The Existence of God and the Problem of Evil

Essay written for a philosophy class. I may have frustrated my professor a bit because the assignment was to write a paper choosing to argue for or against a “logical” case for “God.” I suppose I chose, instead, to argue against arguments. Lucky Ruins Everything. This is why we can’t have nice things.

The Existence of God & the Problem of Evil

I find the insistence that some greater deity exists as defined by man to be an incredibly arrogant presumption and assertion, reflecting the inherent egocentrism exhibited by the vast majority of humankind. Both ‘God’ and ‘evil’ can reasonably be defined as supernatural forces in that they are beyond the current realm of understanding of science and nature’s laws as we know them. In other words, they are essentially defined as undefinable. Human beings can only know or understand that which they can define. Based on these premises, human beings cannot know or understand ‘God’ or ‘evil.’ Human beings can only hypothesize the existence of supernatural forces or entities at this point in time, but never truly define them. All working definitions for ‘God’ and ‘evil’ fail immediately upon launch as they are merely hypotheses. It is because of this failure and reliance on logical trickery and fallacy that I find the pondering of the existence of God to be both problematic and an absolute waste of time. We simply cannot know God at the present time and must rely solely on belief to make any claims for or against the existence of such a being. Belief is not knowledge. Ask a zealot or staunch atheist and the arguments will dance in the same arena – God exists because he exists and does not exist because he does not exist. Neither of these satisfies any real criteria in favor of the existence of a higher power, or lack thereof. Neither of these people can truly know whether God does or does not exist, but both rely on personal belief.

The ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments all rely on circular logic and trickery. The a priori ontological argument asserts the existence of God based on the definition of God as “a being than which nothing greater can be conceived” (Anselm, 1077-1078, ch. 2). It goes on to state that since the greatest being that can be defined would be a God that exists, then that must be proof that God exists. It goes without saying that just because I can conceive of a cat that walks on two legs and speaks to me in English while bringing me my morning coffee does not mean that one exists, even if that is my definition of God. I can define a couch as something I drive to work, but it does not make it true. As to miracles, given the testimony of two children that are crying and each asserting that the other hit them first; I cannot with any right claim to know the truth of the matter. Logic and reason cannot be used to substantiate belief, but only to explore it. Belief itself is an acceptance or resignation to a personal truth that cannot and should not be assigned as a universal truth.

As to the problem of evil, the refutation of God’s existence based on the existence of ‘evil’ – pain and suffering – in the world. We have an incessant need to categorize all things – even those which we cannot define or understand. When things make us feel emotionally uncomfortable and we cannot explain their occurrence or existence, we attribute them to or as ‘evil’. The idea that the alleged existence of ‘evil’ somehow discredits the possibility of some kind of greater, or creator, being relies on as much conjecture as the belief in such an entity itself. It is not ironic that when we think of pain and suffering we tend to think of our own pain and suffering and that of others who suit our version of ‘good’ or ‘innocent’ while reveling in the pain and suffering of those we deem ‘bad’ or ‘evil’. We cannot handle the concept that bad things can happen or that average people can do terrible things. We have to assign it to something ‘other’, something outside of the realm of normal, when it is incredibly clear that such events or acts are part of both the natural world and the human condition. Nothing is inherently evil, but our subjective experience of a thing may cause us to label it as such.

The natural world – as we know it – relies on a delicate ecological balance between flora, fauna, and the geological environment. When the scales of that balance are tipped, however slightly by chance or by consequence, natural disasters occur. These events have neither consciousness nor intent and therefore cannot be defined as evil. What is and is not evil, morally speaking, differs from culture to culture and often from individual to individual. Evil and morality are subjective. Morality is something defined by each human being in a way that would reflect their existence as ‘good’ and those forces which seemingly oppose or upset them as ‘evil.’ This is seen in our need to impose our personal beliefs on other individuals without any regard for what their personal beliefs or needs may be. For instance, in modern America an act of Islamic terrorism is seen as evil while military action in the Middle East is seen as just and vice versa when you look at it through a radical Islamic perspective.

Essentially any ‘solution’ to the problem of evil will beg more questions than are answered by it. All involve some element of ‘free will’, conveniently laying the blame on the human race and letting God off the hook for the responsibility for or to any aspect of the world or beings that he created, by asserting that evil is the direct act, result, or punishment of human sin. The free will defense attempts to refute the logical problem of evil by arguing that human beings were granted free will and have brought about evil by their own actions. This can be countered with the following: the notion that if God did not want such ‘evil’ deeds to be perpetrated, the type of circumstances that would cause a person to choose to make such decisions; much of the suffering in the world is caused by natural means that are not affected by human decisions; and if the premise is accepted then surely God would feel compelled to intervene on the behalf of the weaker when victimized by the stronger (Blackburn, 1999, p. 175).

In flirting with the idea of God, God does not have to be good simply because we prefer the concept of a good God. It is pure arrogance to presume that we would know such a being’s intentions in creating a world in which suffering does or does not exist, particularly when there is evidence that such suffering has a lasting impact on an individual. Perhaps that lasting impact is required for ‘God’s plan’ and would only be elicited in this fashion. Perhaps God enjoys the soap operas that play out on earth. We cannot know God, the nature of God, or of God’s motivations. Neither does God need to be perfect. The absolute only criteria that God must meet in order to be regarded as such is to have somehow preceded and precipitated our creation.

The concept that God does not have the ability to control the world (or universe) he created does not refute the possibility that God created all things. I created a child and a home, I can control neither of these two things as they interact with each other. Perhaps God found the universe and merely created life. I can come up with several different versions of God, none of which can be proven or disproven. The arguments in support of the existence of God rely heavily on the use of God to make the universe somehow less infinite and mysterious.

When it is asserted that God is the most supreme of all beings and created everything, we hang up our hat as if the task is done. However, we very intentionally choose not to ponder what created God and what created that before God. We very specifically choose to disregard the infinite loop that is absolutely necessary, due to the seemingly infinite nature of the universe, as we define God. We are already aware that we cannot work out for sure whether it was the chicken or the egg that came before the other. I do not understand why we cannot see the same paradox in regard to the existence of God.

The only real ‘solution’ to the problem of evil seems to be that we must suffer in order to thrive; we must experience pain and horror to experience comfort, joy, and love. It is not the positive experiences in our lives that shape us and cause us to grow, but rather our struggles and dark times. The problem of evil is a man-made creation, unable to refute the existence of God. At the end of the day, while evil is an entirely human construct, one can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God with or without the existence of evil.

Anselm (1077-1078). Proslogium. Retrieved from http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/anselm-proslogium.asp

Blackburn, S. (1999). Think: A compelling introduction to philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.