As often noted, revisiting a great work of art, even one quite familiar, can pay delightful, unanticipated dividends. With something like the Brahms First Symphony, each attentive listening may, and often does, discern a new structural balance, thematic ingenuity, secondary theme… not to mention the surprising niceties revealed by different interpretations.

I believe the same to be true of the great proofs, both theistic and atheistic. It must be true, given that some 900 years after its creation, Norman Malcolm claimed to have found a new—and valid!—construal of the Ontological Argument. And W. L. Craig has made a career out of defending the Kalam Cosmological Argument, a hybrid concocted from the proofs of Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas, …, which means that its major ingredients are thousands of years old.

I’m attempting a fresh look at another very old argument. But this time, the one usually regarded as the most powerful of the atheistic arguments—Epicurus’s Problem of Evil (POE). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy notes that “the POE is generally regarded as the strongest objection to theism.” The POE is definitely a proof—and a damned good one—that God, as characterized in the dictionary cannot exist.

Preliminary Comments

It is noteworthy and—at first glance—somewhat peculiar that there seem to be so many famous, theistic arguments, most with familiar proper names, while the POE apparently stands alone as the only properly—and somewhat awkwardly—named proof of atheism. But, upon reflection, it is not at all surprising that the existence of an invisible, intangible entity, whether angel or atom, should be problematic. The burden of proof always rests on those proposing the existence of something non-empirical. That’s why God needs a hell-of-a-lot of proving.

I think it fair to say that most atheistic writings have been focused on the contradictions, absurdities, and horrors to be found in the Bible and other “sacred” texts, and on exploring the true origins, evolution, and psychology of religious concepts. However, despite the valuable insights and logical acumen of those efforts, they are irrelevant to the matter of God’s existence. Every sentence in the Bible could be proven false, or every cleric a convicted child molester, and God might still exist.

This latter point is often confusing to many Christians who automatically think of Jesus whenever God is referenced, hence, think that atheism is, somehow, the denial that Jesus existed. To express their predicament in all its absurdity, they are trapped in the ludicrous morass that Jesus is God, but God isn’t Jesus! (Jesus is not part of the standard meaning of “God.”)

POE—Complexity

Googling the POE means venturing into a daunting maze of scores of references, sub-topics, modifications, often inscrutable analyses to emerge … Where?

As an ordinary person, it can be disheartening to see runaway complexity spoil the fresh enthusiasm for a new research project. Yet, as a philosopher, I can often see the need for a qualification here, a distinction there. That is what philosophers do. Distinguo! Distinction is an essential tool in honest analysis. But it is important to recognize that some distinctions may be spurious, frivolous, just make-work padding.

It would be regrettable if this impression of inscrutable complexity were to alienate genuine truth-seekers. It must be emphatically declared that the POE is the simplest, soundest, most pellucid atheist argument ever devised.

POE—Versions

Epicurus – Hume

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence cometh evil?”

Modus Tollens

If an omnipotent, omniscient, good god exists, there is no evil. There is evil. Therefore, that sort of god does not exist.

Specific and Direct

In this, and every five minute period, a small child will die of cancer (100,000 annually). It follows that there is not a morally good agent or agency aware of this fact and capable of easily effecting a cure.

Analogy

Bill Gates was seen at a small, local bank, begging for a $1,000 loan. How come?

Portrait of Epicurus, founder of the Epicurean school. Roman copy after a lost Hellenistic original. Image credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Comments

Apart from questions as to Epicurus’s actual or original authorship, and what that original version looked like, there is a consensus that, to make the argument airtight, omniscience must be added as a relevant divine property. Clearly, God cannot be faulted for not remedying an evil that he doesn’t know about.

The suggestion that modus tollens is the basic form of the POE is surely on the right track. But that version, as it stands, lacks credibility for its terseness. That, and all versions are enthymemetic, highly compressed statements that require unpacking and expansion to be logically perspicuous. If we claim that God’s existence implies no evil whatsoever, we can hear the immediate challenge: “Wait a moment! No death? No pain at all? No itches? Does athlete’s foot prove that God doesn’t exist??”

