The problem of evil is arguably the most difficult philosophical problem facing Christians and other theists who believe in an omniGod — a God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. The problem, concisely stated: If God is omnibenevolent, he doesn’t want his creatures to suffer. If he’s omnipotent, he can eradicate evil and suffering from the world. Why, then, doesn’t he do so? Why is there so much evil and suffering?
Atheists have no trouble explaining it. If there’s no God, then there’s no one to prevent evil and suffering. Yet some people insist that the problem of evil is a problem for atheists, too.
Why do they make say this? I’ll mention one reason in the OP and add more later in the comments.
The most common claim I encounter is that without a God to ground objective morality, atheists are in no position to judge things as good or evil. This undermines one of the premises of their argument. After all, if there’s no evil to begin with, then there can’t be a problem of evil. Theists are off the hook.
There are a number of problems with that, but I’ll address just one for now. The atheist doesn’t need to ground morality. The problem of evil is a problem for theists because by their own standards, evil and suffering exist. The atheist can say to the theist: “You believe in an omniGod. You believe in a God-given objective morality. Evil and suffering exist, according to your standards. If your God is perfectly loving, why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?”
It makes no difference whether the atheist can provide grounds for morality. The problem of evil remains a problem for the theist.
I just read philosopher Yujin Nagasawa’s paper The Problem of Evil for Atheists. He says it’s a problem for atheists because atheists are generally “existential optimists”, yet the “systemic evil” underlying the living world makes that optimism untenable.
What exactly does that mean? By “existential optimism” Nagasawa means the attitude that the world as a whole is a good place and that we should be happy and grateful to be here. “Systemic evil” refers to the fact that the living world is governed by natural selection, which is a horrendously cruel mechanism that has caused unimaginable suffering over the eons. He argues that it’s inconsistent to feel existential optimism while at the same time being horrified by the very mechanism that brought us into existence.
I’m not convinced that there is any inconsistency. Being happy to be alive doesn’t mean that you’re happy with the whole state of affairs that brought you into existence. It just means that you’re enjoying your particular life, and you can do that without thinking that the world as a whole is a good place. So I think Nagasawa is wrong to lump these things together in his definition of “existential optimism”.
But suppose he’s right and there really is an inconsistency. In that case the atheist can simply dispense with existential optimism, since it’s misplaced. What’s the problem with that? We may want to be optimistic, but if the world sucks, it sucks, regardless of how we feel about it. We can just accept reality.
The theist, on the other hand, can’t just accept that the world sucks, because that conflicts with the idea that God is tri-omni. Nagasawa thinks the theist has an advantage, though, because the theist can posit that the physical world is not all there is — there’s a greater reality of which the physical world is only a part, and that greater reality includes the possibility of an afterlife. It may be that this greater reality as a whole is good enough to tip the balance and justify existential optimism.
There are at least three problems with this. The first is that it is just wishful thinking. The theist wants to be existentially optimistic, but the world we live in doesn’t justify that, so the theist imagines a supernatural reality that will tip the balance. It’s a fantasy with no basis other than the desire to be existentially optimistic.
The second problem is that this greater reality could just as well be worse than physical reality, in which case existential optimism is even less justifiable than before.
The third problem is that the existence of a greater reality is orthogonal to the question of whether God exists. There’s nothing inconsistent about the idea that God exists but that nothing else exists but the physical world. Nor is there anything inconsistent about the idea that God doesn’t exist, but that there is a greater reality. If it’s legitimate for the theist to appeal to a fantasy in order to save existential optimism, why can’t the atheist?
(To be fair, atheists typically don’t posit a supernatural realm and don’t want to, while theists typically do. In this case the theist has an option that the atheist doesn’t have, but that doesn’t mean there’s a sound basis for choosing that option. As I said, it’s just wishful thinking.)
Keiths,
The problem of evil is apparently not a problem for Christians… While I have adjusted my views on the theme over the years, the core belief seems to be the same among the very few evangelicals… We had a conversation about that a while back. Can you recall?
The problem of evil for atheists is something I admit I can’t understand. I hope you are okay with that? However, the only thing that comes to my mind is the misunderstanding, or the misinterpretation of the survivor of the fittest…
Thoughts?
J-Mac:
It’s widely acknowledged to be a major problem for Christians, including by Christian apologists themselves. In another thread, I wrote:
J-Mac:
I don’t recall, but then again I’ve had a lot of conversations regarding the problem of evil.
