PHIL

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Natural Evil Author(s): Richard Swinburne Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Oct., 1978), pp. 295-301 Published by: on behalf of the University of Illinois Press North American Philosophical

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American Philosophical Quarterly Volume 15, Number 4, October 1978

VI. NATURAL EVIL RICHARD SWINBURNE

I

THE problem of evil is the difficulty raised for

theism, the belief that there is a God, by the existence of evil. God is, by definition, omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good. He is omnipotent in the sense, roughly, that he can do whatever it is

logically possible to do. He is omniscient in the sense

that he knows all true propositions (or perhaps, we

should say, all true propositions which it is logically possible to know). He is morally good in the sense

that he does no morally bad action. Now, the atheist

argues, an omniscient God would know when evil would occur, if he did not act to prevent it. Being omnipotent, he would be able to prevent the occurrence of evil, and, being perfectly good, would choose to do so. But in fact there is evil in the world.

Hence there is no God.

Down the centuries theists have displayed various defences against the atheist's argument. The de?

fense which has appealed most to modern man has been the free-will defense. This claims that a good

God might well permit men to have free will despite the danger that they will bring about evil rather than good, because of the goodness of their having freedom. The trouble with this defense is that

although it may explain why a good God might permit evil, it only explains why he might permit evil of a certain kind?moral evil. I understand by

moral evil that evil brought about intentionally by human agents, to be contrasted with natural evil

which is that evil not brought about intentionally by human agents?primarily evil such

as famine,

disease, and earthquake, which are

brought about

by natural processes. Hence, because of the way the

free-will defense works, it immediately allows the construction of a slightly different argument against the existence of God?an argument not from evil

as

such but from the occurrence of natural evil, an

argument which appears much more difficult to refute. The purpose of this paper is to argue that if the free-will defense works in explaining why God

might permit the existence of moral evil, then it also

provides an explanation of why God might bring

about the existence of much natural evil. Contrary to what might appear at first sight, if the free-will

defense works with respect to moral evil, it also has the force to defeat an argument from natural evil.

II

I begin by developing the free-will defense in the

way necessary if it is to give an explanation of why God permits the existence not merely of moral evil as such, but of moral evil of the kind and quantity

which we do in fact find in the world. The free-will defense claims that God might well give to men a kind of free will in which how an agent acts is not

fully determined by preceding causes but depends, at least in part,

on the agent's uncaused choice at the

instant of action. It has been argued convincingly1 that it is not logically possible that God should have

given men free will of this kind and at the sam? time have predetermined what they would do.

Rather, if men had free will of this kind, what they did must be truly up to them. God could of course have given men such free-will without allowing them to make any significant difference to the

world by their exercise of it. However it is plausible to suppose that a good God might well give to free agents the power through their free choices to

make a significant difference to the world and to each other, including the power to influence the course of history for quite

a considerable time ahead.

In giving men such free-will God would be giving men a share in his own creative work.

Now God could have given men only the power to benefit their fellows or to withhold benefit from

them, but not the power to inflict harm on each other or on themselves. He could have created a world in which men could give to their fellows chocolate, or

help them to build a TV set, without creating a world in which men could risk their own lives, inflict pain on their fellows or deprive them of any? thing which they really valued. However it is

plausible to suppose that a good God might well wish to give to men a real share in his work ol

295

1 See, for example, Alvin Plantinga, God and Other Minds (London and Ithaca, 1967), chapters 5 and 6.

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296 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

planning the development of the world and man?

kind. To allow men a real choice in this respect, he

must give them the choice of doing what is ob?

jectively harmful. Having himself the powers to

benefit and harm, he would give men a substantial

share in his creative work, by giving to them both

powers (although perhaps to a lesser degree). There?

by he would show real trust in men and they would have substantial responsibility for themselves and

their fellows. If my responsibility to you is limited to whether or not I give you chocolate or a TV set, I hardly have much responsibility for you.

Clearly too the greater the share in his creative work which a God chooses to give to men, the greater the powers to benefit and to harm each other he must

give to them. He must for example not merely give men the power to bruise each other, but also give men the power to become heroin addicts, to persuade other men to become heroin addicts, and to drop atom bombs. A God who greatly limits the harm

which men can do to each other greatly limits the control over their destiny which he gives to men?

just as an

over-protective parent who preserves his

child from almost every possible physical or moral

danger does not allow him to run his own life, and in his turn to make through his own choice a dif? ference to the lives of others.

