The Problems Of Theodicy Revisited ('How Can A Good God Permit Evil?')

From time to time in this blog I've examined religious claims, as well as their underpinnings. In this post I want to examine typical Christian claims from the viewpoint of theodicy – which is the argument that the nature of evil in the world leaves open the nature of a hypothetical God in terms of the cosmos as it is. Note that in some cases atheists have argued that theodicy and the encounter of evil in the world (natural or human) is so formidable that it excludes the existence of a deity. 

I don’t go that far and fully explain why in my 2013 book, Beyond Atheism- Beyond God.. For now I will only say that it's feasible to "square the circle" regarding God - treated as a hypothetical. Hence,  the attributes of  such a hypothetical God and apparent evil  are fully reconcilable - so long as one loosens the conditions for the divine attributes.

First, let’s examine the naturalist-atheist’s premise, which can basically be summed up thusly:

If pervasive evil (natural or human) exists in the world and:

is allowed to continue unabated despite a claim for an “infinite  and omnipotent God” then either:

a) God is powerless to stop it, in which case God is not omnipotent or infinite, or

b) God chooses not to stop or limit it, in which case God is a sadist or evil himself

Some Christians in order to counter one or both points have tried to interject “free will” but this doesn’t work for the following reason: if one person’s (e.g. victim’s will) is not operative, then it is only a one-sided will, so what was done to help the person of passive will or incapacity of will?

For example, several years ago a report emerged of a ninety year old invalid woman in a nursing home raped by one of its attendants. The woman was cerebrally and physically incapacitated so had NO free will. She was, in essence, preyed upon by a person whose job was to assist her. This is human evil in its most malignant form.

Now, a truly beneficent deity would not allow this to occur, but would act (according to Kai Neilsson, ‘Ethics Without God’) at least to the minimal standard of a decent human parent. Thus, if a human parent were to observe (e.g. using a remote monitor) a baby sitter about to assault his or her baby, he or she would intervene forthwith – not wait for the baby to “make up its mind” whether it wanted to be assaulted or not! In like manner, a true beneficent or just deity would intervene to prevent the elderly woman’s rape in a nursing home. Perhaps by causing the perpetrator to stumble and break a leg, or whatever. Anything but inaction!

Yet, in the world as it is, all we see is inaction when even the most vulnerable are predated.

The core problem of the apparent limitations of divine power (or attributes) was first enunciated by the Greek Materialist, Epicurus:

“God either wishes to take away evil and is unable, or He is able and unwilling, or He is neither able nor willing, or He is both willing and able.”

Mathematician John Paulos draws the key logical inferences (‘Irreligion’, p. 125)

“In the first three cases He is not very God-like, which prompts you to wonder about the prevalence and persistence of evil. Or to make the situation even more concrete: imagine a serial child killer with his thirtieth victim tied before him. Prayers for the child are offered by many. If God is either unable or unwilling to stop the killer than what good is He? It seems the usual response is we don’t understand His ways, but if this is so why introduce Him in the first place?”

Indeed. Because if God refuses to act in the case of an innocent and on her behalf, or is incapable of action – then for all practical purposes He does not exist. It is therefore a useless exercise to introduce a deity at all. One could as well toughen his mind, admit there's nothing out there, and we're all on our own in a totally purposeless cosmos devoid of remorse or empathy for us. In fact, one major Torino 10 asteroid could obliterate us one time and nobody would be the wiser.

Now, as seemingly sealed as this case of human evil, I'm not going to prematurely foreclose its import for Christian-oriented theodicy just yet. The reason is that there is a “God Theory” which can explain it. This was put forward by Bernard Haisch in his book by the same name.  For now I only note that the reason we behold inaction is because the divinity itself isn't fully knowledgeable, aware, or complete.   This is, of course, the basis of the so-called "Socinian heresy", i.e. that God is not perfect or complete but must evolve toward such a state. (First proposed by Socinus).

Along the same lines, the cosmos and world are still in a process of evolution, and that de facto incomplete process allows for what we call “evil” as well as human (as well as divine) misjudgments and mistakes. I believe it was the philosopher N.M Wildiers who first observed:

“Evil is part and parcel of a world in evolution, an incomplete world.”

Meaning that in an imperfect world governed by evolution, we must expect evil as a kind of natural concomitant. "Evil" is the downside of a fundamental polarity which permeates all finite manifestation in the extant cosmos. We must therefore not expect divine intervention because God himself is “working things out”  (Socinus' take again!) amidst a sea of polarities in the relative domain of physical reality. Haisch argues this is the only way it can be, since the "infinite" can't simply manifest in the limited cosmos as the infinite. The only choice is to become finite then manifest at the dunned down level this dictates, i.e. in its creations. Note, this is not the same as the Socinian heresy. But in this frame let’s now examine the problem of natural evil.

