The Problem Of Evil: Where I’m At Today
Posted in Atheism, Logic, Philosophy, Quickies, Religion on | 1 minute | 21 Comments →
While I’ll still gladly engage anybody on the issue, these days, I’m leaning towards the conclusion that the atheist’s problem of evil arguments are fatally flawed. In the end, all variants I’ve encountered reduce to incredulity: reasoning from premises derived at via conceptual analysis and intuition, the atheist disbelieves that a morally sufficient reason can exist: “There’s no way a good God would allow this much evil in the world.” That’s it. I’ve not seen a single POE argument that doesn’t reduce thus, and I’ll leave it to you to decide whether disbelief is sufficient to warrant skepticism in this regard. I say no. I mean, people said the same thing about QM and all sorts of other stuff: “There’s no way light can act as both particle and wave!” “There’s no way an airplane can fly!” “There’s no way man will walk on the moon!” Etc. This is why I like what they attribute to Archimedes: with a long enough lever, one could move the Earth.
Is anybody aware of a POE argument that doesn’t reduce thus?
Matt
says...hi cl,
Glad to see you blogging again. I agree that the POE fails to explain why Christianity is incoherent, but do you think that it works as a probabilistic argument that reduces the likelihood of the existence of the Christian God?
I’m a Christian because I think that, on the whole, Christianity is more likely true than it is false. I’m willing to admit when there is evidence against Christianity (that is, facts or reasons that shift the probability of Christianity’s truth to the negative). While POE doesn’t crush Christianity, when phrased as a probabilistic argument and using “suffering” (or some equivalent) instead of evil it shows that non-Christianity is a better explanation for that fact. Again, it doesn’t disprove Christianity, it just requires the evidence for Christianity to be greater in other areas (which I think it is).
Zeb
says...1. A good person wants to prevent and eliminate evil. (premise)
2. If a person can, a person does what he wants. (premise)
3. God is a good person who can do anything. (premise)
4. God wants to prevent and eliminate evil. (from 1 and 3)
5. God prevents and eliminates evil. (from 2, 3 and 4)
6. If something has been prevented and eliminated, it is not observed. (premise)
7. Evil is observed. (premise)
8. It is not the case that evil has been prevented and eliminated (from 6 and 7)
9. If a person has existed, that person has done what he does. (premise)
10. If God has existed, God has prevented and eliminated evil. (from 5 and 9)
11. It is not the case that God has existed. (from 8 and 10)
I agree that the incredulity argument is what we most commonly see in blogs and comments boxes, but I don’t see it in the above formulation of the POE.
Peter Hurford
says...I know our previous conversation on the Problem of Evil was left unresolved, but I think calling the Problem of Evil an “argument from ignorance” is, in my opinion, the most convincing way of resolving the issue.
However, I don’t think it is an argument from ignorance as it is an authentic contradiction. I agree with Zeb, and I mentioned this in our conversation that is still unresolved:
1: calling an entity “good” entails specific predictions about that entity’s actions.
2: When it comes to God, knowing his powers, those specific predictions do not come true.
3: Since those predictions do not come true, at best calling God good is meaningless, since we don’t really know that God is good, but at worst it provides negative evidence that makes the nonexistence of a good God far more likely. (There still could be an evil God or trickster God, though.)
So instead of this argument being along the lines of “There’s no way light can act as both a particle and a wave!”, it is more along the lines of “There’s no way it makes sense for something to simultaneously be A and not-A!”
–
Additionally, while saying “There’s no way an airplane can fly!” is not proof that an airplane can’t fly (because the argument from ignorance is indeed a fallacy), that doesn’t mean that an airplane *can* fly either. Is “There’s no way a zebra can fly!” an argument from ignorance?
So when it comes to God’s goodness, I don’t think we can just sit here and say “God is good and I challenge you to prove otherwise!”. I think, in addition to solving the Problem of Evil, we actually need evidence of God’s goodness, or else calling god “good” is a meaningless statement that doesn’t entail anything, and therefore is just smuggling in connotations about God that are false.
