Typically, A Series Of This Nature, that is, a rigorous investigation of certain topics in apologetic, would begin with pages of preliminary considerations, definitions, and the like. So that I may present to the reader something of interest and substance, I have opted to delve straight into content matter. This move will, however, increase the number of footnotes, asides, and statements such as “I will discuss in more detail in a later article.” I will often make assertions and cite lines of evidence without adequate explanation; in most cases, we will revisit these areas more thoroughly in later articles. Even so, each topic will unfold slowly and deliberately, but I hope I can maintain interest and focus. It’s indeed a balancing act.
We will begin with what many consider the hardest of the Hard Questions, and probably the most common theological and philosophical issue treated in print,1 namely, “The Problem of Evil” or “Why Does God Allow Evil?” This question has many forms, and we should note that including Deity in the question does not presuppose the existence of God;2 atheists invariably cite manifest evil and suffering in the world as evidence, if not proof, against the existence of God. In other words, if evil exists, then a good God doesn’t. Placing God in the question is just one way to state the problem.
This question, in its many forms, might be the single greatest ethical contributor to atheism throughout history.3 That is, more people have lost their faith, or refused to ever have any faith, because they could never reconcile a world of manifest suffering and evil with a God who, it is claimed, is both infinitely good and infinitely powerful; that is, both willing and capable of stopping the suffering. We could cite the Holocaust as an example of this principle; it is certainly the major shaper of the atheistic/humanistic bent of modern Judaism.
Theodicy
The technical name for this subject — reconciling the presence of evil with a theistic worldview — is theodicy, a word coined in 1710 by the German philosopher and mathematician, Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716). He used it in the title of a book on the subject. It derives from the Greek words for “God” (theos) and “justice” (dike). I think Leibniz used it to mean “the justice of God,” but theological writers today use it more in the sense of “justifying God,” that is, explaining how, given a world of rampant evil, we can continue to believe in the existence of an all-wise and powerful God. A theodicy is an argument for the existence of God in light of, or in spite of, a very imperfect and downright nasty world.
Theodicy, or “the problem of evil,” as it is generally referred to, may or may not be an issue in your life, but it will certainly show up not far from you, in someone you know or something you read. It is as pervasive as is it enigmatic, a standard topic for any book on the philosophy of religion, apologetics, or comparative religion. We will find its ubiquitousness telling, for the theodicy issue reveals more about human nature than God’s nature.
For purposes of the next few articles, we will state “the problem” in the following manner:
Does the presence of evil and suffering in the world provide evidence against the existence of God?
In response to this question, I will append comments below in numbered sections, although they are not necessarily sequential after the first two. The sections cover various sub-issues of the theodicy problem. They are not a series of proofs, but points of discussion and clarification.
Obviously, I will not try to summarize the thousands of attempts by people throughout history to make sense of this issue. Certainly I haven’t read the first fraction of them, but the studying I have done informs me that specious arguments ensue when the “God” in question turns out to be an entity of mythological manufacture.4 I will cite a few works as illustrative of the types of arguments adduced to this issue and the vexation of mind attendant to its resolution.
- The standard argument
Agnostics and atheists use the presence of evil, and often the amount (massive disasters), intensity (horrible diseases, excruciatingly painful demises), timing (people cut off in their prime or in the doing of good), and demographics (innocents, children, etc.) of evil, as evidence against theism, both in informal statements and formal logical argument.
Formal arguments, more likely to be used by strident atheists in formal debate, look like this:
- God is allegedly all-powerful.
- God is allegedly completely good and loving.
- Evil and suffering exist in the world.
Ergo, God is either limited in power, limited in goodness, or non-existent.5
According to those skeptical of the traditional God of monotheism, the three statements above cannot co-exist. Nobody would deny #3, so #1 and #2 look pretty vulnerable.
One well-known presentation of this argument reads:
Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?6
This accusation clarifies the logic of the three statements above. God purportedly has the means and disposition to prevent evil, but He doesn’t prevent evil; therefore we must reject the idea of an all-powerful, all-good God. In this argument, the presence of evil suffices to negate our concept of God.
