The most perplexing problem in apologetics is the problem of evil: Why would an all-good, all-powerful God allow evil to exist?
There is a real mystery here, and we can only give partial answers.
Here are some of mine . . .
Two Kinds of Evil
We need to recognize that there is more than one kind of evil.
When we use the word "evil," we often mean moral evil (sin), but historically it was frequently used for other things, such as suffering.
These two forms of evil are linked: It is a sin to cause needless suffering, for example.
This brings us to an important question . . .
Could God Stop These Evils?
Yes. God is omnipotent. He is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
Without his action, the universe would never have come into existence, and without his continued action, it would cease to exist or go "to nothing" (Latin, ad nihilum--where we get "annihilate").
God could have prevented all sin and suffering by not creating the universe.
And he could end all sin and suffering simply by allowing the universe to cease to exist.
You might call this "the Annihilation Solution."
So what doesn't he?
The Problem in a Nutshell
The Christian understanding of God is that he is not only all-powerful but all-good as well, which is what gives the problem of evil its puzzling nature.
At first glance, it would seem that an all-good God who has the power to end all sin and suffering would do so.
Since he doesn't, that has led skeptics to argue that God either doesn't exist--or that he isn't all-good or all-powerful.
Are these the only alternatives?
A False Start
One possibility, which I will dismiss quickly, is the suggestion that God might not be all-knowing. Some have thought that, while he's good enough and powerful enough to prevent evil, he isn't all-knowing and so doesn't have the knowledge needed to bring his power to bear on the problem.
For simplicity's sake, I'm going to fold that into God's omnipotence. If he's all-powerful, that would include the power to know what he needs to use his power effectively. So we don't need to be detained by that option.
Another Possibility
There are, though, other possibilities--ways to show that an all-good, all-powerful God might still allow sin and suffering to exist.
For example, consider the way of ending them that we mentioned above: God could annihilate the universe. That would end sin and suffering instantly.
"But wait!" someone might cry. "I like the universe! It's where I keep all my stuff!"
And it's true that annihilating the universe would have costs as well as benefits.
On the plus side, it would mean getting rid of sin and suffering.
On the minus side, it would mean getting rid of every good thing in the universe as well.
Many people might look at that and say, "If that's the only alternative, it's reasonable for an all-good, all-powerful God to allow the universe to continue to exist, despite the evil it contains."
But is it the only alternative?
A Perfect World?
If God is omnipotent, would he be able to arrange it so that the universe was perfect--that it never had sin or suffering in it?
If so, then annihilating the universe wouldn't be the only way to avoid these evils. God could have stopped them by never allowing them to come into being.
The devil would still be a happy angel. Mankind would still be living in the garden. Everything would be great!
So why didn't God just do that?
What's Love Got to Do with It?
Many have suggested that the reason has to do with free will.
While the concept of free will can be understood in different ways, one common understanding of it involves the capacity to make a free decision between good and evil.
Since people do choose between good and evil, and seem to do so freely, one can argue that God apparently values this kind of freedom.
It's commonly thought that the reason he does so is that, if he didn't let people freely choose between good and evil then they would just be puppets--programmed robots.
For us to love God--or each other--under such a situation would seem hollow, it's been suggested.
It would be like receiving love from one of The Stepford Wives or The Stepford Children.
For love to be worthwhile, it has to be freely chosen.
The Choice
On this proposal, God values free will--and the quality of the choices that flow from it (e.g., real love)--and thus tolerates the bad choices that can also result from it (i.e., sin and the suffering it causes).
He couldn't wipe out the latter without wiping out the former as well.
He thus tolerates evil for the sake of allowing good to be freely chosen.
What are we to make of this argument?
An Important Insight
We've already seen that many people would think it rational for God to allow the universe to continue to exist if the only way to get rid of sin and suffering were to annihilate all of creation.
If so, it is reasonable for an all-good, all-powerful being to tolerate evil for the sake of greater good, at least if there were no other way to remove it.
It's also plausible that God could not prevent sin and the suffering that comes from it if he is going to allow free will of the kind we're discussing.
And it's plausible that this kind of free will is valuable, that the goods which it enables (e.g., love) would be robbed of something very important--perhaps their whole essence--if they were not freely chosen.
Many people have thus thought that we have a plausible account of why an all-good, all-powerful God would tolerate sin and suffering.
And I agree. I think we've uncovered an important insight.
Yet it doesn't completely remove the mystery that surrounds the problem of evil. There is still more to say.
But that will have to wait for future posts. (This will be the beginning of a series :-)
In the meantime . . .
What Now?
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I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.
In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict says about the book of Revelation.
He has a lot of interesting things to say!
