This is a [treatment of] the theoretical problem of evil as it appears in the Western philosophical and theological traditions.… [It is] written from the perspective of the “process” philosophical and theological thought inspired primarily by Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne… [C]ertain assumptions about the nature of God’s power that made the problem so intractable are not necessarily inherent in the idea of perfect power and do not necessarily belong to the essence of the Judeo-Christian idea of deity…. [T]he critical issue is the nature of power. Specifically, the question is: If an actual world necessarily has power, is it possible for God to have the type of power in relation to the world which was ascribed to God by the traditional doctrine of omnipotence?…
A central, and perhaps the central, notion in the traditional idea of God in Western thought has been the notion that God controls, or at least could control, every detail of the events in the world. This has been taken as belonging to the defining essence of “God”—a being would not be God, it is said, if it did not have this power…. God is “omnipotent” in the sense that nothing happens which God does not either cause or at least permit…. The word “omnipotent” literally means “all-powerful,” but, as we will see, this “literal” meaning is filled with ambiguity….
The problem of evil is generally formalized as a syllogism…:
A. If God is omnipotent, God could prevent all evil.
B. If God is perfectly good, God would want to prevent all evil.
C. There is evil.
D. Therefore [an omnipotent, perfectly good] God does not exist.
…[A]n expanded version of the statement is more helpful…:
1. God is a perfect reality. (Definition)
2. A perfect reality is an omnipotent being. (By definition)
3. An omnipotent being could unilaterally bring about an actual world without any genuine evil. (By definition)
4. A perfect reality is a morally perfect being. (By definition)
5. A morally perfect being would want to bring about an actual world without any genuine evil. (By definition)
6. If there is genuine evil in the world, then there is no God. (Logical conclusion from 1 through 5)
7. There is genuine evil in the world. (Factual statement)
8. Therefore, there is no God. (Logical conclusion from 6 and 7)
I believe this argument is valid, which means that the final conclusion follows from the premises….
I need to define the notions of “genuine evil” and “only apparent evil,” as well as a third possible meaning for the term “evil” which this distinction presupposes, i.e., “prima facie evil.” By “genuine evil” I mean anything, all things considered, without which the universe would have been better. Put otherwise, some event is genuinely evil if its occurrence prevents the occurrence of some other event which would have made the universe better, all things considered, i.e., from an all-inclusive, impartial perspective. “Prima facie evil” is anything that may be judged evil at first glance, superficially, i.e., when considered from a partial perspective, and/or within a limited context. Some prima facie evils may be considered, upon reflection, to be genuine evils. But other prima facie evils may be judged to be “only apparent evils.”…
I have found the failure to reflect upon the metaphysical question of the nature of actuality qua actuality to be the single most serious failure in discussions of the problem of evil, and the failure which has been most central in the failure to arrive at a satisfactory resolution…. Theists, to be worthy of the name, are required to hold a position that could not possibly be rationally defended….
WORSHIPFULNESS AND THE OMNIPOTENCE FALLACY
[Let us] consider the arguments which, usually implicitly, lie behind the view that premises 2 and 3 must both be affirmed. The argument for the retention of premise 2 can be formulated as follows:
A. A perfect reality must exemplify all admirable attributes in the greatest possible manner.
B. For our thought, the “greatest possible” is to be defined in terms of the “greatest conceivable.”
C. Power is an admirable attribute.
D. A being that is omnipotent is conceivable.
E. Therefore a being that is omnipotent is possible. (B, D)
F. Therefore a perfect reality must be an omnipotent being. (A, C, E)
…I take “perfect” to be synonymous with “greatest conceivable” and hence with “greatest possible.” Accordingly, (premise D] only asserts that it is possible for a being to have the greatest power that it is possible for a being to have. Hence it is tautologous. And in this case the conclusion states only that a perfect reality must have the greatest power that it is possible for a being to have. This leaves entirely open the question of the extent and nature of the power that it is possible for a being to have….
[T]he crucial question is that of the basis for affirming premise 3. There is an argument for it, usually implicit, yet sometimes expressed. But the argument is fallacious…. Most authors agree that omnipotence should not be defined as the power simply to do anything that happens to be verbalizable….
