also has a distinct reason to create W1 qua ultimately good cosmic whole because it is fully consistent with and reflective of his goodness for him to save some human beings and not save others, allowing those he does not save to damn themselves and justly merit divine punishment. And so, given that both W1 and W2 are ultimately good cosmic wholes, whatever reason God has for creating W2 he has for creating W1, even though W1 has a lot more sin and suffering in it than W2 (since the denizens of hell in W1 are eternally punished). And a reason sufficient for creating either W2 or W1 is a sufficient reason for creating just one of them: W1 instead of W2. Therefore, even if our own world is a particularist world that has a lot more evil within it than other universalist worlds God could have created, God, acting in accord with his perfect goodness, has a sufficient reason for creating our own world versus these other worlds. This means that God’s decision to create either world cannot be arbitrary. In fact, whatever choice God makes, he will be guided by his perfect goodness and will act in complete accord with that goodness. However, insofar as both W1 and W2 are ultimately good cosmic wholes, and W1 contains more evil than W2, then we may think that W2 is a better world than W1, which means God does have more reason to create W2 than W1. Once more, I readily admit that according to an accounting conception of good and evil, W2, as a universalist world, may be a better world than W1, a particularist world, presuming the net goodness in W2 vastly exceeds the net goodness of W1, given all of the badness that W1 contains. But, as we saw in Chapter 3, according to a teleological conception of good and evil, W2 is not a better world than W1. Moreover, there is presumably a world W3 that contains less badness than W2: a universalist world in which no sin, whether mortal or venial, ever obtains. Consequently, while W3 is a better world than W2, according to an accounting conception of good and evil, insofar as it, too, is an ultimately good cosmic whole, then, according to a teleological conception of good and evil, it is not any better than W2, or W1 for that matter. In this sense, it remains entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create W1, W2, or W3; and so, God has no more reason to create W3 than W2 or W1. Put another way, since God’s own reason for creating is his own goodness, it is entirely and equally consistent for God to create W1, W2, or W3. Given God’s ultimate aim in bringing about an ultimately good cosmic whole, whichever world he creates, God has a reason sufficient for creating that world, and so choosing to create W1 rather than W2 or W3. Consequently, I contend that there is a viable way of making sense of the claim that a perfectly good God would choose to create a particularist

198  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe world when he very well could have created a universalist world with less sin or even no sin in it, or even a particularist world with less sin, and damned sinners, within it (than other particularist worlds). However, there is more I need to do in order to defend (C4), since it still could be attacked from two different sides: those who still think it is inconsistent for a God of perfect goodness to create a particularist world when he could have created a universalist world, and those who think that God’s creating a particularist world versus a universalist world is actually more consistent with or expressive of his perfect goodness. I’ll now address each of these objections, in turn.

6.4  Hell and God’s person-oriented goodness According to Marilyn Adams, the perfectly good God of traditional Christian theism possesses both “‘global’ goodness, or goodness at cosmos production,” and “‘person-oriented’ goodness—to the individual persons God creates.”55 “Certainly,” Adams says, “the bible represents God as interested in cosmic excellence (cf. Gen 1), but it also tells of God’s love and mercy towards individual created persons. Since positively valued organic wholes (such as many possible worlds arguably are) can contain negatively valued parts that enhance cosmic excellence, going for a high degree of cosmic excellence would not guarantee individual personal well-being.”56 This is why Adams thinks that God’s person-oriented goodness to human beings requires that God afford human beings a certain kind of life. She writes: At a minimum, God’s goodness to human individuals would require that God guarantee each a life that was a great good to him/her on the whole by balancing off serious evils. To value the individual qua person, God would have to go further to defeat any horrendous evil in which s/he participated by giving it positive meaning through organic unity with a great enough good within the context of his/ her life.57 Specifically, Adams argues that a perfectly good God would defeat each and every (horrendous) evil within the context of each and every human life by interweaving or integrating each person’s participation in evil into his or her (ultimately beatific) relationship to God, thereby imbuing that life with positive meaning and actually increasing its value taken as a whole. This is also a life, which (as we have seen in Section 5.1), Adams thinks that each and every human being will come to recognize and value for themselves as “a great good to him/her on the whole.” It should not be surprising, then, that Adams thinks the existence of hell is incompatible with the existence of a perfectly good God, so described. Since hell, as traditionally conceived, constitutes “a paradigm

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 199 horror, one which offers not merely prima facie but conclusive reason to believe that the life of the damned cannot be a great good to them on the whole,”58 a perfectly good God would not allow anyone to go to hell (or consign anyone to hell). In fact, Adams thinks that a God who brings persons into existence who (he knows) will end up in hell forever cannot “be a logically appropriate object of standard Christian worship.”59 Focusing on what she considers to be the “severe” pragmatic consequences of restricting God’s goodness to its global aspect, she writes: “open-eyed worship would have to be of a God who mysteriously creates some persons for lives so horrendous on the whole and eternally, that it would have been better for them never to have been born, of a God who is at worst cruel (not that He had any obligation to be otherwise) and at best indifferent to our welfare.”60 Adams, then, provides prima facie reason to doubt that (C4) is true. And so, following Adams, one could argue that a God who truly possesses perfect goodness—both global goodness and person-oriented goodness—always would choose to create a universalist world W2 rather than a particularist world W1. Were God to create W1, he would fail to be perfectly good toward those human beings who end up in hell forever, and who God allows to put themselves in hell forever. As a result, he also would fail to be worthy of standard Christian worship (since, in Adams’s words, he would be “at worst cruel … and at best indifferent to our welfare”). However, in order to begin to formulate a response to the objection we now need to ask: why would God fail to be perfectly good to those damned human beings who inhabit W1? What does perfect personoriented goodness require of God? In defending (R) (an admittedly Adams-inspired thesis concerning God’s redemptive work in individual human lives), I appealed to the idea that we human beings, as the most exalted beings within the natural order, are, in effect, worlds unto ourselves (or micro-worlds within the larger macro-world), which is why I also argued that God’s work redeeming evil within his good world includes redeeming evil within the context of individual human lives: ordering evil within our lives to our ultimate good of life lived eternally with God. And so, extending Adams’s conception of divine goodness, one could argue that embracing (R) also entails embracing the following principle: (G1) God’s goodness to S requires that God guarantee S an ultimately good life that is good as a whole. An ultimately good life is one in which God has ordered all of its good and bad parts to the goodness of that life—a fully God-oriented life— taken as a whole. And so, a perfectly good God would afford each and every human being an ultimately good life as part of bringing about an ultimately good cosmic whole. That is, a God truly who cared equally

200  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe about the goodness of the cosmos and individual human beings would ensure that whatever ultimately good world he created would be a universalist world W2 in which all human beings attain ultimately good lives. However, does perfect goodness require that God afford every human being an ultimately good life in the end? Does embracing (R) also require embracing (G1)? I think the answer to these questions is “no,” for the following, main reason. An ultimately good life that is good as a whole is one that flourishes as a whole: the whole human person needs to possess an entirely good life in the end, or a life in which goodness is fully manifest, by virtue of being fully ordered toward God as the highest good. But no one can attain such a life without also attaining heavenly glory. However, it further seems that no persons can attain heavenly glory and thereby be ensured of possessing an ultimately good life unless God wills that they do so, or predestines them, which includes God’s having an eternally conceived, infallible plan for bringing about lives for them that are good as a whole. And God’s decision to predestine human beings, at least as classically conceived, is wholly a matter of divine grace: it is not necessitated in any way by divine goodness (even if it is grounded in or flows from God’s goodness). God cannot be under any requirement to give grace to any human being, for then grace would cease to be grace (or wholly gratuitous). Here, Aquinas concurs: “In things which are given gratuitously, a person can give more or less, just as he pleases (provided he deprives nobody of his due), without any infringement of justice.”61 Since salvation is not owed to anyone, God may give it to whomever he chooses. Similarly, since attaining an ultimately good life is only possible by divine grace (and choice), God may give that life to whomever he wills, and not give that life to whomever he wills, so long as he does not deprive anyone of the goodness that is due to them. To this, one may reply that the goodness owed to each and every human being is an ultimately good life that is good as a whole. However, this claim is by no means obviously true. In fact, I take it to be a matter of real philosophical and theological dispute what kind of life God owes human beings: that is, what kind of life a perfectly good God would ensure that every human being, in any given world, possess. Consider, then, the following principle concerning God’s person-oriented goodness: (G2) God’s goodness to S requires that God guarantee S a life that is more good than bad overall. According to (G2), perfect goodness only requires that God guarantee every human being a life that contains more goodness than badness within it overall, even if such a life falls well short of being an ultimately good life, and one that anyone would regard as being a great good to him or her on the whole.62 In particular, driving (G2) is an accounting

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 201 conception of goodness: a life is more good than bad if the amount of goodness within it exceeds the amount of badness within it (and so balances it off, even if not by very much). Now, one certainly could argue that no human being possibly can possess such a life if he or she spends all of eternity in hell. However, there are also reasons for thinking otherwise, especially since there are ways God can show his goodness to the damned in hell, perhaps as much goodness as he can show to anyone who has eternally separated himself or herself from God. To start, if to exist is a great good (since on the Thomistic view being and goodness are convertible), then by keeping the damned in existence, and thereby enabling them to keep the lives they freely have chosen for themselves, God ensures that the lives of the damned are good to a significant degree. By eventually reuniting the souls of the damned with their bodies at the general resurrection, God affords the damned the great good of a fully restored human nature and, as we have seen (in Section 6.2), a body that is no longer vulnerable to death or destruction, which the damned will possess for the rest of eternity.63 Furthermore, there seem to be ways that God can limit the punitive suffering of the damned without having to sacrifice the demands of his justice. Perhaps (pace Aquinas) the damned justly experience the profound pain of loss (poena damni)—including both the permanent loss of salvation, or eternal life with God, along and the pain of frustrated desire (not getting what they want by sinning)—but they do not also experience the pain of sense (poena sensus), or at least the actual presence of other causes of suffering (like hell fire), which, taken together with the experience of God’s absence and the frustration of their sinful desires, would be a far worse form of punishment.64 Also, by removing any and all possibility of doing evil (to themselves or anyone else), without also removing their ability continually and freely to will evil, God can put sharp constraints on the evil that the damned can do to themselves, or their own nature; and he can entirely prevent damned persons from causing suffering or being caused to suffer by other damned persons.65 To be sure, there remains real reason to doubt whether any human being in hell, no matter how much goodness God shows to him or her (and how much badness he prevents him or her from experiencing), can live a life that is more good than bad overall. But now we should ask ourselves: does even perfect goodness require that God afford human beings who have freely rejected him lives that are more good than bad overall? In his defense of what he calls “Augustinian particularism,” Oliver Crisp emphasizes that in a world in which there is a hell with rational creatures in it, God could still ensure that “none of the creatures in [that world] has a life that is so miserable on the whole that it would be better for that creature if it had never existed.”66 Now, Crisp concedes that “the plausibility of this claim seems considerably diminished on a particularist way of construing it, given that some such creatures end up in

202  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe hell, where they are punished everlastingly.”67 As a result, Crisp suggests that it may be worth it for the Augustinian particularist to abandon any commitment to the eternality of hell and hold instead that the damned in hell are eventually annihilated by God. He concludes: “For a life that ends in annihilation rather than everlasting punishment may not be so miserable on the whole that it would be better for that creature to have never existed.”68 While I am sympathetic with this move on Crisp’s part, I still think that there is a way of construing God’s person-oriented goodness that does not exclude God from permitting some human beings to undergo everlasting punishment in hell, and which also avoids saddling God with the unpalatable task of annihilating the damned in hell: an action that I think is inconsistent with his being perfectly good to the damned in hell (persons whom he created). If God affords each of the damned a life characterized by the aforementioned goodness (a life that contains genuine goodness within it and is significantly prevented from being as bad it could be), he can still ensure that the damned possess lives—even eternal ones—characterized by enough goodness to make them genuinely or objectively worth living. Consequently, it is worth reflecting on this final principle concerning God’s person-oriented goodness: (G3) God’s goodness to S requires that God at least afford S a life characterized by enough goodness to make such a life genuinely worth living, even for all eternity. (G3) stipulates that God at least affords each of the damned a life with enough goodness in it (and lacking enough badness) to make it genuinely worth living, even if such a life is more bad than good overall. In fact, the primary intuition driving (G3) is that it is possible for a life that is much more bad than good overall to be still genuinely worth living. And yet, we now need to ask, is the kind of goodness identified in (G3) fully compatible with perfect goodness? Ought God to show more goodness to the damned? One way of answering these questions is by reflecting more on whether the damned justly could demand more from a God of perfect goodness. Perhaps the damned have every right to demand that God should have given them each a life better than one merely worth living, whether it be a life that is more good than bad overall, or even an ultimately good life that is good as a whole. But since the damned freely have rebelled against God, and thereby have chosen for themselves a life apart from God as their final end, on what basis could they justly claim to possess and exercise such a right? Moreover, according to a traditional psychology of damnation, to which Aquinas also appeals (see Section 6.3), the damned in hell freely, but also permanently and (we can add) pridefully, have attached themselves to evil rather than good, and so wish to be doing exactly what they are doing

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 203 (which is willing evil instead of good), rather than anything else, even for all eternity. There is no reason to think, then, that any of the damned ever would want to live a better life than the one they lead in hell, as bad as it may be overall. To this, one could reply that the lives of the damned, even if freely chosen, eventually would become so bad overall that they would cease to be genuinely worth living; and as a result, the damned could and would justly blame God not only for not giving them better lives but also for bringing them into existence in the first place. However, we have reason to doubt this possibility as well. Both the positive measures God can take in maintaining and infusing goodness in the lives of the damned, and the preventive measures he can take in keeping the lives of the damned from becoming as bad as they could be, seem sufficient to ensure that the lives of the damned, even as very bad as they may be or become, will remain genuinely worth living, even for all eternity.69 Moreover, assuming the damned recognize (or are made aware of) all of the divine efforts to ensure that they possess lives that are genuinely worth living—efforts clearly compatible with perfect goodness, including perfect mercy and love—and they further recognize that the suffering they experience in hell is perfectly just (even if they want it to stop), then the damned never could or would be in a position at any point in their postmortem lives to question God’s perfect goodness, and specifically to fault God for not giving them lives other than the ones they are living or for bringing them into existence in the first place.70 Consequently, I think we have discerned a plausible way of reconciling God’s aim of creating a world that is good as a whole with God’s aim of showing his goodness to every human being he creates. I offer, then, the following amended version of (C4), which I claim is true: (C4*) If God has a choice between creating a particularist world W1—an ultimately good cosmic whole in which God saves some but not all human beings—and a universalist world W2—an ultimately good cosmic whole in which God saves all human beings—it is entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create W1 or W2, so long as God affords every damned human being he creates in W1 a life characterized by enough goodness to make such a life genuinely worth living, even for all eternity. According to (C4*), God manifests his perfect goodness on both a cosmic and personal level in W2 by bringing about an ultimately good world populated by human beings all of whom possess ultimately good lives. God manifests his perfect goodness on both a cosmic and personal level in W1 by bringing about a good cosmic whole populated by some (perhaps many) human beings—the predestined—who possess ultimately good lives, and the rest of the human race—the damned—who,

204  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe while justly punished, possess lives characterized by enough goodness to make them genuinely worth living, even for all eternity. As a result, it is entirely and equally consistent with divine goodness for God to create W1 or W2. Admittedly, (C4*) does not dispel the deeper mystery regarding why God would choose to create W2 and not W1, and thus why God ultimately would choose to allow any one human being to damn himself or herself, when he could instead predestine and hence save that human being. As a result, one could argue that I still have not adequately addressed the following question and problem: how can it be fair for God to save some and allow the rest to be damned if he disallows the damned any possibility of ultimately being saved and hence attaining ultimately good lives? It seems God’s choice to predestine some and not others can be fair only if it is based on divinely foreseen merit: the foreseen meriting of salvation by those who accept and persevere in divine grace and the foreseen meriting of damnation by those who definitively reject divine grace. And so, if God chooses not to predestine on the basis of foreseen merit, the only fair thing for God to do is either (a) predestine every human being, which means creating a world in which all are saved; or (b) predestine no human beings, which means creating a world in which none are saved. My response to this objection is two-fold. First, although there is a distinct theological tradition that holds that God does predestine on the basis of foreseen merit, I side with Aquinas (and Augustine before him) in holding that the reason God predestines some and not others cannot be sought in us but only in God, and specifically God’s goodness, “towards which the whole effect of predestination is directed as to an end; and from which it proceeds, as from its first moving principle.”71 Otherwise, we make God’s decision to predestine dependent on us— his knowledge of something we will (or would) do—and in so doing, we undermine or at least distort not only divine sovereignty, including God’s power to save whomever he wills, but also the purely gratuitous nature of God’s will to predestine and hence save. Second, even if we locate the ultimate reason that God predestines a particular human being and not another in the divine will, we do not make God’s decision to predestine the one and not the other unfair (or arbitrary). Common experience teaches us that wholly fair and hence just decisions still mistakenly can appear to be unfair, particularly for those who lack the cognitive abilities or moral awareness needed to recognize the fairness in those decisions. Certainly, then, our inability or at least struggle to recognize fairness in God’s decision to predestine one human being and not another independently of foreseen merit does not mean that this decision is anything less than perfectly fair and hence just as well as wise. In fact, since predestination is arguably the most mysterious aspect of divine providence, and one of the most mysterious aspects

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 205 of traditional Christian faith, we should expect the divine decision to predestine one human being and not another independently of foreseen merit—while perfectly fair, just, and wise—to remain inscrutable to us, at least in this life. I don’t think, then, that a God who predestines independently of foreseen merit is required by any principle of fairness to create a world in which all are saved or, alternatively, a world in which none are saved. However, based on what I think (C4*) entails, God still has a good reason to create a world in which all are saved rather than a world in which none are saved. In fact, I think God also has a good reason to create a world in which all are saved rather than a world in which only some are saved, even if his perfect goodness does not require that he do so. To further defend this claim, though, I now need to consider and address a further objection.

