Suffering and Evil: The Probability Version



In part one, we looked at the logical version of the problem of suffering and evil.This argument attempts to show that since suffering and evil exist, it is logically impossible for God to exist, and we explained why even atheist philosophers admit that this argument fails. But wait. It may still be argued

That while it’s logically possible that God and suffering both exist, is far from likely. There’s just so much pointless suffering, it seems improbable that God could have good reasons for permitting it. This is the probability version of the problem. Suffering provides empirical evidence

That God’s existence is not impossible, just highly unlikely. Is this a good argument? Consider three points. First, we are not in a position to say with any confidence that God probably lacks reasons for allowing the suffering in the world. The problem is that we’re limited in space and time, and in

Intelligence and insight. God, on the other hand, sees every detail of history from beginning to end, and orders it through people’s free decisions and actions in order to achieve his purposes. God may have to allow a great deal of suffering along the way. Suffering which appears pointless within our limited scope of

Understanding may be seen to have been justly permitted by God within his wider framework. Sometimes what we experience makes no sense until we gain a wider perspective and see the big picture designed by the Creator. Here’s the second point. Relative to the full scope of the evidence, God’s

Existence may well be probable. You see, probabilities are always relative to background information. For example, if we consider only how much this man weighs, we would say it’s highly improbable that he’s a world-class athlete. But when we’re willing to consider new information, that he’s a professional sumo wrestler and

The world champion, we quickly revise our view. In the same way, when the atheist claims that God’s existence is improbable, we should ask, improbable relative to what background information? If we consider only the suffering in the world, then God’s existence may very well appear to be improbable, but if we’re

Willing to look at the full scope of background information to take into account the powerful arguments for God’s existence, we may come to a very different conclusion. The third point is Christianity entails doctrines that increase the probability of the coexistence of God and suffering.

Consider four of these. First, the chief purpose of life is not happiness. People often assume that if God exists, his role is to create a comfortable environment for his human pets. They think the ultimate goal of our lives on earth is happiness, and therefore, God is obligated to keep us happy.

However, Christianity presents a radically different view, that the purpose of life is to know God. This alone brings true, lasting fulfillment. Suffering can bring about a deeper, more intimate knowledge of God either on the part of the one who’s suffering or those around him. The whole point of human history is

That God, having given us free will, is drawing as many people as he can into his unending Kingdom. Suffering is one of the ways God can draw people freely to himself. In fact, countries that have endured the most hardship often show the

Highest growth rate for Christianity. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Second, mankind is in a state of rebellion against God and His purpose. Terrible human evils are testimony to

Man’s depravity, a consequence of his alienation from God. The Christian isn’t surprised at moral evil in the world; on the contrary, he expects it. The third doctrine states that God’s purpose is not restricted to this life, but spills over beyond the grave into eternal life. This world is just the

Beginning, the entry way to an unimaginable, never-ending life beyond death’s door. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, underwent afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, hunger; yet he wrote, we do not lose heart, for this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for

An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Paul understood

That life on earth, and whatever suffering it holds for each of us, is temporary. Our pain will not endure forever, but our lives with God will. Paul was not belittling the plight of those who suffer horribly in this life. Indeed,

He was one of them; but he saw that those sufferings will be overwhelmed forever by the ocean of joy that God will give to those who will freely receive it. And the fourth doctrine is this: the knowledge of God is an incomparable good. Knowing God

Is the ultimate fulfillment of human existence, an infinite good. Thus, the person who knows God, no matter how much he has suffered, can still say God is good to me. So if Christianity is true, it’s not at all improbable that suffering and evil should exist. In summary, for all these

Reasons, the probability version of the problem of evil is no more successful than the logical version. As a purely intellectual problem, then, the problem of evil does not disprove God’s existence. But even if those intellectual arguments fail, the emotional problem of suffering and evil

Remains very powerful. If you have suffered deeply, or if you’ve watched someone you love go to intense pain, you may be thinking, so what is God exists? Why would I want to respond to him or worship him? I feel cold and empty, and

Want nothing to do with him. You’re not alone. God knows your name; he knows who you are and what you’re going through. God promises to be with you through your suffering. He can give you the strength to endure. Jesus Christ also suffered;

Although he was innocent, he was tortured and sentenced to death.His suffering had a purpose: to provide you and me the life-giving connection to God. Not only does God exist, but he loves you. He seeks after you, he offers you hope, and in time, he will make all things new.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

#Suffering #Evil #Probability #Version

Why Doesn’t God Stop Evil?



You see what the atheist has to say, he’s got to be able to prove that it is impossible or improbable for God to have a morally sufficient reason for permitting these facts of suffering, and that’s a burden of proof which is so

Heavy that no atheist has ever been able to sustain it. [Moderator] Explain that, because the question I was going to ask you is let’s talk about this subject of faith, which is where I was going, so you jumped right where I was headed. When they say

That, okay, explain that idea that you just entered into. [Craig] Take someone’s little daughter dying of leukemia, or getting run over by an automobile. We don’t see why that happened, and we wonder why wouldn’t a sovereign God intervene to stop it? And what the atheist has to say is that it’s either

Impossible or it’s highly improbable that God could have a morally justifying reason for allowing that to occur, but there’s no way given our finitude, our limits in space and time, for being able to make that kind of a claim with any justification. God’s morally sufficient reason for allowing your daughter’s

Death might not emerge until 300 years from now, maybe in another country. Every event that occurs sends a ripple effect through history so that the consequences of any event are simply incalculable and incomprehensible for finite, local persons. So the atheist is making a claim here which is just completely unsustainable;

There’s no way for him to show that it’s improbable or impossible that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing this evil to occur, and therefore his argument really has no intellectual credibility. It’s a purely emotional argument. [Moderator] And it’s a compelling one, isn’t it?

