Evil as Evidence Against the Existence of God

Abstract

Many hard-line atheists have claimed that there is a logical inconsistency between the existence of the Judaic-Christian God (i.e. one who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and totally good) and the existence of a world containing evil, pain and suffering. Traditional apologists have attempted to answer this supposed 'proof' that God does not exist, by attempting to establish reasons or justifications for God allowing evil, which allows that the best of all possible worlds is one in which evil will occur, or at least may occur. Such attempts include the so-called 'second-order goods', the free-will defence, and 'soul-making'.' It is now widely held that all the suggested reasons will not justify all the evil which exists. Even if justification can be given for some evil, no justification or combination of justifications will account for all the types of evil, the amount of evil or the distribution of evil in the world. However, along with the failure of the apologists to justify the existence of evil, the supposed logical inconsistency between God and evil has been more successfully challenged by a simple logical point. Following Pike2 and Plantinga,3 it has been pointed out that God could have a reason for the world being as it is, and hence there is no logical contradiction in both acknowledging the existence of evil, pain and suffering in the world and asserting that an all-knowing, all-powerful and totally good God exists. The apparent failure to explain why God would allow evil in the world is thus seen as irrelevant, as is the claim that surely it would be a better world if we did know why God allowed evil to exist. For once we acknowledge that God could have a reason for the world being as it is, the fact that in this world we do not (at least at present) know why God allows evil to exist cannot be used to establish that there is an inconsistency between the existence of God and the existence of evil without questionbegging. Nor can any features of evil in this world be so used, such as its severity or its distribution. Many philosophers now accept that Pike and Plantinga have successfully refuted the claim that there is a logical inconsistency involved in asserting both the existence of God and evil, and hence that there cannot be a deductive proof that God does not exist based on the existence of evil. We will take it that this is correct. But many atheists who concede this point nonetheless claim that the argument from evil can be reconstructed as a good non-deductive argument. For it is claimed by many that the existenice of evil, pain and suffering counts, primafacie, as stronig evidence against the existence of God. Of course, they point out, a