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This is a portion of a 2002 article that was included (with additional Augustine and Aquinas quotations) in my book,\u00a0Christian Worldview vs. Postmodernism<\/a>\u00a0(see the entire article<\/a>). It deals with the problem of evil, which I, and I think, most Christian apologists and philosophers of religion, regard as the most serious objection to Christianity and God\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Critics object that the free will defense (FWD) doesn\u2019t address natural evils (things such as disease, earthquakes, famine, falling off a mountain, etc.), thus it is insufficient, and fails. This isn\u2019t true at all. FWD doesn\u2019t have to address natural evils because these are a necessary consequence of natural laws themselves. For example:<\/p>\n 1. Rocks are hard.<\/p>\n 2. Gravity exists.<\/p>\n 3. Human faces, after a significant fall due to gravity, do not mix very well with rocks (assuming they happen to sit at the bottom of the fall).<\/p>\n 4. The \u201cnatural evil\u201d of a crushed skull or broken nose and severe scrapes may, therefore, occur.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Logical conclusion(s):<\/p>\n A. #1-3 are all natural laws (physics, chemistry, and biochemistry).<\/p>\n B. Natural laws are such (by their very nature, and given physical objects) that \u201cinjuries\u201d and \u201cannihilations\u201d will inevitably occur.<\/p>\n C. Therefore, \u201cnatural evil\u201d (insofar as the term makes any sense at all \u2013 it simply reduces to \u201cunfortunate natural events\u201d) is a necessary result of natural laws.<\/p>\n D. Therefore, to eliminate so-called \u201cnatural evil\u201d is tantamount to the elimination of natural laws of matter, energy, etc. themselves.<\/p>\n E. Ergo: since elimination of natural laws would produce a chaotic, utterly unpredictable and formless world, this cannot be a possibility in the natural world as we know it; therefore the entire objection to this \u201cabsence\u201d in FWD fails utterly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Natural disasters are a necessary result of natural laws as we currently know them, and this is the real world, not one of the fantasy worlds atheists sometimes invent in order to maintain their rejection of theism, on these grounds. God could have changed these laws and made them operate some other way. But He didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t have all the answers as to why He did what he did. He also could have made a world where atheists would see the clear evidence for His existence, and never resist it. But He didn\u2019t. That\u2019s because He values human choice and free will more than even obedience to Himself, even when He knows that being children of God is the\u00a0best<\/i>\u00a0and most fulfilling choice for human beings. He doesn\u2019t want coerced slaves; He wants children. And, for our part, we would much rather be sons and daughters of a loving Father than slaves of a wicked Master.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, natural laws as we know them involve decay and death. Everyone dies; we all get a \u201cdisease\u201d in that sense. To have no disease and illness would mean being immortal and never having to age, decay or die. But cells, unfortunately, degenerate. Galaxies, stars, and universes all eventually \u201cdie.\u201d So does biological life (much more quickly). That\u2019s just how it is. The universe is winding down, and so is every one of us.<\/p>\n It is said that God could and should have performed many more miracles than Christians say He performs, to alleviate \u201cunnecessary\u201d suffering. But this is precisely what a natural world with laws and a uniformitarian principle precludes from the outset. How is it that the atheist can (in their hypothetical theories and arguments against Christianity) imagine all sorts of miracles and supernatural events that God\u00a0should<\/i>\u00a0have done when it comes to evil and the FWD? \u201cGod should do\u00a0this<\/i>,\u201d \u201cHe should have done\u00a0that<\/i>,\u201d \u201cI could have done much better than God did,\u201d . . .<\/p>\n Yet when it comes to natural science (which is precisely what we are talking about, in terms of \u201dnatural evil\u201d), all of a sudden none of this is plausible (barely even possible) at all. Why is that? Legions of materialistic, naturalistic, and\/or atheist scientists and their intellectual followers won\u2019t allow the slightest miracle or direct divine intervention (not even in terms of intelligent design within the evolutionary hypothesis) with regard to the origin of life or DNA or mammals, or the human brain or eye, or even unique psychological\/mental traits which humans possess.<\/p>\n Why would this be? I submit that it is because they have an extreme reluctance to introduce the miraculous when the natural can conceivably explain anything. They will resist any supernatural intervention into biological processes till their dying breath.<\/p>\n Yet when we switch the conversation over to FWD all of a sudden atheists \u2014 almost in spite of themselves \u2013 are introducing \u201csuperior\u201d supernatural options for God to exercise, right and left. God is supposed to eliminate all disease, even though they are inevitable (even \u201cnormative\u201d) according to the laws of biology as we know them. God is supposed to transform the entire structure of the laws of physics, so no one will ever get a scratch on their face. He is supposed to suspend a bullet in mid-air so it won\u2019t kill its intended target, or make a knife turn to liquid before it rips into the flesh of yet another murder victim.<\/p>\n In the world these atheist critics demand of God, if He is to be a \u201cgood\u201d God, or to exist at all, according to their exalted criteria, no one should ever have to get a corn on their toe, or a pimple, or have to blow their nose, or have chapped lips. God should turn rocks into Jello every time a child is to fall on one. Cars should turn into silly putty or steam or cellophane when they are about to crash. The sexually promiscuous should have their sexual diseases immediately healed so that no one else will catch them, and so that they can go on their merry way, etc.