If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:
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In the meantime, what do you think?
Comments
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Why did God want creatures of free will to exist to begin with? To love Him? That desire for love seems selfish if He knew He was creating beings that had a chance to fall into damnation forever. It would have been better if they had never been created.
Excellent blog! I have done some apologetic work of my own on this subject. I once had a conversation with a naturalistic atheist who, when I proposed this free will argument to him, said that it would be better for humanity to lack free will and be happy than to suffer with freedom. How many other atheists share this position, I cannot say, though it seems to be implicit in many of their arguments. Thanks again for the superb article, I recently bought your book “The Salvation Controversy”, I’m planning to read it soon! God bless!
@Soapfalls: That is of course a difficult question. I think it boils down to the question, is freedom really a good thing? You say that it would be better if God never created people who He knew would eventually go to Hell. Yet, we could also ask: could there be true freedom if God only created people He knew would go to Heaven? Would those people have real freedom if, by their mere existence, their salvation was certain? So, the real question is: is freedom a good thing? Please see this link for more info: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a3.htm#1731
God did give us free will. God also knew that we would fail. Since God is all loving the. He could redeem us as well. Our sin also brings us closer to him, when we are repentant. Also evil is not the opposite of good, rather evil is the abuse and misuse of power. Just look at Lucifer, trying to be as powerful as God. Since God is omnipotent then evil cannot be the opposite of good, since God is all good and cannot create something bad.
I think you are missing another possibility in this discussion and thereby, only addressing part of the issue. If I follow you correctly, you are stating that the historical argument of, “...if God is all loving, and God is omnipotent and God is omniscient then there should not be evil and suffering in the world…” is faulty because our simple understanding of love is flawed and therefore God is in fact all loving but that love allows evil AND suffering to exist because free will is a consequence of that love. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it does not account for un-caused suffering. There are perfectly good people who have random acts of nature ruin their lives. Granted you could in a way use free will in the traditional butterfly chaos theory and say that I did something bad that caused a mouse to dig a whole which triggered an earthquake but that is a stretch. While I agree with you that, anthropomorphic evil and suffering is a consequence of free will, the un-caused component of suffering and evil is something that God has allowed to exist and maybe even intended to exist. The only real way to come up with an explanation for this is to challenge our common premise that suffering is inherently a bad thing. For a Catholic this is an easy thing to understand, just look at the Crucifix on the altar and you will understand that there is benefit to suffering, we may not always understand that benefit because we were not there when God created the mountains, just as we are not there when he “commands” the sun to rise each morning.
This is a striking example of how Old Time Religion can disable the reasoning faculties and leave only the capacity for rationalization behind. On no evidence whatever, the writer dismisses the possibility that God is less than supremely powerful. Having defined evil to include needless suffering, he then leaps to the free-will solution to the Problem of Evil.
Does it meet the case? Hardly. For one thing, most suffering in the world is not the result of human free will but of natural tragedy. For example, roughly 100 million people died in the various 20th century wars, but 300 million died horribly of smallpox - until it was eradicated in the 1970s. To blame that kind of suffering on free will is absurd.
If you take theology seriously, you run into another problem: heaven. If existence without free will would be not worth living, then it must exist in heaven. If so, then either there must be evil in heaven, or the people in heaven must never make evil choices. Either way, God could have skipped all the suffering on Earth and all the condemned souls in hell and merely created souls in heaven with free will. He had to know what He was doing, right?
In short, anyone whose reasoning abilities have not been disabled can see that the existence of evil is incompatible with the claim of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving God.
Clay Farris Naff
Science & Religion Writer
clayfarrisnaff.com
In the section entitled, “COULD GOD STOP THESE EVILS?” Shouldn’t the last sentence say, “So ‘why’ doesn’t He?”
I think CS Lewis stated somewhere that God created a logical world. A logical world with free-will must, by necessity, include the option of evil. We are also the beneficiaries of Satan’s fall, that is where the deeper evil (such as disease, natural catastrophes, etc.) come from.
I don’t know how to know for certain whether or not there is “gratuitous evil” - evil/suffering beyond the minimum necessary for some greater good - and if so, how much. If there is gratuitous evil, then traditional theism has a real challenge. Maybe deism too has the same challenge, if God is still assumed to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving.
Anyway, as a biologist, I do think that random/chance processes are very productive. Maybe they are even the best possible way to achieve certain ends.
