The Problem of Evil – Why so much pain?

In my previous defence of the Problem of Evil (PoE), I outlined several goals, desires, or attributes God may have concerning His relationship with humanity and the biosphere we inhabit. For readers unfamiliar with my prior defence, I recommend reviewing it, particularly section 5. My Response. While I believe my earlier response provides a reasonable basis for sceptics and atheists to question the assumption that God has no sufficient reasons for allowing any given suffering, I aim to present a more robust defence here.

This defence focuses on a specific attribute I previously termed an "Ordered Universe." For this discussion, I will refer to it as the Principle of Indifference (PI). Importantly, PI does not imply apathy or disregard but rather describes the necessity of certain trade-offs to achieve a greater good. To clarify, it is better understood as a Principle of Necessary Trade- offs.

For example, when politicians introduce a new law, they aim to promote the greater good for their citizens, yet they may recognise potential disruptions, inconveniences, or disadvantages for some individuals. Similarly, a parent may allow their child to undergo temporary suffering from a vaccination for the greater good of long-term health. In a comparable way, God creates laws that, on balance, promote the flourishing of life, even though these laws have necessary drawbacks that can cause harm under extreme circumstances.

Consider fire: the natural laws governing combustion allow fire to warm us, cook our food, and power generators, but they also make it possible for fire to burn and kill if mismanaged. Extending this idea further, natural laws govern the Earth's magnetic field and plate tectonics, which enable crust recycling and the renewal of essential nutrients in the ecosystem. Processes like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, while destructive, are byproducts of these necessary systems. Likewise, water's universal solvent properties allow it to extract nutrients from rocks and distribute them through water systems and soil, enabling the sustenance of plants and, by extension, entire ecosystems.¹,²,³

The Principle of Necessary Trade-offs in Design and Engineering

This principle mirrors the concept of restrained optimisation in design and engineering, where mutually exclusive goals necessitate compromise. For example, building a durable yet lightweight water bottle requires a balance between materials like plastic (light but less durable) and steel (strong but heavy and costly). No design achieves perfection in all metrics; instead, trade-offs are made to achieve optimal functionality within constraints.

In the same way, the laws of nature reflect a restrained optimisation: they are designed to support flourishing life while unavoidably entailing certain harms. These trade-offs are not arbitrary but reflect the greater good enabled by a stable, law-governed universe.

Fine-Tuning and Nomological Laws

The fine-tuning of the universe's constants, quantities, and initial conditions is widely acknowledged in academia as a significant topic, even among secular thinkers. While various theories, such as String Theory or M-Theory, attempt to explain fine-tuning, they often fall short of providing definitive answers. As the late Stephen Hawking noted:

"Even when we understand the ultimate theory, it won't tell us much about how the universe began. It cannot predict the dimensions of spacetime, the gauge group, or other parameters of the energy-effective theory... It allows a vast landscape of possible universes, in which we occupy an anthropically permitted location." ⁴

Granting that we do indeed exist (solipsism, Matrix-like scenarios, or Boltzmann brains is false), we must ask: how best can we explain our existence?

Modern cosmology tells us that the universe began approximately 13.77 billion years ago with the Big Bang. Over time, light elements formed, leading to the creation of stars and galaxies. These early stars exploded, producing heavier elements necessary for planets like Earth. By processes still unknown, life emerged on Earth and advanced life forms developed.

The universe's laws, constants, and conditions now dictate the nomological framework-the repeatable and uniform consequences of cause and effect that governs our day-to-day existence. This framework ensures the reliability and predictability necessary for intelligent agents to navigate the world.

For instance, fire, governed by these laws, can warm us, provide light, and sustain life but can also harm and destroy. Similarly, pain receptors in organisms are critical for survival, enabling beings to recognise injury and seek care. Without them, an organism would be unable to perceive harm and survive in the long term. The same mechanisms that protect and enable flourishing in ordinary circumstances may, in extreme situations, result in suffering.

