Does the Problem of Evil Make God Unlikely?

Dr. Craig explains why, on the academic level, even most atheists have abandoned the logical problem of evil, and he then responds to a version of the problem that is more relevant!

JOHN ANDERSON: Evil and suffering is a big one. I'd be interested in your perspectives on that. You hear people say that particularly the Abrahamic God, who's all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good (and you've just made a reference to that yourself – the locus of all good things), there's the atheistic argument from evil. It basically runs that if there is such a God (and, look, I don't want to sound unsympathetic about this; it's a big challenge – evil is a big problem) just as I described exists then there'd be no evil or suffering. But there is a lot of evil and suffering in the world. Therefore there can't be a God, or certainly not a Christian God. So where do philosophers in general come out on that question of suffering, and where do you land?

DR. CRAIG: Historically for centuries atheistic philosophers have defended the view that the existence of the suffering and evil in the world is logically incompatible with the existence of God. And now on the contemporary scene this has really changed. Virtually no one defends the logical version of the problem of evil anymore. The reason is that it lays upon the shoulders of the atheist a burden of proof that is so heavy that no one has been able to sustain it. The atheist would have to prove that there is no logically possible reason that God could have for permitting the evil and suffering in the world, and no one can prove such a thing. So those who do defend the problem of evil today have retreated from the logical version of the problem to the so-called probabilistic version of the problem where the claim is that given the evil and suffering in the world it's improbable that God exists, if not impossible. And the difficulty with this version of the problem is that it makes probability judgments that are simply beyond our ability. There is no basis for thinking that if God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil and suffering in the world that these should be evident to me. For example, every event that occurs in human history sends a ripple effect through history such that God's morally sufficient reasons for permitting it might not emerge until centuries from now, perhaps in another country. An illustration of this would be the so-called butterfly effect in contemporary physics. It's been shown that the fluttering of a butterfly's wings on a twig in West Africa can set in motion forces that will eventually produce a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean, and yet no one watching that little butterfly on the branch could possibly predict such an outcome. These kinds of probability judgments are just beyond our capacity. And similarly, when we see some instance of suffering and evil in the world we are simply not in a position to say with any sort of confidence God probably doesn't have a morally sufficient reason for permitting that to occur. A second point that needs to be made here is that when one's talking about probabilities then you've also got to consider on the other side of the scale what is the probability that God does exist? And here I would offer multiple considerations that I think make it quite probable that there is in fact a transcendent creator and designer of the universe despite any improbability that the suffering in the world might throw upon the existence of God.

JOHN ANDERSON: Interestingly, I've never forgotten the story – a true story – about a young university student in Scotland not long after, well probably I suspect during the Depression years when things were grim, and he knocked on the door of a small cottage that was opened. There was a returned serviceman from the first World War and when he realized the young man wanted to talk to him about God he said, “Go away. I was in the trenches in France, and I stopped believing in God when I saw all that evil.” And the young man said to him, “I respect that. That must have been terrible, and I certainly won't pester you. But can I just make the observation that I wonder if I'd been there I might not have stopped believing in man rather than stop believing in God.” And the old man looked at him, tears welled up near his eyes, and he said, “You better come in. We need to talk about this.” It's an interesting take on evil. I sometimes think that one of our problems is we're not self-reflective enough.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Certainly one of the major developments in philosophy with respect to this problem is the so-called free will defense in which philosophers, I think, have been able to show that it's neither improbable nor impossible that every world that God would create that would involve this much good – this much moral goodness – would also involve this much moral evil freely perpetrated by human free agents so that ultimately the blame lies at man's threshold and not at God's.