8 (or so) Responses to The Problem of Evil
UPDATE: I’ve recorded a podcast to accompany this article.
The problem of evil suggests that the “bad stuff” of our world counts as evidence against the existence of God. Some think the evidence from bad stuff to the Hypothesis of Indifference (following Paul Draper to mean a worldview where there is no mind or agency at bottom; I’ll just use the term naturalism from here out) is quite powerful.
Theists have responded to this challenge in several ways. Below are the primary approaches, as I understand them. The purpose of this article is simply to map the terrain – that is, to briefly explain what each approach is without offering either defense or objection (though along the way I will reference resources for further study) – and then suggest my preferred approach.1
8 (or so) Responses to the Problem of Evil
The “We Know that God Exists” Approach.
The Total Evidence Approach.
The Weak Theodicy Approach.
The Strong Theodicy Approach.
The Stronger Theodicy Approach.
The Reformed Epistemology Approach.
The Skeptical Theist Approach.
The God Is Not a Moral Agent Approach.
Disclaimer: I understand the boundaries between these approaches are not always sufficiently clear. Thus, certain readers may think to collapse one approach into another; if such a point were pressed, I would have little interest in challenging it. Hence 8 “or so”. Maybe there are fewer than 8. Either way, this is just how I map the terrain. Moreover, I am not suggesting these approaches play well with one another. Some are compatible, some are not.
The We Know That God Exists Approach
The “We Know that God Exists”2 Approach is perhaps the most traditional response to the PoE. The claim is that some undeniable feature or features of the world (often just the contingent world itself is suggested) requires God as its necessary condition. Arguments for this position have been ventured from prior to Plato onward to today. It’s relation to the problem of evil is just this: Because of purportedly successful metaphysical demonstrations, we know that God exists; naturalism, as it were, is reduced to probability zero. Which is sticky. Thus, evidential considerations of evil become irrelevant at that point. Nevertheless, being sane-minded individuals, we do not deny the occurrence of bad stuff nor that it is genuinely difficult to think about bad stuff relation to an omni-God. Nevertheless, if two things are actual they must be compatible. So, the problem of evil is not really a problem for theism given what we already know: that God exists. At worst, it is just a mystery to be contemplated in the realm of theology. (Jim Madden and I suggested that this approach was a motivating force in Plato’s Timaeus.)
The Total Evidence Approach
Contrast the above with the Total Evidence Approach. Here the case for God is inductive or abductive (incorporating various arguments and evidence, say from the regularity of nature, the emergence of rational agents, moral experience, etc.) such that our confidence in traditional theism as a working Big Picture hypothesis is comparatively high when all relevant factors are considered. What is not claimed within this approach are any definitely successful metaphysical demonstrations for God which reduce competing worldview hypotheses (including but not limited to naturalism) to probability zero. This means evidential considerations of evil definitely are relevant. But here the theist might just concede that the bad stuff of our universe counts as evidence against God to whatever degree; nevertheless, that the total weighing of evidence remains in favor of God’s existence. Hence, better to go with theism considering our total understanding.
Perhaps the best way to understand the Total Evidence Approach is to think of theism and naturalism as two plates on a scale and the various features of the world being sorted as evidence either onto the theistic side or the naturalistic side. The Total Evidence Approach to the problem of evil maintains that while the weight of evil may be placed in favor of the naturalistic side (and may be rather heavy), the theistic side is more substantially weighed down by other considerations (fine-tuning, consciousness, or whatever). The champion of this approach is Richard Swinburne (Existence of God, Is There a God?).