6.5  A better universe with hell in it? Is it actually more consistent with divine goodness for God to create W1, a particularist world, rather than W2, a universalist world? One might argue that it is because it is only in W1 that God is able to manifest both sides of God’s goodness—in Lamont’s words, “[God’s] mercy and love of the good is one side, his hatred and punishment of evil is the other side.”72 Crisp has suggested something similar: for Crisp, it is a central tenet of the Augustinian tradition “that God has to manifest his grace and mercy and his wrath and justice in order that he is seen to be just as well as merciful.”73 Consequently, it does seem possible to argue the following: a world populated in the end by saints and sinners is a better cosmic whole than a world that contains only saints because in the former world, where God brings at least some human beings to glory, and eternally as well as justly punishes the rest, God is able to manifest his goodness the most clearly and fully. Consequently, it is more consistent with divine goodness for God to create such a world, and so we have another reason to doubt that (C4), and now (C4*), are true. Interestingly, Aquinas offers a version of this argument. In addressing the question why God would predestine some human beings and reprobate others—which essentially consists of allowing some human beings to damn themselves—Aquinas says we should think of the human race on analogy with the rest of the world. In order to manifest and best represent his goodness, “which in itself is one and undivided,” in his creation, God creates a multitude of things, of all different kinds and levels or grades of being, and so all different kinds and levels of goodness.74 Similarly, in order to manifest his goodness variously (and hence fully) not just within the universe but also within the human race, God saves some and reprobates others. So Aquinas concludes: “God wills to manifest his goodness in men; in respect to those whom he predestines, by

206  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe means of his mercy, as sparing them; and in respect of others, whom he reprobates, by means of his justice, in punishing them. This is the reason why God elects some and rejects others.”75 In response, I agree with Aquinas that God can manifest his goodness clearly and fully in a world in which he saves some and reprobates (or chooses not to save) others. However, Aquinas seems to be arguing more than that. As I read Aquinas, he appeals to the first principle regarding God’s creative work that I exposited in defended in Chapter 3 (Section 3.1) in order to claim that God can manifest his goodness more clearly and fully—in particular, more variously—in a world in which he saves some and reprobates others. Recall that according to this principle: (C1) It is better for a perfectly good God to create a world W1 that contains all kinds and levels of good things that can—and do— cause evil and suffer on account of it, than to create a world W2 that only contains good things that cannot cause evil or suffer on account of it. On the basis of (C1), Aquinas then appears to be arguing the following: (C5) It is better for a perfectly good God to create a particularist world W1 that contains those human beings he mercifully saves, and those human beings he reprobates and justly punishes, than to create a universalist world W2 in which he mercifully saves all human beings. Just as the universe is more perfect or complete when it contains all kinds and levels of good things, some of which flourish at the expense of others, so the universe is more perfect or complete when it contains diverse kinds and levels of rational beings, and specifically human beings, some of whom attain salvation, even in spite of their sin, and others who fail to attain salvation, and are punished accordingly, due to their sin. Since both (C4*) and (C5) cannot both be true, since I affirm (C4*), then I reject (C5). And I reject (C5) because (pace Aquinas) there seem to be a number of ways in which God can manifest his goodness clearly and fully both cosmically and within the human race without having to punish any human being for all eternity in hell. For example, Crisp says that it is consistent for a traditional Augustinian to endorse what he calls “Augustinian universalism.”76 According to this position (which I do not necessarily endorse), God indeed metes out punishment in response to human sin. But God transfers the punishment of human sin in its entirety to the person of Jesus Christ. Since Christ bears this punishment vicariously for all human beings on the cross, he nullifies the need for God (the Father) to mete out any further punishment to human beings. Thus, even though God punishes no one human being, he still displays

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 207 divine justice by punishing Christ (the God-man) for human sin. And God displays his love by atoning for all sin and electing all human beings in Christ. This presumes, of course, that God’s will to save is universal: that he has eternally decreed that all be saved via the atoning death of Christ and receive the salvific benefits accrued by Christ on the cross. But insofar as God wills this, God also wills a world in which all are, in fact, saved: a world in which God also, in the end, clearly and fully manifests his goodness. Now consider a possible world in which sin never occurs. In fact, to be more specific, let’s say the Fall, or any fall into sin, never occurs in this world. How could God manifest his grace, justice, mercy, and love the most clearly and fully in it? To start, God could make evident his gracious nature by giving human beings the gift and grace of original justice (as he did in our own world) along with the help or grace needed to hold freely but unswervingly to God’s good law for their lives. Since moving toward heavenly glory not only requires direct supernatural assistance from the divine but also a graced exercise of free will (as caused by God), God could manifest his justice by ultimately rewarding every human being, in a varied way specific to each, with the gift of supernatural beatitude once he or she fully attained God or entered into eternal life with God. Furthermore, God’s love could permeate the entire universe. Not only could God display his love by bringing every human being into perfect union with himself; human beings also could display God’s love and justice in the varied, harmonious relations they enjoyed with one another, both in their earthly lives and ultimately in their eternal lives. What about divine mercy in such a world—could it be shown? This depends on how we conceive of mercy. Aquinas argues that mercy is a form of goodness just like justice: in the latter case, God gives things the perfections they need in order to flourish, in proportion to the kinds of thing that they are; in the former case, God gives perfections or imparts goodness to things so as to “expel defects,” whatever they may be.77 Clearly, God can and does show mercy by giving the gift of grace in order to expel the defect of sin in rational creatures, but Aquinas also argues that God shows forth mercy in all of his works. Divine justice always presupposes divine mercy, which, as a kind of wellspring of goodness, explains why it is that God acts justly in the first place. “We may say, for instance,” Aquinas writes, “that to possess hands is due to man on account of his rational soul; and his rational soul is due to him that he may be man; and his being man is on account of the divine goodness. So in every work of God, viewed at its primary source, there appears mercy.”78 As such, I think that God could manifest his mercy visibly in a sinless word (a genuinely possible world), just as he visibly manifested his mercy in our own pre-Fall world. The point of God’s giving original justice was to help the first human beings continually but also freely retain their innocence before God and thereby also avoid

208  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe having to experience any moral or physical corruption (most notably, death). More specifically, by giving that gift God expelled, or at least counteracted, defects associated with our nature; he also gave us the maximal assistance possible, well beyond what justice required, so that we could freely reach our supernatural destination without difficulty or interruption. In the prefallen world, then, divine grace, justice, love, and mercy reigned. Now surely what God can do in a world without sin in it he can do in a world like our own with sin. Saving every human being from sin and damnation does not require that God sacrifice any display of divine goodness: he can display his goodness equally well in a world in which he saves some from sin or in a world in which he saves all from sin. To this, Crisp’s Augustinian, or perhaps even Aquinas, could reply that while God clearly and fully can manifest his mercy in a world in which he saves all from sin, he cannot manifest his justice the most clearly and fully in such a world. Punishing human beings eternally for sin is indeed a distinct form of justice, and it uniquely displays God’s holy opposition to sin, or his divine “wrath.” In fact, in defense of “Augustinian particularism,” Crisp offers the Augustinian the following suggestion. Strict justice requires that God punish those who are truly deserving of punishment, which is why it is not enough for God to punish Christ alone (who is sinless) in our stead. There must be a connection between the display of divine justice and desert.79 However, in response, I don’t see how God’s eternally punishing sin of any sort opens up a dimension of divine justice, and hence goodness, that is otherwise hidden or unknown to us. In punishing human sinners, God gives them what they are owed: they are given their just deserts. But this is no different than giving those human beings who reach heavenly glory, in a varied way distinct to each human being, their just deserts: heavenly glory itself, or personal union with God. God is equally just, and good, in both cases. Moreover, as I argued in the previous chapter (Section 5.4), God’s subjecting souls in purgatory to satisfactory punishment also clearly displays his justice (and mercy), since it is by undergoing this punishment qua redemptive suffering that these souls justly pay off the debt of punishment and become more closely aligned with God’s justice, even as they also become more closely aligned with God’s love. Thus, I hold that my main argument, as encapsulated in (C4) and more fully expressed in my amended principle (C4*), still stands.

6.6  Dare we hope? If it is not already clear, nothing I have argued in this chapter entails that the actual world contains hell, or (more specifically) that any one human being in our own world suffers (or will suffer) for all eternity in hell. If, according to (C4*), it is entirely and equally consistent with divine

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 209 goodness for God to create a world, or ultimately good cosmic whole, in which he saves every human being from hell, then it may be that our own world is such a world. In other words, it may be the case that God has created a world in which he predestines all human beings and thus is directing us all toward heavenly glory, which includes affording every human being a life that is an ultimately good whole. My task in this final section of this chapter, then, in anticipating the work I will carry out the final chapter of this book, is to begin to defend the claim that it is at least possible that God has created a universalist world of this type without defending universalism itself. I aim not to defend the belief that God will save all, but offer at least a preliminary defense of the hope that God will save all. Hoping that God will save all does not require believing that God will save all and so is consistent with traditional Christian claims about the nature, purpose, and reality of hell.80 It does, however, require believing that it is at least possible that God will save all.81 Do we have at least some reason, then, for thinking that this at least possible? Lamont doesn’t think so: he says the traditional “strong view” of hell “cannot be harmonised with the view held by some defenders of hell, according to which only that small minority of individuals who have chosen evil activities as the main occupation of their lives will end up in hell.”82 Lamont further contends that, although appearances can be deceiving, it still seems that “many if not most people commit at least one mortal sin in their lives, and many of those who do commit mortal sins do not on the face of it repent for those sins.”83 This means that the number of human beings who are in hell or at least are at serious risk of going to hell (on the strong view) is “quite substantial.”84 What Lamont says here certainly may be true. However, I still think we need to be wary about drawing the conclusions Lamont does about the current or expected human population of hell for the following reasons. First, while our experience of the world and rational reflection on it tell us that human beings commit grave sins (which I think is difficult to deny), experience and rational reflection do not tell us clearly or unequivocally that such sin, in any given case, is truly mortal.85 Again, committing mortal sin requires not just doing something that gravely contravenes God’s will; it also requires doing so with full knowledge of serious wrong-doing and deliberate consent sufficient enough to impute full responsibility to the agent for the sinful act. Once more, these are subjective factors that pertain not only to specific individuals but also to specific sins; as such, they can be known fully only to God, and possibly those persons who possess enough clarity of conscience and depth of self-knowledge to discern the true state of their souls. We can imagine any number of psychological and sociological factors, such as a dysfunctional upbringing or cultural habituation in sinful ways of thinking and acting, which mitigate or even eliminate an agent’s knowledge of a particular act’s objective wrongness along with the agent’s willful

210  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe commitment to doing an objective wrong. As such, without denying that mortal sin occurs, I think it can be very difficult to make specific claims about who has committed mortal sin, or even general claims about the number of people who, across space and time, have committed mortal sin. Second, and even more important, granting that mortal sin occurs, the possibility remains that no human being dies in a state of mortal sin, and every human being dies in a state of grace.86 Empirically, we may find this difficult to affirm, but again, since only God sees the human heart as it really is, it is still possible that all human beings respond positively to the persistent workings of God’s grace at some point in their lives, and thereby positively orient themselves toward God as their ultimate end as well as set themselves on a trajectory that leads toward heavenly glory. It is also possible that all human beings do this, if not before their death, then at the moment of their death, or, as I also have suggested, in death, presuming there is a moment that is temporally, or at least logically, prior to one’s entering the afterlife at or during which conversion from sin remains possible. We should also believe that God offers saving grace to any human being who, each in his or her own way, positively receives it (most notably, through repentance), even at the very end of his or her life, or in transitioning from this life to the next life. Once again, what I am claiming here is only possible, but it is not necessarily improbable either, especially if we further postulate that God predestines all human beings, which means not only that God’s will to save is immutable (and hence inviolable), but also that God has an eternally conceived, infallible plan for bringing about the salvation of all human persons—and so also affording them ultimately good lives— with their full co-operation in the end. Third, while I take it to be a datum of divine revelation that there is a hell populated by rational creatures, I don’t take it as a datum of divine revelation that hell is also populated by human beings. To be sure, the Bible contains serious warnings about what will happen if we act in such a way as to merit eternal punishment in hell; and as such, communicates important truths about the eternal consequences of our choices. I also think the Bible clearly affirms the existence of hell; and the Christian Church traditionally has held (as the Catholic Church still holds) that hell both exists and is eternal.87 But neither the Bible nor the Church offers a specific or unambiguous picture about the current or even expected human population of hell. Jesus himself never says that there are a definitive number of human beings who are in hell or who will end up in hell: hell (according to Matthew 25:41) has been expressly prepared for the devil and his angels. And I Timothy 2:4 positively states that God “wills [or desires] everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.”88 Therefore, even though I don’t think it is within the bounds of orthodoxy (at least within my own tradition) to affirm

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 211 that all human beings, in fact, will be saved, it certainly seems to me that agnosticism about the human population of hell remains entirely within the bounds of orthodoxy, and it rightly recognizes the limitations of what we human beings can know with certainty about any human being’s salvific fate.89 Which human beings and therefore how many—if any—are in hell or will be in hell is something that only God knows, which (for good reasons, we could argue) he simply has not chosen to reveal to us.90 Thus, I think that whatever beliefs we may have about the human population of hell simply are not on par, epistemically speaking, with beliefs we ought to have about at least the existence and eternality of hell. Another way of putting this is that while there is strong reason to believe, as part of the revealed content of Christian faith, that hell exists and is eternal, and is populated by at least some rational creatures (the devil and his fallen angels), Christians are not required to believe that hell is populated by human beings. This means that there is no inconsistency in hoping that all human beings will be saved: again, at least insofar as hoping that all human beings will be saved requires believing that it is at least possible that all human beings will be saved, as hard as this may be to conceive. In the end, then, while my Thomistic, Christian theodicy takes an unequivocal stand on the existence of heaven, which is (and will be) populated by persons who have attained ultimately good, evil-free heavenly lives, it does not take an unequivocal stand on the human population of hell. What it does affirm unequivocally, however, is that if hell is populated by unrepented sin and unrepentant sinners, God will redeem all of the evils of hell (including the evil suffered there as just punishment for sin). And it is entirely consistent for God to create a particularist world in which he permits many, many human beings to damn themselves to hell when he could do otherwise: creating a universalist world in which he brings every human being to heaven and so permits no human being to damn themselves to hell. But since my theodicy affirms that it is entirely consistent for God to create a universalist world, it also affirms that there is reason to hope that in addition to ensuring that our own world will (in the end) be an ultimately good cosmic whole, and so be good as a whole, God will also bring it about that every human being within our world will (in the end) possess an ultimately good life, which is good taken as a whole. Aquinas, along with many other Christians, both past and present, does not share this hope. And yet, Aquinas does declare that “the final perfection, which is the end of the whole universe, is the perfect beatitude of the saints at the consummation of the world.”91 So in the face of so much suffering and sin in our world, why is it not possible, and even reasonable, to hope that in a perfect universe all will be saved? That is a question I will continue to explore and address in greater depth in the final chapter of this book.

212  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe

Notes 1 SCG III.15. 2 CT I.166. 3 SCG IV.92. 4 Ibid. 5 Timpe, Free Will in Philosophical Theology, 84. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid., 75. I’ve modified Timpe’s terminology a bit to match my own. 8 Timpe says that “it is possible to have free will even if one’s character entails that certain options that are causally open to you are ones for which you see no good reason, and thus are not capable of choosing” (ibid.). This seems right to me, especially if causally open options are ones which (I think) we are capable of choosing as rational beings who possess powers of intellect and will. 9 SCG III.138 (translation modified slightly). 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 DV 24.1 ad 16. 13 Once again, see the relevant analysis in Grant, Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 65–70. 14 Timpe, Free Will in Philosophical Theology, 107. 15 Ibid., 92. 16 Grant, Free Will and God’s Universal Causality, 122–3. 17 Quaestio disputa de caritate (DC) 2, translation in Disputed Questions on Virtue, trans. Jeffrey Hause and Claudia Eisen Murphy (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2010). 18 Ibid. 19 CT I.158. 20 CT I.168. 21 SCG IV.86. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 SCG IV.79. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 From a materialist perspective, Aquinas’s dualism is not characterized by metaphysical parsimony since it conceives of human beings as soul-body composites. However, the materialist (who believes in bodily resurrection) still needs to account for how the resurrected body possesses the properties it does; and so it is not clear that the materialist possesses any advantage over the Thomist in explaining how and why resurrected persons are invulnerable to suffering and death. 29 Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 261. 30 SCG IV.81 (translation modified slightly). 31 Christina Van Dyke, “Human Identity, Immanent Causal Relations, and the Principle of Non-Repeatability: Thomas Aquinas on the Bodily Resurrection,” Religious Studies 43 (2007): 383; italics in the original text. 32 Ibid., 383, 387. 33 Ibid., 388. 34 Ibid., 390.

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 213 35 Here, Van Dyke appeals to Dean Zimmerman’s requirement that the “the self-sustaining structure peculiar to the living thing in question” must be preserved across the entity’s existence (ibid., 389). See also Dean Zimmerman, “The Compatibility of Materialism and Survival: The ‘Falling Elevator’ Model,” Faith and Philosophy 16 (1999): 194-212. 36 Ibid., 390. 37 Eleonore Stump makes a similar claim: since prime matter only exists in potentiality, and has no form of its own, then “in order to be the same matter as it was before, it needs only be configured by the same form as it was before” (“Resurrection and the Separated Soul,” The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, 464). 38 Trenton Merricks, “The Resurrection of the Body,” The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, eds. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009), 479. While Merricks is a materialist, I think that he raises issues that any dualist who affirms bodily resurrection (the resurrection of numerically the same body) must confront. 39 Ibid., 481. 40 ST I.25.3. 41 SCG III.144. 42 Ibid. 43 John Lamont offers this example in “The Justice and Goodness of Hell,” 161–2. 44 SCG III.144. 45 See also DC 6, where Aquinas says that “people sin mortally precisely because they love some other good more than God.” 46 ST I-II.88.2. 47 Ibid. 48 ST I-II.88.6 ad 2. 49 See also CCC 1859. 50 SCG IV.95. 51 CT I.175. 52 This is not to say that Aquinas’s view readily can be equated with what has come to be called (in Timpe’s words) a “choice model of hell,” or what Michael Murray calls “the natural consequence model,” according to which a person damns herself by developing a character that uniquely fits her for hell. However, there is a sense in which those who die having not repented for mortal sin are, in Murray’s words, “maximally set in their ways” since they have a will immutably fixed on evil. See Michael J. Murray, “Heaven and Hell,” Reason for the Hope Within, ed. Michael J. Murray (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 287–317. 53 Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.9.26. Translation in On the Free Choice of the Will, trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993). 54 Lamont, “The Justice and Goodness of Hell,” 173. 55 Adams, “Plantinga on ‘Felix Culpa’: Analysis and Critique,” 129. Italics are in the original text. 56 Ibid. 57 Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, 31. Italics are in the original text. 58 Marilyn McCord Adams, “The Problem of Hell: A Problem of Evil for Christians,” Reasoned Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, ed. Eleonore Stump (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993): 304. See also Adams’s original argument against hell in “Hell and the God of Justice,” Religious Studies 11 (1975): 433–47.

