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The Problem of Evil: The Case against Theism

Introduction

As the title of the essay suggests I intend to use the problem of evil as a means to

undermine traditional theistic belief, the belief that there is an all-knowing, all-

powerful and perfectly good God. Traditionally the problem of evil has been used as a

means to prove that God (the God of traditional theism, or Christianity) does not exist,

however this is not my intention. Instead I intend to show that the existence of evil,

which is a fact, gives us reason to doubt theism, which is a belief. I do not intend to

attempt to show that God does not exist, but only that we are rationally justified in

doubting his existence. To show that we are rationally justified in doubting the truth

of theism I will look at some of the major arguments that have come from the debate

so far and some of their responses. We will see, through examining some of the

arguments to date, that there are many rationally justified reasons to doubt theism.

Through examining these arguments we will ultimately see that theists are unable to

defend their position without changing it drastically, to the point where it is no longer

traditional theism. In their defences theists often make allowances for God’s power or

one of the other major constituents, and in effect what they come to defend is not

actually traditional theism at all, but a similar alternative to it. This is what I believe to

be the major reason for doubting theism, the fact that it appears to be indefensible in

the face of evil.

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What is the Problem of Evil?

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamozov tells of the reunion of two brothers,

Alyosha and Ivan. Alyosha has become a monk, and university educated Ivan has

become an atheist. Ivan tells his brother that he collects stories about suffering,

especially the suffering of innocent children, and reveals that he has turned away from

religion as it fails to make sense of such terrible, senseless suffering and evil. “They

burn villages, murder, rape women and children, they nail their prisoners to the fences

by the ear, leave them till morning, and in the morning they hang them – all sorts of

things you can’t imagine.”1 But Ivan is not the only example of an intelligent person

turning away from religion in the light of evil. “Any God who could permit the

Holocaust, who could remain silent during it, who could ‘hide his face’ while it

dragged on, was not worth believing in. There might well be a limit to how much we

could understand about Him, but Auschwitz demanded an unreasonable suspension of

understanding. In the face of such great evil, God, the good and the powerful, was too

inexplicable, so men said ‘God is dead’.”2 (Eugene Borowitz) The problem of evil is a

major problem for Christian theism and is a major case against the existence of God.

But what exactly is the problem?

Evil is a fact of life it is something we encounter on a daily basis whether it is murder,

theft, and hunger in the third world, war, terrorism or suffering from natural disasters

and disease. But evil is more than that, the fact of its existence is enough in some

philosophers’ opinions to show that there is no God. The problem of evil, therefore, is

the difficulty of reconciling the facts of evil in the world with the belief in a god who

1 Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, David Basinger, Reason and Religious Belief; An

Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (New York, 1998) p116 2 Ibid p116

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is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good. Many have often argued that the two can

not be reconciled, therefore the problem of evil is often seen as grounds for the belief

that God does not exist. The problem takes two forms, the Logical Problem of Evil

(the Consistency Problem for J.C.A. Gaskin) and the Evidential Problem of Evil (the

Inference Problem for J.C.A. Gaskin).

The theists hold on one hand that God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-

knowing) and all-good and on the other that evil exists. Some critics of theism believe

that this involves the theists in a contradiction, that they hold an inconsistent set of

beliefs. The logical problem, therefore, is the difficulty of seeing as consistent (or as

free from contradiction) these two beliefs. If the critic is correct then the theist has

involved himself in a major logical error and must take back one of these

propositions, but since evil is a known fact the critic would expect the theist to

withdraw the first proposition. “Evil is a problem for the theist in that a contradiction

is involved in the fact of evil, on the one hand, and the belief in the omnipotence, and

perfection of God on the other.”3 (H.J. McCloskey)

But it is now believed by many that the logical problem has been defeated by theists

such as Alvin Plantinga and his Free Will Defence. Critics have since moved on to an

evidential argument. The evidential problem of evil is the difficulty of inferring from

the facts of the world a God with moral attributes. In summary the logical problem of

evil claims that the theists are involved in a contradiction and that the existence of evil

is proof that God does not exist, and the evidential problem of evil claims that the

overall evidence is against the existence of the theistic God.

