In what way does the problem of evil lead to atheism?

What is Evil and suffering?

Evil and suffering can be defined in so many ways by different people because it is a broad question which everyone has their own perception on. But as defined by John Hick in ‘Philosophy of Religion’ (1990), he says “Evil and suffering are physical pain, mental suffering and moral wickedness. The last is one of the causes of the first two, for an enormous amount of human pain arises from people’s inhumanity. This pain includes such major scourges as poverty, oppression and persecution, war and all the injustice, indignity and inequalities that have occurred throughout history”. 

The extent to which evil acts have caused human suffering is one of the most compelling reasons for atheism because as it is, it makes many people find it hard to believe in an Omnibenevolent God who could allow such suffering in the world we live in today. So due to that fact of a benevolent God, people start asking questions like, is he limited in that he cannot stop suffering? Or is it that God does not care about his creation? Or maybe he is not omniscient (he simply doesn’t know we are suffering).  For example David Hume an 18th century atheist questioned “Why is there any misery in the world? Not by chance, surely from some cause then. Is it then from the intention of the deity? But he is perfectly benevolent. Is it contrary to his intention? But he is almighty. Nothing can shake the solidity of this reasoning. So short, so clear, so decisive...”.Basically it is now due to those questions that David Hume calls the problem of evil “the rock of atheism”.

We often use the word ‘evil’ to describe something that is morally wrong in our eyes, just as for example we describe the actions of Jack the Ripper as evil; but however philosophers have made a distinction between the defences of natural evil and moral evil.

Natural Evil is the apparent malfunctioning of the natural world, which produces diseases, earthquakes, volcanoes, famines and floods. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 is a famous example. John Hick writes in the ‘Evil and the God of Love’ that “natural evil is the evil that originates independently of human actions, in disease... in earthquakes, storms, droughts and tornadoes”.

Moral Evil arises as the result of human actions that are morally wrong, such as murder, war and cruelty. The Holocaust which resulted from a combination of cruelty and mistaken ideals is one classic example. Richard Swinburne describes moral evil as “Moral evil I understand as including all evil caused deliberately by humans doing what they ought not to do, or allowed to occur by humans negligently failing to do what they ought to do, and also the evil constituted by such deliberate actions or negligent failure”.

If there is no evil there wouldn’t be any suffering in the world today because basically evil produces suffering, which then often appears to be unjust, causing the innocent to suffer more. Evil may also include animal suffering; psychological, emotional and mental suffering; the evil of contingency (that things corrupt and die); the question we face is, is death itself evil? Also different types of evil do sometimes overlap each other like for example the natural evil of famine caused by drought can be worsened by the moral evil of civil unrest and corruption in countries struggling to get aid.

Is there a God or Not?

For atheists, evil is substantial convincing evidence that God does not exist because, they all claim, a loving God would not have created a universe (world) that is so full of evil and suffering. As Iris Murdoch, the Irish author and philosopher said in her play ‘A served Head’: “I cannot imagine any omnipotent sentient being sufficiently cruel to create the world we inhabit”. The atheist argument is that it is just as rational to reject belief in God as it is to believe that an all-loving and all-powerful creator would be responsible for the evil and suffering that characterises the world.

Hindus and Buddhists think, evil is an illusion brought about by human greed and selfishness. For Hindus, under the doctrines of karma and reincarnation, all suffering is the result of evil committed in previous life. They say suffering is not from God, nor is God for it, because the actions (karma) of a person in one life affects that person in the next. Evil and suffering can therefore be overcome by a person achieving good karma which relates to the fact that the person will have to be doing good for others. Because then it means in the next life, one will move up the chain and eventually be united with Brahman (God).

For monotheistic believers, there is no such thing as evil. It is an illusion of the human mind. Scriptures tell of the mixture of good and evil in human experience and record sorrow, suffering and human wickedness. Evil is seen an utterly bad and entirely real because for example when someone feels happy it’s real and when someone is in the bad mood it is real. The writers of the Bible did not attempt to underestimate the reality of evil and suffering. Example the Psalmist writes in the most graphic detail of his personal suffering: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for God”. But one of the most often cited biblical narratives is that of Job, who suffered at the hands of Satan but with God’s permission, raising difficult questions about the nature of innocent suffering and God’s role in human pain. Just like it’s written in the New Testament that suffering is a crucial part of the ministry of Jesus. God becomes human in order to take on human sin through genuine suffering and death.