214  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 59 Adams, “The Problem of Hell,” 302. 60 Ibid., 305–6. 61 ST I.23.5 ad 3. 62 Although it is difficult to conceive, I think it is still intelligible to hold that a life that does not end nonetheless can be considered good or bad overall, since God sees the whole of that life, like the whole history of the world, in one intellective intuition or “glance.” 63 Michael Potts argues this point in “Aquinas, Hell, and the Resurrection of the Damned,” Faith and Philosophy 15 (1998): 341–51. 64 Here, it is important to note that according to the CCC 1035, “the chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God,” or the poena damni, not the poena sensus. For Aquinas on the pain of sense, see SCG IV.90. 65 Eleonore Stump argues a similar point in “Dante’s Hell, Aquinas’s Moral Theory, and the Love of God,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 16 (1986): 181–98, in particular 196-7. 66 Oliver Crisp, “Is Universalism a Problem for Particularists?,” Scottish Journal of Theology 63 (2010): 20. This is just one condition that pertains to the kind of particularist world Crisp thinks God justifiably could create (short of creating a universalist world), but it is obviously a very important one. Crisp adapts this condition (and others) from Robert Merrihew Adams, “Must God Create the Best?,” The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1987), 51–64. 67 Crisp, “Is Universalism a Problem for Particularists?,” 21. 68 Ibid., 22. 69 Skeptics will continue to insist otherwise. Adams, for example, thinks that even on a more attenuated view of hell the kind of profound psychospiritual disorder that the damned experience eventually would bring about “a total dismantling of personality” and the loss of supernatural union with God would “eventually produce unbearable misery” (“The Problem of Hell,” 322 and 323). I agree that the pain of loss the damned experience in hell is profound, and beyond anything any human being has or could experience in this life, but I’m not convinced that it would totally unravel human agency or prove to be absolutely unbearable, especially if God providentially ensured that the lives of the damned do not “bottom out” and thereby cease to be genuinely livable at any point. 70 It is worth noting that the kind of goodness I am saying God shows the damned in hell bears some of the qualities of what we might call “parental” goodness. Kelly James Clark clearly thinks otherwise: he says parental goodness always aims (first and foremost) at the betterment of children; so God, particularly on the traditional medieval view, shows parental goodness to the saints but not also to damned sinners, since the punishment he metes out in hell is purely retributive. (See Kelly James Clark, “God is Great, God is Good: Medieval Conceptions of Divine Goodness and the Problem of Hell,” Religious Studies 37 [2001]: 15–31.) However, I think that there is a kind of personal goodness or care that God can show the damned, even as they justly experience the retributive punishment and suffering of hell, which genuinely can be deemed “parental.” It is this parental goodness that also gives the damned reason not to question God’s perfect goodness, and reason to go on living in hell, as miserable as their lives may be. 71 ST I.23.5. For an excellent, recent discussion of key thinkers in the Christian tradition who hold that God does predestine on the basis of foreseen merits, see Matthew Levering, Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 215 72 Lamont, “The Justice and Goodness of Hell,” 173. 73 Oliver Crisp, “Augustinian Universalism,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 53 (2003): 131. 74 ST I.23.5 ad 3. 75 Ibid. In ST I.23.3, Aquinas clearly states that in reprobating human beings, God permits them to fall away from the end of eternal life, and thereby fall into sin worthy of eternal punishment. So in Aquinas’s view, the responsibility and guilt for sin must attributed to human beings and not God, which makes God’s punishment of sin just. 76 Crisp, “Augustinian Universalism,” in particular 134–7. Crisp recognizes this position may appear to be very similar to Karl Barth’s doctrine of election, and the universalism that falls out of it. And yet, this key difference for Crisp remains: while for Barth there is one elect person, Christ, in whom all members of the set “elect in Christ” are incorporated via Christ’s atoning work, for the traditional Augustinian there is no “Elect One” but rather only the set of the elect whose sin is atoned for in Christ. 77 ST I.21.3. 78 ST I.21.4. 79 See Crisp, “Is Universalism a Problem for Particularists?,” 22–3. 80 In modern Catholic thought, Hans Urs von Balthasar, of course, offers the most robust defense of Christian hope for the salvation of all in Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”?, trans. David Kipp and Lothar Krauth (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius, 1988). As we will see in the next chapter, even Aquinas, who explicitly denies that all human beings are saved, affirms that one can still hope for the eternal salvation of another (and not just one’s own salvation) insofar as one is “united to him by love” (ST II-II.17.3). 81 Aquinas says regarding both the passion and virtue of hope that the object of hope “is a future good, difficult but possible to obtain” (ST II-II.17.1). 82 Lamont, “The Justice and Goodness of Hell,” 157. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 According to the CCC 1861, “although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.” 86 To be theologically precise: in order for all to be saved, the set of human beings who die in a state of original sin must be empty as well, since according to traditional Christian teaching, certainly in the Catholic tradition, being in a state of original sin, and so guilt, by itself excludes entrance into heaven (it incurs the loss of the beatific vision). In the case of unbaptized infants, God would simply apply the grace needed to purify them of original sin and ensure their access to heaven. For more on current Catholic teaching on the salvation of unbaptized infants, see the International Theological Commission, “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptized,” available online at https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html. 87 See CCC 1035. 88 NABRE; NRSV translation of the Greek word thelei included in the brackets. 89 Theologian David Bentley Hart actually claims that Scripture and tradition (at least the earliest Christian writers) support universalism. See Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019). Consequently, I think it is fair to say that there is no Christian theological consensus (indeed, none in sight) regarding the existence, nature, purpose, and population of hell.

216  Heaven, Hell, and the Perfection of the Universe 90 See, for example, DV 6.5, where Aquinas claims that while God could reveal to each of us whether we are among the predestined, he has wisely determined not to do so, to avoid leading the predestined into negligence and the reprobate (those who would come to know that they are not among the predestined) into despair. 91 ST I.73.1.

7

Hoping in the Face of Evil

Confronting or responding to evil, on a practical and not merely intellectual level, is a challenge that we all face. Not only do we all each inevitably participate in evil, by sinning and suffering (in some form or fashion), but many of us fall deeply into sin and experience great suffering. Moreover, we witness our fellow human beings falling deeply into sin and experiencing great suffering. And the more we become acquainted with our own long history on this planet, the more we realize how many atrocities we have committed, both individually and collectively, and how many have suffered in truly horrific ways. Add to this the fact that we live in a world filled with other sentient beings, who, while incapable of sinning, are capable of suffering, and do suffer, often greatly. As I discussed in Chapter 3 (Section 3.4), natural history is filled with millions upon millions of years of animal suffering and death. Granting, then, as I have argued throughout this book, that God only wills to include all of this evil in his world insofar as he possesses an infallible plan for redeeming it, and so bringing ultimate good out of it (both for our world and ourselves), still, we may reasonably wonder: how should we confront or respond to all of the evil that we experience as an inescapable, “felt” reality in our own lives and the lives others? Or, phrasing the question somewhat differently, how can we confront or respond to evil successfully? From a Christian perspective, addressing these questions requires discussing how, most fundamentally, we ought to relate to God in the face of evil. And I claim that the proper way to relate to God in face of evil is by hoping in God in the face of evil. Thus, in the Christian tradition, hope is not a general posture or attitude we take or assume in the face of evil. It is not the sort of broad, even vague hope that tells us or seeks to assure us that things will get better, as bad as they are (or may seem), or seeks to assure us that we will be able to overcome evil with good, both in our lives and in our world. As I will argue, drawing on Aquinas’s own reflection on hope, hope is a virtue that rightly directs or relates us to God, and specifically disposes us to lean on God’s help to attain what none of us can bring about solely by our own efforts: the ultimate good of life lived eternally DOI: 10.4324/9781003298847-7

218  Hoping in the Face of Evil with God, and so a life in which all evil has been redeemed. Thus, I claim that hope virtuously disposes us to trust fully in God, even in the face of the worst evil, to redeem evil, and so order it to good: specifically, for each of us, an evil-free, heavenly life suffused with the goodness of God; and, beyond that, on the cosmic level, an evil-free world suffused with the goodness of God. And it is by exercising this powerful hope that we are able to confront or respond to evil—indeed, any and all evil—successfully. The main goal of this chapter, then, is to extend my Thomistic theodicy in order to deal with decidedly practical issues concerning the existence of evil within God’s good universe, or the practical challenge (or “problem”) that evil poses for those of us who inhabit God’s good universe.1 More narrowly, consistent with what I have done throughout the book, the goal of this chapter is to develop and defend my own, Thomistic account of hoping in the face of evil. The chapter, then, will unfold as follows. In the first two sections, drawing heavily on Aquinas’s account of hope, I discuss what it means to hope for oneself in the face of the evil in which one participates, and what it means to hope for other human beings in the face of the evil in which they participate. I also discuss why I think exercising such hope enables us to confront or respond to all such evil successfully. In the third section of the chapter, I discuss what I call “cosmic hope” and why I think it is possible (despite what Aquinas specifically contends) to hope for nonhuman animals in the face of the evil that they suffer. I also discuss the various forms such hope might take. In the fourth section of the chapter, I address what I think is an important and pressing question concerning why we should we think that exercising theological hope is rational. Theological hope is rational, I contend, because it is based on or rooted in exercises of the virtue of faith, which are themselves rational. The final section of the chapter serves as a conclusion for both the chapter and the book. In it, I reflect briefly on why the whole book is, in effect, an exercise of the virtue of hope. Even a successful theodicy, which opens our eyes to the various ways God redeems the evil he allows to obtain within his good world, is built on hope, since it is hope that enables us to trust God that God will do all that theodicy says he will do in redeeming all evil in the end.

7.1  Hoping for oneself in the face of evil What is hope? For, Aquinas, hope broadly understood is a movement (motus) of an appetitive power (the irascible appetite and the will) that directs us toward a good that we desire to obtain. But Aquinas distinguishes hope from mere desire as follows: Obviously, hoping implies a movement of the appetitive power as it tends toward a good—not, of course, toward a good already possessed, the way joy and delight do, but toward a good to be gained ….

Hoping in the Face of Evil 219 However, two things differentiate hope from desire. First, desire’s object is any good of any sort …. Hope’s object, in contrast, is an arduous good (boni ardui), which is hard to attain …. Second, desire’s object is a good considered without restriction, that is, without regard for its possibility or impossibility. However, hope tends to a good under its aspect as possible to obtain, for it expresses in its definition a certain assuredness of obtaining (quamdam securitatem adipiscendi). 2 Consequently, the object of hope is a future good (for no one hopes for what one already has attained) that is arduous or difficult to obtain but still possible to obtain (for otherwise hope would be pointless or in vain). As a theological virtue that resides in the will, hope directs us rightly to God as our highest good and takes God as its object in two ways. First, the act of hope is a movement of the will, or rational appetite, toward eternal life with God, so understood (like all objects of hope) as a future, arduous good that is nonetheless still possible to attain. Second, theological hope consists of fully relying on—or trusting in, leaning on—God in order to attain eternal life with God, since it is only possible to attain this supernatural good with God’s help. Aquinas writes, “Now a thing is possible to us in two ways: first, by ourselves; secondly, by means of others …. Therefore, insofar as we hope for something that is possible for us through God’s help, our hope attains God himself (ipsum Deum), whose help is being relied on.”3 As such, the act of hope, like every virtuous act, is good since it attains its “due rule,” in this case God himself, both as the one on whom we rely to attain eternal life and the one with whom we desire to spend eternal life.4 To this, we should add that for Aquinas God not only is the object of hope but also its source: God directly infuses the theological virtue of hope in the will to enable the hopeful person to rely fully on God’s help in order to attain the desired good of eternal life with God. In sum, exercising the divinely infused theological virtue of hope consists of hoping in God that one will attain eternal life with God. In what follows, then, in thinking more specifically about what it means to exercise hope in the face of evil, I am going to follow Aquinas in conceiving of hope in terms of both “hoping in” and “hoping that.” That is, hope is both a propositional attitude—hoping that p—which consists most fundamentally of S’s hoping, and so desiring, that S will attain eternal life with God; and it is an interpersonal relation or a way that S personally relates to or “attains” God (in Aquinas’s terms), since it is only by relying on God’s help that S can attain eternal life with God. Moreover, since Aquinas claims (rightly, I think) that “hope tends to a good under its aspect as possible to obtain,” then I will continue to maintain that S’s hoping in God that S will attain eternal life with God presupposes that S believes that it is at least possible that S will attain

220  Hoping in the Face of Evil eternal life with God. And it presupposes S’s faith-belief regarding God’s general will to save that God is able and willing to save human beings and afford them eternal life.5 So what does exercising hope in the face of evil more specifically look like? To start, since, for Aquinas, eternal life with God in heaven is our ultimate good, the hope to attain eternal life with God is the hope to attain complete happiness or blessedness (beatitudo), which we all long for but cannot attain in this life. And, as I have been arguing throughout this book, heavenly happiness consists of fully knowing and loving God as our supreme or highest good and ultimate end “who alone is able to satisfy man’s will perfectly by his infinite goodness.”6 But, as I also have argued (in Sections 6.1 and 6.2), by virtue of attaining personal union in knowledge and love with God, those in heaven with God will be unable to turn away from God: their perfect happiness will be unblemished by sin. Nor will the blessed be capable of suffering any evil, even when they are reunited with their bodies, since as Aquinas argues, “with the highest good no evil has a place (cum summo bono locum non habet aliquod malum).”7 Consequently, since the object of theological hope is eternal life with God, then theological hope as a propositional attitude consists of S’s hoping that S will attain an ultimately good life in heaven. Furthermore, since the hopeful person must rely on God’s help in order to attain eternal life, exercising hope as a virtue in the face of evil also consists of S’s hoping in God to attain what S desires, which is an ultimately good life in heaven. In my Thomistic view, of course, an ultimately good life, or a life that is good, taken as a whole, is also a fully redeemed life: a life in which God has redeemed all of the evil in which one has participated— suffered and done—by ordering one’s participation in evil to one’s ultimate good, life lived eternally with God, with whom “no evil has a place.” Consequently, S’s hoping in the face of evil even more specifically consists of S’s hoping that God will redeem all of the evil in which S participates, within the context of S’s own life, and so hoping that God will order all of S’s participation in evil to S’s ultimate good, which is life lived eternally with God. Actually, since hope directs us rightly to God, then hoping in God in the face of evil consists of S’s fully relying on God and so confidently trusting God to redeem all of the evil in which she participates by ordering all of her participation in evil to her ultimate good, enfolding and integrating all of the evil in which she participates into her eternal relationship with God. Since we participate in evil both by suffering on account of it and by committing it, I think it is possible to specify the content of hoping in the face of evil even further. Recall that in my Thomistic view, the suffering we undergo is redemptive for us insofar as it advances us on the path of salvation: it is by suffering evil for heavenly glory that (in Aquinas’s words) “we arrive at glory.”8 Suffering stirs us to seek out or return to God as

Hoping in the Face of Evil 221 our highest good when we become cut off from those finite goods (health, security, success, etc.) that we are prone to pursue and rest in, even though they can never satisfy our longing for God as our highest good. Suffering also serves as a crucible in which God purges us of the sinful elements in our lives (or everything that separates us from God in our lives) and which God uses to build genuine moral and spiritual goodness—above all the crowning virtue of charity, or the love of God as our highest good—into our lives. So hoping in the face of whatever suffering one undergoes consists of hoping that God will use one’s suffering to accomplish his redemptive purposes in one’s own life, ordering all of the suffering one undergoes (whether on account of an evil in one’s own life, or the life of another) to one’s ultimate good, which is life lived eternally with God. And it consists of hoping in and so fully relying on God’s help to respond redemptively to the suffering that one undergoes, so that one might draw closer to God, above all in love, as a result of undergoing such suffering. Since it is sin that separates us from God and prevents us from attaining the hoped for good of eternal life with God, then hoping in the face of evil also includes hoping that God the Redeemer will bring about one’s ultimate good not just in spite of the sin that one does but also out of the sin that one has done. More specifically, hoping in God as a sinner consists of hoping that God will redeem all of the sin in one’s life by bringing the great goods of repentance, forgiveness, humility, justice, and love out of all of the sin that one commits, thereby ordering all the sin that mars one’s life to the ultimate good of a sin-free, heavenly life lived eternally with God. And it consists of fully relying on God’s help to repent of the sin that one has done, accept God’s forgiveness, and undergo whatever satisfactory punishment is prescribed by God so that, having sinned, one can become fully detached from sin and fully aligned with God in justice and love, thereby becoming fully fit to enjoy a sin-free, heavenly life lived eternally with God. So far, in discussing what it means to exercise the theological virtue of hope in the face of evil, I have focused on how the hopeful person wholly relies on and so fully trusts in God to redeem all of the evil in which she participates, within the context of her own life. But since, as I argued in Chapter 5, God’s work to redeem evil also includes bringing us to see for ourselves and willingly embrace all the ways God redeemed the evil in which we each participated, then I think hoping in the face of evil incorporates, as part of its content (or object), this dimension of God’s redemptive work as well. Consequently, I claim the following: S’s exercising hope in the face of evil includes S’s hoping in God that, from the standpoint of the beatific vision, S will see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God redeemed all of the evil in which S participated, within the context of S’s own life, and so construe the whole of her life as ultimately good, whatever the amount and type of evil that she participated in during her life.