3 Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford, 1993) p33

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The Logical Problem of Evil

“It can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are

positively irrational, that the several parts of the essential theological doctrine are

inconsistent with one another.”4 As I explained above, with the logical problem of

evil, critics believe that theists involve themselves in a very serious contradiction by

holding two inconsistent beliefs, one, that God is omnipotent, omniscient and

perfectly good and, two, that evil exists. “Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered.

Is he willing to prevent evil but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not

willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”5

This inconsistency or contradiction is by no means obvious; it is implicit and needs to

be made explicit. This is done by adding propositions that logically follow from the

original ones, such as, ‘an omnipotent being has the power to destroy evil’, ‘an

omniscient being has the knowledge to destroy evil’, and ‘a perfectly good being

would wish or have an obligation to destroy evil’.6 From this one could infer that if

such a being existed evil would not, yet evil exists, so such a being could not exist;

and this brings the contradiction to the surface. John Mackie believes that by adding

the assumption that good is opposed to evil and that any good being would eliminate

evil the inconsistency comes to the surface. He also believes that the problem could be

avoided if one revokes at least one of the constituent propositions, for example, say,

‘God is good but not quite perfectly good’, ‘God is powerful but not quite

4 John L. Mackie ‘Evil and Omnipotence’, in William L. Rowe (Ed), God and the Problem of Evil (Oxford, 2001) p77 5 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (Henry D. Aiken Ed.) (New York, 1969) p66 6 David Basinger, Reason and Religious Belief, p118

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omnipotent’, ‘evil does not exist’, ‘God is not completely opposed to evil’, or, ‘there

are limits to what an omnipotent being can do’.7 Mackie examines some attempts by

theists to solve the problem.

Some theists have argued that good is necessary for evil, that to eliminate evil is to

eliminate good. But this is an unsatisfactory solution; firstly it is absurd to say that

because good is all that is left it would cease to exist, “that by being everywhere it

would somehow cease to be anywhere”.8 Secondly, this argument if true would mean

a massive limitation to God’s power, for example, he would not be able to create good

without also creating evil. This could mean either that God is not omnipotent or that

there are limitations to what an omnipotent being can do.9

Others have argued that evil is a necessary means to some goods, for example pain is

sometimes necessary for life saving surgery. But Mackie points out that the problem

with such explanations is that they deal with causal relationships to evil. We humans

are beings who are subject to causal laws, but, God may not be such a being,

especially if he created causal laws. God is omnipotent and needs no means to

accomplish his ends, therefore such an explanation as this is unsatisfactory as God

does not need evil to achieve good. D.Z. Philips believes that it is wicked to defend

God’s goodness by saying evil is necessary to some good, a conclusion which Ivan

Karamazov also reaches, “And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of

sufferings which was necessary to pay for the truth, then I protest that the truth is not

worth such a price.”10

7 John L. Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence, p78 8 John L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God (New York, 1982) p151 9 Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence, p80 10 Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, p39

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Another attempt popular with theists is to say that the Universe is better off with some

evil in it, that evil somehow contributes to the good of the whole. They say there are

first-order-evils (physical evil like pain) which are contrasted with first-order-goods

(like pleasure), and the balance between these two contributes to the good of the

whole, or the second-order-good. Therefore first-order-evil is a necessary component

of second-order-good. They claim that this explanation is best because it maintains

God’s omnipotence, explains why he would permit evil, and shows that this is the best

of all possible worlds because it contains second-order-goods. However this

explanation appears to abandon the opposition of good and evil, as first and second

order good only appear to want to minimize evil. This would mean that God is not

good in the sense that we mean as he does not oppose first-order-evil, nor is he

concerned with it, he is only concerned with promoting second-order-good, of which

first-order-evil is a necessary part.11 Secondly, not all first-order-evils appear to

contribute to the good of the whole, nor does the second-order-good appear to ‘weigh’

more than some evils. Furthermore there is the existence of second-order-evils, which

this explanation does not consider, they are opposed to the second-order-good, and are

the evils that God would wish to eliminate, but yet they exist.12 So against the

existence of second-order-evils this solution is useless. But this last problem gives rise

to another solution, the Free Will Defence, which claims that these second-order-evils

are due to the actions of humans with free will.

