The problem of evil and suffering

Context

The problem of evil is a longstanding dilemma in the philosophy of religion, originating in ancient Greece with Epicurus, who first articulated the logical challenge of believing in an all-loving and all-powerful God in the presence of evil. It presents a profound challenge to traditional monotheism. If God exists, why doesn't he prevent these atrocities?

💡 Theists have developed various theodicies (derived from the Greek words "theos" for God and "dikē" for justice, meaning "justifying God") to address this issue.

The problem of evil and suffering

The logical problem of evil: is an a priori, deductive argument that proposes that it is a logical contradiction for evil, an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God to logically exist.

Epicurus: an ancient Greek philosopher who laid the foundations of the logical problem of evil. Epicurus claimed that the proposition that God is omnipotent, and omnibenevolent is inconsistent with the idea of evil existing. however, his original works have never been found, so we know of his argument through the writings of empiricist Hume. David Hume: Hume concludes that to accept evil exists means accepting that "God is either impotent or malicious", which means the nature of God presented by the God of classical theism is wrong and therefore cannot possibly exist.

The inconsistent triad

J.L. Mackie: Mackie's aim is to show that philosophy is not only capable of criticizing arguments for God's existence but also of showing that God does not exist, thus closing off the position. Mackie refers to what is known as the 'inconsistent triad' – in other words, the inconsistency between the three ideas of:

1. God is omnipotent
2. God is omnibenevolent
3. Evil existing in the world

As evil – both moral and natural – is clearly a feature of this world, either God is not omnipotent (i.e. He cannot stop evil), or God is not omnibenevolent (i.e. He does not love us or care about us (and other living creatures that can feel pain) enough to stop evil. As Mackie says, though, these three are not formally contradictory. To show that they are inconsistent, we have to add some further principles.

Mackie gives us two:

1. If something is wholly good, it always eliminates as much evil as it can.
2. If something is omnipotent, it can do anything. Mackie goes on to argue against two 'solutions' he believes that theologians offer, 'adequate solution' and 'fallacious solutions'

Adequate solution: Mackie agrees that the problem for the theologian can be solved by giving up one of the three principles with which we began: we can deny that God is omnipotent or all good, or we can deny that there is any evil in the world.

Alfred North Whitehead: argues that God is a changeable God who improves over time. God is not omnipotent or morally perfect and so could not create a perfect universe, this explains natural evil. Similarly, he could not create perfect humans - just humans with the potential for perfection; this explains moral evil. The 'divine lure' of God lures us to be better people, but, he cannot force us. The problem with this solution is that Mackie thinks that most theists will be unwilling to take this approach, for doing so leaves them with a conception of a God that isn't worthy of worship - and therefore not religiously significant. Therefore, although these solutions are 'adequate', they are not really successful. Fallacious solutions: Fallacious solutions are solutions which, even though they may seem plausible at first, in fact, do not amount to the rejection of any principle that gave rise to the contradiction, thus they commit logical fallacies. Good cannot exist without evil, since evil is necessary as a counterpart to good. The basic idea here is that God could not have made a world that had any good without allowing some evil, since it is impossible for goodness to exist without evil.

The basic idea here is that certain kinds of evil are necessary for certain kinds of good; e.g. without disease and pain, it would be logically impossible to have medical advances and feelings of sympathy. Evil is necessary for free will: Mackie argues that many kinds of evil are not the result of God's actions but of the free actions of human beings. Mackie's main objection is this 'If God has made men such that in their free choices they sometimes prefer what is good and sometimes what is evil, why could he not have made men such that they always freely choose the good?', is it because he could not? If not it is because he is not the omnipotent.

He points out that a "wholly good being eliminated evil as far as it can be." This means that the God of Classical Theism cannot exist as it is logically impossible. Mackie claims that if God existed, he would eliminate evil – but this isn't the case, therefore God can't exist.

Therefore, Mackie argues that the theodicies do not give a solution to the problem of evil since they have changed the premise (i.e. that God is omnipotent).

Mackie claims that the only solution to the logical problem is to deny this and that all so called 'solutions' or 'theodicies' actually limit God's power but misleadingly keep the term 'omnipotence'. He argues "...the theologian can, if he wishes, accept this criticism. He can admit that no rational proof of God's existence is possible and, he can still retain all that is essential to his position, by holding that God's existence is known in some other, non-rational way." In this Mackie notes that this need not convince someone that there is no reason for believing in God (reminiscent of Flews 'death by thousand qualification argument), but that they have to accept that all the arguments for God's existence have been shown by philosophers to be faulty.

