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Recently, John Loftus and David Wood had a second opportunity to discuss the problem of evil, on Reginald Finley’s (i.e. the Infidel Guy’s) newest show, “The Debate Hour.” The debate was a spirited cross-fire with both sides well-prepared to argue their case. Though Loftus held steady to his original line of argumentation from the first debate, Wood came prepared with a theodicy from his dissertation to issue a substantial blow to the problem of evil. Wood presented the superiority of theistic explanatory power and the numerous problems with the atheist argument to ultimately undercut Loftus’s argument from evil.

Loftus argued, from examples of gratuitous evil, that something is wrong with God’s knowledge, goodness, or ability, therefore rendering God either not omniscient, not omnibenevolent, or not omnipotent. He maintains that because God must necessarily be all three, God cannot exist if the problem of evil shows God deficient in one of these areas. The crux of his argument entails asking why “this system is more important to God than one without so much suffering?” His support for his argumentation is predominantly examples of excessive suffering of the creation. He states that the theist’s problem is in expecting way too little of his God, who supposedly possesses the three aforementioned qualities.

Wood argued that the argument from evil does not pose a significant problem for theism. He contends that God is not concerned primarily with maximizing human pleasure and minimizing human pain, but that there are more important issues at stake, such as free will and soul building. He presented a two-world theodicy in which the only way to have ‘maximum good’ would be to have two distinct worlds that encompass all possible goods. Wood also argued that the argument from evil does not make the existence of God implausible for two reasons: 1) there are inconsistencies and other problems in the argument, and 2) evil can be explained theologically through the fall of man, and philosophically through theodicies.

The topic of the debate was: Does the extent of suffering in the world make the existence of God implausible? I believe Wood made an effort to adhere to this topic, while Loftus wanted to show examples of suffering and then ask ‘why?’ Wood, in an attempt to stay on this topic, was even accused of using a ‘nebulous’ idea to deal with an experiential problem (in the October debate). The accusation here is definitely unmerited due to the philosophical nature of the question. In arguing philosophically, an adherence to the general form of the question is entirely acceptable. Although Loftus several times re-emphasized the experiential nature of suffering, he was, in fact, providing examples of suffering when he needed to be making a clear argument. Imagine trying to devise an answer to every example of suffering and evil on either side of this debate! The particulars are important, but not as productive in philosophical reasoning.

Loftus claims that he is looking at this world and asking whether or not God exists while Wood already believes God exists and is trying to explain intense suffering “given that prior belief.” From the outset of his argument, Loftus assumes that only the theist has prior commitment to a belief. However, this idea is oblivious to the atheist’s own commitment to the non-existence of God, which is a governing worldview itself. Loftus takes the position of being the only one who is able to objectively argue due to his non-commitment to a religion, whereas Wood must “punt” to his worldview considering the reality of evil. I do not find a solid line of reasoning for Loftus’s statement; it is simply an attempt to discredit the ability of a theist to argue objectively. However, both the theist and the atheist come to the debate carrying their worldviews on their back.

What kind of world should we expect an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being to create? Wood handles the question by suggesting that a world in which human pleasure is maximized and human pain is minimized is not what would be expected of this type of Creator. He posits a two-world theodicy in which ‘good’ is maximized: this world with its goods, and the next world (heaven) with its goods. Neither world can contain all of the goods (since some of them are mutually exclusive) and therefore the best possible situation is one with both worlds, in which the world of greater goods is eternal and the world of lesser goods is a limited world. Wood’s two-world theodicy is very important when you consider that God is assumed to be all-good. Though Wood never specifically stated this objective, his theodicy suggests that an all-good being would maximize good in His creative work, and this requires two worlds.

In order to maximize good, this world could not be by-passed, for there are goods in this world that cannot be achieved in the heavenly world in God’s full presence. Wood gives several examples of the goods of this world, including the choice of whether or not we will follow God, morality, and virtues such as courage and compassion. Morality in this world is only possible due to our free will to choose whether or not we will act morally. If God’s presence were fully known in this world, either His presence would overwhelm human will or humans would only be following God due to a fear of being “zapped” by this all-powerful watchman. By contrast, the goods of the heavenly realm include a lack of suffering and the full presence of God—the latter being the ultimate good.

