¹ Davies, Brian, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (London: Continuum, 2006)Google Scholar.

² Davies says that the assertion that evil is “an absence or privation of a due good” is “making a claim about the meaning of what we say when we call something bad.” (p. 144. My italics). Here it seems that Davies is offering an analysis of the meaning of our terms concerning evil and good rather than an explication of the non-linguistic nature to which the words refer. To clarify the distinction, think about the claim that the mind is the same as the brain. To my knowledge, no philosopher of mind understands this as a claim about identity in meaning. They are making a claim about what the terms refer to – they refer to exactly the same non-linguistic item. With this distinction in mind we may ask whether Davies is offering an account of the actual ontological nature of the non-linguistic items to which the terms refer, or whether he is offering a kind of what we might loosely call an ordinary language account where we try to handle problems by concentrating our attention on how we employ language and meaning. It seems to me, taking Davies’ book as a whole, that he is not just offering a kind of linguistic analysis about the employment of concepts, but is trying to examine what evil actually is. Of course, it may be the case that Davies thinks that the meaning of the terms (suitably clarified and exposed) accurately speaks of evil's ontological status as a kind of lack. In the course of this essay, I will understand Davies’ undertaking to be an analysis of the nature of evil, rather than an exercise in linguistic analysis.

³ Davies, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil, p. 146.

⁴ Ibid., 146.

⁵ Ibid., 147.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Ibid., 177.

⁸ Ibid.

⁹ Quoted by Davies, p. 177.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 147.

¹¹ Quoted by Davies pp. 147–148. McCabe's essay can be found in God Matters (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987), pp. 25–38.

¹² Ibid., 174.

¹³ For defence of the claim that absences and omissions are not causally effective see Helen Beebee's essay ‘Causing and Nothingness’ in Collins, J., Hall, N., & Paul, L eds, Causation and Counterfactuals (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 291–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For articulation of the opposing view that absences are causally powerful see David Lewis ‘Void and Object’, pp. 277–290. He gives further clarification of his views in ‘Causation as Influence’, pp. 99–104. Both essays can be found in Causation and Counterfactuals.

¹⁴ See Beebee, ‘Causation and Nothingness’ pp. 294–297 for discussion of the way in which taking absences as causal explodes into a staggering multiplicity of causal determinants for each event.

¹⁵ On the ontological status of holes see Robert, Casati and Varsi, Achille, Holes and Other Superficialities (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ If a determined Thomist were to say that it was the movement of the button-hole which was the causal factor, I would ask him how he would determine the speed of the button-hole without measuring the speed of the cloth which forms the button-hole's shape.

¹⁷ One possible counter-example to these ideas is the justly famous account in Sartre's Being and Nothingness (London: Methuen, 1958) where he sees his friend Peter's absence in the café as he waits for him. Peter's absence ‘haunts’ the café. If he literally sees the absence of the friend, it seems eminently plausible to say that the absence is causing something. This is a difficult area, but it seems to me that Bergson has a better account of this kind of phenomenon – basically he argues that the ‘seeing’ of absences is an inference. We deduce that something is not black by seeing it is white. We do not directly see that it is not black. See Bergson, H, Creative Evolution (New York, Dover, 1998)Google Scholar, chapter 4. This seems plausible, but see Grossman, R, Phenomenology and Existentialism: An Introduction (London: Routledge, 1984), pp. 232–236Google Scholar, for defence of Sartre's view.

¹⁸ Dowe, Phil, Physical Causation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Ibid.

²⁰ I am, like Davies, using the word ‘substantial’ to mean anything which is real, that has being, and is not a privation. In this sense even a property like ‘being egg-shaped’ is substantial. If the correct understanding of evil is that it is a kind of property, then, evil would have enough of a ‘foothold’ in being to be substantial.

²¹ Evil is attractive. That is why it has so many people in its grip. If evil were literally a privation, a certain kind of absence, then, it becomes impossible to explain why so many people are in its dominion. St Paul talks, of course, in terms of ‘principalities and powers’, which seems to imply real force and causal effectiveness in evil, rather than the sheer powerlessness that seems to be implied by the privative account.

²² One possible route I do not explore in this essay is that depression and dread actually have repressed intentional objects. So if Susan is depressed she is depressed about something even if she does not know what this actually is. I think that depression is more a mood than an emotion – and so does not have to have an object. See R Grossman, Phenomenology and Existentialism, pp. 71–76 for an exploration of the idea that all dread actually has a (repressed) intentional object. Neither do I explore the proposal put forward by Hegel that somehow being and non-being form some kind of fundamental continuum, which forms the basis of reality. For able criticism of Hegel's ideas see Grossmann, R, The Existence of the World: An Introduction to Ontology (London: Routledge, 1992), 122–125Google Scholar.

²³ See Hick, John, Evil and the God of Love (Glasgow: Collins, 1968), 59–64Google Scholar for his argument that the privation account might be fruitful on the level of metaphysical reality, but on the empirical (phenomenal) level it fails miserably. I think the privative account fails on the metaphysical level since it denies some obvious empirical truths, truths it should actually reflect.

