“Oh, well, that’s life.” So judged, and often, a colleague of mine. Was he voicing a resigned stoicism? Or plain pessimism? Perhaps he himself was unsure. Still, I’d like to contest any incipient pessimism, even if cloaked in optimism. In doing so, I’ll limit myself to exposing a single wrongheaded argument. Cynics tell us that nothing is so persistent as a bad idea, but it’s worth the candle to show just how bad it is.

Of late, I’ve been wrestling with “the great chain of being.” It’s the concept, stemming from Plato and developed by Plotinus, that the universe is entirely full of every possible sort of existence, that these myriad forms display a hierarchical continuity, and that in their splendid diversity they are a necessary expression of the Good. So understood, the great chain of being suggests that this world of ours is the best possible world.

Now comes the question of whether we can resolve the problem of evil by an appeal to this world, despite its appearances, being the best possible world. Put in aesthetic terms, what we take to be evil might be only a shade of darkness that highlights the brilliance of the whole. How, then, might an argument exculpate the cosmic status quo, and with it our world?

Consider the reasoning of a Christian Platonist:

(1) God necessarily creates for the best.
(2) So, this world must be the best possible world.
(3) The best possible world has every form of existence.
(4) But every form includes both the better and the worse.
(5) So, God creates what is in some way for the worse.
(6) Therefore, what is in some way for the worse is for the best.

This straightforward argument, with its three unfolding conclusions, is valid. That is, if its premises are true, then its conclusions are true. In which case it is sound. And if it is sound, we can dismiss the problem of evil! Modernity puts God in the dock because of this perennial problem, but now we can release our Creator.

Note well: the argument under review is at once pessimistic and optimistic. It is pessimistic in that we can’t eliminate what’s for the worse. Virgil’s Aeneid tells us that there are tears in things, sunt lacrimae rerum. Time to say, “Oh, well, that’s life”? Yet the same argument is optimistic in its judgment that what’s for the worse turns out to be for the best. Time to say, “Don’t worry, be happy”?

But wait! Why say either? On inspection, every single line of this argument is dubious, if not false. Allow me, gentle reader, to take a closer, and Catholic, look at the components of an argument that is decidedly unsound.

With regard to:

(1) nay, what God creates He does so freely;
(2) nay, if this is the best possible world, it need not be such;
(3) nay, a best possible world “candidate” could always become better by the addition of another form of existence or by another instance of some form or other;
(3*) so, nay, there is no best possible world;
(4) nay, geometric figures and real numbers are forms of existence, and neither admits of better or worse; nor in a species with only two members must one be better or worse in some respect;
(5) nay, what God creates need not be for the worse;
(6) nay, while there is a species some members of which freely do what is for the worse, we have no reason to think that their misdeeds are for the better.

Far from being sound, the initial argument is a concatenation of errors. Why, then, in one variety or another, does it persist? Perhaps its appeal, in part, is that it allows pessimists and optimists alike to, as it were, do “business as usual.” And thus continues the established disorder.

The Church, however, challenges the established disorder. Citing Vatican II’s Ad Gentes and its missionary mandate, she teaches that “The ultimate purpose of creation is that God ‘who is the creator of all things may at last become all in all, thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude’” (CCC, 294). For now this world of ours is in “a state of journeying,” and while grace overcomes sin “evil never becomes a good” (CCC, 310 and 312).

What are we to make of such a world? It is a world in which God’s Son assumes our humanity so that we might assume His divinity. The best response? Tevye and Lazar, in Fiddler on the Roof, give us wise and soundly ecumenical advice.

L’chaim, l’chaim, to life.
Life has a way of confusing us
Blessing and bruising us.
God would like us to be joyful
Even when our hearts lie
Panting on the floor.
How much more can we be joyful
When there’s really something to be joyful for?
To life, to life, l’chaim.

No resigned pessimism here, nor any facile optimism. There is, though, the testing of wayfarers. Indeed, the apostle James writes: “Count it joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4).