problem of evil essay titles

59 The Problem of Evil Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best the problem of evil topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 good essay topics on the problem of evil, 🔎 most interesting the problem of evil topics to write about.

St. Augustine. Solution to the Problem of Evil Augustine claims that the solution of evil is to do the right thing and to abstain from wrongdoing. He claims that evil results from a man trying to equal himself to God.
John Hick’s “Soul-Making” Theodicy and the Problem of Evil Many Christians find it hard to explain the problem of evil as it does not seem to correspond to the will of God. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
Problem of Evil: John Hick “Philosophy of Religion” The third one is the idea that God is not that powerful and therefore he has no ability to deal with the problem of evil and suffering.
Problem of Evil and Varieties of Atheism The article “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” gives a powerful argument to support the ideas of atheism based on the existence of evil.
John Mackie and Alvin Plantinga Arguments on the Problem of Evil This paper will discuss the problem of evil, state the main claims that have been argued by John Mackie and Alvin Plantinga, and show some of the arguments that other scholars have raised with regard […]
The Problem of Evil: Personal Viewpoint Now with my new system of theological thinking, I acknowledge that God’s ability accurately defines His authority over the whole world, and therefore Evil, as well as Good, is His will.
Theodicy and the Problem of Evil However, what perhaps relates to the issue at hand is when, in the Book of Genesis, God created enmity between the woman’s offspring and that of the serpent.
The Problem of the Evil and Philosophy of Religion John Hick, the author of Evil and the God of Love, insists on the idea that theodicy is “unavoidable…in the virtue of the nature that the world and of the essential character of the Christian […]
Problem of Evil and Illegitimate Theodicy Discussing the first claim, it should be noted that the evil never preceded the good; therefore it should not be taken as if the evil were the first to occur and then as a result […]
The Problem of Evil in Religion and Theology In the viewpoint of religion and theology, the issue of evil is the trouble of reconciliation the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of a god.
The Problem of Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation A philosophical theory of evil can be expected to address many questions of meaning and value that pertain us to think in multiple dimensions at a time like thinking of “evil” a concept worth preserving […]
Examining the Problem of Evil in Theism The idea of immortality is one of the key themes that are discussed in theism in terms of the problem of evil.
God and Problem of Evil in Johnson’s Philosophy As for the moral features of God, it is possible to assume that he is evil since he causes many evil events.
The Problem of Evil: Modern vs Traditional The aspects of evil and the reality of the devil are deeply explored in different verses in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament.
Marilyn McCord Adams’ Views on the Problem of Evil Since overcoming the adverse effects of such a phenomenon is beyond the capacity of human beings, the presence of horrendous evil signifies the inconsistency of optimism as a viable, sustainable posture in life and demands […]
Hamartiology as a Problem of Evil Moral evil, which is ultimately the cause of natural evil, can be traced to the beginning of creation when Adam and Eve defied God’s explicit directive not to eat fruits from the tree at the […]
The Problem of Evil: Rational, Reasonable, and Scientific Explains God is omnipotent and it is impossible to reject it under the statements of evil’s presence. God is unable to create a world where everything is good, as it contradicts the idea of personal choice […]
The Problem of Evil: Religious and Apologetic Way The problem of evil is simply the disagreement of how such a great God can exist and evil still dominates a greater part of the world he created.
The Logical Problem of Evil and the Freewill Defense The free-will defense as a response to the logical problem of evil will also be covered in the essay as well as how the free-will response demonstrates the existence of evil to be logically inconsistent […]
The Problem of Evil During the Jewish Holocaust
The Problem of Evil: An Issue in Religious Philosophy and the Logic
How the Problem of Evil Aims to Disprove the Existence of God
Boethius’ Account of and Solution to the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil in Shakespeare’s Play “Richard Iii”
The Christian Philosophy’s Stance on the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil in “Rebellion” by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Christian Solution to the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil in “The Harry Potter” Series
The Problem of Evil in the World and the Goal of a Christian Life
Continuing Controversy for Theological Philosophers: The Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil in the Philosophic Community
What the Problem of Evil Is Under a General Scope
What Theists Understand as the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil: Definition, Responses, & Facts
The Logical Problem of Evil: Views Mackie and Plantinga
Satan and the Problem of Evil: From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers
The Theory of Middle Knowledge as Solution to Soteriological the Problem of Evil
John Mackie’s Views on the Problem of Evil
Logical the Problem of Evil and the Limited God Defense
The Problem of Evil in Richard Swinburne’s Natural Evil
The Basic Argument for the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil and the Free Will Defense
Axiological Versus Deontological Formulations of the Problem of Evil
Incompatibility Formulations Versus Inductive Formulations of the Problem of Evil
Surin’s Theodicy as the Problem of Evil
What Is the Biblical Solution to the Problem of Evil
How Scripture Frames the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil in the Field of Social Work
How Does Address the Problem of Evil Plantinga’s Free Will Defense
How Should Christians Approach the Problem of Evil
Differences Between the Intellectual and Emotional the Problem of Evil
Critically Assessing Thomas Aquinas’ Approach to the Problem of Evil
Merciful God and the Problem of Evil in the Philosophy
The Problem of Evil as Treated by St. Augustine
Comparing Moral Error Theory and the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil: The Challenge to Essential Christian Beliefs
The Argument of Logical the Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil in Experimental Philosophy of Religion
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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section The Problem of Evil

Introduction, general overviews.

Reference Works
Anthologies
Traditional Problems of Evil
Commonsense Problem of Evil
Nonskeptical Responses: Defenses and Theodicies
Skeptical Theism

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The Problem of Evil by Trent Dougherty , Scott Cleveland LAST REVIEWED: 08 October 2015 LAST MODIFIED: 30 July 2014 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0211

“The problem of evil” is a multifaceted problem. But the problem for theistic philosophers is that there are plausible arguments starting from plausible claims about evil to the conclusion that there is no God. These arguments have taken many forms, as have the replies to them. This bibliography covers primarily the most important contemporary treatments.

Peterson 1998 and Dougherty and Walls 2013 provide accessible introductions to the topic. McBrayer and Howard-Snyder 2013 give an opinionated introduction to the major response of the major figures in the field. Dougherty 2011 offers an in-depth survey of recent literature. O’Connor 1998 surveys challenges and responses with the purpose of defending that theism or atheism may be justified depending on a person’s epistemic position. Howard-Snyder 1996 is a highly influential anthology containing seminal works on all sides of the issue. While sometimes highly technical, Plantinga and Tooley 2008 is a lively debate between two leading figures.

Dougherty, Trent. “Recent Work on the Problem of Evil.” Analysis 71.3 (July 2011): 560–573.

DOI: 10.1093/analys/anr059

This article states and evaluates the major lines of the debate concerning the problem of evil in the ten years leading up to its publication.

Dougherty, Trent, and Jerry L. Walls. “Arguments from Evil.” In The Routledge Companion to Theism . Edited by Charles Taliaferro, Victoria S. Harrison, and Stewart Goetz, 369–382. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Offers an accessible introduction to a variety of arguments from evil, both for and against the existence of God. Includes an argument for God’s existence from the pattern of suffering in the world.

Howard-Snyder, Daniel. The Evidential Argument from Evil . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.

An anthology of highly influential essays, the title of which came to name the family of arguments from evil focused on arguing from the probable existence of gratuitous or unjustified particular evils to God’s nonexistence. Contains both seminal early works promoting and responding to this family of argument as well as pieces written specifically for it.

McBrayer, Justin, and Daniel Howard-Snyder, eds. Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil . Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Contains chapters giving opinionated treatments of most major issues relating to the problem of evil by major scholars.

O’Connor, David. God and Inscrutable Evil: In Defense of Theism and Atheism . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.

Surveys a number of challenges and responses. Offers a defense of the view that theism or atheism could be justified for a person given that person’s epistemic position. Argues that the skeptical theist response undermines natural theology.

Peterson, Michael L. God and Evil: An Introduction to the Issues . Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998.

A somewhat dated but excellent and very accessible orientation to the main issues pertaining to the problem of evil.

Plantinga, Alvin, and Michael Tooley. Knowledge of God . Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444301304

A lively, if sometimes highly technical, debate-style exchange between two leading figures in the field.

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The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology

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15 The Problem of Evil

Paul Draper is Professor of Philosophy, Florida International University.

Published: 02 September 2009
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This article focuses on questions about evil which are both theological and doxastic, and more specifically alethic – i.e., questions about whether what we know about evil can be used to establish the falsity or probable falsity of the belief or proposition that God exists. Such a focus is natural for agnostics. More generally, it is natural for anyone who is engaged in genuine inquiry about whether or not God exists. A specific concept of God is employed – it is assumed that to assert that God exists, or that ‘theism’ is true, is to assert that there exists a supernatural person who created the natural world and who is perfect in power (‘omnipotent’), perfect in knowledge (‘omniscient’), and perfect in moral goodness (‘morally perfect’). This is obviously a narrow sense of the words ‘God’ and ‘theism’, but it is common in the philosophical literature. The article also uses a common strategy to investigate alethic problems of evil: it constructs and evaluates a variety of ‘arguments from evil’ for the conclusion that God does not exist or that His existence is improbable.

Introduction

S uffering , immorality, and other evils generate a wide variety of practical, affective, and doxastic problems. Some of these problems can be stated in the form of a question and some of these questions are relevant to this handbook because they are theological —they are connected in some relevant way to God or to faith in God or to the metaphysical theory that God exists.

Practical problems of evil are concerned with what one ought to do in response to evil. They are theological when the issue is what actions one ought to perform, in light of one's beliefs about God , the assumption being that those beliefs should make a difference to how one responds to evil. If the question is whether or not one should (continue to) rely on or trust God, then this assumption is obviously true. It is also true, however, if the question is how best to oppose evils such as oppression or how best to alleviate evils such as suffering. One's beliefs about God can make a difference to how one answers such questions as these as well.

Affective problems of evil are concerned with whether the emotions one feels in response to evil are appropriate. They are theological when the issue is how one ought to respond emotionally to evil, in light of one's beliefs about God . Many theists have emotional responses to evil that appear to conflict with their beliefs about God. For example, evil may cause a believer to feel despair or hopelessness or anger toward God or abandoned by God, and it is hard to reconcile any of these feelings with the belief that an almighty God loves us. Even an issue as apparently unproblematic as how one should feel about the death of a loved one can become controversial if one really believes that the loved one is in ‘a better place’ and that one will be literally reunited with him or her after one's own death.

Both practical and affective problems of evil raise doxastic questions about evil. To determine what one ought to do or how one ought to feel in response to evil, one must first determine what one ought to believe, including what one ought to believe about God, in light of the evil in the world. It is important to notice, however, that there are many distinct doxastic problems of evil, because beliefs can possess or lack any of a variety of distinct merits. For example, a belief about God can be true or false, it can be probable or improbable (relative to the epistemic situations of its subject), it can result from properly or improperly functioning cognitive faculties, and its subject might be entitled to hold it or might instead hold it in violation of some moral or epistemic duty. When judging the significance of evil for belief in God, it is crucial that one be clear about exactly which of these (or other) doxastic merits is at issue.

In this chapter, I will focus on questions about evil that are both theological and doxastic, and more specifically alethic —i.e. questions about whether what we know about evil can be used to establish the falsity or probable falsity of the belief or proposition that God exists. Such a focus is natural for an agnostic (like me). 1 More generally, it is natural for anyone who is engaged in genuine inquiry about whether or not God exists. Such inquiry inevitably raises questions such as: does the evil in the world provide the resources for proving that God does not exist (e.g. because it can be shown to be logically incompatible with God's existence)? If not, does it nevertheless provide some evidence against God's existence (in the sense that it lowers the probability of God's existing)? If it does, then how strong is this evidence? And if this evidence is strong (in the sense that it decreases the ratio of the probability of theism to the probability of its denial many-fold), is it also significant (in the sense that it makes a large difference to the probability of theism being true)? Answers to these questions are no doubt relevant to many other doxastic problems of evil (and to affective and practical problems as well), but alethic problems of evil are not identical to any of those other problems. For example, no alethic problem is identical to the problem of whether or not the evil in the world renders belief in God irrational. After all, a false or probably false belief can be rational (in more than one distinct sense of that word); and a true or probably true belief can, of course, be irrational.

I will further narrow my focus by employing a specific concept of God. In particular, I will assume that to assert that God exists or that ‘theism’ is true is to assert that there exists a supernatural person who created the natural world and who is perfect in power (‘omnipotent’), perfect in knowledge (‘omniscient’), and perfect in moral goodness (‘morally perfect’). This is obviously a narrow sense of the words ‘God’ and ‘theism’, but it is common in the philosophical literature. 2 The strategy I will use for investigating alethic problems of evil is also common: I will construct and evaluate a variety of ‘arguments from evil’ for the conclusion that God does not exist or that God's existence is improbable.

MT Arguments

At first glance, it may appear easy to construct a convincing argument from evil against theism. One obvious strategy is to formulate an argument of this very simple sort:

If God exists, then e does not obtain.

God does not exist.

Notice that any argument from evil of this sort will be deductively valid because it will have a valid argument form, namely, modus tollens. For this reason, I will call arguments from evil of this sort ‘MT arguments’. Notice also that, so long as the variable e is replaced with some fact about evil that is known to obtain, an argument from evil of this sort will be sound if its first premise is true and it will be convincing if we have good reason to believe that its first premise is true. Since an ‘evil’ should be understood in discussions of arguments from evil to mean anything that is bad, including things that are bad because they imply the absence of something good, there are countless candidates to replace e . For example, e could be replaced by the fact that evil exists, or that suffering exists, or that undeserved suffering exists, or that horrific suffering exists, or that immorality exists, or that heinous immorality exists, or that some innocent children have been tortured, or that not every sentient being flourishes, or that some sentient beings flourish while most do not. Which replacement for e is chosen may affect the prospects for showing that the first premise of the resulting argument is true. The crucial question is whether this premise can be shown to be true for at least one suitable replacement of e .

It is far from obvious that the correct answer to this question is ‘yes’. The first premise is a conditional statement. Assuming it is a material conditional, it is true if and only if it is not the case that both its antecedent is true and its consequent false. In other words, it is true if and only if it is false that both God exists and e obtains. But how can the falsity of the proposition ‘God exists and e obtains’ be established? One approach is to argue that the falsity of this proposition is entailed by the definition of the title ‘God’. In other words, one might try to argue that the existence of a being qualified to bear the title ‘God’—i.e. the existence of a loving supernatural person who is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect—is logically incompatible with e 's obtaining. To argue in this way would be to offer what philosophers have called a ‘logical argument from evil’ against theism. All other arguments from evil are called ‘evidential arguments from evil’.

Although logical arguments from evil seemed promising to a number of philosophers in the 1950s and 1960s (e.g. J. L. Mackie 1955 ), they are rejected by the vast majority of contemporary philosophers of religion, for two reasons. First, some serious attempts have been made to demonstrate that the existence of evil and several other more specific facts about evil are logically compatible with God's existence. For example, Alvin Plantinga's ( 1974 ) influential ‘Free Will Defense’ persuaded many that it is logically possible that God exists, that God creates people with morally significant free will, and that some of those people make morally bad choices. If Plantinga is right that this is logically possible, then God's existence is logically compatible with the existence of evil and (more specifically) with the existence of moral evil. Plantinga also tried to extend the Free Will Defense to several other facts about evil. For example, he tried to show that theism is compatible with the amount of moral evil in the world, and he even appealed to the possibility of non-human persons who have free will (e.g. demons) in an attempt to show that theism is compatible with the existence of ‘natural’ evil (i.e. evil that does not result from human immorality). The appeal to demons may seem fanciful or even desperate, but one must keep in mind that Plantinga is responding to the logical argument from evil. If one's goal is only to prove logical compatibility, then it is legitimate to appeal to any possible state of affairs, no matter how unlikely.

There are, however, many replacements for e that no defense has shown to be compatible with theism. Thus, the unpopularity of logical arguments from evil cannot be explained solely by the success of the Free Will Defense or other defenses. A second, more fundamental and hence more important reason for the unpopularity of logical arguments from evil is that, even when some fact about evil cannot be shown to be compatible with theism, establishing an incompatibility is no less beyond our abilities (Pike 1963 ). Granted a God, being omnipotent and morally perfect, could eliminate any evils that he wanted to eliminate and would eliminate any evils that he had no good moral reason to permit; but all that follows from these claims is that a God would eliminate any evil that he had no good moral reason to permit. In order for a logical argument from evil to succeed, it is necessary to show that, for some known fact about evil, it is logically impossible for God to have a good moral reason to permit that fact to obtain. This, however, is precisely what most philosophers nowadays believe cannot be shown.