²⁴ To my mind, the idea that absences are causes is precisely due to our seeking out of remedies to situations we think are undesirable. We ask ourselves, ‘What is it, if present, that would make this situation better?’ So I might say that the lack of the crucial beam caused the roof to crash in upon me. What I mean by this is: ‘If there had been a beam the roof would not have caved in.” We are remedying animals, and, so to speak, honour that which is absent as a cause when, of course, the mere absence can have no such power. Imagine the world absent of human interests and desires, and a cave falls in. Is it the absence of a ‘crucial’ bit of rock which caused the cave to fall in, or is it the slow effect of gravity and the weathering of the ages? Isn't the lack a condition (along with countless billions of others like the lack of roof supporting dryads), rather than a cause? Naturally enough, if ordinarily we employed dryads as beams, we would then think of their absence as crucial and look with bemused astonishment at those who proposed that absent wood was the cause. Such is the relative and non-objective nature of the idea that lacks are causes.

²⁵ It should be noted how the argument has been set up to avoid a familiar reply from those who want to defend the privative analysis of the nature of evil. I could have used a thought experiment where Susan had an evil desire to please herself by stealing some chocolates. Then I could have argued that a desire (or pleasure) cannot be identical with an absence. And so I could have pursued the argument. However, this kind of example would expose the argument to this kind of reply: Desires and pleasures, in themselves, are good things. They are positive, substantial aspects of reality and in as far as they have being are good. It is only when desires and pleasures are misdirected or lack a correct application that they can be said to be evil, but then it is the lack of a correct direction which is the evil, and so falls under the idea of privation being identical with evil. I am suspicious of this kind of reply since it seems to imply that the pleasure and desires of the Commandant at Belsen, as he rules his camp, should be seen as in themselves good as if the only bad is the end to which the pleasure and desire is directed. It seems to me, however, that his immorality is only augmented by his taking pleasure in the death of his victims. One would think that if pleasure or desire were goods in themselves, then, the rapist's and the sadist's actions would be ameliorated by their desires and pleasures. However, as I say, I have tried to avoid dealing with this kind of rejoinder. It would surely be a desperate move to argue that feelings of utter hopelessness and despair can be seen as goods in themselves.

²⁶ There is a tradition of thought that maintains that the idea of absolute nothing is actually incoherent. On this see T. L. S. Sprigge, God of Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 93 n. 16. Bergson also claims that the idea of sheer nothingness is meaningless. See Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution pp. 272–298).

²⁷ We do not have to believe in the mind brain identity theory for this line of thought to be convincing. If we believe in soul stuff, it would be the soul stuff itself, not its absence that would be evil. Again, absences or deficiencies in soul stuff could explain the evil of the stuff that was still there, but it is what is there – the positive stuff – that would be seen as evil.

²⁸ Davies, The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil, pp. 177–178. Aquinas distinguishes between ‘evil suffered’ and ‘evil done’. Roughly this is the distinction between natural evil, and moral evil. Davies argues that much more natural evil is related to human decision making than we sometimes realize. See pp. 173–175.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 178.

³⁰ I am not persuaded. I agree with him about blindness not being an entity, but this is true of all universals like blueness or braveness, but ‘John's being blind’ (a particular) is certainly a set of determinate experiences with a certain phenomenology. Is Davies suggesting that there is nothing it is like to be blind? Surely not. Also what does Davies mean by blindness having no ‘independent existence’? For a believer, nothing created has independent existence, so being dependent cannot serve as a characteristic of the non-existent unless we want to say that nothing created actually exists at all. What Davies appears to be saying is that blindness per se has no existence at all, but this is deeply implausible. As I have said, there is something it is like to be blind. There is nothing it is like to be in a non-existent state.

³¹ This has serious consequences for a major part of Davies’ overall strategy in the book – the exercise of absolving God, who causes all things, of any kind of causal impetus in the genesis of evil. If evil is not a ‘substantial’ part of reality, then, Davies can claim it need have no positive causal origin.

³² Here the Thomist tradition seems to be in a quandary. It wants all causes to be in the end attributable in as far as they are real to God. God is the causal powerhouse of the universe and the best causation we can offer is secondary. So, in a certain way, the tradition acknowledges the powerlessness of evil I have argued must exist if the evil as absence account is correct. The tradition still wants evil to be able to do things however. To consign evil to the epiphenomenal would surely be a wildly implausible move.

³³ Quoted by Davies p. 189.

³⁴ In Ontology and Providence in Creation: Taking Ex Nihilo Seriously (London: Continuum, 2008), pp. 119–125, I briefly explore the relationship between God as primary cause and human actions as secondary.

³⁵ See, for example, Burrell, David, Knowing the Unknowable God (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

³⁶ In a recent essay John Milbank has defended the privative account of evil and the notion that evil is banal and senseless, without any positive foothold in reality. See ‘Evil: Darkness and Silence’ in Milbank, John, Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Burrell, David, Aquinas: God and Action (London: Routledge, 1979), p. 100Google Scholar.

³⁸ See also the very clear account given by Mathewes, Charles, Evil and the Augustinian Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 77–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.