Paper Title: “The Problem with the Problem of Evil: A Critique of the Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy”
-Kerry B Colling Copy Right 2007
Synopsis: Open Theist, Greg Boyd, in his attempt to respond to the problem of evil, developed the Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (TWT). He spells out the details of this theodicy in three major works: “God at War,” “Satan and the Problem of Evil” (both by IVP-1997/2001) and, “God of the Possible,” (Baker-2000). In this paper, I will first, explain the main tenets of Greg Boyd’s theodicy and then make a few criticisms of it. I conclude that despite the possible merits in the TWT it does not provide any more of a successful theodicy than others do. In closing, I suggest an approach to the problem of evil that recognizes our creaturely limitations while utilizing resources from our Christian tradition.
The Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy as a Response to the Problem of Evil
In the introduction to God at War, Greg Boyd boldly declares that the warfare worldview “provides a remarkably different and remarkably better, understanding of evil than does . . . any other approach to this problem.” He goes on to state in Satan and the Problem of Evil that, “the narrative of the bible and all events in world history are best understood against the backdrop of this worldview.”
Boyd: God at War
Greg Boyd bases his Theodicy on what he perceives to be the “warfare worldview” of the bible. The warfare worldview is dependent upon controversial Old Testament passages in which God supposedly created the world in the midst of battling with satanic forces. These cosmic forces possess libertarian free will, which enables them “genuinely to resist God’s good creative intentions.” The POE for Boyd lies directly at the intersection between God’s omnipotence and the libertarian free will of his creatures. In God at War, Boyd tells us that the reason why the POE remains unsolvable is due to the “unintelligibility” of the Augustinian equation of omnipotence with omni-control. Boyd asks, “How can the scriptural depiction of God striving to accomplish his will against agents who genuinely resist it be reconciled with Scripture’s uniform testimony that God is all-powerful?” With this question in mind, Boyd traces the “war motif” throughout Scripture and concludes that, “as much as Scripture emphasizes God’s control of the world, this pervasive warfare motif suggests that he does not control everything.” Neither human nor angelic rebellion is under God’s controlling decree. Rather, such rebellion is attributed solely to their libertarian free will.
The Six Theses of the Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy
We are told that Boyd’s book Satan and the Problem of Evil is “an attempt at making philosophical sense of the warfare worldview of the bible.”[9] Boyd developed six theses that define the TWT: 1. Love must be freely chosen; 2. Love entails risk; 3. Risk implies moral responsibility; 4. Power to influence for the worse must be roughly proportionate to our power to influence for the better; 5. Freedom, within limits, is irrevocable; 6. The Power to Influence is Finite.
1. Love Must be Freely Chosen
In order for love to be genuinely reciprocated, humans must “possess the capacity to refuse [God’s] love.” This of course implies that “human choices are not coerced or determined either by outside forces or by one’s genetic makeup.” In a warfare worldview, angelic beings also have the power to choose God’s love or refuse it.
2. Love Entails Risk
By adopting an incompatibilist view of free will and determinism, thesis #2 affirms the risky nature inherent in God’s relations with his creatures. The implications of affirming this risky nature could have devastating consequences, given the fact that volitional creatures possessing libertarian free will would leave God with little recourse in accomplishing particularly important goals. Yet, God’s goal was such that he could not avoid this risk. Rather than exercise Omni-control over his creation, God willed that his creatures receive his offer of love (freely) and thereby enter into a genuine relationship. For Boyd, “it was not logically possible for God to have this objective without risking the possibility of war breaking out in his creation.”Indeed, “The possibility of love among contingent creatures such as angels and humans entails the possibility of its antithesis - war. If God wanted the former, he had to risk the latter.”
3. Risk Implies Moral Responsibility
The third thesis forms the basis of moral responsibility in a cosmos filled with agents possessing libertarian free will. These agents thus have the real ability to bring either harm or blessing to each other. This, according to Boyd implies these free agents’ moral responsibility for their choices. Furthermore, the bible enforces this responsibility with an implicit covenant of mutual responsibility (love your neighbor . . .etc). In the TWT God cannot guarantee that free agents who decide to ignore this covenant will not adversely affect others. Moral responsibility is thus dependent on God’s “hands off policy.” If God were to interfere with the course of a wayward agent it would render the basis of moral responsibility null and void.
4. Proportionate Responsibility
Thesis 4 ties directly into the previous thesis in that it states that this “moral responsibility is proportionate to the potential to influence others.” According to Boyd, “this thesis stipulates that the greater the potential an agent has for love, the greater the potential this agent must have for the opposite of love.” Because human and angelic agents have been endowed with freedom and moral responsibility it is all the more reprehensible when a free agent chooses to rebel. Boyd explains: “The fact that certain humans and fallen angels behave in grotesquely evil ways testifies to the enormous potential for love and moral goodness they have, or at least had, in their original created natures.”
