The Problem of Evil Theme Analysis

How can an all-powerful, all-knowing, absolutely benevolent God allow evil to exist? In addition to potentially challenging Philosophy’s arguments about the nature of God, this question is personally significant for Boethius, who struggles to make sense of why wicked men now have power in Rome and are punishing the virtuous (including himself). Philosophy solves this problem by arguing, first, that evil is not a real thing that God has positively brought into existence, but is rather a lack of goodness, and, secondly, that God gives everyone the consequences they deserve. In effect, Philosophy posits that Boethius is wrong about whom God rewards and punishes: while Boethius thinks that evil people in Rome are being rewarded and he himself is being punished, in reality it is the other way around, as it should be in a world controlled by a benevolent, all-powerful creator.

To explain how there can be evil in the world, Philosophy first determines that evil is weakness, and therefore evil is nothing. This means that God has not created evil and can still be absolutely good. Philosophy first argues that evil is weakness. She says this because evil is contrary to the natural way of things—everyone naturally wants happiness, and the good are powerful enough to achieve it, while the evil are so powerless that they cannot. So the good act naturally and powerfully, and the evil act unnaturally because they are powerless to do what is natural. Therefore, the good are strong and the evil are weak, and evil's power comes "from weakness rather than strength.” Because evil is weakness, it is possible for people to be evil even though God is not evil. Weakness (evil) is simply a lack of strength (good). So while good people succeed, the evil fail in their “search for the good” because they make “mistake[s] and error[s].” But it’s not an evil part that makes them fail—the problem is the good parts they do not have. Therefore, people are capable of doing evil in a world ruled by a perfect God, who “can only do good,” simply because people themselves are not perfect and often commit errors. Accordingly, Philosophy concludes, “evil is nothing,” and evil people can only “do nothing.” In fact, because they go against nature, she says, evil people are not true human beings, in the same sense as a corpse is not fully human. An analogy that could be used to understand this concept is filling up a glass with water from a pitcher. Although the pitcher only contains water and only puts water in the glass (like God is absolutely good and only imparts His good on the world), it is possible to only half fill the glass, in which case the top half of the glass contains nothing. This empty space is like the evil that Boethius is talking about: “evil is nothing,” but it is still present, in the way that a glass can be half-empty (even though the emptiness does not exist, and so cannot technically “be”). While water is the only thing in the glass, the glass is not fully a glass of water, just as an evil person is not fully a human being. In the book, Philosophy explains the way “evil is nothing” by referencing the distinction between Providence and Fate. In short, while God’s plan (Providence) is perfect, sometimes imperfect things (Fate) happen during the fulfillment of that plan, when an error (evil) is made by imperfect humans, but then corrected.

The second half of the problem of evil concerns how God doles out consequences to the wicked and virtuous. If God is completely benevolent, He should theoretically never reward the wicked—and yet Boethius sees immoral, deceptive men winning power and respect in Rome. However, Philosophy concludes that the evil are never rewarded, and always punished: their fortunes and fates are always a means of correcting them and encouraging them to be virtuous. First, evil people’s “very wickedness” is a punishment in and of itself: the wicked have lost their humanity and grown miserable by pursuing the wrong goals. Indeed, when people realize they are miserable because they are wicked, they sometimes decide to try and become virtuous, so wickedness can course-correct on its own. Secondly, although Boethius complains that God has imprisoned him while letting the wicked run free, Philosophy says that freedom is actually a form of punishment for the wicked, because it lets them enact their wicked desires and grow more and more rotten and unhappy in the process. And thirdly, while Boethius worries that punishing the wicked is itself a form of divine cruelty or evil, Philosophy contends that actually punishment makes “the wicked [become] happier.” Punishment “correct[s]” the wicked, making them more virtuous, and shows bystanders “the path of right” by instilling them with “fear of punishment.” Accordingly, when the wicked are punished by God, they become more benevolent, and when they are not, they only become more wicked, which is its own punishment. So even when the wicked do not appear to be overtly punished, they are always punished on some level for their wickedness. Finally, God sets wicked men out to punish each other: when the wicked “suffer injustice,” they decide “to be different from those they hate […] and become virtuous.” As a result, God has “evil men making other evil men good.” He eliminates evil through evil, just as two negatives cancel each other out. Therefore, Philosophy can contend that God is still absolutely good despite evil’s presence in the world. All stays in line with God’s Providence and “all fortune is certainly good” fortune: everything in the world naturally tends toward the good.