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The Problem of Suffering & Evil | Worldview Apologetics Conference 2017

Dr. Craig was invited to speak at the Worldview Apologetics Conference hosted at Westminster Chapel in Bellevue, WA in April of 2017. In this lecture, Dr. Craig discusses the Problem of Suffering and Evil and follows with a short Q&A session.


DR. CRAIG: There are several important distinctions that we need to draw when thinking about this problem in order to keep our thinking clear. In the first place, we need to distinguish between the emotional version of the problem of suffering and evil and the intellectual version of the problem.

The intellectual problem of evil concerns how to give a rational explanation of the coexistence of God and evil. The emotional problem of evil concerns how to dissolve people's emotional dislike of a God who would permit suffering. This distinction is extremely important because I believe that most people's problem is not really intellectual; it's really emotional. But because they think it's intellectual, it's imperative that we address the intellectual problem of evil.

The intellectual problem of evil also comes in two versions. First, the logical version of the problem of evil, and then secondly the probabilistic version of the problem of evil.

According to the logical version, it's logically impossible that God and evil coexist. If God exists then evil cannot exist. If evil exists, God cannot exist. Since evil obviously does exist, it follows that God does not exist. The problem with the logical version of the argument, as the video explains, is that there's no reason to think that God and evil are logically incompatible. After all, there's no explicit contradiction between saying “God exists” and “evil exists.” So if the atheist is saying these are implicitly contradictory, he must be making some hidden assumptions that would bring out the contradiction and make it explicit. But what are these assumptions? Well, they seem to be two.

  1. If God is all-powerful, he can create any world that he wants.
  2. If God is all-loving, he prefers a world without suffering.

The problem is that neither of these hidden premises appears to be necessarily true. For example, as long as free will is possible, it follows that it's possible that God may not be able to create any world that he wants even though he's omnipotent. It's logically impossible to make someone freely do something. Therefore, God's being omnipotent does not mean that he can just create any old world that he would like. Secondly, if God is all-loving it doesn't necessarily follow that he prefers a world without suffering. God might have morally sufficient reasons for permitting suffering. Therefore, the logical problem of evil simply puts a burden of proof on the atheist that is too heavy for anyone to bear. No one has been able to prove that it's impossible that God has morally sufficient reasons for the evil and suffering in the world.

More than that, however, we can actually prove that the existence of God and the evil in the world are logically compatible with each other simply by adding a third statement that is consistent with God's existence and entails the existence of evil. And here is such a statement:

C. God could not have created a world with as much good but less suffering than the actual world, and God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the suffering that exists.

As long as it's even possible that this statement is true, it shows that it's possible that God and evil coexist. Therefore, I'm very pleased to report that as the video showed it is widely agreed today among philosophers (whether theist or atheist alike) that the logical version of the problem of evil has been dissolved. The existence of God and evil is logically possible.

But we're not out of the woods yet. For now we confront the probabilistic version of the problem of evil. The depth and the extent of evil in the world is so great it might be said that it's improbable that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting it. Therefore, given the evil in the world it's improbable that God exists.

This is a much more powerful version of the problem than the logical version, and therefore we need to spend most of our time on it. In response to this version, I want to make three points.

1. We're not in a good position to say that it's improbable that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the suffering in the world.

As finite persons, we are limited in time and space, in intellect and insight. But the transcendent and sovereign God sees the end of history from its beginning and providentially orders history so that his purposes are ultimately achieved through the free decisions of people. In order to achieve his purposes God may well have to put up with a good deal of evil and suffering along the way. Suffering which appears to be pointless within our limited framework may be seen to be justly permitted within God's wider framework.