The free-will defense must be developed in the above way if it is to explain why God allows the existence of moral evil of the kind and quantity

which we find in the world. It is, I have briefly suggested,

a plausible defense?although

I am not

concerned to argue that. The claim is that God allowed man to cause evil because only by

so doing

would he give to man a significant choice of destiny and share in his own creative work. God does not

make men abuse the powers which he gives them, nor wish man to abuse them. But their having these

powers allows them to bring about significant evil, and God cannot stop them doing so without de?

priving them of their powers. The free-will defense does not claim that God has

to create a world in which men may bring about

evil, only that it would not be wrong for him to do so. The free-will defense does not deny that there

must be a limit to the amount of harm which a good God would allow man to do to others deliberately or through negligence. Clearly in our world there is such a limit because there is a limit to the amount

of harm which men can suffer. Men only live for so

long, and if you inflict too much pain on them

during their life they become unconscious. It is in no way obvious that the limit to human suffering

inflicted by other men is drawn in the wrong place?that if there is a God he has given to men too great a control of their own destiny.

Now suppose that the free-will defense does work in providing an explanation of why God permits the existence of the moral evil which we find in the

world. My concern is to show that in that case there

is also an explanation of why God brings about much natural evil. Superficially, the free-will defense does not have much to do with natural evil, for by definition natural evil is evil not brought about through man's choice. Many theists have of course claimed that natural evils are really brought about by free agents other than men, viz. fallen

angels, and hence that a defense similar to the free?

will defense can be used to give the same kind of account of them as of moral evils. But this looks very

much like an ad hoc hypothesis added to theism to save it from falsification by evidence which would otherwise falsify it. Although this hypothesis may save theism from formal falsification, it would seem that natural evil still greatly disconfirms theism, if the only way to save theism from falsification is by adding to it an ad hoc hypothesis. If the fallen-angel defense is to be taken more

seriously, we need

evidence of the existence of fallen angels, other than that provided by the existence of natural evil. My argument is a different one?that the free-will defense already outlined could only work in pro? viding an explanation of why God allows moral

evil, if in fact there is also natural evil. This is because there must be natural evils if men are to

have the knowledge which they need to have in order to

bring about moral evils.

Ill

To see this, let us ask how men acquire knowledge, in particular knowledge of what will follow in the future from a present state. There

are two routes to

such knowledge. The normal route is by induction from what is known to have happened in the past. The simplest such case is where I infer that a

present state of affairs C will be followed by a

future state E from the fact that in the past states of affairs like C on all occasions of which I have

knowledge have been followed by states like E. Because on the many occasions of which I have

knowledge, a piece of chalk being liberated from the hand has fallen to the floor, I can infer that the next time chalk is liberated it will fall. However induction may take a more complicated form. From

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NATURAL EVIL 297

a vast collection of data about the positions of

planets a scientist may infer a consequence of a

different kind, e.g. that there will be a very high tide on Earth when the planets are in such and such

positions. Here the data provide evidence for a

complicated scientific theory of which the prediction about the high tide is a somewhat remote con?

sequence.

Whether the inference is simple or complicated, certain obvious points

can be made about the claim

to knowledge of the future which results from it. The first is that the more past data there are, the better established is a claim to such knowledge.

This is because the data support a claim about the future by supporting a theory or a simple universal

(or statistical) generalization (e.g. "states like Care

always followed by states like E") which in turn licenses the claim about the future. The more data there are, the more they show

that the theory or

generalization holds in many different circum? stances and so is more likely to hold in the future instance in question. (However similar the circum?

stances under which the past data are observed

are in many respects, they are almost bound to

differ from each other in some observable or un

observable respects; if the generalization holds

despite many differences, that gives it greater reliability.)

Secondly, the surer my knowledge that the past data occurred as stated, the better grounded is my claim to knowledge of the future. If the data are

mental experiences of mine or events which I myself have seen, or events which many independent observers have reported to me, then my knowledge of their occurrence is sure. If they

are experiences

of others or events about which only one or two

observers have told me, then I have some doubt whether they occurred. I have more doubt still if I need to make a complicated inference from other

data to prove their occurrence. Clearly in so far as

an inference is licenced by certain data, then to the extent to which it is doubtful whether the data are

correct, it is doubtful whether the inference is

justifiable. Thirdly, in so far as the data are qualitatively very

dissimilar from what is predicted, and a complicated scientific theory is needed to generate the prediction, the claim to knowledge will be less surely based.

