New Atheism and the Problem of Evil Part 2

New Atheism and the Problem of Evil

The Problem of Evil Cont.

Posted by Clark Bates
February 6, 2016

            Two forms of the problem of evil are presently in circulation today.  The first, known as the deductive problem of evil, aims to show that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with one or more of the major tenets of the Christian faith."[1]  In syllogism form this argument appears as follows:

        1.  God exists.
        2.  God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

        3.  God created the world.
        4.  Yet the world contains evil.

        5.Therefore,

         a.  God is either not omnipotent, not omniscient, and not              omnibenevolent; or                   

                

         b.  God does not exist.

 It is argued that God has the power to do anything, such as defeat evil;  He has the knowledge to do so; and supposedly loves His creation and should want to defeat evil.  Yet evil exists.  Therefore, "If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to.  God, therefore, is either impotent or evil."[2]  If this can be proven, and a contradiction with the attributes of God listed above can be found to be inconsistent or contradictory with the existence of evil in the world, Christian belief is necessarily false and must be abandoned.

          The second problem of evil is known as the inductive problem of evil or the problem of gratuitous evil.  In many cases, this version of the problem finds more adherents, because it touches on the life experiences of many.  In syllogism form it looks as follows:

        1.  An all-good God must have a good purpose for everything.
        2.  But there is no good purpose for some (i.e. gratuitous)                 suffering.
        3.  Hence there cannot be an all-good God.[3]

The common defense against the deductive problem of evil is referred to as the "greater good defense" and will be discussed in detail below.  The power of the inductive problem of evil is that if it can be proven that gratuitous, or purposeless, evil exists in the world, there is no greater good that it can serve. As Nash states,

        "What if the world contains gratuitous evil. . .?  If this is so, the appeal to greater good would collapse and with it, apparently, would also fall the claim that God permits evil because it is a necessary condition for some greater good or the avoidance of some greater evil."[4]

The Naturalist's Response to Evil

           

What then is the naturalists solution to this problem?  While some might suggest the plausibility of an "evil" God, this claim is easily dismissed as such a god would not constitute a being worthy of worship, which is inherent in the definition of "God".  The most common response, held by new atheism is that neither good nor evil exist upon any grounds outside natural selection and social considerations.  Subsequently, there need not be any speculation as to why such things occur or any need to seek supernatural basis for the collective remorse felt from the suffering evil causes.  In his writing, Sam Harris has especially promoted this position saying,

        "For there to be objective moral truths worth knowing, there    need only be better and worse ways to seek happiness in this world.  If there are psychological laws that govern human well- being, knowledge of these laws would provide an enduring basis for an objective morality."[5]

      While not considered part of the "four horsemen" of new atheism, skeptic and author Michael Shermer  also shares this sentiment and speaks for many in the new atheist movement when he writes,

        "Think about it this way: evolution created moral sentiments and concomitant behaviors over hundreds of thousands of   years, so that today even though we agree that humans  created morality and ethics, it is not us who created the moral sentiments and behaviors, it was our Paleolithic ancestors who did so in those long-gone millennia."[6]   

   

        If the advice of Shermer, Harris, and the like, is to be embraced, and God is removed from the equation of morality, the moral authority, if one can be surmised, is found only in mankind.  While not going so far as to suggest individual morality, Harris promotes a solution to any possible ambiguity surrounding how such a naturalistic morality could be grounded,

        "Only genuine moral experts would have a deep understanding of the causes and conditions of human and animal well-being. . . .Many people's reflexive response to the notion of moral expertise is to say, “I don't want anyone telling me how to live   my life."  To which I only respond, “If there were a way for you and those you care about to be much happier than you are now, would you want to know about it?”[7]

        This, then, is the challenge: Theism in general and Christianity in particular cannot reasonably or coherently account for the presence of evil, be it natural, moral, or gratuitous, while maintaining the existence of a sovereign, loving God.  Because of this, it is more rational to embrace the existence of evil as without cause or purpose, and the moral response to it as an out-flowing of evolutionary growth that may be maintained through societal processes and intuitive "morality" existing within all of humanity.

            Such a challenge looms heavily upon those who seek to maintain Christian belief in light of the world that surrounds it.  This attack is a summation of the atheistic rejection of God, evil and freedom, and it is legitimate to claim that theism's account of these items is inadequate.  But, as will be demonstrated below, it is illegitimate for the atheist to claim that a theist cannot solve the problem of evil on such a basis.[8]  If the theist, within his worldview, can resolve the problem of evil in his system, then that system is internally consistent, regardless of whether the atheist likes the intellectual commitments it may involve. . .

Next time we'll begin to address the Christian response to the deductive problem of evil...

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[1]           Ronald H. Nash, “The Problem of Evil” in Beckwith, Francis J., William Lane Craig, and J.P. Moreland,

 To Everyone and Answer (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004), 213.

[2]               Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 55.

[3]           While there are many derivations of this syllogism, I have used Norman Geisler's version for its more accessible phraseology.  Norman L. Geisler, If God, Why Evil? (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2011), 46.

[4]           Ronald H. Nash, “The Problem of Evil”, in Beckwith, Francis J., William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland,

 To Everyone and Answer (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004), 218.

[5]               Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation  (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 23-4.

[6]           Michael  Shermer, The Science of Good & Evil (New York: Henry Holdt, 2004), 18-9.

[7]           Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (New York: Free Press, 2010), 36, 202.  Such a closing statement is ironic considering this is, in many ways, the spiritual argument leveled at Harris for his unwillingness to accept the existence of God or the redemption offered through Jesus Christ.

[8]           J.S. Feinberg, "Evil, Problem of" in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Walter A. Elwell ed., 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 414.