Here’s how John Polkinghorne puts it:
“A creation in which creatures make themselves is a greater good than a
ready-made world would have been, but it has a necessary cost. The
shuffling exploration of inherent potentiality cannot but be a process which, despite much fruitfulness, also has blind alleys and ragged edges in it. The engine that has driven the evolution of terrestrial life has been genetic mutation, but if germ cells are to be able to mutate and produce new forms of life, it is inevitable that some somatic cells will be also able to mutate and become malignant. The presence of cancer in the world is an anguishing fact, one that is not simplistically explained away by this insight but which is at least seen not to be gratuitous, as if it were something that a Creator who was a bit more competent or a bit more compassionate could easily have eliminated. It is the shadow side of the process that has carried life up from the level of bacteria to the level of self-conscious beings. It is the necessary cost of a world in which
creatures make themselves.”
Taken from: “Where is Natural Theology Today?” a lecture given at the Bi-Centenary of the death of Archdeacon William Paley on 22 May, 2005, in Carlisle Cathedral, and published in Science & Christian Belief (2006) Vol 18, No. 2, pp. 169-179. Apparently the full article is only available to subscribers, but I suspect that similar text from Polkinghorne is available elsewhere for free.
Two thoughts:
1) Let’s not be so quick to accuse others of having their reason “disabled.”
2) What part of “series” is unclear to you?
Here are two ideas I had on the subject of suffering:
Suffering exists so that we can love
http://michaelsrosaries.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/suffering-exists-so-that-we-can-love/
Never let good suffering go to waste
http://michaelsrosaries.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/never-let-good-suffering-go-to-waste/
Mr. Naff,
“...the writer dismisses the possibility that God is less than supremely powerful.”
If we consider that God created all that exists out of nothing, how could He be less than supremely powerful?
“If existence without free will would be not worth living, then it must exist in heaven. If so, then either there must be evil in heaven, or the people in heaven must never make evil choices.”
People in heaven never make evil choices. Saints (people in heaven) are in the presence of God. There’s no need of faith. They see God. With full & complete knowledge of who He is—that would be infinite Love poured into them—why would they choose evil? They can’t choose evil because they are in perfect union with God.
The will of God is the will of the saints and vice versa:
http://michaelsrosaries.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/the-will-of-the-saints-is-the-will-of-god/
Charles F. Austerberry posted on Tuesday, Jan 15, 2013 11:59 AM (EDT):
“I don’t know how to know for certain whether or not there is ‘gratuitous evil’ - evil/suffering beyond the minimum necessary for some greater good - and if so, how much.”
What about animal suffering? We can observe sentient animals suffering from injury, disease and being eaten alive to sustain the eco-system. We all know that it is wrong to torture an animal, which means that we recognize that they suffer.
Why did the universe design need to contain suffering creatures which supposedly have no souls that can be purified/ennobled/taught by suffering?
What is more likely? Are there two categories of suffering beings in the universe, and for one specially designated group (humans) the suffering is a sign of their free will, and for the other group (animals) the suffering is meaningless? Or is it more likely that humans suffer just as animals do—because they are the result of billlions of years of natural selection that recognizes no value in the quality of an individual life?
@Naff
You are naive to think this is a simple issue. If it were truly a simple issue, nobody would be discussing it.
But is free will really “free,” if the consequences of choosing against God (i.e. doing evil) is eternal damnation? I wonder if “free will” is really “free” when God might be saying, “Love me - or else.”
I used to think that life is a gift, and therefore if you choose to do evil and forfeit any hope of an afterlife, you still had a valid choice between two goods (one - eternal life - far better than the other). But now I’m not so sure, because hell has historically been characterized as a place of punishment, not mere separation from God.
Those are my thoughts, anyways.
@Mike
That would still be free will, it’s just that God refuses to give us many options. I guess like a criminal still commits a crime by free will, even though he ends up punished.
Cowalker, indeed the suffering of animals for millions of years before (as well as after) humans appeared is a very significant part of the challenge posed by natural/physical suffering. I did not intend my earlier post to imply that only human suffering is significant.
Other things I perhaps should have made more clear include:
1) Chance/random processes can only be productive, I think, in the context of other non-chance/non-random processes, such as natural selection, as well as the many law-like aspects of the world. It is the balance of the two kinds of processes - probabilistic vs. deterministic (to oversimplify those terms) - that makes the creation so fruitful.
2) Whether the universe as we find it suggests the presence or the absence of God (specifically a good, wise, powerful, and personal God) is probably not ultimately, definitively proven by natural theology. I admit that I believe in God through the eyes of faith. Such faith is not a purely blind “leap” because it is based in part on evidence/rationality, but much of that reasoning is not amenable to scientific analysis. Part of the astounding success of science is its self-imposed limitation to questions (and hypothetical/theoretical answers) amenable to analysis by the methods of science. In my opinion, therefore, natural theology - at least the natural theology informed by science - is insufficient by itself to lead to the conclusion of a good, wise, powerful, and personal God, yet such a conclusion may still be reasonable.