11 John L. Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence, p84 12 Ibid, p85

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The Free Will Defence

The Free Will Defence (FWD) is considered by a great many to be the best response

to the logical problem of evil, it attempts to show that the two propositions ‘God is

omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good’ and ‘evil exists’ are both true and

logically consistent. But unlike previous attempts it is trying to show that the

existence of God is compatible with moral evil, or second-order-evil. Ultimately it

attempts to do so by demonstrating that moral evil is the result of free human actions

and not the result of God’s, but even more than that, that moral evil is to be a very real

possibility or even necessity if we are in fact to be free. “A world containing creatures

who are sometimes significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil action)

is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at

all.”13 To do this the free will defender must find a third proposition, which

surprisingly Plantinga says does not have to be true, only possible. This third

proposition must be consistent with ‘God is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly

good’ and with this must imply that ‘evil exists’.

Plantinga adopts an incompatiblist view of freedom; he believes that for a person to

be free with respect to an action there must be no causal laws or antecedent conditions

determining their choosing to do or refrain from the action.14 This means that, for

Plantinga, freedom and determinism are incompatible; whereas critics including

Myself would adopt a compatiblist view, that (at least some) actions are determined

by causal laws and antecedent conditions, such as one’s personal traits or character.15

13 Alvin Plantinga, ‘The Free Will Defence’ in William L. Rowe (Ed), God and the Problem of Evil (Oxford, 2001) p93 14 Ibid p93 15 David Basinger, Reason and Religious Belief p121

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Plantinga holds that it was not possible for God to create a world containing moral

good but not moral evil, even though such a world is possible. He examines the critics

claim that God being omnipotent could create any possible world, also known as

Leibniz’s lapse. He suggests that there are certain worlds God cannot create after a

certain time and presumably after certain events, and also that he cannot create worlds

not containing his own existence. But can he create any possible world that does

contain his existence? He uses the example of Curley, the mayor of Boston, who is

offered and accepts a bribe of $35,000, and then wonders if offered $20,000 would

Curley have accepted or rejected the bribe. Imagine two possible worlds W and W*

both of which are identical up to temporal point t, at t in W Curley accepts the bribe

and in W* he rejects it. Whether or not Curley accepts the bribe is not up to God but

is up to Curley, if Curley accepts the bribe God cannot not actualise W* and if Curley

rejects the bribe God cannot actualise W.16 Plantinga believes he has proved that

Leibniz’s lapse, the claim that since God is all-powerful he could actualise any

possible world, containing his existence, is false. But this is not yet enough to prove

the free will defence true.

Plantinga next wonders what if no matter what world Curley is in he will always

accept the bribe, no matter what world he is significantly free in, he will always do at

least one wrong. He calls this property Transworld Depravity. But even more than this

he tells us that it is possible all humans suffer from transworld depravity, that no

matter what world we are significantly free in we will do at least one wrong action.17

And for this reason, Plantinga claims, God could not have created a world with moral

good and no moral evil, because no matter what world we are in we will at least once

16 Alvin Plantinga, The Free Will Defence, p107 17 Ibid, p112

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do wrong. But then surely God could have created other people, people who don’t

suffer from transworld depravity? Well not according to Plantinga, who believes that

it is possible all creaturely essences suffer from transworld depravity, and that

therefore God could not have created other people, people without this affliction.18

His third proposition thus becomes ‘every creaturely essence suffers from transworld

depravity’, this is indeed consistent with ‘God is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly

good’ and these two propositions together do indeed imply that ‘evil exists’. But does

it prove that the two original propositions are consistent?

Finally Plantinga extends the free will defence to natural evils attributing them not to

the free actions of humans, but as St. Augustine did, to the actions of free non-human

creatures such as fallen angels and other spirits.

Many feel that the free will defence has put the matter of the logical problem to rest,

but I would like to raise an objection. Through out his argument Plantinga is

constantly reducing the power of God’s omnipotence, for example God appears to be

bound by the freedom he gives humans and he limits what worlds God can and cannot

create. While these limitations may be justified and may make a great deal of sense

there is one thing that I feel is certain, we have limited God’s omnipotence to a point

where we are no longer considering traditional theism. And for this reason I believe it

is not a satisfactory defence of traditional theism. Secondly I feel that the foundation

Plantinga builds on the idea of transworld depravity is a very shaky one. While it is

possible that all humans suffer transworld depravity it is also possible that not all

humans suffer from transworld depravity, he offers no evidence that they do. While it

18 Alvin Plantinga, The Free Will Defence, p114

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may be possible that all creaturely essences, too, suffer from transworld depravity, the

opposite is again also possible. Transworld depravity is his main reason for believing

that God could not create a world with moral good but not evil, having raised this

final objection I do not see any reason to believe this.

