Thursday, June 11, 2020

David Conway and the Problem of Evil

In "The Philosophical Problem of Evil," David A. Conway argues that the proposition "Evil is omni-preventable" is true, regardless of whether it is necessarily or contingently true. He chides those who attempt to make modal distinctions regarding truth as necessarily or contingently true--at least, in this case he does (e.g., Alvin Plantinga).

Does modal logic have a proper role to play in analyzing the logical problem of evil? Modal logic theorizes about logical necessity, logical possibility/impossibility and moral obligations (e.g., "It is possible that P). Its effectiveness with resolving the truthfulness of certain utterances has been called into question, but I'll deal with one sample utterance to illustrate the importance of modal logic when analyzing the logical problem of evil.

Let's examine Conway's claim that the proposition "Evil is omni-preventable" is true. Quite frankly, I have reservations about his approach since the modal distinctions apparently make a big difference here. I do not believe that it will suffice to assume that the foregoing proposition is simply true without qualification (simpliciter). Why is that the case? Imagine S (a person smoking three packs of cigarettes daily) who has made a choice which could be described as "evil" (morally speaking) that leads to yet another evil or bad state of affairs, namely, lung cancer.

Granted, one might argue that God "could" have prevented S from smoking 3 packs a day and he could have prevented S from getting lung cancer by means of this "evil" habit. Yet, in order for God (the omnipotent and omniscient being of Christianity and Judaism) to prevent these two evils, it seems that God might not have created S or the world in which S lives such that S smoked three packs daily and got lung cancer; in that case, God could have prevented these evils. However, while God could have prevented such evils by not creating the world he did or by making a different kind of world, it's logically possible there are good reasons why God did not take such a course of action.

By "logical possibility," I mean "not self-contradictory" or "terminologically congruent." For example, if I utter the words, "Larry is a married bachelor," the statement would be logically impossible; on the other hand, "The cow jumped over the moon" is not logically impossible because the statement does not contradict itself and it's terminologically congruent.

So even if Conway wants to argue that God could have made the world such that S might never have made the decision to smoke, I truly do not see how the occurrence of these previously-mentioned evils disprove God's existence. Why reason that way, since it appears that God possibly has good reasons for making a world in S chooses to smoke or might refrain from smoking? Because if God controls the willing of S, then how is the will of S truly free? What is meritorious about preventing S from putting the cigarette to the lips of S? We might encourage, exhort, warn or admonish someone not to smoke; however, we usually don't force or coerce adults to refrain from smoking cigarettes.

In summary, one of my objections to Conway's assertion concerns the proposition "Evil is omni-preventable" is true: I agree with Plantinga that modal distinctions are requisite in matters of this sort. We have to make subtle distinctions concerning evil and show why God should or would bring it about that S could not choose to smoke 3 packs a day, drink alcohol in copious amounts, become a serial killer or drive 120 mph on I-40, all actions which could be characterized as "evil" in some sense.

David A. Conway, "The Philosophical Problem of Evil," International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, (Jul. - September, 1988), pp. 35-66.

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