Peter Hurford
says...(Ignore this second comment; I’m only posting it so I can check “notify me of follow-up comments”, which I forgot to do for my previous comment.)
jayman777
says...I don’t think a well-formulated problem of evil argument is an argument from incredulity. I agree with Matt that the (evidential) problem of evil, if successful (which is debatable but beside the point for this comment), is more like a probabilistic argument than a definitive disproof. It is one argument among many arguments for and against a good God’s existence. We must consider all the arguments before deciding whether the existence of a good God is more probable than not.
I think the problem of evil might parallel, in a relevant sense, arguments against the belief that the mind is the brain in the philosophy of mind that depend on consciousness, intentionality, and qualia. I’m guessing that you, cl, agree that these arguments have some merit (even if they are not definitive proofs). If so, can you explain why they are not arguments from incredulity?
It seems that in both cases the proponents of the arguments in question are trying to demonstrate a logical or physical incompatibility/tension between two ideas (good vs. evil, intentional vs. non-intentional). This appears much different than the skeptic who simply says he can’t accept, say, some paranormal account he is offered.
cl
says...Matt,
That would depend on the argument, but probably not [no pun intended]. I don’t see how we could come up with reliable probability estimates for such things. I think in these types of discussions, “more likely” always or almost always reduces to “I prefer,” or “it seems intuitively true to me that.” But I’m open to any protocol that could generate reliable probability statements in the POE.
You think? I really don’t think it does. I suffering is consistent with the hypothesis of sin, evil, judgment, etc., and all of these are Biblical concepts [and variants of them exist in many other religions]. The most I’d grant the materialist or atheist is that the existence of suffering alongside joy is consistent with an impartial, non-sentient universe. However, I don’t think the latter is a better explanation that the former.
Zeb,
Nice. I like a little confirmation every now and again. I’m still deciding how I want to approach your argument. There seems to be some latent incredulity in #4. Specifically, 4) seems rooted to the intuition that the existence of any evil is inconsistent with an all-powerful God that did not desire evil…
Peter and Jayman,
I’ll have to get to you guys later.
cl
says...Peter,
I tend to agree that it often takes that form, too, but not necessarily all the time. It can also take both forms at the same time, i.e. incredulity and ignorance, depending on the premises we’re working with.
Certainly. The problem is that the specificity of the predictions is inexorably dependent on the intelligence of the one making the predictions. The best we can do is approximate under the heavy burden of our own biases. This is where we’re right back to intuition again: “A good God would never allow any evil for any reason” seems to be the latent assumption here [though I recall that you seem to trim the argument to alleged “needless evil” which is a different situation], but I think those assumptions can and should be challenged.
That’s just a generalization, though, as there are no specific predictions yet offered in this thread. Although, many of the predictions that I think flow naturally if the God of the Bible exists do seem to come true, and hardly any seem to come false–though quite a few are debated. For example, if God is good and also wanted humans to be good, then I would predict that God would have instilled a push towards goodness in human beings, and though their have certainly been some overwhelmingly evil individuals throughout history, the entire history of humanity (and even some of the so-called “lower” animals) is identified with concern for morality and social order. I would expect this given a God interested in our harmonious co-existence.
Hold on, though… you see what you did there? The string, “those predictions” doesn’t refer to anything specific. What specific predictions are you talking about, and do I agree with the latent assumptions? That’s the question, I think. I mean after all, I just alluded to an example of a prediction that seems fulfilled, so the question of which predictions have or haven’t been fulfilled seems up for grabs still.
I agree with you that any meaningful definition of contradiction entails an instance of A and ~A. I don’t agree that we have such an instance here, but I would need to see your full offering of predictions before I could make an in-depth judgment.
I agree.
Well, on my view, an argument from ignorance occurs we accept X just because ~X hasn’t been demonstrated as true (or vice-versa). In the case of “There’s no way a zebra can fly!” we don’t technically have an argument, but at the same time, the proposition doesn’t rest solely on the failure to demonstrate that zebras can fly. It rests on a solid foundation of observed regularity and human experience with the biological kingdom.
I don’t. I only respond to atheists who say, “per evil God doesn’t exist and I challenge you to demonstrate otherwise.”
