Thomas Metcalf

I wanted to start a separate thread to talk about McHugh's final statement where he attempts to answer the argument from evil. I think there are a few places at which it may be criticized.

I think these statements are misleading. First, Quentin Smith and David O'Connor (citations available upon request) are two contemporary philosophers who propound deductive or "logical" arguments from evil; they claim to have answered Plantinga's free will defense, which is somewhat superior to any Unknown Purpose Defense of the sort McHugh is offering here because it doesn't require the same skepticism. It was Plantinga's FWD that originally was thought to bury the deductive argument, but these philosophers have decided that they have sidestepped it. Second, not all forms of the evidential argument claim there is probably some gratuitous evil. Paul Draper's and my own (forthcoming, hopefully) do not depend upon a demonstration that gratuitous evil probably exists.

This betrays a confusion about what gratuitous evil really is. Gratuitous evil is preventable-in-principle evil that is not necessary for an equal or greater good. A policy of non-interference would be the greater good in question, so the evil McHugh mentioned is still not yet gratuitous. The only two contemporary philosophers who have argued that gratuitous evil is actually consistent with God's existence are William Hasker and Peter van Inwagen (citations available upon request). Hasker ends up making a similar mistake to McHugh's; he fails to see just how the evil he describes actually is necessary for a greater good. Van Inwagen's attempt is superior because he notes that some evils might not be preventable at all, and therefore, while not necessary for a greater good, not obligatory to prevent. These evils would result from, say, indeterministic events. But the atheologian need only modify the traditional definition of gratuitous evil, "evil not necessary for an equal or greater good," to include the word "preventable-in-principle."

Compare this paragraph to McHugh's first real paragraph, in which he identifies the deductive argument as one such that "...it has been recognized that it is logically possible that God may have a morally exonerating unknown purpose for allowing evil." So the paragraph directly above looks like a response to the deductive argument, not to the evidential argument; yes, it may be logically possible that some evils are necessary for greater goods, about which we just don't know. But this would only militate against the deductive argument. The evidential argument claims to provide some evidential weight toward the conclusion that God could have prevented some of the evil in the world without precluding a greater good: namely, he is omnipotent. This is reason to believe that for any possible evil, more likely than not, the evil is not necessary for an equal or greater good. And when we recognize that the set of actual evils is a proper subset of the set of possible evils, and we have no reason to believe all the actual ones are members of the proper subset of possible evils that are unpreventable without precluding a greater good, we see that probably, some of the actual evils are preventable.

In other words, the atheist has provided some evidence that some gratuitous evil exists: God is omnipotent. This is what motivated the argument from evil in the first place. Merely identifying a possibility that all this evil is justified doesn't actually reduce the problem. It's akin to if I said "Well, it's possible that McHugh's entire presentation consists of false statements." My own statement shouldn't provide any reason to doubt McHugh's side of the debate, should it? Similarly, the mere statement of possibility, "Well, it's possible that God has a good reason for all this evil," shouldn't provide any reason to reject the evidential argument from evil. McHugh must make it seem probable that all the evil in the world is necessary for a greater good. Contemporary theistic philosophers of religion seem to recognize this point, and now either attempt to provide epistemic weight that outweighs the weight of the argument from evil (the way Plantinga does in Warranted Christian Belief), or claim there is no evidence to support the inference from "inscrutable" to "gratuitous." But as Daniel Howard-Snyder recognizes in his later paper in The Evidential Argument from Evil, there is evidence to support this conclusion. Howard-Snyder recognizes the fact that God would want to tell us why we suffer, if there were such a reason. Another reason to think the inference is justified is that God is omnipotent, so we should expect him to be able to prevent any particular instance of suffering without precluding a greater good. See also Theodore M. Drange in Nonbelief & Evil, where he makes the same sorts of considerations, and notes that while God might have a further, secret reason not to tell us, this presents greater problems for the theist.

Finally, there is a voluminous literature on the consequences of accepting a skeptical defense such as McHugh's. Richard M. Gale and Bruce Russell (citations available upon request) in particular have argued forcefully that skeptical defenses might be even more damaging toward theism than the evidential argument from evil is.

I recommend Drange's recent paper in Philo, "McHugh's Expectations Dashed." I can answer in a similar way. There is a God of the Bible (GB) and a God of apologetic Christianity (GC). Either GB and GC are the same, or they are not. If they are the same, then the facts of evil in the Bible may simply be seen to provide evidence against GC's existence, because GC is defined to be morally perfect, yet he allows plenty of evil in the Bible. If they are not the same, then the fact that GB seems to allow lots of evil shouldn't say anything about whether GC would.

Steven Carr

McHugh
'On such a view, the theist can grant that some specific instances of evil (like the untimely death of a pet), are not really necessary, but are simply the chance consequences of God's non-interference in the world. '

CARR
The theist might well be able to grant that the untimely death of a pet is not really necessary, but perhaps the theist might like to take a crack at the genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia and argue that they really were necessary.

Superb post by Thomas Metcalfe.

