Last time I left you off with something like this — The problem is what to do about pain. See: the common argument here — which John Loftus plainly used to dismiss God — is that all pain ought to be stopped whenever possible. A universe with suffering in it precludes the Christian God (he says), so the onus is now on John or anyone else who sees pain to stop pain. If that’s what we ought to expect from God to the place where we are ready to dismiss God from our philosophy, we have to at least hold ourselves up to that standard. We want an omnipotent God to preclude our suffering, so we should at least think we can use our own limited means to stop the suffering of those we meet.
John has actually posted a clarification by what he means here, and we should take note of it:
what I am focusing on is the intensive physical and mental pain that breaks people down to the point where some of them cannot take living in this world anymore.
Which is an interesting yardstick, is it not? For Loftus, if life just had bruises and bumps (he says), we couldn’t put God on the hook for that. (someday it’d be interesting to find out why) But because some people have pain which causes them to want to die, or ought to cause them to want to die, we have evidence that there is no God — because a sufficiently “good” and “powerful” and “aware” God would never let such a thing happen.
Well, I have two thoughts on that view, one of which came up in 2006 talking about for example, that girl. My second thought is this: I think it is remarkable that Loftus wants to use a threshold for pain in order to talk about divine compassion.
Here’s what I mean: what if our government passed a law — for good or ill, so no wandering off-topic in the meta — which is going to pay out $700 billion to the automotive industry in order to buy off bad debts and restabilize their capital base so the rest of our economy doesn’t come apart at the seams after the supply chain for the Big 3 disintegrates? In theory, the auto industry being upside down to the tune of $700 billion is a very bad thing, and defaulting on $700 billion in debt might be worse.
Now, when the government did this with the banking industry a while back, nobody jumped out of windows on Wall Street, did they? So maybe $700 billion in economic distress spread out over 300 million people and arbitrated by the federal government isn’t really that much pain. But it seems to me that $700 billion should show up on the radar. $700 billion is 5% of the GDP for the US, and 25% of the Federal Budget. It seems big, and as a things go, it’s a problem, so I think it’s a “big problem”.
But by Loftus’ definition, if the auto industry or the banking industry needs a $700 billion bail-out check, but nobody feels suicidal over it, it’s not really part of the problem of evil: it’s just a bump in the road. It’s just a business decision — even if it’s a business-of-government decision.
Stew on that a minute – that somehow $700 billion isn’t a problem if nobody is suicidal over it. That seems a little less-than-serious when we’re talking about whether or not pain is a real and disastrous thing.
It leads me to say this about the atheist complaint: All flavors of atheism leave man philosophically unequipped to resolve the problem of evil.
Now, that’s strong stuff – and it’s a presuppositional complaint to be sure – but most Bahnsenian presups would reproach this from the place where the atheist can’t really define what is good or what is evil because there’s not objective standard.
But here’s the thing: as we said last time, the really wily atheist will respond, “hey: ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are your problem, not mine. Don’t try to fit me in your theistic box. I’m moving beyond good and evil.” And to that we should say “fair enough.”
What we can’t do, however, is let the atheist walk away as if he has pushed God into the gully of unintelligibility – because the atheist now has an existential problem of his own making. See: he (in this case, Loftus) has brought up the point that people are suffering. Existentially, people are in pain right now – starving babies, AIDS victims, people getting raped and murdered, the people getting strapped with $700 billion in debt both in theory and in fact, readers of John Loftus’ blog – and this brute fact doesn’t change because we extract the idea of God from the picture of the universe.
In Loftus’ view, pain demands some action. You know: when you put your hand on a hot stove, there’s pain, and the action is to draw your hand back and (at least in Presbyterian households) cuss. Your pain causes you to do something – and this isn’t an ethical dilemma. Pain is a state which nobody but the most twisted person likes, and everyone will take action to cause pain (his own pain) to end.
Pain exists, and one has to do something about it – and this is where Loftus’ existential problem shows up. Any person can tell you, “it’s normal to want pain to stop,” and most people (in the 99%+ range) will tell you, ”It’s normal to want the pain of other people to stop.”
Right? Any human being will feel empathy toward those who are suffering – so much so that we will even feel empathy for people who are being punished for wrong-doing, and even those who suffer because they brought a painful consequence on themselves.
And I for one would agree: it’s normal for a person to have empathy, and it is normal to seek to end the pain of another person when they are suffering. The problem of “evil” – which we have translated into the “problem of suffering” by Loftus’ definition – exists for the atheist because he has empathy for those who suffer. See: he has to figure out what to do with his existential motive of “end the other person’s pain” – given that it seems apparent that doing nothing about it is not a reasonable choice.
In a universe without God, pain is still the urgent question. Nobody can ignore pain.
Or can they?
We’ll talk about that the next time.
February 15th, 2010 | 3:18 pm | #1
I’m really enjoying your thought in these posts, thank you.
February 15th, 2010 | 5:05 pm | #2
Thoroughly enjoying these posts. Thanks Turk.
February 15th, 2010 | 6:02 pm | #3
Mostly I wanted an excuse to put the talking monkey in a post.
