Manchester Bible School Apologetics Track

Does suffering disprove God?

Jon King31st October 2011

Introduction A tough issue

“Undoubtedly the greatest intellectual obstacle to belief in God” – William Lane Craig

A big issue

Often a very personal issue

On suffering – the light side

On suffering (2)

"No one can believe in a good God if they've sat at the bedside of a dying child.“

- Bertrand Russell“If you are able to explain suffering, ... you weren't really there.”

- Barry Hannah (American writer)

On suffering'Glancing at your April 10 paper my eyes fell upon the tragic story 'Ordeals Put Off Bosnia Rape Victim's Healing.' My heart ached for Amira, the 35 year old Muslim woman, mother of two children, suffering the loss of her husband, wandering about the countryside begging to survive. Placed in a detention camp, raped repeatedly by Serb soldiers acting as animal pigs rather than humans, the woman became another tragic victim of human wickedness. Where is mankind headed? My thoughts turn to God and ask, 'Why, God? Why did you create such monsters? God, are you for real?' If this is God's way of teaching or testing my faith', he continues, ' then my beliefs and faith are being shattered with contempt instead. Having just lost my wife to cancer, maybe my feelings are more prone and fragile to be torn apart and my feelings turn more intensely to those who are suffering also.‘

- Victor Jashinski in Newport Beach, Letter to LA Times

On suffering

 The agonized theodiceans who see suffering as an intractable 'mystery', or who 'see God' in the help, money and goodwill that is now flooding into Haiti , or (most nauseating of all) who claim to see God 'suffering on the cross' in the ruins of Port-au-Prince, those faux-anguished hypocrites are denying the centrepiece of their own theology. Where was God in Noah's flood? He was systematically drowning the entire world, animal as well as human, as punishment for 'sin'. Where was God when Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed with fire and brimstone? He was deliberately barbecuing the citizenry, lock stock and barrel, as punishment for 'sin'.Educated apologist, how dare you weep Christian tears, when your entire theology is one long celebration of suffering: suffering as payback for 'sin' - or suffering as 'atonement' for it? You may weep for Haiti where Pat Robertson does not, but at least, in his hick, sub-Palinesque ignorance, he holds up an honest mirror to the ugliness of Christian theology. You are nothing but a whited sepulchre.

Richard Dawkins - Haiti and the hypocrisy of Christian theology

On suffering’They burn villages, murder, rape women and children, they nail their prisoners to the fences by the ears, leave them so till morning, and in the morning they hang them—all sorts of things you can’t imagine. People talked sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beast; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that’s all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it. These (men) took pleasure in torturing children, too; cutting the unborn child from the mother’s womb, and tossing babies up in the air and catching them on the points of their bayonets before their mothers’ eyes. Doing it before the mother’s eyes was what gave zest to the amusement.

- Dostoevsky – Brothers Karamazov

Aims for today

To provide An awareness of the challenge

Suggestions for practical responses to the real life questions and challenges we face

An opportunity to discuss and digest these

A pointer to additional resources

Overview

Identifying the challenge

Responding to the intellectual challenge The logical challenge The probabilistic challenge

Responding to the personal challenge

Challenging atheism

The challenge (1)

The need to be clear as to what the objection is

3 minutes to get to know your neighbour(s)

The challenge (2) The logical challenge

The existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of an all good, all powerful God

The probabilistic challenge Even if evil and God can, logically, co-exist,

the nature and scale the pain and suffering in the world makes it highly unlikely that the God of the Bible exists

The emotional challenge There’s no way that I can believe in God after

what I’ve been through or seen

Overview

Identifying the challenge

Responding to the intellectual challengeThe logical challenge The probabilistic challenge

Responding to the personal challenge

How do we use this?

'There’s no way there can be an all powerful and a just God, because if he is all powerful, he’s Satan, considering the recurrent prevalence of genocidal evil in the world.  If he is just, he’s a nebbish [weak simpleton] … I don’t need a God like that.'

