Ian asked:

When discussing the problem of evil, why must we assume a duality in nature (good and evil) and the
idea of God as good? Isn't it merely human to categorize things so? Are things in life, in the universe,
not on a continuum? Hasn't some modern philosophical thought evolved that places God in the
middle, or better yet, above it all? He is the sole creator, after all.

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The problem with evil is that it avoids categorization, that may sound an odd thing to say after all, as
you say humans split things into categories all the time. We know the difference between a good
thing and an evil thing, keeping babies in dark cupboards is evil, giving the homeless your coat is a
good thing, so how can I get away with saying that evil avoids categorization?

What I mean is that evil itself, the phenomena, its feel, the way it affects us, doesn't fit into any
conceptualisation no sense can be made of it, it's useless. Try answering the question "why do we
suffer, why role does the misery and pain serve?" I don't know the answer, I doubt any can be given
that's because evil itself doesn't fit into the continuum of life, it exceeds it. Evil is excessive.There is
always too much of it. It can't be added up or invoiced We could even say that evil is unnatural, in that
it does not belong in the world, it has no place.

If god did create the world he could have done so without miserly and suffering and if he does have
some purpose for the suffering we endure doesn't that make evil even more abhorrent, for example
saying that the horrible pain of the dying breath of a starving child is accounted for by the role it has in
some divine plan fills me with disgust. For a start God doesn't need any means to fulfil his desired
end, he's God! It's only a half formed intuition but, I feel that rationalising evil makes evil more evil, the
nearest expression I can find of it is Dostoyevsky's Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov : "And if the
suffering of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I
protest that the truth is not worth such a price...to high a price is asked for harmony".

And what about the Holocaust, 'a paradigm of gratuitous human suffering'? A time where God turned
his back and not in order to protect us from his burning glory. What can we say about a god who let
the nazi's do what they wanted?

One option is Ivan's: Rebellion.

Option two is to declare the death of god. This includes the a version of the problem of evil; god
cannot be omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent and at the same time evil exist. Evil does exist, so
god is not omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent. Such a being however would not then be god.
Hence 'the death of god'.

Option three is the view you have identified, the view that places God beyond the world. This view
states that God of option two is dead, but that this is a good thing because that wasn't really God
anyway but just, as you indicate, a human categorisation, a conception crudely of God as a part of
the world, in the sense that he shared in being, he had existence in basically the same way we did,
but just more of it. A conception of God as the Supreme Being. The top dog of things that are. But this
is just a mistaken view of God say defenders of option three, God does not share in being. He has
turned his back on us and left us in the world. God is, to use Levinas' term, 'otherwise than being'
(take a look at my response to Eduardo for more on this). But why did God leave?

One answer may be that if God is absent then we must be atheist. We are left alone to tender the
world. Atheism clears the way for human life to exist and flourish. This is not a version of the view that
God created us with free will and so we can do what we want, rather it's the opposite, for Levinas the
human life is the ethical life, the life lived for the other person, that God is not part of being means that
what we do for the other person we do for ethical reasons and not in the hope of some reward from
God.

The responsibility for everything that happens becomes ours. For Levinas, on this picture a defender
of option three, atheism is a necessary step towards the ethical life, (a strange thing to hear coming
from a celebrated Talmudic commentator). What this also means is that evil is a human affair, its our
doing, Evil on this picture originates when we take what is special about others and turn it into
something ordinary and mundane. The holocaust again is a prime example, the Jews were seen,
transformed into something less than people.

It is part of the paradox of evil that its origins, the attempt to reduce persons special otherness to a
theme or caricature or category, rather than respect they unique and unassimilatable difference,
produces a phenomena of such magnitude that it itself does not fit into and destroys any such
categorisation.

Of course its not all doom and gloom, goodness is excessive too, it reaches beyond the confines of
being, in helping the other, taking care of her, providing for her we can experience this good kind of
excess.

Brian Tee

According to the theist apophatic theology, God is beyond human categories. However theism and
particularly mainstream Christianity, holds to both the transcendence and the immanence (presence
within and interaction with the world) of God.

Your question pertains to two important theological issues: 1) Theodicy (justification or explanation of
belief in God, in the face of the existence of evil). 2) The contrast of the theism with pantheism (belief
that God and the world are one — either without qualification or with the world as divine emanation)
and with deism (God is creator but there is no divine participation/intervention in the created order).

Jean Nakos