[lit-ideas] Re: The Problem of Evil

  • From: John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:01:20 -0600

Phil Enns wrote:

John Wager wrote:

"The Catholic "move" is to say that God can't do evil, so in that sense
is NOT all-powerful, but in that sense only."

I am not aware of any orthodox Catholic thinker who has said that God is
not all-powerful, in any sense.  I would be interested in knowing which
Catholic thinkers would make such a claim.  As I understand it, the
Catholic 'move' is to say that the claim that God can't do evil is
ultimately incoherent.

Here's a couple of sections from Aquinas Summa:

1.95 That God cannot will Evil

2. The will cannot will evil except by some error coming to be in the reason, at least in the matter of the particular choice there and then made. For as the object of the will is good, apprehended as such, the will cannot tend to evil unless evil be somehow proposed to it as good; and that cannot be without error. But in the divine cognition there can be no error (Chap. LXI).

4. Evil cannot befall the will except by its being turned away from its end. But the divine will cannot be turned away from its end, being unable to will except by willing itself (Chap. LXXV). It cannot therefore will evil; and thus free will in it is naturally established in good. This is the meaning of the texts: God is faithful and without iniquity (Deut. xxxii, 4); Thine eyes are clean, O Lord, and thou canst not look upon iniquity (Hab. i, 13).


--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and ignorance." -------------------------------------------------
John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Lisle, IL, USA


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