Editing Problem of evil (section)

===Denial of evil===
In the second century, Christian theologians attempted to reconcile the problem of evil with an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, by denying that evil exists. Among these theologians, [[Clement of Alexandria]] offered several theodicies, of which one was called "privation theory of evil" which was adopted thereafter.<ref name="Kelly2002p42">{{cite book|author=Joseph Francis Kelly|title=The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition|url=https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose |url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Liturgical Press|isbn=978-0-8146-5104-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose/page/42 42] }}</ref> The other is a more modern version of "deny evil", suggested by Christian Science, wherein the perception of evil is described as a form of illusion.<ref name="Millard J. Erickson 2007, page 445-446"/>

====Privation theory of evil====
{{Main|Absence of good}}
The early version of "deny evil" is called the "privation theory of evil", so named because it described evil as a form of "lack, loss or privation". One of the earliest proponents of this theory was the 2nd-century Clement of Alexandria who, according to Joseph Kelly,<ref name="Kelly2002p42"/> stated that "since God is completely good, he could not have created evil; but if God did not create evil, then it cannot exist". Evil, according to Clement, does not exist as a positive, but exists as a negative or as a "lack of good".<ref name="Kelly2002p42"/> Clement's idea was criticised for its inability to explain suffering in the world, if evil did not exist. He was also pressed by Gnostics scholars with the question as to why God did not create creatures that "did not lack the good". Clement attempted to answer these questions ontologically through dualism, an idea found in the Platonic school,<ref name=jeffrey49>{{cite book|author=R. Jeffery |title=Evil and International Relations: Human Suffering in an Age of Terror |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7WyADAAAQBAJ |year=2007|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-61035-4 |page=49 }}</ref> that is by presenting two realities, one of God and Truth, another of human and perceived experience.<ref>{{cite book|author=Joseph Francis Kelly|title=The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition|url=https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose |url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Liturgical Press|isbn=978-0-8146-5104-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/problemofevilint00jose/page/42 42]–43 }}</ref>

The fourth-century theologian [[Augustine of Hippo]] adopted the privation theory, and in his ''Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love'', maintained that evil exists as "absence of the good".<ref name=jeffrey49/> God is a spiritual, (not corporeal), Being who is sovereign over other lesser beings because God created material reality ''ex nihilo''. Augustine's view of evil relies on the causal principle that every cause is superior to its effects.<ref name="Mann"/>{{rp|43}} God is innately superior to his creation, and "everything that God creates is good."<ref name="Mann">{{cite book |last1=Mann |first1=William E. |editor1-last=Stump |editor1-first=Eleonore |editor2-last=Meconi |editor2-first=David Vincent |title=The Cambridge Companion to Augustine |date=2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1107025332 |pages=40–48 |edition=2nd |chapter=Augustine on evil and original sin}}</ref>{{rp|40–42}} Every creature is good, but "some are better than others".<ref name="Mann"/>{{RP|44}} However, created beings also have tendencies toward mutability and corruption because they were created out of nothing. They are subject to the prejudices that come from personal perspective: humans care about what affects themselves, and fail to see how their privation might contribute to the common good. For Augustine, evil, when it refers to God's material creation, refers to a privation, an absence of goodness "''where goodness might have been''".<ref name="Mann"/>{{rp|44}} Evil is not a substance that exists in its own right separately from the nature of all Being.<ref name="Pereira2013p54">{{cite book|author=Jairzinho Lopes Pereira |title=Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4iVcAgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |isbn=978-3-647-55063-3 |pages=54–55 }}</ref> This absence of good is an act of the will, "a culpable rejection of the infinite bounty God offers in favor of an infinitely inferior fare", freely chosen by the will of an individual.<ref name="Mann"/>{{rp|46}}

Ben Page and [[Max Baker-Hytch]] observe that although there are numerous philosophers who explicitly advocate the [[absence of good|privation theory]], it also appears to be derived from a functional analysis of goodness, which is a widely embraced perspective in contemporary philosophy.<ref>{{cite journal|author1= Page, Ben|author2= [[Max Baker-Hytch|Baker-Hytch, Max]]| date=2020 |title=Meeting the Evil God Challenge |url= |journal=[[Pacific Philosophical Quarterly]] |volume=101 |issue=3 |pages=489–514 |doi=10.1111/papq.12304  |access-date= |name-list-style=vanc}}</ref><ref>Korsgaard, Christine M., 'Aristotle's Function Argument', The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford, 2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Jan. 2009), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552733.003.0005, accessed 7 Feb. 2023.</ref>

=====Critique=====
This view has been criticized as semantics: substituting a definition of evil with "loss of good", of "problem of evil and suffering" with the "problem of loss of good and suffering", neither addresses the issue from the theoretical point of view nor from the experiential point of view.<ref name=pereira2013p56>{{cite book|author=Jairzinho Lopes Pereira |title=Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4iVcAgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |isbn=978-3-647-55063-3 |page=56 with footnote 25 }}</ref> Scholars who criticize the privation theory state that murder, rape, terror, pain and suffering are real life events for the victim, and cannot be denied as mere "lack of good".<ref>Todd C. Calder (2007), [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20464387 Is the Privation Theory of Evil Dead?], American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 371–81</ref> Augustine, states Pereira, accepted suffering exists and was aware that the privation theory was not a solution to the problem of evil.<ref name=pereira2013p56/>

====Evil as illusory====
An alternative modern version of the privation theory is by [[Christian Science]], which asserts that evils such as suffering and disease only appear to be real, but in truth are illusions, and in reality evil does not exist.<ref name="Millard J. Erickson 2007, page 445-446"/> The theologians of Christian Science, states Stephen Gottschalk, posit that the Spirit is of infinite might, mortal human beings fail to grasp this and focus instead on evil and suffering that have no real existence as "a power, person or principle opposed to God".<ref name=Gottschalkp65/>

The illusion version of privation theory theodicy has been critiqued for denying the reality of crimes, wars, terror, sickness, injury, death, suffering and pain to the victim.<ref name= Gottschalkp65/> Further, adds Millard Erickson, the illusion argument merely shifts the problem to a new problem, as to why God would create this "illusion" of crimes, wars, terror, sickness, injury, death, suffering and pain; and why God does not stop this "illusion".<ref name="Millard J. Erickson 1998 446–47"/>