The Problem of Evil, Part 2

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude nine earthquake struck in the waters 231 miles northeast of Tokyo, Japan, creating a tsunami that spawned 30-foot waves. The quake was the largest in recorded history ever to hit Japan, and together with the tsunami, took the lives of over 20,000 people. Popular atheist Sam Harris later remarked, “Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.”

Harris says that tragedy and an all-good, all-powerful God cannot exist in the same world. You can have one, but not the other. No doubt, the 2011 Japan earthquake was an immense tragedy, and it’s important that we say so. But are such tragedies proof that God doesn’t exist (or alternatively that He is evil, or less-than-all-powerful)? I don’t think so. Elsewhere, I talked about how God might have allowed evil in order to preserve the joy and wonder made possible by our being free creatures. I want to expand on that here, and show how evil actually cannot be used as an automatic defeater for the Christian worldview. 

One of the most interesting recent responses to the problem of evil is Alvin Plantinga’s “free will defense.” The basic idea is this: It’s possible that God could not have created a world in which some optimal number of people maximally experience the joy and wonder of being truly free (let’s call such a world an “optimal world”) without there also being evil. How might this work? First, let me state up front that I’m assuming a couple things. First, I assume that humans have genuine free will. A million factors might influence any given decision, but those factors do not coerce the person into choosing one way or another. Second, I assume that humanity’s free will choice to sin ultimately brings about all evil (including seemingly-arbitrary suffering). 

Okay, with that out of the way, let me articulate how it might be possible that God couldn’t have created an optimal world without allowing evil. Before the creation of our world, the actual world, some astronomically large number of possible worlds existed in the mind of God. Now, it is possible (it’s not self-contradictory or otherwise logically absurd to say) that there was at least one person who would have sinned (and thereby incurred the Genesis 3 curse) in every single one of these worlds (if you like fancy words, Plantinga calls this idea “transworld depravity”). Let me illustrate. Suppose there is some guy who would eventually be born in every possible world named Rumpelstiltskin (I tried to pick an uncommon name, so if you’re reading this and you happen to be named Rumpelstiltskin, I’m terribly sorry). In each and every single one of these worlds, Rumpelstiltskin sins. In some of these worlds, he’s an absolute monster. In others, he’s just a felon. In some, he’s really not that bad of a guy, but he tells a small lie every once in a while. But in every one, he sins and brings about the curse. 

If you don’t buy the idea that any single person could exist in every possible world, that’s fine. We could just as easily say this: It’s possible (it’s not self-contradictory or otherwise logically absurd to say) that there is at least one person in any of the possible worlds who would sin. Even in a world with just two people, there’s a 50-50 chance (from our perspective) that someone would sin. I don’t think two people, even if they both choose against sin, is enough to make up an optimal world. Which is better, two people rejoicing in heaven for eternity, or 20 billion? This actually brings up a great point. We don’t even have to say that Rumpelstiltskin, or some sinner, might exist in all possible worlds. We only have to say that such a person might exist in all optimal worlds. That is a logically possible statement. That is, it’s possible that in all the worlds where an optimal number of people maximally experience the joy and wonder of being truly free, there is at least one person who sins.

The bottom line is that in any of the worlds God would have considered actualizing, it’s at least possible that somebody sins. I happen to think that it’s even probable, given a sufficient number of people in a world. And because of that, it’s possible that God had to allow evil and all its consequences.

Question: Does all of this compromise divine omnipotence? If God is all-powerful, then isn’t it within His power to create a world with free creatures in which none of them choose to reject Him? Well, this might very well be impossible, assuming that God really does just leave some things up to us. If God forced creatures to accept Him who otherwise would have rejected Him, then they are no longer free. To say that God forces free creatures to accept Him is illogical (because free creatures by definition cannot be forced), and God’s omnipotence acts in accordance with logic, because logic finds its source in the very nature of God. So my definition of omnipotence is a little more nuanced than simply saying, “God can do anything.” And that’s okay. 

Harris thinks that such free-will defenses are cases of heaping “bad philosophy onto bad ethics.” Quite frankly, he’s wrong. As I’ve hopefully demonstrated, the existence of evil does not automatically defeat the Christian worldview because it is at least possible that God had to allow evil in order to bring about an optimal world. None of this compromises divine omnipotence. That doesn’t mean a person cannot marshal evil as evidence against the Christian worldview. People do that all the time. Obviously, there’s still tension (and I want to talk about that some here). What all of this does mean, however, is that evil cannot be given as conclusive proof that the Christian worldview is untrue.