Evil is a Minor Thing – Richard Swinburne

A debate clip was posted recently on Twitter of Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne making some cursory comments about evil:

“The world is a good place….most people in the world are pretty good people…evil is a minor thing in the world, in the structure of things.”

This caused a mixed reaction, from head-scratching bemusement to outright dismissal. It’s obviously false, right? Evil is a minor thing? Tell that to victims of child abuse! Go preach it in Belsen!

However, when properly understood, Swinburne’s comments strike me as obviously correct, and in fact it’s odd that people should be surprised that a Christian philosopher would say such a thing. I want, therefore, to make just a few very quick observations about the comments.

Firstly, Swinburne is a first-rate philosopher who is incredibly careful and measured in his language. Moreover, Swinburne has written a lot about the problem of evil, and it is clear from his written work – both quantity and style – that he takes it very seriously. His comment in this debate was not intended to dismiss the reality or gravity of individual evils faced by very real people. No Christian writing today on the problem of evil would dismiss the horrendous sufferings of the holocaust, the gulag, napalm, starvation, or disease. It’s not as if Swinburne is looking at a drowning child saying “it’s OK, your suffering is only minor, don’t worry about it!” He’s talking at a higher level than that – about “the structure of things.” Arguing that evil is a minor thing in the world is very different from saying that the evil that happens to people is minor.

Secondly, he’s drawing attention – quite rightly – to the enormous amount of good in the world. Much of this good goes unreported precisely because it’s normal. We look after our elderly parents. We educate and discipline our children. We give to charity. Most of us are productive members of society who add to the common good in hundreds of small ways daily: we thank a taxi driver, we make a cup of tea for an upset friend, we help an elderly man lift his groceries into his car, we hold the door for the person behind us. There’s so much good in the world that it’s utterly banal. Evil in the world stands out precisely because it is abnormal. Of course, the media will always focus on the negative – fear and anxiety is one of the best ways to get a news audience. They will report knife crime in London as if every third person in the city is under threat. It massively distorts our perception of the amounts of good and evil in the world.

Thirdly, and finally, Christians typically have a different understanding of what “the world” actually refers to. To the naturalist the world is simply 13.5 billion years of chaos, and each human life within it nothing other than about 3 score and ten, if we’re lucky. However, that’s not the Christian view of the world at all. For Christians, “the world” is the entire state of affairs including such incommensurable goods as salvation, the ultimate defeat of evil, and eternal life. Whether or not evil is mild or minor if naturalism is true is a different question, and the Christian isn’t obliged to make his case within the confines of a naturalistic worldview. Naturalists – I’m sorry to say – don’t call the tune to which we all must dance.

To illustrate the difference: Imagine a white circle with a diameter of 3 inches. Within this white circle imagine now a large black dot measuring 2 inches in diameter. Let the black dot represent evil and the white dot present good; together they symbolize the good and evil in our world. As things stand the black dot takes up most of the space. That’s perhaps the view of the pessimistic naturalist. But now consider the notion of eternal life in Christianity. The white dot begins to expand, while the black stays steady. Imagine now the white dot measures 58 miles in diameter and the black dot within remains at only 2 inches: seemingly, “evil is a minor thing in the world, in the structure of things.”

Stephen J. Graham

The Devil & Evil: A Response to Woolmer & Green

In his book “The Devil Goes Missing?” Anglican minister John Woolmer suggests it isn’t possible to have a coherent doctrine of a loving God without also having an understanding of, and a belief in, the existence of Satan.  

He quotes approvingly from fellow Anglican Michael Green: 

“I believe the Christian doctrines of God, of man and of salvation are utterly untenable without the existence of Satan…The fallen nature of man and of everything he does, the self-destructive tendencies of every civilisation history has known, the prevalence of disease, together with nature, red in tooth and claw, unite to point to an outside enemy. I would like to ask theologians who are sceptical about the devil how they can give a satisfactory account of God if Satan is a figment of the imagination. Without the devil’s existence, the doctrine of God, a God who could have made such a world and allowed such horrors to take place daily within it, is utterly monstrous. Such a God would be no loving Father. He would be a pitiless tyrant.” 

Woolmer regards this as “a really important statement,” adding: “Remove Satan from our world view and we are inexorably challenged by the dark thought that God is at best incompetent, and at worst malicious. Human nature alone, however fallen, cannot really explain the horrors of Auschwitz, Stalin, Mao, Rwanda, Islamic State and all the rest.” 

It seems to me that Green and Woolmer make several errors.  

Firstly, events in the natural world appear to be the result of natural laws, not personal agency. The scientific evidence at our disposal – from fossil records, biological evolution, to cosmology – testifies to a universe which has developed over a very long time by a gradual process operating according to known laws of nature. These laws operate with uniform regularity. They certainly don’t appear to be the work of personal agents misusing their free-will. When a volcano erupts we are able to exhaust the reasons why in purely natural terms. Positing a personal agent for causing it is not something we either need to do or have any reason for doing.

Secondly, Woolmer and Green provide no reason why the moral evils of which they speak aren’t simply attributable to human agency. Why must we must posit a demonic influence behind Stalin or Mao? We know through our own experience that humans are capable of such evils. Surely the fact alluded to by Green himself – “the self-destructive tendencies of every civilisation history has known” – demonstrates that there is something dark in human nature itself quite apart from outside spiritual influence? We are moral creatures, and thus capable of the extremes of both good and evil. We are also natural creatures which can be broken – socially, psychologically, and emotionally – hence the existence of sociopaths, narcissists, and psychopaths. Moreover, we are learning all the time how humans can become broken: by culture, society, environment, upbringing, and genetic defect. If Woolmer and Green are going to put all this down to an outside agency they owe us some reason why it is that humans couldn’t possibly do such evil things off their own bat. As things stand, Green & Woolmer give us no such reason. Moreover, the bible itself frequently speaks of the nature of human beings in somewhat gloomy terms, and without chalking any of it up to demonic influence.

