Religion- Reflection Paper 2

The Problem of Evil

Introduction: The Great Problem

We live in a world in shadow. It’s a fact, noted by every religion and belief system throughout history, that suffering plagues the human condition. Some of us experience far more pain than others, but it’s something we must all face during our lives. Possibly even worse than the existence of suffering is the randomness with which it strikes—often in the lives of people who have done nothing to deserve it—and our too-frequent powerlessness to help the afflicted innocent.

The great and terrible fact of suffering has been humanity’s constant companion. Our history as a species is a long, slow climb up from the darkness, punctuated by much faltering, backsliding, and frustration. For thousands of years of human history, every day was a struggle to stay alive. Plagues and epidemics swept continents like wildfire. Natural disasters led to the collapse of great empires. People lived on the edge of starvation and a season of bad weather that disrupted the harvest could lead to thousands of deaths. Today such tragedies are produced by random accidents, by genetic disorders that afflict every function of the human body, by infectious diseases that attack it at every point of vulnerability, and by devastating geological and meteorological events that affect every community on the planet.

And as if these natural evils weren’t enough, human beings have never lacked either the will or the ingenuity to invent new ways to inflict horror and cruelty on their neighbors. Throughout the ages, war and all it entails have been a constant reality. The vast majority of people throughout history have lived in poverty in totalitarian societies ruled by elites more concerned with perpetuating their own power than doing anything to lift up the people they governed. Whole civilizations have been eradicated by warfare, diseases brought on by foreign conquerors, and a trade in human lives. In the present day, though a relative minority in the industrial world live in luxury, billions of others are desperately poor, largely uneducated, lacking in the basic necessities of life, and besieged by war, sickness, famine, and drought.

In the battle against suffering, humanity has won some significant victories. We have far more power to control our own destinies than people of past ages. Some of the diseases that once ravaged us have been wiped out or nearly so. The ideals of democracy and human rights have spread across the globe, however flawed and imperfect they may be in practice. And our ability to repair the human body continues to improve, promising greater things that seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, when one considers the scope and weight of suffering and evil in the world, one is inevitably struck by how incomplete our victories have been, how partial, and how much we have yet to accomplish. There are many evils against which we’re powerless; there are many more that we have the ability to combat, but from which most of the world still suffer.

The Problem of Evil and God

The existence of evil and suffering in the world obviously has a direct bearing on religion and belief in God. If God is all-knowing, as our Western religions teach, then he is aware of people suffering everywhere. If God is all-powerful, then he has the ability to eradicate evil and suffering. If God is perfectly good and loving, then he would want to do this. Yet evil and suffering persist.

The “problem of evil” (sometimes also called “the problem of suffering”) is one of the most enduring and potent concerns of religious thought. “Why is there evil in the world?” “Why is there suffering?” “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Believers in God have long found it difficult to explain how an all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good God allows so much evil and suffering to exist. As the Greek philosopher Epicurus wondered over two thousand years ago:

If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to, then he is not omnipotent.

If he is able, but not willing, then he is wicked.

If he is both able and willing, then whence cometh evil?

If he is neither able nor willing, then why call him God?

More recently, the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz reasoned that if God was all-powerful and all-loving, then this must be the best of all possible worlds, for such a being would never create anything less than perfection. To many, the logic of this view makes sense. But to many more, this is plainly not the best of all possible worlds. Radical evil and suffering abound. Therefore it follows that there is no being that is both all-powerful and perfectly loving. In other words, there is no God as traditionally imagined by Western monotheism.

Given such arguments, it is no accident that the problem of evil is often called “the rock of atheism.” This observation by Hans Kung is not hyperbole but a realistic assessment of the most formidable objection to theism. The Christian apologist William Lane Craig has likewise admitted that the problem of evil is “atheism’s killer argument.” The three major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) affirm that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being that created, sustains, and interacts with the world—and yet suffering, catastrophe, wrongdoing, injustice, and a host of other negatives exist in the world. Religions involving theism, therefore, face the problem of reconciling evil with their concept of deity.

