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The Problem of Evil, Part 4: Human Hubris and the Problem of Evil

The Evidential Argument From Evil

In my last article, "The Evidential Argument From Evil," I presented William Rowe's version of the evidential argument from evil. In case you didn't memorize it, it goes as follows:

(1) 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.

(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,

(3) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.¹

According to Rowe, (2) "seems to express a belief that accords with our basic moral principles — principles shared by both theists and nontheists. If we are to fault [this argument], therefore, it seems we must find some fault with its first premise."² Rowe then supports (1) with a story about the apparently pointless suffering and painful death of a fawn badly burned in a forest fire.

Suppose that, from now to the conclusion of this article, we call the forest fire and subsequent painful death of this fawn "Event E."

According to Rowe, it's unlikely that Event E was necessary for achieving some greater good, and it's unlikely that E was necessary for preventing some greater or equal evil. If this is the case, however, then (1) is probably true. And since (3) follows from (1) and (2), if (1) is probably true, then God probably doesn't exist. Thus, E — or any other instance of evil that doesn't seem to achieve a greater good or prevent a greater or equal evil — constitutes strong evidence for the nonexistence of God.

The Problem of Evil and African Ungulates

How should we theists respond to this argument?

Well, suppose you don't know what an okapi is, and suppose somebody asks you, How would an okapi respond to Event E?

Could you respond with, If I witnessed E , I'd call a veterinarian; therefore, an okapi would probably call a veterinarian, too? Obviously you could respond this way, but your response would be laughable, for you have utterly no reason to suppose that an okapi would do the same thing you would do. Since you've never seen an okapi and have no reason to think they are at all like you, it would clearly be better to answer along the lines of, I'm not an okapi. I don't even know what an okapi is. How the heck should I know?

Suppose, then, that you decide to find out how an okapi would respond to the suffering and painful death of a fawn. How would you go about doing this?

Could you look up "okapi" in the dictionary and accurately reason, Okapis are, by definition, such and such; therefore, if an okapi witnessed E , it would do so and so? Probably not. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, an okapi is "an ungulate mammal (Okapia johnstoni) of Zaire that is closely related to the giraffe but has a relatively short neck, a coat typically of solid reddish chestnut on the trunk, yellowish white on the cheeks, and purplish black and cream rings on the upper parts of the legs."³

Granted, this definition does allow us to see that an okapi probably wouldn't respond to E the same way as objects #2 and #3 (see illustration above). Nevertheless, it's clear that the standard okapi response to suffering fawns can't be deduced or inferred from the definition of "okapi."

How would you find out, then?

Obviously, if it's even possible to find out how an okapi would respond to E, you would have to do so in one of two ways: either by observing okapis yourself, or taking the word of people who have.

Differences Make a Difference

Now consider the question If a being was omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect, how would it respond to E ?

Suppose we grant the assumption that any good human both aware of E and able to do something about it would, in fact, do so — so long as this human thought doing so wouldn't prevent a greater good or allow a greater evil. Even granting this assumption, why think an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good being would do the same thing as a good human?

Suppose two men are witnessing an armed robbery. The first man knows the perpetrator would be easily wrestled to the floor. The second man likewise knows the perpetrator would be easily wrestled to the floor, but, unlike the first man, he knows many other things relevant to the situation — perhaps he knows that the perpetrator is covered in explosives and is prepared to blow the building if he meets any resistance; or perhaps he knows that the perpetrator can be safely apprehended at his home, where he's stored the money from previous robberies.

Clearly, given differences in their background knowledge, even if both men are equal in power and goodness, we have no reason to think they would respond to the robbery the same way.

Suppose, then, that instead of being equal in power and goodness, they're equal in power and knowledge, but differ in goodness. Suppose that, while both men know everything relevant to the situation and posses an equal power to respond to it, the second man is morally superior. While the first man cares only about himself, the second man cares about not just everybody in the bank — including the perpetrator — but everybody who could possibly be affected by the robbery, including those who will see the security camera's video tape on some reality TV show.