[Most] would agree with Thomas Aquinas that it is more accurate to say that the logically impossible cannot be done than to say that God cannot do it, as if this were some limitation on divine power…. [However, most] authors… assume the following definition: “The power unilaterally to affect any state of affairs, if that state of affairs is intrinsically possible.”… [However, it] it does not necessarily follow… that, simply because a state of affairs (SA) is intrinsically possible, a being with perfect power could unilaterally bring about SA…. It is only if God is an omnipotent being, and as such could guarantee the absence of genuine evil in an actual world, that the presence of genuine evil is contradictory to the existence and/or the goodness of God….
[Here we have encountered] what I term the “omnipotence fallacy.” The nature of the fallacy can be made clear by formalizing the argument as follows:
P. An omnipotent being can unilaterally bring about any state of affairs that it is logically possible for a being unilaterally to bring about.
R. An actual world (i.e., one with a multiplicity of actual beings) devoid of genuine evil is a logically possible state of affairs.
S. Therefore, an omnipotent being could unilaterally bring about an actual world devoid of genuine evil.
The argument is not formally valid, since the oscillation between a logically possible action (P, S) and a logically possible state of affairs (R) makes this a form of the four-term fallacy. Another premise is needed to connect the two issues. Accordingly, the argument would need to be expanded by the insertion of premise Q:
P. An omnipotent being can unilaterally bring about any state of affairs that it is logically possible for a being unilaterally to bring about.
Q. If a state of affairs among a multiplicity of actual beings is logically possible, it is logically possible for one being unilaterally to bring about that state of affairs.
R. An actual world (i.e., one with a multiplicity of actual beings) devoid of genuine evil is a logically possible state of affairs.
S. Therefore an omnipotent being can unilaterally bring about an actual world devoid of evil. (P, Q, R)
The addition of premise Q makes the argument formally valid. But is it sound? Specifically, is Q acceptable? It has been accepted by all traditional theists…. Of course, this acceptance has been for the most part implicit, as Q has rarely if ever been explicitly formulated, since the clear distinction between logically possible things or states of affairs and logically possible actions is rarely made. But, once the distinction is clearly made so that the issue is brought into focus, what justification is there for accepting Q? That is, on what basis can one move from the assertion that a state of affairs among a multiplicity of actual beings is intrinsically possible to the assertion that some one being could unilaterally effect this state of affairs?… The key premise needed to support Q would be the following:
X. It is possible for one actual being’s condition to be completely determined by a being or beings other than itself.
If X is accepted, nothing stands in the way of the acceptance of Q. And if Q is accepted, then S follows (assuming R), and we are returned to the center of the problem of evil. But should X be accepted?
Premise X, which speaks of actual beings, begins: “It is possible…” But what kind of possibility is at issue? This is not an issue that can be settled by logic alone. Rather, this is a metaphysical issue. In fact, this is what many would consider the metaphysical issue par excellence, the difference between actuality and the other types of “being,” such as possibility. (Even if one proclaims their nondifference, this is a metaphysical claim.) And yet much and perhaps a majority of the recent discussion of the problem of evil has been carried on as if the issues could be adjudicated apart from any metaphysical commitments. It is the implicit acceptance of this metaphysical premise without any explicit recognition and hence justification of this metaphysical claim that lies behind the omnipotence fallacy. The problem is the assumption that the meaning of perfect power or omnipotence can be settled apart from a metaphysical discussion of the nature of the “beings” upon whom this perfect power is to be exercised. This leads writers into arguments that are formally invalid because devoid of necessary premises.
Haig Khatchadourian has spoken of the “crying need for an adequate delimitation of the concept of perfection, of perfect goodness, perfect power, and so on,” and has rightly said that “without this, little headway can be made.” What is striking in the recent discussion of the problem of evil is the small amount of attention devoted to the delimitation of the concept of perfect power, compared with the amount devoted to that of perfect goodness. Delimitation of the concept of perfect power requires a discussion of the nature of “world.” For the power involved in the problem of evil is a relational concept. It is God’s power in relation to something distinct from God, i.e., the world (insofar as monism, acosmism, or absolute idealism is not accepted). Put otherwise, to exert power is always to exert power over something (even if that something is oneself). Hence, before drawing implications as to what a being with perfect power could do, the nature of the things upon which power is to be exerted must be considered….
