The Problem of Goodness

Many idioms describe the frequently found phenomena of disorderly thinking (e.g., "a solution in search of a problem," "putting the cart before the horse," "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"). One starts out on a project recognizing the immediate needs of the situation, but errs in neglecting the background reality. Out of an intuition that something is "off," one thus inadvertently causes harm by adjusting the settings of something already properly calibrated.

The problem of evil is a problem for God. It consists in the perceived incommensurability of the following proposed truths and indicts His existence:

Evil exists.
God (if He exists) is good.
God (if He exists) is all-powerful.

It seems at first blush that taking the existence of evil seriously forces us to dismiss the possibility of a supreme Goodness.

Where does the objector begins his investigation of the problem? First, he observes the existence of evil. He has heard of God, of His goodness, and of His power. He starts from evil and makes light of good.

What if his intuition begins elsewhere? What if, instead of reading in the newspaper of the varieties of crimes and inhumanities rampant in the streets, he observes a mother quietly preparing her child's lunch for school or a stranger helping pick up the scattered content's of a man's ripped grocery bag?

If evil is a problem for God, then good is a problem for non-God.

The problem of good:

Good exists.
God (if He exists) is good.
God (if He exists) is all-powerful.

"There is no problem here. God does not exist, yet good still can and does. Why have you given it this name?" the objector says. Can good exist without God? How is good with God different than good without God?

It would be absurd to assert, as some idealists have done, that a thing ceases to exist when it is unexperienced. A mountain range cannot exist as soon as someone opens her eyes to it and become nothing as soon as her eyes are shut. Values, unlike things, are more delicate. They inhere in something else, either in objects, actions, or agents. A value is a value for someone or something. Without an observer, values are delegitimized. Values need observers because they are mediums between beings. The mountain range may exist without an observer, but it may not be beautiful without one. It emanates the same image as a consequence of its existence, but without eyes to see it, it emanates for naught.

It is similar to a crisis regarding meaning. I once read an account of a young man who was thrown into a frenzy after reading Camus' The Stranger. He went about exclaiming between long drags on a cigarette that "nothing matters!" He spoke as though "mattering" was something that objects did on their own, just as a car runs or a tree grows. Meaning is a child of goodness. It draws upon what is good to affirm a particular phenomena, be it a life, an action, or either in general.

God is the presumed guarantor of values, goodness being the penultimate among them. His omniscience ensures that no values are lost as He is a perpetual creator-witness.

It is conceivable, nay probable, that a community will cease to recognize a particular good as such. Any student of history will find an example on every page of the annals of humanity. Moreover, it is probable that a community will recognize a particular non-good as a good. We ought not blame communities for this, but individuals who make up the community. It is impossible for a person to grasp all vessels of the good at once. Groups of people have an even harder time, as specialties come to predominate and cultural blind spots enlarge. Hence, we have the precarious status of goodness. It is a problem for those who are affronted by the possibility of something truly good vanishing into nothingness.