0. Introduction
That is a great deal of philosophical literature discussing whether the existence of prevalent suffering and moral evils in the world are incompatible with the existence of a good God. I have nothing on the subject which is original and so I will likely never publish on the matter in any academic journal, but my general views on theodicy are given here. The argument from the existence of evil and suffering (henceforth abbreviated AE) is undoubtedly the most formidable argument against traditional monotheism.
1. A Provisional Definition of God
Before giving a rebuttal to the AE, the theist must first give a provisional definition of his God and then explain what reasons such a being could have for permitting evil. There are various reasons to conclude that Classical theism is probably incoherent. I favor theistic personalism, the view that God is an essentially omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and perfectly free person who has existed from eternity. Something is a person if it has thoughts, and is aware of those thoughts. Persons have beliefs, desires and powers. It has typically been a feature of monotheistic religions to think of God as good by nature, or essentially holy. It is impossible for God to perform wicked actions or to sin. This concept is expressed by various Biblical authors, “his eyes are too pure to look upon iniquity.” (Habakkuk 1:13) The prophet does not say that God merely chooses not to behave wickedly but another reason is given, the purity of God's eyes. “It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice.” (Job 34:12) It is “impossible” for him to lie. (Titus 1:2) His nature restricts his actions. Human beings can freely choose to perform evil actions but God can only choose to do good actions. Therefore God's freedom consists in his ability to freely choose between good or morally neutral actions.
If there is a best possible action then God will do it. But if there are a selection of equally good actions then God will freely choose from among the set of good actions. However if there are no good actions but only morally neutral actions, then God freely chooses from among that set. The essential goodness of God has led to many paradoxes of omnipotence. It seems strange that a supremely powerful being can create universes but does not have the ability to utter a false statement. Surely it requires more power to create a universe than it does to utter a lie. To avoid such objections, I define omnipotence by saying that some person P is omnipotent at some time t, if he is as powerful as it is logically possible for any essentially good person to be. Or stated another way, if P is able to perform any action which, it does not entail a contradiction for an essentially good person to perform at some time t, then P is omnipotent.
Some person P is omniscient at some time t if and only if they believe every true proposition at t and he believe no false propositions. I mean the term "proposition" in the general philosophical sense, "the content or meaning of a meaningful declarative sentence." For example, one man might say, o θεός αγάπη εστίν, and another might say “God is love.” Both men are asserting the same proposition although in different languages, and therefore with different sentences. Therefore to say that God is omniscient is to say that he knows all truths. He knows everything that it is possible to know. This just entails knowledge of all that has happened in the past, all that is presently happening and everything that will happen in the future. (cf. Heb. 4:13; Rom. 11:33; Psa. 147:5, et al)
The narratives of the Hebrew Bible make frequent use of anthropopathism which are not traditionally understood to be literal. If his descriptions of God as an embodied humanoid in the Jahwist source must be interpreted figuratively by theologians (Genesis 3:8; 11:5; 18:8; Exodus 17:7; 33:21-34:7), then surely also descriptions of his limited knowledge. (Genesis 2:19; 6:5; 18:20-21; 22:12) The later prophets often imply or state directly that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future. “Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.” (Psalm 139:4) "Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them." (Isaiah 42:9) “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” (Isaiah 46:10)
I shall assume for the present purposes, that human beings have souls, and that they have libertarian free will. I shall also assume that God has middle knowledge, which is to say that God knows what any person would freely choose to do in any given set of circumstances. This is commonly called Molinism.
2. The Existence of Evil
I believe that Irenaeus correctly defended why God permits the existence of evil at all, namely, certain virtues would not otherwise exist. This sort of theodicy originates with Irenaeus of Lyons, and is therefore called the Irenaean theodicy. In recent times Swinburne has offered prominent defenses of it. The reader might find it beneficial to listen to one of his lectures on the subject. I shall not summarize every step of the theodicy, but the general reasoning might be spelled out this way.
In certain situations human beings have a free choice between good and evil. For example if a man is presented with a temptation to steal money, he can choose to give into his greed and to steal the money or he can resist his irrational desires and refrain from theft. But God is supposed to be essentially holy, and so he would never have the desire to perform any evil action. Because God has no inclination to perform evil actions he cannot be tempted with evil. (cf. Jas. 1:13) In other words humans have a degree of freedom which God himself does not have. A saint is good, and God is also good, but they are good in two very different ways. It is possible to be good inherently and it is also possible to be good by choice, but one cannot have both properties. There are contradictory virtues. It is virtuous to do good when tempted with evil, but God cannot be tempted. God must be good and has no choice in the matter.
These considerations show that if God existed alone, then certain virtues would never exist. God cannot have every virtue because there are contradictory virtues. There are virtues that only creatures can have. Therefore any world in which there are free creatures in addition to God has more virtues than a world in which God exists alone. It is virtuous for someone to respect the privacy of his friends, but God is essentially omnipresent and must know everything. It is virtuous to refrain from sinning when tempted with evil. It is virtuous for someone to suffer on behalf of others, but God is essentially impassible. It is virtuous for a spouse to refrain from adultery, but God has no physical body. (If one objects to these examples because of the doctrine of the incarnation, I would remind them that these examples would apply to the divine nature, not to any incarnate human nature.)