But why do they believe this? After all, when one examines the sorts of ‘excuses’ that human beings have for not eliminating evil, they all seem to involve imperfect power or imperfect knowledge. For example, human beings avoid blame for destructive tornadoes because they lack the power to prevent them. They avoid blame for not rescuing people lost at sea because they don't know their whereabouts. And, depending on the circumstances, they may avoid blame for evils they know about and have the power to eliminate, such as visits to the dentist, so long as those evils cause (or are caused by) greater goods such as healthy teeth. These sorts of excuses could not work for an omnipotent and omniscient being. This is obvious in the case of the first two types because they explicitly involve a lack of power or knowledge. But it is no less true about the third case, which implicitly involves a lack of power because an omnipotent being's power would not be limited by causal laws. For example, an omnipotent being would never need to use unpleasant dental procedures as a causal means of keeping someone's teeth healthy. Her merely willing that a person's teeth be healthy would suffice to make it so.

Still, it would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that all good reasons for not eliminating evil involve some lack of power or knowledge. To understand why this would be a mistake, it is crucial to recognize that the inability to produce things that are logically impossible to produce, or to know statements that are logically impossible to know, does not count as a lack of power or a lack of knowledge. In other words, not even an omnipotent and omniscient being would have more power or more knowledge than it is logically possible for a being to have. Next, suppose that some good that is worth my suffering (perhaps it is even a good that benefits me) logically implies that I suffer (or at least that the objective chance of my suffering is not zero). For all we know or can prove, there could be such a good, even if it is beyond our ken. After all, even some goods we know about logically imply evils. For example, my showing fortitude in the face of pain logically implies that I feel pain and thus not even an omnipotent being could produce the good of my showing such fortitude without permitting the evil of my feeling pain. Of course, the good of my showing fortitude in the face of pain is probably not worth my feeling pain, especially since fortitude of other sorts does not require pain, but for all we know other goods not only logically imply my suffering but are also worth my suffering. Such goods would be known to an omniscient being even if they are unknown to us. Further, if there are such goods, then not even an omnipotent and omniscient being could produce them without allowing me to suffer and hence even an omnipotent and omniscient being might have a good moral reason to permit my suffering. 3

One might object here that no good, no matter how great, could justify allowing such horrific evils as the torturing of innocent children. (The character Ivan in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov is often interpreted to be making this claim.) Indeed, some philosophers (e.g. D. Z. Phillips 2004 ) seem to object to the whole notion of an ‘outweighing’ good. To be sure, this notion should be rejected if it implies that all value can be measured on a single numerical scale or if it presupposes a crude consequentialist understanding of morality. It need not be interpreted in this way, however. In fact, it is even compatible with the position that no good, no matter how great, ‘outweighs’ the harm done to an individual unless it benefits that individual. This last point is important because, for all we know, (1) there may exist goods far more valuable than any we can imagine, (2) these goods may logically imply the existence or risk of horrific evils, and (3) these goods may (if there is life after death) include among their beneficiaries the victims of horrific evils. If this possibility is taken seriously (and admittedly not all philosophers think it should be taken seriously or even that it is a possibility ), then it is hard to be confident that the notion of an outweighing good breaks down in the face of horrific evil, especially given how imprecise and fallible our moral intuitions are. Therefore, since I believe this possibility should be taken seriously, I do not see how it is possible to construct a convincing logical argument from evil against theism, and for that reason the rest of the arguments from evil I discuss in this chapter will be evidential ones. 4

Notice that not all MT arguments are logical arguments from evil. Consider, for example, the following two compound arguments. 5

No known goods justify God's permitting horrific suffering.

No goods, whether known or not, justify God's permitting horrific suffering.

God's existence entails that either some goods justify God's permitting horrific suffering or horrific suffering does not exist.

If God exists, then horrific suffering does not exist.

Horrific suffering exists.

Horrific suffering is appallingly bad (and the worse an evil is, the less likely it is that God would permit it).

God would be maximally empathetic (and the more empathetic a being is, the less likely it is that such a being would permit horrific suffering even if that being had a morally sufficient reason to do so).

Some goods that God would prima facie want to obtain, like the flourishing of all sentient beings, are incompatible with horrific suffering.

Notice that these two compound arguments share steps 4–6, which is a standard MT argument from horrific suffering. Neither argument, however, defends the conditional premise of that MT argument by trying to show that its antecedent is a logically sufficient condition of its consequent.

In the first argument, this conditional follows deductively (necessarily) from steps 2 and 3, but step 2 is supposed to follow inductively from step 1. In other words, the truth of step 1 is supposed to make the truth of step 2 probable. This inductive inference is questionable. It involves reasoning from a sample of ‘known goods’ to a conclusion about all goods whether known or not. Obviously there is nothing wrong in principle with reasoning from samples to populations, but such inferences are correct only when one has good reason to believe that one's sample is representative of the population. One problem here is that we know so little about the population of all goods that it is hard to be confident that our sample of known goods is representative of that population (Alston 1991 ). A second problem is that any evidence we have that supports theism will ipso facto be evidence that our sample is biased and so may undermine the inference in question.

The second argument defends the conditional premise that if God exists then horrific suffering does not exist by giving reasons why a God would be unlikely to permit horrific suffering to exist. However, this strategy also fails because steps 1–3 are not by themselves good reasons to believe that 4 is true. To begin with, there might be strong evidence for God's existence. Any such evidence would, given the existence of horrific suffering, be strong evidence for the falsity of the statement that if God exists then horrific suffering does not exist. But even if no such evidence exists, giving reasons like the ones described above for believing that a God would be opposed to horrific suffering does not prove that the statement ‘if God exists, then horrific suffering does not exist’ is probably true. Instead, such reasons only show at most that the consequent of that conditional statement is antecedently very probable, given (i.e. ‘conditional on’) the truth of its antecedent. In short, instead of establishing the probability of a conditional, they establish only a conditional probability. And the former does not follow from the latter: from the fact that Q is antecedently probable given P, it does not follow that ‘if P then Q’ is probable.

This is a very easy mistake to make. Suppose, for example, that Detective Garcia is trying to locate a car and is certain that it is owned by either Smith or Jones. In her efforts to figure out which of the two is the owner, she discovers that the car was recently painted red. She then reasons:

Smith really likes green cars.

If Smith owns the car, then it was not recently painted red.

It was recently painted red.

Smith does not own the car.

The inference from 1 to 2 appears strong, but it is not. From the fact that Smith really likes green cars, it follows only that it is antecedently probable that the car would not have been painted red given that Smith owns it. It does not follow that the conditional statement ‘if Smith owns the car, then it was not painted red’ is probably true. To see why, suppose that Garcia also knows, not only that Jones really likes yellow cars but also that he was once struck by a red car and has had a strong aversion to red cars ever since. Then, even though it is antecedently likely that the car was not painted red given that Smith owns it, it is even more likely that it was not painted red given that Smith does not own it. This means that the fact that the car has recently been painted red is actually evidence that Smith is the owner! So from the fact that Smith really likes green cars it does not follow even inductively that, if Smith owns the car, then it was not recently painted red.

Similarly, from the fact that the non-existence of horrific suffering is antecedently likely given theism, it does not follow even inductively that, if God exists, then horrific suffering does not occur. To draw that conclusion, one would need to show, among other things, that the non-existence of horrific suffering is less likely on the assumption that God does not exist than it is on the assumption that God exists. And showing that is very difficult since, as I will explain in more detail later, it is far from clear what exactly one is assuming to be true when one assumes that the statement ‘God exists’ is false.

Bayesian Arguments from Evil

Problems such as these make me doubt that a convincing MT argument from evil can be constructed. I'm much more optimistic about what I call ‘Bayesian’ arguments from evil. (I call them this because the structure of the reasoning in these arguments can be analyzed, made precise, and defended by appealing to a theorem of mathematical probability called ‘Bayes' theorem’.) I'm more optimistic about these arguments for at least two reasons. First, they conclude only that, other evidence held equal , theism is very probably false and thus they do not presuppose without justification that there is no offsetting or even outweighing evidence in support of theism. Second, they avoid the problem faced by the second evidential MT argument discussed above by explicitly comparing the probability of certain facts about evil given theism to the probability of those facts given some relevant alternative hypothesis.

Bayesian arguments from evil (e.g. Draper 1989 ) have the following structure:

We know that e obtains.

e 's obtaining is antecedently many times more probable given some alternative hypothesis h to theism than it is given theism. 6

e 's obtaining is strong evidence favoring h over theism (i.e. our knowledge that e obtains increases the ratio of the probability of h to the probability of theism many-fold).

h is at least as plausible as theism (i.e. h is at least as probable as theism independent of all evidence for and against theism and h , or at least we have no good reason to believe otherwise).

Other evidence held equal, theism is very probably false.

The inferences in arguments of this sort are not as uncontroversial as the inference in an MT argument. However, Bayes' theorem supports the inference from steps 1 and 2 to step 3 so long as the claim that e 's obtaining is strong evidence favoring h over theism is understood to mean that our knowledge that e obtains increases the ratio of the probability of h to the probability of theism many-fold . Notice that the only way that a Bayesian argument could have a false conclusion (step 5) despite having a true sub-conclusion (step 3) is if theism were more probable than the alternative hypothesis h apart from considerations of evidence . Step 4 of the argument, however, states that this is not the case, that in fact h is at least as ‘plausible’ as theism. Therefore, step 5 follows from steps 3 and 4: in the absence of additional evidence besides e that favors theism over h , theism is very probably false. Notice that it also follows that in the absence of additional evidence besides e that strongly favors theism over h , theism is probably false.

I should mention also that the word ‘antecedently’ in the second premise of Bayesian arguments is crucial. What this means is that the probabilities being compared are not ‘all things considered’ probabilities. Instead, an abstraction is being made. Premise 2 claims that, independent of the observations and testimony upon which our knowledge specifically of e is based, e is much more probable given h than it is given theism. When assessing the probabilities in the second premise of a Bayesian argument, however, one should take into account most of what one knows, including that we live in a complex physical universe containing a variety of living things, some of which are conscious beings, some of which are self-aware beings, and some of which are moral agents. Some philosophers (like me) believe that at least some of these known facts are evidence strongly favoring theism over competing hypotheses. Even if that is so, it is not relevant to the evaluation of premise 2 of the argument, but instead is taken into account by the clause ‘other evidence held equal’ in the conclusion of the argument, which is to say that the conclusion of a Bayesian argument from evil is compatible with the claim that, on the total evidence, theism is probably true.

Like MT arguments, Bayesian arguments from evil vary depending on which facts about evil are used to replace the variable e . Unlike MT arguments, however, Bayesian arguments also vary because different hypotheses are chosen to replace the variable h . One natural choice is, of course, atheism. Consider, then, the following Bayesian argument from evil:

We know that horrific suffering exists.

The existence of horrific suffering is antecedently many times more probable on the assumption that God does not exist (atheism) than it is on the assumption that God exists (theism).

The existence of horrific suffering is strong evidence favoring atheism over theism.

Atheism is at least as plausible as theism.

This argument appears to be very convincing, but it does have one major flaw. Its second premise is not obviously true and it is hard to see how one could successfully argue for its truth.

Good reasons can, I believe, be given for believing that horrific suffering is unlikely given theism, but it is difficult to show that horrific suffering is any less unlikely given atheism. This is difficult to show because the probability of horrific suffering given atheism depends on what is likely to be true on the assumption that theism is false. For example, if theism is false, then naturalism might be true. Or perhaps panentheism is true. Or maybe pantheism or polytheism. Indeed, if theism is false, then isn't there a good chance that what is true is some non-theistic form of supernaturalism that can't even be understood by human beings because of their cognitive limitations? Some theists might think so. The point is that, even if we could agree on a list of serious possibilities and restrict our attention to those (estimating the probability of horrific suffering given atheism by taking a probability weighted average of the probability of horrific suffering on each of those possibilities), the calculation of the probability of horrific suffering given atheism would be prohibitively difficult.

William Rowe, whose 1996 argument from evil explicitly appeals to Bayes' theorem and uses atheism as the alternative to theism, ingeniously tries to circumvent this problem by using an evidence statement that is entailed by atheism and hence has a probability of one given atheism. Consider, for example, this evidence statement:

(R) For all goods g that we know of, g does not justify God in permitting horrific suffering.

Rowe's strategy yields the following Bayesian argument:

We know that R.

R is antecedently many times more probable on the assumption that God does not exist (atheism) than it is on the assumption that God exists (theism).

R reports strong evidence favoring atheism over theism.

Since a good can justify God's permitting horrific suffering only if God exists, atheism entails R and hence the probability of R given atheism is 1, which is, of course, greater than the probability of R given theism.

This argument faces two problems, however. The first is that, while R is obviously more probable on atheism than on theism, it is not clear that it is much (i.e. many times) more probable. Given theism and the existence of horrific suffering, perhaps it is not all that surprising that the goods that justify God's permitting horrific suffering are unknown to us. In any case, additional arguments would be needed to prove otherwise. If it cannot be shown that the probability of R given atheism is at least one order of magnitude greater than the probability of R given theism, then R is only relatively weak evidence for atheism and hence of little significance. The second problem is more serious in the sense that a solution seems impossible. This problem was first clearly identified by Richard Otte ( 2003 ). Unfortunately, the technical nature of Otte's point has resulted in the importance of his paper going largely unnoticed. I will briefly reconstruct Otte's reasoning here. Readers with no background in confirmation theory may wish to skip the next two paragraphs.

Although Otte himself does not put it exactly this way, the problem he identified is that the evidence statement R very subtly understates what we know about the relationship of goods we know of to horrific suffering. This makes it appear that there is a stronger case against theism based on ‘inscrutable evils’ than there really is. To see why, compare R with

(R*) For all goods g that we know of, either God exists and g does not justify God in permitting horrific suffering, or God does not exist and, if God were to exist, then g would not justify God in permitting horrific suffering.

R* entails R but is clearly not entailed by R since, unlike R, R* is not entailed by atheism. Further, our knowledge that R is true is based (at least in this context), not on any alleged knowledge that God does not exist but rather on the knowledge that R* is true. 7 The crucial point is that, while the understated evidence R is more probable on atheism than on theism, it is far from clear that the fully stated evidence R* is (and even less clear that it is much more probable on atheism than on theism). The mistake in reasoning here is essentially the same (though it is much harder to detect and is not intentional) as the mistake a prosecutor makes when he points out to a jury that a defendant accused of murder purchased a gun shortly before the victim was shot to death, neglecting to mention that the gun in question is a stun gun.

To appreciate this analogy, notice that the evidential argument from R is based on the fact that R is entailed by atheism and thus P(R/~T) = 1 〉 P(R/T). (Stated in English, this says that the probability of R given atheism equals one, which is greater than the probability of R given theism.) But given that theism is true, R can't be true unless R* is; while given that atheism is true, R can be true without R* being true. This means that, given theism and R, R* is certain, while given atheism and R, R* is not certain: P(R*/T&R) = 1 〉 P(R*/~T&R). Thus, relative to R, R* is evidence for theism! (Compare: the fact that the defendant bought a gun is more likely on the assumption that he killed the victim, but given that he did buy a gun, it is more likely that it is a stun gun given that he did not kill the victim.) It follows that the argument from R could be repaired only if it could be shown that P(R*/~T&R) 〉 P(R/T), from which it would follow that the fully stated evidence R* is more probable on atheism than on theism—i.e. that P(R*/~T) 〉 P(R*/T). [This would follow because R* entails R and so is logically equivalent to R&R*, which implies that, for any hypothesis h , P(R*/ h ) = P(R&R*/ h ) = P(R/ h ) × P(R*/R& h ).] Indeed, to avoid the additional objection that we are dealing only with relatively weak evidence here, what really needs to be shown is that P(R*/~T&R) 〉〉 P(R/T) and hence that P(R*/~T) 〉〉 P(R*/T), where the symbol ‘〉〉’ means ‘is many times greater than’. But showing that P(R*/~T&R) is many times greater than or even that it is greater than P(R/T) is no easy task since, as I pointed out earlier, it is far from clear what would be true on the assumption that theism is false, and thus it is very hard to see how any precise calculation of P(R*/~T&R) can be made. So if we replace R with R*, then we are back to the same problem that the argument from R was supposed to solve. And if we don't replace R with R*, then we achieve success only by misleadingly understating the relevant evidence. Either way, we don't have a powerful evidential argument from evil against theism.

I submit, then, that the best way to formulate a Bayesian argument from evil is to use a specific alternative hypothesis to theism instead of the general hypothesis that theism is false. While doing so will make the third premise of the argument (step 4) harder to defend, it will make the second premise much easier to defend. Not any more specific alternative will do, of course, even if it renders premise 2 true. For if it is too specific (e.g. if one simply builds the facts about evil mentioned in premise 1 into the hypothesis), then premise 4 will be either false or indefensible. Thus, choosing the correct hypothesis is crucial. One promising candidate is the ‘hypothesis of indifference’ or ‘HI’ for short (Draper 1989 ), which states that neither the nature nor the condition of sentient beings on earth is the result of actions performed by benevolent or malevolent non-human persons. (I will argue later that this hypothesis is more plausible than theism.) Now let ‘O’ stand for a statement reporting what we know about the pain and pleasure in the world. Using HI as the alternative hypothesis to theism and O as the evidence statement yields the following Bayesian argument from evil:

We know that O.

