I wasn’t able to attend Jim’s paper this year, but he was kind enough to give me a copy anyway. This could be viewed as especially generous after I kept hassling him about Ty Cobb’s lifetime batting being incorrect on his blog. But now that it is fixed, I can recommend his blog without exception. Go read it for a lot of wisdom and a little folly.

The evidential problem of evil suggests that if God is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good, then evil should not exist. Two popular theodicies (reasons for the existence of evil), free will and soul making, are rarely used together. For whatever reason, most apologists see them in opposition to one another. Spiegel argues that they are actually dependent on one another, that they have much in common and that they should be used together in answering the problem of evil.

The free will theodicy puts all the blame for evil on humans, arguing that God gave people freedom and this freedom is of such immense worth as to justify the existence of evil. This view usually sees the goal of freedom as the development of genuine love toward God and others.

For the soul making theodicy, evil exists for the purpose of shaping us into greater conformity to God’s likeness. God created us in His image, but there are some virtues that really cannot be developed without the experience of evil. These include qualities such as courage, forgiveness, and perseverance.

Both theodicies are basically means-ends explanations for evil, and are actually mutually dependent. Spiegel summarizes his argument: “In order for human freedom to necessitate the possibility (or reality) of evil the free will theodicy must specify the desirability of certain evil-contingent free choices, the good of which can be adequately accounted for only relative to the end of good moral character. On the other hand, this end-in-view of the soul-making theodicy—character development—is only achievable given the possibility of free will, since this is a pre-condition for moral agency and the requisite choices involved in acquiring second-order virtues.”

These theodicies each have similar objections with similar answers. Some have suggested that real evil is not necessary for character development. The problem is that illusory evil would only result in genuine character. Similarly, some suggest that only an illusion of free will in necessary to bring about genuine love. However, just like in the case of soul-making, virtual freedom only results in virtual love. Explanations for natural evil show where the theodicies diverge, but are still complimentary. The free will theodicy explains natural evil as the result of the Fall of humankind, while soul-making explains it as part of the evil allowed in order to shape people into God’s likeness. In this way, the soul-making theodicy is more teleological. So while one theodicy may be preferred over the other, they are in fact mutually dependent and complimentary.

UPDATE: Jim has posted his paper at his blog, so you can read the entire paper there.

Here are a couple of my summaries of Jim's papers from past years:

ETS 2005: James Spiegel on Ethics and Art

ETS 2006- James Spiegel: The Epistemic Ramifications of Behavior