| The Evidential Argument From Evil and How This is a Perfect World: A Theodicy for the Existance of God |
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| Paper by Jeff Roberts Undergraduate in the Department of Psychology and Philosophy, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas Introduction to the Problem of Evil The Problem of Evil has been a topic of interest for philosophers for hundreds of years. In fact, it is a topic of great interest to me. When one looks at the Problem of Evil, you actually look at two separate issues. These are the Evidential Problem of Evil and the Logical Problem of Evil. For the purposes of this paper, I shall be looking at the Evidential Problem of Evil. The Evidential Problem of Evil asks us a simple question. It asks us whether or not we believe that Gods existence is probable. After all, if God were really �all good� then would He not try to prevent the evil in the world? I feel William Rowe formulated the problem the best: 1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. 2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. 3. There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being. (The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism, by William Rowe. Pages 1-11 from The Evidential Argument from Evil, edited by Daniel Howard-Snyder. Copyright 1996, Indiana University Press) This is a very basic idea. However, it is also the strongest. It appeals to our common sense. To more aptly demonstrate the problem let us break it down. Analyzing Premise I There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. My favorite example that Rowe uses is of the deer trapped in the forest. There is a cute baby fawn, say Bambi, hopping through the forest. All of a sudden, lightening strikes and starts a forest fire. Bambi becomes trapped in a gigantic ring of fire. Poor little Bambi leaps for safety, but in the process, Bambi is horribly burned. He crawls off into the burned out forest and takes a week to die a slow, painful, and generally horrible death. Now, to everyone it seems that there is no particular reason for Bambi's death. Bambi was not planning to murder Thumper. All he was doing was hopping through the forest, minding his own business. This is where the problem lies. Why did God create the fire that killed Bambi? One might argue that maybe he sent the fire for some other purpose. I would then ask why did poor little Bambi have to die. Even if it is just part of some cosmic accident, then why did Bambi have to suffer in agony for days? If you do not like the Bambi example then I can think of thousands of others. How about a young girl being brutally raped and murdered? There is no good reason for these evils to occur. At least as far as we can reasonably see, and that is the kicker of the problem. It asks us what is reasonable. Here is a situation where an all-perfect God has allowed an evil to occur that he could have reasonably prevented. So why did He not? Analyzing Premise II An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. What is the point of having an omniscient, wholly good God if He does not do anything to stop evil from occurring in the world? Now, we are willing to grant God a little leeway here. I would agree that he would not do anything that would permit greater evil nor would he do anything that would inhibit a greater good. However, let us go back to Bambi in the forest. Bambi has now been dragging himself through the forest for two days. Every breath is made in complete agony as his lungs have been scorched by smoke and his body is covered with burns. The only thing that can make the situation worse is the fact that we know that poor Bambi goes on suffering for three more days. Why did this happen? Is there some greater good that God is promoting by allowing Bambi to suffer? Is he instead preventing some greater evil by allowing Bambi to suffer? The answer is a resounding NO. No matter how hard we look at the situation there seems to be no reason for God allowing Bambi to suffer in the woods. Analyzing Premise III There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being. This is the reasonable conclusion that we have to come to. We have shown a situation in which God could have prevented an unnecessary evil and did not. If we can show as little as one situation then there is no way that the second part of this can be true. However, is this all necessarily true? For a moment, let us assume that God did have a reason for allowing Bambi to suffer. This reason was a good reason. It was a divine reason. It was also a reason that we could never hope to comprehend. Is this really a problem? Why must God be answerable to us? Is this not what we are attempting to do when we try to figure out how God's decisions effect us and our lives. However, this is not the case. We are not the sum total of the existence of the universe. When God makes a decision, he has to think about everything in the universe, not just humans. This is very similar to the answer God gave to Job when Job asked him a very similar question. There is nothing in being omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good, that makes God answerable to us. On the contrary, I find the idea of God being answerable to us to be quite limiting. Are God's decisions not good enough for the rest of the universe? We still have the problem of God's radically different ideas of good and evil being totally unrelated from our own. However, God does not have to answer to us, as we are so limited. Instead, he has to answer to the universe at large. This is because it is for the good of the universe that God makes his decisions. God would not be held to a human standard of good and evil; instead, God would be held to a universal standard of good and evil. Of course, this does not mean that we cannot understand why God does what he does. It just means that we have to work harder to find it. The rest of this paper is devoted to my attempt to create a Theodicy. A Theodicy is a theory to directly prove the existence of God. My Theodicy will attempt to outline how we live in the best of all possible worlds. Furthermore, I shall attempt to show that the evils that affect us are necessary to obtain a "Universal Average" of good and evil. By showing that the evils we see in our lives are necessary, I argue that they do not contradict God's existence. Discussion I: The �Universal Average� I personally am a theist. However, I do not follow organized religions. This does not mean that I excuse the existence of evil. Instead, I actually believe that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Now this is where people might have problems with my beliefs. They would first call me stupid or crazy and ask me how this can be the best of all possible worlds? I would give them a simple answer. This is the only world we have. The