O is antecedently many times more probable on the assumption that HI is true than it is on the assumption that theism is true.

O is strong evidence favoring HI over theism.

HI is at least as plausible as theism.

Most of my 1989 article is devoted to defending premise 2 of this argument. Very roughly, I first make a prima facie case for premise 2 by arguing that we have much more reason on HI than we have on theism to expect that pain and pleasure will play the biological roles they do. After all, on HI, the fact that other parts of organic systems systematically promote survival and reproduction supports the claim reported by O that pain and pleasure will do the same. But on the assumption that theism is true, the moral significance of pain and pleasure undermines this support. On theism, it would not be surprising at all if pain and pleasure played a fundamentally moral role in the world without also playing the same biological roles that other parts of organic systems play. Further, even assuming that God would have a good moral reason to use pain and pleasure to promote the biological goals of survival and reproduction, what we know about biologically gratuitous pain and pleasure (e.g. that it includes horrific suffering and does not include an abundance of pleasure) is also more likely on HI than it is on theism.

I then turn this prima facie case for premise 2 into an ultima facie one by arguing for two further claims. The first is that, contrary to what the theodicist would have us believe, the known moral roles played by pain and pleasure in the world do not significantly raise the probability of O given theism. They may raise the probability of certain individual facts reported by O (e.g. the fact that suffering sometimes leads to improved moral character), but only by making other facts reported by O even more surprising (e.g. the fact that suffering is often demoralizing). The second claim is that, contrary to what the skeptical theist would have us believe, the possibility of God having moral reasons unknown to us to permit O does not undermine my case for premise 2, because God's having reasons to permit O that are unknown to us is no more likely antecedently than God's having reasons to prevent O that are unknown to us.

Of course, the skeptical theist could respond that the possibility of unknown justifying goods is not just supposed to defeat a prima facie case for premise 2, but instead prove that there is no such case to be defeated—that O, for example, is not even prima facie more probable on HI than on theism because it has no discernible probability on theism. In defense of this response, skeptical theists might assert that O has a discernible probability on theism only if the probability that a God would have a good reason to permit O is discernible. They might then argue that we are in no position to judge how likely or unlikely it is that a God would have a good reason to permit O. One problem (from a theistic perspective) with this response, however, is that it undermines evidential arguments in support of theism. Another more fundamental problem is that it ignores the role that background knowledge plays in conferring differential probabilities on O given various hypotheses. In addition, it assumes incorrectly that any probability that would, if known , affect a second probability must actually be known in order for that second probability to be known. If that assumption were true, skepticism about all non-trivial probability judgments would follow. 9

Turning now to premise 4, 10 it is important to realize that philosophers do not agree on how such a premise should be interpreted in the context of a Bayesian argument. Some philosophers believe that plausibility judgments are purely subjective. We just find ourselves taking some hypotheses seriously while dismissing others out of hand. The former we judge worthy of being tested by evidence, while the latter we ignore. If this is correct, then a Bayesian argument from evil like the one being considered may still be sound relative to the epistemic situations of those who take HI seriously (which I suspect includes most contemporary philosophers, including many philosophers who are theists), while it won't be sound relative to the epistemic situations of others for whom HI is not a live option.

Other philosophers believe that plausibility judgments are objective (or at least are subject to substantial objective constraints). For example, my own view is that the plausibility of a hypothesis should be equated with its intrinsic (epistemic) probability—the probability it has simply by virtue of what it asserts and what we know about the world by means of rational intuition. The intrinsic probability of a hypothesis depends on its coherence (in the sense of the degree to which the various statements it entails evidentially support one another 11 ) and its modesty (in the sense of the degree to which it is narrow in scope and lacks specificity). If plausibility is a function of coherence and modesty, then HI is at least as plausible as theism, because HI is no less coherent than theism, and it is considerably more modest.

Allow me to explain the latter point. The degree of modesty of a hypothesis depends on how little that hypothesis purports to tell us about the world that we do not already know by rational intuition. Relative to certain practical goals, a lack of modesty is often a virtue; but relative to the goal of truth, it is a vice. For the more that a hypothesis asserts that (for all we know by rational intuition) might be false, the more likely it is (prior to considering evidence) to assert something that is false, and hence, in the absence of evidence, the less likely it is to be true. HI is clearly more modest than theism. It is compatible with metaphysical naturalism (i.e. with the view that there are no ‘supernatural’ entities, no entities that can affect natural entities despite not being natural themselves), as well as with a variety of supernaturalist hypotheses. Theism, on the other hand, claims not only that all natural entities possess (proximate or remote) supernatural causes, but also that they depend for their existence on a single ultimate supernatural cause, and further that this cause is a person, and even more specifically an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person. Because of the great specificity of these claims, it is fairly safe to conclude that HI is considerably more plausible than theism and it is very safe to conclude that premise 4 is true—that HI is at least as plausible as theism. One might object that some theists maintain that God necessarily exists, but that won't make theism any less specific and thus won't raise the intrinsic probability of theism because we don't know by rational intuition that God's existence is necessary. In other words, even if God's existence is necessary, we can't just ‘see’ the necessity of the proposition ‘God exists’ in the way we can see the necessity of ‘all dogs are dogs’ and ‘2 + 2 = 4’.

Objections to Bayesian Arguments from Evil

In spite of their advantages over MT arguments, Bayesian arguments from evil have been challenged in several different ways. I will devote the remainder of this chapter to discussing some of the most common or important of these challenges.

One popular challenge concerns Bayesian arguments that use naturalism as the alternative hypothesis to theism. According to this challenge, evil can't be more probable on naturalism than on theism because nothing is evil (or good) if naturalism is true. Defenders of Bayesian arguments have two replies available to them. The first is to argue that naturalism does not rule out the existence of genuine evil—i.e. that some entities are bad, even on the assumption that naturalism is true. The second is to use an evidence statement that makes no value judgments; for example, it might simply describe the suffering in the world without either affirming or denying that suffering is bad. Such a statement could very well be antecedently more probable on naturalism than on theism. For while the facts reported by such an evidence statement might be unsurprising on naturalism whether or not suffering has negative value, they might be surprising on theism precisely because suffering would be objectively bad on the assumption that theism is true.

A second objection to Bayesian arguments is that facts about suffering must be more likely on theism than on any plausible alternative to theism because suffering cannot exist unless sentient beings exist and the existence of sentient beings is more likely given theism than it is given any plausible alternative to theism. This objection fails for two reasons. First, it overlooks the fact that, typically, knowledge of the existence of sentient beings would be part of the epistemic situation relative to which the probability judgments in a Bayesian argument from evil are made (and so would be part of the ‘other evidence held equal’ mentioned in the conclusion of the argument). Second, even in the case of a Bayesian argument that included the existence of sentient beings in its evidence statement, the inference in this objection would be incorrect. For example, suppose that the evidence statement in some Bayesian argument were ‘sentient beings exist and sometimes suffer horrifically’. It doesn't follow from the (alleged) fact that the existence of sentient beings is more likely on theism than on some alternative hypothesis h that the existence of sentient beings that suffer horrifically is not more likely or even much more likely on h than on theism.

A third objection to Bayesian arguments from evil is that they compare some atheistic hypothesis such as naturalism or HI to ‘generic’ or ‘mere’ theism rather than to a sectarian theistic hypothesis such as Christian theism or Jewish theism or Muslim theism. Thus, while they may create epistemic problems for generic theists (i.e. for theists who do not accept any specific revealed religion), they do not create any epistemic problems for Christian or Jewish or Muslim theists, especially since the evidence statements to which Bayesian arguments typically appeal are entailed by (and thus antecedently certain on) these sectarian theistic hypotheses (Otte 2004 ). The short answer to this objection is that sectarian theistic hypotheses entail theism and thus can't be more probable than theism. 12 Thus, any reason to believe that theism is improbable is also a reason to believe that Christian or Jewish or Muslim theism is improbable. Moreover, just because an evidence statement e is more probable on, say, Christian theism than on, say, naturalism, it doesn't follow that there is a good Bayesian argument from e against naturalism. For building e into a theistic hypothesis (e.g. by adding Bible stories about suffering and other evils to one's theistic hypothesis) will make that hypothesis very specific (immodest) and so much less probable intrinsically than a hypothesis such as naturalism. Further, the fact that the second premise of a Bayesian argument would be false if theism is replaced with ‘Christian theism’ in the argument is irrelevant. The failure of the revised argument does not imply that the original argument is not sound.

This is not to deny, however, that other religious (or non-religious) beliefs may be relevant to the issue of whether the second premise of a Bayesian argument from evil is true or false. Indeed, religious or ethical or metaphysical or epistemological beliefs could potentially raise P( e /T)—i.e. the antecedent probability of the evidence statement e given theism. To determine if they do, one should apply this ‘weighted average principle’:

P( e /T) = P(B/T) × P( e /T&B) + P(~ B/T) × P( e /T& ~ B).

The idea here is that, if B is, for example, some Christian belief, then P( e /T) will be an average of P( e /T&B) and P( e /T&~B). What makes it an average is the fact that P(B) + P(~B) = 1. But it is not necessarily a straight average because P(B/T) and P(~B/T) may not each equal ½. Thus, for example, if P(B/T) = ⅔ and P(~B/T) = ⅓, then P( e /T&B) is given twice as much weight as P( e /T&~B) in calculating the average.

Consider, for example, the belief that there is life after death (‘L’ for short). Suppose that P(L/T) were very high and also that P(O/L&T) were much greater than P(O/HI). Then the second premise of my evidential argument from evil would be false, because P(O/T) = P(L/T) × P(O/L&T) + P(~L/T) × P(O/~L&T). Of course, while I do believe that P(L/T) is high, I don't believe for a moment that P(O/L&T) is much greater than P(O/HI). The hypothesis that we will survive death explains very little of what we know about pain and pleasure. The point I want to make here, however, is that there is a precise method for evaluating the relevance of other religious and non-religious beliefs to Bayesian arguments from evil. The same method should be used to evaluate how successful various theodicies or defenses are in undermining (the second premise of) a Bayesian argument from evil.

The last objection to Bayesian arguments that I will consider, one raised by Alvin Plantinga ( 1996 , 2000 , 2007 ), is that Bayesian arguments from evil are insignificant, even if they are sound, because there is overwhelming non-propositional (or prepositional) evidence favoring theism over atheism. 13 If it were obvious that such other evidence exists (or even if it were obvious to all theists that this other evidence exists), then this objection might be more convincing. Clearly, however, this is not obvious, even to theists. Many theists (let alone atheists and agnostics) reject the natural theologian's position that there is overwhelmingly strong propositional evidence for God's existence, and many theists reject Plantinga's position that there is very strong non-propositional evidence for beliefs about God. Concerning the latter, Plantinga himself emphasizes that he cannot prove his position; his goal is just to show that the existence of such evidence is epistemically possible and that, if (Christian) theism is true, then it is likely that many theists know that God exists because of such evidence. I find even this modest claim hard to accept. Even if God exists, the behavior of most theists in a variety of circumstances suggests that they lack the sort of deep confidence in their beliefs about God that would be necessary for genuine knowledge. Many don't even claim to have such knowledge, and many who do claim to have such knowledge betray their deep uncertainty by undermining that claim with qualifications (e.g. ‘I know in my heart not my head’) or by behaving in a variety of other ways (e.g. feeling terror in the face of imminent death) that would be inappropriate or surprising for someone who truly had such knowledge.

There are, in my opinion, additional problems with Plantinga's sophisticated form of apologetics, 14 but I have no space in this chapter to discuss them. Instead, let's suppose that I am wrong about all this. Let's suppose that it is perfectly reasonable for most theists to be unmoved by Bayesian arguments from evil because they possess overwhelming non-propositional evidence in support of theism. Even supposing all that, it still does not follow that Bayesian arguments from evil are insignificant. It does follow that they are of no interest to Plantinga , because he is interested primarily in the question of whether what we know about evil threatens the rationality or (external) warrant of ‘most’ theists or perhaps most traditional Christian theists. Plantinga's mistake, however, is to assume that the significance of an argument from evil depends on its proving that most theistic belief is irrational or unwarranted. In other words, he assumes incorrectly that the significance of alethic problems of evil derives solely from their relationship to other doxastic problems of evil. The reason that this is a mistake (a mistake also made in Draper 1991 ) is that there are many people who, like me, don't believe they already know that God exists (or that God doesn't exist), and for that reason believe that it is appropriate and important to engage, not in apologetics, but in genuine inquiry designed to determine, to the best of their ability, whether or not God exists. Included here are agnostics as well as theists and atheists who have doubts about God's existence or non-existence. These skeptical souls have little choice but to do their best objectively to assess the available evidence. Thus, for them, the fact that O or some other statement about evil reports strong evidence favoring HI (or some other serious alternative to theism) over theism is of great significance. For them, a Bayesian argument from evil, if sound, is very important indeed. Notice also that for them, indeed for anyone who doubts that God exists, it doesn't help to be told by Plantinga that, if God does exist, then some or even most theists probably know he does!

For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter, I am grateful to Tom Flint, Mike Rea, and William Rowe. I am also indebted to various members of the philosophy department at the University of Georgia, where I presented a draft of most of the paper as part of their Kleiner Lecture Series.

No doubt the most important problems of evil are practical, but since I do not believe in God, those problems are not, for me, theological and thus are not relevant to this volume.

For a defense of this choice, see Swinburne 2004 , ch. 5 .

I am indebted to Nelson Pike for most of the points in this and the preceding paragraph.

The previous seven paragraphs, as well as some of the points I make in the remainder of this section and the next, also appear in Draper 2007 .

The first of these arguments is similar to William Rowe's ( 1979 , 1986 ) early evidential arguments from evil, and the second is similar to J. L. Schellenberg's ( 2000 ) evidential argument from evil. I do not wish to claim, however, that these two arguments do justice to Rowe's and Schellenberg's sophisticated arguments from evil. Although I hope that my criticisms of these two arguments will suggest strategies that could be used successfully to refute Rowe's and Schellenberg's arguments, proving that is beyond the scope of this chapter.

One might wonder why I require of a Bayesian argument from evil that e 's obtaining be many times more probable on the alternative hypothesis than on theism. After all, if this phrase were deleted from premise 2, it would still follow from the premises of a Bayesian argument from evil that, other evidence held equal, theism is probably false (though it would no longer follow that, other evidence held equal, theism is very probably false). My reason for restricting the class of Bayesian arguments in this way is that very many facts are slightly more or less probable on various alternatives to theism than they are on theism. So Bayesian arguments from evil that don't meet this higher standard are of little or no significance.

In claiming that we know that R* is true, I assume here that none of the attempts that have been made to explain horrific suffering in terms of theism has succeeded. If this assumption is incorrect, then horrific suffering should be replaced with some other sort of evil or, following Rowe, some particular evil for which the corresponding assumption is correct.

See Draper 2004 for a description of important differences between Philo's evidential argument from evil and my own.

For a detailed defense of skeptical theism, see Bergmann's Ch. 17 in this volume. For a detailed defense of my argument from evil against skeptical theism, see Draper 1996 .

I do not defend or even explicitly state premise 4 of the argument in my 1989 article. It is implicit in my requirement in that paper that HI be a ‘serious’ alternative to theism.

Consider the following two statements: (1) ‘ball #1 is red and ball #2 is red’ and (2) ‘ball #1 is red and ball #2 is green’. These two statements are equally specific, but the first is intrinsically more probable than the second because it is more coherent.

For a much longer answer, see Draper 2004 .

Plantinga appears to reject the reasoning in Bayesian arguments from evil, but many of the examples he uses to challenge that reasoning involve alternative hypotheses that, unlike HI, are far less plausible than the hypothesis to which they are being compared. And the rest of his examples involve hypotheses that, unlike theism, are obviously supported by overwhelming propositional or non-propositional evidence. Since a Bayesian argument from evil could be sound even if there were such overwhelming counterevidence in support of theism, I take the point of these examples to be to challenge the significance instead of the soundness of Bayesian arguments from evil.

See e.g. Sennett 1998 . Sennett argues convincingly that, in order for a class of beliefs (e.g. memory beliefs or beliefs about God) to be directly justified, giving beliefs of that sort prima facie credence in the appropriate circumstances must be unavoidable, practically speaking. If this appealing criterion of ‘proper basicality’ is correct, then beliefs about God, unlike memory beliefs, are not directly justified or warranted by non-propositional evidence.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The problem of evil.

This article is divided into four sections. The first is concerned with some preliminary distinctions; the second, with alternative formulations of the argument from evil; the third, with different versions of the inductive argument from evil; the fourth, with important responses to the argument from evil.

1. Some Important Distinctions

2. the choice between incompatibility formulations and evidential formulations.

