The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (BRIAN DAVIES)

Introduction 

1 The Problem of Evil 7 

2 God the Creator 

3 Identifying God 58 

4 God's Moral Standing 

5 How Not to Exonerate God: I 112 

6 How Not to Exonerate God: II 140 

7 Evil, Causation and God 173 

8 Goodness, Love and Reasons 197 

9 God, Evil and Goodness 222 

Appendix: Is God Morally Indifferent?

Introduction

As we all know very well, people act badly - sometimes even atrociously. They hurt each other in various ways. Some of them commit gruesome murders. Some of them succeed in acts of genocide. Some of them just pain other people by what they say to them. As we also know, there is (and for a long time has been) a great deal of physical pain and suffering, and a lot of psychological pain and suffering which is not the doing or intention of any human being. Before people came on the scene there were prehistoric animals, many of whom must have died in agony.1 And there are human beings alive today who are congenitally depressed, who have terminal diseases, and who are victims of natural disasters which leave them disabled. Our world is now, and has long been, full of anguish. Let me put all this by saying that evil is something with which to reckon.2 'Evil', of course, is a strong word that people now employ fairly rarely. Nobody likes being given an injection by a dentist (a bad thing to have to endure), but hardly anyone would call the pain of that injection an 'evil'. Then again, we may not approve of people who lie to excuse their late arrival at a party (perhaps this is morally bad), but we would not normally refer to them as evil for doing so. We tend to employ the term 'evil' when referring to a great or horrendous deal of badness - like that present, in genocide, ruthless serial killing, wanton cruelty, cancer, the deaths of thousands of people by virtue of an earthquake, and so on. But badness is badness, even if it admits of degrees (from slight to horrendous). Medieval thinkers had one word for it in all its forms - malum (which we can translate either as 'badness' or as 'evil'). Mcdum, they rightly concluded, is all-pervasive. And, with this thought in mind, I say, once again, that evil is something with which to reckon.'5 

Given this fact, we might be forgiven for concluding that life is pretty grim and makes very little sense on the whole even if we appreciate much of what it gives us - like our families (if we have families), our friends (if we have them), the taste of a good wine (if we can afford it, or get someone to buy it for us), and the music of Mozart (if we have been privileged to have been introduced to it and are not deaf). Yet there are those who believe that the world is created and governed by a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and good. These people tell us that everything we encounter is God's gift to us and is guided by providence or mind (God's providence and mind). They insist that what we deem to be bad or evil in the world is no good reason for abandoning belief in God. Given how we find the world to be, however, how can these people be right? With this question we come to what is commonly called 'the problem of evil'. It is, of course, an intellectual problem. I might wonder how to protect my family from terrorists, or I might worry about how to avoid heart disease or hurricanes. Then again, I might ask myself how best to control my desire to kill people, or how I might reform compulsive rapists. The problem of evil, however, is usually taken to be a theoretical matter, not one where the focus is on how one might bring about some desirable goal (a practical matter), hi much philosophical literature it is commonly regarded as a philosophical challenge to belief in the existence of God. Does the occurrence of evil in the world show that there certainly is no God, or that there probably is no God? In response to this question some say 'Yes' and some say 'No'. If we take sides with either party here, or are interested in their positions, we are engaged with what now goes by the name of 'the problem of evil'. How should we approach this problem? My view is that the right way to do so is to proceed by attending to what I would call 'basics'. That is to say, in order profitably to think about God and evil we need to begin by asking 'Is there a God?' and 'What is God?' So in this book I approach the problem of evil by trying to attend to such basics. In the very first line of his De Providentia, Seneca (3 BC-AD 65) writes: 'You have asked me, Lucilius, why, if a providence rules the world, it still happens that many evils befall good men. This would be more fittingly answered in the course of a work in which we prove that a providence presides over the universe, and that god concerns himself with us.'4 You might think of the present book as written by someone partly seeking to follow Seneca's advice.

To start with I offer an introduction to ways in which people have reflected on God and evil since the time of David Hume (1711-1776), whose writings on God and evil did much to influence subsequent discussions of the topic (Hume is almost required reading, or an essential starting point, for the modern debate on God and evil). The purpose of this introduction is to give you (should you need it) a sense of how people have approached the topic of God and evil in recent years (though I also briefly refer to some less-than-recent authors). I then proceed to talk about God and evil by focusing on the basics to which I have just referred. What I shall be arguing is very much what has been defended by many classical Christian authors - especially Thomas Aquinas (1224/6-1274), to whom I am particularly indebted and to whom I refer frequently in what follows. It has been suggested to me that I refer too frequently to Aquinas in this book, and perhaps that is so. Yet, as well as being a major figure in the history of theology, Aquinas is a thinker whose stature is increasingly acknowledged by philosophers (especially analytical ones).5 And he strikes me as especially illuminating when it comes to issues with which I am here concerned. Aquinas, I think, is someone with whom we may approach the topic of God and evil with renewed vigour and insight. It therefore seems to me appropriate often to bring him into my discussion and sometimes even to engage in expositions of him and in evaluations of what some of his critics have had to say against him. The fact that 1 do so should not, of course, be taken to imply that points made by Aquinas, ones that I deem valuable, are not also ably made by other authors. Nor should it be taken to imply that a view is right just because Aquinas held it. I shall be arguing that once what I call 'basics' have been attended to in a certain way, much that has recently been written on God and evil (by both foes and friends of God) should be viewed as either beside the point, just plain wrong, or even morally dubious. But I also want to say something positive about God and evil - to comment on how we might actually think of evil given God's reality. My basic line, counter-intuitive though it might seem, is that we can take much evil to be positively desirable. I deny that the problem of evil shows God to be certainly or probably non-existent. When it comes to evil itself, I argue that, up to a point at, least, sense can be made of it (or, at least, of God's goodness in relation to it) if we view it as belonging to a divinely created order, and especially if we view it in the light of some of the things that Christians (and only Christians) have said. Theologians sometimes suggest that evil is a mystery and that this is what one should stress with an eye on the problem of evil. My position, though, is that evil, as such, is not a mystery.6 As we reflect on the problem of evil we should, I think, be ruminating not on the mystery (or problem) of evil but on the mystery (or problem) of good - our proper question being 'Why is there not more good than there is?' It is easy to write on God and evil without going back to the basics of which I speak above. By this I mean (and only mean) that one is spared a lot of work if one does not take it as part of one's brief to approach the topic of God and evil by starting with questions about the existence and nature of God. Yet I take it as part of my brief to do just this. So I have a major problem at the outset. Discussions concerning the existence and nature of God are legion, and they raise all sorts of questions which cannot be fully dealt with in a single volume. In this one I have tried to deal with many of these questions in what I hope is a cogent way. But I recognize that much that I say could be developed and that there are objections to it which, for reasons of space, I simply pass over in silence. As I have said, though, it seems to me impossible fruitfully to engage with the problem of evil without having some (relatively developed) understanding of God at the outset. Such understanding is what I shall try to present as part and parcel of what I have to say about God and evil (though, as you will see, I believe that our understanding of God is extremely limited). For comments on various bits of what follows I am grateful (with the usual disclaimer) to Christopher Arroyo, Victor Austin, Michael Baur, David Burrell, Morris Clarke, Peter Geach, Paul Helm, Luke Timothy Johnson, Gyula Klima, D. Z. Phillips, James Ross, James Sadowsky, Charles Taliaferro, Margaret Walker and Charles Wrightington. T. W. Bartel, my copy-editor for this volume, helped me considerably, for he went about his task as a serious thinker and not just as someone able to note where a reference is missing or where a semicolon needs to be provided. I am also grateful to Fordham University for awarding me a Faculty Fellowship (2004/05) which gave me time to work on this book as well as on other things. In conclusion I should note that all biblical quotations come from the New Revised Standard Version.

One 

The Problem of Evil

In part 10 of David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, three characters (Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes) continue a discussion that has already been going on for some time.1 The discussion, however, now enters a new phase. Cleanthes has previously been stressing the view that God is, in many ways, like human beings, and both Demea and Philo have resisted his way of talking.2 As part 10 of the Dialogues gets under way they press their case against him by drawing attention to evil. The topic of human misery', says Philo, 'has been insisted on with the most pathetic eloquence, that sorrow and melancholy could inspire.'3 According to Demea, 'the united testimony of mankind, founded on sense and consciousness' shows that our pain and suffering is something undeniable.4 What kinds of woe do Philo and Demea have in mind here? To begin with, Philo is thinking of damage things do to each other. He says: The whole earth .. . is cursed and polluted. A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want stimulate the strong and courageous: Fear, anxiety, terror agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the new-born infant and to its wretched parent. Weakness, impotence, distress attend each stage of that life: And it is at last finished in agony and horror... The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in their turn, often prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects, which either are bred on the body of each animal, or flying about infix their stings on him. These insects have others still less than themselves, which torment them. And thus on each hand, before and behind, above and below, every animal is surrounded by enemies, which incessantly seek his misery and destruction.6 Demea subsequently suggests that people tend to triumph over animals that threaten them, but Philo merely continues to drive home his point. He notes that we are prone to worry and fretfulness even when we have achieved certain states of well-being, and he adds that we oppress each other: This very society by which we surmount those wild beasts, our natural enemies; what new enemies does it not raise to us? What woe and misery does it not occasion? Man is the greatest enemy of man. Oppression, injustice, contempt, contumely, violence, sedition, war, calumny, treachery, fraud; by these they mutually torment each other. And they would soon dissolve that society which they had formed, were it not for the dread of still greater ills, which must attend their separation.6 Demea does not disagree with Philo here. Indeed, he goes on to enlarge on what Philo says by adding to his list of horrors. For, notes Demea, people are also the victims of their physical and psychological constitutions. We are, he observes, prone to disease; and we are subject to remorse, shame, anguish, rage, disappointment, anxiety, fear, dejection, and despair: Were a stranger to drop, on a sudden, into the world, I would show him a specimen of its ills, an hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strowed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.7 In short, Philo and Demea have three kinds of woe in mind - (1) ills inflicted on things in the world by natural predators and the like, (2) ills inflicted by people on each other, and (3) ills that affect us because of ways in which our bodies and minds operate (or fail to operate). And Philo thinks that all of these misfortunes place a pretty hefty question mark over belief in God in so far as a likeness is pressed between God and human beings. He asserts: EPICURUS'S old questions are yet unanswered. Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?8 Cleanthes has been comparing God with people, especially morally good ones. Philo is now implying that badness in the world casts doubt on such a comparison. For good people alleviate or prevent ills in so far as they can. Given that many ills are not alleviated or prevented, the inference (so Philo is suggesting) is that God (if there be one) is either lacking in power or morally bad. And that is what others have concluded. In reply to Philo, one might suggest that there are ills of which God (though neither impotent nor malevolent) is simply ignorant, Yet God is commonly said to be all-knowing (omniscient), and with this thought in mind many have added to Philo's charge the codicil: 'Given the ills that there are, God (if there be one) is not omniscient, or not all-powerful, or not morally good; or he is some but not all of these; or he is none of them.' Yet, so it is often claimed, God is all of these things. So people thinking along Philo's lines (or thinking that they think along Philo's lines) have frequently insisted that theists are faced with a problem, one damaging to their position as theists - the problem of evil, as it is usually called, though, as we shall presently see, it makes sense to speak in this context of problems of evil (implying philosophically distinct problems) rather than of the problem of evil (implying only one).9

