The Argument from
Suffering
3 Forms of the Argument
1. Logical Version-
tries to show that the coexistence of God and suffering is logically
impossible.
2. Evidential
Version- tries to show that the coexistence of God and suffering is highly
improbable.
Question to ask for clarification: “Are
you saying that it’s impossible for God and the suffering in the world to both
exist, or are you saying that it’s merely improbable that God and suffering
both exist?
3. Emotional
Version- concerns people’s dislike of a God who would permit suffering
Logical Version: “It’s Logically Impossible
for God and Suffering to Coexist.”
The argument goes
something like this:
1. An all-loving,
all-powerful God exists.
2. Suffering exists.
Usual assumptions…
3. If God is all
powerful, He can create any world that He wants.
4. If God is
all-loving, He prefers a world without suffering.
Argument: God is
all-loving and all-powerful. Therefore, He both can and wants to create a
world without suffering. Therefore, it follows that the world has no
suffering. But that contradicts 2, Suffering exists. Therefore, God
must not exist.
For this argument to
work, both 3 and 4 have to be necessarily true.
3 - If God is all
powerful, He can create any world He wants.
Is that necessarily
true? Well, not if it’s possible that people have free will! It’s
logically impossible to make someone do something freely. That is as
logically impossible as making a round square or a married bachelor.
God’s being all-powerful does not mean that He can bring about the
logically impossible- indeed, there is not such “thing” as the logically
impossible. It’s just an inconsistent combination of words.
Great point to make
with an atheist: If the unbeliever insists that an all-powerful being can do
the logically impossible, then the problem of suffering evaporates immediately,
for then God can bring it about that He and suffering both exist, even though
this is logically impossible!
Since it’s possible
that people have free will, it turns out that 3 is not necessarily true.
For if people have free will, they may refuse to do what God desires.
So there will be any number of possible worlds that God cannot create
because the people in them wouldn't cooperate with God’s desires. If
fact, for all we know, it’s possible that in any world of free persons with as
much good as this world, there would also be as much suffering.
Conclusion: This
inference need not be true or even probable, but so long as it’s even logically
possible, it shows that it is not necessarily true that God can create any
world that He wants.
4- If God is
all-loving, He prefers a world without suffering.
- God could have
overriding reasons for allowing the suffering in the world.
- Some goods, for
example, moral virtues, can be achieved only through the free cooperation of
people.
- It may be the case
that a world with suffering is, on balance, better overall than a world with no
suffering. In any case, it is at least possible, and that is sufficient
to defeat the atheist’s claim that 4 is necessarily true.
Push the argument
further: You can demonstrate that God and suffering are logically consistent.
All we have to do is come up with a statement that is consistent with
God’s existence and entails that suffering exists.
Here is such a statement:
5. God could not have
created another world with as much good as, but less suffering than, this
world, and God has good reasons for permitting the suffering that exists.
It may well be that a
world with as much good as the actual world, but with less suffering, wasn't an
option. If statement 5 is even possibility true, it shows that it’s
possible God and suffering both exist. Surely, 5 is possibly true.
Evidential Version: “It’s improbable that God
could have good reasons for permitting suffering.”
About the argument:
This argument is always based on probabilities. For example, one may
claim that because of all the suffering in the world, God’s existence is
unlikely.
a. Human Limitations- We’re not in a position
to say that it’s improbable that God lacks good reasons for permitting the
suffering in the world.
As finite persons,
we’re limited in space and time, in intelligence and insight. God sees
the end of history from its beginning and providentially orders history to His
ends through people’s free decisions and actions. In order achieve his
purposes God may have to allow a great deal of suffering along the way.
Suffering that appears pointless within our limited framework may be seen
to have been justly permitted by God within His wider framework.
This is not to appeal
to mystery but rather to point to our inherent limitations, which make it
impossible for us to say, when confronted with some example of suffering, that
God probably has no good reason for permitting it to occur.
b. The Full Scope of the Evidence- Relative to
the full scope of the evidence, God’s existence is probable.
- We
have stronger reasons to believe God exists than we have to accept that the
amount evil successfully calls His existence into question. Since the
Evidential argument is only probabilistic, we are rationally justified in
concluding God does exist.
Consider just some of
the arguments for God‘s existence:
1. The Cosmological
Arguments
2. The Teleological
Argument- fine-tuning of the universe and the information content in DNA
3. The Moral Argument
4. Validity of the
Bible
5. Evidence for Jesus’
Resurrection
6. Argument from
Religious Experience
7. The Ontological
Argument- argument from being
8. Argument from
Reason
- Evil is evidence for
God’s existence.
1. If God does not
exist, objective moral values do not exist.
2. Evil exists.
3. Therefore,
objective moral values exists (some things are evil).
4. Therefore, God
exists.
Conclusion: The
unbeliever may conclude that God’s existence is improbable relative to the
suffering in the world alone but point out that this is just outweighed by the
arguments for God’s existence.
c. Suffering Makes More Sense under Christian
Doctrine- Christianity entails doctrines that increase the probability of the
coexistence of God and suffering.
If the Christian God
exists, then it’s not so improbable that suffering should also exist. It
actually turns out that the problem of suffering is easier to deal with given
the Christian God rather than some bare-boned concept of God.
Consider the following:
The chief purpose of
life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God.
We are not God’s pets,
and the goal of human life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God-
which in the end will bring true and everlasting human fulfillment. Much
of the suffering in life may be utterly pointless with respect to the goal of
producing human happiness; but it may not be pointless with respect to
producing a deeper knowledge of God. Because God’s ultimate goal for humanity
is the knowledge of Himself-which alone can bring eternal happiness to
people-history cannot be seen in its true perspective apart from the kingdom of
God.
Mankind is in a state
of rebellion against God and His purpose.
The terrible human
evils in the world are testimony to man’s depravity in his state of spiritual
rebellion from God. The Christian should not be surprised at the moral
evil in the world, but expect it. (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28)
God’s purpose is not
restricted to this life but spills over beyond the grave into eternal life.
The length of our
finite lives are literally but a vapor in comparison with the eternal life
we’ll spend with God. The longer we spend in eternity, the more the
sufferings of this life will seem insignificant.
2 Cor. 4:16-18- Paul
imagines a scale in which all the suffering of this life is placed on one side,
while on the other side is placed the glory that God will bestow upon His
children in heaven. And the weight of glory is so great that it is beyond
comparison with the suffering.
Emotional Version: “I can’t believe in a God
would permit suffering.”
For most, the problem
of suffering is not really an intellectual problem, but an emotional problem.
However, it’s important to work through the intellectual problems of
suffering because:
a. People think their
problem is intellectual so by working through it with them we can respect their
opinion and help them see the real issue.
b. The answers to the
intellectual problems can be very helpful when God asks you to suffer through
something.
- Many times, words
don’t help. Just silence, presence, and sharing tears.
- Understand that the
God who is allowing the suffering had the guts to take His own medicine.
In other words, look to the cross.
- Encourage, don’t
tear down.
- Be sensitive when
quoting Bible verses.
- Pray
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Footnote: 1. Notes taken from William Lane Craig’s On Guard, Chapter 7: What about Suffering?, p. 147-173.
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