3. Evidential Formulations of the Argument from Evil

4. Responses to the Argument from Evil: Refutations, Defenses, and Theodicies

Bibliography, other internet resources, related entries, 1.1 relevant concepts of god.

On the other hand, there are interpretations that connect up in a clear and relatively straightforward way with religious attitudes, such as those of worship, and with very important human desires, such as the desire that, at least in the end, good will triumph, and justice be done, and the desire that the world not be one where death marks the end of the individual's existence, and where, ultimately, all conscious existence has ceased to be.

What properties must something have if it is to be an appropriate object of worship, and if it is to provide reason for thinking that there is a reasonable chance that the fundamental human hopes just mentioned will be fulfilled? A natural answer is that God must be a person, and who, at the very least, is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and morally very good. But if such a being exists, then it seems initially puzzling why various evils exist. For many of the very undesirable states of affairs that the world contains are such as could be eliminated, or prevented, by a being who was only moderately powerful, while, given that humans are aware of such evils, a being only as knowledgeable as humans would be aware of their existence. Finally, even a moderately good human being, given the power to do so, would eliminate those evils. Why, then, do such undesirable states of affairs exist, if there is a being who is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good?

What one has here, however, is not just a puzzle, since the question can, of course, be recast as an argument for the non-existence of God. Thus if, for simplicity, we focus on a conception of God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, one very concise way of formulating such an argument is as follows:

If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
Evil exists.
If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil.
Therefore, God doesn't exist.

That this argument is valid is perhaps most easily seen by a reductio argument, in which one assumes that the conclusion -- (7) -- is false, and then shows that the denial of (7), along with premises (1) through (6), leads to a contradiction. Thus if, contrary to (7), God exists, it follows from (1) that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. This, together with (2), (3), and (4) then entails that God has the power to eliminate all evil, that God knows when evil exists, and that God has the desire to eliminate all evil. But when (5) is conjoined with the reductio assumption that God exists, it then follows via modus ponens from (6) that either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil. Thus we have a contradiction, and so premises (1) through (6) do validly imply (7).

Whether the argument is sound is, of course, a further question, for it may be that one of more of the premises is false. The point here, however, is simply that when one conceives of God as unlimited with respect to power, knowledge, and moral goodness, the existence of evil quickly gives rise to potentially serious arguments against the existence of God.

Is the situation different if one shifts to a deity who is not omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect? The answer depends on the details. Thus, if one considers a deity who is omniscient and morally perfect, but not omnipotent, then evil presumably would not pose a problem if such a deity were conceived of as too remote from Earth to prevent the evils we find here. But given a deity who falls considerably short of omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection, but who could intervene in our world to prevent many evils, and who knows of those evils, it would seem that an argument rather similar to the above could be formulated by focusing not on the mere existence of evil, but upon the existence of evils that such a deity could have prevented.

But what if God, rather than being characterized in terms of knowledge, power, and goodness, is defined in some more metaphysical way - for example, as the ground of being, or as being itself? The answer will depend on whether, having defined God in such purely metaphysical terms, one can go on to argue that such a entity will also possess at least very great power, knowledge, and moral goodness. If so, evil is once again a problem.

By contrast, if God is conceived of in a purely metaphysical way, and if no connection can be forged between the relevant metaphysical properties and the possession of significant power, knowledge, and goodness, then the problem of evil is irrelevant. But when that is the case, it would seem that God thereby ceases to be a being who is either an appropriate object of religious attitudes, or a ground for believing that fundamental human hopes are not in vain.

1.2 Incompatibility Formulations versus Inductive Formulations

Alternatively, rather than being formulated as a deductive argument for the very strong claim that it is logically impossible for both God and evil to exist, (or for God and certain types, or instances, or a certain amount of evil to exist), the argument from evil can instead be formulated as an evidential (or inductive/probabilistic) argument for the more modest claim that there are evils that actually exist in the world that make it unlikely - or perhaps very unlikely - that God exists.

The choice between incompatibility formulations and evidential formulations is discussed below, in section 2.

1.3 Abstract Versus Concrete Formulations

To formulate the argument from evil in terms of the mere existence of any evil at all is to abstract to the greatest extent possible from detailed information about the evils that are found in the world, and so one is assuming, in effect, that such information cannot be crucial for the argument. But is it clear that this is right? For might not one feel that while the world would be better off without the vast majority of evils, this is not so for absolutely all evils? Thus, some would argue, for example, that the frustration that one experiences in trying to solve a difficult problem is outweighed by the satisfaction of arriving at a solution, and therefore that the world is a better place because it contains such evils. Alternatively, it has been argued that the world is a better place if people develop desirable traits of character - such as patience, and courage - by struggling against obstacles, including suffering. But if either of these things is the case, then the prevention of all evil might well make the world a worse place.

It seems possible, then, that there might be evils that are logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, and this possibility provides a reason, accordingly, for questioning one of the premises in the argument set out earlier - namely, premise (4), where it is claimed that if God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.

But there is also another reason why that claim is problematic, which arises out of a particular conception of free will - namely, a libertarian conception. According to this view of free will, and in contrast with what are known as compatibilist approaches, free will is incompatible with determinism, and so it is impossible even for an omnipotent being to make it the case that someone freely chooses to do what is right.

Many people claim, however, that the world is a better place if it contains individuals who possess libertarian free will, rather than individuals who are free only in a sense that is compatible with one's actions being completely determined. If this claim can be made plausible, one can argue, first, that God would have a good reason for creating a world with individuals who possessed libertarian free will, but secondly, that if he did choose to create such a world, even he could not ensure that no one would ever choose to do something morally wrong. The good of libertarian free will requires, in short, the possibility of moral evil.

The upshot is that the idea that either the actuality of certain undesirable states of affairs, or at least the possibility, may be logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, is not without some initial plausibility, and if some such claim can be sustained, it will follow immediately that the mere existence of evil cannot be incompatible with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being.

How does this bear upon evidential formulations of the argument from evil? The answer would seem to be that if there can be evils that are logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, then it is hard to see how the mere existence of evil - in the absence of further information - can provide much in the way of evidence against the existence of God.

Details concerning such things as how suffering and other evils are distributed over individuals, and the nature of those who undergo the evils, are, then, of crucial importance. Thus it is relevant, for example, that many innocent children suffer agonizing deaths. It is relevant that animals suffer, and that they did so before there were any persons to observe their suffering, and to feel sympathy for them. It is relevant that, on the one hand, the suffering that people undergo apparently bears no relation to the moral quality of their lives, and, on the other, that it bears a very clear relation to the wealth and medical knowledge of the societies in which they live.

The prospects for a successful abstract version of the argument from evil would seem, therefore, rather problematic. It is conceivable, of course, that the correct moral principles entail that there cannot be any evils whose actuality or possibility makes for a better world. But to attempt to set out a version of the argument from evil that requires a defense of that thesis is certainly to swim upstream. A much more promising approach, surely, is to focus, instead, simply upon those evils that are thought, by the vast majority of people, to pose at least a prima facie problem for the rationality of belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.

Given that the preceding observations are rather obvious ones, one might have expected that discussions of the argument from evil would have centered mainly upon concrete formulations of the argument. Rather surprisingly, that has not been so. Indeed, some authors seem to focus almost exclusively upon very abstract versions of the argument.

One of the more striking illustrations of this phenomenon is provided by Alvin Plantinga's discussions of the problem of evil. In God and Other Minds , in The Nature of Necessity , and in God, Freedom, and Evil , for example, Plantinga, starting out from an examination of John L. Mackie's essay “Evil and Omnipotence”, in which Mackie had defended an incompatibility version of the argument from evil, focuses mainly on the question of whether the existence of God is compatible with the existence of evil, although there are also short discussions of whether the existence of God is compatible with the existence of a given quantity of evil, and of whether the existence of a certain amount of evil renders the existence of God unlikely. (The latter topic is then the total focus of attention in his long article, “The Probabilistic Argument from Evil”.)

This view is very implausible. For not only can the argument from evil be formulated in terms of specific evils, but that is the natural way to do so, given that it is only certain types of evils that are generally viewed as raising a serious problem with respect to the rationality of belief in God. To concentrate exclusively on abstract versions of the argument from evil is therefore to ignore the most plausible and challenging versions of the argument.

1.4 Axiological Versus Deontological Formulations

There exist states of affairs in which animals die agonizing deaths in forest fires, or where children undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer, and that (a) are intrinsically bad or undesirable, and (b) are such that any omnipotent person has the power to prevent them without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good.
For any state of affairs (that is actual), the existence of that state of affairs is not prevented by anyone.
There is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person.
God does not exist.

As it stands, this argument is deductively valid. [ 2 ] (Here is a proof .) However it is likely to be challenged in various ways. In particular, one vulnerable point is the claim, made in the last part of statement (1), that an omnipotent and omniscient person could have prevented those states of affairs without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good, and when this is challenged, an inductive step will presumably be introduced, one that moves from what we know about the undesirable states of affairs in question to a conclusion about the overall value of those states of affairs, all things considered -- including things that may well lie outside our ken.

But the above argument is subject to a very different sort of criticism, one that is connected with a feature of the above argument which seems to me important, but which is not often commented upon -- the fact, namely, that the above argument is formulated in terms of axiological concepts, that is, in terms of the goodness or badness, the desirability or undesirability, of states of affairs. The criticism that arises from this feature centers on statement (3), which asserts that an omniscient and morally perfect being would prevent the existence of any states of affairs that are intrinsically bad or undesirable, and whose prevention he could achieve without either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good. For one can ask how this claim is to be justified. One answer that might be offered would be that some form of consequentialism is true -- such as, for example, the view that an action that fails to maximize the balance of good states of affairs over bad states of affairs is morally wrong. But the difficulty then is that any such assumption is likely to be a deeply controversial assumption that many theists would certainly reject.

The problem, in short, is that any axiological formulation of the argument from evil, as it stands, is incomplete in a crucial respect, since it fails to make explicit how a failure to bring about good states of affairs, or a failure to prevent bad states of affairs, entails that one is acting in a morally wrong way. Moreover, the natural way of removing this incompleteness is by appealing to what are in fact controversial ethical claims, such as the claim that the right action is the one that maximizes expected value. The result, in turn, is that discussions may very well become sidetracked on issues that are, in fact, not really crucial -- such as, for example, the question of whether God would be morally blameworthy if he failed to create the best world that he could.

The alternative to an axiological formulation is a deontological formulation. Here the idea is that rather than employing concepts that focus upon the value or disvalue of states of affairs, one instead uses concepts that focus upon the rightness and wrongness of actions, and upon the properties -- rightmaking properties and wrongmaking properties -- that determine whether an action is one that ought to be performed, or ought not to be performed, other things being equal. When the argument is thus formulated, there is no problematic bridge that needs to be introduced connecting the goodness and badness of states ofaffairs with the rightness and wrongness of actions.

The problem with that premise, as we saw, is that it can be argued that some evils are such that their actuality, or at least the possibility, is logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, in which case it is not true that a perfectly good being would want to eliminate such evils.

In section 1.4, a much more concrete version of an incompatibility argument was set out, which, rather than appealing to the mere existence of some evil or other, appealed to specific types of evil - in particular, situations where animals die agonizing deaths in forest fires, or where children undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer. The thrust of the argument was then that, first of all, an omniscient and omnipotent person could have prevented the existence of such evils without thereby either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods, and, secondly, that any omniscient and morally perfect person will prevent the existence of such evils if that can be done without either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods.

The second of these claims avoids the objections that can be directed against the stronger claim that was involved in the argument set out in section 1.1 - that is, the claim that if God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil. But the shift to the more modest claim requires that one move from the very modest claim that evil exists to the stronger claim that there are certain evils that an omniscient and omnipotent person could have prevented the existence of such evils without thereby either allowing equal or greater evils, or preventing equal or greater goods, and the question arises as to how that claim can be supported. In particular, can it be established by means of a purely deductive argument?

Consider, in particular, the relevant premise in the more concrete version of the argument from evil set out in section 1.4, namely:

How would one go about establishing, via a purely deductive argument that a deer's suffering a slow and painful death because of a forest fire, or a child's undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer, is not logically necessary either to achieve a greater good or to avoid a greater evil? If one had knowledge of the totality of morally relevant properties, then it might well be possible to show both that there are no greater evils that can be avoided only at the cost of the evil in question, and that there are no greater goods that are possible only given that evil. Do we have such knowledge? Some moral theorists would claim that we do, and that it is possible to set out a complete an corect moral theory. But this is certainly a highly controversial metaethical claim, and, as a consequence, the prospects for establishing a premise such as (1) via a deductive argument do not appear promising, given the present state of moral theory.

If a premise such as (1) cannot, at least at present, be established deductively, then the only possibility, it would seem, is to offer some sort of inductive argument in support of the relevant premise. But if this is right, then it is surely best to get that crucial inductive step out into the open, and thus to formulate the argument from evil not as a deductive argument for the very strong claim that it is logically impossible for both God and evil to exist, (or for God and certain types, or instances, of evil to exist), but as an evidential (inductive/probabilistic) argument for the more modest claim that there are evils that actually exist in the world that make it unlikely that God exists.

3. Inductive Versions of the Argument from Evil

3.1 arguments.

The first and the third approaches are found, for example, in articles by William Rowe, while the second approach has been set out and defended by Paul Draper. These three approaches will be considered in the sections that follow.

3.2 Direct Inductive Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

3.2.1 a concrete, deontological, and direct inductive formulation.

Both the property of intentionally allowing an animal to die an agonizing death in a forest fire, and the property of allowing a child to undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer, are wrongmaking characteristics of an action, and very serious ones.
Our world contains animals that die agonizing deaths in forest fires, and children who undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer.
An omnipotent being could prevent such events, if he knew that those events were about to occur.
An omniscient being would know that such events were about to occur.
If there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then there are cases where he intentionally allows animals to die agonizing deaths in forest fires, and children to undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer.
If there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then there are specific cases of such a being's intentionally allowing animals to die agonizing deaths in forest fires, and children to undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer, that have wrongmaking properties such that there are no rightmaking characteristics -- including ones that we are not aware of -- that both apply to the cases in question, and that are also sufficiently serious to counterbalance the relevant wrongmaking characteristics.
If there is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then that being both intentionally refrains from performing certain actions in situations where it is morally wrong to do so, all things considered, and knows that he is doing so.
There is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being.

When the argument from evil is formulated in this way, it involves nine premises, set out at steps (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (7), (10), (13), and (16). Statement (1) makes a moral claim, but one that, setting aside the question of the existence of objective values, is surely very plausible. Statement (2) makes an empirical claim, and one that is surely true. Statements (3) and (4) are true by virtue of the concepts of omnipotence and omniscience, together with the nature of the events in question, while statement (5) is true by virtue of the concept of intentional action.. Statement (7) follows from the relevant facts about the world, together with facts about the moral knowledge that we possess. Statement (10) obtains by virtue of the concepts of rightmaking and wrongmaking characteristics, together with the concept of an action's being wrong, all things considered. Statement (13) follows from the concept of moral perfection, while statement (16) simply states what is involved in the concept of God that is relevant here. So all of the premises seem fine.

As regards the logic of the argument, all of the steps are deductive except for one -- namely, the non-deductive move from (8) to (9). The deductive inferences, however, are all valid. The argument stands or falls, accordingly, with the inference from (8) to (9). The crucial questions, accordingly, are, first, exactly what the form of that inductive inference is, and, secondly, whether it is sound.

3.2.2 A Natural Account of the Logic of the Inductive Step

One philosopher who has suggested that this is the case is William Rowe, in his 1991 article, “Ruminations about Evil”. Let us consider, then, whether that view can be sustained.

( P ) No good state of affairs that we know of is such that an omnipotent, omniscient being's obtaining it would morally justify that being's permitting E 1 or E 2 .

The good states of affairs I know of, when I reflect on them, meet one or both of the following conditions: either an omnipotent being could obtain them without having to permit either E 1 or E 2 , or obtaining them wouldn't morally justify that being in permitting E 1 or E 2 . (1991, 72)

( Q ) No good state of affairs is such that an omnipotent, omniscient being's obtaining it would morally justify that being's permitting E 1 or E 2 .” (1991, 72)

( P ) No good that we know of has J . Therefore, probably: ( Q ) No good has J .

we are justified in inferring Q (No good has J ) from P (No good we know of has J ) only if we have a good reason to think that if there were a good that has J it would be a good that we are acquainted with and could see to have J . For the question can be raised: How can we have confidence in this inference unless we have a good reason to think that were a good to have J it would likely be a good within our ken? (1991, 73)

My answer is that we are justified in making this inference in the same way we are justified in making the many inferences we constantly make from the known to the unknown. All of us are constantly inferring from the A s we know of to the A s we don't know of. If we observe many A s and note that all of them are B s we are justified in believing that the A s we haven't observed are also B s. Of course, these inferences may be defeated. We may find some independent reason to think that if an A were a B it would likely not be among the A s we have observed. But to claim that we cannot be justified in making such inferences unless we already know, or have good reason to believe, that were an A not to be a B it would likely be among the A s we've observed is simply to encourage radical skepticism concerning inductive reasoning in general. (1991, 73)

One is entitled to infer Q from P only if she has a good reason to think that if some good had J it would be a good that she knows of.
One is entitled to infer Q from P only if she has no reason to think that if some good had J it would likely not be a good that she knows of.