Problems of evil and some responses to them 

(a) Critics of theism 

(i) Hume  

As we have seen, Hume (via Philo) appears to be suggesting that it seems hard to believe in God (on one understanding of 'God') given the existence of the evils that we encounter. But this is a very general point to make (and, arguably, not an especially damning one for the theist - after all, one can find it hard to believe in many things one knows to be real).10 So one might wonder whether Hume wants a conclusion having more bite so as seriously to undermine theism. Scholars differ when it comes to interpreting the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (they differ as to which bits of the text represent Hume's own views), but it seems to me that Hume, in the end, wants to suggest that evil shows that there positively is no God (as Cleanthes conceives of him). Once Philo has made his case (as reported above) Cleanthes responds by asserting that things in the world are nothing like as bad as Philo makes them out to be. He says: The only method of supporting divine benevolence (and it is what I willingly embrace) is to deny absolutely the misery and wickedness of man. Your representations are exaggerated: Your melancholy views mostly fictitious. Your inferences contrary to fact and experience. Health is more common than sickness: Pleasure than pain: Happiness than misery. And for one vexation, which we meet with, we attain, upon computation, a hundred enjoyments.11 Yet Hume does not give Cleanthes the last word at this point in his text. For, with Cleanthes having tied his version of theism to the belief that things are better than Philo depicts, Philo promptly insists that Cleanthes' claim is 'doubtful' and that pain is 'infinitely more violent and durable' than pleasure.12 And Hume goes on to represent Philo as confidently resting his case against Cleanthes on this basis. Discussion of God and evil continues in the Dialogues beyond part 10, but nothing emerges to suggest that Hume is not himself happy with the conclusion that, if God is as Cleanthes takes him to be, then there is no God. He has Philo conceding that there 'might be a God even as Cleanthes conceives of him and even though the world is as Philo takes it to be. As the Dialogues as a whole makes pretty clear, however, Hume doubts that there is reason to believe in such a God. So Hume's position on God and evil seems to be this: (1) Evil in the world is evidence against the existence of God (on one understanding of'God'). (2) On one understanding of God it might be possible for the evils in the world to be real and for God to be so as well. (3) There is no reason to think that, in the sense of 'God' taken for granted in (1) and (2), there is a God. Of course, the less than illuminating phrase in that summary of Hume is 'on one understanding of "God"'. Yet Hume is clearly thinking of God as portrayed by Cleanthes, according to whom God is only different from people when it comes to degree and allowing for the fact that he (unlike people) is ungenerated, incorporeal and everlasting. Philo's worries about God and evil focus on the notions of power, will and goodness. As is clear from many parts of the Dialogues, Cleanthes believes God to be powerful, able to act voluntarily, and good. As is also clear, however, he takes God to possess these attributes in much the way that people do - only more so. For him, God and I are both powerful, able to act voluntarily, and good, though God is all of these things to a much greater extent than I am. In particular, so he seems to think, God is much better than I am from the moral point of view, and it is this picture of God that Philo, thinking about evil, seeks to undermine. Let us say that you and I are fairly powerful if we can lift a chair (something that a flea, for example, cannot do). Let us also say that we have the capacity to will if we can just choose to make a pie (something that a stove cannot do). Let us also say that we might be considered to be morally good if we befriend people in need and act, in general, as someone like Mother Teresa of Calcutta did.13 According to Cleanthes, God is like us in these respects, but he is more powerful, has more options for willing and is much better behaved. Now, so Philo (and Hume) appear to be saying, that view of God is at odds with the facts of evil. There might, Hume seems to think, be both evil and the God in which Cleanthes believes. But it seems prima fade unlikely, and it cannot be proved that there is such a God as the one in which Cleanthes believes. Or as Philo says: 'There is no view of human life or of the conditions of mankind, from which, without the greatest violence, we can infer the moral attributes [of God], or learn that infinite benevolence, conjoined with infinite power and infinite wisdom.'14 In short, Hume seems to be suggesting that, lacking a proof to the effect that there is a morally good and allpowerful God, the reality of evil should lead us to conclude that there is no such God.1;j

(ii) J. L. Mackie Present-day attacks on belief in God based on evil derive much of their impetus from what Hume writes in the Dialogues. So it is not, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil perhaps, surprising that one of the most influential of recent critics of theism who focuses on evil should be a well-known commentator on Hume. Here I am referring to J. L. Mackie (1917-1981), whose famous paper 'Evil and Omnipotence' has had a considerable impact on philosophical discussion, though its position can be distinguished from that adopted by Hume.16 Mackie crisply asserts that evil shows that there cannot be a God. He writes: In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the theologian, it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three.17 But is it true that theists who acknowledge the reality of evil are somehow contradicting themselves? In the work from which I have quoted, Mackie supports the charge of contradiction in three ways. (i) First, he explains why we should think that God and evil cannot both exist. (ii) Then he explains how they might both be thought to exist, though only in a way which rejects traditional views about God. (iii) Finally, he considers a range of solutions to 'the problem of evil', solutions which, so he argues, are misguided. To begin with, Mackie concedes that 'God exists', 'God is omnipotent', 'God is wholly good', and 'Evil exists" do not, when affirmed together, obviously amount to the manifest self-contradiction of statements like 'One and the same assertion can be simultaneously both true and false' or 'There is something which is both entirely red and entirely green'. The contradiction, says Mackie, 'does not arise immediately; to show it we need some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules connecting the terms "good", "evil", and "omnipotent"'.18 Yet, so Mackie thinks, we can supply such premises or rules. As he puts it: These additional principles are that good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. From these principles, says Mackie, 'it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible'.19 Mackie's second move is to acknowledge that worries about the possible co-existence of God and evil can be set aside, but only at a cost. 'The problem [of evil]', he says, 'will not arise if one gives up at least one of the propositions that constitute it.'20 So the problem does not arise if, for example, one denies the assertion that God is omnipotent. Nor does it arise if one denies that evil is real. As Mackie implies, however, most theists would not want to deny the assertions now in question. So, as Mackie also implies, giving up 'at least one of the propositions that constitute' the problem of evil is not a serious option for theists. Some theists, however, without wishing to deny either divine omnipotence or the reality of evil, have tried to explain how the existence of evil can be reconciled with the omnipotence and goodness of God. In seeking to clinch his case against theism, Mackie mentions four such explanations - to each of which he offers counter-arguments: (a) According to the first, good cannot exist without evil. (b) According to the second, evil is necessary as a means to good. (c) According to the third, the universe is better with some evil in it than it would be with no evil. (d) According to the fourth, evil is due to human free will. Mackie objects to the first claim by arguing that it effectively denies that God is omnipotent. For, Mackie suggests, good can exist without evil. An omnipotent God, he says, 'might have made everything good'.21 In response to the second claim, Mackie sees no reason why an omnipotent God has to put up with evil as a means to good. It may, he says, be true that causal laws in the universe necessitate certain evils if certain goods are to arise. But, he adds, omnipotence can hardly be constrained by causal laws which obtain in the universe. With respect to the third claim Mackie's main objection is that we are still left with a God who is prepared to allow for preventable evil. It has been argued that, even if good can, in principle, exist without evil, there are lots of particular goods which could never have arisen without certain evils. Take, for example, the goodness displayed in the lives of people who consistently care for people in trouble. Such goodness, it would seem, depends for its very being on the fact that people get into trouble. But, says Mackie, in willing a world in which goodness such as this exists, God is willing evil - evil which need never have been. In turning to the fourth claim Mackie is addressing what is, perhaps, the most popular move made by theists in the face of evil. Commonly referred to as the 'Free Will Defence', this maintains: (1) Much evil is the result of what people freely choose to do. (2) It is good that there should be a world with agents able to act freely, and a world containing such agents would be better than a world of puppets controlled by God. (3) Even an omnipotent God cannot ensure that free people act well (for, if they are free and not puppets controlled by God, what they do is up to them). (4) Therefore, much evil is explicable in terms of God allowing for the possible consequences of him willing a great good. However, and without denying the value of human freedom, Mackie finds fault with the Free Will Defence. For he does not see why God could not have made a world in which people always freely act well. He writes: If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good? If there is no logical impossibility in a man's freely choosing the good on one, or on several, occasions, there cannot be a logical impossibility in his freely choosing the good on every occasion. God was not, then, faced with a choice between making innocent automata and making beings who, in acting freely, would sometimes go wrong: there was open to him the obviously better possibility of making beings who would act freely but always go right. Clearly, his failure to avail himself of this possibility is inconsistent with his being both omnipotent and wholly good.22 