Let me give two illustrations of this point. One from contemporary science, and one from popular culture. First, in so-called chaos theory scientists have discovered that certain large-scale systems such as the weather or insect populations are extraordinarily sensitive to the tiniest disturbances. A butterfly fluttering on a twig in the jungles of West Africa can set in motion forces that will eventually ensue in a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean. Yet no one looking at that butterfly fluttering on that branch would ever be able in principle to predict such an outcome. We have no way of knowing how the alteration of seemingly insignificant events can have radical ramifications for the world. The second illustration: in the movie Sliding Doors, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, we are told the story of a young woman who is rushing down the stairs to catch a subway. As she nears the train, the movie splits into two paths that her life might take. In the one life, the doors slide shut just before she can catch the train. In the other life she manages to get in through the doors before they close. And based upon this seemingly trivial incident, her life takes two different increasingly divergent paths. In the one life, she turns out to be successful, prosperous, and happy. In the other life she encounters failure, misery, and unhappiness. And all because of this seemingly insignificant difference of getting through the sliding doors. Moreover, that difference is the result of a little girl playing on the stairs as the young woman rushes down the steps to catch the subway. Whether or not her father pulls her away in time determines whether or not the young woman is able to get through those sliding doors. As you see the film, you can't help but wonder what other myriad, trivial events may have contributed to that event, such as whether the girl and the father were delayed in their journey that morning because the little girl didn't like the breakfast cereal that her mother gave her that day. Or maybe the father's attention was diverted from his daughter because he had read something in the newspaper on the train that upset him. But the most interesting part of the film is the ending. In the happy, successful life, the young woman is suddenly killed in an accident. While in the other life, her life turns around and it turns out that the life of hardship and misery is really the truly good life after all. Now, my point is obviously not that everything in life turns out for the best. No, my point is much more modest. Simply that given the dizzying complexity of life, we are just not in any position at all to say that God has no good reason for permitting some incident of suffering to afflict our lives. Every event that occurs sends a ripple effect through history such that God's morally sufficient reason for permitting it might not emerge until centuries from now, maybe in another land. Only an all-knowing God can grasp the complexities of directing a world of free people toward his envisioned goals. Just think of the innumerable, incalculable events that would be involved in bringing about a single historical event, say the Allied victory at D-Day. We have no idea of what suffering must be involved in order to allow God to bring about some intended purpose through human free decisions. Nor should we expect to discern God's reasons for permitting suffering. It's hardly surprising that much of the suffering in the world seems pointless and unnecessary to us. We’re simply not in a good position to be able to comprehend such complexity.

Some atheist philosophers have objected to this point by saying that if you say that the evil in the world fails to disprove the existence of a good God then you've also got to say that the good in the world doesn't disprove the existence of an evil God which they would say is absurd. My response to this objection is to agree that the two cases are precisely on a par. You can't disprove the existence of an evil God on the basis of the good in the world because an evil God could permit the good for his own nefarious and underhanded purposes. Just as a good God could have reasons for permitting the evils in the world, and evil God could have reasons for permitting the goods in the world. So neither of these arguments is any good. Keep in mind that the theist doesn't believe in God's goodness as a result of an inductive survey of the world – of looking out and saying, “Gee, there's a lot of good in the world. There must be a good God!” No, perhaps he believes in the goodness of God on the basis of the Bible, biblical revelation. Or maybe he has an ontological argument for God's existence as the greatest conceivable being and therefore a morally perfect being. Or maybe he has a moral argument for God's existence as the paradigm of objective moral values. Whatever reason he has for accepting that God is good, the point remains that we're just not in a position to say with any confidence that it's improbable that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing the suffering that enters our lives.

This is not to appeal to mystery, but rather to point to our inherent cognitive limitations which make it impossible for us to say when confronted with some instance of suffering that God probably lacks morally sufficient reasons for permitting it to occur. Unbelievers themselves recognize this in other contexts. For example, one of the decisive objections to utilitarianism (which is a theory of ethics that says we should always do that action which will bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people) is that we have no idea of the ultimate outcome of our actions. Some action that would bring about a short-term good might actually lead to untold misery for mankind. While some action that looks disastrous in the short run might redound to the greatest good. We just don't have a clue. Once we contemplate God's sovereignty and providence over the whole of human history I think you can see how hopeless it is for finite limited creatures to speculate on the probability of God’s lacking morally sufficient reasons for permitting the suffering we observe. We're simply not in a position to make those kinds of probability judgments with any confidence.

2. Relative to the full scope of the evidence, God's existence is probable.

It's important to understand that probabilities are always relative to background information. For example, suppose you're given the information that Joe is a university student and that 80% of university students drink beer. Relative to that background information that makes it highly probable that Joe is a beer-drinker. But now suppose you're given additional information that Joe is a Biola University student and that 90% of Biola University students do not drink beer. Relative to this new information, it now becomes highly improbable that Joe is a beer-drinker. To repeat: probabilities are relative to background information. So when the atheist says that God's existence is improbable you should immediately ask, “Improbable relative to what?” What is the background information? The evil and suffering in the world? If that's all you consider for your background information it's hardly surprising that God's existence would look improbable relative to that alone, though as I've just argued in point 1 appearances can be deceiving. But that's not the really interesting question. The interesting question is whether God's existence is probable relative to the full scope of the evidence. And I'm persuaded that when you consider the full scope of the evidence, such as these other arguments for the existence of God that I've been sharing with you, then God's existence does turn out to be quite probable even given any improbability that evil and suffering might be thought to throw upon God's existence.