Thirdly, though they deny it, their view lapses into a quasi-dualistic position involving ultimate good and ultimate evil. Green in particular stresses that the devil is responsible for all manner of natural evils, not to mention the corruption of human civilisations. He appears to suggest that God had nothing to do with this and thus we must invoke the devil to make sense of it. However, is God not still sovereign? Green (and Woolmer) will say “of course he is,” and yet Green’s protestations are only valid if the devil is some kind of equal and opposite being to God. If God is truly sovereign, then the existence of the devil doesn’t solve the problem Green thinks it does, because we must still deal with “A God who could have made such a world.”

This brings us to the nub of this third error: their view doesn’t really solve the problem of evil and suffering in the way they think it does. Suppose it is true that the existence of Satan explains all manner of natural disasters, disease, the violence inherent in the natural world, and even the corruption of human civilisations. Where did Satan come from? If we want to avoid the kind of dualism we find in, say, Zoroastrianism wherein the forces of good under Ahura Mazda war constantly with the equal and opposite forces of evil under Angra Mainyu, then we must acknowledge that Satan himself was created by God. This brings us once again to the nub of the problem of evil: how evil and suffering exist in a world in which there is an omnipotent and omnibenevolent supreme power. God is still wholly responsible for the world.

We find here a problem faced by all theodicies that emphasise the fall as the reason for evil. Such theodicists seek to uphold the notion that God created all things good, but also that free creatures misused their free will, fell from grace, leading to all the evils in our world. It’s a neat way to uphold the goodness of God on the one hand and the guilt of the creature on the other. Except for a glaring problem, that is. Schleiermacher pointed out that this traditional picture was unintelligible. The problem is that we have unqualifiedly good beings, existing in the presence of God, inexplicably committing sin. If a creature sins, surely it was not flawless to begin with, and thus the creator – God – must share the responsibility for their fall. Schleiermacher adds: “the more perfect these good angels are supposed to have been, the less possible it is to find any motive but those presupposing a fall already, eg arrogance and envy.” In fact, this consideration led thinkers like Augustine to suppose that those angels who fell were simply predestined by God to do so. Had they shared the same blessedness of the good angels, they would never have fallen.

I find myself on the side of Schleiermacher here. God is not absolved of responsibility for evil by the existence and nature of Satan. On the contrary, He remains ultimately responsible for it, and thus we must look elsewhere for an explanation of evil, something Green and Woolmer don’t do. 

This brings me to my final point: Green and Woolmer display an ignorance of the philosophical literature wherein many theistic philosophers present defences and theodicies that make sense of the enigma of evil without resorting to “the devil did it.” For instance, Swinburne argues at length that the world must be ordered the way it is for humans to operate with significant freedom. Alternatively, John Hick draws our attention to how evils are necessary for our development towards God-centred being. Others, such as Paul Helm, argue that God has greater goods in mind which necessitate the world we live in, or something like it, goods which we perhaps cannot know. Or, maybe, Stephen Wykstra and William Alston are correct to say we can’t know God’s morally sufficient reasons for causing or permitting the existence of evils around us, but if we otherwise have good grounds for believing God is good, then the existence of evil isn’t a defeater for theism.

Whatever reason there might be for believing in the existence of the devil and other demonic beings, their existence is not required for making sense of the existence of God or the nature of the world.

Stephen J. Graham

Is Covid-19 a Divine Punishment? A Response to RT Kendall

Where is God in Covid-19? Did He cause it? If not, why does He permit it? These are questions theologians and philosophers have wrestled with through the ages. Of course, the name of the disaster changes, but the questions remain the same.

Philosophers have given lots of different answers to the questions posed by evil, suffering, and disasters (manmade or natural). Some point out that God has created free beings who choose to do evil things. Others say that natural evils are necessary in a world in which humans can have morally significant free will, or perhaps that such evils are part of the necessary environment for humans to grow towards a God-centred life through developing certain character traits that they could not otherwise develop. Alternatively, maybe the world we live in is a necessary environment for God to fix our wills and make us fit for an eternity of union with God (which is an incommensurable good far exceeding the happiness of earthly comforts).

Others, being more cautious, argue that God’s intellect is exceedingly greater than ours, such that if He has a purpose in evil there’s no reason to suppose we would be aware of it, and that our knowledge of the goods and evils in the world and the interconnections between things and events is extremely limited. Moreover, they remind us that our grasp of the divine nature and purposes is naturally riddled with enormous deficiencies, given the existential gap between divine being and human nature. A few others have chosen to bite the bullet, acknowledging that many of the world’s evils are simply gratuitous, resulting from life in a fallen world. In the latter case all there is to do is lament.

There are many variations on such themes, but in a recent article for Premier Christianity RT Kendall, a popular and influential Christian teacher, pastor, & author, asked the question: is Covid-19 a punishment from God? Well, he more than just asked it. He stated his own position fairly clearly:

“It is my view that America is under judgement…I do believe America has received a double whammy in 2020: coronavirus and violence…Never in my lifetime have I seen anything like it.”