Arguments directly against the logical problem of evil

• Augustine's theodicy
• Vale of soul Making
• Plantinga argues that God might deliberately choose to limit his powers under certain circumstances e.g. so as to preserve human free-will. (you can argue against this by using the
• Russian novelist Dostoevsky argued that whatever that plan is, if it involves the suffering of innocent children it is unacceptable – see below for more detail)
• Aquinas- God cannot do the logically impossible, he cannot create humans that have freewill and then limit their freedom, it's a logical contradiction.
• God's understanding of benevolence is different from our understanding as we are finite and God is infinite, only he has the true understanding of goodness. (synoptic link to analogy in religious language)
• Swinburne 'The less God allows men to bring about large-scale horrors, the less freedom and responsibility he gives them', Swinburne indicates the necessity in the world for freewill, it we are to have true freedom. He goes on to state that a world where God limits our power to do evil is a 'toy world' where our choices do not matter.
• CS Lewis argues that It is better to have a universe with freewill than a universe with 'innocent automata', Free will is a higher order good in that it is good in itself, but, it also makes other good things possible, "Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having"
• There is also a logical problem with this view as God can be omnipotent and omnibenevolent and evil exist as he could simply not be omniscient as he could simply not know about the evil in the world. So, the Mackie's argument fails by its own logic. (However, this response would still be a problem for monotheist as they do believe that God is omniscient so would not want to uphold a God who is not omniscient as this is as much of a problem to them as the problem of evil).

Evidential (the evidence of so much terrible evil in the world) aspects

In his book 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion', Hume crafts a conversation between three philosophers who debate the nature of God's existence. In the wake of Philo's attack on the a priori arguments for God's existence, Demea, the most orthodox of the three characters, rather unguardedly proposes that the source of religious faith is the misery of human existence. Awareness of his own misery, he suggests, leads man to seek protection from that Being on whom he and all nature are dependent (God). It is here that that Hume brings his argument to life stating 'The whole earth ... is cursed and polluted. A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want stimulate the strong and the courageous: fear, anxiety, terror agitate the weak and the infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the new-born infant and to its wretched parent: weakness, impotence, distress attend each stage of that life, and it is, at last, finished in agony and horror.' Indicating that suffering is exists in the world for all creatures: humans and animals. Hume is being hyperbolic, where he is trying to indicate the obvious flaw in this world caused by evident suffering which flies in the face of the nature of the God of classical theism.

J.S. Mill argued that the presence of evil within the natural world offers a rational basis to conclude that it isn't necessary to infer that a being of infinite goodness is at the root of their cause. He writes: 'in sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another are nature's everyday'. From this point we can argue that those who try to prove the existence of God a posteriori are mistaken in thinking that evidence points to an omnibenevolent creator and if it points to any creator at all, it is one who is sadistic and behaves in ways that we would punish from human criminals.

Rowe, modern day philosopher, wrote a paper on entitled 'The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism' (1979) in which he highlighted that the evidence in the world around us shows us that there is a clear argument for atheism. Rowe focuses predominately on the intensity of moral and natural suffering and evil that we are able to observe in the world that happens regularly.

The argument for atheism based on evil:

• There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
• An omnipotent, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.
• Therefore there does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

Rowe rationalises 'The argument is valid; therefore, if we have rational grounds for accepting its premises, to that extent we have rational grounds for accepting atheism.' He propounds his argument by stating that 'intense human and animal suffering as this occurs on a daily basis, is in great plenitude in our world, and is a clear case of evil. More precisely, it is a case of intrinsic evil: it is bad in and of itself, even though it sometimes is part of, or leads to, some good state of affairs.' Rowe accepts that if this evil and suffering resulted in some greater good, then it may have a purpose, however, this argument is negated by the fact that the type of suffering and intensity of suffering prevalent in the world.

Argument against the evidential Problem of Evil

• Augustine's theodicy
• Vale of soul Making
• Swinburne 'The less God allows men to bring about large-scale horrors, the less freedom and responsibility he gives them', Swinburne indicates the necessity in the world for freewill, it we are to have true freedom. He goes on to state that A world where God limits our power to do evil is a 'toy world' where our choices do not matter.
• CS Lewis argues that It is better to have a universe with freewill than a universe with 'innocent automata', Free will is a higher order good in that it is good in itself, but, it also makes other good things possible, "Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having"