3. The Christian faith entails doctrines that increase the probability of the co-existence of God and evil.

In so doing, these doctrines decrease any improbability that evil might be thought to throw upon the existence of God. What are some of these doctrines? Let me mention four.

First, the chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God. One reason that the problem of evil seems so intractable is that we naturally tend to assume that if God exists then his purpose for human life is happiness in this life. God's role is to provide a comfortable environment for his human pets. But on the Christian view this is false. We are not God's pets, and the purpose of life is not human happiness in this life but rather the knowledge of God, which in the end will bring true and everlasting human fulfillment. Many evils occur in life which may be utterly pointless with respect to producing human happiness in this life. But they may not be pointless with respect to producing a deeper knowledge of God. Innocent human suffering provides an occasion for deeper dependency and trust in God either on the part of the sufferer or those around him. Of course, whether God's purposes are achieved through what we suffer depends entirely on our response. Do we respond with anger and bitterness toward God? Or do we respond by turning to him for strength and endurance?

Secondly, mankind is in a state of rebellion against God and his purpose. Rather than submit to and worship God, people rebel against God and go their own way and so find themselves alienated from God, morally guilty before him, and groping in spiritual darkness, pursuing false gods of their own making. The terrible human evils in the world are simply testimony to man's depravity in this state of spiritual alienation from God. So the Christian is not surprised at the terrible human atrocities in this world. On the contrary, he expects it. The Bible says that God has given mankind over to the evil that it has chosen. He doesn't intervene to stop it. He lets human depravity run its course. This only serves to heighten mankind's moral responsibility before God, as well as our wickedness and our need of divine forgiveness and moral cleansing.

Third, the knowledge of God spills over into eternal life. In the Christian view, this life is not all there is. Jesus promised eternal life to those who place their faith in him as Savior and Lord. In the afterlife, God will reward those who have borne their suffering in courage and trust with an eternal life of unspeakable joy. The apostle Paul who wrote much of the New Testament lived a life of incredible suffering, and yet he wrote these words: “We do not lose heart . . . For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Paul imagines as it were a scale in which these sufferings and the rottenness of this life is placed on one side while on the other side is placed the glory that God will bestow upon his children in heaven. And he says the weight of glory is so heavy that the sufferings of this life cannot even be compared to it. Moreover, think about this. The longer we spend in eternity, the more the sufferings of this life shrink by comparison to an infinitesimal moment. That's why Paul could call them a “slight momentary affliction.” They were simply overwhelmed by the ocean of divine eternity and joy which God lavishes on those who trust him.

Four, the knowledge of God is an incommensurable good. To know God, the source of infinite goodness and love, is an incomparable good. It is the fulfillment of human existence. The sufferings of this life cannot even be compared to it. Thus, the person who knows God, no matter what he suffers, no matter how awful his pain, can still truly say, “God is good to me” simply in virtue of the fact that he knows God, an incommensurable good.

These four Christian doctrines, if true, greatly reduce any improbability that evil might be thought to throw upon the existence of God. Thus, paradoxically the problem of evil is not so much a problem for Christian theism since given these Christian doctrines the evil and suffering in the world is not surprising after all. So in summary, if these theses are correct then evil does not render improbable the existence of the Christian God. In fact, on the contrary, given the full scope of the evidence, God's existence is, I think, quite probable. In fact, I think we actually have a proof of God from evil. It would go like this:

  1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

If there is no God then we are simply lost in socio-cultural relativism, and there is no objective standard of moral goodness and evil. Many atheists agree with premise 1.

  1. Evil exists.

This is the claim that atheists and theists recognize.

  1. Therefore, objective moral values exist.

Some things are evil!

  1. Therefore, God exists.

Thus, although evil on a superficial level calls into question God's existence, on a deeper philosophical level evil actually proves God's existence since in the absence of God good and evil as such would not exist. Therefore, I am convinced that the intellectual problem of evil fails to overthrow God's existence.

