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"Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?"
Developed by John W. Cooper, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin Theological Seminary
A. The Greatest (Creaturely) Good: A Redeemed Creation. [God is the Greatest Good]
Question: "Why did God create the world if he foreknew that his creatures would sin and cause so much evil and suffering (moral and natural evil)?"
Answer. God from the beginning intended to save his fallen creation. It is reasonable to assume that in his infinite wisdom he knows that a redeemed creation and human race, in spite of all their evil, is a greater good than not creating anything at all or not creating a world with creatures who have the capacity for loving and serving him willingly. Redeemed creation is the greatest creaturely good. Achieving it includes the following goods that outweigh the evils connected with them.
B. The Greater Good of Creatures with the Capacity for Choice (The Free-Will Defense)
Question: "Why did God create beings who could do evil?" Answer: A world with creatures (angels and humans) who image God and can serve him by choice, knowingly and willingly, is a better world (greater good) than one without such creatures and better than no world at all, even though it also includes the possibility of evil choices.
Question: "Why didn't God prevent these creatures from choosing evil” Answer: God can foreknow the evil choices of creatures, foreordain those choices by willing to create those creatures, and can prevent them from making evil choices. But God cannot prevent those choices without negating the power of choice he gave as part of the good created nature of those creatures. It is not logically possible that a choice be both free and caused by God. So God cannot both maintain the greater good of creatures that have choice and at the same time prevent them from doing evil they choose to do.
Question. "If in glory we will be 'unable to sin' and still retain our human nature, why didn't God make us that way in the first place?" Answer: Perhaps we will still have the capacity to choose but, having been saved from sin, find it practically impossible to sin again, like a child who has learned not to touch fire by touching it. And perhaps bringing humans to this condition requires the experiential learning involved. This is only a theory, not a doctrine. But it does demonstrate that the Augustinian view is not necessarily incoherent. And it helps answer the next question.
Question: "But why didn't God create people whom he foreknew would freely choose to remain obedient? Answer: It is possible that any finite, contingently good creature would eventually sin.
Conclusion: The possibility that the existence of creatures with choice is a greater good than the evil they do is sufficient to show that the existence of evil does not necessarily conflict with the existence of God. God foreknew and permitted the initiation of evil, but God did not cause it. He permitted evil for the sake of achieving greater good.
Question: "Why didn't God create the natural world, animals, and human bodies without the capacities for suffering, harm, and degeneration?" (possibility of natural evil)
Answers: a. Only God is a necessary being. All creatures are contingent, interdependent within their natural support systems, and thus vulnerable to degeneration. Any cosmic system of creatures would have to consist of common kinds of materials and be subject to common lawful conditions. Any such creaturely system would be subject to change and possible degeneration.
b. The capacity for sensation is necessary for the existence, self-protection, reproduction, and flourishing of some kinds of creatures; this flourishing of species is a greater good than the undue suffering some individuals endure because of their capacity for sensation.
c. As for humans, the kind of bodies we have, which include the possibility of physical suffering and degeneration and the possibility of experiencing evil through our senses, is necessary for exercising our capacities as moral-spiritual beings in a natural world.
Question: "Why does God allow natural evil?" (actuality of natural evil)
Note: It is possible that some suffering, degeneration, and non-human death are not evil but part of the good order of creation. E.g. insect death, some carnivorous predation. Scripture teaches that there are natural consequences of the human fall (Gen. 3; Rom. 8). But does it teach that the creation order involves no degeneration or death in the natural and animal realms? No volcanoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, decomposition of organic matter, etc.? The difference between creation and fall in nature is not always easy to discern.