Granted, not all religious traditions conceive of God in the way that the Western religions do. Therefore, while some other religions have their own problems of evil generated by their distinctive beliefs (the idea of karma, for example), these problems have nothing to do with how they conceive of God. For example, many polytheistic faiths, such as those maintained by the Romans and Hindus, acknowledge a multiplicity of gods, some of which are openly recognize to be themselves evil.

Likewise, dualism is another religion system with which one can easily make sense of the presence of evil. Dualistic religions, such as Manichaeism, espouse the existence of two opposing powers: good and evil. Dualism believes that evil is an independent power, neither created by the good God, nor subordinate to it. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a battleground between these two forces and that everything that happens in the world is a part of the struggle. Thus bad things happen even to good people because the world in not governed single-handedly by a good god. There is an independent evil power loose in the world. This evil power does bad things.

But these types of viewpoints are not available to the Western monotheistic religions. In these faiths, there is only a single God, and this God is conceived as being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. Not that monotheistic believers haven’t tried to borrow arguments from these other forms of religion. For example, it is common to hear Christians argue that evil is the work of the Devil, not of God. On this view the Devil can act independently, fight against the good God, and wreak havoc without God’s permission. Some believers go so far as to imagine that the good God needs our help in his struggle against the Devil. But of course God created the Devil as he created everything else, and, because he is both all-knowing and all-powerful, he either should have known better or else put an end to the Devil’s evil doings. Another way of logically solving the problem is to argue that there is an omnipotent God who created the entire universe—and he’s evil. But nobody in Western religious history has had the stomach for such a belief.

Formulating the Problem of Evil

Since the mid-twentieth century, philosophers and theologians have debated the problem of evil within the framework of two broad formulations: the logical argument (which alleges a contradiction in the joint assertion that God and evil exist) and the evidential argument (which alleges that the facts of evil count heavily against the existence of the theistic God). Either one of these arguments becomes a “problem” for the theist if she is inclined to accept its premises and wants to avoid the atheistic conclusion. The theist, then, bears the burden of finding fault with one or more of the premises while the nontheistic critic must support them.

1. The Logical Argument — All versions of the logical argument from evil have a deductive structure designed to show that theism is somehow self-contradictory and therefore not rational to believe. Epicurus provided the original statement of the argument, and David Hume articulated it during the Enlightenment with impressive dialectical force. In the contemporary period, however, J. L. Mackie provides the most influential formulation:

“God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil still exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions; the theologian, it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three.”

Mackie’s point is “not that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another.” This is a worrisome contradiction.

2. The Evidential Argument — The evidential argument is now thought to capture the depth and profundity of the real philosophical problems raised by evil. Versions of this argument cite the actual amounts, kinds, and distribution of evil in the world as significant evidence against the existence of God. Edward Madden and Peter Hare pioneered a common sense rendition of the evidential argument. Wesley Salmon constructed a probabilistic version of the argument, claiming that the probability of God’s existence is low because few of all possible divinely created universes exhibit the evil occurring in ours. Yet it is William Rowe’s version of the evidential argument from pointless evil that has become classic:

There exists instances of intense suffering that an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby loosing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

Therefore, there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

Theodicies—Solutions to the Problem of Evil

Today, the problem of evil retains its full force. Natural events such as killer tornadoes, tragedies such as sudden infant death syndrome, physical deformities, and inhuman acts such as the Jewish Holocaust highlight what seem to many to be the incompatibility of evil and suffering with the existence of an all-powerful, benevolent God. Nevertheless, theologians through the ages have been unwilling to give up their belief in a God who sustains and cares about the world he created. Many have therefore sought to reconcile God’s goodness with a world as imperfect as ours, asserting that God has a good reason for causing or allowing evil.