5. Freedom is Irrevocable
The fifth thesis states that the nature of libertarian freedom and its corollary, self-determination, is such that it forces God to endure the continual misuse of it. This is simply another way of saying that God cannot interfere in the life of a being, human or otherwise, who chooses to give themselves over to evil. Boyd says, “When free agents choose to harm others, to some extent God must tolerate this misfortune.” In other words, God must allow freedom to remain free. In fact, to do otherwise would violate God’s overall purpose of creating reciprocating love relationships. If a free agent chooses to maximize their potential for goodness, God will allow the agent to proceed unhindered. In the same way, if a free agent chooses to maximize their potential for evil, God will allow their evil actions to proceed unhindered. However, Boyd maintains that thesis number five “does not entail that creatures have eternal power to exercise an evil influence on the creation.” Therefore, God has the ability to exercise some type of control on a free agent’s freedom.
6. The Power to Influence is Finite
The final thesis in the TWT stems from Boyd’s qualification regarding thesis #5 that free agents are in fact under some type of constraint, otherwise, they would be able to thwart God’s goodness eternally. Therefore, the power of free agents to influence God’s creation must be finite. Unlike God, created beings are contingent. Contingent agents are “by definition finite.” Therefore, although an agent is necessarily free, the agent is practically limited to particular options. Nevertheless, even these options are subject to the transient nature of time. Moreover, although an agent is freely able to self-corrupt and corrupt others with its great potential for evil, it cannot do so on an infinite scale. According to Boyd, this constraint is necessary in order for God to retain his eternal omnipotence and maintain control of his ultimate goals.
A Case Example: The Variable of Irrevocable Freedom
With the “variable of irrevocable freedom” in mind (Theses #5), Greg Boyd provides us with an example that illustrates how the TWT applies to real life cases of evil. In this example, a young girl named Greta was abducted, raped and decapitated. This evil event occurred despite consistent prayer on the part of her parents and despite the wishes of God who, according to Boyd, was “doing all he could do to stop it.” Indeed, He insists that God’s spirit was “perpetually at work trying to influence the abductor to halt his wicked plan.” Behind the scenes, we are assured that God’s angels were “doing battle with demonic agents involved in influencing this person to carry out this hideous deed.” Yet, “God’s will to protect Greta was thwarted.” Boyd brings the full weight of his TWT in an attempt to answer the ‘why’ of this occurrence.
Why Ask Why- Gratuitous Evil?
In view of the fact that God was somehow justified in risking freedom, Boyd maintains that we can avoid questioning whether God had a particular good reason for supposedly ordaining or allowing Greta to be abducted, raped, and decapitated. It was not due to any lack of power on God’s part for, according to Boyd, “sheer power is never the issue with God.” On the human side of things, this evil event occurred because “the will of the man was too hardened to the Spirit and too receptive to demonic influences to be altered.” On the divine side, this evil event took place because of, “[God’s] ultimate goal for creation, because of his uncompromising integrity and because of the historical contingent particularities that constituted the situation.” (imagine telling somone’s parents that!)
God cannot disrupt these “contingent particularities” because to do so would upset the fine balance needed for God to reach his ultimate goal. We are told that God’s ultimate goal for creation is to establish the conditions necessary to allow the flourishing of loving relationships among free agents and with himself. Therefore, he must tolerate the fact that some free agents (Greta’s abductor) in such established conditions will refuse this ultimate goal. According to thesis #5, we understand that, God cannot simply intervene and stop the man from raping and decapitating Greta, for, the gift of freedom is irrevocable. Therefore, God must settle for the fact that perhaps thousands of “Greta’s” will possibly be subject to the same horror. Yet, apparently, in a warfare worldview God considers the risk of evil worth the few who would choose love; as Boyd declares; “God cannot avoid the possibility of these nightmares without cancelling out the possibility of love.”[39] Finally, if God did intervene by force and stop this evil, it would “render the morally responsible nature of all the agents involved disingenuous.”[40] Thus, we can see that the TWT is based on a rigorous Open Theology. Human freedom seems to be the determining factor in whether, and of what sort, evil takes place.
Is it Worth the Risk?
Why would God allow such awesome possibilities? Boyd himself asks this question: “Why does it seem that God risks so much - sometimes, seemingly, too much-on freedom?” The answer, according to Boyd, is similar to the answer found in thesis#3; namely that, although God wishes all agents to maximize their potential for good, he knows he cannot create the conditions conducive to such flourishing without having those same conditions allow for agents to do the opposite and, sadly, maximize their potential for evil. Once again, the risk was worth it because “if God wanted a world where a Mother Teresa is possible, he must be willing to contend with a world in which an Adolf Hitler is possible.” Therefore, in light of this risk, God cannot guarantee that we shall walk through life free from the effects and/or the direct action of wicked beings.
