Is there a role for subjectivity in our judgments of good and evil? If such judgments are purely subjective, then we must be ready for profound changes in our conception of the problem of God and evil. In the story of Sartre, the protagonist, Goetz believes that the human person alone invents the distinction between good and evil. This provides little help toward developing a non-subjective idea of evil. If Sartre is right and evil is wholly subjective, then whether there is any evil or too much evil in the world would depend on any one person’s decision. This would effectively dissolve or radically alter the problem of God and evil. If one must decide for oneself whether God is good or evil, the answer would depend on how one views the world. The sole purpose of discussion would not be to show how God is both good and omnipotent, but to express how each one of us sees the problem with no possibility of an intersubjective solution.

If radical subjectivity were at the basis of our judgment of good and evil, it would be useless to discuss human or divine goodness with any hope of establishing some firm guidelines. This, however, would be strange. If each person could invent good and evil for oneself, if there were no standards by which to judge one’s decision, then we would be at the mercy of chaos. This would be taking a long step toward a world in which anything goes, in which what is good or bad, right or wrong, depends on some such criterion as someone’s whim, or on who is in power. The radically subjective answer to what is good and evil is too great a concession to the non-rational and mystery. We cannot accept this; we do not believe that the non-rational and mystery should wholly control this issue and exclude rationality and clarity.

Here we must ask how a judgment of good and evil is made? Do I make it arbitrarily? If not, if I ground it on what the world is like, then I have given it an objective basis. I alone would not decide what was good or evil; I alone could not be seen as inventing good. Something other than myself would put a brake on what I might decide. Radical subjectivity could occur only if I maintained that what the world is like depends wholly on what I choose to see it as. This position, of course, would have to reject any idea of reality functioning as a criterion of scientific theory.

The judgment of good and evil can be deceptive. In his own effort to decide, Goetz makes an important mistake. He fails to see that the good that happens to a man can also be the occasion of a subsequent evil, as when a person wins a lottery and later becomes very unhappy due to situations that he cannot handle. Likewise, Goetz fails to see that good can be drawn out of evil, as when in war a soldier heroically saves the life of his buddy, or when a beautiful child results from a terrifying rape. Good can come out of evil, and evil can come out of good; and often what follows is due to a person’s subsequent decision. The important thing is that we stay committed to the good and try to bring good out of whatever happens to us.

A better way of looking at things than the radically subjective is to accept the universe as containing actions that can have genuine inter-subjective good, as well as evil, consequences. Most of us acknowledge this, that some events and actions are really good or evil. This more realistic approach to things suggests that we should try to go beyond Sartre and seek a firmer foundation for our judgments of good and evil. One way of making a start on this is to note the various ways in which the relevant words are used.

Good can mean what is efficiently produced (Ewing), as when we say that a car is made economically, according to a profitable plan and to proper specifications.

Ewing also mentions the ultimate good that has no parts that are indifferent to the good.

In his consideration of the idea of the good as satisfying a person’s desires, Ewing mentions the possibility that what one desires might not be what is really good for one. This points to a necessary presupposition: the distinction between desires that satisfy a person’s legitimate needs from those that concern his illegitimate needs.

The good has a human dimension. This is so whether or not we explicitly choose to order our lives toward perfection. We cannot get out of our own skin and apprehend something as a dog or a fish would see it. As humans, we have needs that form the foundation of desires for food, drink, love, justice and the like. What is good is determined by these built-in needs and desires. We call various things good because they satisfy these desires.

In many instances our free choice of a goal or end determines the criteria by which we judge something good. If we decide to buy a car, we alone can decide what purpose it will serve. One person wants to make a statement. A good car for him might be one that is very powerful and stylish. Another person is looking for basic transportation and seeks out a vehicle that is reliable, small enough to park and easy on gas. A couple of modest means with three small children would not judge that a two-seater-sports roadster is a good car for their family.

Instrumental goods are distinguished from intrinsic goods in that they are sought not for their value in themselves but for what they enable us to do. A car, a meal, a book, a tool--all of these things are of this type. We do not seek them only for the pleasure, enjoyment or for the satisfaction they bring us by themselves.