222  Hoping in the Face of Evil Certainly, exercising such hope is consistent with beginning to see and willingly embrace at least some of the ways in which God has worked and is working to redeem evil within the context of one’s own life (and the lives of others), especially as one advances in moral and spiritual goodness and so also grows closer to God in knowledge and love. However, while I do think it is possible to gain partial insight into God’s program to redeem the evil that marks our lives, especially the more we live our lives, and gain greater perspective on our lives (also with God’s help), it is still not possible for us, given our cognitive limitations (and the cognitive effects of sin), to grasp how God is executing that program in any comprehensive way in our lives. Moreover, we do not and cannot fully know ourselves. No matter how advanced we are in our moral and spiritual lives, we remain unable to see fully (as God sees) the real moral and spiritual condition of our souls, and so what sort of specific program of moral and spiritual development we each need to undergo to attain full and lasting goodness, as well as full and lasting flourishing, in our lives. This is why fully exercising hope in the face of the evil in which one participates consists of hoping in God that one ultimately will see and willingly embrace all of what God did to redeem evil within the context of one’s life, and so construe the whole of one’s life as ultimately good, despite all of the evil that occurred within it. My further claim, which I now need to exposit and defend, is that exercising the theological virtue of hope in the face of evil, as I have described it, enables one to confront or respond to the evil in which one participates successfully. Principally, I mean by this that by virtuously hoping in the face of evil, one meets the standard or (as Aquinas also says) the rule that one ought to meet in all of one’s actions, in this case, God himself as the ultimate rule of all human actions.9 In fact, since it is God and God alone who is able and willing to redeem all of the evil in which one participates, and so God and God alone who can ensure that one attains an ultimately good life, then the only standard of success one can and ought to meet in hoping in the face of evil is God himself as the only one in whom and by whom one’s hope can be fulfilled. Additionally, it is by virtuously hoping in God in the face of evil that one successfully avoids falling into two vicious and erroneous extremes concerning the ultimately good life one hopes to obtain and God’s role in enabling one to obtain it: the vices of presumption and despair. Generally speaking, Aquinas says that the presumptuous person immoderately relies on her own power to obtain what is beyond her power to obtain— i.e., salvation—or possesses an “inordinate trust in the divine mercy or power,”10 and so relies on God’s power to save in a way that conforms to the presumptuous person’s prideful aspirations, for instance, “to obtain pardon without repenting, or glory without merits.”11 Alternatively, the despairing person fails to rely on God’s help as she ought to, and actually shrinks from relying on God’s help as she ought to, given her false

Hoping in the Face of Evil 223 belief that God’s power to save (which she still may affirm, generally speaking) does not extend to her as a sinner: she holds the “false opinion that [God] refuses pardon to the repentant sinner, or that he does not turn sinners to himself by sanctifying grace.”12 This is why Aquinas also thinks that the despairing person, having abandoned hope in God and his power to save her, actually becomes complicit in evil (or at least can become complicit in evil), since “when hope is removed, unrestrained men fall into vices and withdraw from good works.”13 Similarly, I claim that while the presumptuous person relies immoderately (even foolishly) on her own power or resourcefulness to attain an ultimately good, fully redeemed life, or relies immoderately on God’s help to attain such a life, the despairing person fails to hope or trust in God enough, and so fails to avail herself of the help she needs to attain an ultimately good, fully redeemed life. The hopeful person, in contrast, recognizes that she only can attain such a life by fully cooperating with God’s work to redeem her, according to (what she further hopes is) God’s infallible plan for accomplishing her redemption, which requires that she undergo redemptive suffering and satisfactory punishment as God prescribes. Likewise, the hopeful person, in contrast to the despairing person, remains unwavering in her hope and trust in God and God’s redemptive power despite whatever suffering she may endure or sin that she may commit. Attaining God as “the first rule not ruled by another rule (regulam primam, non regulatam alia regula),”14 she trusts fully in God, and actively trusts in God—even in the face of the most horrific evil that she may have to endure—to redeem such evil and so help her attain an ultimately good life in which all the evil that marks her life has been redeemed. In this way, the hopeful person, unlike the despairing person, who has abandoned the hope that God can and will redeem all of the evil in which she participates, avoids the temptation to become inert in the face of evil (whether her own sin or suffering) and, unrestrained by hope, even defeated or consumed by it. Can one successfully confront or respond to the evil that is present in one’s life without maintaining hope in God? This is, admittedly, a more difficult question to answer; though, in order to further defend my Thomistic account of hoping in the face of evil, I will provide at least a partial answer to it here. It seems to me that any comprehensive hope that falls short of attaining God as the “supreme rule of human actions” (supremam regulam humanorum actuum),”15 and so God as the source and guarantor of one’s hope, on whom the hopeful person relies, is inherently unstable, and so has a tendency to veer toward either presumption or despair: that is, balloon into a false confidence regarding one’s own ability to bring good for oneself out of all of evil in which one participates, or collapse into a debilitating despair regarding one’s own utter inability to bring good for oneself out of all of the evil in which one participates. Even a secular hope that denies that

224  Hoping in the Face of Evil God is the highest good, and seeks to locate one’s highest good elsewhere—say, in attaining a certain level of flourishing within this life— inevitably will have to confront or respond to evils for which there are no redeeming goods, or to which one is simply unable to conjoin any available, redeeming good, even drawing on the help of others. In fact, in a Godless universe (which the person exercising secular hope believes herself to be in), the person of hope will have to face the fact that there is no guarantee that she will attain a life fully ordered to whatever highest good she has chosen for herself, even if she relies consistently on the help of others. Nor is there any guarantee that she will attain a life that is on balance more good than evil (or contains more goodness than badness within it) relying on her own efforts and the help of others. And if, for whatever reason, she does attain such a life, it will largely be a matter of good luck, and the hope she will have maintained throughout her life will have been grounded not in the power and providence of God but rather the whims of fortune or fate. Compared to theological hope, which is sustained by and directed toward God, this is a fragile and hollow hope indeed. In making these claims, I don’t mean to suggest that it is not possible to exercise any hope in the face of evil. The cancer patient hoping to be cured of this deadly disease may certainly obtain the object of her hope, thanks to help of medical science, and continue to hold on to the hope in the midst of her illness that she will obtain it. The prisoner on death row may hold on tenaciously to the hope that he will avoid having to undergo the death penalty for his crime, and so on some level continue to exercise a degree of hope as he awaits his fate. But this sort of hope is still sharply limited: it concerns particular evils and the particular, limited goods one hopes to obtain while participating in such evils. Moreover, there is no guarantee that, in each of these respective cases, medicine and human good will have the power to save. In sharp contrast, theological hope, on my Thomistic account, encompasses all of the evil that one’s life contains. It furnishes one the confidence that no matter how much evil one endures (as long as one endures it), and how bad that evil is, God will find a way to redeem it, with one’s full co-operation, in the end. And it relies on God’s perfect power—and goodness, love, and mercy—to redeem and save. No other hope, I submit, can rival this hope or exceed it in terms of its scope and promise. And, in this sense, no other hope for oneself one might exercise in the face of evil will dispose one to confront or respond to such evil with greater success. But is such hope reasonable, and so does it enable the person of hope to respond rationally—and so, we would think, successfully—to the evil in which she participates? That is an important question that I will address, and answer in the affirmative, in the final section of this chapter. For the moment, though, I want to continue to develop the Thomistic account of hoping in the face of evil I have presented here, and think more deeply

Hoping in the Face of Evil 225 about how it is possible to exercise hope in God in the face of evil in which others participate.

7.2  Hoping for others in the face of evil In his reflection on the theological virtue of hope in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas specifically asks, “whether one may hope for another’s eternal happiness?” His reply is worth quoting in full: We can hope for something in two ways: first, absolutely, and thus the object of hope is always something arduous and pertaining to the person who hopes. Secondly, we can hope for something, through something else being presupposed, and in this way its object can be something pertaining to someone else. In order to explain this we must observe that love and hope differ in this, that love denotes union between lover and beloved, while hope denotes a movement or a stretching forth of the appetite towards an arduous good. Now union is of things that are distinct, wherefore love can directly regard the other whom one unites to himself by love, looking upon him as his other self: whereas movement is always towards its own term which is proportionate to the subject moved. Therefore, hope regards directly one’s own good (proprium bonum), and not that which pertains to another. Yet if we presuppose the union of love with another, one can hope for and desire something for another, as for himself; and, accordingly, he can hope for another’s eternal life, inasmuch as he is united to him by love (aliquis potest sperare alteri vitam aeternam, inquantum est ei unitus per amorem), and just as it is the same virtue of charity whereby one loves God, himself, and his neighbor, so too it is the same virtue of hope (eadem virtus spei), whereby one hopes for himself and for another.16 While Aquinas does claim that “hope regards directly one’s own good,” he also says that it is possible to hope for another insofar as one views that person as one’s “other self” and is, moreover, conjoined to that person in love. In addition, and importantly, hoping in God for another does not consist of exercising a different hope than the hope one exercises for oneself: “it is the same virtue of hope, whereby one hopes for himself and for another.” On my expanded, Thomistic account of hoping in the face of evil, we can therefore say the following. Just as S’s hope virtuously disposes S to hope in God that God will redeem all of the evil in which S participates, within the context of S’s own life, by ordering all of S’s participation in evil to S’s ultimate good (life lived eternally with God), so S’s hoping in God in the face of the evil in which others participate can consist of S’s virtuously hoping that God will redeem all of the evil in which others

226  Hoping in the Face of Evil participate, within the context of their own lives, by ordering their participation in evil to their ultimate good (which is also life lived eternally with God). And just as S’s exercising hope in the face of evil includes S’s virtuously hoping in God that, from the standpoint of the beatific vision, S will see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God redeemed all of the evil in which S participated, within the context of S’s own life, so S’s exercising hope in the face of evil can include S’s virtuously hoping in God that, from the standpoint of the beatific vision, others will see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God redeemed all of the evil in which they each participated, within the context of their own lives. What links S’s hope for herself and S’s hope for others, which enables S to hope for others, is S’s love for others, whom she wants to attain an ultimately good life, given all of the evil they have endured, as she wants this for herself, given all of the evil that she has endured. And just as it is the same hope that disposes S to trust fully in God to save others, as S hopes that God will save herself, so it is the same hope that disposes S to trust God fully to redeem all of the evil in her own life and the lives of others: all of those to whom S is united in love. Of course, for us as individuals to be able to hope that others, too, will obtain an ultimately good, fully redeemed life, we must also believe that it is at least possible for them to attain such a life, since, on my Thomistic account, the object of hope is a future good that is difficult to obtain but nonetheless still possible to obtain, even if only with the help of another. But in principle, nothing is preventing each of us as individuals from believing this, regarding any other individual besides ourselves. Aquinas claims that while God could reveal to each of us whether we are among the predestined, he wisely has determined not to do so, to avoid leading the predestined into negligence and the reprobate (those who would come to know that they are not among the predestined) into despair.17 And so, on an epistemic level, none of us can be certain that we are among the predestined, or, for that matter, among the reprobate. Uncertainty regarding the salvation or damnation of any one individual (presuming that there are human beings who are and will be damned) therefore allows us to hope, regarding any specific individual, or number of individuals (taken as individuals), that they are among the predestined, and so will attain ultimately good lives and come to see and value the ultimate goodness of their lives, when they are united to God in perfect knowledge and love in heaven. I also argue that that there is every reason to believe that it is possible for others, whoever they may be, to attain salvation, and so an ultimately good life, with God’s help, insofar as we each believe the same thing for ourselves. Aquinas is clear is that hoping for another is possible insofar as we view that person and love him or her as another self, who, like us, has been made by God, and for God, and so is loved by God. So why should I think that it is possible for me to attain salvation, and so

Hoping in the Face of Evil 227 an ultimately good life, but not someone else? Whatever I have in my life that disposes or enables me to attain salvation comes from God, as the author of my salvation, and is an expression of his goodness, love, and mercy. This means that I can look at no part of myself and claim I possess some feature or property that would or should make me think that it is possible (or more possible) for me to attain salvation but not possible for someone else. The helps and graces God has afforded me he also can afford others, and so, if I believe, as I ought to, that it is possible for me to attain salvation, and so an ultimately good life, with God’s help, I should also believe that it is possible for every other person to attain salvation, and so an ultimately good life, with God’s help. Accordingly, if I don’t believe, regarding a specific individual, or fellow human being, that it is possible for him or her to attain salvation, and so an ultimately good life, then I shouldn’t believe it is possible for me to attain salvation, and so an ultimately good life, either. Once more, then, it is truly possible to hope for each and every human being that he or she will, despite whatever evil they participate in, attain an ultimately good life in which all such evil has been redeemed. Does this therefore mean that it is possible to hope that God will save all human beings, and so afford all human beings ultimately good lives in which all evil has been redeemed? In order to address this question properly I think it is important to identify what we mean here by “all.” Joseph Trabbic, for example, in aiming to reconcile Aquinas’s teaching on hope with his teaching on reprobation (that some, perhaps many, will not be saved18) distinguishes between what he calls “a non-universal ‘hope for all’,” the extension of which is “each individual man and woman,” and “a universal ‘hope for all’,” the extension of which is “the unit of all people.”19 For Christians like Aquinas, while the former hope is possible, the latter hope is not. However, as I argued in the previous chapter (Section 6.6), I don’t think it is an infallible datum of Christian revelation that there is a set of human beings who will not be saved, and so will not attain ultimately good lives. Nor, I should add, is it a truth known with certainty by reason or experience that there is such a set of human beings. Consequently, insofar as one still believes that it is possible that none will be damned, and that all will be saved, given one’s faith-belief that it is God’s will to save, it remains possible, I think, to exercise what Trabbic calls a truly universal “hope for all.” Nor does this necessarily require completely dispensing with Aquinas’s teaching on reprobation. One could argue that what Aquinas says about reprobation is likely true, but that insofar as we lack epistemic certainty regarding the truth of this teaching (insofar as it is informed by both Scripture and the traditional teaching of the Church, neither of which make a definitive proclamation about the human population of hell), then we are still permitted to exercise a universal hope for all, albeit a tempered one. Or, one could argue that Aquinas’s teaching on reprobation only speaks

228  Hoping in the Face of Evil to a possible state of affairs—it only may be true that some, even many, are damned, for the reasons Aquinas offers us—which means it remains possible to exercise a more robust universal hope for all: that is, a truly universal hope that each and every human being will indeed be saved and so attain an ultimately good life in which each and every evil in that life has been redeemed by God. 20 Now, one might argue that on a practical level, taking into the account the actual evils that we witness occurring in our world, and the persons who participate in them, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain such a hope. Consider, for example, very young children (including infants) and the severely mentally disabled, who simply seem unable to participate in a program of redemptive suffering, as I have described it. How can God use suffering in their lives in order to advance their salvation, and so incorporate their suffering into the ultimate good of life lived eternally with God? And consider hardened sinners who live their lives in a way contrary to God’s will and seem to die in a state of enmity with God. How can God turn their participation in evil into their ultimate good if they definitively have rejected God as their highest good? How is it possible to exercise a truly universal hope for all in the face of such evil? Let me say several things in response to this worry, and the questions that are driving it. First, suffering even the worst evils, can, by divine power and grace, and so under God’s providential direction, effectively move one toward one’s ultimate good, however slowly, and however difficult the redemptive benefits of suffering may be to procure and recognize, both by oneself and by others. I am not willing to rule out, then, the possibility that persons like very young children and severely mentally disabled persons who suffer evil are not capable, on at least a minimal cognitive and volitional level, of responding redemptively to such suffering (say, by growing in knowledge and virtue) and so responding positively to God’s efforts to use such suffering in order to advance their salvation. Furthermore, as I argued in Section 5.3, we have good reason to think that such persons qualify as anonymous redemptive sufferers: persons who are, in fact, lovingly, and so redemptively, serving God’s redemptive purposes in furthering his plan of salvation in the lives of others, in ways unknown (or even unknowable) to them and to us, operating as we do from our finite and so sharply limited earthly perspectives on one another’s lives. We must therefore check any judgments we make about the redemptive efficacy of such suffering (along with whatever moral indignation we may feel in the face of such suffering) in light of what we simply do not and cannot know about the redemptive efficacy of suffering for these persons, as well as God’s plan to redeem whatever evil that they suffer within the context of their own lives, as well as others’ lives. As I have been arguing in this section of the chapter, it is also possible to hope that even if we do not and cannot see and willingly embrace all of the ways that the suffering we undergo helps advance God’s

Hoping in the Face of Evil 229 redemptive work in the lives of others, the hope is that we will do so. That is, the hope here is that once we come to participate in the beatific vision, and become fully united to God in knowledge and love, we will see and willingly embrace the role we played as sufferers in God’s plan to redeem evil in the lives of others. And we will see and willingly embrace all such redemptive suffering both as the great good that it is and as a great good to us, as integral to the ultimately good life with God that we have come to possess. Accordingly, even if very young children and the mentally disabled are unable to see or willingly embrace any of the ways that God incorporates their suffering into his larger redemptive plan for themselves or for others, the hope remains that they will do so. We can continue to hope for these persons that ultimately, when God raises them to glory, and so fully unites them to himself in knowledge and love, they will see and willingly embrace all of the suffering they underwent redemptively both as the great good that it is and as a great good to them, as integral to the ultimately good lives with God that they have come to possess. Second, regarding sin that seems to be unredeemable, or sinners who seem to be unredeemable: history is full of examples of (what Christians believe to be) God turning even the most hardened sinners into saints, beginning with the repentant thief to whom Jesus says, at his own crucifixion, “today you will be with me in Paradise.”21 In addition, as I have said before—and is especially worth repeating here—perhaps God will find a way to bring all human beings willingly to repent for sin, if not before their deaths, then at death or in death, and so enable them to cross at least a minimal threshold of goodness, and love, before subjecting them to a concentrated (and in many cases, we would think, grueling) postmortem moral and spiritual regimen of purification and reform (redemptive suffering) after death, so that they can and will attain ultimately good lives. While not all Christians believe in a postmortem state or process of purification, many Christians do, especially since it enables them to hope for themselves that God will redeem whatever sin remains in them, so that they can attain personal union with God in heaven. As a result, it certainly remains possible to hope for others that God will redeem all of the sin in their lives as well as bring them to see and willingly embrace all of the ways God forced even their most horrific sin to serve his redemptive purposes in their lives, and even the lives of others. Third (and if this is not already clear), while exercising a truly universal hope for all does require believing that it is at least possible that God will save all, it does not require having any theory or account that explains how God will bring this about, and so carry out his redemptive work in each and every human life. For example, I have no theory that can help us determine with precision who qualifies as an anonymous redemptive sufferer and who does not, even though I think that we have good reason to think that there are anonymous redemptive sufferers,

230  Hoping in the Face of Evil and that certain kinds of persons likely qualify as anonymous redemptive sufferers. And I have no theory that can help explain how God might convert sinners at their deaths or even in their deaths. Perhaps this is not metaphysically possible. But for all we know, it is metaphysically possible; and, personally, I believe that it is. If it falls within the scope of God’s power to do all things that are possible absolutely, and there is no obvious metaphysical incongruity (as far as I can see) in God’s converting sinners at a moment in death prior to their souls separating from their bodies, and so a moment prior to their wills becoming fixed on either good or evil as their ultimate end, then, as far as I know, God may ensure that every human being is converted from a life of evil to a life of good (with goodness, not evil as his or her ultimate end) either before death, at death, or in death. This also leaves room for me to exercise a truly universal hope for all, and so the hope that God, in the mystery of his providence, will afford each and every human being who ever has lived or will live an ultimately good life in which he has redeemed all evil within the context of that life. Another way of expressing this point (perhaps even more clearly and pointedly) is as follows: hope, as a virtue, disposes us to rely fully and confidently on God to redeem all evil within the context of our own lives, even though it does not enable us to see or understand the full nature and extent of God’s plan to redeem all such evil within the context of our lives. Hope, like faith, and unlike charity, is a virtue for wayfarers who are progressing toward heavenly glory, and so the beatific vision; it will not be present in heaven because in heaven we will have attained the very good for which we hoped in this life. Moreover, it is only in heaven, from the epistemic vantage point furnished by the beatific vision, that the full scope of God’s plan to redeem evil will (I hope!) become known to us. In the meantime, then, it remains open to us to exercise a truly universal hope for all. And, I think, we should want to exercise such a hope, not only because all of us, as fallen beings, participate universally in evil, but also because we are called by God to exercise a truly universal love. Therefore, so long as one believes that it is at least possible that all human beings will be saved, and so will attain ultimately good lives, one’s hope can extend as far as one’s love.22 Presuming that one truly loves all (even one’s enemies!), then one can universally hope for all. So, I claim the following: so long as S believes that it is at least possible that God will save all, and S truly loves all—wills their ultimate good as S wills S’s own ultimate good—then it is possible for S, in the face of all of the evil that S witnesses in human life and history, to hope in God (and so God’s perfect power, goodness, love, and mercy) that God will redeem all of the evil in which all human beings participate, within the context of their own lives; and that all human beings ultimately will see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God redeemed all such evil within the context of their own lives, thereby also construing the whole

