Evaluating the responses and living with what remains unanswered

Program / Course 8: God, Trinity, and Creation / Lesson 7.5

What you will learn

• Set out criteria for judging a response to evil, including coherence, fit with Scripture, fit with the evidence and pastoral adequacy.
• Describe a cumulative-case approach and its limits.
• Identify the questions that remain unanswered in each tradition and the practices the tradition offers for living with them.
• Write a short, fair assessment of the problem of evil that states a position and its costs.

The big idea

No response to evil removes the problem. A fair evaluation asks of each response whether it is coherent, whether it fits Scripture, whether it fits the facts of the world and whether it can be said to a person who is suffering. Most serious thinkers combine several responses and admit what remains unexplained. The Christian tradition also offers practices for living with open questions: lament, prayer, community, acts of mercy and hope. The aim of this lesson is to help a student reach a considered position and to hold it with honesty about its costs.

Key terms

Cumulative case

An argument that rests on the combined weight of several considerations, none of which is decisive alone.

Coherence

The quality of containing no contradictions and fitting together.

Ad hoc

Added to a theory only to save it from an objection, without independent support.

Lament

A form of prayer in the Bible, especially in the Psalms, in which the believer cries out to God in pain and complaint while still addressing God.

Theodicy and anti-theodicy

Theodicy tries to justify God’s permission of evil. Anti-theodicy holds that such attempts are mistaken, or morally wrong, as when they explain away the suffering of others.

Mystery

In theology, a truth that exceeds full understanding. It is distinct from a mere gap in explanation, but the line between them is disputed.

Theology of the cross

A phrase from Luther: God is known in suffering and weakness, not in displays of glory.

Hiddenness of God

The problem that God does not seem evident to many, which is related to the problem of evil.

Background

At the end of a study of the problem of evil, a student faces a practical question: what to think. The tradition does not offer a formula. Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin and Dostoevsky each did something different. Contemporary philosophers disagree. Some say the evidential argument is decisive against theism. Others say the evidence is balanced when all arguments for and against God are taken together. Many Christians say that the problem is real, that no argument settles it, and that faith in the goodness of God rests on other grounds, such as Christ.

It also helps to note that the problem looks different from different standpoints. A philosopher may treat it as an argument to be tested. A pastor sees it as a pain to be accompanied. A person in grief experiences it as a wound. A theologian of any tradition must hold all three viewpoints in view. The Bible itself does this: Job contains the speeches of the friends, the protests of Job and the answer from the whirlwind, and the book does not pretend to resolve them neatly.

Finally, the problem of evil is not only a problem for believers. Non-theistic views also have to account for the existence of good, of moral demands and of hope, and they face their own difficulties with suffering. A fair evaluation compares positions and does not assume that only theism has a problem. Some philosophers argue that the existence of moral evil presupposes a moral order that is easier to explain on theism. Others reject this. This lesson does not try to settle that question.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Four tests

A useful way to judge a response is to apply four tests. First, coherence: does it contradict itself or other things the tradition holds? Second, fit with Scripture: does it read the relevant texts fairly, and does it leave out any that are inconvenient? Third, fit with the world: does it make sense of what is known about nature, animal suffering, the long history of life and the facts of human cruelty? Fourth, pastoral adequacy: can it be spoken truthfully to a person who is suffering, without cruelty or evasion?

Different responses score differently. The free will defense does well on coherence and on the first chapters of Genesis, less well on natural evil. The privation account clarifies the nature of evil but says little to the sufferer. Soul-making does well in some cases and poorly in others. The suffering God speaks directly to pain but raises questions in the doctrine of God. The hope of resurrection does well pastorally but depends on faith in what is promised. None passes all four tests easily.

Step 2: A cumulative approach

Most mature positions are cumulative. They hold that creatures are free and responsible, that evil is a corruption of a good creation, that trials can form character, that God has entered suffering in Christ and that evil will be defeated in the end. These claims support one another. The free will account leaves the fall; the privation account explains what the fall is; the cross speaks of how God responds; the resurrection says where it ends. Together they form a story, not a proof.

The weakness of a cumulative approach is that the parts can be accused of being ad hoc, added to meet objections. A critic may say that the believer has an answer for each case but no single account. Defenders respond that a rich story is not a defect, and that the Christian faith never presented itself as a simple theory. They also point out that skeptics who rely on the evidential argument also use cumulative reasoning.

Step 3: What remains unanswered

Honest statements list what is left over. Why is there so much animal suffering before humans? Why do some people suffer horrendously while others do not? Why does God seem silent so often? Why did God create a world in which many are lost, for those traditions that teach it? These questions are acknowledged in the Catholic Catechism, in Orthodox writers who call the matter a mystery, in Reformed appeals to God’s hidden counsel and in Protestant lament.

