Talk:Problem of evil/Archive 1

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Are there any earlier explanations of the problem of evil than that of Epicurus, BCE 341/270: ?Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God???

Interesting article, Larry. I too believe that God is much more interested in our character than our comfort. However, I do find your concept of Natural Evil a bit puzzling. A tornado may be disasterous and horrible, but calling it evil seems a bit strange to me. And where do you draw the line? Does a tornado have to take a life to be evil, or can it simply destroy some property? What if it never touches down - is it still evil? I dunno, I just don't think I buy into this.

Terrible things happen to good people, and these events you call evil. But often these people can overcome these events and eventually become a much better person than they ever would have if the event had never happened. I've seen it happen dozens of times. So was the event really evil, can a thing that is evil result in something that is good? Can it do so if God does not really exist?

The small little community I live in just recently was devistated when three high-school aged girls were killed when the mini-van they were riding swerved off the road and rolled over. There was no alcohol involved, it appears they hit a pothole and lost control of the vehicle. All three girls were very active in their respective churches, we know that they were all Christians. I do not wish to diminish in the least the amount of grief that their families and indeed our entire community went through. But I will say this, that our community pulled together around these families, and absolutely outpoured our love onto them. Hundreds of families got involved in bringing whatever comfort we could to the grieving families, and as a result of their testimonies many kids who were making bad choices for themselves have decided to start making better ones. I'm sorry, but I simply cannot see the pothole as evil.

The premises of the argument seem to have the bent that if God truly existed we would live in a environment where nothing ever went wrong. No one would ever get hurt regardless of the circumstances, and everyone would have enough to eat and drink. Why that does sound a lot like the Garden of Eden, doesn't it? It also sounds a lot like we would have very little freedom there - all of our choices would be between things that were already pre-ordained to be good for us. God never promised us smooth sailing, it simply isn't how the world works anymore. He did, however, promise us comfort in our times of sorrow and I can tell you from personal experience that he does deliver.

--RaviDesai.

Ravi - One of Webster's definitions of the noun "evil" is something that brings sorrow, distress or calamity. That leaves plenty of room for Larry's natural evils. If you read the next to last paragraph of his essay/lecture, you see the outline of your own argument above. You will also see that his conclusion is that the argument claiming that the existence of evil disproves God, fails. A conclusion which you obviously share. In very dry and "clinical" terms, he has actually made the same argument to which you bring a wonderfully huma perspective, above. I think you'll agree his article is not in itself defective, and deserves a careful reading to the end.

AyeSpy, I did read his article carefully, I don't disagree with the result all. It is quite clear to me that we share quite similar views. What I disagreed with is calling a natural phenomenon "evil". However, by your Webster's definition, perhaps I need to recant that. But for me, evil was not the result, but the intent. In other words, you could do evil by intent, even if the result was "good". The reverse also true. Since a tornado cannot show intent, I have a difficult time labelling it evil.

At the beginning of my post I indicated that I agreed with Larry that God is more interested in our Character than in our Comfort. I said I agreed with him because, while he did not use those exact words, that is essentially what the result of his argument is. That which does not kill us outright makes us stronger, and gives us more moral character. In general, this is quite true, as the example I gave indicated as well.

However, I don't think we need to view everything bad that happens to us as something evil that God passed our way in order to grow our moral character.

Just so. One needs to take care to distiguish the moral concept of evil, which implies intent, from the generic evil as a noun, which is basically "something bad." When you look at evil in the dictionary as an adjective, all the value judgement stuff is included.

There are gobs and gobs of different conceptions of even the one Christian God, from person to person and sect to sect. Some will tell you that an anthropomorhic God, possessed of human-style motivations while being omniscient and omnipotent, has the time, attention and resources and what's more the will, to attend to each and every one of His children on earth, map out a specific plan for them, and then watch and judge each individually moment-to-moment as to whether that individual accepts and follows God's plan for his life, or rejects it and strays. Theoretically, those disposed to go along with the program get to heaven. In such a scenario, literally everything which happens to one is directly and literally part of God's plan, and how one responds to the various tests presented help determine his worth as a potential heaven-dweller. For the sake of economy, God could test hundreds or thousands at a time by smiting them with a tornado or a tsunami.