Hoping in the Face of Evil 231 of their lives as ultimately good, whatever the amount and type of evil that they participated in during their lives. Given how much evil there is in our world, in which we human beings universally participate, this is a powerful hope to possess and exercise indeed. As I bring this section of the chapter to a close, let me say just a bit more on behalf of this powerful, universal hope for all that I have been discussing and defending. Just as I think that exercising hope in the face of the evil in which we, as individuals, participate, enables us to confront or respond to such evil successfully, so I think that exercising a truly universal hope for all human beings in the face of all the evil in which they participate (however much of that evil we witness or come to know about), enables us to confront or respond to such evil successfully. In large part, this is because, as I already argued, God is the standard of success that the hopeful person virtuously meets, and the only standard she ought to meet, in exercising hope, whether that hope pertains only to oneself or extends to all human beings; in fact, especially as it pertains to the salvation of all, since God alone is capable of saving all and so redeeming each and evil every in which each and every human being participates, within the context of each and every human life. Also, relatedly, if, as I previously argued (in Section 7.1), secular hopes are ill-equipped to prevent us from sliding into either presumption, on the one hand, or despair, on the other hand, regarding our own, individual redemption, then a fortiori they are ill-equipped to prevent us from sliding into either presumption or despair regarding our own, collective ability to bring good (let alone ultimate good) out of one another’s lives. In a Godless universe, and so a universe divested of any providence, it simply seems impossible to sustain hope that somehow, in the end, everyone will attain lives in which all evil is ordered to good, even if the good to which their evil is ordered is not their own, individual good but some collective, human good (a collectively identified highest good) to which we as human beings might aspire to attain. Either we end up presumptively and pridefully overestimating our abilities to bring about such a good, however we see fit, in combating the evil that exists in our world, or (as is more likely, I think) we ultimately sink into a permanent despair regarding our abilities to bring about such a good. Only hope in God, then, is capable of sustaining a stable and solid, universal hope in the face of all the evil that we witness occurring (and know has occurred, and likely will continue to occur) in our world. I also think it is important to emphasize that even though exercising a universal hope for all in the face of evil enables one to trust fully in God to redeem evil for us, since only God can ensure that all evil is redeemed in the end for us all, it does not exonerate one from the responsibility of seeking to combat and overcome evil, particularly the evil of sin, which not only directly harms one’s relationship with God but also one’s relationship with others and even the world in which one lives. What hope

232  Hoping in the Face of Evil generates is not ambivalence and passivity in the face of evil, but rather the full reliance on God that we need when, despite our best efforts, we are unable to eliminate it from our lives and our world. This means that we consistently can and should work to eliminate evil from our own lives and the lives of others as we hope in God to redeem whatever surplus evil that remains—and which God allows to remain—despite our best efforts to eliminate it. Put another way, we can and should seek to eliminate evil with hope: the hope that God will redeem all evil that remains, despite our best efforts to eliminate it. Furthermore, ambivalence and passivity in the face of evil are expressions of vice: the two vices of presumption and despair, which of course oppose the theological virtue of hope. In Aquinas’s view, the presumptuous person not only relies too heavily on her own ability to attain salvation without God’s help, but also relies on God to attain salvation without having to undergo the process of moral and spiritual transformation that attaining salvation requires.23 As a result, it is the presumptuous person who ignores and remains unwilling to participate in God’s specific efforts to redeem evil not only within the context of her own life but also the lives of others: say, by spurring them to repent for sin or assisting their growth in virtue as they endure whatever suffering God has willed to include within their lives. The despairing person, too, in withdrawing from hope and trust in God in the face of evil also withdraws from doing what is necessary both to combat evil and to participate in God’s efforts to redeem it. This is why, again, Aquinas thinks that the despairing person, having abandoned hope in God, actually becomes complicit in evil, since “when hope is removed, unrestrained men fall into vices and withdraw from good works.”24 Consequently, I contend that it is despairing persons, who, having abandoned the hope that God can and will redeem evil for themselves and others, become inert in the face of evil and, unrestrained by hope, even complicit in it. In contrast, when one possesses and exercises the theological virtue of hope, one relies fully on God’s help to turn away from sin, and so eliminate sin, both from one’s own life and from the lives of others. And one relies fully on God’s help to grow in moral and spiritual goodness in the face of persistent suffering, and help others do the same. Overall, then, the more one hopes, the more one relies on God to grow in goodness; and the more one grows in goodness, the more able and willing one becomes to help others attain lives that are replete with goodness, and so fully manifest God’s own goodness: lives in which God has redeemed all evil in the end.

7.3  Cosmic hope and animal suffering Exercising a universal hope for all in the face of evil requires, in my Thomistic view, recognizing the possibility that not all will be saved. Just as we can’t be certain that all will not be saved, so we can’t be

Hoping in the Face of Evil 233 certain (I think) that all will be saved. Only God knows, in accordance with his perfect will, the ultimate fate of each and every human being. Thus, exercising hope in the face of evil requires recognizing that one’s hope may be left unfulfilled. Hope only can subsist where the future, hoped for object or state of affairs has not yet obtained; which means that from the hopeful person’s epistemic standpoint, the object of hope is still unseen and so, at least to some extent, uncertain. As Saint Paul avers, “hope that sees for itself is not hope.”25 However, this does not mean that one’s hope will fail one in the face of evil. Even in the face of the worst evil, hope as a theological virtue disposes one to rely on and trust in God to redeem evil for oneself and others, even all human beings. Beyond this, I think that there is a form of hope that is arguably the surest, or most confident, hope of all: what I call cosmic hope. Cosmic hope concerns God’s ability and willingness to redeem all evil on a cosmic scale, and so God’s ability and willingness to order whatever evil obtains within the universe to the goodness, and so perfection, as well as beauty, of the universe, taken as a whole. When it comes to us human beings, exercising cosmic hope consists of hoping in God that God will redeem all of the evil we human beings suffer and do, even if he chooses not to do so within the context of each and every human life (affording each and every human being a life in which all of their participation in evil is ordered to their own ultimate good of life lived eternally with God). God can, of course, use my suffering in order to bring about good—even ultimate good—for you, and he can use your suffering in order to bring about good for me, along with any number of other people that God chooses. Even the sin I commit can be used by God to bring about good in your life (say, by sparking you to analyze your own life and turn away from the sin in your own life); and the sin you commit can be used by God to bring about good in my life, along with any number of other people that God chooses. In fact, as I argued in the previous chapter, even if it is true that some or even many human beings will freely persist apart from God in their own sin for all eternity, God nevertheless can redeem such unrepented sin by justly punishing those who commit it, thereby ensuring that the evil of unrepented sin, along with the suffering conjoined to it, contributes to the justice and so ultimate goodness of the world as a whole: that is, a world that fully reflects divine goodness, for all eternity, despite all of the unrepented sin that exists within it. It is also true, as I argued in Chapter 2, that God redeems all of the natural evil that obtains within the animal and plant worlds by ensuring that such evil contributes to the ultimate goodness, perfection, and beauty of a world containing all kinds and levels of nonliving and living things, all aiming to be what they were created by God to be. And so, cosmic hope, as an exercise of the virtue of hope, disposes us to trust

234  Hoping in the Face of Evil fully in God to redeem all (both moral and natural) evil by bringing good out of it, in whatever way God sees fit, and so ordering all of the evil he wills to include within the world to the goodness of the world, taken as a whole. This means that the widest possible hope for S to exercise in the face of evil can be specified as follows: hoping in God that God will redeem all evil in the end; and that all of those personally united with God in heaven (oneself included) will see and willingly embrace all of the ways that God redeemed all evil in the end. 26 Like the hope that one exercises for oneself and others in the face of evil, cosmic hope concerns future states of affairs that only God can bring about: the ultimate goodness of the world as a whole, and our collective seeing and embracing, in perfect knowledge and love, all that God did to bring about the ultimate goodness of the world as a whole. And, I suggest, like the hope one exercises for others in the face of evil, cosmic hope presupposes love: in this case, a love of God and a love for the world as God’s creation that reflects and shares in God’s own love of the world as his good creation, which manifests his own goodness.27 So understood, cosmic hope is an extension—the widest possible extension—of the same hope one exercises for oneself and others in the face of evil. Although, importantly, it does not replace such hope, since it leaves wide room for hoping that God’s cosmic plan of redemption will include his redeeming evil for all human beings, within the context of their own lives. Can such hope also include hoping in God that God will redeem all of the evil that nonhuman animals (at least sentient animals) suffer within the context of their own lives? Aquinas would answer this question in the negative, for a number of reasons, all of which are linked to the same metaphysical fact: animals do not possess a rational nature. Since animals do not possess a rational nature, they are incapable of responding to or growing from whatever evil that they suffer on a moral or spiritual level. Nor can they attain eternal life, since only a being with a rational nature “is naturally suited to have the good of eternal happiness.”28 This is why Aquinas also thinks that it is not possible to love animals for their own sakes out of charity: “only an intellectual nature is lovable out of charity in the sense in which we are said to love those things for which we will good.”29 Furthermore, since an animal possesses a sensitive soul, which, unlike the rational soul, is non-subsistent, and so corruptible, then when the animal dies, it stays dead, and cannot be resurrected as the same animal it once was: “for since their form comes to nothing,” Aquinas says, “they cannot resume the same identical form.”30 And so, even if animals were capable of experiencing even a modicum of heavenly happiness, since it is not metaphysically possible even for God (it seems) to bring numerically the same animal back to life, it is not metaphysically possible for God to afford animals the sort of heavenly lives in which he has redeemed the evil they suffered in their earthly lives.

Hoping in the Face of Evil 235 All of these claims, however, are contestable. Trent Dougherty, for example, argues that it is plausible to hold both that animals have non-physical souls (given the existence of animal consciousness) and that, even if animals do not have non-physical souls, it is possible for them to possess a “gappy” existence, presuming resurrection is something like traveling through a wormhole where one leaves behind one’s earthly timeline, “skipping” the earthly timeline in its entirety, and enters a new, heavenly spacetime with a body “formed from the fission of the particles of the old body.”31 Dougherty further contends that just as humans in heaven will be reborn “from mere personhood to something that will be godlike, so animals will be reborn from sentience to personhood.”32 Consequently, having not only been resurrected by God but also deified by him, and so reborn to personhood, animals can and will undergo a heavenly process of soul-making, and specifically “saint-making”: like human saints, these animals saints will, with God’s help, look back on their earthly lives and lovingly embrace whatever role they and their suffering played in God’s creative and redemptive plan, recognizing and affirming God’s goodness to them in being included (even featured) in that plan. That is, they, like their fellow human saints, will see how it was a great good for them to be included in God’s plan; how God was not only just but also good to them by including them in his plan. “In this glance,” Dougherty says, “evil is defeated forever.”33 Similarly, as we saw in Chapter 3 (Section 3.4), John Schneider suggests that divine defeat of animal suffering, including all of the suffering that marks Darwinian natural history, will consist of God honoring animals in heaven as martyrs for the sacrifice they have made. That animals deserve to be viewed and honored as martyrs follows from Schneider’s conviction that animals’ “role in evolutionary history resembles that of Christ in its kenosis, the self-emptying that makes valuable nonhuman and human life possible. If the evil in animal evolutionary suffering of sentient animals is defeated on the analogy of Christian martyrs, then God is justified in inscribing such suffering into the conditions of their existence.”34 Schneider also thinks that since animals (or at least some animals) seem capable of enjoying and responding favorably to praise, then it also plausible to think that they will “be made to know that they are being admired [in heaven], even if not to comprehend precisely why they are”35 (though, some may understand in a limited way why they are). He further adds that divine defeat of animal suffering does not require any subjective grasp by the animals themselves of the admiration they are receiving; it is enough (it seems), objectively speaking, at least for some animals, that they will be admired, God having ensured that they possess a life in which their suffering contributes essentially to their living a Christ-like life that is ultimately suffused with eternal admiration, gratitude, and praise.

236  Hoping in the Face of Evil The main question before us, then, is whether the future, eschatological scenarios Dougherty and Schneider defend as part of their theodicies of animal suffering are indeed viable objects of hope. The real challenge that Dougherty faces is defending the claim that animals can survive the process of deification necessary for saint-making without losing their identity: that is, becoming different beings altogether from what they once were in their earthly lives. Dougherty does aim to defend this claim, appealing to the continuity of animal souls and John Duns Scotus’s concept of haecceitas or “thisness,” “a non-qualitative property that individuates individuals”36 and which therefore would track animals, preserving numerical identity, across any change, no matter how radical, they might undergo. He also thinks that an animal, having undergone deification, still could identify with the suffering it underwent in its earthly life, which is necessary if it is going to be counted among the saints who understand and freely embrace their role as sufferers in God’s plan. This would entail that the animal (who is now a person) be given an account of their earthly lives and the role their suffering played in furthering God’s plan, along with the opportunity to embrace their role in that plan. Even if the deified animal does not remember undergoing that suffering, and so identifying with it on a psychological level, it still can come to recognize itself in the story that has been told to it and embrace its part as a sufferer in the story, thereby finding peace with God. “In this peace,” Dougherty says, “will be the defeat of the evil they suffered.”37 My own metaphysical position, which is of course Thomistic in orientation, is that an animal is, by nature, a sentient being, which lacks a rational soul, and so God’s raising an animal from “mere sentience to personhood” would destroy the identity of the animal. Even more accurately, God cannot personalize an animal, because an animal, by definition, is a sentient being who possesses a sensory, but not a rational soul, as its substantial form; and the identity of any being or substance on Aquinas’s metaphysics is determined by its form. This is why I think that the scenario that Dougherty poses is not metaphysically possible, and so is not a viable object of Thomistic hope. But even if one does not share Aquinas’s metaphysical outlook, there is still a significant reason to doubt that the scenario that Dougherty poses is possible. Any metaphysics that says that human persons differ fundamentally from animals in kind, and which draws a metaphysical line separating persons from animals, seems committed to denying that an animal can cross that line and remain the same individual it once was. In fact, even a materialist metaphysics that holds that human beings do not differ fundamentally from animals in kind, but which recognizes that we possess superior rational powers, will struggle, it seems, to accommodate the kind of radical transformation that Dougherty envisions for animals. The kind of heightened consciousness, or subjectivity, that an animal

Hoping in the Face of Evil 237 needs to possess in order to engage in saint-making in heaven is so radically different from the kind of consciousness that even the most cognitively advanced animals possess in this life that it is doubtful an animal could survive the cognitive “upgrade” needed to obtain it. Regardless of whether an animal possesses a soul, or “thisness” that individuates it, the process of deification an animal would have to undergo to engage in saint-making would be so “mind-blowing” that, again, there would be no way for it to survive as the individual it once was. This is why I think Schneider’s proposal of divine defeat and so redemption of the evils of animal suffering, even if only partially fleshed out, is more plausible. It is more likely that a being with a sentient nature, and the native cognitive and appetitive powers it possesses, will be able to possess heavenly happiness at least partly constituted by the recognition that they are being honored and praised, even if they do not know why. And even if animals cannot recognize and subjectively appropriate that honor and praise, it does seem possible (at least) to conceive of them as martyrs who underwent Christ-like suffering in their earthly lives (in service to God’s larger plan), which essentially contributes to their being martyrs and so attaining heavenly lives replete with such admiration and praise. And so, given how Schneider conceives of animal redemption, I suppose it is at least possible for a person S to hope in God that God will redeem all of the evil that animals suffer in their earthly lives within the context of their heavenly lives, even if God cannot bring animals to recognize and willingly embrace all that God did to afford them fully redeemed lives. Perhaps, though, it is not possible for God to afford animals such lives, or not within his plan to afford them such lives. There is still reason to doubt, for example, that animals are or will become martyrs, as Schneider conceives of it. The distinguishing feature of martyrs is the self-sacrificial love they possess and exemplify in their suffering (on my view, either explicitly or anonymously), and an animal, as a nonrational being (who does not possess an intellect or will), cannot possess or exemplify such love, whether in their earthly lives or in their heavenly lives. Furthermore (as I briefly discussed in Section 3.4), simply by bringing an animal back to life and enabling it to live a flourishing life in heaven, God honors it in a way, and shows his great goodness to the animal, even though he does not redeem the evil it suffered within the context of its own life. An animal life in which all of the evil that marks that life is engulfed, or enormously outweighed, by the great good of life lived eternally with God is still an enormously good life, which also in its own way contributes to the manifestation of God’s goodness within the created order.38 Therefore, I suggest that insofar as it is possible that animals, and not just human beings, will attain and enjoy eternal life with God (albeit in a way that is unique to the kinds of beings that they are) then it also is possible for S to hope in God, in the face of so much animal

