This week we’re looking at the problem of evil, so here’s something to think about.
Atheist B.C. Johnson in The Atheist Debater’s Handbook argues that it is unlikely that God is all good, and hence unlikely that God exists (b/c theists universally suppose God to be all-good). Johnson begins his case with an illustration. Imagine that due to an electrical short, a building catches on fire. Trapped in the building is an infant, who will surely be burned to death unless someone intervenes. Imagine further that there is a human pedestrian who knows of the baby’s plight and can easily intervene without any serious harm to herself and, nevertheless, leaves the baby to die. Surely, says Johnson, we would think such a person is morally blameworthy for failing to intervene. But how are things any different with God? God could easily intervene, yet such tragedies occur on a regular basis without any apparent divine intervention. So, says Johnson, just as we would judge the uncaring human to be a bad person, so also we should say the same of God. Any God who refrains from intervening to prevent egregious evils without excellent justification would not be a morally good God.
To buttress his argument, Johnson considers a variety of “excuses” that might be offered to get God “off the hook”. For example, one response might be that the baby will go to heaven, but Johnson argues that this is irrelevant to the baby’s suffering apart from some argument that suffering is necessary to go to heaven. Another response might be that God does not prevent such suffering because it is necessary either for a greater good or to avoid a greater evil. But, says Johnson, this implies that whatever happens is overall best since God allowed it, and that, he thinks, is absurd. Obviously the world could have been better than it is. Yet another response might be that God granted humans free will and so if a human causes a child to suffer (perhaps in this case the building superintendent was negligent in keeping up with repairs, which led to the fire) it is the human’s fault alone. But, says Johnson, one can be at fault for not having intervened in events that are caused by another person, just as the pedestrian should intervene to save the baby despite the fact that she had nothing to do with causing the fire.
After considering several additional replies and finding all of them wanting, Johnson concludes that God has no good excuse for allowing babies to burn to death. He concludes that there is no morally relevant difference between God and the human pedestrian who could have intervened and didn’t. Both are morally blameworthy.
How should we evaluate Johnson’s argument? It all seems to hang on this question: To what extent is God’s position morally analogous to the position of the human pedestrian? Johnson thinks the analogy is a very close one, but is it? To evaluate Johnson’s argument we have to consider ways in which God’s position vis-a-vis the baby in the building is different from the pedestrian’s and ask ourselves whether any of those differences make a difference to the moral situation. I have some thoughts to share on this, but first I want hear what some of you think.
The best argument that I would think a theist may come up with would be the idea that, “God works in mysterious ways.” Though this can offer only a token excuse for most theists looking for any logical answer, maybe it has validity to it. Say in the case of the baby, maybe his parents were of German descent and their child was a little Hitler in the making, therefore God and the pedestrian’s unwillingness to act would be viewed as merciful in the long run, preventing a ruthless dictator from even reaching the age to speak. Though that’s a far stretch it is a sketchy example of many theists’ ideas. Many would also state that God’s plan is too vast and to complicated for our human minds to understand. If we can only barely fathom a few of the workings of the universe, how can we try to understand simple occurrences and their impact in the long run and scheme of things. The only thing a theist can truly state in my mind, in defense of theism in the face of such situations, is that we can’t fathom the long run impact of such occurrences, only believe that they are for some greater good or glory of God, and that God works in mysterious ways. Not that this is the toughest defense, but the only one I would see that stands any ground.
I think the argument is powerful and brings some concerns about the nature of God. Josh’s answer to the question works but it doesn’t really feel adequate as a response. If we think that every baby that burns in a fire is a potential Hitler then I guess that works but it’s hard to imagine and unlikely. Next I think the response that we can’t fathom the greater good that could come about from this event, that only God knows doesn’t work either. If God knows that the baby is burning and lets the baby suffer, and has the power to stop it or stop the suffering how is he good. If he is all powerful, good and all knowing couldn’t he have saved the baby and had his greater good purpose take place anyways. If we say that the baby had to burn for the purpose of the even greater good, wouldn’t that limit gods omnipotence, in saying that he had to let the baby burn if he could accomplish his greater good. I think a better response to the problem of evil if your are a theist is adopting open theism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism), classical theism has to many restrictions on the definition of God and if that is the best response, that we do not know Gods greater purpose of good, that just doesn’t seem to satisfy as a good explanation.
I think this argument can be accounted for by what we talked about in class. 1. God cant do the logically impossible. 2. We have free will. 3. There are law like regularities in nature. WIth these premises stated, bad things will happen, and there will be some people/babies at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now, another point, at what time do we expect god to interviene? Does he do something years prior, and eventually the effects trickle down to the present, and the baby isn’t even in the same situation. THis might negate our notion of freewill.
Does god use another agent by way of divine inspiration, to save the baby confronted by an emanate demise? We see that this does happen in the world, so maybe thats the case.
THe only other way god could interviene, would be at the very moment the baby is in the grasp of the flames. This way it is only a brief moment that god imposes his will on any agents freeedom, and it only involves the agent directly affected. I may be reaching, but it seems as if this may entail a logical impossibility. THe baby is in a building that is on fire at time p. The baby is not in a building that is on fire at time p. If someone doesn’t help the baby, and the baby doen’t help itself, then god must directly pull the baby from the falmes. There would be a point in time where the baby would have to be and not be in harms way.
By stating that a baby is in the midst of death we are asserting that we know the baby is at risk, and this puts the moral blame on the agent making the call.
If hick is right in his idea that we are becoming saints and we are all on a journey then the person who left the baby to parish has not formed his own soul virtuously The lawlike regularities of nature, the freewill of man, and the fact that all souls aren’t on the same level of righteousness may account for the evil done by the person, and gods inability to interviene.