I’m perfectly fine with that.
Misinterpretation by atheists?
I’ve been looking for other arguments (beyond the two I’ve already mentioned) for why the problem of evil is a problem for atheists. I haven’t had much luck finding any, so I decided to ask the all-knowing ChatGPT about it. Here are some excerpts from what ChatGPT said, along with my responses:
I addressed this in the OP:
ChatGPT:
Atheism per se doesn’t depend on whether suffering has any intrinsic meaning or purpose.
Nothing about atheism requires us to regard humans as “uniquely valuable or deserving of protection from suffering”.
The truth of atheism is unaffected by whether evil is punished or good rewarded.
Whether atheism is comforting is independent of its truth.
Theists also lack an objective foundation for morality. They tend to take for granted that God provides such a foundation, but why?
Some atheists may find these questions troubling, but that doesn’t call into question the truth of atheism itself.
keiths,
What are you taking about? I absolutely don’t understand your point (s).
Give me a synopsis of this, or I won’t read it. You know why.
J-Mac:
Lol.
Does your god allow the possibility of living forever?
J-Mac:
Yes, but only if you get the mRNA vaccine. Are you in?
Good one. 🙂
Imagine having read every possible book, seen every possible movie, having performed every possible activity, and even having thought every possible thought a million times a million times a million times ….
… and not being halfway because there is no halfway. Forever is such a long time. If living forever appeals to you, I don’t think you have given it any thought.
One of my favorite lines from one of my many favorite Dylan songs:
“Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo, “This is what salvation must be like after a while”
If an mRNA vaccine is ever made that delivers as promised, unlike the recent promises, I will be the first one to lineup… I doubt this is possible… I actually know it is impossible…
Hi Corneel,
You wrote:
That would happen only if the number of possible movies, activities, and thoughts is finite. Consider that every moment in an eternal afterlife is only a finite time after death: 1 year, 10 years, 1,000,000 years, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, a googol years, a googolplex years, a googolplex raised to the googolplex years, and so on — all finite. At none of those points would you have run out of movies, activities, and thoughts, unless there are only finitely many of them.
To run out of an infinite supply of movies, activities and thoughts would require an infinite amount of time. Since there is no point in time at which you reach infinity, you’ll never run out of those things.*
Commenter ‘kairosfocus’ of UD infamy had trouble with this concept. I once did an OP on it:
KF tackles the transfinite
* This assumes that we think, act, and watch movies at a finite speed. If we become infinitely fast in the afterlife, the question is a lot more interesting.
For entertainment, I read through all of the comments on that old thread. After an entire year, kairosfocus still couldn’t understand that the set of integers is infinite despite the fact that no integer is itself infinite.
Also, JoeG (as ‘Frankie’) makes an appearance in the thread, and hilarity ensues.
You forget that the biggest integer is infinite.
petrushka:
I’m sure JoeG will let us know once that has been confirmed. We’re getting there:
Gotta love that he actually created an acronym for it.
I just checked, and his blog is still going (sort of). Latest post was on September 1st: The CO2 Scam Exposed
I also went looking for some more LKN nonsense and found this:
socle politely responds:
I spent countless hours arguing with Kairosfocus about infinity, under various names at Uncommon Descent. His ability to misunderstand infinity is legendary.
I am ready to be corrected on this, but indeed I assumed there are only a finite number of each, provided you restrict those to finite lengths. For example, a book must consist of some combination of existing words. Since the number of existing words is a finite set, then so must the number of possible combinations be (again, barring infinitely long books).
…oh and you are responsible for derailing your own thread. Not me.
I dispute that there is a lack of objective foundation of these values. I think grounding this foundation in some imaginary system is foolish, partly because it’s an imaginary ground and partly because it allows those who think there’s some absolute morality to be righteously vicious and proud of it.
But I would note the difference in what I’d call “moral values” between cats and dogs. If they could articulate it, they’d each find the other to be fundamentally immoral! And this is because behaviors and practices evolved for survival over tens of millions of years become inherent in their makeup.
And humans have spent a few hundred thousand years evolving to live in groups, to have divisions of labor. There are behaviors which enable and facilitate group living for humans, which are necessary for the survival and success of the group. These protocols (whether encoded into laws or not) cannot tolerate more than a certain degree of “free rider” violation, before the group itself fails – if they don’t hang together, they all hang separately. For humans, what’s best for the group in the long run is what’s moral. Perhaps for any species, what’s moral is what has proven necessary for species survival.