The Weak Theodicy Approach
The Weak Theodicy Approach (or “defense” as it is sometimes called) appeals to some potentially justifying reason that “for all we know” might be true if God exists. Peter van Inwagen takes this approach in his Problem of Evil. Inwagen claims all we need to defeat the (evidential) problem of evil is some possible story that has the right sort of consequence(s); one which an ideal agnostic is willing to admit might well be true if God exists. Inwagen’s Weak Theodicy is one of mild skepticism: namely, that if one is not able to assign a probability range of bad stuff on theism (which he argues is the case) then one is quite obviously not in a position to say the probability of bad stuff on naturalism is higher than the probability of bad stuff on theism. Importantly — though, disputably —this approach differs from the Skeptical Theist Approach, because the claim of the Weak Theodicist (as I understand it) is not that we cannot see what a God-justifying reason might be for permitting evil, only that we cannot see whether the story which includes such a reason is actually the true one; only that, for all anyone knows, if God exists, it might well be the true one, and for all we know, the reasons identified might well be God-justifying.3
The Strong Theodicy Approach
The Strong Theodicy Approach claims more. Typically, that we actually do know what (or at least some) of God’s justifying reasons are for allowing the bad stuff of this world. This is Eleonore Stump’s approach in Wandering In Darkness, a book which I cannot recommend enough.
Perhaps the best way to contrast Weak and Strong Theodicy is to consider the following from Inwagen, where S stands for the bad stuff of our universe:
“Suppose that one were successfully to argue that S was not surprising on theism – and not because S is ‘just what one should expect’ if theism were true, but because no one is in a position to know whether S is what one should expect if theism is true.”4
That’s a Weak Theodicy. A Strong Theodicy claims S actually is just what one should expect (or near enough) if theism were true. A Weak Theodicy claims we aren’t able to make an evidential comparison with any real confidence, a Strong Theodicy says we can and that naturalism fares no better than theism for anticipating a universe like ours.
The Stronger Theodicy Approach
Now, The Stronger (Strongest?) Theodicy Approach claims not only that S actually is just what we should expect if theism is true but is not what we should expect if the hypothesis of indifference were true. This takes the matter further by arguing that the bad stuff of our universe falls within a particular range predicted by theism (say, a range well suited for soul building, or achieving union with God/treating spiritual cancer, or what have you), and is actually confirmatory of theism and disconformity of naturalism. The most developed account of this approach is Trent Dougherty’s The Problem of Animal Pain wherein he attempts to reverse the problem of evil in favor of theism, rather than merely neutralize it. Probably the best way to summarize the Stronger Theodicy Approach is by comparing it to fine-tuning arguments. The idea is something like this: The distribution of evil could have fallen along many different dimensions (far more, far less, or even none) if naturalism were true. However, it seems to fall along the quite narrow dimensions that are conducive for goods considered to be of the highest value by most of us and especially by religious people (Dougherty outlines these values in his book; readers wanting details are referred there). Theism specifically predicts this narrow range; naturalism does not (to clarify: the claim is that naturalism, while compatible with this range, does not predict any specific distribution of suffering, and thus the odds of landing in the relevant range from a naturalistic perspective are rather slim, or so Dougherty argues). Thus, given that we have landed in this narrow range, the bad stuff of our universe is evidential confirmation of theism. Or so Dougherty argues. Remember, I’m not trying to defend these approaches, I’m just making their presence known. Obviously, there are objections to each.
The Reformed Epistemology Approach
Then there is the Reformed Epistemology Approach as most associated with Alvin Plantinga. How best to summarize this? Probably as follows. Plantinga rejects that God is supposed to be an explanation of the things of our world; or at least that is how we typically come to be justified in believing in God. Rather, we are well justified believing in God (assuming God exists) because such belief is the deliverance of properly functioning faculties operating in their appropriate environment. For Plantinga, theistic belief is basic and non-inferential, much like my belief that there are other people in this room and that they are minded like me. It’s not something I reason up to; it’s just a belief naturally occasioned in me. Ultimately, the key to Plantinga’s response to the PoE is that theism could actually be improbable on propositional evidence and yet justified on non-propositional evidence. The details of how this is the case, as you might expect, are intricate, but the all too short story for now is that Plantinga believes his externalist theory of knowledge can offer something of an evidential shield (and a strong one at that, even if not totally invulnerable) around theistic belief, such that a theist can be well justified believing in God even if they don’t have any arguments for the existence of God or any responses to the problem of evil. Warranted Christian Belief is the place to start with Plantinga on this matter; or, if you prefer a more condensed version, Knowledge and Christian Belief.