(iii) William Rowe 

We shall be seeing more of the Free Will Defence later. For now, however, let me turn to another anti-theistic approach to God and evil - the view that, though theists might not embrace contradictory beliefs in the way that Mackie thinks they do, the existence of evil is none the less good evidence against the existence of God.23 Sometimes called the 'evidentialist argument from evil', this line of thinking (essentially a modern version of Hume's position) can be summarized by referring to William Rowe's much-discussed article 'The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism'.24 In general, Rowe allows that evil (e.g. intense human and animal suffering) might be justifiable if it leads to some greater good, a good not obtainable without the evil in question. With this allowance made, Rowe's basic argument is that there is unjustifiable evil which is good evidence against God's existence. Or, in Rowe's own words: 1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. 2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. 3. [Therefore] [tjhere does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.26 Since Rowe holds this argument to be logically valid, his main concern is to argue for the truth of the first and second premises. The second premise, says Rowe, 'seems to express a belief that accords with our basic moral principles, principles shared by both theists and non-theists'.26 For Rowe, therefore, the really controversial premise is the first, and he admits that it might be false. Suppose we try to imagine an instance of pointless suffering. Though we may not be able to see that it serves a good which cannot be obtained without it, there might, Rowe agrees, be such a good. And yet, he continues, we have good reason to suppose that there are instances of pointless suffering even if we cannot definitively prove that there are such instances. Take, for example, the case of a fawn dying in agony as the victim of a forest fire. 'Is it reasonable', asks Rowe, 'to believe that there is some greater good so intimately connected to that suffering that even an omnipotent, omniscient being could not have obtained that good without permitting that suffering or some evil at least as bad?' Rowe's answer is: 'It certainly does not appear reasonable to believe this. Nor does it seem reasonable to believe that there is some evil at least as bad as the fawn's suffering such that an omnipotent being simply could not have prevented it without permitting the fawn's suffering.'27 For the sake of argument, Rowe concedes that perhaps he is wrong with respect to the example of the fawn. But what of the multitude of instances of 'seemingly pointless human and animal suffering that occur daily in our world'? Turning to this question, Rowe maintains that the only reasonable conclusion is one unfavourable to the theist: 

In the light of our experience and knowledge of the variety and scale of human and animal suffering in our world, the idea that none of this suffering could have been prevented by an omnipotent being without thereby losing a greater good or permitting an evil at least as bad seems an extraordinarily absurd idea, quite beyond our belief.28 

With this point made, Rowe holds that his first premise is a reasonable one and that, given also the reasonableness of his second premise, 'it does seem that we have rational support for atheism, that it is reasonable to believe that the theistic God does not exist'.29

(b) Theistic responses 

Mackie and Rowe are clearly arguing for non-theistic conclusions.30 What, however, have theists said in the face of evil? How have they responded to the charge that evil is proof of, or good evidence for, the non-existence of God? At the risk of simplifying somewhat, we may say that they have mostly done so by embracing one or more of the following lines of argument, some of which Mackie mentions. 

 (i) The 'We Know that God Exists' Argument 

If I know that it often rains in England, I should rightly assume that something is wrong with any attempt to show either that frequent rain in England is impossible or that there is good evidence against its occurring. In a similar way, so it has been argued, we have grounds for supposing that God's existence is not impossible or subject to doubt even though evil exists. For, it has been said, we can know, not only that evil exists, but also that God exists, from which it follows (a) that something is wrong with any attempt to show that God cannot exist, and (b) that something is wrong with any attempt to show that there is good evidence against God's existence. Defenders of this line of thought sometimes offer arguments for God's existence. Taking p to be equivalent to There is a good, omnipotent, omniscient God', their suggestion is that there are positive grounds for accepting p, grounds which entitle us to hold that the existence of God is logically compatible with the existence of evil, grounds which also entitle us to hold that there is no evidence based on evil which shows that God does not exist.31 

(ii) The Unreality of Evil Argument 

This argument takes two forms. According to the first, evil is an illusion of some kind. Such is the view of the Christian Science movement, according to which, in the words of its founder, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), 'Sin, disease, whatever seems real to material sense, is unreal... All inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming to be real and identical'.'12 According to the second form of the argument, evil is unreal since it is no positive thing or quality. Rather, it is an absence or privation of goodness. 

What is this second form driving at? It can be found in the work of writers like Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, and the first thing to say about it (since this is often not appreciated) is that it is not siding with Mary Baker Eddy and is not claiming that there really is no pain, or that there are no wicked people or bad actions. Augustine and Aquinas would never have denied the reality of suffering or sin. They acknowledge that people and other animals suffer, and that people can be horribly vicious as well as slightly bad. Much of their thinking depends on this recognition. On the other hand, however, they hold that what makes suffering or wickedness bad is the fact that it always amounts to a lack of some kind. On their account, 'evil' or 'badness' is not the name of some independently existing individual (like a particular human being, e.g. Mary) or of some positive quality or attribute (like being feline). Rather, it is a word we use to signify a gap between what is actually there and what could be there (and should be there) but is not. There can be people, but there cannot, so Augustine and Aquinas think, be 'baddities' (things whose nature is captured simply by saying that they are bad). There can be wooden boxes, just as there can be wooden chairs. But, so Augustine and Aquinas would say, while 'wooden' signifies a positive property, shareable by different things (like boxes and chairs), 'evil' and 'bad' do not. 'Evil', says Aquinas, 'cannot signify a certain existing being, or a real shaping or positive kind of thing. Consequently, we are left to infer that it signifies a certain absence of a good.'33 Just as to say 'There is nothing here' is not to say of something that it is here, so, in Aquinas's view, to say that there is evil is not to say that there is any real individual or any positive quality.34 With respect to the topic of God and evil, Aquinas regards this conclusion as significant since he thinks of it as implying that God cannot be thought of as causing evil, considered as some kind of thing or as some kind of positive quality. Aquinas holds that God, as Creator, causes the being of all that can properly be thought of as existing (i.e. actual individuals and all their actual, positive properties). On his account, therefore, evil cannot be thought of as something caused (creatively) by God. It is, he thinks, real enough (in the sense that it would be mad to say that nothing is bad or defective or sinful). But it is not, he concludes, something created. Its 'reality' is always a case of something missing. 

(Hi) The Free Witt Defence 

As we have seen, Mackie refers to the Free Will Defence. As we have also seen, his verdict on it is negative. But according to many philosophers it is a good response to the charge that evil somehow shows that God cannot, or probably does not, exist. One such philosopher (famous for advocating the Free Will Defence) is Alvin Plantinga. In 'Evil and Omnipotence' Mackie rejects the Free Will Defence on the ground that an omnipotent God could have made a world in which free people always behave well. According to Plantinga, however, we cannot know that this is so. He agrees that there is no contradiction involved in the notion of someone always behaving well. But, he adds, whether someone freely behaves well in some actual situation cannot be determined by God. Created people must freely decide to act well, and they cannot do that if the fact that they act as they do is determined by God. 'Of course', says Plantinga, 'it is up to God whether to create free creatures at all; but if he aims to produce moral good, then he must create significantly free creatures upon whose co-operation he must depend. Thus is the power of an omnipotent God limited by the freedom he confers upon his creatures.'35 It might appear from this last quotation that Plantinga wishes to deny God's omnipotence. Yet that is not the way he sees it. Theists have regularly denied that divine omnipotence means that God can do what is logically impossible, and Plantinga's basic point is that it is logically impossible for God to create a creature whose actions are both free and determined by him. Plantinga wants to say this since he thinks that a free action cannot be caused by anything other than the agent whose action it is. 'If a person S is free with respect to a given action,' he writes, 'then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain; no causal laws and antecedent conditions determine either that he will perform the action, or that he will not. It is within his power, at the time in question, to perform the action, and within his power to refrain.'1 * 

(iv) Th£ Means and Ends Approach 

You would probably think me bad if I cut off someone's leg just for the fun of it. But you would probably not think me bad if I were a doctor who amputated a leg as the only way known to me of saving someone with gangrene. Why not? You would probably say something like: 'Because it is not bad to aim for something regrettable, something we might truly deem to be bad, if we are working toward a good at which we should aim (or are justified to intend) which cannot be achieved in any other way.' And this thought constitutes the basic thrust of what I am now calling the 'Means and End Approach'. Here again we have a line of thought referred to and rejected by Mackie, though it is one which has found many theistic supporters. According to them, the evil we encounter is a necessary means to what is good. Considered as such, evil cannot, they think, be appealed to as part of a proof of God's non-existence. Nor is it evidence for God's non-existence. 

A notable and impressive contemporary defence of the Means and End Approach can be found in Richard Swinburne's book The Existence of God.37 To begin with, Swinburne endorses a version of the Free Will Defence. It is good, he thinks, that people should be significantly free, but God can only allow them to be this by also allowing them to act badly should they choose to do so. For this reason Swinburne deems human wrongdoing to be explicable as a means to an end (the end being a world of free creatures, the means being God's standing back and allowing them freedom). What, however, of pain and suffering not brought about by people? To this question Swinburne replies by suggesting that this can also be seen as a necessary means to a good. For it is good, thinks Swinburne, that people have serious moral choice to harm or help each other, and, he argues, choice like this can only arise against the background of naturally occurring pain and suffering. He writes: 

If men are to have knowledge of the evil which will result from their actions or negligence, laws of nature must operate regularly . . . if humans are to have the opportunity to bring about serious evils for themselves or others by actions or negligence, or to prevent their occurrence, and if all knowledge of the future is obtained by normal induction, that is by rational response to evidence - then there must be serious natural evils occurring to man or animals.38 

One might say that there is too much naturally occurring evil. Swinburne, however, thinks it reasonable to conclude that this is not so. The fewer natural evils God provides, he suggests, the less opportunity he offers for people to exercise responsibility. To say that there is 'too much' naturally occurring evil, says Swinburne, is effectively to suggest that God should make 'a toy-world; a world where things matter, but not very much; where we can choose and our choices can make a small difference, but the real choices remain God's'.39 Swinburne considers the possibility of God making himself evident to us so that we always choose well. He thinks, however, that God needs to be somehow hidden if people are to be genuine choosers. If God were really evident to us, says Swinburne, we would desire to be liked by him and our freedom of action would be undermined. 'We will be in the situation of the child in the nursery who knows that mother is looking in at the door, and for whom, in view of the child's desire for mother's approval, the temptation to wrongdoing is simply overborne. We need "epistemic distance" from God in order to have a free choice between good and evil.'40 

A line of thinking similar to Swinburne's can be found in John Hick's Evil and the God of Love (justly a modern classic on the topic of God and evil).41 Hick also employs the Free Will Defence: human freedom is a good which entails the risk of evil (the assumption being that a good God would be happy to take such a risk). Then he endorses a line of thought which he claims to derive from the writings of St Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 140-c. 202). According to Hick, God cannot create a world in which people can morally mature and eventually enjoy a proper relationship with him (this being thought of as a good) unless he also creates a world in which there are obstacles to overcome. Hick understands evil in the light of God's desire not to coerce people into accepting him. He suggests that people are sinprone creatures, created as such by God, but able, in a world containing naturally occurring evil, to rise to great heights precisely because they are given the opportunity to become mature in the face of evil. He writes: 

Let us suppose that the infinite personal God creates finite persons to share in the life which He imparts to them. If He creates them in his immediate presence, so that they cannot fail to be conscious from the first of the infinite divine being and glory, goodness and love, wisdom, power and knowledge in whose presence they are, they will have no creaturely independence in relation to their Maker. They will not be able to choose to worship God, or to turn to Him freely as valuing spirits responding to infinite Value. In order, then, to give them the freedom to come to Him, God . . . causes them to come into a situation in which He is not immediately and overwhelmingly evident to them. Accordingly they come to self-consciousness as parts of a universe which has its own autonomous structures and 'laws' .. . A world without problems, difficulties, perils, and hardships would be morally static. For moral and spiritual growth comes through response to challenges; and in a paradise there would be no challenges.42

 Athletes say 'No pain, no gain'. This is basically Hick's position when it comes to God and evil. 