Nic Hautamaki

I have used that argument myself and I have come across a couple christian defenses I found quite strong logically, though not really convincing.

defense a) we deserve evil

This defense hinges on the idea that an omnibenevolent God is more concerned with being Just, than with everyone being happy. The problem with it is that you have to have a pretty backwards idea of what justice is. But here it is:

Adam and Eve sinned against God knowingly and purposefully.

Sins pass from parents to children

Therefore all humanity is guilty of the original sin. It would just for all of humanity to suffer whatever evils we do, plus then suffer eternally in hell, because Adam sinned. It is only because God is so incredibly benevolent that we are given a chance to save ourselves and wind up in heaven.

The best I can come up with here is that if you truly believe that you deserve to burn in hell forever because someone who may or may not have existed ate an apple that he wasn't supposed to eat thousands or millions of years ago, you are insane. I don't believe I will ever be able to reach the christian that put forth this argument so I just called him a psycho and dismissed him.


defense b: Justice precludes happiness.


The idea here is that God has 2 alternatives: he can create a world filled with happiness, or he can create a world full of justice. This theist concluded that world 2 is better than world 1. She also concluded that world 2 is what we actually have. The world is just because every person has a chance to choose or reject God, and face the consequences thereof. Also we all have the ability to be good or evil people in our lives, and our choices affect other people. This sort of morally significant free will is necessary for the best possible world she concludes, and by definition all evil that exists is a necessary consequence of this sort of free will. The logic is of course circular there, but the best I can really manage is to argue my intuitions against her premises. Her conclusion does seem to logically follow. The other attack you can make of course is the idea of unnecessary evil. Wouldn't the world be better off if people suffered 10 percent less? Not really she says, because she says the consequences (sufffering) of our choices are just as much good as evil. Therefore changing the degree really doesn't change anything in terms of how good the world is. It's basically just a warped view of what really is the ultimate good world, and therefore you're left arguing your intuitions against the premises unfortunately.

Defense 3: stacked up against eternity, what happens in our world doesn't matter.

Who cares how much people suffer here, because they will be eternally rewarded in heaven or eternally punished in hell. The degree of those opposing consequences renders whatever happens on earth completely insignificant.

Steven Carr

We have a world full of justice? Is this a joke?

Perhaps your theist friend is taking Job 8 too literally

1 Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

2 "How long will you say such things?
Your words are a blustering wind.
3 Does God pervert justice?
Does the Almighty pervert what is right?
4 When your children sinned against him,
he gave them over to the penalty of their sin.
5 But if you will look to God
and plead with the Almighty,
6 if you are pure and upright,
even now he will rouse himself on your behalf
and restore you to your rightful place.
7 Your beginnings will seem humble,
so prosperous will your future be.

......

20 "Surely God does not reject a blameless man
or strengthen the hands of evildoers.
21 He will yet fill your mouth with laughter
and your lips with shouts of joy.
22 Your enemies will be clothed in shame,
and the tents of the wicked will be no more."

But is it really true thay the pure and upright prosper , and the blameless are filled with joy, while the wicked are humbled?

Surely not.

Nic Hautamaki

a) the world is still just, because of the concept of the original sin. Whatever evil someone sufffers is deserved because of Adam and Eve eating the apple.

b) even if you don't personally witness evildoers getting their just deserts or good people getting rewarded, it still happens in the end because of heaven and hell

c) justice in terms of what happens on this world is irrelevant. What matters for justice is that a person has the ability to reject of accept God. That's the justive I believe she's talking about. The consequences thereof (suffering etc) are just necessary as tangible symbols. IE, the idea that virtue is it's own reward, and that non-virtue is it's own punishment, even if it's not immediately apparent.

Intuitively, I hold that all three defenses fail, but logically and deductively they are difficult to conclusively disprove.

Theli

I don't see what argument the purpose defence really has.
If god must allow evil to exist in order to reach this "greater good" then he is clearly not omnipotent.

Theli

If virtue is it's own reward then would heaven exist?
And if malice is it's own punishment, then why hell?
And torturing/punishing people for something they have not commited is not good, no matter what label you wish to give it.

xorbie

I'm wondering about any possible Human Morality is not Really Morality defense. The basic premise of which would be:

What we as humans consider evil is not actually evil, we don't understand morality at all or even that evil itself does not exist (although I suspect that this goes against Judeo-Christian beliefs).

I suppose this makes sense and it would be rather hard to debunk, I believe. It seems that this is a strong argument because the Problem of Evil itself is hingent upon the fact that this evil exists, and defines "useless"or "gratuitous" evil but not evil itself. Why don't people argue that evil either does not exist or is simply nothing like what we imagine it to be? Is it because of the Judeo-Christian bible simply makes this impossible?

KnightWhoSaysNi

Speaking of formal debates, xorbie please check your PM's.

Sorry for the intrusion folks.

Jason

BDS

The best argument from theists that I've heard is similar to Nic's Defense #3.

God IS eliminating evil, and the world will at some point be perfect (I think this is promised in the bible). To judge God by the state of the world RIGHT NOW is like judging an architect by the state of a half finished building. The critic might say, "The stupid blighter has forgotten to put a roof on the house."

But to God, who transcends time and space, if the world He is building is imperfect during the building process, that may simply be like the half-finished house to the architect. The architect knows what the finished house will look like, but it must pass through unfinished stages to reach completion.