@SoapFalls
Thanks for the response. But I guess where I’m struggling is your “many” options comment. As I see it, there should be at least two *meaningful* options. I don’t consider eternal damnation a meaningful option, assuming a sound mind. While I understand your analogy, I don’t think we can equate the punishment of temporary or even permanent earthly “incarceration” to the punishment of eternal damnation and suffering like the kind contemplated by our Catholic concept of hell.
Please know that I’m a practicing Catholic; this is just one of those theological questions I have and I’m interested in getting others’ insights.
Mr. Austerberry,
Humans suffer either the evil perpetrated by others by their free will or by natural occurrences such as disease & disaster, etc. It is our own free will to choose to respond in the holiest way possible. Think of that phrase “what would Jesus do?”
Animals have a material soul. Humans are created in the image & likeness of God and have a spiritual soul. (God is pure spirit.) Animals in the wild get eaten by other animals, or may get injured, etc. That’s all natural circle of life stuff. However, if people abuse animals, that is wrong, because they are God’s creation, and God said His creation is good. And who are we to abuse that which God has called good?
@Mike
Thanks, but yes, it is a difficult question for me, too. If God only wants us to have one path to begin with, I don’t know why He gave us free will. Especially if the only other path is damnation. I wish I knew why.
@SoapFalls
Hopefully Jimmy will give us his thoughts on this issue one day! Thank you and God bless.
God allows suffering to occur in order to challenge us to be a good Samaratian.
Mike,
If I may add my 2 cents, it helps me to remember something I have learned fairly recently (last couple of years) about the nature of Hell (Gehenna) and why souls end up there: People send themselves to damnation in Hell.
It is wrong to think of God as an all-powerful Judge sentencing people’s souls to eternal punishment in Hell. God is our Father. He never stops loving us.
If we die in a state of mortal sin, we reject God when the soul separates from the body. We will not except the all-loving Good of the Beatific Vision (where we see God face to face). So, we send ourselves to Hell, i.e., complete separation from God, because we refuse God’s forgiveness.
Please, check out Mr. Akin’s video on whether demons can be saved:
http://jimmyakin.com/2013/01/can-demons-be-saved.html
Also, these articles about the eternity of Hell & why Christ couldn’t sin, from The New Theological Movement:
http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2010/08/eternity-of-hell.html
http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2012/02/if-christ-could-not-sin-how-was-he.html
Hope they help.
God Bless!
Thank you Mr. Akin for all the enriching Catholic information you are sharing. I am 61 years old and when I read some of your explanations about our Catholic faith, I can’t help getting all excited…and when I am at work..I just have a humungus<(not sure if that is a word) smile of delight that I feel. Thank you again, and may God continue to enrich your knowledge in our Catholic faith that helps me understand my faith in our beautiful Church.
Just one point on one thought expressed above on this thread: Altho God wants us to admire and love and glorify Him, it’s not for His own glory, but because in doing this we ourselves are fulfilled and happier, somewhat as we enjoy loving and admiring a beautiful sunset, or beautiful music, or a beautiful and good person. As Thomas Aquinas put it, “God seeks His glory not for His own sake but for ours.” (“Deus gloriam suam quaerit non propter se, sed propter nos.” — Summa Theol., II-II, Q. 132, art. 1, ad 1.)
Freedom is the ability to choose the good, it is not the ability to make good and bad choices. Those in heaven have more freedom, not less, than we do on earth.
@Clay Farris Naff
You have not shown that Jimmy’s Free Will defence of moral evil is invalid. You have only identified some other alleged problems of Free Will, which I think are due to some confused categories on your part. Although your questions are interesting I think they are (currently) off-topic.
@Joe K and others
Jimmy has written Part One only !!!
The Problem of Evil is traditionally divided into two causes of evil:
1. moral evil eg murder caused by human free will which Jimmy has addressed moral evil with the Free Will Defence.
2. natural evil eg earthquakes, disease etc. caused, not by human choice but, by natural laws - laws created by God.
Let’s wait for part 2 ...
—-
I don’t think anyone has given any serious objection to the Free Will defence of Moral Evil - either here or elsewhere.
The problem of Evil/Suffering is, IMHO, the only argument against the existence of God. At a philosophical level it can be answered. But formal philosophical arguments are of little comfort to the parent of a dead child.
Theists can give a philosophical answer to the problem of evil. Christians can add an extra ‘solution’, which I expect that Jimmy will also address.
I don’t think anyone has given any serious objection to the Free Will defence of Moral Evil - either here or elsewhere.