As an example consider the 2010 massive earthquake that struck Kumming, China, killing hundreds. Then, the same year, we noted a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti killing over 200,000. Meanwhile, in December, 2004, a tsunami struck Indonesia and over 220,000 were killed. What gives?

For the atheist or naturalist, nothing "gives", so no rationalizations need be offered.  The brutal fact is that this is the planet we inhabit, one inherently composed of tectonic plates and hence unstable. Hence, these are simply natural events for a planet with a dynamic core,  unstable crust. There is no “evil” inherent in any of the earthquakes since humans – like it or not- populate a disruptive planet. There are, in fact, about 12-15 earthquakes per year over magnitude 7.0 all over the Earth. We don’t hear about most of them because they occur in inaccessible, far off regions like Siberia or Mongolia or in the sea. We do hear about them when they manifest in populated land centers, but this doesn’t imply more are occurring or “the end of the world is nigh” or any such nonsense.

So, why does a problem of natural “evil” enter? It enters only for the theist, and specifically one type of theist who predicates his world view on a supposed benevolent “Creator” or “designer”. Because at root, if humans inhabit a world subject to monster storms, hurricanes, tidal waves and earthquakes…it is the fault of the Creator for designing such a world in the first place when He knew he’d put humans at risk. 

Religionists go round and round in circles trying to avoid this unsavory conclusion, but there it is! If you're going to posit that a Designer (or omnipotent) deity made it all, then logic informs that if we inhabit a world with large defects (including diseases like COVID-19) so it is that entity’s fault when natural tragedies occur! After all, if  truly omnipotent then why couldn’t he or it create a planet without these defects which would have been known ahead of time (via the attribute of "omniscience") to kill his ‘children’ by the millions each year? If, as some religionists argue, it was to "teach us" something, then what exactly was it? Did it require mass death to get the lesson over?

But stand back! If the Haisch theory is correct, then this is expected because an incomplete deity is not any kind of proper “designer” (as Haisch himself concedes). Thus, the flawed "pinball machine" world (and cosmos) we inhabit is solely the product of a part-time, incompletely informed divinity- inherently limited in its power and wisdom because it must operate via finite proxy  (e.g. incomplete) beings. The brains of such beings cannot channel the infinite in entirety, but only minuscule fragments or quantums of it. In other words, using the framework in which Haisch would put it: “This is the best that a manifest divinity could do having to operate in a physical, relative domain in which Its absolute infinity couldn’t be manifest all at once. "

To summarize then, this is where we are so far led in considering the problems of theodicy:

The evils (natural and human) in the world, lead us to conclude that either the world (and cosmos by extension) is not the product of a “designer” - or any deity at all.  OR: the world and cosmos is the product of a putative, supra-physical agent that is likely incomplete and which actions are constrained by being manifest in an incomplete, evolving universe.

In the latter case, we’d more likely side with Leibniz, who opined that "natural disasters aren’t the result if any divine punishment for sin” but simply the foreseen (or better, foreseeable) consequences of a regulated and overall consistent system of natural laws.

Thus , ALL the natural disasters to which I earlier referred were either completely or partially predictable – even by current methods of science. The 2004 tsunami would've been predictable with 10 or more hours to spare had tsunami warning bouys been present in and around the Indian Ocean (though the people in the immediate vicinity of Bande Aceh may still have not had enough time to prepare). The Haiti earthquake did have a warning, but it was too short, and most people (lacking radios, TVs) didn’t hear it.

The laws that unleash tsunamis and earthquakes are themselves well known, and have to do with subduction processes and pressures, shear stresses that accumulate over time, say between tectonic plates. The two plates (North American and Caribbean) that caused the 40' uplift displacement in Haiti were known to be en route to that for over two centuries, for example.

One commentator in the Barbados press  some years ago, while referencing Leibniz, had this to say:

“One unsettling consequence of Leibniz’s view is that God’s plans and purposes aren’t as human-centered as we might have believed. It is oddly wonderful to think the whole cosmos, even natural disasters, revolves around us – but that belief may already be hard enough to sustain given what we already know about the history and size of the universe”.

Indeed, and I might add it's the epitome of human arrogance and conceit to believe such – given a cosmos 66 billion light years in diameter and teeming with trillions of galaxies each containing over a 100 billion stars each. Only a totally ignorant or self-worshiping species could entertain such an incredibly egomaniacal fantasy!

