Oh for a muse like a refiner’s fire, and like a fuller’s soap! – She will dare to purify the natural use of the senses from the unnatural use of abstractions, by which our concepts of things are as maimed as the name of the Creator is suppressed and blasphemed.
j.g. hamann
The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us as the forms of our language and their significance is as great as the importance of our language.
ludwig wittgenstein
The problem of evil has been shown to be a deep problem in Wittgenstein’s sense. The existence of evil faces us with a practical problem: how to find meaning, act in and respond to a world that has evil? Can we trust the world or our responses to it? The question then becomes a search for sufficient reasons, if meaning is sought in a just order in the world of Forms or in the world. The general problem concerns both the roots of understanding in language, and also the practical problem of how to come to terms with the world when evil hits us. The existential meaning of the theistic problem of evil can similarly be posed as a question of the trustworthiness of God: how can one trust God, if there is so much evil in the world? Might there be an order of purposes and reasons underlying everything? N.T. Wright alternatively poses the question of theodicy as the problem of God’s faithfulness: how can God act so that justice is eventually done? Again, the question is the same: “What can I rely
The general logic of the problem of evil concerns the meaning and intelligibility of the world. The problems of evil in philosophy and their logical and evidential versions can be defined and mapped (see Diagram 5):
The problem of evil can be solved or dissolved with consistency proofs, defences and theodicies. All theodicies are defences and all defences are consistency proofs. The difference between a theodicy and a defence is that a theodicy points out actual reasons, a defence points out possible reasons and a consistency proof does not necessarily depend on theodicism. Theodicism can be defined as the claim that God or meaning exist only, if all evils are justified by sufficient reasons. Anti-theodicy can then be defined to mean the rejection of theodicism. There is an alternative definition that defines anti-theodicy as a rejection of theodicies and consistency proofs. I take the first approach as a matter of definition, but I also argue that rejections of theodicies and consistency proofs do not amount to a critique of the framework of the problem of evil unless they build on a logically prior critique of theodicism. Theodicies, defences and consistency proofs can similarly be mapped with Diagram 6:
- 1.The appearances/reality dualism. Sensuous impressions point towards a chaotic and evil world, but reality could be ordered and good. This entails that appearances are distinct from their objects.
- 2.The fact/value dualism. Facts are what is the case. Values are, what should be the case. Facts and values are conceptually separate, because “It ought to be the case that p” does not entail “p”.
- 3.The fact/meaning dualism. Facts are singular and atomic states of affairs. Rational meaning consists in connections between facts. Facts and meaning are therefore conceptually separate.
- 4.The principle of sufficient reason. The psr is usually stated as “Everything that exists has a sufficient reason”. The principle can however be rephrased: Being = Reason, or Real = Rational.
- 1.Moral action is possible only, if it links us with moral sources M in the world.
- 2.Understanding is possible only, if paradigms link us with the rational order of reality O.
- 3.Practices that are guided by the moral sources M and that connect us with an order O are parts of human rational action in the world.
- 4.There is a general source S that unifies our rational practices by functioning as an Arche for the order O and the foundation of moral sources M that are used in our practices in situations w.
- 5.If S is an Arche for O, then O is a system of sufficient reasons for the facts of the world and S constitutes O.
- 6.If S is a ground for moral sources M of practices in w, then w is not so distant from the moral source M that M can assign norms and meaning for w.
- 7.If there is a source S constituting an order O of reasons for w, S unifies facts and meanings at w.
- 8.If there is a source S constituting moral sources M that are not distant from w, S unifies facts and values at w.
- 9.If there is chaotic evil (i.e. evil with no sufficient reason) in w, then there is no order O and moral sources M such that O is a system of sufficient reasons and M is close to w.
- 10.⟶ If there is chaotic evil, there is no general source S that unifies our rational practices by functioning as an Arche for the order O and the foundation of moral sources M that are used in our practices in situations w.
- 11.⟶ If there is chaotic evil in w, then moral action and understanding are not possible.
The debate about evil and the existence of God in the philosophy of religion is a special case of the general logic of the problem of evil laid out above. Simply let M = S = God and O = the world order. Leibniz made this unification in his texts on the origin and sufficient reasons of the world order: God is taken to be the guarantor of the sufficient reasons of the world order. There is evil because He chooses from a limited choice of essences, and all of His choices aim for
- 1.If the possible world w is created by God and an evil s occurs, then it either permits a greater good G or prevents a worse evil s’. Thus every object and state of affairs at w has a sufficient reason.
- 2.God’s power means the ability to choose essences P1,…,Pn and a maximum set T of contingent state of affairs that are not determined by the choices of free beings. These choices are logically determined by the set of possible states of affairs and the set of possible essences P.