Kendall goes much further and stakes out why he thinks America is under judgment:

“America is under judgement for four things: racism, legalised abortions for any reason, approval of same-sex marriage and theological liberalism in pulpits. God is fed up. He has stepped in.”

These certainly are bold claims (though towards the end of the article he backtracks on them a bit and calls for caution, as we will see). So, what is Kendall’s evidence for them? Nothing. Not a single scrap of evidence is presented for any of it. Nothing for the idea that Covid-19 is part of some divine punishment on America, much less for the notion that this punishment is specifically for the things Kendall claims it is. The best he does is some hand gesturing in the direction of there being biblical examples where God punishes people – and even nations – for some sin or other.

Now, most Christians will certainly agree with Kendall on a number of points. For instance, God reigns supreme over the universe, and there is nothing that happens without His authoring or permitting it to happen. Covid-19 did not take God by surprise. Further, few will dispute Kendall’s assertion that “If we really believe in the God of the Bible, then we must concede he is a God who can bring judgement, and we must not dismiss this option out of hand.” True enough, and Kendall reminds us of several biblical examples of this very thing.

However, that’s just part of the story, and in fact towards the end of his article Kendall retreats somewhat from his earlier (careless?) claims: “it could be dangerous to claim Covid-19 is God’s judgement…Who is truly qualified to say this? Caution is required.” It certainly is, not least of all because there are numerous contrary examples in scripture that Kendall doesn’t mention. The entire book of Job is surely a foil to the whole enterprise of trying to pin suffering on unrighteousness of some sort. Or take the man born blind in John chapter 9. When asked by his disciples, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus responds “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…” Consider also Jesus’ rhetorical question in Luke chapter 13 “Or those 18 who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?”

The idea that Covid-19 is some kind of punishment on America is problematic on a number of fronts. Firstly, Covid-19 has affected most of the globe – not just the apparent centre of the universe that is the good old US of A. It seems odd that God would inflict Covid-19 on the entire world because some churches in the USA have liberals in their pulpits conducting gay weddings. Indeed, the spread of Covid-19 appears fairly random rather than the measured dishing out of perfect justice. If God wished to punish the things Kendall mentions, might it not be better to target abortion doctors, Klan members, homosexuals, and liberal ministers in particular? The idea of indiscriminate punishment doesn’t seem consistent with the character of a perfectly just God. In addition, it seems crucial to the notion of punishment and justice that those on the receiving end know why they are being punished. The lack of such an explanation is what makes us recoil in moral indignation when we hear of prisoners held without knowing what charges are being leveled against them. In some of the biblical examples Kendall alludes to, God communicates his rationale for punishment, either directly or through prophets. People aren’t left to guess or speculate. In the case of Covid-19, God hasn’t communicated anything – unless, perhaps, Kendall is claiming some sort of hotline to heaven?

I doubt he is. So, what is Kendall really doing? Sadly, I suspect he’s doing what far too many Christians throughout history have done in the face of disasters: blamed it on society’s failure to abide by whatever their pet theological/ethical hobby-horses happen to be at the time. So, famine in Africa becomes the result of witchcraft, AIDS is a judgment on homosexuality, hurricanes are due to gay marriage, and Covid-19 becomes the result of “racism, legalised abortions for any reason, approval of same-sex marriage and theological liberalism in pulpits.”

Ironically, Kendall cites Ludwig Feuerbach’s notion that God is just a psychological projection, that people create God in their own image, with that image typically of a kindly being who takes us all to heaven when we die. I wonder, though, if Kendall might be engaging in a smidgen of projection himself: God as sharing his own theological and ethical viewpoints and willing to pour the bowls of wrath onto those who dare think otherwise. Frankly, such manoeuvres are downright abusive. It’s little better than saying “agree with me and do as I want you to do or God – who agrees with me about all this – will cast burning coals on your head!”

To rephrase Kendall, it could be dangerous to claim he’s engaging in psychological projection. Who is truly qualified to say this? Caution is required. But it seems to me there’s at least as much reason to argue that as to accept Kendall’s crass Covid speculations.

Stephen J. Graham

Short Article: 10 Christian Philosophers on Evil

I thought I’d do a quick fire article on what we can learn from 10 different Christian philosophers about the problem of evil. I’ll summarise the gist of each philosopher’s work, or a single key idea from their work, in a sentence or two. This obviously has limitations, so if you’re tempted to respond to any of these philosophers I suggest getting more familiar with their work than provided in these summaries!

From each of these thinkers, we learn a number of things.

(1) Alvin Plantinga: Argues that the existence of evil is, in fact, logically compatible with the existence of God since it’s possible that God create free beings who choose to do evil things.

(2) Stephen Wykstra: Points out that God’s intellect is exceedingly greater than ours, such that if He has a purpose in evil there’s no reason to suppose we would be aware of it.

(3) William Alston: From Alston we learn that the hope of establishing negative existential claims such as “There are (probably) no morally sufficient reasons for many of the evils we are confronted with in the world” are far from promising, and thus all such arguments face a massive uphill battle.

(4) Peter Van Inwagen: Whilst most theists deny that there are gratuitous evils (and implicitly assume the atheist is right that such evils are incompatible with God’s existence), Van Inwagen claims that due to the Fall we now live in a world which contains gratuitous evils, and thus there is no tension between the existence of God and the existence even of such gratuitous evils.

(5) Richard Swinburne: Argues that natural evils are necessary in a world in which humans can have morally significant free will.

(6) John Hick: Tells us that the evils of our world are part of the necessary environment for humans to grow towards a God-centred life through developing certain character traits that they could not otherwise develop.

