God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will 0197556418, 9780197556412

Table of contents :
Cover
God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. God and Suffering
1.1 Attractions of Theism
1.2 The Problem of Suffering
1.2.1 Consistency Matters
1.2.2 Pointless Evils
1.2.3 Amount, Intensity, and Distribution of Suffering
1.3 Justification Attempts
1.3.1 The Punishment Theodicy
1.3.2 Building Better People
1.3.3 The Gift of Free Will
1.4 Going Forward
2. The Value of Free Will
2.1 Free Will of What Sort?
2.1.1 The Rational Abilities View
2.1.2 A Hierarchical Account
2.1.3 Libertarian Free Will
2.2 Value Proposals
2.2.1 Intrinsic Value
2.2.2 Extrinsic Value
2.2.2.1 Love
2.2.2.2 Moral Responsibility
2.2.2.3 Meaningful Life
2.2.2.4 Sense of Self
2.2.2.5 Truly Good Acts
2.2.2.6 Genuine Creativity
2.3 Taking a Measure
2.4 Objection: Natural Law Violations
2.5 Additional Problems
3. Divine Intimacy Theodicy
3.1 The Character of Religious Experience
3.2 Suffering as Religious Experience
3.3 The Value of Relationships
3.4 Divine Passibility
3.5 Problems for the Divine Intimacy Theodicy
3.5.1 The Objection from Cruelty
3.5.2 The Objection from Lunacy
3.5.3 The Objection from Ineffectiveness
3.6 Assessment
4. Skeptical Theism
4.1 Characterizing Skeptical Theism
4.2 Rejection of Skeptical Theism
4.2.1 Senor on Racist Appearances
4.2.2 Bergmann on Our Cognitive Limitations
4.2.3 Humility in the Face of Mystery
4.2.4 Rea on the Threat of Skeptical Spread
4.3 Conclusion
5. Hell and Fault
5.1 What God Does
5.2 Lewis on a Neglected Argument from Evil
5.3 An Expanded Argument Concerning Responsibility and Hell
5.4 The Fault of Others, the Goodness of Hell, and a Blameworthy God
5.5 Hell and Individual Free Choice
5.6 A Streamlined Argument
6. God’s Ethics: A Workaround?
6.1 Murphy on God’s Goodness
6.2 Application to Arguments from Evil
6.3 A Big Mistake?
6.4 The Heart of God
6.5 The Value of Persons
6.6 The Badness of Suffering
6.7 Rejection of Murphy’s Move
6.8 God’s Contingent Love and Promises
6.9 The Problem of Evil Remains Powerful
7. Religion on the Cheap
7.1 A Religious Life
7.2 Theological Realism and Theological Antirealism
7.3 Initial Perspective
7.4 Making Sense of the Religious Life of a Non-​Theist
7.5 The Significance of Religious Experience
7.6 God and Explanation
7.7 Religious Agnosticism?
7.8 What Is Lost if God Is Not Real?
7.9 Closing
8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will L AU R A W. E K S T R OM

1

3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ekstrom, Laura Waddell, author. T tle: God, suffering, and the value of free will / Laura W. Ekstrom. Description: New York : Oxford Univers ty Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020042262 (print) | LCCN 2020042263 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197556412 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197556436 (epub) | ISBN 9780197556443 | ISBN 9780197556429 Subjects: LCSH: Theodicy. | Good and evil—Religious aspects. | Free will and determinism—Religious aspects. | Suffering—Religious aspects. | God. Classification: LCC BL216. E37 2020 (print) | LCC BL216 (ebook) | DDC 214—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042262 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042263 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

For my sons, Justin Luke Ekstrom and Matthew Peter Ekstrom

Contents Acknowledgments 

ix

1. God and Suffering 

1



1.1 Attractions of Theism  1.2 The Problem of Suffering 



1.3 Justification Attempts 

21



1.4 Going Forward 

34

2. The Value of Free Will 

37



38 41 42



1.2.1 Consistency Matters  1.2.2 Pointless Evils  1.2.3 Amount, Intensity, and Distribution of Suffering  1.3.1 The Punishment Theodicy  1.3.2 Building Better People  1.3.3 The Gift of Free Will 

4 6

7 13 18 23 26 28



2.1 Free Will of What Sort? 



2.2 Value Proposals 

48



2.3 Taking a Measure  2.4 Objection: Natural Law Violations  2.5 Additional Problems 

67 70 71



2.1.1 The Rational Abilities View  2.1.2 A Hierarchical Account  2.1.3 Libertarian Free Will  2.2.1 Intrinsic Value  2.2.2 Extrinsic Value  2.2.2.1 Love  2.2.2.2 Moral Responsibility  2.2.2.3 Meaningful Life  2.2.2.4 Sense of Self  2.2.2.5 Truly Good Acts  2.2.2.6 Genuine Creativity 

38

48 52 52 61 63 64 65 65

3. Divine Intimacy Theodicy 

73



86



3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5

The Character of Religious Experience  Suffering as Religious Experience  The Value of Relationships  Divine Passibility  Problems for the Divine Intimacy Theodicy 

3.5.1 The Objection from Cruelty 

75 77 79 81 85

viii Contents



3.5.2 The Objection from Lunacy  3.5.3 The Objection from Ineffectiveness 

3.6 Assessment 

4. Skeptical Theism 

87 89

90

96



4.1 Characterizing Skeptical Theism  4.2 Rejection of Skeptical Theism 

100 103



4.3 Conclusion 

128

5. Hell and Fault 

131

6. God’s Ethics: A Workaround? 

156

7. Religion on the Cheap 

188

8. Conclusion 

214

Bibliography  Index 

227 235





4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9

Senor on Racist Appearances  Bergmann on Our Cognitive Limitations  Humility in the Face of Mystery  Rea on the Threat of Skeptical Spread 

103 112 119 124

What God Does  132 Lewis on a Neglected Argument from Evil  134 An Expanded Argument Concerning Responsibility and Hell  137 The Fault of Others, the Goodness of Hell, and a Blameworthy God  145 Hell and Individual Free Choice  148 A Streamlined Argument  154 Murphy on God’s Goodness  Application to Arguments from Evil  A Big Mistake?  The Heart of God  The Value of Persons  The Badness of Suffering  Rejection of Murphy’s Move  God’s Contingent Love and Promises  The Problem of Evil Remains Powerful  A Religious Life  Theological Realism and Theological Antirealism  Initial Perspective  Making Sense of the Religious Life of a Non-​Theist  The Significance of Religious Experience  God and Explanation  Religious Agnosticism?  What Is Lost if God Is Not Real?  Closing 

158 165 170 172 175 179 182 184 186 188 191 193 194 196 201 204 210 213

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Lucy Randall at Oxford University Press for guidance, encouragement, and enthusiasm for this project. For very helpful, extensive written comments, I thank two referees for Oxford University Press. For comments on presentations of earlier versions of chapters of this book, I am grateful to audiences at the University of Innsbruck, the University of Nottingham, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Baylor–​Georgetown–​ Notre Dame Conference on the Philosophy of Religion, the Theistic Ethics Workshop at William & Mary, the Logos Workshop at the University of Notre Dame, and a meeting of the Butler Society at Oriel College, Oxford University, including Michael Rea, Kyla Ebels-​Duggan, Steve Evans, Jada Twedt Strabbing, Mike Almeida, Daniel Bonevac, Rob Koons, Amy Seymour, Tom Senor, Gene Mills, Doug Moore, Donald Smith, Catherine Sutton, Aaron Griffith, Philip Swenson, Chris Tucker, Mark Murphy, Joshua Gert, Alvin Plantinga, Amber Griffioen, Meghan Sullivan, William Abraham, Dustin Crummett, Alicia Finch, Derk Pereboom, Helen Steward, Brian Leftow, and Richard Swinburne. For valuable comments on written versions of one or more chapters, I extend sincere thanks to Neal Tognazzini, Philip Swenson, Meghan Griffith, Leopold Stubenburg, Kevin Timpe, Leigh Vicens, Elizabeth Radcliffe, Daniel Speak, Michael Rea, Tom Senor, Justin McBrayer, Chris Tucker, Aaron Griffith, and Paul Draper. Portions of this book draw from earlier published works, including “The Cost of Freedom,” in Free Will and Theism: Connections, Contingencies, and Concerns, edited by Kevin Timpe and Daniel Speak (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 62–​78; “A Christian Theodicy,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, edited by Justin McBrayer and Daniel Howard-​Snyder (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), 266–​280; “Religion on the Cheap,” Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion, vol. 5 (2015): 87–​ 113; and “The Practical Life of God,” in Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion, edited by Paul Draper (New York: Routledge, 2019), 109–​126. I thank the publishers for permission to incorporate this material.

x Acknowledgments I am grateful for a research leave from William & Mary for the 2015–​2016 academic year, during which stretches of the initial manuscript were written. For various kinds of assistance, friendship, and support, I would like to thank Teri Ancellotti, Marcia Ribeiro, Keith Lehrer, Brie Gertler, Deborah Bebout, Heather Macdonald, Sheila Foley, Patricia Cathcart, Melissa Seabolt, Long Vinh, Linda Decker, Lizbeth Jones, Scott Sturgeon, Lilian O’Brien, and Kirsten Jones Neff. My daughter, Kristen, and my sons, Justin and Matthew, provide reason for everything I do. They fill my heart with love, joy, and pride. I acknowledge their contributions to the richness of my life and to this book.

1 God and Suffering The issue of whether or not God exists is for many of us among the most perplexing and profound questions of our lives. Not everyone, of course, considers this matter an open one, and for some of the “closed matter” sort, the issue is considered not even a fit subject for intellectual scrutiny or debate. For some people, religious conviction—​even a kind of certainty—​comes quite readily, without question or intellectual struggle: faith that God is there, guiding the universe, watching out for created beings, helping them to know what they ought to do. Others consider the issue closed and not worthy of sustained philosophical attention, but from the opposite direction: belief in God seems to them quite clearly akin to belief in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy—​merely a fantasy, a childish case of wishful thinking. I consider the matter of God’s existence to be sufficiently non-​obviously settled and of sufficient import to be worth an investment of extended rigorous thought and debate. Given the roles that the idea of God and human religious conviction have played in the development of history and given the roles they continue to play in our political, social, and personal lives, it is difficult to have solidarity with the perspective that the question of God’s existence is unimportant. Similarly, steadfast commitment to God in isolation from reasoned debate, on the one hand, and fervent conviction in the non-​existence of God coupled with inattentiveness to careful philosophical responses on the part of reflective theists to arguments for atheism, on the other hand, are positions from which I feel estranged. Even if one has a settled commitment concerning the existence of God—​whether theism or atheism—​this surely calls out for periodic evaluation and re-​evaluation. I hope this book plays a role in serving such a purpose. My primary focus is on arguments from suffering against the existence of God and on a variety of issues concerning agency and value that they bring out. The central aim is to show the extent and power of arguments from evil, while giving a thorough critical examination of attempts to answer them. Although in the course of exploring these arguments for atheism, I set out, as sympathetically and fair-​mindedly as I can, an array of theistic responses, God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0001

2  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will ultimately I  argue that, as these responses stand, they are lacking in persuasive power. One matter I aim especially to bring to center stage as meriting further attention in the relevant philosophical literature is the value of human free will. Given the very significant role played by free will in prominent theistic treatments of the problem of evil, one would expect to find more nuanced, comprehensive, and widespread philosophical attention to the good or goods that human free will is thought to contain or to secure. I systematically set out and discuss a variety of ideas concerning the matter of free will’s worth. In recent work, Brian Leftow makes this declaration: If you think that evil currently provides any very strong argument against the existence of God, you have not been paying attention. Purely deductive (‘logical’) versions of the problem of evil are widely conceded to be ‘dead,’ killed off by Plantinga’s free-​will defence. . . . Once one sees the sort of thing a defence has to be to work, it seems pretty clear that some kind of free-​will defence has to be available and adequate. The debate has shifted to ‘evidential’ versions of the problem of evil, and my own view, which is not uncommon, is that these are pretty thoroughly on the ropes—​what’s called skeptical theism provides an effective counter.1

I do not agree with Leftow that deductive arguments from evil are dead, as I will explain further on in this chapter, and while I am not sure what it would take for evidential arguments from evil to count as “pretty thoroughly on the ropes,” I  do not think that what is called skeptical theism provides an effective counter, as I  explain in Chapter  4. My defense of arguments from suffering and overall negative assessment of theistic lines of response to those arguments lends support to atheism. As should be clear from the book’s project, however, in my view atheists ought not to be across-​ the-​board dismissive of the intelligence of theists, as is in fashion in some circles. (I am thinking, for instance, of Sam Harris’s many glib claims about religious believers, including that “the atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his [theistic] neighbors,”2 and of Christopher Hitchens’s view that “religion should

1 Brian Leftow, 2012, God and Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 547. 2 Sam Harris, 2011, “There Is No God (And You Know It),” Huffington Post, October 6, 2005, updated May 25, 2011. https://​www.huffpost.com/​entry/​there-​is-​no-​god-​and-​you-​k_​b_​8459

God and Suffering  3 be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt.”3 Richard Dawkins similarly suggests that religious believers—​particularly those who view God as providing meaning to their lives—​are “infantile.”4) On the other side, theists, in my view, should weaken their hold on theism in the face of arguments from evil: they should become agnostics or atheists or, alternatively, they should articulate and support better responses to arguments from evil. A  theist, then, might read this book as a call to further sustained philosophical attention to arguments from suffering and to the development of deepened, more persuasive replies to those arguments. A different reader might conclude that—​in view of what she takes to be the total body of evidence, including arguments for atheism and arguments on the other side in favor of theism, and perhaps, as well, the deep ambiguity of the relevant evidence, remaining agnostic on this issue—​keeping an open mind, committing neither to the existence of God nor to the non-​existence of God, is an intellectually appropriate course of action. My own starting point is this: I think in some ways it would be rather wonderful to be able to commit wholeheartedly, with full heart and mind, to the proposition that God exists. In the subsequent section, I will aim to say why this is so. However, in light of the power of arguments from suffering, conviction that God is real seems to me untenable, at least a conviction that is held with a high degree of confidence, high enough that it guides one’s life, regulates one’s conduct in a range of intellectual, practical, and moral matters, including motivating vigorous participation in a traditional monotheistic religious community and regular engagement in worship. To stake one’s claim as a traditional theist—​in intellectual debate and in practical life—​is a rather bold move. In my view, such boldness should be supported by rational justification that includes a response to arguments from evil that is more powerful than those currently on offer. The pain and suffering we observe in the world, including particular instances of it that are especially appalling and inexplicable, as well as the sheer enormity of the amount, the intensity, and the distribution of the atrocities and rotten aspects of existence, make a powerful case for atheism concerning God as traditionally conceived.

3 Hitchens, in a talk in Canada on Free Speech (November 2006). (https://​www.youtube.com/​ watch?v=PY8fjFKAC5k) 4 Richard Dawkins, 2006, The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin), 360.

4  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

1.1  Attractions of Theism In this book we understand God as an absolutely perfect being. The question of the existence of God at issue is the question of the existence or non-​ existence of a divine being who creates whatever universe there is and who has as essential attributes the perfections along the dimensions of value, including knowledge, power, and goodness. God is the being, in Richard Swinburne’s words, “who is essentially eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, creator and sustainer of the Universe, and perfectly good.”5 For what reasons might it seem attractive to stake one’s claim as a believer in the existence of this perfect being? My aim in this section is not to give an exhaustive cost-​ benefit analysis of being a theist versus being an atheist or agnostic, but rather to articulate some of the reasons that some people find theistic commitment and traditional religious life attractive and valuable. For instance, conviction that God is real for some believers serves as a kind of bedrock, grounding other convictions, such as the idea that life is not chaotic and random but instead ordered. 6 The idea that we have divinely ordered lives can be reassuring while, by contrast, the thought that we are subject to the vicissitudes of luck in our everyday lives can be distressing: if one might at any moment lose one’s ability to walk by way of a car accident, or one might at any time receive a cancer diagnosis or lose one’s child or gain a windfall or lose one’s job, without these incidents having any rhyme or reason—​without their being put into our lives by a perfect being who looks over the world, governing all, including the major and minor events of our lives—​then one may feel that one loses a kind of secure foothold. If it is not true that God exists, then it may well not be true that everything happens for our own good or for the good more generally. Conversely, if God is real and is in some sense in charge, then perhaps, one might think, we do not live at the mercy of bad luck. Another benefit of theistic commitment is that religious community can serve as a ready-​made home in the world, a source of sustenance and support

5 Richard Swinburne, 1998, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 3. 6 On some theistic lines of response to arguments from suffering—​for instance, Peter van Inwagen’s treatment, discussed later in Section 1.2.3—​even though God exists, we are nonetheless subject to chance and bad luck in our everyday lives. I intend in this paragraph only to point out that, for many religious believers I know, the thought that God is in providential control of the universe provides a sense of security in virtue of the conviction that everything that comes one’s way is purposive and a part of God’s plan.

God and Suffering  5 in good times and bad, a place for the celebration of major passages in life, such as from childhood to adolescence and from singleness to marriage, as well as for grieving the deaths of those about whom one cared. Being a devoted religious practitioner provides to many a sense of belonging, along with the benefits of tradition. Such benefits can be especially important for those whose biological or adoptive or foster families were locations for abuse or other dysfunctions. (In Chapter 7, I consider the matter of acquiring such benefits of religious community as an atheist or agnostic.) In some places, being a religious believer gives one standing in the community, a sort of social authority or prestige that entitles ones to respect and trust. Commitment to theism, too, for some provides hope for a blessed afterlife, one free of pain, free of disabilities, and free of illness. Many religious traditions provide depictions of a heaven offering eternal life after earthly death, a life that is blessed and wonderful, full of joy and infused with the presence of God. In religious traditions that posit the existence of hell, some believers find assurance, too, that the injustices of this life are rectified, so that there is ultimately justice after all, despite how things go as we observe them here and now and in the stories of history: some who commit atrocious wrongs—​including rapists, private abusers, liars, destructive narcissists, and betrayers—​seem to go scot-​free, affronting our sense of justice. Confidence in an afterlife in which evildoers are punished might serve to soothe this moral outrage, providing a sense of peace in the conviction that ultimate retribution is achieved. (In Chapter 6, however, I emphasize serious difficulties for the doctrine of hell.) Other goods attend a religious life. Religious visual art and song can be tremendously moving and uplifting to the psyche. Engaging with them regularly as a believer adds a richness and artistic dimension to one’s life. If one is convinced that God is real, too, then despite how alone each of us might feel at times, one has faith that we are never really alone: at every moment, we are accompanied by an absolutely perfect creator, one who is there and who genuinely cares for us. One might find in theistic commitment a source of strength for coping in the lowest moments. If convinced that God is there, then one also may feel a sense of confidence in the divine care of our children, relatives, and friends, assured that they are looked after by someone with more power for protection and healing than we ourselves have. If God is real, furthermore, then one might think that one’s life has a point. One was made for a purpose and has a destiny or a divine calling to fulfill, a thought that can give one’s life a kind of importance it might otherwise seem to lack.

6  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will The idea “I matter, not just to some other people, but also to God, the creator and sustainer of the universe!” can provide a sense of value and mission that is empowering and motivating.7

1.2  The Problem of Suffering If such benefits and advantages attach to being a theist, then why is it not clear that the most appropriate course in life is to be one—​what stands in the way of assenting wholeheartedly to the claim that God exists and participating fully in a traditional religious community or adopting a religious way of life? The central concern on which I focus is that there is a strong case to be made in favor of the claim that God does not exist. A powerful family of arguments for atheism is rooted in the horrid aspects of this world, arguments that are extensively debated in literature broadly referred to as literature on ‘the problem of evil.’ Outside the context of the philosophy of religion, this phrase (‘the problem of evil’) might bring to mind the question of how best to organize a political system so as to prevent the ascent to power of a malicious dictator, or how best to deal with individuals who have committed atrocious acts; or it might call to mind the matter of how best to raise children so that they become kind and cooperative rather than aggressive or mean-​spirited; alternatively, one might think that ‘the problem of evil’ refers to the issue of how we should organize our efforts in response to calamities and traumas such as natural disasters and domestic abuse. The problem of evil with which 7 I should emphasize, again, that my aim in this section is not to provide an exhaustive cost-​benefit analysis of having religious conviction, but rather to set out some reasons why many people, including myself, have found religious commitment and an attendant traditional religious way of life attractive. As a referee rightly points out, there are, for some, serious downsides to religious belief and immersion in a religious community. For instance, religious belief can make people rather viciously judgmental and can detach them from natural feelings of compassion toward others. Some strains of Christianity—​or at least some churches, including those preaching what is sometimes called a “prosperity gospel”—​encourage their wealthy and healthy congregants to view their own physical well-​being and economic status as evidence that they are more virtuous than those who are poor, ill, or struggling (perhaps rooted in some background assumptions about human free will and divine punishment and reward). Some religious systems, too, impose painful psychological costs on their practitioners, such as intense fear of the prospect of eternal damnation to hell, self-​abasement from the pressure to forgive abuse and betrayal, terror of demonic possession, and guilt and self-​loathing on the basis of sexual orientation. Some religious leaders have argued in favor of an array of immoral and harmful practices, such as the beating of children, slavery, and the oppression of women, encouraging moral self-​satisfaction among practitioners. Of course, other religious leaders have advocated for charity and civil rights and mutual respect, have led abolition movements, and have encouraged congregants to be generous, accepting, and loving. I have not intended to make an across-​the-​board case that religious belief has solely positive effects, either for the believer or for others.

God and Suffering  7 we are concerned, however, is a cluster of theoretical questions concerning how to make sense of the existence of widespread suffering, wrongdoing, and pain, much of it apparently lacking in point, along with the supposition that this world was created and is sustained by God. The problem arises for the Abrahamic religious traditions and metaphysical systems in which God is understood to be an absolutely perfect being, as described by Swinburne, one who is essentially all-​powerful, all-​knowing, and perfectly good. In the literature at issue, the term ‘evil’ is used to refer to anything that is bad, terrible, destructive, wrong, or devastating about our world, including human wrongdoing, human and non-​human animal vulnerability to harm, and suffering on the part of human beings and other sentient creatures. On this conception of evil, instances include rape, murder, betrayal, and genocide, as well as conditions of the world that are not (or are not obviously) the result of malicious intent or human error, such as suffering from various diseases, including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and AIDS, and suffering that results from natural disasters, including tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and strikes of lightning. Here is one informal way of expressing an argument from evil in favor of atheism. When we survey the world, we observe a whole lot of suffering and wrongdoing, including sadness, torture, injustice, famine, diseases, and anguish. There are particularly atrocious cases, virtually unspeakable kinds of maltreatment and agony. It does not look as if the wicked get their comeuppance or that the righteous are always blessed with joy and prosperity. Many instances of pain and suffering seem to be patently unfair and unearned, and many seem to be lacking in point. These observations, which many of us find ourselves rather powerless to avoid forming, make it difficult to embrace the claim that there is a perfectly good, all-​powerful, all-​knowing being in charge of the universe, a being who created the world, who guides it and who cares about the living beings in it. In fact, it seems reasonable in light of these observations to conclude that God does not exist.

1.2.1 Consistency Matters Let’s express one—​unrefined and in need of fixing, but somewhat more regimented—​version of an argument from evil, as follows. Notice that I do not claim that this argument is successful, but discussion of it is instructive.

8  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will Unrefined Argument from Evil (1) If God were to exist, then there would be no evil in the world. (2) There is evil in the world. (3) Therefore, God does not exist. A line of thought in support of the first premise is the following. God is, by nature, omniscient, so God knows everything there is to be known, which implies that God knows about the existence of every evil. Thus, no instance of evil would escape God’s notice. God is, by nature, omnipotent, so God can do anything that can be done, including preventing evil. Thus, no instance of evil is one that God lacks the power to eliminate. God is, by nature, perfectly good, and a good being prevents suffering so far as possible, so God, who can do anything that can be done, would eliminate the suffering of human beings and non-​human animals. Elaborating the thought concerning God’s goodness, Swinburne writes: . . . despite the fact that some philosophical theologians have attempted to expound God’s goodness in non-​moral ways, it seems to me deeply central to the whole tradition of the Christian (and other Western) religion that God is loving towards his creation and that involves his behaving in morally good ways towards it. There is no doubt more to loving someone than not kicking them in the teeth. But it does (barring special considerations) seem to involve at least not kicking them in the teeth. Western religion has always held that there is a deep problem about why there is pain and other suffering—​which there would not be if God were not supposed to be morally good. Again, God is supposed to be in some way personal, and a personal being who was not morally good would not be the great being God is.8

A problem for the unrefined argument from evil is that it is possible, and in fact we find it to be sometimes true, that suffering has a good purpose, as in the case in which a child suffers the brief pain of a vaccine in order to prevent the occurrence of a debilitating disease. Some evils are necessary for the existence of greater goods or for the prevention of equal or worse evils. This does not imply that the evils in question are not evils. Suffering, let us assume, is intrinsically evil—​it hurts!—​even if it contributes to and is necessary 8 Swinburne 1998, 7.

God and Suffering  9 for a greater good. The child’s vaccination may be overall beneficial, but it is still painful, and this is a shame; it is something the child has to endure. Nonetheless, the parent who takes her child to the physician’s office to get vaccinated is not, by virtue of permitting her child to endure something painful, a bad parent or morally suspect. This point helps to make clear what was wrong with J. L. Mackie’s (1955) argument from evil against theism. Mackie argued that theism is vulnerable to a stronger charge than that it lacks rational support by way of proofs for God’s existence. In fact, “a more telling criticism can be made,” he charged, namely that it can be shown that religious beliefs . . . are positively irrational, that the several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another, so that the theologian can maintain his position as a whole only by a much more extreme rejection of reason than in the former case. He must now be prepared to believe, not merely what cannot be proved, but what can be disproved from other beliefs that he also holds.9

As Mackie expresses it, the problem of evil is “a logical problem, the problem of clarifying and reconciling a number of beliefs.”10 Similarly, H. J. McCloskey contends that “Evil is a problem, for the theist, in that a contradiction is involved in the fact of evil on the one hand and belief in the omniscience and omnipotence of God on the other.”11 McCloskey’s and Mackie’s charges are strong ones: they suggest that the theist is so highly irrational as to hold logically inconsistent beliefs. The particular religious beliefs Mackie specifies are beliefs in the propositions “God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists.” Aware that there is no obvious or explicit logical inconsistency among these, Mackie writes: to show it we need some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-​ logical rules connecting the terms ‘good,’ and ‘evil,’ and ‘omnipotent.’ These additional principles are that good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good



9 J. L. Mackie, 1955, “Evil and Omnipotence,” Mind 64, no. 245: 200–​212, at 200.

10 Mackie 1955, 200.

11 H. J. McCloskey, 1960, “God and Evil,” Philosophical Quarterly 10, no. 39: 97–​114, at 97.

10  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible.12

Mackie’s case here would succeed in showing logical inconsistency only if the proposition that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and the proposition that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do, were each necessary truths. But fairly plainly they are not both necessary truths. It is consistently imaginable, in fact plausible to think, that there are logical limits to what an omnipotent thing (or being) can do, and it is possible that a good thing (or being) does not always eliminate evil as far as it can, since it is possible that the good thing (or being) has a justifying reason for causing or allowing an instance of evil. In the passage from Brian Leftow quoted earlier in which Leftow intimates that evil does not provide any very strong argument against the existence of God, Leftow pointed to “logical” versions of the problem of evil. One might call the logical problem of evil, for the theist, the problem of showing that atheists, such as Mackie (and there are others, as I  mention later), fail to demonstrate logical inconsistency among the relevant propositions. In the hands of the theist who wants to go further than showing that atheists fail to demonstrate inconsistency, the logical version of the problem of evil is the problem of showing that the particular propositions in question—​in the case of arguments like Mackie’s, concerning God and the bare existence of evil—​ are not contradictory but are, in fact, logically consistent. Robert Adams expresses a widely shared belief in the philosophy of religion (as is also given voice by Leftow in the quoted passage) in stating, “It is fair to say that [Alvin] Plantinga has solved this problem.”13 Plantinga has offered a well-​known free will defense, which aims to demonstrate the logical consistency of the relevant propositions, in particular in Plantinga’s case the propositions that (i) God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, on the one hand, and that (ii) evil exists, on the other. In describing his case as a “defense,” Plantinga says that his aim is to identify a proposition that specifies a justifying reason for God’s allowing evil that is consistent with (i) and that, in conjunction with (i), entails (ii). Plantinga emphasizes that this identified proposition need not be true or known to be true, but only possibly true, consistent with (i) and such that, in conjunction 12 Mackie 1955, 200–​201. 13 Robert Adams, 1985, “Plantinga on the Problem of Evil,” in Alvin Plantinga, edited by Peter van Inwagen and James Tomberlin (Dordrecht: D. Reidel), 226.

God and Suffering  11 with (i), it entails (ii). Making a distinction between a free will defense and a free will theodicy, Plantinga states that the defender has more minimal aims: he intends to show that propositions (i) and (ii) can both be true at once, whereas the theodicist makes a suggestion as to what God’s reason or reasons for permitting evil is or are, in fact. On Plantinga’s free will defense, roughly, it is possible that: a world containing created beings who are significantly free (i.e., free with respect to morally significant actions) is greater, all else being equal, than is a world containing no such creatures; and it was not within God’s power to actualize a world containing moral good without that world also containing moral evil (i.e., goods and evils brought about by beings who are significantly free). One objection to Plantinga’s free will defense, which he anticipates, is that God could have brought into existence created beings who have free will and who exercise their free will in each instance to do what is morally right, and thus God could have actualized a world containing only moral good and no moral evil.14 Plantinga suggests in response that it is possible that every created essence suffers from transworld depravity, a condition that makes each being who has it, were that being to be actualized, go wrong at least once with respect to exercising significant freedom. When we add this possibility to the “defensive story” earlier, we get the result, Plantinga and his many followers argue, that the propositions that (i) God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good, and that (ii) evil exists, can both be true at once, and thus that there is no logical inconsistency in believing in both God and evil. The positive verdict on the success of this free will defense is not unanimous.15 Dissenters include Daniel Howard-​Snyder, who argues that it is not at all clearly true that, possibly, every created essence suffers from transworld depravity. Howard-​Snyder suggests that “a defense succeeds only if it is not reasonable to refrain from believing the claims that constitute it.”16 In fact, Howard-​Snyder suggests, it is reasonable to refrain from believing the possibility claim concerning transworld depravity, and it is no more reasonable to believe that, possibly, every created essence suffers from transworld 14 Mackie 1955, 209. 15 See, for instance, Daniel Howard-​Snyder, 2013a, “The Logical Problem of Evil:  Mackie and Plantinga,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, edited by Justin McBrayer and Daniel Howard-​Snyder (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell), 19–​33. J. L. Schellenberg, 2007, argues that the free will defense fails, in both its logical possibility and epistemic possibility forms, in The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press). I discuss aspects of Schellenberg’s views later in Chapter 2. 16 Howard-​Snyder 2013a, 24.

12  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will depravity, than it is to believe the claim that, necessarily, some essence or other enjoys “transworld sanctity.”17 I  set aside here this particular controversy concerning whether or not it is reasonable to assent to the claim that, possibly, every created essence suffers from transworld depravity. My argument in the subsequent chapter suggests that it is reasonable to refrain from believing the possibility claim concerning the greater value of a world containing creatures who are significantly free (as Plantinga understands such freedom), all else being equal, than the value of worlds not containing such creatures. Suppose that it were the case—​ contrary to the remarks of Leftow, R. Adams, and others, including James Beebe, who writes that “all parties admit that Plantinga’s Free Will Defense successfully rebuts the logical problem of evil as it was formulated by atheists during the mid-​twentieth century” (2005, section 8)—​that Plantinga’s free will defense does not succeed. Still, one may argue that the propositions that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good and that evil exists (at all) are not logically inconsistent propositions, since it is logically possible that God has some justifying reason (or reasons) or other for which God allows evil to exist in our world (at all). It does not follow that all deductive arguments from evil against the existence of God fail. Graham Oppy suggests a logical argument from evil different from Mackie’s, as follows:18 (p) If God exists, then God is the perfect ex nihilo creator of our universe; (q) The actions of a perfect being cannot decrease the degree of perfection in the world; (r) If God exists, then, prior to all creation, the world is perfect; and therefore (s) The world is perfect. But clearly (t) Our universe is imperfect. Therefore, (u) God does not exist. Oppy thus challenges the idea that all logical deductive arguments from evil are dead, “killed off ” (in Leftow’s words) by Plantinga’s free will defense.19

17 Howard-​Snyder 2013a. For the definition of transworld sanctity, see 24–​25. 18 Graham Oppy, 2017, “Logical Arguments from Evil and Free Will Defences,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil, edited by Chad Meister and Paul K. Moser (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 45–​64, at 54. 19 Schellenberg, as well, offers a new logical argument from evil, distinct from Mackie’s. Schellenberg argues that the conjunction of three particular claims—​(i) that God is the greatest possible being (Unsurpassable Greatness), (ii) that no world created by God (or any part thereof) is a part of God (Ontological Independence), and (iii) that prior to creation (whether “prior” be taken logically or temporally) there is no evil in God of any kind (Prior Purity)—​is implicitly contradictory with a fourth claim to which theists are equally committed, namely, that there is evil in the world. Schellenberg, 2013, “A New Logical Problem of Evil,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 34–​48.

God and Suffering  13 Suppose it were true that the propositions that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good and that evil exists (at all) are not logically inconsistent. Still, I think that a theist ought to have higher relevant intellectual ambitions than showing only this, and powerful arguments from suffering remain.

1.2.2 Pointless Evils The central arguments I  want to explore are rooted in more precise observations about the instances of evil that exist in our world than the mere observation that evil exists at all.20 Over the span of more than thirty years, William Rowe advanced various arguments against the existence of God based in instances of intense suffering. Rowe (1979) highlights a case of non-​human animal suffering, in which a fawn, in the midst of a forest fire and away from all observers, “is trapped, horribly burned, and lies in terrible agony for several days before death relieves its suffering.”21 The fawn’s agony over the course of several days before death is, Rowe says, “apparently pointless.” There does not seem to be any good reason for which a perfect being would be idle in the face of the fawn’s prolonged painful experience of burned flesh, rather than mercifully putting the fawn out of its misery with a quick death. Rowe notes that the case does not alone prove decisively that our world contains cases of suffering that could have been prevented by God without thereby losing a greater good or permitting an evil at least as bad. Still, Rowe continues:

20 Plantinga does attempt to show more than that there is no logical inconsistency in believing both that God exists and that evil exists at all. He also works to show that there is no logical inconsistency in believing both that God exists and that the world contains the amount of evil it contains. (Plantinga supposes, simply to give the amount a measure, that the world contains 1018 “turps” of evil.) To reconcile the existence of God with the amount of evil in our world, Plantinga gives the following free will defense: it is possible that a world containing created beings who are significantly free (i.e., free with respect to morally significant actions) is greater, all else being equal, than is a world containing no such creatures; and it is possible that it was not within God’s power to actualize a world containing moral good without that world also containing moral evil (i.e., goods and evils brought about by beings who are significantly free); and it is possible that all evils in our world, including what we call natural evils (e.g., the suffering and devastation brought by hurricanes, floods, and diseases), are broadly moral evils (i.e., they, too, are brought about by the poor free choices of created beings, including demons); and it is possible that our world is among those with the best mix of moral good and moral evil. Plantinga, 1974, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans). 21 William Rowe, 1979, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16: 335–​341, at 337.

14  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will In light of our experience and knowledge of the variety and scale of human and animal suffering in our world, the idea that none of this suffering could have been prevented by an omnipotent being without thereby losing a greater good or permitting an evil at least as bad seems an extraordinarily absurd idea, quite beyond our belief.22

Let us call an instance of evil pointless just in case there is no God-​ justifying reason for causing or allowing it. It is standard in the literature following Rowe to hold that for there to be a God-​justifying reason for causing or allowing some instance of evil requires that there is a good for which the evil (or the risk of the evil) is logically necessary that suffices to justify an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good being in causing or allowing it. The good for which the evil (or the risk of the evil) in question is necessary could be avoiding evils equally bad or worse.23 The core idea Rowe articulates is that it is reasonable to believe that there are some instances of pointless suffering in our world, which there would not be if God were to exist, and hence it is reasonable to conclude that God does not exist. Rowe (1988) also discusses a case of intense suffering on the part of a child, an actual rather than hypothetical case of a girl who was brutally beaten, raped, and murdered by her mother’s boyfriend. The argument expressed in Rowe (1988) is this: (p) No good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting these particular cases of horrendous suffering on the part of the trapped fawn and the murdered child. (q) (Therefore) (Probably) No good at all justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting these particular cases of horrendous suffering. (r)  (Therefore) (Probably) There is no omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being. This argument, unlike the argument of Rowe (1979), is put in terms of the two particular cases of the trapped fawn and the girl who is brutally murdered. Rowe (1996) also focuses on these two cases, but the argument discussed in (1996) is expressed in terms of probabilities, as 22 Rowe 1979, 338, italics added. 23 In speaking of pointless evils, Rowe describes them as instances of suffering which God “could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse” (Rowe 1979, 336). Some suggest that there is a God-​justifying reason to permit an evil if there is some great enough good such that the occurrence of this good is made sufficiently probable by the occurrence of the evil, such that it is permissible for God to allow the evil and the good to occur, and the state of affairs of both the evil and the good occurring is more valuable than the state of affairs of neither of them occurring. Cf. Trent Dougherty, 2016, “Skeptical Theism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Section 1.1 https://​plato.stanford.edu/​archives/​win2016/​entries/​skeptical-​theism/​

God and Suffering  15 follows: (x) The probability that God exists, conditional on the claim that no good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting the particular cases of horrendous suffering on the part of the trapped fawn and the murdered child, is less than the prior probability that God exists. (y) The prior probability that God exists is 0.5. (z) (Therefore) The claim that no good we know of justifies an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good being in permitting these particular cases of horrendous suffering lowers the probability that God exists to something less than 0.5. Many have pointed out in response to Rowe (1996) that there are serious difficulties for the probability claims made in this (1996) argument, particularly that the “prior probability” that God exists is 0.5. It is not clear on what basis one ought to think that the probability that God exists is 0.5, prior to considering Rowe’s particular two instances of suffering. In light of difficulties for making and assessing the probability claims in Rowe (1996) and in light of the focus of Rowe (1988) on the particular cases of the trapped fawn and the murdered child, since I want to discuss a wide range of cases of suffering, I focus on an argument very much like that in Rowe (1979). In this I follow Graham Oppy in his excellent article, “Rowe’s Evidential Arguments from Evil” (2013), although I differ with Oppy over the success of the argument. Consider the following argument. Argument from Pointless Evil (1) If God exists, then our world does not contain any instances of pointless evil. (2) Our world contains an instance (or instances) of pointless evil. (3) Therefore, God does not exist.24

24 Notice that this is a deductive argument. Whereas some theorists in the philosophy of religion seem to call instances of “the evidential argument from evil” only arguments that are put in terms of probability or in terms of the ability of competing hypotheses to best account for some data, including our observations about evil, other theorists count an argument like this one in the main text, the argument from pointless evils, as an evidential argument. For instance, Daniel Speak writes, in discussing an argument of Rowe’s much like this one (likewise not expressed in terms of probability): “As it stands, it has the form of a valid deductive argument. What makes this argument “evidential”—​or sometimes “inductive”—​is the fact that [the premise that there are pointless evils] is not taken to be a demonstrated truth . . . Instead, the empirical premise [that there are pointless evils] needs ultimately to be supported by a kind of evidence or argument.” Speak, 2015, The Problem of Evil (Malden, MA: Polity Press), 51. The fact that a premise of an argument itself needs argument in its support does not seem to me to qualify the argument as inductive or evidential, but it is not important to me how the argument from pointless evils is classified.

16  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will Here is an argument in favor of the first premise of the argument from pointless evil. Since God is essentially omniscient, God knows all truths that can be known, including all such truths about the instances of evil that occur in our world. If God is said not to know ahead of time that certain evils occur—​ owing to, for instance, God’s atemporal existence, or owing to the fact that the occurrences of the evils in question have some indeterminacy in their causal history, such that there are no knowable truths about these evils until they occur—​still God either atemporally knows that these evils occur or God knows that these evils occur as they occur and knows ahead of time of the risk of their occurrence, given God’s knowledge of the content of God’s initial creative decree and given God’s knowledge of all the features of our world, including its natural laws, its past states, and the powers granted to created beings. Hence there are no truths about actual past and present instances of evil and no truths about risks of future evil that are unknown to God or about which God is ignorant. Since God is essentially omnipotent, God is able to do everything there is to be done, so God is able to prevent every preventable evil and, with respect to any evil there may be that is unpreventable prior to its occurrence owing to, for instance, lack of infallible divine foreknowledge and indeterminacy in the causal history of the evil, God is able to prevent the risk of every such evil (by, for instance, not creating anything at all or by issuing a fully determinate creative decree or by declining to give any created beings free will of a sort that requires causal indeterminism).25 Since God is perfectly good, God would prevent the occurrence of any evil (and any risk of evil) that God knows about and can prevent without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.26 Thus, if God exists, then there are no instances of evil which God is not justified in causing or allowing, that is, there are no pointless evils in the world.

25 I  discuss appeals to free will and various accounts of its nature later in Section 1.3.3 and in Chapter 2. 26 As noted earlier, some theorists hold that the perfect goodness of God allows for God to cause or allow an instance of evil not only when it is logically necessary for a greater good (or the prevention of an evil as bad or worse) but also when it is very likely to produce a greater good (or prevent an evil as bad or worse). I leave the formulation as it is in the main text since I construe such theorists as maintaining that the high likelihood of a sufficiently great good is itself the greater good for which the evil is necessary and so is the basis of the justification for God’s causing or allowing the evil. For instance, perhaps a perfectly good God with imperfect knowledge of the future might allow an evil to befall a certain individual because God can see with the knowledge God does have that the individual’s experiencing that evil is very likely to result in her becoming closer to God—​a line of theodicy to be explored in Chapter 3. In this case, it is the high likelihood of the person’s increased closeness to God that is the greater good for which the evil is necessary.

God and Suffering  17 Consider the issue of second premise: whether or not there are any pointless evils in the world. We could support the claim that there is pointless evil in the world in different ways. One is by pointing to cases that exemplify the premise. Another is by thinking long and hard about possible justifying goods for cases of evil and arguing on the basis of our failure to find such goods for all cases of evil that the premise is true. My discussion in the remainder of the present chapter and over the course of the subsequent three chapters will include both strategies. As to the first strategy:  one might think it is unreasonable simply to point to instances of evil as exemplifications of the contention that there are pointless evils in our world—​here’s one, and there’s one, and there’s one. But arguably it is not at all unreasonable to do so: it is part of many of our experiences of and commonsensical reactions to the world. Trent Dougherty underscores that we sometimes see aspects of the world as unjustifiably bad, such that it seems “that evil is unjustifiable,” for instance, or “God would never allow that” or “the universe is indifferent to our suffering.”27 The instance of the isolated fawn’s extended painful death is an example; the instance of the young girl’s being raped, beaten, and murdered is an example. Here is another example:  Matthew’s spine breaking in two places, ending his ability to dance after twelve years of advanced-​level training and performance, leaving him unable to attend his final two years of high school, confined to bed immobilized in braces, unable to sit and to walk without a cane, still in persistent pain after an attempted surgical repair and leaving him with a deep tissue wound from the spinal brace, a wound that requires three more surgeries in an attempt to repair. There seems to be no rhyme or reason in this happening to him, no point at all. Here is an example on a much wider scale: the slaughter of the Rwandan genocide. N. N. Trakakis observes that “one of the fundamental givens of our moral experience” is that “there are evils that strike us as unredeemable, incomprehensible, and inexplicable—​ not in the . . . sense that there are evils that may have some point that we cannot uncover, but rather that many evils are such that they have absolutely no point at all.”28 I think it is true for many of us that a fundamental given of our moral experience that some instances of evil in our world strike us as

27 Dougherty 2016, Section 6.2. See also Jerome Gellman, 2013, “The Experience of Evil and Support for Atheism,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 98–​112. 28 Nick Trakakis, 2013, “Antitheodicy,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 365.

18  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will pointless.29 Nonetheless, this is contentious, and I will take up this matter further, as well as other arguments in favor of the claim that there are pointless evils, in Chapter 4.

1.2.3  Amount, Intensity, and Distribution of Suffering Most theorists, including theists, accept the truth of the first premise of the argument from pointless evils:  namely, that if God exists, then our world does not contain any pointless evils. Some philosophers, including prominently Peter van Inwagen, however, object to the first premise of that argument and (somewhat surprisingly) accept the second premise. Van Inwagen seeks to show that, even if God exists, some instances of evil in the world can be pointless, in the sense that there is no God-​justifying reason that one particular instance of evil is actual rather than another particular instance of evil instead.30 (So, even if God exists, there may be no good reason for which Matthew’s spine breaks rather than the spine of one of his fellow dance company members.) Van Inwagen contends that there may be (and for all we know there is) chanciness in the world owing to several factors, including human free will, natural indeterminacy, and indeterminacy in God’s initial creative decree concerning which of a variety of possible worlds is made actual. Hence it is allegedly consistent with God’s nature that the created world has instances of pointless evil in it: God may be unjustified in allowing each particular instance of actual evil because neither it itself, as a token of evil, nor the risk of its occurring, in particular, was necessary for a greater good. It could be, and for all we know it is the case, that what was necessary for the greater good is that some evil or other like the instance of pointless evil occur, an evil of its type (or the risk of there being evils of its type), and this justification is sufficient for upholding the perfection of God. I think van Inwagen is right to acknowledge that there are pointless evils in the world. Contra van Inwagen, however, I think that if God as an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being were to exist, then God would allow particular evils or the risks of particular evils (for instance, the risk of 29 Meghan Sullivan, while a theist, counts herself as among “those of us inclined to think that we are somewhat reliable detectors of pointless evils around us.” Sullivan, 2013, “Peter van Inwagen’s Defense,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 396–​410, at 409. 30 Peter van Inwagen, 1988, “The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil:  A Theodicy,” Philosophical Topics 16: 161–​187; and van Inwagen, 2006, The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

God and Suffering  19 each child in particular getting leukemia and the risk, for another example, of each person in particular getting raped) only if these evils or risks are necessary for bringing about a greater good or preventing a worse evil, and the alleged (true for all we know) global justifications van Inwagen suggests for there being pointless evils are not enough to maintain God’s perfection—​ they leave sentient beings at the mercy of bad luck, which a perfectly good being who is worthy of love, trust, and worship would not do. If God were to exist as the perfect being God is supposed to be, arguably God would not leave us in a chancy world subjected to the bad luck of randomness in an initial divine creative decree and bad luck owing to indeterminacy in the world and bad luck owing to indeterminist free will granted to created beings. Others have registered this thought, as well: I cannot reasonably love, trust, and revere a God who would put me in a world with pointless evils. It is cruel to create us sentient beings and leave us at the mercy of chance. In response to someone who nonetheless agrees with van Inwagen that, even if God exists some instances of evil in the world can be pointless, and who remains unconvinced by the argument given earlier (in Section 1.2.2) for the first premise of the argument from pointless evils, we may offer a different argument from evil along the following lines. Argument from Facts about Evil (1) If God were to exist, then certain global facts about evil in our world would not obtain, including the vast amount of suffering, the intensity of suffering in truly horrid cases, and the unfair distribution of suffering. (2) These facts about evil in our world do obtain, including the vast amount of suffering, the intensity of suffering in truly horrid cases, and the unfair distribution of suffering. (3) Therefore, God does not exist.31 31 Van Inwagen calls this a global argument from evil. Strictly the first premise of the argument from the facts about evil is stated more strongly than it would need to be; one can legitimately mount an argument against the existence of God based solely on the vast amount of evil in the world or based simply in the intensity of suffering in truly horrid cases. Alternative arguments from evil are put, instead, in terms of the capacity for competing worldviews to account for the facts we observe, including the facts about evil, or instead in terms of the probability of our observations about evil on the hypothesis of theism as compared to the probability of our observations about evil on the hypothesis of a competing worldview, such as naturalism. See Paul Draper, 1989, “Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists,” Noûs 23:  331–​350; and Graham Oppy, 2013, “Rowe’s Evidential Arguments from Evil,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 49–​66.

20  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will I will develop a defense of this argument over the course of the remainder of this chapter and the subsequent three chapters. The argument is roughly this: after long and careful reflection, including a process of examining various proposals concerning reasons that justify God in permitting evil in the amount and of the kinds and in the distribution we find in the world, we find no proposals that are particularly compelling. There are no other persuasive suggestions in the literature on the problem of evil concerning what the God-​ justifying reasons for these facts might be. Thus we are justified or rational in concluding that the facts of evil concerning its amount, distribution, and kinds are facts for which there are not God-​justifying reasons. But if God were to exist, then there would be God-​justifying reasons for the obtaining of these facts, or else these facts would not obtain. But these facts do obtain. Therefore, God does not exist. The first premise of the argument from facts about evil—​namely, that if God were to exist then the named facts of evil we observe would not obtain—​ and the second premise of the argument from pointless evil—​namely, that our world contains pointless evil—​have received significant attention from theists. Broadly there are two lines of theistic response. One line of response is to say that we are not justified in believing that those premises are true, because we should not expect to be able to discern what reasons justify God in permitting instances of evil or why God would allow these general facts about evil to be what they are.32 On this response—​that of the “skeptical theist”—​from the fact that we cannot see or understand the greater goods for which evils are necessary, it does not follow that there are no such goods, and hence we are not justified in believing of any evils that they are pointless or of the facts about evil that they would not be what they are if God were to exist. This view will be taken up in Chapter 4. A second broad line of response is to attempt to go some way toward explaining why our world would have the evils in it that it does on the 32 Van Inwagen’s response to the argument from the facts about evil is along these lines, in aiming to show that the first premise is one that we cannot know to be true, although he goes further than saying merely that we should not expect to be able to discern why God would allow the general facts about evil to be what they are. Van Inwagen suggests, as we saw earlier, that, while there may be no God-​justifying reasons at all for some particular instances of evil—​such as Polly’s dying in a car accident or David’s developing early-​onset Alzheimer’s disease—​there may be (and for all we know there are) God-​justifying reasons for the existence of evil in general in roughly the amount, distribution, and kinds of cases we observe. Among these reasons may be, and for all we know is, the desire to create beings with free will, which van Inwagen takes to be incompatible with causal determinism. Notice that van Inwagen’s defense implicitly relies on the contention that possibly, and for all we know, free will is worth it, a contention I critically examine in Chapter 2. For a detailed exploration of van Inwagen’s defense, see Sullivan 2013, 396–​410.

God and Suffering  21 assumption that it was created and is sustained by God. These are theodicies, efforts to justify the ways of God to human minds. The aim of a theodicy is to provide some account or rationale: the theodicist attempts to delineate the God-​justifying reasons for evil so as to support the falsity of the contention that the world contains pointless evils and so as to support the falsity of the contention that, if God were to exist, then the indicated facts of evil would not be as they are. The theodicist’s task is an enormous one. A successful theodicy will have to identify goods that exist or are at least likely to exist on the assumption that God exists, goods that are worth the cost of the facts about evil, including the existence of particularly atrocious instances of it—​that is, it will have to show that it is reasonable to believe that the proposed goods are sufficiently valuable to justify God in causing or allowing (or risking) the evils of the world in order to secure them—​and it will also have to show that the facts about evil had to be what they are in order for God to secure those or comparable goods—​that is, that there was no other (or better) way for God to secure those or comparable goods without causing or allowing (or risking) the evils.33

1.3 Justification Attempts One natural initial reaction to the project of theodicies—​one for which I have visceral appreciation—​is that the whole endeavor is somewhat distasteful. It is natural to think that, when bad things happen to good people and when religious believers attempt to console those who suffer with reasons—​offering up alleged divine justifications for permitting such things—​they ought simply to be quiet. It is a terrible experience to be suffering a tremendous loss and, while struggling to cope with it, rather than being embraced humanely and assisted in a tangible way, to be told by others that the horrible thing that has happened is “a part of God’s plan” or “is for your own good” or that “everything happens for a reason.” An appropriate response to such comments might be something along the lines of a sharp, or at least polite but firm, remark to the effect, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I do think

33 See Daniel Speak, 2013, “Free Will and Soul-​Making Theodicies,” in McBrayer and Howard-​ Snyder 2013, 205–​206, and Justin McBrayer, 2013, “Counterpart and Appreciation Theodicies,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 193–​195, on success conditions for theodicies.

22  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will that the best way for a theist, and indeed any person, to respond to those who suffer is with compassion, which can both prompt actions that bring practical relief and bring comfort to the psyche.34 Alleged divine justifications, on the other hand, are often the last thing a suffering person needs to hear. With respect to offering theodicies to those in the midst of enduring pain and loss, “Just shut up” remains, to my mind, decent advice. Sometimes, though, people do want to know how to think about the terrible things that happen, particularly those that happen with absolutely no apparent rhyme or reason, unlike, for instance, the case of an habitual smoker who develops lung cancer (although, even in that case, a spouse might wonder why her loved one developed the disease, given that other heavy smokers do not). And theists ought to have something to say with respect to evils that appear to many people to be pointless, in support of the rationality of belief in God.35 There is, one hopes, a difference between constructing a 34 I defend an account of compassion and emphasize the central role it should play in response to suffering, particularly in the area of medicine, in Ekstrom, 2018, “Compassion in Medicine,” in The Moral Psychology of Compassion, edited by Justin Caouette and Carolyn Price (Lanham, MD:  Rowman & Littlefield), 113–​128, and Ekstrom, 2012, “Liars, Medicine, and Compassion,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 37, no. 2: 159–​180. I take compassion to have three components: a cognitive component, an affective component, and a volitional component. A compassionate person recognizes that another individual is indeed suffering rather than ignoring or denying that fact, feels pained by this recognition, and is moved to attempt to assist. 35 Alvin Plantinga contends that the “something to say” in support of the rationality of belief in God—​in the face of evils that appear to many people to be pointless—​need not be a theodicy; instead, he suggests (as part of his multifaceted treatment of evil), theists can offer an explanation for why some people take the apparent pointlessness of some evils to undercut the rationality of theistic belief: namely, that those people’s cognitive faculties are not functioning properly. When individuals’ cognitive faculties, including centrally the sensus divinitatis, are functioning properly, those individuals have seemings of God’s presence and goodness—​vivid experiences of God—​that offset or minimize or trump any seemings of pointlessness regarding cases of evil. (Plantinga, 2000, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press), 484–​499.) Plantinga claims, “someone who (like Mother Teresa, e.g.) continues to accept Christian belief in the face of the world’s suffering and evil displays no irrationality whatever. Indeed, it is the person who gives up belief in God under these circumstances who displays cognitive dysfunction; for such a person, the sensus divinitatis must be at least partly disordered” (Plantinga 2000, 492). Despite this diagnosis of the adoption of atheism or agnosticism in the face of the world’s evils, Plantinga does admit that appeal to the intuitive obviousness, or strong immediate appearance, of the pointlessness of certain cases of evil does present the most challenging version of the argument from evil. He writes: Wouldn’t a rational person think, in the face of this kind of appalling evil, that there just couldn’t be an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good person superintending our world? . . . Isn’t it just apparent, just evident that a being living up to God’s reputation couldn’t permit things like that? . . . Perhaps I don’t in fact give up belief in God in the face of the facts of evil: might that not be because I simply can’t bear the thought of living in a Godless universe? . . . Something like this, I think, is the best version of the atheological case from evil. The claim is essentially that one who is properly sensitive and properly aware of the sheer horror of the evil displayed in our somber and unhappy world will simply see that no being of the sort God is alleged to be could possibly permit it. (Plantinga 2000, 484)

God and Suffering  23 theodicy, on the one hand, and presenting it unprompted and at an inopportune time to a person who suffers, on the other. Perhaps the first is permissible, or at least is not morally reprehensible, even while the second is not.36 So what do theists have to say concerning God-​justifying reasons for evil? The most prominent lines of theodicy on offer cite the goods of free will, character-​building, and punishment. Others point to a supposed necessity of evil for the existence of a contrast between good and evil, or to a supposed necessity of evil for the human appreciation of the difference between good and evil. These “contrast” and “appreciation” lines of thought are seriously wanting.37 A different line of theodicy concerns connection with God, which I explore in Chapter 3.

1.3.1  The Punishment Theodicy One traditional line of theistic response to the problem of accounting for evil has been to claim that some or all instances of pain and suffering are punishment for sin. This line of reasoning was on display in some early responses to the AIDS epidemic in the United States in the 1980s: many victims of the disease were gay men, and in response as the news became known, some I will take up this dialectic further in Chapter 4, noting here that the charge of cognitive dysfunction is a bit of a conversation stopper and that the examination of various theodicies in the remainder of this chapter and the subsequent two chapters may be relevant to adjudicating the situation with respect to the competing seemings. If we could show the failure of the project of theodicy and the power of arguments from evil, we might use this to corroborate the seemings of pointlessness over the seemings of divine presence to which Plantinga points in defending Christian theism. I should note, too, that Plantinga does offer a theodicy: he suggests that perhaps God allows sin and suffering in our world because these are required for the great good of divine incarnation and atonement, which allow for “the marvelous opportunity for redemption and for eternal fellowship with God” (Plantinga 2000, 489). He writes: “Perhaps our suffering is deeply connected with the possibility of salvation for human beings; perhaps we share in Christ’s suffering in such a way that our suffering too is salvific” (Plantinga 2000, 488–​489). See also Plantinga, 2004, “Supralapsarianism, or ‘O Felix Culpa,’” in Christian Faith and the Problem of Evil, edited by Peter van Inwagen (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 1–​25. These themes connect with those of Chapter 3. With regard to incarnation, it seems that God could become incarnate should God choose to regardless of whether or not there is evil in the created world at all and of the types and in the amounts and distribution we observe. With respect to the proposed good of atonement, it is true given the nature of atonement that there would be no need for atonement if there were no wrongdoing as a response to which atonement is called for. The idea that we could not enjoy union and eternal fellowship with God without the sin and suffering brought by libertarian free will, however, is challenged in Chapter 2; see especially Section 2.2.2.1. 36 For debate on this issue, see Trakakis 2013, 363–​376. 37 Justin McBrayer carefully examines such “contrast” and “appreciation” lines of thought—​and shows them to be unsuccessful—​in McBrayer 2013, 192–​204.