Thus suppose that by a process of complex extra?

polation from a number n of astronomical data I reach a very complex theory of mechanics, from

which I conclude that in a very unusual set of circumstances (when the planets are in just such and such configurations relative to an observer) if I let go a bit of chalk it will rise into the air. And

suppose that these circumstances are manifested on

Earth uniquely in my study during this hour. Do I know that when shortly I let go of the chalk it will rise? Doubtfully so. Clearly I do know it and know it a lot better if I have already actually let go of the chalk in my study n times during the hour, and it has risen.

Fourthly, if a complex inference is needed in order to reach a

prediction, then in so far as the

inference is of a kind which has proved successful

before, or is made by persons with known predictive success from this kind of work in the past, that is

grounds for believing the prediction. These four

points about the strength of knowledge obtained by induction may be summarized by saying that our claims to knowledge are better justified, the closer

they are to our

experience. Now if men are knowingly to bring about states

of affairs, or to allow states of affairs to come about

through neglecting to prevent them, they must know what consequences will follow from their actions. Inductive knowledge of consequences, it follows from what has just been said, is to be obtained as follows. Consider an action A which I am con?

templating doing in circumstances X. Suppose that A consists in bringing about a state of affairs C. This we will call the result of A. (A result of an action is to be distinguished from a consequence or effect of the action. The consequence is an effect distinct from the action, caused by it. Thus the result of the action of pulling a trigger is that a trigger is pulled. The consequence may be that a bullet is fired, or a man killed.)2 How am I to know what its effects will be, what will follow from it? Most certainly, by having done such an action myself many times before in similar circumstances, and having observed

the effects of its result. I come to know most surely what will result from pulling the trigger of a certain loaded gun when it is pointing at a man's head by

having done such an action often before. I know the effect less surely by having seen the effects of others doing the action, or by having seen the effects of the result of the action when this was brought about unintentionally, all in similar circumstances to those in which I am considering doing the

action; or by others telling me what happened on different occasions when they pulled triggers of

2 For this distinction see G. H. Von Wright, Norm and Action (London, 1963), pp. 391!.

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298 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

loaded guns. I know that pulling the trigger will kill the man less surely, because I suspect that maybe it

does not work with me, or that others have a special

way of pulling the trigger which I do not know, and so on. Less sure knowledge still is obtained by observing the result occur in somewhat different circumstances (e.g. when the gun

was pointing

at a

man's stomach instead of at his head). Still less sure

knowledge is obtained by having observed goings-on only somewhat similar, and having

to make al?

lowance for the difference?e.g. I may only have seen guns fired at cardboard targets,

or arrows fired

at men. Or my knowledge may depend on reports given by a few others who depended in turn on other witnesses for their information ; then it will be still less certain.

The least certain knowledge of all is that which is reached by

a process of more complicated inference

from goings-on remotely similar to A. However it is

difficult to see how a theory which predicted the occurrence of such evils as pain or death could have

any justification unless the data on which the theory was built were cases of pain and death. If you had no

knowledge of anything causing pain, how could other kinds of data substantiate predictions about

pain? For pain is so different from other kinds of

goings-on and has no natural connection with

particular brain or nerve conditions rather than

with others. (There is no reason for supposing that stimulation of this nerve will cause pain and of that one will cause pleasure, other than that provided

by knowledge that that is what has happened in the

past.) So proximity

to experience gives

more certain

knowledge. It is notorious that people are much

more inclined to take precautions against disaster

if they have suffered before themselves or if a similar disaster has happened to those close to them than if

they are warned of the need for precaution by

some

impersonal distant authority. A man is far more

inclined to take precautions against fire or burglary if he or his neighbors have suffered than if the police

warn him that these things have happened in the next village. My point is that this is not just irrational

perversity. It is the height of rationality to be in? fluenced more by what is known better. People know better that it can happen to them if they know that it has happened to them or to others like them. With a mere police warning, they always

have some reason for suspecting that

police exag?

gerate or that things are different in the next

village. What is irrational is not being influenced at all by the police warning; what is not irrational

is being influenced more by goings-on closer to hand of which we have more intimate experience.