I will now focus directly upon this metaphysical issue, indicating thereby my reason for rejecting premise X, which is that it is possible for one actual being’s condition to be completely determined by a being or beings other than itself…. I will begin negatively. For premise X to be accepted, actual (in distinction from imaginary or ideal) entities would have to be totally determinable, in all respects, by some being or beings other than themselves. In other words, they would be totally devoid of all power—power to determine themselves, even partially, and power to determine others, even partially…. [It] has been increasingly accepted, since Berkeley, that the meaningful use of terms requires an experiential grounding for those terms…. [T]he issue at hand is whether we experience anything we might term an actual thing as being devoid of power. I say that we do not….
[Next] I will try to make the central point… clearer by discussing what the term “perfect power” or “omnipotence” can mean if it is a metaphysical truth that actual entities as such have some power, and that any actual world would have to contain actual entities. First, I take it for granted that most will agree that only individual actual beings can have or exert power. Power is not exerted by mere possibilities… nor by mere aggregates of individuals. Accordingly, if we are speaking of a reality with perfect power, we are necessarily speaking of an individual actual being. “Perfect power,” then, must be defined as the greatest power it is conceivable (possible) for a being to have…. The dispute arises only when one begins to indicate answers to the questions as to how much power and/or what kind of power it is conceivable for a being to have.
The traditional theodicy has said in effect—although often denying it verbally—that one being could simply have all the power. That is implied if one accepts premise Q, and hence X behind it, since if one holds that B’s condition can be totally determined by A, this implies that B really has no power in relation to A. And if B represents the totality of the world, and A represents God, this means that God has all the power, while the world has none.
However, if there is an actual world, and an actual world by metaphysical necessity contains a multiplicity of beings with power, then it is impossible for any one being to have a monopoly on power. Hence, the greatest conceivable power a being can have cannot be equated with all the
power….
Such a view greatly alters the problem of evil. Even a being with perfect power cannot unilaterally bring about that which it is impossible for one being unilaterally to effect. And it is impossible for one being unilaterally to affect the best possible state of affairs among other beings. In other words, one being cannot guarantee that the other beings will avoid all genuine evil. The possibility of genuine evil is necessary…. [This is not to be confused with the claim] that genuine evil is necessary (which I see no reason for saying)…. [It is equivalent to saying that] “it is logically necessary that the possibility for evil will exist in any world.” This position follows from the meaning of “world” as containing self-determining beings, since it is not logically possible for one being completely to determine the activity of another entity that by definition has activity that is underived from any other being…. Hence, the actual presence of genuine evil in the world is no disproof of the existence of an omnipotent being who wants to prevent all genuine evil.
This view can be called “C omnipotence.” The C stands for both “coherent” and “creationistic.” It is the only view that is coherent if one is talking about the power a being with the greatest conceivable amount of power could have over a created, i.e., an actual, world. If the world is an actual creation, and not simply a complex idea in the divine mind, or simply aspects or “modes” of God, then all-powerful cannot mean having all the power. And if there are many centers of power, then no state of affairs in which these entities are involved can be completely determined by any one of them. The logic of C omnipotence would then involve the denial of the principle that God can unilaterally effect any state of affairs that is in itself intrinsically possible. Although an actual world without genuine evil is possible, it is impossible for an omnipotent being to guarantee such a world.
That God really have all the power is the requirement set by writers such as Flew, Hick, Campbell, Pucetti, and Findlay for “true theism,” “Christian monotheism,” or “an adequate religious object.” They require that there be no genuine powers besides God, no powers that could have the slightest degree of independent activity in terms of which they could be hostile to deity, limit its influence, and thwart its will. With this requirement, monotheism becomes monism, or acosmism—one is saying in effect (if to be actual is to have power) that creatures can only worship God if they, the creatures, do not actually exist.
“I omnipotence” can be used to refer to the traditional doctrine that an omnipotent being can unilaterally effect any state of affairs, if that state of affairs is intrinsically possible. The “I” can stand for either “incoherent” or “idealistic,” since such a definition is incoherent if it refers to an omnipotent being’s dealings with an actual world. It is only intelligible if worldly entities are defined as being completely determinable by another being….
The fact that one cannot discuss what an omnipotent being can do apart from a consideration of the nature of those unto whom it is done has not been totally overlooked in recent discussions…. S. A. Grave has [stated]:
“There is, by definition, the definition a consistent theism has to give, no logical impossibility in a man’s freely choosing the good on every occasion. There is, by definition, a logical impossibility in God’s making him freely choose the good on any occasion.”
