Happiness and the Problem of Evil: A Critical Analysis
Source: Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli, Monarch, East Sussex, 1994.
The book argues that Christian responses to the problem of evil are rooted in a different understanding of happiness than what many atheists assume. It claims that happiness is not merely the presence of pleasurable feelings but is connected to virtue, moral action, and spiritual well-being. Aristotle similarly emphasized that morality is about fulfilling oneself, and Aquinas agreed, adding that spiritual happiness is ultimately the most significant.
The book contends that one can be “happy” in the sense of moral or spiritual well-being even when one experiences suffering or lacks pleasurable feelings. Happiness, according to this view, depends on acting rightly toward oneself, others, and God, rather than merely on emotional states.
Critical Observations
Happiness Redefined
Kreeft and Tacelli redefine happiness as moral and spiritual fulfillment, rather than emotional pleasure. While this definition has historical precedent in philosophy, it departs from the common understanding of happiness as a felt state. The redefinition may obscure the experience of human well-being, especially for those who understand happiness primarily in terms of emotional satisfaction. Without careful clarification, this shift risks alienating readers who equate happiness with positive feelings.
Analogy Between Health and Happiness
The book compares happiness to health: one can be “healthy” even while feeling unwell, just as one can be “happy” without emotional joy. This analogy is imperfect. Physical health can be empirically measured independently of subjective experience, while happiness is inherently subjective. Thus, claiming that someone is “truly happy” when they do not feel happy requires justification, which the book does not fully provide.
Free Will and Suffering
The authors argue that God allows suffering because humans have free will, which makes moral choice meaningful. While this is a standard theistic defense, it raises important philosophical questions:
Is the magnitude of suffering compatible with a benevolent deity?
Can free will justify the suffering of innocents, especially when moral development could theoretically occur with less harm?
Does emphasizing spiritual or moral happiness adequately address the felt experience of suffering?
The book assumes that moral or spiritual growth can outweigh emotional suffering, but this is a substantive claim that requires argument, not assertion.
Love and Sacrifice
The book promotes selfless love and sacrifice as higher goods than personal pleasure. Philosophically, this raises the question: can acts of selflessness be considered morally superior if they reduce well-being, and how does this relate to the value of happiness itself? There is a tension between valuing selfless action for its own sake and the importance of human happiness as an end. While selfless acts may be virtuous, their superiority over happiness is not self-evident and must be defended.
Moral and Emotional Experience
A potential limitation of the Kreeft/Tacelli position is that it places significant weight on moral and spiritual evaluation over felt experience. Many people naturally equate well-being with positive emotional states. If a moral framework systematically undervalues felt happiness, it risks failing to account for central aspects of human experience.
Philosophical Implications
The tension between theistic views of happiness and common understandings raises several philosophical issues:
If happiness is defined primarily as moral or spiritual fulfillment, emotional pleasure becomes secondary. This definition requires justification beyond authority or tradition.
Suffering remains morally and existentially significant, even if it can contribute to virtue or spiritual growth. Theodicies that rely solely on spiritual benefits must address the magnitude and distribution of suffering.
Free will defenses explain why some evil occurs but do not automatically resolve the problem of intense or gratuitous suffering, particularly for those unable to act morally (e.g., infants, severely disabled individuals).
Conclusion
The Kreeft and Tacelli framework offers a version of happiness that emphasizes virtue, moral action, and spiritual fulfillment over immediate emotional experience. While this is a coherent philosophical stance, it is not unproblematic:
It diverges from the common understanding of happiness as emotional well-being.
Its analogies (e.g., to health) are imperfect.
Its reliance on free will and moral growth as justifications for suffering requires additional argument to be convincing.
A rigorous critique must acknowledge the philosophical coherence of this account while questioning whether it adequately addresses the experiential reality of human suffering and the intuitive appeal of happiness as emotional fulfillment.
APPENDIX
Premise 1: If God allows terrible evil out of respect for human free
will, it may be so that humans can help each other.
Premise 2: If happiness matters more than moral opportunity to help
others, then allowing terrible evil for free will is unjustified.
Conclusion: Therefore, if happiness matters more than moral
opportunity, God’s free will defense is wrong.
The alternative.
Premise 1: If God allows terrible evil out of respect for human free
will, it may be so that humans can make themselves happy.
Premise 2: If helping each other is more important than making
ourselves happy, then allowing terrible evil for free will is
unjustified.
Conclusion: Therefore, if helping others matters more than our own
happiness, God’s free will defense is wrong.
Both syllogisms challenge God’s free will defense by showing that if either personal happiness or helping others is morally more important—or if one outweighs the other in some cases—then allowing terrible evil for free will becomes unjustified. Since one of these conditions must hold in any situation, the defense cannot consistently justify all instances of evil, undermining its overall plausibility.
If God is unconcerned with neither of them then the free will
defence is not only false but harmful.