| The Evidential Argument From Evil Part 1 |
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| The problem of evil has existed since there was theology. The problem, basically stated, is this: A. An all-powerful, all knowing, and all loving God would eliminate all evil. B. Evil exists in this world. So C. There is no all-powerful, all knowing, and all loving God. This is a very simple way of stating the Problem of Evil. It is by no means an open or shut case for either the theist or the atheist. The thousands of works that have been done on this topic show this. The Evidential Argument From Evil is a collection of works on this subject. It focuses on the two different sides of the argument. It is broken up into the logical argument from evil and the evidential argument from evil. To begin with I looked at the first five selections. These articles were by William Rowe, Paul Draper, Richard Swinburne, and Alvin Plantinga. These articles all dealt with the logical problem from evil. I shall take each one in turn and describe what the author�s stances are. Rowe To begin with I looked at the article from William Rowe entitled �The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism�. This article did not look at the question as black and white. Instead Rowe tried to distinguish different kinds of atheistic belief. However, the entire theme of the article was directed towards an atheistic approach towards the problem of evil. Rowe differentiated between three types of atheism. These are entitled unfriendly atheism, indifferent atheism, and friendly atheism. Rowe also went on to define the terms theist and agnostic. He showed the difference between a broad theist and a narrow theist. A narrow theist is �someone who believes in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, supremely good being who created the world�. This is opposed to a broad theist �who believes in the existence of some sort of divine being or divine reality�. As you can see, there is a definite difference between the two. A narrow theist can be a broad theist, however a broad theist can�t be a narrow theist. Rowe went on to say that similar differences could be found with the terms agnostic and atheist. Rowe made this distinction because in his paper he used the narrow sense of these terms. To start off his argument for atheism Rowe sets up this first basic problem: 1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater food 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. He then shows how these principles are valid. To show an example of 1 he describes a situation in which a fawn is trapped in a forest fire and becomes horribly burned and takes several days of horrible suffering to die. He points out that there seems to be no reason for the fawns suffering. It does not seem to further any greater good or prevent any evil of equal or great measure. Rowe asks if an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented this from occurring. The answer of course is yes. An omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented the fawn from being burned or could have let the fawn die quickly as to prevent it from suffering needlessly. Rowe is quick to point out that since the fawns suffering was preventable and that it appears to be pointless, that his first point is valid. In his defense of the second premise Rowe appeals to our own common sense. He says that it is a basic premise held by not only theists but also atheists. However, Rowe also described how a theist might argue against this. He uses a method, which he calls �the G. E. Moore shift�. G. E. Moore originally stated the idea as a defense against skeptics like David Hume who had stated logical argument against us knowing anything about material objects. It went like this: I do know that this pencil exists. If the skeptic�s principles are correct then I cannot know the existence of this pencil, Therefore, The skeptic�s principles (at least one) must be incorrect. So instead of making a direct argument against atheism we take an indirect approach. This method goes as follows: I. p II. not-r q q r not-p If the logic of the first premise is valid the logic of the second premise must also be valid. We apply it to our problem like so. Not-3. There exists an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being. 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. Therefore, Not-1. It is not the case that 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. Since the first argument we laid out is logically valid then this argument is valid as well. This is where Rowe�s friendly atheism steps in. According to Rowe a friendly atheist has no problem with the argument for theism being logically valid. The friendly atheist will just point out that just because something is logical doesn�t mean that it is true. Furthermore it is much more reasonable to believe the atheistic argument than the theistic argument. Draper The next article was �Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists� by Paul Draper. This article dealt with many aspects of the problem of evil also from the point of the atheist. The first thing that Draper did was to define the term �theism�. �By �theism� I mean the following statement: There exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person who created the Universe.� He said that theism is the statement that God exists. Next Draper laid out the fundamental principle of his article, which he called the Hypothesis of Indifference (HI): HI: neither the nature nor the condition of sentient beings on earth is the result of benevolent or malevolent actions performed by nonhuman persons. The difference between HI and theism is that HI dose not require the existence of a supernatural being and so is consistent with naturalism. However, it doesn�t exclude supernatural beings. It just says that not action preformed by them would be motivated by concern for our well-being. Next he defines �O� as being �a statement reporting both the observations one has made of humans and animals experiencing pain or pleasure and the testimony one has encountered concerning the observations others have made of sentient beings experiencing pain or pleasure�. He then lays out what he calls the epistemic problem by arguing that: C: HI explains the facts O reports much better than theism does. This can be abbreviated by using P(x/y) to represent the probability of statement x: C: P(O/HI) is much greater than P(O/theism) This is the basis for Drapers argument through out the rest of the article. He uses it to argue against several theist defenses. The first one is the idea of the Biological Utility of Pain and Pleasure. 1. Moral agents experiencing pain or pleasure that we know to be biologically useful. 2. Sentient beings that are not moral agents experiencing pain, or pleasure that we know to be biologically useful, and 3. Sentient beings experiencing pain and pleasure that we do not know to be biologically useful. This is when Draper slips into what can only be called a very complicated calculus formula through which he once again shows how P(O/HI) is better than P(O/theism). Instead of presenting the entire formula I will attempt to sum it up. Basically, it says that we are naturally goal directed organisms. We try to maximize our pleasure while limiting our pain. This fits in well with HI. However, if pain and pleasure were the result of God he would have to have morally good reasons. Since God is omnipotent and omniscient he could create goal-directed organisms with out biologically useful pain and pleasure. However, pain and pleasure do exist so God must have a morally good reason for it. However, at times it seems that these reasons are inconsistent with pain and pleasure contributing to the biological goals of these organisms. So this makes HI much more believable than theism. Draper goes on to show how the statement P(O/HI) is logically better than all the other alternatives. However, I have not taken any logic