The so-called argument from evil has, as its conclusion, "God does not exist." This is also called the problem of evil.
Much ink has been spilled over the questions regarding rationality of theism (see FaithAndRationality)--about whether arguments are needed in order to be rational in believing in God, for example. But we could just as well question the <a>TheRationalityOfAtheism</i>.
In response to these questions, some atheistic philosophers insist that one can prove that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist. One can prove a negative, they say, i.e., one can prove that something does not exist. One show that the very concept of a thing is contrary to known facts. That is how the argument from evil proceeds: if God did exist, then he would eliminate evil from the world; but we see evil all around us; therefore, God does not exist.
Here is the argument, in a more detailed form:
Now let’s go back over the premises and see which ones we might criticize. Remember that if you want to criticize an argument, then either you attack the premises, or you show that the premises do not entail the conclusion. Now, the way I have formulated the argument from evil, the premises do entail the conclusion: this is a deductively valid argument. That means that if the premises are all true, then the conclusion must be true. But that’s not too impressive. If I had wanted to, I could have formulated the ontological argument and the cosmological arguments as deductively valid arguments; I would then, if I wanted to criticize those arguments, simply attack the premises. So if you are certain that the conclusion of a valid argument is wrong, one of the premises must be wrong. You just have to say which one, and say why that one is wrong.
So that’s what we’re going to do here. We’ll go over the different premises and see whether they can stand up to scrutiny. Premise (1) just states some basic facts about the Judeo-Christian conception of God: "If God exists, then God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving." Ordinary Christians certainly do not want to reject premise (1). Other people might end up rejecting this premise, because they want to believe in a different sort of God.
How about premise (2)? "If evil exists in the world, then either (1) God does not know about it, (2) God cannot eliminate it, or (3) God does not want to eliminate it." Why think this? Well, evil has to have some explanation. Why would a good God allow evil to exist in the world? Maybe he doesn’t know about it; or maybe he can’t get rid of it; or maybe he doesn’t want to eliminate it. But is there any other explanation? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Just ask yourself this: suppose God knew about evil, he could eliminate all of it, and he wanted to eliminate all of it; could evil even possibly exist then? Surely not. If God knew about all the evil, and he could get rid of it, and he desired to get rid of it, then God would get rid of it. But then we simply say: suppose that evil does exist. In that case, either God doesn’t know about it, he can’t get rid of it, or he doesn’t want to get rid of it. One of those options is open to us (or perhaps a combination of them). That’s what premise (2) says. So I don’t think we can criticize premise (2).
Now look at premise (3). "If God does not know about evil, then God is not omniscient." That seems perfectly true. If there’s anything that God doesn’t know, then God isn’t omniscient; what it means to be omniscient is to know everything that there is to know.
Similar things can be said about premise (4). "If God cannot eliminate evil, then God is not omnipotent." That also seems incontrovertibly true. If there is anything that God can’t do, anything that doesn’t involve a contradiction anyway, then God isn’t omnipotent. It is sometimes held that to eliminate evil would result in a contradiction - that is, we live in the best of all possible worlds. However, without a lot more justification this can be ignored for the time being. If God were omnipotent then he could certainly eliminate evil. So I think both premises (3) and (4) have to be accepted.
But now what about premise (5)? "If God does not want to eliminate evil, then God is not all-loving." This one is more doubtful. In fact I am sure that a lot of you will want to raise objections to it. Isn’t it at least possible that God is all-loving, but he still doesn’t want to eliminate evil? Maybe it’s perfectly consistent for an all-loving God to allow evil to exist in the world. Well, we’ll elaborate on this objection in a bit. Just keep in mind that we are going to come back to it; so premise (5) is the first premise we’ve found which is really dubious.
Next consider premise (6). "Hence (by premises 2-5), if evil exists in the world, then either God is not omniscient, or God is not omnipotent, or God is not all-loving." This follows deductively from premises (2)-(5); the only way to reject premise (6) is to reject (2), (3), (4), or (5); and so if we end up deny premise (5), that will be enough to allow us to say that (6) is false.
What about premise (7)? "But evil does exist in the world." Some people deny this. But how? How could anyone possibly deny that evil exists in the world?
Some people say that evil is merely an appearance; it is only an illusion. Nothing is really evil. I suppose the idea is that if you get yourself into the right frame of mind, probably a rather fuzzy frame of mind, then evil seems powerless and inconsequential. What really matters is goodness, happiness, love, or something like that; so evil doesn’t matter, and in a sense it doesn’t really exist.