Larry's comments would fall right in line with that conception of God, or a very similar one.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there is a Christian theory that God is not matter but spirit, and when he created man in his own image, that was a siritual image and man is therefore a soul like unto God. This same God, omniscient and omnipotent, set up a universe full of traps once his children rebelled against him (ate of the fruit of the tree of knowlege of good and evil) and cast them out into it, knowing all the while that only those with a pure soul and loving heart would be able to escape it. Those who valued matter over spirit would be lost forever. His "plan" for salvation was general, not specific to this or that individual. When Man in his conceit strayed too far, He tried wiping them out and starting over with Noah, but material man was still too in love with the world. So, He sent His son (reduntant as all all men are his literal children, born of his will) to remind everyone, "Hey - love one another, and follow the path I set out, or you ain't never gettin' home. There's only one road back to the Father, and you're not on it." Then He went about His divine business, whatever that may be, checking in now and again to see how the kids are doing.

(These are not theories I made up, but I've had both of them preached to me)

Under the second theory, God is "more concerned about our character than our comfort," and has set out signposts to be followed. Those who follow the road get to come home and dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This would be a God who would neither cause nor prevent tornadoes or eathquakes, but whose children would have an infinite variety of opportunities to learn from their lives and either move closer to Him or farther away. In either case he would love them all, and mourn the lost. Larry's argument still works under this scenario, but the literalness with which this or that person is "tested" would no longer apply.

However you believe is up to you, but you can look at Larry's article on its bare merits and then suggest or make changes which retain the arguments but perhaps open the way for a wider range of interpretation of the same Omniscient, Omnipotent, and All-loving God. No?

Hi, Ravi! Thanks for the thoughtful comments! You wrote:

However, I do find your concept of Natural Evil a bit puzzling. A tornado may be disasterous and horrible, but calling it evil seems a bit strange to me. And where do you draw the line? Does a tornado have to take a life to be evil, or can it simply destroy some property?

This isn't my concept; it's the way that natural misfortunes are referred to when philosophers and theologians discuss The Problem of Evil. Nothing hangs on our using that word, either. The so-called Problem of Evil is just as bad if you refer to "natural evils" (notice, this can take a plural) as "disasters," "misfortunes," or whatever. If you like, we can call it the Problem of Really Bad Things.

But often these people can overcome these events and eventually become a much better person than they ever would have if the event had never happened. I've seen it happen dozens of times. So was the event really evil, can a thing that is evil result in something that is good? Can it do so if God does not really exist?

This is one of the options you have in replying to the argument: you are free to deny that natural evil (misfortune, disaster) really is a bad thing. Maybe it's all a good thing and therefore perfectly consistent with God's being all-loving. Regardless of that, I don't see how God's existence would be required to have something good result from pain and suffering.

AyeSpy wrote:

If you read the next to last paragraph of his essay/lecture, you see the outline of your own argument above. You will also see that his conclusion is that the argument claiming that the existence of evil disproves God, fails.

Did I really say that? I shouldn't have, if so.

Ravi replied:

At the beginning of my post I indicated that I agreed with Larry that God is more interested in our Character than in our Comfort. I said I agreed with him because, while he did not use those exact words, that is essentially what the result of his argument is.

Again, did I really say that (so that you can agree with me)? I thought I was just explaining one point of view, not necessarily expressing my own.

Then AyeSpy:

However you believe is up to you, but you can look at Larry's article on its bare merits and then suggest or make changes which retain the arguments but perhaps open the way for a wider range of interpretation of the same Omniscient, Omnipotent, and All-loving God. No?

By all means, Ravi, if you wish to expand any particular point that I've made in the article, go for it. While you do it, however, please be sure to attribute your views to the person or people who hold them, rather than asserting straightforwardly that the views are correct. We want to retain a semblance of lack of bias here.  :-)

-- Larry Sanger

"AyeSpy wrote:


If you read the next to last paragraph of his essay/lecture, you see the outline of your own argument above. You will also see that his conclusion is that the argument claiming that the existence of evil disproves God, fails.

Did I really say that? I shouldn't have, if so." -- Larry Sanger

I should put this differently: If you are persuaded, as I am, that premise (5) does not logically fit any known data, then the combination of an all.../all.../all... God is not disproven by the ProblemOfEvil argument, as one of its necessary premises fails. This, in combination with the second-to-last paragraph seem compatible with Ravi's stance, just not as emotionally so.

