Follow up to: The Great Problem of Evil, Part III and Cl’s “The Evidential Problem of Evil”

Awhile ago, in the process of outlining why I am an atheist and therefore don’t believe in God, I wrote a lengthy piece called “The Great Problem of Evil” in which I outlined the “Evidentiary Problem of Evil”, a logical argument that uses all the suffering in the world as evidence that an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God cannot exist.

I stated the argument like this:

1. God, as described by the major religions, is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good.
2. Any all-knowing entity would know of all the needless suffering that takes place, if there is any.
3. Any all-powerful entity would be capable of ameliorating needless suffering greatly, if not outright eliminating it.
4. Any all-good entity would desire to eliminate needless suffering to the best of its ability.
5. Any all-good entity would not create creatures, diseases, and/or defects which cause needless suffering.
6. Our world contains needless suffering.
7. Therefore from 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, God is either not all-good, not all-powerful, or not all-knowing.
8. Therefore from 1 and 7, the God as described by the major religions does not exist.

With an additional argument establishing the truth of premise 6:

10. If an instance of suffering that is necessary (because of a higher good) were prevented, then that higher good would also be prevented.
11. Therefore from 10, preventing necessary suffering makes us worse off.
12. There are some instances of suffering that were prevented where we did not become worse off.
13. Therefore from 11 and 12, needless suffering exists (and 6 is true).

While I did my best to defend the argument from every objection I could think of, I obviously did not handle every one. An author by the penname “Cl” who runs a Christian blog called The Warfare is Mental has spent time writing a post in which he critiques my argument, attempting to show that my argument does not show that God does not exist.

In this essay I will be counter-responding to Cl’s response. While I will do my best to fairly summarize his argument, I strongly urge that everyone read his response to not only make sure that I am summarizing it fairly, but to get the full grasp of what Cl is saying.

I also do suggest going through “The Great Problem of Evil” and keeping an eye as to how some of what I already wrote could be used in response to Cl here, as well as get a better understanding of what he is responding to.

 

The Initial Flow of My Argument

Before getting to Cl’s response, I want to make sure that all interested readers know what is going on in my thirteen premises up there. I personally like writing in logical arguments because they are as specific as possible; not allowing the argument to get vague or slip anything in without giving people ample opportunity to call you on it. However, the drawback is that they can sometimes be difficult to follow, even when properly formatted.

The general argument from evil suggests that God cannot be both all-good and permit suffering, specifically asking questions like “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?”.

However, the argument covers additional bases, suggesting that God would also have to be all-powerful in order to get rid of the suffering and would have to be all-knowing to be aware of how to properly deal with the suffering. Thus the idea of all-powerful, all-knowing, yet dimwitted God would not fall ill at the Problem of Evil, though it may be rendered ludicrous by other arguments.

 

The Concept of Needless Suffering

Christianity however, does specifically suggest an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God. This means it has to dodge the argument by a different means, and this response almost always takes a variation of this form: “God allows suffering because the existence of suffering is necessary in order to realize a higher good”.

This means that we must find a specific kind of suffering in order to disprove an all-good God: suffering that is not necessary in order to realize a higher good, which I call needless suffering (and which others have called gratuitous suffering, unnecessary suffering, and evil).

What is the difference between needless suffering and necessary suffering? If suffering is necessary, it means you would be willing to undergo that suffering in order to get a certain benefit. For instance, the suffering of exercise is necessary because you gain the benefit of being healthy. The suffering of surgery is necessary because you gain the benefit of not being ill or risking death.

Theists suggest that all suffering is actually like this: either we need suffering because it allows us to be freely willed agents, or we need suffering because it allows us to know God, or we need suffering because it builds character, or a variety of other reasons. For a more complete outline, see “The Great Problem of Evil”.

 

Demonstrating Needless Suffering

So if needless suffering exists, an all-good/all-powerful/all-knowing God cannot exist. This “if A, then B” has been accepted as true (logically valid) by all interested parties, theists and atheists alike. But how do we know needless suffering exists? This is the current battleground of the Problem of Evil, and is what cl and I are arguing about.

This is why I make a specific argument using premises 10 through 13. In simpler English, it goes like this: If you have some type of suffering that is necessary and then forgo that suffering, you lose out on the associated higher good. (For instance, if you choose not to suffer a cavity filling, you lose out on avoiding tooth decay.) This means that if all forms of suffering are necessary as theists say, any attempt to reduce suffering in the world makes the world worse.

I then suggest that we have actually reduced some types of suffering in the world. While there are many, I will focus on two examples: we’ve cured polio and we’ve cured smallpox. (Though I could offer many more, namely: the criminalization of slavery, the increased protection against natural disasters, the increase in children surviving birth, the general increase in lifespan, etc.)

 

Where Are We Now?

This is where we stand today. If what the theists say is true, doing those two things (curing polio and smallpox) has made the world worse. Following all this logic means that it is impossible for both {A} and {B} to be true:

{A}: God is all-good, all-loving, all-powerful, and exists.

{B}: The world is better off because we’ve cured polio and smallpox.

Cl and I specifically disagree over this: I think {B} is more likely and Cl thinks {A} is more likely. And to the degree that you think {B} is likely, you should think {A} is unlikely and vice versa.

 

Cl’s Three Paths to Resolution #1: The Ignorance Objection

Cl attempts to disarm my argument using three distinct paths. While they all individually defeat my argument if true, they are meant to be taken together as a cumulative case, and are difficult to understand without reference to the other. Therefore, before responding I will attempt to summarize all three.

