IB Philosophy 5.1.3 Arguments Against the Existence of God Notes

The Problem of Evil

1. Topic 5.1.2 examined the strongest arguments for God's existence: ontological, cosmological, teleological, and the Nyaya argument from karma. This topic turns to the other side of the debate, examining the strongest objections to theism.
2. The IB syllabus requires three specific arguments: the problem of evil, the omnipotence paradox, and the argument from inconsistent revelations.
3. The problem of evil is widely considered the most powerful argument against the existence of the God of classical theism (as defined in 5.1.1): a being who is simultaneously omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.
4. The argument is simple: if God is all-powerful, God can prevent evil. If God is all-knowing, God knows about evil.
5. If God is all-good, God wants to prevent evil, yet evil exists, which means at least one of these attributes must be false or God does not exist.
6. The logical problem of evil, formulated most precisely by J.L. Mackie in "Evil and Omnipotence" (1955), argues that the propositions "God is omnipotent," "God is omnibenevolent," and "Evil exists" form an inconsistent triad: all three cannot be true simultaneously.
7. If even one instance of genuinely gratuitous suffering exists, then the classical theistic God cannot exist. This is a deductive argument claiming a logical contradiction at the heart of theism.

The Free Will Defence

1. The most influential theistic response is the free will defence, developed by Alvin Plantinga in God, Freedom, and Evil (1974). Plantinga argues that a world containing creatures with genuine free will is more valuable than a world of moral automata.
2. Free will necessarily entails the possibility of moral evil (evil caused by human choices), and God cannot create free beings who are guaranteed never to choose wrongly without eliminating their freedom.
3. To see why even omnipotence cannot guarantee free beings always choose well, imagine a world where every person's 'free' choices are pre-programmed to be good: no one ever lies, steals, or harms another, and no one genuinely chooses to be honest, generous, or kind either.
4. Their goodness is like a thermostat maintaining a set temperature: reliable, but not praiseworthy. Plantinga argues that a world containing creatures who genuinely choose between good and evil is more valuable than a world of moral automata whose 'goodness' is guaranteed.
5. Plantinga’s defence addresses moral evil (evil caused by human choices: murder, cruelty, injustice) but faces difficulty with natural evil (suffering caused by natural processes: earthquakes, diseases, genetic disorders). Free will does not explain why a child dies of cancer or why a tsunami kills thousands.
6. The evidential problem of evil, developed by William Rowe, argues that even if some evil is logically compatible with God's existence, the sheer amount and distribution of suffering makes God's existence improbable.
7. Rowe's most famous example is a fawn trapped in a forest fire, suffering for days before dying. No human caused this suffering, no moral lesson is learned from it, and no greater good seems to result.
8. If even one case of pointless suffering exists, it counts as strong probabilistic evidence that no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being is directing the universe.
9. Plantinga has suggested that natural evil might also result from the free choices of non-human agents, such as fallen angels, though most philosophers regard this as the weakest part of his defence.

Theodicy and Its Critics

1. Theodicy is the attempt to explain why God permits evil. Gottfried Leibniz coined the term and argued that this is the "best of all possible worlds": God, being perfectly rational, created the world with the greatest possible balance of good over evil.
2. John Hick developed the "soul-making" theodicy, arguing that suffering is necessary for moral and spiritual growth, and without challenges, human beings could not develop virtues such as courage, compassion, and perseverance.
3. The most devastating critique came from Voltaire's satirical novel Candide (1759). The character Dr Pangloss insists that 'all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds' even as he and his companions endure earthquake, plague, slavery, and execution.
4. Voltaire's point is that repeating 'this is the best of all possible worlds' in the face of extreme suffering is not a philosophical argument but a refusal to take suffering seriously. If this really is the best God could manage, the implications for divine power or goodness are troubling.
5. Critics of theodicy argue that these explanations fail to justify the most extreme forms of suffering. Fyodor Dostoevsky, through the character Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1880), argued that no amount of future good can justify the suffering of innocent children.
6. Even if suffering produces spiritual growth in some cases, the torture of a single child is too high a price to pay for any cosmic plan.

Alternative Conceptions and Exam Technique

1. The problem of evil has different force against different conceptions of God (as discussed in 5.1.1). It targets classical theism specifically because classical theism insists on omnipotence and omnibenevolence simultaneously.