The Problem of Evil
Our Question
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Our question is: Does God Exist?
Theism: God exists.
Atheism: God does not exist.
Agnosticism: “I don’t know.”
Weak: I happen not to know. Maybe someone
else does.
Strong: No one knows (despite what they might
think).
Super-Strong: It is impossible for anyone to know.
Agenda
• The (supposed) nature of God
• The nature of evil
• Incompatibilism and the atheistic
argument from evil
• An argument for Incompatibilism
We Need Ground Rules
• To clarify the question: What sort of
thing is God supposed to be?
• Both atheists and theists should be
able to agree on the answer.
What Sort of Thing is God?
God is supposed to be:
 Powerful (Omnipotent, Almighty): God can do anything that can
be done;
 Knowledgeable (Omniscient): God can know anything that can
be known; and
 Good (Omnibenevolent): God loves and cares about all his
creatures.
Set aside: The paradox of the stone.
God is a Person
• Conclusion from our reflections: If God
exists,
he can do things,
he knows things, and
he cares about things.
• If God exists, he is a person.
Mere Monotheism
• Mere Monotheism: the doctrine that
there exists a person who is almighty,
all-knowing, and all-good.
God doesn’t have to look like this
Remarks on What Needs to be
Shown
Theists need to show that a certain kind of
person exists.
God, if He exists
 is not a paperweight
 is not the Big Bang
 is not an idea
 is not an emotion
Agenda
• The (supposed) nature of God
• The nature of evil
• Incompatibilism and the atheistic
argument from evil
• An argument for Incompatibilism
There is Evil in this world (or at
least bad)
The problem of evil revolves around the claim
that…
… there is evil in this world.
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
cruelty,
jealousy,
pain,
depression,
torture,
injustice,
disease,
natural calamity of all sorts,
etc.,
etc.,
ad nauseum.
Two Kinds of Evil
What is it?
Examples
Natural Evil
Artificial Evil
Evil not caused by
human actions
Evil caused by human
actions
hurricanes
epidemics
tsunamis
earthquakes
cutting in line (injustice)
Making fun of your aunt for her
weird dye-job (cruelty)
stealing a nickel from your Mom
for candy (theft)
Complicating the Distinction I:
Natural Evil and Human Action
• Note: natural evil seems to require animal
suffering.
• No suffering means no evil – examples:
paleozoic volcanic eruptions
that huge storm on Jupiter
Complicating the Distinction I:
Natural Evil and Human Action
(cont.)
• An upshot: some natural evils are made
worse by human action.
• Examples:
building a city below the level of an adjoining
lake
living at the base of a volcano
raising chickens or other livestock in great
numbers
Complicating the Distinction II:
Artificial Evil and Nature
• Artificial evil almost always requires
the cooperation of nature.
• Examples:
 the villain’s gun
 The villain’s radio
Summary of the complications
i.
Some natural evils are bad (or made worse)
because of human action.
ii. Almost any artificial evil is bad because of
the operation of natural laws.
iii. Some cases are hard to classify.
Examples:
 global warming
 the Dust Bowl
 using bioweapons
Agenda
• The (supposed) nature of God
• The nature of evil
• Incompatibilism and the atheistic
argument from evil
• An argument for Incompatibilism
Existence of God, Existence of Evil
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Incompatibilism: the doctrine that, if God
exists, then bad things do not happen.
Four positions:
Does God
exist?
Compatibilist
Theism
These are
the only
positions we
will be
considering
Polyanna
Theism
Implausible!
Incompatibilist
Atheism
Polyanna
Atheism
Implausible!
Yes
Yes
No
No
Do bad things
happen?
Yes
No
Yes
No
The Atheist Argument from Evil
We can generate an argument for atheism, if we can establish
Incompatibilism:
1) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not
happen.
2) Our Assumption: Bad things happen
(C) Atheism: God does not exist.
But why think Incompatibilism
is true?
Agenda
• The (supposed) nature of God
• The nature of evil
• Incompatibilism and the atheistic
argument from evil
• An argument for Incompatibilism
The Antidote Argument for
Incompatibilism
“God is the
1) The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then:
antidote to
evil”
a) He knows when bad things are going to happen;
b) He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening;
and
c) He wants bad things not to happen.
2) The Bystander Limitations: If a person P does not prevent
something from happening, then either:
“There are
a) She didn’t know it would happen;
limits on what
you’ll fail to
b) She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; or
prevent.”
c) She didn’t want it not to happen.
(C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen.