So to believe any natural disaster or cosmic event is purely for human purposes and interpretations is to commit a ghastly mental misfire so vast that it boggles the imagination. It rivals that of the egomaniac ant (in one ancient Bajan fable). According to that fable, an ant decided one today to pick up a small piece of straw in its mandibles and drive all humans from its land! Before it could move two inches, it was squashed by a human foot. Not intentionally- but merely because the ant was in the wrong place at the wrong time!

The whole history of the advance of modern science, especially astronomy, also provides a cautionary tale to anthropocentrism in showing how humanity has been repeatedly driven out of its solipsistic roosting perches: from Copernicus’ revelation of the heliocentric theory of the solar system (showing the Sun, not the Earth was the center of the solar system), to the discovery that the solar system is not at the center of the Milky Way galaxy – but two thirds to the edge. And then on to the discovery that the Milky Way itself is not the center of the cosmos – but rather that all galaxies (in clusters) are moving away from each other in the expansion – with no single geometric center.

Finally, in 1997-98, the discovery that the matter of which we are composed - and to which I referred above- isn’t even special.  It is only about 7% of the total, the other 93% is dark energy and dark matter! This elicits the question: What manner of divinity would invest so much into creating a universe 93 percent dark energy, dark matter? Oh, and with no 'order' that can be assessed, or observed? 

Absolutist Ethics Needs to be Replaced by Provisional Ethics

If you ask too many ethicists about fundamental rules for their ethics, at the top they usually list "reverence for all life" without qualification.  But obviously, a glance at the real world shows that such a prescription isn't being practiced anywhere. Even the U.S., which has more religious believers than any other advanced industrial nation executes more convicted killers than just about any place except China, Iran and Russia.  Can you have "reverence for life" when you're offing killers? Oh yes, this constitutes an exception! He was a killer, after all! Yeah, well now so are you!

Wars, especially those of the choice variety like Vietnam and Iraq are similar, and in  fact they scraped the bottom of the moral-ethical barrel because so many innocents were slaughtered as well - such as at My Lai, e.g.


There, Lt. William Calley and his troop of "following orders" butchers killed 507 innocents including 173 children and 76 infants. Calley alone murdered 102 in all. And what was the response in the aftermath? Hell, 100,000 letters a day from birdbrain, morally bankrupt 'Muricans poured into the White House praising Calley and his butchers. Some daft morons even concocted a stupid song entitled "'The Battle Hymn of Lieutenant William Calley' which sold a million copies in one week, if you can believe it. So it appears the much vaunted "reverence for life" went right out the damned window so long as that life was only comprised of "gooks".

The point is that no one really practices absolutist morality, they (even the Churches) only pay lip service to it. For example, the RC Church riffs on sexual "sins" like fornication and masturbation then - for years- turned a blind eye to priestly predators sexually abusing kids.  So at one time or other everyone is in on this stupid game.

The next thing is, adherence to absolutist ethics and morality is causing thousands to die each year for no good reason other than some abstract notion of a "higher good" or misplaced "reverence for life'. A classic illustration recently noted in the New York Times is the case of those needing kidney transplants.  Currently, something like ten times more people need kidney transplants than the number of available kidneys. The result is thousands of unnecessary deaths each year which could have been prevented if we permitted kidney purchase markets like in Iran. There are no "waiting lists" or deaths in Iran at all from kidney failure (due to lack of transplants), as the Times observed.

But oh no! Our hifalutin' morality based on squeamishness prohibits the selling or trading of organs from human donors. (Never mind the medical -industrial complex is making gazillions each year harvesting organs - including eyes, skin - from deceased organ donors for whatever purposes it wants.)  What is so funny and hypocritical here is how the Neoliberal capitalists continually preach the benefits of markets über alles but won't allow them for organs. (And when I say "allow", I mean regulated markets - such as for pot here in Colo.)

Then there is the ISIS bunch, which just recently beheaded journalist James Foley in a despicable video. Do these vermin have a right to life? FUCK NO! As I said in an earlier blog post, they are the perfect candidates for the designated use of a nerve gas like sarin. Wipe 'em all out like roaches, fuck any "reverence for life" for these assholes. Of course, when I broached this to wifey, with her fine sensibilities, she was horrified: "That's horrible! You can't use that on them! You sound like your brothers!"  Really?

Well, I'm not exactly  fond of being compared with two hardcore conservos, but in this case, well....it's true (assuming they do agree that sarin is the solution to ISIS).  But again, WHY NOT? Because our "American values" preclude such action because then "we'd be like Saddam". So what? If it's effective in eliminating the scum ISIS rabble we DO it! And as I will show, there are no special "American values" unless they can be translated into positive actions to save the innocent! 

