Part 2 - The problem of Evil

SECULAR PHILOSOPHERS
We need to explore these problems in order to reconcile them with our faith. By studying the scriptures as well as the writings of philosophers, I believe a framework can be built upon which a reasonable argument can be constructed.
Many great thinkers have forayed into the issue of evil. Some of them were adamant against God, and ridiculed anyone who would believe in Him. These philosophers have set the table for deconstructionist thought.
Deconstructionism has led to the postmodern orthodoxy that has swallowed Europe and is increasingly affecting the sociological mores of our culture in the United States. The Enlightenment began a cynicism in thought and a rejection of the truth as absolute. Writers emerged to express their platitudes which gave way to an explosion of thought and philosophy.
One such writer/philosopher was Voltaire. Voltaire would argue that this world is not a representation in keeping with the traditional view of God. A cynic of the organized religions of his day, Voltaire saw the results of evil in devastating ways. His view attributed evil to God. He once wrote, “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”[1] He could not reconcile how it was not anything but evil that God would not have averted a tsunami that devastated Lisbon, Portugal in 1755 on All Saints Day. It killed between 15,000 and 60,000 people; some of whom were worshiping at 30 churches that were destroyed.[2] To Voltaire one less murder, one less rape or war would make it a better world and the responsibility lies on God for the destruction around him.
Voltaire once wrote in response to the Lisbon tsunami, “These women, these infants heaped one upon another, their limbs scattered beneath shattered marbles? Or would you argue that all of this is but God’s vengeance upon human iniquity?”[3]
He presents an argument of emotion; having seen the destruction of a natural disaster, the suffering and evil was too great for Voltaire to justify against God. Elsewhere he writes:
“’What crime and what sin have been committed by these infants crushed and bleeding on their mother’s breasts? Or would you say comfort those dying in torment on desolate shores by assuring them that others will profit from their demise and that they are discharging the parts assigned them by universal law?’ Don’t, says Voltaire speak of the great chain of being, for that chain is held in the hand of a God who is Himself enchained by nothing.”[4]

Voltaire speaks out of a similar emotion that we still hear today over the death of a child or awful destruction of natural disasters. Shouldn’t God restrain this evil from the world since He is good?
David Hume follows up on this thought when he wrote, “Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”[5]
Hume takes Voltaire’s dour characterization of God one step further, concluding that God is either weak, or evil. At worst, this view discredits God completely; at best, He is merely a corruption of His Scriptural attributes, but either way, Hume’s mutated God is not worthy of worship or devotion.
Hume describes man’s condition this way:
“The disorders of the mind, though more secret, are not perhaps less dismal and vexatious. Remorse, shame, anguish, rage, disappointment, anxiety, fear, dejection, despair; who has ever passed through life without cruel inroads from these tormentors? How many have scarcely ever felt any better sensations? Labour and poverty, so abhorred by everyone, are the certain lot of the greater number: And those few privileged persons who enjoy ease and opulence, never reach contentment or true felicity.”[6]

Hume’s efficaciousness is obvious, but in light of so pessimistic a perspective it is no wonder Hume could turn to blame God as weak and unmoved by the plight of humanity. However, I believe he presumes too much in asserting that contentment is unreachable. Certainly it is unreachable through the wealth he says so many are deprived of, but there are other ways to contentment. He otherwise depicts man’s predisposition well, but these are not a result of the evil that God allows, but rather are the result of our choice to break relationship with Him through sin.
These are only representatives of the many voices who have decried the problem of evil throughout time. What are the responses to the accusations? What are the thoughts of Christian Philosophers, and what might their insights lend to the answer for the age-old question?
[1] Michael Moncur, (2003) http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/1389.html

[2] Chris Walton,(2005) http://www.philocrites.com/archives/001562.html

[3] David Hart, “Tsunami and Theodicy”. First Things 151 (2005): 7.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Alvin C. Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 10.

[6] John Hick, Evil and the God of Love. (Harper Collins: New York, 1977), 321.