IV

One thing that follows from all this, is that if we are to know the effects of our actions, things must

behave in regular ways. Only if my action is going to have an effect similar to that of similar actions done by others

on other occasions, can I know what

effect that action is going to have. Only if I know what effects my actions will have can I set about

making a difference to things. It follows that if

agents are to mould the world and themselves, the world has to be on the whole a pretty deterministic sort of place ; deterministic laws of nature have to

operate fairly universally. There would not need to be

complete determinism?agents themselves could

be exempt from the full rigours of determinism, and there might be violation of natural laws from time to time. But basically the world has to be

governed by laws of nature if agents are to be able to control it.

The main thing however for our purposes which follows from what has been said so far is that we can

only come to know that certain of our actions

will have harmful consequences through prior ex?

perience (in some degree) of such harmful con?

sequences. I come to know that drinking alcohol will

give me a hangover most surely by having had it

happen to me before, less surely by my having

seen

it happen to others before, less surely by others

telling me that it has happened to them before and least surely still by its being a remote prediction of some

complex scientific theory. With the case of the worst evils it is not possible

that my knowledge should be based on experience of what has happened to me before. I cannot know

by experience that taking more and more heroin over a long period will cause death by having had it

happen to me before. In such cases the most sure

knowledge will be given by seeing it happen to

many friends ; less sure knowledge by seeing it happen on television (as in the British TV documentary "Gale is Dead"); still less sure knowledge by reading in a book that this happened before. Loss of limbs too is a consequence about which I can learn only by seeing or hearing of the experiences of others. But here too actually seeing a friend have to have his arm amputated as a result of walking too close to the edge of a cliff and falling over it, is

rightly going to deter me from walking close to the

edge of the cliff much better than is a notice which

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NATURAL EVIL 299

says "Dangerous" (for the former gives

me surer

knowledge of a possible consequence of my action). It follows generally that my actions or negligence can only to my knowledge have really bad con?

sequences if others have suffered such really bad

consequences before. Among such really bad con?

sequences are prolonged incurable suffering or

death. These can only be among the evils which I can knowingly inflict on others, or through my

negligence allow others to suffer, if others have

suffered before.

Further, for any evil which men knowingly inflict on each other, there must have been a first time in human history at which this was done. There must have been a first murder, a first murder by cyanide poisoning, a first deliberate humiliation, and so on.

The malevolent agent in each case knows the con?

sequences of the result of his action (e.g. that

imbibing cyanide will lead to death). Ex hypothesi, he cannot know this through having

seen an agent

give another cyanide for this purpose. His knowledge that cyanide poisoning causes death must come from his having seen or others having told him that on other occasions taking cyanide accidentally led to death. (If in my example, you think that knowledge of the effects of imbibing cyanide might be gained by seeing the effects of taking similar chemicals, the

argument can be put more

generally. Some man

must have taken previously a similar poison by accident.) What applies to the malevolent agent also applies to the man who knowingly refrains from inflicting evil on another or stops evil occurring to another. There must be natural evils (whether caused by natural processes or brought about

accidentally by men) if men are to know how to

cause evils themselves or are to prevent evil occurring. And there have to be many such evils, if men are to

have sure knowledge, for as we saw, sure knowledge

of what will happen in future comes only by induction from many past instances. A solitary instance of a man dying after taking cyanide will not

give to others very sure

knowledge that in general

cyanide causes death?maybe the death on the occasion studied had a different cause, and the

cyanide had nothing to do with it. And unless men have been bringing about evils of a certain kind

deliberately recently, there have to be many recent

naturally occurring evils if men are currently

to

have sure knowledge of how to bring about or

prevent such evils.

Thus we know that rabies causes a terrible death.

With this knowledge we have the possibility of

preventing such death (e.g. by controlling the entry

of pet animals into Britain), or of negligently al?

lowing it to occur or even of deliberately causing it.

Only with the knowledge of the effects of rabies are such possibilities ours. But for us to gain knowl?

edge of the effect of rabies it is necessary that others die of rabies (when the rabies was not preventable by man), and be

seen to have done so. Generally, we can only have the opportunity to prevent disease

affecting ourselves or others or to neglect

to do so, or the opportunity to spread disease deliberately (e.g. by indulging in biological warfare), if there are

naturally occurring diseases. And men can

only have the opportunity to prevent incurable diseases or to allow them to occur, if there are naturally

occurring incurable diseases.