This type of argument is called a “theodicy.” Many theodicies have been put forth. What follows is a number of contemporary theodicies together with the objections and counterarguments that have been lodged against them:

1. The Justice Defense — God allows suffering because we deserve it. The most straightforward explanation for the existence of evil is that we suffer because we deserve to. The Old Testament claims that the destruction God visits upon the Israelites is in retribution for their disobedience. Christian apologists argue that all humans inherit original sin, which justifies any punishment God wishes to inflict on us, earthly and eternal.

Objection: There are major problems with this explanation. First, it fails the test of common sense; evil is not distributed fairly. Everyone knows of instances in which the evil prospers while the good suffer unjustly. Hurricanes harm those in coastal areas, not those who are the most sinful. Diseases strike the compassionate as well as those who deserve it the most. Newborn babies suffer horrific afflictions before they have grown old enough to commit wrongs. Thus the indiscriminateness and sheer randomness of suffering refutes this explanation. Second, this explanation fails the test of conscience. If we accept its reasoning, the logical conclusion is that we should never try to help people who are in pain or in need—to do so would be to undo their God-ordered punishment. But any ethical human must flatly reject this conclusion as unacceptable. In fact, it is flatly contradicted by the sacred texts of most religions, which enjoin readers to help one another. It would make no sense for God to order his followers to work to counteract a punishment that he himself sent.

2. The Testing Defense — God allows suffering to test our faith in him. This position argues that God uses suffering to prove that our faithfulness to him is genuine and not just premised upon convenience or comfort. In the Bible, such a thing happened to Abraham, who was asked to sacrifice his son, and to Job, who, though pronounced innocent, was subjected to horrendous afflictions.

Objection: The major objection to this explanation is that God is supposed to be all-knowing. Thus he should already be aware of the contents of a person’s heart without having to test them. A God who doesn’t know whether someone is loyal without testing them is a limited God, and, a God who does know in advance what the results of the test will be and still unnecessarily inflicts suffering on people is evil. Adopting the testing theodicy contradicts at least one of the fundamental attributes that a perfect deity is supposed to have.

3. The Eschatological Defense — Suffering in this world does not matter, because justice will be done in the afterlife. This theodicy looks to the future, to the life beyond this one, arguing that it will be then when the innocent will be rewarded and the guilty will be punished, as they deserve.

Objection: The problem with the eschatological theodicy is that it does not invalidate the reality of present pain and suffering. Whether evil will be abolished at a later time or not, evil exists now, and that existence needs to be accounted for. Perhaps there’s a heaven where the righteous are repaid for their suffering on earth, but this doesn’t answer the question of why did God allow them to suffer in the first place? If such a being exists, how can the claim of his goodness be reconciled with his lack of action in the face of such present evils?

4. The Greater Good Defense — Evil and suffering are allowed in order to bring about a goal that couldn’t exist without them. Though God doesn’t desire the existence of evil and the pain of suffering, the potential good that they can produce outweighs this consideration. Evil and suffering are a necessary side effect of God’s plan. Different people have proposed different goods that might result from evil and suffering.

Objection: The general response to greater good theodicies is that they assume a limited God. An omnipotent being wouldn’t need to rely on intermediate causes and contrivances—yet alone such awful ones—to bring about a desired result but could produce that result directly. God could achieve any of the stated goods without allowing the evil.

5. The Free-Will Defense — Suffering is a necessary consequence of the free will God has given us. The most common theodicy used today argues that God doesn’t want human beings to harm each other or do evil, but even less does he want a world of human robots who act only as they’ve been programmed to act. God’s needed to allow for free will, and that required opening the door to evil. Were there no evil, humans could not choose between good and evil, and hence there would be no free will. Likewise, desirable qualities such as love, faith, and devotion can only exist when freely chosen.

