The Problem of Evil
This semester, I am taking a course that is new to my college’s catalog: Philosophy of Religion. It is an introductory Philosophy course, and in it we cover various topics pertaining to problems within theistic religion. The first topic of discussion is the Problem of Evil. The syllogism is as follows:
- If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omni benevolent, and omniscient.
- If God is omnipotent, then he would have power to eliminate evil.
- If God is omniscient, then God would know of all the evils that exist.
- If God is omni benevolent, then God would have a desire to eliminate all evil.
- Evil exists.
- If evil and God exist, then God either can not eliminate evil, will not eliminate evil, or doesn’t know about evil.
- Therefore, God (as defined) doesn’t exist.
The syllogism is logically valid, but are the premises true? 1-4 are true by definition, so let’s look at just 5 and 6. 5 is probably the most debatable, because what can be defined as evil? There are a number of defenses to explain the existence of evil: the Free Will Defense, the Greater Goods Defense, and the Greater Unknown Purpose Defense. I will look at these defenses and see if they hold up.
Free Will Defense
The Free Will Defense states that in order to have beings that are significantly free willed, they cannot be causally determined to do only what is right. In other words, free will necessitates evil because in order to choose between good and bad, a bad choice must be made available. This seems reasonable at first, because it shifts the blame for the existence of evil towards free-willed creatures making evil choices. God didn’t voluntarily choose these evils. In order to create free creatures, he had to allow evil as an unfortunate byproduct.
However, there are certain cases in which this does not apply. For example, in cases of natural evils. That is, evils independent of man. These evils can include the suffering that occurs as a result of some animals being carnivorous. Surely there are ways around allowing animals to be killed for food by sharper-toothed animals. Perhaps all animals could be vegetarian–or even photosynthetic. Other natural evils include hurricanes, disease, and earthquakes. How necessary is it to have such things on our earth?
The Greater Goods Defense
The Greater Goods Defense states that perhaps some evils are necessary to create a greater good in the end. This goes along with Leibniz’s work, and is his core argument in attempting to solve the problem of evil. In his writings, he called this world the “best of all possible worlds” by which he meant that maybe there was no other way to create a better world containing any less evil. He reverses the problem and states that since God possesses the qualities stated in the premises, that this must be the best of all possible worlds. However, this creates a weak argument, because one only has to find a single example of something that would make the world better off overall. It also suggests that God is constrained to do all that is good. In that case, then in what sense does God exercise free will?
This argument is demolished by my photosynthetic animal I mentioned above. If no animal consumed meat, then there would be much less gratuitous suffering in the natural world, and as a result, a better overall world. It’s also hard to see why the world is better off with things such as AIDS, hurricanes, and tsunamis. Sure, things like that bring people together, but there must be alternatives to putting thousands of people through misery, death, and displacement. It doesn’t seem like a reasonable trade to me. Maybe I just can’t understand the purpose. This brings me to the final major defense: the Greater Unknown Purpose defense.
Greater Unknown Purpose Defense
The Greater Unknown Purpose Defense states that we as humans are incapable of understanding what the purpose of evil might be. It is outside of our boundaries to judge something that God does as good or evil anyway, since he makes the rules. But then, on what criteria do we say that God is benevolent?
Some say that we must go through this period of injustice, which is justified in the end through eternal life in either heaven or hell. However, if evil is a necessary byproduct of free will, then how will evil be kept out of the afterlife? Will there be free will in the afterlife? If choices are prevented from being made in the afterlife and we experience only eternal bliss, then why even bother with this period of injustice and free will business? Why not skip to the bliss part?
Other responses
There are some more, less popular responses to this problem. One states that we as humans are sinful creatures, and that evil is punishment for sins committed. However, I do not see a child being tormented by a pedophile as a sinful creature. Children are innocent to me, incapable of truly understanding something is wrong and choosing to do it. In addition, if this were true, we would see proportionally more bad things happening to bad people. Instead, we see both bad and good things happening to both bad and good people.
Here is my response to the problem of evil: I question the fifth premise: evil exists. The universe I see is one with no good and no evil. There is nothing inherently evil about anything. Nature is indifferent to everything. It just keeps moving along, unaware of anything going on within it. Yes, there are people who choose to do what we call “evil”, but the fact that carnivores, hurricanes, and diseases exist do not mean that evil exists. I think the way that evil is defined, it is constrained to human activity. A creator, nature, or whatever you want to call it is not evil, because evil is something that man does. I would also question the first four premises since there is nothing to indicate that any of them are true, but I will probably get to those later on.