It is needlessly confusing to see expressions like “Epicurus’s Trilemma” and “Hume’s Dilemma,” as though we knew what’s to be counted, and the “pure” forms of the POE. Rather, the POE is usually expressed as it is for rhetorical effectiveness, not logical precision; it is deliberately terse. Its conclusion is best considered not as a proposition at all, but rather, a gesture, an exasperated, bewildered shrug. How come? What’s going on? In other words, the affective desperation over an impossible state of affairs.

The bottom line is this: the POE presents us with an inconsistent set, a set of statements that cannot all be true. What gets rejected to break the inconsistency is the real question. And, that brings us to the divine attributes that are the focus of the POE.

Divine Attributes

First, the true, underlying difficulty: in discussing God, unlike his anadromic crony “dog,” we are not discussing God, but only “God-concepts,” ideas of God. Unlike dogs, we cannot actually examine God to see which of our ideas correspond. The ideas are all we ever have: fuzzy competing, individual and cultural beliefs evolved over millennia, without the sobering yardstick of reality to help tame speculation. The same for ghosts; say what you may about them, none can prove you wrong.

As for divine properties, my recollection is that my pre-college instructors—the Sisters of St. Joseph and the Norbertine Fathers—emphasized omnipresence (no one used “ubiquity”), all-just and all-merciful. The first was to remind us that God was right there, closer than our skin, whenever we contemplated a sinful act; and his justice would be stern. On the other hand, considering my perennial “bad thoughts” and “bad acts” (those were the standardized confessional euphemisms for sexual transgressions, all of them, deadly MORTAL sins), I hoped that God favored his merciful side and forgot all that “justice” stuff.

I do recall that “all-just” and “all-merciful” occasioned my very first sense of theological contradiction. I couldn’t understand how anyone could be both, or how such a God could reasonably judge a sinner.

Essential Properties

There is an oft-seen addendum to the POE: “Is he neither able nor willing (nor aware)? Then, why call him God?” Philosophically, this fascinating postscript raises all kinds of questions about properties, necessity, and identity.

Working withing the usual “subject-quality” or “substance-attribute” framework, ordinary people, animals, and things are conceived as having a central “core,” an essence without which, they would not be what they are. Various properties attach to that core, most considered incidental or accidental, such as a headache or spatial position.

The rub is that none of this applies to God. He does not just “happen to have” certain attributes. All his properties are essential. Unfortunately, “essential property” is a fairly obvious oxymoron. If it’s essential or constitutive, it’s part of that core essence and not a property at all. So, if asked how many properties God has, and the reply was “None,” that would be the seemingly cogent supportive reasoning.

But, the same aura of reasonableness could be given for “One,” “Eight,” “Many,” “Infinite.” … What better demonstration of the futility of logic in the theological asylum? It is fair to note that some attributes are more general, hence, more inclusive than others. “Goodness” probably includes “Merciful,” and “Infinite” ought to cover “Ubiquity” and “Eternality.” Yet those latter three are listed as separate properties by Aquinas.

Well, not quite! They’re listed as separate but aren’t really. Stressing divine simplicity, he claims that all attributes are one and the same in God. (Whatever that means.) On the question of divine properties, Aquinas is about as helpful as he is on the Trinity. It is noteworthy that two of the three POE properties—omnipotence and omniscience—do not even make his list of the “Elite Eight.”

Incidentally, Aquinas’s own solution to the POE is so complex, contrived, and unsuccessful that even the Thomistic expositor expresses grave reservations in virtually every paragraph.

The Meanings of ‘Evil

I confess: I cannot define “evil”; but, I know it when I see it. So do we all. I think I know how to use the term, notwithstanding borderline cases where I’m unsure if the term applies. All this is true of most terms, for most people.

I would suggest that evil, and its pious partner sin are archaic, quasi-obsolete terms.

More than that, they are prime specimens of a highly emotive, melodramatic language suggesting, for many, the antics of a preacher at his theatrical best. That linguistic family would include wicked, dastardly, scoundrel, villain, malevolent, et al. You get the idea; the language prominent in caricature, cartoons…. COMICS. The language for lighter moments when we are not being entirely serious, entirely honest. The moments indicative of escapism; a temporary respite from the real world and its problems.

But religious conservatives are deadly serious in trying to monopolize our attention with “EVIL,” christened by them as sin. Somehow, those sins always seem to involve sex. Abortion, onanism, adultery, cohabitation, sodomy,… Just listen as the preacher lingers over each of those multi-syllabic “sins,” giving each fulsome articulation; FOR-NI-CA-TION.