24  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will alleged that the disease was divine punishment for the supposed sin of “unnatural” sexual behavior. We find the punishment theodicy, as well, on offer in the book of Job, in the case of Job’s friends, who come to him as he suffers horribly—​from rash, many physical pains, and the losses of his home and family members—​and urge him to repent of his sins. The message of at least one of these companions is that, if Job confesses and is apologetic for his offenses, God will relent in the calamities that God is sending Job’s way.38 In response to the puzzling fact that women experience such pain in the natural course of childbirth, one line of religious response is that this pain is punishment for the sin of Eve’s disobedience in eating a fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. Swinburne expresses the idea that punishment is one good that can justify God in permitting the suffering of human beings: It is good that God should provide humans with deterrents to sin.  .  .  .  Humans are weak. They need to be encouraged to do objectively good acts; and to start with, that may involve providing reasons for doing such acts additional to the reason of their intrinsic goodness, tying the performance of such acts to lower-​grade self-​centered rewards and punishments. To gain such rewards and avoid such punishment are of course good reasons for acting, but there are better reasons. Once the human begins to get into the habit of doing the good acts, doing them for the better reason becomes a serious possibility and threats are less needed. All parents and other educators encourage good behavior by threats and rewards as a preliminary to children learning to do good for its own sake. And it would be good for God to so the same.39

Swinburne in this passage treats punishment more as a matter of conditioning than of retribution, and his approach to theodicy is much broader than the mere appeal to punishment, as I discuss further later. And that’s a good thing, because there are many instances of pain and suffering that appear for all we can tell to be clear counterexamples to the contention 38 In the book of Job as a whole, we see that God is depicted not as directly causing the calamities Job experiences, but rather as allowing Satan to cause harm to Job. Some take from the book the message that Job was righteous and not being punished for wrongdoing, but that the series of losses were a sort of test of his faith. Of course, there are multiple varied readings. 39 Swinburne 1998, 198.

God and Suffering  25 that all cases of evil are justified as punishments for wrongdoing. Inherited diseases, abusive injuries inflicted on young children and infants, non-​ human animal suffering, and childhood cancers stand in tension with a punishment theodicy, especially a retributive punishment version. One might argue that the victims or sufferers themselves need not be the ones being punished by God. A  child might suffer for the wrongdoing of a parent, for instance. Surely it is natural to question the justice in punishing one person for the sins of another, particularly when the victim is a child. This same sense of an affront to justice afflicts the punishment theodicist’s treatment of women’s pain in childbirth as allegedly due to inherited sin. Lest this sort of pain be minimized, note that the experience of childbirth can be so traumatic that no amount of blankets stops the shivering through the night that follows, and no amount of meditation stops the nightmares that wake a new mother for months and even years. And what of the suffering of non-​human animals: might a pet suffer as divine retribution for the sins of its owner? Even if it were so, this leaves to the side the suffering of non-​domesticated sentient creatures. It seems quite reasonable to doubt any suggestion that the suffering of non-​human animals can be accounted for along these lines. A further problem is that the punishment theodicy is incomplete—​it cannot possibly account for all instances that we take to fall under the term ‘evil,’ since that term covers, in addition to the suffering of victims, the wrongdoing of perpetrators too. It cannot be that all evil is punishment for sin, since sin itself needs an explanation. Notice that the punishment theodicy relies on the idea that persons deserve to be punished for bad actions, or at least that punishment of persons is justifiable on some grounds, if not on desert. If retributive punishment is alleged to be justified because it is deserved, and if a person can only deserve punishment for a wrong act if he has committed that act of his own free will, then the proponent of a retributive punishment theodicy has an implicit commitment both to the existence of free will and to the great value of free will. A retributive punishment theodicy, then, is at best incomplete: it needs supplementation by an appeal to free will in order to undergird the idea that people sometimes deserve to suffer for what they have done wrong and, as well, in order to give an indication of why God might elect to create a world in which there is sin in the first place.

26  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

1.3.2  Building Better People The most prominent defender of an alternative “character building” line of theodicy is John Hick, who in his book, Evil and the God of Love, suggests that God’s aim in creation with respect to human persons is not centrally to give us pleasure, but rather to provide an environment in which we can develop our characters (or “souls”) through time, so that we become more like God. Developing moral and spiritual maturity, Hick suggests, requires our encountering challenging situations in which we are faced with temptations, as well as instances of suffering of our own (such as becoming very sick) and instances of the suffering of others (such as encountering or becoming aware of those living in poverty). This world, then, is not meant to be a hedonistic paradise, but instead a fit place to serve as a moral training ground. Illness, for instance, enables us to develop empathy, persistence, and commitment to promoting health. Poverty provides opportunities for charity and kindness. It is key to Hick’s theodicy that, although we could have been created by God with good characters from the start, the kind of goodness we would have in that case would not be as good as the sort of goodness we can acquire by way of a challenging process of moral development through time. This value judgment is striking. Hick writes that “it is an ethically reasonable judgment . . . that human goodness slowly built up through personal histories of moral effort has a value in the eyes of the Creator which justifies even the long travail of the soul-​making process”40 It is not quite clear what grounds this judgment about value, and Hick admits that it is “not one that is capable of demonstrative proof.”41 (I return to this issue in Chapter 2.) Nevertheless Hick’s central idea is that we should not be so troubled by the evils of the world as we might initially have thought, since they are aspects of the world that are essential to a highly valuable sort of moral character development, a developmental process that enables us eventually to take on a likeness of God. Pain is a necessary part of this moral training ground—​in its absence, Hick contends, there would be “nothing to avoid and nothing to seek; no occasion for cooperation or mutual help; no stimulus to the development of culture or the creation of civilization.”42 It is natural to wonder whether this thought does not exhibit a failure of imagination.



40 John Hick, 1978, Evil and the God of Love, 2nd edition (San Francisco: Harper), 256. 41 Hick 1978, 256. 42 Hick 1978, 307.

God and Suffering  27 There is no denying that sometimes we do grow emotionally, cognitively, and morally through our trials. We sometimes become more patient, more compassionate toward others, emotionally more resilient, and better focused in our goals and values. Some instances of surviving harm ourselves bring out the best in us. Moreover, some instances of witnessing the harm that befalls others do the same: they spur us to positive involvement, taking us outside our narrow interest of concerns, moving us to give and to assist. But not all instances do this. Some cases of suffering are so devastating that they destroy an individual’s ability to function. One victim of rape may work tirelessly to improve procedures for the treatment of victims of sexual assault, but another may become never able to work or to love again. A response to cases of suffering that do not lead to character development is to say that such occasions do not guarantee a virtuous response, but that they provide the opportunity for one. The claim is questionable, however, when we consider cases that are so damaging that all genuine “opportunity” seems obliterated. The most obvious problem cases in this respect are those that end in death, including the abrupt death of someone who gains no opportunity for growth of character (there being no prolonged process of dying), such as when a child suddenly drowns or when someone is killed instantly in an accident. But other related cases, too, are very difficult for a character-​building theodicist to handle, including when a body survives but a personality is lost, making impossible growth of the moral or spiritual character of the victim, such as cases of severe and rapid onset dementia or other neurological degeneration. For such cases one might make an appeal to the opportunity for growth on the part of others. Caregivers, for instance, might develop better humor and capacities for love. But here there are two problems: one, the sufferer is being used, on this picture, for an opportunity for the moral development of another person; and two, the appeal to an opportunity rather than a guarantee, makes clear the reliance of the character-​building line of theodicy—​like the retributive punishment theodicy—​on the ideas both that created persons have free will and that free will is of great value. The thought that an opportunity is offered and is valuable relies implicitly on the claim that the course of action offered is one that the person in question can freely opt to take and on the claim that a person’s having such a power has high worth. The process of our becoming good in an especially deep and important sense, Hick writes, “is not taking place—​it is important to add—​by a natural and

28  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will inevitable evolution, but through a hazardous adventure in individual freedom.”43 Hick is aware, of course, of cases of suffering that seem clearly unjustified by way of enabling character development (“dysteleological pain and suffering”). In response to such cases he invokes both mystery and the existence of an afterlife in which all created persons will eventually enjoy eternal union with God.44 A degree of mysteriousness, he suggests, might itself be a crucial aspect of a world that is a fit place for character development.45 A proponent of Hick’s character-​building theodicy must work to make not only this claim concerning mystery plausible, but also to make plausible the contentions that there is an afterlife, that God’s achievement of drawing all persons into blessed union with God can somehow respect human free will, and that we have free will of the sort Hick envisions as necessary for the development of the especially valuable form of moral character. This is a significant amount of work.

1.3.3  The Gift of Free Will By far the most oft-​cited good in discussions of the problem of evil is the free will of created beings. The suggestion is that God wanted to bring into the existence the great good of created beings who have the power to make choices of their own accord, and not only free choices regarding mundane matters such as which pen color to use but also free choices that matter morally, choices between right and wrong actions. If God is to create such beings, then God cannot (the thought is) prevent those beings from exercising their power of free choice to do what is evil, or else they would not really be free. So the world contains much evil, but this is not God’s fault, and it does not 43 Hick 1978, 256. 44 Roland Puccetti, 1967, in “The Loving God: Some Observations on Hick’s Theodicy,” Religious Studies 2: 255–​268, offers an insightful critical analysis which, in part, draws attention to problems with Hick’s appeal to an afterlife. As Hick puts it, after our earthly lives there will be “enjoyment of a common good which will be unending and therefore unlimited, and which will be seen by its participants as justifying all that has been endured on the way to it” (Hick 1978, 377). Hick clarifies that heavenly existence “will not be a reward or compensation proportioned to each individual’s trials, but an infinite good that would render worthwhile any finite suffering endured in the course of attaining it” (Hick 1978, 377). Puccetti objects to this position, remarking that it depicts God as akin to a “human parent [who] not only lets his children get sick or injured unnecessarily but after a time rewards all of them equally no matter how differently they fared,” which is unjust (Puccetti 1967, 241). 45 Hick 1978, 334.

God and Suffering  29 reflect badly on the character of God or indicate that God is not real. Evil exists because free created beings make bad choices, among other things to murder, rape, lie, betray, cheat, and steal. They thereby cause themselves and others to suffer enormously, but this is the cost of being granted the great gift of free will. Swinburne’s theodicy relies heavily on free will, although his treatment of evil is multi-​faceted and also appeals to character-​building and the value of what he describes as “being of use.” Regarding the good of free will, Swinburne writes: We value the willingly generous action, the naturally honest, spontaneously loving action. But we value even more that the pursuit of the good should result from a free choice of the agent. . . . It is good for any agent to have such a free choice; for that makes him an ultimate source of the way things happen in the Universe. He is no longer totally at the mercy of forces from without, but is himself an autonomous mini-​creator.46

In order to have free will of especially high value, Swinburne contends, the range of actions with respect to which we are free must be broad, including not only semi-​good and good actions, but also good actions and bad actions, including acts that are dreadfully wrong. If we are free to perform wrong actions, then we have what he calls “very serious free will,” and this is better than our having mere (non-​serious) free will.47 Our having very serious free will requires that wrong actions be live options for us, and so Swinburne thinks that in giving us very serious free will God would also need to give us bad desires. If we are tempted to perform wrong actions, then in cases in which we resist those temptations and freely choose to do right actions, we exercise the very serious free will of high value. In electing to create beings with very serious free will, Swinburne suggests, God willingly binds himself in a kind of logical straitjacket: The most obvious example of this logical straitjacket to which even God is subject is that he cannot give us very serious free will, i.e., the free will to choose between good and wrong, without the natural possibility (unprevented by God) that we will do wrong.48

46 Swinburne 1998, 84. 47 Swinburne 1998, 84.

48 Swinburne 1998, 127.

30  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will For Swinburne, central to a successful theodicy is appeal to the great good of free will, but there must be other elements, as well, among which is the value of “being of use.” The need for this additional proposed value can be seen by reflecting on some instances of freely chosen wrongdoing, taking into account the situation of the victim of the wrong act. In cases of betrayal and cruelty, for instance, the free will of the person who betrays another, and the free will of the person who acts cruelly toward another, are meant to justify God in allowing the betrayal and the cruelty to take place. But the victims of the betrayal and of the cruelty do not in those instances acquire something of high value themselves—​rather they suffer the deep pain of being betrayed and treated cruelly. One might attempt to defend the claim that in such cases the overall situation is still good, given the presence of very serious free will enjoyed by the perpetrators, and that we need not be concerned (with respect to theodicy) beyond that. Or one might suggest that the victims themselves do experience (whether they realize it or not) the value of being of use. Swinburne suggests that it is good for a person to contribute to the wider good “even by being used as the vehicle of a good purpose.”49 A person might be of use in suffering for the general greater good of the existence of free will in created beings. Or a person might be of use in suffering for the benefit of the opportunity for character development on the part of others. I must say that these latter thoughts concerning “being of use” are to my mind morally abhorrent. Young women who are sold into sex slavery, and girls who are kidnapped by radical religious extremists to be systematically raped, themselves find no value in being of use, either in serving the good of the free will of their enslavers and rapists, or in providing opportunities for the rest of us to become more vigilant, courageous, compassionate, or socially aware. One particular case that has been the subject of discussion in the literature on the problem of evil, mentioned earlier, is that of a five-​year-​ old girl in Detroit, Michigan, who was severely beaten, raped, and strangled to death by the boyfriend of her mother.50 I find the following comments of Graham Oppy’s concerning this case to be entirely appropriate: If there is to be a justification for the suffering of the five-​year-​old girl, that justification surely must be in terms of goods for her. Moreover, it cannot 49 Swinburne 1998, 101. 50 For discussion see Russell, 1989, “The Persistent Problem of Evil,” Faith and Philosophy 6: 121–​ 139, at 123, drawing from a report on the Detroit Free Press, January 3, 1986.

God and Suffering  31 be that the goods accrued to her prior to her rape, beating, and death; the justification for permitting her rape, beating, and death must be goods that flow to her as a consequence of her being raped, beaten, and murdered. For myself, I find it obscene and unspeakable to suppose that nominated great goods flow to her while she is being raped, beaten, and murdered. And I find it no less obscene and unspeakable to suppose that her rape, beating, and murder were necessary for her to acquire nominated greater goods after she was dead.51

Not all philosophers think that justifications for the facts about evil need to be in terms of goods for those who suffer as victims.52 Even if the success of theodicies need not be assessed by this measure, still the free will theodicy stands in need of a significant amount of further defense. The free will of created beings may be able to serve as an explanation of the bare existence of some evil in our world—​provided that we do indeed have free will of a requisite sort—​and it may be able to serve as an explanation for particular instances of moral evil—​provided that we do have free will of a requisite sort—​such as assault, abuse, and acts of war. But whether or not it can serve as the good that provides a God-​justifying reason for evil is not yet at all clear. For one thing, it is not clear that free will can serve even as a remotely plausible explanation (let alone God-​justifying reason) for the bare existence of natural evil and for particular instances of it. A free will theodicist must make plausible the suggestion that diseases—​including cancers of myriad sorts, schizophrenia, trigeminal neuralgia, polio, among so many others—​as well as the facts about suffering brought on by flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, can be explained (and justified) by way of the misuse of free will on the part of created beings. An especially problematic class of cases, cases which in my view have received insufficient attention, are those involving the phenomenon of chronic pain. The idea that pain is useful as a protective device—​as a way of alerting a person or other sentient being to the fact that something is wrong in the body (or in the psyche, in the case of emotional pain)—​may have some force for instances of acute pain. But the fact that the pain processing system itself can be damaged—​producing unremitting and incurable pain—​is much more challenging for theism. Neuroplasticity may be a beneficial trait in some instances, allowing some

51 Oppy 2013, 53.

52 Marilyn Adams and Eleonore Stump do maintain that theodicies should be victim-​centered.

32  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will patients, such as accident victims, to regain function after a brain injury. But it also enables the development of permanent pain disorders. Sensory nerves in the face, for example, can “learn” to make pain after severely painful dental work, when their initial function was to detect touch and temperature. They can then remain stuck in this condition permanently. Many other varieties of permanent pain result from medical mistakes and from inadequately treated acute pain. One example is adhesive arachnoiditis, a severely painful condition with no cure, which can result when a doctor administering an epidural steroid injection to a patient for low back and sciatica pain pushes the needle too far, so that it punctures the spinal cord.53 One might suggest that the enormous number of cases of permanent pain resulting from medical harm do not count as instances of natural evils, but instead as moral evils. But (1) I am pointing to the fact that our bodies are constituted in such a way that they are vulnerable to such harms, which were sought as treatments for bodily pain in the first place; and (2) theodicists will face troubles accounting for such cases even if they were counted as moral evils. (Is the free will of the physicians who mistakenly or negligently cause such conditions supposed to be worth it?) Other cases of chronic pain have no known direct connection to human choices, such as fibromyalgia and Ehlers-​Danlos syndrome (a collection of inheritable connective tissue disorders). Estimates on the prevalence of persistent unremitting pain of the numerous kinds vary yet range in numbers that are alarmingly high. One hundred sixteen million is given as the “number of U.S. adults with common chronic pain conditions” in a publication of the National Academy of Sciences.54 In an N.I.H. study of the prevalence and severity of pain, approximately one hundred twenty-​six million U.S.  adults reported experiencing pain in the previous three months, with twenty-​five million reporting chronic pain every day in that period, and more than fourteen million were classified as having “the highest level of pain (category 4).”55 These numbers are reflective 53 For one heartbreaking story of a man’s experience with this condition, see http://​ nationalpainreport.com/​my-​story-​chronic-​pain-​changes-​a-​life-​but-​not-​the-​person-​8827090.html. The comments on the article contain other life-​shattering examples. 54 Relieving Pain in America:  A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011. (Copyright 2011 National Academy of Sciences.) See Box 1-​4. http://​www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/​books/​NBK92525/​ 55 Richard Nahin, 2015, “Estimates of Pain Prevalence and Severity in Adults: United States, 2012,” Journal of Pain 16, no. 8: 769–​780. https://​pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/​26028573/​. For a graphic, see “Estimates of Pain Prevalence and Severity in Adults: United States, 2012.” https://​www.nccih.nih. gov/​research/​estimates-​of-​pain-​prevalence-​and-​severity-​in-​adults-​united-​states-​2012

God and Suffering  33 only of adult cases in the United States. The extent of the problem—​of individuals whose lives are changed, sometimes in an instant, to lives of disability and unremitting pain—​is staggering. Theists ought to be greatly concerned about this fact. We have reviewed the three major traditional lines of theodicy. Now, it may be that no one line of theodicy can bear the weight of covering all the cases of trauma, catastrophe, and blight we find in the world. A  punishment theodicy—​again, the notion that our ailments and sorrows are justified as punishment for our wrongdoing—​is limited in scope but may work in covering some cases. A character-​building theodicy, as we have seen, faces instances for which it has difficulty accounting, such as sudden accidental deaths and the endurance of painful terminal diseases, especially on the part of infants and very young children, who have no opportunity for growth of character. A free will theodicy might most plausibly be applied to instances of harm brought about by selfishness, deceit, and maliciousness. However, many people have difficulty finding the free will line plausible when it comes to accounting for instances of natural evil. A further problem is that, even if a free will theodicy can credibly cover both moral evils and the suffering resulting from tsunamis, hurricanes, and the like, it rests on the largely undefended implicit premise that free will is enormously valuable, and it is not clear that this is so, as I will go on to discuss in Chapter 2. It is important to recognize that the “big three” theodicies—​punishment, character-​building, and free will—​in common rely on the existence of, and the very high value of, personal free will. That is so on a retributive conception of punishment—​if punishment is thought to be justified only if it is deserved, and if it can be deserved only if the wrong acts are performed of the agent’s own free will. And that is so on the character-​building theodicy as developed by its most prominent defender, John Hick.56 Someone who would propose to offer the character-​building theodicy, while at the same time being a skeptic about the existence of free will,57 would have to take on 56 See Hick 1978, especially 276; and Speak 2013, 205–​221. 57 See Derk Pereboom 2001, 2013, 2014. In Derk Pereboom, 2013, “A Defense without Free Will,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 411–​425, Pereboom points toward a character-​building line of thought, although he wants to use it not as a theodicy but only a defense, to couple with a skeptical theist approach. (Skeptical theism will be discussed later, in Chapter 4.) It seems to me that Pereboom, given his discussion of the role of defense, still needs to make plausible the thought that for all we know a divinely determined, temporally extended process of character development is sufficiently valuable that it could serve as one of the central goods that provides a God-​justifying reason for allowing evils, including all particular instances as well as evils of the kinds and in the amount and distribution that we observe.

34  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will the formidable task of explaining what makes character development that unfolds in a way that is divinely determined so valuable that it is worth the cost in the facts of evil in the world. It is a tall order to defend the sufficient value of freely acquired, temporally extended character development. It is an even taller order to make plausible the claim that character development that is the unfolding of a determined process—​one that takes place in an environment that contains horrible and widespread evils—​is sufficiently valuable to serve the needed role, if it is valuable at all. Why would God not simply have created people with developed moral characters to begin with, so that created persons start out kind, compassionate, courageous, and patient? What would be so valuable about the gradual development of such traits, particularly if the developments were not the result of free choices on the part of the agents who acquire those traits? I find the matter of the worth of free will, as I’ve said, to be a serious and surprisingly under-​addressed problem in the literature on the problem of evil.58 In order for free will to serve as a backbone of a successful theodicy, the theodicist must support at least these two claims: (1) that we in fact have free will; and (2) that its value makes it worth the costs.

1.4 Going Forward What follows are seven remaining chapters. In Chapter 2, I examine the free will theodicy and related free will defense in greater depth. I set out three different kinds of accounts of the nature of free will in the contemporary literature on agency, and I argue that only one of these types is suitable for the free will theodicist’s (and defender’s) use. I then examine the question of whether or not God’s giving created beings free will, as characterized by that suitable sort of account, would make sense—​that is, whether or not it would be worth the price. I argue that it would not, or at least that it is not unreasonable to refrain from believing that free will is worth the costs. If free will is not worth the costs, then it is unsuitable to serve as the central good that is alleged to provide a God-​justifying reason for allowing evils in the world. In Chapter 3, I develop a different line of theodicy, which I call a divine intimacy theodicy. I highlight reflections of this theodicy in the thinking of 58 There is some discussion, for instance Schellenberg, 2004, “The Atheist’s Free Will Offense,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 56: 1–​15, which I will address in Chapter 2, but not enough—​the matter deserves much wider attention.

God and Suffering  35 several historical and contemporary philosophers, theologians, and religious practitioners, including some medieval mystics. Despite its interest and despite its value as a strategy a religious person might use for coping with suffering, I argue that ultimately this view does not succeed in answering the concerns of the non-​theist. If none of the proposed theodicies is particularly compelling, then what other position might a person take who is interested in believing in God, but who is worried about how to respond rationally to the existence of evil and to the amount, distribution, and intensity of evil in our world? One might become a skeptical theist, taking the point of view that God exists but that God’s reasons for permitting evil are beyond our abilities to discern. I critically examine this currently popular position in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, I examine and expand upon an argument presented by David Lewis that he calls a “neglected argument” from evil, one compared to which he thinks the usual arguments from evil are a mere sideshow. His argument, which pertains to hell, brings out a number of interesting issues concerning fault, agency, and blameworthiness. I defend Lewis’s argument as successful. In Chapter 6, I engage with a recent book by Mark Murphy in which he argues that a correct understanding of the ethics of a perfect being renders arguments from evil for atheism “effectively defanged.”59 Murphy contends that God’s baseline attitude toward human persons is indifference and, indeed, that it is consistent with the nature of God for God to allow evils to befall rational and sentient creatures for no reason whatsoever. To the contrary, I argue that God counts as an absolutely perfect being only if by God’s very nature God is such that God cares for the rational and sentient creatures in existence and prevents us from suffering pointlessly. I work to identify and criticize the most vulnerable parts of the case made by Murphy. Further, in support of my view, I delineate two arguments, one for the conclusion that God has requiring reason to treat persons in ways that include preventing setbacks to their welfare, and the other for the conclusion that God has requiring reason to prevent the suffering of sentient beings. This chapter thus offers a defense of the conception of God as essentially perfectly morally good. In light of an appropriate conception of God’s ethics, the argument from evil is not defanged but rather retains its power.

59 Murphy, 2017, God’s Own Ethics: Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 103.

36  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will In Chapter 7, I take up the question of whether or not it could make sense to live a religious life, as an agnostic or even as an atheist. I examine the work of certain philosophers who have explained their own choices to live religious lives, despite either their being agnostic about the existence of God or their endorsing the position of philosophical naturalism. I find this sort of life as something that is not embraceable. In the final chapter, I sum up the argument of the book and point toward directions for further work.

2 The Value of Free Will As we saw in the previous chapter, Plantinga’s free will defense relies centrally on a possibility claim concerning the greater value of a world containing creatures who are significantly free (as Plantinga understands such freedom), all else being equal, than the value of worlds not containing such creatures. If Howard-​Snyder is right about the success condition for a defense, namely that a defense succeeds only if it is not reasonable to refrain from believing the claims that constitute it,1 then Plantinga’s free will defense as a response to the logical argument from evil articulated by Mackie and McCloskey succeeds only if it is unreasonable to refrain from believing that, possibly, a world containing created beings who are free with respect to morally significant actions is greater, all else being equal, than is a world containing no such creatures. Van Inwagen contends that his defense is possibly and for all we know true, and it, too, relies centrally on human free will. The related suggestion made by the free will theodicist, such as Swinburne, is that free will with respect to morally significant actions is the reason, or is prominent among the reasons, that God has for allowing evil in our world. The credibility of each of these theistic responses to the facts of evil turns on a judgment of the worth of free will. In order to find persuasive the free-​will-​based responses to the challenge posed by suffering to the existence of a perfectly good, all-​ powerful, and all-​knowing God, we must judge it reasonable to believe—​and unreasonable to refrain from believing—​that free will is actually (in the case of a free will theodicy) or possibly or for all we know (in the case of a free will defense) of enormous value. ‘Enormous value’ is an understatement. In order for a free will response to the argument from the facts about evil to succeed, free will would have to be viewed as of such high value that it is worth the cost: the sum of all the suffering that we both cause and endure as perpetrators and victims, including

1 Daniel Howard-​Snyder, 2013a, “The Logical Problem of Evil:  Mackie and Plantinga,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, edited by Justin McBrayer and Daniel Howard-​Snyder (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell), 19–​33, at 24.

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0002

38  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will assault, bigotry, betrayal, sexual violence, child molestation, hatred, brutality, murder, and genocide, as well as a distribution of resources that leaves millions of people starving and in need of safe water and medical care, and medical malpractice that kills some patients and leaves others in permanent pain. There is, too, the suffering of non-​human sentient creatures caused by humans and other animals, as well as suffering brought by hurricanes and other natural disasters, which enters the equation if free will is thought to provide an answer to the problem of natural evils, as well. In order to support a free-​will-​based response to the problem of evil, free will would need to be enormously valuable either in itself or in virtue of the goods that could not obtain without it. In this chapter I  consider both of these ways in which free will might be valuable. My central aim is to examine the contention that the cost is simply too high. In other words, at issue is the claim that free will is not worth it.

2.1  Free Will of What Sort? Considering the question of the value of free will requires first a characterization of its nature, at least in broad strokes. I will set out three prominent accounts on the contemporary scene.2 It will be important to my argument in further sections to have these different conceptions of free will before our minds.

2.1.1  The Rational Abilities View One attractive and subtly developed recent view is the account of Dana Nelkin, described in her book, Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility. On Nelkin’s account, which she calls the ‘rational abilities view,’ a person is free in performing an action in the sense required for deserved praise and blame if and only if she acts with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. Like the account Susan Wolf defends in “Asymmetrical Freedom” and in Freedom within Reason, the view features an asymmetry: it requires

2 There are other important and prominent theories I do not address here, including John Martin Fischer’s account of guidance control, on which the freedom-​relevant conditions for moral responsibility are compatible with causal determinism.

The Value of Free Will  39 the ability to do otherwise in the case of action for which the agent is morally blameworthy, but not in the case of action for which the agent is praiseworthy. Nelkin argues that, when we examine closely both (1) what we believe as we engage in rational deliberation and (2) what it is we want for ourselves as free agents who can be morally responsible for our actions, we see that this belief can be true and this desire can be satisfied without our being agent-​ causes in a sense that requires indeterminism, and without our being the ultimate sources of our actions or the ultimate sources of our selves, and without there being indeterministic causation in our deliberative or decision processes. Hence, according to Nelkin, the question of the existence of freedom is not a complex metaphysical question, and it is not dependent on the findings of science concerning whether or not there is relevant causal indeterminacy. It is, instead, the relatively simple question of whether or not any of us ever act with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. Nelkin argues that skeptics about free will, such as Derk Pereboom, Neil Levy, and Galen Strawson, mistakenly think that freedom requires more than it actually requires. Their conceptions of free will are too weighty, which makes the question of the existence of free will overly difficult to settle. Nelkin suggests that, contrary to the view of free will skeptics, it is reasonable to think that we do in fact have free will, where to have it amounts to having the ability to do the right thing for right reasons, an ability we can have even if causal determinism is true. A key aspect of the development of Nelkin’s position is the insistence that we are not committed to believing that there are multiple available futures as we deliberate over what to do. Instead, Nelkin urges that, “insofar as we deliberate about multiple courses of action, we are committed to our own deliberation having the potential to explain why we perform one rather than the other. And yet this does not thereby commit us to thinking of the world as undetermined.”3 Nelkin calls this commitment of ours an adherence to the idea that we are, and to the desire to be, an explanatory nexus. The ability to do otherwise required in the case of blameworthy actions is to be understood, she thinks, in a conditional rather than categorical sense. If Nelkin is right, then our sense of ourselves in rational deliberation is not that we are agents who are free in a libertarian or incompatibilist sense. 3 Dana Nelkin, 2011, Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 5.

40  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will One attractive feature of Nelkin’s view of freedom is that it fits well with our legal practices of holding responsible those who act while knowing right from wrong and of exempting those who act either without such knowledge or without the ability to carry out such knowledge. There are additional reasons that the rational abilities view might be particularly attractive to a theist. One is that the account gives a good sense in which God can be a free agent and can be praiseworthy for his actions, while being only able to do what is right for right reasons and while being unable to act in an evil way. A second is that the account allows us to make sense of the idea that those in heaven retain freedom and praiseworthiness, while being only able to do what is right for right reasons and unable to do anything wrong. However, the sort of freedom Nelkin depicts is problematic for theists in responding to the problem of evil. If she were right about the nature of freedom, then for someone to make free created beings is to make beings who can act with an ability to appreciate and to act on good reasons. Created beings who are morally responsible for their actions, then, would not need an ability to perform a wrong action or an ability to act for bad reasons. On the contrary, they would need only an ability to perform a good action for good reasons. Hence, in order to make free and morally responsible beings, God would need only to create beings who appreciate good reasons and who can act on those good reasons; the beings with free will would not need to have a power to do what is wrong. A person can have the kind of freedom Nelkin depicts even when all of the decisions and actions available to him are good ones. If the rational abilities account of the nature of freedom is correct, then it would appear that theists will have to deal with the problem of evil in some way that does not rely on the value of human freedom. This is not because the sort of freedom Nelkin depicts is not valuable. It is not terribly difficult to support the value of being able to recognize and to act for good reasons: one might say that this elevates us above lower animals, enables us to form and to maintain friendships, gives us the power to act with good will to the benefit of others, and so on. The problem for a theist is that God’s making free created beings in Nelkin’s sense would not necessitate the possibility of evil in the world. The rational abilities account of free will seems, thus, not helpful to the free will theodicist or to the free will defender with respect to their aims in the debate over the problem of evil.

The Value of Free Will  41

2.1.2 A Hierarchical Account A second major conception of the freedom of persons is a hierarchical account, developed most prominently by Harry Frankfurt.4 It is a natural starting point in characterizing free agency to say that we act freely when we are able to do what we want. But Frankfurt’s idea is more sophisticated. He points out that often we are psychically torn: we want to do this, and we want to do that, with drives, passions, and instincts pulling us in different directions. On the hierarchical account, we achieve freedom when we identify with one of these desires to act, by forming a higher-​level desire in its favor. On the hierarchical account, roughly, to act freely is to act as one wants to act and as one wants to want to act. “Wants to want to act” (or, equivalently, desires to desire to act) are termed second-​order desires, in virtue of their having as their intentional object a desire for action or the state of affairs of a particular desire’s being effective in producing action. That is, a first-​level desire is a desire to act in a particular way, and a second-​level desire for it is the desire to desire to act in that way. On Frankfurt’s view, in acting as we desire to act and as we desire to desire to act, we are wholehearted; our self is fully behind what we do. (I am simplifying, and there are great number of interesting issues and debates pertaining to hierarchical conceptions of freedom and the notions of alienation and identification, which I here set to the side.5 ) Notice that, on the hierarchical account, it does not matter how we got to be the way we are. What is important to our acting freely is our acting from our true selves, which Frankfurt identifies as our second-​level desires (or more particularly, our second-​level volitions, which are a particular kind of second-​level desire, namely desires for a certain first-​level desire to be effective in action, when or if one acts. But again, I leave complexities to the side, as they are irrelevant to our concerns here). Our second-​level desires can be causally determined to be what they are. They can, too, in Frankfurt’s view, be coerced, manipulatively imposed, or the result of depression, fatigue, or boredom, rather than coming about by way of non-​coerced normative evaluation. 4 Harry Frankfurt, 1971, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68: 5–​20. 5 For discussion see Gary Watson, 1975, “Free Agency,” Journal of Philosophy 72:  205–​220; Ekstrom, 2003, “Free Will, Chance, and Mystery,” Philosophical Studies 113:  153–​180; Ekstrom, 2005a, “Alienation, Autonomy, and the Self,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29: 45–​67; and the essays in Sarah Buss and Lee Overton, 2002, Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

42  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will Clearly the free will defender and the free will theodicist would have trouble making their case, staking it on Frankfurt’s hierarchical account of freedom. In any given instance, God could impose a person’s desire and give her a desire for that desire to be effective in action, without undermining that person’s freedom in acting on those desires. But if that is the case, then it would seem that God could make us always act well, without violating our freedom, simply by giving us desires to do what is good and desires to desire to do what is good and the ability to act on those hierarchically aligned desires. But then creating creatures with the ability to act freely would not require the existence of evil in our world. So the hierarchical conception of freedom appears not useful to one who wants to respond to the problem of evil by appealing to the freedom of created beings. Again, this is not because the sort of freedom depicted is not valuable: psychic harmony and the ability to rise above our first-​level desires, forming desires concerning them, may well be highly valuable, perhaps in providing a sense of authenticity or peace of mind or a feeling of integrity. The problem, however, is that God could introduce such goods into the world without introducing the power for evil.6

2.1.3  Libertarian Free Will A conception of freedom that works to undergird a free will response to the problem of evil will be one on which the power to act freely requires the power to go astray. It will not merely require the ability to do otherwise in the case of bad actions, but will require the ability to do otherwise in the case of good actions as well. And it seems that a theory that is workable for a free will defender or for a free will theodicist must interpret these abilities to do otherwise not in a conditional sense—​that is, not in the sense that the agent would have done otherwise had some condition been different (for instance, had she had different values, or had she wanted to do otherwise, or had the natural laws been different)—​but instead in a categorical sense:  the agent must be able to do otherwise given exactly how she is at the time of (directly) 6 The same holds for an account of free action such as the one articulated by Gary Watson in “Free Agency,” according to which one acts freely in acting from one’s values. This conception of free action is compatible with determinism of one’s values, and determinism of one’s actions on those values, by past events and the natural laws in a way that does not bypass the agent’s rational and volitional faculties, and so it is consistent with God’s having arranged the initial conditions and the laws such that one’s free actions are consistently good actions.

The Value of Free Will  43 free action7, and given exactly what has come before, and given the laws of nature just as they are. This is the case because having the ability to do otherwise in only a conditional sense is perfectly compatible with being causally determined to do just what one does, and it is perfectly compatible with being divinely determined to do just what one does, where divine determination might be accomplished by the set-​up of the natural laws and initial conditions or by direct intervention that leaves intact the proposed compatibilist conditions of freedom, such as action upon hierarchically aligned desires. But if we could act freely even when causally determined at every moment or divinely determined at every moment to act as we do, then there could be created beings with the power for free action yet no evil in the world.8 Indeed, both van Inwagen and Plantinga understand free will to involve the power to do otherwise than one in fact does, holding fixed the past and the natural laws. On their conceptions of freedom, free will is incompatible with the thesis of causal determinism, and acting in a way that is directly free requires the ability to extend the past in one way and the ability to extend it, alternatively, in a different way instead. John Hick’s character building theodicy also relies on a libertarian conception of freedom. Hick describes his conception of free action as follows: Whilst a free action arises out of the agent’s character, it does not arise in a fully determined and predictable way. It is largely but not fully prefigured in the previous state of the agent. For the character is itself partially formed and sometimes partially re-​formed in the very moment of the decision.9

Hick does not cite empirical evidence that we have such freedom, but he maintains that this kind of free self-​creation is to be inferred “as a presupposition of Christian theology.”10 In the development of his free will theodicy, Swinburne as well shows commitment to a libertarian view of free will. Swinburne describes what he means by libertarian free will in this way: 7 A directly free action is one the freedom of which does not derive from an earlier free action. An indirectly free action is one the freedom of which does derive from an earlier free action. 8 Another route to incompatibilism concerning free will and determinism is by way of the consideration that, in order to be free agents, our directly free acts must be acts of which we are the ultimate source. Ultimate sourcehood, rather than the ability to do otherwise, might be thought to generate the need for the falsity of determinism in order for our free will (power to act freely) to be secured. 9 John Hick, 1978, Evil and the God of Love, 2nd edition (San Francisco: Harper), 276. 10 Hick 1978, 277.

44  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will By an agent having free will in the libertarian sense . . . I mean that which intentional action he does is not fully caused—​either through some process of natural causation (i.e., in virtue of the laws of nature) or in some other way (e.g., by an agent such as God acting from outside the natural order). In that case whatever the current state of the Universe (including the agent’s beliefs and desires) and the causes at work in the Universe (including those whose operation is codified in laws of nature), it remains possible either that the agent will do the action in question, or that he will refrain from doing it.11

Recent literature in free will theory includes two main types of accounts that attempt to make more precise the nature of libertarian free will: agent-​ causal libertarian accounts and event-​causal libertarian accounts.12 Agent-​ causal libertarians maintain that it is essential to accounting for free will that agents stand in causal relation with events, where agents are understood as substances.13 Event-​causal libertarians, in characterizing free action, make appeal only to causal relations among events, taking our ordinary comments such as “Sam raised the glass” not to appeal to an irreducible kind of agent-​ causation (in which a substance is causally related to an event) but instead as reducible to event-​causal terms (such as, the formation of Sam’s intention to raise the glass brought about the occurrence of the relevant muscle contractions, and so on). Van Inwagen maintains that free will is a mystery, endorsing neither sort of libertarian account unreservedly, though his sympathies seem to lie with the latter (event-​causal) sort, whereas Plantinga’s sympathies lie with the former (agent-​causal) kind of account. There is one account in the recent free will literature of the latter sort, an event-​causal libertarian view, which may be of particular interest to theists who rely on free will in responding to the arguments from evil. That is the account of David Hodgson, who suggests that “[w]‌e have free will in a robust

11 Richard Swinburne, 1998, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 33 12 There are also non-​causal accounts (such as that of Carl Ginet) and hybrid accounts, such as that of E. J. Lowe, 2008, Personal Agency: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press). For critical discussion of Lowe’s view, see Meghan Griffith, 2009, “Review of E. J. Lowe, Personal Agency: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action,” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 6. 13 For articulation and defense of agent-​causal libertarian accounts, see Timothy O’Connor, 2000, Persons and Causes (New York: Oxford University Press); Randolph Clarke, 2003, Libertarian Accounts of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press); and Meghan Griffith, 2017, “Agent-​Causal Libertarianism,” in The Routledge Companion to Free Will, edited by Neil Levy, Meghan Griffith, and Kevin Timpe (New York: Routledge), 72–​85.

The Value of Free Will  45 sense because (1) alternatives are truly open, albeit limited by the engagement of prior conditions . . . with the laws of nature, (2) the occurrence of one of the alternatives is not random but the result of our selection between them on rational grounds, and (3) we put our selection into effect by voluntary actions.”14 The reason that Hodgson’s view should be of special interest (to free will theodicists, in particular) is that Hodgson provides not only a picture of what an act would need to be like in order to be free (as do other incompatibilist free will theorists, including myself) but also an argument for thinking that we are, in fact, able to act freely in his sense. The argument relies on his analysis of our conscious experiences (“conscious gestalts”) as too feature-​rich, unified, and unique to be governed either by natural laws or by computational rules. Our responses to our conscious experiences, Hodgson suggests, although not rule-​governed, nonetheless are not random because they are fitting responses made by us. Each of these claims—​the first concerning the nature of conscious experiences and the second concerning the rationality of our responses to our experiences—​plays a key role in the case for Hodgson’s conviction that we are actually free in his sense. Hodgson rejects agent-​causal libertarian accounts, those accounts that “seek to establish agents as originators of decisions (‘uncaused causes’), by assuming that as substances they cannot be effects but can be causes.” He writes, “I find this assumption mysterious and objectionable.”15 Instead, on his view, conscious decisions and actions are caused indeterministically “by the totality of the relevant conscious and unconscious processes.”16 Thus Hodgson’s view does not rely on the existence of non-​reducible agent-​causation, and his analysis of our conscious gestalt experiences gives him an argument for the claim that we do in fact have libertarian free will, an argument that does not rest on an appeal (such as Hick’s) to the implicit commitment of Christian theology to our having such free will. From my perspective Hodgson is right to be concerned that agent-​causal libertarianism is problematic in making an appeal to uncaused causes or prime movers unmoved. Event-​causal libertarian (or indeterminist) accounts have no need to invoke uncaused causes. Event-​causal libertarian accounts also can be straightforwardly naturalistic, have no need to appeal to any unusual metaphysical entities, and fit with a natural way of looking at 14 David Hodgson, 2012, Rationality + Consciousness = Free Will (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 157. 15 Hodgson 2012, 164. 16 Hodgson 2012, 165.

46  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will causal relations as obtaining between events. Many have found it puzzling how an enduring substance could plausibly be thought to bring about an event at a particular time simply in itself, without some change in the agent (an event) or something that happens to the agent (an event) or something the agent does (an event), bringing about the target event. A substance does not take place at a time, as an event does. It seems to me that, in an instance of causation, something happens, which brings about the occurrence of something else. The postulation of a substance standing in a causal relation to an event, I agree with Hodgson, is opaque. If we were to say that a substance brings about an event by exerting its causal powers at a time, then that exertion of causal power is an event, which causes the subsequent event. In addition, it is natural to think that a person’s having reasons for making one decision or another contributes causally to her making the decision. It is hard to see how causation of a decision by a substance that is an uncaused cause makes room for the natural thought about reasons as causally connected to decisions. In my view, contrary to Hodgson, neither our conscious experiences nor our responses to them would need to be non-​law-​governed and non-​rule-​ governed in order to be free. On an account of free action I have articulated, one acts freely in acting from a preference that could have been otherwise—​ more specifically, one that was non-​coercively formed or maintained and that has an indeterministic causal history, with its causes being various considerations that occur to a person as she is contemplating the question of what she prefers to do.17 A preference, as the term is used on this account, is by stipulation a desire that has survived scrutiny with respect to an agent’s conception of the good. This notion results from discussion of problems with the Frankfurtian model of free action on which second-​level desires—​ again, desires concerning other desires—​are said to be (unlike first-​level desires for action) internal to the self. A problem is that it seems arbitrary to identify these attitudes as central to the self, given that they can be formed and maintained on any basis whatsoever and even on no basis. The idea of incorporating the notion of preference into the account of free action is to capture the fact that our free acts derive from who we centrally are, where preferences are arguably key components in the identity of the self, since

17 Laura Ekstrom, 2000, Free Will:  A Philosophical Study (Boulder, CO:  Westview Press); Ekstrom 2003.

The Value of Free Will  47 they are desires we form as we aim to desire what is good from our own perspective.18 On a more expansive account I have defended,19 in a case of directly free action, the act is caused non-​deviantly and indeterministically by certain kinds of agent-​involving events—​that is, attitudes of hers, such as preferences, convictions, desires, values, and beliefs—​and the act is not the result of compulsion, manipulation, or coercion for which the agent herself has not freely arranged. A decision to act, conceived as the active formation of intention to act, is free in virtue of having this sort of causal history. The directly free act, so conceived, counts as self-​governed in virtue of its being caused by the agent’s reasons, which on this model include any of the agent’s psychological or motivational attitudes, not only certain ones such as preferences; and it counts as meeting the alternative possibilities condition of freedom in virtue of the fact that, at the time the agent performed the act, she could have done otherwise in a categorical sense. The self-​direction component of freedom is broadened over that of the earlier account I defended (described earlier), in order better to connect with our intuitions concerning moral responsibility in the desert sense.20 On this view, then, a decision or an act is free just in case it is caused non-​deviantly and indeterministically by attitudes of the agent’s and so long as other reasonable compatibilist conditions on free action are met. On Randolph Clarke’s classification of libertarian theories, the account I  have just described is an unadorned event-​causal libertarian account.21 Alfred Mele’s “daring libertarian” proposal is also a view of this sort, on which the indeterminism required for what Mele terms “basically* free acts” lies between one’s considered best judgment concerning what to do and one’s decision to act.22 Robert Kane’s event-​causal libertarian account of free will contains a number of inventive and intriguing details, including a focus on competing efforts of will, which he argues helps to address concerns about

18 Ekstrom 1993, “A Coherence Theory of Autonomy,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53, no. 3: 599–​616; Ekstrom 2005a. 19 Ekstrom, 2019a, “Toward a Plausible Event-​Causal Indeterminist Account of Free Will,” Synthese 196, no. 1: 127–​144. 20 The specialized notion of preference might be better suited for capturing cases of autonomy, rather than free will, as well as for helping to illuminate autonomy-​related phenomena such as alienation, identification, and wholeheartedness. Ekstrom 1993, Ekstrom 2005a, and Laura Ekstrom, 2011, “Free Will Is Not a Mystery,” in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd edition, edited by Robert Kane (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 366–​380. 21 Clarke 2003. 22 Mele 2006, Free Will and Luck (New York: Oxford University Press), 115.

48  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will luck and arbitrariness.23 Kane speculates on how causal indeterminacy might work in the human decision making process: concerning times when there are powerful competing motivations, he writes, “There is tension and uncertainty in our minds about what to do, I suggest, that is reflected in appropriate regions of our brains by movement away from thermodynamic equilibrium—​in short, a kind of stirring up of chaos in the brain that makes it sensitive to micro-​indeterminacies at the neuronal level.”24 A more precise way of putting our central concern here is the matter of whether or not libertarian free will, for instance of the event-​causal indeterminist sort I have articulated, is worth the cost.25 It is important for us to have reviewed some prominent compatibilist conceptions of free will, nonetheless, since it may turn out that those compatibilist accounts can generate for us the goods that we may have thought we needed libertarian free will to secure.

2.2 Value Proposals I turn to surveying potential answers to the question of what makes libertarian free will worth the cost of the evils its use brings. What sort of value is there in a power to act in a way that is free in a libertarian sense?

2.2.1 Intrinsic Value The first proposal one might make is that libertarian free will is intrinsically valuable. It is difficult both to develop this line of thought and to argue against it. It is natural to wonder how one can successfully support a claim that some ability is intrinsically valuable and how one can legitimately rebut a claim that that ability is intrinsically valuable. I suppose one might claim that the experience of making a libertarian free choice is intrinsically pleasurable. Perhaps in some cases this is so. However, if experience is any guide, 23 I, and others, argue that Kane’s introduction of simultaneous competing efforts of will to decide in different ways introduces more problems than it solves. See Clarke 2003, Ekstrom 2003. 24 Robert Kane, 2011, “Rethinking Free Will: New Perspectives on an Ancient Problem,” in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd ed., edited by Robert Kane (Oxford, UK:  Oxford University Press), 381–​404, at 387. 25 In other words, the concern is whether or not free will is worth the cost, if incompatibilism is true.

The Value of Free Will  49 some choices are agonizing to undergo: whether or not to give assent to a risky surgery that might bring about pain relief but might also result in paralysis, for instance, or whether to end or to remain in a deep and long-​lasting but troubled relationship. Alternatively, one might assert that in making a libertarian free choice we exercise a uniquely personal power, which is of great value in itself, apart from anything it might produce. Perhaps this claim could be supported by the assertion that, in exercising a uniquely personal power, we manifest or live out a feature shared by our divine maker. The idea would be that, in making a libertarian free choice, we express or experience our being made in the image of God. Swinburne voices an idea that may be interpreted in this manner, in that he describes the value of free choice in terms of human beings’ having the power to be “mini-​creators.” As we saw in Chapter 1, Swinburne contends that, while we do value good actions that human beings perform willingly, we value even more that the pursuit of the good should result from a free choice of the agent between equally good actions, that is, one resulting from the exercise of (libertarian) free will. It is good for any agent to have such a free choice; for that makes him an ultimate source of the way things happen in the Universe. He is no longer totally at the mercy of forces from without, but is himself an autonomous mini-​creator.26

It is difficult to know what to say about this assertion concerning the intrinsic value of being a mini-​creator or an “ultimate source” of the direction things go in the world. One point is that, even if the assertion is true, there remains the question of the relative value of this exercise of a uniquely personal power. Libertarian free choice may be intrinsically valuable, but the supposition that it is intrinsically valuable does not begin to address the question of whether or not it is worth the cost of the evils in the world in which its use results. How would we go about measuring? Perhaps we can begin to address the matter in this way. What should a fair-​ minded person think about this: God appears and tells her that she is going to be visited with the maximum pain that it is humanly possible to suffer. But God adds: this is all right, because, in return and because she suffers, God shall give one person libertarian free will or the power to be “an autonomous

26 Swinburne 1998, 84.

50  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will mini-​creator” (all the others, it turns out, have only compatibilist freedom). Should the fair-​minded person think that this is a good plan, all things considered, because libertarian free will is so extremely valuable in itself? It is hard for me to imagine that one would really think that. But it is not entirely clear that this is a legitimate test of relative worth. One problem for the contention that libertarian free will is intrinsically valuable is that it tends not to fit well with our moral intuitions about cases, and it conflicts with our ordinary moral practice.27 To see the issue, consider the way in which Swinburne addresses the case of the eighteenth-​century transatlantic slave trade: God allowing this to occur made possible innumerable opportunities for very large numbers of people to [freely choose to] contribute or not to [freely choose to] contribute to the development of this culture [of enslaving captured people and transporting them from Africa to the Americas]; for slavers to choose to enslave or not; for plantation-​owners to choose to buy slaves or not and to treat them well or ill; for ordinary white people and politicians to campaign for its abolition or not to bother, and to campaign for compensation for the victims or not to bother; and so on. There is also the great good for those who themselves suffered as slaves that their lives were not useless, their vulnerability to suffering made possible many free choices. . . . 28

I find such comments—​that it was “a great good for those who themselves suffered as slaves that their lives were not useless” since “their vulnerability to suffering made possible many free choices”—​to be morally repugnant. I would wager that I am not alone. Consider this: if you were a threatening person coming after my children with an obvious intent to harm them, your free will would have absolutely zero value in my calculation over what to do. And if there were a dozen of you coming after us, the value of the free will all of you is not more, but still zero. David Lewis makes this point: a wrongdoer’s power of free choice is not just an outweighed consideration in such cases, but is a weightless one.29 We simply do not think that the free will of perpetrators has value in itself that ought to figure into our calculations concerning the 27 Derk Pereboom, 2013, “A Defense without Free Will,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 411–​425, at 414. 28 Swinburne 1998, 245. 29 David Lewis, 1993, “Evil for Freedom’s Sake,” Philosophical Papers 22: 149–​172, at 155.

The Value of Free Will  51 overall value of a situation, and this is fully clear in many cases of horrid evils, such as slavery, genocide, and child abduction. As Pereboom writes, “If we believed free will did have the sort of intrinsic value Swinburne proposes, moral practice would be very different from what it is now—​in ways that, given our actual moral sensibilities, we would find very disturbing.”30 Our moral practice would be different because, if free will did have intrinsic value, then we would need to deliberate and act differently than we do now: for instance, it seems I would have less reason, all else being equal, in defense of my children to harm a threatening person who appears to have free will than I would have in the case of a person who appears not to have free will with respect to the harm he threatens, perhaps because I observe that he is drunk or is suffering from a mental illness such as paranoid schizophrenia.31 With regard to the proposed intrinsic value of free will, Swinburne has raised the question32 of whether or not I would give my own children libertarian free will, if given the choice. Suppose that I were creating them and had power over what traits they acquired: is libertarian free will among the ones I would give? My response is in the negative. I would not give that trait to them because of the harm they might freely choose do to themselves and others and because of the weight of the guilt they would incur in virtue of freely bringing about harms. Swinburne finds this response incredible. But a problematic implication of his view that libertarian free will is intrinsically valuable—​and so is something I ought to want to give to my own children were that in my power to decide—​is that if such free will is of positive intrinsic value, then a bad act done with free will is more valuable overall than is a wrong act done without free will.33 If an action’s being committed of the agent’s own free will brings the intrinsic value of acting with free will into the equation of the overall value or disvalue of the situation involving the harmful act, then a free harmful act will be overall better than a harmful act that does not have added to its disvalue the (alleged intrinsic positive) value of free will. But this, again, is counterintuitive. Intuitively, an act that is harmful to a victim that is done of the offender’s own free will is worse than a harmful act that was committed not of the wrongdoer’s free will. It is much less worse if you have betrayed an intimate secret with which I entrusted you under the influence of a truth serum administered against your will, than

30 Pereboom 2013, 415.

31 Pereboom 2013, 414, note 3, attributes this point to Mark Moyer in discussion. 32 In conversation, Oriel College meeting of the Butler Society, October 2015. 33 Swinburne affirmed this position in conversation, October 2015.

52  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will if you betrayed that secret of your own free choice. Likewise, it is worse if I freely choose to ram my car into the back of yours when I could have done otherwise than if I do so because the brakes failed.

2.2.2 Extrinsic Value A second answer one might give to the question of what value there in a power to act in a way that is free in a libertarian sense is that libertarian free will is extrinsically valuable. It is extrinsically valuable because it is required for other highly valuable goods. So what might those goods be? 2.2.2.1  Love One proposal is this: libertarian free will is extrinsically valuable because it is required for genuine love. Daniel Speak gives voice to this idea: “It was very important for God to bring into existence creatures with free will. Such creatures (and only such creatures) would be capable of the fullest kind of relationships both with God and with each other. Only with free will could there be the deepest goods,” one of which, Speak suggests, is “mutual love.”34 One might suggest that if Adam loves Eve freely, then he can love Eve and he can not love her, too. This seems to be so even if not loving Eve is a bad thing to do and loving her is a good thing to do, which may indicate that Nelkin’s rational abilities conception of freedom is not the one tied to genuine love. A discussion of love is complicated by the existence of varying accounts of what love, in essence, is: a feeling, a desire of a certain sort, a commitment, a relationship. One might suggest that love is a feeling of passion or affection; or one might characterize love by the desire for the objective flourishing of the beloved and by the desire for union of an appropriate sort with the beloved; or one might define love as a kind of caring understood as volitional necessity, in which one cannot help but will the good of the loved one; or one might describe love as a relationship between individuals characterized by some of these feelings, desires, or commitments.35 Perhaps we can sidestep this 34 Daniel Speak, 2015, The Problem of Evil (Malden, MA: Polity Press), 30. 35 For accounts of love, see, for instance, Harry Frankfurt, 2004, The Reasons of Love (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press); and Eleonore Stump, 2006, “Love, by All Accounts,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 80, no. 2: 25–​43. Derk Pereboom writes, “Love of another involves, most fundamentally, wishing well for the other, taking on many of the aims and desires of the other as one’s own, and a desire to be together with the other.” His own view of hard incompatibilism, which includes the claim that we do not have libertarian free will, he says,

The Value of Free Will  53 debate by focusing on expressions of love in action. Consider Adam’s loving good actions done for good reasons: for instance, his partially supporting Eve’s weight around her shoulders, helping her to walk up an incline because she has painful knees. The genuinely loving character of actions such as this one may seem to require his ability to have done something selfish, instead—​ giving in to his laziness, for instance, or to a desire to make Eve unhappy by leaving her to struggle along on her own. The inevitability of his acting in a good way seems to undercut his freedom and so it seems to undercut the claim that such actions are expressions of genuine love, unless his free formation of his character to be good and loving is the source of the inevitability. But this line of thought moves along too quickly if it is taken to generalize to all cases of love. Libertarian free choice is clearly not required for all forms or types of genuine love. The love of parents for their children is a prominent and often-​cited example. Parental love is not predicated on the children themselves possessing libertarian free will, and parental love does not cease to be genuine love if the parents cannot do otherwise than love their children. Indeed we think it is odd, and perhaps a poor reflection on the parents, if they have to exert an effort of will to overcome a temptation not to love their own children and if they really could do otherwise than love them. It seems that our conception of good parenting includes the idea that a good mother and father fall in love with their children from the moment they receive them or the moment of birth, or perhaps while they are still in the womb, or at least while the children are young, and not that they love them by way of a libertarian free decision. To focus on the actions that express parental love—​actions of feeding, providing shelter and physical care, gestures of kindness and support—​it seems not at all to undercut these as genuinely loving if we suppose that the parents could not have done otherwise. Kane, for instance, a prominent libertarian, admits that parental love does not require libertarian free will involving an effort of will to decide in each of two incompatible ways, with indeterminacy in the decision process that is resolved by a collapse of a wave at the quantum level. An amended suggestion, then, is that libertarian free will is required for only certain loves, and perhaps for “the best form of love.” The example earlier of Adam and Eve is as example of something other than parental love. What about, then, the love of friends and the love of romantic partners? “threatens none of this.” Pereboom, 2001, Living without Free Will (Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press), 202.

