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Atheists/Deists most common arguments against a personal God: The Problem of Evil.
This is something Alexander Vilenkin once said to Lawrence Krauss in an email about
Example:
2. Socrates is a man.
The assumption of this argument is that all men are mortal. However thats only one half
of the argument, then next part is where the arguer attempts to justify the assumptions in the
argument with evidence or logical reasoning. However there are sometimes assumptions that
can be accepted without needing to provide any evidence. Like Leibnizs version of the
Cosmological argument one of the assumptions is that the universe exists, thats an assumption
I think we can all accept without having to provide any evidence for it. But anyways lets take a
look at the assumption of The Problem of Evil (This is the most common form of it. But its not
2. If God is all powerful and all loving, then evil should not exist.
3. Evil exists
4. Therefore an all powerful and all loving God does not exist
Now the question when we see this is, can these assumptions be justified? This will be
Relative Morality
The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of
adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable
set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody
says 'Love they neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves
Darwinian be a Christian?
In this section I will be covering the position that morality is relative. There are lots of
ethical theories like the general welfare theory, individual morality theory, etc. However the
1. Objective ethics
2. Subjective ethics
morality subjective or objective? When we address evil this question is very important. I one
time had a discussion with David Silverman who is an atheist author (The Problem of Evil is one
his most common arguments). He said this was an irrelevant question, but when you look at his
position of moral relativism and this argument, you can see how he is logically inconsistent with
his viewpoint. When one claims that morality is relative they claim that all morality is just up to
the individual that what theyre doing is not actually wrong. But if we claim this, then we also
conclude therefore that evil doesnt actually exist. But if Davids position asserts that evil doesnt
exist, then his position contradicts the second assumption required for this argument to work in
this case: evil exists. So by asserting moral relativism he contradicts The Problem of Evils most
vital assumption, therefore making him logically inconsistent as The Law of Non-Contradiction
states: A cannot be both A and Non A at the same time and in the same sense. So one is
allowed to use this argument if they want, but if want to be logically consistent with it, they must
Objective Morality
The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another you are in
fact measuring them both by a standard, saying that one conforms more nearly than the other.
But the standard that measures two things is different than either. You are, in fact, comparing
them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such as a Real right, independent of
what people think, and that some peoples ideas get nearer to that real Right than others.
When we talk about evil as mentioned in the previous paragraph is vital to all this. If we
affirm that there is such a thing as Objective Morality, then we can be logically consistent with
the second assumption that evil exists. However now that only raises the bigger question of
Where does Objective Morality come from? Now the skeptic has another problem. If they
affirm objective morality, now they have to justify its existence. But if the skeptic cannot justify
an objective standard of ethics with God, then hes still inconsistent with his usage of this
argument.
Evil is Where does the Burden of Proof lie? Many atheists that have challenged me with this
argument have stated that the theist is the one who holds the Burden of Proof. However Logic
disagrees. Logically speaking those who make positive/negative claims (John Doe exists, the
government is corrupt, Solipsism is false, etc.) are the ones who carry the burden of proof.
When one uses the Logical version of The Problem of Evil, they are making the negative
claim. In this case: that the existence of an all powerful and all loving God is logically
incompatible with the existence of evil. That is a claim of knowledge and therefore requires
omnipotent and omniscient being may be forced to allow evil for the sake of obtaining some
important good. Our knowledge of goods, evils, and their logical relations is much too limited to
The next question we should also ask ourselves is Do we have the sufficient evidence
never have the sufficient proof to put this argument through. Thats if one wants to be able to
know for sure that the idea that God can have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil is
1. That all past evils have not lead to good in the past
2. That all past evils have not lead to good in the present
3. That all past and present evils will not lead to good into the future.
But as Draper pointed out, our knowledge is much too limited to be able to prove any of
this. The only thing that could know these three would be a mind that can comprehend the past,
present, and the future. However the only mind that could comprehend that would be God. Thus
we would be proving the very thing this argument claims to disprove. And with our finite minds
being incapable of comprehending this, we have no way to be able to provide any tangible or
philosophical verification for this. Thus we would be arguing from knowledge we dont have, so
Free Will
Defining Free Will is not something I plan to do here. And thats because defining Free
Will can be very difficult as Walter Stace pointed out in his article The Problem of Free Will.
How does a verbal dispute arise? Let us consider a case which, although it is absurd in
the sense that no one would ever make the mistake which is involved in it, yet illustrates the
principle which we shall have to use in the solution of the problem. Suppose that someone
believed that the word man means a certain sort of five-legged animal; in short that five-
legged animal is the correct definition of man. He might then look around the world, and rightly
observing that there are no five-legged animals in it, he might proceed to deny the existence of
men. This preposterous conclusion would have been reached because he was using an
So what Dr. Stace is saying here is that when people define Free Will and they do it
incorrectly, we will be getting nowhere. So he proposes that we dont try to define except with
common usage. So Im not 100% sure that giving a definition will really help our case given we
have a difficulty doing so. So rather than waste trying to do that, lets focus on why Free Will is
If we dont have Free Will, which some people say that we dont have, then we have a
problem. Because Evil is defined as doing something morally wrong. But if there is such a thing
are moral incorrectness, then that implies a moral responsibility. So there is such a thing as
moral responsibility that therefore implies an ability to be able to carry out the responsibility. Its
not fair that we should be able to condemn someone for doing something when they didnt do it
freely? That doesnt make sense morally or logically. So if we dont have free will, then evil is
pointless to argue for, or justify. Thus if one wants to argue for evil with this non-existent
problem, then we have to understand that we have Free Will, otherwise, we have a
Conclusion
The Problem of Evil contains assumptions that are not justifiable or provable. The
Burden of Proof is on the one using the argument, not the one being challenged with it. And one
must be able to justify an objective standard of morality in order to be able to use this
consistently. If one cannot do so without God, then this argument falls apart. I hope for everyone
reading this, it answers your questions about it and helps to shed light on it.