tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post1098701940478610927..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Do theists have to believe the privation theory of evil?Alexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-49166928645103197892015-08-19T10:35:24.588-05:002015-08-19T10:35:24.588-05:00I think Augustine’s ontology is just substances, a...I think Augustine’s ontology is just substances, and his main point about evil is that it is not a substance. Evil is a “privation” in the sense that it is a privation of some perfection of the substance. (This solves the two noses problem; noses are not substances either.) <br /><br />The problem of evil is very wrapped up with God’s immutability and therefore incorruptibility for Augustine. But God made mutable creatures. These are “corruptible” meaning “able to become imperfect.” Evil will be a privation of perfection, then; no other kind of privation makes sense of the argument.<br /><br />It’s interesting that Descartes, in Meditation 4, essentially treats error as a form of the problem of evil. And he has a very Augustinian solution—it’s free will. That God is no deceiver is concluded from the Augustinian position that God is incorruptible. Finally, his definition of error is “error is not a pure negation, but it is a lack of some knowledge which it seems that I ought to possess.” That is, error is a privation of knowledge. It is also a mismatch, pretty clearly, but its status as evil derives from the fact that it is an imperfection in my substance.<br />Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.com