The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy_ I Link Therefore I Am - Luke Cuddy [109]
Remember that in the logical problem of evil, it was put forward that God or the Goddesses would only permit evil to occur in the case that it allows a greater good to exist. Remembering that, we presume God and the Goddesses of Hyrule to be all-powerful and all-knowing. The evidential approach to the problem takes the stance that if that were truly the case God would easily have been capable of achieving whatever those greater goods were without the need for evil, as nothing is beyond the power of God or the Goddesses.
In addition to the idea that nothing is beyond the power of God or the Goddesses of Hyrule is the idea that there is no good that can justify the existence of evil. Given the amount of evil and the horrendous atrocities that can occur in the world, the evidential approach takes the stance that there is no good that could be worth the suffering we have seen in the world (such as the death of millions, for example). For these reasons, people can feel rationally justified in thinking that God probably doesn’t exist.
But wait! Surely someone has made a counter point? Don’t worry—they have. Essentially, for the counter point to the “no good justifies evil” approach, theists (as opposed to atheists) point out that we can only be justified in saying that no greater good can come from evil if all the goods that we know as human beings are all the goods that there are. In short, theists would argue that humans and the people of Hyrule would need to be all-knowing to know that evil cannot lead to a greater good. You can assume who is all-knowing in this situation.
For the evidential argument, the limits of human knowledge prevent an adequate refusal of the arguments. The theists will put forth that since God and the Goddesses of Hyrule are completely good and all-knowing that a greater good must come from evil; we simply aren’t smart enough to figure it out. Their opponents would likely respond that people, based on the knowledge that they have available, would still be rationally justified in their doubt of the divine. As you have no doubt noticed, solving the evidential problem is not so easy as solving the logical.
Theodicy on Death Mountain
In the evidential problem of evil above, the attempt to explain the actions of God or the Goddesses is an example of creating what’s called a theodicy. The ultimate goal of a theodicy is to come up with some irrefutable goods that could justify the existence of evil. An important point to consider is that those goods don’t actually need to occur; a theodicy only attempts to make the case that they could occur and provide reasonable support for why God (or the Goddesses) would allow the existence of evil.
So far, in the attempts to compare the problem of evil as it exists in this world and as it exists in Hyrule, there have been the beginnings of a theodicy for The Legend of Zelda. Let us embark upon the Theodicy of Zelda as someone such as Sahasrala might endorse, or that we could imagine being supported by the pages of the Book of Mudora.
We are tasked with devising a reason for why the Goddesses of Hyrule allowed evil to exist as part of the world that they created. As stated earlier, we’re going to assume that the Goddesses are wholly good entities with limitless knowledge and power. Taking all the criteria put forward about the problem of evil above, we know that the existence of evil in Hyrule must be of such a nature that a greater good is the result of its existence—our job is to explain this.
We could take a page from John Hick and follow the lines of his soul-making theodicy.78 Hick argues that evil is necessary for people to be able to grow spiritually. Clearly we can reason that if people on Earth need the ability to grow spiritually, then the same can apply to people in Hyrule. However, if we were to be true to Hick’s approach then we would need to argue something along the following lines: surely the amount of