- 3.The possible combinations of states of affairs T and essences P1,…,Pn are the sufficient reason for God’s choice. The worlds w created by actualizing states of affairs and essences have a balance of good G and evil s. God actualizes the world with the best balance of good G and evil s.
- 4.God is the sufficient reason for the actuality of the world. God is a necessary being who can choose to actualize a set of states of affairs T and essences P1,…,Pn. God’s choice T and the free actions of creatures determined by essences P1,…,Pn jointly make up the world.
- 5.God’s decision to create can be presented as an n+1-player game. The players are God and persons P1,…,Pn. The set of God’s moves is determined by the logical space of the combination of essences. The sets of creaturely moves An are determined by the creature’s essences. God’s strategy aims at achieving an optimal balance between good G and evil s. The strategies of the creatures are determined by the counterfactuals of freedom that follow from their essence.
- 6.Facts and values are unified by God and the principle of sufficient reason. God unites facts into an order of reasons such that all evils s either lead to a greater good G or prevent a greater evil s’.
- 7.God has vicarious understanding of this system of sufficient reasons, so God and the reasons also unify facts and meanings. The order of reasons unifies facts with meanings and facts with values. The intelligibility of the world is thus both moral and rational.
- 8.
It seems that there is pointless evil in the world: e.g. fawns are burnt to death in forest fires. These appearances make it reasonable to believe that there are no sufficient reasons for such evils. There might however be an order of reasons that connect such evils to greater and possibly unknown goods. Empirical appearances of evils and reality are therefore distinct and possibly opposite.
There are many kinds of anti-theodicies. Conceptual anti-theodicies present metacritiques of the conceptual assumptions of the problem of evil and theodicy, and moral anti-theodicies morally condemn the practice of devising explanations for evil. Moral antitheodicies fail to dissolve problem of evil. They instead present arguments, why the practice of building theodicies trivializes evil: theodicies do not take the suffering person into account, they work on a crude calculus of consequences and amount to Panglossianism in the end. These arguments do not touch on the key conceptual assumption of theodicism. Indeed, moral condemnation of theodicies could well fail because these theodicies are after all true and God’s reasons are the right ones, or they could succeed because there are no such reasons and God would be vicious as well if He chose to create the world by reasoning along these lines. Then moral anti-theodicies end up begging the question: they are correct only in situations where there are no reasons for evil in the first place. They are also compatible with theodicism, because they cannot rule out the above atheistic theodicist situation. They may in the end even amount to just a version of moralistic protest atheism, because if God exists, then moral denunciation of theodicies amounts to “returning one’s ticket to Heaven” on moral grounds, and these moral grounds go against the ones that in fact hold in the world. In any case, the problem of evil concerns the link of ethics, metaphysics and religion, and defending a particular anti-theodicy requires one to take a position on the nature of these links and the correct methods for reasoning over the ethics/metaphysics/intelligibility-links.
The tradition of conceptual anti-theodicy goes back at least to the Book of Job, but the anti-theodicy debate started in Western philosophy in the debate between J. G. Hamann and Immanuel Kant in the 1750s. The Hamann-Kant debate links together many of the big themes of antitheodicy: the limits and grounds of reason and the critique of speculative metaphysics, the intelligibility of the world and the ethics/metaphysics-link. There are three schools of modern anti-theodicy that approach the topic as a critique of theodicism through the critique of reason. They are Kantian, Hamannian and Jamesian antitheodicy:
- 1.Transcendental arguments chart the necessary conditions for some phenomenon (morality, metaphysics) by referring to the subject and his activity.
- 2.Transcendental idealism separates the world of experience or the first-person human point of view from the things-in-themselves or a God’s eye point of view. The goal is to anchor the use of reason to the human point of view so that theodicist speculative metaphysics regarding the relationship of values to the world or a third-person explanation of evil is not possible.
- 3.There is a conceptual gap between facts and values, which is impossible to bridge. Kant argues that we cannot form a concept R of the relationship R(P,W), between the phenomenal physical world P and the world of values and divine wisdom W. Levinas holds that factual first-person experiences of evil cannot by definition be justified with third-person moral or metaphysical explanations.
- 4.Theodicism is rejected as overstepping human reason and the standards of morality. In Kant, the speculative attempts to establish R(P,W) are dishonest attempts to please God. In Pihlström and Kivistö, attempts to give third-person justifications fail to recognize first-person experience or the suffering person.
