The Problem of Evil

The Problem of Evil

Our Question • Our question is: Does God Exist? • Theism: God exists. • Atheism: God does not exist. • Agnosticism: “I don’t know.” • Weak: I happen not to know. Maybe someone else does. • Strong: No one knows (despite what they might think). • Super-Strong: It is impossible for anyone to know.

Agenda • The (supposed) nature of God • The nature of evil • Incompatibilism and the atheistic argument from evil • An argument for Incompatibilism

We Need Ground Rules • To clarify the question: What sort of thing is God supposed to be? • Both atheists and theists should be able to agree on the answer.

What Sort of Thing is God? God is supposed to be: • Powerful (Omnipotent, Almighty): God can do anything that can be done; • Knowledgeable (Omniscient): God can know anything that can be known; and • Good (Omnibenevolent): God loves and cares about all his creatures. Set aside: The paradox of the stone.

God is a Person • Conclusion from our reflections: If God exists, • he can do things, • he knows things, and • he cares about things. • If God exists, he is a person.

Mere Monotheism • Mere Monotheism: the doctrine that there exists a person who is almighty, all-knowing, and all-good. God doesn’t have to look like this

Remarks on What Needs to be Shown Theists need to show that a certain kind of person exists. God, if He exists • is not a paperweight • is not the Big Bang • is not an idea • is not an emotion

There is Evil in this world (or at least bad) The problem of evil revolves around the claim that… … there is evil in this world. • cruelty, • jealousy, • pain, • depression, • torture, • injustice, • disease, • natural calamity of all sorts, • etc., • etc., • ad nauseum.

Two Kinds of Evil Natural Evil Artificial Evil What is it? Evil not caused by human actions Evil caused by human actions • hurricanes • epidemics • tsunamis • earthquakes • cutting in line (injustice) • Making fun of your aunt for her weird dye-job (cruelty) • stealing a nickel from your Mom for candy (theft) Examples

Complicating the Distinction I:Natural Evil and Human Action • Note: natural evil seems to require animal suffering. • No suffering means no evil – examples: • paleozoic volcanic eruptions • that huge storm on Jupiter

Complicating the Distinction I:Natural Evil and Human Action (cont.) • An upshot: some natural evils are made worse by human action. • Examples: • building a city below the level of an adjoining lake • living at the base of a volcano • raising chickens or other livestock in great numbers

Complicating the Distinction II:Artificial Evil and Nature • Artificial evil almost always requires the cooperation of nature. • Examples: • the villain’s gun • The villain’s radio

Summary of the complications • Some natural evils are bad (or made worse) because of human action. • Almost any artificial evil is bad because of the operation of natural laws. • Some cases are hard to classify. Examples: • global warming • the Dust Bowl • using bioweapons

Existence of God, Existence of Evil • Incompatibilism: the doctrine that, if God exists, then bad things do not happen. • Four positions: Do bad things happen? Does God exist? Compatibilist Theism Yes Yes X Implausible! These are the only positions we will be considering Yes No Polyanna Theism Incompatibilist Atheism X No Yes Implausible! Polyanna Atheism X X No No

The Atheist Argument from Evil We can generate an argument for atheism, if we can establish Incompatibilism: • Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen. • Our Assumption: Bad things happen (C) Atheism: God does not exist. But why think Incompatibilism is true?

The Antidote Argument for Incompatibilism “God is the antidote to evil” • The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then: • He knows when bad things are going to happen; • He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening; and • He wants bad things not to happen. • The Bystander Limitations: If a person P does not prevent something from happening, then either: • She didn’t know it would happen; • She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; or • She didn’t want it not to happen. “There are limits on what you’ll fail to prevent.” (C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen.

The Antidote Argument for Incompatibilism • The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then: • He knows when bad things are going to happen; • He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening; and • He wants bad things not to happen. • The Bystander Limitations: If a person P does not prevent something from happening, then either: • She didn’t know it would happen; • She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; or • She didn’t want it not to happen. Omniscient Omnipotent All-loving (C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen.

Why Think the Bystander Limitations are true? • The Bystander Limitations admit only three excuses: • Ignorance: • Encyclopedia Brown • Powerlessness: • Coyote • Indifference: • You let your mother give your child a cookie How could you fail to prevent that from happening? I didn’t know I couldn’t do anything I didn’t care

The Antidote Argument for Incompatibilism • The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then: • He knows when bad things are going to happen; • He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening; and • He wants bad things not to happen. • The Bystander Limitations: If a person P fails to prevent something from happening, then either: • She didn’t know it would happen; • She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; or • She didn’t want it not to happen. Ignorance Powerlessness Indifference (C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen.

Leibniz Gottfried Leibniz (1646 – 1716) Leibniz was a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Leibniz is a compatibilist theist.

Agenda • Leibniz’s Thesis • The New Antidote Argument • The Burden of Theodicy • Three Objections

This is the best of all possible worlds Leibniz argues: this world is the best of all possible worlds. • Whoever does not choose the best among several possible alternatives is lacking in power, in knowledge, or in goodness. • God is not lacking in power, knowledge or goodness. • God chose to create this world out of all of the possible worlds he could have created. (C) This world is the best out of all possible worlds.