(7) Eleonore Stump: Reminds us that many other Christian beliefs are relevant to the proper Christian response to evil, and that the world we live in – with the evils it contains – is the necessary environment for God to fix our wills and make us fit for eternity of union with God.

(8) William Lane Craig: Tells us that the highest good is not happiness or earthly pleasure, but rather the knowledge of God, which is an incommensurable good.

(9) MB Ahern: Reminds us that our knowledge of the goods and evils in the world and the interconnections between things and events is very limited.

(10) William Fitzpatrick: Points out that our grasp of the divine nature and purposes is riddled with enormous deficiencies.

Whether you agree with these authors or not, each of them is worth reading in more detail by anyone interested in arguments from evil.

Stephen J. Graham

Why Skeptical Theists are Skeptical

Most modern arguments from evil are of the broadly “evidential” kind. Take the argument of William Rowe as a classic paradigm of such an argument type:

(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.

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

Theists have several retorts open to them. Some propose theodicies to account for the kinds of evil Rowe discusses. Others argue that the evidence in favour of the existence of God outweighs the argument from evil. Whatever strategy they employ, Rowe reckons – quite rightly – that most theists will grant premise 2, directing their fire against premise 1.

In so doing, theists – myself included – will adhere to some version of what is commonly referred to as “skeptical theism:” the view that we simply cannot know that a premise like (1) is true or more probable than not.

Different theistic philosophers will focus of different reasons why we should be skeptical. In his version of skeptical theism, Wykstra emphasises how our intellectual capacities are greatly inferior to God’s, much greater than the gap that exists between a small child and his parents. In the latter case a small child is often unable to understand parental anger, discipline and punishment, or why they might make the child do things they find distasteful or arduous. By contrast, Ahern argues that our knowledge of good and evil and the interconnections between events is severely limited. Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, argues that our grasp of the divine nature is tenuous at best, such that judgments about what an omnipotent or wholly good being would or would not do are virtually worthless. Whilst agreeing with all this, (as do I, particularly with Ahern), Alston focuses on the extreme difficulties faced by the atheist in their attempt to provide adequate support for what Alston describes as “a certain very ambitious negative existential claim,” namely, in Rowe’s case, there is no morally sufficient reason for God to permit certain evils we see.

Here are just a few of the factors discussed by Alston which demonstrate that we aren’t in a position to deny that God has some morally significant reason or other for the suffering we find in the world:

1. Lack of data – including the secrets of the human heart, the constitution and structure of the universe, and the remote past and future, including an afterlife, if any. For example, Christian theism allows for the notion of suffering for character formation, discipline, or even punishment for sin. Since we do not know the secrets of the human heart it seems that any attempt to rule out such explanations for evil is impossible. How can we tell in the case of some person – Bob – that the suffering he is facing might well be caused for such a reason? Bob might seem like a decent bloke, but no-one can really tell what’s going on in his mind, or what types of experiences might work (or will be most likely to work, given Bob’s freedom) to bring him to a better way of life.

2. Complexity greater than we can handle. Here we face the difficulty of holding enormous complexes of fact – different possible worlds or different systems of natural laws – together in the mind sufficiently for comparative evaluation. Take our world – W – and compare it to some other world – W* – which differs from W in some way. How could we even begin to compare these two worlds in such a way as to justifiably conclude that W* would be a better world than W and that therefore God should have made it instead of the world we find ourselves with? We have little idea how particular evils affect later events in the world and even less of a notion as to what God might be up to in the world such that certain evils are permitted. Given our limited spatio-temporal position there is little reason to think we could come close to an accurate comparison.

3. Difficulty in determining what is metaphysically possible or necessary. Bruce Reichenbach appeals to the benefits of law-like natural order, and considers suffering as an inevitable by-product of any such order. Critics often ask: could God not have created a very different natural order, perhaps one that would not involve human and animal suffering either at all or to a much lesser extent? There are various responses to this, but here I wish to point out a significant problem: it is not at all clear what possibilities are actually open to God. We are concerned here with metaphysical possibilities rather than merely conceptual or logical possibilities. The critic points out that we can consistently and intelligibly conceive or imagine a world in which there are no diseases or natural disasters, while all or the vast majority of the goods we currently enjoy remain present. His mistake is in taking his ability to imagine such a world as demonstrating that it is possible for God to create such a world. However, conceivability is not sufficient for metaphysical possibility – what is possible given the metaphysical structure of reality. It is far more difficult to determine what is metaphysically possible or necessary than to determine what is conceptually possible or necessary. The latter requires nothing more than reflection on our concepts. When it comes to what is metaphysically possible, frankly we haven’t the foggiest idea as to what essential natures are within God’s creative repertoire, much less as to which combinations of these into total lawful systems are actualisable. Since we don’t even have the beginnings of a canvass of the possibilities here, we are in no position to make a sufficiently informed judgment as to what God could or not could not create by way of a natural order that contains the goods of this one without its disadvantages. Furthermore, we have no way to know what consequences would ensue by changing some aspect of the natural order. It is notoriously difficult to find any sufficient basis for claims as to what is metaphysically possible, given the essential natural of things, the exact character of which is often unknown to us and virtually always controversial. This difficulty is many times multiplied when we are dealing with total possible worlds or total systems of natural order.

4. Ignorance of the full range of possibilities. This is always crippling when we are seeking to establish a negative conclusion. If we don’t know whether or not there are possibilities beyond the ones we have thought of, we are in a very bad position to show that there can be no divine reason for permitting evil.

