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.
