Schellenberg's Other Argument

The Problem of Evil: The Current Debate; Section 1: 'The' Logical Problems of Evil; Chapter 1: The Oddballs, Subchapter 1: Schellenberg's Other Argument

This post is part of a series. For further information, see here.

The Oddballs

I’ve sandwiched the more obscure variants of the Logical Problem of Evil into the middle chapter of this section. In this chapter, there are two more arguments against the possibility of God creating a universe, an argument against the possibility of an eternal Hell, and an argument against creating and sustaining horrors. Once more, I have maintained the Characterization-Link-Datum formula imposed by Oppy to make these arguments clear and intelligible.

Schellenberg

The last chapter ended on a highly abstract variants of the problem of evil which appeals to the impossibility of actualizing possible worlds with evil, so, in contrast, here is JL “Schelly” Schellenberg’s highly abstract variant of the problem of evil which appeals to the impossibility of actualizing possible worlds with evil. Schelly’s argument is roughly that if there was no evil prior to creation, then there will be no evil after creation.

Schellenberg explicitly offered the Characterization and Datum for both arguments-

The Characterization:

Unsurpassable Greatness: God is the greatest possible being.

Ontological Independence: No world created by God (or any part thereof) is a part of God.

Prior Purity: Prior to creation (whether “prior” be taken logically or temporally) there is no evil in God of any kind.¹

The Datum:

Evil: There is evil in the world.² (Italics in original)

I can only see panentheists or pantheists squabbling about any of these claims, specifically Ontological Independence. I don’t think that many panentheists can sidestep this argument solely by pointing that out. Setting that aside, the main point of intrigue remains the Links.

The primary Links for the arguments are:

The unsurpassable good God experiences precreation – the only good God might wish to share in creation – is good-without-evil.³

and implicitly,

God must create worlds that model God’s purity.

From these starting principles, the argument is then expressed in two forms, the Modeling approach and the Motives approach. The Modeling approach works as follows- God must create worlds that model God’s pure and surpassable goodness. Any good involving evil in creation would be vastly exceeded by a purer good already in God. Thus, any world containing evil is vastly surpassed by one that reflects God's purity. Therefore, God would never make a world containing evil.

Schelly is nice enough to lay out his argument in a hefty bunch of premisses, which I hoped I could avoid writing out for you, but, unfortunately, I cannot. However, I can give a shortened version first before dumping the long one upon the poor unsuspecting reader: you.

1. All Divine goods are far greater than all non-Divine goods which require evil.

2. God would always choose greater goods to lesser goods.

3. God would create a world that reflects Divine goods.

4. No Divine good involves evil.

5. God would create a world with no evil.

The long, complicated version goes like this,

1. Every possible non-Divine good is greatly exceeded by a good of the same type existing in God prior to creation.

2. Every good in a world is greatly exceeded by a good of the same type existing in God prior to creation.

3. All goodness found in God prior to creation is pure goodness: goodness-without-evil.

4. Every good in a world is greatly exceeded by a pure good of the same type existing in God prior to creation.

5. Every worldly good that permits or requires evil is greatly exceeded by a pure good of the same type existing in God prior to creation.

6. If every worldly good that permits or requires evil is greatly exceeded by a pure good of the same type, existing prior to creation in God, then any world with goods permitting or requiring evil is exceeded by a world modeling the corresponding pure goods in God.

7. Any world with goods permitting or requiring evil is exceeded by a world modeling the corresponding pure goods in God (call the latter a “greater world”).

8. God can ensure the existence of greater worlds, and can do so limitlessly.

9. If any world with goods permitting or requiring evil is exceeded by a world modeling the corresponding pure goods in God and the existence of greater worlds can limitlessly be ensured by God, then for any world X that requires or permits evil, there is some world Y that models pure goodness in God such that God has no good reason to create X rather than Y

10. For any world X that requires or permits evil, there is some world Y that models pure goodness in God such that God has no good reason to create X rather than Y.

11. If for any world X that requires or permits evil there is some world Y that models pure goodness in God such that God has no good reason to create X rather than Y, then God has no good reason to permit evil in the world.