Jamesian antitheodicy:
- 1.The meaning of an expression is determined by the experiences that are connected with it and the practical values one can fulfill with it through use. Truth is the practical adequacy of a conception in predicting and reaching experiences, unifying one’s conceptions and fulfilling practical values that are rooted in the human condition. This also holds for metaphysical views like theism.
- 2. Theodicism is associated with monism: the world has a single Arche and a single order that determines all of its states of affairs. Experience reveals a plurality of orders and relationships that have their limitations, partial overlaps and conflicts, so thereis no single determining Arche.
- 3.Monist theodicism goes against the necessary conditions of morality. If all of our actions are determined, all evil is necessary and we must adopt the standpoint of a spectator. Morality is possible only, if we can change the world for the better with our actions. Monism cannot
be true, because truth is constituted by moral interests, which presuppose that moral action is possible. - 4.God is redefined as a helper and a chessmaster, who has a winning strategy to realize His goals.
Hamannian antitheodicy:
- 1.Meaning is based on language use, when word-signs are connected with practices and objects through the institution of use in language-games. Expressions cannot be detached out of the relationships in which they are used and cannot go against their necessary conditions.
- 2.Language-games contain their objects and intertwine language use with the relationships of the world. The relationships of the world functionally intertwine their different aspects and underlie the phenomena that are investigated in philosophy.
- 3.Philosophy works by developing a grammar of the relationships underlying the phenomenon in question and then draws out the necessary conditions of these relationships with relational necessary-conditions arguments. Linguistic metacriticism locates our concepts in language-games and develops the grammar of these concepts. Grammars of religious scriptures and practices analyse the meaning of religious expressions by locating them in religious practices and scriptures.
- 4.The problem of evil is based on dualistic speculative metaphysics. It involves detaching the concept of God from religious practices and also constructing conceptual gaps between different aspects of reality, e.g. between the world P and the divine will W. The abstraction of concepts and the resulting conceptual gaps go against the grammar of our language-games, theological grammar of religious practices and the grammar of phenomena, whose aspects are functionally intertwined.
One can then use Hamannian anti-theodicy as a metatheory for the Kantian and Jamesian approaches. Kantian anti-theodicy builds on the critique of theoretical and moral reason, but has inherited the dualism of a rationally known ideal divine will and the empirically known world of facts that contains evil. Jamesian anti-theodicies build on a use theory of meaning, pluralism of observed phenomena, the idea of divine omnipotence as analogous to winning strategies in chess-games and the possibility of moral action. Hamannian anti-theodicies can accommodate pluralism and freedom in the grammars of science and moral action, and the idea of God as the victor over evil in biblical
Grammatical metacritique offers an approach to the problem of evil that has been developed by Hamann, Bas van Fraassen, D. Z. Phillips and others. The grammatical approach to philosophical problems and the problem of evil can be described with the following ideas:
- 1.Philosophical grammar examines the use of language by describing the rules of language-games and the relationships underlying them.
- 2.Philosophical grammar is more general than linguistic grammar. Linguistic grammar focuses on letters and phonemes, words and sentences. Philosophical grammar studies speech acts and language-games.
- 3.Language is the Organon and Criterion of reason, because concepts are based on language use, which is required to articulate and assess conceptual connections. Philosophical grammar functions as the logic of our language by describing conceptual connections in language use.
- 4.Philosophical grammar develops an overview of the relationships R underlying a phenomenon or concept P, and then derives conclusions C by pointing out the necessary conditions of the relationship R. This form of argument is called a relational conditions argument.
- 5.Philosophical grammar locates abstract concepts in linguistic and communicative relationships, and uses their relational conditions to expose unfounded abstractions like dualisms and objectifications.
- 6.Philosophical grammar examines language-games and their underlying relationships from a system-theoretic point of view. It identifies the elements or the interrelated parts of a system, and the institutions or functioning of the system in their context of interaction and according to the laws of the system. Grammar highlights the functional intertwining of different aspects of the system and the dependence of laws on their systemic context. Systemic grammatical description is theory-laden, and it interprets physical, historical and theological facts and interpretations.
- 7.
Philosophical grammar offers an overview of language use by highlighting discourse possibilities, offering contrasting language-games with differing conceptual alternatives and highlighting, how language-games can be embedded or isomorphic to each other. - 8.Language-games are categories in the metaphysical sense. They constitute the structure of discourse possibilities or uses of language for describing objects and thus give a foundation for ontological classifications and describing objects in terms of abstract concepts.
- 9.Essence is shown in grammatical connections. The answer to the question “What is X?” depends on the discourse possibilities related to the term “X”. The principles of identification are thus given by structures of linguistic activities that determine the connections and the possibility space related to the term “X”. The concepts of metaphysics are thus located and objective only in language use.
