Revelatory Ethics

Revelatory Ethics

Normativity and Meta-normativity in the Problem of Evil

Document Type : Original Article

Author
GholamHossein Javadpoor
Assistant Professor, Theology Department, Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Tehran, Iran.
10.22034/re.2026.578244.2162
Abstract
The existence of evil in the world and its connection with the existence of the God of religions has always been a concern of mankind. However, alongside the analysis of evil and the argument of evil in philosophical-theological literature, the aspect of the normativity of evil has received less attention. Although this issue has many defenders, it is more evident and manifests itself where a normative view of any matter brings about supra-normative obligations, and the lack of attention or commitment to them will result in internal inconsistencies in claims and arguments. These obligations will appear in semantic, epistemological, ontological and theological dimensions. Depending on the basis that one adopts in these areas regarding the nature and judgments of value and normative matters, one will be allowed to impose secondary judgments on them. In the field of value semantics, it is about being cognizant or uncognizant, in ontology it is about having or not having an independent reality of normative matters, and in epistemology it is about the possibility, occurrence, and manner of our knowledge of normative matters. The defender of the argument from evil needs to defend the cognizant, objective, and knowable nature of evil. However, some defenders of the argument from evil have not adhered to the corresponding principles in the metanormative field.
Keywords
The argument from evil
Normativity
Metanormativity
objectivity
relativity
value-based knowledge
Subjects
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