How about the fact that free will does not consist of our ability to make good or bad choices?
Charles F. Austerberry posted on Tuesday, Jan 15, 2013 1:47 PM (EDT):
“Cowalker, indeed the suffering of animals for millions of years before (as well as after) humans appeared is a very significant part of the challenge posed by natural/physical suffering. I did not intend my earlier post to imply that only human suffering is significant.”
Yes, but what is the significance of animal suffering if one assumes that God offers eternal life only to humans? One is forced to conclude that the entire earth was set up to evolve into an eco-system based on sentient creatures devouring one another alive for the sake of human free-will and happiness. This just seems much less likely to me than that we are not differentiated from animals by some special, intangible component like a soul.
“In my opinion, therefore, natural theology - at least the natural theology informed by science - is insufficient by itself to lead to the conclusion of a good, wise, powerful, and personal God, yet such a conclusion may still be reasonable.”
I agree with the first part of your opinion, but don’t exactly see how a conclusion that can’t be reasoned to may still be reasonable. One can assume that if certain missing knowledge were known, the reasoning would be straightforward, but what about those assumptions? Indeed, this is why we have a wide variety of religious beliefs among humans—different assumptions about what is unknown.
One unyielding tenet of faith that has always baffled me is the idea that God finds faith to be more virtuous than doubt. Why would God value faith in the unknown above subjecting assertions to investigation? Why were those who believed outrageous testimony about a resurrection more blessed than Thomas, who wanted proof? Why was it wrong to want proof? Why is it wrong to need verifiable evidence of a good, wise, powerful, and personal God before one believes in one?
I can’t help thinking that when one is making unverifiable assertions about the existence of a God, it is very convenient for the people making those assertions if said God is described as condemning people if they don’t accept unverifiable assertions at face valuable.
This life is short and temporary. No need to be comfortable. Happiness is not promised in this life ... only in the next.
@dcs
I think we have a definition issue here.
I would distinguish your definition of “Freedom is the ability to choose the good” with my use of Free Will as “the ability to make [morally] good and bad choices”.
I would call “our ability to make good or bad [moral] choices” Free Will. If you prefer to call “our ability to make good or bad moral choices” by another name then simply substitute your preferred term for my use of “Free Will” in the sentence you italicize.
Let me get this straight. So free will is defined as the freedom to do evil, but after giving us that, God then tells us that we will be condemned to an eternity of fiery torture if we use it? Some freedom.
What about the fact that GOD in the person of Jesus lived,suffered and died.
This fact implies that GOD has a capacity to suffer,GOD knew he would come
to save us and suffer at our hands out of love (mercy) for his creation.
Maybe we should deepen our understanding of what true joy and happiness means
Cowalker, many good points and questions.
All I have time to say now in response is that: 1) I personally am not describing God as condemning you or anyone else who might want reasonable, verifiable evidence before accepting any particular propositions about God, and 2) my position is not that any one set of metaphysical assumptions is superior to all others.
@Leo (great name by the way, my elder son is named Leo):
I would call “our ability to make good or bad [moral] choices” Free Will.
The problem with this is that one must then conclude that those in heaven (saints as well as angels) have no free will, since they cannot sin any more. Actually, we make bad moral choices not because we have free will but because we are slaves to sin.
Nearly every response above is postulating an opposition between divine grace and free will. This is a typical modern error, and my sincere hope is that Jimmy is heading towards explaining why that’s a mistake.
On any certain day you can wake up, and feel absolutely amazing, and the world WILL BE absolutely amazing. Under the same circumstances, you could wake up and feel absolutely dreadful, and the world WILL BE absolutely dreadful.
The split between objective reality, and subjective consciousness ultimately explain to me that no matter what your beliefs are, you cannot overcome physical reality, and no matter how much you study physical reality, you will never “deduce” spirituality / consciousness.
Good and evil are in the eyes of the beholder—some people believe it would be “good” to ban all assault weapons for civilians, while others believe it is “good” that everybody should have free access to buy them regardless of their intent.
This is the duality of nature, and since the two are like oil & water, any absolute truth you find in one, cannot, ever, be applied with absolute certainty to the other.
If you believe that God is All Good, then humans have no real knowledge of good and evil, then “free will” is a meaningless concept. Everything that happens is part of God’s purpose, and can’t be evil.
This includes not preventing events, such as the killing of innocents (born or unborn), as part of God’s plan. So the idea of “free will” is bullocks. If God didn’t have a plan to prevent the mass murder of innocents, it must be part of His plan which does not include what most humans want—the well-being of their children. So we really don’t know God’s plan or purpose for us, and have no free will.
Gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit.
Fortunately for us in the 21st century A.D., this question of evil and suffering comes to us with important context. For example the Book of Job acknowledges the apparent unfairness and leaves us with a man who stays in relationship with his Creator while bearing the tension of this question for which a satisfactory answer is refused. The scripture displays how we crave the satisfaction of knowing, and how God prefers for us to carry on without knowing. Similarly in chapter 6 of John, most of Jesus’s followers disperse after the discourse on eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The twelve choose to stay in relationship with Jesus and carry the tension of not having any satisfactory understanding of what was proclaimed.
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Of course the greatest context is the Son of God being condemned, tortured and killed by civil authorities—with Jesus calling for them to be forgiven. By human standards, how can we respect a Creator God who would abandon his beloved Son to such a tragic death? But in this monumental suffering and death, Jesus absorbs the full extent of human wickedness and miraculously transforms it into resurrected life.
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We have only anecdotal notions on how tenderly God embraces us on the other side of death, but for the people who were returned to this existence, they seem convinced of the Creator’s abiding love and seem ready for the suffering endured and yet to be endured (see the Biography Channel’s many episodes of I Survived Beyond and Back, for example). It is not correct to assume that the victims of evil and suffering are somehow mistreated by God.
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It seems to me that the opportunities we have in this life to experience the absence of love and the existence of evil matures us from being emotional infants constantly dependent on receiving love; it gives us perspective on how powerful our capacity for giving love is. If we take Jesus’s example (after all, he instructs us to FOLLOW him), then the accumulated evils of the world are healed in our absorbing them, one after another. If and when suffering is visited upon us, we can use it to aid the redemption of the world, and pray for it to transform us into the Body of Christ.
Jimmy:
Thanks for addressing the problem of evil. It’s easily the number one pop culture objection to religious belief. In my theological studies I’ve found that using the problem of evil to refute God’s existence depends on its appeal to sentimentalism more than its logical merit. I’ll explain.
First, arguing that an all-good God can’t coexist with natural and moral evil relies on scandalizing people into rejecting either God’s goodness or God’s existence. However, this approach is clearly self-negating since it appeals to God’s presumed goodness and actual existence to evoke the sense of scandal.
Second, the argument from the existence of evil is a non sequitur. It states that evil exists; therefore an all-good God doesn’t exist. This syllogism is missing a premise, e.g. “evil and an all-good God can’t coexist”, which as you’ve shown above, is false.
Finally, the persuasive power of arguing from the problem of evil relies on presupposing an anthropocentric worldview. Sadly, even Christians often forget when arguing for God’s existence despite evil that every sin insults God to a degree unimaginable by limited beings. It’s apt that you mentioned universal annihilation as a possible response to sin, because God is perfectly within his rights to take this step rather than allowing the slightest venial sin to take place. It is an awe-inspiring testament to his love and patience that he didn’t do this a long time ago.
It’s no surprise that arguing against God based on the existence of evil is a favored tactic of secular humanists since anthropocentrism is their default view. Ironically, denying God also rules out man’s creation in his image and likeness and thus removes any solid foundation for the intrinsic value of human life. Dismissing God does not resolve the problem of evil. It eliminates the possibility of good.
You confuse the difference between Good and Evil with Good and Bad. Evil is that which is derived from the temptations of satan. Evil acts lead to their own consquenses and can instruct us to a better way of living.
Other bad things that occur, which no appreciable link to sin are as we perceive as being bad, but just a consquence of living. (physical illness for example).
We need to spend our faith life determining what God considers good (or evil) vs what we perceive good and bad in the course of life.
Free will arguments are rationalizations. At best, they attempt to explain the inconsistencies of any belief we don’t want to abandon. Here is what we KNOW:
(1) We live in a natural, physical world.
(2) This world has natural, physical laws with cause and effect.
(3) Sometimes, the natural world imposes suffering (smallpox, etc.) because of natural cause and effect, with no free will involved.
(4) Humans have free will because, in most cases, no one else is making decisions for us.
(5) Sometimes, humans choose to do good things. Often, humans choose to do evil out of fear or selfishness, etc. However, even these represent natural cause and effect.
The various “god claims” fall WAY beyond anything we can justifiably claim to know. Sticking to what we actually know, with no claims of special knowledge, the BEST we can HONESTLY and RESPONSIBLY conclude is THIS:
(1) Things happen. Sometimes they’re good things, sometimes, they’re bad. Sometimes, someone is responsible. Other times, no one is to blame…it depends on what we’re talking about.
(2) As intelligent, self-aware beings, we have a personal responsibility to minimize suffering and use our knowledge to make this world a better place. No one else can do this for us.