Could it be that every good is to be viewed essentially in the light of something else, its goal? Is good always spoken of in a relative way? Must we always ask, "Good for what?" In many instances this seems to be so, as we can see from the above. When we speak of a good knife, a good day, or a good car we have in mind a specific purpose. Butchers have different kinds of knives, each of which is a good knife because it allows one to cut in a particular desired way. Carpenters use a special kind of knife, as do wood carvers and men who lay floor coverings. Collectors look for knives with elaborately sculptured handles or knives owned by historical figures. A good day for swimmers is not the same as a good day for farmers whose crops are dying in a drought.

Could every good except the ultimate good be considered an instrumental good? Possibly. That is, even the intrinsic goods can be sought because they are the means to a greater good. Take the person who enjoys an invigorating walk, but intends mainly the relaxation and the conditioning of his body that he really needs in order better to perform his job or pursue an athletic goal. He can treat his walk or exercise as an end in itself while intending that it leads to something ultimate or more basic.

This idea has a special place in the life of persons who are committed to the pursuit of perfection. Well-intentioned and sincere, they sacrifice time and money on behalf of destitute persons because they aim to live according to their moral principles and would be disturbed if they failed to do so. Considered in this way, all goods could be instrumental for some people.

There is another angle to this. Religious persons, as take pleasure in intrinsic goods, aware that they are leading to their perfection, can also see themselves as enjoying a participation in the Divinity, the Source of all goodness. In the presence of a beautiful painting, they can see themselves as participating in the beauty of God, an experience which, though finite, manifests somehow the greatness of the Infinite. The theist could say that we embrace the intrinsic goods in themselves and not as means because, insofar as they exist, they participate in the Creator’s existence and put us into contact with it.

Good as Complete. The idea of completeness and the approach to an ideal is an idea of the good that is not emphasized in Ewing’s classification. Something is good insofar as it approaches an ideal. It is on the way to fulfillment, to a sense of completion. This is an important meaning of "good." That which is good is complete, fulfilled. We formulate a particular ideal that functions as a standard, and we judge to what degree the object under consideration approaches the ideal. We know that there are minimum requirements for an object to be such, and we know that a "good" knife, for example, surpasses those requirements. Presupposing that we have at hand an object that meets the criteria of a chair, we judge how comfortable, supportive, and decorative, etc., it is with a view toward what we might call an ideal chair.

The good as knowable. Something can be called good because the intellect is drawn to it as a distinct object of knowledge. Our desire to know is one of the desires that points to a distinct human dimension of good. This inclines us to ask whether we can call something good because it is what it is.

If something like a knife, or a dog or a chair merely is, without our having any reason to call it a good knife, or a good dog, or a good chair, then can we call it good merely because it exists and meets the minimum requirements for calling it what it is? It might be a knife that barely does the job, or a watchdog that hardly "watches," or a chair that is a chair and nothing more. Another way of putting this is whether something we ordinarily call "bad" can be called good in any way.

We have to answer, "Yes," here, for an object, even though it is bad, can be viewed as a good of the intellect. In this sense, what meets the minimum requirements, even though it is an uncomfortable and rickety chair or a dull knife, is in a sense good, because it is at this time the objective goal of the intellect. That is, in meeting the minimum requirements the object appears as something distinctive, something that the human intellect is ordered to grasp and understand. Such an object fulfills the need of the intellect; it gives it something to know, and hence can be called the good of the intellect.

The intellect wants to know, and when it can distinguish a distinctive part of reality, it grasps what a thing is and is thereby partially fulfilled. Hence, there is a sense in which we can call something good, even though it does not go beyond the minimum requirements. As long as a chair has the essential characteristics that make it a chair, not necessarily a good chair, it still can be called good in that it can be known as a chair. It attracts and satisfies in a limited way the mind of someone who knows it. It does not have to be comfortable, durable, easy to carry, easy to clean or repair, small or large enough, or of the right color. Good is not necessarily in the realm of the accidental.

