The Problem of Evil: Evidential Problem

Hey everybody, today I am going to focus on the evidential problem of evil.

The Problem:

I am not going to put the evidential problem into a formula like I did for the logical problem. Instead, I am going to tell you the difference between the two, and then I will attempt to show you why the problem is flawed.

As you know (if not, please read my post on the logical problem), the logical problem asserts that a contradiction exists between God's existence and evil. As a result of this supposed contradiction, the argument concludes that God is not real. The evidential problem, however, takes a different approach. Rather than saying that God does not exist, the argument says that the existence of evil serves as strong evidence against God. In other words, it says that God's existence is unlikely. The argument uses the vast amounts of seemingly useless suffering (i.e. animal suffering, natural disasters) in the world to support its conclusion, and at first it appears to have a pretty good case. Think about it, what good reason could God have for allowing children in third world countries to starve to death? Why would he let natural disasters take so many lives? What reason could there possibly be for all of this evil and suffering? At first, the argument seems to have a good point. Even though its possible that God would allow evil for a greater good, it seems unlikely that all of it works towards a greater good.



The Assumption:

Even though the argument seems to work pretty well at first, it rests upon an assumption that, at least to my mind, greatly weakens it. The argument assumes that either: a.) we are God's equals, or b.) we are greater than God. How exactly does the argument assume this? Well, the argument uses the fact that we cannot seem to find good reasons for why God would allow certain evils to exist as evidence against Him. This line of reasoning is flawed. We must remember that God, if He exists, is greater than us. So we should not expect to be able to discern all of His reasons for doing or allowing something. Furthermore, we should not use our lack of understanding as evidence against God. That would be like me saying that since I cannot picture someone running a mile in five minutes, it is very unlikely that it can be done. In reality, all I've proven is that I cannot picture someone running a mile in five minutes. Likewise, all the evidential argument really proves is that we do not understand all of the reasons for which God allows evil, and that is hardly an argument against Him.

In Closing:

Hopefully this been helpful to you. I also ask that you please remember that I am not claiming to have solved this problem. It has many different aspects to it that make it a challenge. I am simply trying to show you that these arguments are not as strong as they might be made out to be.