238  Hoping in the Face of Evil suffering, that God will afford all (at least sentient) animals enormously good lives in which all of the evil that marks those respective lives is engulfed by the great good of life lived eternally with God. In making these speculative claims, I am, of course, going beyond Aquinas in several important respects. First, I am challenging, or at least modifying, Aquinas’s claim that animals cannot enjoy eternal happiness. With Aquinas, I think that an animal, by virtue of lacking a rational nature, cannot enjoy the beatific vision, and so full heights of heavenly beatitude, which is reserved for rational beings alone. But I see no reason to deny that animals as sentient beings, who, like us, possess cognitive and appetitive powers, and who engage the world on a decidedly experiential level, are capable of engaging or relating to God on that level in heaven (perhaps with suitably enhanced sensory powers), or at least inhabiting a heavenly environment, and renewed earthly environment, that provides maximal enjoyment for animals qua sentient beings who engage their world experientially.39 Granted, if heaven and the new earth are to remain evil-free and so suffering-free zones, then God must either structure these environments in a way that animals are unable to cause one another harm, or enable them to continue to realize their God-given natures in a way that does not involve causing one another harm. As I argued in Chapter 3 (Section 3.1), there is goodness in a lion fulfilling its nature as a predator, which is why God included lions, and so leonine predatory activity, within his creation in the first place. But there is arguably also goodness in a lion—once having fulfilled its earthly, God-given telos—in fulfilling its telos in other ways uniquely fitted to and compatible with living a peaceable, resurrected heavenly life (per Isaiah 11:6-9).40 And so, it remains possible to hope, at least, that God, in engulfing the evil suffered by animals within the context of their own lives, will also afford them heavenly lives free from any further suffering, in a way consistent with his original creative design, and thus animals’ flourishing as the creatures God made them to be. All of this presupposes, of course, that it is within the realm of the metaphysically possible for God to bring numerically the same animal back to life and afford it a resurrected life in which it never suffers or has to die again. Again, Aquinas seems to think that when the substantial form of the animal as a form-matter composite is gone (the animal having died), the animal has lost its identity for good, and even God (it seems) cannot bring it back as the individual it once was. However—and this brings me to my second main point—I think there is room for challenging this claim as well. As I noted in Chapter 6 (Section 6.2), Aquinas himself says, in reflecting on the bodily resurrection of human beings, that while “what was corrupted cannot be restored with a numerical identity” by nature’s power, “the divine power remains the same even when things are corrupted, [and so] it can restore the corrupted to integrity.”41 I do not see any reason why this claim cannot be extended to

Hoping in the Face of Evil 239 include God’s restoring corrupted animals “to integrity.” Aquinas, moreover, never gives any explicit argument in defense of the claim that God cannot restore the same animal qua form-matter composite to life after it has died. And so, even if an animal lacks an immaterial and incorruptible soul, and is therefore just a physical organism, there is no compelling reason, I think, to hold that God absolutely cannot restore the same animal to life, no matter how “gappy” its existence may prove to be, and then preserve it from any further suffering or death (say, by way of a unique exercise of his power, since an animal body is not informed by a glorified, life-giving soul). Dougherty speculates about how God might resurrect an animal, even if it lacks a non-physical soul. But, I think it is possible, even reasonable, to believe that God can resurrect animals even if we have we have no philosophically satisfactory theory that explains how bodily identity for an animal across temporal gaps is possible.42 And so, it is possible to hope that God will exercise his perfect power, goodness, and love in resurrecting all (at least sentient) animals and affording them enormously good, evil-free heavenly lives. My final third main point and modification of Aquinas concerns the scope of charity or love. Aquinas says that while we can love an animal out of charity insofar as we will its goodness for ourselves, or for God (whom we love), we cannot will its good for its own sake. Nor does God love animals for their own sakes, but loves them, as he loves all things, “not in such a way that he wills happiness for them, but by directing them to himself and to other beings that can attain happiness.”43 However, as I just argued, even if animals cannot enjoy the beatific vision, which is reserved for rational creatures, it still seems possible that (at least sentient) animals will be able to enjoy eternal life with God and so flourish in their heavenly lives on an experiential level. And this means that we can, in turn, will that they attain that great good: a future, possible, and arduous (supernatural) good that only God can enable them to attain. And so, presuming that at least in this respect, one is able to love animals out of charity, then one is able to hope in God for them as well. That God does not will supernatural happiness for animals is also a claim that it is difficult to establish. If we knew that animals were incapable of attaining any kind of supernatural happiness, then obviously we would know that God does not (because he cannot) will it for them. But we don’t know that animals are incapable of attaining such happiness, so we cannot be sure that God does not will it for them. Beyond this, the fact that animals lived and flourished for millions of years before we even existed strongly suggests that God has a relationship with animals that is not mediated by his relationship with us. And so, perhaps God does have a loving plan for (at least sentient) animals that includes affording them enormously good heavenly lives (or, possibly, even lives in which evil has been redeemed). This means that it is indeed possible, when confronting the fact that so many animals have suffered throughout our

240  Hoping in the Face of Evil cosmic history, to hope in God that God will afford (at least sentient) animals these lives as one also hopes that God will redeem all evil within his good world in the end. At this point, we have reached what I think are the limits, or near limits, of what it is possible to hope for (exercising the theological virtue of hope) in the face of evil. Perhaps one could press even further, arguing that it is also possible to hope that God will restore all living things— both sentient and nonsentient, living things—to new life, in the new heaven and new earth, as part of exercising cosmic hope, which would entail exercising a truly cosmically universal form of hope. Or, one also could argue that it is possible to hope that God will fill the new heaven and new earth will kinds and levels of new beings, in addition to restoring the beings who suffered evil in their earthly lives to new life. What I have argued in this chapter so far certainly permits this: for those who believe in a God of infinite power, goodness, and love, almost anything is possible! Moving ahead, though, I want to explore another important topic—the rationality of hoping in the face of evil—that is related to the topic of what it is permissible to hope for in the face of evil. It is to that task that I now turn.

7.4  The rationality of hoping in the face of evil Is it rational to place one’s hope in God in the face of evil? This is an important question, since I think and have argued that exercising the virtue of theological hope in the face of evil enables one to confront or respond to it successfully. And surely, one cannot confront or respond to evil successfully if the hope one exercises in the face of such evil is irrational. In what follows, then, I am going to reflect on the rationality of hope, and show how exercising the theological virtue of hope meets both a broad standard of rationality and what I claim is a more specific standard of rationality, since exercises of theological hope are (certainly on a Thomistic view) grounded in rational exercises of theological faith. I doing so, I thereby further buttress my claim that exercising theological hope in the face of evil does enable one to confront or respond to evil successfully. To begin, it’s helpful to consider a specific case of S’s hoping that p, where it seems to be at least minimally rational for S to hope that p. Say a cancer patient has been told by multiple experts within the medical community that, given the nature and extent of her extremely debilitated physical condition (the cancer is ravaging her body), she very likely only has a few weeks to live. Even if this person possesses strong reason for thinking that she will die within a few weeks, it does not seem unreasonable for her to hope that she will be cured of her cancer, and make a full recovery, since, despite what the medical community has told her, it is not outside the bounds of what is physically possible for her to be

Hoping in the Face of Evil 241 cured and go on to live a cancer-free, healthy life (as unlikely as this may be). And so, insofar as it is reasonable for this person to believe that it really is physically possible she will be cured—and it certainly seems to be—then it is reasonable for her to hope that she will be cured. We actually can go even farther. Andrew Chignell has suggested that we place the following very broad rational constraint on hope: (H) S’s hope that p is rational only if S is not in a position to be certain that p is really impossible.44 Based on what I have argued so far in this chapter, particularly in the previous section, I think that (H), while admittedly very permissive about what constitutes rational hope (as a necessary condition for rational hope), still captures something basic about the rationality of hope, generally speaking. Surely, if S is in a position to be certain that p is really impossible—that is, metaphysically impossible—then while S may want or desire for p to be true, S cannot reasonably hope that p. Key here, I think, is S’s own epistemic position vis-à-vis p. Even if p concerns a state of affairs that really is metaphysically impossible, if S is not in a position to be certain that p is true, then, from S’s perspective, p really is possible. And if p really is possible from S’s perspective, it remains rational for S to hope that p. For example—thinking now of theological hope—say the object of S’s hope, expressed in propositional form, is God will raise animals from the dead. Presuming that S is not in a position to be certain that this proposition p is really impossible, and (I would add) presumably never could be in a position (at least in this life) to be certain that p is really impossible, then S’s hope that p is rational, even if p really is impossible. Granted, if S doesn’t believe that p is at least possibly true—S must think that it really is possible that God will raise animals from the dead—then S cannot hope that p. But presuming that S does believe that p is at least possibly true, then it is possible for S to hope that p, and for S’s hope that p to be rational. Similar things can be said about S’s hoping in the face of evil that God will redeem all of the evil in which all human beings participate, within the context of their own lives. Perhaps p is false, given that God’s eternal will to save is not truly universal. Moreover, taking into account the divine will, which cannot be altered, p is really impossible. But S does not know this, nor could S, or anyone else, be certain (I don’t think) that p is really impossible. For all S or anyone else knows, God’s will to save is truly universal. Therefore, presuming that S believes that it is at least possibly true that p, then it is not only possible for S to hope that p, but it is also rational for S to hope that p. I also think that S’s hope that p, where p concerns any of the aforementioned propositions concerning God’s work to redeem (and engulf)

242  Hoping in the Face of Evil evil, is rational in an even deeper or more profound sense. Theological hope does not operate in a vacuum: it presupposes, and relies upon, a whole host of beliefs that the hopeful person possesses about God. Most obviously, theological hope presupposes belief in God. And, based on what I argued in Chapter 2, there is a strong reason to think that God exists: since evil exists, then God also exists. This means that S is not only rational in hoping that p insofar as S is not in a position to be certain that God’s existence is really impossible. S actually has very good reason for thinking that God really does exist. Therefore, I think that on a most basic level, S’s theological hope that p is rational in the following sense: since there is very good reason to think that God exists, S has real reason to hope that p. S’s hope is rationally (epistemically) justified, we might say, given that S’s belief in God’s existence is rationally (epistemically) justified. But of course, as I have described it, exercising theological hope consists of hoping that God will redeem (and engulf) evil in ways specifically informed by Christian teaching. As Aquinas points out, faith precedes hope, and so hope presupposes and relies upon faith: the objects of hope, eternal happiness, and the divine help needed to attain such happiness, “are proposed to us by faith, through which we come to know that we are able to attain eternal life and that God’s help has been prepared for us.”45 Consequently, insofar as it is rational to believe in faith that God is able and willing to save, it is rational to hope that God will, indeed, save oneself and others. And insofar as it is rational to believe in faith that God will redeem evil, it is rational to hope that God will redeem evil: indeed, all evil. The rationality of hope is grounded even more deeply in the rationality of faith. And why is faith rational, at least from a Christian and more narrowly Thomistic epistemological perspective? Following Aquinas, I think that the theological virtue of faith is a divinely infused disposition to form true beliefs about God, or attain the truth about God, as it is has been revealed by God in the sacred teaching of the Christian faith (what Aquinas calls sacra doctrina). More specifically, God moves the person of faith to believe the truths that God has revealed, about God himself as the First Truth (prima veritas), by working internally in the believer, through both his intellect and his will. By the divinely infused habit (habitus) or “light of faith” (lumen fidei), Aquinas says, “the human mind is directed to assent to such things as are becoming to a right faith, and not to assent to others.”46 So while unbelievers remain in ignorance regarding matters of faith, even when they hear them proclaimed to them, “the faithful, on the other hand, know them, not as by demonstration, but by the light of faith which makes them see that they ought to believe them.”47 In other words, while the light of faith does not enable the person of faith to “see” the truth that the propositions of faith express (and which exceeds what the intellect can grasp, even as empowered by

Hoping in the Face of Evil 243 grace), it does enable the person of faith to recognize or discern, immediately or non-inferentially, what propositions have been revealed by God, and therefore, as divine revelations, are worthy of belief. Aquinas further says that the light of faith “does not move us by way of the intellect, but rather by way of the will,”48 since, in expressing the truth about God (which remains “unseen”), the propositions of faith also express the truth about the will’s “end”: they depict God as the object of the believer’s supernatural beatitude, the guarantor of eternal life. Consequently, also under the influence of God’s grace, and empowered by an infused habit, the will moves the believer’s intellect to assent to the propositions of faith, since it is drawn to the “last end” that those propositions depict as a great good, or God himself as the Good. “Faith,” Aquinas says, “which is a gift of grace, inclines one to believe, by giving him a certain affection for the good, even when that faith is lifeless,” or devoid of love.49 This inclination is, in turn, amplified by love, which Aquinas claims is the true “form” of faith. He writes: “Now it is evident from what has been said … that the act of faith is directed to the object of the will, i.e. the good, as to its end: and this good which is the end of faith, viz. the divine good (bonum divinum), is the proper object of charity. Therefore charity is called the form of faith in so far as the act of faith is perfected and formed by charity.”50 Accordingly, Aquinas argues that God infuses the habit of faith in the intellect in order to direct the intellect to himself as the First Truth. So God directs the intellect to himself as the First Truth by empowering the intellect to assent to revealed truths about God, as expressed by the propositions of faith. That is to say, God extends the cognitive “range” of what the intellect considers to be worthy objects of belief: the propositions of faith, which the intellect recognizes to constitute revelation from God. Additionally, since the intellect assents to divine truth (which, again, remains “unseen”) with the aid of the will, God infuses a habit in the will, which, in turn, draws the intellect to assent to divine truth as a desired good, especially in love. Perhaps most importantly, then, by working internally in the intellect as well as the will, God ultimately causes and motivates faith’s assent to divine truth by way of directing and drawing or inviting and inclining the intellect to assent through the will, proposing divine truth (and thus himself) as a worthy object of belief and as a good to be desired and loved. At God’s invitation, then—really, on the basis of God’s invitation, or what Aquinas calls the “inward instinct of the divine invitation (interiori instinctu Dei invitantis)”51—the faithful person assents to and so believes the truths of Christian teaching. And it is because the faithful person assents to and so believes those propositional truths on the basis of God’s invitation, or God’s own authority, that his act of faith, and the beliefs he holds in faith, are decidedly rational, or rationally grounded.

244  Hoping in the Face of Evil To say, then, that S’s faith-beliefs all rationally grounded, is to say that S has formed those beliefs on the basis of a truth-conducive ground: a ground (qua internal, psychological state) that guides and influences S in such a way as to form and hold true rather than false beliefs.52 The divine, authoritative invitation, or inward instinct to believe, is clearly truth-conducive, insofar as it draws S—or perhaps better, God draws S through it—to form beliefs about God whose content is the truth that God has revealed. In fact, since it is God who directs and draws S to believe the truth that God has revealed, then S’s faith-beliefs are based on a ground that is infallibly truth-conducive. Especially in the case of formed faith, where the virtues of faith and love perfect the intellect and will respectively, there is a guarantee that those beliefs are true, on the condition that they are so based, since it is God who is inviting and inclining S to believe and God cannot fail in directing and drawing S to himself as the True and the Good. This also means that S’s hope that p, where p concerns S’s redemption, and the redemption of others, and even the whole world, while not itself infallible (S could be wrong about the scope of God’s redemptive work, for example) is based on God’s infallible truth concerning God himself as Redeemer, which S believes on the basis of God’s infallible invitation to believe the truth God has revealed about himself as Redeemer. S’s hope is therefore rationally grounded in the rationally grounded, true beliefs about God as Redeemer that S has formed and continues to hold in faith. So that I may illustrate this, consider, for example, S’s hope that God will redeem all of the evil in which S participates within the context of S’s own life. On the Thomistic model I am proposing, S’s hope that p is rational since it is rational for S to believe (and S does believe) in faith that God is able and willing to redeem evil within the context of individual human lives. Or, even more specifically: S’s hope that p is rational insofar as it is rational for S to believe that p; and it is rational for S to believe that p insofar as it is rational for S to believe (as S does believe) in faith that God is able and willing to redeem evil within the context of individual human lives. Similarly, S’s hope that God will redeem all of the evil in which all human beings participate, within the context of their own lives is rational since it is rational for S to believe that God is able and willing to redeem evil within the context of individual human lives. Moreover, it is rational for S to hope that p, where p concerns God’s truly universal will to redeem all evil within the context of all individual human lives, insofar as it is rational for S to believe in faith that God loves all human beings. And so, even if S does not believe that p, but only that it is possible that p, it remains rational for S to hope that p given the faith-beliefs about God and his redemptive work that S holds, which qua faith-beliefs are themselves rationally grounded. Likewise, I think it is rational for S to hope that God will afford all (at least sentient) animals enormously good lives in which all of the evil

Hoping in the Face of Evil 245 that marks those respective lives is engulfed by the great good of life lived eternally with God since it is rational for S to believe in faith that God is all-powerful, all-good, as well as all-just and all-loving toward all inhabitants of his creation, including animals. Perhaps, here, in hoping that p, S also believes that p; and it is rational for S to believe that p since it is rational for S to hold in faith that God exercises perfect power, goodness, justice, and love in relating to his creation, including his animal creation. But even if S does not believe that p, but only that it is possible that p, it is still rational for S to hope that p given what S believes about God and his creative and redemptive work within his good world. Thus, even if what we hope for—for example, God’s affording all human beings ultimately good lives, and all (at least sentient) animals enormously good lives—is in fact not part of God’s redemptive plan, it is still rational to hope that it is. While faith does not tell us how far God’s plan of redemption extends, it does tell us that God is able and willing to redeem evil: that it is not merely possible that God is able and willing to redeem evil, but that it is true that God is able and willing to redeem evil; indeed, all evil, both cosmically and within the context of individual human lives. And even if, as I think, faith does not specifically or unambiguously tell us that God will afford animals eternal life, and so engulf (and perhaps even redeem) all of the evil that they suffer, it does tell us that God is perfectly powerful, just, and loving, and that God exercises perfect power, justice, and love in governing his creation, including, of course, his animal creation. As I conclude this section of this chapter, and move closer to concluding this book, let me briefly say a couple more things on behalf of the rationality of theological hope. First, since I don’t think that the faithful person must have arguments in order to rationally believe what he does—his faith-beliefs are based on the internal evidence of God’s own, authoritative invitation to believe, which inclines him to believe— then the hopeful person exercising a robust faith does not need to have arguments in order to rationally hope as he does. Another way of putting this, in contemporary epistemological parlance, is that faith-beliefs in my Thomistic view are properly basic, reasonably and responsibly held on the basis of God’s inwardly perceived, authoritative witness concerning God’s revealed truth and not any other beliefs or arguments concerning such truth.53 Granted, as I already have suggested, some of what the hopeful person believes concerning the objects of hope may not themselves may be properly basic. But those beliefs—beginning with one’s belief about one’s own redemption—ultimately will be based on faith-beliefs, or the deliverances of the virtue of faith, which are themselves properly basic. And so, hoping in God in the face of evil is rational even if the hopeful person is unable to justify what it is he hopes for, and believes in support of what he hopes for. God, in effect, already has done that for him.