Finally, suppose the men are equal in knowledge and goodness but differ in power. They both know everything relevant and care about everybody possibly affected. Only the second man, however, has the power to stop the perpetrator. Is it reasonable to assume that they'll respond the same way? Again, no.

So, even in the case of two grown men, if we know they differ in knowledge, power or goodness with respect to some situation, we shouldn't expect them to respond to some situation the same way. And if we know they differ in knowledge, power and goodness, we have even less reason to expect the same response from both of them.

Differences Between God and Men

Of course, these observations apply to the problem of evil, too.

We humans are limited in power and knowledge, and, at best, we're only partially good. God, on the other hand, has unlimited power and unlimited knowledge, and He's wholly good. Thus, God and humans not only differ in power, knowledge and goodness, we do so to an incomprehensible degree. Do we have any reason to suppose, then, that God would respond to E the way we would?⁴

How about dictionary definitions, then? Can we open the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to determine how God would respond to E? Can we rightfully reason, By definition, God is omniscient, omnipotent and wholly good; therefore, by definition, God would respond to a suffering fawn by doing such and such? Perhaps, to a certain extent.

By definition, the response of an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good being to E would be accurate, efficacious and moral — in short, perfect. Do we have any reason to suppose, however, that we know what the perfect response of an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good being would be?

What Do We Know?

The point of the above section is this: The question How would an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being respond to E ? doesn't seem to be one we can answer without help from an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being. Apart from God's telling us, we don't seem to have any way of knowing. The problem with this, however, is that, if God's told us anything, He's told us that an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect being would probably allow E. But in this case, E doesn't count against belief in God.

If we look to nature for revelation regarding the question How would an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being respond to E ?, we see that different fawns meet different fates in different forest fires. Obviously, we can't abstract any pattern or principle from the fates of these fawns that would help the atheologian make his case against the existence of God.

Moreover, if we look to special revelation for an answer to the question, we come up short again. Scripture gives us no reason whatever to think an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect being would prevent E. In fact, given the things Scripture does tell us — for instance, that God required animal sacrifice, that God destroyed the world with a flood, that God allowed Satan to torture Job, that God became incarnate as Jesus Christ and allowed Himself to die on a cross — if we should come to any conclusion about God's view of suffering and evil, we should come to the conclusion that we humans are a long, long way from understanding it.

An Unwarranted Assumption

This in mind, recall the second premise of Rowe's argument:

(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.⁵

What we have seen is that, in the absence of God's telling us what He would do, we have no reason to suppose we know what He would do. With respect to (2), however, God hasn't told us anything. At least He certainly hasn't told us He'll prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering He can, unless He can't do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. Thus, we have no reason to suppose that (2) is true. The rational response to (2), then, is either agnosticism or the belief that it's outright false.

Rowe's evidential argument from evil fails, then, for in the absence of a good reason to accept (2), the existence of evils such as E don't constitute evidence for the nonexistence of God.

Human Hubris is Itself an Evil

There's a lot more to be said about the problem of evil, and the evidential argument appears in versions that I haven't addressed here. Behind almost every articulation of the problem of evil, however, stands an indefensible assumption: we know what an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect being would do.

Imagine a theist arguing as follows:

(4) An omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good being exists.

(5) We do not know that an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good being would prevent evil x; we don't even know that an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good being would probably prevent x.

(6) x exists.

Clearly, given the truth of (5), we have no reason to think there's any tension (deductive, evidentialor otherwise) between (4) and (6). Thus, regardless of what evil x is assumed to be — a fawn suffering in a forest fire, a child killed by the tsunami, the entire Holocaust — the truth of (6) only raises a theoretical problem for belief in God if we assume that we do know that an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good being would (or would probably) prevent x.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you agree with Blake? Is the problem of evil really just a matter of our own arrogance?

Join the discussion!

But only a bloated opinion of the powers of human understanding would have us assume this. In my opinion, the problem of evil (in its theoretical form, at least) is really just the problem of human hubris.⁶