In view of the last point, Rowe concludes that “one important route for the theist to explore is whether there is some reason to think that were a good to have J it either would not be a good within our ken or would be such that although we apprehend this good we are incapable of determining that it has J .” (1991, 74)

3.2.3 An Evaluation of this Account of the Inductive Step

We are justified in believing that all the A s that we haven't observed are also B s
We are justified in believing of each of the A s that we haven't observed that that A is also a B .

Let us consider, then, the relevance of this distinction. On the one hand, Rowe is certainly right that any criticism that claims that one is not justified in inferring (2) unless one has additional information to the effect that unobserved A s are not likely to differ from observed A s with respect to the possession of property B entails inductive skepticism. But, by contrast, it is not true that this is so if one rejects, instead, the inference to (1).

This is important, moreover, because it is (1) that Rowe needs, since the conclusion that he is drawing does not concern simply the next morally relevant property that someone might consider: conclusion Q asserts, rather, that all further morally relevant properties will lack property J . Such a conclusion about all further cases is much stronger than a conclusion about the next case, and one might well think that in some circumstances a conclusion of the latter sort is justified, but that a conclusion of the former sort is not.

One way of supporting the latter claim is by arguing (Tooley, 1977, 690-3, and 1987, 129-37) that when one is dealing with an accidental generalization , the probability that the regularity in question will obtain gets closer and closer to zero, without limit, as the number of potential instances gets larger and larger, and that this is so regardless of how large one's evidence base is. Is it impossible, then, to justify universal generalizations? The answer is that if laws are more than mere regularities -- and, in particular, if they are second-order relations between universals -- then the obtaining of a law, and thus of the corresponding regularity, may have a very high probability upon even quite a small body of evidence. So universal generalizations can be justified, if they obtain in virtue of underlying laws.

The question then becomes whether Q expresses a law -- or a consequence of a law. If -- as seems plausible -- it does not, then, although it is true that one in justified in holding, of any given, not yet observed morally relevant property, that it is unlikely to have property J , it may not be the case that it is probable that no goodmaking (or rightmaking) property has property J . It may , on the contrary, be probable that there is some morally relevant property that does have property J .

3.3 Indirect Inductive Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

There may four hypotheses be framed concerning the first causes of the universe: that they are endowed with perfect goodness, that they are endowed with perfect malice, that they are opposite and have both goodness and malice, that they have neither goodness nor malice. Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles. And the uniformity and steadiness of general laws seems to oppose the third. The fourth, therefore, seems be far the most probable. (1779, Part XI, 212)

Hume advanced, then, an evidential argument from evil that has a distinctly different logical form than that involved in direct inductive arguments, for the idea is to point to some proposition that is logically incompatible with theism, and then to argue that that, given facts about undesirable states of affairs to be found in the world, that hypothesis is more probable than theism, and, therefore, that theism is more likely to be false than to be true.

( HI ) neither the nature nor the condition of sentient beings on earth is the result of benevolent or malevolent actions performed by nonhuman persons.

(1) Pr ( O / HI ) > Pr ( O / T ) (Substantive premise) (2) Pr ( O / HI ) = Pr ( O & HI )/ Pr ( HI ) (Definition of conditional probability) Therefore (3) Pr ( O & HI )/ Pr ( HI ) > Pr ( O / T ) (From (1) and (2).) (4) Pr ( O / T ) = Pr ( O & T )/ Pr ( T ) (Definition of conditional probability) Therefore (5) Pr ( O & HI )/ Pr ( HI ) > Pr ( O & T )/ Pr ( T ) (From (3) and (4).) (6) Pr ( O & HI ) = Pr ( HI / O ) × Pr ( O ) (From the definition of conditional probability) Therefore (7) Pr ( O & HI ) /Pr ( HI ) = Pr ( HI / O ) × Pr ( O )/ Pr ( HI ) (From (6).) Therefore (8) Pr ( HI / O ) × Pr ( O )/ Pr ( HI ) > Pr ( O & T )/ Pr ( T ) (From (5) and (7).) (9) Pr ( O & T ) = Pr ( T / O ) × Pr ( O ) (From the definition of conditional probability) Therefore (10) Pr ( O & T )/ Pr ( T ) = Pr ( T / O ) × Pr ( O )/ Pr ( T ) (From (9).) Therefore (11) Pr ( HI / O ) × Pr ( O )/ Pr ( HI ) > Pr ( T / O ) × Pr ( O )/ Pr ( T ) (From (8) and (10).) (12) Pr ( O / T ) 0 (Axiom of probability theory) Therefore (13) Pr ( O / HI ) > 0 (From (1) and (12).)

(14) Pr ( HI ) > 0, (Substantive premise) (15) Pr ( OI / HI ) × Pr ( HI ) = Pr ( O & HI ) = Pr ( HI / O ) × Pr ( O ) (From the definition of conditional probability) Therefore (16) Pr ( O ) > 0, (From (13), (14) and (15).)

(17) Pr ( HI / O ) > Pr ( T / O ) × Pr ( HI )/ Pr ( T ) (18) HI entails ~ T (Substantive premise) Therefore (19) Pr (~ T / O ) Pr ( HI / O ) (From (18).) Therefore (20) Pr (~ T / O ) > Pr ( T / O ) × Pr ( HI )/ Pr ( T ) (From (17) and (19).) (21) Pr ( HI ) Pr ( T ) (Substantive premise) Therefore (22) Pr (~ T / O ) > Pr ( T / O ) (From (20) and (21).) (23) O entails [( T & O ) or (~ T & O )] and [( T & O ) or (~ T & O )] entails O (Logical truth) Therefore (24) Pr ( T & O ) + Pr (~ T & O ) = Pr ( O ) (From (23).)

(25) Pr ( T & O )/ Pr ( O ) + Pr (~ T & O )/ Pr ( O ) = Pr ( O )/ Pr ( O ) = 1 Therefore (26) Pr ( T / O ) + Pr (~ T / O ) = 1 (From (25).) Therefore (27) Pr ( T ) < 0.5 (From (22) and (26).)

There are various points at which this argument might be criticized. First, it might be argued that the substantive premise introduced at (18) is not obviously true. For might it not be logically possible that there was an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being who created a neutral environment in which evolution could take place in a chancy way, and who afterwards did not intervene in any way? But, if so, then while T would be true, HI might also be true -- as it would be if there were no other nonhuman persons. So, at the very least, it is not clear that HI entails ~ T .

Secondly, the substantive premise introduced at (21) also seems problematic. Draper supports it be arguing that whereas the hypothesis of theism involves some ontological commitment, the Hypothesis of Indifference does not. But, on the other hand, the latter involves a completely universal generalization about the absence of any action upon the earth by any nonhuman persons, of either a benevolent or malevolent sort, and it is far from clear why the prior probability of this being so should be greater than the prior probability of theism.

There exists an omnipotent and omniscient person who created the Universe and who has no intrinsic concern about the pain or pleasure of other beings. (1989, 26)

Thirdly, it can be objected that the argument does not really move far beyond two of its three crucial assumptions - the assumptions set out, namely, at steps (18) and (21), to the effect that HI I entails ~ T , and Pr ( HI ) * Pr ( T ). For given those assumptions, it follows immediately that Pr ( T ) * 0.5, and so the rest of the argument merely moves from that conclusion to the conclusion that Pr ( T ) < 0.5.

(1 + ) Pr ( O / HI ) = Pr ( O / T ) + k [ 5 ] .

(*) Pr ( T ) < 0.5 - k × Pr ( HI )/2 × Pr ( O )

(Here is the derivation .) Then, provided that one can estimate k, Pr ( HIO , and Pr ( O ), one will be able to determine a lower bound for the amount that Pr ( T ) is less than 0.5.

Fourthly, objections can be directed at the arguments that Draper offers in support of a third substantive premise -- namely, that introduced at (1). Some of the objections directed against this premise are less than impressive -- and some seem quite desperate, as in the case, for example, of Peter van Inwagen, who has to appeal to quite an extraordinary claim about the conditions that one must satisfy in order to claim that a world is logically possible:

One should start by describing in some detail the laws of nature that govern that world. (Physicists' actual formulations of quantum field theories and the general theory of relativity provide the standard of required “detail.”) One should then go on to describe the boundary conditions under which those laws operate; the topology of the world's space-time, its relativistic mass, the number of particle families, and so on. Then one should tell in convincing detail the story of cosmic evolution in that world: the story of the development of large objects like galaxies and of stars and of small objects like carbon atoms. Finally, one should tell the story of the evolution of life. (1991, 146)

Such objections tend to suggest that any flaws in Draper's argument in support of the crucial premise are less than obvious. Nevertheless, given that the argument that Draper offers in support of the premise at (1) involves a number of detailed considerations, very careful scrutiny of those arguments would be needed before one could conclude that he premise is justified.

(1 & ) Pr ( O & O* / HI ) > Pr ( O & O* / T ) ?

At the very least, it would seem that (1 & ) is much more problematic than (1). But if that is right, then the above, Draper-style argument, even if all of its premises are true, is not as significant as it may initially appear, since if (1 & ) is not true, the conclusion that theism is more likely to be false than to be true can be undercut by introducing additional evidence of a pro-theist sort.

3.4 Bayesian-Style Probabilistic Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

3.4.1 a summary of rowe's bayesian argument.

( P ) No good that we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting E 1 and E 2 ; ( G ) There is an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being.

(C1) Pr ( G / P & k ) < Pr ( G / k ) (C2) Pr ( G / P & k ) < 0.5.

The first conclusion, then, is that the probability that God exists is lower given the combination of P together with our background knowledge than it is given our background knowledge alone. Thus P disconfirms G in the sense of lowering the probability of G . The second conclusion is that P disconfirms G in a different sense -- namely, it, together with our background knowledge, makes it more likely than not that G is false.

(1) Pr ( P /~ G & k ) = 1 (2) Pr (~ G / k ) > 0 (3) Pr ( P / G & k ) < 1

Fourthly, all three assumptions are surely eminently reasonable. As regards (1), it follows from the fact that for any two propositions q and r , if q entails r then Pr ( r / q ) = 1, together with the fact that Rowe interprets P in such a way that ~ G entails P , since he interprets P as saying that it is not the case that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being together with some known good that justifies that being in allowing E 1 and E 2 . As regards (2) and (3), it certainly seems plausible that there is at least some non-zero probability that God does not exist, given our background knowledge -- here one is assuming that the existence of God is not logically necessary -- and also some non-zero probability that no good that we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting E 1 and E 2 . Moreover, if the existence of God is neither a logically necessary truth nor entailed by our background knowledge, and if the existence of God together with our background knowledge does not logically entail that no good that we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting E 1 and E 2 , then one can support (2) and (3) by appealing to the very plausible principle that the probability of r given q is equal to one if and only if q entails r .

(4) Pr ( G / k ) 0.5

3.4.2 The Flaw in the Argument

In fact, however, Rowe's argument is unsound. The reason is connected with the point that while inductive arguments can fail, just as deductive arguments can, either because their logic is faulty, or their premises false, inductive arguments can also fail in a way that deductive arguments cannot, in that they may violate a principle -- namely, the Total Evidence Requirement -- which I shall be setting out below, and Rowe's argument is defective in precisely that way.

Pr ( G / P & k ) < 0.5.

(1) Pr ( P /~ G & k ) = 1 (2) Pr (~ G / k ) > 0 (3) Pr ( P / G & k ) < 1 (4) Pr ( G / k ) 0.5

Either God does not exist, or there is a pen in my pocket.

Statements (1) and (3) will both be true given that replacement, while statements (2) and (4) are unaffected, and one will be able to derive the same conclusions as in Rowe's Bayesian argument. But if this is so, then the theist can surely claim, it would seem, that the fact that Rowe's ‘P’ refers to evil in the world turns out to play no crucial role in Rowe's new argument!

This objection, however, is open to the following reply. The reason that I am justified in believing the proposition that either God does not exist or there is a pen in my pocket is that I am justified in believing that there is a pen in my pocket. The proposition that either God does not exist or there is a pen in my pocket therefore does not represent the total evidence that I have. But the argument cannot be set out in terms of the proposition that does represent one's total evidence -- namely, the proposition that there is a pen in my pocket -- since that proposition is not entailed by ~ G .

The Total Evidence Requirement : For any proposition that is not non-inferentially justified, the probability that one should assign to that proposition's being true is the probability that the proposition has relative to one's total evidence.

Pr ( G / P & k ) < 0.5

No good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting E 1 and E 2

No good we know of would justify God, ( if he exists ) in permitting E 1 and E 2 (1996, 283)

(1*) Pr ( P */~ G & k ) = 1

3.4.3 Can Rowe's Argument Be Revised?

(5) Pr ( P */~ G & k ) > Pr ( P */ G & k ).

1. Pr ( P */~ G & k ) = Pr ( P * & ~ G / k )/ Pr (~ G & k ) 2. Pr ( P */ G & k ) = Pr ( P * & G / k )/ Pr ( G & k ) 3. Pr ( P */~ G & k ) > Pr ( P */ G & k ) [Assumption (5)] 4. Pr ( P * & ~ G / k )/ Pr (~ G & k ) > Pr ( P * & G / k )/ Pr ( G & k ) [From 1, 2, and 3] 5. Pr (~ G / P * & k ) = Pr (~ G & P */ k )/ Pr ( P * & k ) 6. Pr ( G / P * & k ) = Pr ( G & P */ k )/ Pr ( P * & k ) 7. Pr (~ G / P * & k )/ Pr (~ G & k ) > Pr ( G / P * & k )/ Pr ( G & k ) [From 4, 5, 6, and 7] 8. Pr ( G / k ) 0.5 [Assumption (4)] 9. Pr (~ G / k ) > Pr ( G / k ) [From 8] 10. Pr (~ G / P * & k ) > Pr ( G / P * & k ) [From 7 and 9]

But now the problem is that assumption (5), in contrast to assumptions (1), (2), (3), and (4), is a deeply controversial claim. For while it is true that if God does not exist, then evils such as E 1 and E 2 , which are not justified by any good that we know of, will in all probability arise by the operation of morally blind laws of nature, it might be argued that, even if God does exist, evils such as E 1 and E 2 may very well arise, either because it is good if events happen in a generally regular way, or even because God will sometimes facilitate the occurrence of events such as E 1 and E 2 , for the sake of some greater good that we have no knowledge of. So it is not at all easy to see why assumption (5) is justified,

(5*) Pr ( P */ Q & k ) > Pr ( P */~ Q & k ).

(4*) Pr (~ Q / k ) 0.5.

Pr ( Q / P * & k ) > Pr (~ Q / P * & k )

The latter, however, would serve to justify the inductive step from P to Q in the argument from evil. So given the apparent plausibility of (4*), any grounds that one has for questioning the inductive step in the earlier, non-Bayesian versions of the argument are likely to translate into grounds for questioning, first of all, proposition (5*), and secondly, the closely connected proposition (5).

The upshot is that if one tries to avoid the objection that Rowe's original Bayesian argument violates the total evidence requirement by shifting to a modified argument that involves assumption (5), one is faced both with the problem of showing why (5) is plausible, and, even more seriously, with the objection that assumption (5) is tantamount to the assumption that the inductive step involved in direct inductive formulations of the argument is sound. The revised argument therefore begs, in effect, the crucial question.

4.1 Refutations, Defenses, and Theodicies

If the latter thesis is correct, the argument from evil does not even get started. Such responses to the argument from evil are naturally classified, therefore, as attempted, total refutations of the argument.

The proposition that relevant facts about evil do not make it even prima facie unreasonable to believe in the existence of God probably strikes most philosophers, of course, as rather implausible. We shall see, nevertheless, that a number of philosophical theists have attempted to defend this type of response to the argument from evil.

The alternative course is to grant that there are facts about intrinsically undesirable states of the world that make it prima facie unreasonable to believe that God exists, but then to argue that belief in the existence of God is not unreasonable, all things considered. This response may take, however, two slightly different forms. One possibility is the offering of a complete theodicy . As I shall use that term, this involves, first of all, describing, for every actual evil found in the world, some state of affairs that it is reasonable to believe exists, and which is such that, if it exists, will provide an omnipotent and omniscient being with a morally sufficient reason for allowing the evil in question; and secondly, establishing that it is reasonable to believe that all evils, taken collectively, are thus justified.