4 criticisms
1) “To Reason Why” - DOES God have reasons for allowing evil?
Philosopher William Rowe argued that, “an all-powerful, all knowing, perfectly good being would have no justifying reason to permit evil.” Boyd would perhaps respond that we do not need to inquire for some divine reason or purpose for evil events in the first place. Rather, his theodicy allows that many evil events are in fact purposeless. If divine purposes where attached to evil acts, the result would imply deterministic control over those events—which is of course anathema for open theologians. Yet, as we will see, Boyd ends up advocating some type of deterministic control over evil.
2) “To COntrol or not to” -
In order to show this, I want to look at a particular criticism of theodicies made by the Australian philosopher, J.L. Mackie. In Mackie’s discussion on evil and omnipotence, he contends that, “We must recognize unsatisfactory and inconsistent solutions, in which there is only a half-hearted or temporary rejection of one of the propositions, which constitute the problem. In these, one of the constituent propositions is explicitly rejected, but it is covertly reasserted or assumed elsewhere in the system.”
Omnipotence and the Variable of Temporal Freedom
Unless I have misunderstood Mackie’s point, I contend that Boyd‘s insistence in one place that God cannot unilaterally exercise omni-control of supposed agents possessing freewill while insisting that there is no possibility that the enemies of God shall finally be able to overcome the divine victory over evil is in effect a “half-hearted” rejection of God’s sovereignty. Boyd “covertly” reasserts elsewhere in his TWT that God has indeed, “ordained temporal parameters around freedom,” thus implying, at the very least, some type of control that would militate against complete libertarian freedom. In my opinion, it seems that in order for God to “ordain temporal parameters” around the freedom of his enemies and to be assured of victory over his enemies, some conception of control must be implied. Open Theists argue strongly for the integrity of human free will to be maintained. If any type of control leaks into the system, the genuineness of human and angelic freedom becomes merely an illusion. How then can God’s victory be assured without rendering the integrity of the God at War motif and the TWT incoherent? Does it make much sense to affirm that God be forced to put up with the waywardness of evil agents, yet in reality, has planned and thus controlled the outcome? (Similar to a fixed fight?). Indeed, if agents are truly free, and the TWT answers the POE, it seems unintelligible that God can be assured that the evil wills involved will be eventually rendered impotent. In other words, how can God ultimately win if he does not control the game? The proposition that God is sovereign and omnipotent, while rejected in one part of Boyds’ theodicy, is reasserted elsewhere.
3) Is God Limited? An apparent Contradiction.
In the case of Greta’s abduction, Boyd insisted that God could only intervene through persuasive, not coercive means. Yet, he insists elsewhere that this irrevocability of freedom “does not entail that God can never exercise coercive power in his interaction with free creatures.” Which is it? If God can intervene coercively, at least some times, why would he not do so in the case of Greta, if he was supposedly “doing all he could do?” It sure appears to be a contradiction to affirm that God can only use persuasive means and then to turn around and allow that he can use coercive means as well.
4) Looking for God’s “Why?”
Although Boyd’s version of Open Theism and his TWT provides many persuasive arguments against other approaches, and has much to commend for those who struggle with the problem of evil. It nevertheless, cannot answer what is perhaps the ultimate question, the real problem we all struggle with – why? The idea that God can intervene coercively in some cases and persuasively in others, leaves us no closer to resolving the POE which consists, in part, with the problem of why God chooses to allow some instances of evil and prevent others. Indeed, Boyd admits such when he states, “If we ask for specific reasons why God could not prevent Greta’s abduction when at other times he intervenes and prevents tragedies, we must simply confess ignorance.” This is truly a confusing reply, for as we have seen, the TWT proposed to “provide a remarkably different and remarkably better, understanding of evil than any other approach to this problem.” Can such a theodicy provide any comfort to believers and add any rational legitimacy to theistic truth claims? Perhaps it can, at least to those who accept Open Theism.
Faith and the Limits of Reason
“If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left without anything mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous”
-Pascal
Despite my criticism of Boyd and his TWT, I do not claim to have refuted Open Theism nor do I believe Greg Boyd is a heretic. Theodicies and defenses offer many important insights into the nature of God and the human condition. However, as is the nature of theodicies and defenses they are ultimately objective and rational approaches to the often subjective and paradoxical relationship that characterizes the POE. Evil is a harsh reality that reaches far beyond the extent of human rationality. Indeed, the very fact that it is referred to as a problem--a problem that most philosophers and theologians admit cannot be solved--suggests that it surpasses human reason’s ability to fully understand its reality. (I prefer the term Mystery. A mystery cannot be solved. If it were to be solved it would no longer remain a mystery. Indeed, the POE, like the existence of God, cannot be reduced to a mere problem!).