Responses to the Free Will Defence

Critics like Mackie and Flew argue from a compatiblist view of freedom, that free will

and determinism are not necessarily incompatible. In other words what they mean is

that our choices can in fact be determined by things like our personalities, character

traits and even circumstances, but yet they are free choices. The crux of the free will

defence depends on two things, firstly that our free choices are not determined (and in

that way God cannot be held responsible) and secondly, since second-order-evil is not

absorbed by second-order-good, that free will is a third-order-good for which second-

order-evil is a necessary part. What Mackie and Flew try to show is that, our free

choices can be determined without contradiction, that second-order-evil is not

necessary, and that therefore God could have created creatures that always freely

choose the good.

Mackie points out that there is a paradox involved when considering omnipotence and

free will, namely, can an omnipotent being create something that even he cannot

control? If God could create something he cannot control, it would appear that he is

not omnipotent after all. This is what Mackie calls the ‘Paradox of Omnipotence’.19

So can God create something that he cannot control? If yes then once he has done it

19 John L. Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence, p87

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he is no longer omnipotent, if no, then God is already not omnipotent because that is

something that he cannot do. Mackie introduces a distinction between first-order and

second-order omnipotence, first-order-omnipotence is unlimited power to act and

second-order-omnipotence is unlimited power to determine what powers to act things

should have. So if God has used second-order-omnipotence in making free will, then

he no longer has first-order-omnipotence.20

Furthermore, if God is omnipotent and omniscient then he knows everything that is

and will be and has the power to let it be otherwise.21 Say the current circumstance is

X, God knows that it is X and has the ability to make it –X, but since it is X, God has

knowingly let the current circumstance be X. Generally there is distinction between

letting something happen and making something happen, but the more that the matter

is in your hands the less clear that distinction becomes, so for an all-powerful and all-

knowing being this distinction doesn’t even exist.22 God being all-knowing and all-

powerful has then knowingly let everything be as it is, but since that distinction

doesn’t exist for God, God has made everything be as it is. Now, if you adopt a

compatiblist view of freedom, then God, by letting circumstances be as they are,

determines our choices. Mackie therefore concludes that the free will defence cannot

fully remove responsibility for moral evil from God.23

The free will defence was designed to reconcile second-order or unabsorbed evils,

evils which do not contribute to the good of the whole, with God. Plantinga believes

that it is because of transworld depravity that God could not create a world with good

20 Ibid p89 21 John L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism, p161 22 Ibid, p161 23 Ibid, p161/2

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and not evil, a world where people always freely choose the good. But Mackie finds

it, as I do, hard to believe that from the infinite number of logically possible creaturely

essences God could not find one who did not suffer from transworld depravity, God

could have found one and could have created beings that always freely choose the

good.24

Mackie gives the free will defence one more chance; he allows that choices are

undetermined and that God can’t know in advance how freewill will be used. But this

is not what is traditionally meant by omnipotence, if God cant know things in advance

then on September 10th 2001 he knew no more than we did what would happen on the

morning of the 11th, this means serious limitations to both his power and knowledge

and forces the theist to place God within time. It is clear we are no longer in the realm

of traditional theism. Furthermore, Mackie states, even if God did not know in

advance how free will would be used, he took a massive risk and could be held

responsible for negligence.25

Some free will defenders have extended the free will defence to cover natural evil

also. St. Augustine and Plantinga put forward the idea that natural evil was due to the

free actions of non human creatures, but we have no experience of such creatures.

Others still have said that natural evil is punishment for wrong human free action. But

how can this be so? Flew states this can’t be so as natural evil existed long before

man, by that account the mass extinction of the dinosaurs was punishment for wrong

24 Ibid p174 25 Ibid, p176

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human action, even though it would be another 65 million years before any humans

would even be around.26

It is for these reasons above that I find no version of the free will defence, which I

have read, to be an adequate defence of traditional theism, especially since they tend

to change the main propositions, they limit Gods power and knowledge, and place

him in time. Plantinga’s free will defence could be a good argument if it was arguing

for an alternative to traditional theism, but it isn’t.