It should be noted here that the term “theodicy” is sometimes used in a stronger sense, according to which one who offers a theodicy is attempting to show not only that such morally sufficient reasons exist, but that the reasons cited are in fact God's reasons. Alvin Plantinga (1974a, 10; 1985a, 35) and Robert Adams (1985, 242) use the term in that way, but, as has been pointed out by a number of writers, including Richard Swinburne (1988, 298), and William Hasker (1988, 5), that is to saddle the theodicist with an unnecessarily ambitious program.

The other possibilility is that of offering a defense . But what is a defense? In the context of abstract, incompatibility versions of the argument from evil, this term is generally used to refer to attempts to show that there is no logical incompatibility between the existence of evil and the existence of God. But as soon as one focuses upon evidential formulations of the argument from evil, a different interpretation is needed if the term is to remain a useful one. So I shall understand a defense to be any attempt to show only that it is likely that there are reasons which would justify an omnipotent and omniscient being in not preventing the evils that we find in the world, even if we do not know what they are. A defense differs from a theodicy, then, in that it attempts to show only that some God-justifying reasons probably exist; it does not attempt to specify what they are.

4.2 Attempted Total Refutations

4.2.1 human epistemological limitations.

The appeal to human cognitive limitations does raise a very important issue, and we have seen that one very natural account of the logical form of the inductive step in the case of a direct inductive argument is not satisfactory. But there may very well be some other account that is satisfactory. In addition, the appeal to human cognitive limitations does not show that there is anything wrong either with the reasoning that Draper offers in support of the crucial premise in his indirect inductive version of the argument from evil, or with the inference to the best explanation type of reasoning employed in the updated version of Hume's indirect inductive formulation of the argument from evil.

4.2.2 The ‘No Best of All Possible Worlds' Response

This response to the argument from evil has been around for awhile. In recent years, however, it has been strongly advocated by George Schlesinger (1964, 1977), and, more recently, by Peter Forrest (1981) -- though Forrest, curiously, describes the defense as one that has been “neglected”, and refers neither to Schlesinger's well-known discussions, nor to the very strong objections that have been directed against this response to the argument from evil.

The natural response to this attempt to refute the argument from evil was set out very clearly some years ago by Nicholas La Para (1965) and Haig Khatchadourian (1966) among others, and it has been developed in an especially forceful and detailed way in an article by Keith Chrzan (1987). The basic thrust of this response is that the argument from evil, when properly formulated in a deontological fashion, does not turn upon the claim that this world could be improved upon, or upon the claim that it is not the best of all possible worlds: it turns instead upon the claim that there are good reasons for holding that the world contains evils, including instances of suffering, that it would be morally wrong, all things considered, for an omnipotent and omniscient being to allow. As a consequence, the proposition that there might be better and better worlds without limit is simply irrelevant to the argument from evil.

If one accepts a deontological approach to ethics, this response seems decisive. Many contemporary philosophers, however, are consequentialists, and so one needs to consider how the ‘no best of all possible worlds' response looks if one adopts a consequentialist approach.

(1) An action is, by definition, morally right if and only if it is, among the actions that one could have performed, the one that produces the greatest value; (2) An action is morally wrong if and only if it is not morally right; (3) If one is an omnipotent and omniscient being, then for any action whatever, there is always some other action that produces greater value.

Then it surely follows that it is impossible for an omnipotent and omniscient being to perform a morally wrong action, and therefore that the failure of such a being to prevent various evils in this world cannot be morally wrong.

Consider an omnipotent and omniscient being that creates a world with zillions of innocent persons, all of whom endure extraordinarily intense suffering for ever. If (1), (2), and (3) are right, then such a being does not do anything morally wrong. But this conclusion, surely, is unacceptable, and so if a given version of consequentialism entails this conclusion, then that form of consequentialism must be rejected.

Can consequentialism avoid this conclusion? Can it be formulated in such a way that it captures the view that allowing very great, undeserved suffering is morally very different, and much more serious, than merely refraining from creating as many happy individuals as possible, or merely refraining from creating individuals who are not as ecstatically happy as they might be. If it cannot, then it would seem that the correct conclusion is that consequentialism is unsound. On the other hand, if consequentialism can be so formulated that this distinction is captured, then an appeal to consequentialism, thus formulated, will not enable one to avoid the crucial objection to the ‘no best of all possible worlds’ response to the argument from evil.

4.2.3 The Appeal to the Ontological Argument

If the ontological argument were sound, it would provide a rather decisive refutation of the argument from evil. For in showing not merely that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect being, but that it is necessary that such a being exists, it would entail that the proposition that God does not exist must have probability zero on any body of evidence whatever.

A more satisfying response to the ontological argument would, of course, show not merely that the ontological argument is unsound, but precisely why it is unsound. Such a response, however, requires a satisfactory account of the truth conditions of modal statements -- something that lies outside the scope of this article

4.3 Attempted Defenses

4.3.1 the appeal to positive evidence for the existence of god.

Starting out from this line of thought, a number of philosophers have gone on to claim that in order to be justified in asserting that there are evils in the world that establish that it is unlikely that God exists, one would first have to examine all of the traditional arguments for the existence of God, and show that none of them is sound. Alvin Plantinga, for example, says that in order for the atheologian to show that the existence of God is improbable relative to one's total evidence, “he would be obliged to consider all the sorts of reasons natural theologians have invoked in favor of theistic belief -- the traditional cosmological, teleological and ontological arguments, for example.” (1979, 3) And in a similar vein, Bruce Reichenbach remarks:

With respect to the atheologian's inductive argument from evil, the theist might reasonably contend that the atheologian's exclusion of the theistic arguments or proofs for God's existence advanced by the natural theologian has skewed the results. (1980, 224)

But this view seems mistaken. Consider the cosmological argument. In some versions, the conclusion is that there is an unmoved mover. In others, that there is a first cause. In others, that there is a necessary being, having its necessity of itself. None of these conclusions involve any claims about the moral character of the object in question, let alone the claim that it is a morally perfect person. But in the absence of such a claim, how could such arguments, even if they turned out to be sound, serve to undercut the argument from evil?

The situation is not essentially different in the case of the argument from order. For while that argument, if it were sound, would provide grounds for drawing some tentative conclusion concerning the moral character of the designer or creator of the universe, the conclusion in question would not be one that could be used to overthrow the argument from evil. For given the mixture of good and evil that one finds in the world, the argument from order can hardly provide support even for the existence of a designer or creator who is very good, let alone one who is morally perfect. So it is very hard to see how the teleological argument, any more than the cosmological, can overturn the argument from evil.

A similar conclusion can be defended with respect to other arguments, such as those that appeal to purported miracles, or religious experiences. For while in the case of religious experiences it might be argued that personal contact with a being may provide additional evidence concerning the person's character, it is clear that the primary evidence concerning a person's character must consist of information concerning what the person does and does not do. So, contrary to the claim advanced by Robert Adams (1985, 245), even if there were veridical religious experiences, they would not provide one with a satisfactory defense against the argument from evil.

A good way of underlining the basic point here is by setting out an alternative formulation of the argument from evil in which it is granted, for the sake of argument, that there is an omnipotent and omniscient person. The result of doing this is that the conclusion at which one arrives is not that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person, but, rather, that, although there is an omnipotent and omniscient person, that person is not morally perfect.

When the argument from evil is reformulated in that way, it becomes clear that the vast majority of considerations that have been offered as reasons for believing in God can be of little assistance to the person who is trying to resist the argument from evil. For most of them provide, at best, very tenuous grounds for any conclusion concerning the moral character of any omnipotent and omniscient being who may happen to exist, and almost none of them provides any support for the hypothesis that there is an omnipotent and omniscient being who is also morally perfect.

4.3.2 Belief in the Existence of God as Non-Inferentially Justified

The reason emerges if one considers the epistemology of perception. Some philosophers hold that some beliefs about physical objects are non-inferentially justified, while others hold that this is never so, and that justified beliefs about physical states of affairs are always justified via an inference to the best explanation that starts out from beliefs about one's experiences. But direct realists as much as indirect realists admit that there can be cases where a person would be justified in believing that a certain physical state of affairs obtained were it not for the fact that he has good evidence that he is hallucinating, or else subject to perceptual illusion. Moreover, given evidence of the relevant sort, it makes no difference whether direct realism is true, or indirect realism: the belief in question is undermined to precisely the same extent in either case.

4.3.3 Induction Based on Partial Success

What Swinburne says here is surely very reasonable, and I can see no objection in principle to a defense of this sort. The problem with it is that no theodicy that has ever been proposed has been successful in the relevant way -- that is, there is no impressive range of undesirable states of affairs where people initially believe that the wrongmaking properties of allowing such states of affairs to exist greatly outweigh any rightmaking properties associated with doing so, but where, confronted with some proposed theodicy, people come to believe that it would be morally permissible to allow such states of affairs to exist. Indeed, it is hard to find any such cases, let alone an impressive range.

4.4. Theodicies

… we cannot see why our world, with all its ills, would be better than others we think we can imagine, or what , in any detail, is God's reason for permitting a given specific and appalling evil. Not only can we not see this, we can't think of any very good possibilities. And here I must say that most attempts to explain why God permits evil -- theodicies , as we may call them -- strike me as tepid, shallow and ultimately frivolous. (1985a, 35)

4.4.1 A Soul-Making Theodicy

The value-judgement that is implicitly being invoked here is that one who has attained to goodness by meeting and eventually mastering temptation, and thus by rightly making responsibly choices in concrete situations, is good in a richer and more valuable sense than would be one created ab initio in a state either of innocence or of virtue. In the former case, which is that of the actual moral achievements of mankind, the individual's goodness has within it the strength of temptations overcome, a stability based upon an accumulation of right choices, and a positive and responsible character that comes from the investment of costly personal effort. (1977, 255-6)

Is this theodicy satisfactory? There are a number of reasons for holding that it is not. First, what about the horrendous suffering that people undergo, either at the hands of others -- as in the Holocaust -- or because of terminal illnesses such as cancer? One writer -- Eleonore Stump -- has suggested that the terrible suffering that many people undergo at the end of their lives, in cases where it cannot be alleviated, is to be viewed as suffering that has been ordained by God for the spiritual health of the individual in question. (1993b, 349). But, given that it does not seem to be true that terrible terminal illnesses more commonly fall upon those in bad spiritual health than upon those of good character, let alone that they fall only upon the former, this ‘spiritual chemotherapy’ view seems quite hopeless. More generally, there seems to be no reason at all why a world must contain horrendous suffering if it is to provide a good environment for the development of character in response to challenges and temptations.

Secondly, and is illustrated by the weakness of Hick's own discussion (1977, 309-17), a soul-making theodicy provides no justification for the existence of any animal pain, let alone for a world where predation is not only present but a major feature of non-human animal life. The world could perfectly well have contained only human persons, or only human person plus herbivores.

Thirdly, the soul-making theodicy provides no account either of the suffering that young, innocent children endure, either because of terrible diseases, or at the hands of adults. For here, as in the case of animals, there is no soul-making purpose that is served.

4.4.2 Free Will

One problem with an appeal to libertarian free will is that no satisfactory account of the concept of libertarian free will is yet available. Thus, while the requirement that, in order to be free in the libertarian sense, an action not have any cause that lies outside the agent is unproblematic, this is obviously not a sufficient condition, since this condition would be satisfied if the behavior in question was caused by random events within the agent. So one needs to add that the agent is, in some sense, the cause of the action. But how is the causation in question to be understood? Present accounts of the metaphysics of causation typically treat causes as states of affairs. If, however, one adopts such an approach, then it seems that all that one has when an action is freely done, in the libertarian sense, is that there is some uncaused mental state of the agent that causally gives rise to the relevant behavior, and why freedom, thus understood, should be thought valuable, is far from clear.

The alternative is to shift from event-causation to what is referred to as ‘agent-causation’. But then the problem is that there is no satisfactory account of agent-causation.

But even if the difficulty concerning the nature of libertarian free will is set aside, there are still very strong objections to the free-will approach. First, and most important, the fact that libertarian free will is valuable does not entail that one should never intervene in the exercise of libertarian free will. Indeed, very few people think that one should not intervene to prevent someone from committing rape or murder. On the contrary, almost everyone would hold that a failure to prevent heinously evil actions when one can do so would be seriously wrong.

Secondly, the proposition that libertarian free will is valuable does not entail that it is a good thing for people to have the power to inflict great harm upon others. So individuals could, for example, have libertarian free will, but not have the power to torture and murder others.

Thirdly, many evils are caused by natural processes, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and other weather conditions, and by a wide variety of diseases. Such evils certainly do not appear to result from morally wrong actions. If that is right, then an appeal to free will provides no answer to an argument from evil that focuses upon such evils.

Some writers, such as C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga, have suggested that such evils may ultimately be due to the immoral actions of supernatural beings (Lewis, 1957, 122-3; Plantinga, 1974a, 58). If that were so, then the first two objections mentioned above would apply: one would have many more cases where individuals were being given the power to inflict great harm on others, and then were being allowed by God to perform horrendously evil actions leading to enormous suffering and many deaths. In addition, however, it can plausibly be argued that, though it is possible that earthquakes, hurricanes, cancer, and the predation of animals are all caused by malevolent supernatural beings, the probability that this is so is extremely low.

4.4.3 The Freedom to Do Great Evil

This variant on the appeal to libertarian free will is also open to a number of objections. First, as with free will theodicies in general, this line of thought provides no justification for the existence of what appear to be natural evils.

Secondly, if what matters is simply the existence of alternative actions that differ greatly morally, this can be the case even in a world where one lacks the power to inflict great harm on others, since there can be actions that would benefit others enormously, and which one may either perform or refrain from performing.

4.4.4 The Need for Natural Laws

This type of theodicy is also exposed to serious objections. First, what natural evils a world contains depends not just on the laws, but on the initial, or boundary conditions. Thus, for example, an omnipotent being could create ex nihilo a world which had the same laws of nature as our world, and which contained human beings, but which was devoid of non-human carnivores. Or the world could be such that there was unlimited room for populations to expand, and ample natural resources to support such populations.

Secondly, many evils depend upon precisely what laws the world contains. An omnipotent being could, for example, easily create a world with the same laws of physics as our world, but with slightly different laws linking neurophysiological states with qualities of experiences, so that extremely intense pains either did not arise, or could be turned off when they served no purpose. Or additional physical laws of a rather specialized sort could be introduced that would cause very harmful viruses to self-destruct.

Thirdly, this final theodicy provides no account of moral evil. If other theodicies could provide a justification for God's allowing moral evil, that would not be a problem. But, as we have seen, no satisfactory justification appears to be available.

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The Problem of Evil

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“The problem of evil” is one of the most discussed objections to the existence of God and is a top reason many unbelievers give for their unbelief. These objectors argue that since there are so many cases of significant pain and suffering in the world that God could easily prevent, the fact that all this evil was not prevented means it is very unlikely (if not impossible) that God exists.

“The problem of evil” appeals to the phenomenon of evil (significant cases of pain and suffering) as evidence against the existence of God. For many, this evidence appears decisive, because if God existed, he would be powerful enough to prevent such evil, and good enough to want to prevent such evil. Since there is evil, no such powerful and good being exists. For the past two millennia Christians have typically urged two points in reply: theodicy and inscrutability. First, God may very well have a good reason for allowing the evil he does allow – a reason compatible with his holy and good character – and the way of theodicy goes on to list a number of these reasons. Second, the fact that unbelievers may not be able to discern or correctly guess at God’s justifying reason for allowing evil is no good reason to think he doesn’t have a reason. Given the infinity of God’s omniscience, the complexity of his providence, the depth of the goods he aims at, and our own substantial cognitive limitations, we shouldn’t expect to guess God’s reasons.

What Is the Problem of Evil?

The so-called “problem of evil” is an argument against the existence of God that reasons along these lines:

A perfectly powerful being can prevent any evil.
A perfectly good being will prevent evil as far as he can.
God is perfectly powerful and good.
So, if a perfectly powerful and good God exists, there will be no evil.
There is evil.
Therefore, God doesn’t exist.

“Evil,” here is understood as any significant case of pain and suffering in the world, whether “moral” (evil willfully caused by human beings such as murder, adultery, theft, rape, etc.) or “natural” evil (harm caused by impersonal forces of nature such as earthquakes, tornadoes, plague, etc.).

Responding to the Problem of Evil

Nonstarters.

A Christian must be truthful and face the question honestly. It will not do to deny that evil exists (#5 above), for evil is the very presumption of the gospel. Nor can we deny that God could prevent evil (#1 above) or that he is perfect in power and goodness (#3). However, we can (and should) question the second premise above – that a perfectly good God must prevent all evil – for it doesn’t necessarily follow from God’s perfect goodness that he will prevent every evil he can prevent. Perhaps God has a good reason for permitting evil rather than preventing it; if so, then his permission of evil is justified and doesn’t militate against his goodness.

The Ways of Theodicy and Inscrutability

Our response the problem of evil, then, may take either of two approaches. We may argue that the second premise above is false and seek to demonstrate that it is false by showing God’s reasons for permitting evil – the way of “theodicy.” Or we could argue that the second premise is unproven because unbelievers can’t rule out God’s having a good reason for permitting evil – the way of “inscrutability.”