The philosophical and theological problems of evil and suffering

Theism postulates a single God who created the universe from nothing who continues to still be interested in his creation. He is the almighty God who is omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent. But if he is these things, surely he will know about the suffering in the world and would want to stop it, but he does not stop it. So as St Augustine (354 – 430CE) puts it: “either God cannot abolish evil or he will not: if he cannot then he is not all powerful, if he will not, then he is not all good”. In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas similarly wrote “if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the name God means that he is infinite goodness. If therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable, but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist”. But it actually showed that neither St Augustine nor Aquinas believed that the existence of evil disproved the existence of God, but they did recognise the problem that it raises. The challenge is expressed by contemporary thinker Richard Swinburne as: “there is a problem  about why God allows evil, and if the theist does not have (in a cool moment) a satisfactory answer to it, then his belief in God is less than rational, and there is no reason why the atheist should share it”.

Evil is also a philosophical problem because it requires the believer to accept conflicting claims. J L Mackie discussed in his paper the Evil and Omnipotence (1955) that the three propositions comprising the problem of evil form an inconsistent triad. However, believers in the God of classical theism say that only a solution to the problem of evil that in some way demonstrates the compatibility of the propositions, and does not reject or disregard any of them, can be said to be true theodicy.  But J L Mackie argues that, “From these it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exits and that evil exits are incompatible”.

1. God’s omnipotent

3. Evil exits                                                         B) God’s omnibenevolent

God is not perfectly Good

God is not perfectly good so, if God is not perfectly good, as the problem of evil may lead us to suggest, then he is, at least in this sense, morally imperfect. Supporters of this view argue that, if this so, then God is not a being worth of worship, in fact he is not worthy of the title “God”. This had led, quite recently, to the development of a kind of ‘protest theodicy’:  an attempt to show that it is possible to affirm God’s omnipotent and omnibenevolent in the face of the existence of evil. An example of protest theodicy is God’s apparent failure to act during the Holocaust seems to suggest he is not all loving.

Supporters of protest theodicy even cite the scriptures, for example how God commanded Abraham to kill his only son, Isaac (Genesis 22), and the death of the Egyptian firstborn at the time of Moses (Exodus 12). In fact there are many biblical instances of defiant protest against God.

“I form the light and darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I Lord, do all these things”. (Isaac. 45:7)

“We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation... our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan”. (Psalms.90:7-9).

However, this logical argument only works if we think of God’s goodness as being of the same nature as human goodness. In fact, it can be argued that God’s goodness is a very different concept from human goodness.

God is not all-powerful

In this view as Peter Cole puts it: “God is incapable of destroying evil” because he lacks the power to do so. The dualist view suggests that there are two co-eternal sides, good and evil, that are in conflict with the universe, and that God, in this sense, represents the good side of good. But as we have seen, this view limits God’s power and he is not powerful, almighty sovereign of the universe. So therefore he cannot control events, but only lead them towards good. So this view of God does not coincide easily with the God of classical theism because there is no guarantee that good will overcome evil and it questions whether he is being worthy of worship. However, it may be easier for believers to accept that God is not in control of the universe than accept that he may not be all-loving.

God is not all Loving

It is often seem to people who are not religious that there is no event that would make a religious person admit there was a case for suggesting that ‘God does not really love us’ (Anthony Flew, 1955). In theology Anthony Flew argues that the biggest challenge that a believer faces is allowing that the existence of suffering is a real problem that demands an answer. It is not enough to say, “We don’t really understand how God works” and carry on believing in the same way. If we say, “God’s love is not like human love, so we cannot expect him to intervene where there is suffering” this is simply qualifying God’s love rather than providing a good reason why he should not intervene. Religious believers are guilty of not allowing their claims about God’s love to be falsified. Anthony Flew said every statement should be falsifiable – thus we know what would make the statement untrue. But Christians do not allow this to take place with statements about God’s love, because there is nothing that would count against it. Anthony Flew concludes that this makes religious statements such as “God is all-loving” meaningless.