Obviously, if you believe an all-loving God cannot permit evil, then you must bow to the force of the original argument. But then you would also have to believe that a loving mother could not visit unpleasantness and therefore discipline upon her child, since the child obviously would not find discipline pleasant. A Christian believer already believes, likely, that scripture supports discipline as essential to love. For this reason, It would appear futile for an atheist to attemt to pursuade a Christian with the ProblemOfEvil. He might pursuade non-believers, but then what would be the point? He'd be "preaching to the choir." Heh heh ;^)

In addition to discipline, loving parents sometimes allow their children to make their own choices and suffer the consequences in order to learn. A young child may be allowed to touch a hot stove to learn what "hot" means. A teenager may be allowed to sign up for too many activities to learn what "overcommitted" means. Or in another scenario, a manager with the best interests of the company may allow an employee to exercise some judgment and make decisions, even if some of them wind up causing some limited harm to the company. If the manager were to veto every single bad decision, the employee would quickly feel powerless and lose any sense of creativity or innovation. I don't see how giving people free will to think about choices, but physically preventing some choices, still amounts to freedom. It would be like telling someone they can travel anywhere in the forest they want to... then sending them on a hike through the forest with 20' high plexiglass walls on either side of the approved trail. They could see the whole forest, and think about wandering off the trail all they wanted, but wouldn't be able to. Or suppose the plexiglass walls were only at the edges of cliffs and waterfalls. Would that still be free will? Wesley


Ed, I see your recent edit. Whilst this is interesting information, wouldn't this be a case of the possibility raised under presmise 2 c) - that "God does not want to eliminate evil", the consequences of which are examined under premise 5? IANAPOT (I Am Not A Philosopher Or Theologian :) ), so my interpretation might be horribly wrong. --Robert Merkel

This is a hard question and thus a good question, Robert. As someone who believes a priori that God exists, I see the problem of evil as a struggle to understand why God has permitted it to go on so long. Perhaps I am a bit off-topic, if the article is primarily an argument against the possibility of God's existence.

Anyway, what I meant was: God wants to eliminate evil but is "tolerating" it (as liberals nowadays always request). Meanwhile, He is encouraging us to take responsibility for eliminating it.

Evil, defined (in the UC) as "taking advantage of another person for one's own benefit", may be seen as a kind of immaturity rather than as a force equal and opposite to God. Why do human parents let their children do all sorts of zany and inappropriate things, rather than strictly enforce standards? To answer my own question, it's because excessive strictness restricts human growth. Parents must tolerate their children's immature behavior because that aids their growth to maturity. (Hmm, that sounds paradoxical.)

God, as our Heavenly Parent, likewise tolerates our immaturity.

Now, this may be more a statement of faith than an answer to a philosophical question, but it's the best I can do. Unless you want me to pray about it, then maybe I'll be able to do better! -- User:Ed Poor

The problem of evil can, IMHO, be viewed from both perspectives (as an argument against the existence of God, or, for a theist, why God allows evil to exist). My point was for the perspective of the argument against God's existence, I don't see how the information provides any insight supporting or refuting the argument. Therefore, I would suggest that the information be shifted into more general discussion rather than inline with the argument itself. --Robert Merkel

my background is in mormonism, which I have always found to deal with classical theological arguments quite differently than other churches. I say this, and make the following comments, not to go off about a (my) specific religion, but to point out several more arguments and counter-arguments and loopholes to "the argument from evil"...

>First, some people, including some Christians, believe that the occurrence of natural evil is a direct result of moral evil. If everyone were to turn from evil, disease, famine, and natural disasters would end. The problem with this proposal is that natural evils often befall virtuous people and leave evildoers unharmed; the entire scene appears distributively unjust.

but at least it moves these "natural evils" into the realm of "moral evils" since they technically would be caused by the bad people; hurting the innocent the same as if the bad people directly harmed the innocent.

>The Unification Church believes that God wants human beings to get rid of evil themselves. According to this premise, then, God does not allow evil so much as He allows us to allow it. When we determine to get rid of it, this will make Him very happy. I'm not sure if any other churches have a similar belief.

mormons believe similarly. human beings cannot progress without real experience. "give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach him how to fish..."

>Some may say that death in and of itself is not evil, since we all must die. The manner in which we die is mostly irrelevant, whether it is by natural disaster or by disease.

this is especially true if one also believes that this earth life is infinitesimally short and that we will literally live again.

>Furthermore, an effective argument can be made against free will forcing humanity to contend with "moral evil".
and >The obvious objection to this is why are we tested? Why are we brought into the world through no choice of our own, only to be put through tests?

this approach completely ignores the mormon and early christian notion that we chose to come here. we in fact sat in council and the details of this life and what we would gain from it were explained to us and we accepted it... such a believe also makes John Rawls' thought experiment, Original Position aka Veil of Ignorance, irrelevant.