Applying Pl to Specific Scenarios

Bambi

Consider the hypothetical case of Bambi, where a tree falls and burns her alive. The laws governing combustion, which provide immense benefits like warmth and energy, are also responsible for such tragedies. The pain receptors that evolved to protect Bambi under normal conditions overload in this extreme scenario, causing her suffering. Moreover,

Bambi's eventual death likely contributes to the ecosystem, as her remains nourish scavengers and enrich the soil. While such events are tragic, they are part of the broader cycle of life, which depends on the same natural laws that enable flourishing.

Sue

The case of Sue a hypothetical girl tortured, raped, and murdered presents a far greater emotional and philosophical challenge. Pl alone cannot fully address such instances of moral evil. However, other theodicies, such as the Free Will Defence, Sceptical Theism, and Soul- Building Theodicy, come into play here.

Free will is integral to humanity's ability to form genuine relationships with God and each other. True love requires the freedom to choose and reject, and moral accountability necessitates the ability to act otherwise. The perpetrator of Sue's suffering misused their free will, choosing evil over good. For free agents to grow and develop, actions must have real-world consequences both good and bad. If God were to intervene in every moral failure, humans would be deprived of genuine agency, accountability, and the ability to develop virtues like compassion, forgiveness, and justice. Pl indirectly allows for circumstances to have laws that allow for creatures like us to exist, thrive and create systems that can govern our lives in a way that encourages human flourishing.

While this explanation may not fully satisfy the emotional weight of Sue's case, it demonstrates that suffering can serve broader purposes within a law-governed world where free will exists.

Given this lack, I hope to mitigate some of these shortcomings in this next part.

Moral Evil: The Distinction Between Natural Processes and Human Agency

While natural evil can be understood as a byproduct of necessary trade-offs, moral evil introduces a fundamentally different dimension of suffering. Humans, unlike animals, possess moral agency and the ability to choose between good and evil. This distinction is critical when evaluating cases like Sue’s suffering versus the zebra’s or Bambi’s.

For instance, when a man mercilessly beats a dog, the distress caused to the dog is amplified by the human’s deliberate intent to harm. This suffering stems not from natural processes but from the misuse of free will. PI indirectly allows for human agency, as the same consistent laws that govern nature also enable moral freedom. Without such freedom, genuine love, accountability, and moral growth would be impossible.

The Free Will Defense complements PI here, demonstrating why God permits the existence of moral evil. A world where humans can freely choose to love, create, and grow must also be a world where they can choose to harm. This interplay is necessary for humans to have moral weight to consequences to actions, allowing for moral growth. 

Sceptical Theism can give some reason to question our ability to understand any such reasons God might have for allowing Sue's suffering, or actual real-world examples, as Alvin Plantinga writes "...our knowledge of God's options in creating the world is a bit limited. Suppose God does have a good reason for permitting sin and evil, pain and suffering: why think we would be the first to know what it is? The real question here is whether this aspect of our world provides believers in God with a defeater for such belief." ⁵

In other words, our understanding on such matters is necessarily limited, why should we think we could even understand what an omniscient being would do? Just as a chess grandmaster can see many moves ahead of an average ability player, and the average onlooker trying to understand why the grandmaster is seemingly sacrificing their queen, in a bizarre move. But to the grandmaster they see that in 3 moves they get checkmate. We shouldn't deem to think we could possibly understand God's decisions, when the disparity is even greater than a grandmaster is to an average player.

In short, God can have reasons beyond our ken to understand. But this scepticism isn't deployed to stifle debate or valid questions, rather it’s an acknowledgement of our epistemic limitations. Furthermore, if God is who we claim, then the Christian has every confidence that God has reasons for allowing any given suffering.

The sceptic however, if they want to demand any suffering is in fact gratuitous, they must demonstrate their claim and provide their burden of proof by showing there can be no morally justified reason for permitting such a scenario? If they cannot, they ought to have the good grace and adopt the same level of humility, theists adopt on such matters.

Why does the sceptic have burden of proof?

If the theist has given a plausible defence or explanation for any given situation of "so called" evil. It falls on the Sceptic to demonstrate why in fact this explanation is insufficient and if they demand it is gratuitous, how God couldn't have any morally justified reason for permitting such evil?

