Robert Nozick and the Problem of Evil
Here are some brief thoughts on Robert Nozick’s Jewish Kabbalistic insight into the orthodox theist’s problem of evil.
Robert Nozick presents an interesting view of God that claims to couch the problem of evil in the conflict between God’s attributes of justice and mercy. The orthodox theist’s God must possess these two traits in order to stand as ultimate judge and benevolent being. Evil events unfold also due to a division in God’s motivation behind the world’s creation. “In the beginning,” God wanted to subsist in “Aristotelian contemplation,” while another part of God desired to create the world. It is the self-satisfied aspect of God that resisted creation of the world, and thus, represents the causal link between strife in God’s divine and the finite, earthly realm (Nozick, 259).
It is this notion of strife in the divine realm that offers new insight into the problem of evil. Rather than refer to God who merrily exists in the blissful heavens, while the finite world groans in its pain, the Jewish Kabbalistic tradition aims to close this gap. Under the Jewish Kabbalistic tradition, God is not an untouchable, detached entity, but rather, suffers alongside humanity; events, such as the holocaust, result from a divine rift in the universe or the divine realm. If this is the case, the question arises as to the nature of God’s character that produces evil and strife.
To address this worry over God’s questionable character, Nozick refers to a view that proposes creation as God’s “self-expression” (Nozick, 266). That is, God does not create a perfect world, but rather, produces one that reflects his likeness or divine image. Such images or reflections do not accommodate perfection since they represent only one possible image of God. However, they do capture “many salient aspects” of God (Nozick, 266). This fascinating approach leads Nozick to suggest that perhaps the most perfect being amounts to the most “actual being” in the sense that he suffers along with humanity, yet creates the universe as a “self-expression” filled with many, but not all of His aspects.
While this does close the gap, to some degree, between a human’s phenomenological experiences of evil as compared to the nature of God’s dwellings in the divine realm, questions regarding God’s character arise. It is left up to the reader to decide whether this move makes God so “actual” that it undermines his character as a capable creator of the universe. Not only may this view undermine God’s omni-qualities, but it may also lend credence to the view that posits God as an emanation of the human imagination.
Robert Nozick, “Theological Explanations” in Philosophy of Religion: towards a global perspective. (1999). Gary Kessler. Ch. 5.
