The Problem of Evil
Moral Argument For The Existence of God
Problem of Evil
Why is there evil in the world? It’s an inescapable question for any worldview. But it seems an intimidating threat to Christian Theism. If God is so good, He would surely want to get rid of all evil; if He is so powerful, he would be able to destroy it. According to the logical problem of evil, it is logically impossible for God and evil to co-exist. If God exists, then evil cannot exist. If evil exists, then God cannot exist. Since evil exists, it seems to follow that God does not exist.
But there’s no reason to think that God and evil are logically incompatible. “The atheist presupposes that God cannot have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil in the world. But this assumption is not necessarily true. So long as it is even possible that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting evil, it follows that God and evil are logically consistent” (Craig). Dr. Craig unpacks this idea in much more depth in his article below, and his 2 short videos (article 1; videos 1 & 2).
• What is evil?
◦ Evil is not some sort of material or “stuff.” It doesn’t exist like some sort of dark goo that we imagine. In fact, it isn’t even really a thing.
◦ A shadow is not something. It is the result of the absence of light that takes the shape of something that blocks the light. Similarly, evil is the absence or even distorting of goodness.
◦ So, it is possible that God and evil can co-exist. Further, in order for evil to exist, goodness needs to exist logically prior. So then we can conclude that there is some sort of objectively good standard, which grounds the existence of objective moral values.
The rest of this article is spent establishing, and then defending the Moral Argument for God’s existence. I certainly don’t insist that this article is an exhaustive or comprehensive explanation for the Problem of Evil, Moral Relativism, or the Moral Argument. I just want to lay a foundation, and address some of the ideas that I have found helpful. Almost all of the material in this article is found in the resources I have provided at the bottom of the page. I recommend starting with video 3!
Moral Argument
Argument: If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist. Objective moral values exist, therefore God exists.
• Without some objective reference point, we have no way of saying what is really up or down, like someone floating in outer space.
◦ God’s nature provides an objective reference point for moral values. It is the standard against which all actions and decisions are measured. If there is no God, there is no such reference point. We are left with opinions, which are no more or less valid than the next person — subjective morality.
▪ Take, for instance, a preference for strawberry ice cream. The preference is in the subject, not the object. It does not apply to other people.
▪ In a world with no God, there can be “no evil and no good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference” (Richard Dawkins).
• Moral Relativism: “Everyone has their own view of what right and wrong is. No one should push their own views on someone else.”
◦ First off, we certainly don’t live as if this is true. “If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality over savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality” (CS Lewis).
◦ Second, why assume that pushing one’s morality on another is “wrong?” What ultimate standard is one violating when pushing their relative views on another?
◦ If Atheism is true, there is no ultimate standard. There can be no moral obligations or duties. Humans are just accidents of nature, highly evolved animals. Animals don’t have obligations to one another.
▪ For example, for rats, it is perfectly within their liberty to eat their offspring for nutrition. God help us if this were the case for humans too. But if God doesn’t exist, we should view human behavior in the same way. No action should be considered bad or good, right or wrong.
◦ But of course, objective right and wrong do exist.
▪ Just as our sense experience convinces us that the physical world is objectively real, our moral experience does the same.
Common Objections
• Objection 1: “Is something good because God wills it? Or does God will something because it is good? Surely it is still subjective morality because it is subject to God.”
◦ Response: Neither. God wills something because He is good. God is the standard of moral values just like a performance is the standard of a high quality recording. The more a recording sounds like the original, the better it is. Likewise, the more closely a moral action conforms to God’s nature, the better it is.
• Objection 2: “I can be moral without God.”
◦ Response: We’re talking about logically grounding objective moral values, not whether or not someone can be moral, or observe morality.
▪ “Moral facts are odd kinds of facts. They are not merely descriptions—how things happen to be. They entail prescriptions, imperatives—how things ought to be. They have incumbency, a certain obligation to them. What explains these unusual features? What is their foundation? What “ground” do they rest upon? What—or who—actually obliges us and why should we obey?” (Koukl)
▪ (Readers & Writers Illustration — See video 4 below)
▪ Goodness is only grounded by God, the one who is the ground of “being” at all in the first place.
• Objection 3: “Objective morality is a Darwinian evolution-based concept that came about through natural selection.” (See articles 2 & 3 below)
◦ Response: The idea that moral values come from evolution is still relativistic.
▪ In this view, if any alteration in evolution were to have occurred, it would have resulted in a different set of moral values. So the moral values and obligations we currently live under are not really “true” in and of themselves. They are only true because this particular version of evolution has deemed them so — not objective.
◦ Immaterial notions about moral obligations cannot result from the stirring up of random material particles evolving over time.
• Objection 4: Sam Harris — “Objective morality is based upon human flourishing, and we can discover this through science: neuroscience and psychology”
▪ “Harris’s approach is straightforward. First, human morality is (obviously, to Harris) about human flourishing. Second, the means to accomplish that end are scientifically quantifiable (science can measure things that relieve suffering, increase satisfaction, etc.). Science, then, can provide objective standards for human morality” (Koukl).
◦ Response:
▪ What makes human flourishing good? Why assume human flourishing is the ultimate good, rather than something like cactus flourishing?
▪ Flourishing — Ambiguous: Who gets to define what human flourishing is, and how we achieve such a thing?
