What’s your opinion on the Problem of Evil?

This is the type of thing that it might seem alternately arrogant or redundant for some random blogger like me to comment on, because it’s already been handled so much more thoroughly (on both sides) by people much more learned then me. So, I want to make it clear that by commenting on this issue, I’m not actually pretentious enough to think that I’m seriously breaking any new ground here. I expect that pretty much all of what I’ll say has probably been said before; at best I might say it in a slightly different way.

Still, I think this is the type of religious topic that is worthy of everyone expressing their own opinion about it. Like other religious or philosophical subjects where there’s a lot of room for individuals to have mild variations or subtle nuances in their opinion of it, I think it’s worth it to just kinda get it “on the books” where a person stands on this issue.

Personally, I don’t consider the Problem of Evil to be airtight, definitive proof that God does not exist, but I do consider it to be evidence which points in that direction. As I’ve said before, what I’m trying to do (in a persistent, ongoing fashion) is assess the likelihood that a god exists, and I believe that the existence of evil and suffering in the world make it less likely for that to be the case.

Now, I try to keep these posts fairly concise, so I’m not gonna bother restating the argument; I think it should be easy enough to find it elsewhere on the web. What I want to talk about instead are the apparent weaknesses of the argument; the Problem of Evil does have a couple key weak points that shouldn’t be glossed over, but I don’t think they ultimately discredit or defeat the argument.

The first weakness is that it only works against a specific category of god, that which is “omnimax” (all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving or all-good). As long as an individual conception of God doesn’t have one of those three characteristics, then the Problem of Evil is not a problem for it. The reason why I don’t think this is a significant weakness is that it just so happens that the god believed in by most adherents of the three major monotheistic religions (and described in their scriptures) is omnimax, so the Problem of Evil still does apply to the most common conception of God.

The second weakness is that there appears to be some degree of presumption inherent in the argument; the person making it is kinda claiming to know (or even dictate) how God should behave. Personally, though, I don’t think it’s really as presumptuous as it might appear to be at first glance. When you look a little closer, it’s really just a matter of conclusions naturally following from definitions.

For instance, if we define “evil” as “the opposite of good,” then there’s no presumption required to say that an all-good god would be fundamentally opposed to evil. If he wasn’t, then he wouldn’t actually be all-good. Similarly, it’s not presumptuous to say that an all-powerful god should be able to prevent evil, because it wouldn’t meet the definition of “all-powerful” if he couldn’t.

Of course, in any philosophical debate, it’s always best to iron out the definitions with the individual who you’re debating, and then engage with the specific conception of God that their definitions indicate. But in general, I don’t think there is much presumption on God’s character required for the Problem of Evil to be a legitimate problem.

A third weakness might be that evil can’t really exist without objective moral values, but I’ve already responded to that objection here. In some ways, I almost think it would make more sense for the theist to argue the opposite of that (and in fact, I think that’s what they already are trying to do, but using different terms). Instead of saying that the existence of evil really proves God (which basically just boils down to equivocation), I think the theist really has to argue that there isn’t actually any evil in the world at all. Granted, when I say that, I’m excluding “necessary evil” from the definition of evil.

It seems to me, that phrase is just idiomatic anyway. If something which seems evil is truly necessary to achieve some greater good, then it isn’t really evil. If it’s “necessary” to the person who’s doing it to achieve some selfish ends, rather than some greater good, then it’s simply evil, not “necessary evil.”

So if we were to exclude “necessary evil” from the definition of “evil” (which I think is a quite reasonable exclusion), then it seems to me like the theist’s only way to defeat the Problem of Evil is to argue that evil does not actually exist in the world. After all, isn’t their usual line of criticism that the Problem of Evil doesn’t disprove God, because the evil and suffering in the world serves some higher purpose (such as allowing people to have free will)? They’re arguing that it is “necessary evil.” So if necessary evil doesn’t count as evil, then what they’re really saying when you get right down to it is that there isn’t any evil in the world at all.

But, you know, I find that really hard to believe. I won’t pretend that I can prove it definitively, or that my incredulity counts as evidence, but I would say that someone claiming that evil didn’t exist in the world at all would bear a pretty heavy burden of proof. And I contend that when theists dispute the problem of evil, that is effectively what they’re saying, whether they put it in precisely those terms or not.