(v) The 'We Can't See All the Picture' Argument 

Another theistic response to arguments such as those of Mackie and Rowe takes the form of suggesting that we just cannot be sure that the evil we know about disproves, or is good evidence against, God's existence since our perspective is limited - since we lack a God's-eye view of things, so to speak. Shakespeare's Hamlet told Horatio that 'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy'. The 'We Can't See All the Picture' Argument suggests that, though we might find it hard to see why there is evil in a world made by God, there might be a reason for it. More precisely, so defenders of the argument tend to hold, the evil we encounter might be something God allows or brings about while aiming at a good end which cannot be reached without it (an end which somehow justifies the evil) - though we might not be able to show this by argument (i.e. God has his reasons, even if we cannot understand them). Or as Demea says in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: 

This world is but a point in comparison of the universe: This point but a moment in comparison of eternity. The present evil phenomena, therefore, are rectified in other regions, and in some future period of existence. And the eyes of men, being then opened to larger views of things, see the whole connection of general laws, and trace, with adoration, the benevolence and rectitude of the Deity, through all the mazes and intricacies of his providence.43 

A prominent contemporary writer who defends the 'We Can't See All the Picture' Argument is William P. Alston.44 An opponent of theism (such as William Rowe) might suggest that there exist instances of intense suffering that God could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good (let us call this 'Thesis A'). According to Alston, however, 'the magnitude or complexity of the question is such that our powers, access to data, and so on are radically insufficient to provide sufficient warrant for accepting' A.45 Hamlet's words to Horatio, says Alston, hit the nail on the head: 'They point to the fact that our cognitions of the world, obtained by filtering raw data through such conceptual screens as we have available for the nonce, acquaint us with only some indeterminable fraction of what there is to be known.'46 Alston's thesis is that God knows what he is doing (or allowing, or whatever); and God might have reasons for doing what he does (or for allowing what he allows); but we might not be able to understand what God is about as he lives his life.4 ' 

(vi) What kind of world can we expect from God? 

Those who believe evil to be a problem for theists tend to rely on assumptions about the kind of world which God (if he exists) would make. We should therefore note that many theists have addressed the topic of evil and God by trying to call into question some of these assumptions. 

Consider, for example, the notion that relief from (or absence of) pain and suffering is an intrinsically good thing, something which God would always lay on for things like human beings. Many antitheistic writers seem to embrace this notion, but many theists do not. As we have seen, some hold that pain and suffering can perfect human beings. They argue (roughly) that austerity, sacrifice, poverty, and pain can lead to desirable results. And some suggest that what we may loosely call 'an absence of happiness' is not necessarily something which ought not to be brought about even though it could be prevented and even though we know nothing about desirable results. Some critics of theism have said that God (if he exists) would create 'the best possible world'. Others have said that God (if he exists) would maximize happiness for his creatures. But theists have challenged these assumptions as well. They have said, for example, that talk of a 'best possible world' is as incoherent as talk of a 'greatest prime number'. According to C. J. F. Williams, for example, 'It is a consequence of God's infinite power, wisdom and goodness that, for any world we can conceive him creating, it is possible to conceive him creating a better world. More than that - for this has nothing to do with what we can or cannot conceive - for any world which God can create, there is another, better world which he could also have created.'48 And, though one might be tempted to suppose that 'Maximize happiness' is an imperative which any decent-minded God could be expected to act on, some theists have challenged the idea that such an imperative is intelligible. Suppose we have a happy human being. This person could, presumably, be happier. Is there, then, a limit to happiness - some stage at which further increased happiness is impossible, some stage which God should have brought about for all from the start? Arguing somewhat along the lines of the passage from Williams just cited, George N. Schlesinger has  suggested that there is no such specifiable limit. We can, he suggests, always think of ways in which a person's happiness can be in some way increased, and it is no good objection to God's existence to say that God has made a world in which people are less happy than they could be.49 

With an eye on the question 'What kind of world can God be expected to make?', we should also note that some theists have urged that we can have no reasonable expectations one way or the other. An example here is Aquinas. Taking his lead from the Bible and his own philosophical reflections, Aquinas thinks of God as the source of the being (esse) of creatures. For Aquinas, God alone exists by essence or nature, and anything other than God exists because it is made to be by God. It is not, thinks Aquinas, characteristic of God that he should make things like this as opposed to things like that (though Aquinas is clear that God has made a world of varied things). In so far as anything can be deemed a 'characteristic effect' of God, says Aquinas, it is being (esse) - the fact that there is something rather than nothing, the fact that there is any world at all - and this thought leads Aquinas away from suppositions as to what we can expect in a world created by God. We can, he thinks, expect that poison will have certain effects when swallowed by human beings. In general, so he thinks, we can have lots of expectations about what will be produced by what (such expectations are part of what Aquinas would have called a scientific understanding of the world). For Aquinas, however, God is not an object of scientific enquiry, not a part of the world in which science can be developed. For him, God 'is to be thought of as existing outside the realm of existents, as a cause from which pours forth everything that exists in all its variant forms'.50 If it is logically possible for something to be, then, thinks Aquinas, God can make it to be. But, Aquinas also thinks, we have no means of determining what logically possible things God will make to be. For Aquinas, we have to start by noting what God has, in fact, made to be. Reflections on the topic of God and evil must, so he thinks, start from that, and not from assumptions we might have dreamed up (on what basis?) concerning what God is or is not likely to create. 

While defending Aquinas's account of what we can and cannot know of God by rational reflection, Herbert McCabe writes: 'We do not appeal specifically to God to explain why the universe is this way rather than that, for this we need only appeal to explanations within the universe. For this reason there can, it seems to me, be no feature of the universe which indicates that it is God-made.'51 Like Aquinas, McCabe is suggesting that, since God accounts for there being something rather than nothing, we have no basis as philosophers (i.e. apart from recourse to divine revelation) for expectations concerning the kind of world which God (if he chooses to create) will make. 

(vii) God suffers also 

A survey of recent theistic responses to those who deny or call into question the existence of God because of the reality of evil would not be complete without a mention of a very contemporary angle on the topic of God and evil. According to this, evil is no more a ground for denying God's existence than it is for denying mine or yours. That is because, so it has been argued, God (like all human beings) is also a victim of evil and also suffers. Authors who might be cited as defending this line of thought include the German theologian Jiirgen Moltmann and the Latin American liberation theologian Jon Sobrino. 

Classical Christian theists take it for granted that God is utterly changeless (immutable).52 From this belief it follows that God cannot be acted on (i.e. modified) by anything. It also follows that God cannot undergo suffering (since to suffer is to be passive to the action of something which acts on one to bring about a change of a certain kind). Moltmann and Sobrino, however, deny that God is utterly changeless. According to them, if God is to be really acceptable to human beings he must be capable of suffering and, in this sense, must be affected by evil. In Moltmann's view, the great thing about Christianity is that it offers us a suffering God revealed as such in the person of Christ. Traditional Christian teaching holds that Christ is God, but it also denies that this implies that we can say, without qualification, 'God suffers'. A distinction is made between what is true of Christ as man, and what is true of him as God. The conclusion then proposed is that, though Christ could suffer as man, he could not suffer as God. Moltmann rejects this traditional way of speaking, however. For him, the divinity of Christ means that divinity as such is capable of suffering, and, he says, in the light of this point we can offer comfort to suffering human beings (considered as victims of evil). People in distress can be driven to say that because of their suffering they cannot believe in God. According to Moltmann, however, God and suffering are not to be thought of as irreconcilable with each. For God suffers too. And that is what Sobrino also wants to say. As he puts it: 

For Saint John, God is love ... Is that statement real? ... We must insist that love has to be credible to human beings in an unredeemed world. That forces us to ask ourselves whether God can really describe himself as love if historical suffering does not affect him... We must say what Moltmann says: 'We find suffering that is not wished, suffering that is accepted, and the suffering of love. If God were incapable of suffering in all those ways, and hence in an absolute sense, then God would be incapable of loving'.53 

As we have seen, in his discussion of the problem of evil J. L. Mackie accepts that (what he identifies as) the problem disappears if one gives up on the claim that God is omnipotent. Since Moltmann and Sobrino want to conceive of God as passive to the action of creatures and as himself suffering (a notion which seems at odds with traditional theistic accounts of omnipotence), they can fairly be taken as rejecting belief in God's omnipotence and as representing a response to the problem of evil which writers like Mackie would presumably deem to dissolve the problem as conceived by them. 

God and the problem of evil 

As you can see, therefore, there are many different approaches on offer when it comes to the topic of God and evil. Can we adjudicate between them? If we are concerned with truth, we presumably ought to try to do so. But how should we proceed? My view is that we cannot proceed to any good effect if we do not start by returning to what, in the Introduction to this book, I referred to as certain 'basics'. When it comes to the problem of evil we cannot, I think, bypass the question 'Is there any reason to believe in God before we start talking about God and evil?' We cannot, I think, make good progress when trying to think about God and evil if we do not (and apart from the issue of evil) ask if there are positive grounds for believing in God to start with. If there are such grounds, the next obvious question to ask is 'What should we suppose God to be?' God is often (though certainly not always) said to be omnipotent, omniscient, and good. But how, when it comes to God, should we construe 'omnipotent', 'omniscient', and 'good"? You might, reply: 'It is obvious, is it not?' My view, however, is that it is not obvious. If we are right to think (as I believe we are) that cats are animals which fear water, that is because of what we know of actually existing cats. No sensible scientist would dream of telling us what X, Y, and Z are without copious study of them. By the same token, so it seems to me, talk of God's omnipotence, omniscience and goodness needs to be grounded (should this be at all possible) in a study of God - something, in turn, that needs to come before a discussion of God and evil (or the problem of evil). When turning to such a discussion one needs some serious context. In the next chapter, therefore, I begin to spell out what I think we should take this to be.