This meaning of good is significant and not to be underestimated. It implies that the object can function and has a place in the world. If a chair has what it takes to be a chair, even though it is uncomfortable and a little low or too high, then it is still good. In such circumstances someone who needs a chair is heard to say, "I’ll take it. I need it. It’s better than nothing." Note how the use of "better" suggests that it is good. If it were not good in some way, then it could not be "better." Merchants are on solid ground when they advertise a product in ascending price levels as "good," "better," "best."

Good as the ideal and the problem of God and evil. Here the importance of good as the ideal is central. For the problem of God and evil revolves about how well God fulfills the ideal of God. An attempt at the answer forces the consideration of another distinction: that between the ontological good and the moral good. The ontologically good God has everything such a being should have. The morally good God has a special relationship to morality. He is usually thought of as acting like a morally good person. We see here the possibility that an ontologically good God (a God who has everything he should have) might have a type of goodness that we cannot classify as moral, or that is moral only in an extended sense, or that is the ground of all morality. In a real sense he might be beyond moral good and evil. We will consider this question in the following chapter.

The Morally Good Person. In the remainder of this chapter we will focus attention on the morally good person. The reason: when discussing the problem of God and evil in the Western world, much of the literature presupposes that God is a person. The believer talks about God creating us because he loves. The scriptures talk about his promising, his admonitions, his rewarding and punishing. Those who oppose the theist answer to evil often object that if God is all-powerful and still there is evil in the world, then God cannot be a good person. Rather, he is malicious, depraved, and cruel for allowing innocent persons to suffer so intensely. They object that if God is omnipotent, then he is not a good person. Their claim is that the good and all powerful personal God of the Judeo-Christian heritage does not exist.

Who the good moral person is is a complicated and difficult question. To answer it adequately, one would have to spell out a moral philosophy in great detail. Here I will merely provide some guidelines that a Judeo-Christian theist would use for the determination of a good person in the context of the traditional problem of evil. I will consider in a general way the good person as he/she is found in Western attempts to answer the problem of God and evil. Hopefully, a better understanding of what the tradition judges to be a good human being will provide a foundation for an understanding of how the Judeo-Christian heritage calls God good.

Who is the good human being? We face this problem each day as we make judgments about what we are about to do, what has been done to us, and what we hear has been done by and to others.

One meaning of "good person" is the perfect person who has all the desirable qualities in a superlative way. We might call him the "perfect husband" or her the "perfect wife." Such persons fulfill our ideals. They have been born with beauty, intelligence, organizational ability, artistic talent, strength. They have ontological goodness. In addition to their high degree of ontological goodness, they have developed character and virtues such as courage, compassion, fidelity. They are morally good persons. We know that in real life there are some persons who approach this ideal.

However, it is the second of these meanings that we consider to be the more important. The more common meaning of "good person" is the morally good person, no matter how he looks or what little talent he has. A person cannot help it that he is born ugly, with physical defects, or with little talent. And yet, we consider whether he is fair, considerate, generous, truthful, respectful of his fellowman, and the like to be of great moment.

It is true that we should not call a person morally good when she goes about doing good actions unconsciously. However, this would not apply to the person who develops her virtue over the years, such that, as if by second nature (although unconsciously), she regularly performs kind and virtuous acts.

The teleological plays a pivotal role in the development of such a good person. A person pursues as a goal the kind of life that he sees as ideal. This ideal functions as a criterion for his actions, which are good or bad insofar as they embody or lead to that ideal. This presents a problem, for there is always the possibility that one pursues a kind of life that he thinks is good for him but really is bad, not only for him but also for the rest of us, as, for example, when a father involves his son in a life of theft and cheating.

The question as to what kind of moral life one should live is complex at its root. Many of us accept as justified a set of moral principles taught us in our youth. As we mature we might critically examine our principles and inquire into the basis of our presuppositions. This is where one can run into difficulties that can force one to choose between different kinds of life. Even so, one cannot choose a kind of life blindly or precipitously. Rather, careful consideration is in order. One should try to justify rationally the kind of life that one wants to lead. A blind choice might involve commitments to principles that are highly questionable or the acceptance of some principles that should be rejected and the rejection of others that should be accepted.