>God could have made us perfect and saved us the effort of all these tests. In the end, all the testing proves unnecessary.

again, the mormons believe that the testing is not for god's benefit, but for our own. so that we may know ourselves... even the word test is in fact the wrong word since it implies failure and punishment (similar to suffering, of course we brought it on ourselves...) but that is only one way to look at it. one way that mormons look at it is that this whole process is a sorting process so that we essentially are choosing where we want to go, and that we would not be happy somewhere else (some people would not be happy in heaven...) so this is ultimately just and fair.

>At the very least, one can have free will but physically be prevented from performing the evil, so that the intentions can be noted but not the act which would cause pain to others.

this assumes that there is no significant difference between thought and action. many people believe that that is the critical line that one must not cross. for example, we have no control over many of the thoughts that pop into our minds or are flashed on us by surprise (for which a just god could not condemn us), but it is what we chose to do with those thoughts that matters...

it also assumes that god and man are fundamentally different and that for god to be omnipotent he must not be subjected to any laws, except maybe his own. this is such a strong point of disagreement that some christians feel it defines a border for the christian concept of God. nevertheless, mormons, who basically believe in the judaeo-christian god believe that there is some reason that god cannot just fill our heads with knowledge (that it is by definition, not knowledge if it comes that way -- or in other words, relating to an earlier comment, perfection cannot be attained that way), and that reason is somehow related to that fact that we are like god in some ways. in other words, that some part of our aspect is not created by him and we therefore are not just his "pawns", and that there is some quality of actual material existence that must be experienced in order to be appreciated.

in fact this is a clear mormon teaching: the wicked must be allowed to do their wickedness, to condemn themselves by their actions... (http://scriptures.lds.org/alma/14/8, esp vs. 9-11 a story of an atrocity)

again, my point here is to show that there are a lot of details of doctrine which easily bypass the argument from evil by a wide berth...

from the discussion: >One of Webster's definitions of the noun "evil" is something that brings sorrow, distress or calamity.

but is that the sense in which we should be discussing it. after all, evil can also refer to bad smells, and is that really relevant just because the philosophers chose to use that word? perhaps we should be talking about suffering, not evil. when you look at it that way, a quick look at the buddhist approach to suffering (which millions accept) makes "natural evil" look a lot less "eeeeevil". evil being a very subjective term to begin with can seem to be derived from peoples' reaction to it, which is why i point out the buddhist reaction...

my personal opinion is that the whole argument from evil is superficial and obsolete as an argument against the existence of a judaeo-christian God. Plasticlax (I'm new here, feel free to educate me on proper wikipedia ettiquette...)


I propose to make the following edit as an addition after the last paragraph in the discussion of premise (2) Darist:


Some Christians believe that premise (2) of the argument from evil contains an appeal to arrogance. The arrogance takes two forms. Accordingly, we twice show the argument is fallacious, once for denying necessary attributes of God and once for attributing near omniscience to humans.


If the God described by the Bible exists, then his actions cannot be judged by humans. (The context suggests to Christians that it is the God of the Bible that is being discussed. So, to see why they say God must be above the judgement of humans, see Job 38, Isaiah 55:8-9, Mt 7:1 (if humans cannot judge humans, how much more can they not judge God), Rom 9:14,20, 1 Cor 2:16.)

But, because the premise (2) assumes that God?s actions can be judged by humans, it merely assumes that God does not exist. This is what it is supposed to prove. (A valid argument does not assume what it is supposed to prove.)

So, the evils in the ?argument from evil? are arrogance and circular reasoning. (?Eliminate! Eliminate!?)


Further, there is an unstated assumption in premise (2).

As originally written, premise (2) begins, ?If evil exists in the world, then??

Let?s rewrite the premise to show what was left unstated: ?We humans are smart enough to know what an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving God should do about every evil, and we have decided that God should immediately eliminate all evil. Therefore, if evil exists in the world, then??

We submit that this restatement explicitly states what is implicitly required by the original. (The original implicitly asserts that immediate elimination is the right way to handle all evil. But, the argument doesn?t pretend to hear that from God, (also, for counter examples to that possibility, see Exodus 34:6-7 and 2 Peter 3:9-10). So the argument must assume that we know this from a human source. That source has to be sufficiently smart to be able to make that decision.)