Alvin Plantinga [and others agree here]….
This issue is of utmost importance for the problem of theodicy. One has not really “justified the ways of God” if the justification involves the loss of God’s perfection and hence deity. Since the basic meaning of “God” is rooted in the context of worship, and since we can only worship perfection, the resolution of the problem of evil is not really a theodicy if it suggests that God exemplifies admirable attributes in a less perfect manner than some other possible (conceivable) being….
But the doctrine being advocated here is intended as an affirmation of the first premise. God is a perfect reality, that greater than which nothing can be consistently thought. This is so, in spite of the fact that God cannot unilaterally prevent all evil in the world, because it is impossible in principle for one being completely to determine the dispositions of other actual beings. Since this cannot be done, it is no limitation on divine perfection that God cannot do it. Accordingly, there is nothing in this theodicy which undercuts God’s perfection and hence worshipfulness. Of course, many may, because of cultural-psychological conditioning, find it difficult to worship God as here conceived. But, unless premise X and hence premise Q… are accepted, the fact that God as here understood does not in fact inspire worship in someone does not indicate that this God is not worthy of worship. It only indicates that there is a gap in the person between notions (coherent or not) which in fact elicit religious emotions, due to past conditioning, and present notions of perfection, to which religious emotions in principle should be attached. According to Whitehead, a major element in the history of religion is the long time it takes for novel general ideas to be appropriated with emotional intensity and hence found interesting. This is due to “dominant interests which inhibit reaction to that type of generality.” This, of course, is a serious problem. But it is not a problem for philosophical theology as such to solve….
UNIVERSAL CREATIVITY AND DIVINE PERSUASION
[Now the] central task… is to show that God as conceived by process thought in particular exemplifies perfect moral goodness by the criteria of moral goodness which we actually employ. The strategy of the traditional theodicies was to say that God is responsible for evil but not indictable for it. They did this by maintaining that all evil is merely apparent, so that there is no genuine evil. Process theology also says that God is in an important sense responsible for much of the world’s evil but not indictable for it. But it does this without denying the reality of genuine evil. The general thesis of the process theodicy which follows is that the possibility of genuine evil is rooted in the metaphysical (i.e., necessary) characteristics of the world. In Whitehead’s words: “The categories governing the determination of things are the reasons why there should be evil.”…
The first element in the process solution [is that] God’s power is persuasive, not controlling. Some traditional theodicies have indeed said that persuasion is the divine modus operandi (at least in relation to some of the creatures). But they have regarded the reason for this to be moral rather than metaphysical…. This modus operandi is thus said to result from a divine self-limitation. According to process thought, the reason is metaphysical, not moral. God does not refrain from controlling the creatures simply because it is better for God to use persuasion, but because it is necessarily the case that God cannot completely control the creatures.
The metaphysical category behind this necessity is the category of the ultimate, which involves “creativity,” “many” and “one.” “Creativity” (by which the many become one and are increased by one) is a universal feature of actuality. It is inherent in actuality. This does not mean that creatures derive their creative power from themselves, or that they are not dependent upon God for their existence. But it does mean that to be an actuality is to exercise creativity and that there is necessarily a realm of finite actualities with creativity of their own.
To say that an actuality has creativity is to say that it has power. The nature of this creative power is twofold—the power of self-creation and of other-creation. In the language of causation, it is the capacity to exercise final causation and efficient causation. To explain how these two dimensions of creativity are related and to prepare the way for other points, it is necessary briefly to explain Whitehead’s unique understanding of what an
“actual entity” is.
An actual entity is an “occasion of experience.” In the first place, this means that, as for Berkeley and Leibniz, all actual entities experience; there is no dualism between experiencing and nonexperiencing actual entities. However, only genuine individuals are considered actual entities. As Leibniz held (unlike Berkeley), things such as sticks and stones, which rather obviously do not experience, are regarded as aggregates of actual entities.
In the second place, the idea that an actual entity is an occasion of experience means that the full-fledged individuals of the world are momentary events. Unlike Leibnizian “monads,” which endure indefinitely through time, a Whiteheadian actual entity happens and then “perishes” in a sense, making room for succeeding events. Partly to indicate this event-character of actual entities, Whitehead calls them “actual occasions.”