The way of theodicy (from the Greek theos , “God,” and dikaios , “just”; hence, a justification of the ways of God in his dealings with men) seeks to demonstrate God’s reasons for permitting evil. The idea is that by allowing evil God attains greater good than possible apart from evil. The way of theodicy shows that premise (2) is false, arguing that God wouldn’t prevent every evil he could prevent.

The way of inscrutability argues, more modestly, that no one knows that premise (2) is true because no one can know enough to conclude that God doesn’t have good reason for permitting evil. We just cannot grasp God’s knowledge, the complexity of his plans, or the deep nature of the good he aims at in providence. And there is no proof that God does not have good reasons for allowing evil, but because he is good we can only assume that he does. Here we don’t have to come up with ‘theodicies’ to defend God against the problem of evil. Rather, the way of inscrutability shows that it is entirely to be expected that creatures like us can’t come up with God’s reasons, given who God is and who we are.

The Way of Theodicy

Two popular theodicies that have no biblical basis ..

Some theodicies that have been offered lack solid biblical grounding. The free will theodicy , for example, argues that moral evil is due to human abuse of free will. The value of free will is a great good: the possibility of morally good choice and of human beings imaging God by way of these choices. But free will has the unfortunate consequence of allowing for the possibility of moral evil. In response to this we might ask, if free will of this sort is so valuable then why doesn’t God have it, and why won’t we have it in heaven?

The natural law theodicy argues that natural evil is due to the laws of nature. The value of laws of nature is a great good: a stable environment needed for making rational choices of any sort. But laws of nature have the unfortunate consequence of allowing for the possibility of natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.). In response to this we might ask, if a stable environment requires the possibility of natural evil by requiring laws of nature then why isn’t there any natural evil in the pre-fall Garden of Eden or in the new heavens and the new earth?

Four popular theodicies have some biblical basis

By contrast, at least four theodicies have been offered that have some biblical basis. The punishment theodicy argues that suffering is a result of God’s just punishment of evildoers (Gen 3:14-19; Rom 1:24-32, 5:12, 6:23, 8:20-21; Isa 29:5-6; Ezek 38:19; Rev 6:12; 11:13; 16:18). In punishment God aims at the good of displaying his judgment against sin. The soul-building theodicy argues that suffering leads us from self-centeredness to other-centeredness (Heb 12:5-11; Rom 5:3-5; 2Cor 4:17; Jas 1:2-4; 1Pet 1:6-7; cf. Prov 10:13, 13:24; 22:15; 23:13-24, 29:15). In painful providences God aims at the good of displaying his goodness in shaping our character for good. The pain as God’s megaphone theodicy argues that pain is God’s way of getting the attention of unbelievers in a noncoercive way so that they might forget the vanities of earth, consider spiritual things instead, and perhaps even repent of sin (Luke 13:1-5). In pain God aims at the good of displaying his mercy that through such warnings we might be delivered from the wrath to come. The higher-order goods theodicy says that some goods can’t exist apart from the evils to which they are a response. There is no courage without danger, no sympathy without suffering, no forgiveness without sin, no atonement without suffering, no compassion without need, no patience without adversity. God must often allow lots of evils to make these goods a part of his world, given how these goods are defined (Eph 1:3-10; 1Pet 1:18-20).

These theodicies fall under the umbrella of the “greater good theodicy.”

A “greater good theodicy” (GGT) argues that the pain and suﬀering in God’s world play a necessary role in bringing about greater goods that could not be brought about otherwise. The question that remains, then, is just this: does the Bible really teach that God aims at great goods by way of various evils?

Constructing the “Greater Good Theodicy”: a Three-Fold Argument for Three Biblical Themes

Our argument here is that Scripture combines the ways of theodicy and inscrutability . The biblical accounts of Job, Joseph, and Jesus reveal the goodness of God in the midst of evil, weaving together these three themes:

God aims at great goods (either for mankind, or for himself, or both).
God often intends these great goods to come about by way of various evils .
God leaves created persons in the dark (in the dark about which goods are indeed his reasons for the evils, or about how the goods depend on the evils).

Thus, the Bible seems to strongly suggest that the GGT (God’s aiming at great goods by way of various evils) is in fact his modus operandi in providence, his “way of working.” But this GGT is tempered by a good dose of divine inscrutability.

The Case of Job

In the case of Job God aims at a great good: his own vindication – in particular, the vindication of his worthiness to be served for who he is rather than for the earthly goods he supplies (Job 1:11; 2:5). God intends the great good of the vindication of his own name to come to pass by way of various evils . These are a combination of moral evil and natural evil (Job 1:15, 16, 17, 19, 21-22; 2:7, 10; 42:11). God also leaves Job in the dark about what God is doing , for Job has no access to the story’s prologue in chapter 1. And when God speaks to him “out of the whirlwind” he never reveals to Job why he suffered. Instead, Job’s ignorance of the whole spectrum of created reality is exposed (Job 38:4-39:30; 40:6-41:34), and Job confesses his ignorance of both creation and providence (Job 40:3-5; 42:1-6).

The Case of Joseph

In the case of Joseph we find the same. God aims at great goods: saving the broader Mediterranean world from a famine, preserving his people amid such danger, and (ultimately) bringing a Redeemer into the world descended from such Israelites (Matt 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). God intends the great good of the preservation of his people from famine to come to pass by way of various evils (Gen 45:5, 7; Psa 105:16-17), including Joseph’s betrayal, being sold into slavery, and suffering unjust accusation and imprisonment (Gen 37, 39). Joseph sees these evils as the means of God’s sovereign providence (Gen 50:20). But God leaves Joseph’s brothers, the Midianite traders, Potiphar’s wife, and the cupbearer in the dark . None of these people knew the role their blameworthy actions would play in preserving God’s people in a time of danger. They had no clue which goods depended on which evils, or that the evils would even work toward any goods at all.

The Case of Jesus

And in the case of Jesus we see the same again. God aims at great goods: the redemption of his people by the atonement of Christ and the glorification of God in the display of his justice, love, grace, mercy, wisdom, and power. God intends the great good of atonement to come to pass by way of various evils : Jewish plots (Matt 26:3-4, 14-15), Satan’s promptings (John 13:21-30), Judas’s betrayal (Matt 26:47-56; 27:3-10; Luke 22:22), Roman injustice (Matt 26:57-68), Pilate’s cowardice (Matt 27:15–26), and the soldiers’ brutality (Matt 27:27-44). But God leaves various created agents (human and demonic) in the dark , for it is clear that the Jewish leaders, Satan, Judas, Pilate, and the soldiers are all ignorant of the role they play in fulfilling the divinely prophesied redemptive purpose by the cross of Christ (Acts 2:23, 3:18, 4:25-29; John 13:18, 17:12, 19:23-24).

Licensing and Limiting the GGT

In each narrative, the first two themes highlight the way of theodicy (God aiming at great goods by way of evils), while the third theme highlights the way of inscrutability (left to ourselves, we cannot discern what God’s reasons are for any case of evil). By way of the first two themes Scripture repeatedly encourages the view that God has a justifying reason for permitting the evils of the world. That is what’s right with the way of theodicy. But Scripture, by way of the third theme, repeatedly discourages the view that we can ever know what that reason is in any particular case of evil. That is what’s right with the way of inscrutability. In contemporary philosophy, these are usually presented as two different ways to solve the problem of evil (theodicy and inscrutability). However, the Bible seems to combine these two ways when it speaks of God’s relation to the evils in the world. That is, it licenses the greater good theodicy as an overall perspective on evil, but wisely limits that perspective in a way that is instructive for both Christians and non-Christians.

Licensing the GGT: God’s Sovereignty over All Evil

God’s sovereignty over natural evil.

It is one thing to acknowledge God’s sovereign and purposeful providence over the moral and natural evils mentioned in the Job, Joseph, and Jesus narratives. It is quite another to claim that God is sovereign over all moral and natural evils. But this is what the Bible repeatedly teaches. This takes us a considerable way towards licensing the GGT as a general approach to the problem of evil. The Bible presents multitudes of examples of God intentionally bringing about natural evils – famine, drought, rampaging wild animals, disease, birth defects such as blindness and deafness, and even death itself – rather than being someone who merely permits nature to ‘do its thing’ on its own. Here are some samples:

Famine (Deut 32:23-24; 2Kgs 8:1; Psa 105:16; Isa 3:1; Ezek 4:16, 5:16-17, 14:13, 14:21; Hos 2:9; Amos 4:6, 9; Hag 2:17)
Drought (Deut 28:22; 1Kgs 8:35; Isa 3:1; Hos 2:3; Amos 4:6-8; Hag 1:11)
Rampaging wild animals (Lev 26:22; Num 21:6; Deut 32:23-24; 2Kgs 17:25; Jer 8:17; Ezek 5:17, 14:15, 14:21, 33:27)
Disease (Lev 26:16, 25; Num 14:12; Deut 28:21-22, 28:27; 2Kgs 15:5; 2Chron 21:14, 26:19-20)
Birth defects such as blindness and deafness (Exod 4:11; John 9:1-3)
Death itself (Deut 32:39; 1Sam 2:6-7)
Ten Egyptian plagues (Exod 7:14-24, 8:1-15, 8:16-19, 8:20-32, 9:1-7, 9:8-12, 9:13-35, 10:1-20, 10:21-29, 11:4-10, 12:12-13, 12:27-30)
‘Impersonal’ forces and objects (Psa 65:9-11, 77:18, 83:13-15, 97:4, 104:4, 104:10-24, 107:25, 29, 135:6-7, 147:8, 147:16-18, 148:7-8, Jonah 1:4, Nah 1:3-4, Zech 7:14, Matt 5:45, Acts 14:17)

God’s Sovereignty over Moral Evil

In addition, and perhaps surprisingly, the Bible presents God as having such meticulous control over the course of human history that a wide range of moral evils – murder, adultery, disobedience to parents, rejecting wise counsel, even human hatred – can be regarded as “of the Lord.” Without erasing or suppressing the intentionality of creatures – and this includes their deliberations, their reasoning, their choosing between alternatives they consider and reflect upon – God’s own intentionality stands above and behind the responsible choices of his creatures. Again, some samples:

Eli’s sons’ disobedience (1Sam 2:23-25)
Samson’s desire for a foreign wife (Jdg 14:1-4)
Absalom, Rehoboam, and Amaziah rejecting wise counsel (2Sam 17:14; 1Kgs 12:15; 2Chron 25:20)
Assassination (2Chron 22:7, 9, 32:21-22)
Adultery (2Sam 12:11-12, 16:22)
Human hatred (Psa 105:23-25; Exod 4:21; Deut 2:30, 32; Josh 11:20; 1Kgs 11:23, 25; 2Chron 21:16-17)

God’s Sovereignty over All Evil

So the Job, Joseph, and Jesus passages are not anomalies, but part and parcel of a more general view the Bible takes on the subject, with respect to both natural and moral evil. Indeed, in addition to this large swath of ‘particular’ texts about individual cases of evil, there are quite a few “universal” texts which seem to trace all calamities, all human decision-making, all events whatsoever, back to the will of God.

God’s sovereignty over all calamity (Ecc 7:13-14; Isa 45:7; Lam 3:37-38; Amos 3:6)
God’s sovereignty over all human decision-making (Prov 16:9, 19:21, 20:24, 21:1; Jer 10:23)
God’s sovereignty over all events whatsoever (Psa 115:3; Prov 16:33; Isa 46:9-10; Rom 8:28, 11:36; Eph 1:11)

Limiting the GGT: The Inscrutability of God’s Purposes

Establishing the burden of proof.

Of course, each specific theodicy mentioned earlier has significant limitations. For instance, the Bible frequently discourages the idea that the punishment theodicy can explain all evils in the world (Job 1:1, 1:8, 2:3, 42:7-8; John 9:1-3; Acts 28:1-6). More generally, Christians can never know enough about a person’s situation, or about God’s purposes, to rule in a specific theodicy as being God’s reason for permitting evil in a particular case. In fact, it would be entirely presumptuous to do so. But if he who affirms must prove, then the question in the problem of evil is not whether Christians know enough to “rule in” the applicability of a theodicy on any particular occasion, but whether critics know enough to “rule out” the applicability of any theodicy. But how could a critic reasonably claim to know that there is no reason that would justify God in permitting suffering? How could he know that premise (2) of the original argument is true? For why think that God’s reasons for permitting particular cases of evil are the kinds of things that we would discern by our cognitive capacities, if such reasons were there?

Analogies for our Cognitive Limitations

It is widely recognized that we have cognitive limitations with respect to discerning goods and connections, at least in territories where we lack the relevant expertise, experience, or vantage point. Some examples:

It doesn’t seem to me that there is a perfectly spherical rock on the dark side of the moon right now, but that’s no reason to conclude that such a rock isn’t there.
It didn’t seem to any medievals that the theories of special relativity or quantum mechanics were true, but that was no reason to think they weren’t true.
It didn’t seem to humans in earlier eras that fundamental human rights of one sort or another were in fact fundamental human rights, but that was no reason to think there weren’t any such rights.
It wouldn’t seem to a non-Greek-speaker that spoken Greek sentences have any meaning, but that is no reason to think they don’t have a meaning.
It wouldn’t seem to the musically uninitiated that Beethoven projected the ‘sonata form’ onto the symphony as a whole, giving the entire musical work a fundamental unity it would not otherwise have had. But it wouldn’t follow from their ignorance that Beethoven didn’t have such a purpose, much less that he was unsuccessful in executing it.
It might not seem to my one-month-old son that I have a good reason for him to receive a painful series of shots at the doctor’s office. But it wouldn’t follow from his ignorance that there isn’t a good reason.

God is omniscient, which means he not only knows everything that we are likely to guess at, but every truth whatsoever. This means that God knows things that we cannot even fathom. As the above analogies suggest, this is easily demonstrated for a huge range of cases. If the complexities of an infinite God’s divine plan for the unfolding of the universe does involve God’s recognizing either deep goods, or necessary connections between various evils and the realization of those goods, or both of these things, would our inability to discern these goods or connections give us a reason for thinking they aren’t there? What would be the basis of such confidence? But without such confidence, we have little reason to accept premise (2) of the problem of evil. So we have little reason to accept its conclusion.

Biblical Argument for Divine Inscrutability

The theme of divine inscrutability is not only exceedingly defensible common sense. It also looms large in the Bible, having both pastoral and apologetic implications. It closes the mouths of Christians who would insensitively offer “God’s reasons” to those who suffer (when they don’t know such reasons). And it closes the mouths of critics who would irrationally preclude divine reasons for the suffering. Imagine we were on the scene in the cases of Job (as his friend), Joseph (as his brother), and Jesus (as his tormentor). Would we have been able to guess at God’s purpose for the suffering? Would we not instead have been wholly unaware of any such purpose? Does not a large part of the literary power of the Bible’s narrative, and the spiritual encouragement it offers, rest upon this interplay between the ignorance of the human actors and the wisdom of divine providence?

One of the most extended reflections in the New Testament on the problem of evil – in this case, the evil of Jewish apostasy – is Romans 9-11. Paul’s concluding doxology blends together these twin themes of divine sovereignty over evil and divine inscrutability in the midst of evil:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen (Rom 11:33–36).

To the extent that God has not spoken about a particular event in history, his judgments are unsearchable, and his paths are beyond tracing out. But that does not mean there is not a greater good which justifies God’s purposing of that event.

problem of evil

Objections Arising from Evil in the World, explain what is meant by this claim

The word evil is a word which can be used very loosely, usually used to describe something we think to be morally wrong, something that when in inflicted on a person causes pain and suffering. However, if an ‘evil’ act is committed by someone who has been in all other aspects good, does this act make this person ‘evil’? There are many different situations where evil acts could be done all with different circumstances and consequences. For example; at Auschwitz, so many guards were involved in the slaughter of massive amounts of Jews but it seems unlikely that all of them were evil. The actions may be considered evil but they were normalised by the sense of responsibility felt by the guards. In their eyes, they were carrying out a duty so the question of whether they are to be labelled evil is indefinite.

There are two recognised categories which evil can fall under: Moral evil and Natural evil. Richard Swimburne, a modern day philosopher describes moral evil as ‘including all evil caused deliberately by humans doing what they ought not to do, and also the evil constituted by such deliberate acts or negligent failure’. It is the result of a human action which is morally wrong, such as murder or war. Natural evil is the result of apparent malfunctioning in the natural world, it is according to John Hick ‘the evil that originates independently of human actions. It is in disease, in bacilli, in earthquakes, in storms, and in droughts.’

The fact that evil, or suffering is an undeniable factor in our lives presents an array of problems in today’s world where there is a strong belief by many of a higher power which should in theory, be able to eradicate it from the world or in fact never have let it come to exist in the first place. For believers in the God of Classical Theism, this ‘problem of evil’ as it is often referred to, creates a serious dilemma.