5. Ignorance of the full range of values. When it’s a question of whether some good is related to E in such a way as to justify God in permitting E, we are, for the reason mentioned above, in a very poor position to answer the question if we don’t know the extent to which there are modes of value beyond those of which we are aware. For in that case, so far as we can know, E may be justified by its relation to one of those unknown goods. Moreover, just how valuable or worthwhile is something like free will or the ability/chance to show compassion? To what extent do such values justify evil or how much evil do they justify? It seems impossible for us to give an answer to such questions.

Alston therefore chastises such atheists insofar as they claim “that there isn’t something in a certain territory, while having a very sketchy idea of what is in that territory, and having no sufficient basis for an estimate of how much of the territory falls outside his knowledge.” I find myself in full agree with Alston, and thus it seems to me that the likelihood of a semi-decent atheistic argument from evil is, at best, bleak.

Stephen J. Graham

Reflections on Suffering & the Time I Could’ve Died

And now for something completely different. Well, a little bit different. I thought I’d write this piece as a personal reflection on the value of suffering, rather than a philosophical piece. It was inspired by a question I was asked recently: rather than allow someone to go through suffering and then deliver them from it, wouldn’t it be better if God had kept them from the suffering in the first place? It made me think of the worst moment of my life.

About 20 years ago I was part of an adventure group on a “coastal walk” at the North coast of Northern Ireland. Don’t be deceived by that description. This was no leisurely stroll along the beach. This involved rock climbing, jumping off small cliffs into the sea, bouldering, and swimming. At one particular point in our journey we had to swim from one side of a bay to another. In the middle there was a small rocky island which we had to swim to first to get a short rest before continuing on.

Some rough weather had been stirring and as we were making our first swim we soon became aware that the conditions were much worse than we had thought. We had to get to safety pretty quickly, so we all made for the little rocky island. The sea had become so rough that the edges of the island were being pounded, so we had to wait until the last wave crashed and then swim in and climb up the rocks before the next wave hit. I timed my swim OK but as I attempted to climb up my foot caught on some seaweed and I slid. I was left half-lying and half-clinging to the rocks hoping that I might be able to bear the hit of the wave. I’ve never felt a force like it. Trying to hang onto the rocks was utterly futile (in fact the skin of my hands got badly torn in a few places). I was washed straight across the rocks and into a huge swell of water. Had I not been wearing a helmet my head would, in all probability, have been crushed. I was swept into a huge swell of water, unable to breathe, and too stunned to help myself. One of the others in my group was a trained lifeguard and I was fortunate enough that he was able to get me out and (with a huge effort on the part of the group) onto the island. I was in shock for some time afterwards and couldn’t believe how fortunate I was. I still remember the lifeguard’s words to me: “When things like that happen you realise just how fragile we are and that your life is really quite a precious thing.”

How easy it would have been for some small detail to have been different that would have left my family in mourning. If my helmet had been too loose. If the winds had been just a little bit different and sent me straight onto rock instead of into the sea. If we hadn’t had an experienced lifeguard with us. So many things could’ve been different, and had they been different my life may well have ended that day. Imagine two worlds: the current world and another possible world in which events conspired to kill me off that day. If we compare those worlds as they each look at 9am on 14^th September 2017 there will be certain big differences. Consider all the people I have interacted with – for good or ill – in the last 20 years. Many of their lives would be quite different, some hugely so. My son wouldn’t exist. My wife would’ve married someone else and different children might exist who are missing from our actual world. Over time these children might have children, and so on. It’s mind-boggling how even one small event which could have so easily turned out differently can send a wave through time and have such massive consequences, and that’s before we think of the billions of events in billions of lives every single day. This fact is the main reason why I think arguments from suffering fail: they under-appreciate this feature of reality that even small events can have huge and unforeseen consequences that can radically change the future in ways we can barely comprehend.

But what about me? Why would God allow me to go through such an experience rather than prevent it in the first place? Admittedly, my experience on this day was (and remains) the worst experience of my life. At the time, I would’ve preferred that it didn’t happen at all. But on reflection it did change me a lot and taught me a few things I wouldn’t have learnt or appreciated except for having gone through the experience. And thus it seems to me that it might indeed make sense for God to sometimes save us from the midst suffering rather than spare us from it in the first place. In other words, whilst God might have good reason for causing or permitting suffering in the first place, He could also have good reason for saving a person from the midst of it.

Stephen J Graham

Short Article (6): Can God Create any Logically Possible World?

God’s omnipotence is a tricky beast to define, and very often the notion of logical possibility is used in defining it. In a recent discussion concerning the problem of evil I was asked which of two premises I rejected – that God, since he’s omnipotent, can do anything logically possible, or that God should remove suffering if it’s logically possible to do so. I reject both, but was specifically asked to say why I reject the former. This short article is an expanded explanation of what I said in response.

It is my contention that there are states of affairs which, though they be logically possible, are such that God cannot bring them about. Before I offer the two examples I gave it might be useful to be clear about what a logically possible world (LPW) actually is. As I understand and use the term a LPW is a complete description of reality as it could be. Take the set of all propositions that might or might not obtain, eg: A, B, C, D, E….n. A LPW will be a state of affairs in which every single one of these propositions – or their denial – obtains. So, one possible world would be:

A, B, -C, D, E, etc.

Or

-A, B, -C, D, -E, etc

But we could not have:

-A, B, -B, C, -D, E, etc,

Because this contains a logical contradiction by trying to include both B and –B.