Cl’s first response is to show that my argument is fallacious, because I cannot support the truth of premise #12: There are some instances of suffering that were prevented where we did not become worse off. I will call this the ignorance objection.

Cl specifically says:

12 appears to be a naked assertion with no evidence or argumentation to support it. It might seem intuitively true, but many things that seem intuitively true are apparently false (cf. geocentrism). Conversely, many things that seem intuitively false are apparently true (cf. quantum mechanics). Like 6 in the main argument, 12 is a naked assertion sustained only by incredulity: “I can’t imagine how we would be better off with polio and small pox, ergo we were better off preventing them.”

This goes back to the “{A} vs. {B}” I outlined earlier: Cl suggests that {A} can be true because {B} hasn’t been proven. How do I know the world is better off because we’ve cured polio and smallpox?

 

#2: The Education Objection

Cl’s second response is to argue that suffering can appear needless to us in that it is clearly and qualitatively not in our interests to keep it around, but it is still specifically in God’s interests to keep it around because God wants us to learn from ameliorating suffering on our own.

A commenter by the name Alrenous summarizes the argument like this:

The argument you want is, “Imagine it is a better world when we solve smallpox ourselves, rather than having it solved for us.” Case closed, all ‘needless’ suffering could easily be due to an unknown higher good.

So to fully deal with cl’s response, I would have to give some indication that there is no higher good in the fact that we are personally tasked with resolving the suffering in the world, instead of having God do it for us.

 

#3: The Theologies Objection

Cl’s final response is to show that my argument is false by two different standards and three different theologies, saying:

One thing I find troubling about POE arguments in general is that both sides rarely tailor them to a specific theology. This promotes generic arguments and rebuttals, so let’s identify some specific theologies and evaluate each against Peter’s argument. I will paint somewhat broadly to avoid getting bogged down in theological disputes.
On universalism, all sufferers eventually inherit eternal paradise, and no sufferers suffer eternally. On exclusivism, only a minority of sufferers inherit eternal paradise, and the majority suffer either finitely (annihilation), or infinitely (eternal torment).

Cl therefore outlines three different theologies:

• Universalism: Every individual goes to heaven upon death.
• Exclusivism: Only specific individuals God likes go to Heaven.
  • +Torment: …All the other individuals God doesn’t like are tortured forever in Hell.
  • + Annihilation: …All the other individuals God doesn’t like are made to no longer exist (permanent death).

 

Cl then discusses different ways of measuring goodness:

if tokens are the primary criterion and tokens of joy outnumber tokens of suffering, the scale tips to the “higher good” side and the argument seems defeated. Conversely, if tokens of suffering outnumber tokens of joy, the scale tips to the “needless suffering” side and the argument seems intact. This is an evaluation of net suffering vs. net joy.

If agents are the primary criterion, as long as agents experiencing joy outnumber agents experiencing suffering, the scale tips to the “higher good” side and the argument seems defeated. Conversely, as long as agents experiencing suffering outnumber agents experiencing joy, the scale tips to the “needless suffering” side and the argument seems intact. This is an evaluation of net sufferers vs. net jubilants (with jubilant being used atypically as a noun denoting those who experience joy; I’m open to a better word if you can think of one).

In summary, we can either evaluate by:

• Tokens: We count all the suffering in the world and then all the joy in the world, and see which comes on top. If there is more total joy in the world than total suffering, God can be good and the Problem of Evil fails.
• Agents: We count the total people who suffer more often than not (sufferers) in the world and then all the total people who experience joy more often than not (jubilants) and see which comes on top. If there are more jubilants in the world than sufferers, God can be good and the Problem of Evil fails.

 

Now we get to how this objection pieces together, using both theologies (universalism vs. exclusivism+torment vs. exclusivism+ annihilation) and evaluation types (tokens vs. agents) for all the possible combinations:

• Universalism on Tokens: Since everyone experiences infinite bliss when they die, and there is more total joy in the world, and the Problem of Evil fails.
• Universalism on Agents: Since everyone experiences infinite bliss when they die, and therefore everyone is a jubilant, and therefore there are more jubilants in the world, and the Problem of Evil fails.
• Exclusivism+Anihilation on Tokens: Since some people experience infinite bliss, which outweighs all the finite suffering of the people who were excluded, and the Problem of Evil fails.
• Exclusivism+Anihilation on Agents: Since there still could be more sufferers than jubilants, even if everyone who gets to heaven is considered a jubilant, the Problem of Evil might still stand undefeated here. But it could be the other way around, defeating the Problem of Evil.
• Exclusivism+Torment on Tokens: Since some people experience infinite bliss, yet some people experience infinite suffering, and two infinities are difficult to compare, the Problem of Evil is left muddled.
• Exclusivism+Torment on Agents: Since there still could be more sufferers than jubilants, even if everyone who gets to heaven is considered a jubilant and everyone who goes to hell is considered a sufferer, the Problem of Evil might still stand undefeated here. But it could be the other way around, defeating the Problem of Evil.

In the end, this ends up demonstrating that on some theologies and evaluation types, the Problem of Evil fails. I call this the theologies objection.

 

The Atheist’s Response?

In summary, I personally think Cl made some great points (perhaps advancing the dialogue on the Problem of Evil more than any other person I’ve seen), but ultimately I think there are ways in which all three objections fail and the Problem of Evil stands as a valid reason to not believe in an all-powerful/all-knowing/all-good God.

I will be outlining all these objections in a future post. However, first I want word from Cl that I accurately summarized all of his objections. I will be editing this post to rewrite any portions he finds inaccurate.

Stay tuned.

Followed up in: Heaven, Coddling Gods, and Other Theodicies