The Evidential Problem of Evil

Despite critics objections to the free will defence many still believe that it has put an

end to the logical problem of evil, and so have moved on to an evidential form of the

argument. The evidential problem does not claim that theists involve themselves in an

inconsistency, but rather it claims that based on the evidence theistic belief is highly

unlikely. Wesley Salmon claims that the likelihood of intelligent design is low

already, but when we include the moral attributes of God, the likelihood drops

dramatically.27 David Hume believes that the facts of evil do not afford us an

inference to a God with moral attributes. But it is not just evil this argument deals

with, it is evil that can not be explained by theism, there would appear to be pointless

or meaningless evils which theism does not have the ability to explain. Both sides in

the argument accept the assumption that God would eliminate or destroy any pointless

or unnecessary evils, such evils exist and the theist must show that somehow God

26 Antony Flew, ‘Divine Omnipotence’ in William L. Rowe (Ed), God and the Problem of Evil (Oxford, 2001) p146 27 David Basinger, Reason and Religious Belief, p122

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would allow them.28 Critics take the existence of unnecessary evils as evidence

against theism, but this is only so as long as it can not be shown that God would allow

them.

David Hume believed that there is no logical inconsistency between an omnipotent,

omniscient and perfectly good God and evil co-existing, but he did feel that the

existence of evil made the existence of such a God unlikely and gives us reason to

doubt his existence.29 For Hume the problem is the difficulty of inferring from the

facts a god with human like moral attributes, a problem he deals with in his Dialogues

Concerning Natural Religion. “After all these reflections and infinitely more, which

might be suggested, you can still persevere in your anthropomorphism and assert the

moral attributes of the Deity, his justice, benevolence, mercy, and rectitude, to be of

the same nature with these virtues in human creatures?”30 In order to solve this

problem Hume tells us we must argue from all the facts, of order and evil. The theist

must prove the existence of God using all the facts of the world, but Cleanthes realises

theism exceeds the facts, and that we are not justified in inferring the existence of an

infinitely good and powerful God. Instead Cleanthes proposes a limited theism, saying

God is good but not infinitely good, powerful but not omnipotent yet far exceeding

humanity, that God is a finite being. Philo sees a number of problems with this, but I

believe that this could be a very good alternative to traditional theism, but as it stands

it makes too many concessions to be a successful defence or justification of traditional

theistic belief. Philo proposes a thought experiment, suppose you were told before

having any experience of the world that it was created by a powerful and good being,

28 Ibid, p124 29 David O’Connor, Hume on Religion (London, 2001) p164 30 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, p66

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no matter how finite, would you expect to find the world that we currently live in?31

The fact is the world is not as it would be if it had as its creator a god who was good

and powerful.

Hume does not believe that there is any way of reconciling the existence of God with

evil, that to even try is futile, yet he presents what he considers the most likely

explanation, one which corresponds most with the given facts. The world is a mix of

good and evil, this we know and is undeniable. He presents four possible hypotheses,

either God is all-good, God is all-evil, God is a mix of good and evil or God is neither

good nor evil. But given that the world is a mix of good and evil, God cannot be just

good or evil; this leaves the last two possibilities. There is much order in the world;

order which Hume does not believe could have come about if the origins of the world

were in conflict between good and evil.32 Therefore this leaves the last option; God is

neither good nor evil. This is something which Paul Draper will talk about later, the

Hypothesis of Indifference.

William L. Rowe asks does the existence of evil make atheism more reasonable than

theism, does evil prove theism untrue. He argues that there are evils in the world

which we cannot explain, evils which an all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good

God would not allow unless he had a very good reason. One would conclude that

since there are evils for which we can see no justifying reason, that there is no such

God.33 For theists to reject the argument they must hold that God has a good reason to

permit such evils, that God must have some good which outweighs the evil and for

31 David O’Connor, Hume on Religion, p185 32 Ibid, p189 33 William L. Rowe, ‘An Exchange on the Problem of Evil’, in William L. Rowe (Ed), God and the Problem of

Evil (Oxford, 2001) p126

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which the evil is a necessary part. Rowe lays out a couple of horrendous evils, for

example, a five year old girl is brutally raped and murdered, he asks what good could

possibly come from such an act, what good could justify such an act as necessary to

its actualisation?