Conclusion
If we are going to suggest that a creator being could be evil, I would do it like this:
- If God exists, then God is omniscient.
- If God knows through his omniscience before creating anyone whether or not they will spend eternity being punished in hell, then God can be considered evil.
- Hell bound people are created.
- Therefore, God is either evil or imaginary.
It’s not an airtight syllogism, because I am not a trained philosopher, but my logic is this. The more data we are able to collect from our surroundings, the more accurate our predictions can become. If we know the weight of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the force that object will have when it hits the ground. If we know the mass of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the kinetic energy that object will have when it hits the ground. (Thanks, Nick.)
Similarly, an omniscient being would know all data that is possible to know about everything–right down to the atomic level. This would allow this being to make ~99.9% accurate predictions about everything, accounting for all variables that can affect any outcome. This includes our thoughts, since our thoughts are ultimately products of (presumably predictable) physical processes. With this knowledge at hand, God would know whether or not a person will end up in hell (he has the criteria for determining such a fate), and chooses to create that person anyway. This sounds evil to me. Free will doesn’t even come in to play–the person’s free choices were known beforehand!
Predeterminism and free will seem to be mutually exclusive, so we are right back in square one. What do you think?
Filed under: Religion by kellanstec
I was going to take this class but didn’t know if it would be any good. Let me know how it turns out.
I’m am christian Apologist and you really need rethink what you typed. I looked at your thoughs on the problem with evil. This is age old problem you have brought up but you haven’t treaten the Christian worldview point, in fact you just made the error many oppenonts of Christianity have made.
1: If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omni benevolent, and omniscient.
omni benevolent: God is not all loving. If God is so loving and kind, why would the God sent people to hell, because there sin against him (luke 12:1-12).
Also God has standard and everyone has broke it. Why would a loving if God pour out his wrath on Irseal in the 2 samual and 2 kings.
2: If God is omnipotent, then he would have power to eliminate evil.
Yes God could stop evil right but that a leaves you with issues. You’re not a Christian and now if God stopped evil right now then you be in hell and your statement is unless. (Rev 20-22)
God has the power but why does he have eliminate evil because we human tell him to.?
3:If God is omniscient, then God would know of all the evils that exist.
This statement is makes no sense. God knows all evil
and you didn’t state the problem. So what is the problem or your point?
4: If God is omni benevolent, then God would have a desire to eliminate all evil.
This state is no where in biblical worldview, so this statement is unless. You’re misunderstanding Christainity and your points are stupid.
5: Evil exists.
You didn’t prove this and if there is evil then there is a good. If there is evil then your judging by a standard with good and evil. If there is evil then must be good or what you said falls apart.
6: If evil and God exist, then God either can not eliminate evil, will not eliminate evil, or doesn’t know about evil.
This state is useless because you don’t know God would will unless your God which your would decline.
7:Therefore, God (as defined) doesn’t exist.
How can you know this unless you were some God and this would destory every you have said.
The premises that are in the original syllogism really aren’t things that I know for sure. What I have here is a simple argument in which I define a few terms, lay out the premises, and draw a conclusion from these premises. If you disagree with the premises, that’s your opinion. I happen to not agree with them either. I was writing simply for the sake of writing and thinking.
I actually discussed three popular apologist responses to the issue I raised in the form of the FWD, GGD, and GUP, and I’d be interested to know exactly which mistakes I have made. I find it strange that you do not believe that God can be defined as benevolent—I think you’d be hard-pressed to find Christians who agree with you. According to many Christians, the bad things that God supposedly does is justified by his own moral code—whatever God does is inherently moral. Is this what you meant?
Also, I never said that God had to eliminate evil—it only follows that he should from either the definition of God, or through the premises that I laid out. I’m not really sure what me not being a Christian has to do with eliminating evil. Are all non-Christians evil? Besides, don’t you think that if you’re worshipping the wrong God, simply being a Christian could be just making the “True God” madder and madder? Aren’t you afraid of Muslim hell? If God won’t forgive me for making an honest mistake about the truths of the universe like Christianity says he will (he gave his only son for this purpose, remember?), then what is the point of Christianity?
I’m not sure what your objection is to premise 3. Did you read it wrong? God knowing about all evil is true by definition.