54  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will The problem here is that it seems obviously true to me that I do love, and have loved, several people in ways either that are romantic or that fall under the category of friendship love. I imagine this is true for most all of us. We love our closest friends, and we may love partners. Yet for all we know, determinism is true. Should a discovery that determinism is true, if it is true, make one think that what one believed to be an instance of genuine love was or is not an instance of genuine love? I cannot see why. The idea would be that my loved one was not freely chosen from among alternatives by me and, conversely, that I was not freely chosen from among alternatives by my loved one. Do we care? Attempts to show us that we do care, or that we ought to care—​or that love that is not the result of libertarian free choice is not real or genuine or not the best sort of love—​tend to be rather feeble. Although I admire the work of Dan Howard-​Snyder and Frances Howard-​Snyder, the following passage of theirs on the topic strikes me as rather spectacularly unconvincing. (I would apply the same judgment to some assertions of my own in the past.) In “The Christian Theodicist’s Appeal to Love” the Howard-​Snyders maintain that the best kind of love really does require libertarian free will. 36 They write: “We agree that [some] forms of love do not involve freedom. But there are cases of love which clearly require free choice. Recall the familiar story of Ruth and Naomi and the Anglican wedding vows. They clearly express instances of such love.”37 Let me pause to note that Ruth 1:16–​17 (KJV) reads as follows: “And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.” This passage seems straightforwardly to express a kind of commitment and loyalty, but it says nothing about whether or not the commitment is the outcome of a libertarian free choice, and it does nothing, as far as I can tell, to support the idea that the best form of love requires such freedom. The Anglican wedding vow, which the Howard-​Snyders also cite, reads as follows: “I [name] take thee [name] to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.” Again, 36 F. Howard-​Snyder and D. Howard-​Snyder, 1993, “The Christian Theodicist’s Appeal to Love,” Religious Studies 29: 185–​192. 37 F. Howard-​Snyder and D. Howard-​Snyder 1993, 187.

The Value of Free Will  55 this vow clearly expresses a commitment to stand by the other through thick and thin, but it says nothing concerning whether or not the act of taking, expressed in the words ‘I take thee,’ is freely done, let alone whether or not it is freely done in a libertarian sense. Do we really think that the act of marrying another is not an instance of the best sort of love if it is free only in the sense depicted, for instance, by Nelkin—​acting on the ability to recognize and to act on good reasons—​or in the sense depicted by Frankfurt—​acting as one wants to act at both the first and the second level? Do we really think that no one genuinely loves his or her spouse, or that no one exhibits the best from of love in loving his or her spouse, if the thesis of indeterminism is false? It seems to me that the answers to these questions are “no.” To amplify this point, consider that, for us to contemplate a scenario in which a person is causally determined to perform loving actions toward another—​and so who does not perform those acts with libertarian free will—​is not necessarily for us to consider a person who has taken a pill, or swallowed a potion, that makes him act in loving ways toward the other, no matter what he thought or wanted or felt aside from the action of the pill or potion. That is, to act in loving ways toward another person with freedom as depicted on a compatibilist account of freedom is to act as one desires to desire to act, or to act on one’s values, or to act with an ability to recognize and act for good reasons. One’s loving actions being causal determined by prior events in their history need not bypass one’s rational and volitional faculties. It is crucial to notice that important personal capacities can remain intact even on the assumption of determinism: our responsiveness to reasons, our capacity to form and to act upon desires and desires concerning those desires, our reflectiveness, our sensitivity to other’s needs and goals, and so on. It might be tempting to think that, if one person loves another and performs loving actions toward the other not out of libertarian free will, then that love and those loving actions would thereby be robotic and mindless. But it is simply not so. Continuing with the Howard-​Snyders’ argument, they write: More importantly, this sort of love [that expressed in the story of Ruth and Naomi and in the Anglican wedding vows] seems superior precisely because it is freely given. Consider the love exemplified by, say, Anna Karenina or Heathcliff. Their love is compelled by the sheer attractiveness of their beloved. As such, it is a flimsy thing, easily distracted by other instances of those same attractive properties and incapable of withstanding

56  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will deep changes in the beloved. Theirs is love which is altered when it alteration finds. . . . Only if it were informed by the sort of loyalty and fidelity expressed by Ruth could Anna’s love be transformed into the best sort of love. . . . [U]‌nlike the love of Ruth for Naomi or the love of a man taking a woman to be his wife in the vows of marriage, a parent’s love for her own child is compelled by biological instincts over which she has no control. . . . We are, as it were, victims of deeply entrenched and unshakable familial impulses. It is plausible that this sort of love is inferior to the love which is just as loyal but which is within the lover’s power to give and to withhold and which he freely gives.38

This passage is not a convincing defense of the claim that the best form of love requires libertarian free will. On what are the claims “seems superior” and “is a flimsy thing” based? Someone might base her decision to love another on his attractive features (his good looks, his charm, his wit, his kindness, his supportiveness) whether this decision is not free at all or is free in a libertarian sense or is free in Nelkin’s sense or is free in a hierarchical sense. The Howard-​Snyders seem to be criticizing decisions to love another that are based on considerations of the other’s attractive features, alleging that such love is “incapable of withstanding deep changes in the beloved.”39 Of course it’s not at all clear that this is so—​I might have loved him at the start in part for his playfulness and youthful good looks but come to love him in part for his maturity, steadfastness, and wisdom, even as he ages and loses physical abilities he once had. But more importantly, their claim is simply beside the point. What is at issue is whether or not we must have the ability to act and to choose in a libertarian free way in order to take part in the best sort of love, not the sort of considerations on which we base our choices and actions. The alleged flimsiness of love based on features of the beloved is a separate issue from the question of whether or not actions can be loving in the best way if they could not have been otherwise in a categorical sense. To elaborate this point a bit, notice that I might make a libertarian free choice to love someone for a superficial reason (maybe I like his sunglasses). Later I might make a libertarian free choice to cease to love him for a superficial reason (he lost those sunglasses). The fact that my love—​or the set of loving actions I perform for him—​is the outcome of libertarian free choices

38 F. Howard-​Snyder and D. Howard-​Snyder 1993, 187. 39 F. Howard-​Snyder and D. Howard-​Snyder 1993, 187.

The Value of Free Will  57 implies nothing in particular about the steadfastness of my love, and it implies nothing in particular about the respectability or goodness or depth of that love. Perhaps we should turn toward considering, in particular, the love of created persons for God. Milton’s Paradise Lost has a powerful depiction of the position that love for and devotion to God would be non-​genuine or not meaningful or not real if they were other than the result of libertarian free choice. Additionally, consider this passage from the Christian theologian Vincent Brümmer: If God did not grant us the ability to sin and cause affliction to him and to one another, we would not have the kind of free and autonomous existence necessary to enter into a relation of love with God and with one another. . . . Far from contradicting the value which the free will defense places upon the freedom and responsibility of human persons, the idea of a loving God necessarily entails it. In this way we can see that the free will defense is based on the love of God rather than on the supposed intrinsic value of human freedom and responsibility.40

Peter van Inwagen writes in a similar vein: God made the world and it was very good. An important part of its goodness was that it contained creatures . . . that were fit to be loved by God and to love Him in return and to love one another. But love implies freedom: for A to love B is for A freely to choose to be united to B in a certain way. Now even an omnipotent being cannot insure that some other being freely choose x over y. For God to create beings capable of loving Him, therefore, it was necessary for Him to take a risk: to risk the possibility that the beings He created would freely choose to withhold their love from Him.41

What is there to say about these kinds of assertions? The first thing that comes to mind is that they are that, simply assertions, with nothing in the way of argument presented on the matter that concerns us. If it is not clear that love of another created person requires libertarian freedom, it seems just as 40 Vincent Brümmer, 1987, “Moral Sensitivity and the Free Will Defence,” Neue Zeitschrift fur Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 29: 96ff, italics added. 41 Peter van Inwagen, 1988, “The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil:  A Theodicy,” Philosophical Topics 16: 163.

58  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will unclear, as far as I can tell, that love of a creator requires that sort of freedom. Again, if we love another—​whether a human being or a divine being—​and we love him with compatibilist freedom, we retain our capacities for rationality, for seeking to understand what is good and true, for forming desires and for reflecting on those desires, and for mindfully performing actions that are caring, devoted, and kind. One might reply that, if we were to love God freely only in, say, the hierarchical sense, then this love could be caused by God—​by way of God’s causing us to have hierarchically aligned desires that cause us to love Him or that constitute our loving Him—​and if our love were so caused, then it would not be as valuable to God as would love that originates in us rather than in Him. What would be the source or explanation of the greater value? Well, I suppose it is natural to think that, if I somehow make you love me, your love is less significant, meaningful, and valuable to me than if you love me of your own accord, although why this is so is difficult to articulate. After all, one might think, love is love—​your loving actions are just as much loving actions if they are non-​free or are free in only a compatibilist sense as if they are free in a libertarian sense: they are just as beneficial, helpful, and supportive. The issue is whether or not a choice to love God that could have been otherwise in a categorical sense is an especially valuable choice or is the best sort of choice to love; the source of its special value has to come from the fact that it might not have been. It’s just not at all clear that a non-​actual alternative possibility adds depth or reality or value to an actual love. J. L. Schellenberg has argued that it is false that it is even an epistemic possibility that love essentially involves (incompatibilist) free will, as part of his argument that van Inwagen’s free will defense fails. Schellenberg writes: If determinism turned out to be true and it were shown that humans lack [libertarian] free will, we would not be barred from loving each other or other things, including God, or required to conclude that what we had always thought was love really was not. For we would still be able to form emotional attachments and grow in propositional knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance of other persons, thus deepening our appreciation for them; and we would still be able to decide on the basis of reasons to become committed to them and act on our commitments. And what is all this if not love?42 42 J. L. Schellenberg, 2007, The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 264.

The Value of Free Will  59 Schellenberg goes on to suggest that perhaps all van Inwagen needs and really wants to say is that it is epistemically possible that the best kind of love between human beings and God essentially involves (incompatibilist) free will—​but that this, too, is false. It is false, Schellenberg argues, because we know what the best (“greatest and deepest”)43 good is for created finite personal beings, and that is “quite evidently an ever-​increasing knowledge by acquaintance of God”44—​or, in other words, “a positive, ongoing (indeed unending), and constantly growing relationship with God”45—​and, crucially, the realization of this good does not entail freely chosen relationship with God.46 There are other “modes of relationship” compatible with the realization of the deepest good for created persons,47 and in view of the array of possibilities God would have for creating worlds in which the deepest good of created persons is achieved, those which involve its achievement via freely chosen relationship and require God to permit horrific suffering will be less good than those in which the deepest good for created persons is achieved without free will and horrific suffering. Schellenberg writes: Since God would always have to consider not just the great good of such freely chosen relationship but also the other modes of relationship—​ alternatives to permitting horrific suffering that are still compatible with the deepest good of creatures being realized—​and since the latter are equally splendid, one of those alternatives is always going to seem preferable to a world with horrific suffering, when viewed from the perspective of unsurpassable empathy, even if the latter world includes freely chosen relationship with God.48

43 Schellenberg 2007, 249 44 Schellenberg 2007, 244. 45 Schellenberg 2007, 250. 46 Schellenberg 2007, 268. 47 Schellenberg 2007, 269. 48 Schellenberg 2007, 269. Schellenberg takes God to have the property of unsurpassable empathy. Since God is perfect, personal, and necessarily omniscient, Schellenberg reasons, God “would necessarily have maximally full knowledge by acquaintance of each possible occasion of horrific suffering” (where “horrific suffering’ ” he understands as the most awful form of suffering, suffering that, as Marilyn Adams describes horrendous suffering, gives the victim or perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that her life is not worth living). This knowledge of what it is like to experience horrific suffering “must be present in complete detail to the awareness of God,” Schellenberg thinks, and “taken together with the infinite compassion we are independently required to ascribe to the Divine, yields what I call the unsurpassable empathy of God” (Schellenberg 2007, 243–​244).

60  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will As a model for understanding an authentic relationship between created persons and God, Schellenberg suggests a “sharing model,” on which, although created persons lack (libertarian) free will, they nonetheless continually grow in knowledge and understanding of the universe and of God, and they are able to “participate in the positive evolution of the universe toward a state that ever more fully reflect[s]‌the Divinity of its creator” (279). As Schellenberg envisions this model, created persons are not capable of rejecting God and are not capable of performing morally bad actions, but they are “created good and well-​disposed toward their creator within a deterministic but evolving physical and spiritual universe without evil, which is designed to extend everlastingly the richness of their experience and opportunities for creative endeavor” (278–​279). This model, in which God displays a loving desire to share by creating finite persons and by nurturing their development in line with truth, permits growth and reflective change in created persons. “Because of these facts,” Schellenberg writes, “there could be deeply interesting and meaningful interaction between God and finite persons in a scenario of the sort I  have described without [libertarian] free will and without evil.”49 It seems to me that on Schellenberg’s sharing model, it is fair to say that God loves created persons and that created persons love God, and thus it seems reasonable to think that a loving relationship between created persons and God does not require libertarian free will. I have argued that we can have feelings of passion, care, and affection for others, including God, and we can wholeheartedly desire the best for others and desire connection with them, including God, and we can be committed to promoting the flourishing and ends of others, including God, and we can 49 Schellenberg 2007, 279. Schellenberg further develops what he calls a “free will offense,” that is, a case for the conclusion that our having free will would not help theism but rather would serve as the basis for an argument for atheism. (Throughout his discussion, Schellenberg’s use of ‘free will’ should be taken to refer to libertarian free will.) The argument is as follows. First, if ((God exists and created persons have free will) and free will poses a serious risk of evil), then there is no option available to God that counters the state of affairs of created persons having free will (where for an option to “counter” is for an option to contribute to value fully as much as a state of affairs involving free will). Second, it is not the case that there is no option available to God that counters the state of affairs of created persons having free will. Third, hence, it is not the case that (God exists and created persons have free will) and free will poses a serious risk of evil). Hence, fourth, either it is not the case that (God exists and created persons have free will) or it is not the case that free will poses a serious risk of evil. But, fifth, free will does pose a serious risk of evil. Hence, sixth, it is not the case that (God exists and created persons have free will). Therefore, either God does not exist or created persons do not have free will. In other words, Schellenberg concludes, “either God exists or there is free will (but not both)” (Schellenberg 2007, 283). This provides an argument for atheism, but only if we assert that we in fact have libertarian free will.

The Value of Free Will  61 value our relationship with others, including God, and we can enjoy ever-​ increasing growth, intimacy, mutual understanding and shared activities in our relationships with others, including God—​all without libertarian free will. On any of these conceptions of what love is or involves, libertarian free will is not required for it. 2.2.2.2 Moral Responsibility A second proposal in support of extrinsic value of libertarian free will is the suggestion that it is required for moral responsibility of the sort grounding desert. This claim is deeply contested, of course. There are complicated, purported Frankfurt-​style counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities with which one must contend in assessing the proposal.50 As I noted earlier, the compatibilist rational abilities account of moral responsibility of Nelkin and Wolf has its attractions. The Fischer and Ravizza compatibilist account of guidance control, which I have not addressed here, is also a compelling theory of the freedom-​relevant condition in virtue of which we are morally responsible for some of our actions. One consideration that may tend to incline theists away from such compatibilist theories, and toward libertarian conceptions of the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility, is concern that libertarian freedom must be had by created beings in order to justify what is sometimes called our eternal ‘destiny’: our placement in heaven or hell for eternity as the outcome of our free choices, in particular, on a prominent Christian tradition, our free choices concerning whether or not to be a follower of Christ. It may seem that this placement is fair only if we are free in a libertarian sense. This line of reasoning is problematic, however, for a number of reasons. For one, not all theists believe in hell. For another, the doctrine of hell is itself grounds for a version of an argument from evil, for instance as it is developed by David Lewis, which I address in Chapter 5.51 An awkward dialectic seems 50 I  critically examine Frankfurt-​ style cases in Laura Ekstrom, 2002, “Libertarianism and Frankfurt-​Style Cases,” in The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, edited by Robert Kane (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 309–​322. 51 David Lewis, 2007, “Divine Evil,” in Philosophers without Gods: Reflections on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise M. Antony (New York: Oxford University Press), 231–​242. In this article, Lewis contends that “God could have settled for a world with compatibilist freedom and that he could have set things up so as to keep his creatures out of trouble. So to escape the problem, theists will have to explain why the value of incompatibilist freedom is so great that it outweighs the extraordinary torment endured [in hell] by those who continue forever to resist [even in light of full information concerning God and the consequences of their refusal to be his followers]” (234).

62  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will to follow. We are led to posit human libertarian freedom as part of a response to the problem of evil. When challenged as to why we ought to believe in libertarian freedom, we reason that we must be free in a libertarian sense in order to make sense of the doctrine of hell. But to some minds, hell itself is part of the problem of evil. I will say this: it does seem to me that when we praise a person for performing a good action, we assume that she could have done otherwise; and if we find out that she could not have done otherwise at the time, our praising her may still make sense to us if we assume that she freely made herself into the sort of person who could not then have done otherwise by the cultivation of good habits and traits of character. That is, it seems natural to think that the good action she performed is to her credit, despite her inability to do otherwise at the time, because the good character from which the action inevitably flowed is itself to her credit. And that good character is to her credit because she chose to act in ways that shaped it to be good, at times when she could have instead chosen to act in ways that are less productive of good character. Thus I do think there is something to a fairness argument in favor of a requirement of alternatives for praiseworthy action, more to it than Nelkin, for instance, allows. She says that we do not speak of the unfairness of a lack of opportunity to act badly. But we might, legitimately it seems to me, speak of the unfairness of praise for an agent who lacks the liability to acting badly. Why should we think that someone is not praiseworthy unless she also has the ability to act badly or to act for bad reasons? Perhaps it is because it shows that she overcame a temptation to do something bad and that she knew wrong as well as right. It seems natural to me to wonder if a temptation, a struggle of will, is implied by the possession of an ability to act badly. From my perspective, then, intuition supports the idea that libertarian freedom is required for moral responsibility of the sort grounding deserved praise and blame. This is not, I recognize, a particularly strong argument. If the position were right, nonetheless, then libertarian free will would have extrinsic value in virtue of its being required for our being morally responsible in a desert sense for some of our actions. The question, then, in our context, is just how valuable our being morally responsible in this sense is, compared to the evils of our world. How do they balance, or not balance, against each other? Before we try to weigh this up, let’s see if there might be other sources of the value of libertarian freedom.

The Value of Free Will  63 2.2.2.3 Meaningful Life A third proposal in support of the extrinsic value of libertarian free will is this: it is required in order for life to be meaningful. Questions about life’s meaning are notoriously ambiguous. If our question is whether or not there is a meaning of life in the sense of an overall purpose for human existence, it is notable that some theorists, including Richard Taylor and Susan Wolf, contend that the answer is “No” unless there is a God who created humanity for a purpose. (Notice: the claim is not that there being a meaning of life requires that human beings have libertarian free will.) The existence of meaning in life, however, these theorists suggest, does not require the existence of God. For Wolf, one has meaning in one’s life insofar as one is positively engaged in projects that are objectively valuable with some measure of success. We can see this, Wolf suggests, by considering cases that exemplify meaninglessness: the Blob, one who watches sitcoms all day in a state of slight inebriation, lacks meaning in life since he lives in hazy passivity, “unconnected to anyone or anything, going nowhere”; the Useless Shopper who flits from store to store, engaging in one amusement after another to fight off boredom, lacks meaning in life since her dominant activities “seem pointless, useless, or empty,” lacking in objectively positive value; the Bankrupt Business Owner or Scientist (who need not literally go bankrupt but) whose company makes objects that are rendered obsolete or whose work is scooped lacks meaning in that invested time comes to nothing, yields no success at all.52 In later work, Wolf characterizes meaningfulness in life as a matter of loving objects worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way.53 None of this requires the possession of free will as libertarians conceive of it. Thus from my perspective the idea that meaning in life requires incompatibilist free will is a non-​starter. Life can be meaningful as characterized by Wolf, and it can be made meaningful by our investing our projects, our experiences, and our relationships with significance and by our taking deep joy in them. None of this requires the falsity of the thesis of causal determinism. Here is one way we might think about this issue. Suppose your life has been full of love and meaning. And then you have a terrible accident, in 52 Susan Wolf, 2007, “The Meanings of Lives,” in Introduction to Philosophy:  Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer (New York: Oxford University Press), 62–​73. 53 Susan Wolf, 2012, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press), 8, 13.

64  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will which your skull is ripped open, and as you lie there, dying, you see that it’s all wheels and cogs in there: just a deterministic machine, no genuine libertarian free will at all. Would your last thought be: Oh darn, all this ‘love’ and ‘meaning’ were hollow and empty; after all, it was all driven by a deterministic mechanism? (The Oh darn thought would not be a real free thought either, of course; it would just be the last few turns of the wheels in your head. In fact, you’d never have (indeterministically) freely thought anything at all throughout your whole life.) I do not think that I would think that. I think I would be amazed and thrilled: What an amazing machine I was! The machinery that I was enabled me to think rationally, and to respond to reasons, and to love, and to take ownership of my actions, and to endow my projects with significance, and to form caring relationships. I simply do not see how an ability to act otherwise in a categorical sense or indeterministic causal connections in the production of one’s decisions adds meaningfulness to life and, conversely, how the absence of such an ability would make our lives less meaningful or meaningless altogether. 2.2.2.4 Sense of Self A fourth proposal in support of the extrinsic value of libertarian free will is this: it is required for our sense of ourselves as agents to be veridical. In other words, we must be free in a libertarian sense in order for us not to be deluded about our agential powers. I  do think that libertarian conceptions of free will answer to our conception of our selves as agents facing an open future. To avoid the reference to ‘our conception,’ I can say this much, at least: my own sense of myself as an agent is that I face an open future and that sometimes I have the power of libertarian free choice among options. The value of my (or our) being right about this would need to be measured against the amount and variety of evil in the world. Perhaps we should add this consideration to the scales. Of course, one could contend that the value of being right about there being an open future ahead of us is not very high. After all, as we deliberate and choose, we regard the future as including alternatives that are open to us, and when we act freely, what occurs does depend on us, in that what happens causally depends on our prior deliberations and our character traits. Still, I do think I would experience it as a loss if I were to learn that my sense of myself as a libertarian free agent who faces genuinely available forking paths into the future were incorrect, and thus I am inclined to count it as a positive extrinsic value of libertarian free will that it would serve to secure the veracity of this self-​conception.

The Value of Free Will  65 2.2.2.5 Truly Good Acts A fifth proposal in support of the extrinsic value of libertarian free will is that it is required for good actions to be genuinely good.54 This seems just patently false. It is genuinely good when one person saves another’s life at risk to himself, whether or not the thesis of causal determinism is true. It is genuinely good when a parent gives a child’s needs high priority among the various aims and responsibilities vying for her attention, whether or not the thesis of causal determinism is true. A revised suggestion is this: the fact that good actions are done with libertarian freedom makes them better than they would otherwise be. I am not sure what to say about this suggestion. It seems natural to ask: What would be the source of the added value? It would not be added by the alleged intrinsic value of libertarian free will, for here we are considering the proposal that libertarian free will is extrinsically rather than intrinsically valuable. Recall that, in Chapter 1, we saw that, according to Hick, the process of our becoming good in an especially deep and important sense by way of a temporally extended process of character development, “is not taking place—​it is important to add—​by a natural and inevitable evolution, but through a hazardous adventure in individual freedom.”55 For Hick, this aspect of his character-​building theodicy—​the reliance on the existence and value of libertarian human free will—​is essential, given his judgment concerning the greater value of hard-​won positive traits, developed by us through a freely chosen struggle in an environment steeped in evil: greater, that is, than the value of traits that are not acquired in such a way (for instance, positive character traits divinely implanted from the start). The idea that free will has extrinsic value in virtue of the development of positive character traits of especially high value that it enables—​and perhaps, by extension, in virtue of the morally good acts that result from such character traits—​would need significant further defense. 2.2.2.6 Genuine Creativity Kane presents the case of a particular artist whose work is the outcome of libertarian free choices, in contrast to an artist whose work is not, in support 54 This suggestion was made by a number of people who commented on an earlier version of this chapter. Sometimes the point is put in this way: Libertarian free will is required in order for there to be moral goodness (rather than goodness simpliciter). (See Plantinga 1974.) But this is uninformative, since “moral goodness” is defined as good brought about by agents who are significantly free. 55 Hick 1978, 256.

66  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will of the idea that libertarian free will is required for creativity that itself has a certain high worth. Clearly we do think that some acts of ours are creative, and we think that some individuals are more creative than others. Are these thoughts of ours undermined by supposing that we have the ability to act freely only in the sense depicted by the rational abilities view or only in a hierarchical sense? It does not seem to me to be so. Suppose that I select a particular shade of green as I attempt to paint the scene before me. I see that it’s not the right shade simply out of the tube, so I gray it down some by mixing in a bit of red and a bit of white with my brush, then I add in a touch of yellow and try it on the canvas. It will do for certain areas of the trees, so I fill it in where it works, then begin to mix a new shade on my palette to use for the leaves brightened most by the sun. Each of the actions I take in this process of creating the painting might, I suppose, be not free in any sense—​if they were, say, the result of a compelling artistic passion that overtakes me, leaving me helpless against its force, unable to do as I really want and unable to respond to any relevant reasons. But suppose this is not so in our case; suppose in fact that I can select my hues of paint and can place them where I want to on the canvas guided by my taste, artistic judgment, and preferences. Our question is whether or not the creativity in my painting process would be genuine creativity or the most worthwhile sort of creativity only if at some junctures I could have, in a categorical sense, selected different hues than I did or placed them in different locations than I did. I suppose one might argue that I deserve credit for my painting or deserve praise for the way it turned out (or blame, as the case may be) only if my actions as I created it were libertarian free. But I do not see why my painting process would cease to be creative at all or would fail to be an instance of creativity of high value if that were so, that is, if in creating it, although I retained the capacities depicted by accounts of compatibilist freedom, relevant indeterminism did not play a role. Perhaps the following is relevant to considerations about artistic creation. What do we make of this analogy: someone argues that the calculator does not really calculate, for it is driven by a deterministic mechanism, whereas real calculation must be the result of rational insight alone that does not occur in a way fully governed by deterministic natural laws. It seems to me that, just as a calculator does in fact calculate the answers to problems, when an artist makes a painting or a sculpture, we do not need to know whether or not he did so in a libertarian free manner in order

The Value of Free Will  67 to count it as a creative act. We can have insights, and we can combine thoughts and can combine features of our environment in ways we have not done before, and we can develop artistic techniques for representing our ideas and our vision and our emotions, whether or not the thesis of causal indeterminism is true.

2.3  Taking a Measure As to the worth of libertarian free will, in sum: if a veridical sense of self and moral responsibility in a desert sense are very valuable, and if neither of those can be had without libertarian free will, then libertarian free will is indeed very valuable. But none of this begins to answer the question of how to balance it against all of the pain and suffering in the world and the facts about its distribution and intensity. Perhaps moral responsibility in the desert sense is not all that valuable after all, relatively speaking. Pereboom has worked to defend the idea that letting go of the belief that people deserve praise and blame for what they do “would not undermine the purpose in life that our projects can provide. Neither would it hinder the possibility of the good interpersonal relationships fundamental to our happiness.” Instead, he suggests, acceptance of our not being morally responsible for our actions “holds out the promise of greater equanimity by reducing the anger that hinders fulfillment.”56 If we can have purpose, and if we can have good interpersonal relationships, fulfillment, and happiness, all without moral responsibility in the sense grounding deserved praise and blame, then the side of the scale holding what we lose if we do not have libertarian free will seems extraordinarily light compared to the severity and scope of all of the pain and suffering in the world. Notice that we are aware of much that this phrase, “all of the pain and suffering in the world,” includes, as we have discussed in Chapter 1: it includes that due to each of the wars in the history of humanity, and that due to famine, rape, police brutality, torture, abuse, cancer, and false imprisonment, along with chronic pain. But there is more pain and suffering, much of it with which we are not ourselves familiar and which we cannot conceive in a way that makes its power vivid for us. It seems to me that, as soon as we try, and

56 Pereboom 2001, 212–​213.

68  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will begin to pile it onto the scales, our weighing device simply breaks under the strain of it all, overwhelmed by its force. In fact, even making a list such as the ones we have made (“famine, rape, police brutality, torture, abuse, cancer, false imprisonment, chronic pain”) might tend to trivialize or mask from our view the significance of each individual case, in a way that makes us fail to appreciate the enormity of the theoretical problem. What can one say except that libertarian free will seems just not worth it. Here is a thought I find powerful: I can say in an instant that I would greatly prefer to live in a world without murder, rape, theft, persistent physical pain, the abuse of children, and wrongdoing and victimization of all sorts, even if that world lacked deserved praise and blame and even if our sense of ourselves as agents facing of an open future were incorrect. A world of all good—​only pleasure, kindness, right choices, no pain, and no suffering—​seems far superior to a world like ours, particularly if it is true that that world can contain creativity and love and meaningful personal lives. Here, too, is a thought experiment I find powerful. Suppose you are God. Suppose you have in mind to create a universe, and you are contemplating the various possibilities for what this universe might be like. You consider the following two different kinds of worlds you could bring into being. On the one hand, you could make actual a world like ours, in which there is a great deal of suffering, much of it for all the created intelligent inhabitants can tell is undeserved and unfair, and which is there in the world as the result of the libertarian free will you decide to give to some created beings, including human beings. On the other hand, you could make actual a world in which there is no libertarian free will—​no created beings are endowed with that power—​but which is wonderous and good and lacks the array of suffering found in the first sort of world. Which would you choose? It seems to me that the answer is straightforward. Of course, given the option, I would make actual a world without libertarian free will and without the suffering! Now one might contend that what I have said in this chapter does not undermine a free will defense, for a defense relies only on the claim that it is possible, or possible and for all we know true, that a world containing created beings who are free with respect to morally significant actions is greater, all else being equal, than is a world containing no such creatures. Given our review of the arguments that could be made in support of the intrinsic and extrinsic value of free will, one might object that the claim that it is possible,

The Value of Free Will  69 or possible and for all we know true, that free will is sufficiently valuable remains undamaged. To the contrary, I think that our examination in this chapter indicates that it is reasonable to refrain from believing the key possibility claim concerning the value of libertarian free will, in both its logical and epistemic form, in a free will defense. Notice furthermore that a theist who thinks that she is pretty good at detecting instances of pointless evil and who, in part on that basis, confines herself to supporting a free will defense, faces a problem. She might say that her only intellectual concern regarding the rationality of her theism is showing that she has a logically consistent overall set of beliefs. But one ought, as a rational agent, to want to be able to say more than that. One ought to have a concern with whether or not one’s religious beliefs are, in fact, true, and one ought to be able to give reasons in their support, in the face of interpersonal challenge. The success of a free will defense as a response to the logical version of the problem of evil requires it to be the case (1) that it is possible that we have free will (understood in a libertarian way), and (2) that it is possible that (and, on van Inwagen’s version, for all we know true that) free will, understood in a libertarian fashion, is sufficiently valuable that it can serve as the reason (or very prominently among the reasons) that justifies God in permitting the facts about evil. But stronger claims than (1) and (2)—​claims concerning actuality rather than mere possibility—​are needed for the theist who is concerned about the truth of her belief that God exists. In order to have a good case for thinking that it is true that God exists, along with an acknowledgment of the facts about evil being what they are, she needs to have an account, some line of theodicy,57 and if it is a theodicy that is free-​will-​based, she would need to believe with justification that (3) we have free will understood in a libertarian manner, and that (4) libertarian free will is actually sufficiently valuable to serve as the reason (or very prominently among the reasons) that justifies (or justify) God in permitting the facts about evil. But we have seen, in this chapter, reason for doubting claim (4). I have not attempted to provide reasons for doubting claim (3), but the theist who gives a free-​ will-​based or a free-​will-​involving response to the problem of evil has good reason to be seriously concerned about such reasons, which are given by others elsewhere. 57 Some theists deny that this is so, taking the position of skeptical theism, which is discussed in Chapter 4.

70  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

2.4  Objection: Natural Law Violations One objection we have not yet considered is this: something that is implicitly relied upon as very valuable in free-​will-​based theistic responses to the problem of evil is the stability or inviolability of the natural laws. For God could give created beings libertarian free will, but then regularly or irregularly interfere with the natural outcomes of their free choices58—​by making the bullet sway just in the nick of time to spare an intended shooting victim, for instance, so that the bullet misses its intended target altogether or at least hits part of the body that is not a vital organ. God could make rapists become violently nauseous, unable to carry out their sexual assaults. God could have rendered the poison in the showers at Auschwitz harmless, taking away or suspending its natural properties. God could have made the machetes in Rwanda turn to rubber as they were wielded against Tutsi neighbors. God could allow people to freely choose to climb mountains, but then cushion climbers’ falls, protect them during avalanches, and ensure adequate oxygen levels in their systems. In short, the objection is that God could have given us libertarian free will, so as to secure the value it has either intrinsically or in virtue of the goods for which it is required, but instead of leaving the laws of nature alone, God could have regularly interfered with them, protecting us from the suffering from which the use and misuse of free will results. One response is that it may well be that God does this, in fact, miraculously intervening in the natural course of events in order to cure a child of a disease, for instance, or to spare a particular intended victim of serious crime. If this is so, then one wonders what would explain God’s doing so in some cases and clearly not in others—​a charge of unfairness threatens. Another response is this: God’s non-​interference in the natural course of events—​at least a lack of interference that is pervasive and obvious to everyone—​is required for meaningful agency.59 If the natural laws are not regular, then we cannot plan. We cannot reasonably expect that our intentions will be carried out if, for instance, the laws of gravitation and motion might at any minute suddenly change. If stability of the natural laws is required for agency simpliciter, then it is required 58 J. L. Mackie, 1955, “Evil and Omnipotence,” Mind 64, no. 245: 200–​212. 59 Swinburne contends that it is the intrinsic value of efficacious and serious free will—​free decisions between good and bad options, including options that are very good and options that are very bad, and that accomplish what the agent intends—​that is high enough to justify God in not intervening in the natural order to prevent the bad outcomes of those decisions. I am pointing to the value of agency itself.

The Value of Free Will  71 for free agency and for agent-​directed character development. So any value attaching to agency itself and to these other forms and uses of agency, as well, tells against pervasive and regular divine intervention in the uniformity of nature. But notice that the stability of the natural laws could be achieved, along with agency that is not free agency at all or that is free in only a compatibilist sense, without the obtaining of the facts about evil in our world. For God could have set things up initially so that all that occurs happens as a causally necessary unfolding of the past, given the natural laws, without any chanciness introduced by indeterminacy in the initial creative decree or in the workings of the natural world, and without any indeterminacy in human decision making or overt action, in such a way that the nature and extent of the evils we actually observe do not result. Thus, the good of the stability of natural laws cannot on its own—​and cannot along with the good of the agency of created beings that is unfree or that is free in only a compatibilist sense—​serve to provide God-​justifying reasons for evil.

2.5 Additional Problems Finally, I briefly note some problems for the view that libertarian free will is enormously valuable. First, if we do not have libertarian free will in heaven, but heaven is supposed to be the best place or best state of existence, then what does this imply about the value of libertarian free will? It seems to imply that it is not all that valuable after all, since heaven is the state of blessedness to which we are to look forward, yet in that state we do not have libertarian free will.60 Second, it is not clear that God can have freedom in the libertarian 60 Some have maintained that those in heaven do have libertarian free will. For a recent defense of this view, see Kevin Timpe, 2013, Free Will and Philosophical Theology (New York: Bloomsbury). In an interesting discussion of the film The Matrix (“Never the Twain Shall Meet: Reflections on the First Matrix”), Richard Hanley nicely articulates problems for the view that persons in heaven have libertarian free will, as follows: It is standardly claimed that all are free to sin in Heaven, but none do, because they are in some sense incapable of doing so; no one can sin when they are at last with God. This raises two distinct problems. The first is that any such incapability seems incompatible with libertarian freedom, rendering [the claim that human beings have free will in heaven] false after all. The second is that, if there is no incompatibility between human beings having libertarian free will and being incapable of sin, then the Free Will Theodicy seems to collapse. God could have just created Heaven and been done with it, a creation with all of the benefits and none of the disadvantages. In addition to the problem of sin, we might wonder how it can be managed that free human beings, all interacting with each other, have no desires in conflict. . . .[For persons in heaven to have no conflicting

72  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will sense. I do not allege that either of these problems is insurmountable for one who wants to defend the enormous value of libertarian freedom, only that they are issues in need of further attention. Theists, I  conclude, need a way to respond to the problem of evil that does not rely solely, or perhaps even prominently, on the value of libertarian free will.

desires] it must be that our desires change radically. But what ensures this? If it is inevitable that they change in this way, then libertarian freedom is again threatened. And if we are somehow free anyway, when our desires are radically altered, then why didn’t God just [do] this trick to begin with, and spare all the lost souls? Good questions. http://​www.bibliotecapleyades.net/​ciencia/​ciencia_​matrix05.htm

3 Divine Intimacy Theodicy In this chapter, I present and develop an alternative line of theodicy, one that might potentially be developed without reliance on the existence and high value of libertarian free will. This theodicy turns in a different direction, appealing to a distinctive kind of good. I call this alternative a divine intimacy theodicy. A divine intimacy theodicy responds the challenge to theism posed by the facts of evil by suggesting that some instances of suffering are avenues to knowledge of God. The central idea is that, sometimes when persons suffer, they experience closeness to God, either through an awareness of God’s presence with them or through identification with God. The focus of this line of theodicy is on the interaction or relationship with God that suffering makes possible, rather than on the moral improvement of the sufferer’s, or someone else’s, character. We see the experience of connection with God in suffering in, for instance, the case of Job, whose cries of protest against the Almighty, in the midst of his unbearable losses, become the rather stunning declaration, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”1 In his suffering, Job reports, he has experienced God—​God has shown himself, made himself known. We find a similar report in Nicholas Wolterstorff ’s account of a vision of the divine. As we struggle to find an explanation for God’s allowance of suffering, “Instead of hearing an answer,” he writes, “we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn.” Wolterstorff attests: “Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God.”2 God is seen or known in the experience of suffering itself. In a letter written to her friend Father Perrin, Simone Weil describes experiences she had while in pain and reciting poetry and prayers, when, she says, God “came down and took possession of me . . . I only felt in the midst of my suffering the presence of a love, like that which one can read in the smile on a beloved face.”3 1 Job 42:5 (NIV). 2 Nicholas Wolterstorff, 1987, Lament for a Son (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 80–​81. 3 Excerpted from Simone Weil, 1951, Waiting for God, translated by Emma Craufurd (New York: Harper & Row).

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0003

74  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will Wolterstorff, Weil, and Job are not alone. Many individuals have reported that the periods of suffering they have endured have been marked by closeness with God, with a vision of the divine, or with a sense of God’s caring presence. In fact, some report that their occasions of suffering have afforded the most clear and arresting glimpses of the character of God that they have ever obtained. Perhaps, then, some instances of suffering qualify as religious experiences, experiences that, rather than being contrary to the love of God, are a means through which this love can be experienced. Thoughts along these lines are suggested in the work of such contemporary philosophers as Marilyn Adams, Eleonore Stump, and Wolterstorff, as well as in the writings of Christian mystics and saints of the medieval and later periods.4 This is perhaps not so surprising within the Christian tradition, for a Christian theist might suggest that suffering as a means to divine intimacy is just what we should expect of a God who, according to Christian scripture and tradition, assumed human form and suffered with and for human beings. A divine intimacy theodicy is available from the perspective of other religious traditions, as well, as I explore further in Section 3.4. Michael J. Harris focuses on a rabbinic concept discussed in the Talmud Bavli (at Berakhot 5a-​b) of yissurin shel ahavah, “the sufferings (or “afflictions”) of love.” Harris argues that yissurin shel ahavah is most compellingly construed as a divine intimacy theodicy, rather than as a punishment theodicy or a soul-​making theodicy; he surveys significant rabbinic writers on yissurin shel ahavah who seem to have understood the idea in this manner, including Talmudic and other important later sources. “Moreover,” Harris writes, “the idea that suffering can be productive of intimacy with God is . . . found in Jewish sources even independently of yissurin shel ahavah . . . It would seem that divine intimacy theodicy is not just an interesting notion for Christian thinkers but is worthy of consideration as part of a traditional Jewish theological approach to the problem of suffering.”5 4 Marilyn McCord Adams, 1986, “Redemptive Suffering: A Christian Solution to the Problem of Evil,” in Rationality, Religious Belief and Moral Commitment, edited by Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), Marilyn Adams, 1989, “Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary vol. 63: 297–​310, and Marilyn Adams, 1999, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press); Wolterstorff 1987, and Nicholas Wolterstorff, 1988, “Suffering Love,” in Philosophy and the Christian Faith, edited by Thomas V. Morris (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press); Eleonore Stump, 1994, “The Mirror of Evil,” in God and the Philosophers, edited by Thomas V. Morris (New York: Oxford University Press), 235–​247, Eleonore Stump, 1985, “The Problem of Evil,” Faith and Philosophy 2, no. 4:  392–​418, and Eleonore Stump, 2012, Wandering in Darkness (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press). 5 Michael Harris, 2016, “But Now My Eye Has Seen You: Yissurin Shel Ahavah as Divine Intimacy Theodicy,” Torah U-​Madda Journal 17: 64–​92.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  75 In response to the question of why, if God exists, God would permit instances of evil, perhaps a reply applicable to some instances of personal suffering is this: in order to provide occasions in which we can perceive God, understand him to some degree, even meet God directly. I go on in subsequent sections to explore the plausibility of this line of thought.

3.1  The Character of Religious Experience The array of experiences that are taken to fall under the category of ‘religious experience’ makes it difficult to give a general characterization. The prophet Isaiah reports an auditory experience of what he took to be the voice of God: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, Here am I; send me!”6 John of the Cross describes a religious experience as one in which the understanding of the soul “is now moved and informed by  .  .  .  the supernatural light of God, and has been changed into the Divine, for its understanding and that of God are now both one.”7 Teresa of Avila reports spiritual experience in which one is: conscious of having been most delectably wounded. . . .[The soul] complains to its Spouse with words of love, and even cries aloud, being unable to help itself, for it realizes that He is present but will not manifest Himself in such a way as to allow it to enjoy Him, and this is a great grief, though a sweet and delectable one. . . .So powerful is the effect of this upon the soul that it becomes consumed with desire, yet cannot think what to ask, so clearly conscious is it of the presence of God.8

Rudolf Otto describes religious experience as that in which the soul is “held speechless, trembles inwardly to the farthest fibre of its being,” as it faces something so forceful and overwhelming that one feels oneself to be “dust and ashes as against majesty.” The experience is one of “fear and trembling” but also “wonderfulness and rapture.”9

6 Isaiah 6:8 (NIV). 7 John of the Cross, 1962, Living Flame of Love, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image), 78. 8 Teresa of Avila, 1961, Interior Castle, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image), 135–​136. 9 Rudolf Otto, 1923, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press), 17–​26 and 31–​32.

76  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will In each of these descriptions, it is suggested that the subject of a religious experience takes the experience to be of something objectively real and, moreover, that the objective reality experienced is religiously significant. In many instances in the Judeo-​Christian tradition, the objective reality experienced is taken to be God himself, the perfectly good, omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe. An experience might count as religious in this tradition as well, however, if its subject takes it to be an experience of an objectively existing holy Other, angel, demon, saint, or other religiously significant object. William Alston suggests an understanding of the term ‘religious experience’ along these lines, as “(putative) direct awareness of God.”10 It is “putative” so as not to beg any questions concerning the veridicality of the experience; religious experience is one that the subject takes to be direct awareness of God, whether or not it is God of which she is aware. This awareness might be achieved by a perceptual faculty of some sort or by some cluster of perceptual faculties, which might include a distinctive faculty for discerning the divine, a sort of spiritual sensing faculty. As noted in Chapter 1, Plantinga proposes that human beings have such a faculty—​what John Calvin termed the ‘sensus divinitatis’—​which enables us to be aware of God’s presence, actions, and intentions. If we were to have such a faculty, then in having a religious experience, we would be aware of God in a way that is analogous to our sensory perception of the physical world. Examples of religious experience as thus far characterized include a sense of God’s presence during prayer or worship, a vision of the divine, an auditory experience of God, and an awareness of God’s nearness. A believer might report experiencing God in nature or through an overwhelming sense of God’s forgiveness. A non-​theist might have a religious experience, as well, as in Saul’s experience of being overwhelmed by a blinding light and hearing the voice of God on the road to Damascus. We might understand the category of religious experience more broadly. Notice the aspect of union with God, the sense of one’s understanding becoming like that of God’s, in the words of John of the Cross quoted earlier. Perhaps we might understand the term ‘religious experience’ to apply both, first, to putative experiences of an objective reality that is religiously significant, including an awareness of God and, second, to experiences that are of 10 William Alston, 1991b, Perceiving God:  The Epistemology of Religious Experience (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 35.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  77 the same sort as experiences of a divine agent. Those within the Christian tradition might describe religious experiences of this second type as experiences like those of one of the three persons comprising God. So as not to beg any questions concerning the reality of the object of the experience, one could describe the second type of religious experience as experience like what God would experience were God to exist with a nature as depicted by religious scripture and tradition.

3.2  Suffering as Religious Experience Might instances of suffering count as religious experiences? Testimonial evidence supports the claim that some occasions of suffering provide a glimpse of God. Consider, for instance, the divine vision experienced by Julian of Norwich in the midst of suffering a severe illness for which she had received last rites: “At once I saw the red blood trickling down under the garland, hot, fresh, and plentiful, just as it did at the time of his passion when the crown of thorns was pressed on to the blessed head of God-​and-​Man. . . . And I had a strong, deep conviction that it was he himself.”11 She recounts that, in her suffering, she perceived God himself: “I saw that he is to us everything which is good and comforting for our help. He is our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for his love.”12 Many individuals in sorrow and pain have reported a vision of the divine or a feeling of God’s nearness and comfort in their distress. I suppose one might say that, in the sort of case just described, the individual involved has a religious experience while suffering, but that the suffering is not itself a religious experience. Just as someone might have an awareness of God while experiencing great joy or while worshipping in comfort, someone might have an awareness of God while in pain; but that does not imply that the pain itself is religious in character. Perhaps this is right. Suffering nonetheless does provide a special context in which one can experience particularly vividly the loving care and supportive presence of another person. Notice, as well, that some instances of suffering might themselves qualify as religious experiences of the second type: experiences like those of

11 Julian of Norwich, 1984, Revelations of Divine Love (New York: Penguin Books), 66. 12 Julian of Norwich, 1993, “Long Text 5,” quoted in Enduring Grace:  Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics (New York: Harper Collins), 88.

78  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will God. Suppose one were to think that God created persons in order for them to love and to be intimate with him and to glorify him forever. Suppose one were to think, further, that although persons were once in a state of closeness with God, they are now out of harmony with the Creator and, as on traditional Christian doctrine, God enacted a plan for reestablishing harmony, which involved God’s taking on human form and suffering rejection, torture, execution, and resurrection from death. From the perspective of one who adopts those suppositions, suffering itself might be viewed as an experience that one shares with the divine agent, and so it may be thought to serve as an avenue to knowledge of, and intimacy with, God. Viewed in this light, human suffering might be taken to be a kind of dispensation in that it allows one to share in some of the experience of God, giving one a window into understanding God’s nature. For a Christian theist, in particular, occasions of enduring rejection, pain, and loss may be opportunities for identification with the person of Jesus Christ. Intimacy with Christ gained through suffering may provide deeper appreciation of his passion. Marilyn McCord Adams similarly suggests that instances of suffering, even horrendous ones, might be made meaningful by being integrated into the sufferer’s relationship with God through identification with Christ, understood either as sympathetic identification—​in which each person suffers his own pain, enabling the human sufferer to know what it is like for Christ—​or as mystical identification—​in which the human sufferer literally experiences a share of Christ’s pain. Alternately, Adams suggests, meaningfulness may derive from suffering serving as a vision into the inner life of God, either because God is not impassible, or because the sheer intensity of the experience gives one a glimpse of what it is like to be beyond joy and sorrow. She proposes, as well, that sufferings might be made meaningful through defeat by divine gratitude which, when expressed by God in the afterlife, gives one full and unending joy.13 It seems to me that on the most plausible sort of divine intimacy theodicy, the notion of intimacy or identification with Christ should be understood in a sympathetic rather than a mystical sense. The suggestion then would be not that the human sufferer bears Christ’s actual sufferings, since it is not clear what would be the point of such bearing. In addition, the mystical view would seem to require quite peculiar views concerning pain. The Christian theist could suggest that a human being who suffers may sympathetically

13 Adams 1989 and Adams 1999.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  79 identify with Christ in sharing similar experience, as any other two persons identify with each other in the loose sense that they connect with, appreciate, or understand each other better when they share experiences of the same or similar types.

3.3  The Value of Relationships Is the good depicted here—​closeness with God—​worth it? Can it serve to justify some instances of suffering? In support of an affirmative answer, one might emphasize that our relationships are among the most important things in our lives. They structure and give meaning to our existence. We organize our time and our priorities in light of them. They contribute to our sense of self. If they are positive and deep, relationships immensely enhance our well-​being. Shared experiences facilitate the flourishing of our relationships by promoting mutual understanding. If I  experience something that you have experienced as well, then we can appreciate something about each other that outsiders to our experience cannot. Consider the difference between parents, on the one hand, and adults who are not parents and who have little or no experience with the children of relatives, neighbors or friends, on the other. Parents of whatever age, nationality, or socioeconomic class share certain experiences: childbirth—​in the case of biological mothers—​and the myriad demands of nourishing, training, and in all ways caring for the needs of a child. These experiences give parents, and those like them who are closely involved in the lives of children, some commonality. We understand, for instance, at least something of what other parents in a medical facility feel, as they stand by the bedside of their seriously ill or injured child or wait in the waiting room for news while their child is in surgery. We feel their anguish and know they are frightened; no one needs to explain this to us. Of course, an adult whose life is lived at quite a distance from all children might know in some sense that parents of seriously ill or injured children hurt and fear, but the sense of knowing in this case is more like a theoretical understanding, a projection or speculation rather than something “felt in the gut;” it is not an experientially based knowing. Like those who are parents, victims of a sort of oppression or injustice—​ members of an oppressed racial or political minority, or survivors of sexual assault—​understand each other in a way that outsiders to their experience

80  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will cannot. Common experiences provide a basis for conversation, and they make possible understanding of each other that is sometimes beyond words. We naturally feel affinity for those whose experiences are similar to our own, and it is easier for us to appreciate them fully than it is for us to understand persons whose backgrounds, educations, environments, and careers are very different from our own. In the case of romantic love, we become close by way of sharing experiences that are shared with no one else. We can bond with others, as well, by way of common illness and adversity, as in the camaraderie among survivors of breast cancer and among those who endure chronic pain. I have emphasized that shared experiences can deepen the connection between persons and that supportive personal relationships structure and give positive value to our lives. Given the worth of our positive relationships with human persons, it seems not unreasonable to think that a relationship with a divine person would be of enormous significance and value. Among those in the Christian tradition, there are many who speak of their relationship with Christ as the most important and cherished feature of their lives. If we might come even partially to understand some aspect of the divine creator of the universe by way of suffering, and if we could not have achieved this understanding and closeness in any other way, then it would seem that our suffering may have a great purpose. As closeness with God achieved through sharing similar experience is valuable, so too is being supported and cared for when one is suffering. One may be moved to tears by the words of someone who is moved by one’s own pain, someone who shows that he deeply understands one’s situation and stands in solidarity, caring for one’s well-​being. When touched by this kind of love, all else in life that may have seemed attractive may fade in importance. Supportive love is to be cherished; we do whatever we can to preserve it and to cause it to flourish. And it was suffering of some sort, some sadness, some brokenness, some disappointment or devastation, which made the connection possible, which enabled the feeling of being understood, accepted, and cared for in a profoundly meaningful way. If love is at the center of it all, then what better place is there to look for a theistic response to the problem of evil than to love, to intimacy with another, particularly to intimacy with God himself?14

14 In her weighty and beautifully written book, Wandering in Darkness, Eleonore Stump suggests that “suffering can be redeemed for the sufferer in personal relationship, that heartbreak can be woven into joy through the reciprocity of love.” Stump 2012, xix.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  81 Notice that sometimes someone who loves us, but whom we do not notice and thus whom we do not love in return, needs to do something to get our attention. Of course, God may send good things into our lives as signs that God is there and is caring for us, although we may readily misinterpret these benefits as being to our own credit, as merits we have earned or have made happen on our own. Is it reasonable to think that God would allow painful or traumatic events to happen in our lives so that we might notice his presence, form a relationship with Him or attend to its quality? Would the co-​worker aiming for a loving relationship with his office mate spill coffee on the papers on her desk, as a way of attracting her attention? He might, of course, but many of us would think he was misguided, that he had taken a mistaken approach if his aim was positive interaction between the two of them. Perhaps, then, if good and wise, he would not spill the coffee himself; however, given someone else’s carelessness or poor choice that resulted in the spill, he might make himself available immediately to offer assistance and emotional support. In this case, a good that can come from a disappointing event is camaraderie with the co-​worker who joins her in the feelings of sadness over whatever was ruined, who shares his own stories of loss, and who assists her in the cleaning-​up process. The suggestion of the divine intimacy theodicy, then, is that perhaps in some cases, God allows us to suffer at least in part because (i) this enables us to share in experience of God himself, where within the Christian tradition the focus is on appreciating deeply the passion of Christ; and (ii) this enables persons vividly to experience the loving presence of God. In both of these ways, suffering could contribute positively to an individual’s relationship with God.

3.4 Divine Passibility We could broaden the appeal of the divine intimacy theodicy to non-​ Christian versions of monotheism if we were to set aside reference to the person of Jesus of Nazareth. A theist of any sort could believe that we can experience God’s loving support during our trials. But to endorse the shared experience aspect of the divine intimacy theodicy, a non-​Christian monotheist could join those philosophers who affirm, against tradition, that God is not impassible. On the more traditional conception of the divine nature, God is not affected by anything and so cannot suffer.15 Suppose, however, 15 The Westminster Confession of Faith (II.1) states: “There is but one . . . true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions . . .”

82  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will that God grieves over human sin. Then in feeling deep sorrow over the neglect and abuse of children, and in feeling grief over war and pollution and poverty, a person may have experience like God’s. Michael Harris writes that, “Even if divine intimacy theodicy is construed in its more radical mode as involving the idea that God can suffer, this idea is far from an alien one in important strands of Jewish tradition.”16 An individual’s own sorrow may be a means to having intimacy with the divine being who is affected negatively by the sorrow-​worthy features and events of our world. The doctrine of impassibility is defended primarily by appeal to philosophical considerations including reflection on the natures of perfection, immutability, and transcendence. One line of supporting reasoning, put very roughly, is this: A perfect being cannot change, because every change is either for the better or for the worse. But a perfect being cannot get any better; it is already perfect, having all perfections. And a perfect being cannot get any worse; otherwise, it would no longer be perfect. Hence God is changeless. So God cannot transition from experiencing calm repose to experiencing anger or grief to experiencing the resolution of anger or grief. A perfect God simply cannot suffer or grieve. The doctrine of divine impassibility, however, has been criticized by a number of philosophers, including Plantinga, Charles Hartshorne, Charles Taliaferro, Wolterstorff, Schellenberg, and Swinburne. Plantinga, for instance, affirms the existence of a God who “enters into and shares our suffering.” He writes: “Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God’s capacity for suffering, I believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours.”17 Schellenberg similarly suggests that God must be deeply empathetic and intimately acquainted with what it is like to suffer, since “a perfect creator must have, to a maximally great degree, every sort of knowledge it is good to possess, and . . . knowledge by acquaintance of horrific suffering belongs in that category.”18 Of the considerations in favor of rejecting divine impassibility, the most significant from my perspective are reflection on the nature of goodness and on the nature of love. God as traditionally conceived is not only omnipotent and omniscient, but also wholly good and perfectly loving. A number 16 Harris 2016, 64–​92. 17 Alvin Plantinga, 1985, “Self-​Profile,” in Alvin Plantinga, edited by James E. Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen (Dordrecht: D. Reidel), 36. 18 J. L. Schellenberg, 2007, The Wisdom to Doubt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 245.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  83 of philosophers, including Wolterstorff and Taliaferro, have registered their rejection of the Greek-​influenced medieval conception of divine love as non-​ suffering benevolence. The argument is that apathy, unperturbed emotional indifference to the plight of humanity, is incompatible with God’s love of humanity. Here is why the incompatibility claim is attractive. Philosophers who work on the nature of love differ over its defining features, as we saw in the previous chapter. But suppose that, whether love is best characterized as a sort of union, as a commitment, as an emotion, or as a desire of a particular sort, it at least essentially involves concern for the well-​being or flourishing of the object of love. In his work on love, Frankfurt adds that the lover’s concern for the beloved is disinterested, in the sense that the good of the beloved is desired for its own sake, rather than for the sake of promoting any other interests.19 Frankfurt emphasizes that lovers are not merely concerned for the interests of their beloveds; further, they identify the interests of the beloveds as their own.20 He suggests that if the lover “comes to believe that his beloved is not flourishing, then it is unavoidable that this causes him harm.”21 Lack of flourishing in the beloved, by the nature of love, causes harm in the one who loves her. If love of someone essentially involves concern for her well-​being, then it is reasonable to think that it involves disvaluing or having concerned disapproval for her harm. Now we might wonder whether disvaluing or having concerned disapproval for the beloved’s harm implies experiencing sorrow or grief when the beloved is harmed. Taliaferro suggests that “God cares about our failures, and this concerned disapproval may rightly be counted as an instance of sorrow.”22 Consider, for instance, the horror of someone you love being raped. Taliaferro writes: “Part of what it means to be sorrowful here is that you do disapprove of it, the harming of someone who matters to you, and you disapprove of this profoundly.”23 It seems to me that, to say that I love my daughter, yet that I experience no sorrow, grief, or passion of any kind at her pain or disgrace, stretches the concept of love beyond comprehensibility. Likewise if a husband remains wholly emotionally distant and undisturbed in the presence of his wife’s severe pain, it seems that he does 19 Harry Frankfurt, 1999, “On Caring,” in his Necessity, Volition, and Love (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 165. 20 Frankfurt 1999, 168. 21 Frankfurt 1999, 170. 22 Charles Taliaferro, 1989, “The Passibility of God,” Religious Studies 25: 220. 23 Taliaferro 1989, 220.

84  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will not love her or at least that there is something defective about his love. Hence it would seem that a being who is more loving than any of us, who is the most loving that anyone can be, would experience profound sadness at the harm that befalls those who are loved. God is supposed to love all of his created beings. Moreover, since one can love something only insofar as one is acquainted with it, it would seem that God could not love us fully without knowing us fully. But our being fully known requires acquaintance on the part of the knower with our suffering.24 Thus, reflection on the nature of love supports the conception of a God who suffers. Additional support for the passibility of God comes from the consideration of the nature of goodness. It seems natural and plausible to think that a morally good being grieves over evil. In his extended defense of the traditional doctrine of divine impassibility,25 Richard Creel argues that it serves no purpose to attribute suffering to God, as God may act out of justice without being sorrowful. But to the contrary, we question the goodness of an agent who acts in a morally correct manner towards victims of crime or disease, yet wholly without sorrow or empathy for the persons served. A  great moral character—​one worthy of worship—​exhibits its greatness in part by what it sorrows over and to what degree. Noble sorrow at witnessing a tragic occurrence is a good. Hence it would seem that God’s goodness implies sorrow, as well as joy, over the world. This sorrow is arguably not a defect, but a perfection, a strength or an asset, an aspect of being supremely good. I have suggested that perhaps there is some reason to think that, if God exists, God does suffer, provided by reflection on the natures of goodness and love. Should the considerations in favor of the attribute of impassibility prove in the end more powerful, however, the divine intimacy theodicy would not thereby be defeated. There remains the possibility that God shows himself to a human sufferer in a unique way, even if there is no divine suffering. Furthermore, if suffering cannot be experience like that of God Himself, Christian theism, in particular, can yet make sense of it as experience shared with the person of Jesus Christ. Christian theism can count certain occasions of suffering as avenues to divine intimacy by way of sympathetic identification with one of the persons of the Holy Trinity: God incarnate.