To take a concrete example: I have a son who is 10 years old. However, in some other LPW I have no son, but three daughters. There is no LPW in which I have a son and don’t have a son at the same time.

With this brief sketch of LPWs in mind, let’s look at my examples:

(1) Libertarian Free Will (LFW)

If human beings have LFW then there are LPWs God cannot bring about. Take, for instance, Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ. There is a LPW in which Judas, under certain conditions, chooses to betray Christ, and another in which he chooses to remain faithful. In either case we will have a complete description of reality. The former LPW contains the proposition “Judas betrayed Jesus” whilst the latter contains the proposition “Judas did not betray Jesus.” However, (if human beings have LFW) which of these worlds becomes actual is not up to God. It’s up to Judas. Under these precise circumstances Judas chose to betray Jesus, but he really could have chosen not to betray. God couldn’t force him to act freely in either direction; this was Judas’s move as a free agent. Calling the former world PW(B) and the latter PW(-B) we can say that PW(B) was actualisable but PW(-B) was not. So, God could not actualise PW(-B), despite the fact that it is a LPW. This distinction between logically possible and actualisable is subtle but significant, and sadly the two are often conflated.

(2) Temporal Creation

My second example doesn’t require LFW. Take any two universes God could create: U-X and U-Y. Let’s say further than He desires to create two different universes, one after the other. There are two kinds of LPWs here:

(i) PW-Y1 – in which God creates U-Y first and then U-X,

Or

(ii) PW-X1 – in which God creates U-X and then U-Y.

Now, both of these worlds are LPWs, that is they are complete descriptions of reality in which every proposition is either affirmed or denied. However, God can only create one of them. If he chooses PW-Y1 then he cannot create PW-X1. They exclude each other, and yet both are LPWs.

Now, it might be objected (and in fact during my previously mentioned discussion it actually was) that PW-Y1 and PW-X1 are only LPWs before God creates anything. In other words, once God chooses to create PW-X1 then PW-Y1 is no longer a LPW. This is incorrect and blurs again the subtle distinction between actualisable worlds and logically possible worlds. PW-Y1 remains a LPW. It remains a complete description of reality. It’s represents a way reality really could have been. However, it is no longer actualisable.

It seems to me then that definitions of omnipotence that rely on the notion of logical possibility can’t be quite right since it seems clear enough (to my mind anyway!) that there are LPWs that even an omnipotent being couldn’t create. This also means that arguments against God’s existence – such as some versions of the problem of evil – which rely on the notion that God can do anything logically possible are flawed and need to be revised or abandoned.

Stephen J. Graham

Short Article (5) – The Fall, Free Will & Heaven: a Thought Experiment

The so-called “problem of heaven” emerges in the context of solutions to the problem of evil which call upon the free will defense. Moral evil – and sometimes even natural evil – is often explained by the creaturely abuse of free will. However, there are problems lurking here. I once heard a philosopher make the following argument: Adam and Eve were created in a perfect paradise, had free will, and sinned. Since heaven is once again a perfect paradise, in which we have free will, won’t there be the high possibility of someone sinning?

This philosopher obviously had in mind the traditional Augustinian understanding of creation and the fall. The idea of an finite but perfect human pair created to live in a perfect paradise is not one that I adhere to. Not only does it face strong empirical difficulties, but it makes the origin of sin an utter mystery. How is it that a perfect being in a perfect environment freely chooses to sin? That suggests the beings in question weren’t perfect to begin with. Anyhow, since I accept that there is a large proportion of Christendom that embraces this notion, or at least something very similar to it, I’m going to grant it for the sake of argument and ask if there is any incoherence in the notion that we are free to sin in heaven but that no-one ever will despite the fact that the first humans did so in a similar perfect environment.

Imagine an island that to passing ships looks like a beautiful utopia. The island has an uncanny charm that seems to draw people to it. However, when smaller ships try to sail close the waves and the currents tear them to pieces and leave the sailors stranded on the island. What looks like a beautiful utopia from the sea is soon discovered to be anything but. The sailors must live on a diet of sour sea slugs and bitter berries, and at night time they must sleep in trees to avoid being eaten by the terrifying wild dogs which inhabit the island and hunt in packs at night. Sadly these trees are invested with mites which cause severe itching and boils, a plight which is only a little better than being torn apart by the dogs. One day a huge naval vessel spots smoke from a fire lit by the sailors and sends in a helicopter to rescue them. Suppose 5 years later one of these sailors is captaining a ship sailing in this same area. One of his shipmates points to the island and suggests a visit to it. It seems so incredibly alluring despite warnings the sailor has heard concerning it. Now, the captain is certainly free to visit the island, but there’s no way he will do so. He has lived experience which tells him to keep away at all costs. He has lived for the past 5 years in relative luxury and has no desire to return to that accursed island.

Might not something similar hold in heaven? Firstly, the inhabitants of heaven will experience what theologians have called the “beatific vision” – an intense and direct awareness of the loving presence of the almighty God to whom they owe everything. Secondly, it’s not implausible to think that the saints will retain a memory of this fallen world with all its sorrow, suffering, worry, death, and struggles. This contrast – or so it seems to me – would easily be enough to ensure that no-one in heaven ever sins, despite remaining free to do so. Just as the captain will never relinquish his comfortable life to visit the deadly island a second time, so the saints in heaven will never abandon their glorious life for the miseries they experienced during their fallen existence. They know too well from bitter experience the full consequences of rejecting God.