"The ends never justifies the means"? We had no problem with that ethical principle when we dropped those A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago. We certainly believed the ends:  saving thousands of American lives, justified the means - A -Bombs. So why not similarly accept  that the ends: eliminating the ISIS refuse, justifies the means: Sarin?  How are bodies having eyes popping out in bubbles and skin burned off to reveal skeletons any different from convulsions, bubbles frothing the mouth and jerking a bit before croaking? I don't get it, but maybe it's just me. They're just as dead in either case, so what's the big deal?  Besides, at least with a sarin attack on ISIS we're going after REAL bad guys, not innocent civilians as with the A-bombs dropped on two Japanese population centers! (Even Bill Maher  - treading over the edge of political incorrectness on one of his 'Real Time' shows, asked why it's any different shooting a guy than to gas him, say in an execution. He's just as dead, one way or the other.)

The point is that eliminating the ISIS bugs would preserve tens of thousands of lives just like allowing a market for kidneys would.

Kai Neilsson describes examples of provisional ethics in his brilliant Ethics Without God. As one extreme example he considers four spelunkers who are exploring a deep cave, 1,500' below the surface. A rock fall closes the cave at one end while one member - a very obese guy - has found himself trapped in the only other available opening. The group has two choices: all die of oxygen deprivation or find some means whereby most can escape.

Absolutist ethics rules that all must die rather than any one sacrifice his or her life for the benefit of the others. Provisional ethics, meanwhile, argues that the optimum outcome is for most of the party to survive- however that is achieved. In Neilsson's example, one of the spelunker's happens to have a small stick of dynamite and a match and inserts it into the obese guy's boot to detonate him - thereby opening the only available path so the remaining three can escape. Yes, there's a risk of another cave in, but it's the only shot the group has and it works, since all more prosaic efforts to dislodge the obese man were for naught.

In the same way we beheld a real world application of provisional ethics in the case of a nun doctor who was summarily excommunicated from the RC Church 2 years ago because she saved a pregnant mom and permitted her fetus to die. The issue was that the mom's blood pressure was increasing malignantly and would have surely killed her if she'd been forced into labor. The nun had two choices: save the fetus and let the mom die, or spare the mom and let the fetus die (without any birth). The nun reasoned the fetus was nascent human life but the mom was full fledged human life- manifested as an autonomous thinking and fully conscious person. Therefore, the mom had the greater claim to life. Meanwhile, absolutist ethics would have argued that an effort to save both ought to have been made, despite the fact that medically both would have died.

Now it is also important to note that adopting a provisionalist ethics doesn't mean "anything goes". Two examples here:

1) Abortion: According to ethical provisionalism, abortion cannot be ethical in ALL circumstances for all conditions. Thus, since research has found that fetal brain waves appear past 6 months, NO abortions should normally be allowed in the third trimester. The only (provisional) exceptions would be: a) the health of the mother (e.g. if she were to have the child she'd die), or b) case of incest or rape - wherein having the child would create extreme mental trauma for the victim. (By that I mean possible psychosis or severe depression, including attempted suicide).

2) War: In the judicious application of moral provisionalism, NO war would be permitted to be launched by the U.S.A. unless an actual DECLARATION of WAR by congress is made. This would give congress the opportunity to exercise its constitutional rights, and impart moral and ethical authority in rendering a war truly just. In this light, we'd have no more Vietnams, Iraqs, Afghanistans or other adventures finagled outside the parameters of congressional validation. For too long wars have been waged “through the back door” at great financial and moral cost to the U.S. - which inflicts a disproportionate injustice.

This will also have another effect, in reclaiming the separation of powers! Given how congress has abdicated its war making powers over the past 50 years or so, it's little wonder the executive is so powerful now. Conservatives who rail against excess executive power (as in the case of Obama) should therefore welcome a return to congressional declaration of war as opposed to going along with assorted executive-driven,  fig leaf  "resolutions" (like the Tonkin Gulf Resolution for Vietnam, and the Iraq War Resolution under Dumbya Bush.)

If they argue against formal declarations of war, they can't be taken seriously in any other complaints to do with Presidents (especially Democrats) usurping their congressional authority, say via executive actions. If they abdicate it for wars, they merit no authority for immigration, health care or anything else. None! They've demonstrated that they don't wish to circumscribe executive power! (Of course, one reason for not authorizing declarations of war is cowardice. Congress, for the past 50 years, has been made up of too many yellow bellies who don't wish to have any votes for war in the congressional record. Let the Prez take the blame! But, an abdication of power is still an abdication and it means they can't complain in other spheres just because they're too cowardly in one!

It is clear that we need to alter our ethical perceptions ASAP because changing conditions in the world won't wait. Retaining an absolutist ethics, which is both irrational and unsustainable (especially after Peak Oil hits) is a losing wicket.