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Evil vs The Butterfly Effect

posted by Krista | 6/11/2007 11:26:00 PM | Permalink | Stumble It!

If you study the philosophy of religion, you'll find reference to a "problem of evil" in theistic religions. In a nutshell, the problem of evil asks if an omnipotent, all-knowing, morally perfect being (aka God) exists, why do bad things happen? Why would a loving God allow evil to exist? I addressed this in more detail in a previous article on problem of evil.

However, not all religions have a problem of evil. The problem only comes into play when you have an all powerful deity who could stop evil but chooses not to. If you are a naturalist, you may simply view life as a series of causes and effects. Since the beginning of time (perhaps the big bang), there was a first cause and everything that has happened since has been an effect of that.

Think of it as a chain of events. A causes B. B causes C and D. C causes E. D causes F. And so on. In this model, there's no such thing as morally "good" or morally "bad." Everything is neutral because events are simply the reactions to something that happened before it.

You've probably heard of the butterfly effect - the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny atmospheric changes in one part of the world but that change is enough to set off (or prevent) a tornado in another part of the world. In other words, the flapping wings introduce a small change to an environment which sets off a larger chain of events.

This is how a naturalist might see the world. There's no overseer or Creator or active God who is guiding how events unfold. Events are unfolding because that's how the world works. Bacteria or viruses make us sick. Volcanoes erupt. Tidal waves and earthquakes happen. There's nothing "evil" about these events in this context.

The issue of "evil" comes into play when you introduce an active, all knowing, limitless God into the world who guides the way events unfold. In this scenario, things can only happen if God initiates them - or at least permits them. If things happen because God intends them to happen, why does he allow these things to happen? Presumably, God could prevent natural disasters, rapes, murders, and violence from occurring if He wanted. So why doesn't He? Why does he allow (or even cause) them to happen? Is God just being cruel? Does God like to see people suffer?

These are hard questions theists must answer and theologians and philosophers have debated over the centuries. I'll be talking more about these issues in upcoming articles.