problem for is not the existence of evil. Instead, I believe the problem lies with trying to show how this IS the best of all possible worlds. If I can prove that, then the Problem of Evil in all of its forms would disappear. Now one might ask how I would go about showing that this is the best of all possible worlds. After all, this world seems to be a far cry from being ideal. Not only is this world filled with evil actions and evil people, but also parts of it are not very attractive and smell badly. Should we not conceivably be living in a paradise that has no evil if this really is the best of all possible worlds? I argue that this may not be true. I believe that our preconceived notions of perfection are incorrect when it comes to the world we live in. To begin, with we must remember that the Earth and its inhabitants are not the only inhabitants that a divine being would be concerned about. Our universe is infinite in size and so theoretically, there are an infinite number of other life forms. An all-perfect God would have to treat all of these life forms, including us, equally. I call this a "Universal Average". It is an average of the total good and evil in the universe. As a whole, every population must fall on or close to this average. An unfair balance in the universe would be a "real evil" as opposed to the relatively minor evils that affect us in order to achieve the "Universal Average". Before I move on, I would like to take a moment to talk in depth about the "Universal Average". This average is the key component to my entire Theodicy. God established the "Universal Average" when he created the universe. It has two parts to it that are both necessary. One is the amount of good and evil in a system. If I were to look at the Earth, I would look at the total amount of good and evil on the planet in the planet's history. The Earth's amounts of good and evil will have to be very close to, if not exactly the same as the levels of good and evil for other planets in the Universe. We will call the amounts of good and evil for Earth (and other planets) the �Planetary Average�. The second component is the actual "Average" to the "Universal Average". You would take the totals of good and evil for the Earth and then divide the good by the evil. Thus giving you an over all total for the amount of good and evil for Earth. For example, let us say that the Earth had 8 good events and 4 evil events. Of course, these numbers are MUCH smaller that the actual numbers would be, but you get the idea. You would then divide the good (8) by the evil (4) and get 2. This 2 is the average of good and evil for earth. In order for the Universe to be fair, every planet would have to have a �Planetary Average� that would be very close to or equal 2. The �Universal Average� proper works in the same way. You would take the total amounts of good and evil in the Universe and then divide the good by the evil. This would give you the �Universal Average�. Now there may be a difference between the �Planetary Average� and the �Universal Average�. I will discuss this, margin of error, next. Discussion II: margins of error and �real evils� Earlier I mentioned how an unfair balance of good and evil would be a �real evil�. Now just above I mentioned there being a margin of error. So, what makes an unfair balance? Simply stated, it will be any thing outside of this margin of error. The margin of error is dependent on the sample size. As with any experiment, the smaller the sample the larger the margin of error. Actually, error creeps into the system two ways. Below I have outlined them for you. 1. Incomplete record of good and evil. Now, the nature of the idea of a �Universal Average� does not lend its self to hard numbers. As I have mentioned before, if we wanted to take the �Universal Average� of Earth we would have to make a tally of all the good and evil in the history of the Earth. As we do not have a documented history of every instance of the Earth�s existence, we can never make a complete tally. As a result, we cannot have and exact �Universal Average� for Earth. Instead, we will have an average that is close to the exact �Universal Average�. This difference between the approximate �Universal Average� and the exact �Universal Average� is the margin of error. The more complete the record of good and evil, the smaller the margin of error. 2. Limited Sample Size This explanation is very similar to the previous, but not quite the same. A margin of error can also creep in when you purposely limit your sample size. The fact is if we are looking for the �Universal Average� then we will have to make a tally of every instance of good and evil that has ever occurred in the entire universe. Let us say, for a moment, that we could do that. There would be a difference between the �Universal Average� of good and evil in the universe and the �Planetary Average� of good and evil found here on earth. That is because the Earth, when compared to the universe, is a very small sample. This means that it has more room for error when it is compared to the universe, which is a very large sample. In the case of the �Universal Average�, it�s margin of error would be infinitely small because of the Universes infinitely large size. �Real Evils� occur when the �Planetary Average� (and of course this could be a �Human Average� as well) of one planet is significantly higher or lower than that of the other planets. What this means is that it falls outside the margin of error for planets when compared to the �Universal Average�. We would take the �Universal Average� and compare it to the margin of error for a random sampling of �Planetary Averages�. This is demonstrated in the step one below. Step 1: �Planetary Average� for random sampling of planets gives us a range from 100 to 102. This gives us a margin of error of +/- 2. �Universal Average� for the universe equals 101 When you compare this range to the �Universal Average�, you get a margin of error of +/- 1. In example two we have a planet that has a lower �Planetary Average� than our sample range. Step 2: �Planetary Average� for Earth equals 97. Now with step three we must incorporate the margin of error that we determined from our random sampling. Step 3: �Planetary Average� for Earth equals 97 with margin of error +/- 2 giving us a �Planetary Average� range of 95-99 In step four we determine that the possible range of the �Planetary Average of Earth� falls out side of our margin of error for our sample range/�Universal Average� comparison. Therefore, we can conclude that a real evil is being committed. Step 4: Highest possible �Planetary Average� for Earth equals 99. �Universal Average� equals 101 with a margin of error of +/- 1. Earth falls out side of this margin of error (99 + 1 would only equal 100 and would fall below the �Universal Average�). This would mean that