Well, I gave an example of a prediction that seems to bear out, and I don’t see that it smuggles in any unreasonable connotations. So again, I think we have various evidences of God’s goodness, which entails that “God is good” is a meaningful claim for me, one that generates some rather specific predictions. The problem is, as humans, we can’t possibly know all the predictions that “God is good” necessarily entails, so either one of us could be missing something at any given point.
Peter Hurford
says...Cl, you make some pretty good points and we look like we’re shaping up for a lively discussion:
1: I call suffering that does not exist in order to serve a higher good is “needless suffering” (on my view, evil and suffering are interchangeable).
2: Saying “X is perfectly good” is true if and only if “X will reduce all needless suffering within X’s immediate power to do so”.
3: It is within God’s power to eliminate all needless suffering.
4: Therefore from 1-3, God can only be perfectly good if needless suffering does not exist.
5: Birth defects, loa loa, the guinea worm, smallpox, the Spanish Flu, cancer, and animal predation are some examples of needless suffering that we observe.
6: Therefore from 4 and 5, God cannot be perfectly good.
You can see here that 4 is the prediction that logically follows from being all-powerful and all-good, and if 5 is true, this prediction does not obtain.
I’ll buy that in general, sure. I agree that humans definitely demonstrate social order and compassion to great and increasing degrees. I think it’s enough to prove that if God exists, he is not perfectly evil either. (I mean I also think that this social order has natural explanations, but that’s not very relevant here.)
Fair enough. I’ll abandon that claim, then.
I’ll abandon this claim that “God is good” is meaningless unless you decide to make your case based on a “God allows birth defects for reasons beyond our comprehension”, which I don’t anticipate you will do. Sorry for mischaracterizing you.
Matt
says...cl
It would seem like an omnipotent and loving God would create a universe without suffering. Especially without naturally caused suffering. Just because Christian theology accounts for suffering with sin does not mean that it diminishes the evidence because Christianity still says that a loving God created a universe where creatures have the potential to suffer. Philosophers like Plantinga and Van Inwagen have done a good job showing that this is not an explicit contradiction and providing examples of possible worlds where a loving God and evil exist, but the simplest explanation is that everything is that the universe is random and undesigned (some people suffer, others prosper and most fall somewhere in between just like you would expect on randomness). This is why suffering is evidence for atheism or at least evidence against traditional Christianity. Though it is not sufficient evidence to warrant atheism on its own. I don’t think you can provide specific numbers to get an exact probability. I guess it’s just an isolated argument for the best explanation which must be taken into account among other lines of evidence somehow. The point is, if it is the better explanation it moves the likelihood (I won’t say probability anymore) away from Christianity.
cl
says...Matt,
The Bible seems to state that God created such a universe.
Well, the extent to which the evidence is diminished is in the eye of the beholder. You seem fairly persuaded by it; myself, not as much so. In fact, to me, the existence of evil and suffering is also evidence for the God of the Bible. If we lived in a world that contained sin, but not suffering, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at the Bible.
I agree.
I’ve already agreed that the seemingly random distribution of suffering is consistent with a non-sentient universe. The problem is, it’s also consistent with a God who allows free beings to make free choices. So, how do we say which hypothesis is more supported by the evidence? That’s the conundrum.
I wholeheartedly agree, and that’s why I’m strongly opposed to claims of the variant, “per the existence of evil / suffering, atheism is more likely than theism.” It seems to me that all such statements reduce to, “It seems intuitively true to me that.”
I suspect you might think I’m trying to be a pain in the ass, but “likelihood” strikes me as entirely meaningless there. Now, if you were to ask, “What’s the likelihood of rolling all threes with five six-sided dice,” then we can have a conversation. But if you want me to respond favorably to “likelihood” in POE discussions, I’ll need similar math. I hope you don’t see that as being dismissive. It’s not. I’m just trying to establish some ground rules for rigor here.
Matt
says...cl,
I used likelihood because probability seems to imply that I have numbers to throw at you, which in this case I do not. It’s sort of like when you are trying to decide what kind of car to buy. You can put up numbers for things like price and gas mileage but then you might also wonder which car will impress your girlfriend mores. You don’t get numbers for stuff like that but you can still discuss it, even if it can feel subjective sometimes. “She likes red, and the car is red. But she’s an environmentalist and the car doesn’t get good mileage.” You don’t get an exact probability but each of these things is a sort of evidence of whether your girlfriend will be impressed by your car or not.