24 cf. Wolterstorff 1988, 223.

25 Richard E. Creel, 1986, Divine Impassibility (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  85

3.5  Problems for the Divine Intimacy Theodicy One concern a person might have with the proposal I have explored thus far in this chapter is that it engages not with the theoretical problem of evil, but rather with what has been called the psychological or existential version of it. That is, the divine intimacy theodicy might be viewed as most plausibly recommending means by which, if one is a religious believer, one might cope when suffering oneself.26 It is true that the account of suffering as religious experience suggests a method for dealing with the existential problem of evil. One way of enduring unchangeable occasions of pain and suffering is to adopt an attitude of acceptance and even, perhaps strangely, gratification in the opportunity to identify with God. Consider how that might work, in particular, for a Christian theist. Take an instance of physical suffering, say, malfunction of the gallbladder, which many women experience during pregnancy and which causes intense sharp pain under the right side of the ribcage. The person of Jesus of Nazareth might never have suffered physical pain with this particular source; nonetheless, in the midst of coping with it, a person might hold in mind similar pain that Jesus suffered in the events leading up to his crucifixion, taking comfort in the sympathetic identification and using it as a source of strength to bolster her endurance. Likewise, in the midst of dealing with the trauma of a deep betrayal of loyalty, one might bring to mind the thought that, as I have been rejected, so too was Christ rejected, even by Peter, his closest friend. In enduring such occasions of pain and loss, a person might find meaning in the thought that she grasps in an experiential way an aspect of the life of Christ that perhaps not all others fully do or can. But arguably a divine intimacy theodicy offers more than just a response to the existential version of the problem of evil. It proposes a justification for evil, as well. The theoretical suggestion is that some cases of suffering are experiences that serve to bring a person closer to God, such that the good either in or resulting from them is intimacy with the divine agent. This good, on the proposal, provides a God-​justifying reason for permitting evils.

26 If one is a reflective person who is concerned about evil, then any theodicy is, in a way, practically useful: it helps us to cope intellectually, to think about and to process what goes wrong.

86  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

3.5.1  The Objection from Cruelty One objection to the divine intimacy theodicy is an objection from cruelty. The objection is that it is implausible to think that a perfect God would cause or permit suffering as a means to knowing him. Why would such nastiness be preferable to direct divine self-​revelation? Imagine a parent who installed no child safety gates or devices in the home, allowing a young toddler to simply tumble down the stairs, so that the child would run to the parent for comfort or would somehow allegedly “understand” the parent’s own pain. A parent who behaved in such a way would not be good. A good parent shows herself to her child directly, with words and gestures of kindness and love. Since permitting suffering is a cruel way of fostering intimacy, the objection goes, the perfect being would not be justified in this permission and so the account of suffering as religious experience fails as a theodicy. This is a troubling objection. It is problematic, of course, to envision God as allowing us to suffer for God’s own good—​such as God’s gaining the benefit of receiving our attention and deriving a sense of power from our dependence on him—​rather than for our own good. And it is disturbing to conceive of God as taking this attitude toward created beings: “Suffer, and then I will let you know Me,” as if our enduring a crucible of suffering were a passkey, while God looks on in malicious delight. One could reply that these images inaccurately reflect the divine intimacy theodicy. A  perfect being would not need for us in any way to give him “a sense of power” and would not delight over suffering. The central suggestion of the divine intimacy theodicy is that some occasions of suffering enable certain individuals’ coming to love of and intimacy with God. The objector might counter by pointing out that some persons experience God in moments of great joy and beauty. Yet the theodicist may reply that this is true while it is also true that other persons’ paths to God are paths through suffering.27 In order to make this proposal plausible, the divine intimacy theodicist would need to defend the claim that the good thereby achieved—​namely, the immense good of intimacy with a loving and suffering God—​could not be achieved in any other (or better) way. She might suggest that suffering is for some persons the most effective, non-​coercive28 means to achieving the end of love of and intimacy 27 Cf. Stump 1994. 28 The appeal to the value of God’s being non-​coercive with respect to us—​invoked often in response to the question of why God would not make his presence known more obviously and more frequently to us—​relies, again, implicitly on the value of human free will. See Michael J. Murray, 1993, “Coercion and the Hiddenness of God,” American Philosophical Quarterly 30: 27–​38. If the

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  87 with God. Alternatively, the divine intimacy theodicist could suggest that, through suffering, a person may gain a type of knowledge of God that simply could not be had in any other way.

3.5.2  The Objection from Lunacy A second objection is this:  To view suffering as an avenue to knowledge of God is evidence of a personality disturbance or psychological disorder. Put bluntly, only a lunatic would welcome suffering and find it gratifying in virtue of its alleged spiritual dimensions. This line of objection gains support from record of the physical conditions of the lives of some mystics of the medieval and later periods who viewed suffering in this manner. For instance, the Cistercian nun Beatrice of Nazareth, the author of The Seven Manners of Love, is reported to have deprived herself of nourishing food, worn uncomfortable garments, scourged herself, and slept on thorns.29 Other religious believers may strike us as histrionic and objectionably passive in their welcoming attitudes toward suffering. Consider, for instance, the remarks of Therese of Lisieux at the onset of symptoms of tuberculosis, which took her life at the age of twenty-​four: Oh! how sweet this memory really is! After remaining at the Tomb until midnight, I returned to our cell, but I had scarcely laid my head upon the pillow when I felt something like a bubbling stream mounting to my lips. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought that perhaps I was going to die and my soul was flooded with joy. However, as our lamp was extinguished, I told myself I would have to wait until the morning to be certain of my good fortune, for it seemed to me that it was blood I had coughed up. The morning was not long in coming; upon awakening, I thought immediately of the joyful thing that I had to learn, and so I went over to the window. I was able to see that I was not mistaken. Ah! my soul was filled with a great consolation; I was interiorly persuaded that Jesus, on the anniversary of His

most plausible way to develop the divine intimacy theodicy relies on the existence and value of libertarian free will (a matter I discuss further later), then we have not, after all, identified a theodicy that is non-​reliant on those suppositions. 29 Emilie Zum Brunn and Georgette Epiney-​Burgard, 1989, editors, Women Mystics in Medieval Europe, translated from French by Sheila Hughes (New York: Paragon House), 72.

88  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will own death, wanted to have me hear His first call. It was like a sweet and distant murmur that announced the Bridegroom’s arrival.30

Therese not only notices the blood in her cough, but she welcomes and embraces it as the answer to her prayer. She has prayed that God would consume her with His love and bring her to Himself quickly, and she has asked that she be allowed to share in the suffering of Christ. She declares in her “Act of Oblation to Merciful Love”: I thank You, O my God! for all the graces You have granted me, especially the grace of making me pass through the crucible of suffering. It is with joy I shall contemplate You on the Last Day carrying the scepter of Your Cross. Since You deigned to give me a share in this very precious Cross, I hope in heaven to resemble You and to see shining in my glorified body the sacred stigmata of Your Passion.31

Reading passages such as these may leave the impression that it is, at best, wishful thinking and, at worst, indicative of masochism or some other psychiatric condition to believe that God is providing intimacy with Himself through one’s suffering. There is indeed room for explanations of such reported visions and feelings of gratitude in psychiatric disorder. Those who report experience of supernatural phenomena, though, are notoriously subject to the charge of being delusional; a defender of the divine intimacy theodicy might suggest that which views indicate spiritual insight and which indicate a condition in need of psychiatric treatment is a matter of opinion, and the two are not incompatible. As it stands, the objection from lunacy may amount to little more than the claim that it seems to the objector that the proponent of the divine intimacy theodicy is crazy. The objector, however, might develop his case by pointing to such factors as social isolation, inadequate sleep, poor nutrition, and lack of medical care in the lives of some religious mystics who have claimed to perceive God or to have come better to understand God in the midst of their own suffering. These circumstances, it may be argued, indicate that the view of suffering as religious experience is pathological and not 30 Therese of Lisieux, 1996, Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, 3rd edition, translated from the original manuscripts by John Clarke, O.C.D (Washington, DC: ICS Publications), 210–​211. 31 Therese of Lisieux 1996, 277.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  89 reasonable. These considerations do seem to be inconclusive, but a charge of insanity against every adherent to a divine intimacy theodicy seems grandiose.32 A stronger version of the lunacy objection is as follows. Consider this line of reasoning: Intimacy with God is perhaps the most important good that I can have in this life. But I cannot achieve that intimacy without undergoing some suffering. Since God has not blessed me with suffering, I will repeatedly slice my skin slowly with blades or starve myself to the point of pain and exhaustion. Perhaps only a lunatic would take this line of reasoning seriously. But at first glance, it may seem that a supporter of the divine intimacy theodicy is committed to approving of it. Similarly one might object that the theodicy leads to a weakened sense of duty to relieve the physical suffering of others and even gives license actively to make them suffer,33 in order that they might achieve the spiritual good of closeness to God, and one might contend that it is an instance of lunacy to endorse a view with such implications. The proponent of the divine intimacy theodicy could reply that she is not committed to condoning either moral complacency or the intentional pursuit of suffering, and that adopting the proposed theodicy need not lead one to self-​mutilation or to other eccentric or damaging behaviors. A proponent of the theodicy might endorse and defend a moral imperative to care for the sick, the poor, the hungry, and those in pain, as well as a moral duty to look after our own bodily health. She might argue that the divine intimacy theodicy does not entail that it is permissible to persecute or oppress others so as to drive them closer to God.

3.5.3  The Objection from Ineffectiveness A third objection is readily apparent: namely, one from futility or ineffectiveness. Very common reactions to suffering include confusion, bitterness, and rejection of God’s existence, rather than a sense of closeness to God. As we discussed in Chapter 1, suffering is often accompanied by a vivid impression that God does not exist (or that whatever divine being there is does not care 32 C. D. Broad remarked that a person “might need to be slightly ‘cracked’ in order to have some peep-​holes into the super-​sensible world,” in C. D. Broad, 1939, “Arguments for the Existence of God. II,” Journal of Theological Studies 40: 164. 33 This type of worry—​about the implications for our own moral obligations in response to suffering—​has been raised about other theodicies, as well.

90  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will about the sufferer). Sometimes when one is ill or deeply sad or devastated by loss, one feels, in fact, utterly alone, as if no one truly understands and no one cares; the future may seem to hold only the same aloneness and absurdity. However, not all instances of despair and loss are futile with respect to yielding a sense of closeness with God. The divine intimacy theodicist may contend that, from the fact that some persons reject God through their suffering, it does not follow that some occasions of suffering do not provide an opportunity for intimacy with God.34 Analogously, from the fact that some husbands do not become more intimate with their loving and caring spouses, it does not follow that none do, and it does not follow that those who do not were not provided with an opportunity to do so.35 It could be that God is present and available to support a person who chooses not to acknowledge that this is so. It is also the case that one might be sharing in the experience of God who suffers as one does, without one’s being appreciative of this fact. The thesis at issue is not that meaning is always found in suffering by every being who suffers, but rather that a certain kind of meaning can be found in suffering, through divine intimacy.

3.6  Assessment How should one assess the overall plausibility of the divine intimacy theodicy? The concessions in the previous paragraph highlight two important points. One is this:  the appeal to the idea that occasions of suffering offer an opportunity for intimacy with God rather than a guarantee, shows, again—​like the retributive punishment theodicy, free will theodicy, and character-​ building theodicy—​ a reliance on the existence and positive value of libertarian human free choice. Compatibilist free will does not do the trick, as we saw in the previous chapter, since God could have actualized a world in which created persons have such free will (for instance, the ability to act on hierarchically aligned desires) without the facts about evil we have identified—​concerning amount, intensity, and distribution—​being 34 Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, emphasizes individual choice in his account of how we can make our lives meaningful despite unavoidable suffering. He suggests that we do this by taking responsibility for our lives, setting goals and working toward them, and by choosing to find meaning in love, beauty, and serving something larger than ourselves. His message is not, however, that suffering is a means to attaining some kind of special knowledge of, or closeness with, a divine being. 35 Thanks to Chris Tucker for this analogy.

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  91 what they are, and even without there being any evil at all. A divine intimacy theodicist who wants to accommodate certain cases of suffering by postulating that, in permitting those instances of suffering, God offered the great good of an opportunity for the sufferer to achieve new or deeper intimacy with God, but the sufferer freely failed to take advantage of the opportunity (so that the non-​achievement of the justifying good is not God’s fault), will need to rely on the existence and positive value of libertarian free will. In Chapter  2, I  highlighted the difficulty of building a case for the sufficient value of libertarian free will, and there remains the difficulty of building a case for the existence of libertarian free will. The second point is the recognition that intimacy with God is not available to every being who suffers. I think in the end it has to be admitted that the divine intimacy theodicy can provide at most a very partial justificatory account. The view simply cannot plausibly cover all of the facts about evil. Most prominent among the problem cases are those involving the suffering of non-​human animals. Although this judgment depends on the (to-​some-​ extent-​unknown) capacities of sentient members of other species, it seems quite unlikely that the pain endured by all sentient non-​human animals by way of neglect, abuse, torture, disease, and natural disaster can be justified by connection with, or intimacy with, God. The widespread instances of suffering of infants and very young children, too—​some born into deep poverty and deprivation, some with debilitating illnesses, some who die slow wasting deaths from starvation, some who are maliciously abused—​frankly are not credibly claimed to be covered by the divine intimacy theodicy. In sum, despite its interest and despite the use it might have in suggesting means by which a theist might cope in the midst of suffering, the divine intimacy theodicy ultimately comes up short. This raises the question of the plausibility of a hybrid theodicy or a bundle case. Perhaps a theist could argue that, for some cases of evil, the God-​ justifying reason for causing or allowing them is punishment, whereas with other cases of evil, the God-​justifying reason for allowing them is the preservation of created beings’ power of libertarian free will, whereas in other cases of evil, the God-​justifying reason for causing or allowing them is temporally extended character development, and in other cases of evil, the God-​ justifying reason for causing or allowing them is that they provide avenues to knowledge of, and intimacy with, God. Notice, though, as we saw in Chapter 1 and in the present chapter, that in their most plausible versions, all of these theodicies are libertarian free

92  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will will involving. Again, compatibilist free will simply does not do the work the theist needs it to do in responding to arguments from evil. Support for the plausibility of any of these theodicies requires rejection of the position of free will skepticism as defended, for instance, by Pereboom, and it requires defense of the empirical claim that we do have libertarian free will. If one is prepared to defend the claim that we do have free will, yet one has serious reservations about the value claim concerning free will examined in the previous chapter—​namely, that libertarian free will is worth the costs—​then, as a theist, one will need a different response to arguments from evil than a solely free-​will-​based response. Suppose that one thinks that free will is incompatible with determinism and one takes oneself to be in possession of good evidence that we do have free will, so that one is a (metaphysical) libertarian; and suppose that one is convinced by the reasoning in the previous chapter to conclude that free will is not sufficiently valuable to bear the weight it would need to bear on its own. How might one (that is, one who has the commitments just described) shore up a free-​will-​involving response to arguments from evil? Perhaps one could attempt to mount an additive case, appealing to the values of punishment, character-​building, and divine intimacy on top of the value of free will, and one could apply these theodicies to different instances of evil. First, consider the value of punishment. Could one plausibly assert that the punishment for a wrong act done of a person’s own free will is valuable in itself, even if the free will with which the person did the act has little value, or an amount of value that is insufficient on its own to justify God in permitting evil? One could, insofar as one could defend the idea that punishment of a retributive sort in response to acts for which a person deserves punishment has value, perhaps deriving from the good of justice. But one would need to support the claim that it was a good idea for God to create us with free will in the first place, in order to support the claim that it is an even better idea to allow free acts and to punish us for wrong acts we do freely. That is, one would need to show that there is value in a free act deriving from the value of free will and that there is even more value in a punished free wrong act deriving from both the value of free will and the value of punishment in the service of justice. Thus a theodicy that relies in part on the value of retributive punishment will have to involve not only a defense of the contention that we have free will, but also a defense of the contentions that libertarian free will has some amount of positive value, rather than no value, and that its worth is sufficiently high to provide, together with the value of the punishment of

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  93 free wrong acts, God-​justifying reasons for at least some of the evils we find in the world. In the case of punishment that is alleged to be non-​retributive but instead needed for the correcting and molding of the offender’s future behavior, the punishment theodicy in fact becomes a sort of character-​building theodicy. Consider, then, the value of character-​building. Could one plausibly assert that the character-​building accomplished of a person’s own free will has value that exceeds the value had by free will simpliciter? One could, insofar as one could defend the idea that a temporally extended process of the free development of such traits as generosity, patience, and perseverance through experience with adversity has a value that exceeds the value of such traits that are acquired in a non-​temporally extended way not through experience with adversity and not through libertarian free choice. One could attempt to develop a case for the plausibility of thinking that God’s simply making us with highly developed moral characters from the start—​so that we are patient, loving, compassionate, good, helpful, courageous, kind, and so forth—​would not be (anywhere near) as valuable as God’s putting us in an environment steeped with evils in which we have opportunities freely to develop, or fail to develop, such traits. But in order for this line of thought to be persuasive, for each case to which it is applied, the temporally extended opportunity for character development through facing adversity would need to be worth, for each person, the costs, for that person, since it is reasonable to reject as a genuine justifying good the alleged value of “being of use.” It is frankly hard to see how the character-​building theodicy will have sufficiently broad scope, and the relevant value case has yet plausibly to be made. Cases of dysteleological pain and suffering we considered in Chapter  1—​ cases of suffering on the part of non-​human animals who lack capacities for character development and cases of human suffering in which there is no growth of character and even no opportunity for growth of character, due to rapid death or destruction of personal capacities for reasoning, memory, and emotional development, as in cases of severe neurological damage and decline—​stand counter to the character-​building theodicy, and the alternative goods of retributive punishment and opportunity for intimacy with God seem not easily brought in to help. There are many other cases that stand as challenges to a hybrid theodicy, including cases that come to the fore when we focus on the distribution of suffering in our world, in particular, its “piling on” effect in the course of individual lives. Why would a child who is born into poverty have to suffer not

94  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will only hunger and repeated illness but also the cruelties of systemic racism and a lifetime of losses of loved ones to police brutality? Why would a mother’s spinal disks need to herniate for a fourth time, causing disability that affects her professional and personal lives, when the first three times provided plenty of opportunity for her to become the empathetic, emotionally strong person she is, and after she has already lived through a devastating betrayal in her marriage and survived a childhood home characterized by addiction and violence? Why would a brother need to be injured by yet another medical procedure, giving him a second chronic pain condition, when he was already highly compassionate, perseverent, and forgiving? Why would the colleague who spent the bulk of his life as a quadriplegic following a childhood case of polio, with all of the physical and social struggles such a life involved, have his home struck by lightning, not once, but twice? The theodicist might suggest that these individuals have secret character flaws that need punishment, or that they need yet more opportunity to feel God’s presence or more opportunity to improve themselves. The suggestion simply seems highly implausible, however, and it is obscene when applied to girls who are victimized by incest and other forms of physical and emotional abuse throughout the course of their childhoods, and obscene when applied to victims of years of malicious spousal abuse and to victims of serial hate crimes and to those who are brutally enslaved and tortured, among many others. The question posed earlier was whether or not one might plausibly defend a theodicy that depends in part on the value of libertarian free will, even if this value is judged not to be sufficiently high on its own to do all of the theoretical work in responding to the problem of evil. The answer is that the plausibility would depend on the strength of the case for the value of retributive punishment, and on the strength of the case for the value of opportunity for intimacy with God, and on the strength of the case for the value of a temporally extended process of the opportunity for the free development of positive character traits through experience with adversity—​a value that greatly exceeds the value of such traits acquired in a non-​temporally extended way not through experience with adversity and not through free choice—​and on the strength of the case for the claim that jointly the values of such opportunities for character development, punishment, divine intimacy, and free will can account for the severity and scope of the evils of this world, as well as on the strength of the case for the claim that the evils of this world are necessary for the realization of the goods. In sum, the hybrid theodicist has an exceedingly tall order, and our experiences of, and awareness of, facts about

Divine Intimacy Theodicy  95 evil in the world provide awfully good reason to doubt that a hybrid case will succeed in covering the full range, distribution, and intensity of evils. It seems especially unreasonable to think that the pain endured by all sentient non-​human animals by way of neglect, abuse, torture, disease, and natural disaster can be justified by a hybrid theodicy that draws on the values of free will, punishment, character-​building, and connection with God.

4 Skeptical Theism In Chapter 1, we saw a variety of motivations for being a theist, among them social, emotional, and various pragmatic motivations. We also began to examine arguments against the existence of God rooted in the facts of evil in our world, including the vast amount, distribution, and intensity of appalling cases of evil and the existence of evils that appear to many of us to be pointless. We considered the most prominent attempts to provide the reasons that might justify an absolutely perfect being in causing or allowing evils, including the character-​building theodicy, the punishment theodicy, and the free will theodicy, as reflected in, for instance, the work of John Hick and Richard Swinburne. These theodicies on their most plausible construal rely on assumptions of both the existence of, and the very high value of, the free will of created beings. In Chapter 2, I highlighted the need for those who rely heavily on free will in responding to arguments from evil to specify the nature of free will and the source or sources of its value. We examined competing accounts of the nature of free will. I argued that libertarian free will—​free will as understood by someone who takes free will to be incompatible with the thesis of causal determinism—​is crucial for theists in free-​will-​based responses to arguments from evil. I assessed contentions that libertarian free will is intrinsically valuable, as well as a number of suggestions concerning what makes it extrinsically valuable, including claims that libertarian free will is required for certain kinds of love, for desert-​grounding moral responsibility, for our sense of self, for creativity, for genuine goodness, and for meaning in life. The upshot was that it is not at all clear that the free will of created beings is sufficiently valuable to do the work it is meant to do in responding to arguments from evil. In fact, arguably it is not true that, for all we know, free will is sufficiently valuable, and it is rational to refrain from believing the possibility claim concerning free will that is central to a free will defense. In Chapter 3, I turned to a different sort of theodicy, one that initially might be thought to be defensible without a reliance on the existence or the high value of libertarian free will, namely a divine intimacy theodicy. But this line of thought, God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0004

Skeptical Theism  97 too, on its most plausible version does rely on free will, and it comes up short in providing God-​justifying reasons for the full range of instances of evil. At this juncture, then, we have given some support to the following argument, to which I will give further support in the present chapter. After long and careful reflection, examining various proposals concerning reasons that allegedly justify God in permitting the full range of instances of evil, we have found no proposals that are particularly compelling. There are no other persuasive suggestions in the literature on the problem of evil concerning what the God-​justifying reasons might be.1 Thus some instances of evil in the world are pointless. But if God were to exist, then there would be no instances of pointless evil in the world. Therefore, God does not exist.2 The reasoning in favor of the premise that, if God were to exist, then there would be no instances of pointless evil in the world is, as we saw in Chapter 1, as follows. Since God is essentially omniscient, God knows all 1 We have considered as proposed goods the free will of created beings, stability of the natural laws, the temporally extended freely acquired development of positive traits of character, retributive punishment, and connection or intimacy with God. Note, again, that punishment conceived as conditioning, rather than as retribution, is a means of character formation, and thus a punishment theodicy on that construal of the function of punishment makes it into a form of the character development theodicy. Recall that we set aside as implausible the suggestion that the facts of evil are required as contrast for, or as a counterpart to, the existence of goods. Love can exist without hate; knowledge can exist without ignorance; purity can exist without impurity. Were it not so, it would be incoherent to suppose that God existed before anything else came to be or that God exists independently from and regardless of the existence of the created world. Even if an instantiation of evil were required for the existence of some goods, the “necessity of contrast” or “counterpart” theodicy would fail to provide justifying reasons for the full range of facts about evil in our world. For elaboration of reasons for concluding that the counterpart theodicy is a failure, see Justin McBrayer, 2013, “Counterpart and Appreciation Theodicies,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, edited by Justin McBrayer and Daniel Howard-​Snyder (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell), 192–​204. We also set aside as implausible the suggestion that the facts of evil are required in order to achieve human appreciation of the good. Surely God could make us be constituted in such a way that we appreciate our health, well-​being, and the other positive aspects of the universe without the full range of the facts about evil in our world (one’s fifth time battling the flu, for instance, and so very many lives marked by chronic pain). But even if there were some plausible reason for thinking that it is an oddity of human psychology that it is impossible for them to appreciate goods without the full range of the facts about evil in our world, the question arises why God would not, in that case, instead make shmumans, a different species of persons who appreciate the full range of goods without the full amount, intensity, and distribution of evils of this world. For discussion of reasons for rejecting the appreciation theodicy, see McBrayer 2013. One might say that there are the goods of human cooperation and relationship building which sometimes result from suffering (as indicated in Chapter 3; see also Robin Collins, 2013, “The Connection-​Building Theodicy,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 222–​235), but these goods, too, could be achieved in less horrific and less painful ways and so fail to provide the God-​justifying reasons we have sought. 2 Cf. William Rowe, 1979, “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” American Philosophical Quarterly 16: 335–​341, at 337, William Rowe, 1988, “Evil and Theodicy,” Philosophical Topics 16: 119–​132, and Graham Oppy, 2013, “Rowe’s Evidential Arguments from Evil,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 49–​66.

98  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will truths that can be known, including all such truths about the instances of evil that occur in our world. If God is said not to know ahead of time that certain evils occur—​owing to, for instance, God’s atemporal existence, or owing to the fact that the occurrences of the evils in question have some indeterminacy in their causal history, such that there are no knowable truths about these evils until they occur—​still God either atemporally knows that these evils occur or God knows that these evils occur as they occur and knows ahead of time of the risk of their occurrence, given God’s knowledge of the content of God’s initial creative decree and given God’s knowledge of all the features of our world, including its natural laws, its past states, and the powers granted to created beings. Hence there are no truths about actual instances of evil and no truths about risks of evil that are unknown to God or about which God is ignorant. Since God is essentially omnipotent, God is able to do everything there is to be done, so God is able to prevent every preventable evil and, with respect to any evil there may be that is unpreventable prior to its occurrence owing to, for instance, lack of infallible divine foreknowledge and indeterminacy in the causal history of the evil, God is able to prevent the risk of every such evil (by, for instance, not creating anything at all or by issuing a fully determinate creative decree or by declining to give any created beings free will of a sort that requires causal indeterminism). Since God is perfectly good, God would prevent the occurrence of any evil (and any risk of evil) that God knows about and can prevent without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse. Thus, if God exists, then there are no instances of evil which God is not justified in causing or allowing, that is, there are no pointless evils in the world. Suppose one were to follow van Inwagen in contending that, even in a world created and sustained by God, there may be no reason that certain particular instances of evil occur rather than others and that, nonetheless, we do have an explanation for the existence of evil in general and for roughly the amount and types of horrid cases we observe, an explanation which could be true or is true for all we know. One might, that is, follow van Inwagen in rejecting the argument from pointless evils by denying the premise that, if God were to exist, then there would be no instances of pointless evil in the world. On such a position, some instances of evil have no God-​justifying reason for that particular instance to occur, but they have a God-​justifying reason in the sense that there is a global reason that justifies God in allowing

Skeptical Theism  99 there to be evils at all and in roughly the amount and of the types and in the intensities we observe in the world. In response to this position, in addition to the reasons I gave for rejecting it in Chapter 1, given the discussion in the first three chapters of this book, we may pose the argument from facts about evil, to which I will also give further support in the present chapter. After long and careful reflection, examining various proposals concerning reasons that justify God in permitting evil in the amount and of the kinds and in the distribution we find in the world, we have found no proposals that are particularly compelling. There are no other persuasive suggestions in the literature on the problem of evil concerning what the God-​justifying reasons for these facts might be. Thus the facts of evil concerning its amount, distribution, and kinds are facts for which there are not God-​justifying reasons. But if God were to exist, then there would be God-​justifying reasons for the obtaining of these facts, or else these facts would not obtain. But these facts do obtain. Therefore, God does not exist. As William Rowe expresses the thought, again: “In light of our experience and knowledge of the variety and scale of human and animal suffering in our world, the idea that none of this suffering could have been prevented by an omnipotent being without thereby losing a greater good or permitting an evil at least as bad seems an extraordinarily absurd idea, quite beyond our belief.”3 These arguments from pointless evils and from the facts about evil provide a powerful case for atheism.4 However, there is a prominent line of response to them that we have not yet examined. An important position that responds to the arguments from evil—​a position prominent in the literature in philosophy of religion—​has come to be known as skeptical theism.

3 Rowe 1979, 338. 4 Some say that atheists, too, must make sense out of a world of good and evil “without the assurances and foundation provided by theism” (McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, Preface to Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil). But atheists do not need to show that evil “makes sense.” They need to navigate a world that has good and evil in it, but there is no analogous theoretical problem concerning reconciling evil with an atheistic worldview. Some theists might say that atheist have the conceptual problem of explaining what grounds claims about good and evil—​what makes some actions and states of affairs good and others evil—​without reference to God. But these facts may not need grounding or they may be grounded in moral intuition or in social contract or in sentiment or in natural facts. Some theists say that naturalism does not explain why persons are capable of, and attracted to, atrocious or horrific acts, rather than simply acts that are somewhat bad as they pursue survival, but that theism explains this by reference to original sin and rebellion against God. I find that contention unconvincing. A response is that the natural evolutionary process is competitive and in some ways ugly, and it produced beings who are ingenious and imaginative.

100  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

4.1  Characterizing Skeptical Theism Consider the following idea. Perhaps we should grant that we cannot fathom why God would allow our world to contain evil in the vast amount, distribution, and intensity there is and that we cannot fathom why God would allow certain particular instances of evil. But it may be that the fact that we cannot fathom why God might cause or allow the existence of evil in its vast amount, distribution, and intensity there is, or certain particular instances of it, is neither a bar to rationally believing that God exists nor rational support for atheism. The view of skeptical theism might be directed at the argument from pointless evil, or at the argument from facts about evil, or both. The skeptical theist who responds to the argument from pointless evil denies both that we are justified in believing that there are pointless evils on the basis of directly seeing their pointlessness and that, given speculation about potential God-​justifying reasons and our failure to detect them concerning any particular case of evil, we can justifiably infer that that instance of evil is, or is probably, pointless. The skeptical theist who responds to the argument from the facts about evil denies that we can justifiably believe that there are not God-​justifying reasons for the obtaining of the facts about evil and so denies the premise that, if God were to exist, then the facts of evil would not obtain. Not all skeptical theists describe the view in the same terms. As Daniel Howard-​Snyder and Justin McBrayer express the position: “Skeptical theists are theists who are skeptical of our abilities to determine whether the evils in our world are actually pointless. If they are right, then no one is in a position to determine whether certain arguments from evil are sound.”5 As Derk Pereboom describes the stance, “Due to the limitations of our cognitive capacities, we should be skeptical of the view that the facts about evil in the world count as good evidence against the existence of God.”6 Similarly, Tom Senor characterizes skeptical theism as a view that emphasizes the “grand divide between divine and human understanding” 5 McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, xiii. 6 Pereboom, Derk, 2013, “A Defense without Free Will,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 411–​425, at 416. In a section of this paper, Pereboom refers to this view as “agnosticism,” following Dan Howard-​Snyder (2009). What Pereboom advocates concerning the evidential argument from evil (as “the best response available to those who deny that we have this type of free will [the sort grounding basic desert]—​and arguably to anyone else as well”) is “agnosticism about the nature of the good that limits or defeats the evidential force that the evils of this world have for the nonexistence of God” (Pereboom 2013, 416). I will call the view Pereboom discusses a version of skeptical theism. (Pereboom’s section heading is “Agosticism [or Skeptical Theism].”)

Skeptical Theism  101 and applies this divide to the problem of evil. Senor acknowledges that our initial inclination is to think that a world created and governed by God would be one that lacked horrible evils the point of which we cannot discern and that our disappointed expectation of observing such a world on an assumption of theism is “deeply troubling.” Nonetheless, he defends skeptical theism, expressing the central point of the position in this way: The aim, at least on my telling of it, is to argue that a deep and well-​ articulated understanding of what theism says about God and humanity should remove whatever expectations we might have antecedently had about whether a world created and tended to by God would include horrors and clueless evils.7

Paul Draper characterizes skeptical theism in part by way of these theses: one, human beings are in no position to judge directly that an omniscient and omnipotent being would be unlikely to have a morally sufficient reason to permit the evils of the world; and two, human beings are in no position to compare the ability of the hypothesis of theism to explain certain facts about good and evil to the ability of a competing hypothesis to explain those facts.8 Michael Bergmann describes skeptical theism as involving endorsement of these theses: (1) we have no good reason for thinking that the possible goods we know of are representative of the possible goods there are; (2) we have no good reason for thinking that the possible evils we know of are representative of the possible evils there are; and (3) we have no good reason for thinking that the entailment relations we know of between possible goods and the permission of possible evils are representative of the entailment relations there are between possible goods and the permission of possible evils.9 (He calls these theses ST1, ST2, and ST3.) Bergmann clarifies his

7 Senor defines “horrors” as “large scale horrendous evils for which our explanations of potential divine reasons are apparently swamped (e.g., World War II),” and he defines “clueless evils” as “evils about which we are completely stymied as to what possible reason God could have for allowing them” (Thomas Senor, 2013, “Skeptical Theism, CORNEA, and Common Sense Epistemology,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 428). 8 Paul Draper, 1996, “The Skeptical Theist,” in The Evidential Argument from Evil, edited by Daniel Howard-​Snyder (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 175–​192. This second thesis is relevant to arguments from evil Draper defends. 9 Michael Bergmann, 2009, “Skeptical Theism and the Problem of Evil,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, edited by Thomas Flint and Michael Rea (New York: Oxford University Press), 376.

102  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will characterization of the skeptical theses characteristic of skeptical theism in this way: In ST1–​ST3, what we are interested in is whether our sample of possible goods, possible evils, and entailment relations between them (i.e., the possible goods, evils, and relevant entailments we know of) is representative of all possible goods, possible evils, and entailment relations there are relative to the property of figuring in a (potentially) God-​justifying reason for permitting the inscrutable evils we see around us. Although that property is not explicitly mentioned in ST1–​ST3, it is representativeness relative to that property that ST1–​ST3 are speaking of.10

Michael Rea contends that a skeptical theist might endorse some of the theses in the various earlier characterizations of skeptical theism, but not others. He identifies the core skeptical tenet of skeptical theism—​the “thesis to which all skeptical theists will agree and with which all opponents of skeptical theism will disagree”11—​as follows: (ST) No human being is ever justified (or warranted, or reasonable) in thinking the following about any evil e that has ever occurred: there is (or is probably) no reason that could justify God in permitting e.12

Justin McBrayer and Trent Dougherty similarly write that skeptical theists “are united in thinking that our epistemic limitations are such that no human is justified in believing that any particular evil is gratuitous.”13 As we see, the skeptical aspect of skeptical theism is variously characterized in the literature. Notice that skeptical theism is a kind of theism. The position involves a positive thesis concerning God’s existence, as well, which may be captured by one of the following: 10 Bergmann 2009. By “inscrutable evils” Bergmann means those that many thoughtful atheists and theists agree are ones for which we can’t think of a God-​justifying reason. 11 Michael Rea, 2013, “Skeptical Theism and the ‘Too Much Skepticism’ Objection,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 485. 12 Rea 2013, 483. I believe this thesis should be understood as a claim about what human beings are not justified in believing. Rea speaks of what no human being is ever justified in “thinking about” any evil, but perhaps his wording is too broad. If one were a skeptical theist, it seems one should allow oneself and others to think the thought about any particular evil, though not assent to the proposition that any particular evil is one concerning which “there is (or is probably) no reason that could justify God in permitting” it. 13 Trent Dougherty and Justin McBrayer, 2014, eds., Skeptical Theism:  New Essays (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), vii.

Skeptical Theism  103 (G) God exists. Or (J) I am justified in believing that God exists. Or (H) Any human being is (or can be) justified in believing that God exists. Or (C) I am committed (emotionally or intellectually or volitionally or practically) to the existence of God. Or (CJ) I am justified in my commitment (whether emotional, intellectual, volitional, or practical) to the existence of God. Or (F) I have faith in God.

4.2  Rejection of Skeptical Theism In this section I examine various skeptical theists’ defenses of their positions and argue against them. In so doing, I provide further positive support for the controversial premises of the argument from pointless evils and the argument from the facts about evil.

4.2.1  Senor on Racist Appearances The skeptical theist, in response to the argument from pointless evil, holds that we are not justified in believing of any evil that it is pointless. The following is one way in which a person could argue for the contention that, to the contrary, he is justified in believing in the pointlessness of some evils. Certain evils, he could attest, immediately strike him as pointless. The pointlessness is not something he believes by way of inference, but rather the cases of evil at issue—​whether observed or contemplated—​simply appear to him on their face to be pointless evils. As I noted in Chapter 1, Plantinga states that the argument appealing to the intuitive or immediate appearance of pointlessness of certain evils is “the best version of the atheological case from evil.”14 Now a person might follow this report of the way things him appear

14 (Alvin Plantinga, 2000, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press), 484.

104  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will to him (with respect to such evils) with a certain epistemic principle. The principle is this: If it seems to a person that something is the case, then that person is prima facie justified in believing that it is the case. The justification for the belief he forms on the basis of the appearance might turn out to be overridden by other considerations or by new information he receives. Nonetheless, the fact of some matter’s appearing to him as it does provides him with a defeasible epistemic reason for believing that it is in fact that way. For instance, it now appears to me that it is sunny outside my window. From this way things appear to me, it follows (one might say, as a matter of common sense) that I am prima facie justified in believing that it is sunny outside my window. It could turn out that my justification gets defeated by way of my acquiring some new information. Perhaps someone I trust informs me that I have been the victim of an elaborate hoax: with the use of complicated artificial light projections or by way of some illustrated colored film having been applied to my window, the scene has been made to appear to me as it does. This new information negatively affects the justification of my believing that it is sunny outside. Nonetheless, the belief I had in the current outdoor sunniness gained some initial (defeasible) justification from the way things appeared to me to be. Now one might apply this epistemic principle to the case of the appearance of the pointlessness of some evils. From the fact that certain evils appear to one as pointless—​they simply immediately strike one that way, much as the sunniness outside the window strikes one—​it follows by way of the epistemic principle (which, one might say, is a matter of common sense) that one is justified in believing that those evils are in fact pointless. In this way, it might be argued that skeptical theism is out of step with common sense.15 Senor argues, however, that it is not a matter of common sense that just any old appearance provides prima facie justification for belief. Perhaps some do, and others do not. One might stretch the notion of appearance to cover inclinations to believe. On this (still-​non-​inferential) sense of appearance, it is not clear that, as a matter of common sense, prima facie justified beliefs are generated by all appearances. After all, if you ask me why I believe that the Cubs will win the next World Series, you will not be moved to think that I have good reason (or a reason at all) when I tell you that it simply seems to 15 Cf. Trent Dougherty, 2008, “Epistemological Considerations concerning Skeptical Theism,” Faith and Philosophy 25: 172–​176; Michael Bergmann, 2012, “Commonsense Skeptical Theism,” in Science, Religion, and Metaphysics: New Essays on the Philosophy of Alvin Plantinga, edited by Kelly James Clark and Michael Rea (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 9–​30.

Skeptical Theism  105 me to be so or that I have a strong inclination to believe it is so.16 Likewise, when I am simply struck with the strong impression that, or am inclined to believe that, I am going to win the next hand of blackjack, it does not follow that I am justified in believing that I will win, even prima facie justified. Thus it might be part of common sense epistemology that prima facie justification follows from some kinds or instances of appearances (the way things seem to us), but not from others. As Senor puts it, a “significant part of our development as cognitive agents involves learning when it is a good idea to trust the way things seem to us and when it is not.”17 In the case of the immediate (non-​inferential) appearance of pointlessness of certain evils, the issue, then, is whether these appearances are akin to ordinary perceptual appearances such as the way things look outside one’s window or whether they are, instead, unlike the ordinary perceptual experiences in that they do not, as a matter of common sense, generate prima facie justified beliefs. In support of the view that prima facie justification for the belief in the pointlessness of some evils does not follow upon appearances of pointlessness, Senor draws a provocative analogy to the way certain people appear to racists. “The appearance that racists have” he describes as “the inclination to believe that people of a certain skin color are intrinsically evil.” Let’s assume Senor thinks it is not the case that all people are intrinsically evil. (Otherwise, his characterization of his hypothetical racist’s inclination as the inclination to believe that people of a certain skin color are intrinsically evil would not delineate a racist inclination; that is, it would do so only if the subject also thought that people of yet a different skin color are not intrinsically evil.) Maybe—​in order to sidestep the issue of the nature of persons as intrinsically good or intrinsically evil (or neither) and in the present context of our frequent use of the term ‘evil’—​it is better to characterize the racist inclination as the inclination to believe that persons with a certain skin color have less inherent value or are less deserving of consideration and respect than are persons of a different skin color.18 Senor suggests that “the racist appearances . . . provide no indication of the likely truth of the belief [that people of a certain skin color are less valuable or deserving of respect than other people]. And that is just what the skeptical 16 Senor 2013, 441. 17 Senor 2013, 441–​442. 18 I do not intend to claim that race is reducible to skin color but am working with Senor’s description of “the appearance that racists have” as “the inclination to believe that people of a certain skin color are intrinsically evil.”

106  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will theist will say about clueless evils.”19 So, the fact that it seems to someone, say, Sam, as if some-​sort-​of-​skin-​toned people are less deserving of respect than other persons provides no indication of the likelihood of its being true that such-​skin-​toned people are as Sam perceives or assesses them to be. And, likewise, according to the skeptical theist, the fact that it seems to someone, say, Serena, as if some evils are pointless, provides no indication of the likelihood of its being true that those evils are as they seem to Serena to be. Now I want to object to the analogy between appearances of pointlessness and racist appearances by pointing out that, in the case of a racist, he can come to learn that the way people appeared to him to be in terms of value was a product of prejudice and so was misleading about the way things really are. Suppose you find out, after gaining some education at a university, that you were misled by your family and neighbors as you grew up concerning the worth of persons.20 You come to believe that you were raised in a racist environment and that your inclination to view persons of a certain skin color as inherently less valuable than persons of a different skin color is one to be fought against and changed. Going forward, then, when you find yourself beginning to form a false impression of someone’s worth based on the color of her skin, you stop, remind yourself of your wrong conditioning, and change your beliefs to accord with what you take now to be the truth concerning the equal worth of persons, irrespective of skin color. Notice that there is not an analogous sort of liberation from prior prejudices concerning immediate impressions of the sort “that instance of evil is pointless”—​the apparent pointlessness of a young girl’s being brutally raped and beaten to death is not a bias to be rejected as we become free of a provincial background.21 A child raised in a racist environment has his abilities to make assessments of the worth and dignity of persons damaged, but it would be implausible to suggest that are we damaged by social conditioning when it comes to making assessments of the purposefulness or pointlessness of instances of evil or facts about evil. Many of us were raised in religious environments, in our immediate or extended families or in the wider culture, or both—​surrounded 19 Senor 2013, 442. 20 Senor mentions a social cause for the racism: “Suppose I grow up in a racist environment and that produces in me the inclination to believe that people of a certain skin color are intrinsically evil” (2013, 442). 21 One might object: true enough, the thought “that evil is pointless” in response to the abuse and murder of a person is hardly the result of bias; but, still, we are not in a position to rule out the possibility that this thought of ours is analogous to a child’s thought regarding some of her parents’ apparently (to her) outrageous but nonetheless justifiable behavior. I address this alternative analogy to a child’s, as opposed to a racist’s, perception in Section 4.2.3.

Skeptical Theism  107 by those who believe that God is real—​yet with experience of the world we encounter evils that seem pointless. Our religious conditioning has not prejudiced us so as to see evils as pointless; if anything, it would be the opposite. Someone might say that we are biased in virtue of our being inherently sinful. But our being inherently sinful, if we are, is another of the facts of evil that the atheist will say stands in need of explanation. And if the theist says that we are inherently sinful because of our misuse of the great gift of free will, then we are back to the issues raised in Chapters 1 and 2. If the theist says that we are inherently sinful because that is divine retributive punishment for the misuse of the free will of our original ancestors in a Fall, then, again, we are back to the problems raised in Chapters 1 and 2. One might reply that this point concerning the disanalogy between racist appearances and the seeming pointlessness of some evils is all well and good, but point out that Senor is not committed to appearances of pointlessness and racist appearances being alike in every way. For his purposes, appearances of pointlessness need not, for instance, be the products of bias, social conditioning or indoctrination. (Bergmann gives an error theory for why we have a tendency for some evils to strike us as pointless in Bergmann 2012.) The question is whether the seemings of pointlessness of certain evils have the epistemic import had by ordinary perceptual seemings (such as its seeming to me that it is sunny outside) or instead have the epistemic import that racist seemings of the sort described by Senor have (namely, none).22 Why might a skeptical theist think that the pointlessness appearances, like racist appearances, provide no indication of the likelihood of its being true that the evils in question are actually pointless? Because the skeptical theist may doubt—​and may allege that we have no good reason to think—​that we persons have some kind of cognitive (or perceptual-​like) process that reliably tracks truths about pointlessness and purposefulness.23 The central question 22 A referee points out that a more plausible candidate for a racist “seeming” than the one Senor identifies—​namely, it seeming to someone as if a person of another race is inherently evil (or, as I have rephrased it, it seeming to someone as if a person is inherently less worthy of consideration and respect than other persons on the basis of race)—​is instead the seeming “X is dangerous.” It may be that an individual’s perception of a person of color, say, as dangerous comes from a faculty of generalization that is morally neutral, operating in a particular sort of segregated environment. If that were so, then an attitude that is in fact racist might nonetheless be as justified for someone in a certain kind of environment as thinking that sharks or lions are dangerous. This point will not be of help to Senor’s project of advancing the idea that seemings of pointlessness concerning some evils are akin to racist seemings. 23 The referee also points out that, depending on one’s theory of how perception works, there may be limits on what can count as a perceptual seeming. If the character of a perceptual seeming is determined “bottom up,” by input to the relevant sense organ, then properties that can be applied only by

108  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will then concerns the plausibility of this contention. In fact, one important question concerns whether or not we have a truth-​connected cognitive (or perceptual-​like) process that delivers immediate appearances of pointlessness. If not, then still we might have cognitive processes that enable us accurately to discern pointlessness by way of inference. Belief in the pointlessness of some evils may be based not on a direct seeming of pointlessness, but rather on a careful critical examination of a full range of available theodicies. In the latter case, Senor resists the inference from the fact that we discern no God-​justifying reason for some instances of evil to the conclusion that there are no God-​justifying reasons for those instances. He writes: The skeptical theist argues that in fact, we have no good reason to think that humans would be in a position to discern justifying explanations of these evils if they [the justifying explanations] exist. So our being unable to discern them is not a good reason for thinking they are not there; that is, there being apparently no justifying explanation does not justify one in thinking there is no such explanation.24

We may be tempted to believe that certain instances of evil are pointless, given our unsuccessful attempts to fathom any God-​justifying reasons. But we should realize—​once we reflect on what God is like and what human beings are like—​that this temptation is to be resisted. When we find ourselves beginning to form a false judgment concerning the pointlessness of some instance of evil or fact about evil in light of our failure to grasp any God-​ justifying reasons, we should stop ourselves, remind ourselves of our wrong prior failure to consider what we are like in comparison to what God is like, and form our beliefs in accord with what we take now to be the truth. A problem here is the matter of what the true beliefs are concerning the pointlessness or purposefulness of evils:  the theist must think (deep down or in the background) that there are God-​ justifying reasons for each instance of evil or for the global facts about evil. But on what basis are we to believe that evils are purposeful, if not by direct perception or by virtue of thinking through and naming the purposes? One might reply that we are to believe that evils are purposeful because of the way of concepts and a background system of beliefs (such as pointlessness or purposefulness) cannot enter into the content of a perceptual seeming.

24 Senor 2013, 442.

Skeptical Theism  109 goodness of God. But at issue, of course, is the existence of God.25 For defensibility, the position of skeptical theism needs support by reasons to believe that God exists that are strong enough to override the strength of our reasons to believe the controversial premises in the arguments from evil. These reasons should be theistic non-​inferential reasons26 or

25 Mike Rea objects (in correspondence) that I  am misrepresenting the dialectic or at least envisioning a different dialectical situation than the one in which he and others take skeptical theism to be effectively deployed. Rea agrees that, if his aim were to convince an atheist that each instance of evil is purposeful rather than pointless, it would be dialectically inappropriate for him to rely on the reality and goodness of God. However, the way in which he envisions the dialectic is this: “Here I am, believing that God exists; then someone comes along and tells me that it is irrational to believe that God exists because some evils seem to be pointless. I then note that part of my belief-​set is that God is both perfectly good and infinitely wiser than me; and so it makes sense for me to think there are goods beyond my ken that might justify God in permitting evils that otherwise would seem pointless. That’s dialectically appropriate, given that it’s the rationality of my theistic belief set that’s being challenged.” I understand the thought. But I think that, in the face of the world’s evils, the theist should say more than that she already believes in God, and God is perfectly good and infinitely wise, so there must be reasons for all evils (and she has faith that there are). The skeptical theist stakes out a metaphysical position, endorsing the existence of God—​for this stance to count as defensible knowledge, it needs support by reasons and arguments, more than an appeal to faith that there are somehow (undiscernible by us) God-​justifying explanations of all instances of, or the facts about, evil. A sensible passage from William Hasker seems appropriate here. Hasker writes that, if one views the problem of evil “primarily as a group of arguments devised by atheistic philosophers to make life difficult for theists,” then a deflective or purely defensive or technical response, showing that certain versions of arguments from evil (such as Mackie’s 1955 argument or Rowe’s 1996 argument) are unsuccessful, might seem to be a sufficient response. “But if one is deeply troubled and perplexed by the actual phenomena of evil, a purely negative and defensive strategy may be insufficient. What one needs, in that case, is some positive account of evil, something that offers some actual understanding of why evil exists and how it fits into God’s plan for the world. In other words, a theodicy” (William Hasker, 1998, “The Foundations of Theism: Scoring the Quinn-​Plantinga Debate,” Faith and Philosophy 15, no. 1: 52–​67, at 62). I think we all should be deeply troubled and perplexed by the actual phenomena of evil and that we should not view the arguments from evil as devised merely to make life difficult for theists. 26 Regarding non-​inferential reasons in support of theism: in his discussion of defeaters for religious belief at the end of Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga suggests that the apparent pointlessness of certain evils may indeed constitute a defeater for some theists, but only for some, including those who “hold it with little firmness” and think that their reasons for it are minimal (2000, 480) and those who accept theism as an explanatory hypothesis for the origin of the universe and the objectivity of right and wrong but without promptings from the holy spirit or the sensus divinitatis and without belief that their religious beliefs result from such promptings (2000, 481) For other theists, though, the striking appearance of some evils as pointless—​even knowledge of the facts about evil in our world—​will not be a defeater, Plantinga contends, because such theists have vivid experiences of God’s presence. He writes, “knowledge of the facts of evil does not constitute an internal defeater, at least for those believers for whom it seems very clear that there is such a person as God and, indeed, that the whole Christian story is true” (2000, 492, italics added). More fully, Plantinga explains: [I]‌f classical Christianity is true, then the perception of evil is not a defeater for belief in God with respect to fully rational noetic structures—​any noetic structure with no cognitive dysfunction.  .  .  .  [T]his includes also the proper function of the sensus divinitatis. Someone in whom this process was functioning properly would have an intimate, detailed, vivid, and explicit knowledge of God; she would have an intense awareness of his presence, glory, goodness, power, perfection, wonderful attractiveness, and sweetness. . . . She might therefore be perplexed by the existence of this evil in God’s world. . . . [S]uch a person might ask herself why God permits it. . . . [I]f she finds no

110  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will arguments27 that both succeed in securing the traditional attributes of God and are of such a nature that the considerations on which they rely do not undermine the skeptical aspect of skeptical theism. (I’ll return to this issue in Section 4.2.4.) The skeptical theist holds that there must be some purposes for each instance of evil or for the facts about evil but, given what we are like and given what God is like, we should not expect to be able to discern them. Why would one think that? Isn’t the appropriate reasoning, instead, answer, she will no doubt conclude that God has a reason that is beyond her ken; she won’t be in the least inclined to doubt that there is such a person as God. (2000, 485) I would argue that the failure of the project of theodicy that we have rigorously examined over the course of the first three chapters of this book, together with the reasons I give in this chapter for thinking that, if there were God-​justifying reasons, we would see them, corroborates the pointlessness appearances over the divine presence appearances to which Plantinga appeals. We could discover that the appearances of pointlessness were truly misleading if we were to uncover the justifying reasons for the cases of evil or facts about evil in question, but since an extended and collective endeavor to identify the reasons fails to do so, and in light of (what I argue is) the untenability of skeptical theism, we have reason to think that our immediate awareness or intuitive perceptions of pointlessness are accurate. Notice, as well, that, just as skeptical theists may doubt—​and may allege that we have no good reason to think—​that we persons have some kind of cognitive or perceptual-​like process that reliably tracks truths about pointlessness and purposefulness of evils, non-​theists may doubt—​and may allege that we have no good reason to think—​that we persons possess a faculty such as the sensus divinitatis that reliably tracks truths about divine presence. The seemings of divine presence, as Plantinga and other theists are of course aware, may result from other cognitive processes, such as self-​deception, a desire for unconditional love, or emotional response to grief, fear, and loneliness. Hasker makes the strikingly honest (and poignant) observation: “My own mother, an extremely devout person, once mentioned to me that, when she first learned of the psychological explanations of religion, she was unable to pray for several months. I suspect that, for many contemporary theists, the thought that one’s own religious affections may be the projections of psychological needs is a sort of lingering undercurrent of the religious life” (Hasker 1998, 66). Plantinga maintains that when theistic seemings and beliefs result from processes such as psychological projection and emotional need, they lack warrant, but when they are produced by faculties such as the sensus divinitatis functioning in appropriate circumstances in accordance with their design plan successfully aimed at truth, they are warranted. So if Christian theism is true and Plantinga’s model of knowledge of God is accurate, then divine seemings and beliefs concerning God when properly produced constitute knowledge. To the question, “Is Christian theism true?” Plantinga replies, “It does, indeed, seem to me to be true” (2000, 499). This statement does not seem to me to advance the discussion. I would suggest that the power of arguments from evil I defend should lead us to doubt that our religious experiences really are veridical, as we may have previously taken them to be. 27 For work on arguments in favor of the existence of God, see Richard Swinburne, 2004, The Existence of God, 2nd edition (Oxford, UK:  Oxford University Press); Timothy O’Connor, 2008, Theism and Ultimate Explanation:  The Necessary Shape of Contingency (Malden, MA:  Wiley Blackwell); Graham Oppy, 2006, Arguing about Gods (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); Alvin Plantinga, 1967, God and Other Minds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press); Alvin Plantinga, 1974, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans); Jordan Howard Sobel, 2004, Logic and Theism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); Brian Leftow, 2010, “Arguments for God’s Existence,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, vol. 2, edited by Robert Pasnau and Christina Van Dyke (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 735–​748; Brian Leftow, 2012, God and Necessity (Oxford, UK:  Oxford University Press), 547; and Alexander Pruss, 2006, The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (New York: Cambridge University Press).

Skeptical Theism  111 the following: given what God is like and given what we are like, we should expect to be able to discern the reasons that justify evil? Senor writes: Given what God is like and what humans are like, [the skeptical theist] will say, we should not expect that there would be any serious connection between our being able to discern a potential justifying explanation for every evil and there being such an explanation. So we have at least some reason for thinking that the appearance of gratuitousness is more like the appearance that racists have than the appearance we get from the standard cases of perception.28

It seems to me that Senor’s initial thought, “given what God is like and given what humans are like” does not point toward the expectation he names, but rather toward the opposite expectation. That is, given that God is a personal, absolutely good agent and the creator of our minds—​and, given that, on traditional theism, we are created in order to love, worship, and know God and to make God known to others—​it is quite reasonable to think that we should expect that there is “serious connection between our being able to discern a potential justifying explanation for every evil and there being such an explanation.” As intellectual and practical agents—​persons who can reason, draw conclusions, plan, choose, and act—​we are, on theism, like God, and we are made in the image of God. Furthermore, on theism, we are meant to know God and to make God known, to love and trust God, to worship God as the creator and sustainer of our lives and of the universe. Beings who are made like God, with these purposes—​personal beings who can understand and act and enter into relationships of kindness and respect with other created persons and with God—​are beings with discernment and capacities for understanding and empathy. It seems to me not at all rational to think that a perfectly good Creator would create personal beings with whom He aimed to have relationships characterized by love, trust, and understanding with warped faculties for discerning purpose and purposelessness. The skeptical theist might reply that it is not his view that our faculties are warped but rather that they are limited. But the appeal to limited faculties seems to me

28 Senor 2013, 442. In this passage, I believe that ‘appearance’ in its first instance is used in the richer inferential sense but in its second and third instances is used in the thinner immediate impression (direct seeming) sense.

112  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will not to support the proposed analogy between pointlessness appearances or beliefs and racist appearances or beliefs. (Some skeptical theists appeal to a different analogy: rather than between us and racists, instead between us and children. I address the analogy to children with respect to the relevant ability in Section 4.2.3.) With respect to our ability to discern God-​justifying reasons for evil or the lack of them, it seems not at all as if we are like racists, hampered in our ability to make accurate judgments by bias. This seems especially to be so on the assumption of theism, and skeptical theism is a form of theism. At least, it would take more to convince me that we have no good reason for thinking that any immediate impressions of pointlessness are more akin to ordinary perceptual impressions than they are akin to racist impressions with respect to generating justified beliefs, and it would take more to convince me that we have no good reason for thinking that our abilities to inferentially discern pointlessness are good ones, better than a racist’s abilities to discern the equal worth of persons.