Answer: Natural evil is a direct or indirect consequence of the fall, i.e. evil actions of moral agents that God does not always prevent (because they are responsible beings).
a. The natural consequences of the fall are serious and systemic. In faithfully maintaining his fallen creation in order to save it, God allows as much natural evil as there is.
b. It is possible that some natural evils, especially those that harm humans, are induced by spiritual beings (fallen angels) whose actions God does not always prevent.
c. Some natural evils are caused by individual or cumulative human actions which God does not prevent. E.g. the extinction of species, environmental pollution, forest fires.
b. But if God always prevented evil acts, he would thereby override and eliminate the freedom and responsibility of the agents he created, whose agency is ultimately a greater good than the evil they do. God is committed to redeeming the human image-bearers he made, so he is committed to maintaining their capacity as agents and limiting their evil in history.
c. Part of God's providence is to uphold the good order of moral authority and power, such as the authority of parents and the authority of the state. This authority is intended to uphold the good and to deter evil. The moral evil that is done within this order is not greater than the good purpose of the order combined with the good done within it.
Question: "Why doesn't God (miraculously) intervene to prevent (more) natural evils?"
Answers: a. Perhaps God does regularly perform numerous miracles in the natural order without which there would be even more natural evil.
b. God is committed to the world he created. Given all the natural evils that occur in a fallen creation, it seems impossible for him to intervene miraculously to avoid most of those evils without discontinuing the creation-order itself. In his wisdom he providentially places limits on natural evil but does not miraculously eliminate it (until the end of the world).
c. God's providence uses possible physical pain and injury to prevent greater harm / and evil and thus to uphold the good of creation. E.g. animal fear of fire; knowledge of the consequences of smoking to deter smoking. The harmful consequences of violating creation order are necessary means of maintaining the creation order and avoiding greater evil.
Question: "I can imagine a world without so much moral and natural evil, suffering, and death. Why couldn't an all-powerful God create that world? Couldn't God have gotten us through the twentieth century without Auschwitz or Hiroshima or Communism?"
Answer: "You can imagine such a world in the same way that you can imagine yourself flying or single-handedly doing air-traffic control at O'Hare Airport. People also imagine going back in time and preventing what happened from happening (which is logically impossible),
But do you really know that it is possible to design and build such a natural world? Is it really possible to make this natural order or any finite, contingent natural order the way you imagine? If imagining a world includes imagining its design and management, perhaps you can't really imagine a better possible world that God could and should have created.
And can you really imagine history with less sin and evil in it? That would involve infinitely complex issues of balancing the freedom, responsibility, natural circumstances, life story, and final destiny of every human being in conjunction with every other human being and relevant natural circumstance in history in such a way that the total amount of moral evil would be less than the amount in the actual world. It is far easier to manage air traffic at O'Hare Airport single-handedly than to second-guess the wisdom of divine providence in history."
Question:. "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people as well as to bad people? Why does God inflict suffering on people?"
Answers: a. No human being is without sin and guilt. God is just to punish fallen humankind using moral evil. Some (not all) instances of suffering and harm are justly deserved by those who receive them for their sin against God. (This does not apply to those whose sins are paid for by Christ.) And some instances are justly deserved because of sins against other humans. Just punishment is not an evil, although the events God uses may be evil (e.g. a crime).
b. God is just to punish fallen humankind with natural as well as moral suffering. For humans are natural as well as moral beings. To the extent that humans are part of the natural order, which is a systemic whole, and since our fall precipitated natural evil, natural suffering is a just punishment for humankind. Some cases of natural suffering may be divine punishment (for those outside of Christ).
Notes: a. Christians are never being punished by God when bad things happen to them, because Christ has fully paid for all their sins. He may be disciplining them, however ("soul-building"). (There is an important distinction between retribution and discipline.)
b. We must exercise great caution in pronouncing that particular instances of the suffering of sinners are directly and primarily intended as God's punishment: e.g. a gay person who gets AIDS or an earthquake on a worldly city. Such events are always reminders and warnings, but may not always or primarily be intended by God as punishments.
Question: "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?"
