The question of evil

Keith Burgess-Jackson, the Anal Philosopher, asks his theistic readers to comment on, or at least think about, theodicy.

...How do you reconcile the devastation wrought by the tsunami with your belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being? If God could have prevented the tsunami but didn’t, then God’s omnibenevolence is called into question. If God wanted to prevent the tsunami but couldn’t, then God’s omniscience or omnipotence is called into question. You can’t explain away the evil by citing free will, for no human being brought about the tsunami. (Surely you don’t believe in fallen angels.) Do events like this shake your faith? If not, why not? If death and destruction on this scale don’t make you doubt the existence of your god, what would?

In responding to this question, I note a couple of things Dennis Prager has said. One approach he takes is to turn the question around. How does the atheist explain good?

I'm not a fan of this approach because I'm not entirely sure what good and evil mean independent of human judgment. If we weren't here to be wiped out by a natural disaster, no one would call any of these disasters evil. Indeed, energy releases hundreds, thousands, and even million times more intense (and therefore more damaging) occur in other places in the universe all the time. We may see them as impressive, awe-inspiring, and often beautiful. We don't see them as evil.

(I'm reminded of an Arthur C. Clarke story, in which archaeologists discover a vault on the outermost planet of a dead solar system. The inhabitants, knowing their star was about to explode, placed relics of their culture where they might be discovered by future explorers. The ship's navigator worked some calculations and worked out when the light from that star would have reached Earth. The story ends with the question of whether it was necessary to wipe out this civilization so the light of their passing could shine over Bethlehem.)

There are several possible answers for the question of why an all-knowing, all-powerful, and benevolent god would allow evil.

The alternatives are worse

It's possible that allowing certain evils is the best solution to a very complicated problem. Maybe it's just plain impossible to create a world where no bad things can happen to people.

As I mentioned above, natural disasters occur all over the place. We don't consider them disasters because there aren't any people to suffer from them (that we know of). Perhaps it's impossible to create any kind of world that would support life, never mind intelligence, without allowing for bad stuff to happen.

Evil is a relative term

Even if evils of a certain type or degree were eliminated, we'd merely move the goalposts so that some other condition became the challenge to God's benevolence, power, and knowledge. We feel anguish over the fact that children develop cancer and other fatal diseases. Perhaps some other life form on some other planet feels anguish over the fact that children, who are immune to all diseases, lose parents and grandparents to various fatal diseases. And the people on yet another planet feel anguish over the fact that sometimes children will spontaneously explode, seriously injuring or killing everyone within fifty feet.

In order for no evil to occur, there could be no good either, and all possible events would have to be equally good or bad. And the only way this could be the case is in a universe where nothing happens.

What matters?

It's quite possible that from the point of view of an all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent god, our physical well-being and life are not the most important thing. Perhaps this being believes, so long as our souls are recovered (or properly backed up), what happens to the container is secondary.

Reasons for doubt, reasons for belief

A friend of mine suggested once that God doesn't want his existence to be subject to proof. As soon as you have proof that there is a God, you have problems. Your freedom is constrained by the belief that Someone's Watching. It may well be that God doesn't want that perturbation in the system.