4.2.2  Bergmann on Our Cognitive Limitations Why would we think that we are not justified in believing of any instance of evil that it is pointless? One line of support for this thought may be what Bergmann suggests, namely that we do not have good reason for thinking that there are not goods that are beyond our understanding that provide a God-​justifying reason for permitting evils, and we do not have good reason for thinking that there are not evils that are beyond our understanding that figure into a God-​justifying reason for permitting evils, and some of the relations between goods and evils may be beyond our understanding (more precisely, “we have no good reason for thinking that the entailment relations we know of between possible goods and the permission of possible evils are representative of the entailment relations there are between possible goods and the permission of possible evils”).29 29 Other (alleged) human cognitive limitations cited by William Alston, 1991a, in “The Inductive Argument from Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition,” Philosophical Perspectives 5: 29–​67, are these: (1) we are limited in what we know about human beings and the universe, including the remote past and the future (including whether or not there is an afterlife); (2) we are limited in our ability to reason comparatively about different possible worlds; (3) we are limited in our knowledge of what is metaphysically possible; (4) we are limited in our ability to conceive the full range of possibilities; (5) we are limited in what we know about values and about what is valuable; and (6) we are

Skeptical Theism  113 One of the thoughts here is that, while we do know of some goods—​love, compassion, generosity, friendship, patience, kindness, joy, pleasure, mutual understanding, health, comfort—​and we have imagined or conceived of other goods—​eternal bliss, union with God in heaven—​there may well be yet other goods we have not experienced or thought of, and (stronger than this simple claim that there “may” be other goods, which Rea calls platitudinous) we have no good reason to think that there are not other goods that are beyond our understanding, ones that provide a God-​justifying reason for permitting evils. It is tempting to ask, like what? True and steadfast love, profound insight, magnificent beauty, deep and unending sheer bliss and well-​being? But we have thought of those. And we can envision a combination of deeply soul-​satisfying love, a sense of being wholly understood and respected, profound intellectual insight and understanding, a complete absence of pain, and pure bliss being experienced by every sentient creature always and everywhere. Of course the skeptical theist who relies on this line of thought as grounding for his position is not going to find that question (“like what?”) to be sensible. Naturally we cannot answer it; the conjecture is that there are goods beyond our understanding, not ones we can identify, that might figure into a God-​justifying reason for permitting evils, and we (allegedly) have “no good reason” for thinking that there are not such goods. Recall that, as discussed in Chapter 2, Schellenberg suggests we know what the highest good is for human beings: the ever-​growing, deepening knowledge by acquaintance with God.30 If the skeptical theist accepts that he is right about this, then in suggesting that God might permit some evils for greater goods that are beyond our ken, the skeptical theist implies that God might permit human beings to suffer for goods that are not the highest good for human beings, since we already know what the greatest good is for them. Another thought of Bergmann’s is that, while we do know of some evils—​ intense acute and chronic physical pain, the emotional sting of rejection, spousal neglect and abuse, the torture of sentient animals—​and while we have imagined or conceived of other evils—​eternal torment, unremitting separation from God in hell—​there may well be other evils we have not experienced or thought of, and (stronger than the claim that there “may be” limited in our ability to make comparative judgments concerning the overall value of different worlds or situations. 30 J. L. Schellenberg, 2007, The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 244–​250.

114  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will others), we have no good reason to think that there are not other evils that are beyond our understanding that figure into a God-​justifying reason for permitting the evils of our world. Again, it is tempting to ask, like what? Being skinned alive, burned alive, humiliated to the depths of our souls, tortured for eternity with searing rods, enduring root canal surgery without anesthetic over the course of three hours, or three days, or three months, or three years, or forever? But we have thought of all these. And we can conceive of such horrors being endured by every sentient creature all at once, always and everywhere. The ways in which human beings have inadvertently harmed each other through neglect and negligence, and the ways human beings have invented deliberately to mistreat each other, are beyond description. In fact, it seems obscene to begin describing. And the skeptical theist’s suggestion is that there might be yet other evils, and worse ones? Of course there might be, but how plausible is this conjecture, and how plausible is it to think that we have no good reason for thinking that there are not other evils that are beyond our understanding? The skeptical thought about the relations between goods and the permission of evils is roughly this: some evils might be necessary for some greater goods in ways that we cannot discern. The connections—​ what is necessary for what—​might simply be beyond us, or we have no good reason for thinking that they are not. Well, why should we think that? Why should one think that one cannot trust one’s mind sufficiently to tell one what is necessary for what in this regard, and what could be achieved without something else? Our ability reasonably to infer that the goods identified in Chapters 2 and 3—​genuine love, growing intimacy with God, creativity, kindness, meaningful lives, and so on—​are attainable without libertarian free will, and so without the evil committed by created beings with such free will, provides support for the reasonability of trusting our abilities in this matter. Bergmann’s theses, in my view, are simply implausible.31 I  think we have good reason for thinking that the possible goods we know of are

31 Mike Rea says it is surprising that I do not find Bergmann’s theses plausible, because finding them implausible reflects what Rea sees as tremendous confidence in human faculties of reasoning and moral discernment, confidence that is undercut by the evidence of the bad state of the world. Rea writes (in correspondence), “It seems to me that if we really were as good at discerning goods, evils, and the relations among them as you think we are, the world would be a better place (and, in fact, we could and would do much of this work [of making the world better] on our own).” From the view that our faculties are up to the relevant task, a position I defend in the body of this section, I do not think it follows that the world would be better than it is (or that we’d work harder toward, or succeed at, making the world better than it is), since human beings are subject to all sorts of weaknesses including limited power and non-​moral motivations, including selfish desires.

Skeptical Theism  115 representative of the possible goods there are with respect to the property of potentially figuring in a God-​justifying reason for permitting evil, that the possible evils we know of are representative of the possible evils there are with respect to the property of potentially figuring in a God-​justifying reason for permitting evil, and that the entailment relations we know of between possible goods and the permission of possible evils are representative of the entailment relations there are between them with respect to the property of figuring in a God-​justifying reason for permitting evil. The good reason is that we are not only observant beings—​witnesses to history, as well as to the goods and evils in the present—​and imaginative moral beings—​ones who can conceive of a wide array of ways of acting to the benefit and harm of ourselves and others—​but also intelligent persons who think enormously hard about ethical principles, moral dilemmas, and questions about what positive ends could not be brought about in any better way and who make decisions concerning how to act in light of considerations of right and wrong, good and evil. Furthermore, if God exists, then God, too, is a personal moral agent and we are like God in being persons and intelligent moral agents. We are the sort of beings who are able to discern value, construct mathematical proofs, invent bridges and skyscrapers, put a man on the moon, fight wars, and fight for justice. I recognize that some of these abilities, such as to put a man on the moon, are not strictly relevant to the matter of the goods and evils we know of, and the entailment relations between goods and the permissions of evils we know of, being representative of the goods, evils, and relations there are, but they do support trust in our own minds rather than deep skepticism about our abilities to reason, which include our ability to reason clearly concerning whether some evil is or is not necessary for the promotion of a greater good. Some have argued, as I alluded to earlier, that a theist has better reason to trust her mind, her intellectual abilities for discerning the truth,

I am not alone in finding Bergmann’s theses implausible; Hasker writes, “I submit, (ST1) and (ST2) are not very plausible at all. The idea that there are major sorts of goods and harms that are possible for human beings, and figure prominently in God-​justifying reasons, but that are completely unknown in all human history and experience—​this, I believe, is something that we might countenance as at most a bare speculative possibility, but have little reason to see as being in any way plausible” (William Hasker, 2010, “All Too Skeptical Theism,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 68: 19). With regard to the idea that the goods and evils figuring in the God-​justifying reasons are not benefits and harms for human beings but rather for others, for instance, God and angels, Hasker writes, “It would hardly do to suppose that God was justified in permitting the Holocaust because of some incomprehensible-​to-​us benefit derived from it by God and his angels! To say that would create a new problem of evil worse than the one we are trying to solve” (Hasker 2010, 19). I agree and take up the matter of God’s ethics further in Chapter 6.

116  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will than does a non-​theist.32 If one were to believe they are right, this would provide particular cause for questioning the skeptical aspect of skeptical theism. Bergmann, with other skeptical theists, contends we do not have good reason for thinking that, since we do not see any potentially God-​justifying reasons for the permission of some evils, there are not any such reasons there. (Stephen Wykstra [1996, 126] influentially called this a “noseeum inference” in reference to tiny bugs—​it is fallacious to reason that, if we don’t see them, then probably they are not there at all.) In defense of this contention, Bergmann writes: We can’t use our failure to see any insects in the garage (when taking a look from the street) to conclude that it’s unlikely that there are any insects in the garage. We can’t use our failure to discover any rational agents on other planets to conclude that it’s unlikely that there are some on some other planet. We can’t (if we’re chess novices) use our failure to detect a good reason for a particular chess move made by a world champion chess player to conclude that it’s unlikely that there is any good reason for that chess move. Likewise, say skeptical theists, we can’t use our failure to discern any God-​justifying reason for permitting E2 [a particular instance of evil] to conclude that it’s unlikely that there is any God-​justifying reason for permitting E2.33

Here is my response. Our justification for believing that there are pointless evils, and our justification for believing that the facts of evil would not be as they are if God were to exist, is not akin to—​it is not as feeble as—​the justification we have for believing there are no insects in the garage on the basis of our having taken a glance when standing at the distance of the street, while knowing full well that our powers of vision do not allow us to see small insects inside a garage from that far away. It is also not akin to—​it is not as feeble as—​ the justification we have for believing that there are likely no rational agents on any other planet in the universe on the basis of our not yet having discovered any, while knowing full well that we have not yet developed the technology that enables us to explore the entirety of the universe. It is also not akin to—​it is not as feeble as—​the justification we have for believing that it’s unlikely there is any good reason for a particular chess move made by a world

32 Cf. Descartes, Plantinga.

33 Bergmann 2009, 378–​379.

Skeptical Theism  117 champion chess player based solely on our failure to detect a good reason, while knowing full well that we are chess novices and that, due to our inexperience, we lack abilities mentally to see moves ahead of their being made the way a chess champion, given his experience and skill, can. Why are these analogies inapt? We know the boundaries of our visual powers particularly as they pertain to size of objects and the distance of the viewer. We know the current limits of our technology in exploring the contents of the full universe. We know, as novices, of our lack of experience and our lack of understanding of the rules and moves in the game of chess. There is not analogous knowledge that undercuts our justification in the case at hand. We are not at too large of a physical distance as we observe the evils of our world and consider the matter of their pointlessness or purposefulness. We are not at a loss for technology in exploring the matter of their pointlessness or purposefulness. The closest among Bergmann’s analogies to our situation might be to the case of the chess novice. However, in the case of assessing evils, unlike the chess novice, we are not aware of our ignorance of the rules of the game—​in the case of concern to us, those are the rules concerning when a person’s causing or allowing an instance of evil would be justified. Furthermore, unlike the chess novice, we are not aware of our inexperience in playing that game—​in this case, deciding how we, as persons, ought to conduct our lives with respect to causing or allowing instances of evil. We play that game every day of our lives. Let me consider two objections. First, one might contend that our deciding how we ought to conduct our lives with respect to causing or allowing instances of evil does not require our making any judgments about the all things considered value of our actions, and so in our moral lives, we are not really playing the same game as the game God is playing with respect to causing or allowing evils in the world.34 Hence, one might contend, it is illegitimate for me to say with respect to the analogy involving the chess novice and the chess master that we have experience in playing the game and so to say that we are not aware of our inexperience in playing that game. We are aware of our inexperience in playing that game, the one God is playing, says the objector: we have no experience in making judgments about the all things considered value of states of affairs. According to Bergmann (2009), the fact that we cannot assess the all-​things-​considered value of a state of affairs, even if it is bad so far as we can tell, does not undermine our human

34 I am grateful to a referee for prompting me to consider this objection.

118  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will moral obligation to prevent states of affairs that are bad so far as we can tell, since what is right or wrong for us to do, to the extent that it depends on consequences, depends only on consequences that are known or likely so far as the human agent can tell (not as far as God can tell). William Hasker (2010) objects that an implication of Bergmann’s position is that, in eliminating evil, we are never properly motivated by the thought that we are making the world a better place all things considered (and not just, so far as we can tell), which is implausible. I think Hasker is right that in our moral lives we are sometimes motivated by a desire to make the world a better place overall and by the judgment that in acting we make the world a better place all things considered. A second objection is this. Mike Rea suggests35 that a different piece of knowledge undercuts our justification for believing in our relevant discernment abilities in relation to the analogy between us and a novice chess player: that is, our knowledge of how bad we are at playing the game. Now, our being bad at playing the game might come from a lack of knowledge of the rules—​but that should not be the allegation, since we know the rule: causing or allowing an instance (or risk) of evil is justified only if it is logically necessary for bringing about a greater good or preventing a worse evil. Our being bad at playing the game might come from a lack of experience in playing the game—​but that should not be the allegation, since we face moral decisions every day. The suggestion might be that we have a lack of ability to apply the rules, and evidence for this, the skeptical theist might say, is how badly we tend to behave. But that can’t be right, since our behaving badly does not on its own show a lack of ability; our bad behavior might come from our motivations’ separating from our moral judgments, even though we are able to align them. The lack of ability to apply the rules, instead, might be said to come from our inability to discern when an instance of evil is necessary for a greater good, and evidence cited in support might be experience with struggling to figure out such matters and experiencing the evolution of our own moral views over time toward what we now take to be more accurate judgments. From my perspective, our personal experience with such struggle and evolution does not sufficiently support the idea that collectively we are no better than children or novice chess players with regard to judging that a young girl’s rape and murder are not necessary for bringing about a greater good (especially not a greater good for her) and judging that Matthew’s spinal

35 Rea, in correspondence.

Skeptical Theism  119 breaks and intractable pain are not necessary for bringing about a greater good (especially not a greater good for him).

4.2.3  Humility in the Face of Mystery Notice that the skeptical theist—​in endorsing theism but at the same time claiming agnosticism regarding what reasons there are that justify God in permitting evil—​makes, on the one hand, a bold metaphysical claim and yet becomes timid about human reasoning abilities at a crucial and convenient moment or place in the argument. The bold metaphysical claim is that there exists a perfect being who created and sustains the universe. The timid claim is that we are in no good position to affirm that some of the evils in the world are pointless or unjustified. But to observers, the latter claim is weak and motivated in a way that is suspect. It denigrates our own abilities to reason reliably about what reasons might justify what actions (or inactions) on the part of an agent. The former claim (that theism is rational or that God exists) is the central one at issue, and the evils of the world stand as a challenge to it. Would not endorsement of the former claim require a great deal of confidence in human reasoning and observation abilities? If one trusts oneself—​ one’s mind and intellectual abilities of discernment—​to a sufficient extent to affirm theism, then what could justify the extreme humility regarding his own mind’s abilities to assess instances of evil as pointless or purposeful? The move seems motivated not truly by a deep appreciation of human limitations in reasoning about goods and evils, but rather by a need to retain attachment to theism. But as I want to make clear that I intend to make more than an ad hominem argument against theists on this matter, let’s examine this issue more closely. Maybe we can express the matter in this way. An attitude of humility in the face of mystery is taken up by skeptical theists concerning the facts about evil in our world. But skeptical theists do not take a similar position of humility in the face of mystery concerning the nature and existence of a divine source of the universe. An attitude of humility in the face of mystery with respect to the facts about evil in our world, along with an attitude not of humility but rather of confidence in the reality of God, makes for an odd mix. The skeptical theist is committed to the existence of God, orders his or her intellectual and practical life around the idea that God is real, and worships a perfect being who is creator and sustainer of the universe. To view the matter of the ultimate

120  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will source or explanation for why there is something rather than nothing as not mysterious but rather as settled by the answer theism gives to this question is to take an attitude that is not humble concerning human intellectual abilities.36 But then to adopt an attitude that emphasizes the feebleness or inadequacies of human intellectual abilities in discerning the purposes of God in connection with evils, the ethics of God, the pointlessness or purposefulness of evil in our world, is incongruous and naturally strikes others as puzzling. Sometimes parent analogies are used in motivating the thought that “we just cannot understand” with respect to God’s ways or purposes. The child, it is urged, often does not understand why the parent causes some minor pain, when that pain in fact is necessary for bringing about a greater good. (The vaccination that prevents polio, for instance, or the hard yank on the arm that keeps a child from running into the road in front of the car.) Here’s the thing about these analogies. I have no close experience with your children, but I do with my own and with their classmates and friends, and I can report that they are rather intelligent. In that regard I do not think they are all that different from most. Kids “get” quite a lot: from a very early age, when there is understanding of language and perhaps even prior to that, given the emotional trust in a proper parent-​child bond and nonverbal communication in the environment of that trust, it seems that children can gather when there’s a point to what is happening. When they suffer in the presence of a parent, they are assured; they are told this will hurt but it won’t last and told that there is a point. The explanation is presented throughout and along with soothing. What good parent does not explain the vaccination shot (“We don’t want you to get a horrible disease”) or the hard yank she had to use (“There was a car coming that could have injured you badly”)? Children are rational, practical and moral beings, not insects. They have basic, not yet fully developed, but existent abilities to understand explanations, purposes, justifications, and rationales. If we are alleged to be akin to mere tiny infants in relation to God, then it is perplexing on what rational basis we can be thought to commit our intellects and our lives to the idea that God exists, worshiping God, reciting religious doctrines and creeds. If our minds are infantile, why think we can trust them 36 I suppose a theist might say that he maintains intellectual humility insofar as he sees faith as a divine gift, not as an intellectual achievement gained by way of his own powers of theoretical reason and discernment. Still the epistemic justification a theist ought to have at hand in support of his theistic commitment does require exertion of, and trust in, his own intellectual abilities and powers of discernment.

Skeptical Theism  121 even to the extent of justifiably believing that God, an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good agent, is real? Parent-​child and parent-​infant analogies thus are arguably inapt for the skeptical theist’s purposes. In fact, parent-​ child analogies arguably work against skeptical theism, since good parents make clear to their children the reasons for the parents’ permission of their suffering, and since such analogies threaten broader skepticism than skeptical theists welcome. If I were to believe that I cannot trust my mind sufficiently to tell me such things as what goods are necessary for the permission of what evils, and what goods could be achieved without some evils, then it would be natural to question what would make me think that I can rationally ground a belief that a supernatural perfect being exists. I have emphasized that we are rational and intelligent agents, persons who think hard about the moral dilemmas we face, and that we are well aware of a wide range of goods and evils and how they are connected through our experience and our knowledge of history, so that what we know about goods, evils, and their relations is probably representative of what there is to know. One might object to my looking askance at the intellectual humility adopted by skeptical theists concerning goods and evils by pointing out that intellectual humility concerning the extent of our knowledge of physics is sensible and that intellectual humility concerning the extent of our knowledge of biology is sensible. 37 So why not likewise think that intellectual humility concerning the extent of our knowledge of value (of goods, evils, and the entailment relations between goods and the permission of evils) is sensible? Notice that our scientific knowledge is expanded through innovation in instrumentation and technologies that enable us to observe features of the universe, from the tiniest of particles to the most distant of stars, through increased specificity in measurements and sophistication in systematizing observations. Our collective knowledge as human beings concerning what goods there are (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness . . .) and what evils there are (hatred, self-​absorption, cruelty, premature death, debilitating chronic pain . . .), and what evils are required for or are unnecessary for bringing about greater goods, these do not likewise show explosive growth. In fact, most theists take wisdom concerning values, goods, evils, and God’s ways and purposes to be taught to us in sacred texts that are very old, not new. The skeptical theist might respond by saying that of course our collective knowledge of value does not “likewise” expand; it is not gained by way of

37 Thanks to Chris Tucker for raising this objection.

122  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will technology or instrumentation. But my emphasis is on the fact that our intellectual humility concerning the extent of our knowledge in the sciences is sensibly grounded in knowing that the current bounds of our scientific knowledge are set in large measure by the capabilities of the instrumentation that enables observations of the natural world, and that the boundaries of our knowledge expand with advances in technology, enabling finer observations and theories. By contrast, we have what we need in order to think through matters of value pertinent to the problem of evil: our experience with, and observations of, benefits and losses enjoyed and endured by sentient creatures, our carefully made decisions concerning what it is permissible for a good agent to do, our minds collectively engaged in reasonable discourse concerning goods and evils and their relations, along with the collective thoughts of the wise through history. Perhaps our understanding in the realm of value will yet expand, but we already know a lot, and it is arguably enough to think clearly through the matters of value that pertain to the problem of evil. I have also emphasized that a skeptical theist seems committed to an awkward juxtaposition of epistemic humility and epistemic extravagance. Skeptical theists are humble about the representativeness of our knowledge of goods, evils, and the relations between them, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, they are rather optimistic about our ability to know that God exists. In response to being asked, “Is that evil pointless? What could justify God in permitting that?” the skeptical theist shrugs—​he adopts the stance “Who am I to say? I cannot justifiably believe that it is pointless and neither can anyone else.” When asked, “Is there a perfect being in charge of the universe, one who created and sustains it?” the skeptical theist replies, “Yes!” This strikes one as a bizarre juxtaposition of intellectual humility and intellectual boldness.38 One might respond by saying that whether or 38 Mike Rea objects (in correspondence) as follows: “Consider someone who is raised as a theist and for whom the Christian worldview taken as a whole seems to make the overall best sense (even after much reflection as an adult) of [his] experience of the world. And now suppose this person starts to grapple philosophically with the problem of evil. It’s hard for me to see how deploying skeptical theism in that context represents anything like a bizarre juxtaposition of intellectual humility and intellectual boldness.” As I’ve been conveying in this book, what I think is hard to see is how the envisioned individual could take the theistic worldview to make overall best sense of his experience of the world after much adult reflection, given that his own suffering and at least some awareness of the kinds and extent of cases of suffering on the part of rational and sentient creatures through history and across the world are aspects of his experience of the world; we are supposed to envision that “now,” after making the assessment that the theistic worldview makes overall best sense of his experience of the world, the person starts to grapple with the problem of evil and adopts skeptical theism as a response. The juxtaposition is explained in the body of this section: the boldness is in trust in the strength of the individual’s reasoning ability shown in the assertion that theism makes best overall

Skeptical Theism  123 not this juxtaposition is awkward depends on what motivates a skeptical theist’s skepticism about value, on the one hand, and how he thinks that he justifiably believes that God exists, on the other. A skeptical theist’s humility about value does not imply that we know nothing about value, but it does imply that our inferring from the direct appearance of pointlessness of some instances of evil to the actual pointlessness of those instances does not yield justified beliefs, and it does imply that our inferring from the fact of our not discerning a God-​justifying reason for evils despite long and careful thought to there actually being no such reason does not yield justified beliefs. The opponent to what I have suggested here may allege that, since thinking about goods, evils, and the relations between them is not typically relevant to how people form beliefs in the existence of God, it is doubtful that skeptical theism’s skepticism poses a problem for the justification of most people’s belief in the existence of God. To the extent that people are justified in believing in God by having religious experiences, for instance, one might say, skeptical theism does not put any pressure on theistic beliefs. So skeptical theism need not involve any awkward juxtaposition of humility and extravagance. In response: consider a theist whose religious belief is based mainly in religious experience. Insofar as a religious experience involves a feeling of divine love and goodness, a sense that one is in the presence of a perfect being, such experience provides justification for one’s theism on the assumption that one understands how God would act in showing himself to human beings. Taking one’s experience to be a veridical religious experience involves the thoughts, “This is something God would do. This is what it would be like to be in touch with a perfectly good, omnipotent, omniscient being. God would provide this sense of peace in order to comfort me or give me strength.” These thoughts involve beliefs about how God would act and why. The skeptical theist who bases her theism on religious experiences seems to think she has justified beliefs concerning how a perfect being would behave or manifest himself with respect to her. But then she claims ignorance or a stance of skepticism with respect to the ways in which she suffers and the evils of the world in relation to how God would act. Is that not an awkward incongruity? Consider the case of a theist who bases his belief in God on a teleological argument, so that God is viewed as the best, or part of the best, explanation for the order, apparent design, and functionality in the universe. This theist sense of his experience of the world, and the humility is in profession of the weakness of his reasoning ability to make sense of instances of evil, or the facts about evil, in relation to God’s existence.

124  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will considers his belief in God to be justified at least in part by thoughts about how God would act, of what God would do in forming the universe. But if this theist is a skeptical theist, then on the matter of explaining the seemingly pointless terrible aspects of the world, he is agnostic or thinks that no one has justified beliefs attributing pointlessness. He claims justified belief in the first matter, but skepticism concerning what explains the rotten features of the world, so he has an explanation for the good features, but not for the apparently pointless bad ones. It seems reasonable to think that this stance of ignorance or skepticism is in tension with his affirmation of belief in the case of the explanation of the order and functionality in the universe. God may be argued to exist on the basis of the fine tuning of the laws of nature to enable the evolution of rational, spiritual, moral beings like us, but that same process led to our being beings who are vulnerable to a massive array of disabling physical injuries and to intractable pain.

4.2.4  Rea on the Threat of Skeptical Spread Others have defended the idea that the skepticism of skeptical theism spreads, presenting the threat of global skepticism, the threat of skepticism about the nature and attributes of God, the threat of skepticism about divine commands, and the threat of upset to our ordinary moral intuitions and common moral practice, among others. The last of these concerns is that, if we really did have no justification for believing of any instance of evil that it is pointless, then we might think that we really ought not intervene to prevent any instance of suffering we could, since for all we know there is a God-​ justifying purpose in that instance, one we would thwart by intervening.39 David O’Connor presses, among other objections, the contention that skeptical theists face problems in the rationality of their beliefs about sin and in grounding their beliefs about God’s goodness.40 He suggests that on skeptical theism we have no good reason to think that our values, including our moral 39 For discussion see, for instance, Bruce Russell, 1989, “The Persistent Problem of Evil,” Faith and Philosophy 6: 121–​139; Daniel Howard-​Snyder, 1996, “The Argument from Inscrutable Evil,” in The Evidential Argument from Evil, edited by Daniel Howard-​Snyder (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 286–​310; and Derk Pereboom, 2013, “A Defense without Free Will,” in McBrayer and Howard-​ Snyder 2013, 411–​425; among many others. 40 D. O’Connor 2013 writes, “[T]he basic principles of her [the skeptical theist’s] skepticism leave her without good reason for thinking that any actions are sins, no matter how awful those actions are in our estimation” (“Theistic Objections to Skeptical Theism,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 468–​481, at 473).

Skeptical Theism  125 values, are representative of God’s, and so we have no way of understanding what the goodness of God would amount to.41 O’Connor writes: [O]‌ur skeptical theist must acknowledge that she has no good reason to think that she would recognize divine goodness as goodness. For, in order to have good reason to think she would recognize moral goods to an infinite being as moral goods, she would need good reason to think that our human concepts or standards of goodness represent either divine goodness or God’s concept of goodness, but that is the very thing her skepticism challenges.42

A skeptical theist might object, as Rea does, that it is the representativeness of our sample of goods, evils, and the connections among them that is questioned on skeptical theism, rather than our concepts and standards of goodness, and he might further contend, as Rea does, that the skeptical theist has sources for beliefs about God’s goodness, including scripture, trusted authorities in the church, moral conscience, spiritual experiences of her own (in which God seems to tell her what is right and good), and church teachings.43 O’Connor’s concern regarding the appeal to church authority, church teaching, moral conscience, and scripture is that “the chain of authority is a human chain all the way. But a fundamental tenet of our skeptical theist’s skepticism is that none of us (authority or hoi polloi) has good reason to think that our ideas about, or our standards of, goodness, respectively, are representative of goodness as understood by infinite beings, if any.”44 Rea takes such critiques, including other recent critiques of Stephen Maitzen’s45 and Ian Wilks’s,46 to fail, arguing that the skeptical theist can be skeptical about any judgment she might be tempted to form of the sort “that instance of evil is pointless” without thereby becoming skeptical—​ and without thereby becoming rationally obligated to be skeptical—​about

41 D. O’Connor 2013, 473–​475. 42 D. O’Connor 2013, 476. 43 A referee points out that a problem with the appeal to sacred texts and church teachings is that they can be not only confusing as we try to figure out from them how we ought to act but also internally inconsistent. Further, believers in the different Abrahamic religious traditions differ among themselves about what moral code the texts are actually endorsing. 44 D. O’Connor 2013, 475. 45 Stephen Maitzen, 2013, “The Moral Skepticism Objection to Skeptical Theism,” in McBrayer and Howard-​Snyder 2013, 444–​457. 46 Ian Wilks, 2013, “The Global Skepticism Objection to Skeptical Theism,” McBrayer and Howard-​ Snyder 2013, 458–​467.

126  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will her other beliefs, including those concerning the external world, divine commands and values, divine purposes, and our obligations to prevent harm. Skepticism regarding the pointlessness of instances of evil is sufficiently insulated from the theist’s other beliefs to leave the justification of those other beliefs intact; it does not, Rea argues, provide an undefeated defeater for most of a theist’s other beliefs. In order to defend this position, Rea presents the case of Lucy, “a Christian who has come to hold a wide variety of beliefs about God and God’s commands in a way that is quite common for reflective Christians.”47 Lucy’s beliefs about God are rooted in her reading of the Bible, the testimony of respected religious authorities, reflections on the love and goodness of God during prayer and church services, her own intuitions about love and moral perfection, and “low-​grade religious experiences” such as a sense of the presence of God in the world and a feeling of being loved and forgiven by God. Also present in the case is Lucy’s having suffered sexual abuse as a child. Rea remarks that “There is nothing obviously irrational in Lucy’s overall set of beliefs.”48 That assessment appears rather quickly. Depending on how much emphasis we give to the word ‘obviously,’ it is not so clear this is so.49 There is nothing irrational in her set of beliefs unless it is irrational to believe that God exists, or irrational to trust church authority and her church’s leaders in particular, or irrational to trust her own or her religious community’s reading of the Bible, or irrational to believe that her religious experiences are veridical. Rea asks us now to suppose that Lucy becomes a skeptical theist, and he challenges us to say why she should hesitate to take her religious experiences as veridical or why she should question her moral judgments or why she should doubt her belief that God is good. Rea writes of Lucy: [N]‌o good she knows of seems even close to sufficient to justify a perfectly loving God in permitting the severe psychological and sexual abuse that she herself suffered at the hands of a neighbor when she was a child . . . [yet in becoming a skeptical theist] she does not moderate any of her other moral beliefs, because she takes those to be independent of her assessments about

47 Rea 2013, 495. 48 Rea 2013, 495. 49 Rea affirms (in correspondence) that he “meant to give a fair bit of weight to it,” so that Lucy’s belief set is not such that we should immediately conclude that her belief set is irrational by virtue of the features that are specified in the case.

Skeptical Theism  127 how representative her sample of possible goods, evils, and connections among them might be.50

My view is that maybe Lucy is willing to live with suspension of belief regarding justifying reasons for what she endured, but the agnosticism concerning justifying reasons is not well motivated theoretically by what else she believes, which includes the belief that her mind is well formed and suited to discerning truths concerning both the natural world and the divine, the belief that God wants to be in relationship with her, the belief that God cares for her and as a loving being would want for her to understand the reasons for which he permitted her suffering, and the belief that her religious authorities accurately teach her about the ways of God. One wonders if she would be satisfied with the skeptical aspect of her theism if the victim of the sexual assault were her own daughter. It would be natural for her, as a mother and, as a curious human being who seeks explanations and reasons, to speculate. (Could the unimpeded free will of her daughter’s rapist possibly, or plausibly be thought to, be worth it?) If Lucy were to reflect seriously on the suffering she endured and on the suffering endured by so many human beings and sentient non-​human animals across the world and throughout history, along with reflecting on the various proposed theodicies and the considerations I have given in this chapter, it certainly seems that she could form a justified belief that some instances of evil are pointless—​which, if right, is sufficient to show that (ST) is false, the thesis that no one is ever justified in believing of any evil that it is pointless—​and furthermore it seems that she should form a justified belief that some instances of evil are pointless. And this belief naturally would tend to throw into question other of her beliefs. From my perspective, in other words, Lucy ought to take the sexual abuse she suffered as a child more seriously in the sense of recognizing the extent to which it is theoretically problematic for her metaphysical outlook, and she ought to take more seriously the sexual abuse suffered by millions of others, the chronic pain endured by millions of men and women, and the other varieties and instances of human and animal suffering we have discussed. She should take this seriously as evidence relevant to the question of what to believe concerning the ultimate source of and explanation for the universe. This evidence gives her reason to question other of her convictions, such as that her religious authorities are trustworthy in telling her of God’s love and

50 Rea 2013, 496.

128  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will goodness, and the belief that God was really the source of her feeling of being loved and forgiven experienced during worship. Rea does admit that “skeptical theists might even be happy to concede that reflection on certain kinds of suffering does, after all, provide evidence that our world contains gratuitous evil, albeit highly defeasible evidence.” However, he continues, “What the skeptical theist denies is that our awareness of (or reflection on) any actual or hypothetical instance of evil constitutes evidence sufficient to justify belief that our world contains gratuitous evil.”51 On the contrary, it seems to me that our awareness of certain instances of evil, such as the sexual abuse of children and the persistent spinal pain experienced by Matthew, among many other cases—​together with our reflection both on various proposed God-​justifying reasons for permitting suffering and on the reasons for thinking that, if there were such God-​justifying reasons, we would see them—​does make a compelling case that is sufficient to justify the belief that our world contains pointless evils. Contra Rea, in my view (ST) is false; it is false that no one is justified in believing that the second premise of the argument from pointless evils is true.52 I have argued that we are justified in believing that that premise is true. Recall Graham Oppy’s discussion of a particular case of the brutal assault and murder of a child. He writes: “I think that nothing could justify rape, torture, and murder of five-​year-​old girls; and I think that nothing could justify inaction in the face of rape, torture, and murder of five-​year-​old girls other than inability (on grounds of lack of power, or knowledge, or the like).”53 This is an eminently reasonable thought with respect to many evils.

4.3  Conclusion My main concern with skeptical theism, then, is not that the skeptical aspect of the view of skeptical theism is not as isolated from a theist’s other beliefs as the skeptical theist wants to make it out to be, so as to prevent skeptical spread, although I think this is a valid concern that invites further discussion. I have suggested that the skeptical thesis of skeptical theism puts pressure on and sits oddly with the thesis of theism. My central point, though, is that 51 Rea 2013, 496. 52 Again, Meghan Sullivan, for instance, while a theist, includes herself as among “those of us inclined to think that we are somewhat reliable detectors of pointless evils around us” (2013, 409). 53 Oppy 2013, 59.

Skeptical Theism  129 the skeptical aspect of skeptical theism is simply implausible. The skeptical thesis that Rea has identified as the core of skeptical theism, thesis (ST), is not one that is reasonable to accept, and I have argued against other skeptical theists’ positions on their preferred characterizations of the view, as well, including Bergmann and Senor. Skeptical theism is an inadequate response to the arguments from evil we have considered. The major theodicies, as we have seen, do not successfully defeat the arguments from evil. I have given positive support to the premises of these arguments from evil. The theist has the intellectual burden of showing not only that her beliefs about the existence of God and the facts about evil are logically consistent, but also that they are in touch with reality. Since the argument from pointless evil and the argument from the facts about evil stand as powerful arguments for atheism, in order rationally to maintain her theism, the theist should show that there are reasons or arguments for theism that overpower these arguments, making an indirect case that somehow the controversial premises in the arguments from evil are false. Notice that when Rea writes of cases of “apparently gratuitous suffering,”54 he uses scare quotes to indicate, he says, that what is at issue is whether or not these kinds of instances of evil are, or are not, apparently gratuitous. As I’ve indicated, from my perspective the right reaction is that of course such instances—​the fawn trapped in the forest fire alone and painfully dying over an extended period (the case made prominent by Rowe), a child who is brutally beaten to death with a wrench by his stepfather, and so many others that are nauseating to describe—​are apparently gratuitous: they show themselves on their face to be pointless, appearing to us as if there is no reason that could justify a perfect being in permitting them. On a straightforward understanding of ‘appearance’ as a way things seem to one to be or the way they immediately strike one, a wide range of evils appears pointless. Even if one were to deny that some instances of evil show themselves on their face to be pointless, then still there remains the fact that a survey of the supposedly God-​justifying reasons on offer—​the results of many hundreds of years of thought on the topic—​shows the attempts at theodicy, attempts to identify the purposes of God with respect to evil, to be lacking in persuasive power. Thus, in a richer inferential sense of ‘appearance,’ many evils are arguably apparently pointless. The possibility remains, of course, that someone will have a breakthrough in identifying reasons that would justify God in

54 An evil is ‘gratuitous’ just in case there is no God-​justifying reason for permitting it.

130  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will permitting evils.55 Thus, one could hope that someone in the future might come up with a rationally compelling proposal concerning why God permits instances of evil, one of which we have not yet thought. The hope, though, appears to have a rather slim grounding, given the power of the minds that have thought about this problem through history. In deciding what to believe and how to conduct our lives, we can only go on what we have before us—​ the reasons there are for adopting various views and rejecting others—​and we ought to go at present where the evidence takes us. In this case, unless there are powerful outweighing (or perhaps counterbalancing) arguments for God’s existence that succeed in securing God’s traditional attributes without undermining one’s response to arguments from evil, we should adopt atheism.

55 We could in principle learn that an impression that some evil is pointless is in fact mistaken if we were to find out God’s purposes from God, perhaps in the afterlife. The problem with the appeal to an afterlife in which the purposes will be revealed to us by God, however, is that at issue is precisely the rationality of belief that God exists. The response to the problem of evil that says we will understand—​or will be compensated for suffering—​when we meet God (in the afterlife) naturally strikes one as an illegitimate move in the context of the debate over the existence of God.

5 Hell and Fault My overarching question in this chapter is whether or not the supposition that there is a hell, populated by some human beings after their earthly deaths, forms the basis for an especially virulent form of an argument from evil against the rationality of belief in God. Recall that if the skeptical theist were right, then no one would be justified in believing, of any instance of suffering, that it is unnecessary to bringing about a greater good or to preventing an evil as bad or worse. I argued in the previous chapter that this claim is not plausible. Here we address a particularly egregious kind of case—​a person’s eternal existence in hell—​which would seem to be just such a kind of suffering. Lest one think that an eternal hell is an antiquated notion in which modern people do not believe, notice that, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study, a majority of Americans believe in hell, defined as a place “where people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished.”1 Among Protestant Christians, 75% believe in hell. The percentages are higher among Evangelical Christians (82% believe in hell, 88% believe in heaven) and among members of historically black Protestant denominations (82% believe in hell, 93% believe in heaven). Among Catholic Christians, 63% believe in hell (and 85% believe in heaven). The numbers are markedly lower among Jews: 22% believe in hell (and 40% believe in heaven). Among Muslims, 76% believe in hell (and 89% believe in heaven). An earlier 2004 Gallup poll indicated that 70% of Americans overall believe in hell. The percentage was significantly higher among “regular churchgoers”: 92% of those who attend weekly indicated belief in hell.2 1 Among U.S. adults in total—​including those who are religiously affiliated and those who are religiously unaffiliated—​72% believe in in heaven, defined as a place “where people who have lived good lives are eternally rewarded,” and 58% believe in hell. https://​www.pewresearch.org/​fact-​tank/​2015/​ 11/​10/​most-​americans-​believe-​in-​heaven-​and-​hell/​ 2 According to the Gallup poll, 70% of Americans overall believe in hell, while 12% are not sure and 17% do not believe in hell. With regard to political orientation, 83% of Republicans said they believe in hell, versus 69% of Democrats and 58% of those who identify as independent. https://​news.gallup. com/​poll/​11770/​eternal-​destinations-​americans-​believe-​heaven-​hell.aspx

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0005

132  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

5.1  What God Does In “Divine Evil,” David Lewis defends an argument from evil that he says is simpler than standard versions, one “that has been strangely neglected.”3 Standard versions of the argument from evil focus, as we have seen, on the evils endured by human beings and other sentient creatures that, if God exists, God fails to prevent. Lewis writes: “But we might start instead from the evils God himself perpetuates. There are plenty of these, and, in duration and intensity, they dwarf the kinds of suffering and sin to which the standard versions allude.”4 There are indeed a number of instances and kinds of suffering that one might allege, if God exists, God perpetuates. Depending on one’s view concerning God’s causal role in the shaping of human beings, for instance, one might see it as God’s doing that women endure so much physical pain, and are vulnerable to injury and death, in the natural course of childbirth. On the view of strong occasionalism with regard to God’s causal role in the course of the world’s events, all events—​positive and destructive—​are caused directly by God. On Plantinga’s view of weak occasionalism, all events are caused by God except for free initial human undertakings, such that, even if it is the shooter who causes his initial volition, it is God who causes the shooter’s finger to squeeze the trigger, and God who causes bullet to leave the gun, and God who causes the bullet to tear into the victim’s flesh, and God who causes the victim’s bleeding to the point of death. Either form of occasionalism, strong or weak, seems to me to generate an especially challenging problem of evil compared to non-​occasionalist views, for on occasionalism God is the direct causal agent of all events whatsoever (even if not, as on weak occasionalism, initial human undertakings), including all horrific and appalling events, rather than God’s being an agent who (merely) sustains secondary causes in existence and permits created agents themselves to directly carry out their intentions. Michael Rea and Michael Murray put the point in terms of a “moral buffer.” They write: Of course, all varieties of theism must confront the problem of evil. But most theists are insistent . . . that God does not cause evil but rather merely 3 David Lewis, 2007, “Divine Evil,” in Philosophers without Gods, edited by Louise Antony (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 231–​242. 4 Lewis 2007, 231.

Hell and Fault  133 (justifiably) permits it. Seeing God as merely permitting evil provides a moral buffer that would be unavailable if God were the full and direct cause of evil as is the case on occasionalism. This view thus makes God “the author of sin,” a position that has been almost universally rejected by theists.5

Plantinga thinks that the problem of obscurity that faces secondary causalism—​the view that the laws of nature reflect the causal powers of the creations, including material objects, God has made—​is a larger problem than the problem of evil that faces occasionalism. It seems not the case from my point of view that it is more problematic for a theist to believe in secondary causation than it is for a theist to believe the claim that God directly brings about every bad, horrific, nasty, and painful event in the world other than the initial volitions or undertakings of free created beings. It is bizarre, and worse, to think that God causes everything that happens except for our undertakings—​think of all that would imply. God not only causes the sequence of events (beyond the initial human undertakings) that comprise making love, but also those that comprise rape. I won’t spell this out, but I think one should have before one’s mind what all this means. God not only directly causes the series of events that together count as lovingly caring for a child—​gentle caresses, cleaning up messes, words of encouragement—​but also those that count as abuse—​the burns, the blows, the vocalization of cutting and hateful words. Plantinga suggests that we are the source of our undertakings and so we are morally responsible for them. But if God is the source of all events other than the initial human undertakings—​that is, God causes the squeezing of the triggers, the entries of the bullets, and the injuries of victims—​then the question arises: Do we share moral responsibility with God for instances of murder, betrayal, abuse, and neglect, on weak occasionalism? The problem is not that there are never cases of shared moral responsibility, but rather that holding God morally responsible for atrocious events is problematic given God’s nature. Plantinga says that the problem of evil is not much worse than it is on the picture of the world according to which God creates things with causal powers and sustains them in existence, thereby (in Plantinga’s words) “indirectly causing” harms himself. Plantinga does say, “I have to admit 5 Michael Murray and Michael Rea, 2008, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 25–​26, italics added.

134  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will that there remains a sort of intuitive pull towards the thought that God’s directly causing the bad involves him more intimately with the bad than does his indirectly causing it.”6 Nonetheless, he thinks, this problem for weak occasionalism “is a smaller problem than” the problem of obscurity for secondary causalism. I have to say that I respectfully disagree with his problem measurement. Even on a less robust view than occasionalism of God’s causal role in what occurs, a variety of events that are destructive or result in great pain and loss—​one side’s win in battle, the hardening of Pharoah’s heart—​still might be attributed to God’s own activity. In pressing the argument from evil that he sees as stronger and neglected, Lewis’s focus is not on these earthly events, but rather on the eternal torment of hell.

5.2  Lewis on a Neglected Argument from Evil What is the neglected argument from evil? Here is the passage in which Lewis presents the case: God, if we are to believe an orthodox story, has prescribed eternal torment as a punishment for insubordination.  .  .  .  The orthodox story is explicit about the temporal scale of the punishment: it is to go on forever. . . . The agonies to be endured by the damned intensify, in unimaginable ways, the sufferings we undergo in our earthly lives. So, along both dimensions, time and intensity, the torment is infinitely worse than all the suffering and sin that will have occurred during the history of life in the universe. What God does is thus infinitely worse than what the worst of tyrants did. . . . God is supposed to torture the damned forever, and to do so by vastly surpassing all the modes of torment about which we know. Although those who elaborate the orthodox account are sometimes concerned with the fit between crime and punishment, there is no possibility of a genuine balance. For the punishment of the damned is infinitely

6 Alvin Plantinga, 2016, “Law, Cause, and Occasionalism,” in Reason and Faith:  Themes from Richard Swinburne, edited by Michael Bergmann and Jeffrey E. Brower (Oxford, UK:  Oxford University Press), 126–​143, italics added.

Hell and Fault  135 disproportionate to their crimes. . . . If the orthodox story supposes only that they fail to believe in God, then the injustice is even more palpable.7

So when a human being, after earthly death, ends up in hell, if there is a God, then this person’s eternal hellish experience is not merely something that God could have prevented but allows; rather, Lewis suggests, it is something that is God’s own doing. By contrast, on a view other than strong occasionalism concerning God’s causal role in the created universe, when a person is a victim of a malicious act during earthly life, a rape, for instance, if there is a God, then the rape is not something that God perpetuates but rather is something that God could have prevented yet nonetheless permits. Likewise, for a non-​occasionalist, when a child develops leukemia, if there is a God, then the disease is something not that God directly causes but that God could have prevented yet allows. The case of a person’s consignment to hell is different. Notice that Lewis’s wording in the cited passage suggests two somewhat different thoughts concerning what it is that God does in regard to hell. He says both that, on the orthodox story, God “has prescribed eternal torment” and that “God is supposed to torture the damned forever.” God could prescribe the eternal torment without conducting it—​without, for instance, forcibly holding a victim in the flames of hell8 or searing him with burning rods or directly bringing about the victim’s intense alienation or loneliness. Alternatively, God could directly conduct tormenting actions, whatever those might be. Or it could be that God both prescribes and conducts the tormenting himself. On any of these alternatives, it’s trouble for the orthodox story, because—​it is clear Lewis thinks—​both prescribing eternal torment and conducting it are wrong, and each is unjust. Given the duration and intensity of suffering in hell, what God does, on any of the alternatives, is worse than what the worst of human tyrants did. But God, by the nature of God, is not supposed to do things that are worse than what the worst of human tyrants did. To suppose that it is God’s 7 Lewis 2007, 232. 8 Jonathan Edwards’s famous sermon on hell, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” contains this passage: “That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is Hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon.” In The American Tradition in Literature, edited by Sculley Bradley, et al. (New York: Grossett & Dunlap, 1974), 61. As John Wesley describes hell, “There is no grandeur in the infernal region; there is nothing beautiful in those dark abodes, no light but that of livid flames. And nothing new, but one unvaried scene of horror upon horror.” Works (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1986 [1872]) 3: 37.

136  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will own doing that a created person experiences hell is thus incoherent, on the argument, given the sort of being God is supposed to be. In the remainder of the chapter I will reconstruct Lewis’s argument explicitly in order to facilitate close analysis. Then I will expand upon that argument, in order to make clearer than Lewis’s formulation does, the variety of possibilities concerning whose fault it might be that a person ends up in hell.9 First, here is a way in which we might reconstruct the argument Lewis presents in the quoted passage earlier: 1. On an orthodox story, God has prescribed eternal torment as a punishment for insubordination. 2. Eternal torment outstrips all historical earthly suffering in time and intensity. 3. Eternal torment for insubordination is unjust. 4. Eternal torment is God’s doing. 5. Thus, what God does is infinitely worse than what the worst of human tyrants did. 6. God is not supposed to be the sort of being who acts unjustly or who acts in any way that is worse than the worst of human tyrants. 7. Therefore, it is irrational to believe the orthodox story under discussion. In light of his assessment of the powerful force of this argument, Lewis concludes: “So I think the usual philosophical discussions of the problem of evil are a sideshow. We seem to strain at the gnat and swallow the camel.”10 Are discussions of the more standard versions of the argument from evil we have examined thus far in the book a mere sideshow, while what Lewis calls the neglected argument is more damning to the rationality of belief in God?11 Our focus in subsequent sections is on this question. 9 Noting that a traditional doctrine of eternal hell “puts a particularly sharp edge on the already prickly problem of evil” (5), Jerry Walls, 1992, takes on the task of defending the traditional doctrine in Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press). On his account, “Hell is a place of misery,” although it is not “as gruesome an account of hell as that held by some notable classical theologians.” The reason it is not quite as gruesome, Walls writes, is that “if it were, I could not plausibly hold that some persons may freely choose it” (Walls 1992, 153). This remark is telling. I discuss the position that a person’s existence in hell is his own fault due to his own free choices in Section 5.5. 10 Lewis 2007, 232. 11 Standard versions of the argument from evil begin with the observed existence of pain and suffering. Of course, hell is a different matter: we do not here and now observe it, and it is not the case that all rational people agree that it exists. Lewis is pointing to a conceptual inconsistency within the belief system of theists who endorse an orthodox view of hell.

Hell and Fault  137

5.3  An Expanded Argument Concerning Responsibility and Hell A key issue concerning the neglected argument is whether or not is it true that a human being’s enduring eternal torment—​either directly at the hands of God or by way of God’s prescription—​is God’s doing. One might wonder whether or not Lewis’s remark that “God is supposed to torture the damned forever” accurately depicts the view of those who endorse the doctrine of hell, in particular, concerning God’s active role. A second key question is this: if eternal torment is God’s doing, in that either God prescribes it or God conducts it, then is it true that what God does is unjust or is infinitely worse than what the worst of human tyrants did? Perhaps it is God’s doing that some created persons endure torment in hell, but nonetheless what God does is neither unjust nor wrong. We might note that “doing something” is not always an intentional action. What is done, then, might not count as something for which a person should be held morally responsible or something for which that person legitimately could be held to be at fault. One might suppose that sending a person to hell for eternal torment,12 for instance, is something that God does, but that God does it accidently. Or one might suppose that God is pushed by someone else into doing it, or that God’s sending someone to hell is for some other reason God’s behavior but not an intentional action of God’s. However, reflection on the nature of God indicates that these possibilities are ruled out: God is not the sort of being who would do something accidently or compulsively or in a way that is coerced by outside pressure or in a way that is weak-​willed. So if a human being is consigned to hell after earthly death and this is God’s doing, then it seems that it is God’s intentional action. Further, given that God is an omnipotent and unsurpassably effective agent, God’s intentional actions would be under God’s control sufficiently to meet any control conditions on moral responsibility. Moreover God’s omniscience implies that God would meet any knowledge conditions on moral responsibility. So, God’s sending someone to hell—​or God’s being the agent who does the eternal tormenting—​implies, if that action is wrong or unjust, that God is morally responsible for doing so in the sense of deserving blame. But, given the attributes of God, God should not deserve blame for any of God’s actions.



12 Or prescribing eternal torment or conducting eternal torment.

138  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will So, the argument goes, the orthodox story of hell does not sit rationally with belief that God exists. So is eternal torment God’s doing? In order to assess this matter, what is needed is an argument that is significantly expanded beyond the argument Lewis presents, one that makes explicit a wider variety of possibilities for the causal story behind a human being’s hypothetically enduring an eternity in hell, including some that identify fault or place blame in a desert sense. I will develop such an argument. What I identify in the following argument are neglected possibilities that Lewis’s neglected argument does not identify. My expanded argument, then, will make clearer than Lewis’s formulation does, the variety of possibilities concerning whose fault it might be that any person ends up in hell. Consider the following (rather long) argument to the effect that a belief in hell is irrational for a theist.13 1. To suppose that hell exists is to suppose that some human beings exist after their earthly lives in an everlasting state of separation from God—​ whether this involves burning in a fiery lake, eternal torment of some other sort, intense psychological alienation, abject loneliness, consumption with feelings of hatred, or some other horrible or (at least) very unpleasant state of conscious existence that goes on forever.14 13 For a different approach to arguing that belief in an eternal hell is irrational for a theist, see Thomas Talbott, 2014, The Inescapable Love of God, 2nd edition (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books), and Thomas Talbott, 1990, “The Doctrine of Everlasting Punishment,” Faith and Philosophy 7, no. 1:  19–​43. For opposition to Talbott, see Jerry Walls, 2003, “A Philosophical Critique of Talbott’s Universalism,” in Universal Salvation? The Current Debate, edited by R. Parry and C. Partridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 105–​124; and Jeff Jordan, 2015, “The Topography of Divine Love: Reply to Thomas Talbott,” Faith and Philosophy 32: 182–​187. 14 Some philosophers and theologians have supposed that created beings consigned to hell can escape it, so that their experience of hell is not everlasting or eternal. However, unless one conjoins the escapability thesis with the assertion that eventually all human beings who are in hell escape hell and are either saved or annihilated, one endorses the view that some human beings (as a contingent matter) spend an eternity of alienation or torment in separation from God and from all that is good. For a theist who believes that some human beings spend only a finite stretch of time in hell and then cease to be there, the proposition that hell exists is the proposition that some human beings exist for a period of time after their earthly lives in an state of separation from God—​whether this involves burning, torment, intense psychological alienation, abject loneliness, consumption with feelings of hatred, or some other horrible or (at least) very unpleasant state of conscious existence. For discussion see Andrei Buckareff and Allen Plug, 2005, “Escaping Hell: Divine Motivation and the Problem of Hell,” Religious Studies 41:  39–​54; Russell Jones, 2007, “Escapism and Luck,” Religious Studies 43: 205–​216; Benjamin Matheson, 2014, “Escaping Heaven,” International Journal of Philosophy of Religion 75: 197–​206; and Morgan Luck, 2016, “Escaping Heaven and Hell,” Religious Studies 52: 395–​ 402. To hold that hell is a place one can visit and escape might ease somewhat the burdens involved in responding to the expanded and streamlined arguments in the main text, but it is not the view of hell in the orthodox story highlighted by Lewis, and it is not the widespread view of hell that it is my central concern to address. Alfred Freddoso observes that the doctrine of hell poses a serious problem

Hell and Fault  139 2. Suppose both that God exists and that hell exists. 3. If some human beings exist after their earthly deaths in an eternal state of separation from God (“in hell”) then, for each such person15 in hell, it is either someone’s fault that he is there (relegated to hell) or it is no one’s fault that he is there. 4. An agent is at fault for an outcome just in case that outcome is bad (or wrong or unjust), all things considered, and the agent meets the control and knowledge conditions for moral responsibility for that outcome.16 5. If a particular person’s ending up in hell is no one’s fault, then either (i) that person’s ending up in hell came about purely by chance (or randomly or by sheer bad luck), or (ii) the person’s ending up in hell is an outcome to which an agent contributed causally but not in a way that suffices for the agent to meet the control and knowledge conditions for moral responsibility for that outcome, or (iii) the person’s ending up in hell is something that someone brought about in a way that meets the control and knowledge conditions for moral responsibility for that outcome, but that outcome is not bad (or wrong or unjust), all things considered. 6. If God exists, then people do not end up in in hell purely by chance (or randomly or as a matter of sheer bad luck). 7. If God exists, then people do not end up in hell by way of some agent’s (contributing to) bringing it about but in a way that renders that agent not a candidate for being at fault—​that is, in a way that does not meet the control and knowledge conditions for moral responsibility—​for the hellish outcome. for theists even if hell is not construed as everlasting: “There is ample reason for thinking that ultimately the most troublesome form which the problem of evil can take for the orthodox Christian is just this: How is the existence of a benevolent and almighty God to be reconciled with even the possibility of someone’s going to hell (whether this is thought to involve simple annihilation or the pain of everlasting separation from God)?” Freddoso, 1983, ed., The Existence and Nature of God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 3. 15 Although it can be useful to distinguish ‘human being’ as a biological notion from ‘person’ as a moral notion, since I find it awkward to speak repeatedly of a “particular human being’s” doing something or ending up somewhere, I am going to use the terms interchangeably. In the context of the present discussion, a need for keeping the two distinct might arise in the case of an infant or very young toddler’s consignment to hell (a type of case that is only obliquely addressed by what I have to say) and in the case of a non-​human person’s consignment to hell (a matter I do not address). 16 A person is at fault for an outcome only if she is at fault for an action that is a cause of that outcome. An agent is at fault for an action just in case that action is wrong and the agent meets the control and knowledge conditions for being blameworthy for that action.

140  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will













8. A person’s ending up in hell is a bad (or wrong or unjust) outcome, all things considered. 9. Thus if God exists, then if a person ends up in hell it is someone’s fault that he ends up there. 10. The candidates for whose fault it could be that a particular person ends up in hell are these: God, that person himself, someone else. 11. The candidates for the “someone else” (other than God and the person himself) whose fault it could be that a particular person ends up in hell are these: Satan, a supernatural being or demon of some sort who is not Satan, a group of demons, another human person, a group of human persons. 12. Satan and other supernatural beings and demons are supposed to be less powerful than God. 13. So if Satan or other supernatural beings or demons were to act so as to be at fault for a particular person’s ending up in hell, then that person’s ending up there is something God could have prevented but chose not to prevent. 14. If God were to allow Satan or other supernatural beings or demons to act so as to be at fault for a particular person’s ending up in hell, when God instead could have prevented it, then God would (have to) have a justifying reason for His allowance. 15. Human beings, individually and collectively, are less powerful than God. 16. So if a human being or group of human beings other than the particular person in question were to act so as to be at fault for that particular person’s ending up in hell, then that person’s ending up there is something God could have prevented but chose not to prevent. 17. If God were to allow another human being or group of human beings to act so as to be at fault for a particular person’s ending up in hell, when God instead could have prevented it, then God would (have to) have a justifying reason for His allowance. 18. There is no God-​justifying reason for allowing Satan or other supernatural beings or demons to act so as to be at fault for a particular person’s ending up in (being relegated to) hell. 19. There is no God-​justifying reason for allowing another human being or group of human beings to act so as to be at fault for a particular person’s ending up in (being relegated to) hell.