Interestingly, this means that only a fallen and redeemed person would be in the position of being free whilst not actually sinning. Adam and Eve – on the traditional understanding – had no knowledge of the fall, no experience of the misery it would cause; the fallen existence was not one they knew from bitter experience prior to their temptation and sin. In some ways they are like the captain of the ship when he sees the island for the first time, whereas redeemed sinners would be like the captain of the ship who had been rescued and sees the island sometime later.

So, even though I don’t ascribe to the traditional Augustinian understanding of the fall, I think that view can survive the criticism that is made of it in this case. Whether it can stand up to other problems is a question for another time.

Stephen J. Graham

Is the Problem of Evil a Greater Problem for Atheism than Theism? A Response to David Robertson

A link to an article by David Robertson appeared on my Twitter feed recently, in which it is claimed that “The problem of evil is a bigger problem for atheists than Christians.” You can read the full article here:

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/the.problem.of.evil.is.a.bigger.problem.for.atheists.than.christians/38926.htm

Now, let me first acknowledge what the article is not. It’s not written by a professional philosopher. It’s not written for a technical or professional journal, but rather a popular Christian magazine. It makes no pretensions as to providing the final word on the matter. Some people might therefore think I’m choosing a fairly soft target here. However, I don’t wish to write a thorough critique of the piece, nor hold Robertson to the sort of standards I might wish to hold a professional philosopher. However, what he says in the article is – I think – a popular misconception which is worth pointing out, if only to help other apologists from making a similar mistake. Moreover, I couldn’t find a scholarly statement of this argument which seems to make various repeat performances across the world of popular apologetics. (I did come across a version of this argument used by William Lane Craig in his debate some years ago with Frank Zindler, though it wasn’t a scholarly treatment either).

Anyhow, what is the claim, and what is the problem with it?

Robertson claims that many atheists, when asked why they don’t believe in God will point to the amount of evil in the world – because evil exists, God does not exist. Robertson sees a problem here for atheists: “I think all of us have a sense of evil and a sense of good – I don’t think morality is relative. . . There really is such a thing as good and evil. To me this truth actually leads to God, rather than away from God.” How so? Well, according to Robertson atheism has trouble making sense of the concept of evil. If you’re a naturalist, says Robertson, “There is no ultimate foundation for morality. It’s just something that happens, and has evolved.” The problem is exacerbated – so Robertson claims – since on naturalism there is no human free will, no meaning, no life after death, and ultimately no-one to answer to. Thus, he challenges: “The problem with the atheist view of evil is that logically it doesn’t make sense. Either you agree that [evil] exists, or you don’t. If it does exist, then on what metaphysical basis does it exist? It can’t just “be” in a world that is just atoms and molecules.”

Now, it seems to me – a theist who has spent a long time on the problem of evil, and who rejects it as a convincing argument against the existence of God – that Robertson (representative of other popular apologists) is unhelpfully misrepresenting the problem of evil. What he is in fact presenting is a moral argument for the existence of God. He’d have been better simply presenting that rather than trying to tie his argument to the problem of evil. In fact, I have some sympathy with the idea that atheism struggles with the notion of objective good and evil. So, it’s not primarily this aspect of Robertson’s argument that’s the problem, but rather his misconstrual of the problem of evil. (Though in passing I should mention that I rather suspect a sizable chunk of the atheist community would believe in and attempt to defend objective morality in a non-theistic universe. Precisely how successful such efforts are I leave as homework for the reader).

Robertson presents the problem of evil “in a nutshell” roughly along the lines of the so-called logical problem of evil, which runs like so:

1. If God is omnipotent, He will be able to eradicate evil
2. If God is omnibenevolent, He will be willing to eradicate evil
3. Evil exists
4. Therefore an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God does not exist.

I agree with Robertson that such an argument is unsuccessful. In fact, most atheist philosophers would likely agree. However, Robertson ignores the fact that the problem of evil is a much bigger beast than this version suggests. In fact, the problem of evil is really a group of several arguments on a similar theme. The significance of this is that an atheist need not actually agree with the existence of objective evil in order to raise the problem of evil as a case to answer for the theist.

So, for example, William Rowe’s argument from evil is that there are many forms of suffering in our world which do not seem to have any possible justifying goods. He famously gives the example of a fawn caught in a forest fire, suffering for days before finally succumbing to death. Seemingly then, says Rowe, there are gratuitous evils (such as many forms of pain, suffering and distress), and such would not exist if God existed. Now, I don’t think Rowe’s argument is a good one (Stephen Wykstra, Alvin Plantinga and William Alston all provide strong cases against it) but notice that this version of the problem of evil doesn’t rely on any claim about the existence of “objective evil,” in the sense Robertson seems to mean. Or take Paul Draper’s version of the argument (which is, in my view, only marginally better than Rowe’s), which says that the evil we find in the world is more likely on naturalism than on theism; in fact, he reckons, given the facts of our universe it appears most reasonable to think that nothing and no-one has the interests of biological organisms at heart. Draper weighs the hypothesis of theism against an alternative hypothesis, namely: “Neither the nature nor the condition of sentient beings on earth is the result of benevolent or malevolent actions performed by non-human persons,” using a set of observations – O – comprising “both the observations one has made of humans and animals experiencing pain or pleasure and the testimony one has encountered concerning the observations others have made of sentient beings experiencing pain or pleasure.” According to Draper O has a much greater antecedent probability on this other hypothesis than on theism, and thus we have a prima facie case for thinking this alternative hypothesis is more likely to be true than theism. Again, an atheist could make use of this form of argument without bringing the “Robertson Retort” down on his own head. Robertson shows no sign of being familiar with such arguments, and even though he’s only a popular level apologist he really should pay these arguments some attention, for in doing so he mightn’t be so quick to claim that the problem of evil is a bigger problem for atheism than theism.