The theists claim that God’s wisdom and goodness is infinite, that any good he

intends would be beyond our comprehension, and consequently that just because we

are unaware of any good that justifies the rape and murder of a five year old girl

doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. Indeed we could concede that it is possible, given

that we are finite beings, that there is a good we are unaware of which justifies such

evil. But as Rowe responds our argument is based on the goods that we do know and

the fact that none of the goods we know of justify such an evil act.34 In fact Rowe says

even as finite beings our knowledge of various kinds of goods is vast, we can be

aware of goods which have never and may never be actualised, including eternity in

the presence of God.35

The theists propose an analogy, the parent and child analogy, often there is a higher

good which would justify a parent in causing some pain and suffering to the child, for

example a painful, but necessary surgery. In this analogy the theists say we are the

child, and that there is a good which is beyond our comprehension which justifies God

in causing pain and suffering. However Rowe turns this analogy to his advantage,

saying that an actual parent would make a conscious effort to be present through out

the child’s suffering in order to comfort the child, yet we are unaware of any attempt

by God to do so.

34 Ibid, p129 35 Ibid, p129

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Rowe’s argument is a very interesting one, and is very relevant here, as all he claims

to do is show that we are reasonably justified in doubting the existence of an all-

powerful, all-knowing and wholly good God. He does not claim that his argument

proves the non-existence of God, but only that because we are aware of a large

number of goods, none of which appear to justify horrendous evils, we are justified in

believing that the God of traditional theism does not exist. He recognises that there are

many more reasons to believe theism then atheism, but that putting the reasons for

belief in God aside atheism is an equally (if not more) valid option.36

David Hume in his discussion of the problem asked whether there was an alternative

hypothesis to theism, one which could better explain the existence of evil. Paul Draper

continues with the same idea, he believes that his Hypothesis of Indifference is such a

hypothesis. The hypothesis holds that if there is a god he is such that none of his

actions are motivated by concern for humanity, that much like Hume’s conclusion he

is neither good nor evil and is completely indifferent to us.37 Draper believes that on

the whole the hypothesis of indifference is greater than and gives us a reason to doubt

theism. He observes ‘O’, that people and animals feel both pain and pleasure, and

claims that the hypothesis of indifference is capable of explaining pain and pleasure

better than theism. In other words P (O/Hypothesis of Indifference) > P (O/Theism), if

this is shown to be true then we have reason to believe that theism is less likely than

the hypothesis of indifference.38

36 Ibid, p140 37 Paul Draper, ‘Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists’ in William L. Rowe (Ed) God and the

Problem of Evil (Oxford, 2001) p181 38 Ibid, pp182-3

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To help prove this Draper introduces the notion of biological utility, that some parts of

an organic system are biologically useful, for example pain can help us avoid danger.

Most pain and pleasure in the world, he believes, is of this nature, while some is not

useful.39 He holds that if God is omnipotent he could have created organic systems

(people) without biologically useful pain that if God is omnipotent pain is not

biologically necessary; therefore God must have a moral reason to allow the existence

of pain and pleasure.40 But he has observed that pain and pleasure mostly appear to

serve a biological purpose. With theism one would expect there to be a moral

connection with pain and pleasure but none is observed; with the hypothesis of

indifference you would expect pain and pleasure to fulfil a biological role and this is

what is observed, therefore the hypothesis of indifference, in this case, is greater than

theism.41 But, even still, we do observe biologically non-useful pain, which would

appear to favour theism, but Draper is adamant that pain and pleasure serve only

biological purposes. Here, again, with theism you would expect a moral reason for

non-useful pain, but biology can also provide an explanation. Draper says there is

pathological pain, pain resulting from the failure of an organic system, for example

cancer. And there is also biologically appropriate pain, for example, it may not seem

useful that a person who is burning alive should feel so much pain, but it is

appropriate since it is biologically useful to feel pain when we come into contact with

fire.42

What Paul Draper tried to show was that there is an alternative hypothesis to theism

which can better explain evil, pleasure and pain, and that this hypothesis of

39 Ibid, p184 40 Ibid, p186 41 Ibid, p186 42 Ibid, p188

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indifference is more likely to be true than theism. He does this by showing that the

fundamental purpose of pain is biological and not moral, because since the god of

traditional theism is omnipotent he could have created the world such that pain wasn’t

necessary, since pain exists God would need a moral reason to allow it. But Draper

shows that there is no moral reason, not even with pain that does not appear to be of

any biological significance, to allow pain, thereby showing that the hypothesis of

indifference is more likely than theism, and giving us another justified reason to doubt

theism.