246  Hoping in the Face of Evil Second, since I already have said that theological hope is at least partially justified (epistemically speaking) since there is good philosophical reason for thinking that God exists, I certainly think that it is possible and, more than that, desirable (though, I don’t think strictly necessary) for the hopeful person to procure further epistemic support—reasons and evidence both internal and external to the Christian faith—for what he specifically believes about God in faith. Aquinas states that there are arguments (often referred to as “credibility arguments”) available to the person of faith that support the content of Christian teaching, and which therefore can help the believer increase the positive epistemic status of what he believes in faith (without of course, causing him to “see” the truth of those beliefs).54 Moreover, the scope of God’s work to redeem evil in particular remains a matter of real philosophical and theological debate. Consequently, the more the hopeful person is able to provide reasons in support of his belief, say, that it really is possible that God will afford each and every human being an ultimately good life, or, that it really is possible that God will resurrect animals and afford them enormously good (and possibly redeemed) heavenly lives, the more reasons he acquires for hoping that God will afford each and every human being an ultimately good life and God will resurrect animals and afford them enormously good (and possibly redeemed) heavenly lives. And the more rational his hope, the more successful, I think, the hopeful person will be in confronting or responding to all of the evil that he faces, because he will confront such evil armed not only with hope but also reasons he has acquired in support of his hope. He also will become more successful in confronting or responding to those who doubt that he possesses a rational hope. With Scripture, I agree that one should “always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks for a reason for [one’s] hope,”55 including, of course, the powerful hope in God that one exercises in the face of evil.

7.5 Conclusion The main goal of this chapter has been to extend my Thomistic theodicy in order to address the decidedly practical issue of how we should confront or respond to the evil that we face, both in our own lives and in the lives of others. Drawing on Aquinas’s conception of hope as a theological virtue, I have argued that it is both possible and reasonable to hope in God in the face of evil. According to the philosophical and theological worldview in which both Aquinas and I operate, only God is able and willing to redeem all evil in the end. And so, ultimately, it is only by hoping in God—trusting fully in God’s plan to redeem evil for oneself and others, even the whole world—that one is able to confront or respond to evil successfully, as difficult, even grueling, as it may be to face. Or, more specifically, it is only by hoping in God to redeem all evil that one is able to confront or respond to all of the evil one faces successfully.

Hoping in the Face of Evil 247 This account of hoping in the face of evil therefore presumes that all of that I have argued throughout this book in constructing and defending a Thomistic theodicy is, in fact, true. Most obviously, it is because God exists, and is the highest good, that we are able to hope in God to redeem all evil. Moreover, it is because God is sovereign over everything that occurs within his good world that we are able to hope in God to redeem all evil. Evil only exists in God’s good world because he has made so much good, and the specific evils that do exist only exist because God wills that specific goods exist. This means that each and every evil that exists only exists because God has willed to include it within his good world. And, ultimately, God only wills to include evil within his good world that he possesses an infallible plan to solicit good from, thereby redeeming evil, both cosmically and within the context of individual lives. This includes, of course, the Fall: our original fall into sin obtains only because God permissively wills that it obtain. And God only permissively wills that it obtain because he possesses an infallible plan to bring good—indeed, ultimate good—out of it, both cosmically and within the context of individual human lives. This means when we look into our own lives, and the lives of others, and see so much suffering and sin, we should recognize both that we are fallen beings and that we have the hope of redemption, given that, per Christian teaching, it is God’s will to redeem sinners. Therefore, sin and suffering are simply not the final word for us human beings. However much we sinfully depart from God’s good will for our lives, or suffer greatly in our lives, we can and even should hope that God will find a way to redeem our fallenness: ordering all of our participation in evil as fallen beings to our ultimate good, which is an evil-free life lived eternally with God. This includes hoping that whatever evil God does not redeem for us in this life he will redeem for us in the next life, and that all of the suffering we undergo, whether in this life or the postmortem state of purgatory, will be redemptive for us. Certainly, it may seem difficult for those who affirm that there is a hell to hope in God to redeem all evil in the end. But, as I have argued, hope includes not only fully trusting in God to bring us to heaven but also to redeem whatever evil obtains in hell. If there is a hell populated by human beings, it only exists because God permissively wills that it exist, as a result of concurring with the human choice to fall irreparably into sin. And so, it is both possible and reasonable to hope not only that heaven will be filled with human beings who possess ultimately good, fully redeemed lives, but also that the world, in the end, only will contain sinners within it, who, having failed to attain those lives, are justly punished by God. If there are human beings who are in hell or who will end up in hell, we also can and even should hope that, despite whatever punishment and so suffering these persons endure in hell, they will still live lives that are objectively worth living for all eternity. Even in hell,

248  Hoping in the Face of Evil God’s goodness reigns; and even a world that contains a populated hell will turn out to be, per the directives of divine providence, ultimately good in the end. Perhaps, though, there is no unrepented sin in the end; and that God redeems whatever sin that obtains in our lives within the context of our lives, both in this life and in the postmortem state of purgatory. Moreover, perhaps God redeems all of the evil that we each suffer, whether in this life or in purgatory, within the context of our respective lives, thereby affording all of us fully redeemed lives. This is the hope that I possess: that our fully redeemed world will contain not only fully redeemed human lives but a fully redeemed human race or community, whose members all possess sin-free and suffering-free heavenly lives perfected by the knowledge and love of God. I also hope that our fully redeemed world will contain resurrected animals whose lives manifest the goodness and love of God, even if they do not themselves live lives perfected by the knowledge and love of God. In the end, then, all of my efforts to construct and defend a robust Thomistic theodicy constitute an exercise in the virtue of hope. Although I spent significant time explaining how I think God redeems all evil, and so populates his evil-ridden world with redeeming good (thereby demonstrating his perfect goodness, power, wisdom, love, mercy, and justice within his world), I of course do not see, or pretend to see, all of the ways that God redeems evil and so populates his evil-ridden world with redeeming good. None of us do. But shouldn’t we hope that God will enable us to see, in perfect knowledge, and freely embrace, in perfect love, all of the ways that God redeemed all evil in the end, bringing about a cosmos which, taken as a whole, is good and perfect as well as beautiful in the end, despite all of the evil that occurs within it? That, too, is my hope. In sum, it is my hope that the Thomistic theodicy I proffered in this book not only has granted us at least a partial vision of how God, as our highest good, redeems evil, but that, when we see God “face to face” the partial vision it offers us will give way to perfect knowledge, and a perfect knowledge aflame with love.

Notes 1 Chad Meister writes, “With respect to the existential problem of evil it is important to note that the ‘problem’ here is not really an argument at all, and thus is not in need of a logical, rational response” (Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed, 12; italics in the original text). Of course, I don’t think that the traditional “problem of evil” is really a problem either (since affirming the existence of evil leads us to affirm the existence of God). Furthermore, I do think that it is important to think about how we ought to confront or respond to the evil we face, which includes offering “a logical, rational response” to the practical or existential challenge that evil poses. This is why I develop and defend a theological account of hoping in the face of evil in this chapter.

Hoping in the Face of Evil 249 2 Quaestio disputata de spe 1. Translation in Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Virtue, 205–6. 3 ST II-II.17.1 4 See ST II.17.5. 5 The way I have described it, Aquinas’s account therefore builds on what Claudia Bloeser and Titus Stahl call the “standard account” of hope, “which analyzes ‘hope that  p’ in terms of a wish or desire for  p  and a belief concerning  p’s possibility.” See Bloeser and Stahl, “Hope,”  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2022 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/hope/. 6 ST I-II.3.1. 7 SCG IV.86. 8 In Rom. 5.1. 9 “It is clear that hope is a virtue,” Aquinas writes, “since it makes a man’s act good and makes it attain to the appropriate rule” (ST II-II.17.1). 10 ST II-II.21.4. 11 ST II-II.21.1. 12 ST II-II.20.1. 13 ST II-II.20.3. 14 ST II-II.17.5 ad 2. 15 ST II-II.17.5. 16 ST II.II.17.3. 17 See DV 6.5; see also DC 8 ad 9, where Aquinas says that “we ought to love the reprobate who are not yet damned with a view to their attaining eternal life, because this is not established as far as we are concerned.” 18 The way Aquinas understands reprobation (in ST I.23.3), it consists not of God positively ordaining or willing that anyone be damned but God’s permitting some to damn themselves, or fall permanently away from God as their final end. God’s reprobating some therefore also consists of not willing them the particular, supernatural good gift of eternal life (ST I.23.3 ad 1). 19 Joseph G. Trabbic, “Can Aquinas Hope ‘That All Men Be Saved’?” The Heythrop Journal 57 (2016), 351. Italics are in the original text. Trabbic refers to this latter hope as “Balthasar’s hope” (ibid.). 20 The hope here also would be that it is not just God’s antecedent will that all be saved (as Aquinas claims), but also that it is God’s consequent or actual will that all be saved. Again, while Aquinas thinks that it is God’s consequent will that not all be saved, I don’t see why it’s not permissible to think that it is at least possible, and so also to hope, that it is God’s consequent will (and not just his antecedent will) that all will be saved. 21 Luke 23:43 (NABRE). 22 Trabbic considers the question whether it is also a duty to hope for all, since, on Aquinas’s view, it is a precept of charity to love our neighbors, including our enemies. He claims that both “a possibility and duty to hope for all can be found in Aquinas” (“Can Aquinas Hope ‘That All Men Be Saved’?” 352), though the “all” must be interpreted as a non-universal all, given Aquinas’s teaching on reprobation. I’m inclined to agree with Trabbic, but won’t discuss further whether it is a duty to hope for others, since I think—given the ubiquity of evil—we should want to do so in love. 23 See Romanus Cessario, “The Theological Virtue of Hope (IIa IIae, qq. 17-22),” The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen J. Pope (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 240. 24 ST II-II.20.3. 25 Romans 8:24 (NABRE).

250  Hoping in the Face of Evil 26 Perhaps one might argue that this simply will not be within the cognitive purview of the blessed: the depths of God’s work to redeem all evil will be too difficult to fathom. But it seems to me that if the blessed see all of God in the beatific vision, even if though do not comprehend all that they see, they still can see all that God did to redeem evil, even if they don’t comprehend all that they see: say, why God chose to redeem evil in the way that he did, which would require plummeting the depths of the divine mind. They may still grasp some of why God chose to redeem evil in the way that he did. I won’t speculate on these matters further here. 27 Aquinas says “it is appropriate for both God and us to love the good of the universe out of charity above all” (DC 7 ad 5) though, not for its own sake, but as directed to God and “God’s glory” (DC 7). 28 DC 7. 29 Ibid. 30 ST supp. III.91.5; cf. SENT IV.48.2.5. 31 Dougherty, The Problem of Animal Pain, 175. 32 Ibid., 144. 33 Ibid., 181. 34 Schneider, Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil, 267. 35 Ibid., 268. 36 Dougherty, The Problem of Animal Pain, 149. 37 Ibid., 153. 38 As a reminder, I’m borrowing this term from Marilyn Adams. 39 As Shawn Graves, Blake Hereth, and Tyler M. John argue, perhaps sentience is all an animal needs in order to “take pleasure in heaven” (“In Defense of Animal Universalism,” eds. T. Ryan Byerly and Eric J. Silverman, Paradise Understood: New Philosophical Essays about Heaven [New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017], 180). 40 In reflecting on animal redemption, David L. Clough suggests, for example, that “cats might retain their interest in birds but lose their desire to capture and consume them, with birds being receptive of the appreciative interest in them without having to be fearful of it being driven by any ulterior motive” (On Animals: Volume One: Systematic Theology [London, UK: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012], 162). Perhaps there are other ways, too, of imagining how animals might peaceably live with one another in their resurrected state, while still realizing aspects of their God-given nature. That God chose not to create animals in this peaceable state from the start follows, in my Thomistic view, from the claim that predatory animals, for example, cannot fully realize their God-given natures unless they are allowed to prey, thereby fulfilling their earthly teloi. There is unique goodness in a lion fulfilling its nature in preying on a gazelle, just as there is unique goodness in its fulfilling its nature in other ways compatible with living peaceably with gazelles in heaven (or on the new earth). 41 SCG IV.81. 42 See also Section 6.2 in which I discuss bodily resurrection for human beings. 43 DC 7 ad 2. 44 Andrew Chignell, “Rational Hope, Moral Order, and the Revolution of the Will,” The Divine Order, the Human Order, and the Order of Nature: Historical Perspectives, ed. Eric Watkins (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013), 206. 45 ST II-II.17.7. 46 ST II-II.1.4 ad 3.

Hoping in the Face of Evil 251 47 ST II-II.1.5 ad 1. 48 Expositio super librum Boethii De trinitate 3.1 ad 4. Translation in Thomas Aquinas, Faith, Reason, and Theology: Questions I-IV of his Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, trans. Armand Maurer (Toronto, Canada: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1987). 49 ST II-II.5.2 ad 2. 50 ST II-II.4.3. 51 ST II-II.2.9 ad 3. 52 William P. Alston deems such a ground “adequate”: a ground on which a given belief is based (and which also sustains that belief) is adequate if it entails the probable truth of that belief, on the condition that the belief is based on that ground. See Alston’s Beyond “Justification”: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 2005), 99. 53 John I. Jenkins, most notably, has argued this, offering a “supernatural externalist” interpretation of Aquinas’s epistemology of faith in Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997). My own reading of Aquinas is both internalist and externalist, since I think that the faithful person’s coming to believe the propositions of faith, and what is entailed by them, while based on a truth-conducive ground, is also guided by a truth-conducive process of belief formation, namely, God’s directing and drawing the faithful person to assent to the propositions of faith on the basis of God’s own authoritative witness to the faithful person regarding the truth expressed by the propositions of faith. I discuss this all at greater length in Chapter 5 of my Knowledge and the Transcendent: An Inquiry into the Mind’s Relationship to God (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009). See also my “The Epistemology of Faith in Augustine and Aquinas,” Augustine and Philosophy, eds. Phillip Cary, John Doody, and Kim Paffenroth (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 167–96. 54 See in particular SCG 1.6. 55 I Peter 3:15 (NABRE).

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Index

accounting conception of good and evil 69, 71, 197, 200–1 Adams, Marilyn McCord 85, 94n33, 144, 172n1, 198–9, 214n69, 250n38 Adams, Robert Merrihew 26, 54n17 Alexander, David E. 18n9, 29, 55n30, 86, 89 Alston, William P. 251n52 angels 65; fallen 132n1, 210–11; see also Fall, the, angelic animal afterlife 84–5, 191, 234–9, 250n39, 250n40 animal suffering see suffering, animal annihilation 33, 202 anonymous Christians 153 anonymous martyrs see martyrs, anonymous anonymous redemptive sufferers 153, 156–9, 171, 175n41, 228, 229–30 Anselm 137n96 antecedent will see God’s will, antecedent and consequent appetites 101–2, 111, 147–8, 218–9, 237–8; see also passions Aquinas, Thomas: on animals 85, 234, 236, 238–9; on beatitude 129, 173n12, 173n15, 180–3, 211, 220; on Christ 132n4, 161, 175n53; on creation 62–6, 75, 80, 93n4, 94n29, 134n34, 138n102; on God, suffering, and evil 2–3, 11, 41–3, 52, 68–9, 71–2, 78, 87, 140–1, 144, 151, 166, 220; on God’s existence 3–4, 16, 21, 45, 52n2, 95n45; on God’s knowledge 97n76, 174n40; on God’s nature 13–14, 61, 94n34, 190, 207; on God’s providence 80, 129; on God’s will

75, 127–8, 249n20; on original justice, the Fall, and original sin 101–5, 107–12, 115, 118, 120–2, 124, 129, 132, 133n9, 133n10, 133n17, 134n20, 134n23, 134n24, 137n90, 137n91, 137n97, 175n54; on predestination 12, 166–70, 200, 204–5, 216n90, 226; on punishment 148, 159–61, 173n18, 175n48, 194, 215n75; on purgatory 162, 164; on the resurrected body 186–8; on sin and vice 117, 119, 160, 192–4, 202–3, 213n45, 222–3, 232; on the soul 107–8, 133n16, 134n39, 163, 176n63, 186–8; on virtue 138n105, 145, 150, 155, 161, 174n21, 174n22, 174n24, 174n27, 185, 215n80, 215n81, 217–220, 222, 225–6, 242–3, 246, 249n9, 249n17, 250n27 Aquinas’s Adam 106, 110–11; see also Augustinian Adam; Darwinian Adam Aristotle 36, 43 atheistic argument from evil 2–5, 22, 50–51; see also problem of evil Augustine 2, 52, 62, 71, 83, 115–6, 119, 122, 140, 195, 201–2, 204–5, 208, 215n76 Augustinian Adam 106; see also Aquinas’s Adam; Darwinian Adam Austad, Steven N. 135n39 Austriaco, Nicano Pier Giorgio 81, 95n43, 135n46 Aydede, Murat 54n23 baptism 161, 175n54 Barth, Karl 215n76

262  Index basic ethical facts 25–7, 44–5 beatific vision see beatitude beatitude 12, 105, 110, 115, 119, 123, 129–30, 135n46, 138n102, 138n106, 144–5, 157, 164, 173n12, 173n15, 176n60, 178–86, 198, 207, 211, 215n86, 220–1, 226, 229–30, 238–9, 243, 250n26 Benedict XVI 176n65 Bergmann, Michael 52n3 Bishop, John 15 Bloeser, Claudia 249n5 Bobik, Joseph 18n9 Boyd, Craig A. 95n44 Boyd, Richard 56n44 Buddhism 27, 54n20 Catechism of the Catholic Church 9 causality: dignity of 80, 129; divine see God’s causal acts; primary 86, 95n44; secondary 86, 95n44 causes: contingent 75–6, 80, 82, 86, 88, 95n44, 97n76, 97n83, 167–8, 171; necessary 75–6, 80, 82, 86, 167–8 Cessario, Romanus 249n23 charity 130, 145, 150–2, 156, 161–2, 165, 186, 221, 225, 230, 234, 239, 243, 249n22, 250n27; see also love Chignell, Andrew 241 Church 9, 162, 210, 227 Clark, Kelly James 214n70 Clayton, Barbra R. 54n20 Clough, David L. 250n40 Cobb, Aaron D. 95n44, 173n11 compatibilism 88–9 consequent will see God’s will, antecedent and consequent contingency 21, 23, 27, 74, 79–80, 127, 169–170; see also causes, contingent Copleston, F.C. 23 Craig, William Lane 30, 54n19 creation ex nihilo 190 Crisp, Oliver D. 120–6, 201–2, 205–8, 214n66, 215n76 Dahm, Brandon 176n56 damnation see punishment, eternal; reprobation Darwinian Adam 106, 111; see also Aquinas’s Adam; Augustinian Adam