February 15th, 2010 | 9:36 pm | #4
You see, the problem is that too many people believe that suffering is the great evil in this world. The truth is, the great evil in this world is our lack of conformity to God’s character, and it is our suffering which exposes our lack of conformity more than anything else. The pain from suffering, reminds us that something is terribly wrong with this world. It causes me to turn my heart to the cross of Christ because “he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities”.
Suffering is only evil, if this world is all there is and nothing lies ahead. If it is true that eternal life lies beyond this world, then suffering is nothing more than a surgeon’s scalpel cutting out that which is perishable in order to prepare us for the imperishable. To an unbeliever this makes no sense, because God’s ways are not our ways, humans focus on the things of this world, and God has much bigger plans than that.
February 16th, 2010 | 8:16 am | #5
Suffering is only evil, if this world is all there is and nothing lies ahead. If it is true that eternal life lies beyond this world, then suffering is nothing more than a surgeon’s scalpel cutting out that which is perishable in order to prepare us for the imperishable.
I think you’re about half-right, Paul — for the believer, we can receive suffering for many reasons and make sense of it (even if we don’t like it — and my opinion is that you have to be a little deranged to like to suffer). Mostly, we can balance to intermediate nature of our suffering against the graciousness of God in Christ and say rightly that God works all things together for our good.
But let’s be careful: just because God is working all things to gether for the good of those who believe in Him doesn’t mean all things are good. It is not good to have a child die of cancer, or to have your spouse leave you, or to lose your job. Or as happens in most of the world, to be without decent water.
The existential fact of pain is a foundational part of the human condition, and I think we as disciples of the risen Christ need to be certain that we do not minimize the negative value of the pain in this world as the atheist does.
February 16th, 2010 | 9:14 am | #6
I hear what your saying Frank. My nephew’s first born died of cancer he was only seven years old, my nephew was not walking with God at the time of this trial. But through the love and support and prayers of extended family he has begun to trust Christ with his life. I know he struggles to truly understand why this happen, but he is trusting Christ through it all.
“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.”
“All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering.”
“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”
“For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”
“But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction.”
February 16th, 2010 | 8:40 pm | #7
A universe with suffering in it precludes the Christian God (he says), so the onus is now on John or anyone else who sees pain to stop pain. If that’s what we ought to expect from God to the place where we are ready to dismiss God from our philosophy, we have to at least hold ourselves up to that standard. We want an omnipotent God to preclude our suffering, so we should at least think we can use our own limited means to stop the suffering of those we meet.
I don’t think this follows, at all.
If I propose, “Trogdor, the omnipotent burninator of all things,” you can point that there are at least some houses which are not on fire.
You can even say, that, if Trogdor existed, by my definition, he should be burning things. This is a statement about logical consistency. It does not imply that either of us have an obligation to go out and commit arson.
Similarly, if I propose an omni-wood-chucking woodchuck, it’s fair to point out there there is some wood not being chucked. My entity is not consistent with the world.
If I propose an all-good-doing superman, it’s fair to point out that there is some good not being done.
I claim to be neither omni-wood-chucking, nor omni-good-doing. So, there’s no logical problem if I leave some wood unchucked or some good undone.
And, sure, atheists don’t do all the things that their ethical systems say they should. This makes them people with competing motivations.
A desire to adhere to the ethical system competes with a desire to do other things. Sometimes effort is expended on ethics. Sometimes not.
Given this, it’s entirely fair to say that atheists are, at best, ‘benevolent’ (rather than omni-benevolent).
This is only a logical problem for people who claim that atheists are omni-benevolent.
February 16th, 2010 | 8:42 pm | #8
Plus, even if the atheism is proven untenable, then all we’ve shown is that Atheism and Christianity are not internally-consistent.
So, we can exclude them from the set of potentially correct answers.
Neo-paganism, with its non-omni-benevolent gods still seems like a viable option.
February 17th, 2010 | 12:05 pm | #9
Richard:
You’re chasing the wrong car in a very busy street.
The argument, as framed by the atheist is that it doesn’t take a lot of human experience to see three things:
1. There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world.
2. Any human being can see that pain and suffering.
3. Any human being who sees that pain would take some action — even if it is an inadequate action — to stop it.
The argument is not “since God ought, we ought”: the atheist argument is that if God is actually more benevolent, powerful, and aware that I am, and the least I would do seems to dwarf what it seems “God” is actually doing, I can’t believe that God exists — not as “God” anyway.
The precondition of the atheist argument is that “anyone can sense pain and knows they ought to stop it”.
My reply to that is, “oh really? How would they do that?”
See: the atheist says we can’t believe in a God who would create something with pain in it. My rejoiner is that the set which contains the problems which both the atheist and theist agree are problems that also can be solved without some kind of pain may not be the empty set — but it is pretty close.
In a universe where God didn’t create anything, the atheist cannot change his mind suddenly by saying, “well, that’s not really pain; that’s just the way it is.” No: the premise of the argument is that anyone can see pain and knows it ought to be stopped.
Until the atheist is no longer “anyone”, he has to live in the universe anyone can experientially know.
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