- 10.The opposition between realism and idealism (or conventionalism) is misguided. Language-games are a response to reality, contain real objects and relationships between things and phenomena, and symbolize them through use. The norms of language are dependent on responding to reality in language-games, and cannot be described independently of the game or detached from it.
The contemporary debate about the possibility of rationally justified metaphysics can be fruitfully approached with the methods of philosophical grammar, because the questions underlying the possibility of metaphysics already arose in the debates between Hamann and Kant: How can rational categorical concepts be used of empirical objects? How is the ability to think possible? These questions underlie any approach to the possibility of metaphysics, because they are the subjective and relational parts of the problem of intelligibility.
Language-games were seen to form the Lichtung or locus of intelligibility and they involve encountering the world and its objects. They include the elements of empirical speech acts that connect word-signs with objects. The objects, expressions and speech acts are the elements of language, and have a meaning when used according to the institution of rule-governed and regular practices. The defining rules of language-games give the discourse possibilities or the speech acts that make sense in a given situation, and the strategic rules give them a communicative use for pursuing goals in the language-game. Then linguistic communicative relationships include meanings that are given through the empirical elements of expressions, objects and speech acts, and the institution of rule-governed and communicative use. The relationships of language-games or the forms of life include the communicative community
Language-games give then answers to the question of the relationship of abstract rational concepts and concrete empirical objects. Empirical words and objects are intertwined with rational concepts, because a concept is formed through use that connects an expression with its object. Then meanings and rational connections of concepts and rules function through empirical connections of use of a concrete and empirical expression with a concrete and empirical object. Then reason and the senses or subject and the object cannot be separated from each other. This entails that the antinomy of metaphysical realism is a confusion. There can be neither meaningful language that is purely subjective and shut off from the world nor a metaphysical way of gaining objective knowledge by bypassing linguistic mediation. An examination of the role of rules as essential knowledge shows that there can be empirically mediated correspondences between rules for the use of concepts and inherent necessities that arise out of the functioning of objects in the relationships of language-games. Both objects and general facts, ideas and causal powers are a part of language use. Grammatical rules are arbitrary and constructed in human activities. The rules of language-games symbolize general facts of the world and correspond dynamically to them, giving linguistic rules a “practical matter-of-factness”. The correspondences of rules with general facts constitute essential knowledge in interpretative activities, which are formed as a response to reality. The nature of rules as simultaneously arbitrary social constructions and symbols of general facts present in language mean that both Aristotelian natural realism and social constructionism are true of language at the same time.
Language-games also offer a way for approaching the categories of being and models for them. Language-games as categories are ways for encountering objects, and as such they give both logical types for concepts and the associated types of functioning of objects in relationships. Logical language-games for seeking and finding have been developed by C. S. Peirce and Jaakko Hintikka, and they can be used to describe the concept “there is” or being qua being. These formal games also offer an abstract model or a type of comparison for our everyday language use and relate to it by symbolizing it via functors and other dynamical isomorphisms. Similarly, the categorical conditions of reidentification developed by E. J. Lowe are rules for the types for continuity of objects in language-games that are embedded onto language use in activities of rule-following, and the rule-governed comparisons of objects and concepts can be modelled with mathematical category theory. Abstractions like games
The location of the categories in language use also allows one to criticize models as speculative metaphysics, if they go against the relational conditions of language-games. Models are abstract systems representing concrete ones, and the representational relationship is metaphoric. It is constituted by practices of hermeneutical comparisons that constitute the isomorphisms and functors between the model and the modelled system. The concept of being and associated metaphysical concepts like categories are then realized in linguistic practices, and the models for these second-order structural relationships metaphorize linguistic practices and their underlying realities. Since the represented realities and relationships are realized in language-games, the models cannot go against the necessary conditions of language-games. However, language-games are prior to their rules in Hintikka’s sense. Rules structure language-games in communicative use, and practices of communication are nothing less than the game itself. Moreover, the rules are materialized in an Aristotelian way only in use and do not exist in some Platonic heaven, because all parts of the element/institution/meaning-triad presuppose each other. Third, the practical significance of a rule for the structure of a language-game depends on its connections to other rules: games are more than the sum of their rules taken separately. Thus metaphysical abstractions cannot be detached from the necessary relational conditions of their underlying language-games. To sum up, types and classifications of the activities of seeking and finding give a basis to metaphysical categories, which are logical types of encountering objects and also types of objects that are located, identified and contrasted with their continuity-principles and spaces of possible facts that the concepts point out. The categories of metaphysics are not ideal relationships, and models of them can be objective only if the models interpret language use and the real relationships with which it is intertwined.