But that takes us then to the emotional problem of evil. As I said, I think that most people who reject God because of the evil and suffering in the world don't really do it for intellectual reasons. They've not really thought it through carefully. Rather, it's an emotional problem. They just don't like a God who would permit them or others to suffer terribly, and so they want nothing to do with him. Theirs is simply an atheism of rejection. Does the Christian faith have anything to say to these people? Well, yes, it certainly does. Because it tells us that God is not a distant creator or impersonal ground of being, but a loving heavenly Father who shares our sufferings and hurts with us. Professor Alvin Plantinga, one of the greatest living Christian philosophers, has written,

[blockquote]As the Christian sees things, God does not stand idly by, coolly observing the suffering of His creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross. Christ was prepared to endure the agonies of hell itself . . . in order to overcome sin, and death, and the evils that afflict our world, and to confer on us a life more glorious than we can imagine. He was prepared to suffer on our behalf, to accept suffering of which we can form no comprehension.[/blockquote]

You see, Jesus endured a suffering beyond all comprehension. He bore the punishment for the sins of the entire world. None of us can comprehend that suffering. Even though he was innocent, he voluntarily took upon himself the punishment that we deserved. And why? Because he loves you so much. How can we reject him who was willing to give up everything for us? When we comprehend his sacrifice and his love for us then I think this puts the problem of evil in an entirely different perspective. For now we see clearly that the true problem of evil is the problem of our evil. Filled with sin and morally guilty before God, the question is not how God could justify himself to us. Rather the question is how we can be justified before him. So paradoxically even though the problem of evil is the greatest objection to the existence of God, at the end of the day God, I believe, is the only answer to the problem of evil. If God does not exist then we are locked in a world filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering. God is the final answer to the problem of evil for he redeems us from evil and takes us into the everlasting joy of an incommensurable good which is fellowship with himself.

We now have about 15 minutes for your questions or discussion. Please stand when you get the mic so I can see where you are.

QUESTION: Hi, Dr. Craig. My question is . . .I understand about the problem of evil. The only question I have is . . . I get that unbelievers will go to hell; they are not saved. But what if a Christian is convinced or persuaded by another atheist into being an unbeliever? I don't really see that very just and fair to send him to hell. I don't really even see that as him choosing, like many Christians think that hell is just the opposite of God where you choose to go to hell and not really choose to go with God.

DR. CRAIG: Are you asking whether or not unbelief is culpable?

FOLLOWUP: No. Is it fair to send a person to hell if he was persuaded?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Well, then that is what you're asking. You are saying is there culpable unbelief, and I think there definitely is. I would say at the end of the day all unbelief is culpable. Why? Because the unbeliever does not simply resist arguments and evidence for God's existence. What he resists is the witness of the Holy Spirit himself – the witness that God himself bears to the truth of his own existence. So it is a deliberate rejection of God himself that is worthy of condemnation. He is not simply to rely upon arguments and evidence. Now, let me emphasize again, as I said in the earlier session last night, let's restrict the questions to this topic. Otherwise, we'll go too far afield. So any other questions about this topic?

QUESTION: My question is to one of the theists that's defending or answering the problem of evil. Is it required or do they need to maintain that the actual world is a feasible world with the least evil and suffering possible?

DR. CRAIG: Are you saying is this what Christians need to maintain?

FOLLOWUP: Yes.

DR. CRAIG: No, I don't think so. I think what we have to simply say is that this is a good world and that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing the evil and suffering that he does. As long as that's true, I don't think that there's any obligation on God's part to have created a better world or that it's impossible that there might have been a worse world. I think so long as there are morally sufficient reasons for allowing the suffering and evil to exist then God cannot be indicted for having chosen such a world.

QUESTION: When talking on the emotional problem and giving examples of God's mercy and love through the cross, I'm surprised you didn't actually go towards countering a common atheistic proposition of why God would be described as evil such as his commands to the Israelites to killing people in the Old Testament which often comes up in your debates of atheists. I've watched a lot of your debates so I know some of your responses. My question would be: Can you think of a time where you're debating perhaps an atheist and they brought up a particularly challenging proposition, perhaps talking about the Israelites? I know you have objections to their arguments, but can you give us an example of one where, wow, that's a really hard one and I have to think through how I'm going to answer that – talking about supposedly God being evil?

DR. CRAIG: That's so interesting you would ask that because, yes, I have a great example of that. It was a debate that I had years ago right here at the University of Washington with a philosophy professor named Corey Washington. The debate was going very well until the rebuttal phase. Then what Dr. Washington did was he simply got up and read an account of a man dying from what I think he called a hot virus. He read how this man began vomiting blood and then blood started coming out his eyes and his nose and then his ears and his anus and from every orifice in his body, blood was gushing out. And then there was a sort of tearing sound as his guts dissolved and came flowing out. Then he paused and he said to the audience, couldn't God have made this guy suffer a little less? Now, emotionally that was devastating. It was impossible for me to come back. I mean, I could point out the rational response. Of course God could have made him suffer less, but that's not to say that God didn't have morally sufficient reasons for permitting this to occur. And Dr. Washington didn't do anything to attempt to show that God lacked a morally sufficient reason for allowing this evil to happen. He didn't even try. But just the emotional impact of that made it virtually insuperable. So, as I say, I do think that the emotional problem of evil is the real challenge to overcome. Probably the best thing to do there is to try to tell stories of people who through faith in God have valiantly endured incredible suffering and maintained their faith and their character. In my published work I tell a true story of a woman named Mabel who lived in a nursing home, blind, wheelchair-bound, her face eaten by cancer, deaf, who maintained an incredible vibrant faith in Christ. My colleague who would visit her occasionally and talked to her and write down things she said, he concluded, he said Mabel had something that you and I don't have. Lying there in bed alone all day, unable to speak, unable to hear, unable to tell whether it's night or day, she sang hymns to Jesus. He said she had incredible power. I think the emotional force of a story like that is about the best you can do to try to overcome the emotional impact of stories on the other side. It's just important to keep in mind that these have no rational significance at all. They don't do anything to show that the intellectual problem goes through, but we need to, I think, be able to have stories like that to counteract the emotional impact of stories that one might hear on the other side.