Being a Christian I feel weird harping on POE like this because I think its potency is often overrated. Many of the atheists I know consider this a slam dunk argument against Christianity and many of my Christian friends consider this the greatest challenge to Christianity. I’m not convinced it’s that strong, though as you know I think it is at least a notch is the direction away.
cl
says...Matt,
I agree. It’s like using Newtonian mechanics to “disprove” QM.
Zeb,
In the OP, I wrote:
I think this applies to your argument. Specifically, 1-10 are not sufficient to force 11. In reality, your conclusion needs to be restated thus:
11A. It is either not the case that God has existed (from 8 and 10);
11B. God has existed and has a morally sufficient reason for allowing the evils we see.
Zeb
says...Do you agree that (8) and (10) are justified? If so, how is this argument invalid?
(8). It is not the case that evil has been prevented and eliminated (from 6 and 7)
(10). If God has existed, God has prevented and eliminated evil. (from 5 and 9)
(11). It is not the case that God has existed. (from 8 and 10)
To put it in symbolic logic (confusing to read, but helpful to test for formal validity):
Let A = Evil has been prevented and eliminated
Let B = God has existed
So the argument is
(8) ~A
(10) B => A
(11) ~B
And that’s clearly valid. You must disagree with (10), which means you must find either one of the premises preceding (10) to be false, or one of the arguments preceding (10) to be invalid. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that you believe premise (3) “God is a good person who can do anything.” is false. The free will defense relies on the premise that God cannot do anything that is logically impossible. The FWD holds that the elimination and prevention of evil is logically impossible, because refraining from creating free will would be an evil (an opposition to the highest good), and creating free will would fail to prevent evil. God must either do evil (refrain from creating free will) or refrain from preventing evil (by creating free will). That way of putting might even give the FWD a way of avoiding having to argue that free will is a greater good than preventing all the unnecessary suffering in the world. God starts with having to choose evil or the mere possibility of evil, and so is morally obligated to choose possibility over certainty.
cl
says...It’s not that. I disagree on a larger level. Yeah, the argument as you’ve written it is formally valid. That’s not the issue. Validity != soundness, neither does validity entail the absence of any assumed premises that might be up for debate. The more I digest it, the more your formulation seems to suffer from hidden assumptions. Your 4 really reads, “God wants to prevent and eliminate evil — such that none should be observed right now.” Your 7 really reads, “Evil is observed — right now,” and of course while I agree, that evil is observed right now doesn’t carry enough weight to force 11. In short, there are at least two assumed premises that I think are up for debate.
At an even more fundamental level, consider 4: God wants to prevent and eliminate evil. Why prevent and eliminate? If God wants to prevent evil (from 1-3), and God can do anything (from 3), then evil could never be eliminated, since it would always have been prevented. So I think you need to eliminate the “eliminate” part of the argument, and re-run it with, “A good person wants to prevent evil” as 1. Or if not, then maybe you can explain why it’s worth keeping.
Personally, I like what you said earlier about a “multi-faceted” approach. For me, the various “theodicies” combine nicely. Instead of either FWD or soul-making, we come up with a robust counterargument that includes the strengths of each [and others]. For example, I’m surprised people don’t talk more about compensation. To even mount a POE, the atheist has to assume that God can’t or won’t fairly retribute for both evil and good. But if God does fairly retribute, the POE dissipates. in fact, the final state of affairs could even contain more or perhaps more genuine good. Here’s a question, surely up for grabs: is it better that evil existed temporarily and was then banished forever? Or, is it better that evil was never allowed to exist?
Peter Hurford
says...cl, would you mind clarifying what you mean by evil?
Zeb
says...Well you can take away “eliminate” if you want. And you can add “right now” to 7. “such that none is observed right now” is not assumed in 4, but stated in other words in 6. So if you agree that the argument is valid, but assert that it is not sound, then which premise do you assert is false?
cl
says...Zeb,
Well, taking away “eliminate” really splits this into two separate arguments, but that’s beside the point. As I tried to explain earlier, I disagree with the unspoken premises that are being smuggled in. For example, that God’s desire for good requires God to force humans to do only good acts. Yes, I believe God wants to prevent and/or eliminate evil, but not at the expense of creating free beings.
