Introduction

I wrote this paper for Religion 403-1, submitting it to Dr. Donald E. Byrne, Jr., on Dec. 8, 1983, at the end of the fall semester of my senior year in college.

Paper

Theological discussions seem, inevitably and inexorably, to be drawn to the topic of evil, its existence and nature, as surely as a downed twig spins into the whirlpool of a storm drain. Questions of God’s nature, the incarnation of Christ, salvation, and many other topics all hinge upon a resolution, however partial, of the dilemma evil presents to thinking person. “Dilemma” is the right word to use, for many note the no-win proposition evil presents to the believer in God:

The reality of evil in its many forms probably presents theistic faith with its most serious challenge. This challenge has traditionally been formulated as a dilemma: If God is omnipotent, He can prevent all evil; if He is perfectly good, He must want to prevent all evil; but evil exists; therefore God is either not omnipotent or not perfectly good. Either of these alternatives would amount to the collapse of traditional Hebrew-Christian monotheism. (John Hick, “The Problem of Evil,” in Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. John Hick, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1970, p. 540.)

So obviously the problem of evil confronts theologians with a fundamental obstacle, an obstacle they need either to overcome or circumvent. St. Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Scholastic, and Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century Reformer, are not exceptions to this rule. Initially, Aquinas, with his rigorously logical, Aristotelian approach to theology, and Luther, with his often biting and polemical invective, seem far removed from agreement on the problem of evil. Aquinas appears to circumvent the dilemma posed above by denying the existence of evil and introducing the privation of the good. (Summa Theologica, Ia, 48, 3. All citations from the Summa come from the following edition: St. Thomas Aquinas, Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis, New York: Random House, Inc., 1945.) Luther, on the other hand, affirms the existence of evil but refuses to deny God’s omnipotence. (Martin Luther, On the Bondage of the Will, ed. J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston, Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1957, p. 204.) When confronted with the actual conditions of the world, the two theologians begin to converge in their analyses of the problem of evil. Thus, while St. Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther approach the problem of evil differently, both finally admit that evils exist and God alone knows why. Before Luther’s and Aquinas’s positions on the problem of evil can be compared, their basic lines of reasoning need to be delineated. After this is accomplished, the differences and similarities between them can be noted and discussed. Finally, an argument for Luther’s position will be put forward.

Luther relies heavily on the creation account in Genesis for much of the basis of his thought on evil. For Luther, evil, Satan, and the doctrine of original sin are all related. Before the Fall, Luther describes the state of humankind as follows:

Wherefore that image of God in which Adam was created was a workmanship the most beautiful, the most excellent, and the most noble, while as yet no leprosy of sin adhered either to his reason or to his will. (Martin Luther, “Commentary on Genesis,” in A Compend of Luther”s Theology, ed. Hugh Thomson Kerr, Jr., Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1943, p. 81.)

Luther attributes the Fall from grace to a defect in Adam’s nature; in other words, humans were and are destined by their very nature to sin, to choose evil. Luther writes:

We must confess, as Paul says in Rom. 5.11, that sin originated from one man Adam, by whose disobedience all men were made sinners, and subject to death and the devil. This is called original or capital sin…. This hereditary sin is so deep a corruption of nature, that no reason can understand it, but it must be believed from the revelation of Scriptures. (Martin Luther, “Smalcald Articles,” in Kerr, p. 84.)

This may explain how human beings have become tainted with evil, but it does not explain from where that evil comes. Even a cursory glance at the Biblical creation account will suffice to uncover a possible source—Satan. Because Luther holds fast to God’s omnipotence, Satan cannot be an Ultimate Evil, coeternal with God, and able to limit God. Luther maintains that

it is God the Creator who energises Satan, according to his nature, and such power as Satan has is held and exercised by God’s own appointment. (Luther, Bondage, p. 51.)

Thus it seems, in summary thus far, that humans cannot help but sin, that they are “member[s] of Satan’s kingdom and in all [their] actions[are] under Satan’s sway,” and that Satan operates with God’s consent. (Luther, Bondage, p. 50.)