Leibniz’s Argument seems a lot like the Antidote Argument Reminds me of… • Whoever does not choose the best among several possible alternatives is lacking in power, in knowledge, or in goodness. • God is not lacking in power, knowledge or goodness. • God chose to create this world out of all of the possible worlds he could have created. … the Bystander Limitations … the Antidote Principle (C) This world is the best out of all possible worlds.

Leibniz: Bad Things Happen “[T]he best plan is not always that which seeks to avoid evil, since it may happen that the evil is accompanied by a greater good. For example, a general of an army will prefer a great victory with a slight wound to a condition without wound and without victory.” (p. 92, col. 1) • Leibniz: I will tolerate “necessary evils.” • Examples: • the wound is necessary for the victory • flu shots • high criminal burden of proof • Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good.

How does this help with the Antidote Argument? • How does the idea of a necessary evil help with the Antidote Argument? • Necessary evils present counter-examples to Bystander Limitations: • The general allows the wound to happen, even though he knows it will happen, he could prevent it, and wants it not to happen. • I allow the prick to happen, even though, etc. • We allow the guilty to go free, even though, etc.

The Bystander Limitations: If a person P does not prevent something from happening, then either: She didn’t know it would happen; She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; She didn’t want it not to happen; OR Allowing it is necessary for her to secure some greater good. Leibniz holds that Bystander Limitations is simply false. There is a missing condition: we need to allow for necessary evils. Once you add this condition, Incompatibilism no longer follows. Bystander Limitations is False

The New Antidote Argument • The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then: • He knows when bad things are going to happen; • He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening; and • He wants bad things not to happen. • The Bystander Limitations: If a person P does not prevent something from happening, then either: • She didn’t know it would happen; • She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; • She didn’t want it not to happen; • Allowing it is necessary for her to secure some greater good. Here’s the old Antidote Argument: Here’s the new Bystander Limitations: OR The new argument gets a new conclusion: (C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen. (C) “Necessary Evil” Compatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen, unless allowing them to happen is required in order to secure a greater good.

Leibniz’s Thesis, Amplified Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. • Theodicy: an argument that the existence of evil is justified. • Theist strategy: for any given evil, show that it is necessary to achieve a greater good.

How could evil be required to secure a greater good? • The Free Will Theodicy: a world in which some crabbiness, cruelty, etc., is allowed, but in which some people choose goodness, kindness, sweetness and light is better than any world without crabbiness, cruelty, etc., but in which God forces his creatures to goodness, kindness, sweetness, and light. • The Appreciation Theodicy: a world in which some misery is allowed, but in which people appreciate what contentment they may find is better than any world full of spoiled but contented ingrates.

Compatibilism, Weak and Strong • Weak Compatibilism: God’s existence is compatible in principle with the occurrence of some bad things. • Strong Compatibilism: God’s existence is compatible with the occurrence of all the bad things that there actually are. "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."(Charles Darwin, Letter to American botanist Asa Gray, source: wikipedia entry for “Ichneumon”) source: http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/catalogs/ichneumonids/

The Burden of Theodicy Strong Compatibilism: God’s existence is compatible with the occurrence of all the bad things that there actually are. Make a list of all the bad things that have ever actually happened: • B1: Hurricane Katrina, • B2: the Haitian Earthquake, • B3: World War II, … Strong Compatibilism says: • God’s existence is compatible with B1; and • God’s existence is compatible with B2; and • God’s existence is compatible with B3; and • …

The Burden of Theodicy Strong Compatibilism: God’s existence is compatible with the occurrence of all the bad things that there actually are. The Theist needs strong compatibilism. An theodicy is inadequate if a single instance of actual evil is incompatible with the existence of God.

Three Objections: Agenda Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. • Pointless Suffering • Why is All This Evil Necessary? • The Distribution of Evil

Each and every bad thing? Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. • Pointless suffering: bad things that do not have compensating good effects. • Examples (?): • 100% fatal prehistoric natural disasters

Each and every bad thing? Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. There are really two related objections here: • Existence: some suffering is pointless. • Extent: God seems to be laying it on a bit thick Examples: • sports injuries • headaches

Is that really necessary? Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. • Who makes the rules around here, anyway? • God, if He exists, is powerful: • The general can’t secure a victory without a wound, but God can; • I can’t give someone an immunity to the flu without some discomfort, but God can.

Is that really necessary? (vs. the Free Will Theodicy) Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. • Free Will: • the benefits of free will are secured by the time the agent executes her decision. • the misery has yet to be caused – that requires cooperation from nature. • a minor miracle could save the benefits and prevent the evil. Cause Misery Action • A convenient misfire would have come in handy… • Or a good, stiff cross-breeze.

Is that really necessary? (vs. the Appreciation Theodicy) Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. • Appreciation Theodicy: • If God exists, it seems to be within his power to make us appreciate how good we have it without seeing (or experiencing) misery. • How about movies, or other fake misery, instead of real misery? Gee Willikers, am I a lucky ducky! Misery Causes Appreciation

For the greater good? Whose good? Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is necessary to secure a greater good. • The idea here is: some people bear the costs of the evil, and others get to reap the benefits. • This seems unfair;and • Inconsistent with love.

The Problem of Evil