V

What applies to individuals in the short term,

applies also in the longer term and to races. If men are to have the opportunity by their actions or

negligence to bring about evil consequences in the distant future, or to avoid doing so, they must know the

long-term consequences of their actions, and the most sure inductive knowledge of those

consequences can only come from past human

history. How are men to have the opportunity to

stop future generations catching asbestosis, except

through knowledge of what causes asbestosis and how is that to be obtained except through records which show that persons in contact with blue asbestos many years ago have died from asbestosis

thirty years later? Or suppose that men are to have the choice of building cities along earthquake belts,

and so risking destruction of whole cities and their

populations hundreds of years later, or of avoiding

doing so. How can such a choice be available to

them unless they know where earthquakes are likely to occur and what their probable consequences are?

And how are they to come to know this unless earth?

quakes have happened due to natural and un

predicted causes, like the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The scope for long-term choice available to future

generations must not be underestimated. They may have the choice not merely of whether to build cities so as to avoid earthquakes, but of whether to drive the earth nearer to the sun or further from it, to take

air and water to Mars and live there instead, to

extend the life span, to produce new man-like

organisms in laboratories, and so on. But rational

choices on these matters can only be made in the

light of knowledge of the consequences of alternative actions. The most sure

knowledge can come

only

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300 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

from the records of the effects on men of natural

disasters, and of naturally caused changes of en?

vironment and constitution. If men are knowingly to determine the fate of future generations through

making such choices they can do so most surely by having knowledge of the disasters which have be?

fallen past generations. I argued that what has happened to men very

different from ourselves gives less sure knowledge than what has happened

to ourselves. It does never?

theless give knowledge. And what has happened to

sentient creatures other than men also gives knowl?

edge, though very much less sure knowledge. Indeed a great deal of our knowledge of the disasters for man which would follow some action come from

study of the actual diasaters which have befallen animals. For millenia it has been normal to discover

the effects of drugs or surgery or unusual circum?

stances on man, by deliberately subjecting animals to those drugs

or surgery or circumstances. Before

putting men into space,

men put animals into space

and saw what happened to them. Such experiments do not give very sure knowledge of what would

happen to men?because from the nature of the

case, there are very considerable differences between

animals and men?but they do give considerable

knowledge. The evils which have naturally befallen

animals provide a

huge reservoir of information for

men to acquire knowledge of the choices open to

them, a reservoir which men have often tapped?

seeing the fate of sheep, men have learnt of the

presence of dangerous tigers ; seeing the cows sink

into a bog, they have learnt not to cross that bog,

and so on.

As regards very long-term consequences of changes

of circumstances, environment or climate, the story

of animal evolution provides our main information.

Human history so far is too short to provide

knowl?

edge of the very long-term consequences

of our

actions (including the knowledge needed to make some of the choices to which I referred two para?

graphs back). To take another example?future

biologists will have the power to produce much good or ill by inducing various genetic mutations. Human

history does not provide the data which will give them any knowledge of the consequences of their

actions. Their surest knowledge of those con?

sequences will come from a study of the evolutionary

history of the consequences in animals of various

naturally occurring mutations.

Apart from such detailed results the story of pre? human nature "red in tooth and claw" provides some very general information crucially

relevant to

our possible choices. For suppose that animals had come into existence at the same time as man (e.g. b.c.

4004) always in situations where men could

save them from any suffering. Naturally it would then seem a well-confirmed theory that (either through act of God or nature) suffering never

happens to animals except such

as men can prevent.

So men would seem not to have the opportunity to do actions which would cause suffering to later

generations of animals of a

subsequently unpre

ventable kind, or the opportunity to prevent such

suffering. The story of evolution tells us that that is not so?the causation or prevention of long-term

suffering is indeed within our power; such suffering can happen because it has happened. The story of

pre-human evolution reveals to man

just how

much the subsequent fate of animals is in his hands? for it will depend on the environment which he causes for them and their genes which he may cause

to mutate.

In any case it is not only men who learn from

animal suffering. Animals learn themselves. They do of course avoid many situations and do many actions

instinctively ; but in those cases they cannot be said to be doing the action or avoiding the situation

through knowledge of its consequences. If it is good (as it might well appear) that they too should save

their lives and those of their offspring through knowledge of consequences, this is only to be had by

experience thereof. Other animals must suffer if some animals are to learn to avoid suffering for

themselves and their offspring. In connection with animal suffering, it is appro?

priate to make the obvious point that presumably this is far less intense than human suffering. For if

man suffers and inanimate matter and plants do not,

then suffering presumably increases with mental and nervous

complexity. Animals in general

are far less

intelligent and have a far less developed nervous

organization than men; one would expect their

suffering to be correspondingly much less. This is

presumably why men do not interfere very much to

stop animals hurting and killing each other.