Answers: a. Some challenge is necessary for the development and flourishing of human capacities and virtues ("soul building," imaging God) even in an unfallen world.
b. Some challenge, adversity, or suffering of moral and natural evil is necessary for the "soul building" of fallen but redeemed human beings in faith, hope, love, knowledge, justice, self-discipline, and other virtues (cf. Rom. 5:4f. and James l:2f.).
c. Unjust distributions of good and evil are an unavoidable consequence of the fallenness of a good creation order. In maintaining the good but fallen creation, God allows some bad things to happen to his people and some good things to happen to evil people, sometimes far out of proportion to justice and the need for soul-building. Allowing this in the wisdom of his providence is consistent with God's faithfulness to his people, caring for them, frequently preventing their harm, giving them the strength to endure, and rescuing them from it.
Question: "Why doesn't God prevent more natural and moral evil, reduce its frequency and intensity, or distribute it more justly?"
Answer: Sin and evil are truly awful, the opposite of everything that God is and stands for. If God significantly reduced the amounts, kinds, and distributions of sin and evil in the world, perhaps their true horror would be blunted and masked. As a consequence, perhaps the true need of humans and the whole creation for God's salvation would be blunted and masked.
Conclusion: The Deductive Atheological Argument Is Defeated 1. Scripture, theology, and Christian philosophy identify a number of greater goods that God (possibly) intends within the ultimate greater good of a redeemed fallen creation.
2. These greater goods are collectively more than sufficient to demonstrate that it is not impossible for evil to coexist with an all-knowing, all-powerful, perfectly good God. The deductive atheological argument concludes that it is impossible. But if it is possible, then it is not impossible. The deductive atheological argument is defeated.
B. The Challenge: Gratuitous evils are not addressed by the greater good defense, since an evil leading to a greater good is by definition not pointless or gratuitous.
C. Responses 1. Perhaps there are no genuinely pointless evils. Perhaps all instances of moral and natural evil are unavoidable for and conducive to greater goods, but these connections are not apparent to humans. In that case there are only apparently pointless evils, no genuinely pointless evils.
2. Perhaps there are some cases of genuinely pointless evil that are inevitable in a good but fallen created order. Perhaps if God always intervened to prevent moral agents from committing pointless evils he would eliminate their moral responsibility and mask the gravity of sin. For in itself evil is pointless. And perhaps if God always intervened to prevent pointless natural evils, he would hide the ultimate pointlessness of natural evil, or alter or discontinue the natural order he created, or override human agency in it. Thus, perhaps it is consistent with the greater good of God's maintaining a fallen creation in order to save it that he allows a certain number of genuinely pointless moral and natural evils to occur. Thus the reality of some pointless evil is not contrary to or beyond the scope of the greater good defense. As particular events these evils are pointless. But as a group or set of events they may be necessary for or conducive to the greater good.
Question: "Isn't it irrational and existentially unsatisfying for Christianity to urge faith in God without being able to explain why God allows so many evils? Isn't this a cop-out?"
Answers: a. No. Scripture is clear that God is far above humans and that humans cannot understand the thoughts and ways of God. It is also clear that there are many things that God does not reveal to humans. Consider Job. Claiming that Christians should be able to explain all God's reasons for allowing the fall and evil in history is actually inconsistent with the Christian view of the Creator-creature relation and with its view of special revelation.
b. General and special revelation, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, provide Christians knowledge of God which is sufficiently strong to withstand the apparent anti-theistic implications of evil. Again, consider Job. Christianity also acknowledges that in a fallen world even Christians can be troubled by doubts.
c. Christians are in no worse position than anyone else. No worldview, religion, or philosophy provides a fully satisfying explanation for evil, and none can prove the truth of its explanation. All humans are fideists in their attempts to understand evil.
d. Christians cannot explain God's wisdom in ruling history. (We can't even do single-handed air traffic control at O'Hare Airport or fully manage our own lives.) But non-Christians cannot explain how to devise and operate a cosmic order with more good and less evil or how to realize a version of world history with more good and less evil. Thus they cannot show that Christian faith in God's providence is unwarranted.