<\/p>\n Clearly, these sorts of critics find \u201cplausible\u201d whatever opposes against theism and Christianity, no matter what the subject is; no matter how contradictory and far-fetched such arguments are, compared to their attacks against other portions of the Christian apologetic or theistic philosophical defenses. Otherwise, they would argue consistently and accept the natural world as it is, rather than adopting a desperate, glaring logical double standard.<\/p>\n In effect, then, if we follow their reasoning, the entire universe becomes an Alice in Wonderland fantasy-land where man is at the center. This is the Anthropic Principle! Atheists then in effect demand from God the very things they claim to loathe when they are arguing against theism on other grounds. Man must be at the center of the universe and suffer no harm, in order for theism to be true. Miracles must take place here, there, and everywhere, if theism is to be accepted as a plausible or superior alternative to atheism.<\/p>\n The same atheists will argue till they\u2019re blue in the face against demonstrable miracles such as Jesus\u2019 Resurrection. What they demand in order to accept Christianity they are never willing to accept when in fact it occurs to\u00a0any<\/i>\u00a0degree (say, e.g., the healings performed by Jesus). God is not bound by human whims and fancies and demands. The proofs and evidences He has already provided are summarily rejected by atheists, one-by-one, as never \u201cgood enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Atheists and other skeptics seem to want to go to any lengths of intellectual inconsistency and hostility in order to preserve their skepticism. They refuse to bow down to God unless He creates an entirely different world, in order to conform to their ultimately illogical imaginings and excessive, absurd requests for what He\u00a0should<\/i>\u00a0have done. They\u2019re consistent in their inconsistency.<\/p>\n By definition, the natural world entails suffering. One doesn\u2019t eliminate that \u201cdifficulty\u201d simply by resorting to a hypothetical fantasy-world where God eliminates every suffering by recourse to miracle and\u00a0suspension<\/i>\u00a0of the natural laws He put into place.<\/p>\n In any event, the world as He created it did not originally involve suffering (nor will it in the future, for the redeemed). Man could have chosen to live in such a world, just as the unfallen angels did. They chose never to rebel. But man did, and having done so, now he wants to blame God for everything for which the blame in actuality lies squarely upon his own shoulders.<\/p>\n The natural world can\u2019t modify itself every time someone stubs their toe or gets a sunburn. That would require infinitely more miracles than any Christian claims have occurred. With a natural world and natural laws, any number of diseases are bound to occur. One could stay out in the cold too long and get pneumonia. Oh, so atheists want God \u2013 if He exists \u2013 to immediately cure every disease that comes about?<\/p>\n Again, the miraculous, by definition, is not the normative. It is the extraordinary, rare event. I might stay underwater too long, swallow water, and damage my lungs. I could fall while ice skating, bump my head severely and damage my brain. I might eat a poisonous mushroom, or get stung by a poisonous snake, etc., etc. That\u2019s how the world works. It is not God\u2019s fault\u2019 it is the nature of things, and the things of nature.<\/p>\n In an orderly, uniformitarian, largely predictable natural world which makes any sense at all, there\u00a0will<\/i>\u00a0be diseases, torn ligaments, colds, and so forth. The question then becomes: \u201chow much is\u00a0too much<\/i>\u00a0suffering?\u201d or \u201chow many miracles is God required to perform to be a good and just God?\u201d At that point the atheist can, of course, give no substantive, non-arbitrary answer, and his outlook is reduced to wishful thinking and pipe dreams.<\/p>\n Materialistic evolutionists resist miraculous creation at all costs precisely because they think miracles are exceedingly rare. Christians apply the same outlook to reality-at-large. We say that miracles will be very infrequent, by their very nature (\u201cSUPERnatural\u201d). And that must be the case so that the world is orderly and predictable enough to comfortably live in, in the first place.<\/p>\n The many atheists with whom I discussed this subject (I was on a list with some 40-60 atheists or agnostics) didn\u2019t really deal at all with the difficulties inherent in making a world where there is not even any \u201cnatural evil.\u201d All they did was imagine a world in which there was no suffering (which is easy enough for anyone to do, but extremely simplistic and not exactly a rigorously philosophical approach).<\/p>\n They did not ponder all the logical \u2013 even physical \u2013 conundrums such a world would entail. A small child could opine that the world ought not to have any suffering whatever. But an adult has the responsibility to properly think through all the ramifications of that. He no longer has the luxury of the child, to create fairy-tales at his whim and fancy, about reality.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Photo credit:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>Thue<\/a>\u00a0(5-24-05).\u00a0A\u00a0car crash\u00a0on Jagtvej, a road in\u00a0Copenhagen,\u00a0Denmark.<\/span> [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a portion of a 2002 article that was included (with additional Augustine and Aquinas quotations) in my book,\u00a0Christian Worldview vs. Postmodernism\u00a0(see the entire article). It deals with the problem of evil, which I, and I think, most Christian apologists and philosophers of religion, regard as the most serious objection to Christianity and God\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":50395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,112],"tags":[1282,1283,1284,968,149,1281,4247,119,174,710,1285],"class_list":["post-50393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-agnosticism","category-philosophy-science","tag-evil-and-god","tag-evil-and-gods-benevolence","tag-evil-and-gods-omnipotence","tag-fall-of-man","tag-free-will","tag-free-will-defense","tag-natural-evil","tag-philosophy-of-religion","tag-problem-of-evil","tag-suffering","tag-theodicy"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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