At this point in the program, Reginald Finley, the host, asked how Satan could have been in God’s perfect presence and yet still rebelled. He is responding to Wood’s two-world theodicy in which the second world, or heavenly world, is a place of God’s full presence. However, this is a misunderstanding of the theodicy. In Wood’s theodicy, this present world and the restored, future world are the two worlds. The “heavenly realm” from which Satan fell could not have been a place of God’s full presence or Loftus would be correct in stating that Satan would be “dumber than a box of rocks” for rebelling. More accurately, Satan would not have been able to rebel in the full presence of God. So this original heavenly realm is not the same as the restored heaven and earth to come. Loftus interjected, “So there’s a rule change then.” Loftus was saying that in order to get around this problem of Satan’s rebellion, theists are inventing a new imperative in heaven. Actually, there is no rule change. The theist is describing a future heavenly realm, which is different from the realm in which Satan rebelled. I agree with Wood that the problem is the ambiguity concerning the term “heaven.” However the Biblical texts do touch on a new heaven: "Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17). “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea” (Revelation 21:1). The texts also imply that angels have free will and are therefore capable of making erroneous decisions as evidenced through the judging of the angels by mankind. “Do you not know that we [mankind] will judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:3).

What is the value of developing virtues in this world if they will not be present in the world to come?

Loftus questions the idea that we need suffering in this world to develop virtues, when we will no longer need these virtues when we are in heaven. This is a reasonable question coming from an atheistic worldview. If an atheist thinks something is good only because it produces good consequences, then why have a good in this world that will not have consequences in heaven? Wood argues that virtues, whether or not they have an effect on heaven (he thinks they do have such an effect), are good-in-themselves and do not need a side product or reward attached to their ‘goodness.’ His example was that Mother Theresa would be good whether or not she existed in a place where she could help human beings, because she was simply good. Virtues play an important role in our world and are important whether or not they have a part in heaven. Though Wood did mention the soul-building theodicy and the impact of developing virtues here on earth, he needed to give more attention to the answer of the original question. Perhaps a more in-depth treatment of the soul-building theodicy would be appropriate here. One question I thought of as I was listening was whether the atheist would concede that something can be “good-in-itself.” How could an atheist accept a universal idea of good?

Why does God wait to show Himself fully when He could have shown Himself a long time ago and avoided a lot of pain, suffering, and people going to hell?

In this question, Finley was contemplating why God would have allowed mankind to go through all this time without knowing Him fully, when He could have made Himself known in the distant past. I am assuming that he believes that this act would avoid the problem of evil along with free will, since everyone would know God in His fullness. In reply Wood returns to his two-world theodicy, in which free will is a good of this world. This is the world where man is able to make a free decision in which to follow God or not, or to believe in God or not. Once God returns and restores the earth, His presence will be known fully, but only those who choose God in this world will be present with Him in the next. That is the result of their free choice. However if God skipped this world and placed everyone in His presence, mankind would never have a real opportunity to choose.

Loftus replies by suggesting that it is unreasonable to think that God would value free will to the point of allowing intense suffering and then ‘reward’ His believers by taking that very free will away when He returns. Loftus has a valid point, particularly if free will is the only good of this world. However, that is not the case that Wood is arguing. Free will is only one of many goods this present world has to offer. There are other goods here in this world not available when God returns, such as morality. The chance to be moral or act morally is only available to us apart from the full presence of God, whose presence would overwhelm our inclinations to do any kind of wrong. As far as God’s presence overwhelming our free will when He returns, for the believer the presence of God is more important than free will. (It should be noted that Wood’s view of free will is not standard among Christians.)

Then this world seems to be a cruel game of hide and seek. Those who find God are rewarded with heaven; those who don’t are tortured forever.