The first question that comes to mind is whether or not, in the case of God, it is a moral decision. If God is wholly good, I don’t see how the question of morality can be applied, since there is only the possibility of goodness. Of course, this would mean that the death of the baby served the greater good.
While God must have a reason to let the baby burn, in the case of the person, it appears there is no “good” reason not to intervene, but maybe there is. Maybe the person is mentally ill and doesn’t really understand what to do.
It could also be said that the person and God can’t be compared because the person is an agent of God. If God were to intervene, he would likely do so by having someone go in and snatch the baby, rather than performing a “miracle” like teleporting the baby from its burning crib to its mother’s arms down on the ground.
The problem I have with most of your guy’s answers is that you are comparing God to the pedestrian. I’m gonna use a little theistic belief to help me out. God and the pedestrian are not the same thing. First God is, thought of, a the entity which created man and has absolute power, the pedestrian as far as we know created nothing at all as complicated and lacks the power to grant life. This being said we can see that God and the pedestrian are two separate beings. Now to the theist God granted life, intervened in the old testament, and then took a step back in the new testament and let man run their own lives and situations, if my theology is correct. Given this, God granted man free will and then stopped intervening once he thought it well and good, letting us choose everything. So in my opinion, from the theistic idea, is that God no matter what happens to any human being, good or bad, will let it happen because we can now choose our beliefs and moral codes for our own. So the fate of the burning baby is up to the pedestrian based on his belief, God in no way will intervene. It’s kinda like a test God made to determine if we can get to heaven or not. These choices will be put before us and we will have to choose for our selfs what to do. Based on those choices we will either go to heaven or hell, this being said based on my understanding of Christian theology. Yah it’s kinda messed up that he does this and that the pedestrian doesn’t intervene, but that’s how it goes, in my opinion.
It’s very interesting how we humans strongly desire free will, we defend having it and feel threatened if it is taken away, and yet we still want a God to intervene in all the “right situations.” How can we say what is right?
I do believe that the theistic God can be compared morally however, but it has to be in the appropriate manner. If we are to strive to understand morals, it makes sense to me that we should strive to understand them as God understands them. Of course, the question remains, can we?
However, this case of the burning baby brings up different issues. If we are given free will to go about and make mistakes and learn (along with the laws of nature) there will somewhere be burning buildings with people trapped. If a caretaker has made the mistake of neglecting this trapped infant, then that is a mistake of that person. But how can we say God is doing something “bad?” We all must die, sometime, somehow. This is just the time for the infant. God cannot be expected to intervene for all unpleasant deaths. God may very well have given comfort to the baby and “carried” him into Heaven. This is something an all-good God would do. Taking this scenario and turning it against the theistic God, I think is unfair. Furthermore, God’s position is absolutely different from the pedestrian. God’s view of Life is different- of the big picture. We shouldn’t compare them.
I think the baby was lucky… it doesn’t have to experience all the hardships of the world.
Very interesting thoughts, everyone. Thank you for your comments.
Instead of responding specifically to the remarks that have been made, I’d like to toss another idea onto the table.
The question posed by Johnson’s scenario is whether God’s moral position vis-a-vis instances of extreme and apparently gratuitous suffering is analogous to that of the heartless pedestrian who can easily intervene and doesn’t.
There’s a reason for thinking that the analogy fails. In the first place, what moral obligations and prerogatives one person has toward another depends, to some extent at least, on the relation between the two persons. I have special obligations and prerogatives with respect to my daughter Janelle, obligations and prerogatives that I don’t have to other people’s children, precisely because she is my daughter and the other children aren’t. I have a direct obligation to provide for her basic needs. You don’t. I have the prerogative to decide, within reasonable limits, how Janelle will be educated and disciplined. You don’t. And so on.
In Johnson’s example, the pedestrian stands in no special relation to the baby, but still has a “neighborly” obligation to intervene.
What about God? It seems to me that God’s position with respect to us is somewhat like that of a parent, but much more radical. God, so the theory goes, is our Creator. Our entire being depends upon God’s sustaining power during every moment of our existence. As such, God has certain prerogatives over us that other people do not have. You’ve probably heard the expression used in the context of certain life-and-death debates that “people shouldn’t play God”. One implication seems to be that it would be OK for God to play God, that is, that it would be OK for God make choices about who lives and who dies. And if that’s OK for God, then it’s presumably OK for God to make all sorts of other decisions regarding us as well – who gets cancer and who doesn’t, who gets brought up in poverty and who doesn’t, etc.
Now, let me be clear that I’m not saying that God’s being our Creator gives God unrestricted moral freedom to do whatever he wants with us. But I do think that God’s status gives him a lot of authority over us, a point which goes some distance toward blunting the force of Johnson’s analogy.
I agree with this concept of God having a lot of authority over us because he’s our creator, though it brings up many questions…even if it’s okay for him to decide who gets cancer etc., wouldn’t that imply favortism toward his creatures? Does he love some more than others?
Because of the caretaker/parent analogy that implies that God is a parent (but more radical), if a parent would rescue his/her baby from the building, wouldn’t God attempt to rescue his child from the building?
Good points, Jayme.
The parenting analogy pulls in both directions. Parents have greater rights or prerogatives over their children than other people do, but they also have greater obligations toward their children than other people do.
This suggests that while God may have the right to permit certain kinds of suffering in our lives, he also has an obligation to, say, try to redeem that suffering by bringing good out of it. To allow a child to suffer without any good reason whatsoever when you can easily prevent it is bad parenting. To allow a child to suffer in certain ways to promote positive discipline or character development is not, I think, incompatible with good parenting.
What character development could allowing a baby to burn to death help promote? Frankly, I don’t know. This is one place where the notion of an afterlife is important for theists. If physical death is not the end, then there is still hope for the ultimate redemption of suffering.