Yehuda Bauer – former curator of

Vashem Holocaust Museum

The logical challenge

The logical challenge

Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered.  Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able?  then he is impotent.  Is he able, but not willing?  then he is malevolent.  Is he both able and willing?  whence then is evil?‘

-David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Pt. X.

The problem of evil...is a problem only for someone who believes that there is a God who is both omnipotent and wholly good.

In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent: God is wholly good; and yet evil exists.

There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false.

– John Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence, Mind April 1955

The logical challenge

The supposed logic of the challenge

The allegedly contradictory characteristics

God is all good

God is all powerful

Evil exists

Since evil exists, God is either not all good, or not all powerful, or both.

Challenging the logical challenge

For the logical challenge to work: The set of statements must be

contradictory Each of the premises must be correct

The argument/challenge fails if there is doubt as to truth of one or more of them

The supposed logic of the challenge

The allegedly contradictory characteristics

God is all good

God is all powerful

Evil exists

Since evil exists, God is either not all good, or not all powerful, or both.

Reconstructing the actual logical challenge

A set of genuinely contradictory characteristics

God all good God is all powerful A good thing always eliminates evil

as far as it can There are no limits to what an

omnipotent being can do Evil exists

Challenging the logical challenge (2)

Are there reasons why a good thing might not always eliminate pain and suffering as far as it can? The amputating surgeon The strict parent

Are there limits to what an omnipotent being can do? Biblical recognition of God’s ‘limits’ – Titus

1:2; Hebrews 6:18 Arguing from a non-Biblical perspective:

Can God create a square circle, or a stone that is too heavy for Him to lift?

Possible reason 1: free will

My robotic girlfriend called Gertrude

The Biblical context Relationship Creation Giving over

Could God have created a better world?

Limits – natural disasters

Possible reason 2: character

The public school argument

The Biblical contextRomans 5 vv 2-5 And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but

we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

An eternal perspective

Limits?

Possible reason 3: other powers

What about earthquakes and natural disasters?

The reality of spiritual warfare E.g. Daniel 10: angelic messenger delayed

by prince of the kingdom of Persia

The limits of the Biblical context

The logical challenge defeatedSome philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of the theistic God. No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim. Indeed, granted incompatibilism, there is a fairly compelling argument for the view that the existence of evil is logically consistent with the existence of the theistic God.

- William Rowe"The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,"  - American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979)

The logical challenge – further reading

God, Freedom and Evil – Alvin Plantinga

The problem of pain – CS Lewis

ResponsesThe existence of evil is logically incompatible

with the existence of an all good, all powerful

God

There is no logical incompatibility unless we can say with certainly that there are no limits on what God can do and no good reason why He would permit suffering

Overview

Identifying the challenge

Responding to the intellectual challenge The logical challengeThe probabilistic challenge

Responding to the personal challenge

How do we use this?

The probabilistic challengeThe essence of the challenge

The scale of pain and suffering

The intensity of pain and suffering

The generality of pain and suffering

The probabilistic challenge

"Tell me yourself, I challenge you answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature that little child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.""No, I wouldn’t consent," said Alyosha softly

- Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov

Challenge 1: Assessing probability The limits of our perspective

The limits of our understanding

Contrast the transcendence of God

E.g. Chaos theory and the butterfly effect

Challenge 2: Christian doctrineFrom William Lane Craig: The Problem

of Evil

The chief purpose of life is the knowledge of God, not happiness per se History suggests that persecution

can have the effect of refining the church and testing and developing faith

E.g. China, El Salvador, Ethiopia

Christian doctrine (2 of 3)

Romans 1: v 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator

Romans 1: v 28 – 30: Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Mankind is in a state of rebellion against God; thus we should expect the presence of evil

Christian doctrine ( 2 of 3)

The Christian perspective is an eternal one

Pain and suffering must be viewed in that perspective

2 Corinthians 4 vv 17-18

2 Corinthians 4 vv 17-1817For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

'afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger'

Challenge 3: the challenge in contextThe challenge posed by the question

of evil must be weighed against the evidence for God’s existence; e.g.