The sonorous rhetoric is there—as is usually the case—to conceal the vacuity of content, the absurdity of the message. The misdirection is obvious: they’re just selling a bill of gods. With all that grandiose verbiage still ringing in our ears, we may fail to notice the activities of the clergy with respect to the altar boys and choir girls. Or, the gross violations of church-state separation.

Big business and government join religion in wanting us to focus on the hokiest, most insignificant moral evils: natural evil is the rather conspicuous elephant in the room. To take just one example—arguably, the most important—notice the powers that be never dare mention overpopulation, because they all equate success with increasing population: more voters, more consumers, more believers. No, when evil is the subject, better to have us think of Vincent Price, rather than the plasticizing of the oceans or the incredible shrinking of Lake Mead.

So, if “evil” immediately conjures up images of Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff, Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, or even Charles Manson, we’re in trouble. And, heaven help us if “EVIL” paints the picture of a grotesque, prancing Satan, complete with horns, hooves, and tail. Clearly, prayer is the only weapon against such an adversary—a deluge of prayers to God imploring him to restrain Satan (which is exactly like asking Batman to restrain the Penguin). Prayer is so cheap, so easy, so available. The establishment delights in a praying populace; their slogan might well be “More Prayer – Less Protest”. They love to see the masses so earnestly engaged in making vacuous gestures to an imaginary entity. Just so is the triumph of evil complete.

One sensible approach is to ignore sensational, generalized, big E Evil, and work on specific evils. That perspectival shift can be momentous; it gets us thinking of concrete wrongs and real remedies. There isn’t much that one can do about world hunger, but those emaciated kids who live down the block—that’s doable. Evils can be vanquished, one-at-a-time; perhaps, even the genuine, major evils such as global warming.

Moral vs. Natural Evil

At some preliminary point in discussing evil, it is common practice to distinguish moral evils (war, murder) attributable to human agency from natural evils (disease, earthquakes) caused by the impersonal operations of nature. It isn’t always an easy distinction. Ironically, the evil that could spell the end of humanity—overpopulation—seems to qualify as both a moral and natural evil.

Just a moments reflection underscores the vast difference in the quantity of pain and suffering between the two: counting natural death as a prima facie evil, that plus the havoc wrought by droughts, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc. account for some seventy million deaths worldwide per year. That number dwarfs any figures from wars, homicides … . It appears to follow that we ought to work harder to combat natural evils. While weather-related evils are usually only mitigated by moderate, defensive measures, it must be acknowledged that significant progress has been made fighting disease and, even, death. Witness the remarkable increase in average life span over the past 50 years—due mostly to modern medicine. Compare that to the effectiveness of gun-control efforts or the “War on Drugs.” A large part of combatting moral evil implies changing human behavior. That’s always tough.

Whatever the merits of the moral/natural evil distinction, one point is unequivocal: even if there were no moral evil at all, the POE would still be a rock-solid, absolutely sound proof of God’s non-existence. So long as there is one two-year-old child dying of cancer, or one vertebrate dying in agony, after mauling by a lion, the POE applies. That’s right: even if there are no humans, the POE applies.

This means that, in the dissection and analysis of the POE, we need never be trapped in the labyrinths of the infamous Free Will Problem. We need never address concepts such as freedom, choice, voluntary, merit … Even without moral evil, there is still plenty of misery to go around. Certainly, enough to satisfy any philosopher’s analytic cravings.

Pain and Ethics

Initially, it appears that the job of analysis could be greatly simplified if all questions of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, et al. could be brought under the rubric of pain; that is, if evil and pain were coextensive. Could every wrong action be construed as being wrong because it causes pain? Pain, in and of itself, is unarguably a bad thing, even if sometimes instrumental to producing some greater good.

Unfortunately, the prospect of equating pain and evil seems rather dim. Small-scale embezzlement or pilfering that is never discovered; the killing of a homeless recluse in his sleep—these appear to be obvious counter-examples. Wanton killing of loners would be morally fine so long as executed painlessly.

