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

The problem of evil has been a central issue in the philosophy of religion and a major argument against theism for thousands of years. It has even been alluded to in the Bible itself in the book of Job.[1] In the story, Job, a seemingly upright man, undergoes tremendous suffering for no apparent reason and wrestles with his faith as a result. The Qur'an contains the same story, although Job is much more acquiescent and subdued in that version.[2] In classical literature, Fyodor Dostoyevsky explores this problem in his literary masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov. At one instance in the book, Ivan Karamazov expresses how the events of this world appear to be antithetical to any notion of justice when he declares that, "... it is not God I do not accept, but the world he has created."[3] Ivan was not alone in his sentiments. Many people have often been thoroughly troubled while attempting to reconcile their belief in God with the prevalence of heinous evils. Original defenders of the argument from evil (henceforth referred to as AE) included intellectual titans like Epicurus. In essence, Epicurus postulated that if God exists, he would destroy all evil, and since there is clearly evil in the world, God cannot exist.[4] J.L. Mackie followed suit in the 20th century and argued for an a priori version of AE.[5] In the modern era, however, these sorts of logical formulations of AE are almost universally recognized as being inadequate by academic philosophers. God and evil don't exclude each other by their very nature. For example, as the analytic philosopher William Lane Craig is often quick to point out, God could have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil.[6] And though the logical problem of evil still has a few defenders, most philosophers concern themselves with the evidential problem of evil. Accordingly, it is this version of the argument which I will be defending in the course of this debate. Why I Am Not A Christian: Gratuitous Suffering, Divine Indifference and the Disconfirmation of Theism C1: The evidential argument from evil is valid. The evidential problem of evil is more or less identical to its logical counterpart. It is only less ambitious by using probability to arrive at the conclusion. For instance, the claim that gratuitous suffering probably exists is an a posteriori proposition, not an a priori one. Though many different versions of the argument exist, it is common for them to rely on some concept of gratuitous suffering. In particular, the philosopher Nicholas Tattersall has created a common formulation of the argument that relies in part on this very concept.[7] It is fairly simple and utilizes only two premises before reaching its conclusion. P1: Gratuitous suffering and pointless premature deaths probably occur. P2: Gratuitous suffering and pointless premature deaths are incompatible with the God of theism (omnipotent, omniscient, all-good). C: Therefore, the God of theism probably does not exist. (from 1 and 2) In terms of the argument's structure, it is clearly valid. It has been formulated according to the logical rule of inference known as modus ponens. If the first and second premise are both true, then it follows logically and inescapably that God probably does not exist. The conclusion of the argument, therefore, cannot be denied without contradiction if both premises are true.[8] For starters, the second premise is obviously true. Gratuitous suffering and pointless premature deaths cannot occur if God is indeed all loving and all merciful. If God exists, all evils must be morally justified and cannot therefore be gratuitous. So, the entire basis of the argument hinges on whether or not the truth of the first premise is more plausible than its negation. This acknowledgement, then, provides for a good transition to a more detailed defense of the first premise. C2: Gratuitous suffering and pointless premature deaths probably occur. There are good reasons to suppose that gratuitous suffering and pointless premature deaths probably occur and there are no comparably good reasons to suppose that they do not occur. Examples of gratuitous suffering and pointless premature deaths may include tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, flash floods, viral outbreaks, wild fires, famines and fatal diseases which regularly contribute to the deaths of tens of millions of people each year. To be specific, smallpox has been estimated to have killed over 500,000,000 people in the 20th century alone, many of them children.[9] Similarly, over 99.9 percent of all of the species that have ever lived on Earth have gone extinct due to various ecological factors.[10] None of these facts are even remotely explicable under theism; they appear quite plainly to be gratuitous beyond imagination. To borrow a phrase from the philosophy of science, atheism can be viewed in this context as the proper "inference to the best explanation."[11] Independent of all evidence, gratuitous evils make atheism more plausible than theism. Furthermore, William Rowe, who is one of the modern godfathers of AE, has described a situation he dubbed E1 which would apparently be gratuitous. In E1: (the case of Bambi) a forest fire traps a dear, horribly burns the deer and then causes the deer tremendous suffering before it dies in agony several days later.[12] Bruce Russell introduced another seemingly gratuitous evil that involved the death of a small girl. The second situation E2: (the case of Sue) is based on a real event that happened in Flint, Michigan in which a five-year-old girl was beaten, raped and strangled to death on New Year's Day in 1986.[13] Of course, one could give examples such as these ad infinitum. It is thus unlikely that all of them are entirely justified given their seemingly evident gratuitous nature. For these reasons, it is rational to suppose that at least some instances of suffering and death are gratuitous. C3: The objections to the argument from evil are without merit. As a matter of fact, the inadequacy of the attempts to typically resolve the problem of evil has not just been recognized by atheists, but also by some of the leading defenders of theism. Alvin Plantinga, a Christian philosopher from the University of Notre Dame, has concluded that "...many of the attempts to explain why God permits evil -- theodicies as we might call them -- seem to me shallow, tepid and ultimately frivolous."[14] Peter van Inwagen has even admitted of AE, "Examination shows there is no known way of answering this case, and there is good reason to think that no way of answering it will be forthcoming."[15] Indeed, it is virtually inconceivable how God could have morally sufficient reasons for allowing so much evil to exist in the world. To circumvent this problem, many theists have occasionally tried to use other arguments to prove that God exists in order to eliminate the possibility that gratuitous evils exist. Richard Swinburne of Oxford university has even argued for the conclusion that theism does not need a theodicy.[16] Now, I have no idea what arguments for God, theodicies or defenses my opponent may think are valid. So, instead of attacking straw men, I'll have to be content to remain quite until he makes his own views clear. | Conclusion | All other evidence held equal, it seems highly plausible that at least some instances of suffering and death in the world are gratuitous because there are no known good reasons which could justify their existence. While there are many different attempts to justify the existence of vast amounts of seemingly gratuitous evil, none of them stack up very well against sufficiently strong counterarguments. As such, there are good reasons to suppose that AE is a valid and powerful argument against theism. Its conclusion should therefore be accepted. God probably doesn't exist. Sources: http://tinyurl.com...