the balance of good and evil on Earth is significantly different from that of any other planet in the universe. Now of course, if we were really determining these numbers the difference between them would be very small. However, even with the larger numbers you can see how the system would work. Of course the system would work the same way for a �Planetary Average� that was significantly higher than the other �Planetary Averages�. Discussion III: Why our universe is the only universe With all of this said about "Universal Averages" you might still ask how this is the best of all possible worlds? Why did God not make a universe with a higher "Universal Average"? He might very well have, however if he did, it does not exist now or in the last fifteen billion years (which is the estimated age of the universe). I know that this sounds like a very sweeping statement, however I feel that it is true. My first bit of evidence is our own existence. We, and our imperfections, are intricate parts of the universe at large. We are the base components of the "Universal Average". If you were to drastically change the "Universal Average" then you would have to completely change its base components. We would not exist in this different universe, or if we did, we would be so different that we would not really be the same people. It would be as if everything that made us who we are had changed. If we are to exist as is, then our universe must exist as is. I do not think that anyone will really argue that we do not exist so therefore our universe must exist. Now I must argue that our universe is the ONLY universe in existence right now, or in the history of our universe. My argument for this goes as follows. It is once again based upon the idea of fairness. If you have two universes then they must, just like every one else, have equal levels of good and evil and thus have equal "Universal Averages". If one universe is better than another is then this is unfair to the lesser universe. On this scale, there is no margin of error. As I mentioned earlier, the margin of error is dependent on the sample size. When looking at a universe, we are looking at something infinite in time and space. If your sample grows in size, then your margin of error will decrease. A sample that is infinite in size will have an infinitely small margin of error. If a universe has even a slightly higher level of good and thus a better overall "Universal Average" than the other universe then the Cosmos itself is unfair (at this point I suppose you would have to call it a �Cosmic Average�. The same is true if one universe has a slightly higher level of evil. If one universe has a slightly higher level of evil then the universe that has the lower level of evil is being unfair. If God were to allow either of these two options to occur then he would be committing a real evil. Thus, God would not create two universes with different levels of good and evil and thus having different "Universal Averages". One question still plagues me. Can you have two universes be completely different in content but have the same levels of good and evil and thus have the same "Universal Average" (this is to say that it is scientifically possible to have two universes exist at the same time)? We must look at our own world and situation for guidance. If we look at scientific experiments we can see the difficulties in repeating results exactly. To think that two completely random universes would have an identical amount of good and evil to have an identical "Universal Average" is, in my opinion, a stretch. It seems to me that there are far too many variables that would upset the balance of good and evil and thus upset the "Universal Average". We have already established the fact that if two universes were somehow unequal then it would be a �real evil�. So, if two universes were going to theoretically exist at the same time they would have to be exactly equal, no margin of error. However, what would this accomplish? If they were exactly equal, they would have to be very similar in make up if not identical. Even if by some chance they were completely different, the amounts of good and evil would be the same. The only thing that would change would be how those said amounts were distributed. This would be the only thing you could change since the levels of good and evil would have to stay the same. I do not see how this would be better than just having one universe. In this situation, I would invoke Ockham's Razor. The principle of Ockham's Razor says that the simplest mechanism is often the best. In this case, I feel that multiple universes that have the same levels of good and evil and thus have the same "Universal Average" are redundant and add an unnecessary complication to the mechanism that is the cosmos at large. A single universe is complicated enough. After all, it is something that is infinite in space and time. To complicate it further by adding another universe that serves no real purpose is unnecessary. According to Ockham's Razor, we are able to dismiss the idea of multiple exactly equal universes. Of course, the whole point may be moot, as we have no real proof that two universes could exist at the same time. Until it can be shown that two universes CAN exist at the same time, I feel that it is safe to dismiss the idea of two universes with identical �Universal Averages�. Conclusion I have tried to offer here a Theodicy to counteract the Evidential Problem of Evil. In my Theodicy, we do live in the best of all possible worlds, and the evil that we experience is necessary in order to achieve the correct balance of good and evil and thus establish the correct "Universal Average". By making this argument, I believe that I have refuted William Rowe's argument that there are evils for which God has no good reason. However, this is by no means an end to the argument. I am not so arrogant as to believe that I can solve the Evidential Problem of Evil on my first try. Instead, my Theodicy attempted to achieve a more modest goal, progress. My hope is that I made you think. Even if you come up with some way to prove my theories wrong, we will be making progress towards solving this problem. I firmly believe that even wrong answers are better than no answers. Over the years, many Philosophers have tried to answer the Evidential Problem of Evil by saying that we are unable to see God's reasons for allowing certain actions to take place, even though these reasons are there. They argue that we are unable to see them because of our limited nature. In my opinion, these people are mistaken. True we may not be able to see God's reasons today but that does not mean that we may never see them. You will never find the answers if you never look. I feel that there are reasons for what God does and that we can see them. It is just a matter of time and effort. |