The Antidote Argument for
Incompatibilism
1) The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then:
Omniscient
a) He knows when bad things are going to happen;
b) He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening;
and
Omnipotent
Allloving
c) He wants bad things not to happen.
2) The Bystander Limitations: If a person P does not prevent
something from happening, then either:
a) She didn’t know it would happen;
b) She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; or
c) She didn’t want it not to happen.
(C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen.
Why Think the Bystander
Limitations are true?
How could you fail to prevent that from
happening?
•
The Bystander Limitations admit only three excuses:
•
Ignorance:
 Encyclopedia Brown
•
Powerlessness:
 Coyote
•
I didn’t know
I couldn’t do
anything
Indifference:
 You let your mother give your child a cookie
I didn’t care
The Antidote Argument for
Incompatibilism
1) The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then:
a) He knows when bad things are going to happen;
b) He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening;
and
c) He wants bad things not to happen.
Ignorance
2) The Bystander Limitations: If a person P fails to prevent
something from happening, then either:
a) She didn’t know it would happen;
b) She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; or
Powerlessness
Indifference
c) She didn’t want it not to happen.
(C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen.
Leibniz
Gottfried Leibniz
(1646 – 1716)
Leibniz was a
mathematician,
physicist, and
philosopher.
Leibniz is a
compatibilist theist.
Agenda
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Leibniz’s Thesis
The New Antidote Argument
The Burden of Theodicy
Three Objections
This is the best of all possible
worlds
Leibniz argues: this world is the best of all possible worlds.
1)
2)
3)
Whoever does not choose the best among
several possible alternatives is lacking in
power, in knowledge, or in goodness.
God is not lacking in power, knowledge or
goodness.
God chose to create this world out of all of
the possible worlds he could have created.
(C) This world is the best out of all possible worlds.
Leibniz’s Argument seems a lot like
the Antidote Argument
Reminds me of…
… the
Bystander
Limitations
… the Antidote
Principle
1)
2)
3)
Whoever does not choose the best
among several possible alternatives is
lacking in power, in knowledge, or in
goodness.
God is not lacking in power, knowledge
or goodness.
God chose to create this world out of all
of the possible worlds he could have
created.
(C) This world is the best out of all possible
worlds.
Leibniz: Bad Things Happen
“[T]he best plan is not always that which seeks to
avoid evil, since it may happen that the evil is
accompanied by a greater good. For example, a
general of an army will prefer a great victory with
a slight wound to a condition without wound and
without victory.” (p. 92, col. 1)
• Leibniz: I will tolerate “necessary evils.”
• Examples:
 the wound is necessary for the victory
 flu shots
 high criminal burden of proof
• Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in
this world is necessary to secure a greater good.
Agenda
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Leibniz’s Thesis
The New Antidote Argument
The Burden of Theodicy
Three Objections
How does this help with the
Antidote Argument?
• How does the idea of a necessary evil help with
the Antidote Argument?
• Necessary evils present counter-examples to
Bystander Limitations:
 The general allows the wound to happen, even
though he knows it will happen, he could prevent it,
and wants it not to happen.
 I allow the prick to happen, even though, etc.
 We allow the guilty to go free, even though, etc.
Bystander Limitations is False
The Bystander Limitations: If a
person P does not prevent
something from happening,
then either:
a) She didn’t know it
would happen;
b) She wasn’t powerful
enough to prevent it;
c) She didn’t want it not
to happen; OR
d) Allowing it is
necessary for her to
secure some greater
good.
• Leibniz holds that
Bystander Limitations
is simply false.
• There is a missing
condition: we need
to allow for necessary
evils.
• Once you add this
condition,
Incompatibilism no
longer follows.
The New Antidote Argument
1) The Antidote Principle: If God exists, then:
Here’s the
old
Antidote
Argument:
Here’s the
new
Bystander
Limitations:
a) He knows when bad things are going to happen;
b) He is powerful enough to prevent bad things from happening;
and
c) He wants bad things not to happen.
2) The Bystander Limitations: If a person P does not prevent
something from happening, then either:
a) She didn’t know it would happen;
b) She wasn’t powerful enough to prevent it; OR
c) She didn’t want it not to happen;
The new
argument
gets a new
conclusion:
d) Allowing it is necessary for her to secure some greater
good.
(C) Incompatibilism: If God exists, then bad things do not happen.
(C) “Necessary Evil” Compatibilism: If God exists, then bad
things do not happen, unless allowing them to happen is
required in order to secure a greater good.