These answers to the problems of intelligibility lay the groundwork for a Strawsonian descriptive metaphysics that examines the fact/meaning split by giving a grammar for reidentification. The grammar locates facts and objects in systems and other relationships, where they embody systemic logics and other meanings. Identifying objects involves seeing facts as objects by using
- 1.Elements: The facts of a language-game and its underlying systems.
- 2.Institutions: The practice of seeking and finding individuals by pointing at the facts, and tracing the actions and relationships of the individual through stories and associated rules that depend on its role in relationships.
- 3.Meaning: The facts related to the individual are seen-as meaningful, as they are seen to embody the individual, its roles and relationships. The meanings and systemic roles are then seen through the facts, as perceptions of an object and thoughts interpreting its role are two intertwined sides of the perceptual relationship.
One can also give an Aristotelian or Hamannian “objective” argument:
- 1.Reidentifying objects involves locating them in a grid of individuation, and telling stories that establish their functioning F and roles in relationships R.
- 2.The grids for identifying and characterizing objects O, and associated discourse possibilities yield facts and their logical space in the language-game and the relationship R underlying the game.
- 3.The stories for reidentifying objects O and locating their roles in relationships yield functional terms and powers F and functional roles H in the relationship R.
- 4.The relationships R are analysed into elements, institutions and systemic logics, and viewed as games of game theory or systems of systems theory. Facts function as elements of an object O in the context of a relationship R. The institutions of an object O are the rules ⟶ corresponding to the functions F of objects O in the relationship R. The structure of institutions ⟶ depends on the functions and systemic roles F of the objects O in R, and the higher-level systemic properties H of R.
- 5.⟶ The powers and roles F function through the facts SoA and the institutions ⟶ of objects O. The higher-order properties H function through the relationships R of objects O and the elements of lower-level facts L and the institutions ⟶ associated with O.
- 6.⟶ Functions, powers and roles F, and higher-order properties H are intertwined with the facts and elements at L. The facts become
meaningful, as they embody the meanings and logic of the relationship R. The meanings and logics of R are realized through them. - 7.⟶ Functional interdependence concerns the identification of objects, facts and meanings.
- 8.⟶ Functional interrelatedness is revealed by grammar rules. It establishes grammatical connections and essential dependences between the levels of relationship R.
- 9.⟶ It is a grammatical principle that facts and meanings are intertwined and mutually constitutive in language-games and their underlying relationships.
Grammatical metacritique examines the root of intelligibility in the linguistic encounters of the world, upon which the Principle of Sufficient Reson stands or falls. The psr is the link between the problem of intelligibility and the problem of evil. The problem of evil questions the moral meaning of the world: is being = right or moral reason? The metaphysical foundations debate approaches the question whether being = reason by investigating, how reality can be rationally grounded and how the categories can be used of empirical objects. The psr is then the link between the problem of evil and the problem of intelligibility. The grammatical investigation to the language/intelligibility-links leads to a metacritique of the psr as well:
- 1.The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a family of principles connecting being, reason and explanation. The most fundamental is the Principle of Ground: being qua being is rational ground.
- 2.Facts and meanings are intertwined in contexts of elements, institutions and contexts. If the psr is correct, then it is a second-order principle referring to these contexts.
- 3.There are systems with elements and institutions that do not yield good explanations for all of the contingent facts. Examples include systems with pisr and system-level institutions.
- 4.“Reason” is an ambiguous term, as there are moral, logical and causal reasons. The psr does not determine a language-game for determining reasons. The theodicist version instead conflates them due to its attempt to close the fact/meaning and fact/value gaps by reducing being to reason.
- 5.“Reason” has a use only in language-games. Encountering reality and seeking and finding objects are logically prior to explanation and conceptual rules. Being thus cannot be reduced to reasons.
- 6.Logical spaces and essences are located in language-games and their underlying relationships. The identification phenomena ⟶ rational
form = reality does not hold as rules for essences and discourse possibilities are formed in responding to reality. - 7.Necessity is due to rules in a context. The necessity of language-games is dependent on the Lichtung of relationships, and not on a priori conceptual rules.
- 8.The use of the psr as a regulative principle in science or as a principle of order in creation theology depends on models for sense-making in worldviews and language-games.
The grammatical method, the metacritique of reason, locating categories and sufficient reasons in language use, overcoming the fact/meaning split can all be used to approach questions about existential and religious meaning, and to articulate ways of existential, humanistic and religious sense-making that overcome the problem of evil.