To assume from this progression that Luther feels God to be the source of evil would be, obviously, to deny God’s perfect goodness. This Luther will not do. He does say, however, that

evil is brought to expression only by the omnipotent working of the good God. “Since God moves and works all in all, He moves and works of necessity even in Satan and the ungodly. But He works according to what they themselves are, and what He finds them to be; which means, since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted and evil….” (Luther, Bondage, p. 52.)

So if Luther were confronted with the dilemma mentioned at the outset, he would affirm God’s omnipotence, His perfect goodness, and the existence of evil. This way out of the dilemma involves admitting the presence of evil without compromising God’s nature, in effect, denying the dilemma’s validity.

Aquinas introduces a definition of evil, which initially seems strange. For him, “evil is present in a thing to the extent that it lacks some degree of realization for which its nature fits it.” (Daniel John O’Conner, Aquinas and Natural Law, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968, p. 20.) In the Summa Theologica he reasons thus: “It must be said that every evil in some way has a cause. For evil is the absence of the good which is natural and due to a thing.” (S.T., Ia, 49, 1.) This redefinition of evil as the privation of the good may seem to extricate Aquinas from the dilemma, but, as Copleston notes, “The description of evil as privation does not diminish the evil in the world, and still less does it do away with it.” (F.C. Copleston, Aquinas, New York: Penguin Books, 1955, p. 149.)

The next obvious question is, given Aquinas’s position that God is omnipotent, whether God is the cause of evil, and hence, not perfectly good. Gilson provides the Thomist answer to this question: “It is inconceivable that God can be its [evil’s] cause. If we ask what is its cause, our answer is that it is the tendency of certain beings to return toward non-being.” (Étienne Henry Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. L.K. Shook, New York: Random House, Inc., 1956, p. 158.) On this point, Aquinas cites St. Augustine in support of his own view that “God is not the author of evil, because He is not the cause of tending to non-being.” (S.T., Ia, 49, 2.) Not content to conclude only that God is not the cause of evil, Aquinas further demonstrates that there is no perfectly evil principle responsible for all evil. He writes:

But nothing can be evil in its very essence. For it was shown above that every being, as such, is good, and that evil can exist only in good as in its subject. (S.T., Ia, 49, 3.)

Thus Aquinas affirms God“s omnipotence and perfect goodness, while denying that evil, per se, exists. He, too, thwarts the dilemma posed above.

Several points of agreement, as well as disagreement, exist for Luther and Aquinas. Both theologians hold fast to the traditional, basic attributes of God: His omnipotence and His perfect goodness. On the subject of evil, Luther places the blame, so to speak, upon human beings’ nature. As related earlier, Luther notes that “the nature of [man’s] wickedness is described as not doing, and not being able to do, any differently; for it is itself evil….” (Luther, Bondage, p. 243.) Aquinas, on the other hand, feels that “God, in creating man, must be said to have permitted moral evil, though He did not will that man should choose to act immorally, and though in fact He gives man the means of choosing rightly.” (Copleston, p. 153.) When Luther’s and Aquinas’s positions on the dilemma mentioned at the outset are compared, both circumvent the dilemma, rather than allowing the God of Christianity to crumble. Luther gets around the dilemma by believing in two seemingly contradictory ideas: the qualities of God and evil’s existence. Aquinas denies evil’s existence and so deflates the dilemma. The greatest similarity occurs when one pushes Aquinas and Luther on the question of why this world contains degrees of perfection (for Aquinas) or evil (for Luther). They both fall back from trying to explain ultimately why evil or imperfection exists. Copleston, critiquing the Thomist position, states:

St. Bonaventure remarked that if anyone asks why God did not make a better world or make this world better, no answer can be given except that He so willed and that He Himself knows the reason. And I do not see that Aquinas could say much more than this. (Copleston, p. 154.)

Analysts of Luther reach a similar conclusion about his position: “Behind the revealed dualism of cosmic conflict between the devil and God lies the hidden mystery of absolute Divine sovereignty….” (Luther, Bondage, p. 51.) So ultimately Luther and Aquinas acquiesce to God’s unknowable will; in the end, they provide the same answer: “Only God knows why.”