Two 
God the Creator 

Why did people ever start saying that God exists? The question is probably impossible to answer with any degree of confidence, but much theistic belief is surely grounded in (even if it does not always directly spring from) a belief that the world or universe is somehow derived from and governed by what is distinct from it. According to the book of Genesis God created the heavens and the earth 'in the beginning'.1 According to the Qur'an, God, 'the Compassionate, the Merciful', 'created the heavens and the earth to manifest the Truth'.2 Then again, consider the start of the Apostles' Creed ('I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth') or the beginning of the Nicene Creed ('I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible').3 A traditional development of all these statements insists that God is the Creator in that he makes the world or universe continually to exist from nothing (ex nihilo). The basic idea here is that the world depends for its being on God all the time that it exists (and whether or not it began to exist), and this idea is certainly central to anything that we might now take to be an orthodox account of what belief in God amounts to. 

Many theistic authors have tried to argue that belief in God as Creator is philosophically defensible. Need they bother to do so? More precisely, is it irrational to believe in God as Creator without reference to argument or without the presentation of evidence of some sort? Some philosophers have said that it most certainly is. A notable example is Antony Flew, who urges us to proceed on a 'presumption of atheism'. People on trial in civilized law courts are presumed to be innocent until they are proved guilty. In a similar way, says Flew, the proposition 'God exists' should be deemed to be false until it is shown to be true by reasonable arguments. 'If it is to be established that there is a God,' Flew argues, 'then we have to have good grounds for believing that this is indeed so. Until and unless some such grounds are produced, we have literally no reason at all for believing; and in that situation the only reasonable posture must be that of either the negative atheist or the agnostic.'4 By 'good grounds' here Flew is clearly not demanding irrefutable demonstrations. Rather, he is looking for a reasonable case, something which suggests that it is more likely than not that God exists. Effectively he is asking that belief in God be supported by some good natural theology - taking 'natural theology' to be an argument, or a set of arguments, designed to show that, without presupposing God's existence at the outset, it is reasonable to conclude that there is, in fact, a God. 

Yet Flew's position is too extreme. For it is often perfectly in order (i.e. reasonable) to believe statements that one cannot, in fact, defend by appeal to arguments or evidence. Suppose that you and I meet at a party. I tell you that my name is Brian Davies, and you believe me. Are you being unreasonable here? Surely not, even though you have no arguments or evidence to support what I say at the time that I say it (and even though I might, of course, be lying). Or again, suppose that you get on a plane and arrive at an airport where all the signs tell you that you are, say, in Munich, and where all the airport staff have the same story to offer. You are in no position to offer a reasoned case for believing the signs or the staff, but would you be unreasonable in acting on the supposition that you are, indeed, in Munich (even though it might subsequently turn out that you are the victim of a fantastically elaborate hoax)? Surely not. Believing that such and such is the case on someone's saying so (or believing that such and such is the case because of what is asserted by signs, or books, or the like) is, in general, a perfectly rational thing to do. Indeed, we could hardly get along without believing in this way.5 

To concede this, however, is not to say that there is no reasonable case to be made for concluding that there is a Creator God, and I now want to suggest that there is such a case to be made (even if we do not need recourse to it, or to comparable cases, in order to be reasonable in believing that there is, in fact, a Creator God).6 Arguments for God's existence (considered as Creator, but also under other descriptions) are legion and take many different forms. In my view (and as I have argued elsewhere), a number of them deserve respect, but I shall here concentrate on what I take to be the most fundamental and best of them, one for which I am basically indebted to Thomas Aquinas, and one which takes us right to the heart of what the notion of God as Creator seems classically to involve.7 

The asking of questions 

Is there anything that distinguishes people from the other animals among whom they live? Obviously there is. People are linguistic animals. They talk to each other using symbols which allow them to communicate on a world-wide basis. Dogs and cats can smell each other (and thereby be familiar with each other at a bodily level), but we can talk about the sense of smell. We can also talk about dogs and cats, and we can share an understanding of all these things in a way that non-linguistic animals cannot. When Fido smells Rover, the smell of Rover is in Fido as a sensation he has (so it is Fido's private property, something that belongs to him, and to him alone, just like his nose). But when you tell me that you have just acquired a dog, I have in me exactly what you have in you (the understanding that you have just acquired a dog). Mutual understanding among linguistic animals is not private property. When it occurs, we share thoughts.8 

We often express our thoughts in positive terms. 'Some dogs have fleas' expresses a thought. So does 'It is often cold in Chicago in January'. We can, however, negate statements like these so as to say 'It is not the case that: some dogs have fleas' or 'It is not the case that: it is often cold in Chicago in January'. And, though our ability to understand signs of negation may seem boringly familiar (second nature, as it were), it has at least one major non-boring function. For it allows us to recognize the possibility of alternatives, the fact that things might be other than they are. And with this recognition comes the tendency to ask questions. For questions, after all, are basically designed to prompt us to work out why things are as they are and not otherwise. This, at any rate, is always the case with sensible questions. One can make up silly questions like 'Why is the number 2 taller than the Eiffel Tower?' or 'Why is green heavier than yellow?' Even if each of the words in these questions has a meaning taken in isolation (which I doubt), the questions themselves are meaningless. With sensible questions, however, such is not the case. With these we pose genuine queries because they latch onto genuine puzzles presented by the fact that things are thus and so rather than some other possible way in which they might have been. At least part of the reason that 'Why is John sneezing?' makes sense is because John might not be sneezing. At least part of the reason that 'Why is it snowing in New York today?' makes sense is because it is not always snowing in New York.9 

So there are thoughts expressible in statements which can be negated and which therefore naturally lead us to ask 'Why are these statements true?' Of course, there are statements that cannot but be true. '9 is greater than 6' is a case in point. There are also statements which cannot but be false - e.g. 'What happened last year did not happen'. Statements like these, however, do not give rise to the questions 'Why are they true?' or 'Why are they false?' When something cannot be other than it is, questions as to why it is as it is simply do not arise. Such questions do, however, arise when alternatives are possible. Once we understand what the numbers 9 and 6 are, there is no question as to how 9 comes to be greater than 6. Once we grasp that 'it was the case that such and such happened' and 'it was not the case that such and such happened' are simply contradictory, no question arises as to why it is not true that what happened last year did not happen. Things, though, are different when we come to statements like 'John is sneezing' or 'It is snowing today in New York'. Neither of these statements is true of necessity. If they are true, therefore, it makes sense to ask what accounts for the fact that they are true. 

Or does it? It should be clear that I am suggesting that true statements which do not have to be true (contingently true statements, as we might call them) raise causal questions. They invite us to ask what brings it about that what they report is true. To be sure, some of them might reasonably lead us to ask questions of a different kind - questions concerning what something is by nature, for example. If I simultaneously throw a plastic cup and a crystal wine glass onto a hard surface, the cup may be unharmed while the glass will probably shatter. Someone might ask, 'Why did the cup survive while the glass was destroyed?' This question is not asking what agent or agents brought about a certain outcome. It is asking what it is about something that explains its fate; it is raising a question to be solved by an account of the natures of certain things. But even questions like these readily lead to questions about what we might call 'agent-causation' (the coming about of an effect by virtue of an individual agent - as, for example, when a stick moves a stone). Plastic cups and crystal glasses, whether shattered or not, do not have to be in any particular place. So one might wonder how some particular cup or glass came to be where someone (truly) says that it was (to fall and remain intact, or to fall and be shattered). Or, rather, one might do so if one thinks that it is reasonable to do so, which not everyone has thought. For it has been suggested that, even where we are dealing with a true statement that does not (absolutely speaking) have to be true, it could be that no agent-cause accounts for what the statement reports. 

What does this suggestion amount to? It seems to boil down to the conclusion that, possibly, not everything that comes to pass in the world, or not everything that exists in it, needs to be accounted for in terms of agent-causation, or the concurrent activity of more than one agent-cause. Someone who defends this conclusion is David Hume. According to him, the ideas of cause and effect are distinct, and it is possible for something to arise (begin to exist), or for something to undergo change, without a cause (an agent-cause). As Hume himself expresses the point: 

We can never demonstrate the necessity of a cause to every new existence, or new modification of existence, without shewing at the same time the impossibility there is, that any thing can ever begin to exist without some productive principle; and where the latter proposition cannot be prov'd, we must despair of ever being able to prove the former. Now that the latter proposition is utterly incapable of a demonstrative proof, we may satisfy ourselves by considering, that as all distinct ideas are separable from each other, and as the ideas of cause and effect are evidently distinct, 'twill be easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent this moment, and existent the next:, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or productive principle. The separation, therefore, of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence is plainly possible for the imagination, and consequently the actual separation of these objects is so far possible that it implies no contradiction or absurdity.10 

Hume's argument here, however, is a weak one, based only on imagination. The fact that I can 'imagine' something arising without agent-causation settles nothing when it comes to how things start to be. I can imagine all sorts of things which do not, and maybe cannot, exist, and, if I am a movie producer, perhaps I can put my imaginings onto a very big screen. Yet nothing follows from this when it comes to reality. Or, as Elizabeth Anscombe observes: 

If I say I can imagine a rabbit coming into being without a parent rabbit, well and good: I imagine a rabbit coming into being, and our observing that there is no parent rabbit about. But what am I to imagine if I imagine a rabbit coming into being without a cause? Well, I just imagine a rabbit coming into being. That this is the imagination of a rabbit coming into being without a cause is nothing but, as it were, the title of the picture. Indeed I can form an image and give my picture that title. But from my being able to do that, nothing whatever follows about what it is possible to suppose 'without contradiction or absurdity' as holding in reality.11 

In reply to Anscombe you might say that you can imagine something coming into existence at some time and place and there being no cause of this. But how do you know that the thing in question has come into existence at the time and place you picture it as beginning to exist? You have to exclude the possibility of it having previously existed elsewhere and, by some means or other, come to be where you picture it as beginning to exist. Yet how are you to do that without supposing a cause which justifies you in judging that the thing really came into existence, rather than just reappeared, at one particular place and time? The truth surely is that recognizing that we are dealing with a genuine beginning of existence is something we are capable of because we can identify agent-causes. As Anscombe writes: 'We can observe beginnings of new items because we know how they were produced and out of what... We know the times and places of their beginnings without cavil because we understand their origins.'12 In other words, to know that something began to exist seems already to know that it has been caused, and to know something about its cause or causes. So it appears odd to suppose that there really could be a beginning of existence without a cause (i.e. an agent-cause).13 

It seems equally odd to suppose that change in a subject could occur without such a cause. Suppose that my ankle starts to swell. Hume might say 'This could be happening without any agent-cause'. But what is the force of the 'could' here? When we say that such and such could happen we normally mean that its coming to be is genuinely possible given the way the world is now. Suppose someone says that there could be a change of government in Brazil soon. We would take this to mean something along the lines of 'Many people in Brazil are dissatisfied with its present government, and their votes will bring the government down' or 'Anti-government rebels in Brazil are now sufficiently armed so as to effect a successful revolution'. 'Could', in 'could happen', normally means 'is able to come about given the existence of what is able to bring about certain effects'. In that case, however, why should we pay any attention to the suggestion that my ankle could swell up without an agent-cause? There is a sense of 'could' where it only means 'is not logically impossible', and with this sense in mind someone might say 'Your ankle could swell up without an agent-cause'. But how does such a person know that it is logically possible for ankles to swell without anything causing them to do so? If ankles are things which by nature only swell because acted on in some way, then it is not logically possible for them to swell without anything causing them to do so. 