The grammar of virtues overcomes the fact/value split. Virtues build upon the narrative intelligibility of personal action: acts are embedded into practices, strategies and ways of acting in social contexts, and the habit makes an act intelligible as a way of acting in the context:
- 1.Element: The physical fact of performing an action, like writing a sentence
- 2.Institution: A practice or strategy for pursuing goals in a social setting, like writing a book on action theory or a plan to become a professor.
- 3.Context: An institution of social relationships that forms a setting for pursuing goals, like the institution of philosophical argumentation and debate, or the academic world.
Virtue ethics then give the grammar of good and evil in terms of practices, habits and strategies for realizing the good and realizing the goods proper to human life in a situation:
- 1.Human nature as it is: The states and tendencies of man that happen to exist in fact. They may contain evil states, defects and bad habits.
- 2.Virtues: Practices for moving from human nature as it is into human nature if its telos were realized. The virtues are primarily habits and practices, but they also embody moral maxims and laws that are guidelines for action and self-control in pursuing the telos.2
- 3.
Human nature if its telos were fulfilled: The correct functioning of a human being in relationships according to the nature of the relationships and human nature.
The virtues then overcome the fact/value gap. Virtuous habits for realizing human nature intertwine facts and meanings, because the virtues are realized through actions in a context and the actions then are shaped and chosen by reference to the virtues and the goods they are used to pursue:
- 1.Elements: The fact of Matt putting money in the pot.
- 2.Institution: Matt’s virtuous practice of recognizing the homeless and helping them.
- 3.Context: The social relationships between Matt, ngos and the homeless, the general fact about human nature that helping the homeless improves the life of both.
The grammar of narratives and virtues allow for accounts of humanistic meaningfulness in stories: Hamlet’s tragic actions are plot points, and then they become meaningful in the context of the setting of the plot. Thus even tragic events can be meaningful from a human point of view:
- 1.Elements: The fact of Hamlet stabbing Claudius and giving him poisoned wine.
- 2.Institution: Hamlet’s role includes the decision to take revenge on Claudius for murdering him and his father. The act expresses great resolve and courage in getting justice even when one has been mortally wounded.
- 3.Context: The plot of Hamlet and the setting of court intrigues and betrayals.
The grammar of virtues offers another Jamesian argument against theodicism from the possibility of moral action. Forms of theodicism that do not rely on the free will defence often assume monism, or that there is a single Arche determining that the world is the best possible. If this is the case, then the distance between the telos and the actual collapses and terms like “good” and “evil” are evacuated of their meaning:
- 1.The use of the term “good” makes sense and its grammatical relationships function only, if it is possible to fight evil.
- 2.
It is possible to fight evil only, if one can form practices and strategies for moving from the-situation-as-it-is to the-world-if-its-telos -were-fulfilled. - 3.One can form practices and strategies for moving from the situation to the telos only, if it is functionally and relationally possible to distinguish between these two.
- 4.One can form practices and strategies for moving from the situation to the telos only, if there are alternative choices to exercise self-control over and alternative strategies, some of which can in principle fail to conform to proper functioning or realize the telos.
- 5.If there is an overarching system of sufficient reasons, then there are no alternative possibilities and the situation-as-it-is is either the best possible or is metaphysically determined.
- 6.⟶ If the situation-as-it-is is the best possible or metaphysically determined, then one cannot determine between functionally and relationally correct situations from others (because only the actual is possible and there are no alternatives to rank as correct or not).
- 7.If there are no alternative possibilities, there are no alternative choices to exercise self-control over and no alternative strategies, some of which can in principle fail to conform to proper functioning or the telos (because every fact and the-world-as-it-is holds essentially or is the best possible)
- 8.⟶If there is an overarching system of sufficient reasons, it is not possible to fight evil.
- 9.If there is an overarching system of sufficient reasons, the use of the term “good” makes no sense and its grammatical relationships do not function.
There is also a link between the grammar of “good” in the virtues and the use of terms like “good” and “omnipotent” in religions of the sick soul. Religions of the sick soul like Buddhism and Christianity operate on the logic of salvation, which is isomorphic to the grammar of virtues. It thus follows that the problem of evil closely resembles the Enlightenment project of justifying morality: justifying the world-as-it-is encounters similar problems as deriving the practices of correct action from human-nature-as-it-is. The isomorphisms for Buddhism and the Book of Deuteronomy can be given with the Table 8:
Isomorphism of the grammars of virtues and salvation (summary)
Virtues |
Religions |
Buddhism |
Deuteronomy |
|---|---|---|---|
Human-as-is |
World-as-is |
Suffering |
Israel in Egypt |
Virtues |
Salvation |
Noble 8-fold path |
Liberation by God |
Human telos |
World telos |
Nirvana |
Israel in the Land |
The theistic problem of evil depends on the logic of the terms “good” and “omnipotent”. The logic of these terms can be investigated by developing a grammar of religious stories and religious practices by using the method of
- 1.Language-games are categories that characterize essences: they answer the question “What is an X?” by identifying basic intuitions for seeking and finding X in encounters with reality, and give the criteria of identification that are typical for X.