We waste precious energy propping up improbable claims about “God”. The human condition is well substantiated and requires our undivided attention…
...at any rate, there’s a LOT more work to be done on the whole issue of whether or not God exists before we rush headlong into rationalizations about his (or her) behavior!
Mr. George,
There was a time about five years ago I would have agreed with you.
I do still agree with you specifically that…
1. We live in a natural, physical world.
2. This world has natural, physical laws with cause and effect.
3. there are random processes that lead to suffering.
4. Humans have free will.
I would, however, challenge you to test some of your implied premises.
Specifically,
ONE…that the world is only physical. Test it. I think you will find, and I am not talking about God or anything supernatural, that there are metaphysical aspects to this existence. I’m not talking about the hippy-dippy rock shop down the street, but Aristotle’s philosophical concept of metaphysical. I say this because as a physicist by education and an engineer by trade, I am fully aware that the laws that govern the natural processes you speak of, are not physically tangeble. Their effects are observable but you can not and will never be able to detect/sense the laws themselves. Yet they still very much exist. This was a hard conclusion for me to come to not because it was a complex concept but becasue of cognitive dissonance on my part.
TWO…Even when people make decisions for us we still ultimately have free will. Others may be able to change the decision/consequnece balance to cause us to freely act differently, but it is literally impossible to force someone to positively act against their will (I’ll leave things like drug and hypnoticly induced actions asside)
THREE…Your understanding of “god claims” needs to be re-evaluated. I went for the longest time having a very Dawkins"esque” view of what god is to most people. Granted most people view God as a sort of super being, a being above all other beings. But after alot of philosophical reading I realized that what people like Mr. Akin think God is was completely and utterly different. You demonstrate you lack this understanding when you say “about his (or her) behavior!” God is not an entity that is more powerful then other entities. That’s where your understanding is flawed. Challenge that premise and see where it leads you. I suggest you start with the question, “Is it logically possible to have an infinite number of conditioned realities?” Follow that quesiton down the rabbit hole and see where it takes you.
FOUR…We actually have a personal responsibility to minimize suffereing and to use our knowledge to make this world a better place. Why? What natural proof do you have that tells you that?
As to your and Mr. Naff’s claims that free will arguments are rationalization’s for suffering that exists…The flaw in the logic here is that you are assuming the argument is being made to justify or establish a belief in God. This has nothing to do with establishing a belief in God, or rationalizing it’s existence. It is starting with the entering premise that God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omnicient. That has already been established prior to engaging in the thought of suffering and is independant of the concept of suffering. You are getting your arguments out of order, and creating a flawed circularity to your argument.
Finally, what work do you think has been done on whether or not God exists? I think you’ll find if you open your appeture and ignore your cognitive dissonace you’ll find alot more has already been done then you think.
Best Regards,
Joe
Mr. George,
There was a time about five years ago I would have agreed with you.
I do still agree with you specifically that…
1. We live in a natural, physical world.
2. This world has natural, physical laws with cause and effect.
3. There are random processes that lead to suffering.
4. Humans have free will.
I would, however, challenge you to test some of your implied premises.
Specifically,
ONE…that the world is only physical. Test it. I think you will find, and I am not talking about God or anything supernatural, that there are metaphysical aspects to this existence. I’m not talking about the hippy-dippy rock shop down the street, but Aristotle’s philosophical concept of metaphysical. I say this because as a physicist by education and an engineer by trade, I am fully aware that the laws that govern the natural processes you speak of, are not physically tangible. Their effects are observable but you can not and will never be able to detect/sense the laws themselves. Yet they still very much exist. This was a hard conclusion for me to come to not because it was a complex concept but because of cognitive dissonance on my part.
TWO…Even when people make decisions for us we still ultimately have free will. Others may be able to change the decision/consequence balance to cause us to freely act differently, but it is literally impossible to force someone to positively act against their will (I’ll leave things like drug and hypnotically induced actions aside)
THREE…Your understanding of “god claims” needs to be re-evaluated. I went for the longest time having a very Dawkins"esque” view of what god is to most people. Granted most people view God as a sort of super being, a being above all other beings. But after a lot of philosophical reading I realized that what people like Mr. Akin think God is was completely and utterly different. You demonstrate you lack this understanding when you say “about his (or her) behavior!” God is not an entity that is more powerful then other entities. That’s where your understanding is flawed. Challenge that premise and see where it leads you. I suggest you start with the question, “Is it logically possible to have an infinite number of conditioned realities?” Follow that question down the rabbit hole and see where it takes you.
FOUR…We actually have a personal responsibility to minimize suffering and to use our knowledge to make this world a better place. Why? What natural proof do you have that tells you that?