Objection: This, however, is a non-intuitive answer that immediately raises a host of new questions. Freedom of will allows humans to choose evil. Many indeed choose evil and, according to the standard religious account, this choice must bring divine punishment in its wake. But if God knew in advance that a particular person would use her free will to choose evil, and that as a result she would be punished for this by eternal tortures in hell, why did God create her? Moreover, the free-will defense vanishes entirely if the suffering is the result of a natural disaster or random accident. The free will theodicy only accounts for moral evil. It can’t explain the wide range of meaningless suffering for which no human being is responsible.

6. The Teaching Defense — Suffering is a means by which God teaches us to be better people. Sometimes also called the “soul-making” theodicy, this view argues that the existence of evil is a tool to perfect us. By responding to and overcoming evil, people undergo spiritual growth that makes them better suited to ultimately come to know God in the way he desires.

Objection: There are numerous points against this theodicy. First, we again see the random distribution of suffering. If the purpose of suffering is to perfect us, then all people should suffer equally. But this is clearly not the case. Some people live short lives full of pain and suffering, while others enjoy tremendous luxury and comfort for virtually their entire lives. Second, if suffering is meant to bring us closer to God, then we can safely say that it’s a failure at that purpose, because often it has the opposite effect. Many people turn away from belief in God precisely because they witness the amount of pain in the world and the absence of divine aid to those who need it most. Third, if God is God, there is no reason why he can’t achieve his goals for us without the use of suffering and evil. If God can do anything that’s possible, and if his desire is that we be morally perfect, why wouldn’t he just create us that way in the first place. Finally, there appears to be innumerable moral and natural evils that are unequivocally pointless, including such things as animal suffering, the mass extinctions that have occurred throughout earth’s history, and the death of infants and children who will never benefit from any lessons their pain could have taught them. It is highly unlikely that every instance of suffering actually has a purpose in that it is necessary to achieve some greater good or lesson.

7. The Contrast Defense — God allows suffering and evil because, without them, we would not be able fully to appreciate God’s mercy, goodness, love, and justice. The point here is that God wants to display his positive attributes, and this would be impossible if we have never known things to be any different. Thus evil exists in order to more clearly show God’s goodness by comparison, just as a bright red rose would be more obvious in a white room than a red one.

Objection: The problem with this defense is that a being that created evil or allowed it to come into existence couldn’t be considered good at all. How would we judge a fireman who went around setting people’s houses on fire so that he could prove how heroic he was by rescuing them from the danger he created? Furthermore, an omnipotent God wouldn’t need to cause people to suffer to prove his goodness to them; he could just do that directly. Once again, God could achieve such a goal without allowing the evil.

8. The Unknown-Purpose Defense — God allows suffering for mysterious reasons that only he knows. Often used as a final resort, this theodicy states that God has a purpose for allowing suffering, but we don’t know what it is. God ways are not our ways, and evil and suffering are simply a mystery beyond human comprehension.

Objection: Those who excuse God’s negligence as the result of some mysterious purpose beyond our understanding need to consider the logical consequences of that idea. If God’s motives are hidden or beyond our understanding, then we have no way to know whether God is good, evil, or indifferent. How can this be reconciled with the idea of benevolence as an essential defining attribute of God? Additionally, if God has an important purpose for permitting evil, then why do we try to stop evil? How do theists know they’re not working again God’s will every time they vaccinate a child or give money to the poor? A consistent follower of the unknown purpose defense would never try to stop suffering, since any suffering that God allows must be needed for some greater purpose, otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed it.

In addition to the kinds of specific objections and counterarguments offered against the theodicies just noted, some people argue that there are a host of moral situations that simply defy all attempts to reconcile God and evil. Consider the following, admittedly awful, scenario known as “the parable of the mysterious witness”:

Just after sunset in a quiet suburb, a little girl is playing with dolls in her bedroom. She is being watched from a distance, through a window, by a man who has watched her this way before. He has studied her habits and those of her parents. He knows their schedule. He knows what it means when lights are turned on or off in various rooms. He is a sexual predator, and he has decided that now is the time to act on his fantasies. He enters her room through the window, silences the frantic child with duct tape, and carries her to his car. In his haste, he fails to notice a car slowing to a stop at the end of the street behind him.