God could so arrange the world that people are only in circumstances in which they would freely choose to do good actions. In other words, it is not true that God must allow evil if he allows free will. If God is omniscient, he simply needs to look down the corridors of time and arrange the world in such a way that people freely choose to do good actions all of the time. He would know how each person would react to any set of circumstances. Hence, it seems that appealing to the existence of free will is not sufficient to account for why there are moral evils in the world.
However, without the existence of some evil and suffering then certain virtues would never exist, such as endurance, perseverance, and forgiveness. It seems to me that it is better for such things to exist then that they do not. But for such virtues to exist there must be at least some moral evil in the world. For example, if persons never wronged one another, or had responsibility for one another, then there would be no opportunities for one person to forgive another.
Leibniz maintained that this universe was the Best Possible World that could exist. God, in his infinite wisdom, would know every possible universe that he could have created—an infinite number of possible worlds. Leibniz argued that because God is perfectly good, he would surely create the best of these universes, the best of all possible worlds, the one universe with the highest amount of goods with the least amount of suffering necessary to attain them. Voltaire satirically explored this theory in his novel Candide, where the incredulous Dr. Pangloss recites that this world is the “best possible world” in the face of the worst atrocities imaginable.
It does not seem coherent to me to suppose that there is any such thing as the best possible world. For any world that exists, surely God could make it a bit better. It appears that people and galaxies are good things. God could have made a thousand more galaxies and a thousand more planets with sentient persons on them. But for any given world, he could always create just one more galaxy, or one more inhabited planet. No matter how many good things he creates in some particular world, God could always add more.
Even if he creates a world with infinitely many good things he could always add more to the set. It is possible to multiply infinite sets. Suppose that he creates a universe in which there are an infinite number of galaxies with an odd number of stars. He might also create an infinite number of galaxies with an even number of stars. Which is to say that there is no best possible world. God could always make any given universe a bit better. However, it seems to me that it is better for him to create a world with every kind of virtue that he could create, rather than one with less kinds of virtues.
3. Gratuitous Suffering
If God is omnipotent, then it seems that he should be able to create any world that he wishes. It also seems that he could have created a world which is free of suffering, and which is occupied only by good people. God knew which persons would be reprobates and which would be saints. He could have freely chosen not to create any of the reprobates, thus hell would be empty and all men would be saved. But that is not the sort of world we see. Our world not only is occupied by many wicked persons but also has an ample amount of natural evils, disease, crime, mental illness, and suffering of every variety. The free will defense essentially asserts that God must permit some moral evils for the sake of libertarian free will, but it does not explain why there are natural evils, such as diseases and earthquakes.
There seems to be at least some gratuitous suffering in the world, i.e. some suffering which might have been prevented by God without the expense of some greater good. This is a very ancient argument and it is difficult to say who first made it, but it has been formulated by Rowe in the following way.
1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent being could have prevented without thereby preventing the occurrence of any greater good.2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby preventing the occurrence of some greater good.Therefore,3. There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.
Rowe, on page 337 supports the truth of premise one with an example of animal suffering, "Suppose in some distant forest lightning strikes a dead tree, resulting in a forest fire. In the fire a fawn is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering. So far as we can see, the fawn's intense suffering is pointless. For there does not appear to be any greater good such that the prevention of the fawn's suffering would require either the loss of that good or the occurrence of an evil equally bad or worse." If the suffering of the fawn does not result in a greater good, then the best action on the part of God would be to prevent the suffering of the fawn.
The theist must either deny the omnibenevolence of God, or he must say that there is no gratuitous evil. It seems to me that the only possible rebuttal that a theist who is committed to the goodness of God might give to instances of suffering like this is something along the lines of saying that God, being omniscient, foreknows of a greater good or goods which will result from the suffering of the fawn, but these goods will obtain so distantly into the future that we cannot, at present, discern any good reason for the suffering of the fawn from our perspective. This is an appeal to the mysterious providence of God. If God is omniscient in the traditional sense, then he takes into account every possible circumstance that could obtain, every choice that will or could be made by free creatures, and on the basis of an infinite number of variables providentially orders the world. It is impossible for any finite creature to comprehend the plans or ordinations of such a deity. Even the most mundane events in the world may have grand purposes that will be accomplished thousands or billions of years in the future. It does not seem that any person who is not omniscient would be able to judge whether any act of suffering is genuinely gratuitous with any absolute certainty.
Suppose that a father has a sick child, who can only get better if he endures a painful surgery, but otherwise the child will die. It would be morally justified for the father to permit the child to suffer from the surgery because a greater good will be obtained, namely, saving the life of the child. But it would not be morally justified for the father to deliberately cause more suffering to the child than is necessary, nor would the father seek to increase the suffering of his child if he were truly a loving father. Nor would a loving father knowingly permit unnecessary suffering to his child which could otherwise have been prevented. By unnecessary suffering in this instance, I mean any sort of suffering for which no greater or comparable good has been obtained as the result of its occurring.
Likewise, God cannot be thought of like a loving father if there is a prevalence of gratuitous suffering and evil in the world. Suffering that God knowingly permitted although it could have been prevented by his power without inhibiting some greater good from obtaining. (cf. Gen. 50:20) Every instance of evil and suffering must have some greater good which will be accomplished—otherwise there is no omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being.