Agenda
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Leibniz’s Thesis
The New Antidote Argument
The Burden of Theodicy
Three Objections
Leibniz’s Thesis, Amplified
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that
happens in this world is necessary to
secure a greater good.
• Theodicy: an argument that the
existence of evil is justified.
• Theist strategy: for any given evil, show
that it is necessary to achieve a greater
good.
How could evil be required to
secure a greater good?
• The Free Will Theodicy: a world in which some
crabbiness, cruelty, etc., is allowed, but in which some
people choose goodness, kindness, sweetness and
light is better than any world without crabbiness,
cruelty, etc., but in which God forces his creatures to
goodness, kindness, sweetness, and light.
• The Appreciation Theodicy: a world in which
some misery is allowed, but in which people appreciate
what contentment they may find is better than any world
full of spoiled but contented ingrates.
Compatibilism, Weak and Strong
• Weak Compatibilism: God’s existence is
compatible in principle with the
occurrence of some bad things.
• Strong Compatibilism: God’s existence
is compatible with the occurrence of all the
bad things that there actually are.
"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and
omnipotent God would have designedly created the
Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their
feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a
cat should play with mice." (Charles Darwin, Letter to
American botanist Asa Gray, source: wikipedia entry for
“Ichneumon”)
source: http://iris.biosci.ohio-state.edu/catalogs/ichneumonids/
The Burden of Theodicy
Strong Compatibilism: God’s existence is
compatible with the occurrence of all the bad things
that there actually are.
Make a list of all the bad things that have ever actually
happened:
• B1: Hurricane Katrina,
• B2: the Haitian Earthquake,
• B3: World War II, …
Strong Compatibilism says:
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•
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God’s existence is compatible with B1; and
God’s existence is compatible with B2; and
God’s existence is compatible with B3; and
…
The Burden of Theodicy
Strong Compatibilism: God’s existence is
compatible with the occurrence of all the bad things
that there actually are.
The Theist needs strong compatibilism.
An theodicy is inadequate if a single instance of actual
evil is incompatible with the existence of God.
Agenda
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Leibniz’s Thesis
The New Antidote Argument
The Burden of Theodicy
Three Objections
Three Objections: Agenda
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in
this world is necessary to secure a greater
good.
• Pointless Suffering
• Why is All This Evil Necessary?
• The Distribution of Evil
Each and every bad thing?
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is
necessary to secure a greater good.
• Pointless suffering: bad things that
do not have compensating good
effects.
• Examples (?):
 100% fatal prehistoric natural
disasters
Each and every bad thing?
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is
necessary to secure a greater good.
There are really two related objections
here:
i. Existence: some suffering is
pointless.
ii. Extent: God seems to be laying it on a
bit thick
Examples:
 sports injuries
 headaches
Three Objections: Agenda
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in
this world is necessary to secure a greater
good.
• Pointless Suffering
• Why is All This Evil Necessary?
• The Distribution of Evil
Is that really necessary?
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is
necessary to secure a greater good.
• Who makes the rules around here,
anyway?
• God, if He exists, is powerful:
The general can’t secure a victory without a
wound, but God can;
 I can’t give someone an immunity to the flu
without some discomfort, but God can.
Is that really necessary?
(vs. the Free Will Theodicy)
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is
necessary to secure a greater good.
Cause
Action
Misery
• A convenient misfire
would have come in
handy…
•Or a good, stiff
cross-breeze.
•Free Will:
 the benefits of free will
are secured by the time
the agent executes her
decision.
the misery has yet to
be caused – that requires
cooperation from
nature.
 a minor miracle could
save the benefits and
prevent the evil.
Is that really necessary?
(vs. the Appreciation Theodicy)
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is
necessary to secure a greater good.
Gee
Willikers,
am I a
lucky
ducky!
Misery
Causes
Appreciation
• Appreciation Theodicy:
 If God exists, it seems to
be within his power to
make us appreciate how
good we have it without
seeing (or experiencing)
misery.
 How about movies, or
other fake misery,
instead of real misery?
Three Objections: Agenda
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in
this world is necessary to secure a greater
good.
• Pointless Suffering
• Why is All This Evil Necessary?
• The Distribution of Evil
For the greater good? Whose
good?
Leibniz’s Thesis: Each bad thing that happens in this world is
necessary to secure a greater good.
• The idea here is: some people bear the costs
of the evil, and others get to reap the benefits.
• This seems unfair; and
• Inconsistent with love.