Now that we have noticed this previously unstated part of premise (2), we need proof that it is correct before we can accept premise (2). If premise (2) cannot be accepted, the argument does not prove that God does not exist.

So, looking at the previously unstated part, it should be apparent that the real problem with the supposed ?problem of evil? is arrogance. If this is not apparent to you, prove that you are smart enough to know what an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving God should do about every evil.

---

I have no problem with you adding those paragraphs, but in my opinion it is not really an argument. What you are saying is that our rules of logic may not apply . You are not attacking the idea that evil exists, or that logically if God wanted to remove evil and was omnipotent then he could, you are simply saying "We can't even discuss the issue of God's actions, its too much for us".
While you are entitled to hold this type of belief, In my opinion there is not much point in using it to counter a logical argument. If I believe that if I have two "holy apples" and get two more "holy apples" then I would have five, and nobody could presume to understand the action of their holiness, then that's up to me, but I am not sure that it would do any good to mention it in an argument about arithmetic. -- Chris Q 08:58 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)
Thinking about it, maybe we should add a sentence at the beginning, saying:
some people believe that human logic is insufficient to understand God. They see any attempt to argue logically about religion as arrogant. Obviously they see no value or interest in arguments such as this.
-- Chris Q 09:17 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)
Actually, I have no problem with arguing logically about religion. However, I think that the rules of logic should be applied properly when we do. I do not think that untested assumptions or circular reasoning should be ignored when they happen, even in logical arguments about religion.
Perhaps, instead, I would say that presuming to understand God to the point of being able to criticize his actions is arrogant.
-- Darist 2/4/3


Hmm... I (Beoran) think the mormon ideas interesting, but they seem to reduce life to a "great 100% immersive Role Playing Game". Anyway, perhaps they could be included in the pages on Theodicity? Or those of Mormonism?

Another point I want to raise is that the comparison between a "loving god" and a loving parent that Wesly makes does not work always. In several religions and denominations, god is supposed to inflict or at least allow eternal suffering, or spiritual death upon those of his "children" who "fail". If we apply the metaphor in this case, we would have to conclude that a loving parent doesn't need to shield their children from lethal dangers, and that parents may even impose needlessly prolonged, cruel, or even lethal punishments to their children. The case of loving parent being unable to cure the suffering of there child canot be maden, since an omnipotent god /is/ able to remove all suffering.

I think that one who believes in a loving god and in the theodicity of "life as a learning school" must also include some provisions for the "failiures". Reincarnation of the wicked, or a "purification through fire" as seen in Zoroarstrianism are the most viable options here.


I agree with the header text that the article requires further development. But for now I have a comment restricted to part of the 2nd last paragraph, which I feel somewhat misunderstands the Christian viewpoint on natural evil. It currently reads:

First, some people, including some Christians, believe that the occurrence of natural evil is a direct result of moral evil. If everyone were to turn from evil, disease, famine, and natural disasters would end. The problem with this proposal is that natural evils often befall virtuous people and leave evildoers unharmed; the entire scene appears distributively unjust.

True, the Christian viewpoint is that natural evil results from moral evil ("Cursed is the ground because of you" - Genesis 3:17), but never claims that this will be such as to effect distributive justice in this world (e.g. Luke 13:4-5), but rather that creation in general is currently in a state of "groaning" (Romans 8:22), and that justice will be perfected when Jesus comes to judge (e.g. Revelation 22:12).

Will change accordingly.

--Trainspotter 12:46, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

To turn the argument around:

  1. If God exists, then he must be perfectly good.
  2. If God does NOT exist, then he is NOT perfectly good.
  3. If God is not perfectly good, then neither is anything else. (Otherwise, it would be God.)
  4. If nothing is perfectly good, then there exists no standard of reference for "goodness". It is impossible to tell if one thing is "better" than something else. For example, if there were no such thing as the color red, then it would be meaningless to say one thing was "redder" than another.
  5. If there is no standard of reference for "goodness", than there is by the same token no standard of reference for evil, assuming that we define "evil" as "not good" or "anti-good". To use my earlier example, if you can't say one thing is "redder" than another, then you can't say it is "less red" or even "not red", because the word "red" has no meaning.
  6. If there is no standard of reference for good or evil, then there can be no such thing as good or evil. All things simply exist, and have no moral goodness or evilness.
  7. If there is no evil, then by Larry's argument, God must exist.