In any case, we do, in fact, look for agent-causes when things begin to exist or get modified. Some people (e.g. Hume) have suggested that we do so only on the basis of 'custom'. Being used to things happening in certain ways, they argue, we naturally expect them always to happen in these ways. This line of thinking, however, is surely wrong. We do not always form causal expectations on the basis of experience. Sometimes we interpret our experience in the light of causal expectations we have. People who have never experienced a tidal wave will normally take very precise (and self-saving) action when told that such a thing is coining their way. Why so? Not because they have personally become accustomed to tidal waves and what they tend to effect. Unless they have studied the nature and effects of tidal waves (this not being something that they are likely to have done by personal contact with tidal waves and their effects), they are probably going to act as they do because of their beliefs about tidal waves, which might well not be based on personal experience of them. They interpret their experience in the light of causal expectations that they have. 

And why should they not? We might think that they should not if we suppose that they are disoriented, confused, or even insane. As we all know very well, however, people can form causal expectations which by any interpretation of the word 'rational' are surely rational. I have no serious understanding of (and, given the history of the universe, only a limited experience of) eggs, water, and heat. But I think that I know what to do in order to enjoy a boiled egg for breakfast. My expectations here are based on what I have been taught about the natures of eggs, water, and heat, teaching that I have taken on faith. Are my expectations irrational? If they are, then I have to wonder what the word 'rational' is supposed to mean. 'It is irrational to suppose that putting eggs into boiling water will result in boiled eggs.' 'It is irrational to suppose that hot, solid eggs got to be that way because of immersion in boiling water or the like.' Are we to subscribe to those two statements? Well, people can believe all sorts of things, but I see no reason to suppose that these statements are remotely credible. If they are not, however, then there is something to be said for the view that human causal expectations are not automatically to be dismissed as unreasonable just because they are expectations. And we certainly do have causal expectations, which is why we seek causally to account for what lies before us but does not, absolutely speaking, have to be there.14 

If I find gallons of water pouring through the roof of my apartment, I might side with Hume and say that the coming to be of this might have had no agent-cause (this being great news to my landlord, who will not, therefore, worry about me and my lawyers, assuming that he can get a jury or a judge to think as Hume does). But why should I agree with Hume here? You might say, 'You should do so unless you can prove that whatever has a beginning of existence always has an agent-cause (or agent-causes) or that every change that takes place always has an agent-cause (or agent-causes).' But that response seems to imply that we should never believe (or are never reasonable in believing) what we cannot prove, which seems positively unreasonable - if 'to prove' means 'formally to demonstrate a conclusion from premises that cannot consistently be denied'. If we are unreasonable in believing what cannot, in this sense, be proved, then we are unreasonable when it comes to most of what we believe. One might, of course, take 'to prove' to mean 'to supply reasonable grounds for believing something or other'. In that case, however, we can prove that whatever has a beginning of existence always has an agent-cause (or agent-causes) or that every change that takes place always has an agent-cause (or agent-causes). We can say, for example, that something beginning to exist does so at some particular time and place and that something other than itself must therefore be responsible for it coming to be when and where it does (surely a reasonable assumption?). Or we can say that something which undergoes change cannot itself totally account for the state in which it comes to be, since that state is a way of being which is not present in the thing before the change it undergoes, and since something cannot give itself what it does not have to start with (surely another reasonable assumption?). 

A question we might ask 

I am suggesting, therefore, that we can reasonably continue with our common practice of asking what it is that accounts for what does not, absolutely speaking, have to be there in our world, and there in the way that it is. So let us now consider just how far this practice can take us - starting with Smokey, my cat, whom I first encountered in a shelter for stray animals. 

I wondered where he came from. The people who ran the shelter had no answer. Yet they did not, of course, assume that there was no answer. They did not suppose that Smokey popped into existence uncaused where the person who brought him to the shelter found him. They assumed (and rightly so, surely) that Smokey had parent cats. We can reasonably wonder about the feline sources of cats of our acquaintance (while presuming that there are, indeed, such sources). In a similar way we can ask (while assuming that there are true answers) who people's parents are, or who (or what) produced the buildings we see through our windows. 

But we might now push our questions onwards a stage - to move beyond particular individuals belonging to a single kind or class. Suppose that I were to discover that Smokey is the offspring of Caesar and Cleo - two real (or once real) cats. Knowing this fact would explain, to some extent, how Smokey is there for us to talk about. But it would not explain how cats, as such, are there. So we might now ask 'How come cats?' How did cats get going in the first place? And what keeps them going? These are surely reasonable questions. Indeed, so one might say, they are questions which ought to be raised. And, perhaps (and as I think many people suppose), there are answers to them which make good scientific sense (answers in terms of evolution, genetics, and whatever in the universe helps to support or promote the lives of cats). We naturally seek to account for the existence of kinds of things, and we presume (or, at least, many of us presume) that we can, in principle, account for this scientifically - in terms of what exists in the universe. 

Yet what about the universe itself? If it had a beginning, should we not also seek to account for this causally? And, even if we suppose that it had no beginning, should we not seek causally to account for its existence at any time? If we suppose that the universe did have a beginning, and if, against Hume, we conclude that whatever begins to exist has a cause, then we should presumably posit a cause, or a collection of causes, for the beginning of the existence of the universe (a cause, or a collection of causes, which would have to be distinct from the universe). 

Yet why should we suppose that there is a need causally to account for the existence of the universe at any time? It seems (at least to many people) natural and proper to ask what within the universe accounts for what it contains at particular times. So it does not seem especially strange or unreasonable to ask 'How come Smokey?' or 'How come cats?' (or 'How come mountains, oceans, deserts, people, the planet Earth, the conditions that exist on Earth, or on the Moon, or on Mars?' - and so on). But what are we to make of 'How come the existence of the universe as such?' I use the phrase 'as such' here in order to highlight the fact that 'How come the universe?' is not asking 'What accounts (or accounted) for the fact that the universe began to exist?' but 'What accounts for the existence of the universe at any time? The question seems to amount to 'How come any universe at all (regardless of whether or not the universe is something that had a beginning)?'15 

This is a puzzling query, to say the least. Be that as it may, however, I now want to suggest that we absolutely do need to ask 'How come the universe, whether or not it had a beginning?' My argument for doing so is a fairly simple one and goes as follows: 

(1) Take any object in the universe you care to mention or of which you can conceive (while supposing that it is real). 

(2) Any such object has intrinsic properties or qualities - i.e. properties or qualities which it has in and of itself. (Of X we might say that 'John finds it frightening', but being frightening is not a property that is intrinsic to anything. Being mammalian, however, is such a property, as is being human, being made of wood, being a whale, and so on.) 

(3) The intrinsic properties of any object are, in principle, ones that can be had by other objects. There are more mammals than one. Many individuals count as human beings. Lots of things are made of wood. There are many whales. And so on. 

(4) Therefore, knowing that real objects in the universe have whatever properties they have is not to know that they, as the individual things that they are, actually exist. In this sense, we can distinguish between what real objects in the universe are and whether or not they exist (we can distinguish, if you like, between their existence and their nature). 

(5) But if the existence of something is not part of its nature (if it is not something's nature to exist), the thing's existence cannot be accounted for in terms of its nature and requires an external cause. And if the existence of nothing in the universe is accountable for in terms of its nature, the existence of the universe as a whole (and at any time) requires an external (agent-) cause. 

In short, we can know what something in the universe (e.g. Smokey) is without knowing that it has to exist, which means that its existence has to be derived, which, in turn, means that the existence of the universe as a whole is derived. 

Objections and replies 

Can we fault this argument? 

(1) is not a premise; it is simply an invitation to think about something. So I cannot see that there is anything to quarrel with here. 

(2) might be thought to raise questions about what counts as an intrinsic property. But the examples 1 give surely indicate what (2) is saying and that (2) is true. It is focusing on what one might say while trying truly to describe what something that exists is actually like. It is not drawing attention to any old predicate that we might use when seeking to say something about something. ' is identical with itself, ' is either bigger or smaller than something or other',  is loved by James', and ' is to the right of the tree' are all examples of predicates that we might use when trying to talk about something. But none of them tells us what anything might be in itself. They do not describe - in the perfectly ordinary sense of 'describe' that we have in mind when we say, for example, Tell me what your pet is'. If someone were to say this to me then I would briefly reply somewhat along these lines: 'My pet is a cat. He is male. He has grey fur. His dimensions are thus and so. He is energetic and healthy.' This answer first places my pet into a species (of which there are detailed scientific descriptions available). It then goes on to note positive features that he has which some members of his species lack. In this sense, my answer describes what he is actually like in and of himself. So it seems perfectly proper to say that objects in the universe can be thought of as having intrinsic properties or qualities. 

We might, of course, ask 'What should we count as an object?', and that is a difficult question, largely because 'object' (one can say the same of'thing') is what Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) once called a 'formal concept'.16 If you are only told that such and such is an object, you learn nothing when it comes to what it actually is. And even if you think that you know an object when you see one, and if you give an example of what you take to be an object, you might be argued into agreeing that it is really many objects. You might, for example, say that a telephone is an object. Yet even the simplest telephone has many parts. So might not each of these be thought of as objects? And might not their microscopic constituents also be thought of as objects? Given that 'object' is, indeed, a formal concept in Wittgenstein's sense (and I do not deny this), one might well wish to conclude that we have no idea as to what objects there are. 