The use of formal logic goes beyond suggesting that God might not exist because there is evil in the world; it states that an all-powerful, all-good God cannot exist!7 Most atheists and agnostics will propose various reasons why they do not believe in God, but to go so far as to propose a proof against the existence of God places a serious issue on the table. If the premises are true, then one of the conclusions is true, and an all-powerful, all-good God does not exist.
Unfortunately, the third attribute of God, omniscience, is often omitted from these arguments.8 Being omniscient, or perfect in knowledge, foreknowledge, reason, etc., God could have compelling reasons for allowing evil, and we will explore these in later articles. His omnipotence and beneficence have actually set in motion a world in which evil is, well, a necessary evil. This doesn’t impinge on His omnipotence and beneficence; it does, however, obfuscate the revelation of His nature to superficial human inquiry.
Before moving on, we need to define the key terms used above:
God is the Being worshiped in some fashion by any monotheist.9 Ignoring for now vast differences in the conception of that Being among various monotheistic religions, we need only postulate now an omnipotent God of complete beneficence, a conception common to most forms of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, at least at some time in their history.
Evil and suffering will include, for the present, all conditions of human life that produce physical or emotional pain: violence in any form, sickness, natural disasters, injustice, oppression, and accidents. In the next article, I will refine and expand this list.
All-powerful, or omnipotent, means that God cannot be frustrated in any activity; God always has control over every situation, and no outside agent can thwart His purpose.
All-good, as understood by those who work with this type of argument, is the desire to arrange the affairs of this planet so as to conduce to the physical and emotional state of well-being and happiness among humans. Goodness, by this definition, is closely tied to human temporal happiness, which is largely sense-mediated. This concept of God removes God’s prerogative of justice, chastening, and discipline — except of course, for those “others” who deserve it. God only sees to it that everyone is happy and tragedy is averted. However, the lack of overt and complete happiness for all, especially when caused by natural disaster, militates against said God.
This is also a God, who, in popular conception, ameliorates the suffering of earthly existence with the promise of heavenly bliss upon expiry. We should note, then, that the above argument assumes a mythical God, and, yes, we will be punching holes in this premise.
For a theist, the standard refutations to the above argument lie mainly in defining and understanding just what “good and loving” means, and also invoking the necessary third attribute of God, omniscience. Additionally, we will marshal empirical and rational arguments.
- An important perspective
Evil and suffering are Janus-faced in their character. One face of evil and suffering is the reality of human experience; anyone who has had personal encounter with tragedy or severe trauma or illness knows very well that philosophical and theological explanations of suffering provide little comfort. Job learned this from his three friends, who, despite their good intentions, exacerbated Job’s misery when they abandoned emotional support and ventured into theology — and dismal theology at that.
The other face of evil and suffering is abstract and arbitrary, highly relative, contextual, and subjective — that is to say, ultimately, without any true meaning. Whether or not “evil” and “suffering” have any ontological status at all is a fair issue in itself. Although the explanation of this must await another day, I will say now that the anti-theist argument presented above almost collapses for want of workable definitions of “evil” and “suffering.”
For those who suffer, pain is real. For those dilettantes of philosophical speculation about pain and suffering, they should know that in that context, they have no reality; they are merely abstract approximations and pejorations of some human experience. In all our discussions of evil and suffering, let us remember that it is people who suffer. In an intellectual discussion, we sunder the human experience of pain and suffering from our purview. When we look at evil and suffering as academic subjects, they lose their reality. But we are not dealing with abstract, detached ideas. Suffering is all too real for those engulfed by it, and we should always keep that perspective first. We would never want to appear aloof and dismiss evil as merely a psychological/emotional/ theological construct with no real meaning, even though we will treat it that way for much of our discussions. Without recognizing this dual perspective of evil and suffering, some of the arguments in later sections might sound crass and insensitive.
As promised in the first article last month, we will take a detailed, rigorous look at the Hard Questions. That means slowly developing arguments, but the next few articles contain substantive material on this issue.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One