The argument Loftus presents, at its foundation, reasons that if God had foreknowledge of those who would choose Him and those who would not, He should have only made those who would choose Him. This argument essentially disregards free will, making it appear as practically useless in this world. Loftus believes that it would be better for us to have no free will, but to live a utopian life in which peace, happiness, and health are maximized. Although I have seen this type of existence portrayed on Star Trek, I highly doubt this is the type of existence we really desire. In listening to Loftus, I wondered if he had spent any time formulating what that type of existence would actually look like. Loftus uses instances of immense suffering to bolster his argument, but he ignores the issues of “not-so-immense” suffering such as the girl who doesn’t feel ‘pretty enough’ who wants to commit suicide. How would this situation be remedied in Loftus’s utopia? Would God therefore have to make every person look alike so as to avoid even the smallest amount of suffering? (He does argue that God should have only created one race of people.) At this point, Loftus would most likely argue that the theist’s view of heaven is exactly like the utopian world I have described; however, it is not. The future existence in the world to come will incorporate the decisions already made in the previous world. It is not a mindless existence where you are absorbed into a “Borg-like” community of sameness. For theists, eternal life actually begins when we make the decision to follow Christ. Therefore, this present life carries over and has an impact on eternal life.

Loftus’s assessment of this life as a cruel game of hide and seek is, to quote him in another statement, “expecting way too little of God.” This judgment of God’s method of Divine expression oversimplifies the total issue. The atheist, as Wood explains later in the debate, has to explain why anything exists at all. The problem is amplified when we consider the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the cosmos for life, the design on earth that enables survival, and the astronomical odds that complex life would arise on this one planet, in order to even get to a brain that can ponder the problem of evil. The theist has a foundation for the existence of God rooted in all of these things to which he then adds theodicies to help make sense of suffering in the world. What evidence should we expect from a God-level intellect concerning His existence? The evidence He has provided in the cosmos, nature, human reasoning, and the written Word allow humankind to thoughtfully consider who we are and where we came from without being mindlessly forced into accepting God as our Creator. Peter Kreeft discusses this issue in his treatment of Pascal’s Pensėes: “He [God] gives exactly the right amount of light. If he gave less, even the righteous would be unable to find him, and their will would be thwarted. If he gave more, even the wicked would find him, against their will. Thus he respects and fulfills the will of all.”[i]

If the atheist community really believes that this world is so bad, they’d be dying for nuclear war: “Let’s get it over with. Let’s end our suffering.”

In the argument from evil, the atheist points out instances of intense suffering, especially undeserved suffering of innocents such as children and animals. In an attempt to make this the sole issue regarding God’s existence, the atheist skips over any good found in the world. The scales of good and evil thus tip to the evil side making it appear as though evil, all by itself, is enough to prove a godless world. The problem is that the scales are tipped and weighted on one side, not putting enough consideration on the good side. One of the differences in the perspectives on this issue is that Loftus and Finley view this world as bad and the (imaginary for them) future world as good, whereas Wood views this world as good and the future world as good. The only point here is that if we want to describe the present world, which supposedly proves that God doesn’t exist, we need to portray the world accurately. Wood argues that the world is far better than the atheist takes it to be. The atheist tends to look at God as if He is a person who left a baby out in the woods alone to die. The theist obviously would grant that God, to some extent, has separated Himself from the world, largely due to the fall of man. But God has given us the family unit, the ability to form governments, natural laws, moral laws, etc. He also sent His Son to die for our sins, and has promised us that He can fix everything. This may not be everything the atheist is looking for, but it’s not as if God utterly abandoned us. What we are dealing with is not the worst world imaginable, but a good world that has some problems.

The problem with physical bodies is not that they are physical but that, if God is not sustaining them (as Wood said), “they do things like die.” It does not matter what kind of body we are talking about, it will break down unless God is completely sustaining the body. Finley and Loftus point to the death, disease, and pain inherent in a physical body, and they wonder why God didn’t give us spiritual bodies. However, arguing that God should have given us spiritual bodies presupposes the idea that spiritual bodies are better than physical bodies. But how do we know this? Wood addressed the spiritual body question by arguing 1) that Christianity teaches that our final state is physical, not immaterial, 2) that both immaterial and physical existences are subject to problems when the person is not fully sustained by God, and 3) that according to the Bible, fallen beings prefer physical existence. Wood refers to the biblical account of demons asking to be put into another body, even if it was a pig’s body:

For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!"…. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them." He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. (Matthew 5:8-13)

Apparently, the demons did not want to be apart from a physical body. However, whether or not this implies that a physical body is more desirable than a spiritual body has yet to be shown.