To do so, however, would surely be to end up with a pretty odd belief. Think, once again, of Smokey. He is a single living being. He has parts, of course, and these might be thought of as objects.1 ' But, considered as a living and breathing cat, he is obviously an entity in his own right. He is a natural unit. Or again, think of a carrot, or a cabbage, or a stone, or a shell, or a planet, or a star. These are things which are also naturally referred to as entities in their own right. The same can even be said of distinguishable individuals which are not naturally occurring ones - like houses, books, or cars.18 The same can also be said of everything that makes up our world. We live in a universe in which things can intelligibly be singled out as subjects to be studied, categorized, analysed and described. We live in a universe made up of distinguishable, concrete things (some made up of distinguishable parts, some not), things we can refer to and to which we can apply predicates. There have been philosophers who have denied this, but most (with differing levels of interpretation and elaboration) have affirmed it.19 So, for present purposes, I am going to suggest that (2) is not a particularly dubious premise on which to draw and that it is, therefore, acceptable even in spite of the formal character of 'object' (for which, also, read 'thing'). 

(3) seems to be an equally tenable premise to employ. Anything we can predicate of something can also, in principle, normally be predicated of something else. It is, of course, easy to think of possible predicates which could only apply to one thing. Examples would be ' is the one and only human being who knows about the imminent alien invasion', or ' is the only daughter of James and Maria Smith'. When we describe things, however, we are rarely picking out features, or descriptions, which are not shareable, and we are not completely doing that even as we use predicates like the two just mentioned. There may be only one human being who knows about the imminent alien invasion, but (a) being a human being, and (b) knowing about an imminent invasion, is what could in principle be truly afflrmable of more than one individual. And though James and Maria Smith might, have only one daughter, she shares what she is in herself with millions of others (e.g. she is human and female). In so far as we are concerned with what 1 am calling intrinsic properties (what we can predicate of something as we analyse it and attempt to describe it scientifically), we are concerned with things that are not, in principle, unique.

If this is so, however, we can, following (4), surely draw a serious distinction between what something is and the fact that it exists. One true answer (I am sure that there are more) to the question 'What is Smokey?' is 'A cat'. And we know what cats are (though, while some of us know a lot about them, most of us know only relatively little). Knowing what cats are, however, does not help us in the slightest when it comes to knowing whether there is any such cat as Smokey. The same is true when it comes to other things. 

Notice that I am not here suggesting that it is impossible to deduce the existence of cats from something like a nominal definition of 'cat' (i.e. a definition which tells us what the word 'cat' means). That suggestion is different from what I am now proposing. Let us suppose that, along with standard English dictionaries, we take it for granted that 'unicorn' means 'a horse-like creature with a horn on its forehead' (or something along those lines). In that case, there is obviously a sense in which it would be false to say 'It is not the case that: a unicorn is a horse-like creature with a horn on its forehead'. If I talk about unicorns as though they were exactly like dogs, then I am clearly labouring under a delusion and you would be justified in correcting me and insisting that I am somehow in error. But none of this implies that there actually are any unicorns. The fact that the meaning of a word seems to name or designate an existent object does not imply the existence of such an object (as critics of a famous theistic argument commonly called 'the Ontological Argument' have often observed).20 Yet I am not denying this. I am suggesting that with respect to actually existing things in the world we can distinguish between what they are intrinsically and the fact that they exist. Understanding their natures, I am saying, does not involve understanding that any particular one of them exists. You can, for example, know what cats are (you can be scientifically expert when it comes to cats) without knowing that Smokey exists. 

Does it therefore follow, however, that things in the world cannot account for their own existence and that the same is true of the universe as a whole at any given time? In other words, is (5) true? I can think of at least five reasons why someone might argue that it is not. These can be expressed as follows: 

(a) Even if the existence of particular things in the universe needs to be accounted for with respect to something other than what they are, it does not follow that the existence of all particular things, or the existence of the universe as a whole, needs to be so accounted for. 

(b) Even if we grant that the existence of some object does not follow from its nature (and even if we grant that something other than the object accounts for its existence), we need not suppose that there is something distinct from the universe accounting for its existence at any time. We need only suppose that for anything in the universe there is something else within the universe accounting for its existence.

(c) It is wrong to ask what accounts for the sheer existence of anything. We can sensibly ask what accounts for something having a particular nature or a particular property, but we cannot sensibly ask what accounts for something simply existing. For existence is not a property of objects or individuals. 

(d) Even supposing that an object's existence cannot be deduced from a knowledge of what it is, there is no reason to suppose that the object's existence is brought about by anything. Why not say that objects in the world can exist uncaused? Why not say that the universe as a whole exists uncaused? 

(e) There is no serious alternative to the universe not existing. If we ask 'How come the universe as a whole and at any time?', we must be supposing that there not being a universe is some kind of possibility that might have been realized. 

Yet the alternative to there being a universe is there being absolutely nothing, which is not an alternative at all. Yet these lines of thinking are unacceptable, as I shall try to explain by discussing them in order. 

In defence of (a) one might argue that (5) commits the fallacy of composition. If every brick in a wall weighs two pounds, it does not follow (and is, in fact, false) that the wall as a whole weighs two pounds. What is true of X, Y, and Z, taken individually, might not be true of X, Y, and Z considered as a collection. Sometimes, however, what is true of members of a collection taken individually is true of the collection as a whole. If every brick in a wall is yellow, the wall as a whole is yellow. If every fibre of a rug is made of wool, then the rug as a whole is made of wool. And, so it seems obvious to me, if every object in the universe needs something other than itself to account for its existence, the universe as a whole does so as well. If the universe is nothing but the sum of the objects that make it up, and if each of them in turn needs something other than itself to account for its existence, then the same must be true of the universe itself. You might say thai, a brick wall is nothing but the sum of its parts and that, just as we should not conclude that if every brick in a wall weighs two pounds, the wall as a whole weighs two pounds, we should not conclude that if every object in the universe needs something other than itself to account for its existence, the universe does so as well. Weighing two pounds, however, is only attributable to particular bricks in a wall of which each brick weighs two pounds. Depending for its existence on something else is, by contrast, attributable to the universe as a whole if everything in it depends for its existence on something else.21 One two-pound brick plus another two-pound brick leaves us with what weighs four pounds. One thing which depends for its existence on something else plus another thing which depends for its existence on something else merely leaves us with what depends for its existence on something else. 

(b) might be thought plausible on the basis of one or both of two assumptions: (i) the universe never had a beginning, and everything now existing has a series of (agent-) causes within the universe going back infinitely into the past, and (ii) anything having a cause of its existence owes that existence to an infinite series of agent-causes within the universe. Now (i) and (ii) here clearly depend on assumptions about infinite collections of things. In the case of (i), the assumption is that there could be an infinite series of completed past events, states, or times, or something along those lines, hi the case of (ii) the assumption is that there could be an infinite series of causes acting simultaneously. Neither assumption seems plausible to me, but I shall quarrel with neither of them here. For, even if true, they do nothing to refute what I am arguing at present. Whether backwardly or contemporaneously infinite, the universe is still a collection of objects the natures of which do not entail the existence of the objects having those natures. This, I am suggesting, ought to leave us asking what accounts for the existence of the universe as a whole and at any time. 

(c) brings us to a very tricky topic, one much discussed by philosophers especially since the time of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). According to him, 'Being is obviously not a real predicate, i.e., a concept of something that could add to the concept of a thing'.22 Kant's statement here, and the subsequent justification he provides for it, might seem somewhat opaque, but he appears at least to be claiming that we do not describe something in any way when we say that it exists - a claim which has received its most sophisticated elaboration and defence in the late C. J. F. Williams's book What is Existence?23 And the claim clearly has merit. Obviously I do not tell you what something is when I say that it exists (There are rats in the New York Subway' does not tell you what a rat is). Also, statements of existence are very commonly nothing but assertions to the effect that certain predicates (none of them being ' exists') are truly afflrmable of something. If, for example, I say that 'Horses exist', I am not saying anything about any particular horse. I am saying that' is a horse' is truly affirmable of something or other. 

But this does not mean that we are not making true affirmations about things when saying that they exist. It does not mean that' exists' cannot be a genuine predicate of individuals. The reason most commonly given for supposing that it cannot is that thinking so allows us to make sense of negative existential propositions such as 'Blue daffodils do not exist'. In such propositions, the predicate ' do(es) not exist' cannot tell us something about anything (cannot be a predicate of individuals) since the propositions themselves are telling us that there is nothing to which any predicate can be truly assigned. And, with this thought in mind, it has often been suggested that' exists' is not a predicate of individuals either. But that suggestion assumes that negative predications carry existential import, that they imply or state that something exists, which is open to question. In other words, we do not have to suppose that 'Blue daffodils do not exist' implies the existence of blue daffodils and amounts to a contradiction on the supposition that' do(es) not exist' (like ' exist(s)') is a first-level predicate (a predicate of individuals). All we have to suppose is that 'Blue daffodils do not exist' is true if nothing is a blue daffodil, and false if some daffodil is blue. 

In any case, it clearly does sometimes make sense to say of something that it exists. It makes sense, for example, to say The Great Pyramid still exists, but the Library of Alexandria does not'. It makes equal sense to say 'The Statue of Liberty exists, but the World Trade Towers do not'. And it makes perfect to sense to say that, for example, Smokey exists - meaning that he is actually there to be examined, petted, fed, cleaned up after, and so on. This is the sense of 'exists' that Aquinas has in mind as he employs the Latin term esse. For Aquinas, something can be said to have esse in so far as it is actually there to be analysed or described.24 He does not think of esse as a distinguishing quality or property of things (so he denies that to know that something has esse is to know what it is). At the same time, however, he thinks that we can distinguish between, say, Smokey and the last living (but now dead) dinosaur. Smokey, for Aquinas, would be something actual, a genuinely existing individual, and, so far as I can see, such a view is hardly unreasonable. In that case, however, one can fairly claim that existence is something we can reflect on causally. It makes sense, for example, to ask what accounts for Smokey's existence at any time, and the existence of any other object, for that matter. 