In addition, the adoption of any utilitarian ethic with pain as a criterion necessitates:

amassing and correlating all the scientific pain data from neurology, psychology,
clarifying the concept of “mental” Are sadness, despair, grief… structurally identical to a headache in the neuro-physiological sense? Or, is “mental pain” a euphemism?
evaluating pain data for the entire animal kingdom, (and maybe plants also). Does that damned hook hurt the perch, or not?
analyzing the role of minor pains (itches, cramps) for the These are often neglected when, in fact, they themselves might be sufficient for a convincing atheistic argument.

Theodicy

An entire subdivision of theology was created for just one purpose—the concocting of responses to the POE. Known as theodicy, it might have been better termed theidiocy, given the futility of all the attempts, both noble and ignoble. The POE isn’t called “the strongest objection to theism” for nothing! Theodicy bears a strong resemblance to a catalogue of perpetual-motion proposals.

Essentially, theodicy is an attempt to alibi for God; to find him plausible excuses; to get him off the hook for that childhood cancer. And unlike the case with fish, we do know that that hook is causing considerable discomfort, if not in him, most definitely in his devotees.

Whenever they reference a “grand plan that” ultimately results in greater good, we counter with Hume’s brilliant insight—if your plan includes this child’s cancer, get a better plan! The appeal to a plan is a ruse. If Gods’ plan includes that child’s cancer, he is a murderer as surely as if he held a gun to her head. The beauty of the POE is that it just applies again at the “plan” level. Doesn’t God know another plan? Can’t he implement another plan? Doesn’t he want to? The POE triumphs again. “God doesn’t create the cancer; it comes about from nature and natures’ workings. Really? And who, pray tell, supposedly created nature and nature’s workings? The Tooth Fairy?

Part of the “plan” mentality is the idea that tossing in a few intermediate causes miraculously mitigates or completely absolves the original cause of responsibility. But, whether you shoot me directly, or my death is the end result of your Rube Goldberg contraption with a dozen intermediate, deterministic steps, you are still a murderer.

God Made Everything

Religious credos, especially fundamentalist ones, often emphasize that God made absolutely everything, including humans as they are now, with their birth genders. Thus, contesting evolution and LGBTQ issues in one fell swoop, and insisting that God’s domain covers the surge of new discoveries in astronomy. But, if language means anything, then “God made everything, either directly, or as part of his plan” must mean that he made hurricanes, germs, poison ivy, and cancer. I believe that even the most devout, in certain traumatic flashes, perceive the correctness of the POE, and the blatant contradiction involved in asserting that God made everything, except the malignant cells killing this child. Praying to God to cure an illness is a bit like asking the killer who just stabbed you if he wouldn’t mind giving you a lift to the hospital.

The Fatal Mistake

The three “omni” properties in the POE are usually considered as constitutive; lacking any one of them, God would not be God. But that is highly debatable:

The difficulties already noted in the notion of “essential property”;
The many gods of various religions who were not good, let alone all-good;
Most gods of polytheistic religions lack the “omni” prefacing their

In the evolution of the concepts of gods, in defending against new, competing gods, better and more elevated degrees of desirable properties get attributed to the deity in question. The danger is to take the ultimate step and invoke the “omnis.” The difference between “very powerful” and “omnipotent” is like the difference between zero and one—seemingly very small, but actually infinite. Problems with “omnipotence” are too familiar to discuss in detail. (Can God commit suicide?) And omniscience is infinitely reflexive; he would have to know x, and know that he knows x, and know that … .

The Problem with Perfection

The concept of “perfect” is, if anything, even more inscrutable. Perfect implies finished and complete, which implies static and changeless, which implies unresponsive and inactive. For a perfect being, any change is a change from perfection, a point my students always found hard to grasp. A perfect god cannot interact with humanity, cannot respond to prayer, cannot do anything! A perfect god is useless. Perfection comes with a Draconian price tag. If you must have a god, be sure to make him imperfect. (Zeus was always more fun than Jehovah.)

Perfection is one, but only one, of Aquinas’s eight. Unfortunate, since perfection is probably the most inclusive; your best shot for a one-property deity. Aquinas was, of course, only reworking the theories of his philosophic idol, Aristotle, whose concept of God (Unmoved Mover) is perhaps, his most infamous blunder. By definition, the greatest being can only exercise his greatest faculty—thought—on the greatest subject. Which means that all God can do is think about himself! Another useless God!