- 2.If language-games are categories characterizing their objects, then the word “God” has practical consequences and God is identified via religious language-games for encountering God.
- 3.Theology is a grammar: It describes and regulates religious practices and uses of language in religious language-games, which are used for encountering the Holy.
- 4.⟶The second-order terms of theological grammar describe the essence of God only, if theological terms are connected to first-order practices of encountering God in language-games.
- 5.⟶Theological terms describe God only, if these language-games are connected with encountering the Holy and relating to it via practices functioning as basic intuitions.
- 6.The principles for identifying an X help determine the essence of an X by locating it in a narrative that describes its typical actions and character.
- 7.In biblical traditions, biblical stories are used to identify God: The Old and New Testaments in Christianity, the Hebrew Bible and the Talmudic tradition of interpretation in Judaism.
- 8.⟶Theological grammar characterizes the essence of God and His essential properties like “good” and “omnipotent” by pointing out the practices of responding to God that give discourse possibilities and basic intuitions, and by giving criteria of reidentification via biblical narratives.
- 1.The expressions “God is good” and “God is omnipotent” either gain their meaning from religious language-games, or they are defined in terms of the logical concept of omnipotence and the principle of sufficient reason.
- 2.If the expressions “God is good” and “God is omnipotent” gain their meaning from religious language-games, divine goodness and omnipotence are understood in terms of the grammar of religious practices.
- 3.If divine goodness and omnipotence are understood in terms of the grammar of religious practices, then the psr and logical omnipotence do not fix their meaning.
- 4.The logical concept of omnipotence and psr detach the expressions “God is good” and “God is omnipotent” from their contexts and relational conditions for their use
- 5.If the logical concept of omnipotence and psr detach the expressions “God is good” and “God is omnipotent” from their contexts and relational conditions for their use, then the psr and logical omnipotence do not fix their meaning.
- 6.⟶ The psr and logical omnipotence do not fix meanings for “God is good” and “God is omnipotent”.
Theological grammar also helps in charting the use of the terms “good” and “omnipotent” in the books of Hebrew Bible like the Book of Job, and New Testament writings like the Gospels. In the Book of Job and the Gospels, these terms are interpreted in terms of God’s fight against chaos and the struggle for justice. The structure of the struggle against chaos myth is struggle against
- 1.“God is good” means that God is committed to the world, healing it and repairing suffering so that the world reaches its telos.
- 2.“God is omnipotent” means that God can achieve His plans and defeat evil.
- 3.There is chaotic evil in the world: evil events do not have morally sufficient reasons, as they proceed from the actions of chaotic forces that are opposed to God’s plans and the world order.
- 4.The opposition of God and evil is narrative and strategic, and not conceptual. “God exists” and “evil exists” are not contradictories, as God and evil are opposite characters in a story, which can be presented as a zero-sum game.
- 5.The stories give Jamesian and Hamannian antitheodicies. God is said to be good and omnipotent, because He can defeat chaotic evil. God is also present and acts amidst states of affairs with no morally sufficient reasons.
Definition of the Justice-of-God game G:
- 1.The players of the Justice-of-God game G are God, Job and Leviathan.
- 2.God wins if and only if Job wins if and only if Job reaches the telos of a happy life and there is no undefeated evil left in the world. Leviathan wins if and only if God and Job lose.
- 3.God plays first. He can either (question Job) or (⌐question Job). If God does not question Job in the council, Leviathan is left undefeated and God and Job lose.
- 4.If the situation is (question Job), Leviathan moves. He can play either (disaster) or (⌐disaster). If L plays (⌐disaster), then God and Job win
as Job lives well and L does not challenge God. If Leviathan plays (disaster), Job is hit by disasters and the evil (disaster) is put into play. - 5.If the situation is (question Job, disaster), then Job moves. He can either play (question God) or (⌐question God). If Job plays (⌐question God), he loses as he does not seek justice for the evil (disaster). If Job plays (question), he curses creation and attempts to be like God, putting the evil (challenge) into play.
- 6.If the situation is (question Job, disaster, question God), then God moves. He can either play (Answer to Job) or (⌐answer to Job), i.e. answer Job and defeat Job’s challenge, or leave Job suffering, Job’s challenge unanswered and the creation to collapse. If God plays (⌐answer to Job), God and Job lose, as the evils (disaster) and (challenge) leave Job suffering and the creation into meaninglessness and collapse.