Conclusion

Now that we have looked at some of the various arguments how are we rationally

justified in doubting traditional theism, or that the God of theism exists? Firstly it is

clear that traditional theism holds that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good.

The main problem appears to be the difficulty of reconciling the existence of such a

God with the existence of evil, whether on the logical or the evidential level. We have

examined a number of theistic arguments which attempt to reconcile the two, but have

seen that they failed to impress the critics.

Some critics claim that if God is all-powerful he could create any possible world he

wishes, that if God is all-good he would create a world in which there is moral good

and no moral evil, and that such a world is possible. We have also examined

Plantinga’s attempt to prove that this claim is not true, that God could not create any

possible world he wished to create. Plantinga’s argument is unsatisfactory for two

main reasons, firstly it rests on the idea of transworld depravity, and the idea that it is

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possible all creatures suffer from it. This is unsatisfactory because it is equally

possible that only some and not all creatures suffer from transworld depravity, and

therefore God could have created a world with creatures that always freely choose the

good. We are justified in doubting the existence of such a God because such a God

would create a world with good and no evil and we do not find the world to be this

way. Plantinga’s argument does not satisfactorily show that God was limited in this

instance. Secondly this argument is unsatisfactory because it moves too far away from

traditional theism. The argument was an attempt to reconcile an all-powerful, all-

knowing and all-good God with the existence of second-order or moral evil. But by

the end of the argument God is no longer what would be considered, traditionally,

omnipotent as his power is severely limited by the freedom he grants us and by the

number of worlds he can not create. We are rationally justified in doubting theism

because this argument seems unable to defend it.

With the evidential problem of evil we have seen that the facts do not support an

inference to an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God, the facts actually make

the existence of such a God unlikely. William L. Rowe claimed that such a God and

evil can only be reconciled if theists can show that God would have a substantial

moral reason for permitting evils, that there is some good for which the evil is

necessary. But he also pointed out that none of the goods we know of are such that

they would justify horrendous evils. This may not be conclusive proof against God’s

existence but, seeing that there is no justifying reason we know of, it is a good reason

to doubt it.

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Paul Draper has argued that there is another hypothesis, the hypothesis of indifference

which explains the facts of evil better than, and is therefore more likely than, theism.

With theism one would expect a moral reason for the existence of pain and pleasure

because if God is omnipotent pain and pleasure would not be biologically necessary.

Yet pain and pleasure have been observed as serving biological, not moral, uses and

can over all be explained better in biological terms, making the hypothesis of

indifference more likely than theism.

I can see one more major justification for doubting the existence of the God of theism.

And this is the fact that theists often appear unable to stick to traditional theism in

their defences. Traditional theism holds that God is omnipotent, omniscient and

perfectly good; and maybe I am being too strict with this but I see any major deviation

from this as something other than traditional theism. While many theists start with this

strict definition by the end of their argument they have (perhaps implicitly) reduced

God’s power, knowledge or goodness. For example, the argument about first and

second order good and evil abandons the opposition between good and evil, and

shows God not to be what we have traditionally meant by good; and Plantinga

severely limits Gods power and knowledge in the free will defence. I believe that the

apparent indefensibility of traditional theism is our final justification for doubting its

validity.

I would, therefore, like to conclude that we are rationally justified in doubting the

existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good god, for the above reasons. I

do not claim that God does not exist, because there may yet be an argument which

will prove he does, or because there may be a god but not such a god as postulated by

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traditional theism (perhaps something like Cleanthes’ limited theism). While I see

many of the deviations from the strict definition of traditional theism as damaging to

it, I also see them as possible, attractive alternatives to it. But here is not the place to

discuss that, perhaps it is the subject of another essay or a subject for a liberal

theologian. But for the moment I am content to conclude that we are rationally

justified in doubting the existence of the God of traditional theism.

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