Martin Luther’s thinking on the problem of evil has several reasons to recommend it. First of all, his admitting the existence of real evil in the world corresponds to common experience, not merely of natural calamities and so-called “acts of God,” but also of human beings’ seeming inability to do good even when they will to. Who among as has not, at one time or another, chosen to perform an act, knowing full well at the moment of choosing, that the act would bring about an evil? We human beings seem to have a built-in defect, a defect which Luther, after great personal travail and anguish, recognized as inherent. This realization gave Luther a dose of courage:

It has rightly been said that Albrecht Dürer’s engraving, “Knight, Death, and the Devil,” is a classic expression of the spirit of the Lutheran Reformation and—it might be added—of Luther’s courage of confidence, of his form of the courage to be. A knight in full armor is riding through a valley, accompanied by the figure of death on one side, the devil on the other. Fearlessly, concentrated, confident he looks ahead. He is alone but he is not lonely. In his solitude he participates in the power which gives him the courage to affirm himself in spite of the presence of the negativities of existence. (Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952, p. 161.)

His view of God as omnipotent and perfectly good provides human beings with a hope. Even though we are doomed, Luther says, in effect, that we can throw ourselves to the mercy of God; we cannot do otherwise. In addition, Luther’s belief that God knows the reason why evil exists and that God can and will control evil, even though we cannot know the plan, gives us something in which to trust.

Another reason for accepting Luther’s view on evil is that he argues from the basis of Scripture, which many people take to be authoritative. An example of this is the following:

So also Christ says in Matt. 7: “An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit” (v.18). And in Matt. 12: “How can ye, being evil, speak that which is good?” (v.34). Here you see that not only do we speak evil, but we cannot speak good. And though He says elsewhere that we, though evil, know how to give good things to our children (cf. Matt. 7.11), yet He denies that we do good, even by our giving of good things, because the good things which we give are God’s creatures, and we, being evil, cannot give those good things in good fashion. (Luther, Bondage, p. 300.)

Supporting a position with Scriptural citations lends more credence to Luther’s views than would proceeding merely from abstract philosophical principles. So Luther’s view of evil is believable because it conforms to our experience of the world and ourselves, provides us with hope despite our plight, and is based directly on Scripture. In conclusion, while St. Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther seem to differ in their attempts to confront the problem of evil, both admit finally that evils exist and that God alone knows the reason why. Copleston writes of Aquinas:

There is no reason for depicting Aquinas as suggesting that human beings should adopt a purely passive attitude towards evil. It is obvious that he held nothing of the kind with regard to moral evil. Nor did he make any such suggestion with regard to physical evil. He would say, of course, that though God foresaw and permitted evil, He also foresaw, and indeed willed, man’s efforts to diminish its extent. (Copleston, p. 155.)

Luther’s world, too, contains the evils ultimately under God’s control:

There is no escaping from the horrors of darkness because God is such a God “that before he can be God he must first appear to be the Devil. We cannot reach heaven until we first descend into hell. We cannot be God’s children unless we first are the Devil’s children. Again before the world can be seen to be a lie it must first appear to be the truth.” (Roland H. Bainton, A Life of Martin Luther: Here I Stand, New York; The New American Library, Inc., 1950, p. 169.)

Evil presents a thorny, knotty challenge to the thinking person, especially the Christian. Whether or not we seek to wrestle with this formidable foe, the question remains—Why? While we cannot hope to answer it fully, we should still try. In the trying lie the great challenges and the great rewards:

The reality of evil in our world is at once the greatest intellectual threat to the convincing power of Christian theology, and the single characteristic of our human existence which gives Christian faith its continual meaning and creative power in men’s lives. On the one hand…everything that Christians say about God and their life seems contradicted by this pervasive fact of evil. And yet on the other hand, it is true that everything Christians believe about God and human life provides the only force strong enough to conquer the radical power of evil over men’s minds and hearts. (Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine: Teachings of the Christian Church, Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1968, p. 170.)

While we cannot dispose of evil, we can at least grapple with the problems it poses, in hopes of making the examined life worth living.