Can there be any cases of gratuitous suffering?

It would be up to the sceptic to find a case, that the theist can not find a plausible explanation that could justify the suffering. This is why the logical Problem of Evil is rarely expounded by sceptics these days, as it is virtually impossible to shoulder the burden of proof for such a claim. The sceptic has all the  burden to necessarily show God couldn’t have any justification, while the theist only needs to find any plausible explanation why God could have morally justifiable reasons.

Soul-building doesn't really address cases like Sue or Bambi but can be valid in certain cases where cases are less finial in nature, addressing humanity's capacity to grow, adapt and improve in times of adversity. Allowing humans to reflect and potentially draw closer to God or develop virtues that make them enriched, tempered and tested in character. For instance, a real world case: when my mother died of cancer on 3rd July 2021, the subsequent weeks and days leading up to that event, my mother's faith was not only a comfort to her, but it grew in strength and despite her growing weakening frame as the cancer slowly destroyed her body, she longed to be in her true home with Her’s and (eventually) my heavenly Father. 

Additionally, despite her death profoundly affecting me, it allowed me to draw closer to God after a period of reflection and doubts, which indirectly lead me to starting my first defence of The Problem of Evil and subsequently this essay on the nature of sin.

The ultimate injustice

If Christianity is true, the ultimate injustice and success is that of Jesus Christ; God who created the universe, life and everything else, was willing to undergo enormous suffering to ransom creation and ultimately save humanity from our rightful predicament. As Plantinga writes "He created human beings; they rebelled against him and constantly go contrary to his will. Instead of treating them as some Oriental monarch would, he sent his Son, the Word, the second person of the Trinity into the world...The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He was subjected to ridicule, rejection, and finally the cruel and humiliating death of the cross. Horrifying as that is, Jesus...suffered something vastly more horrifying: abandonment by God, exclusion from his love and affection... All this to enable human beings to be reconciled to God, and to achieve eternal life." He goes on to say "This overwhelming display of love and mercy is not merely the greatest story ever told; it is the greatest story that could be told. No other great-making property of a world can match this one. If so, however, perhaps all the best possible worlds contain incarnation and atonement, or at any rate atonement. But any world that contains atonement will contain sin and evil and consequent suffering and pain. Furthermore, if the remedy is to be proportionate to the

sickness, such a world will contain a great deal of sin and a great deal of suffering and pain. Still further, it may very well contain sin and suffering, not just on the part of human beings but perhaps also on the part of other creatures as well." ⁵

In other words, God's love for all of creation, but in particular to us, as image bearers, may represent the best of all possible worlds according to Plantinga, as this self-sacrificial love represents the best of all possible worlds.

But to focus on in particular to Jesus's wrongful and illegal trails, beating, torture, possible rape⁶ and eventual murder. God himself took on every injustice we could possibly take, whilst being completely blameless and became the object of complete injustice. Paying the debts of the times when we sinned and were unjust to others and when we were wronged in so many different ways.

Conclusion

The Principle of Indifference (or Necessary Trade-offs) provides a plausible framework for understanding why God allows suffering in a law-governed universe. By permitting consistent natural laws, God ensures a stable environment where intelligent agents can navigate, thrive, and grow. While Pl alone cannot address all instances of suffering, it complements other theodicies, such as free will and soul-building, in providing a coherent response to the Problem of Evil. This perspective invites sceptics and believers alike to consider that suffering, while difficult and tragic, may serve greater purposes in a world designed for the flourishing of life.

References:

1. https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/water-universal-solvent

2. https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/20540000/k12/water.htm?

3. https://youtu.be/e2i0g1sL-X4?si=aZtG01TNk-PJxKRh

4. S. W. Hawking, “Cosmology from the Top Down,” paper presented at the Davis Cosmic Inflation Meeting, U. C. Davis, May 29, 2003.

5. Where the conflict really lies: science, religion, and naturalism /Alvin Plantinga. 2011 Oxford University Press - IV KITCHER'S "ENLIGHTENMENT CASE" e-book

6. https://medium.com/belover/the-case-that-jesus-was-raped-1eb16deb91eb