Omni and Maxima

No, we’re not switching to automobiles. As mentioned, as God-concepts developed, the irresistible tendency was to start using superlatives. Originally, gods were just the hypostatization of the unknown causes of natural phenomena such as lightning, volcanic eruptions, abundant harvests, etc. “Omni” was rarely a preface. God was just the “being above the sky who sent that tornado.” Omnipotence, omniscience, and all the other superlatives must be jettisoned for the dead-end, dead weight blunders they are. (Mathematics has special examples of the tricky problems arising from “maxima.) We must, instead speak of “really powerful,” “very bright,” etc.

“There is a good person in India who is brighter and stronger than anyone in America.” I submit that this is an intelligible, empirical hypothesis, theoretically capable of confirmation, and quite possibly, true. None of that changes if the being is an extra-terrestrial. (Just much harder to confirm.) Would such a being be God? A god? That is unclear. But the question itself is normative, not factual; it all depends on what one is willing to call “God.” As a case in point, the Process Theology of Charles Hartshorne and Alfred Whitehead does abandon the “omni’s” and feature a changing “god-in-process.”

The Best Worst Case

In pondering the POE, I have suggested using, always and only, agonizing, terminal cancer in a two-year-old child as our best test-case. (Remember that this is no hypothetical construct for our logical amusement. Oh no! Its’ a horribly real situation transpiring as you read these words.)

Here, familiar, exculpatory remarks become both sickening and laughable for their outrageous irrelevance: “the child deserved it”; “it promotes soul-building”; “it’s needed for moral character”, “it’s all for the best”; it was a voluntary choice”; “it strengthens the parents”; “it’s part of a greater good”; “heaven will be worth it”; “the child was sedated; there wasn’t much pain”… ad nauseam.

So, while “the face of evil” may bring to mind Boris Karloff, or even, for some, Richard Nixon or Donald Trump, “the face of The Problem of Evil” is that of an innocent, angelic child, struck down by some unthinkable malignancy.

The POE Gestalt

There is some hesitancy in writing here, for my words may appear to be a recanting of basic principles that underlaid both my teaching career and personal life. Those students of the twentieth century’s last half were arriving at the college doors with an educational resume full of nothing but gold stars (for having correctly spelled their own names) and weaned on effusive compliments (for knowing right from left). They were bloated from a self-esteem, feel-good culture, corrupted with a vicious relativism (“true for me”), and advised always to “be themselves” and express emotion. As a consequence, I felt it my sacred duty to present and emphasize concepts such as “truth,” “fact,” “evidence,” “proof,” “reasoning,” et al. and to point out the variability, subjectivity and unreliability of emotion.

But now, with respect to the POE, I’m forced to say something positive—very positive—about emotion. Taking painful, terminal childhood cancer as a paradigm case of evil, the experience of seeing that face is the POE. The POE is not a neat set of sentences, structured as premises and conclusion. It is not an articulated, discursive puzzle providing some analytic fun. Oh, no!

The POE is a gut-wrenching, traumatic emotion combining helplessness and hopelessness, anger and empathy. It is more akin to a violent shrug than a mental perplexity. It is the silent shriek “How can this be happening?” The instantaneous conviction … “This isn’t right.” The blinding realization … “God doesn’t exist.”

Indeed, that last real-life reaction to a horrific event has been frequently portrayed in cinema and literature. Every decent human being, even the devoutly religious, will sometimes have this reaction when encountering an incomprehensible evil. It is so obvious that a good being can’t be in charge. Unfortunately, that initial emotive eruption that shocks one into the realization that there is no God, often does not endure as a lasting conviction. Prior conditioning and/or comforting clergy assure us that God loves us but sometimes “works in mysterious ways.”

That, of course, is no answer at all; just a shameful appeal to ignorance.

Conclusion

To gainsay the POE’s conclusion that God does not exist, there are three strategies:

Deny that there is This seems least plausible.
Deny that God is Why have a god who can’t be trusted?
Deny that God has one or more of the “omni” This leaves a limited god. Is he still worthy to be called “God”? This is the most promising and philosophically interesting of the solutions.

The POE remains the best and strongest, absolutely sound, and conclusive atheistic argument, obvious, at some time or other, to even the devoutly religious. It proves that God, capital “G” flaunting his “omni’s” like campaign ribbons, cannot survive the challenge of childhood cancer.