VI

My main argument so far has been that if men are

to have the opportunity to bring about serious evils for themselves or others by actions

or negligence,

or

to prevent their occurrence, and if all knowledge of the future is obtained by induction, then there

must be serious natural evils occurring to man or

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NATURAL EVIL 3OI

animals. We saw earlier that a developed free-will defense must claim that a good God might give to men the opportunity to do to each other serious harm for the sake of the freedom and responsibility which he would thereby be giving them and which

they cannot otherwise have. It follows that if they are to have this opportunity, there must be serious

naturally occurring evils too?unless God were to

give to men non-inductive knowledge of

the con?

sequences of their actions.

I turn briefly to consider this latter alternative. Inductive inference from the past is not our only route to knowledge of the future. In so far as what

will happen lies within the power of an agent, we can learn what will happen, not merely by studying the agent's past behavior and so inferring by in? duction how he will behave in future, but by his

telling us what he intends to do. I can learn that you will be in London tomorrow by your telling me so. I can learn that if I omit to pay your bills, you will

prosecute me, by your telling me so. Such knowledge of the future I will call verbal knowledge. If there is a God, ought he not to convey to men knowledge of the consequences of their actions verbally, in order

to avoid having to bring about natural evils? His

giving us verbal knowledge of the consequences of our actions would involve his saying out loud such

things as "if you walk near the cliff, you will fall

over," or "if you want to kill your neighbor, cyanide if very effective."

Such a procedure would make men know for certain that there was a God, with all that that involves.3 Then not merely would many

men

reasonably believe that there was a God; all men without exception would know for certain that all

that happened (except for human actions) was due to the immediate action of God. Whether morally good or bad, whether they would otherwise concern themselves with matters religious

or not; the

existence of God would be for them an item of evident common knowledge. Knowing that there

was a God, men would know that their most secret

thoughts and actions were known to God; and

knowing that he was just, they would expect for their bad actions and thoughts whatever punishment

was

just. Even if a good God would not punish bad men further, still they would have the punishment of knowing that their bad actions were known to God. They could no longer pose as respectable

citizens ; God would be too evident a member of the

community.

Further, in seeing God, as it were, face to face, men would see him to be good and worshipful, and hence would have every reason for conforming

to his

will. In such a world men would have little temp? tation to do wrong?it would be the mark of both

prudence and reason to do what was virtuous. Yet

a man only has a genuine choice of destiny if he has reasons for

pursuing alternative courses of action,

for a man can only perform an action which he has

some reason to do. Further too, in such a world, men could not choose whether to acquire knowledge or what kinds of knowledge to seek, but knowledge would surround them. In this way too men would have no choice of destiny.

I conclude that a world in which God gave to men verbal knowledge of the consequences of their actions would not be a world in which men had a

significant choice of destiny, of what to make of themselves and of the world. God would be too close for them to be able to work things out for themselves. But the whole point of the free-will defense is that a

good God might give to man a choice of destiny ; if he

gave to men verbal knowledge of the consequences of their actions, he would not be able to give that choice. Proximity to God is no doubt a good thing ; but a God has reason to ensure that we only get to that state as a result of our own choice (e.g. in

another world as a result of our conduct in this one). But if you do not have verbal knowledge of the

consequences of your actions, your knowledge must

be obtained by inference from what has happened in the past, and the only justified inference from

what has happened in the past is that things will con? tinue to behave as they have behaved, and the

supposition that this is so is what characterizes inductive inference. It follows that only by giving to men inductive knowledge of the bad conse?

quences of some of their possible actions can a God

give to men substantial responsibility for their

destiny and that of their fellows. But the giving of such knowledge involves a God in producing natural evils. There must be natural evils if men are to have a

significant choice of destiny ; which is why a good God might well bring them about. Contrary to what

might at first sight appear, if the Free Will Defense can cope with evils produced by man, it can cope

with natural evils as well.

University of Keele Received August 8, igyy 3 I assume that in discovering that there was an omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly free creator (which is what God's successful

predictions would suggest) men would have discovered the existence of a being of a kind such that he is also necessarily perfectly good. See R. G. Swinburne "Duty and the Will of God," Canadian Journal of Philosophy (1974) vol. 4, pp. 213-227, especially pp. 219-222.

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