The Skeptical Theist Approach
Then there is the Skeptical Approach or that of Skeptical Theism. The camp of Skeptical Theism is broad with vague boundaries but ultimately Skeptical Theism embraces two claims, as set forth by Timothy Perrine: “First, even if theism were true, we should be skeptical of our abilities to reasonably predict all of God’s plans for organizing the world, including those about the amount and nature of evil. Second, if this first claim is true, then it undermines or otherwise greatly mitigates arguments from evil.”5
Said differently, the Skeptical Theist argues our inability to not see a reason for God’s permitting the bad stuff of our world is not a reason to assume with any confidence that there is no reason. Not seeing, as the slogan has it, is not seeing not. Moreover, says many a Skeptical Theist, we should not expect to see a God-justifying reason since God’s reasons are probably God-sized, and we are just not that big.
The God Is Not a Moral Agent Approach
Finally, The God Is Not a Moral Agent Approach has been most rigorously advanced by Brian Davies. Davies maintains that because God is not a moral agent like we are moral agents the entire problem of evil is misguided from start. Davies emphasizes that when we say God is good we are not saying God is morally good or well behaved (though he emphasizes we are not saying God is ill-behaved either). For Davies, God is no more subject to the natural moral law than God is subject to natural physical laws, because God is what creates and sustains these. Similarly, God has no virtues and no virtues (God has no dispositions and cannot be perfected; God just is perfection itself) nor does God have duties or obligations. God is just not the sort of thing can could be described in such a way, but because the problem of evil assumes an understanding of God’s goodness in this (or a similar enough) way Davies rejects the PoE as fundamentally ill-framed. Ultimately, Davies thinks the PoE is a non-starter once certain faulty assumptions are fixed.
My Preferred Approach
OK, so where do I come down on how to respond to the PoE?
I believe something like Dougherty’s approach is correct, though I would be inclined to support it more through considerations offered by Stump and Van Inwagen (I attempt this in my upcoming book with Sophia; I won’t get into this now). Now, I take it such an approach is incompatible with much (though not all) of Skeptical Theism as it assumes we really can know enough about God and his purposes and other things in the world (like human nature) to generate reasonable, even if broad, expectations concerning the distribution of evil and suffering. Moreover, that we seem to inhabit a world not at all surprising on a robust understanding of classical theism and that this world – this distribution of suffering and evil – is not quite as well anticipated by naturalism even if it is compatible with it. I understand this is little more than assertion at this point. For now, all I can say is that I substantiate – or attempt to substantiate, anyway – this approach in my forthcoming book.
Nevertheless, even if this Stronger Approach failed, I am not too worried about it, since I think there are successful metaphysical demonstrations for God’s existence, that other arguments/evidence add huge amounts of confirmatory support to theism, and that other theodicies on offer (both weak and strong) successfully remove the fangs from the more ferocious evidential arguments from evil against theism. Maybe I am wrong about all this as well, but (from my perspective, which is the only one I have) I don’t think so. For this reason, the PoE doesn’t trouble me all that much intellectually6 as a classical theist, even more given the fact that I believe God has worked within me truly great goods from sufferings which I considered horrendous and irredeemable at the time. Goods that, so far as I can tell, would not have come otherwise and that I would not trade looking back. I admit my personal experience on this matter will be of little significance and interest to people, but at the end of the day I believe our personal experiences can provide justification for us.
I was inspired to write this article after reading an excellent forthcoming article from Dr. Jonathan Fuqua issuing a holistic response from a classical theists to the problem of evil, which incorporates elements from many of the approaches outlined here. I plan to have Jonathan on the podcast to discuss his article next month.
This is the title given by Brian Davies in Introduction to Philosophy of Religion.
Though it must be noted that Inwagen utilizes a fairly heavy modal skepticism in his response to the PoE which, if accepted, would undercut some positive approaches to God.
See his The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence, also featured in The Evidential Argument From Evil.
Of course it still troubles on the level of daily life.