Here we are concerned with the ideal moral life. Who is the good moral person as found in the Judeo-Christian tradition? What is the ideal life, or what is the kind of life that a person should live? To answer this question in detail is impossible in these pages, if at all. Here we will speak only in a general way, setting down some limits and guidelines that we find in the theist attempt to answer the problem of God and evil.

The negative approach to the good person. We will first use the negative approach, setting down the limits to the kind of life a good person should choose to live, what a good person should not do.

The person who gives himself over wholly to satisfying sense pleasures degrades himself as he neglects the formation of his intellect, of his capacity to be decent. He neglects the development of the virtues of self-discipline and rightful self-denial. The good person, then, is not an extreme sensual hedonist who advocates a life in which pleasure and the escape from pain is seen as the highest good, determining all actions. In a like way, we reject the person who thinks he can rightfully satisfy any deeply felt impulses, even his destructive tendencies, for this would allow him to hurt others unjustly, something we cannot condone.

The good person is not irresponsible. He should not live merely by following the orders of others. He should not seek power at all costs, running roughshod over the rights of others.

A person cannot morally take away the freedom of another without cause as, for example, when a father forces his teenage daughter into prostitution. A man cannot rightfully choose to become a slavemaster, kidnapping and imprisoning defenseless women.

Little can be said for the type of life lived by such persons. Likewise no justification can be made for violating the dignity of a person by experimenting on him with drugs without his knowledge and consent. Nor can one spread lies about a co-worker in order to advance one’s own position. Nor violate the trust that others place in one, as for example, when a banker reveals confidential information that will result in harm to a client.

We should not ingest poisons into our bodies, nor accept the unnecessary pollution of the environment, nor put up with a careless attitude toward protecting people from accidental physical failures and the like, nor try to place the blame on others for our own failures.

A good person in the theist tradition should not be a pessimist, for pessimism is against the virtue of hope. There is good reason to think that pessimism gives rise to a destructive, self-fulfilling prophecy.

Some negative expressions, however, do not set down limits on our conduct, but, on the contrary, effectively enhance our freedom. I will consider them under the positive approach.

The positive approach to the good person. Whereas in the negative approach we have tried to say what the good person in the theist tradition should not do, in the positive approach we will try to set down the kinds of things that a good person should do. Many of these characteristics and actions are relevant to the way in which the good person should act when confronted by evil.

The good person is grateful for the good things that she can enjoy and is willing to accept a certain amount of tension and risk in distinguishing herself and accomplishing something of genuine worth. A good person takes on projects of true achievement and tries to realize her potentialities. She considers the information that modern science makes available to us, findings that influence our moral judgments as they prescribe how to care for our bodies as we fulfill a reasonable desire to preserve our life. She tries to enhance her freedom and increase the freedom of others. She sees that an action done because it is right is more meritorious than one that is done because of a clear-cut immediate reward.

She views unfortunate occurrences, natural disasters, disease and the like as challenges to come forward and exhibit virtue, or as tests which show her who she really is. She believes that when great evils are unavoidable, they can be the occasion of significant advancement in courage, hope, devotion and the like, virtually a call to greatness.

The good person sees danger as a challenge to a higher kind of life, not that she always seeks it out, but that she is willing to stand firm when it confronts her. She is willing to venture out and test her limits, and to accept the consequences of failure. She realizes the value of a test and is willing to be put to it. She accepts the responsibility for her own failures. She tries to get rid of evils, and shape her destiny whenever possible, but she is willing to endure suffering when she cannot change things. She tries to change what she can change and accept what she cannot change.

She is not crushed by the need to suffer. She is willing to face up to her own death, to the time when she will have to leave all pleasures, friends, and earthly possessions.

A good person is not expected to do the impossible. He is free of any obligation to do what cannot be done. As we will see, this has a special place in the problem of God and evil, for we will claim that one cannot place an obligation on the Creator to bring about the impossible.

The good person at times in his dealings with good and evil makes a tragic mistake. We might have the right intentions and be morally right in a subjective way, but find out in the future that what we embraced as good has brought danger and suffering. Not that this always happens, but it happens frequently enough to present us with a serious problem when we try to evaluate something as good or evil in an absolute sense.