In any event, I hope it’s fairly clear what’s going on here. The problem of evil isn’t just a problem about morally objective evil. It’s about suffering, pain, and seemingly poor biological design. An atheist who cites the problem of evil as part of his or her case for unbelief is quite likely to have all this in mind, not just the rather restricted version Robertson presents. In my own experience I’ve heard atheists complain about things like the process of evolution and the unimaginable suffering that would have occurred as a result of the process; or the destructive power of natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis; or the horrendous little beasties that are visible only under the microscope, whose existence causes all manner of pain and trauma to millions of other biological organisms; or the suffering in the animal world caused by predation. Such things, so says the atheist, make it difficult to believe in the God of Classical Theism. I freely admit there are times when the world strikes me as a particularly horrid place, and though I don’t think there’s a good argument from evil I sometimes find doubts rise up in my mind through my own experience of the world’s evils.

Of course, for many reasons way beyond the scope of this short article, I don’t think any of this warrants the rejection of theism. But what it does show is that there are versions of the problem of evil which are not open to the Robertson Retort, and thus the atheist who embraces one or more of these versions of the problem isn’t caught in the contradiction Robertson seems to think he or she is.

Modern versions of the problem of evil are, quite clearly, more of a problem for theism than atheism. There is a case for theism to answer. Robertson and other popular level apologists who use such a line of argument would be better off acknowledging this, and joining the rest of us in honestly trying to make sense of the evils our world contains in light of our theistic worldview.

Stephen J. Graham

God’s Permission of Suffering: A Response to Eleonore Stump

Christian philosopher Eleonore Stump objects to Peter van Inwagen’s proposed theodicy because under the terms of that theodicy God would inflict or permit some person, S, to undergo some instance of suffering, without their permission, and purely for the benefit of some other person or group of people, Y (call this “involuntary altruistic suffering”). This is an objection I’ve heard from the lips of a few philosophical atheists also.

What are we to make of it? Better still, how do we turn such an observation into an actual objection? Precisely what is wrong with God inflicting or permitting S to undergo involuntary altruistic suffering? (I am assuming here that it is possible for some person to suffer purely for the benefit of someone else. This might be disputed by some who hold that suffering always brings about – or at least has the potential for – benefit to the sufferer, either directly or indirectly. I’m also ignoring the suggestion that S is better off in a world where S undergoes involuntary altruistic suffering than in some other possible world).

Stump’s objection is that God would be in breach of a moral principle like:

“It is wrong to allow something bad to happen to X – without X’s permission – In order to secure some benefit for others (and no benefit for X).”

As much as I respect Stump as a philosopher, this principle strikes me as clearly wrong, at least if we hold it as a universal principle. It is all too easy to think of counter-examples. Van Inwagen himself lists a few general types of case where such a moral principle wouldn’t hold, for example:

1. When the agent is in a position of lawful authority over X and the others in the question. For instance, if a citizen returns to his home country from a region where a killer disease has been rampant, aren’t the authorities perfectly entitled to keep him or her in quarantine before being free to mingle with fellow citizens?

2. When the good to be gained by the others is considerably greater than the evil suffered by X.

3. When there is no way to achieve the good for the others except by X suffering (or someone else equal to X).

Imagine I’m a train driver and I’ve just been informed that a man has been tied to the tracks by a psychopathic serial killer. There isn’t time to pull the breaks. I can either run over the man or I could re-direct the train onto an abandoned line that leads off a cliff, killing all the passengers on board. I choose to inflict pain and suffering on the man (and his friends and relatives), without their permission, and purely for the benefit of others. Have I acted wrongly? Clearly not, I should think.

Perhaps, you might protest, although this is a case where there is no explicit permission given, permission could be rationally implied or inferred. How so? Well, arguably whilst the man does not consent to die, he would almost certainly agree with the decision to end his life if he was making the decision as a neutral observer.

This raises a very interesting point. We might say that if the man could objectively weigh the big picture he would consent to the infliction of the suffering. In other words, if the man was to make the decision from behind a “veil of ignorance” – not knowing that the person tied to the tracks is himself – he would almost certainly choose the action the train driver chooses. But if this is so it seems to me that the objection to God acting in a way such that S undergoes involuntary altruistic suffering is fatally undermined. It seems that there is little objection to God permitting or causing suffering to S for the good of Y if the suffering is taken on voluntarily, as in the case of Jesus Christ. Moreover, even if S is not in a position to choose to accept the suffering, God – being omniscient – knows that if S were in a position to make such a decision S would accept the suffering that comes his way. In this case too there doesn’t seem to be much that’s objectionable in causing or permitting S to suffer for the benefit of Y. But, what if S is able to make such a decision and would not choose to suffer? Well, again, God knows that such unwillingness is due to ignorance. If S knew all the facts of the situation – and perhaps if S had all the right affections – then S would accept the suffering. Again, I’m not sure there is an objection here. The point is that God sees the big picture, and weighs it perfectly objectively. So, arguably in inflicting suffering on S (or permitting such suffering) He is acting in a way S would agree with if S had the big picture God has.

So, if there is to be an objection that God violates some moral principle or other we require a coherent statement of the principle and a decent argument that it passes the “counter-example” test. I don’t think Stump has achieved that.

Stephen J. Graham