I have to admit that I have a hard time taking that view seriously. First of all, even if evil "doesn’t matter," that certainly doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Because plainly it does exist. Hitler exterminated six million Jews; that wasn’t evil? People suffer from debilitating diseases all around the world; that’s not an evil we all potentially face? People are regularly killed by tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. Those events aren’t really evil? Their obvious hatefulness is illusory? That seems ridiculous. Unless you have some sophisticated way to explain why evil is merely illusory, this view can be safely rejected. I seriously doubt you can solve the problem of evil by simply denying that evil exists.
Premise (8) reads: "Thus (by premises 6 and 7) either God is not omniscient, or not omnipotent, or not all-loving." This is a further inference from earlier premises, so the only way that we can reject it is by rejecting those earlier premises.
So after going over each premise of the argument from evil, we have found just one premise, namely (5), and perhaps also statement 4, that gives us substantial hope of escaping the conclusion. As I said, maybe it’s perfectly consistent for an all-loving God to allow evil to exist in the world. But how? How could a God that is all-loving allow evil not only to exist, but to flourish in the world? That is the project of giving a theodicy. A theodicy is a theory about why God allows evil to exist in the world. In other words, a theodicy contains speculations about God’s actual purposes in allowing evil to exist in the world. And mind you, in order to be a successful theodicy, the purposes stated must be wholly consistent with the notion that God is all-loving. So what is called for is an explanation of the purposes that a loving God might have in permitting evil to exist. I think that when I put it this way, this is a topic you may have thought a fair amount about; maybe some of you already have views about it.
I should insert here that some people think that all they have to prove is that a loving God can have some purpose in permitting evil to exist. These people deny that they have to state God’s purposes. What would be the point of that? God’s purposes are not our purposes; the nature of God is mysterious. So if you are a mystic this view should be attractive to you. All you have to do is to argue that a loving God might have some reason for allowing the existence of evil; you don’t have to state what the reason is. I think this is an extremely popular view among Christians. For two reasons, no doubt: first, it is extremely pious not to try to guess at God’s thoughts; and second, it gives us a justification for not making an actual attempt to explain evil, which promises to be a very difficult task indeed.
But let’s review a few actual attempts to explain evil. The first is to point to the existence of free will. God gave us free will; and so we are able to bring evil upon ourselves. We are to blame for the evils which we inflict and suffer. This is an unfortunate consequence of our status as free beings; but it is far better that we are free, and hence that we suffer evil, than it would be if we were merely unfree pawns in a perfect game that God played by himself.
This is very persuasive to many people. But there is a very serious problem with it: very much of the evil that we suffer is not due, in any direct way, to any choices that human beings make. When the Black Death rode in the late Middle Ages, and wiped out millions upon millions of Europeans, that certainly was not due to any act of any human being. Or take any natural disaster at all: human beings do not cause, and cannot prevent, devastating earthquakes. So we should distinguish between moral evil and natural evil, a distinction I’ve been blurring up until now. Moral evil is any bad thing that humans are responsible for; natural evil is any bad thing, such as an earthquake or flood, that humans are not responsible for. Human beings are to blame for moral evil; but they are not to blame for natural evil.
"Ah," you may say, "but we are. Adam and Eve freely committed the Original Sin, of eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and we have been paying for that great sin ever since." Now, I don’t want to get into any specific issues of Biblical exegesis and Church doctrine. But suffice it to say that it would be harsh, to say the least, that absolutely every member of the human race who came after Adam and Eve should have to pay, throughout their lives, with all manner of suffering, for that Original Sin of Adam and Eve. I hope you’ll forgive me if I say that does not sound like something that a loving God would do. There may be a way to explain how a loving God can permit evil; but I doubt that the best way to explain it is to say that we all deserve all the evil we get, because Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin.
So here’s another answer, a more plausible answer, I think. A universe in which we are tested and improved by having to face evils, is far better than a universe in which we might complacently live in blissful ignorance of evil. The souls who will inhabit heaven will be far better and stronger if they live in a world beset with all sorts of evils. Evil improves us. And so God has allowed Satan to come to the power that he now has. Satan tempts us and if we resist, we are better for it. Satan also tests our will and resolve with all sorts of natural evils, earthquakes, floods, and whatnot; and if we pass the test we are better for it.
Now if I wanted to, I could bring a lot of objections to this. Surely the absolute horrors that humanity has faced, especially in the twentieth century, are unnecessary to improve our moral mettle. I could, if I wanted to, insist on such objections at length. But I think we have come to the point where you can see the outlines of the major issues involved in the problem. So I will leave it to you to hash out the details and to answer any further objections, that might come to you, yourselves.
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