classes so most of the technical proofs went over my head. I did get the basic idea of the article though. Step by step he showed that every time you modified the situation P(O/HI) was still the best alternative. Despite the complexity of the argument I can see how it would prove to be a formidable obstacle to theists. It is logically sound through out and is quite plausible. Swinburne The third article was by Richard Swinburne entitled �Some Major Strands of Theodicy�. Swinburne showed a different approach to this argument by taking the side of the theist. He argued that God has reasons for allowing pain and suffering to exist. He says that the good that comes from these evils far outweighs good with out evil. This is a very important issue in the article. The idea that two almost identical events can have completely different values when it comes to the good that is a result from them is a very unique approach. Unlike the logical proofs of the previous articles, Swinburne proposes a metaphysical system in which good is of utmost importance. Free will has a large part to do with Swinburne�s argument. He argues that actions that do good that are freely preformed are better than actions that are determined. Even if the result is the same. Swinburne is saying that God could create a world in which we could always do good. However, this world would not be as good as a world in which we would be allowed to do good freely. This is because the result is not the only thing that is good. The freely preformed action is good as well. I will break it down thusly: A freely preformed action is: a. Good for the person receiving the action. b. Good for the person doing the action. c. Also good for the receiver because some one cared enough about them to perform an action. So we have three good things coming from one free action. This is opposed to a determined action: A determined action is: a. Good for the person receiving the action. As you can see only one good thing comes from a determined action. However, free actions come at a price. If we are free to do good actions we are also free to do bad actions, for example the holocaust. But even this tragic event provides an opportunity for others to do good things. Swinburne argues that no matter how you look at it, freely preformed goods out weigh the evil in the world. Furthermore a world with freely preformed good and evil is better than a world with just determined good. Plantinga The fourth article I read was by Alvin Plantinga and was called �Epistemic Probability and Evil�. This article is unique from the others. Like Swinburne�s it is from the prospective of the theist. However, unlike Swinburne�s it doesn�t try to establish some sort of metaphysical system. Instead it tries to show that the basic claims by atheists are not as straightforward as they claim. Furthermore, they are no more valid than theistic claims. In the matters of probability they are actually less believable than theism. Plantinga starts off with a basic statement of the atheist: 1. There is an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good God. Is improbable or unlikely with respect to 2. There are 10x13th turps of evil. 3. (Where turp is the basic unit of evil) This is the basic premise throughout the article. At every step Plantinga shows how this is improbable. He chiefly uses the work of William Rowe as examples of atheistic principles. Plantinga makes great use of the idea that we might not be able to understand God�s reasons for allowing certain actions to take place. This is because our cognitive powers, when compared to that of God�s, are probably a bit limited. How can we try to judge God�s actions when we are unable to see the entire picture? For example we can look towards the story of Job. When Job asks of God why he has allowed him to suffer so God dose not give him a direct answer. Instead he tells Job how little he knows when compared to God. God attacks Job for holding the idea that just because Job can�t think of a good reason for God�s actions, then God dose not have a reason at all. Job sees the error of his ways and understands that his knowledge is limited compared to that of the all mighty. Plantinga shows that every atheistic argument showing the improbability of God fails to prove its point. He says that the only real criticism that atheists can lodge against theists is �to claim that the noetic structure of such a theist displays a certain defect or flaw.� What this means is that the basic premise of the person is based upon flawed information. You can construct a completely logical argument, however, if the basic premise of it is wrong then the entire argument is wrong. This was the idea voiced by such people as Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx. They believed the idea that religion was just some needless by product and could actually be dangerous to the believer. Marx called it �the opium of the people�. However, this approach can be flipped and be used to attack the atheist argument. Theists can look towards atheists as being the ones displaying the �defect or flaw�. This flaw may be rooted in the very sin of disbelief. St. Paul said that unbelief is ultimately a result of sin; it ultimately originates in an effort to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. John Calvin believed that if it were not for sin we would believe in God to the same degree as we do other natural occurrences. It is because of sin that we view the belief in God to be absurd. In the end of it all though it will be up to the individual to determine what he or she believes. If you are a theist you will believe that the atheists are the flawed ones. If you are an atheist then you will see the theists as being flawed. In Conclusion In conclusion I do not see that there is a definitive answer to be found in the Logical Problem of Evil. Both sides of the debate can show a logical process by which they can either prove the existence of God or prove His nonexistence. What this tells me is that the proof of God does not lie in a mathematical formula. If I had to pick which one of the authors showed this the best I would pick Richard Swinburne. However, I personally have some fundamental issues with Swinburne�s argument, namely his use of the free will defense as the basis for his beliefs. Personally I believe that most advocates of the free will defense need to take a step back and look at what they are saying. I think that if they did they would be advocating something closer to soft determinism than free will. This brings me to another interesting point. None of the authors looked at the argument from a deterministic point of view. I suppose that this is because free will is one of the fundamental beliefs of traditional theology. However, I wonder what difficulties one might encounter in formulating a logical argument for the existence of God based in a deterministic world. For that matter what difficulties one might encounter in trying to argue against it. One would think that in a deterministic world it would be much easier to explain evil as being a mechanism by which God caused actions to occur. This, or something similar, seems to be much easier to defend than the stance taken by Richard Swinburne in which all evil is the actions of free human beings. This may be too much for theists to swallow though. After all they are trying to preserve the integrity of theism. They may see throwing out one of the basic fundamentals of theology as giving up too much. The Logical Argument of Evil has probably not persuaded anyone to change their minds. It is like the ontological argument in that respect. However it is also like the ontological argument in another respect. It is strong evidence to support whichever side you take. You find that you have a basis of support from which you can expand your argument. No one can claim that your argument is false because its core beliefs are false. This is because logically neither side is wrong. |