Your objection to premise 5 is valid. I can’t prove that evil exists, unless it is defined clearly. I also can’t pretend to know the will of a supreme being, if one exists. However, I am more concerned with gratuitous suffering. Evils like a mother possum being struck by a vehicle, and her young dying a long death from starvation. A good case can be made that some suffering develops character, I think, but not when the result is death or the suffering beings are incapable of character building. To me, it seems rather moot to say that we just can’t understand God’s ways, because there doesn’t seem to be any reason to permit unnecessary evil and suffering in the universe.
hello kellenstac i was reading ray comforts blog entry and i saw your comment. you said something that caught my attention. you said “no one has ever seen heaven or hell”. im glad you said that
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5910699532828872069&q=to+hell+and+back&total=11881&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
i would like you to go to that link and watch for yourself. people who have gone to hell and back. you asked for it so there it is. feel free to e-mail me at my personal e-mail address if you like. i understand how you feel. i myself wasnt a believer for most of my life. i hope one day you realize how much God truly loves . im sure you have heard this before but God really does have a plan for you life. dont pass it up. see ya
If we know the weight of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the force that object will have when it hits the ground.
Kellan, Kellan, Kellan,….
If we know the MASS of a falling object from x height, and the acceleration due to gravity, we can predict with extreme accuracy the KINETIC ENERGY that object will have when it hits the ground.
weight = (mass) X (the acceleration dues to gravity)
The force is always the weight in free fall in a vacuum. This has nothing to do with your post, but I just thought you’d want to be as accurate as you can be.
Also would you consider it a logical fallacy by the first part by saying God is a omni - everything. If he wasn’t and just a builder (i.e. the Sims) God couldn’t do that, my sims wet themselves. False Dichotomy?
Good argument for the lack of an Omni - Everything god though.
I actually have no clue why this blog popped up, but I read your stuff and I’d like to comment.
First off, i agree with the person above me. Why can’t God be a huge douchebag? Why can’t God be, say, the 4th dimensional equivalent of an 8th grader and we are his science fair project?
Also to boil down free will, it all depends on whether or not there exists randomness, which then goes to quantum mechanics. As it stands now, we don’t really know whether or not quantum properties are really completely random, but the general consensus is yes. Thus, in such a world there is no way to predict accurately the distant future. This means God is not omniscient. Of course, He could still have immense power. Just because you create something doesn’t mean you are the master of said object; look at Kfed and Britney Spears.
Also, why does there have to be a hell? from what I’ve heard, many religions don’t believe in such a thing. And to counteract evil in heaven, God’s power can be used to read the thoughts of a person at an exact time (which is fine with quantum mechanics) and then bar them from any further action. Of course, Heaven could just be another plane; it doesn’t have to be perfect.
And there doesn’t have to exist an evil choice, but two uncertain choices that could result in either bad circumstances or good. for example, one button could produce a good effect 50% of the time, but another could produce an effect 2x as good only 25% of the time. Choosing which button and when to stop pressing that button are both choices not hinging on good and bad.
In fact, if you think hard enough, the afterlife could be entirely biological. It would be in Humanities’ best interest (and the interest of the children) for an imprint of a person to hang over the place they have died, warding off those who pass (or possibly in the case of old age ushering those to a safe spot). I know it’s a long shot, but there are definitely things we do not understand, and our bodies could be tied to other things in other dimensions that we are unaware of.
The thing that gets me the most is consciousness. I know there’s a good possibility that the entire human brain can be replicated in robotic form, but I personally cannot pin down an entire picture of how this would look. Plus, I feel thinking, computers just do thinking.
For now, I’m just hoping an afterlife exists, because existing forever sounds much more tempting than an eternity of unbeing. Of course, if you want to check out some cool stuff that may be some evidence of life after death, what ghost hunters and look up near death experiences.
This is an interesting problem. For this matter we can’t say who is right and who is wrong just like that. So, I want to give my point of view.
In my religion (can you guess?), God outcast the fallen angle, Lucifer from heaven where he swore to mislead the children of Adam for eternity until Doomsday. This answer your doubt about does God knows about evil. He know because He bannish that guy from heaven, not just obilerate him. Why not just kill him? That I can’t tell…
By the way, Lucifer is a form of ‘evil’. His vengeance will not fade as long we existed and don’t follow his bidding. To me ‘evil’ is something that you do that is not right that violate other’s right and God’s right. We do ‘good’ things and everyone like it but contra to doing ‘evil’ things.
And we can’t define evil just like that. Have you face a psychopath before? Maybe after that you’ll change your view a bit.
extra info: My religion seem to say that God create human so they will obey Him make Him pleased. He gave us choices, freedom of choices, to follow Him or not. As you all know, wrong choice and we go to the burning hell. God do know who is the person who will be damned in the hellfire but He gave the person chances to change his destiny. That mean our fate is known but we can change it with our will. Peace ya’ll.