The good person at times cannot avoid bringing about a genuine evil. A teacher at times allows his students to fail as he fulfills his responsibility to show them the ideal and how far they are from it. The high rates of failure in medical school are the result of measures taken to insure that incompetent doctors do not harm the public. The examiner who fails an airline pilot who is not physically fit or up to date on the plane he is flying brings about an evil, but he is doing his job, protecting us from greater evils.

The evils brought about are real. The failed medical student must make a serious re-adjustment of his goals and hopes. The grounded pilot must seek another way of making a living. This is another way of saying that the good man brings about evil from time to time because it is necessary. More important ends and obligations call for it, and he would not be called good if he did not do things that resulted in such consequences. We do not blame such persons for what they have done, even though they have caused disappointment, distress, financial difficulties and suffering. In the problem of God and evil, it is possible that suffering and even disasters are necessary for any number of reasons, some of which will appear in the rest of this work.

Does the supererogatory have a place in the problem? Must a good person be always obliged to do the best possible action at any moment? It seems that we act as if we are convinced of this. The sensitive person who tries to live an ideal human life seems to have a strong propensity to continually question herself as to the value of any action--its usefulness in attaining that goal. We ordinarily think in terms of it being "better to do this than that," given our decided purpose. Someone who is trying to save money might wait for a sale day to buy a needed item, and then do other errands on that same trip. If she is equally talented in helping young people, in raising dogs, in making jewelry, and in growing roses, she might see helping young people as better and feel obliged to do it in her spare time, even though she is fulfilling all other obligations she has to society. She would be presupposing that the youth of her neighborhood have greater value than dogs or flowers. She might see the object of her efforts as having greater dignity and hence placing a demand on her.

A strong reason in defense of supererogatory actions is that, without them, human freedom would be significantly restricted to an unreasonable degree. That is, once a person fulfills her ordinary obligations to society, there should be circumstances in which she should be free to devote herself to whatever she wants to do. While it might be true that each of us should do much more to relieve the suffering of our neighbor, there should be a limit beyond which we should be able to choose to do so without any strings attached. Even though she knows that she has the talent to do wonderful things with youth, she wants to make jewelry. In some circumstances, she should be morally as well as physically free to do whatever she wants to do.

This means that, under certain circumstances, a good person can decide to putter in the garden or go to a ball game rather than help out at a Kiwanis auction. He can collect cars rather than raise dogs or feed the birds. If this is true, then any criticism of the Divinity for not having brought into existence the best possible world or even a better world would be seriously weakened. If God is a good person, then it is questionable whether he is obligated to actualize the best possible action.

Many of the above-mentioned characteristics of a good person have a part in the attempted solution to the problem of God and evil. In subsequent chapters, I will show more extensively how a good person deals with evil. In the chapter immediately following I will show how these characteristics affect our understanding of how God can be called good. From there I proceed to attempt an understanding of omnipotence, the power of God.

1. A.C. Ewing. The Definition of Good (New York: Macmillan, 1947).

2. Mackie, ibid.

3. Royce, ibid.

4. Walhout, ibid.

5. Farrer, ibid.

6. Sontag, ibid.

7. Pittenger, ibid.

8. Buber, ibid.

9. Walhout, ibid., Ch. 9.

10. G. Leibniz, "On the Ultimate Origination of Things," The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings, trans. Robert Latta (London: Oxford University Press, 1925) pp. 346-347.

11. Cf. David Heyd, Supererogation--Its Status in Ethical Theory (London: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 115.

12. Heyd, pp. 146, 148, 152.

13. Thomas Beauchamp and James Childress, Principles of Biomedical Ethics 4th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 495.

14. Cf. Jay Katz, ed., Experimentation with Human Beings (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1972), pp. 136-140. Beauchamp and Childress, p. 495.

15. Philip J. Hilts, "French Doctor Testing AIDS Vaccine on Himself," "Washington Post," March 10, 1987, p. A 7. Beauchamp and Childress, p. 495.

16. Beauchamp and Childress, p. 484.

17. Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 320-321.