The argument from evil goes like this:
1) If God exists, there is no unjustified evil.
2) There is unjustified evil.
3) Therefore, God doesn’t exist.
Why think 1 is true? Consider the following steps:
1) God always loves us.
2) To love is to will someone’s good.
3) Therefore, God always wills our good.
4) It is never good for us to suffer unless the badness of our suffering is outweighed by the goodness it produces.
5) Therefore, God always wills against us suffering unless the badness of our suffering is outweighed by the goodness it produces.
6) God has the power to succeed in what he wills.
7) Therefore, no one suffers unless the badness of the suffering is outweighed by the goodness it produces.
If these assumptions are true, then 1 easily follows.
Note that this does not immediately conflict with hell. If hell is required for ultimate justice, then the goodness of the justice of hell can outweigh the badness of hell itself.
However, evils must ultimately be cashed out in terms of conscious suffering, or at least evils are at their worst when experienced. The badness of hell is found in its tortuous experience for the damned. But the goodness of justice is not found in anyone’s direct experience, so the goodness of the justice of hell cannot outweigh the badness of the suffering hell produces. Therefore, hell is an unjustified evil.
You might say the goodness of hell’s justice is found in God’s experience. But because of God’s omniscience, the suffering of the damned is found in God’s experience too.
To make matters worse, hell produces no justice to begin with, because infinite punishment cannot justly apply to finite crimes, especially when the badness of that punishment exceeds the badness of the crimes.
Considering that much of Christian tradition has been fraught with threats of hell, this conclusion is significant. One can wonder how it is that so many Christians could get such an important doctrine so wrong for so long.
Putting hell aside, why might we think there are unjustified evils here on earth? Certainly, there appears to be a great deal of unjustified evil in the world. Examples include cancer, war, poverty, orphanhood, birth defects, depression, and third-degree burns. For any of these evils, if we could pray them away, we would. But why would we try to pray away an evil unless that evil appeared to us to not be worth the trouble? Christians even pray to God to help find their lost keys! But no matter how small the evil, if its badness outweighs its goodness, it’s unjustified. Therefore just about every evil we encounter, both small and large, is apparently unjustified.
Here’s a theory: evils appear to be unjustified because they are unjustified. Beautifully simple explanations like this are highly attractive. The alternative theory is that evils are really justified despite appearances to the contrary. That’s a more complicated theory, so what evidence is there for it?
We can appeal to various theodicies to see what reasons God might have for allowing evils. Perhaps we are not reflecting well enough on theodicies, and that’s why evils appear unjustified when they are not.
However, reflecting on theodicies has led me to believe that all theodicies fail. Take free will for instance. Free will fails because
1) it doesn’t apply to evils that rob you of your freedom and
2) the goodness of free will is apparently outweighed by the badness of evils.
What about soul-making? Soul-making fails because
1) some evils are soul-destroying and
2) it’s unloving to use someone as a tool for someone else’s soul-making.
Elsewhere, I go through thirteen theodicies and find every one of them, even an attractive combination of them, to fail to provide good reasons for allowing evil. So the theory that evils are justified doesn’t enjoy any support. The simple theory that evils appear unjustified because they are unjustified remains attractive.
Furthermore, why would a loving God allow the problem of evil to create a barrier between us and him? Shouldn’t God want us to have a readily available theodicy so we can confidently preach the Gospel, boldly proclaim our faith, and be ready to give a reason for the hope within? Why would God give non-believers a ready excuse for their non-belief? The failure of theodicies is surprising on theism.
Theists often retreat to skeptical theism. They ask, who are we to gainsay God? We are finite, fallible, ignorant creatures. What hope do we have to understand the weights of goods and evils? God is infinitely more wise than we are. God has a God’s-eye view of all morality and history. We do not have access to the big picture of life like God does. For all we know, God has good reasons to allow evil. Why think the apparent weight of God’s reasons to prevent evil is the actual weight of God’s reasons?*
There are arguments against skeptical theism. But the true despair for theism is that we can concede skeptical theism entirely and the argument from evil still succeeds. We can say: You’re right. We can imagine there being a mystery theodicy out there that justifies evils. But until we find it, we can equally imagine that evils appear unjustified because they are unjustified. It’s plausible either way. So at best we are left with agnosticism. If theists want to save theism from agnosticism, they must show that it’s more likely than not that evils are justified, and a successful theodicy is needed for that—or an argument for God’s existence so powerful that it overwhelms the problem of evil. Do you think theists have provided such a theodicy, or such an argument? If not, then at best you should be agnostic with respect to God’s existence.
*This is Perry Hendrick’s way of putting skeptical theism. See: https://youtu.be/zURTe9KsR7s?t=1324, 22:04
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