Timaeus and the Problem of Evil

By Charlie Coil

We thought that because Timaeus is our expert in astronomy and has made it his main business to know the nature of the universe, he should speak first, beginning with the origin of the universe, and concluding with the nature of human beings. (Timaeus, 27a 4-6)1 From cosmology to ethics, this is quite a speaking or writing assignment for philosophy in any age.2 But Plato is up to the task in having Critias propose to Socrates that they have Timaeus expound on these topics. No wonder Timaeus suggests that they should begin with a prayer to the gods and goddesses for approval! Today, when origins of the universe and human nature are discussed, questions inevitably come up regarding the problem of evil and the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing and morally perfect God. Are there hints in the Timaeus as to how Plato might have responded? Typically the issue poses two challenges: 1. to rethink ones belief in the existence of God; 2. to rethink ones traditional understanding of the attributes of God (as process theists suggest).3 I think that Plato in the Timaeus could perhaps be offering a third kind of challengeto rethink the origin and meaning of evil itself. While the Timaeus never really comes close to offering a formal theodicy, it does offer clues as to how Plato might frame a kind of defense.4 To begin with he who framed this whole universe was good, and wanted everything to become as much like himself as was possible. (29 d6 e4) So,

Timaeus account of creation begins with a Craftsman-god (traditionally called the Demiurge) and might be summarized as follows: (1) The cosmos, the ordered universe in which we live, is to be accounted for as a whole. (2) The cosmos is supremely beautiful and good. (3) The cause of the cosmos is non-physical, intelligent, good, and divine, i.e. God. (4) The Craftsman-god worked on pre-existent matter. (5) The Craftsman-god was copying an eternal paradigm, i.e. Form.5 What seems most intriguing is how one divine motive for creation might fit into a proposal about the meaning of evil especially in the larger context of human progress over time. Professor Sarah Broadie has suggested as much. In the Timaeus [Plato] sees human life as fraught with moral dangers (86 b188 b5) How can this not clash against the doctrine of the world-makers goodness, sparking the question: What about human beings made it worthwhile to the craftsman god to have us in the cosmos? I think there is an answer in the Timaeus the victory of reason over disorder, on two levels: divine and human. There are two quite different kinds of rational victory, and deity in propria persona cannot ensure both. The achievement remains generically incomplete until gods part is supplemented by the triumph of reason from within the physical universe. That, very briefly, is why humans were part of the divine plan. What if humans have been created in part to be employed in a divine plan to achieve a kind of victory over evil? Of course, such a suggestion does not address the core theodicy question, why is there evil to begin with, given an all-powerful, loving God? Again, there is an appealing Timaean suggestion having to do with the nature of the cosmos itself in its original, preexistent, disordered chaotic
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state. True, it is controversial (with the most popular forms of theism) to suggest that some disordered, chaotic form of matter might have co-existed with God, but this is exactly what Plato appears to be proposing with his Craftsman-god in the Greek divine hierarchy.6 Disorder and chaos in preexistent matter (origin albeit unexplained) become the evil to be conquered in the Timaeus. The extent to which the world-soul and human souls are still polluted by this chaos tracks directly with the extent to which evil is at work in the cosmos. The greater the disorder, the greater the evil. In typical Platonic fashion then, we are set up to consider a rationale that might explain the origin and meaning of evil. If one grants the existence of intelligible Forms or eternal model (29a, 6) to which the Craftsman-god looked to fashion the world soul, and the possibility of a single Living Thing (30c, 8-10) whose nature [it is] to be eternal and [who] brought order to the universe, (37d, 4-7) then evil is given an explicable, plausible context. Evil, as disorder in preexistent matter, is to be overcome by the good. But the only way to this good is through Platos famous process of epistemic ascent. That is to say, through the power of reason and knowledge one grows up and away from the darkness of evil inside Platos allegorical cave and out into the enlightened state of order to gaze directly upon the Forms. One must accept the original premises or assumptions that a) there could be such a thing as preexistent matter and that b) said matter was in a state of chaos and disorder and that c) such a state explains the origin of evil.

This argument is admittedly unsatisfactory without these assumptions. To ask why evil is inherent in disorder is to ask why anything existed in the first place. To ask Plato why such a condition of bondage (ignorant mortals bound to gaze upon cave-wall shadows as their only reality) or why such a preexisting condition of disorder (fire, water, air, earth all needed in combination to bring order) seems to be out of order as a question. I believe Timaeus would respond that men of wisdom will tell you (and you couldnt do better than to accept their claim) that this, more than anything else, was the most preeminent reason for the origin of the worlds coming to be because [god] believed that order was better in every way than disorder. Now it was not permitted (nor is it now) that one who is supremely good should do anything but what is best. (29e 4 30b 1) Does this response to evil appear to modify the traditional attributes of the God of monotheism? Perhaps it does. But, there is certainly room within Christian monotheism to imagine the creative force that brought legions of angels into existence and implanted a creative impulse (divine spark) within the human soul, also creating human circumstances for astounding examples of the triumph of good over evil. As with Broadie, The most the gods can do is to create the conditions for rational development within the cosmos; the rest is up to the descended souls themselves.7 But, in Platos world, this was the nature of good soul-crafting because it offers the possibility of heroic action in overcoming adversity, thus the myth of Atlantis was born.

ENDNOTES
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Timaeus, translation by D. Zeyl in Plato: Complete Works, ed. J. M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing) 1997. Gabriela R. Carone in Platos Cosmology and its Ethical Dimensions, Cambridge University Press 2005, purports to fill a gap in the Platonic literature. Though much has been written on Platos ethics, his cosmology has received little attention in recent times, and its importance for his ethical thought has remained virtually unexplored. Focusing especially on the Timaeus, Philebus, Politicus and Laws, the book reveals a strongly symbiotic relation between cosmic and human order. It is argued that in his late period Plato presents a picture of an organic universe, endowed with structure and intrinsic value. Such a universe may serve as an ethical paradigm for humans even in the absence of good political institutions. But human beings in turn have responsibility for improving the overall quality of the universe, of which they are a part. See URL = http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521845602 Donald Viney, Process Theism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/process-theism/ Sarah Broadie, Theodicy and Pseudo-History in the Timaeus, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 21, Winter 2001, pp. 1-28. ________, Platos Intelligible World, Supplement to the Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society, July 2004, vol. 78, no. 1, pp. 65-79. That this view (a pre-existing chaos) of the Timaeus has not always been accepted in scholarly circles was well-documented and successfully challenged by Gregory Vlastos and others. See G. Vlastos, The Disorderly Motion in the Timaios, The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1939), pp. 71-83. Broadie, Theodicy pp. 20,21.