Evil as a punishment

A popular response to the problem of evil is that God uses evil and suffering to punish those who do not do as he asks. Many people, including religious believers, often feel that their sufferings are deliberately sent by God, asking “what have I done to deserve this?” the bible does seem, to some extent, to support this view: “The Lord will send on you courses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him”. (Duet. 28:20)

However, the Bible also offers passages that disagree with this view, people seem to suffer even though they have done nothing wrong and God’s love is seen to be for everybody: “He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good”. (Matt. 5:45). Furthermore, when Job challenged God about why he was suffering, refusing to accept that it was a punishment, God confirmed his sense that there was no direct relationship between Job’s sin and his sufferings, but asserted his right to allow him to suffer simply because he is God, the creator: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. (Job 38:4)

Evil is a Test

This view maintains that God uses evil and suffering in order to test human qualities and give humans the opportunity to show love, courage and other noble trials. Such testing builds character and helps humans to become better and closer to God: “Though now for a little while you may have had suffer and grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so your faith may result in praise, glory and honour”. (1 Peter 1:6-7) 

Evil is Inevitable

In this view, God is not responsible for evil and suffering, it is simply that this world, with all its imperfections, is the best possible world. If there were no evil there could be no good. Good needs the contrast of evil, as D. Z. Philips says: “The first morally sufficient reason ascribed to God to justify his allowing evils to exist, which I want to discuss, is the claim that if God wanted to create goods, it was logically impossible for him to do otherwise. Any good gets its sense from a contrast with an evil. To call for the absence of evil is, unwittingly, to call for the absence of good at the same time”.  Evil is logically necessary for human development because moreover, at the end, everything will be perfect in God’s love: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”. (Revelation 21:4)

Evil allows God’s Love to be displayed

The scriptures are full of references to the love of God, revealing that he is a personal God who loves his creation and humanity in particular. He is not a distant God, but one who cares for those who suffer and enables people to bring good out of evil. In the Christian faith, God becomes incarnation (human), and makes himself vulnerable to evil and suffering through his only son Jesus Christ to safe us all our sins we committed.

Conclusion

Having looked at both sides of the argument in this essay I can now base my conclusions on this essay using the questionnaire that I created and gave out to the peoples and teachers of St Bede’s Catholic College. The questionnaire helped me by getting to know the different views of both the religious and non religious views leading to the main question “In what way does the problem of evil lead to atheism?” The questionnaire was totally private (No name) so as the candidate answering the question can be in a safe place as to give their honest view to the questions they are answering.

More than 160 questionnaire where sent out and in return I got back 100 questionnaires that had been answered in the highest standard which helped me by giving me ideas and also peoples own point of view on how to write up this essay without focusing on one side of the argument. From the 100% questions that where answered, 20% where Atheist (Don’t believe in God), 24% where Agnostic (Not sure if God exit) and the remaining 56% where Theist (Believe in God).  76% from the 100% agreed that the problem of evil does lead to Atheism while 24% out of the 100% disagreed that the problem of evil does not lead to Atheism. From the three different groups Theist, Agnostic and Atheist the highest percentage of each group accepted the fact that the problem of evil is the route that leads to Atheism.

In Richard Dawkin’s book “The God Delusion” he calls philosophers ‘fools’ not because he wants to but because of the fact that all the philosophers came up with one the same idea about the existence of God but none of them really proved that God existed. So he said the fact that something that is very perfect but doesn’t exist should not be suddenly being said as God, because then we can apply God to anything. Dawkins says “You might as well say, people carry in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum of conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exits a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God”.

Having looked at both side of the argument, base on my point of view as a Christian, yes I do believe that the problem of evil do leads to atheism but still yet if we can look at it from a different angle, we can see that God did create the world perfectly and because of the free will he gave us as to make our own choices and distinguishes from our rights and our wrongs destroyed the beautiful work that God had created. But just because we cannot point to God, does not mean he doesn’t exist and also we should not all focus on the negative side of everything but instead be happy of what he gave us.

Word Count 3880

Bibliography

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Richard Swinburne, the Existence of God, 1991

John Hick, Philosophy of Religion, 4th edition, 1990

Jordan, Neil Lockyear and Edwin Tate, Philosophy of Religion for A level OCR edition, 1999, 2002, 2004 (Page 91)

John Hick, Evil and the God of Love, 1978

Good News Bible, Second Edition, 1994, Psalms. 69:1 – 3

St Augustine, 354 – 430, “Confessions”

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Good News Bible, Second Edition, 1994, Psalms

Richard Dawkins, ‘The God Delusion’, Chapter 3, ‘The Existence of God’

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