Hope that helps.
cl
says...Peter Hurford,
If only it were that easy. I can give you specific acts that I think would qualify as “evil,” but of course, I’m just shooting from my own intuition. Even so, I offer the following: rape, unjustified killing, racism, greed, gluttony… I could go on but I’m not sure why you’re asking.
Peter Hurford
says...cl,
I’m asking because I don’t think you can meaningfully say god isn’t evil if you don’t actually have a definition of what “evil” entails. I was also wondering if you agreed with me regarding the “needless suffering” definition.
What do you think of this Problem of Evil:
P1: Needless suffering (aka “unnecessary suffering”, “gratuitous suffering”, “evil”) is, by definition, suffering that doesn’t exist because of a higher good.
P2: If an instance of suffering that is necessary (because of a higher good) were prevented, then that higher good would also be prevented.
C3: Therefore from P1 and P2, preventing necessary suffering makes us worse off.
P4: There are some currently existing instances of suffering that can be prevented without making us worse off.
C5: Therefore from P1, C3, and P4, needless suffering exists.
P6: A perfectly good entity is an entity that will prevent as much needless suffering as is possible for that entity.
P7: A perfectly powerful entity is an entity that can do anything that is logically possible without being hindered.
P8: Eliminating all needless suffering is logically possible.
C9: Therefore from P7 and P8, a perfectly powerful entity can eliminate all needless suffering without being hindered.
P10: A perfectly knowledgable entity is an entity that knows everything that is logically possible to know.
P11: Knowledge of needless suffering is logically possible.
C12: Therefore from P10 and P11, a perfectly knowledgeable entity would know of all needless suffering.
C13: Therefore from P6, C9, and C12, if an entity exists that is perfectly good, perfectly powerful, and perfectly knowledgable, needless suffering would not exist.
C14: Therefore from C5 and C13, no entity exists that is perfectly good, perfectly powerful, and perfectly knowledgable.
cl
says...Peter,
“I’m asking because I don’t think you can meaningfully say god isn’t evil if you don’t actually have a definition of what “evil” entails.”
I disagree, but I did offer you some perfunctory parameters, don’t you think? You see, I don’t quite know how to put “evil” into words. I’m tempted to offer some pedestrian one-off like “that which causes pain,” but that quickly falls apart. I can give further examples of acts I think are evil, and perhaps you’ll be able to parse some lowest common denominator out of them. In fact I’ve been thinking about doing a post on this…
I’ll take a deeper look later, but the argument seems just like all the rest: based on unfalsifiable premises, along with the very incredulity I allude to in the OP. “I can’t imagine how X can possibly lead to a higher good, therefore X is needless.” Maybe birth defects lead to higher good. Maybe they don’t. We have no way to tell, nothing empirical to work with, and I think it’s quite dangerous to let emotions dictate logic.
Peter Hurford
says...cl,
Maybe that approach would work, but I think I have a better question that is more likely to get an insightful answer: by saying God is good, what does that mean God will and will not do?
It’s one thing to say that God won’t rape people or act in a racist manner, but that seems kind of trivial. What of other cases, like Leviticus 20:13 — is that command an endorsement of bigoted, unjustified murder?
Please do; I think it would be very productive.
This is why I did what no other formulation of the Problem of Evil I know of does — P1, P2, C3, P4, and C5 deductively prove the existence of needless suffering.
I think the key problem here is P4: is there any suffering that can be eliminated without making us worse off? This is where I think we have to make a case on inferences and probabilistic arguments, which is as good as the Problem of Evil ever will get, but I think it’s leaps and bounds better than any argument before.
For instance, polio was eliminated with no noticeable negative effects, and therefore was highly likely to be an instance of needless suffering. Other diseases we are fighting seem to be highly likely to be just like polio, capable of being eliminated without negative effects.
I’ll elaborate on this in a blog post or two and incorporate your feedback…