Hell and Fault  141 20. Thus if a particular person ends up in hell, then it is either his own fault that he is in hell or it is God’s fault. 21. It cannot be a person’s own fault that he ends up in hell. 22. Therefore, if a particular person ends up in hell, then it is God’s fault that that person ends up in (is relegated to) hell. 23. If someone, S, is at fault for another person’s ending up in (relegation to) hell, then he, S, is not essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, and essentially perfectly good. 24. God is essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, and essentially perfectly good. 25. Thus God, by the nature of God, cannot be at fault for a human person’s ending up in (relegation to) hell. 26. Thus, the joint supposition that hell exists and that God exists leads to an absurdity. 27. Therefore, it is irrational to suppose both that God exists and that hell exists. There are a number of points at which one might attack this argument. However, the first premise is definitional. The second is suppositional. The third expresses a straightforward truth. The fourth premise is definitional. To begin a critical discussion, then, consider the fifth premise. In the consequent of the conditional that is the fifth premise, the second and third named possibilities make explicit that it could be that someone is wholly or partially causally responsible for a particular person’s ending up in hell without that someone being morally responsible in a desert sense for that person’s ending up in hell. Now this much seems immediately clear: no person would end up in hell wholly as a matter of chance or sheer bad luck, if God were to exist. This is because it is inconsistent with the nature of God as an all-​knowing, all-​ powerful, and perfectly good being to leave a person’s eternal destiny up to a metaphorical roll of the die, particularly when one of the outcomes is the eternal torment or everlasting alienation of hell. Similarly, if God exists, then no person ends up in hell in virtue of some agent’s bringing it about but in a way that renders that agent not a candidate for being at fault for the hellish outcome. To suppose otherwise does not uphold God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect goodness. God is not the sort of being who would allow a person to suffer eternally in hell as the result of behavior that does not meet the control and knowledge conditions for moral responsibility for

142  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will an outcome—​as a result, for instance, of something someone does accidentally or in pure ignorance. It also would be unjust and wrong for God to allow someone to go to hell on the basis of behavior that was coerced or on the basis of actions undertaken such that the hellish outcome was non-​culpably unforeseen by the agent. But God by nature acts neither unjustly nor wrongly. This brings us to premise (8). Ending up in hell is certainly a bad outcome for the person who ends up there. It involves barely imaginable intense and enduring physical or psychological pain or at least experience that is sufficiently negative that it merits the label “hell.” One might argue, however, that a person’s ending up in hell does not count as an overall bad outcome, even if unpleasant for the sufferer, because she deserves it. If she deserves it, then her being in hell is not wrong or unjust. So the objector might allege that hell is not, objectively considered, a bad outcome for cases of persons who ought to be there on the basis of their own free choices in earthly life. I will set aside this thought for now and return to it later. Premise (9)  is meant to follow from the previous premises. The subsequent four premises ((10) through (13)) seem straightforward and are not ones likely to be disputed, as are some others (for instance, (15) and (16)). Of the remaining premises, I take it the following are those most likely to be contested: premises (14), (17), (18), (19), (21), and (23). Premise (14) claims that if God were to allow Satan (or other supernatural beings or demons) to act so as to be at fault for a particular person’s ending up in hell, when God could instead have prevented it, then God would (have to) have a justifying reason for His allowance. Similarly, premise (17) asserts that if God were to allow another human being (or group of human beings) to act so as to be at fault for a particular person’s ending up in hell, when God could instead have prevented it, then God would (have to) have a justifying reason for His allowance. As we have seen in previous chapters, it is standard (though not wholly uncontroversial, as I discuss further later) in discussions of the problem of evil to maintain that, if God exists, then there are no pointless evils in the world. An evil is pointless just in case there is no God-​justifying reason for permitting it. It is also standard to hold that God is justified in permitting an evil just in case that evil is necessary to bringing about a greater good or preventing an evil as bad or worse. Now suppose that Satan is at fault for a particular person’s, Sam’s, ending up in hell. Satan’s acting in a way that meets the knowledge and control conditions of moral responsibility for an outcome is an evil: an instance of wrongdoing. We are supposing that Satan consigns Sam to eternal suffering in such a way that

Hell and Fault  143 Satan deserves blame. If it is true that, if God exists, then there are no evils in the world for which there is no God-​justifying reason, then it is true that God has a justifying reason for allowing Satan to be at fault for Sam’s suffering in hell. Hence if it is true that, if God exists, then there are no pointless evils in the world, then premise (14) is true. The same reasoning applies to premise (17). Suppose that Sam is at fault for Sarah’s ending up in hell. Sam’s acting in a way that meets the knowledge and control conditions of moral responsibility for an outcome is an evil: an instance of wrongdoing. We are supposing that Sam consigns Sarah to eternal suffering in such a way that Sam deserves blame. If it is true that, if God exists, then there are no evils in the world for which there is no God-​ justifying reason, then it is true that God has a justifying reason for allowing Sam to be at fault for Sarah’s suffering in hell. Hence if it is true that, if God exists, then there are no pointless evils in the world, then premise (17) is true. The claim that, if God exists, then there are no evils in the world for which there is no God-​justifying reason, recall, seems to follow straightforwardly from the nature of God as an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good agent, coupled with the idea that God has a reason for bringing about every event God brings about and for permitting every event God permits. Some theorists, however, challenge the idea that, if God exists, then there are no evils in the world for which there is no God-​justifying reason, including recently Mark Murphy. Murphy contends that, while it is true that God by God’s nature does not aim at our suffering—​God does not intentionally bring about deprivation of due perfection or well-​being—​nonetheless God by God’s nature may permit the suffering of rational creatures for no reason at all, because the only reasons God has to prevent it are justifying reasons and not requiring reasons.17 On this view, the default mode of God toward created rational beings is not to be set on our good, but rather is an attitude of indifference.18 Murphy contends that there are no good reasons for thinking that God has requiring reasons to prevent setbacks to our well-​being, and he 17 Mark Murphy, 2017, God’s Own Ethics: Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press). 18 This is true of what Murphy calls the Anselmian Being, the absolutely perfect being. As I discuss in Chapter 6, according to Murphy, it is not an essential attribute of the absolutely perfect being that He is perfectly morally good in the sense of adhering to the familiar moral norms that apply to us, which include the norm that we ought to prevent setbacks to the well-​being of rational creatures whenever those setbacks are pointless. As a contingent matter, however, Murphy does hold that God has chosen to love all human beings equally. So, if Murphy endorses the orthodox account of hell, then he must provide an account on which it remains true to say that God loves all human beings equally while at the same time it is true that some human beings spend an eternity in hell.

144  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will claims that, to suppose God has requiring reasons to prevent unnecessary evils undermines the freedom of God. But in my view Murphy’s case for the contention that God has no requiring reasons to prevent unnecessary suffering on the part of rational and sentient beings is unsuccessful. I take up this matter in Chapter 6. I argue there, contrary to Murphy, that God would, by the nature of God, prevent unnecessary suffering on the part of rational and sentient beings. Theists who believe in hell thus, as I  see it, have some options for responding to the argument I have articulated, none of which are theoretically sustainable on inspection. Such theists either must defend the idea that God has a justifying reason to let someone else—​someone other than the very person’s whose existence in hell we are addressing, someone such as Satan, other demons, Adam and Eve, or other persons—​be at fault for a that particular person’s ending up in or relegation to hell; or they must defend the idea that it is conceptually coherent to suppose that God can be at fault or deserve blame for a person’s ending up in or relegation to hell; or they must defend the idea that a person’s ending up in hell is not bad (or wrong or unjust), all things considered; or they must defend the idea that it can be a person’s own fault that he ends up in hell.19 Begin with the first of these options. It seems to me hopeless to try to mount a defense of the idea that there is a God-​justifying reason to let someone else be at fault for my (or any other person’s) ending up in hell. I defend this impression in the subsequent section. Second, it seems to me hopeless to defend the idea that it can be God’s fault—​or that God could deserve blame for the fact—​that I end up (or any other person ends up) in hell. I defend this impression, as well, in the subsequent section. Take the third option: it seems to me hopeless, too, to defend the idea that a person’s ending up in hell is, all things considered, not bad (or not wrong or not unjust)—​that is, either good (or right or just) or morally neutral—​in a way that is independent of claims concerning the desert or fittingness of that outcome on the basis of the person’s free choices. I support this impression in the subsequent section. Thus it seems to me that a believer in the reality of hell, in order to support the plausibility of his belief and its consistency with his belief in the existence of God, (i) must suppose that God chose to give human beings free will, and furthermore (ii) must believe that there is something I (or anyone) can freely 19 An objector could endorse both of the last two options, relating them: one might argue that a person’s ending up in hell is not an unjust outcome because that person is herself at fault for her existence there.

Hell and Fault  145 choose to do that grounds personal fault for ending up in hell, and moreover (iii) must defend the value of human free will—​providing a defense stronger than any I have seen thus far—​so as to show it coherent to believe that it was a good idea for God to give it to me or to anyone in the first place.

5.4  The Fault of Others, the Goodness of Hell, and a Blameworthy God Let me say a few words in support of the impression that certain lines of thought are hopeless. First, it seems to me hopeless to defend the idea that there is a God-​justifying reason to allow someone else to be at fault for my (or any other person’s) ending up in hell. For suppose the following scenario illustrates the divine set-​up concerning the eternal damnation of a human being: Jack is morally responsible in a desert sense for Mariana’s ending up in hell. Such a set-​up strongly contravenes our standard moral intuitions and our standard moral practice. Insofar as we are good, knowledgeable, and able, we do not allow persons to victimize other persons in horrific and irreversible ways for which the agents of wrongdoing are morally responsible, unless we know that allowing that blameworthy infliction of horrific and irreversible suffering on a victim is absolutely necessary to bringing about a greater good. But so far as I can see there is no persuasive case for some greater good for which allowing Jack to act in a blameworthy way so as to consign Mariana to an eternity of suffering in hell is necessary. Our standard moral intuitions support the idea that it is not right for one human being to be the source, in a way that grounds desert, of another’s person’s eternal torment. To suppose that Jack is allowed by an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being to impose upon Mariana a hellish existence in a way that makes Jack morally responsible for her relegation to hell thus defies reason. It is highly implausible, for instance, to suppose that the character development of some human beings not only is brought about by God’s allowing someone else to be at fault for another person’s ending up in hell, but also is worth the cost of allowing that arrangement and, moreover, that the arrangement is necessary to producing the proposed good of character development. It is implausible, too, to suppose that a special intimacy with God experienced by some human beings not only is brought about by allowing someone else to be at fault for another person’s ending up in hell but also is worth the cost of allowing that arrangement and, moreover, that the arrangement is necessary to producing the

146  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will proposed good of intimacy with God. One might, of course, adopt the position of skeptical theism concerning the matter of God’s having a justifying reason to allow someone else to be at fault for a person’s ending up in hell. But that seems to me an implausible move, as I have explained in Chapter 4. By my lights it is clear as can be that there is no God-​justifying reason to allow such a set-​up as Jack’s being at fault for Mariana’s spending an eternity in hell, and that is true whether “Jack” is one human being, or a pair of human beings or a gang of them, or a demon or a group of demons, or Satan himself. Notice that we are not bringing to bear here familiar concerns with the massive mismatch between the severity of the punishment of hell with the seriousness of the wrong deeds that allegedly warrant it, but instead our familiar commitment to correctly identifying the perpetrator of wrongdoing when deciding on an appropriate moral response. If Jack is the agent of Mariana’s relegation to hell in a way that makes Jack morally responsible for that outcome, then Jack is the perpetrator, not Mariana. An objector might suggest that God’s reason for allowing Jack to be at fault for Mariana’s spending an eternity in hell is that Mariana deserves to be there. But on that suggestion Mariana is at fault for her being in hell, and in order to assess that suggestion we would need to know what allegedly grounds Mariana’s fault. Second, it seems to me hopeless to defend the idea that it can be God’s fault—​that is, that God deserves blame for the fact—​that I end up (or any other person ends up) in hell. This seems straightforwardly to follow from the nature of God as a perfect being. God cannot act wrongly; all of the actions of a perfect agent are good and right. God’s actions accord with, express, and demonstrate truth and goodness. Since God by nature does not perform wrong actions, God by nature is never deserving of blame for anything God does. Since being at fault for a bad outcome requires being at fault for an action that is a cause of that outcome, God by nature cannot be at fault or deserving of blame for any bad outcomes. Third, it seems to me hopeless to mount a persuasive defense of the idea that a person’s ending up in hell is either good or morally neutral, independent of claims concerning the desert or fittingness of that outcome on the basis of the person’s own free choices. Hell is supposed to involve the absence of all that is good, a complete and utter separation from the divine presence, from beauty, virtue, well-​being, love, pleasant companionship, health, and contentment. On some conceptions, one physically burns without ever being consumed and suffers torment beyond imagining. On other conceptions, one suffers a psychic burning of intense loneliness, hatred, bitterness, or

Hell and Fault  147 anguish. For a person to be relegated to such an existence is not morally neutral, not akin to his receiving an apple rather than an orange or a red shirt instead of a blue one. To end up in hell is to have experience that is extremely negative, one of the worst sort possible for a human being. Now someone might argue that someone’s ending up in hell may be morally neutral or even good, right, or just, all things considered, because God can consign people to hell without God’s doing anything wrong or unjust. Perhaps it is not wrong or unjust for God to relegate a particular person to hell because a hellish afterlife is “due to” that person. There are two prominent ways in which such an objection is supported. I address the first in this paragraph and the second in the subsequent section. One line of thought is that it is good that some human being, say, Mariana, goes to hell, because Mariana is a penal substitute for someone else, and goodness or justice overall is served by her eternal damnation. Let’s suppose (as is standard on this line of thought) that Mariana does not willingly sign up for such an arrangement. Suppose that Mariana is a non-​willing penal substitute—​forced to endure the hellish punishment that someone else, say Jack, deserves. But to suppose that God sanctions and enforces such an arrangement is to suppose that God is not a being with the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and perfect goodness but rather a being who is mercurial and vile. Perhaps such a being takes a fancy to Jack and detests Mariana and so makes her suffer what Jack deserves. But then God would be no better than a whimsical monarch, someone whose character is unrecognizable as fitting for a perfect being. Suppose that Jack is Mariana’s distant ancestor, someone who lived many thousands of years in the past. And suppose that Mariana is alleged to deserve an eternity in hell in virtue of an act of Jack’s for which he is morally responsible in a desert sense. On some versions of the story, she is alleged to deserve an eternity in hell from the moment she is born, before she has committed a single act of her own for which she herself is morally responsible. She is supposed to deserve hell on the basis of being the same kind of being Jack is—​a member of the human race—​born into this world tainted by sin. Someone who treats Mariana this way, as despicable or morally tainted or unfit to be in one’s company in virtue of her “kind,” seems fairly labeled a racist. But an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly morally good being by nature would not be a racist. Notice that, on this scenario, it is not Jack who is morally responsible for Mariana’s ending up in hell. As her distant ancestor, one who is ignorant of the catastrophic effects thousands of years in the future of his wrong choice, he could not foresee the outcome

148  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will of Mariana’s spending an eternity in hell. Mariana’s being in hell on this scenario is the result of something Jack did, but she is relegated to hell by way of an action of his that does not meet the control and knowledge conditions of moral responsibility for the hellish outcome, and all of this God knows and permits. On this scenario, then, it seems that, by virtue of allowing such a set-​ up, it is God’s fault that Mariana ends up in hell. But God by nature cannot be at fault.

5.5  Hell and Individual Free Choice Suppose, instead, that Mariana is not taken to be consigned from birth to hell and that she has done some wrong acts for which she deserves blame. A second prominent way to defend the objection that a person’s ending up in hell can be a good, just, or right outcome is this: to argue that the person in hell merits it because of what she has freely chosen to do during her earthly life. Let me pause here to note that some theorists have a conception of hell that is not the traditional one with which Lewis is concerned but which nonetheless connects with our discussion of individual free choice in this section. On this alternative model, existence in hell is not a retributive punishment for one’s free choices in earthly life—​not something one merits in the sense of desert—​but rather is (merely) a natural consequence or outgrowth of them. On such models of hell, the sentences of the immediately prior paragraph should be rephrased in this way: Suppose that Mariana is not taken to be consigned from birth to hell and that she has performed free actions on the basis of which her ending up in hell is alleged to be fitting or appropriate. One may defend the position that a person’s ending up in hell can be a good, just, or right outcome by alleging that the person in hell is there appropriately, due to what she has freely chosen to do during her earthly life. On a natural consequence model of hell, individuals who are not interested in God during earthly life—​those who do not submit their wills to God, those who make a series of free choices in their earthly lives to prioritize pleasures, love of friends and family members, and projects and plans of their own, giving little or no concern to God—​become through time people who are not lovers of God. Upon earthly death, the natural consequence of the choices of such people is to live for eternity apart from God. (A parallel view concerning the achievement of heaven mirrors this: for those who have

Hell and Fault  149 freely chosen to become lovers of God, the consequence upon earthly death is to enter into the divine presence.) Undermining objections to such a natural consequence model of hell, in my view, include the following. One, it is implausible to suppose that an eternity of physical torment, burning, abject loneliness, intense psychological anguish, or separation from all that is good are natural or fitting consequences of the choices of all individuals who do not submit to God, including those whose lives are centered on such projects as education, caring for children, advancing scientific research, and working for social progress. Two, the laws concerning what is a natural or allegedly fitting consequence of what are, on theism, set up and maintained by God; so if a natural or allegedly appropriate consequence of spending one’s life working to eradicate a certain disease or to make art or to combat racial injustice is to spend an eternity suffering pain or an absence of all that is good, when this fact is so difficult for a human being to discern, then God has acted wrongly in so setting things up; but God cannot act wrongly. Three, the model is in tension with central religious texts and tenets: for instance, within Christianity, the need for the incarnation and atonement of Christ as the penalty for human sin.20 Returning to the punishment model of hell with which Lewis is concerned, a person’s spending eternity in torment is alleged to be that person’s own fault by virtue of his sins. Sin, according to adherents of this model, incurs the penalty of spiritual death and eternal suffering. A fundamental objection to the punishment model of hell is there is no plausible case for the existence of a free act or series of free acts a human being can perform that serves as a basis for his being at fault for his own existence in hell. Notice that, in order for it to be a person’s own fault that he ends up in hell in the sense of fault that grounds deserved punishment, the action or series of actions on the basis of which he ends up in hell must meet both the control and knowledge conditions for moral responsibility in the desert sense, and the action or series of actions must be sufficiently wrong that hell is a deserved outcome. But it is arguable that there is no action, and no series of actions, a human person can freely perform, in an informed state in the absence of relevant non-​culpable ignorance, to merit ending up in hell. 20 For thoughtful discussion and defense of a “hybrid” model of hell, see Michael Murray, 1999a, “Heaven and Hell,” in Reason for the Hope Within, edited by Michael Murray (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 289–​317. For Murray’s case for rejecting various versions of universalism, a case which relies heavily on the existence and value of human free will, see his Michael Murray, 1999b, “Three Versions of Universalism,” Faith and Philosophy 16: 55–​68.

150  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will To expand on this point, consider, again, two broad alternatives for characterizing human freedom: compatibilist conceptions—​such as the hierarchical account defended by Frankfurt or the rational abilities view defended by Nelkin—​and incompatibilist conceptions—​such as an agent-​causal view like the one defended by O’Connor or the event-​causal indeterminist view I have delineated. Compatibilist models of human free action do not in my view, as I  have indicated in Chapter  2 and argued elsewhere, adequately ground moral responsibility in a desert sense; so if we are free only in a compatibilist sense and God has set up and conserves the world in accordance with wholly deterministic natural laws, then no human being can be at fault for his own existence in hell. An incompatibilist model of human free action in my view, as I have argued elsewhere, does adequately ground moral responsibility in a desert sense; so if we are free in this sense then we might meet some conditions for moral responsibility for a hellish outcome to our lives; but arguably even in this scenario no human being meets the knowledge conditions for moral responsibility in a desert sense for such an outcome. It is an understatement to say that it is unclear that an eternity in hell would be the deserved outcome of anything we intentionally do here and now. What are some proposals for the actions that serve as the desert basis? On some accounts, it is a failure to submit our will to God’s will. On one version of such an account, it is a failure to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior that is the desert basis. Even supposing that all persons who end up in hell freely reject an offer to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, it is not credible to suppose that they do so while meeting a knowledge condition for being morally responsible for the horrible outcome of hell. Other accounts maintain that it is not that particular failure that serves as the desert basis but rather the commission of different acts of grave dishonor to God, such as failure to follow central commands of the Quran or instead acts of heinous harm to others, such as conducting a genocidal program or carrying out a lynching or perpetrating child torture. These suggestions are problematic. In response to a challenge to the rationality of holding both a belief in God and a belief in hell, the story provided by the theist must be a coherent story. But a central problem in establishing coherence is that any punishment meted out by a perfect God would have to fit the crime. This point is familiar: Human wrong actions are finite in nature and number, but the punishment of hell is eternal. This mismatch between the severity of everlasting punishment and the severity of a finite amount of even very bad instances of wrongdoing is unfair. So it is incoherent to suppose

Hell and Fault  151 that God imposes such punishments. One finds in the relevant literature the following common replies to the mismatch objection:21 (1) perhaps people continue freely to sin in hell, so that the finite penalties continue to mount for eternity, and (2) human sins are against God, an infinitely great being, so wrong actions are of infinite weight; thus, they merit eternal punishment. Both responses to the objection are in my view unpersuasive. Human beings harm non-​human animals and each other. The rape and murder of a child is an inhumane horrific act perpetrated against the child herself. To call those crimes against God is to misidentify the victim. The suggestion that perhaps persons continue freely to sin in hell for all eternity—​such that penalties mount and last for eternity—​seems to grant that no one deserves an eternity in hell in virtue of the finite number of wrong actions committed during earthly life. But if that is so, then a perfectly good being would not continue to conserve a person’s life after earthly death for an eternity of torment in hell. The story of a “visit” to hell of finite length in which God gives a person continued chances freely to submit to and worship God, or instead freely to refuse to submit to and worship God, followed by that person’s eventual salvation or annihilation, I find incoherent: while in hell, a person would, it seems, understand what it is like to be in the torment of hell, but if we suppose that she also understands what it is she is doing that keeps her in torment of hell, then it is implausible to suppose that she remains sane and freely continues to do that in the way that would be required for her to be at fault for her continued existence in the torment of hell. What motive could she have for choosing to do something that she knows causes her own eternal suffering?22 And if, conversely, we suppose that she remains sane and freely does what

21 See Murray 1999a. 22 A referee suggests this: what if the person in hell views the Being who is imposing the penalty of hell as evil and as trying to coerce her into doing something—​namely submitting, worshiping, or obeying—​which the person in hell thinks is morally abhorrent. Mightn’t she freely and sanely choose to remain in hell, resisting in an extraordinary act of valor, knowing the penalty? I don’t think this works to save the position in question because (1) by the nature of hell there is no good in hell, which means there is no feeling of satisfaction in righteous indignation, no comfort, and no pleasure at having made a valorous choice (so if the person thinks, prior to ending up in hell, that her choice will have this compensating good, she is blind to what she is actually choosing; but if she is already in hell then we cannot coherently suppose that she freely and sanely chooses to remain, since she knows there is no pleasure or satisfaction, nothing good there at all); and (2) the way of rescue from hell is not to accept an offer from someone like Hitler but rather to accept an offer from God, the absolutely perfectly being. For God to appear to someone as evil, either God would have to present himself falsely as evil rather than good, in which case it is not the person’s fault that she rejects a good being who deliberately hides his goodness or, instead, the person has somehow become so confused about good and evil so as to perceive perfect goodness as evil, which implies that she is not sane.

152  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will keeps her in hell, then it is implausible to suppose that she understands that that is what is keeping her in the torment of hell. A further difficulty is that the theist who defends either the punishment model or the natural consequence model must make a persuasive case for the contention that it is consistent with the nature of God to suppose that God chose to create human beings with incompatibilist free will, despite the risk that some of them will exercise that power in a way that sends them to hell—​ if God is alleged not to know—​or despite the fact of God’s knowing, by way of foreknowledge or middle knowledge, that some persons will in fact exercise that power of free choice in a way that results in their eternal existence in hell. For such a creative decision on God’s part to be consistent with God’s nature requires that the decision be a right and good one. But this can be a right and good decision for God to make only if the possession of incompatibilist free will by human beings is of such extremely great value that it is worth the cost of the risk or actual fact of some persons spending eternity in hell.23 23 The response of Jonathan Kvanvig 1993 to the problem of hell, which he calls “the worst instance of the problem of evil” (The Problem of Hell [New York: Oxford University Press], 4]) relies very heavily on the supremely high value of human free will. In arguing that the existence of hell properly understood is consistent with, and indeed required by, the perfect goodness of God, Kvanvig suggests that hell—​afterlife existence in separation from God and the redeemed—​is not necessarily eternal (for some, it might go on eternally, but for others it might end in rationally self-​chosen annihilation), and it issues not from the motive of God’s justice, as retributive punishment, but instead from God’s love, which involves respect for created persons’ freedom. Kvanvig’s view “places the responsibility for ending up in hell squarely on the shoulders of those who choose that option” (Kvanvig 1993, 152). Calling this a self-​determination model of hell, Kvanvig clarifies that his view “does not imply that hell is not a place of punishment. In fact, the account of hell presented here clearly does involve punishment in one very obvious sense. One ends up in hell because of one’s developed nature, and hell involves being deprived of the most significant good there is” (155). Still, God’s primary motivation in sending people to hell is not to punish them but rather is love. Loving another requires allowing the other “to pursue what they most deeply want” (153), and what they most deeply want might be independence from God and the heavenly community. Illustrating the account’s dependence on the extremely high value of freedom, Kvanvig writes, “If freedom were not very important and if the capacity for self-​determination were a minor subplot in the interactions between God and humanity, God would do right to override our freedom and ensure the presence of all in heaven” (130). The sense in which those who end up in hell bear responsibility squarely on their own shoulders, on Kvanvig’s account, then, is responsibility in the sense that their ending up in hell is attributable to them—​it is self-​determined, resulting from who they are, from “what they most deeply want.” We might wonder if self-​determination and freedom are here thought to be separate things and whether or not either is, or both are, conceived in a way that requires causal indeterminism. In Chapter 2, I delineated various accounts of freedom on which theists might rely, argued that libertarian accounts provide needed resources, and critically examined a variety of attempts to support the allegedly sufficiently high value of such freedom. As I have explained, I do not think it is coherent to suppose that a person freely chooses to damn herself. To the contrary, Kvanvig writes, “At some point, the infinite love of God has been displayed in the most persuasive way to motivate the pursuit of union with God. Persons have encountered the embodiment of complete goodness . . . and yet . . . they choose to view God and his love as repulsive . . . What is left for God to do? He has done all he can, and it has been rejected by an unfathomable darkness of mind and soul” (Kvanvig 1993, 157). What I think is unfathomable is that a created person could truly encounter God, in all God’s glory, greatness, pure goodness, and radiant love, and yet freely

Hell and Fault  153 As we saw in Chapter 2, there is a surprising lack of arguments making the case for such extremely high value, and there is likewise a lack in the literature on hell.24 It may be that being endowed with incompatibilist free will enables human beings to be morally responsible for some of their actions, but what is so great about being morally responsible for some of our actions if it comes at the cost of some persons spending an eternity in torment? As I argued in Chapter 2, incompatibilist free will is not required for meaning in life, for goodness, for love, or for creativity. God could have made us with compatibilist free will and have secured such goods. But if God’s making us with incompatibilist free will was not a good choice, then God makes bad choices for which He is at fault. But this cannot be, given the nature of God. The point is that the coherence of the relevant story is open to serious challenge—​the story according to which buck stops with the human beings who end up in hell, since they were granted by God the power of incompatibilist free will and some of them exercise this power in ways that bring about the punishment of hell—​because on this story God chose to create us as beings with that sort of free will when God could have, instead, not created us at all or given us different powers. If an appeal to incompatibilist human free will is used to argue that a human being’s ending up in hell is not God’s fault, then God’s bestowal of incompatibilist free will upon that human being would need to be a sufficiently valuable gift in order to make God’s decision to grant human beings choose to view God as repulsive. If one has genuinely encountered God—​if, as Kvanvig supposes, “the infinite love of God has been displayed in the most persuasive way”—​then one is persuaded: the attraction of the most attractive, glorious, unsurpassable being is irresistible. Even if it were coherent to suppose that a person freely chooses her own existence in hell, it strains credulity to suppose that God would stay “hands off,” merely watching as his beloved creature experiences a hellish existence out of supposed respect for the sanctity of personal free choice, rather than gathering that beloved creature into his arms, into the pure love, infinite goodness, and glorious joyful company of God and the redeemed in heaven. Some value that free will must have, to be worth the cost of hell! Kvanvig argues against Talbott (who thinks, as I do, that it is not possible for a person to freely choose to damn herself and that, even if it were, God would not honor that choice) that, from the fact that we are sometimes justified in intervening to prevent a person from committing suicide, it does not follow that God ought to intervene in all cases to prevent our freely choosing to live apart from God. That’s true, the latter claim does not follow from the former claim. However, we need better argument for the contention that human free will is sacrosanct in a perfect being’s calculations over what to do when faced with a possibility of a human being’s damnation. 24 Jerry Walls sees the problem clearly: “My assumption . . . that a person should ultimately have the right, if he so chooses, to do himself irreparable harm obviously involves a strong commitment to the value of libertarian freedom. This value judgment is surely one of the main pillars of the orthodox Christian doctrine of hell, and indeed, I think the doctrine would topple without it. . . . [T]‌he judgment that freedom is this valuable may represent a ground-​level intuition. As such it cannot easily be defended” (Walls 1992, 136).

154  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will free will a right and good one. Suppose we were to grant that incompatibilist freedom is of extremely high, even sufficiently high, value. Still I  have suggested that it is incoherent to suppose that any human being could meet both the knowledge conditions and the control conditions for being at fault for the outcome of his ending up in hell. For as soon as we suppose it to be sufficiently clear to someone that the outcome of a particular choice he could make is an eternity of torment in hell (or once in hell, continuing to exist in the torment of hell), it becomes incoherent to suppose that a sane person makes that choice of his own free will. And if we envision his making the relevant choice freely, then it becomes incoherent to suppose that the knowledge conditions for moral responsibility for the hellish outcome are met. I do not see a plausible way out of this dilemma for a defender of the doctrine of hell.

5.6 A Streamlined Argument Lewis’s argument from the evil of hell stood in need of bolstering particularly with regard to the claim that eternal torment is God’s doing. By providing an exhaustive examination of the variety of possibilities concerning whose doing it could be that someone ends up in hell, we have provided that argumentative support. We may now streamline our argument, omitting some of the various options I have argued are implausible concerning how a person ends up in hell, such as by way of pure chance. Here, then, is how we might put an argument from the existence of hell to the conclusion that God does not exist: 1. Hell exists. 2. If hell exists, then either it is a person’s own fault that she ends up in hell or it is God’s fault. 3. It cannot be a person’s own fault that she ends up in hell. 4. If hell exists, then it is God’s fault that a person ends up in hell. 5. If it is (supposed to be) God’s fault that a person ends up in hell, then God does not exist. 6. God does not exist. By defending, in the previous section, the third premise of this streamlined argument, I have provided support for Lewis’s contention in his original “neglected argument” that eternal torment for insubordination is

Hell and Fault  155 unjust. I have provided support particularly against an opponent’s claim that eternal torment is the just desert for a human person’s own God-​rejecting or insufficiently-​God-​honoring free actions. So, a supposition that hell exists leads to the conclusion that God does not exist. Is Lewis, then, right that there is an especially virulent non-​standard argument from evil? I think he is correct, indeed—​and our expansion of his argument has allowed us to examine the issue he presses with greater depth and completeness. Notice, however, that what Lewis calls the neglected argument is an argument concerning the rationality of belief in hell for theists. In particular, it is an argument for the incoherence of what he calls the orthodox story. The streamlined argument is not on its own an argument for atheism, since it leaves intact a variety of metaphysical positions, including (perhaps) some versions of annihilationist theism, universalist theism, agnosticism, and forms of religiosity other than those involving affirmation of the existence of a being who is essentially omniscient, essentially omnipotent, and essentially perfectly good. It stands, nonetheless, as a powerful argument from evil demanding attention from any perfect being theist who endorses the existence of a non-​empty eternal hell.

6 God’s Ethics: A Workaround? One way around arguments from evil would be to alter the account of the nature of God—​or the divine creator or creators of the universe—​in such a way that the divine attributes do not stand in sharp tension with our observations of the facts about suffering in our world. That is, if one had reason to remain a religious believer of some sort, affirming the existence of some transcendental divine being or beings, and one found unpersuasive the existing responses to arguments from evil against the existence of God, then one might reconceive of the divine being in some way that takes the wind out of the sails of those arguments. It is not hard to see a variety of ways in which this could go for a polytheist. Suffering might result from battles between rival factions of many non-​perfect deities. Alternatively, evils might be due the work of a malicious deity who is equal in power to a benevolent one. Or suffering might derive from particular human persons having favor with some gods while being disliked by other gods. Or evils might be due to the creation of our world and interaction in it by gods who are well-​meaning but incompetent or ignorant in various ways, as David Hume emphasized. Neither the existence of apparently pointless instances of suffering in the world nor the intense character, the vast amount, and the apparently unfair distribution of evils has powerful evidential force against polytheisms of such sorts. Suppose, though, that one has what one takes to be persuasive reasons to uphold, not polytheism, but monotheism of some kind. In that case, in the face of the facts about evil in our world, one might conceive of the divine creator of the universe as perfectly good and omnipotent, but not omniscient, such that, while God would have created a world better than ours if he had had the know-​how, he simply didn’t know any better, and this universe was the result. As Hume suggests, the source of our world for all we can tell may well be an infant deity, lacking in knowledge and experience. Perhaps such a non-​omniscient divine being would intervene in the natural world to prevent our suffering, but he simply does not know about all instances—​some of it escapes his notice. Alternatively, one could hold that God is omniscient and perfectly good, but is not omnipotent. This is a view affirmed by Harold God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0006

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  157 Kushner in his bestselling popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Kushner maintains that, while God cares deeply about his creatures and even grieves with us in our suffering, and although God knows about all suffering and would prevent it if he could, God simply cannot do so; there are “pockets of chaos” in the world to which God’s creative activity has not reached. So when someone asks, “Why is this happening to me (or to my loved one), if God exists?” Kushner suggests that in many cases there is no answer beyond the response that God loves us and knows of our suffering but cannot do anything to rid us of it—​God is not omnipotent and God’s power does not extend across all of the universe. Here is a different route a monotheist might take in responding to arguments from evil: he might maintain that, while God is essentially omnipotent and essentially omniscient, God is not essentially perfectly morally good. This is a view recently defended by Mark Murphy in his book, God’s Own Ethics: Norms of Divine Agency and the Argument from Evil, and in a related paper.1 Concerning the argument from evil, Murphy writes this: [I]‌n all of its contemporary formulations an appeal to the absolutely perfect being’s moral perfection has played a key role. For if all that we know is that God is all-​powerful and all-​knowing, we don’t have any information, yet, about what God would be motivated to do with all of that power and knowledge, and so we would lack information about what we would expect a world created and sustained by such a being to be like. But if we know that God, being morally perfect, pursues the ends set by morality in the way that morality prescribes, then God’s being not only morally perfect but having all that power and knowledge as well gives us reason to expect the world to look very different than it does.2

Murphy acknowledges that, on an understanding of God as a being who is essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, and essentially morally perfect, it is reasonable of us to believe that, if God were to exist, then the world would look very different than it does. Presumably the differences include some facts about human and non-​human animal suffering being less widespread, less intense, or less unfairly distributed, or in various ways human 1 Mark Murphy, 2017, God’s Own Ethics (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press); Murphy, 2019, “Is an Absolutely Perfect Being Morally Perfect?” in Current Controversies in Philosophy of Religion, ed. Paul Draper (New York: Routledge), 93–​108. 2 Murphy 2019, 104–​105.

158  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will beings and other sentient creatures being better off than they are—​or perhaps human beings and other sentient creatures would not exist at all. However, Murphy argues, we do not know that God must be morally perfect, and in fact we should reject the view that God is essentially morally perfect. Is this a cheap way around the arguments from suffering? Murphy explicitly denies that his position is a “rear-​guard action” against the problem of evil, or a “cheat,” since he offers independent extended argumentation concerning the ethics of the perfect being, with the result that moral perfection is not among the essential divine attributes. That result, Murphy contends, “leave[s]‌the argument from evil stranded without an account of what an absolutely perfect being—​God—​would do with all of that power and knowledge.”3 His account of God’s ethics, Murphy claims, renders the argument from evil “effectively defanged.”4 In this chapter, I defend the conception of God as essentially perfectly morally good. Murphy contends that God’s baseline attitude toward human persons is indifference and, indeed, that it is consistent with the nature of God for God to allow evils to befall rational and sentient creatures for no reason whatsoever. I argue, to the contrary, that God counts as an absolutely perfect being only if by God’s very nature God is such that God cares for the rational and sentient creatures in existence and prevents us from suffering pointlessly. I work to identify and criticize some of the most vulnerable parts of the case Murphy develops. Further, in support of the opposing and more traditional view, I delineate two arguments, one for the conclusion that God has requiring reason to treat persons in ways that include preventing setbacks to their welfare, and the other for the conclusion that God has requiring reason to prevent the suffering of sentient beings. In light of an appropriate conception of God’s ethics, the argument from evil is not defanged but rather retains its power.

6.1  Murphy on God’s Goodness I take the attempt to think about the practical life of God to be an exercise in trying to think through how a perfect being who may have created the universe would think about, approach, or handle practical matters:  what 3 Murphy 2019, 105. 4 Murphy 2017, 103.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  159 considerations would bear on that being’s decisions regarding what to do. I take decisions to be mental actions, so that questions concerning what to do include questions concerning what decisions to make. As I conceive of the perfect being—​and, as indicated in the discussions through this book, I am far from alone in having this conception—​in deciding what to do, God would take into account what is true and what is good, and God would make decisions and would act overtly in ways that exhibit truth and goodness. What content can we give to this idea? Well, for starters, to my mind the perfect being would not deliberately deceive rational beings as they attempt to discover what is true, as Descartes emphasized, and God would not intentionally inflict intense suffering on an innocent human being for no good purpose or find enjoyment in observing the prolonged pain of a sentient being. A being who did such things—​interfered to prevent a created being from successfully performing mathematical calculations, for instance, or intentionally inflicted a human being with a disabling injury when doing so served no greater good, or laughed while observing the torture of a pet cat—​ would exhibit imperfections and would not be the absolutely perfect being. Further questions arise, however, concerning what more we should say about the dispositions God would have and about whether or not the ways in which God thinks about what is good aligns or diverges from how we human beings think about what is good. In addressing these questions, Murphy defines moral goodness as follows: I suggest that we think of moral goodness as appropriate responsiveness to value, or to particular sorts of value; to be morally good is for one’s agency—​ one’s desires, one’s deliberation, one’s action—​to be fittingly responsive to values of the sorts that are at stake in morality.5

So, a morally good person desires, thinks, and acts in ways that are “fittingly responsive to” the values that are at stake in morality. This might mean that she fosters, advances, generates, or supports traits or events or items or individuals or states of affairs that are of positive value, if these are fitting responses for her to those positive values, and it might mean that she opposes, obliterates, or tries to prevent occurrences or individuals or features or states of affairs that are of negative value, if these are fitting responses for

5 Murphy 2017, 23.

160  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will her to those negative values. Murphy clarifies the type of moral goodness that is his target in the following way: The sort of moral goodness that I have in mind is what I will call ‘familiar welfare-​oriented’ moral goodness. On this conception of moral goodness . . . the welfare of rational and perhaps sentient beings generally is one of the values to which morally good agency positively responds. An agent is morally good in this familiar sense only if that being treats setbacks to the well-​being of rational and other sentient beings as to-​be-​prevented and so fails to prevent them only when there are other values that bear on the choice that make it appropriate to fail to act for the sake of well-​being on that occasion.6

A person who is morally good on the familiar welfare-​oriented conception of moral goodness “positively responds” to the welfare of rational and perhaps sentient beings generally; that is, she (at least) works to prevent setbacks to the well-​being of rational and other sentient beings unless there are other values that bear on the choice in the circumstances that make it appropriate to fail to act for the sake of that well-​being. Murphy maintains that God is not essentially perfectly morally good on this familiar welfare-​oriented conception of moral goodness. Given the definition of moral goodness, this means either that God does not necessarily take the welfare of rational and perhaps sentient beings generally to be one of the values to which morally good agency positively responds, or that the perfect being does not necessarily respond to the welfare of rational and sentient beings in the way that we think we should respond to the welfare of rational and sentient beings. God might or might not treat setbacks to the well-​being of rational and other sentient beings as to-​be-​prevented and so might or might not fail to prevent them only when there are other values that bear on the choice that make it appropriate to fail to act for the sake of well-​ being on that occasion. Now, as I have emphasized throughout this book, when I look at the world, it seems to me not at all far-​fetched to think that, if a single omnipotent, omniscient, divine Creator of the universe exists, then that divine being is not perfectly morally good. However, when reflecting on the nature of God—​that is, when engaged in perfect being theology, rather than an attempt to infer 6 Murphy 2017, 24.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  161 what the creator of the universe is like from observations of the world around us—​it does seem to me that it is reasonable to reach the conclusion that God, the absolutely perfect being, is perfectly good and furthermore that this perfect goodness aligns with the ways in which we sane and rational persons think it is morally right and good to treat rational beings and other sentient creatures. John Stuart Mill gives voice to this view concerning alignment: If in ascribing goodness to God I do not mean what I mean by goodness; if I do not mean the goodness of which I have some knowledge, but an incomprehensible attribute of an incomprehensible substance, which for aught I know may be a totally different quality from that which I love and venerate . . . what do I mean in calling it goodness? . . . To say that God’s goodness may be different in kind from man’s goodness, what is it but saying, with a slight change of phraseology, that God may possibly be not good?7

Just as it is a valuable trait for an agent to be powerful, and it is valuable trait for an agent to be knowledgeable, it is valuable for an agent to be good. On a straightforward understanding of what it is to be good, one who is good thinks, decides, and acts in ways that are good or in ways that one ought to act. Very many of us sane and rational human persons think that one ought not to cause unnecessary pain and suffering and that one ought to act so far as one can in ways that further the well-​being of rational and other sentient creatures whenever doing so would not have outweighing costs and that one ought to prevent, and intervene to alleviate, such pain and suffering whenever doing so would not have outweighing costs. An adherent to Murphy’s view might object to my use of the term ‘one’ in the previous sentences, pointing out that it obscures a crucial matter. Perhaps a pet dog ought to obey his owner’s commands, but the norms concerning the promotion of well-​being and the prevention of setbacks to well-​being under discussion are arguably not applicable to that dog. Our moral norms are not universally applicable to every being that might be considered an agent. Our moral norms may not even apply to every rational agent. Given what Murphy calls the “absurd inequality” between God (the “Anselmian Being”) and us, we have no good reason for thinking that our moral norms must apply to God. God, by His nature, may not be bound by the familiar 7 John Stuart Mill, 1964 [1865], “Mr. Mansel on the Limits of Religious Thought,” in God and Evil, edited by Nelson Pike (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), 37–​45, at 42–​43.

162  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will welfare norms and, moreover, there is good reason to think that God is not so bound (as a necessary, rather than contingent, matter). God, by His very nature, might well not love us or care for us at all and is under no obligation—​ God has no requiring reasons—​to promote the welfare of rational and other sentient beings. In fact, not only does a proper exercise in perfect being theology not lead to the conclusion that the perfect being is perfectly morally good, Murphy argues, but also it leads to the conclusion that God cannot be essentially perfectly morally good, for perfect moral goodness is inconsistent with other traits that Murphy contends are non-​controversially divine attributes. He writes, “The absolutely perfect being must be perfectly powerful, perfectly knowledgeable, perfectly rational, and perfectly free. I am going to call these the uncontroversial divine perfections, taking them for granted as part of the content of absolute perfection.”8 To say that God is perfectly rational means that “God acts on any reasons that apply to God in the way that those reasons require;” and to hold that God is perfectly free, Murphy says, “means that God’s action cannot be necessitated by anything other than the force of the good reasons that apply to God.”9 An alternative way in which Murphy expresses his conception of divine freedom is this: “God would be fully free—​God would not have God’s choosing and acting in any way constrained by non-​rational impulses or external coercion.”10 So God’s freedom could be maintained if God were necessitated to act by the force of good reasons that apply to God while not being necessitated by non-​rational impulses or external coercion. However, Murphy argues, we have no good reason for thinking that God is necessitated to act by good reasons as delineated by the norms of morality. As Murphy develops his view, it is clear that his emphasis is on how it is fitting for a certain kind of being to respond to various sorts of value. He writes: There are multiple modes of appropriate response to value. One of them—​ but only one—​is to promote that value. Here I  understand promotion broadly, to include bringing it about, increasing it, preventing setbacks to it. Another mode of appropriate response is to respect it. What respecting involves is less clear, but I have in mind at least refraining from intending to destroy or diminish.11

8 Murphy 2019, 94. 9 Murphy 2019, 98.

10 Murphy 2019, 94. 11 Murphy 2017, 58.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  163 So “promoting” well-​being includes bringing it about, increasing it, and also preventing setbacks to it. And “respecting” well-​being involves or is equivalent to refraining from intending to destroy or to diminish that well-​being. Thus, on these conceptions of promotion and respect, a morally good person who respects well-​being will not intentionally destroy or diminish well-​being. A  morally good respectful person will not intentionally kill someone, for instance, destroying that person’s well-​being, and she will not intentionally make someone worse off with regard to perfection or well-​ being, where making someone worse off with regard to perfection or well-​ being, it seems, would include intentionally causing someone pointless pain. A morally good person who promotes well-​being will work to increase and to bring about well-​being and also will prevent setbacks to well-​being. Thus a morally good promotional person will act in ways, for instance, that give life and joy and pleasure and enlightenment and health to persons, and she will work to prevent persons’ experiencing pain, suffering, diminishment, and loss, whenever doing so does not have outweighing costs. A perfectly morally good person, I believe Murphy would hold, both promotes and respects the well-​being of rational and perhaps other sentient creatures. But God cannot be perfectly morally good, Murphy argues. For perfectly morally good beings promote well-​being as well as respect it. God cannot be under any obligations to promote creaturely well-​being because such obligations would conflict with God’s sovereignty, which (as Murphy describes it) includes God’s “discretion,” which seems to be another way in which Murphy expresses God’s freedom. God, that is, has no requiring and decisive reasons to promote creaturely well-​being. If God did have requiring, decisive reasons to promote creaturely well-​being, then God could retain freedom in promoting creaturely well-​being. But God does not have such requiring reasons. Why not? Because God is sovereign, which gives God discretion in creating and other actions, and because there is no good argument for thinking that God does have such requiring reasons. Why might one think, to the contrary, that God does have such requiring reasons? One thought may be that we ourselves have such requiring reasons, and that the norms of morality are universal, so those norms apply to God, as well. But again, the contention that moral norms are universal is subject to challenge. The Hobbesian, Humean, Aristotelian, and Kantian accounts of why all human rational beings have reason to be moral do not apply to an absolutely perfect divine being, Murphy insists, since those accounts are

164  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will in various ways grounded in human nature or human equality. So, Murphy concludes: with so little basis for holding that the existence and well-​being of creatures gives the Anselmian being requiring reasons for action, I say that we should hold that the perfection of divine sovereignty, including discretion, gives us reason to hold that the existence and well-​being of creatures gives the Anselmian being no such requiring reasons.12

God is, nonetheless, on Murphy’s view, morally good to the extent that God respects creaturely well-​being. Why must God respect creaturely well-​being? Because, Murphy answers, God is holy. A holy being will not intentionally destroy or diminish “due” well-​being. Murphy writes: My thesis is that the Anselmian being has decisive requiring reasons not to intend the absence of due perfection/​well-​being in creatures. I will call absence of due perfection or due well-​being ‘evils,’ and I will summarize my thesis as the Anselmian being does not intend evils.13

Murphy evidently maintains that, although God is not essentially perfectly morally good, nonetheless God is essentially perfectly good. He writes, “we should say that there are decisive reasons for the Anselmian being not to exhibit less than maximally good agency.”14 One might interpret this comment to mean that God exhibits maximally effective agency, in which case it is a comment about omnipotence. But I believe in the context of the discussion of God’s never intending evils, God’s “maximally good agency” refers to something more like excellence or holiness. Murphy appeals to holiness as a divine attribute, but gives no explanation in the (2017) book of the content of God’s holiness, no defense of holiness as an essential divine attribute, little support for the idea that a holy being would not intentionally cause some evil that is necessary to bringing about a greater good—​other than to say that doing so makes evil part of the success conditions for an action, which is not “fitting” of a perfect being—​and no account of how God’s holiness could be



12 Murphy 2017, 75. 13 Murphy 2017, 86. 14 Murphy 2017, 98.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  165 upheld when God pursues some good that has the foreseeable, though unintended, consequence that rational and sentient beings suffer intensely.15 Why think that maximally good agency does not include promotion—​ which includes the prevention of setbacks to well-​being—​when it does include respect? Here is the proposed answer: The Anselmian being is sovereign, and there is nothing about the goodness of creatures that can make necessary the Anselmian being’s doing anything to bring about their existence or that of any of their goods. The affirmation of the Anselmian being’s not intending evil was primarily for the sake of preserving the holiness of the Anselmian being, of ensuring that the Anselmian being’s agency is in no way marred by taking on evil as an objective that would be defining of the Anselmian being’s success as an agent. That the Anselmian being’s own goodness necessitates the Anselmian being not to act in certain ways, should the Anselmian being choose to act at all with respect to creatures, does not seem to me to be a limit to the Anselmian being’s valuable discretion; that creaturely goodness necessitates the Anselmian being to act at all does seem to me to be such a limit.16

Thus Murphy maintains that, whereas the presence of any alleged decisive requiring reasons for God to promote (which includes preventing setbacks to) the well-​being of creatures grounded in the good of those creatures would compromise God’s sovereignty, the presence of requiring decisive reasons not to intend the absence of due creaturely well-​being grounded in God’s holiness does not.

6.2  Application to Arguments from Evil Murphy contends that “recent formulations of the problem of evil have little force against the existence of an Anselmian being, given the conception of the Anselmian being’s ethics that I have defended.”17 In fact, he writes, the evidential argument from evil “is gutted by the understanding of the



15 I should note that Murphy is working on a book on divine holiness. 16 Murphy 2017, 102. 17 Murphy 2017, 103.

166  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will Anselmian being’s ethics that I have offered.”18 Following discussion of various arguments from evil, Murphy concludes, “There is no good argument from evil against the existence of the Anselmian being.”19 Let’s look at the argument from instances of pointless evil to see how Murphy’s work makes for a response to it. 1. If God exists, then our world does not contain any instances of pointless evil. 2. Our world contains an instance (or instances) of pointless evil. 3. Therefore, God does not exist. Recall that in this argument, the term ‘evil’ means not “absence of due perfection/​well-​being” (as in Murphy’s formulation)20 but refers straightforwardly to any bad, destructive or terrible feature of our world. The response to this argument suggested by Murphy’s work on God’s ethics appears to be this: the first premise is false. We have termed an evil pointless just in case there is no God-​justifying reason for causing or allowing it. But Murphy holds that, for all cases of the suffering of rational and sentient creatures, God needs no justifying reasons for unintentionally-​though-​foreseeably causing those cases of suffering or for intentionally permitting them. Why? Because God has no requiring reasons to prevent them. Although God has justifying reasons to prevent setbacks to the well-​being of rational (and perhaps other sentient) creatures, these reasons do not require God to act so as to prevent setbacks to the well-​being or rational and sentient creatures. God may permit the occurrence of such setbacks—​including intense pain, turmoil, and difficulty experienced by rational and sentient creatures—​for no reason at all, all the while maintaining God’s perfect agency, including essential omniscience, omniscience, perfect rationality, sovereignty, and holiness. God, too, may deliberately not increase the flourishing or well-​being of a rational and sentient creature—​for instance, intentionally electing not to give a person extra strength or healing or insight or joy—​for no reason at all, all the while maintaining God’s absolute perfection. God is not required, on Murphy’s view of God as the absolutely perfect being, to benefit us or to prevent our 18 Murphy 2017, 106. 19 Murphy 2017, 122. 20 We might wonder about the need for, and the force of, the qualifier “due” in the phrase “due perfection or due well-​being.” Does Murphy think that any well-​being is “due” to rational creatures or to sentient creatures?

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  167 pains and losses or to intervene to protect us from such pains and losses or to mitigate them to any extent. Thus it seems that, according to Murphy’s position, it does not follow from the supposition that God exists that our world does not contain any instances of evil for which there is no God-​justifying reason. There may well be plenty of evils in our world for which there is no God-​justifying reason, even if God exists, since God is justified in allowing evils that are unnecessary either to bringing about a greater good or to preventing an evil as bad or worse. God’s holiness precludes God’s intending evils, but God’s sovereignty rules out God’s being required to promote the well-​being of rational and sentient creatures—​where, again, the notion of promotion includes both increasing the well-​being of rational and sentient creatures and preventing setbacks to such well-​being. In denying the first premise of the argument from pointless evil, Murphy’s view is in alignment with van Inwagen’s response to that argument. Van Inwagen’s grounds for denying the first premise, though, are rather different: recall that he points to various sorts of indeterminacy—​including indeterminacy in God’s initial decree in creating the universe (“Let A or B or C be”), indeterminacy in human free will, and indeterminacy in nature—​as indicating that, for some instances of evil, there may be no God-​justifying reason for that particular one to occur rather than another. There might well nonetheless be global reasons for the general facts about evil—​for instance, its existence and widespread nature—​including God’s wanting to bring about the great good of personal creatures with free will, reasons that do not serve as reasons for why this particular case of evil occurred rather than that (why Polly, for instance, was killed in a car accident rather than Ron). Murphy’s grounds for the denial of the first premise, by contrast, do not appeal to indeterminacy, but rather lie in the case he has made for the content of the ethics of the absolutely perfect being. The plausibility of his line of response to the argument from pointless evil thus depends on one’s assessment of the strength of that case. It is worthwhile to consider how Murphy’s view differs from skeptical theism. In distinguishing his own view from skeptical theism, Murphy writes this: I take the skeptical theists to endorse the view that God acts in accordance with familiar welfare-​oriented moral goodness. They affirm that God acts to prevent setbacks to creaturely well-​being unless there are sufficient

168  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will considerations to the contrary. What they say, though, is that we have good reason to believe that we have only the most meager insight into what are those other considerations to the contrary that God might have.21

By contrast, Murphy says, his view “is not based on possible limits to our knowledge, but on truths that we have good reason to endorse regarding reasons for action and the divine nature. What we have reason to endorse is that there is no default setting for God to act in accordance with the norms of familiar welfare-​oriented moral goodness.”22 So it is simply not true, contrary to skeptical theism, Murphy alleges, that God is essentially a being who is set on furthering the well-​being of rational and other sentient creatures and preventing setbacks to such well-​being. By way of explanation he writes: “Intending evil involves taking on evil as part of the success conditions for one’s action, which is not fitting for the agency of the absolutely perfect being. This is obviously not based on any sort of skepticism; it is based on our understanding of the holiness of the absolutely perfect being.”23 This may strike one as an odd comment in the context of distinguishing his view from skeptical theism, since skeptical theists agree that intending evil is not fitting for an absolutely perfect being in a particular kind of cases: what is not fitting is to intentionally bring about instances of pain and suffering that are not necessary for bringing about a greater good or for preventing an evil as bad or worse. Skeptical theists, too, believe this on grounds concerning something like the holiness of God or the perfect goodness of God—​that particular belief of skeptical theists is not rooted in some “sort of skepticism.” A key difference is that Murphy thinks that God would not intend evil, period. There is no allowance for intending evils that are necessary for the attainment of greater goods. Skeptical theists generally affirm that intending evils that are necessary for the attainment of greater goods upholds agential perfect goodness. They affirm, in addition, that allowing certain evils—​those that are unnecessary for bringing about a greater good or preventing an evil as bad or worse—​is not fitting for an absolutely perfect being. Murphy disagrees with this latter affirmation. Whereas Murphy’s view suggests that the first premise of the argument from pointless evil is false, skeptical theists maintain that it is true. Skeptical theists, instead, as we saw in Chapter 4, are clear in their opposition to the

21 Murphy 2017, 110. 22 Murphy 2017, 112. 23 Murphy 2017, 113.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  169 second premise, contending that it is a claim we do not know to be true or is a claim no one is justified in believing. Murphy’s position concerning the second premise is less clear. At one point in his (2017) book, Murphy refers to Rowe’s case of the deer trapped in the forest fire, dying slowly and painfully rather than quickly, as an instance of “pointless evil.”24 This indicates that he thinks that there are, in fact, pointless evils. But a defender of his position might be more perspicuous about this matter. Murphy’s claims concerning the ethics of the Anselmian being leave room for there being evils that the Anselmian being permitted for no reason at all. So, possibly, given the ethics of the Anselmian being, there are actual instances that are pointless evils. But a defender of the view could say that we cannot know or justifiably believe concerning any particular case of evil that it is, in fact, pointless. So, while skeptical theists are clear in their denial of the justification for believing in the second premise of the argument from pointless evil, skeptical theists generally (excepting those who follow van Inwagen) accept that, if there were a God, then there would be no pointless evils in the world. Murphy’s position, by contrast, denies the argument’s first premise. Since the grounds for the denial of the first premise of the argument from pointless evil consists in the case he has made concerning God’s ethics, we should assess the strength of that case. To recap, Murphy has raised this question: Is it correct to think that the absolutely perfect being would in acting be governed by norms that are centered on the promotion of the welfare of rational (and other sentient) creatures, which includes the prevention of setbacks to the welfare of rational (and other sentient) creatures? Murphy alleges that the answer to this question is “no” and thus that the absolutely perfect being is not essentially perfectly morally good. God, by His very nature, might well not love us or care for us at all and is under no obligation—​God has no requiring reasons—​to promote the welfare of rational and other sentient beings. In fact, Murphy thinks, the Anselmian being might “without error, be totally indifferent to us.”25 Indeed, he writes, “there is nothing about us humans such that God must keep us in mind.”26 Hence Murphy contends that God may allow us to suffer for no reason at all.



24 Murphy 2017, 105. 25 Murphy 2017, 168. 26 Murphy 2017, 198.

170  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will Notice that the central problem Murphy has posed, in a nutshell, is for his opponent to find a way to secure the application of recognizable moral norms to the absolutely perfect being. As an initial reaction, this might strike one—​as it strikes me—​as an odd challenge, since the “Why be moral?” question applies to beings who have competing motivations to those favoring helping others, such as the desire to promote their own self-​interest. But God, as the perfect being, would not have competing motivations toward satisfying hedonistic desires of God’s own or toward promoting self-​interest at the expense of others. Again, Murphy does hold that the perfect being has the essential attribute of holiness. Murphy’s position implicitly relies on the background idea that there may well be, and for all we know there are, reasons God has that are non-​moral reasons. He does not spell out what those might be, although in isolated spots in the (2017) book he does gesture toward the good of law-​like order. I find it extremely implausible to suppose that a perfect holy being would give precedence to orderliness (or beauty) itself—​or, alternatively, to His own pleasure at observing orderliness (or beauty)—​over the prevention of intense suffering on the part of rational and sentient beings. In subsequent sections I work to provide arguments against Murphy’s position.

