The Problem of Evil
Consider the following three claims:
a) God is omnipotent (i.e., all powerful), omniscient (i.e., all knowing), and omni-benevolent (i.e., wholly and perfectly good).
b) God exists.
c) There is unnecessary evil in the world.
Most theists who believe in the Judeo-Christian God accept these three statements, but they are logically contradictory (i.e., that can’t all be true) so one of them must be rejected. Statement c) looks pretty difficult to deny—just consider the recent earthquake in Haiti. The rejection of b) would be the atheistic (or perhaps some species of agnostic) response. Theists have tried to respond to this problem in several ways which I’ll discuss below.
The Apologists Response: The most straightforward tack is to claim that God allows evil in the world and we can't possibly know the reasons for which he allows such evil to exist. For instance, some claim that maybe the Holocaust was a necessary evil for some future reasons or future good that we're not aware of. This strategy claims that the three statements are only apparently contradictory but can be rendered consistent. But this doesn't work because God would be, nonetheless, allowing such evil and harm to persist when he doesn't have to. And this doesn't seem to be characteristic of an omni-benevolent God. In order to emphasize this point, it’s worth noting that we all seem to be able to conceive of a world with less evil in it; we all seem to be able to think of a possible world in which things go better than this one. And if this is the case, then it seems God has failed in some way (since he has perfect knowledge, is all powerful, and is wholly good) by allowing evil in this world when he need not.
The Theodicy Response: Some theorists have tried to give some sort of reason for why God would allow evil in the world in order to explain away the apparent contradiction in the above statements. There are many different reasons one could give but a popular response is that God values giving man free will over creating a world with less evil. (Alvin Plantiga—a contemporary philosopher at Notre Dame gives this response.) Therefore, the theodicy continues, it's the existence of free will that has led to such evil in the world. But again, it seems as though God is nonetheless allowing evil to persist in this world when he wouldn't have to. In addition, this doesn’t seem to explain the existence of evil and suffering brought on by natural disasters.
Rejection of a) Response: One might try to reject a) claiming that their idea of God isn't exactly the Christian God. But if this is the case, it doesn’t look like a God who lacks one of the three main features (omnipotence, omniscience, or omni-benevolence) is worthy of our praise. One would need to explain what the difference is between this God and the conception of God in statement a), then further argue that he is a God that is worthy of our praise.
I’m interested in hearing other responses to this argument against the existence (and the possibility!) of God.
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Though you mention free will in this discussion, I think you’re overlooking the ramifications of what it entails. How does God limit evil without impinging on free will? I can basically think of a couple ways, but if you can think of others, please let me know. If it’s by correcting the people committing evil, then free will is gone. It can’t be free-will for some but not for others. If He does it using other people to fight those committing evil, the evil still exists, but by the argument above, he’s no longer worthy of our praise, correct?
ReplyDeleteAlso, in terms of saying we could easily envision less evil in the world, that will always be the case unless there’s no evil, but that basically gets back to the previous free will conundrum.
Lastly, I disagree that suffering necessarily equates to evil. I don't view the earthquake in Haiti as evil at all. It's tragic and unfortunate, but not evil. If this is the definition of evil, and unnecessary evil equates to not believing in God, then it basically sounds as if the only way you'd believe in God is if everything was perfect for everyone. If that were the case, what would be the point of life? There would be no trials, no individual growth, no interest, really.
As an addendum to my previous post, I just happened to listen to a lecture on great books, and the first book discussed was by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor executed by Hitler as a traitor to the country. He wrote while imprisoned what was later published as "Letters and Papers from Prison", in which he wrote of a Religion of the Cross or something to that extent. Essentially he rationalizes the evil of the Holocaust by the belief that God had abandoned the world, but he's not resentful in tone. At least that's the impression I got, but it was only a brief discussion of the book and author. It caught my attention and hopefully I'll read it soon.
ReplyDeleteThat also reminded me of Stephen Hawking's comments in "A Brief History of Time" in which he essentially makes the same argument (that if God exists, it seems he left the universe on its own following the big bang), but on a physical basis. Though I think he's an atheist, so it was probably more of a rhetorical argument.
Steve, I appreciate the point you make discerning evil and calamity. Evil has intent, where disaster is more cause and effect. The cause of most misfortunes being we live on a rocky planet and in a vast universe with more out of our control than in our control. Billions of people in a relatively small space are bound to bump into one another also (car accidents, etc). I’ve quoted Richard Feynman on this blog before, but I particularly like how he approaches the world and find it relevant here.
ReplyDeleteImagine the universe is a chess board and God is playing chess. All we can do is continue to examine the moves and figure out the rules of the game. Although after several games we believe we have figured out the rules for King, every so often we witness the King changing places with the Rook (castling), violating previously held rule concepts. We then have to explore under what circumstances this new action works and doesn’t.
This is much how I view my faith and understanding of God. I know a chess board exists and that apparent rules and laws are breaking and changing all the time. As a scientist, and someone curious by nature, I am constantly observing and questioning what I see. I cannot explain evil or calamity or why God chose to present himself here as a single entity some 2000 years ago.
Separately, I’ve made the argument that God in fact is not omnipotent (as I have found no biblical reference to this). So I may be a Theodicy, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteIt was mentioned in the original post that we can imagine a world with less evil. I would argue I could imagine a world with more evil as well. Lennon sings in “Imagine” to imagine a world with no religion, the insinuation that it may be better. But does anyone really believe that in a world without religion humans would not find a way to divide themselves over something? Blaming evil on God takes the responsibility away from the individual or society, at which level I find us more liable.
I agree that people will likely find another division if religion were taken away.
ReplyDeleteSeparate from that, I don't think AppllBacchus is necessarily blaming God for evil, but rather saying that if God exists, He allows evil, which goes against what is seemingly His goal for the world. Therefore the argument is that the contradiction between those proves that God doesn't exist.
If anyone will join me in this thought experiment it would be appreciated. Let’s imagine tomorrow Hawkins, Dawkins, and Hitchens prove unequivocally that God does not exist. All the major headlines declare it was the most perfect science experiment ever, no questions asked.
ReplyDelete9 months later, evil and tragedy still exist. Who do we blame now?
If the answer is “ourselves”, why does the existence of a God change this?
I actually have no problem contemplating that God did in fact create evil and contempt as a choice for us to make. Don’t most authors create characters completely juxtaposed to better tell a story? Why would a God not do the same?
Here are your choices...you make the decisions…
Conceptualizing God and subjecting God to logical analysis may be the first problem here. Good and Evil are human abstractions which we can use to guide ourselves in one of a number (not infinite) of directions since humans and life in general walks mostly on paths already paved. So if we look Beyond Good and Evil, then perhaps these three statements won't seem as contradictory or the whole argument may simply disintegrate. Analogy and rhetorical question: what would an ant's concept of good and evil be relative to our own?
ReplyDeleteI think in the original post sometime was mentioned about a group of individuals (apologists perhaps) that find fault in this argument because we cannot truely conceptualize good and evil as a God might. I think this is close to what you are saying.
ReplyDeleteAnts appear to be completely selfless disregarding the mother (or queen?). The workers literally work themselves to death or when renderer useless will be killed by their fellow ants. This is all part of their natural state of being. One could image, if ants were sentient (to the level of humans) they may consider dying of old age evil.
I think your bigger idea here is that we look at ants and consider death and struggle for survival to be very natural (an absence of evil/good) yet we apply the terms evil/good to our own death and struggle.