Evil is not an objective mathematical riddle. Evil cannot be comprehended or contained by any philosophical or theological system. According to Christian philosopher, C. Steven Evans, in order to solve the POE we would, “have to possess exhaustive knowledge of God’s purposes in creation and of his plans for eternity. Only then could we know that freedom is not worth the cost or know that God had no good reason for allowing natural diseases, and so on. Clearly we human beings do not and cannot have this knowledge.” Thus, any attempts to apply reason as the ultimate judge in matters that lie outside its domain are futile.
A Christian Proposal
The Riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of men
-G.K. Chesterton
In what follows I want to offer a particularly Christian approach to the POE. If one were to accept the limits of human reason and reject attempts at attaining rational certainty, then such a person, in this case a Christian, has at his or her disposal a wealth of resources for dealing with the so called problems inherent in maintaining belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and loving God in the face of evil.
Limits of Human Reason
How then are we as Christians to deal with the apparent theological, philosophical, and existential ramifications of a worldview, which affirms the existence of a personal loving God, while at the same time, affirms the reality of evil? First, a Christian must realize that skeptical and atheistic challenges to faith suffer from the same limitations of human reason, as do Christian defenses of faith such as the TWT. Evans equalizes the bar of reason for the religious believer:
The skeptics challenge is really presumptuous and arrogant. It is a claim by a finite
creature to know how the world should have been created. How could a skeptic know such a thing? Evil is not a disproof of God’s existence. There may be questions about evil that we cannot answer, but our ignorance is far from a conclusive argument against God’s reality. Instead, it means we humans are not in a position to mount such an argument.
The Christian too often suffers from low philosophical self-esteem. An acknowledgement of our common humanity will remedy any arrogant or pious claims to intellectual superiority.
Faith Seeking Understanding
Secondly, a Christian must humbly admit that many tenets of the Christian faith are neither provable nor demonstrable by reason in any modernist sense. However, human beings are all subject to living without certainty, even with apparent contradictions and paradoxes. Scientists are often bewildered at new discoveries that challenge long held assumptions, and at least appear to be contradictory. This is not to denigrate science or the validity of reason and logic. I just want to help the Christian understand that they can be rationally justified in affirming their beliefs despite the occurrence of certain evils that may cast doubt on those beliefs. If the Christian accepts theological doctrines, such as creation ex nihilo, the sovereignty of God, human freewill, the incarnation, and the trinity, they ought not to treat the existence of God and evil as something detrimental to their belief system. Indeed, I submit that the POE ought not to be thought of in an objective manner outside of the Christian worldview, as if by setting aside ones’ personal experience, history, bias, preconceptions, and psychological states one will attain an acceptable level of rational certitude. Evil, for the Christian, is not to be isolated from other beliefs held in faith.
A Theodicy of the Cross
A Christian must realize that the Christian religion has accounted for the reality of evil on almost every page of the Bible. The Biblical writers themselves often wrote out of the midst of deep suffering and mistreatment at the hands of certain evils. Many New Testament books were specifically written for ministering to those experiencing problems with evil. Perhaps the greatest help the bible can offer the Christian is the belief that therein lays God’s revelation of Jesus Christ. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ provide perhaps the most valid “answer” to the POE. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, what the Christian discovers is that God is with him/her in the midst of evil and suffering. In the cross of Christ, God demonstrated both his association with humanity in the human experience of evil and his triumph over evil. Paul told the Corinthians: “if only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (I Corinthians 15:19). Christianity is primarily a religion of hope. The fact of the cross and the resurrection should give the Christian hope in the midst of his or her sufferings; hope that God will eventually wipe out evil and recompense those who have suffered.
Christian Philosopher, Kelly James Clark encourages us to trust the theodicy of the cross: “God’s redemptive work, although we don’t always understand how, is bringing the greatest good out of all this evil.” The test is to see whether we will cling to our trust in him through our dark night of the soul and, hope in God’s goodness. Although we are frail and weak, Christians should not, “grieve like the rest of mankind who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). In the midst of problems with evil, this hope is “an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Heb.6:19). In conclusion, an approach to the POE for the Christian ought to include critical engagement with philosophy and theology while maintaining a subjective appropriation of sound biblical truth. Yet in the end, what all human beings need is, “solace, not syllogisms.”