The driver of that car is an undercover police officer just returning from work. He is attuned to spotting suspicious behavior, and he is highly suspicious of what he has just witnessed in the dim light at the end of the block. He is also skilled at surreptitiously following his suspects, and he decides to follow this one. He follows the car to a remote wooded area and manages to stop his own car without being noticed by his suspect. From a distance, he clearly sees the kidnapper leave his car, carrying a struggling child into the woods. Although he has a police radio, he does not call for assistance. Instead, he loads his handgun and stealthily follows the kidnapper on foot. As he approaches, he can hear the girl’s muffled screams. He stops near the edge of a clearing, hides silently behind a tree, and watches.

In the moonlight he can now clearly recognize the girl, whom he has seen many times before. She continues to struggle and scream for help, but the kidnapper brutally beats her into submission and rapes her. Meanwhile, the policeman remains silent, holds his weapon at the ready, but does nothing. He watches as the kidnapper picks up a shovel he brought from his car and methodically digs a shallow grave. The girl moans quietly as he buries her alive. The sexual predator now gathers his belongings, walks to his car and drives away, while the policeman looks on in silence. He then returns to his own car and drives home, leaving the little girl to suffocate. There is one more salient piece of information about our mysterious witness, the policeman: he is the girl’s father, and he dearly loves her.

The crime of the sexual predator must surely be among the most despicable imaginable. Yet readers of this story are just as appalled at the behavior of the mysterious witness. How can one possibly rationalize his utter failure to rescue this poor little girl, his own daughter? It is so implausible as to be completely unbelievable as a story. And yet, for the believer in the omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent personal God, every horrendous act of evil in the real world, every natural disaster, every injury, illness, and genetic defect that causes senseless suffering has just such a mysterious witness: God himself.

Now reread the list of theodicies given above and try to use each of these rationalizations to justify the behavior of the mysterious witness in the parable. For just a moment, ignore that character’s role as a metaphor for God and think of him as a real human being, an off-duty policeman who followed a kidnapper into the woods. Can any of the theodicies, or any other conceivable rationalization, excuse his failure to rescue his daughter? Better yet, imagine that you were there instead of the policeman, crouching behind a tree with a loaded handgun, watching a sexual predator beating, raping, and methodically burying alive your own child. Can you imagine any line of reasoning that would keep you from coming to your child’s defense? If you believe in a God infinitely more powerful and loving than you, then how could he possibly qualify for an excuse that does not apply to you?

Conclusion: Retrospect and Prospect

Throughout the centuries, the problem of evil has been the dominant intellectual objection to theistic belief and a major support for atheism. It is not difficult to understand why this is so, since the problem, even in its more formal expressions, is rooted in our deep sense of what it is like to be alive and in our perplexity at the conditions of our existence. After decades of intense discussion in theology and the philosophy of religion, replete on all sides with important arguments and profound insights, the problem persists.

Atheism, of course, doesn’t have to confront the problem of evil in the same way that theism does. An atheist has no reason to expect things to be any different than they are. The universe is what it is: a vast, majestic, but implacable place governed by natural laws that don’t make allowance for our desires and are indifferent to our suffering. So, while on the one hand it is notoriously difficult for critics to use the problem of evil to deliver a fatal blow to the intellectual credibility of theism, on the other hand it is extremely challenging for theists to dispel the problem in a way that is intellectually and morally satisfying.

The debate over God and evil will certainly continue as a crucial part of the human search for meaning. The best contributions—whether theistic or atheistic—will be ones that carefully probe the deeper realities in which we are involved in order to achieve a greater measure of understanding. This task inevitably leads us into the arena of worldview assessment. Although there will never be final agreement on the evidential import of evil, pursuing the issue in this larger venue will bring about some of the more promising work in future religious studies.