Yet, do we need to do this? (d) suggests that we do not, that we might take the existence of things in the universe, and the existence of the universe as a whole, not to raise questions about agent-causality. The fact of the matter, though, is that we just do seek causally to account for what exists but does not intrinsically have to, and we take seeking of this kind to be the mark of a reasonable person. When asked if he would speak of the universe as 'gratuitous',, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) once famously replied, 'I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all.'25 His position on that occasion was based on three stated assumptions: (a) that the word 'universe' does not stand for anything that has meaning, (b) that something in the world might arise without an agent-cause (or agent-causes), and (c) that, while it might be legitimate to ask what in the world caused some object or event in the world, there is no warrant for asking what causally accounts for the world as a whole. Yet (a) here is plainly false, if only because 'universe' is a word that people use in conversation. I have already commented on (b). With respect to (c), all I can say is that it seems arbitrary to stop asking causal questions unless we arrive at a cause (or causes) the existence of which is somehow necessary or self-explanatory. I have argued that the existence of the universe is not necessary or self-explanatory since we cannot account for the existence of any object in the universe in terms of what it is. So I now suggest that we ought to presume that the existence of the universe has a cause (or causes). 

What kind of difference, however, would such a cause (or causes) be making? If it (they) account(s) for the existence of the universe as a whole, it (they) cannot be making the kind of difference which agent-causes within the universe typically make. Without exception, these achieve their effects only by bringing about a change of some kind. Artists produce paintings by moving bits of paint around. People write books by fiddling with computers, pens, or typewriters. Tropical storms wreak havoc by modifying the environments they hit. And so on. Yet for something causally to account for there being any universe at all cannot be for it to change the universe (or anything in it) in any way - since nothing can undergo change unless it exists to start with. So if anything accounts for the existence of the universe, then it must simply make the universe to be. It cannot be altering the universe in any way. Rather, it must account for there being a universe as opposed to there being nothing at all. 

Yet how can we sensibly think of there being nothing at all as a genuine alternative that we might have in mind when wondering why the universe exists at all? Here we come to (e). The position I am defending could well be expressed as 'We are entitled to ask and, therefore, entitled to suppose that there is an answer to the question "How come something rather than nothing?"' (e) represents a challenge to this position since it denies that there being nothing is a genuine alternative to there being something. And it is easy to see the force of (e). For is there really an intelligible distinction to be drawn here? Can we take nothing to be a genuine possibility to be set beside something? We may speak of there being nothing in the room, or of there being nothing between Australia and New Zealand. But here we mean something like 'There is no furniture in the room' or 'There is no land between Australia and New Zealand'. In other words, the notion of there being absolutely nothing is not one with positive content. So why suppose that there being something rather than nothing is something to get worked up about? 

Yet is the notion of nothing really so problematic in this context? Suppose that we are searching through the drawers in my kitchen. I open one of them and I say 'Well, there is nothing in here'. You will understand what I am saying. You will know that I am saving that there are no knives, forks, spoons, and so on in the drawer. In that case, however, can you not equally well understand me if I were to claim that there is nothing at all? I would obviously be speaking falsely. But would you not be able to understand why that is so? Would you not take me falsely to be insisting that there are no nameable and describable individuals? Surely you would, and rightly so. We do not have a concept of nothing as we have a concept of longevity or tallness or liquidation. But might it not be thought that we do have a concept of nothing in so far as we have a knowledge of things that there are in the world, and in so far as we might think of them jwst not being there? And might it not also be thought that there being nothing at all is a genuine possibility in so far as the 'all' we are concerned with is what we take to make up the world or universe? It has been said that 'There might have been nothing' is not a believable proposition since there is no alternative to being. According to Bede Rundle for example,

When we say 'Nothing is...', far from talking about nothing, we are talking about everything. Nothing is immortal; that is, everything is mortal. Nothing might have been here - neither you nor I, the cat, the dog, and so on indefinitely . . . We cannot conceive of there being nothing, but only of nothing being this or that, and that is a use of 'nothing' that presupposes there being something. Intelligible contrasts are within ways of being - near or far, long or short, young or old. Existing and not existing fit into the scheme - existing now, not existing then, and, more radically, there being a so and so and there being no so and so - but the contrast is still within how things are: at least one thing's being a dragon, say, and the failure of every single thing to be a dragon. This is as far as it goes, there being something and there being nothing not being contrasting poles with respect to the way things might be.2fi 

Yet saying that there might have been nothing need not amount to claiming that there being nothing is a way things might be, or that there is something called 'nothing' which might be thought to be in some way. To say that there might have been nothing could, and as far as I am concerned does, amount to the suggestion that nothing in the universe is such that its nature guarantees its existence - this also being true of the universe as a whole. 

Of course, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is an unusual and radical question. But that is not a reason for dismissing it. The asking of unusual and radical questions often leads people to expand their intellectual horizons and to make serious intellectual progress. One might suggest that the question is intrinsically silly or ill-formed. But is it? Questions like 'How thick is the Equator?' or 'How much money does algebra earn?' certainly make no sense. Another example of an intrinsically absurd question occurs in an amusing dialogue reported by Peter Geach: 

Two Rabbinical scholars were reading the Law. They had not got very far - in fact not beyond Genesis 1,1, which contains the word 'eretz' ('earth'). The initial question of the dialogue which follows is like asking in English: Why should there be a letter G in the word 'earth'? - gimel being the corresponding letter in Hebrew. 

Why should there be a gimel in 'eretz'? 

But there isn't a gimel in 'eretz'. 

Then why isn't there a gimel in 'eretz'?

Why should there be a gimel in 'eretz'?

Well, that's what I just asked you!27 

Is the question 'Why is there anything at all?' intrinsically absurd, however? I do not see that it is. One might side with Bertrand Russell and assert that things are just there and that there is nothing more to be said. Yet (going by his writings in general) Russell would never have suggested that, for example, cats are just there. He would have asked how cats came to be and continue to be. So why should we not ask why there is anything at all? Why should we not ask 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' It might, be said that we have not familiarized ourselves with the answer to this question and that this is a reason for fighting shy of it. But not understanding what the answer to a question might be does not justify refusing to ask it and refusing to suppose that there must be an answer to it. The earliest scientists who puzzled over the world had not acquainted themselves with realities that we now casually refer to in giving what we take to be accurate scientific answers. They were venturing into the unknown. Yet we commend them for their efforts and are seriously indebted to them. They might have said that X, Y, or Z was 'just there'. Fortunately, however, they did not.

God and creation 

If I am right in what I have just been saying, then we ought to suppose that the universe is caused to exist for as long as it exists, which is what those who believe in God have traditionally believed.28 Or, to put it another way, people have traditionally used the word 'God' in order to talk about what produces the sheer existence of the universe, that which makes the world to be (at any time). And, of course, in doing so they have used the word 'Creator'. God, they have said, is the Creator of all things. Hence, for example, we find Aquinas writing: 'It is not enough to consider how some particular being issues from some particular cause, for we should also attend to the issuing of the whole of being from the universal cause, which is God; it is this springing forth that we designate by the term "creation".'20 Similarly, the recently promulgated Catechism of the Catholic Church says: 'God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being.'30 So I shall henceforth use the word 'God' to mean 'whatever it is that makes things to be for as long as they are'. 

Yet what understanding of God should we take ourselves to have on that basis? Some have suggested that we pretty much know what God the Creator is. Indeed, so it is often said, he is somewhat like us. Hence, for example, Richard Swinburne (who believes that there is a God) tells us that God is something like a 'person without a body (i.e., a spirit) who is eternal, free, able to do anything, knows everything, is perfectly good, is the proper object of human worship and obedience, the creator and sustainer of the universe'.31 Like many philosophers, especially since the time of Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Swinburne thinks that people (persons) are composed of two kinds of stuff - mental, incorporeal, indivisible stuff (mind) and physical, extended, divisible stuff (body). On this account, the real me is my mind (or soul), and so I, like all persons, am essentially incorporeal. I am causally connected to what is material, but I am not myself a material thing. I am a spirit. And, so Swinburne thinks, this is what God is - a 'person without a body'. Of course, Swinburne (and those who agree with him) do not think that God is just like any human person you care to mention. They take him to be, for example, more long-lived than we are. They also take him to be uncaused, and more powerful and knowledgeable than we are. So they think of God as an extraordinary person. Yet they still presume that God belongs to the same class as people (or persons). He is, for them, one among many, and with this thought in mind they have said that we have a fairly good idea of what he actually is. We know what people are, they reason; so we have a fair understanding of what God is. Swinburne, indeed, suggests that we can actually imagine what it is like to be God. God, says Swinburne, is not just a spirit; he is an omnipresent one, and we can understand what it is to be such a thing. Says Swinburne: 

Imagine yourself, for example, gradually ceasing to be affected by alcohol or drugs, your thinking being equally coherent however men mess about with your brain. Imagine too that you cease to feel any pains, aches, thrills, although you remain aware of what is going on in what has been called your body. You gradually find yourself aware of what is going on in bodies other than your own and other material objects at any place in space ... You also come to see things from any point of view which you choose, possibly simultaneously, possibly not. You remain able to talk and wave your hands about, but find yourself able to move directly anything which you choose, including the hands of other people ... You also find yourself able to utter words which can be heard anywhere, without moving material objects. However, although you find yourself gaining these strange powers, you remain otherwise the same - capable of thinking, reasoning, and wanting, hoping and fearing . . . Surely anyone can thus conceive of himself becoming an omnipresent spirit.32 

Speaking for myself, I have to say that I cannot imagine what Swinburne is here telling me that I can.33 But that is neither here nor there for the moment. The point to grasp is that Swinburne thinks that an understanding of people takes us a long way towards an understanding of God, and the same can be said of many other writers. 

Yet why should we suppose that anything with which we are acquainted gives us an understanding of what God is? Biblical authors often speak as though God is very much like a human being. In the Old Testament, for example, he is depicted as having hands, eyes, ears, and a face.34 He laughs, smells, and whistles.35 And he has emotions such as hatred, anger, joy, and regret.36  Yet we also find biblical passages stressing the difference between God and anything created. A classic one is in Isaiah: 

To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? Says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? (Isaiah 40:18, 25-26) 

Here we have a text which seems strongly to say that God's creatures provide no serious model at all for what God is. It seems to imply a sharp distinction between God and creatures. My view is that this is a distinction we need to respect, given that we take God to be the source of the being of everything other than himself, the Maker of all things visible and invisible (as the Nicene Creed puts it). For if that is what God is, then must he not be radically different from anything with which we are acquainted - so different that seriously using any creature as a model for God is simply absurd? In the next chapter I shall argue that the correct answer to this question is 'Yes', though I shall also suggest (not only in the next chapter but in subsequent ones) that we may truly speak of God while using terms (words) that we employ when talking of creatures.