Each actual occasion exists in two modes, first one and then the other. An occasion comes into being as an experiencing subject. The data of its experience are provided by previous actual occasions. Its reception of these data is called its “feelings” or “positive prehensions” of those previous occasions…. It becomes a unified subject by integrating these feelings. This process of integration into a concrete unity is called “concrescence.”
When the process of concrescence is complete, so that the actual occasion has achieved a unified experience of all its data and its subjective reactions to them (each feeling has its “objective datum” and its “subjective form” of response to this datum), the occasion becomes an object of experience, i.e., an object for other subjects. Its subjectivity perishes, and it thereby acquires objectivity. It transmits some of its feelings to subsequent actual occasions. This process, in which data are passed from one occasion to another, is termed “transition.”
These two processes, concrescence and transition, embody the two forms of creativity, the two types of power, inherent in each actual occasion. The process of concrescence embodies the occasion’s power of self-determination, its power of final causation. Although the present occasion is largely determined by the power of the past upon it, it is never thus completely determined: “However far the sphere of efficient causation be pushed in the determination of components of a concrescence… there always remains the final reaction of the self-creative unity of the universe.”…
The main point to be stressed here is that the fact that our world is composed of actualities with this twofold type of power is not a contingent feature of our particular world. It exemplifies a metaphysical principle about reality: any world would necessarily contain actualities with this twofold creativity…. [For Whitehead,] creativity [is] the “ultimate metaphysical principle” which lies in “the nature of things.”… Whitehead makes the connection with the problem of evil, saying that if God is wrongly conceived,
“there can be no alternative except to discern in Him the origin of all evil as well as of all good. He is then the supreme author of the play, and to Him must therefore be ascribed its shortcomings as well as its success.”
Accordingly, it is impossible for God to have a monopoly on power. There must be an actual world; and every actual world will necessarily contain actualities with power—some power of self-determination, and some power to influence others. This twofold inherent power provides the twofold reason why God cannot unilaterally effect any state of affairs in the world that is intrinsically possible…. The world must transcend God in the sense of having its own creativity by which it can refuse to conform to the divine input, since this input is good and yet there is evil in the world. Evil arises from this capacity not to conform to the divine purpose: “So far as the conformity is incomplete, there is evil in the world.”
In Whitehead’s opinion, “one of the greatest intellectual discoveries in the history of religion” was Plato’s suggestion “that the divine element in the world is to be conceived as a persuasive agency and not as a coercive agency.” Whitehead provides a conceptuality for understanding God’s modus operandi as persuasive. All pure possibilities, termed by Whitehead “eternal objects,” are contained in the “primordial nature” of God. This primordial nature is an envisagement of these ideals or eternal objects, with the urge toward their actualization in the world. Each actual occasion begins by prehending God and therefore this divine urge for the realization of possibilities. Each occasion thereby receives from God an “ideal aim” or “initial aim.” This is an initial persuasion toward that possibility for the occasion’s existence which would be best for it, given its context. This aim is sometimes termed the “initial subjective aim,” but it is not to be identified with the occasion’s “subjective aim” itself. The “subjective aim” is the aim which the subject actually chooses, and hence that possibility which it in fact actualizes. It may be identical in content with the initial subjective aim, but it need not be. The initial aim is given by God; the subjective aim is chosen by the subject. The fact that the power of this divinely given initial aim is not coercive, so that divine determinism is avoided, is made clear in many passages[, for example]: “An originality in the temporal world is conditioned, though not determined, by an initial subjective aim supplied by the ground of all order and of all originality.”…
Whitehead does not reject divine providence altogether in order to solve the problem of evil…. [H]e does consistently reject the traditional notion of “unqualified omnipotence,” which is accompanied by responsibility for every detail of every happening.” And he grounds this rejection upon the metaphysical position that creative power is inherent throughout the realm of actuality. Hence, the fact that God’s modus operandi is persuasive rather than coercive is not due to a decision on God’s part which could be revoked from time to time…. [P]rocess theodicy need not necessarily reject the application of the term “omnipotent” to God. This term can be taken simply as a synonym for “having perfect power,” and this can be defined in terms of “C omnipotence” as opposed to “I omnipotence.”… Hence, premise 2 of the problem of evil is allowed to stand, while premise 3 is rejected.
David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 11-13, 16-25, 261-81.