[Craig] Emotionally compelling, but not intellectually compelling. [Moderator] Correct, and so when somebody says in that moment, in immense pain, I don’t care what good he can bring out of this, [yes] I reject him. And we hear that a lot, [sure] C.S. Lewis drifted towards saying that in his Grief Observed, and

God, when God hears us say those kind of things, okay, his response is one of understanding. Scripture says he too has been tempted in every way, even as we were. [yes] And so God doesn’t shut us off when we

Say that. [Craig] No no, no I think that’s absolutely right. Look at the Psalms, how the psalmist expresses anger toward God, and God where are you, why are you allowing this, why am I going through this? I think the lesson of

The Psalms is come to God with your hurt and your pain and your anger and don’t try to stifle it and suppress it. Let it out and he’ll listen to you. [Moderator] He’ll listen, and if you’ll let him, if you’ll listen to him, as Christopher Hitchens

Acknowledged he gives the only consistent logically constructed plausible answer that frankly even Hitchens acknowledged; you know what? Christianity alone solves this problem. [Craig] Yeah, I remember Bertrand Russell, the great atheist philosopher, once said that no one can sit at the bedside of a dying

Child and believe in God, but when Jan and I were in Paris we met a young minister who was trained and now worked in counseling dying children. And I thought to myself: counseling dying children, what would Russell have said to those children? What could he say? Too bad?

Tough luck? That’s all the naturalist has got to say. As you say it’s theism, it’s belief in God, that provides a hope and a reason for the suffering that its redeemed, whereas in atheism we’re locked in a world that is filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope of escape.

#Doesnt #God #Stop #Evil

Does the Problem of Evil Make God Unlikely?



[Anderson] Evil and suffering is a big one,  and 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,

[yes] now there’s the atheistic argument from  evil. And 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 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? [Craig] Well 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, and 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  

A 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. [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,  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, he said   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. [Craig] Yes 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. oh

#Problem #Evil #God

On the Function of Christ’s Human & Divine Natures in the Atonement



I was wondering if you could clear this up for me. So… argues that Christ’s suffering was equivalent to our eternal damnation on account of the infinite dignity of Christ. So he appeals to the divine nature of Christ and that absolves the issue. But earlier this morning you mentioned that when Christ experienced the

Loss of fellowship with the Father it was through his human nature and not the divine, and so what I’m having a difficult time understanding is how we can appeal to the divine nature of Jesus in order for the sacrifice to be sufficient, while denying that it is the involvement of his divine nature.

This is a tremendous subtlety of Chalcedonian orthodoxy concerning the two natures of Christ. And that is that there is only one person who Christ is, and that is a divine person. It is the second person of the Trinity. There is no

Human person who is Jesus of Nazareth. There is a divine person who has a human nature as well as a divine nature. So it’s not that in virtue of his divine nature that Christ makes atonement; it is that you have a divine person who in his

Human nature bears our sin and punishment, and it’s the person that is divine and is the one who suffers and dies and so forth for our sins, but he does so with respect to the human nature.

#Function #Christs #Human #Divine #Natures #Atonement

Suffering and Evil: The Logical Problem



We are all well aware of the suffering and evil in the world: horrific suffering, unthinkable evil. How then can anyone believe in the existence of an all-loving, all-powerful God? And if God does exist, why would anyone want to worship Him? Epicurus framed the logical problem of suffering and evil like this:

If God is willing to prevent evil but not able, then he’s not all-powerful. If he is able to prevent evil but not willing, he is not good. But if he is both willing and able, how can evil exist? And if he is neither

Able nor willing, then why call him God? In other words, it’s logically impossible for God and suffering to both exist, but we know full well that suffering exists. Therefore, God does not. Is this a good argument? Let’s look at it more closely.

Are these two statements logically inconsistent? No; here is an example of two logically inconsistent statements. David can’t be both married and a bachelor, but there is no explicit contradiction between these two statements, so there must be hidden assumptions behind this argument that

Would bring out the alleged contradiction. Here they are. If God is all-powerful, he can create any world he wants, and if God is all-loving, he prefers a world without suffering. So if an all-powerful, all-loving God exists, it follows that suffering does not exist. Since suffering

Obviously does exist, the atheist concludes that God must not exist. But are the atheist’s two hidden assumptions necessarily true? Consider the first assumption. Can God create any world he wants? What if he want a world populated by people who have free will? It’s logically impossible for God to force

Someone to freely choose to do good. Forcing free choices is like making a square circle; it’s not logically possible. It’s not that God lacks the power to perform the task; it is that the supposed task itself is just nonsense. So

It may not be feasible to create a world populated by people who always freely choose to do what is morally good, so the first assumption is not necessarily true. Therefore, the argument fails, and what about the second assumption? Is it necessarily true that God would prefer a world without suffering? How could we

Possibly know this? We all know of cases where we permit suffering in order to bring about a greater good. If it’s even possible that God allows suffering in order to achieve a greater good, then we cannot say this assumption is necessarily true. For the logical problem of suffering to succeed, the atheist

Would have to show that it’s logically impossible that free will exists, and that it’s logically impossible that God has good reasons for permitting suffering. This burden of proof is too heavy to bear. It’s quite possible that God and suffering both exist. This is why philosophers, even atheist philosophers,

Have given up on the logical problem of evil. We can concede that the problem of evil does not after all show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another. Some philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically

Inconsistent with the existence of a theistic God. No one I think has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim. It’s now acknowledged on almost all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt. But this is hardly the end of the discussion. We still need to explore the probability version of the problem of evil.

#Suffering #Evil #Logical #Problem