‣ “It’s easy to imagine a culture ‘flourishing’ (according to some definition) in the midst of all sorts of things others consider evil” (Koukl).
▪ “Some want to live fast, die young, and leave good-looking corpses. Others seek a life of service rather than self-pleasuring. Some champion human rights, others ethnic cleansing. By what standard does Harris arbitrate between these options without presuming at the front end that humans were designed for particular moral ends to begin with—assuming, once again, the morality he’s obliged to explain?” (Koukl).
▪ Hitler was convinced he was promoting human flourishing; in this view, he was perfectly justified in ethnic genocide.
▪ If anything, the US was unjustified for stopping Hitler from doing what he was doing. After all, Hitler was promoting human flourishing. Why was the US justified in fighting and killing the Nazis? They were merely disagreeing on what human flourishing was. Surely we can’t push our truth upon others, right?
▪ If Hitler had won the war, and succeeded in his efforts and created a world of the “perfect” race, would that be a “good world?” Wouldn’t this be natural selection’s way of reaching a new set of objective moral values? Of course not.
• Objection 5: What if objective moral values just exist? Why is there a need for God? And why would He need to be personal?
◦ Response: We haven’t just found moral values or laws. We, for some odd reason, feel obliged to keep these moral laws. Obligation only occurs between persons. We don’t have obligations to things.
▪ When I see a speed limit of 25, my obligation is not to the speed limit itself. I am accountable to the persons with authority to enforce the law.
▪ (Restaurant illustration — See Video 5 below)
▪ The only sufficient grounds for transcendent moral obligation, then, is a transcendent person who has proper authority over the universe He commands.
Conclusion
“Thus, paradoxically, evil actually serves to establish the existence of God. For if objective values cannot exist without God, and objective values do exist—as is evident from the reality of evil—, then it follows inescapably that God exists. Thus, although evil in one sense calls into question God’s existence, in a more fundamental sense it demonstrates God’s existence, since evil could not exist without God” (Craig).
God must have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil and suffering in the world. We need to come to grips with the idea that happiness and comfort is not the chief purpose of life, therefore not God’s top priority. Common life experience demonstrates this. Knowledge and communion with God seems to be life’s purpose and God’s priority. He knows that this is the only way to bring true and everlasting human fulfillment.
We can all attest to the notion that we’ve grown and learned more from times of suffering and pain than from comfort and happiness. Jesus’ earliest followers surely did not live a life full of happiness and comfort. Their life was full of pain, persecution, and rejection. In Romans 5, Paul says that “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” The joy that these people experienced came from the knowledge of who God is. It came from experiencing Him and learning about the truth — the hope of eternal life, salvation, and our inheritance in Christ. In Ephesians, Paul prays that God would give the church “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe…” God not only redeems our current circumstances by showing us that beauty can come from horrible things that happen. But He also gives us hope for our future with Him: the hope of no more suffering, no more evil, no more medical issues, no more stress, anxiety, etc. We will get new bodies that won’t fight against us, a new world that is beyond any beauty we’ve ever seen.
Our whole Christian story is about how God deals with the Problem of Evil. This true story of redemption starts in Genesis and ends 66 books later in Revelation. Every other worldview needs to deal with this problem. Eastern Religions claim it’s an illusion; atheists don’t know how to make sense of it. Christianity actually serves as the best explanation and solution for the problem: God — Man — Jesus — Cross — Resurrection. That’s the framework for the Christian worldview.
We’ve heard it asked, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The reality is, this has only happened once: Jesus being brutally punished on the cross for our sin. The gospel of Jesus Christ is central to God’s redemption plan for the Problem of Evil.
Coming Next…
So objective moral values exist. Yet humans still disagree on so many different moral issues. In a world where goodness has been distorted (like ours), this is inevitable. This is why we need something to guide our moral convictions. Most humans might agree that murder is wrong, or that stealing is wrong, but what about other more complex issues?
The Word of God informs our moral compass. It seems obvious that we need God to tell us what is right and wrong. As Christians, we believe the Bible is the means God used to show us who He is. By showing us who He is, He shows us who we ought to be and how we ought to live.
But why trust the Bible? That’s the topic we will begin to address at our next Rooted Group.
Resources
Short Videos
1. Reasonable Faith: Dr. Craig — Suffering and Evil: The Logical Problem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k64YJYBUFLM
2. Reasonable Faith: Dr. Craig — Suffering and Evil: The Probability Version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxj8ag8Ntd4
3. Reasonable Faith: Dr. Craig — Moral Argument
https://youtu.be/OxiAikEk2vU
4. STR: Greg Koukl — Where Do Moral Laws Come From? (Readers & Writers Illustration)
https://youtu.be/3bzh-P9892I
5. STR: Brett Kunkle — Moral Obligation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUH6G_inwZM
Articles
1. Reasonable Faith: Dr. Craig — The Problem of Evil
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/existence-nature-of-god/the-problem-of-evil/
2. STR: Greg Koukl — God, Evolution, and Morality Part 1
https://www.str.org/publications/god-evolution-and-morality-part-1#_ednref1
3. STR: Greg Koukl — God, Evolution, and Morality Part 2
https://www.str.org/publications/god-evolution-and-morality-part-2#.XYb_nRZlDDv
Christian Fermin - Youth Worship Director