As to your and Mr. Naff’s claims that free will arguments are rationalization’s for suffering that exists…The flaw in the logic here is that you are assuming the argument is being made to justify or establish a belief in God. This has nothing to do with establishing a belief in God, or rationalizing it’s existence. It is starting with the entering premise that God is omnipotent, Omni benevolent and omniscient. That has already been established prior to engaging in the thought of suffering and is independent of the concept of suffering. You are getting your arguments out of order, and creating a flawed circularity to your argument.
Finally, what work do you think has been done on whether or not God exists? I think you’ll find if you open your aperture and ignore your cognitive dissonance you’ll find a lot more has already been done then you think.
The numbered items listed above by a commenter are all quite true and well taken, IMO. But in obscurantistically indicating that we cannot honestly and responsibly conclude any more than that about the Deity, he is thereby insulting anyone who thinks we can so conclude further, as dishonest and irresponsible, and thereby is shutting the door to any reasonable or rational discussion of the matter.
I have yet to see why this whole issue puzzles so many people.
I am forced to conclude that it is because their emotions are constrained by evil events they have experienced or observed, which prevent them from being able to view the matter objectively.
Since I was a teenager, it has seemed perfectly obvious to me that:
(a.) Robots don’t love, because they lack the freedom to do so;
(b.) Existence is better than nonexistence;
(c.) The existence of love is better than its nonexistence;
(d.) The existence of the freedom to love is better than its nonexistence;
(e.) God does what is good;
(f.) God therefore gives existence to the freedom to love because that is better than its nonexistence;
(g.) The freedom to love necessarily implies the freedom not to love; i.e., to do evil, and thus comes at a cost;
(h.) Whether something is “worth it” requires that its costs be compared to the benefits attained by paying it, as when we take the cost of McGuyver’s stick of chewing gum ($0.10) and compare it to the cost of the town he saved by using the gum to repair the dam which otherwise would have flooded the town ($10,000,000.00) and conclude, through simple division, that the cost is only one hundred-millionth of the benefit. This shows that, relative to the benefit, the cost is so low as to be nearly nothing, and thus the trade-off is very much “worth it”;
(i.) In God’s design of the universe, evil is temporary or constrained or self-defeating or self-undermining in the long-term, and from the perspective of eternity ends up being a finite evil compared to an infinite good (c.f. the whole book of Revelation, especially the last bit);
(j.) Therefore, by permitting evil at the outset, God gains (from the eternal perspective) infinite Good while paying the cost (from the eternal perspective) of finite evil;
(k.) Using the same math as in the McGuyver example, we use simple division, comparing the costs and benefits by dividing the finite cost by the infinite good. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to zero as you can get, so, even more so than in the McGuyver example, the cost, compared to the benefit, is NOTHING. I’ll take that trade any day.
THUS, in the end, our questioning whether God is making the right decision in allowing the existence of evil in order to make possible the existence of real good is pointless. Of course God will get His moral calculus right. But we need not merely trust His moral-calculating ability; we can see for ourselves that from an eternal perspective the costs are totally worth the benefits.
The answer is in the background of history. Let’s look at it from the top…
1. God is all powerful
2. God created everything, nothing existed without Him
3. God created mankind
4. God put mankind in the garden called Eden.
5. He also placed a tree in the middle of the garden and told the man not to eat from it or he would die.
6. He either placed or allowed Satan in the garden knowing that he would tempt mankind to eat from the tree (remember all knowing).
7. He also before the creation of the world prepared a sacrifice to redeem mankind.(1 Peter 1:18-20 and Ephesians 1:3-7).
Getting the picture so far, no surprises for God here, from this point mankind disobeys God (sinned) and death entered through the disobedience. Since then death and suffering is common place that we all are familiar with.
Our first ancestors (Adam Eve) I assume were given total autonomy (Genesis 1:26) so wilfully did what they did with clarity of mind. They were not burdened with a sinful mind, knew God as they walked with Him so were quite capable of making decisions, in fact more capable than we are today.
Rather than saying why does God allow suffering perhaps we can rephrase it with, why would God take the risk of allowing suffering? As the risk was enormous and horrific, the death by sacrifice of His own son, millennia of human suffering that goes beyond measure. Eternal damnation for the sons and daughters of Adam that are not redeemed, again, the consequences are immeasurable.
Did God know they would sin? By placing all the elements in the garden of Eden He took an extremely big risk. Why then, who know? We were made in His image but perhaps that image was incomplete, perhaps the image was only complete when freely we became one with the trinity. Whatever the reason the value must be wonderful, beyond human comprehension as the cost is truly high.
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