There are three honest postures toward these questions. One is to hold that they have answers beyond human sight, which is the posture of trust in God’s wisdom (Isaiah 55:8 to 9, Romans 11:33). A second is to hold that they weigh against belief and need to be weighed with other evidence. A third is to refuse to treat them as an argument and to answer them with action and prayer. A student can judge which is right, but should avoid pretending that the questions are not there.

Step 4: Living with the open questions

The tradition provides practices as well as arguments. The Psalms of lament teach believers to bring their anger and grief to God, and Psalm 88 ends in darkness without resolution. The liturgies of the churches, in many traditions, include intercession for the suffering and prayer for the dead. Communities have created hospitals, hospices and relief for the poor out of the conviction that God’s concern is shown in what Christians do (Matthew 25:35 to 40). Individuals have found a way to endure by sharing their suffering with the suffering of Christ (Colossians 1:24, 2 Corinthians 1:3 to 5).

Such practices are not a substitute for thought but a different kind of response. They suggest that the Christian answer to evil is not only a statement but a way of life: to resist evil, to comfort, to remain faithful in prayer, and to hope. A person who studies the problem needs to do both. Someone who thinks without compassion has missed something, and someone who comforts without thinking will be unprepared for the questions that come.

1. Which of the four tests do I tend to emphasize, and which do I neglect?
2. Which unanswered question troubles me most?
3. What would honest trust look like when I cannot explain?
4. What would honest doubt look like, and where can it be brought?
5. How can I speak to a suffering person without explaining too much?
6. What practice of lament, service or hope is open to me now?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catechism says that no quick answer exists and that the whole of the faith is the answer. Catholic writers, such as Stump, apply Thomist thought to the question, and Pope John Paul II wrote on the meaning of suffering. The Church encourages the sick to unite their suffering with Christ, and condemns any idea that suffering is wanted for its own sake.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers, such as Dostoevsky, and in the liturgy, stress compassion and the victory of Christ. The tradition prefers worship and acts of love to theoretical answers. Some Orthodox theologians warn that theodicy risks justifying evil and prefer to speak of evil as an enemy to be overcome.

Protestant

Reformed and Lutheran traditions teach trust in God’s hidden counsel and the theology of the cross. Evangelical and Wesleyan churches often stress prayer, community and hope. Protestants differ widely, from those who give a detailed account of God’s purposes to those who think such accounts presumptuous.

Atheist and agnostic views

Some philosophers, like Rowe, hold that the problem renders belief in God unreasonable. Others, such as some agnostics, hold that the evidence is inconclusive. Some nonbelievers respect the Christian response as a serious attempt to face suffering, and others find it inadequate. The conversation need not be hostile.

Jewish voices

Jewish thought after the Holocaust includes protest theology, in which faith continues together with a charge against God, and the view of Emil Fackenheim that Jews must not give Hitler a posthumous victory by abandoning faith. These voices model a way of facing evil that is neither easy belief nor easy denial.

Why it matters

A student who has worked through the arguments is likely to meet someone who is suffering. The two experiences differ. The study of arguments gives a vocabulary and honesty about limits. The meeting with a sufferer calls for presence, truthfulness and care. This lesson ties them together by saying what can be asked of a response, what cannot be demanded of it and how a person can live well with what is left unexplained.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. What would you want to avoid saying to someone who is suffering, after studying this module?
2. Which of the tradition’s practices for facing evil is least familiar to you, and what might you learn from it?
3. If you were asked to defend the Christian view of evil in two paragraphs, what would you say, and what would you admit?

Independent assignment

An honest statement

In your own notebook, write 500 to 600 words in the first person, as an exercise in reasoning. State what you think about the problem of evil after this module. Name the responses you find strongest, say what you think they cannot do, name the questions you cannot answer, and describe one practice you would keep in view when facing evil. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Problem of Evil Re-read the sections on responses and criticisms.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hiddenness of God A related problem often paired with the problem of evil.
• Eleonore Stump, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering Read selectively on Job and on the meaning of suffering.
• Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ Read the chapters on the cross and the question of suffering.
• Blaise Pascal, Pensées Read selectively for Pascal’s reflections on human misery and hope.
• Job 42:7 The Lord rebukes the friends.
• Psalm 88 A lament that ends in darkness.
• Romans 11:33 How unsearchable are his judgments.
• Colossians 1:24 Sharing in Christ’s sufferings.