6.3  A Big Mistake? Here is one argument against Murphy’s stance. If he were right in contending that arguments from evil fail in virtue of resting on a misunderstanding of the nature of the perfect being, then there is an enormous group of philosophers and theologians who have imagined a deep and abiding problem where there is no such problem. Those who have contributed to the massive literature on the problem of evil have been addressing a pseudo-​problem, failing to see that God is not, in fact, essentially perfectly morally good and so failing to see that the suffering of rational and sentient creatures provides no real theoretical difficulty for theism. But this is implausible. It is implausible to suppose that David Hume, J. L. Mackie, Marilyn Adams, Richard Swinburne, Eleonore Stump, Peter van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, Michael Rea, Michael Bergmann, Daniel Howard-​Snyder, Paul Draper—​and so many others—​ have been simply confused, working very hard on a non-​problem. One might retort that none of these listed philosophers is centrally an ethicist,27

27 I do not think is a good objection, but it was raised to me by a reader.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  171 and hence it may well be that, by thinking carefully through the matter of the ethics of a perfect being, Murphy has discovered something about the nature of God that all of these philosophers have missed. I find it quite implausible to allege that these philosophers have misunderstood the very nature of God, the being in which many of them believe, which many of them worship, and to which all of them have devoted a considerable amount of theoretical attention.28 The oppositional line of argument I am highlighting here is suggested in the following passage of Swinburne’s, cited in Chapter 1, in which Swinburne underscores the idea that God is essentially morally good: [D]‌espite the fact that some philosophical theologians have attempted to expound God’s goodness in non-​moral ways, it seems to me deeply central to the whole tradition of the Christian (and other Western) religion that God is loving towards his creation and that involves his behaving in morally good ways towards it. There is no doubt more to loving someone than not kicking them in the teeth. But it does (barring special considerations) seem to involve at least not kicking them in the teeth. Western religion has always held that there is a deep problem about why there is pain and other suffering—​which there would not be if God were not supposed to be morally good. Again, God is supposed to be in some way personal, and a personal being who was not morally good would not be the great being God is. (Swinburne 1998, 7)

Swinburne emphasizes the idea that we would not find a vast philosophical and religious literature addressing what is considered to be a deep problem about why there is suffering in the world—​widespread and appalling suffering, we may add, and in a seemingly unfair distribution—​if God were not supposed to be (loving and) morally good. Swinburne also maintains that a personal being who is not morally good cannot be the great being that God is. A proponent of Murphy’s view will demand more of an argument than this, however. In fact, Murphy suggests that the supposition that God is perfectly morally good is of “relatively recent vintage” and that the supposition relies on “parochial” assumptions.29 (The parochial assumption, I suppose, 28 Murphy admits that “contemporary philosophers responding to the argument from evil overwhelmingly commit themselves to God’s being morally perfect” (2017, 194) but he does not take this to be decisive. 29 Murphy 2019, note 4, 106.

172  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will is that, if there were a God, then God would take better care of us than we are evidently being “taken care of ”—​the point of the scare quotes being that there does not seem to be an all-​powerful, all-​knowing, perfectly good being taking care of us at all.) Murphy cites Aquinas and Scotus as Christian figures who agree with his own view that God is not essentially perfectly morally good. I think to the contrary that a perfect being would be essentially perfectly morally good. I do not think that God can count as absolutely perfect unless by His very nature God is such that, if God chooses to make creatures like us who are rational and sentient, then God cares for those creatures, prevents us from suffering pointlessly, helps us to flourish, and arranges the world so that things that happen in each of our lives are good for each of us overall. Since this is a (I admit, controversial, but also) natural and widespread conviction, the question I take up now is how best to defend it, beyond an appeal to authority.

6.4  The Heart of God Here is one line of thought. Good agents have certain emotional dispositions. Murphy himself says that the Anselmian being is “essentially an agent, a being who decides and acts, loves and hates.”30 Love and hate seem here to be asserted as part of what it means to be an agent. Central among the good agential emotional dispositions is compassion. Given that compassion is a good-​making trait in an agent, one might suggest that compassion is among the divine perfections. We may characterize the emotion of compassion as a painful feeling occasioned at the awareness or recognition of someone’s suffering (or the prospect of someone’s suffering) that characteristically triggers action aimed at alleviating (or preventing) the suffering.31 The virtue of compassion, we might say, is the disposition to experience the emotion of compassion on the right occasions and to direct it toward the right ends. This account characterizes compassion as characteristically involving an effective impulse to help alleviate (or prevent) the relevant suffering, where by the term ‘effective impulse’ I mean an impulse that is effective in leading a person 30 Murphy 2019, 94. 31 I  defend this account of compassion in Laura Ekstrom, 2018, “Compassion in Medicine,” in The Moral Psychology of Compassion, edited by Justin Caouette and Carolyn Price (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield), 113–​128.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  173 to action in an attempt to assist, not necessarily one that leads to effective alleviation of the distress. The compassionate person, in other words, is stirred by the suffering of another in both an affective and a volitional sense: she feels for the sufferer and is moved to positive involvement out of recognition of the other’s actual or pending suffering. By my lights God would be a compassionate agent and thus moved to alleviate and prevent the suffering of rational and sentient beings, particularly in cases in which the suffering serves no greater end. As it is good for an agent to have knowledge, so that the being than which none greater can be conceived has all possible knowledge, it is also good for an agent to be compassionate, so an unsurpassable agent is compassionate to the utmost degree or to precisely the appropriate extent. On some views, for instance Arthur Schopenhauer’s, compassion is the foundation of morality, as the primary source of altruistic motivation. One might hold that God, with all God’s power and knowledge, would be moved to act compassionately, which involves alleviating and preventing suffering and other setbacks to our well-​being. The perfect agent would by its very nature have the virtue of compassion. One might object that compassion is not the sort of trait that is fit to be a divine attribute. Given the suggested account of the nature of compassion, God can experience compassion only if God can feel pained by an awareness of our (actual or pending) suffering. As we discussed in Chapter 3, on some accounts, God cannot change and so experiences no emotions at all. Even if God did change and did experience some emotions, one might deny that God could be sorrowful, pained, or distressed. Furthermore, Murphy may object by contending—​as he does against the suggestion that love is an essential divine attribute—​that compassion does not have an intrinsic maximum and, moreover, that it is doubtful that compassion as such is good-​ reason-​giving. If the motive of compassion is not a rational impulse, then the supposition that God is moved by compassion runs up against Murphy’s conception of divine freedom. Recall that one way in which he expresses his conception of divine freedom is that God’s choosing and acting is not “in any way constrained by non-​rational impulses or external coercion.”32 If a compassionate impulse were non-​rational and if Murphy’s conception of divine freedom were accurate, then God’s acting on compassion would not be free; but this could not be so, Murphy contends, because perfect freedom is an “uncontroversial” divine attribute. One way around this problem would be to

32 Murphy 2019, 94.

174  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will reconceive of divine freedom in such a way that acting on a disposition that is essential to God’s identity is not necessarily freedom-​undermining. Perhaps God need not be able to do otherwise with respect to every action in order to count as having divine freedom. And in response to the objection that compassion cannot be an essential divine attribute because it does not have an intrinsic maximum, one might maintain that an unsurpassable being could hit the target perfectly with respect to the possession and exhibition of the proposed trait, such as compassion (or related traits of love or benevolence). In thinking more about a proposed essential divine attribute of compassion, it might help to reflect further on the nature of agency and on the question of why a perfect being would create us at all. Some view the perfect goodness of God as by nature diffusing outward, so that God, as perfectly good agent, necessarily creates. Others maintain that God might not have created, but as a contingent matter elected to create. Agents are beings that have the power to act. Yet all acts of the perfect being, one might hold, could have remained mental acts of thinking, deciding, or loving Himself, without any acts being those of creating a physical universe. Whether the creation of a physical universe happens of necessity or as a contingent matter, it seems to me it remains true of an unsurpassable agent that, if that agent elects to bring into existence other agents who are rational and sentient (or allows them to evolve when He could instead have intervened to prevent their existence), then in some of His actions He works to form and to maintain relationships with them. Agency itself seems connected with relationship formation where feasible. As a contingent matter we do observe persons who choose to isolate themselves away from ordinary personal relationships; but we might give psychological accounts of this sort of behavior against natural agential dispositions. It may be true that God need not have created beings with whom God could enter into relationships, but it seems reasonable to think that, by the nature of God as a perfect agent, if God creates “in His image” beings who are rational, moral, and sentient and with whom He can enter into relationships, then God forms relationships with those beings. Further, the perfect agent would neither form bad relationships nor act in ways that deteriorate the quality of the relationships in which God takes part. God as agent creates us, on traditional versions of theism, in order to have a relationship with us, and God creates us with our prime purpose being to have a relationship with Him, to love and enjoy Him forever. On either side of a good relationship are persons who care about and promote the well-​being of the other. Good relationships are characterized by trust,

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  175 consideration, and compassion. One cannot trust someone who leaves one in the hands of bad fortune when the other could intervene to help but elects not to, or someone who allows others to harm one terribly through their bad choices when that other could intervene to help but elects not to, or someone who does not, so far as it is within that other’s power, work to bring it to pass that one’s life goes well. Someone you trust cares for you and promotes your interests—​the other is moved by compassion to assist you when you are in distress and to prevent your experiencing distress whenever doing so does not have outweighing costs. Thus, it is reasonable to think that God, by nature as the perfect being, would be compassionate and so moved to care for any rational and sentient beings He elects to create by ameliorating or preventing our suffering. One might contend, then, that Murphy’s depiction of God is of an omnipotent, omniscient, rational calculator, an image that is missing what one might call the essential “heart” of God. Perhaps the perfect being is not required to create rational and sentient beings, but the suggestion here is that that being’s nature is such that a decision to create rational and sentient beings brings into play divine motivation to compassionately look after their well-​being and to ameliorate their distress. Perhaps, though, one is not persuaded by the idea that the perfect agent would strive to maintain relationships with rational and sentient beings, should such beings be brought into existence by that agent and, in particular, positive relationships characterized by compassion and care.

6.5  The Value of Persons Suppose one is unconvinced that God would have the essential attribute of compassion. We could, alternatively, take up Murphy’s challenge to uphold what he takes to be the uncontroversial essential divine attributes—​ omnipotence, omniscience, rationality, and freedom, as Murphy conceives of these—​while also defending God’s essential perfect moral goodness, by providing the requiring reasons for God to prevent setbacks to the well-​being of rational (and perhaps other sentient) creatures. One counterargument to Murphy’s position begins with the observation that persons have intrinsic value and adds that what makes for excellence or goodness in acting is, as Murphy has said, “appropriate responsiveness to value.” God is an omniscient being who knows all truths there are to be

176  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will known. Hence God knows that persons are intrinsically valuable and knows how they ought to be treated. In deciding what to do, God takes into account what is true and what is good. Intrinsically valuable persons pro tanto ought to be treated in ways that include increasing their well-​being and preventing setbacks to their well-​being. As an omnipotent being, God is capable of increasing the well-​being of persons and of preventing pointless setbacks to the well-​being of persons. Hence in deciding and overtly acting, God by nature would treat intrinsically valuable persons in ways that include increasing their well-​being and preventing pointless setbacks to their well-​being. One might object that we should pry apart increasing a person’s welfare and preventing setbacks to a person’s welfare (both of which are components of Murphy’s own notion of “promotion”). So one might suggest that the pro tanto appropriate response to intrinsically valuable persons is to prevent setbacks to their welfare but does not include increasing their welfare. One might contend, for instance, that the pro tanto appropriate response to a person who has cancer is not to heal her of cancer (increasing her welfare) but to provide narcotic pain medication that keeps her from feeling the intensity of the pain caused by that cancer (preventing her suffering). Likewise, one might allege, for instance, that the pro tanto appropriate response to a person living in poverty is not to work to improve her employment opportunities so as to enable her to make a better living (increasing her welfare) but to do what one can to keep her from being robbed of her meager possessions, by paying taxes that support the police (preventing setbacks to her welfare). But, to the contrary, the appropriate response to intrinsically valuable persons, for any being who is capable, is to do both: excellence or goodness in acting includes not only blocking, so far as one is able, the experience of pointless despair, loss, poverty, illness, and pain by intrinsically valuable persons, but also working, so far as one is able without outweighing costs, to bring about their health, security, peace of mind, and safety. Persons are not objects and are not the sorts of beings toward which a good agent is “indifferent.” Rather, they are intrinsically valuable, inherently worthy of assistance, care, and preservation from unnecessary loss. We might put the argument explicitly as follows: 1. Persons have intrinsic value. 2. Any agent who knows of some being that it has intrinsic value and also knows of herself that she is capable of promoting—​including

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  177





preventing pointless setbacks to—​the welfare of that being, has a pro tanto requiring reason to promote the welfare of that being. 3. God is an agent. 4. God, as an omniscient being, knows which beings have intrinsic value and what God is capable of doing. 5. God, as an omnipotent being, is capable of promoting—​including preventing pointless setbacks to—​ the welfare of any persons in existence. 6. Therefore, for any person in existence, God has a pro tanto requiring reason to promote, including preventing pointless setbacks to, that person’s welfare.

The first and second premises of this argument are perhaps most controversial. In defense of the first premise, one might give a Kantian account of persons’ intrinsic worth in virtue of our autonomy or capacity to conform our behavior to the moral law. Or one might apply G. E. Moore’s test of considering a person in absolute isolation from all else and find this thought experiment to produce the result that persons have intrinsic value. As Murphy defines it, intrinsic value “is the value that a being has that is independent of the relations that it stands in to other things.”33 Murphy denies that created persons have intrinsic value so understood. He denies this citing Anselm’s view that God is the only being with intrinsic value, and since everything else comes from God, whatever value a created item or created being has is not intrinsic but rather extrinsic value; it is value that comes from a being outside of itself. But one will find this sort of reasoning compelling only if one maintains that God exists. Murphy writes: “[I]‌t seems to me very dubious that the concept creaturely intrinsic value could have application, given theism . . . for something’s value to be explained by something external to it rules out that value’s being intrinsic value.”34 Notice the phrase “given theism”—​for someone who does not antecedently assent to the existence of God, this alleged undercutting of the view that persons have intrinsic value is not undermining. A theist, too, might well disagree with Murphy, holding that persons do have intrinsic value. Such a theist might have an alternative conception of



33 Murphy 2019, 101. 34 Murphy 2019, 102.

178  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will intrinsic value, understanding something to have intrinsic value just in case it is good for its own sake and not for the sake of something else. Consider the second premise. Since what makes for goodness in acting is to respond appropriately to the values there are and since the welfare of an intrinsically valuable being is the sort of thing that pro tanto ought to be promoted, any agent who knows that persons have intrinsic value and knows that she is capable of promoting the welfare of persons has a pro tanto requiring reason to do so. Murphy claims to the contrary that it is not the case that a perfect agent has a requiring reason to promote (including preventing setbacks to) the welfare of persons and that this is the case due to the sovereignty of the perfect being (since sovereignty, to Murphy’s mind, includes “discretion,” another way in which he expresses divine freedom). The second premise must be incorrect, Murphy would allege, because it cannot be true of a perfectly sovereign agent. But recall that in this section we are developing a line of response that takes up the challenge to provide a requiring reason for God to promote the well-​being of persons. If there are any such requiring reasons, then, since Murphy understands God’s freedom in acting as the power to act in a way that is not “constrained by non-​rational impulses or external coercion” (2019, 94), God’s freedom—​again, an aspect, to Murphy’s mind, of God’s sovereignty—​is upheld. Notice that an implication of Murphy’s position regarding God’s ethics is that it is allegedly perfectly consistently imaginable for God to create worlds in which God takes pleasure in observing the marvelous adaptability and success of viruses like SARS-​CoV-​2, HIV, and Ebola, even though this has the foreseen though unintended consequence of suffering on the part of persons, and in which God enjoys the beauty in the visual display and cacophony of massive tsunamis, lightning strikes, and swirling hurricanes, the pleasing symphony and spectacle of which, foreseeably though unintentionally, includes the shrieks and agony of rational and sentient beings.35 I  find this highly implausible. Persons are the sorts of beings who ought not to be disregarded and whose well-​being ought not to be discounted in such ways. Murphy alleges that, given the inequality between God and any rational creature, “there is no arbitrariness in the absolutely perfect being taking that being’s own aims and purposes to be worth pursuing and not taking ours to be worth pursuing.”36 But, as I have emphasized, he develops 35 Erik Wielenberg, 2017, describes a similar vivid scenario, likewise an implausible implication of Murphy’s position, in “Intrinsic Value and Love: Three Challenges for God’s Own Ethics,” Religious Studies 53, no. 4: 551–​557, at 554. 36 Murphy 2019, 101.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  179 no proposal concerning the content of God’s own aims and purposes God takes to be worth pursuing that might be at odds with the well-​being of the rational creatures God has created. Might such an aim be entertainment? But a perfectly good being would not entertain Himself at the foreseeable (even if unintended) expense of created persons. Might such an aim be the development of talents? But a perfect being would not need to develop any skills. At isolated spots in his recent book, again, Murphy does gesture toward the good of orderliness.37 However, it seems extremely implausible to suppose that a perfect being would give precedence to orderliness over the prevention of intense suffering on the part of created persons. Why does a good agent take care of persons with intrinsic value? Precisely because they are valuable, inherently deserving of respect, consideration, and care. We do not have to be equal to God in order for God to recognize that we are to be treated well, given our inherent dignity and worth.

6.6  The Badness of Suffering Suppose the argument in the previous section were to fail because it is not the case that persons have intrinsic value, either in the sense of non-​derivative value or in the sense of non-​instrumental, final value. Still I think we could provide a successful argument for the conclusion that a perfect being would have requiring reason to prevent our suffering. Consider this argument: 1. Any rational agent who intentionally brings into existence a sentient being (or allows that being to evolve when that agent could have instead prevented its existence) has a requiring reason to prevent that sentient being from suffering, so far as that agent is able to do so. 2. God is essentially omnipotent and hence able to prevent the suffering of sentient beings. 3. God is essentially a rational agent. 4. Therefore, if God were intentionally to bring into existence a sentient being (or allow that being to evolve when He could have instead prevented its existence), then God would have a requiring reason to prevent that sentient being from suffering.



37 Murphy 2017, for instance, at 183.

180  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will To the opponent who objects to the first premise by claiming that suffering is not inherently bad, I have little to say, other than that suffering—​ physical or emotional—​hurts, is undesirable, terrible, and inherently to be avoided whenever unnecessary to achieving greater goods. Since suffering is inherently bad, we might argue that this in itself provides all agents with a requiring reason to alleviate or prevent it.38 Perhaps so. But I think that the intentional act of bringing into existence a being who can suffer gives the agent a special pro tanto obligation to prevent and alleviate the suffering of that being so far as she is able. (I think this obligation applies, too, to an absolutely perfect agent who sets in motion a course of evolution that foreseeably results in the existence of sentient beings and who elects not to intervene in this process to prevent the existence of such beings.) I  have in mind, for instance, human parents who deliberately bring children into the world; goodness in agency precludes their being indifferent to the well-​being of those children, and it precludes their permitting unnecessary suffering on the part of those children for no reason at all. I think the same would apply if one were, say, to bring into existence a being that is not rational and not a member of one’s species, but a being that nonetheless can experience pleasure and pain: one’s intentionally creating such a being would generate for one a requiring reason to look after it, to prevent it so far as one is able from experiencing unnecessary pain. The first premise, then, articulates what might be called a duty of care or duty of assistance. It applies to rational agents who intentionally bring into existence sentient beings. It is silent on the matter of creators of inanimate objects. Murphy has remarked that he does not believe in a “creator’s obligation,” citing the cases of painters and factory workers.39 The thought is that a painter might create a work of art, even one that is thought to be intrinsically valuable, and yet be under no obligation to preserve or protect that work of art; rather, she is free and within her rights to do with it as she pleases. Likewise, factory workers might be thought to be creators of sorts, but they have no obligations in virtue of being creators to watch out for the welfare

38 Wielenberg suggests that the intrinsic badness of suffering gives God a requiring reason to prevent it because “each instance of intrinsic badness in the universe diminishes the extent to which divine goodness manifests itself in the universe and the Anselmian being has a requiring reason to prevent the diminishing of the extent to which its own goodness manifests itself in the universe” (2017, 555). The point is that God’s allowing suffering amounts to making the universe as a whole worse off, less of a reflection of and manifestation of God’s goodness, and God should not diminish the extent to which His own goodness manifests itself in the universe. 39 In conversation, April 27, 2017.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  181 of the products they produce. But notice that factory workers and artists do not bring any matter into existence, only work to give it its form; and since their productions cannot experience suffering, any obligations to prevent the suffering of the items they produce do not apply. It remains the case to my mind that God—​if God elects to create us sentient beings (or allow us to evolve)—​has requiring reason to prevent our suffering. Bringing into existence beings who are sentient is cruel, wrong, and irresponsible in the absence of a commitment to preventing them from suffering, so far as one is able, whenever it is not necessary for the attainment of greater goods. Hence God would need a justifying reason to allow evils. In the absence of reason for allowing setbacks to our well-​being, namely that those setbacks are required for bringing about greater goods or preventing evils as bad or worse, the requiring reason to prevent setbacks to our well-​being is decisive. God thus has a decisive requiring reason not to allow pointless evils. I have proposed two arguments, one for the conclusion that God has requiring reason to treat persons in ways that include preventing setbacks to their welfare, and the other for the conclusion that God has requiring reason to prevent the suffering of sentient beings. Related arguments are set out by Erik Wielenberg.40 Wielenberg defends the conclusion that God has requiring reasons to prevent the suffering of human beings, as follows. First, human beings are intrinsically valuable, as is shown by Moore’s isolation test and Scott Davison’s “annihilation test” and, moreover, by the fact that power and knowledge are unqualified good-​making properties and most if not all human beings have some positive degree of power and knowledge.41 Second, the following is a plausible moral principle: “C. If S freely creates an intrinsically valuable being B, then S has a requiring reason not to allow B to suffer.” Wielenberg calls principle C “a creator’s obligation” and concludes, “If a creator permits such suffering without a good reason, then the creator engages in practical irrationality—​something that it is impossible for an Anselmian being to do.”42 I agree with Wielenberg’s rejection of Murphy’s position. But I would express a creator’s obligation somewhat differently: it seems to me that the created being need not to be intrinsically valuable in order for that being’s creator to have a requiring reason not to allow that being to suffer. As I see it, the created being need only to be capable of suffering in order for the



40 Wielenberg 2017

41 Wielenberg 2017, 552–​553. 42 Wielenberg 2017, 553.

182  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will creator’s obligation to exist. Perhaps such creatures as a fawn, a puppy, and a dolphin are not intrinsically valuable, but a perfect being who brings them into existence (or allows them to evolve) has a requiring reason to prevent their pointless suffering. Contra Murphy, I think it is not true that the concept of a perfect being allows for such a being to create sentient beings and then to pay their suffering no mind, to let it occur for no reason at all. And, regarding principle C, I think that free creation is not required for generating an obligation, but intentional creation is.

6.7  Rejection of Murphy’s Move I have argued that Murphy’s position is mistaken. Murphy has not succeeded in showing that perfect moral goodness cannot be an essential divine attribute. And he has not succeeded in showing that perfect moral goodness is not an essential divine attribute. The case for the claim that perfect moral goodness cannot be an essential divine attribute centers on the concern that, to think that the perfect being would have to promote the well-​being of rational (and other sentient) creatures is to place a limit on that being’s agency. One way to get around this problem on Murphy’s own suggestion—​to rid oneself of the conceptual incoherence—​is both to understand God’s free agency as a matter of God’s responding to the decisive requiring reasons there are and to defend the claim that there are decisive requiring reasons for God to promote the well-​being of rational (and other sentient) creatures. However, Murphy contends, “we have no good basis to ascribe such reasons to God, and good grounds to doubt it.”43 The “no good basis” comment refers to the argument to the effect that the available answers to the “Why be moral?” question with respect to human persons are not applicable to the case of God. What are “the good grounds to doubt” it? In Murphy’s (2017) book, I see only the point concerning divine freedom, along with a suggested skeptical attitude toward there being any other persuasive way to attribute the decisive requiring reasons to God. If we have provided an account of the decisive requiring reasons God has to further the ends that morality prescribes, then the worry about God’s perfect freedom being in tension with God’s moral perfection is resolved.



43 Murphy 2019, 104.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  183 Notice that, on Murphy’s own view, the perfect being’s choices must fit a pattern that obeys the rule of never intentionally causing evil. It is not clear why, if that is not a limitation on God’s freedom, then it would be a limit on God’s freedom that the perfect being’s choices must fit a pattern that obeys the rule of never allowing evils to befall persons and other sentient beings that are not necessary for greater goods. It is the perfect being’s own nature as a perfect agent that necessitates looking after the well-​being of any persons that exist, and it is the perfect being’s own intentional act of creating sentient beings that generates requiring reason to prevent the suffering of sentient beings whenever doing so is not necessary for achieving a greater good or preventing a worse evil. There is no threat to the greatness of God’s agency that God has to have true beliefs and cannot have any false ones. There is no threat to the greatness of God’s agency that God has to have all the power it is possible for any being to have and cannot have any weaknesses. Likewise, there is no threat to the greatness of God’s agency that God has to act in ways that are morally good and cannot act in ways that are morally bad. God is arguably not free to be indifferent to our well-​being or to be passive with respect to the quality of our lives, but this does not imply that God is not a perfect being. The perfect being, I have argued, does not fail to prevent setbacks to the well-​being of rational and other sentient creatures in any world in which there are rational and other sentient creatures unless those setbacks are necessary to bringing about greater goods or preventing evils as bad or worse. Notice Murphy’s claim that “as the features of the created world are a matter of divine discretion, there are no such reasons [concerning creaturely pains] that so much as dispose, however mildly, the Anselmian being to create one way or another.”44 But to claim that God is not even mildly disposed to make a world with less suffering on the part of rational and sentient beings than a world with more suffering for such beings is not credible. Given the inequality between God and any rational creature, Murphy has contended that “there is no arbitrariness in the absolutely perfect being taking that being’s own aims and purposes to be worth pursuing and not taking ours to be worth pursuing.”45 But we lack a credible proposal concerning the content of God’s own aims and purposes that might be at odds with the well-​being of the rational and sentient creatures God has created. Although Murphy claims that it is not true that the Anselmian being is set on creaturely good because God

44 Murphy 2017, 109. 45 Murphy 2019, 101.

184  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will is sovereign, I have argued that the perfect being would be set on the good of persons and of sentient beings intentionally created (or allowed to evolve) by that being. Against the position that, with respect to any horrible case of apparently pointless suffering, the Anselmian being might let it happen, might fail to prevent it, for no reason at all, “because acting so as to prevent that suffering provides the Anselmian being only justifying reasons for acting,”46 I have argued that an absolutely perfect being is required to intervene, so God would need a justifying reason not to intervene. Thus, if God were to exist, then there would be no evils in the world for which there is not a God-​ justifying reason (for non-​prevention). Thus the first premise of the argument from pointless evil is not shown to be false by Murphy’s work on the nature of the perfect being. But this means that the problem of evil has not been “gutted” by his case concerning God’s ethics.

6.8  God’s Contingent Love and Promises The argument from evil remains in force, too, given that, as Murphy sees things, God has chosen, as a contingent matter, to love all of us human beings equally and has made certain promises to us. This fact is revealed, Murphy holds, in Christian Scripture. God may well not have created us, may well not have loved us, and may well not have made any promises to us. Again, this implies that it is supposed to be perfectly consistent for God to exist and for there to be possible worlds in which there are persons and other sentient beings created by God who suffer torturously, endlessly, horrifically, in ways foreseen but allegedly unintended by God as God acts on reasons of His own to further ends other than the good of the well-​being of persons and other sentient creatures. I have argued that this is not credible. But concerning this being who as a contingent matter does love and care for us: billions of theists worship God and believe that God so conceived exists. Arguments from evil stand in challenge to the belief of such theists. Murphy responds to an argument from evil formulated specifically as an argument against the monotheism of the Abrahamic religions—​Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—​by saying that the argument from evil is supposed to be more than simply “an ad hominem argument”

46 Murphy 2017, 105.

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  185 against particular religious believers.47 But the argument from evil does not attack traditional religious believers’ circumstances or personality or personhood, but rather provides a case against the rationality of the belief that God exists. Murphy says that ordinary theists ought to reconceive of God as not necessarily perfectly morally good and instead as a divine being who did not have to, but happens to, love and care for us. This does not resolve arguments from evil for ordinary theists who take God to be perfectly morally good or loving, even if only contingently. The question—​“Why is there this particular case of apparently pointless evil, or why are the facts of evil what they are, if God loves each of us equally and has promised that things will go well for us?”—​retains its force. I have argued in this chapter that Murphy’s advice to change our understanding of the perfect being is ill-​grounded, in any case. The overall picture on which is it is allegedly true to say that God, as a contingent matter, loves all human beings is one that I find not credible since, on Murphy’s account of the way things are, God freely elected to create human beings who have no intrinsic value at all, and God chose to offer to human beings a proposition that God foreknows many of them will fail to accept—​ namely, that if they submit their wills to God’s, then all will go well for them in the end. But all of these created beings will experience significant loss, distress, and pain in their lives, and some of them will experience so much suffering that it outweighs any goods they experience. The problem is especially acute, as I emphasized in the previous chapter, for a theism on which persons who neglect to take up God’s offer, after their earthly lives, suffer for an eternity in hell. It is hard to see how it could be true that God loves all human beings equally. I share Wielenberg’s impression: “I am tempted by the thought that for the majority of human beings, God’s actions are best described not as loving but rather as a kind of cruel joke—​or at least, as indifference.” He continues, “What can be said to support the claim that God loves those who are not saved and whose suffering outweighs the goods they experience?”48 One proposed answer to this question might be that God’s love is expressed to all human beings in the form of His gift to them of free will, a gift so great it is worth its risks and costs. But this line of reply, as I argued in Chapter 2, is deeply suspect.



47 Murphy 2017, 123, note 13. 48 Wielenberg 2017, 553.

186  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

6.9  The Problem of Evil Remains Powerful In this chapter I have argued that, if it were true that God’s ethics allows for God to decline to prevent the suffering of rational and sentient creatures for no reason at all, then great thinkers who have been moved to treat the problem of evil as a genuine, difficult philosophical problem—​including Hume, Dostoevsky, Mackie, Plantinga, Swinburne, M. Adams, Stump, Rea, Howard-​Snyder, van Inwagen, and many others—​have been mistaken. They have failed to see that there is no real problem posed by the existence of suffering on the part of sentient beings for the rationality of belief that God exists. But this is implausible. Further, I have presented a number of lines of argument aimed at undermining Murphy’s position on the nature of God. (1) One might contend that God would be compassionate toward us, which motivates acting so as to prevent and ameliorate pain and suffering and to assist us in our distress. The suggestion is that it is a great-​making trait in an agent to be compassionate, so compassion is among the divine perfections, and God has it to the exactly right degree or experiences it in exactly the right circumstances and directs it toward the right ends. It is arguable that the “Why be moral?” question is answered for God by God’s compassion. This line of thought is akin to Hume’s grounding morality in our natural feelings of sympathy for our fellow human beings. Perhaps God has an essential trait of compassion toward God’s created sentient beings and rational beings. (2) We persons have intrinsic value, and as an omniscient being God knows this, and as an omnipotent being God has the power to promote our well-​being and to prevent setbacks to our well-​being. Thus, with all of God’s knowledge and power, among the things God would do is to care for us as persons with intrinsic value, by promoting our health, joy, and flourishing and by preventing our unnecessary pain, loss, and other suffering. Why does an agent take care of persons with intrinsic value? Precisely because they are intrinsically valuable, inherently deserving of respect, consideration, and care. This line of thought is akin to Kant’s grounding morality in our recognition that other persons, like ourselves, are autonomous and are to be treated well. We do not have to be equal to God in order for God to recognize that our well-​being is to be promoted and respected, given our inherent dignity and worth. (3) God does have requiring reasons to promote our welfare and that of other sentient beings because suffering on the part of sentient beings is

God’s Ethics: A Workaround?  187 inherently bad, and, on theism, God intentionally created us and other sentient beings. God’s decision to create us and other sentient beings (or to allow us to evolve)—​and God’s action of carrying out his decision by creating us (or allowing us to evolve)—​gave God an obligation to care for us. Why think so? Because bringing into existence sentient beings is wrong and irresponsible in the absence of a commitment to preventing them from suffering whenever it is not necessary for the attainment of greater goods for them. Against Murphy’s position that, with respect to a sordid case of evil, the rape and murder of a child, for instance, the Anselmian being might permit it to happen for no reason at all, I have argued that an absolutely perfect being is required to intervene, so God would need a justifying reason not to intervene. Thus, if God were to exist, then there would be no evils in the world for which there is not a God-​justifying reason (for non-​prevention). I conclude that it is not true that the argument from evil is defanged.

7 Religion on the Cheap In this chapter I argue that it is not sensible to live a religious life of a certain sort without maintaining that the claim, ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is true. I work to pin down what seems problematic, non-​sensible, or troubling about a person’s living religiously in the absence of a commitment to the existence of God. Further I argue that there are significant costs associated with rejecting the claim that the proposition, ‘God exists’ is true, but that one who does so should absorb those costs rather than getting religion on the cheap.

7.1 A Religious Life The term “religion on the cheap” comes from a passage in Howard Wettstein’s book, The Significance of Religious Experience, in which he explores and explains his embrace of a religious life. Wettstein counts himself among “the traditional practitioners of religion”1 and yet contends that, “religious life of a traditional kind is coherent without special metaphysical commitments.”2 His orientation in philosophy he describes as “naturalistic,” as he rejects the existence of supernatural agents and entities.3 He reports that he has a friend, an Israeli academic, who, in Wettstein’s words, “thinks I must be cheating. He left religious life roughly when I did, and he now both longs for it and cannot stand the thought of it. . . . My sense is that I drive him nuts since I seem to be seriously in touch with religion, and yet I get it on the cheap: without metaphysical commitment.”4 Wettstein denies the usual picture of religious life as 1 Howard Wettstein, 2012, The Significance of Religious Experience (New York: Oxford University Press), 3. 2 Wettstein 2012, 214. 3 Wettstein writes, “I wish to challenge the view, accepted by theists and atheists alike, that the sort of religious life I have described, with God at its heart, involves commitment to the supernatural and thus the denial of naturalism” (2012, 48). He also holds that “the usual supernaturalist religious metaphysics provides a misleading picture of what the game is all about” (2012, 7). 4 Wettstein 2012, 210.

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0007

Religion on the Cheap  189 sitting atop a distinctive metaphysical foundation, one that stands in need of epistemological justification. What is it to live a religious life that does not sit atop a distinctive metaphysical foundation itself in need of epistemological justification? In this chapter I struggle to understand and evaluate this idea and this way of life. One might point out, from the start, that my concern is insufficiently focused. What counts as living a religious life depends, in part, on what counts as a religion, which is a fraught matter.5 It also depends on what qualifies a person as someone who is “living” a religious life. (Is attendance at a service of worship once a year sufficient? Must one pray daily?) And there are other concerns. For instance, what do I mean in using such terms as ‘sensible,’ ‘troubling,’ or ‘problematic’? And does one count as committed to the existence of God if one is a theological antirealist? Regarding ‘religion,’ there are, of course, various characterizations proposed by theologians and philosophers, including William James’s understanding of religion as “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine.”6 This characterization is rather expansive. Given the breadth of practices and systems of thought that might fall under the term ‘religion,’ clearly one might live a life that counts as religious without having any particular metaphysical commitments.7 Our question, 5 Josh Gert suggested to me that it is possible to be religious without adhering to any religion. I suppose one might be a theist of some sort or might be “spiritual” without adhering to any religion, but the way I understand the term ‘religious’ implies that one participates to some extent in the practices and community of one or more religions. 6 William James, 1902,The Varieties of Religious Experience (New  York:  Longmans, Green, and Co.), 31. Various definitions have been proposed as U.S. courts have sought to interpret the First Amendment. Prior to the twentieth century, Supreme Court decisions characterized religion as theistic and, in some judicial opinions, particularly Christian, but later the Court’s conception widened. In the 1961 case Torcaso vs. Watkins, the Court recognized nontheistic religions and accorded First Amendment protection to them. In United States vs. Seeger (1965), Seeger had been convicted for refusing induction during the Vietnam War, basing his opposition to war on his devotion to goodness and virtue for their own sakes. The Court, stating that its conception of religion was akin to those of modern theologians, such as Paul Tillich’s understanding of religion as ultimate concern, held that religion includes cases in which a sincere and meaningful belief occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to the place held by God in the lives of other persons; the religion need not include belief in the existence of God to be within the scope of the First Amendment. This parallel place conception appears too broad. Lower courts have addressed the matter, including the 1979 United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, case Malnak vs. Maharishi (Yogi), which decided that Transcendental Meditation can be a religious practice, even though it does not explicitly include belief in a transcendent deity. In the case, Judge Adams suggested that to qualify as a religion the set of the ideas at issue must concern ultimate questions and must be comprehensive, and there must be structural features present, such as ceremonies, rituals, and hierarchical organization. There are many questions one might raise for this conception. 7 J. L. Schellenberg would disagree; he defines “S is religious (or exhibits religion)” in this way: (1) S takes there to be a reality that is ultimate, in relation to which an ultimate good can be attained; and

190  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will then, should be put more narrowly, as follows: Is it sensible to live a life that involves religious practices and involvement in religious community within a religion that affirms the existence of God, without oneself having a commitment to the existence of God? This question is still insufficiently precise, since some people do use the term ‘God’ in a different way than I have used the term throughout this book. One sort of religious naturalist, for instance, might hold that, while there are no supernatural realms, revelations or beings, that which is defined as sacred, that which is worthy of reverence and any entity that can be called God is part of Nature.8 Wettstein does not want to redefine God as, for instance, whatever is sacred or valuable,9 but instead he understands God as God is depicted in the Jewish tradition, on the one hand, and as wholly Other, on the other hand. (There are tensions between these—​one is anthropomorphic, the other is not—​but these tensions are not to be resolved by the religious believer, on Wettstein’s view.) The characterization of God that is the focus of this book is the traditional understanding of God as an absolutely perfect being who is essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, and essentially perfectly good. To be clear, then, I am particularly concerned in this chapter with understanding a life lived religiously within a traditional monotheistic religion that affirms the existence of God so defined. What about the living aspect of “a religious life”—​what is it to have a religious life? Obviously there is room for disagreement, but I  mean by the phrase roughly a life that intentionally and regularly includes such activities as attending services of worship, praying, reading texts that are allegedly sacred or holy as if they are sacred or holy, and integrating oneself into a religious community. This rough characterization does not provide answers to the questions of how regularly one must take part in the relevant activities and how deeply or fully integrated one would need to be in a religious community in order to count as living a religious life. Nonetheless it should be sufficient here. (2) S’s ultimate commitment is to the cultivation of dispositions appropriate to this state of affairs. Schellenberg, 2007, The Wisdom to Doubt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 313. 8 For various characterizations of religious naturalism, see https://​religiousnaturalism.org/​what-​ is-​religious-​naturalism/​. 9 Wettstein is not a religious reductionist. He explains: “I believe that to provide a naturalistic reduction of the concept of God is to lose something, indeed a great deal, of what is important in the concept. My naturalism does not then employ any sort of reinterpretation strategy. It is the traditional terminology, traditionally understood, that figures in the religious experience of my naturalist” (2012, 52).

Religion on the Cheap  191

7.2  Theological Realism and Theological Antirealism It is natural to think that a faithful participant in a traditional monotheistic religious community is committed to the existence of God. But things are not entirely straightforward, because the proposal that God exists is open to realist and antirealist interpretations. One way of drawing the distinction is something in this neighborhood: the realist holds that the thing of concern is externally related to human beings—​ it is what it is apart from human existence—​whereas an antirealist claims that the thing of concern is internally related to human beings—​it would not be what it is apart from human existence. Theological realists give various expressions of the position, emphasizing metaphysical or epistemic dimensions or both. Russ Shafer-​Landau describes theological realism in this straightforward manner: “Theological realism, as I will understand the term here, is simply theism: the view that God exists . . . [as] an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect agent.”10 Michael Rea defines realism as follows: “Where ‘x’ is a singular term, realism about x is the view that there is a y such that x = y.”11 And with respect to a discipline ‘D,’ such as metaphysics or theology, “realism in D is or involves interpreting the canonical statements of theories or doctrines in D realistically,” where to interpret a theory ‘T’ realistically is “(a) to interpret T as having an objective truth-​value . . . and (b) to interpret T in such a way that it has realist truth-​conditions” (that is, it is true only if realism about the singular terms and kind terms putatively referred to in the theory is true). Christopher Insole understands religious realism in this way: “Religious realism is the claim that truth is independent of our beliefs about truth, and that we can in principle hope to have true beliefs about God.”12 According to Andrew Moore and Michael Scott, theological realists typically hold “that religious claims represent a mind-​independent religious reality to which we have epistemic access (at least in part), and that religious truth should be robustly construed as a relationship between religious sentences and the reality that they describe.”13 These characterizations 10 Russ Shafer-​Landau, 2007, “Moral and Theological Realism,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 4, no. 3: 311. 11 Michael Rea, 2007, “Realism in Theology and Metaphysics,” in Belief and Metaphysics, edited by Conor Cunningham and Peter Candler (London: SCM Press), 323–​344. 12 Christopher Insole, 2006, Realist Hope: A Critique of Antirealist Approaches in Contemporary Philosophical Theology (Burlington, VT: Ashgate), 188. 13 Andrew Moore and Michael Scott, 2007, Realism and Religion: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives (Abingdon: Ashgate), 1.

192  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will may not answer all questions concerning how to understand the position of theological realism. Nonetheless, as I understand things, characteristically the theological realist believes (at least) that God exists “beyond” human language and religious practice or that God exists independently from human perception, conception, and activity. The position of theological antirealism is even more difficult to define, since various views seem to fall under the term. On Moore and Scott’s description of theological antirealism, theological antirealists “variously reject different components of the realist’s theory,” holding that “religious statements are primarily expressive rather than genuinely representational; religious truths are inaccessible to us; religious truth is a matter of the satisfaction of internal standards of religious language (or ‘language games’); religious claims are systematically false.”14 I take it that a theological antirealist might make one of the claims in Moore and Scott’s list but not another; for instance, the theological antirealist might claim that religious statements are primarily expressive rather than representational in nature, but not maintain that religious claims are systematically false. If this is right, then a (different) theological antirealist might hold, instead, that religious claims are to be construed realistically but that they are all false.15 Given that opponents of theological realism are diverse, it is difficult to keep a particular target in focus in assessing the position. It seems the theological antirealist characteristically maintains that God has no existence independent of human thought and activity; the antirealist might hold, for instance, that God is a construct or a useful fiction. As I see things, then, the theological antirealist does not have a metaphysical commitment to the existence of God. The theological antirealist might think, nevertheless, that doing theology is a meaningful and worthwhile project, even while holding that the theories and claims produced by theology are not true in an objective or literal sense.16 The theological antirealist might believe, as well, that one can sensibly live a religious life while maintaining that the claim ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is not true.

14 Moore and Scott 2007, 1. 15 If this is right, then what I think of as a standard atheist counts as a theological antirealist. And if holding that religious truths are inaccessible to us is sufficient for being a theological antirealist, then perhaps an agnostic counts as one, too. 16 I believe Wettstein takes most theology to be not worthwhile, at least what is now done in mainstream analytic philosophical theology.

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7.3 Initial Perspective In my view, these contentions—​that doing theology is a meaningful and worthwhile project even though the theories produced by theology are not true in an objective or literal sense, and that one can sensibly live a religious life even while maintaining that the claim, ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is not true—​are very strange. They are strange in the sense that I find them surprising and odd, but it is worse than that. There is a problem in the neighborhood of rationality. It is hard for me to imagine living a religious life within a traditional monotheistic religion—​regularly attending worship services, offering prayers of thanks and supplication, reading religious texts such as the New Testament as if they are divinely inspired and thus sources of truth and wisdom from on high, integrating myself into a religious community and the social life of the church—​without believing that the claim ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is both true and in some measure rationally supported. That is, it is hard for me to imagine living such a life myself while maintaining self-​respect. But according to some, in thinking this way I am mistaken or perhaps overly limited.17 To be sure, living a religious life without doing theistic metaphysics in any professional sense is of course coherent for one who is not a philosopher or a theologian. It could also be coherent for a philosopher or a theologian who works on what might be called non-​metaphysics topics, professionally speaking (someone who publishes in ethics, for instance). But for a philosopher and indeed any thinking person to live religiously within a theistic religious tradition, without caring about and indeed having a commitment to the truth of religious doctrine, realistically construed, and without attention to the arguments for and against the (human mind-​independent) existence of God, in my view is intellectually problematic. To simply be warmed by religious activities and to use this as the ground for involvement in religious community is, to my mind, to exhibit a kind of lack of integrity, a failure to respect one’s own mind.

17 Some may object that it can be self-​respecting and sensible to live a religious life while maintaining hope, faith, desire, or some other attitude or set of attitudes concerning God, without a belief that the claim ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is both true and in some measure rationally supported. This response raises an interesting set of issues, some of which are touched on later. For further discussion see, for instance, Jonathan Kvanvig, 2013, “Affective Theism and People of Faith,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 37: 109–​128; and Dan Howard-​Snyder, 2013b, “Propositional Faith: What It Is and What It Is Not,” American Philosophical Quarterly 50: 357–​372.

194  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will Now if one is quite sure, or thinks one has strong reason to believe, that God is indeed really “out there”—​really does exist regardless of human opinion on the matter—​and, furthermore, one simply thinks that it is difficult to say much about the character or purposes of God, well then that is something else altogether: to me that sort of a position sounds akin to the position taken by a skeptical theist in response to the problem of evil, but not like the position of a genuine theological antirealist. The skeptical theist does stake his ground as a theist—​he makes a commitment to the human mind-​ independent existence of God. But the theological antirealist does not make such a commitment. I’ve said that it seems to me problematic to live a religious life within a monotheistic religious tradition without believing that the claim ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is true. One might suggest that it can be morally respectable, or a good thing as assessed along the dimension of morality, to have religion on the cheap—​without the distinctive metaphysical commitment—​ insofar as one is motivated by religious sentiments or by religious concerns to perform morally good acts. For instance, if one finds in one’s religion inspiration for donating to charities and extending kindness to others, then I suppose one might say that being religious is a good thing, in that it leads to charitable and kind behavior. Of course there are cases of another sort, however, in which a person’s religious beliefs lead him to commit acts of violence or oppression or to hold attitudes of hatred and condescension. They might also lead to an objectionable sort of cultural insularity or sense of superiority. The initial perspective that is my central concern here, however, is that it is not intellectually respectable or sensible for a thinking person to get religion on the cheap within one of the monotheistic religions in the Abrahamic tradition. What is at stake is the matter of rational integrity or unity in the religious antirealist. It seems to me incoherent to live religiously, as if there is a God, without belief in the mind-​independent existence of God. In subsequent sections of this chapter I explore and challenge this initial perspective I have articulated.

7.4  Making Sense of the Religious Life of a Non-​Theist When one aims to think of reasons for which theological antirealists might go to church or to synagogue or to mosque, there is no shortage of conjectures. They might want to see their friends, relatives, and neighbors.

Religion on the Cheap  195 They might want to make new friends. They might go in order to be treated as someone important, someone who is welcomed as an equal. They might seek to interrupt their daily lives on a regular basis in order to contemplate the mysteries of life; to take part in deliberate attentiveness; to remove the self from the center of things. They might want “to be part of something larger.” Non-​theists might seek religious community out of a desire to learn how to share and to love. They might want to remember what is most important in life and to consider who they are becoming, so that they do not unthinkingly become or remain people they wish they weren’t. They might integrate themselves into a religious community in order to get encouragement for having backbone and moral courage, for instance to speak out when someone tells a racist joke, not to swallow disrespect from anyone, to maintain dignity. They might find that religious services help to learn to slow down and take time to remember the seasons, to see the things of value and beauty, to sing, to sit together in silence, to remember how to be present in the moment. They might want help sorting out competing values, to find which ones are likely to promote happiness and meaning; they might seek input counter to cultural messages that power, consumption, and popularity are more important than service, compassion, and integrity. Non-​theists might join religious communities in order to be part of a group that works for social justice; to counteract homophobia and racism; to help combat poverty. They might want to be part of a community that can handle and accept their intellectual interests, doubts, and skills, along with their pain, grief, and shame, a community that can help to hold and to transform these things. One might suggest that surely some or all of these reasons make a religious life without metaphysical commitment to the existence of God both sensible and worthy of respect. But of course there remains this question: What of the matter of the truth of the claims asserted in the religion’s texts and doctrinal statements? What about the claims, for instance, that God created the world, that the Ten Commandments are divinely given, that Mary immaculately conceived Jesus of Nazareth, who was God incarnate—​is one simply to ignore them or to pretend that they are true? Is the idea of those who live religious lives without commitment to the central claim, ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, the following: there must be some deep and important truth somewhere in there (in the chosen religion, say Christianity), although they’re not sure exactly what it is and although they are pretty sure it is not, for instance, that God really exists and took on human form, died, and was resurrected as atonement for our sins? Lack of attention to, and endorsement

196  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will of, the core ontological claims made by the religion’s texts and creeds makes an approach to a religious life motivated by the kinds of aims and desires identified in the previous paragraph, in my initial view, untenable. But this view should be further scrutinized.

7.5  The Significance of Religious Experience I mentioned at the outset of this chapter Wettstein’s book, The Significance of Religious Experience, which is rich, beautifully written, and provocative. I find it a helpful case study, a source for attempting to understand the religious life of one who is self-​reflective and intellectually astute, and whose perspective on the central question of this paper is directly opposed to my own. Perhaps, through engaging with it, I can come to see my initial perspective as flawed. Wettstein suggests that, whereas the philosophical style of theology puts doctrinal belief at the center of a religious outlook, the Hebrew Bible does no such thing. He writes: If belief is not focal, what is? Standing in awe of heaven, in awe of God are the relevant biblical idioms. Affective matters, like awe and also love, constitute pillars of the relationship between people and God, pillars of religious life. Such affective matters, as opposed to metaphysical beliefs, are basic to the sort of religious way to which I am drawn.18

Love for God and standing in awe of God are here depicted as central to religious life. Furthermore, religious naturalism, the overall outlook of Wettstein’s book, preserves the value of religious stories, their drama, their meaning, and their potency in forming the identity of a community. Wettstein writes: Like his theistic colleagues, the thoroughgoing religious naturalist dwells in the potent imagery of creation, and this makes available to him what it makes available to the theist, the same religious resonances, the same suggestiveness about the human condition and human flourishing. The drama of creation, like masterful fiction, is no less powerful, no less

18 Wettstein 2012, 6.

Religion on the Cheap  197 suggestive, for its factual untruth. Not that the creation myth is, for the non-​fundamentalist, mere fiction. This story, like others that figure centrally in the tradition, is not just a story. It is our own story, our own mythology. . . . These stories play a crucial role in the continuity of community over time. . . . The constellation of such stories provide, or play an enormous role in providing, our moral horizons, our place, and our point in the world.19

According to Wettstein, then, religious life affords one experiences of awe and love, and it plays a significant role in providing “our moral horizons” and a sense of our place and purpose in the world. In engaging in religious practices, individuals are, among other things, identifying themselves, for both themselves and others, as part of a particular cultural tradition. Of course this can be important to one’s sense of identity and one’s feeling of connection to past and future generations. One matter that particularly puzzles me is this: does Wettstein get religion “on the cheap,” as he indicates that his friend suspects? It is, I think, difficult to tell. Talk of “masterful fiction” and “factual untruth” may suggest that he does. But these phrases apply to the religious story of creation. Perhaps Wettstein believes that God really does exist, but that the story of creation in the book of Genesis is only a myth. Consider the following passage, in which he describes the point of view of his opponents: The literary rendering [of scripture verses that depict God, for instance, as getting angry], so apt for the religious life as it was (and largely still is) lived, is seen as inadequate, as in need of translation into a non-​poetic idiom, as in need of a metaphysical foundation and attendant epistemological support. And making sense of religious life comes to be seen as defending the religious metaphysics, in part by supplying a supporting epistemology. Which brings us to proofs of the existence of a God.20

In response to that sort of perspective, according to which religious metaphysics requires defense and epistemic justification, Wettstein asks this:



19 Wettstein 2012, 51.

20 Wettstein 2012, 148–​149.

198  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will What, though, if we maintain our focus on lived experience rather than on any allegedly necessary metaphysical underpinning? Without a religious metaphysics and epistemology we may well be accused of not knowing of what we speak. But is it not a genuinely religious intuition that with respect to understanding God we are over our heads, that central to religious life is an intimacy, the other party to which is as it were seen through a glass darkly?21

This passage seems to suggest that Wettstein thinks that God is real, in fact, but that God is distant from us, mysterious to us, in that God’s characteristics and ways are difficult for us to discern. This seems to indicate that Wettstein is a religious realist of some sort. Here is a further passage supporting a realist interpretation of his position, a passage that immediately follows the story I quoted at the outset from which the title of this chapter is drawn, the mention of the friend who thinks Wettstein gets religion on the cheap: But my own prayer experience suggests something quite different. In prayer (when it goes well), I have the sense of the presence of the divine, of making contact. But ask me about the party on the other end and one of two things will happen: either I will beg to be excused for not having too much to say, or else we will have a very long talk about how difficult a matter it is that is in question. . . . Philosophy’s contribution to our understanding of religion is in my view very different from that envisaged by the medievals and their followers. . . . I want to begin with prephilosophic sort of understanding, one that in my view, philosophy needs to respect, even to begin with.22

The “prephilosophic sort of understanding” of which Wettstein speaks seems to be a kind of experiential contact with the divine. But here is the rub: it seems natural to think that a philosopher and indeed any thinking person would make efforts to reflect on such experience, to try to understand it, to seek out reasons for and against thinking that it is veridical, to generate considerations relating to whether or not it is what it seems to be. And so one might say that a failure to do so for something that calls out for rational exploration is to exhibit a disreputable irrationalism. Wettstein replies to this line of thought as follows:

21 Wettstein 2012, 148–​149. 22 Wettstein 2012, 210–​212.

Religion on the Cheap  199 From where I sit, the charge of irrationalism again yields to the idea of sensitivity to the subject matter. Were we dealing with a theoretical take on the world—​the project of medieval philosophical theology—​we would not and should not be satisfied with such inconsistency. On the other hand, it is hardly a liability of, say, love poetry that it does not portray one’s love in entirely consistent ways. If religion is more like the poetry of one’s life, if it is prompted by a unique kind of responsiveness to life—​related but not reducible to aesthetic and ethical responsiveness—​then it is predictable, even plausible, that it involves tensions that are not to be resolved.23

This idea that religion is the “poetry of one’s life” seems to indicate, contrary to what I just hypothesized, that Wettstein takes an antirealist approach to religious statements and to the existence of God. But his work is complicated. Consider that when Wettstein speaks of awe and love, he remarks that he means not mere feelings but “attitudes realized in the life of the agent,” so that the person’s life exemplifies love and awe of God. “Nor should one suppose that such modes of living—​I have referred to them as affective—​do not have a cognitive dimension,” he writes. “One does not simply feel awe or behave in an awe-​inspired fashion. One stands in awe of God.”24 It is not clear what it means to say that the love and awe of which Wettstein speaks have a cognitive dimension. Perhaps the suggestion is that the religious worshipper takes God to be really “out there.” On the other hand, perhaps Wettstein holds that one may sensibly go to temple or to church and enjoy the experiences of awe, humility, and love, but not think too much about whether or not there is anything other than human beings causing those attitudes. Consider this passage, which might help to address the question: I do not reject the metaphysical project as wrongheaded; I argue that religious life is viable in the absence of settled metaphysical beliefs. I do so by directing attention to other domains of human reflection and knowledge in which we get along quite well in the absence of clarity about what is in some sense fundamental. Mathematics constitutes a striking example. Who is going to question the integrity of mathematics just because its epistemological and metaphysical underpinnings are less than entirely

23 Wettstein 2012, 216–​217. 24 Wettstein 2012, 6.

200  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will understood? . . . My attitude to religion and religious practice has similarities to the case of mathematics. . . . To say that we should not start with metaphysical questions or, even more radically as I am now inclined to suppose, that the usual supernaturalist religious metaphysics provides a misleading picture of what the game is all about, is not to diminish the central role of God in religious life. (Compare mathematics: the centrality of numbers, sets, and the like does not depend upon a person’s metaphysical views, or lack of them.)25

The presence of the word ‘settled’—​in the sentence, “religious life is viable in the absence of settled metaphysical beliefs”—​ leaves room for interpretation. The assertion might be that we can simply leave open the metaphysical questions raised by religion, not thinking about them too hard or, rather, remaining unsettled in our views despite thinking hard about them. Alternatively, the claim might be that we do not need to have any metaphysical conviction at all, in order sensibly to live a religious life. The latter interpretation seems indicated by the line, “the usual supernaturalist religious metaphysics provides a misleading picture of what the game is all about.” Is the suggestion here that the figure of God is a useful fiction or construct? I am tempted to think, in the end, that Wettstein does believe he is in contact with a real human-​mind-​independent God in his religious experience, but one that is beyond our comprehension and so one about whom it is pointless to engage in metaphysical and epistemological debates. On the other hand, as I indicated earlier, he does speak of religion as less a theoretical orientation to the world and more like “the poetry of one’s life.” Wettstein seems both to be skeptical about our abilities to know God, since God is wholly Other, and to be familiar with God through religious experience, rituals, and literature. And yet he says he is a naturalist, rejecting the existence of the supernatural. If he does get religion on the cheap, it is in the sense that he gets experiences of standing in awe of and love for God without commitment to the existence of a supernatural being who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. I find subtle and intriguing Wettstein’s defense of his way of life. But in the subsequent sections I explain why, after studying this absorbing book as well as the work of other philosophers I will go on to describe, I nonetheless maintain my initial perspective.



