The Problems of Suffering and Evil by John Cowburn (review)

The Problems of Evil and Suffering is an extensively revised and expanded version of the author’s earlier book, Shadows and the Dark: The Problems of Suffering and Evil (scm, 1979). Oddly, two months after the revised version was published by Marquette, scm reissued the original version, apparently unchanged.

In the revised version, Cowburn utilizes the same basic format as in his earlier book, focusing on what he considers to be the two main “problems”: the suffering that is “no one’s fault”—that is, “misfortunes or natural troubles” (51)—and the problem of moral evils.

Cowburn addresses the first issue by distinguishing his view from both overly optimistic and overly pessimistic traditions, citing literary figures like Shakespeare and Sade, as well as theologians. The optimistic view holds that events are caused or permitted by God for a greater good, in accord with God’s overall plan. Cowburn rejects this and also the pessimistic view that assumes the world is evil, without lasting value or meaning. The alternative is a moderately optimistic evolutionary scenario that draws considerably from Teilhard de Chardin and from Cowburn’s earlier work on free will (Free Will, Predestination and Determinism [Marquette University Press, 2007]). He explains how evolution involves indeterminism, random chance, and unpredictability, then challenges the traditional doctrines of divine omniscience, omnipotence, and impassibility. He concludes that evil and suffering are not determined by God but by the unavoidable side effects of a world not yet perfected as it evolves toward a perfect end. This, of course, dismisses the traditional view of an original perfection that was harmed by the “fall” into original sin.

Cowburn realizes that his explanation for faultless evil, of course, cannot explain deliberate, malicious wrongdoing—moral evil and its repercussions. This is his second “problem.” He again calls on his defence of free will and his challenge of the traditional attributes of God, reaffirming that God does not determine all events, “has no [certain] foreknowledge of free acts and random events” (75), and is not impassable. Interestingly, Cowburn’s controversial understanding of the divine attributes ignores earlier, similar, and much more detailed studies by process theologians as well as some leading Catholic writers. Some of his views also have been highly developed by open (free will) theists. It’s unfortunate that he has not cited nor dialogued with these theists or their major critics. Had he done so, his arguments likely could have been deepened significantly. Indeed, likewise disappointing is his apparent unawareness that the logical problem of evil has been resolved and that the focus now centres on other issues: in particular, the evidential problem and gratuitous evils. Consequently, he has missed an opportunity to update his earlier book with references that have been central to studies in theodicy during the past decades.

Nonetheless, Cowburn’s discussion of moral evil, happily, has been expanded considerably in his revised book. This problem fills two-thirds of the book in which he presents a thoughtful and informative study of moral evil, defining it in considerable detail, including the differentiation between moral and legal obligations, the content and effects of morally evil acts, and an explanation about how moral evils are possible. His conclusion is that moral evil is ultimately inexplicable, indeed that it is an “absurd, horrible, violent attack on reason and goodness” (121). Such evil is “pure unintelligibility; it does not surpass our minds but is opposed to reason as such” (243). While this sober conclusion leaves us little hope for an explanation, he insists that there is at least a “remedy” for such evil. The remedy is repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation, for which Cowburn offers valuable insights.

Disappointingly again, however, he does not discuss the “remedy” of Christ’s redemptive act. Nor does he discuss other fundamental aspects of Christian theological theodicies. There is no mention, for example, of an afterlife, nor a serious consideration of the potential for spiritual growth in suffering. Further, while...