The Argument from Evil Makes the Existence of the God of Christianity Unlikely

**C2: Gratuitous suffering and pointless premature deaths probably occur.** In order to defend the inference made in P1, Freeman has suggested that we have good reasons for believing that God would inform us as to why certain acts of suffering are warranted. The reason Rowe gives is that it would, "itself enable us to better bear our suffering." Freeman goes so far as to suggest that Rowe's conclusion here is "overwhelmingly plausible given God's desire to care for us." Does this seem plausible? So far as I can see, this does not seem even remotely plausible given both reason and the Christian theology it's said to undermine. Let's examine this in more depth. I think any rational person would admit that we have very good reasons for believing an omnipotent and omniscient God would probably know of both goods and evils not known to humankind. This is clearly seen in our continual discovery of goods and evils and the wide and varied disagreement over these moral categories. The observation of our own finiteness and cognitive shortcomings coalesced with our acknowledgement of God's omni-excellence gives us very good reasons for believing God's mind and reasons are completely foreign to us - inasmuch as we have no good reasons for knowing what he would and would not do. Ironically, Christian theology teaches as much. In Isaiah 55:8-9 we read the word of God: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." So to say that God would let us know of these goods because he cares about us is neither fundamentally nor relevantly different than the assertion: Extraterrestrials, if they existed, would want to let us know of their existence. We have no reliable way to even assess this claim given all that we do not know. Let me put it this way: P1: We have good reasons for believing that God's mind and reasons are completely unknown to us P2: That God would want or have to inform his creatures about the reasons for suffering is a belief about God's mind and reasons. C: Therefore, that God would want or have to inform his creatures about the reasons for suffering is completely unknown to us (from p1 and p2) Freeman can presuppose Christianity false and deny the relevant theological reasons for believing our access to God's reasons is far too limited. But that would still leave him to contend that a literally all-knowing entity with power beyond anything imaginable probably does not have reasons that we cannot detect. **C3: The objections to the argument from evil are without merit.** "Now, despite what he has suggested, I don't deny that Christian theology predicts that there will be evils in the world. What I am arguing is that "gratuitous" (i.e., unjustified) suffering and pointless deaths are incompatible with Christianity. " Perhaps it was not clear in my round. I know precisely what Freeman was saying in his round, I am contending that his second premise is not sound - insofar as gratuitous (pointless, unjustified) deaths are compatible with an omni-excellent God. Christian theology teaches that human beings are not the only free entities. In fact, Satan possesses freedom and is also known as the prince of this world. It stands to reason that, with such a malevolent force prowling our fertile planet, that at least some evils so caused would not result in greater good or prevent greater evil. In essence, Christian theology already predicts the sort of evil that we observe. How can one use accurate predictions, then, as evidence against the predictor? It seems that in order to call said evil incompatible with Christianity is to presuppose Christianity false from the beginning. But there are others grounds for denying this premise too. For instance, the claim that gratuitous evil and God are incompatible makes a very particular assumption. For instance, most philosophers admit that there are instances where intense suffering is necessary in order for greater goods to be produced. Now the incompatibility statement essentially admits that there is a certain minimum amount of intense suffering that must take place. That is, if the fawn laying injured in the forest was not an evil necessary to produce a greater good, God would prevent it and not let anything similarly as bad take it place. However, if it WAS necessary, God would need this event of evil (or something exactly similar) in order to produce some greater good. But what if there is no minimum amount of intense suffering needed to produce certain goods? Howard-Snyder, in summarizing Peter van Inwagen, says, " To suppose that there is such a minimum amount is like supposing that, if God's purposes required an impressively tall prophet to appear at a certain place and time, there is a minimum height such a prophet must have and if he were the least bit shorter God's purposes would not be served; it is like supposing that if the state's purposes required a fine to deter illegal parking, there is a minimum dollar-and-cents figure that would suffice, and if the fine were one cent less, it would not be a significant deterrent. Of course, if there is no minimum height, no minimum fine, and no minimum amount of intense suffering, it is absolutely impossible for God or the state to permit or produce it, and so it is absurd to insist that either should do so." [1] The implications are that Gratuitous evil and God are ONLY incompatible if there is some sort minimum amount of intense suffering that can be permitted. Therefore, any claim that God and gratuitous evil are incompatible requires firm and principled reasons for why said minimum amount exists. **C4: Skeptical theism violates good theories in epistemology.** "Skeptical theism violates some of our most basic, plausible and promising theories in epistemology. In particular, the principle of credulity states that, all other things being equal, things are the way they appear.[5]" I am not a skeptical theist and consequently do not find myself particularly affected by this criticism. Moreover, the principle of credulity is not some firm principle in epistemology, in fact, it is primarily used in the philosophy of religion and was first presented to us by Richard Swinburne (a Christian philosopher) as a useful principle for showing the reliability of religious experience... So I am having trouble seeing the power in this alleged critique. Furthermore, this blatantly misses my point! We can certainly say that since I am experiencing suffering, what I am experiencing is probably suffering. However, to call this suffering gratuitous is not something that one can experience, per se, as this is a metaphysical attachment to a physical experience. As such, this metaphysical inference is one made without sufficient knowledge. For example, personA can briefly meet personB and thereafter conclude that they exist. However, if personA preceded to suggest that personB was evil (based on a brief "hello" encounter), they would be making a metaphysical claim about personB's ontology, a claim that simply cannot be established given the limited information provided by that single experience. Similarly, our experience of suffering is not sufficient in establishing it as gratuitous as this would require access to a mind far and above our own. The only reasonable route is one that admits that, since the information to establish what is gratuitous is not available to us, we have no good reasons for inferring either way. Source: http://faculty.wwu.edu...