Darwinian evil 79, 82–4, 86 Davies, Brian 11, 13–15, 96n66, 132n2 De Haan, Daniel D. 176n56 death 3, 29, 45, 82–3, 101–2, 104, 106–9, 125, 133n4, 133n9, 156, 158, 162–3, 171, 174n40, 187–9, 192, 201, 207–8, 210, 212n28, 217, 229–30, 239 defeat of evil 83–5, 144, 173n11, 198, 235–7 defense 1, 6–8, 15–16, 132n2 despair see hope, and despair determinism 89, 92 devil 210–11 Dharma 27, 54n20 Dougherty, Trent 153, 155, 172n1, 174n40, 235–6, 239 Dual Sources 91, 170 dualism: anthropological 114, 212n28; cosmic 28–34, 39, 43; see also soul election 83, 167, 207, 215n76; see also predestination eschatology 83–4, 178, 236 eternity see God’s eternity Evans, C. Stephen 58n72 evidence 13, 47, 51, 113, 134n35, 245–6 evolution 10, 12, 23, 31, 48, 53n6, 55n39, 57n54, 60, 78–85, 95n43, 95n44, 96n46, 100, 105–14, 125, 134n35, 134n39, 235 faith 8–10, 15, 113, 137n91, 154–7, 174n40, 205, 211, 218, 220, 227, 230, 240–6, 251n53 Fales, Evan 37–9, 57n55 Fall, the 16, 100, 104–6, 132n1, 133n10, 142, 146, 152, 207, 247; angelic, 132n1, 135n56; and divine providence 127–32; and evolutionary science 106–14; free will and 115–20 felix culpa 100, 132 First Cause, God as 80–1, 86, 91–2, 95n45, 168; see also God’s causal acts First Truth, God as 242–3 fittingness 12, 60, 66, 79–80, 94n30, 95n43, 103, 127, 143, 175n54 Flint, Thomas P. 92

Index 263 foreknowledge 94n32, 76, 82, 167, 204–5, 214n71; see also God’s knowledge forgiveness 141–2, 147, 171, 173n16, 175n42, 184, 192, 221 fortitude 102, 109, 150 Free Fall Theodicy (FFT) 99–107, 112, 114–5, 127, 132 free will: and Dual Sources see Dual Sources; libertarian 60, 89–93, 94n32, 97n74, 97n83, 99, 114, 127, 129, 131, 132n1, 167, 169–71, 183–4; reasons-constraint on 181–2 Free Will Defense 7, 132n2 Free Will Theodicy (FWT) 99, 132n2 Geach, P.T. 42 glory 77, 131, 141, 144–5, 156, 158, 164, 175n40, 175n54, 184, 200, 205, 207–10, 220, 222, 229–30; see also God’s glory God’s causal acts 86–92, 96n63, 97n83, 99, 131, 169–71, 183; see also First Cause, God as God’s eternity 76–7, 82, 86, 90, 96n63, 97n76, 156–7, 174n40 God’s glory 93n3, 250n27 God’s goodness 2–5, 10–11, 13–14, 21–4, 27, 35, 40, 45–6, 51–2, 59–73, 75, 79–85, 88, 93n3, 93n20, 94n29, 94n30, 100–1, 103, 105, 108, 111, 118, 125, 129–31, 138n102, 139, 141–5, 149–50, 153, 164, 168, 180–3, 193, 195–209, 214n70, 218, 220, 224, 227, 230, 232–5, 237, 239–40, 245, 248 God’s justice 6, 14, 100, 123–5, 127–8, 137n95, 139, 159, 165, 175n46, 176n63, 192–3, 196, 203–5, 207–8, 211, 215n75, 215n85, 245, 248 God’s knowledge 2–3, 11, 51, 61, 72–75, 94n32, 95n44, 97n76, 139, 143, 145, 153, 156, 163, 168, 211, 233, 248 God’s love 9, 14, 16, 35, 139, 143–5, 153, 165, 167, 183, 198, 203, 205, 207–8, 224, 227, 230, 239–40, 245, 248, 250n27 God’s mercy 14, 157, 165, 198, 203, 205–8, 215n85, 222, 224, 227, 230, 248

God’s necessity 26–7 God’s perfection 13, 94n29 God’s power 2–3, 26, 51, 61, 72–3, 75, 79–80, 95n44, 129, 139, 143, 145, 168–70, 172, 186, 188–91, 195, 204, 222–4, 228, 230, 238–40, 245, 248 God’s providence 11–12, 15–16, 59–60, 62–3, 68–70, 72–8, 80, 82, 86, 88, 94n32, 95n44, 100, 106, 108–9, 114, 127–132, 159, 162, 167–8, 170, 172, 178, 195, 204, 224, 230–1, 248 God’s sovereignty 60, 77, 86, 88, 91–2, 124, 130, 143, 166–7; see also God’s providence God’s ultimacy 26–7 God’s will 75, 80, 95n44, 169, 181, 204, 241; antecedent and consequent 127–8, 132, 249n20; permissive 2, 7, 15, 62, 65, 78, 87–8, 93, 99, 105, 114, 127–8, 130–2, 140–1, 144, 166, 171, 174n40, 175n54, 179, 184, 202, 249n18; see also God’s causal acts God’s ultimacy 26–7 God’s wisdom see God’s knowledge Good, the 28, 34–5, 39–40; see also God’s goodness good cosmic whole 67, 69–73, 77–9, 83, 85, 88, 93n20, 142–3, 179, 195–7, 199–200, 203, 209, 211 grace 100–3, 105–6, 108, 110–2, 120, 125–6, 129–32, 133n17, 137n95, 161–2, 165–6, 168–9, 175n41, 177n77, 200, 204–5, 207–8, 210, 215n86, 223, 228, 243 Grant, W. Matthews 7, 42, 87, 90–1, 96n63, 96n67, 97n70, 97n75, 97n80, 97n81, 132n2, 136n68, 169–70, 175n42, 177n77, 184 gratitude 84, 149–50, 235 Graves, Shawn 250n39 Haldane, J.J. 57n63, 64, 81, 96n46 happiness 15, 56n43, 84, 105, 136n69, 141, 146–7, 151, 179, 185–7, 220, 225, 234, 237–9, 242; see also beatitude Hart, David Bentley 215n89 heaven 10, 15–16, 60, 84, 97n74, 129, 145, 156–8, 162–3, 175n54, 178–191, 211, 215n86, 220, 226, 229–30, 234–5, 237–8, 240, 247,

264  Index 250n39, 250n40; see also Problem of Heavenly Freedom hell 11–12, 16, 60, 160, 166, 178–9, 191–211, 213n52, 214n64, 214n69, 214n70, 215n89, 227, 247–8 Hereth, Blake 250n39 Hick, John 57n64, 115, 119 highest good (summum bonum), God as see God’s goodness hope 11, 85, 113, 155, 159, 165, 172, 208–11, 217–8, 246–8, 249n5; for animals 234–40; cosmic 218, 232–4, 240; and despair 216n90, 222–3, 226, 231–2; for oneself in the face of evil 218–25; for others in the face of evil 225–32, 249n20, 249n22; and presumption 222–3, 231–2; and rationality 211, 224, 218, 239–6, 247 Horgan, Terence E. 53n9 Houck, Daniel W. 110, 133n17, 137n95 Howard-Snyder, Daniel 52n3 Hume, David 28–9, 57n53 humility 141–2, 149, 171, 174n21, 221 ignorance 16, 102, 104, 111, 120, 146–7, 151, 166, 193, 242 imago dei 51, 101 impeccability 178–85 intrinsic value see value, intrinsic Jenkins, John I. 251n53 Jensen, Steven J. 135n66 Jesus Christ 16, 84, 125, 132, 132n4, 151–2, 154–5, 158, 161–2, 175n41, 175n54, 206–8, 210, 215n76, 229, 235, 237 John Paul II 173n14 John, Tyler M. 250n39 Journet, Charles 130, 138n106 Judisch, Neal 175n49 justification: before God 15; epistemic 50, 242, 246; metaphysical 33; moral 13, 30, 235 justice 6, 14, 63, 78, 102, 104, 126, 150, 154, 158–61, 164–6, 171, 174n27, 179, 200–1, 208, 221, 233; see also God’s justice; original justice

justification: before God 15; epistemic 50, 242 , 246; metaphysical 33; moral 13, 30, 235

Keltz, B. Kyle 55n28 Kemp, Kenneth W. 113–4, 134n35, 135n51 kenosis 84, 95n44, 235 King, Peter 136n84 Kirkwood, Thomas B.L. 135n39 Knasas, John F.X. 16–18, 20n31 knowledge 38, 48, 102, 118, 147, 193, 209–10, 228; of God 8, 105, 111, 116–7, 130–1, 145, 147, 154–7, 170, 178, 180–1, 184–5, 187, 220, 222, 226, 229, 234, 248; of self 163–4; see also God’s knowledge Kondoleon, Theodore J. 93n14 Kretzmann, Norman 57n62, 66–7, 93n20, 94n28, 94n30 Lamont, John 69–70, 195–6, 209, 213n43 Lee, Patrick 28–9, 54n24, 55n29 Lembke, Martin 135n50 Levering, Matthew 214n71 Lewis, C.S. 173n9 Linville, Mark D. 26, 54n21, 55n39 love 15–16, 33, 115–6, 118–20, 129–31, 136n68, 140–2, 145, 150–8, 160–1, 164–6, 170–2, 172n1, 174n40, 176n65, 178, 181–5, 187, 192, 213n45, 215n80, 220–2, 225–6, 229–30, 234, 237, 243–4, 248, 249n17, 249n22, 250n27; see also charity; suffering love MacDonald, Scott 52n2, 116–7, 135n56 Mackie, J.L. 23, 46, 49, 56n45, 57n53 Magrath, Oswin 137n90 Maritain, Jacques 136n66 martyrs: 84–5, 235, 237; animal 84–5, 235, 237; anonymous 158–9 Mary 132n4 McCall, Thomas H. 137n89, 137n96 McFarland, Ian 106 Meister, Chad 58n73, 248n1 mercy 150, 154, 158, 174n27, 175n42, 184; see also God’s mercy Merricks, Trenton 190, 213n38 Molinism 74, 169 monogenism 107, 113, 135n50 moral anti-realism 46–9

Index 265 moral evil 7, 30, 44, 47, 78, 86–8, 93n14, 97n70, 99–100, 131, 132n1, 132n2, 135n66, 184; see also sin moral properties 24–6, 32–3, 38, 53n9, 53n10, 54n19, 56n44 moral realism 37–41, 54n21; see also moral properties Murray, Michael J. 7, 213n52 natural evil 5, 44, 47, 63–4, 77–8, 85, 139, 233–4; see also Darwinian evil natural theology 21 naturalism: metaphysical 23, 31, 38–41, 53n6; moral 36, 38, 56n44; scientific 54n19 necessary causes: see causes, necessary necessary truths 25, 27, 32, 38–9, 55n35, 57n55, 94n33 O’Brien, T.C. 122, 133n6 open theism 73–4, 94n32, 169 original fragility 111, 125 original guilt 106, 120–7, 136n84, 136n89, 137n96, 161 original justice 100, 101–5, 108–13, 115, 120, 122–6, 128, 130, 133n6, 133n10, 133n17, 134n20, 134n39, 137n91, 137n95, 139, 187, 207 original sin 99–106, 132n4, 133n9, 134n20, 137n90, 137n95, 175n54; see also Fall, the; original guilt pain 22–31, 54n24, 55n26, 55n28, 55n30, 106, 109–10; of loss (poena damni) 164, 194, 201, 214n64; of sense (poena sensus) 164, 201, 214n64; see also suffering particularist world 195–9, 203, 205, 211, 214n66 passions 104, 112, 147–8, 164, 187 patience 63, 78, 141, 150 Paul, St. 141, 233 penance 160, 171, 175n46 Pius XII 134n31 Plantinga, Alvin 7, 19n14 Plato 27 Polkinghorne, John 95n44 polygenism 107, 112–3, 135n50 Potts, Michael 214n63

predestination 11–12, 16, 60, 140, 166–72, 177n77, 178, 194–5, 200, 203–5, 209–10, 214n71, 216n90, 226 primary causality see causality, primary principle of credulity 47–9 privation account of evil 3–4, 13, 21, 29, 41–6, 54n24, 55n28, 55n30, 61, 87, 148 problem of evil 1, 3, 5–7, 11, 13–15, 18n3, 21–3, 50–2, 55n28, 59, 79, 83, 248n1 Problem of Heavenly Freedom 181 Problem of Paradisiacal Motivation 115 properly basic beliefs 245 providence see God’s providence punishment 148, 173n18, 175n42; and Adam’s sin 102, 105, 120–6; debt of 159–60, 176n60; and Christ 206–8; eternal 128, 179, 191–8, 201–6, 208, 210–211, 214n64, 214n70, 215n75, 233, 247; satisfactory 160–6, 175n48, 176n57, 221, 223 purgatory 16, 59, 140, 159–66, 171, 175n49, 176n57, 176n60, 176n65, 178, 208, 247–8 Rahner, Karl 153 Rea, Michael C. 133n10 ready-made world 79–81 realism: Augustinian, 122; moral see moral realism reason 9, 24, 51, 65–6, 86–7, 93n14, 101–4, 108–18, 122, 129–30, 137n90, 143, 147, 150, 157, 160, 163, 167, 181–2, 184, 187, 193, 201, 206–7, 209–11, 212n8, 219, 227, 234, 236, 238–9; see also faith; hope, and rationality; soul redemptive suffering 141–2, 208, 220–1, 223, 228–9, 232; in purgatory see purgatory; see also suffering love; Theodicy of Redemptive Suffering (TRS) repentance 141–2, 147, 154, 160–1, 169, 171, 173n9, 173n16, 175n42, 184, 192–4, 209–10, 221–3, 229, 232 reprobation 205–6, 215n75, 216n90, 226–7, 249n17, 249n18, 249n22

266  Index resurrection 162, 164, 182, 186–91, 193, 201, 212n28, 213n38, 250n42; of animals 84, 191, 234–5, 238–9, 246, 248, 250n40; of Christ 84 reverence 150, 174n21, 174n24 Rollin, Bernard E. 56n43 Rowe, William L. 3–5, 29, 55n28 Ruse, Michael 38–9, 44, 48–9, 57n54 Russell, Bertrand 53n7, 54n21 saints 141–4, 153–5, 158, 166, 169–70, 172, 178–9, 183, 186, 205, 211, 214n70, 235; animal 235–7 salvation 11–2, 15, 59, 128, 140–1, 143, 148, 151, 153, 157, 160, 166–72, 177n77, 200–1, 204, 206–7, 210–11, 215n80, 215n86, 220, 222, 226–8, 231–2 Santayana, George 54n21 Schneider, John R. 78–9, 83–5, 106–7, 110–11, 115, 119, 235–7 Scotus, John Duns 236 secondary causality see causality, secondary senescence 108 Shanley, Brian J. 135n48 sin 9, 16, 65, 77, 87, 93, 93n14, 94n34, 99, 104, 132, 135n51, 140–2, 146–9, 151, 154, 169, 171–2, 173n9, 173n16, 175n49, 176n64, 178–86, 188, 195–8, 206–11, 215n76, 217, 220–3, 229, 231–4, 247–8; angelic, 135n56; attachment to 159–66, 176n60; mortal 160, 179, 192–7, 206–11, 213n45, 213n52, 215n75; primal see Fall, the; venial 197; see also original guilt; original sin Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 30 soul 96n46, 101–4, 107–8, 111–4, 120, 133n16, 134n17, 134n39, 137n95, 147–8, 162–6, 176n56, 176n57, 176n59, 176n60, 176n63, 176n65, 182, 186–91, 193, 195–6, 201, 207–9, 212n28, 222, 230; and animals 235–7, 239 Stahl, Titus 249n5 Stump, Eleonore 14–17, 19n28, 57n62, 90, 97n74, 154–5, 174n40, 213n37, 214n65 suffering 10, 12, 15–16, 19n28, 23, 31–2, 61, 64, 68, 76, 78, 100, 104,

106, 109, 127, 133n4, 139–40, 178–80, 185–8, 192, 196–7, 201, 203, 211, 212n28, 214n70, 217, 220, 233, 247–8: animal 3, 29, 31, 35, 41, 55n28, 56n43, 63–4, 79, 83–4, 107–8, 153, 217, 235–6; see also redemptive suffering; suffering love suffering love 16, 140, 150–9, 171–2 supervenience 24–6, 31–2, 37–9, 43–4, 53n9, 53n10, 57n62 Swinburne, Richard 24, 32, 47, 53n4, 53n10, 57n64, 138n98 te Velde, Rudi A. 134n38 teleological conception of good and evil 69–71, 141, 195, 197 temporal gaps 188–91, 235, 239 theistic argument from evil 5, 21–2, 28, 30–1, 34, 36, 40–1, 49–51, 52n2, 58n72 theodicy 1–2, 5–18, 19n28, 22, 52, 59–60, 79, 83–6, 95n43, 100, 132, 140, 153, 172, 178, 211, 218, 246–8; see also Free Fall Theodicy (FFT); Free Will Theodicy (FWT); Theodicy of Redemptive Suffering (TRS) Theodicy of Redemptive Suffering (TRS) 145–54 Timpe, Kevin 116, 181–4, 212n7, 212n8, 213n52 Toner, Patrick 176n57 Trabbic, Joseph G. 227, 249n19, 249n22 Tye, Michael 54n23 ultimately good cosmic whole see good cosmic whole ultimately good life 12, 77, 140, 142–5, 147, 152, 156, 162, 170–2, 178–9, 191, 199–200, 202–4, 210–11, 220, 222–3, 226–30, 245–6 universalism 84, 166, 206–7, 209, 215n76, 215n89, 241; hope and 227–32, 240, 244, 249n22; see also universalist world universalist world 195–200, 203, 205–6, 209, 211, 214n66 value 21–3, 27, 30, 38–40, 47, 49–50, 57n66, 78, 148–9, 153,

Index 267 182, 184, 198; intrinsic 30–6, 39–41, 55n41, 56n42, 57n55, 129–30 Van Dyke, Christina 188–9, 213n35 van Inwagen, Peter 6, 8 venial sin see sin, venial von Balthasar 215n80 virtue 102, 106, 111–2, 114, 129–30, 138n105, 138n106, 140, 149–54, 160, 174n24, 174n27, 178, 182–4, 215n81, 217–22, 225, 228, 230, 232–3, 240, 242, 245–8, 249n9

Wadell, Paul J. 174n35 Wainwright, William J. 56n45 Walls, Jerry L. 175n49 White, Heath 95n38 Wielenberg, Erik J. 25–7, 33–4, 53n9, 54n19, 55n41, 56n42 wisdom 8–9, 11, 18; see also God’s knowledge Yandell, Keith E. 57n55 Zangwill, Nick 25–6, 53n16 Zeis, John 95n38