QUESTION: I've heard the logical version and that you refute it when you say that free will . . . . But I've heard a counter-argument saying isn't the Christian heaven an example of a place with free will and no suffering.

DR. CRAIG: You have something of an accent that makes it difficult for me to understand you. Can you repeat your question very clearly?

FOLLOWUP: Heaven is an example of a place with free will and no suffering.

DR. CRAIG: The question is, I think, is there free will in heaven? Would it be possible for people in heaven to sin? I think there are a number of responses that Christians might make to this. My inclination is to say that once the veil is removed and we see Christ, we see God in all his beauty and majesty and glory, that the vision is so irresistible that the freedom to sin is effectively removed. God has placed us here at a kind of arm's distance from himself. Paul says we see through a mirror darkly, and during this veil of decision-making we have the freedom to choose for or against God. But when we go to heaven that veil will be removed, and the vision of God will be so powerful and so attractive I think it's plausible that it would be impossible to choose evil, impossible to choose sin.

QUESTION: Why does God permit Satan to conduct evil in the world? And does that undermine human free will?

DR. CRAIG: It doesn't undermine human free will because it is simply a temptation to evil which then we can resist or yield to. Don't think that Satan has the ability to manipulate us like robots or puppets. He's simply a tempter, and he doesn't overpower our free will. We can either give in to him or resist him. Now, why God would do this – who knows? One would simply say that God has created not only human beings with free will but he's created this higher order of beings called angels that similarly have free will, and if they use their free will to rebel against God and his purpose then evil will be the result. So the solution is essentially the same. Whether you're talking about human creatures or angelic creatures, freedom of the will would be the source of the evil and the pollution of God's creation that he permits to occur.

QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit about how prayer comes into all this? Is it because as believers we pray we sort of intercede and we change God's mind? Or is the answer that God is using the suffering to wait for us to actually come to him? Or is it something else? Where does prayer come into all this?

DR. CRAIG: I think that all of those things are true. Prayer is part of the life of faith, and when we go through suffering we should turn to God in prayer, asking for strength to endure for courage, for our faith not to fail under this test. So prayer would be an important part of the spiritual life. I think that prayer does make a difference, not in the sense that it changes God's mind, but that rather God in his providential plan for human history takes account of the fact that he knew people would pray and therefore he brings about results because of those prayers that he would not have brought about had the person not prayed. So prayer makes a difference, not in the sense of changing God's mind, but in the sense that God incorporates the fact of those prayers into his providential plan for human history.

QUESTION: In talking with people who have objections to God due to the presence of evil, how can we turn their focus from the external world to themselves and the issue of sin? I think people's sense of evil is very much an “other” problem, a presence in the world, and the notion of personal sin is just disconnected. It's not relevant.

DR. CRAIG: Think about this talk that I've just given, or the video. Show them the video when it's done. Because when you end with the emotional problem of evil, this is exactly what you're talking about, isn't it? It brings it home to that person and his own moral failure and culpability before God. So I would encourage you to memorize these distinctions. When you sit down with a non-believer, take out a napkin or a piece of paper and draw these arrows: intellectual problem, emotional problem, logical version, probabilistic version. You don't need to go into it in detail, but just explain these are the distinctions and here's the problems or the responses to each one. Then you end on the emotional problem by saying that the problem is really our evil and sin before God that has so polluted his beautiful world. Therefore we need his forgiveness and cleansing. That line that I shared with you – the question is not how God can justify himself to us, the question is how we can be justified before him – I think forms a natural segue to sharing the Gospel. It just would require you to memorize some of these simple distinctions so that you're ready to share them with an unbeliever.

Thank you very much for your attention this morning.