- 7.If the situation is (question Job, disaster, question God, Answer), Job moves. He can either play (Recognize God without psr), or (⌐Recognize God without psr), i.e. recognize that God can reach His goals of repairing suffering and the claim that God must be rejected for evil without reasons is false. If Job plays (⌐Recognize God without psr), Job and God lose. If Job plays (recognize God), the evil (challenge) is taken out of play.
- 8.If the situation is (question Job, disaster, question God, Answer, Recognize God), God moves. He can play either (vindicate Job) or (⌐vindicate Job). If God plays (⌐vindicate Job), God and Job lose as Job is left suffering. If God plays (vindicate Job), the evil (disaster) is defeated and God and Job win as Leviathan is defeated, there are no undefeated challenges and Job lives a happy life.
- Definition: “God is good” is true at game history w if and only if God wins G if and only if Job wins G if and only if Job reaches the telos of a good life and evil is defeated.
- Definition: “God is omnipotent” is true at game history w if and only if God has a winning strategy in the justice-of-God game G.
- Definition: “There is pointless evil” is true at game history w if and only if there is an evil s is at play in w, and either 1. if s is in play at the end of the game, God and Job lose, or 2. there is an agent A s.t. s arises out of A:s strategy and A wins iff God and Job lose.
Proposition: “God is good” and “God is omnipotent” are true in all histories of G.
Proof: “God is good”: By definition, God wins iff Leviathan loses, no evils are left and Job is happy.
“God is omnipotent”: Let SGod = {0→(Question Job), (Question Job, disaster, question God), {challenge, disaster})→(answer to Job), (Question Job, disaster, question God, answer to Job, recognize God), {disaster}) → (vindicate Job)}. Now it is sufficient to show that SGod is a winning strategy for G. We can prove it with backwards induction.
In (Question Job, disaster, question God, answer to Job, recognize God, {disaster}), (vindicate Job) wins outright by restoring Job’s happiness and removing {disaster}.
In (Question Job, disaster, question God), (answer Job) wins the game. (answer Job) wins the subgame from (Question God) iff, Job wins the subgame from (Answer Job) by playing (recognize God) iff God wins from (recognize God) by playing (vindicate Job). Since God wins by playing (vindicate Job), He wins with (answer Job) too.
In the beginning 0, (Question Job) wins the game. Since Leviathan loses if he does not cause a disaster, (Question Job) wins the game iff God or Job can win the subgame from (Question Job, disaster). Now Job will win in (Question Job, disaster) iff God can win from (question Job, disaster, question God). However God wins from (Question Job, disaster, question God). Thus SGod is a winning strategy.
Thus “God is good” and “God is omnipotent” are true at all histories w of the game G.□
Proposition: There is a possible world w of the relational system G s.t. G,w╞ “God is good”, G,w╞ “God is omnipotent”, G,w╞ “There is pointless evil”.
Proof: Let w = ((Question Job, disaster), {disaster}). Then the evil s = (Disaster) proceeds from Leviathan’s strategy L = {(question Job) → (disaster)}, and L wins if and only if Job and God lose and Job is ruined. Thus “There is pointless evil” is true in w = (Question Job, disaster). By the previous proposition, “God is good” and “God is omnipotent” are true in w = (Question Job, disaster) as well.
Corollary: The set {“God is good”, “God is omnipotent”, “There is pointless evil”} is consistent. Proof: G,w╞ “God is good”, G,w╞ “God is omnipotent”, G,w╞ “There is pointless evil”.□
Now that the problem of evil has been exposed as a conceptual confusion, the way is clear for a Jamesian science of religions and worldviews. The methods of grammatical description can be extended to the practices and ways of sense-making in different worldviews: how they give meaning to moral practices and how do they approach the intelligibility of the world? What practical responses do they have for coping with evil? For example, the grammar of seeing-as for models and metaphors can be applied to the metaphors in the Hebrew Bible for God’s activity to understand what it is to see the world as God’s creation. The grammar of virtues can be used to describe Buddhist practices and explore, how these approaches contribute to the human good. Similar approaches can be taken to secular worldviews as well. These descriptions can then be used to assess the worldviews through dialogical encounters between them. However, one thing should be clear. There is no point in devaluing the world by arguing for the meaninglessness of life or atheism on the basis of evil, or in giving justifications for evils that can stand in the way of divine or human meliorist projects of fighting for justice. To paraphrase the judgment of the Divine Judge in the Book of Job, such approaches are not even wrong.
A fourfold map of the problems of evil (summary)