Moral evil is an easier problem to tackle for a theist than that of Natural evil, as it can be said that it occurs from the misuse of freewill, but they are still faced with justifying the existence of Natural evil. If God created the world from nothing, then there is nothing beyond His control so for whatever reason, God must be the creator of evil and suffering. A theist can sometimes be faced with justifying both types of evil as natural evils like tsunamis and hurricanes are often the cause of people committing moral evils like looting.

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The problem is not easily justifiable and is illustrated in ‘The Inconsistent Triad’, which states the points: God is omnipotent and omniscient (A), God is all-loving (B), and evil exists (C). These three statements cannot all be true so it would seem that one of them is false, but since we know evil and suffering exist the inconsistency must lie in one of the other 2 points. The conclusions drawn from this are that either God is not omnipotent and cannot stop evil from existing, or that God is not all-loving and chooses not to stop evil existing, or that in fact God does not exist. This can be used as an argument for the non-existence of God. A quote from Swimburne on the Problem of Evil, ‘There is a problem about why God allows evil, and if the theist doesn’t have (in a cool moment) a satisfactory answer to it, then his belief in God is less than rational and there is no reason why the atheist should share it.’ An example of the problem being used in this way is in Hume’s combat of Thomas Aquinas’ Design Argument (Summa Thelogica) where he labels the Problem of Evil as ‘The Rock of Atheism’.

However, whilst being a problem for theists in that it challenges the nature of God, it also poses problems in other ways. It presents itself as a philosophical problem as it compels the believer to accept conflicting claims that are logically impossible to reconcile. It is also a diverse problem; evil manifests itself in many different ways, demanding separate explanations. The problem of evil has proved itself to be a challenging problem, as it is not just going to disappear, evil and suffering are objective realities which are almost impossible to deny.

Unpack two theodicies and analyse which how successful these are

As I said, the justification of God’s allowance for the existence of evil is not easy, but there are many theodicies which have developed that provide strong arguments. A theodicy is a theory that justifies why God allows evil without qualifying the attributes of the God of Classical Theism. Two of which are those of Augustine and Irenaeus.

Augustine’s theodicy has had considerable influence over many scholars since it was developed and attempts to provide justification for both moral and natural evil. According to Augustine, the perfect God created a flawless world where evil and suffering did not exist, and that God is not responsible for the existence of evil as it is not a substance, but in fact a deprivation of good. He uses an analogy of blindness to illustrate his meaning, as blindness itself is not an entity but an absence of sight. Augustine claims that evil comes from angels and humans who have deliberately turned against God and abused his gift of freewill. He states that evil is necessary in a created world as only the uncreated creator can be perfect, his creations are susceptible to change.

Augustine’s idea on the existence of Natural evil is that it exists as a punishment for the Original Sin, which we are all guilty of as we were all seminally present in Adam at the time it was committed. Natural evil punishes us for the destruction of the natural order by human action. For these reasons God is right not to intervene and the fact that he does save some through Christ emphasises His mercy. God would be justified in sending everyone to hell for being guilty of the Original Sin, the fact that some go to heaven shows God’s goodness.

Augustine’s theodicy has some substantial strengths, as is proved by its popularity. Brian Davies is an example of a scholar who supports his claim that evil is only a deprivation of good rather than having a proper existence, he said it is ‘a gap between what there is and what there ought to be’. To criticise would be to say that God should have created more than he did which doesn’t make sense; how is anyone to know how much more should have been created. Augustine’s views on evil being a product of freewill have also been upheld.

Despite it’s strengths, Augustine’s theodicy has many holes in it to be addressed, it contains logical, scientific, and moral difficulties. Augustine’s concept of Hell comes under scrutiny; Hell is part of God’s design of the universe, so it was created before the world’s flaws began to appear, which means that God must have anticipated and accepted that the world would go wrong. F.D.E Schleiermacher expresses his logical contradiction to Augustine’s views on the origin of evil and a perfect world going wrong, Schleiermacher informs us that whether evil is a deprivation or not it is still real and it is therefore logically impossible for it to just come out of nothing. This means that evil must be connected to God and he either never created the world perfect or he made it so it was able to falter. Another logical difficulty of this theodicy comes of the capacity to do evil in a ‘perfect’ world and disobey God, as in a perfect world no knowledge of good and evil should exist. The knowledge of them could only come from God.

Scientific difficulties stem from the modern world’s concept of evolution; the idea of a perfect world being damaged by humans does not allow for evolution. Moreover, Augustine refers to the Garden of Eden in his theodicy, and this paradise is hard to accept on the basis of evolution. A final difficulty lies with the concept of us all being seminally present in Adam’s loins, this is biologically impossible so we cannot all be responsible for the Original Sin. From comparing the strengths with the criticisms we can see that Augustine’s theodicy ultimately fails.

The theodicy of Irenaeus is another which provides a formidable answer to the question of why God allows evil’s existence. As said by Irenaeus, Gods aim when creating the world was to make humans in his likeness, but to do this, humans could not be made perfect but had to develop through free will. It was therefore necessary for God to give us free will and therefore necessary to give us the potential to turn against him. If he didn’t enable this, we could never attain God’s likeness as according to Ireneaus it requires willing co-operation. The natural order had to be designed in a way where humans could cause harm, which they did resulting in suffering, but God still cannot compromise our freedom by removing evil. Ireneaus claims that the evil and suffering will eventually be overcome and everyone will attain God’s likeness and reside in Heaven. This justifies temporary evil, which if complying with Ireneaus’ thought enables the understanding of good.

Many philosophers have added to Ireneaus’ theodicy including John Hick (who claims that good developed from free will is better than ready-made goodness), and Peter Vardy who used an analogy of a king to illustrate this - where a king falls in love with a peasant girl but rather than imposing his power on her and forcing him to marry her, he wins her over. They both believe that without development our goodness would be without value, we would be automatons.

According to this theodicy, humans had to be created imperfect to be able to go against God, and they had to be created at a distance from God so they could decide for themselves to believe in him. If we were sure he was there, there would be no free will, John Hick called this the ‘epistemic distance’. If God wasn’t separated from humans we would know he was real and would live a good, moral life because we would know that it is in our best interests, it wouldn’t be real goodness. Humans also couldn’t be created in a paradise or else qualities such as courage would not be attainable and there would be no development as good and evil would be indistinguishable.

The theodicy justifies natural evil as it makes the world well adapted to ‘soul making’ (John Hick). The Modern Additions to this theodicy claim that heaven is the eventual goal for everyone for three reasons; a future in heaven is the only justification for the suffering of the world. Secondly, if life were to end in death God’s purpose would be unfulfilled since we would not be reaching our goal of becoming God’s likeness. Lastly, nobody can be overlooked as evil acts are carried out in different circumstances for different people. For example, someone who was abused while being raised is much more likely to be abusive as an adult, it is something they are used to and have become desensitised to.

There are solid criticisms of Irenaeus’ theodicy as well as Augustine’s: For example, everyone going to heaven defies religious texts as well as making it pointless to live a moral life, why bother if you are going to heaven anyway? It also takes away the incentive to develop into God’s likeness which Irenaeus regarded of utmost importance. Another critique is of the level of suffering needed to make the world adapted for ‘soul making, e.g. Was the Holocaust really necessary? Finally, it can be said that love can never be expressed through suffering, supported by D.Z Philips who said it is not justifiable to hurt someone to help them.

To conclude, neither of these theodicies can be considered perfect by any means, but Ireneaus is the stronger of the two. Where Augustine fails to provide room for belief in evolution, Ireneaus manages it and while Augustine cannot provide a logical explanation for the origin of evil, Irenaeus provides a stable reason for it. It is also popular, like Augustine’s for its views on free will.

Document Details

Word Count 2114
Page Count 5
Level AS and A Level
Subject Religious Studies & Philosophy

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The Christian Philosophy's Stance on The Problem of Evil

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Published: Nov 6, 2018

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The Problem of Evil

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One question preoccupied Augustine from the time he was a student in Carthage: why does evil exist in the world? He returned to this question again and again in his philosophy, a line of inquiry motivated by personal experience. [...]

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59 The Problem of Evil Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
The problem of evil is simply the disagreement of how such a great God can exist and evil still dominates a greater part of the world he created. The Problem of Evil: Rational, Reasonable, and Scientific Explains. God is omnipotent and it is impossible to reject it under the statements of evil's presence.
The Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil. First published Mon Sep 16, 2002; substantive revision Tue Mar 3, 2015. The epistemic question posed by evil is whether the world contains undesirable states of affairs that provide the basis for an argument that makes it unreasonable to believe in the existence of God. This discussion is divided into eight sections.
The Problem of Evil
The 'Incompatibility' or 'Logical' versions of the Problem of Evil claim that evil's existence is logically incompatible with God's existence: believing in God and evil is like believing in a five-sided square, a contradiction.[3] Most philosophers today reject this argument.[4] They think that God could have some sufficient reason ...
Problem Of Evil Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
Problem of Evil. Evil has always been with humanity. From the first man that walked upon the earth up to the present day, evil has been part of life. The purpose of this paper is to show that evil is everywhere, and that, while good is also in abundant supply, evil will never totally be removed from society. The two are part of an alignment of ...
Problem of evil
In this argument and in the problem of evil itself, evil is understood to encompass both moral evil (caused by free human actions) and natural evil (caused by natural phenomena such as disease, earthquakes, and floods). More From Britannica. philosophy of religion: The problem of evil. Most thinkers, however, have found this argument too simple ...
Leibniz on the Problem of Evil
Leibniz on the Problem of Evil. First published Sun Jan 4, 1998; substantive revision Wed Feb 27, 2013. There is no question that the problem of evil vexed Leibniz as much as any of the problems that he engaged in the course of his philosophical career. This is manifest in the fact that the first and the last book-length works that he authored ...
Logical Problem of Evil
This essay examines one form the argument from evil has taken, which is known as "the logical problem of evil." In the second half of the twentieth century, atheologians (that is, persons who try to prove the non-existence of God) commonly claimed that the problem of evil was a problem of logical inconsistency.
The Problem of Evil
The Evidential Argument from Evil. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. An anthology of highly influential essays, the title of which came to name the family of arguments from evil focused on arguing from the probable existence of gratuitous or unjustified particular evils to God's nonexistence.
PDF The Problem of Evil
The problem of evil, pain and suffering is here turned on its head to become the problem of good, pleasure and ecstasy. Mirror image theodicies can be made to work here just as well as for the theist. For the malevolent being advocate, free will is granted us by this being so that we can freely choose selfish actions.
Problem of evil
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. [1] [2] [3] There are currently differing definitions of these concepts. The best known presentation of the problem is attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus. It was popularized by David Hume .
15 The Problem of Evil
Practical problems of evil are concerned with what one ought to do in response to evil. They are theological when the issue is what actions one ought to perform, in light of one's beliefs about God, the assumption being that those beliefs should make a difference to how one responds to evil.If the question is whether or not one should (continue to) rely on or trust God, then this assumption is ...
≡Essays on Problem of Evil. Free Examples of Research Paper Topics
4 pages / 1835 words. In this essay, I will be discussing how the philosophical 'Problem of evil' aims to disprove the existence of God, its soundness and persuasiveness in doing so and why I ultimately believe the premises of the argument to be unsuccessful because of their parochial nature.... Problem of Evil Christianity God.
The Problem of Evil: Selected Readings, Second Edition on JSTOR
The philosophical problem of evil is the challenge of reconciling belief in God with evil in the world. The theistic concept of God as supremely powerful, intelligent, and good makes the problem very difficult because such a being, it would seem, would make a much better world than this one. All three great theistic religions—Judaism ...
The Problem of Evil
The Problem of Evil ... Plantinga, starting out from an examination of John L. Mackie's essay "Evil and Omnipotence", in which Mackie had defended an incompatibility version of the argument from evil, focuses mainly on the question of whether the existence of God is compatible with the existence of evil, although there are also short ...
The Problem of Evil: [Essay Example], 1126 words GradesFixer
Mani taught that the universe was a battlefield of two conflicting forces. On one side is God, who represents light and goodness and who seeks to eliminate suffering. Opposing him is Satan, who represents darkness and evil and is the cause of misery and affliction. Human beings find themselves caught in the middle of these two great forces.
PDF The Secular Problem of Evil: An Essay in Analytic Existentialism
The Secular Problem of Evil: An Essay in Analytic Existentialism. Abstract: The existence of evil is often held to pose philosophical problems only for theism. I argue that the existence of evil gives rise to a philosophical problem which confronts theist and atheist alike. The problem is constituted by the following claims: (1) psychologically ...
Problem of Evil Essay
The Problem of Evil. The problem of evil is the notion that, how can an all-good, all-powerful, all-loving God exists when evil seems to exist also. The problem of evil also gives way to the notion that if hell exists then God must be evil for sending anyone there. I believe both of these ideas that God can exist while there is evil and God is ...
The Problem of Evil
The so-called "problem of evil" is an argument against the existence of God that reasons along these lines: A perfectly powerful being can prevent any evil. A perfectly good being will prevent evil as far as he can. God is perfectly powerful and good. So, if a perfectly powerful and good God exists, there will be no evil.
problem of evil
It is the result of a human action which is morally wrong, such as murder or war. Natural evil is the result of apparent malfunctioning in the natural world, it is according to John Hick 'the evil that originates independently of human actions. It is in disease, in bacilli, in earthquakes, in storms, and in droughts.'.
The Christian Philosophy's Stance on the Problem of Evil: [Essay
Free will is usually used by theists and Christian philosophers and so forth to bear some of the way, sometimes a good bid of the way as to why evil, both moral and natural evil which is a common distinction in types of evil. God allows some types of evils because of the misuse of free will. Some people have thought, well, God allows evil for ...
The Problem Of Evil Philosophy Essay
The Problem of Evil is a provocative philosophical issue that has perplexed the minds of great thinkers throughout the ages up to the present time. Intellectuals such Aristotle, Averroes, and Kant have vigorously debated and held various positions concerning the reality of malevolence in the world and how it correlates to the eminence of a ...
Does 'The Problem of Evil' Contradict God?
The problem of evil is usually seen as the problem of how the existence of God can be reconciled with the existence of evil in the world. The problem simply stems from basic beliefs or assumptions pertaining to the attributes of God: God is perfectly good, omniscient, and omnipotent. From this, such a God should want to prevent evil, yet much ...
The Problem of Evil Essay
The general interpretation of the problem of evil is as follows: Premise 1) If God exists then God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Premise 2) if God were omniscient then God would be aware of evil. Premise 3) if God were omnipotent, then God would be able to eliminate the evil that exists in the world.

59 The Problem of Evil Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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The Problem of Evil by Trent Dougherty , Scott Cleveland LAST REVIEWED: 08 October 2015 LAST MODIFIED: 30 July 2014 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0211

15 The Problem of Evil

Introduction

MT Arguments

Bayesian Arguments from Evil

Objections to Bayesian Arguments from Evil

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

1. Some Important Distinctions

4. Responses to the Argument from Evil: Refutations, Defenses, and Theodicies

1.2 Incompatibility Formulations versus Inductive Formulations

1.3 Abstract Versus Concrete Formulations

1.4 Axiological Versus Deontological Formulations

3. Inductive Versions of the Argument from Evil

3.2 Direct Inductive Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

3.2.2 A Natural Account of the Logic of the Inductive Step

3.2.3 An Evaluation of this Account of the Inductive Step

3.3 Indirect Inductive Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

3.4 Bayesian-Style Probabilistic Versions of the Evidential Argument from Evil

3.4.2 The Flaw in the Argument

3.4.3 Can Rowe's Argument Be Revised?

4.1 Refutations, Defenses, and Theodicies

4.2 Attempted Total Refutations

4.2.2 The ‘No Best of All Possible Worlds' Response

4.2.3 The Appeal to the Ontological Argument

4.3 Attempted Defenses

4.3.2 Belief in the Existence of God as Non-Inferentially Justified

4.3.3 Induction Based on Partial Success

4.4. Theodicies

4.4.1 A Soul-Making Theodicy

4.4.2 Free Will

4.4.3 The Freedom to Do Great Evil

4.4.4 The Need for Natural Laws

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The Problem of Evil

What Is the Problem of Evil?

Responding to the Problem of Evil

The Ways of Theodicy and Inscrutability

The Way of Theodicy

Four popular theodicies have some biblical basis

These theodicies fall under the umbrella of the “greater good theodicy.”

Constructing the “Greater Good Theodicy”: a Three-Fold Argument for Three Biblical Themes

The Case of Job

The Case of Joseph

The Case of Jesus

Licensing and Limiting the GGT

Licensing the GGT: God’s Sovereignty over All Evil

God’s Sovereignty over Moral Evil

God’s Sovereignty over All Evil

Limiting the GGT: The Inscrutability of God’s Purposes

Analogies for our Cognitive Limitations

Biblical Argument for Divine Inscrutability

Further Reading

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