12. God has no good reason to permit evil in the world.

13. If there is evil in the world, then God has a good reason to permit it.

14. There is no evil in the world.

15. There is evil in the world and there is no evil in the world.⁴ (Italics in original)

The main reason why I have to list this out is that there are serious questions of whether the premises of this argument are actually implied by Schelly’s characterization. For, Yehuda Gellman has argued that premise 1 does not follow from Unsurpassable Greatness and Ontological Independence.⁵ Gellman notes a tension in Schelly’s approving quotation of St. Anselm when he wrote,

“Now, one thing is necessary, viz., that one necessary Being in which there is every good – or better, who is every good, one good, complete good, and the only good” (Anselm of Canterbury [1077] 1974, chapter 23).⁶

Anselm clearly affirms that there is only one good in God. Every good in God is ultimately just one good, since Anselm rejects the every good as distinct description as being inaccurate as opposed to the every good is one description. Yet Schelly’s premise affirms the existence of multiple goods in God prior to creation. But, if the argument is reframed under the assumption that the only good which God would create would be the good that is in God, that good for Anselm is literally God. It is an explicit identity claim. Hence, Schelly would be demanding that God can only create God, but such an argument is going to convince very few people.

Schelly did not address this argument in his response to Gellman, presumably because Schelly does not actually find Anselm’s Neoplatonism to be a compelling model of Theism for independent reasons and he’d rather this argument be addressed only to Theists who think that premise 1 does flow from Unsurpassable Greatness and Ontological Independence.

It’s also worth nothing that Schelly adds some other Characterizations about God later in this argument beyond his original three which are a bit less well-regarded. For instance, premise 8 is pretty controversial. We saw this with the Rowe-Sobel argument, particularly since Schelly understands greater worlds to be worlds without any evils (as per premise 7).

The Motives approach, on the other hand, fits into a much tighter syllogism-

1. God’s motive in creating the world is the motive to share the good with finite beings (and/or relevantly similar motives).

2. The unsurpassable good God experiences precreation – the only good God might wish to share in creation – is good-without-evil. (By Unsurpassable Greatness, Ontological Independence, and Prior Purity)

3. Therefore, God’s motive in creating the world is the motive to share with finite beings good-without-evil

4. There is no evil in the world.

5. There is evil in the world and there is no evil in the world.⁷ (Italics in original)

Schelly argues for his motives approach that God’s motive for creating is to share goodness with finite creatures, but he admits that “it is in relation to love that the most ardently defended criticisms of this new logical problem of evil.”⁸

Love will be a recurring theme throughout this book. Frankly, it would be shocking if it didn’t. How exactly divine motivation to create works is a field that has seen a dramatic revival since the publication of Schelly’s argument, all independent of this argument to my knowledge, and whether or not the most plausible accounts that have developed out of it are relevantly similar to Schelly’s first premise is by no means settled.⁹

Conceptually speaking, it is not clear that God would be motivated to create by the same goods that exist precreation. A case can be made that God would create with the goal of actualizing goods that cannot exist precreation. These wouldn’t necessarily be goods which it is defective for God not to have, but, if God wanted to bring about a wider panoply of goods, then God would probably possess some desire to make a world with improvement in it. God cannot progress, but progress and growth are good things. Once we accept motivations like these though, the flood gates will be opened for reasons why God may allow evil in a world on a slow road to perfection.

1. J.L. Schellenberg, (2014). A New Logical Problem of Evil. In Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard-Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil. Wiley. 35-36

2. ibid. 36

3. ibid. 44

4. ibid. pgs. 38-40, 42

5. Gellman, Jerome (2015). On a New Logical Problem of Evil. Faith and Philosophy 32 (4):444-445.

6. ibid. 37, citing Anselm of Canterbury. ([1077] 1974). Proslogion. Translated by J. Hopkins and H. Richardson. London: SCM Press.

7. ibid. 44-45

8. ibid. p. 43

9. Jordan Wessling and Ross Parker. (2025.) Divine Motivation and Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.