The apparent design and fine tuning of the universe

The historical evidence for the resurrection

Arguments from purpose

ResponsesThe existence of evil is logically incompatible

with the existence of an all good, all powerful

God

Even if evil and God can, logically, co-exist, the nature and scale the

pain and suffering in the world makes it highly

unlikely that the God of the Bible exists

There is no logical incompatibility unless we can say with certainly that there are no limits on what God can do and no good reason why He would permit suffering

We are not well placed to assess such probabilities. In any event, a) Christian doctrine suggests that we should expect immense suffering in a fallen world, and b) such evidence must be weighed against the strong evidence for God

Overview

Identifying the challenge

Responding to the intellectual challenge The logical challenge The probabilistic challenge

Responding to the personal challenge

How do we use this?

On sufferingI saw trucks coming, and screams on the trucks and I saw two children fall out of the truck. And the truck stopped, and one came out from the front and picked up the children and banged him against the truck, and the blood came running down, and threw him into the truck. That’s when I stopped talking to God.

- Unnamed Holocaust survivor

The personal challenge summarised

The essence of the challenge

The scale of pain and suffering

The intensity of pain and suffering

The generality of pain and suffering

The Biblical response God did not intend pain and

suffering; these are a result of man’s rebellion (Genesis 3, Romans 5 v 12)

God is not distant from suffering, but rather entered the world, and was Himself tempted, humiliated, scorned and crucified

The Biblical response (ctd)

God has the power to triumph over evil and to deal with pain and suffering

Christ will return and herald a new order in which there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21 vv 3-4)

This does not make things easy. However,. we are required to trust in this promise (e.g. Habakkuk)

The emptiness of the atheist response

There is no reason for saying that suffering is wrong and should not be tolerated

There is no ultimate justice

There is no ultimate hope

The emptiness of the atheist response

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.-- Richard Dawkins, "God's Utility Function," published in Scientific American (November, 1995), p. 85

ResponsesThe existence of evil is logically incompatible

with the existence of an all good, all powerful

God

Even if evil and God can, logically, co-exist, the nature and scale the

pain and suffering in the world makes it highly

unlikely that the God of the Bible exists

There’s no way that I can believe in God after what I’ve been through

or seen

There is no logical incompatibility unless we can say with certainly that there are no limits on what God can do and no good reason why He would permit suffering

We are not well placed to assess such probabilities. In any event, a) Christian doctrine suggests that we should expect immense suffering in a fallen world, and b) such evidence must be weighed against the strong evidence for God

God understands suffering, hates it, and offers a real hope. Without God, there is no reason to expect anything else, and no hope.

Overview

Identifying the challenge

Responding to the intellectual challenge The logical challenge The probabilistic challenge

Responding to the personal challenge

How do we use this?

Suffering as a pointer towards God (1)

No one will disagree that suffering is wrong

But what makes us think that suffering is wrong?

'My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call something crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.‘

- CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

If you argue from the existence of evil to the non-existence of God, you are assuming the existence of an absolute moral law in order for your argument to work. But if there is such a law, then that would also mean that there is such a God, since He is the only one who could give us such a law. And if there is such a God to give us this law, then the argument itself is flawed, since you have had to assume the existence of God in order to argue that He doesn't exist. In short, it is an attempt to invoke the existence of an absolute moral law without invoking the existence of an absolute moral lawgiver, and it cannot be done.

- Michael Ramsden , "How Can I Believe in God When There's So Much Suffering”

Suffering as a pointer towards God (2)

Suffering as a pointer towards God – further reading

Can Man Live Without God? – Ravi Zacharias

The Absurdity of Life Without God -'Reasonable Faith', Chapter Two – William Lane Craig

Application

To discuss (5-10 minutes)