A. The Argument - It is improbable that God exists, and thus it is irrational to believe in him, given the amounts, kinds, and distributions of evil in the world.
B. Responses 1. The Argument is not compelling. The conclusions of inductive arguments are general and probable, not necessary and certain. They can be defeated or relativized by a single counter-example. Furthermore, evidence that an inductive conclusion is false is sometimes person-relative. For example, suppose it is true that 99% of Calvinists are up-tight, and that Gary is a Calvinist. Thus it is 99% probable that Gary is up-tight. But if Dawn has good direct evidence that Gary is not up-tight, the 99% probability does not undermine her belief that Gary is not up-tight. The same is true of Christians who "know that their Redeemer lives." All the evil in the world does not reasonably count for them as evidence against God.
2. The Argument is not valid. The inductive atheological argument involves two components: a) a statistical generalization about the amounts, kinds, and distributions of evil in the world; and b) a judgment about the relation between the quantity of these kinds of evil and the probability of God's existence ("x amount of evil makes the probability of God's existence less than 50%"). Neither component can be validated. a. There is no way to derive a valid sample class in order to make the statistical generalization. One would have to have a valid sample of all the actions of moral agents and all the natural events since the beginning of time and correctly classify them as pointless or conducive to a greater good. Gathering data that will be valid according to the laws of statistics is literally a practical impossibility.
b. There is no way to calculate the relationship between quantities of evil and the probability of God's existence. How much evil leaves God's existence 90% probable? How much more reduces it to 80%? At what point does it slip below 50%?
Result: Although the inductive atheological argument is initially persuasive, and although many people experience so much suffering and evil that it seems compelling, it cannot be formulated validly according to the laws of statistics and inductive logic. Therefore it cannot be sound or rationally cogent.
Question: "There are a number of good arguments, though not proofs, for the existence of God from the contingency and order of the world. But there are also some persuasive arguments against the existence, power, or goodness of God from evil in the world. Doesn't the game of arguing about God's existence end in a tie? Don't the arguments off-set one another so that in the end there is no rational momentum regarding question of God's existence one way or the other? And if the game ends in a draw, why play it in the first place?"
Answers 1. If it were a tie game, rational fideists would (smugly) point out that faith is basic and that worldview questions cannot finally be settled by reason, although they can be argued and evaluated. The arguments are complex, and assessing them involves many other cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions of human life. (So what else is new?)
2. It is not a tie game. a. The arguments for God's existence seem to be sound, if not cogent. But the arguments against God's existence have been exposed as unsound.
b. Even if there were sound arguments against God's existence, the evidence for God's existence (the kinds of order and value in the cosmos) is logically and ontologically more basic than the evidence used against God's existence (disorder, suffering, and evil). Thus the arguments for God take precedence over the arguments against God. Consider the following. Arguments for God's existence show that there is one absolute and good being. Therefore evil cannot be as ultimate as good. It seems incoherent to claim that there are two equal and opposite ultimates, one good and one evil, or that good and evil are two equally essential aspects of one absolute reality. Ontologically, there can be good without evil. But if there is evil, it is contingent and dependent upon good. As Augustine said, evil is "privation" of (i.e. deviation from) and parasitic on good and being: It is disorder, destruction, and non-being. This definition of evil is also evident in the order of the world. For example, there can be life without death, but no death without life; there can beauty without ugliness, but no ugliness without the category of beauty by which to judge it; there can be truth without falsehood, but no falsehood without truth, order without disorder, but no disorder without order. Thus a good God and a good creation order are logically and actually prior to evil. And therefore the arguments against God from evil are not as weighty as the arguments/or God. You can have “it’s the way it’s supposed to be” without “not the way it’s supposed to be”, but not vice versa. You can have the ideal without the flawed, but not the flawed without the ideal