25 Wettstein 2012, 7–​8.

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7.6  God and Explanation It seems to me that Wettstein’s analogy between mathematics and religion is inapt. I need not know whether or not numbers should be part of my ontology or in what sense numbers exist in order to perform mathematical computations. But religious activities are not like the computing of sums. We do not worship numbers. Participation in services of worship in traditional monotheistic religions, however, involves activities and attitudes of worship of a divine being that is claimed by the central religious doctrines and creeds to exist in fact, in a human-​mind-​independent way. Given that, the question must be asked: what is the object of one’s religious worship? Does not one need to know, or have a rationally grounded conviction concerning, whether or not the object of one’s worship is there, in fact, external to human practices and minds, and furthermore what it is like, in order to know, or have a rationally grounded conviction concerning, whether or not it is the fit subject of worship? The right answer to this question seems to be, yes, of course one does. Worship of something non-​existent is silly. Worship of something that, or someone who, is not worthy of worship is either a mistake or a wrong. Here is another way of putting the point. Jerome Gellman interprets Wettstein as being a religious realist about God, but also a philosophical non-​ realist about God. It is understandable why he would say so: Wettstein speaks of being in contact with the divine during his religious practices, on the one hand, and yet states that he rejects a supernaturalist metaphysics and is in fact a naturalist, and suggests that religious language is expressive rather than referential, on the other hand.26 This kind of double-​mindedness is exactly my concern. Gellman puts the challenge to Wettstein in this way: the ideal in Judaism is to love God with all one’s heart, mind, and strength at all times. It is not part of the Jewish ideal to see oneself as in contact with God and to feel oneself filled with love for God while in the midst of religious practices, but at another time to step outside of this practice to a philosophical point of view, endorse atheism, and view oneself as one was, back in the religious mode, as

26 Jerome Gellman (2013b), in his review of Wettstein’s The Significance of Religious Experience in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, writes: “Wettstein’s Judaism is theater acting. . . . When engaged [in religious practice], Wettstein acts and feels as if he is experiencing something real. When disengaged, Wettstein knows he is a naturalist and that whatever ‘truth’ there is, it is not metaphysical truth.”

202  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will having engaged in a pleasing (love-​filled, awe-​filled) game.27 The Jewish ideal calls for a kind of single-​mindedness and wholeheartedness. There is a consideration pertinent to religion that is an additional reason to resist the analogy to mathematics and to resist an antirealist construal of religious claims. Religious claims are used to explain and to justify behavior toward others and attitudes that affect others. For instance, religious claims affect some people’s stance on the morality of abortion and motivate their work for legal prohibitions on abortion. It seems to me intellectually disreputable to so do out of religiously based sentiment concerning the sanctity of human life or from appeal to Scripture, without having carefully examined the matter of whether or not God exists (as well as the questions of whether Scripture is divinely inspired and how its passages ought to be interpreted) and without, furthermore, affirming that God does indeed exist in a human mind-​independent  way. Simon Blackburn makes the point with a different example. Consider the claim, “God has ordained that your land is really ours.” This claim does not simply express emotion, and it is not part of the system of symbols, music, poetry, and literature of religion. It is, rather, a claim that is meant to justify the desire for the land and to explain the existence of that desire. The claim functions like an appeal to legal authority. But this appeal can only make sense if there is a fact concerning the way things are that generates and grounds it. Blackburn writes: I do not believe you can have this justification and grounding without ontology. Something must be true, there must be a way of things, a fact, even if a fact in heaven, to which appeal is being made. It is not a question of an orientation towards the world but, in the mind of the believer, the explanation of an orientation. And explanation takes us into the orbit of representation, and therefore the orbit of ontology.28

Given the justificatory and explanatory function of religious statements, Blackburn writes, “I do not think that a purely expressive theology can be used to interpret the ordinary believer in the pew.”29 The ordinary believer 27 Gellman (2013b) asserts: “As a traditional Jew, Wettstein has an obligation to aim for the ideal and thus to overcome his philosophical non-​realism for the sake of the religious life.” 28 Simon Blackburn, 2007, “Religion and Ontology,” in Realism and Religion:  Philosophical and Theological Perspectives, edited by Andrew Moore and Michael Scott (New York: Routledge) 47–​59, at 57. 29 Blackburn 2007, 57.

Religion on the Cheap  203 in the pew takes there to be a fact—​namely that a supernatural being, God, exists “out there,” independently of human minds—​that justifies and explains her own attitudes, speech, and behaviors. The analogy to explanatorily useful fictions in science, such as the electron orbital in the atom, does not help. The scientific theory might be good for prediction. However, as Blackburn writes: [I]‌n the theological case there is no parallel. I cannot cite an ‘as if ’ in the same justificatory or explanatory role as the original appeal to the deity. I cannot amplify my demand for your land just by announcing that it is ‘as if ’ God had given it to me. . . . the idea of an ‘approximation’ to God having ordained the land for us makes no sense. Nobody could be content with the suggestion that something a bit like God has ordained the land more or less for us.30

When I think of the sorts of facts, attitudes, and events for which God serves as an explanation for the religious believers with whom I am familiar, foremost are cases in which God serves as the explanation for blessings: why one met one’s spouse (God led us together), why one’s children were spared in a shooting or were healed from a serious illness (God protected them), why one recovered from surgery quickly (God answered one’s prayers). The hypothesis that God exists, realistically construed, also serves as an explanation for why people should behave well toward others, for why all people have equal value, for why the world contains beauty and order and love. For some, God is taken to be, as well, the explanation and justification for why someone believes that God exists: because God implanted the knowledge or created us with the faculty for knowing him and the desire to seek him. Does an antirealist ‘as if ’ explanation make sense for those sorts of events and features of oneself and of the world? Is it sensible to suggest that it is as if God led me to my spouse, healed and protected my children, and led me to the right doctors? Is it sensible to suggest that we should treat others well because it is as if there is a God who sees everything we do and who wants us to be virtuous? Are the following statements akin to saying that molecules combine in certain ways as if there were hooks and eyes on them: we should respect the dignity of persons because it is as if there is a God who made every human being intrinsically valuable; people are loving toward each other

30 Blackburn 2007, 58.

204  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will because it is as if God exists and draws them together; the world is beautiful and ordered as if there were a God? Perhaps one will assert that religious statements like these are sensible, in that someone who makes them is saying that it is awesome, magical, and wonderful that there is love, that there is beauty, that she found her spouse, that her children were spared, that persons have dignity. Still, the appeal to something taken by a theological antirealist to be fictitious undermines the force of the claims. As Blackburn expresses the point: “Even in these postmodernist times, I cannot both say that I believe your baby was brought by the fairies, and I don’t believe in fairies. I can play along with the fairy fiction, or I can explain the appearance of your baby by citing the doings of the fairies, but I cannot consistently do both.”31 Blackburn also makes a different point. He argues that, unlike mathematics, religion is not autonomous from philosophy, since it both “purports to deliver philosophical results, for instance about the immortality of the soul, or the nature of free-​will, or the notion of substance” and also tries to support itself by philosophical arguments for the existence of God. “When it does either of these things, it cannot at the same time claim immunity from philosophical criticism.”32 I suppose that Wettstein’s form of religion might claim immunity from this critique, since he (I believe) does not think that the Jewish religion as he practices it delivers philosophical positions or that it should or can be supported by philosophical arguments.

7.7  Religious Agnosticism? Perhaps the critiques I have emphasized thus far apply only to atheistic religious antirealists and not to religious agnostics. Those who live a religious life engage in religious practices, such as prayer, worship, communion, and the recitation of creeds. Is it sensible to engage in such practices within a traditional monotheistic religion without assenting to the claim ‘God exists’ realistically construed? Gary Gutting has defended the idea of religious agnosticism.33 Gutting describes religions as “modes of living and of understanding.” He makes a distinction between religious understanding and religious knowledge. “Religious

31 Blackburn 2007, 58. 32 Blackburn 2007, 50.

33 Gary Gutting, 2013, “The Way of the Agnostic,” New York Times Opinionator, January 20.

Religion on the Cheap  205 knowledge,” he writes, “offers a metaphysical and/​or historical account of supernatural realities that, if true, shows the operation of a benevolent power in the universe. The account is thought to provide a causal explanation of how the religion came to exist and, at the same time, a foundation for its morality and system of understanding.” Religious understanding, by contrast, is a kind of insight we find in religious community and in religious texts: we find there, Gutting suggests, insights into, and stories connecting with or reflecting, our experiences. For instance, we find insights into and reflections of our experiences of evil in the book of Job, our experiences of love in the gospel of John, and our experiences of sin and redemption in Paul’s letters. What we come better to understand when we read such texts is not the array of causal mechanisms of the world. Rather, it is what it is like to suffer, to love, to sin, and to be redeemed. Just as we understand the horrors of war in a different, perhaps more visceral or emotional, way through a piece of art like Guernica than we know about war through learning of the particular facts about its battles by way of historical records, so too we understand love and morality through religion. In addition to offering understanding of our experiences, religion offers, Gutting suggests, a “way toward moral fulfillment,” and it serves, as well, as a source of love. It is not entirely clear what is meant by “moral fulfillment,” but perhaps it is a sense of being a good person, or gladness at having a blueprint for living a morally praiseworthy life. Gutting writes that we are not justified in claiming that “a given religion is the only or the best way toward moral fulfillment for everyone, or that there is no room for criticism of the religion’s moral stances.” Gutting concludes his defense of religious agnosticism in this way: Knowledge, if it exists, adds a major dimension to religious commitment. But love and understanding, even without knowledge, are tremendous gifts; and religious knowledge claims are hard to support. We should, then, make room for those who embrace a religion as a source of love and understanding but remain agnostic about the religion’s knowledge claims. We should, for example, countenance those who are Christians while doubting the literal truth of, say, the Trinity and the Resurrection. I wager, in fact, that many professed Christians are not at all sure about the truth of these doctrines—​and other believers have similar doubts. They are, quite properly, religious agnostics.

206  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will What is striking to me about this position is that it is unclear what role God is needed to play in the overall defense of a religious life. It seems that the understanding model works if religious texts are simply literature: the stories help us to understand ourselves—​our motivations, our actions, our traits—​ and they help us to understand and interpret our experiences by comparison to those of other people. But why would we need God as an explanation of these stories or of their power or attractiveness for us? What would be taken away from their value and usefulness as sources of understanding of ourselves and others by simply acknowledging that they are stories written by human beings, without those writers being inspired by God? The understanding we get of what human life is like from the religious stories can be genuine understanding even if there is no God, just as the understanding and meaning we find in art and music and literature can be genuine if there is no God. So it seems that God is not needed as an explanation, or as an “as if ” explanation, for these facts or phenomena (the understanding of what it’s like to be human and the meaningfulness we find in religious works and practices). Similarly, it is unclear how religion is a source of love other than by way of the love that people, religious or not, can give to one another. It seems that the love can be achieved without positing the existence of God as its explanation. Perhaps Gutting would agree with these points, since he continues to be religious without religious knowledge. But my question then is this:  why would Gutting or others like him live a religious life? Why not instead become part of a community of people who have an attitude of joy, love, and reverence toward the natural world and toward people, and who like to read literature together, but who do not affirm the existence of God? Now an opponent might suggest that I am being awfully harsh in my judgment. Why, she might ask, would I criticize a person who enjoys religious music, the sense of awe, and a sense of being a part of something bigger than oneself that is gained in living a religious life? And what could be wrong with playing a role in an organization that works to further social justice? A friend who is not religious conveyed to me that, when she wanted to help people who suffered in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, she went to a local church, because the people there were organized in their efforts—​they had a cooperative system in place for assisting victims of natural disasters. Another friend has expressed a desire to belong to a community of people who care, a place where she can feel accepted and at home among others, rather than feeling alone in the world. Though she does not adopt a religious life herself,

Religion on the Cheap  207 she does not see anything wrong with someone living a religious life who remains an agnostic, but who still finds meaning and value in worship and religious community. With respect to the view of the second friend, I want to ask, wouldn’t it be preferable for one to build a community of people without the surrounding religious structure, given concerns about incoherence or lack of unity in one who prays to and worships God, in effect acting as if God is real, but without endorsing the claim that God is real? And regarding the first friend, of course there are non-​religious charities to which she could turn (and in any case she did not use the occasion to adopt a religious way of life herself). Now Gutting and other religious agnostics might reply that they deliberately involve themselves in a traditional monotheistic religious community, rather than in a secular community of caring people who love music, poetry, literature, and service to others, because there might be a God. They may suggest that, while we should act in line with our assessment of the evidence, if the evidence comes up short on the question of the existence of God, then we should follow Pascal’s suggestion and place our bet with theism. There are familiar critiques of wager-​style grounds for engaging in a religious life. One might say that it is then a matter of going through the religious motions, playing the game, placing a bet just in case there is an eternal destiny, covering one’s bases, which may seem self-​serving. A reply is that what is self-​serving is not necessarily intellectually incoherent. Of course there may be an interesting variety of cases, some involving self-​deception. But consider an agnostic who acts as if there is a God in hopes of acquiring the belief that God is real; perhaps he is following Pascal’s advice, “faking it until one makes it,” with awareness. Still, there is some tension in acting as if, and it cannot be the case that one is experiencing God in religious activities such as prayer and worship and at the same time be not the case that God is real.34 Further problems for religious agnosticism concern the prospect of deceiving others, who naturally will think that one believes in God in virtue of one’s religious affiliation. One concern is this: do the other members of 34 One might suggest that an agnostic could sensibly put himself into a position (within a religious community) that he thinks might make it more likely that he would have a religious experience, which he would then take to be veridical, leading to religious conversion; and perhaps this could be said to be sensible because he wants to believe that God really exists. To address the concern about coherence among one’s actions and attitudes, perhaps calibrations of degrees of religious involvement could be displays of integrity: less involvement for someone who is agnostic or who has particular doubts (motivating selective participation in religion—​for instance, not taking communion or not reciting the creeds).

208  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will one’s community also take an agnostic stance? If so, then one is like-​minded with them and thus it seems that the community experienced is more genuine and meaningful. If not, then is one pretending and deceiving others? If that is the case, then one is treating the members of one’s community with dishonesty, which may be disrespectful and is a cause or a form of distance, a lack of real intimacy and connection with others with whom one is in supposed community. If one is not like-​minded with the other members of one’s religious community and one is “out” or up front about that—​candid about one’s lack of metaphysical commitments—​then one is honest, and so one gives others a chance to know and accept the person one genuinely is. But the like-​mindedness is not there, and it makes one wonder about the level of genuine connection and fellow-​feeling that can be achieved through the communal religious rituals, prayers, worship, and reading of religious creeds and texts. Another concern, which also goes beyond intellectual incongruity, is this: remaining neutral concerning the existence of God while living a religious life makes one vulnerable to being complicit in the wrongs committed by religious people and religious institutions. Walter Sinnott-​Armstrong expresses this concern with respect to wars in the Middle East, violence against members of the LGBTQ community, and the blockage of progress in stem cell research based on religious convictions.35 Joseph Levine expresses a related worry as follows: [I started to think that] . . . belief in God might actually be morally wrong. This meant that you couldn’t try to hedge your bets by maintaining your belief, or going agnostic (that great cop-​out); you really had to take a stand . . . So how could it be wrong? . . . [I]‌t’s wrong in the sense that belief in God expresses a rejection, or denial, or perhaps subjugation of one’s humanity. It involves turning one’s back on the human will to overcome challenges, to create, and instead makes servility to authority the ultimate aim of human life. It projects onto an unapproachable and incomprehensible Other all that is good and magnificent in human experience and achievement. Why is that wrong? It’s a sin against ourselves, that’s why.”36

35 Walter Sinnott-​ Armstrong, 2007, “Overcoming Christianity,” in Philosophers without Gods:  Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise Antony (New  York:  Oxford University Press), 69–​79, at 76. 36 Joseph Levine, 2007, “From Yeshiva Bocher to Secular Humanist,” in Antony 2007, 29.

Religion on the Cheap  209 This is a provocative stance. But I do not agree with Levine’s assertions concerning agnosticism as a “great cop-​out” and theistic belief as “a sin against ourselves.” Not all versions of theism take God to be “an unapproachable and incomprehensible Other.” And not all versions of theism instruct one to turn one’s back on the human will to overcome challenges or on the urge to create and instead make servility to authority the ultimate aim of human life. To the contrary, varieties of theism highlight and celebrate the human will to overcome challenges and to create, and they do not make servility to authority the ultimate aim of human life. Rather, at least some varieties of theism depict as the ultimate aims of human life love for oneself and others, love for God, and the development of one’s mind and character. What I  find particularly problematic about religious agnosticism is the question of one’s identity while conducting a religious life: is one truly neutral concerning the matter of the existence of God, in light of conflicting evidence and arguments? If so, then this is quite an odd place to be as one takes part in religious practices of communal prayer, worship, and the recitation of creeds. In engaging in religious rituals including worship services, the agnostic would seem to experience at least some internal incoherence: the activities assume the existence of God, but the intellect remains non-​committed. This seems to me not a way that one can comfortably live long-​term while aiming to be an integrated rational agent. In the present chapter, I have argued that neither an agnostic nor an atheist ought to live a religious life in a tradition that affirms the existence of God as a perfect being. Here is one objection to agnosticism that is brought to the fore by our discussion:  one might say that, in practice, agnosticism crumbles; that is, either one lives as if God exists or one lives as if God does not exist. There is, for a human person, really no “middle way” of being in the world. Either one acknowledges the reality of a God who created the universe and attempts to live in accordance with what God desires and commands or, alternatively, one lives as if God is not real. In the latter case, one lives for oneself, or for one’s family or one’s friends, or for one’s career or hobbies, or for pleasure, or for whatever it is that structures one’s life as its center and core. But in this latter case, at its core is not God (and God is not in the periphery, either). In the former case—​living with a commitment to the reality of God—​one structures one’s habits and moral decisions around this reality, engaging in regular worship of God, absorbing oneself in the life of a religious community. How does an agnostic live? Typically,

210  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will the objector points out, the answer is this:  as an atheist, particularly one who does not incorporate religious thinking and religious practices into ordinary life. I take this point as a fair concern. Here is how I would propose to resolve it. Suppose we consider a “modest agnostic” to be someone who views neither the belief that God exists nor the belief that God does not exist as epistemically justified and who maintains an open mind concerning the existence of God. To be an agnostic on this conception is neither to commit wholeheartedly to the proposition that God exists nor to commit wholeheartedly to the proposition that God does not exist and to remain intellectually neutral on the matter, claiming neither to know that God is real nor to know that God is not real. How, then, should one live? Such an agnostic might reasonably, it seems to me, have both theistic and atheistic friends, along with agnostic ones, and, as well, remain open to, and perhaps in fact deliberately seek out, both theistic and atheistic conversation partners with respect to theoretical, personal, and moral matters. Such an agnostic might engage in private provisional prayer and interact respectfully with religious believers, without adopting a religious way of life, while also reading the work of, listening to the thoughts of, and spending time in the company of disbelievers, retaining a habit of mind that is sensitive to new information and a willingness to go where this information leads.

7.8  What Is Lost if God Is Not Real? If one is or one were to become an atheist or agnostic, and one is living a religious life as an active part of a religious community and takes to heart the concerns suggested here, then what is there to do? One might take up a religious life within a religious community that does not have as a central tenet the affirmation of the existence of God. One might, for instance, become a non-​theistic Buddhist, or become a member of the Unitarian Universalist church, which explicitly welcomes atheists and agnostics, incorporating them into its religious identity. Alternatively, one might face life without a religious community. In either case, what is lost? Suppose in particular that one once believed that God exists in an objective sense, independent of human thought and experience, and suppose one were to come no longer to have this belief. What of import vanishes? Some would say, not much. But I think that is not so.

Religion on the Cheap  211 Consider this passage from Blackburn: The experience of a loss of God, while meaningful enough to many people, cannot be thought of as like experience of the loss of a favourite dog, when both the onetime presence and the subsequent absence are real objects of memory and perception. It is, rather, that what was once credible is no longer. It is awareness that there never was a dog.37

I think that is well put. I do not find intuitive, however, Blackburn’s subsequent claim that we should not characterize the experience as a loss. He asserts: It is in fact tendentious to think of that as an experience of loss, since if the loss is phenomenologically real—​that is, the ensuing state is one of disbelief—​ then it cannot at the same time be held that the preceding state was one of genuine apprehension. It becomes revealed to have been one of delusion, and recovering from that is no loss at all but the beginning of health.38

I think that a change in belief from traditional theist to agnostic or atheist or religious antirealist is a genuine loss. What makes that the case? One might suggest that what is lost is meaning in life. As we saw in Chapter 2, some think that human life in general lacks an overarching purpose without God; if there is no mind-​independent God, then our lives are not part of a grand drama playing out in the universe directed by God’s goals. But we also saw that there can be meaning in our lives without the truth of the claim ‘God exists,’ realistically interpreted. We can love what is worth loving, and we can endow our projects with significance, and we can derive joy and a sense of purpose from our relationships, our activities, and our goals, in the absence of God. Another suggestion as to what is lost in relinquishing belief in God is the set of benefits derived from life as part of a religious community. As we noted in Chapter 1, such communities offer support in times of trouble: congregants bring meals to a home where there is a new infant, for instance, or when one has been in the hospital or when a loved one has died. Religious communities provide regular social contact, places where one is recognized and greeted by name. They provide a place where one can learn to care for others, taking

37 Blackburn 2007, 47–​48. 38 Blackburn 2007, 48.

212  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will interest in their lives, expanding one’s perspective beyond one’s individual concerns. So, indeed, community of a sort is lost in giving up theism. But as we have noted, it may be built on other bases. Here is a more serious concern: if God is not real, then there is no perfect being to hear our prayers. We may pray, but no divine perfect being answers and grants any of our requests. Believing that, if one once believed otherwise, is a loss. It can feel frightening to be alone in the world, with only our own resources and possibly the help of other people (who could turn out to be unreliable), without hope that there is a grand being guiding all events providentially, and without hope for divine intervention in the course of events to help things to go our way. If there is no God, then there is no perfect agent there, for instance, to protect our children from serious illness and accident, to comfort us when we are afraid, to heal us from illness and alienation, to empower us to love richly, and to enable us to experience peace and joy that transcends what we can manufacture on our own. Furthermore, in giving up belief in a mind-​independent God, one might thereby give up belief in an everlasting blissful existence, abandoning hope for a kind of existence that is purely joy-​filled and lacking in suffering. This amounts to a substantial loss. It is a particularly hard blow for those who live in poverty and hunger, for example, and those who suffer with pervasive racial injustice and with disability. A related loss is this: some theists, in the face of injustice on earth, take comfort in the belief that there will be no injustice, in the end, that overall justice will prevail since God will see to this in the afterlife. The rejection of this belief for some involves disappointment. The loss is of hope for the ultimate righting in an afterlife of injustices here and now. Joseph Levine describes the losses experienced in the transition from the life he lived immersed in the Jewish tradition to the secular life he later adopted in the following way: I admit that the idea that my life was somehow a matter of concern to the ultimate power of the universe provided me with a sense of my own significance that I lost when I lost that belief. I also miss the comforting thought that however dark the world seems, the bright light of redemption may be just around the corner. . . . Finally, with God gone, so is eternal life. I’ve had to confront the reality of death in a new way.39



39 Levine 2007, 30.

Religion on the Cheap  213 If one comes no longer to believe that God exists independent of human thought and activity, then, there can be appropriate sadness. Sadness comes in losing belief in a blessed eternal life after life on earth, particularly if one’s life involves regular and intense pain. There is sadness in the thought that no divine being hears and can answer our prayers, that no one “up there” is looking out for us and so no possibility of divine intervention in the course of events in response to our prayerful requests. There is sadness in the thought that injustices remain and that no compensation is made for suffering. One may have once had hope for a blessed afterlife, like-​minded theistic friends for support, and faith that the evils of the world somehow make sense. In addition, if the antirealist is right, then religious experience is not contact with a real supernatural being but is instead something else. What one may have taken to be genuine religious experience will have to be understood as, in fact, not veridical when it was experience that had seemed to be perception of a divine perfect being. I think these are significant losses.

7.9  Closing It seems a natural thought that worshipping God and taking part in communal religious activities does not make sense if one does not believe that God is real. But not all share this thought: some think it is perfectly sensible to talk about God, to theorize about God, and to engage in communal religious activities centered on God without believing that God—​an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good agent who created the universe—​really exists. I  have argued that certain attempts to make sense of this way of thinking and this way of life do not succeed in making sense of them.40 I  have further pointed out that there are real costs associated with not assenting to the claim that the proposition, ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is true. But one should be prepared to absorb these costs rather than trying to have it both ways—​rather than getting religion (of a particular sort) on the cheap.

40 For an important defense of the position that one can sensibly participate in a religious community even if one rejects the existence of God, realistically construed, which I have not taken up in this chapter, see J. L. Schellenberg, 2009, The Will to Imagine: A Justification of Skeptical Religion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), especially c­ hapters 2 and 3.

8 Conclusion What we believe concerning the existence of God and how we view ourselves as human agents—​including what powers we have, how we deserve to be treated, what roles we play in shaping the future—​are among the most fundamental and significant of philosophical matters. Our stances on these questions profoundly impact our social and political lives. Through the course of this book, I have argued that, despite many hundreds of years of thought, discussion, and writing on the part of the greatest minds in theology and philosophy focused on the issue of making sense of the facts about suffering in our world in relation the existence of a perfect God, we have not identified a persuasive explanation of why a being who essentially had all power, knowledge, and goodness would cause or permit every instance of evil in the course of human and non-​human animal history or of why the facts of evil are what they are concerning amount, distribution, and intensity. Each available line of theodicy proposing God-​justifying reasons is susceptible to powerful objections. In deciding what to come to believe, or to continue to believe, concerning the existence of God, it is incumbent on us for the sake of intellectual propriety to conclude, on the basis of that failure and on the basis of the implausibility of skeptical theism, unless there are arguments in favor of God’s existence that are as strong or stronger than the arguments from evil I have defended here, that God, understood as an absolutely perfect being, does not exist. Furthermore, it is irrational to believe both that God exists and that the traditional doctrine of hell is true, since there is no plausible account of whose fault it could be that anyone suffers eternally in hell. If any person exists eternally in hell, then God does not exist. Moreover, recent work aiming to articulate the ethics of an absolutely perfect being in such a way that allegedly renders toothless arguments from evil against the existence of God does not succeed. It is implausible to suppose that God by nature is indifferent to the well-​being of created human and non-​human sentient beings or that God would allow them to suffer when such suffering is not necessary to the

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will. Laura W. Ekstrom, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197556412.003.0008

Conclusion  215 promotion of a greater good or the prevention of an evil as bad or worse. Hence arguments from evil retain their power. One of my aims in this book has been to draw attention to certain claims about value and claims about agency that play key roles in debates over arguments from evil against the existence of God. I have highlighted several contentions of this sort as currently lacking the significant defense they need, thus providing suggestions for further work for theists who are motivated to strengthen responses to arguments from evil for atheism. First, the free will of created beings may be able to serve as an explanation of the bare existence of some evil in our world—​provided that we do indeed have free will of a requisite sort—​and it may be able to serve as an explanation for particular instances of moral evil—​provided that we do have free will of a requisite sort—​such as sexual assault, domestic abuse, police brutality, theft, and acts of war. Its fitness to serve as the good that provides a God-​justifying reason for the evils of our world, however, is liable to serious challenge. It is not clear that free will can serve even as a remotely plausible explanation, let alone God-​justifying reason, for the bare existence of natural evil and for particular instances of it; a free will theodicist must work to make plausible the suggestion that diseases—​including cancers of myriad sorts, schizophrenia, trigeminal neuralgia, polio, and COVID-​19, among so many others—​as well as the facts about suffering brought on by flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, can be explained and justified by way of the misuse of free will on the part of created beings. An especially problematic class of cases of natural evil, cases I emphasized as having received insufficient attention in the philosophical literature, are those involving the phenomenon of chronic pain. Acute pain is useful as a protective device—​though one can consistently imagine alternative alert systems—​but the fact that the human (and non-​human animal) pain processing system itself can be damaged, producing unremitting and incurable pain, is a particularly challenging fact about which theists ought to have more concern than is reflected in the current literature. Again, the extent of the problem is staggering given the number of individuals whose lives are changed, sometimes in an instant, to lives of disability and intractable pain. Even if a free will theodicy can credibly cover both moral evils and the suffering resulting from illness, accidents, tsunamis, hurricanes, and the like, it rests on the largely undefended implicit premise that free will is enormously valuable.

216  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will It is the value of libertarian free will, as we saw in Chapter 2, rather than the value of compatibilist free will, that needs defense. Libertarian free will might be alleged to be either intrinsically valuable or extrinsically valuable or both. One challenge for the contention that libertarian free will is intrinsically valuable is that it tends not to fit well with our moral intuitions about cases and conflicts with our ordinary moral practice.1 For instance, a problematic implication of the view that such free will is intrinsically valuable is that, if that were so, then a bad act done with free will is more valuable overall than is a wrong act done without free will. That is, if an action’s being committed of the agent’s own free will brings the intrinsic value of acting with free will into the equation of the overall value or disvalue of the situation involving the harmful act, then a free harmful act will be overall better than a harmful act that does not have added to its disvalue the (alleged intrinsic positive) value of free will. But, intuitively, an act that is harmful to a victim that is done of the offender’s own free will is worse than a harmful act that was committed not of the wrongdoer’s free will. It is much less worse if you have betrayed me under the influence of a serum administered against your will, than if you betrayed me of your own free choice. Regarding the proposal that libertarian free will has extrinsic value in virtue of its being required for love: we find this not to be the case for all kinds of love, for instance, for parental love. An amended suggestion is that libertarian free will is required for only certain loves. The problem for the suggestion that love of friends and partners requires libertarian free will was that it seems obviously true to many of us that we do love, and have loved, many people in ways either that are romantic or that fall under the category of friendship love, yet for all we know, determinism is true. It is implausible to think, or at least quite unclear, that a discovery that determinism is true, if it is true, should make us think that what we believed to be instances of genuine love were not actually instances of genuine love. Do we really believe that the act of marrying another person, say, is not an instance of love at all, or not an instance of the best sort of love, if that act is free only in the sense depicted, for instance, by Dana Nelkin—​acting on the ability to recognize and to act on good reasons—​or in the sense depicted by Harry Frankfurt—​acting as one wants to act at both the first and the second level? Do we really think that no one genuinely loves his or her partner, or that no one exhibits the best form 1 Derk Pereboom, 2013, “A Defense without Free Will,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, edited by Justin McBrayer and Daniel Howard-​Snyder (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell), 414.

Conclusion  217 of love in loving his or her partner, if the thesis of indeterminism is false? It seems to me that the answers to these questions are negative. What about love for God? If it is not clear that love of another created person requires libertarian freedom, it is just as unclear that love of a creator requires that sort of freedom. If we love another—​whether a human being or a divine being—​and we love him with compatibilist freedom, we retain our capacities for rationality, for seeking to understand what is good and true, for forming desires and for reflecting on those desires, and for mindfully performing actions that are caring, devoted, and kind. The key issue is whether or not a choice to love God that could have been otherwise in a categorical sense is an especially valuable choice or is the best sort of choice to love, and the source of its special value has to come from the fact that it might not have been. It is just not at all clear that a non-​actual alternative possibility adds depth or reality or value to an actual love. It seems to me that, for instance, on a model of the relationship between God and created persons on which we lack libertarian free will yet grow in knowledge and closeness to God through time, it is fair to say that God loves created persons and that created persons love God, and thus it seems reasonable to think that a loving relationship between created persons and God does not require libertarian free will. Further work is needed, too, concerning the question of the value of created beings’ being morally responsible in a desert sense for what they do. If libertarian freedom is required for moral responsibility of the sort grounding deserved praise and blame, then libertarian free will would have extrinsic value in virtue of its being required for our being morally responsible in a desert sense for some of our actions. The question, though, is how valuable our being morally responsible in this sense is, compared to the evils of our world, if it is valuable at all. A different proposal in support of the extrinsic value of libertarian free will is that it is required in order for life to be meaningful. To the contrary, life can be made meaningful by our investing our projects, our experiences, and our relationships with significance and by our taking deep joy in them.2 None of this seems to require the falsity of the thesis of causal determinism. Another value judgment highlighted by our discussion 2 Recall that on Susan Wolf ’s (2007) view, we have meaning in our lives insofar as we are actively engaged in projects that are objectively valuable and have some measure of success. This conception of meaningful lives, too, does not require that we have libertarian free will. Susan Wolf, 2007, “The Meanings of Lives,” in Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by John Perry, Michael Bratman, and John Martin Fischer (New York: Oxford University Press, ), 62–​73. See also Susan Wolf, 2012, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

218  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will concerns our self-​conception as free agents facing an open future, particularly the value of its being accurate. I noted that, while I myself would experience it as a loss if I were to learn that my sense of myself as a libertarian free agent who faces genuinely available forking paths into the future were incorrect and so am inclined myself to count it as a positive extrinsic value of libertarian free will that it would serve to secure the veracity of this self-​ conception, further work on the issue is warranted. John Hick’s appeal to the opportunity for character development provided by occasions of evil, rather than a guarantee, makes clear the reliance of the character-​building line of theodicy—​like the retributive punishment theodicy—​on the ideas both that created persons have free will and that free will is of great value. That is, the thought that an opportunity is offered and is valuable relies implicitly on the claim that the course of action offered is one that the person in question can freely opt to take and on the claim that a person’s having such a power has high worth. We noticed that a crucial aspect of Hick’s theodicy was the contention that, although we personal beings could have been created by God at the outset with developed “souls”—​or loving, kind, patient, generous, and good characters—​the kind of character goodness we would have if we were so created would not be as good as the sort of character goodness we can acquire by way of a freely navigated, extended process of moral development in the face of a vast array of suffering through time. Recall that Hick says of this striking value claim that “it is an ethically reasonable judgment . . . that human goodness slowly built up through personal histories of moral effort has a value in the eyes of the Creator which justifies even the long travail of the soul-​making process.”3 Nonetheless, he admits that the value assessment is “not one that is capable of demonstrative proof.”4 Theists who rely at all on character-​building theodicies in their thinking about the evils of this world should work to provide stronger grounds for this judgment about value, in particular, grounds for thinking that a temporally extended process that includes opportunities for libertarian free choices to respond virtuously to suffering is required for having a character that is better than a good character acquired in any other way. Suppose someone is a skeptic about the existence of free will, like Derk Pereboom, yet proposes to offer the character-​building theodicy in response 3 John Hick, 1978, Evil and the God of Love, 2nd edition (San Francisco: Harper), 256. 4 Hick 1978, 256.

Conclusion  219 to evils. Such a theorist would have to take on the formidable task of explaining what makes character development that unfolds in a way that is divinely determined so valuable that it is worth the cost in the facts of evil in the world. It is a tall order to defend the sufficient value of freely acquired, temporally extended character development. It is an even taller order to make plausible the claim that character development that is the unfolding of a determined process—​one that takes place in an environment that contains horrible and widespread evils—​is sufficiently valuable to serve the needed role, if it is valuable at all. Why would God not simply have created people with developed moral characters to begin with, so that created persons start out kind, compassionate, courageous, and patient? What would be so valuable about the gradual development of such traits, particularly if the developments were not the result of free choices on the part of the agents who acquire those traits?” Recall, too, Hick’s contention that physical pain is a “necessary part” of the moral training ground in which the especially valuable character development takes place, since without pain, there would be “nothing to avoid and nothing to seek; no occasion for cooperation or mutual help; no stimulus to the development of culture or the creation of civilization.”5 Theists should work to show that this contention does not merely exhibit a failure of imagination, given that anyone with the attributes of God could make things, natural laws, and personal beings be utterly different from the way they are in fact. Note, as well, that Hick is well aware of cases of suffering that seem clearly unjustified by way of enabling character development. In response to such dysteleological cases he invokes both mystery and the existence of an afterlife in which all created persons will eventually enjoy eternal union with God. A degree of mysteriousness, Hick suggests, might itself be a crucial aspect of a world that is a fit place for character development.6 A proponent of Hick’s character-​building theodicy must work to make not only this claim concerning mystery plausible, but also to make plausible the contentions that there is an afterlife, that God’s achievement of drawing all persons into blessed union with God can somehow respect human free will (or coherently explain why it need not), and that we have free will of the sort Hick envisions

5 Hick 1978, 307. 6 Hick 1978, 334.

220  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will as necessary for the development of the especially valuable form of moral character. Another value judgment I have highlighted, in particular in our discussion of Swinburne’s treatment of evil, is the following: our being able to do really awful things is a good thing. In order to have free will of especially high value, Swinburne contends, the range of actions with respect to which we are free must be broad, including not only semi-​good and good actions, but also actions that are very bad, even acts that are dreadfully wrong. If we are free to perform wrong actions, then we have what Swinburne calls “very serious free will,” and that, he contends, is better than our having mere (non-​serious) free will.7 Since Swinburne holds that our having very serious free will requires that wrong actions be live options for us, he also thinks that in giving us very serious free will God would also need to give us bad desires. Additionally, our discussion drew out the value judgment that being “of use” is good for a person. For Swinburne, central to a successful theodicy is appeal to the great good of free will, but there must be other elements, as well, among which is the value of “being of use.” The need for this additional proposed value is seen by reflecting on some instances of freely chosen wrongdoing, taking into account the situation of the victim of the wrong act. In cases of betrayal and cruelty, for instance, the free will of the person who betrays another, and the free will of the person who acts cruelly toward another, are meant to justify God in allowing the betrayal and the cruelty to take place. But the victims of the betrayal and of the cruelty do not in those instances acquire something of high value themselves; rather, they suffer the deep pain of being betrayed and treated cruelly. One might attempt to defend the claim that in such cases the overall situation is still good, given the presence of very serious free will enjoyed by the perpetrators, and that we need not be concerned with respect to theodicy beyond that. Or one might suggest that the victims themselves do experience (whether they realize it or not) the value of being of use. Swinburne suggests that it is good for a person to contribute to the wider good “even by being used as the vehicle of a good purpose.”8 A person might be of use in his suffering for the general allegedly greater good of the existence of free will in created beings; or he might be of use in suffering for the benefit of the opportunity for character development or for connection with God on the part of others. I registered my reaction 7 Richard Swinburne, 1998, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press), 84. 8 Swinburne 1998, 101.

Conclusion  221 that these thoughts of Swinburne’s concerning “being of use,” when we apply them, for instance, to persons killed in a genocide and to victims of sexual abuse and slavery, are to my mind morally abhorrent. After discussion in Chapter  3 of the divine intimacy theodicy, which highlights the value of personal connection with God in suffering, one question posed was whether or not one might plausibly defend a theodicy that depends in part of the value of libertarian free will, even if this value is judged not to be sufficiently high on its own to do all of the theoretical work in responding to the problem of evil. The answer is that the plausibility of a hybrid case would depend on the strength of the case for the value of retributive punishment, and on the strength of the case for the value of opportunity for intimacy with God, and on the strength of the case for the value of a temporally extended process of the opportunity for the free development of positive character traits through experience with adversity—​a value that greatly exceeds the value of such traits acquired in a non-​temporally extended way not through experience with adversity and not through free choice—​and on the strength of the case for the claim that jointly the values of such opportunities for character development, punishment, divine intimacy, and free will can account for the severity and scope of the evils of this world, as well as on the strength of the case for the claim that the evils of this world are necessary for the realization of the goods. In sum, a hybrid theodicist has an exceedingly tall order, and our experiences of, and awareness of, facts about evil in the world provide awfully good reason to doubt that a hybrid case will succeed in covering the full range, distribution, and intensity of evils. It seems especially unreasonable to think that the pain endured by all sentient non-​human animals by way of neglect, abuse, torture, disease, and natural disaster can be justified by a hybrid theodicy that draws on the values of free will, punishment, character-​building, and connection with God. In Chapter 4, I raised several issues about agency, including about what God, as a perfect agent, would do. I argued against the reasonability of the position of skeptical theism, and considered the case of a skeptical theist whose religious belief is based in religious experience. Insofar as a religious experience involves a feeling of divine love and goodness or a sense that one is in the presence of a perfect being, such experience provides justification for one’s theism on the assumption that one understands how God would act with respect to human beings. Taking one’s experience to be a veridical religious experience involves these thoughts: “This is something God would do. This is what it would be like to be in touch with a perfectly good, omnipotent,

222  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will omniscient being. God would provide this sense of peace in order to comfort me or give me strength.” These thoughts involve beliefs about how God would act and why. The skeptical theist who bases her theism on religious experiences, then, takes herself to have justified beliefs concerning how a perfect being would behave or manifest himself with respect to her. Yet she claims ignorance or a stance of skepticism with respect to the evils of the world in relation to how God would act. I suggested that this is an awkward incongruity. My main concern with skeptical theism, however, is not that the skeptical aspect of skeptical theism is not as isolated from a theist’s other beliefs as the skeptical theist wants to make it out to be, so as to prevent skeptical spread, although I think this is a valid concern in need of further discussion. My central point was that the skeptical aspect of skeptical theism is simply implausible. The skeptical thesis to which all skeptical theists agree—​if Rea has correctly identified this thesis (ST), that no one is justified in believing of any instance of evil that it is pointless—​is not one that is reasonable to accept. Skeptical theism is thus an inadequate response to arguments from evil. Chapter 5 also addressed issues of agency and value, including agential freedom and moral fault. I argued that David Lewis is right that there is an especially virulent non-​standard argument from evil, which can be seen more clearly by an expansion of his argument. What Lewis calls “the neglected argument” is an argument concerning the rationality of belief in an eternal hell for theists. It is an argument for the incoherence of what he calls the orthodox story. The argument is not on its own an argument for atheism, since it leaves intact a variety of metaphysical positions, including for instance universalist theism and forms of religiosity other than those involving an affirmation of the existence of a being who is essentially omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good. It stands, nonetheless, as a powerful argument from evil demanding attention from any perfect being theist who endorses the existence of a non-​empty eternal hell. We also considered matters of agency and value in Chapter 6, in which I defended the conception of God as essentially perfectly morally good. Mark Murphy contends that the baseline attitude of an absolutely perfect being toward human persons is indifference and, indeed, that it is consistent with the nature of God for God to allow evils to befall rational and sentient creatures for no reason whatsoever. I argued, to the contrary, that God counts as an absolutely perfect being only if by God’s very nature God is such that God cares for the rational and sentient creatures in existence and prevents us from

Conclusion  223 suffering pointlessly. Against Murphy’s position that, with respect to a sordid case of evil, the rape and murder of a child, for instance, the absolutely perfect being might permit it to happen for no reason at all, because the perfect being has only justifying reasons and not requiring for acting so as to prevent it, I presented two arguments for the conclusion that an absolutely perfect being is required to intervene, so God would need a justifying reason not to intervene. Thus, if God were to exist, then there would be no evils in the world for which there is not a God-​justifying reason (for non-​prevention). In light of an appropriate conception of God’s ethics, I argued, the argument from evil is not, contrary to Murphy’s contention, defanged but rather retains its power. It seems a natural thought that worshipping God and taking part in related communal religious activities does not make sense if one does not believe that God is real. But not all share this thought: some think it is perfectly sensible to engage in traditional communal religious activities centered on God without believing that God—​an essentially omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good agent who creates whatever universe there is—​really exists. I  argued in Chapter  7 that certain attempts to make sense of this way of thinking and this way of life, such as those described by Howard Wettstein and Gary Gutting, do not succeed in making sense of them. I further pointed out that there are real costs associated with not assenting to the claim that the proposition ‘God exists,’ realistically construed, is true, but suggested that one should be prepared to absorb these costs rather than trying to have it both ways—​rather than getting religion (of a particular sort) on the cheap. In other words, acceptance of the arguments of this book should lead one not to live a religious life, in the sense of living in such a way that intentionally and regularly includes such activities as attending services of worship, praying, reading texts that are allegedly sacred or holy as if they are sacred or holy, publicly reciting creeds, and integrating oneself into a traditional monotheistic religious community that affirms that mind-​independent existence of God as a perfect being. Even if, on the basis of what one takes to be countervailing arguments on the other side in support of traditional theism, or perhaps on the basis of one’s assessment of the relevant evidence as deeply ambiguous, one adopts a stance of agnosticism concerning the existence of God, still what is rationally supported is at best quite selective and limited participation in such religious activities. At the end of Chapter 7, I described some losses incurred in ceasing or declining to commit to the existence of God. Without God, there is no perfect

224  God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will divine agent looking after us, to protect us and our loved ones, or to comfort and heal us from illness, fear, and alienation. In giving up belief in God, one might abandon hope for a kind of everlasting existence that is purely joy-​filled and lacking in suffering. So, too, in coming no longer to believe that God exists, one’s sense of one’s own significance or value may be altered. Recall Joseph Levine’s remark that “the idea that my life was somehow a matter of concern to the ultimate power of the universe provided me with a sense of my own significance that I lost when I lost that belief.”9 In addition, in giving up traditional religious conviction, one sees that what may have felt at the time as if it was religious experience providing contact with God was not, in fact, contact with a real perfect supernatural being but was instead something else, which may be disconcerting to one’s sense of oneself as a reliable interpreter of one’s experiences. However, I will end by highlighting the fact that there are certain upsides to relinquishing, or never being a committed participant in, traditional theistic religion. In a life that is not centered on God one gains, for instance, freedom from pressures to conform to expected roles that are religiously imposed on the basis of gender. There is freedom, too, from pressure to forgive in cases in which such forgiveness undermines self-​respect. Without a conviction that God exists, one enjoys freedom from the fear of divine judgment and freedom from the psychological suffering that arises from the attempt to make sense of the awful things that happen to people along the lines of God’s purposes: one is free to accept that bad things simply happen; the world is unfair; there is good luck, and there is bad luck. Such knowledges allows one to focus on solving the problems that present themselves, or tackling them as best one can, without being burdened by the project of trying to find deeper justifications or overarching meanings, and without the feeling of being abandoned or unloved by God when suffering comes one’s way. Outside of traditional theistic religion, as well, one may enjoy freedom from invasions of one’s privacy that come in the form of offers to pray for one’s struggles and pains. So, too, one gains freedom to trust one’s rationality to lead where it may, unencumbered by prior faith commitments. These are freedoms that are valuable to have, and they are not the same as libertarian free will. They are freedoms from coercion, pressures, expectations, manipulations, and indoctrination. They can be possessed and 9 Joseph Levine, 2007, “From Yeshiva Bocher to Secular Humanist,” in Philosophers without Gods:  Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, edited by Louise Antony (New  York:  Oxford University Press), 30.

Conclusion  225 enjoyed regardless of whether or not causal determinism is true and regardless of whether or not we ever have the categorical power to do to other than what we do. Even if we have no libertarian free will, our lives can be meaningful, and they can be filled with love, joy, and goodness. Finally, I note that, left open by all I have argued in this book is the reasonability of living a spiritual life, understood as a life that places value on matters other than physical objects, physical pleasures, and materialistic acquisition, as well as living a religious life of a sort that does not involve commitment to God defined as an absolutely perfect being who is essentially omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good.

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Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Adams, Marilyn, 31n.52, 59n.48, 74, 78,  170–​71 Adams, Robert, 10 afterlife, 5, 28, 78, 130n.55, 134–​35, 147, 152n.23, 212, 213, 219–​20 agnosticism, 2–​3, 4–​5, 22–​23n.35, 36, 100n.6, 119, 127, 155, 192n.15, 204–​10,  223 Alston, William, 76, 112–​13n.29 annihilation, 138–​39n.14, 151–​52, 152n.23 Antony, Louise, 61n.51, 132n.3, 208n.35, 208n.36, 224n.9 appearances of pointlessness, 13, 17–​18, 22n.35, 103–​12, 122–​23, 125–​26, 129 argument from the facts about evil, 19–​20, 21, 37–​38, 69, 71, 98–​99, 100, 128–​29, 167, 221 argument from pointless evil, 13–​18, 97–​98, 100, 128–​29,  166–​69 Beebe, James, 12 Bergmann, Michael, 101–​2, 104n.15, 107–​8, 112–​19, 134n.6,  170–​71 Blackburn, Simon, 202–​3, 204, 211 Broad, C. D., 89n.32 Brümmer, Vincent, 57 character-​building theodicy, 26–​28, 29, 33–​34, 65, 90–​92, 93–​95, 96, 97n.1, 218–​20,  221 Clarke, Randolph, 44n.13, 47–​48 Collins, Robin, 97n.1 Creator’s obligations, 179–​82, 183–​84,  186–​87 Creel, Richard, 84

Davison, Scott, 181–​82 Dawkins, Richard, 2–​3 defeaters for religious belief, 109n.26, 125–​28 divine impassibility, 81–​84 divine intimacy theodicy, 73–​75, 77–​ 79, 81–​82, 84, 85, 86–​87, 88–​89, 90–​91,  221 divine seemings, 109n.26 Dougherty, Trent, 14n.23, 17–​18, 102, 104n.15 Draper, Paul, 19n.31, 101, 157n.1, 170–​71 eternal torment, 61–​62, 113–​14, 134–​36, 137–​46, 148–​49, 150–​52,  153–​55 evil, 6–​7, 8–​9, 37–​38. See also moral evil; natural evil fault, 28–​29, 35, 90–​91, 136, 137, 138, 139–​48, 149–​50, 151–​52, 153–​55, 214–​15,  222 Frankfurt, Harry, 41–​42, 52–​53n.35, 54–​55, 61, 83, 150, 216–​17 free will. See also intrinsic value of free will; libertarianism extrinsic value of, 52–​67, 152–​54,  216–​18 hierarchical account of, 41–​42, 43, 56, 58, 90–​91, 150 indeterminist accounts of, 18–​19, 42–​ 48, 63–​64, 150 rational abilities view of, 38–​40, 52, 61, 65–​66,  150 free will defense, 2, 10–​13, 13n.20, 34, 37–​ 38, 57, 58–​59, 68–​69, 96–​97 free will theodicy, 10–​11, 28–​34, 37–​38, 43–​44, 71n.60, 90–​91, 96–​97,  215–​18

236 Index Gellman, Jerome, 17n.27, 201–​2 God: as absolutely perfect being, 4, 6–​7, 8, 10, 16, 82, 96, 97–​98, 111–​12, 141, 143n.18, 155, 160–​61, 190, 191–​92,  214 perfect moral goodness of, 8, 35, 157–​61, 169–​72, 174–​83,  186–​87 Griffith, Meghan, 44nn.12–​13 Gutting, Gary, 204–​7, 223 Harris, Michael, 74, 81–​82 Hasker, William, 109nn.25–​26, 114n.31,  117–​18 heaven, 5, 28n.44, 40, 61, 71–​72, 88, 113, 131, 148–​49, 152n.23, 196, 202 hell, 5, 6n.7, 35, 61–​62, 113–​14, 131, 134, 135–​55, 185, 214–​15, 222 Hick, John, 26–​28, 33–​34, 43, 44–​45, 65, 96,  218–​20 Hodgson, David, 44–​47 Howard-​Snyder, Daniel, 11–​12, 12n.19, 17nn.27–​28, 18n.29, 19n.31, 21n.33, 23n.37, 33n.57, 37, 50n.27, 54–​57, 97nn.1–​2, 99n.4, 100, 101n.7, 101n.8, 102n.11, 124nn.39–​40, 125n.45, 170–​71, 186, 193n.17, 216n.1 Howard-​Snyder, Frances,  54–​57 Hume, David, 156, 163–​64, 170–​71, 186 hybrid theodicy, 91–​95, 221 Insole, Christopher, 191–​92 integrity, 42, 193, 194–​95, 207n.34 intrinsic value: of free will, 48–​52, 57, 65, 68–​69, 70–​71,  216 of persons, 175–​79, 185, 186, 203–​4 James, William, 189–​90 Jordan, Jeff, 138n.13 Kane, Robert, 47–​48, 53, 61n.50,  65–​66 Kushner, Harold, 156–​57 Kvanvig, Jonathan, 152n.23, 193n.17 Leftow, Brian, 2–​39, 110n.27 Levine, Joseph, 208–​9, 212, 223–​24

Lewis, David, 35, 50–​51, 61–​62, 132, 134–​ 36, 137, 138, 148, 149, 154–​55, 222 libertarianism, 39, 42–​48, 67–​69, 91–​92, 96–​97, 152–​54, 216–​18,  224–​25 love: of God, 18–​19, 57–​61, 77–​78, 86–​87, 111–​12, 148–​49, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201–​2, 209, 217 God’s, 60, 73–​74, 77, 81, 82–​84, 88, 111–​12, 123, 126, 127–​28, 143n.18, 152n.23, 156–​57, 161–​62, 169, 172–​74,  184–​85 nature of, 52–​54, 56–​57, 60–​61, 79–​80, 82–​84, 113, 133, 205–​6, 211 relation of free will to, 52–​61, 63–​64, 96–​97, 97n.1, 113–​14, 153, 216–​17 Mackie, J. L., 9–​10, 11n.14, 11n.15, 12, 37, 70n.58, 109n.25, 170–​71, 186 Maitzen, Stephen, 125–​26 McBrayer, Justin, 11n.15, 12n.19, 17nn.27–​29, 19n.31, 21n.33, 23n.37, 33n.57, 37n.1, 50n.27, 97n.1, 99n.4, 100, 101n.7, 102n.11, 102, 124n.39, 124n.40, 125nn.45–​46, 216n.1 McCloskey, H. J., 9, 37 meaning in life, 2–​3, 63–​64, 68, 78, 79, 85, 96–​97, 113–​14, 153, 194–​95,  217–​18 Mele, Alfred, 47–​48 moral evil, 10–​11, 31, 32, 33, 215 moral goodness, 8, 65n.54, 84, 159–​64, 167–​68, 169, 171, 175, 182–​83,  222–​23 moral responsibility, 38–​39, 61–​62, 67, 133–​34, 137–​38, 139, 141–​43, 147–​ 48, 149–​50, 153–​54,  217–​18 Murphy, Mark, 35, 143–​44, 157–​60, 161–​ 74, 175–​87,  222–​23 Murray, Michael, 86–​87n.28, 132–​33, 149n.20, 151n.21 natural evil, 6–​7, 13n.20, 31–​32, 33, 37–​38, 91, 94–​95, 215, 221 natural laws, 16, 42n.6, 42–​43, 44–​45, 66–​67, 70–​71, 97n.1, 97–​98, 148–​49, 150, 219 neglected argument from evil, 35, 132, 134–​36, 137, 138, 154–​55

Index  237 Nelkin, Dana, 38–​40, 52, 54–​55, 56, 61, 62, 150,  216–​17 occasionalism,  132–​34 O’Connor, David, 124–​25 O’Connor, Timothy, 44n.13, 110n.27, 150 Oppy, Graham, 12, 15, 19n.31, 30–​31, 97n.2, 110n.27, 128 Otto, Rudolf, 75 pain: intractable, 31–​33, 123–​24,  127–​28 as protective, 31–​32, 215 parent analogy, 86, 106n.21, 120–​21 Pereboom, Derk, 33n.57, 39, 50n.27, 50–​51, 52–​53n.35, 67, 91–​92, 100, 124n.39, 216n.1, 218–​19 Plantinga, Alvin, 2, 10–​12, 13n.20, 22n.35, 37, 43, 44, 65n.54, 76, 82, 103–​4, 109nn.25–​27, 116n.32, 132, 133–​34, 170–​71,  186 pointless evils, 13–​19, 20–​21, 22–​23, 100, 128, 129, 142–​44, 167, 168–​69, 180–​81,  222–​23 Pruss, Alexander, 110n.27 Puccetti, Roland, 28n.44 punishment theodicy, 23–​25, 27–​28, 33–​ 34, 74, 90–​95, 96, 97n.1, 218, 221 Rea, Michael, 102, 104n.15, 109n.25, 112, 113, 114n.31, 118–​19, 122–​23n.38, 124–​29, 132–​33, 186, 191–​92,  221–​22 religious experience, 75–​79, 122–​23, 126 religious life: benefits of, 4–​6, 197, 210–​13, 223–​24 characterization of, 188–​90, 193–​96, 206–​8,  223 harms of, 6n.7, 208, 224 Rowe, William, 13–​15, 19n.31, 97n.2, 99, 109n.25, 129, 168–​69 Russell, Bruce, 30n.50, 124n.39 Schellenberg, J.L., 11n.15, 12n.19, 34n.58, 58–​60, 82, 113, 189–​90n.7, 213n.40 Senor, Thomas, 100–​1, 103–​12, 128–​29 Shafer-​Landau, Russ,  191–​92 Sinnott-​Armstrong, Walter, 208

skeptical theism: and analogies for human epistemic condition, 105–​6, 116, 120–​21 arguments against, 103–​4, 106–​7, 108–​ 19, 121–​24,  127–​30 characterizations of, 35, 100–​3, 167–​68 and epistemic humility, 119–​20 and the ‘too much skepticism’ objection,  124–​28 soul-​making theodicy. See character-​ building theodicy Speak, Daniel, 15n.24, 21n.33, 33n.56, 52 Stump, Eleonore, 31n.52, 52–​53n.35, 74, 80n.14, 86n.27, 170–​71, 186 suffering: badness of, 179–​82 extent of, 32–​33, 37–​38, 91, 215 as religious experience, 74, 77–​79, 85 Sullivan, Meghan, 18n.29, 20n.32, 128n.52 Swinburne, Richard, 4, 6–​7, 8, 24–​25, 29–​30, 37, 43–​44, 49, 50–​52, 70n.59, 82, 96, 110n.27, 134n.6, 170–​71, 186,  220–​21 Talbott, Thomas, 138n.13, 152n.23 Taliaferro, Charles, 82–​84 theological antirealism, 192 theological realism, 191–​92 Timpe, Kevin, 44n.13, 71n.60 Trakakis, Nick, 17–​18, 23n.36 transworld depravity, 11–​12 universalism, 138n.13, 149n.20, 155, 210, 222 value: of being of use, 30–​31, 220–​21 of free will (see free will: extrinsic value of; intrinsic value: of free will) of relationships, 52–​53, 59–​61, 63, 67, 79–​81, 97n.1, 111–​12,  174–​75 of temporally extended process of character building, 26, 33–​34, 65, 93, 94–​95, 97n.1, 218, 221 van Inwagen, Peter, 4n.6, 10n.13, 18–​19, 19n.31, 20n.32, 37, 43, 44, 57, 58, 59, 69, 82n.17, 98–​99, 167, 169, 170–​71,  186

238 Index Walls, Jerry, 136n.9, 138n.13, 153n.24 Watson, Gary, 41n.5, 42n.6 Wettstein, Howard, 188–​89, 190, 192n.16, 196–​200, 201–​2, 204, 223 Wielenberg, Erik, 178n.35, 180n.38, 181–​82,  185

Wilks, Ian, 125–​26 Wolf, Susan, 38–​39, 61, 63,  217n.2 Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 73–​74, 82–​83, 84n.24 Wykstra, Stephen, 116