If God is withholding His presence from us, then what did the animals do wrong and what lessons do the animals have to learn from suffering?

Wood argued thus: Given our world, God can either put animals in it or not put animals in it. If He does put them here, then they are going to be a part of our world, which is governed by natural law. Animals are good-in-themselves. Wood suggests that Loftus’s question is spurious by giving an example of the tiger. Tigers are in danger of going extinct in the wild; however, no one says, “Hooray! Now all the animals the tiger hunts will no longer have to suffer.” In fact, the general feeling is that we should keep tigers from going extinct. Why do we react this way if tigers just cause a lot of pain and suffering? Returning to what Wood said, we must know on some level that animals are good-in-themselves. If we want a world with less animal suffering, then God offers us one—the heavenly world. If we reject that offer, then we still have this world, which is good.

For the theist, pain and pleasure do not top the list of priorities for God in this world. There are more important issues, such as morality, free will, virtue, and soul-building. It is the atheist’s argument that pain and suffering should not exist in a theistic universe. Here there is a mixing of the atheist point-of-view with theism. If the atheist wants to use God as an assumption and then say ‘why suffering and pain?’ he needs to incorporate the theistic idea of a fall of man, as well as a theistic set of values. Otherwise, he has imposed a human’s idea of a perfect existence on a transcendent being whose reasoning would necessarily be different from our own. In other words, the atheist must first argue from the standpoint of what a God-being would necessarily have to be and then use that explanation in the argument against the existence of God. Though Loftus’s argument, at first glance, appears to proceed in this manner, he actually is mixing his own atheist version of God with a theistic version of God. In this manner of arguing, the debate may come to a standstill because it is the atheist’s opinion of what God “should” be, rather than what God necessarily would be. In like manner, the theist could turn this argument around and ask what a universe should look like without a God and point out all the instances of good, concluding that there must be a God because there is immense good and incredible joy in the world. Though I do not think Wood is attempting to make this argument, he made mention of the good that is in this world and how both atheists and theists use the same standard by which to judge good and evil—the Moral Law. He did not deny that atheists can come up with other reasons for atheistic morality, but he did suggest that morality only makes sense in a theistic universe.

It appears as though God wants this world exactly as it is, including our suffering.

The theist does not see God as a being whose purpose is to keep us from suffering. The theist also does not think that God wants us to suffer, but he does believe that rebellion against God is a very serious matter; so for God not to punish us for our disobedience is a gift. The atheist is going to argue that disobedience is not really that bad. Yet in saying this, it appears that the atheist is also saying that even if mankind turns away from God, He should still give us a perfect existence. Wood asks why God should do such a thing. “Perfectly good” encompasses the idea of “perfectly just,” as well. The atheist needs to address why a perfectly good God would not discipline rebellion.

The argument from evil attempts to show that the amount of suffering in the world proves that God cannot exist. But this statement is not being made in a vacuum. There is much more to consider in this world when it comes to explaining away the existence of God than just suffering. Loftus said that if, as a Christian, the problem of evil does not keep you up at night, then you don’t really understand it. However, this approach is treating the problem of evil as though it is the only issue related to God’s existence. By the very same reasoning, I could say that, as an atheist, if the problem of absolute morality does not keep you up at night, then you do not really understand it.

The atheist must deal with the brute fact of existence. Why is there anything at all? As Wood pointed out, it takes far more effort for an atheist to get to a human brain that can reason than it takes for a theist. The atheist has to explain the origins of the universe, the apparent design of the universe, the amazing fine-tuning of the universe, and the formation and development of life just to get to the point where there are complex beings that can contemplate the problem of pain and suffering in the world. Theists have already developed arguments for the existence of God based on each of these areas. The theist can then offer theodicies to reconcile evil with an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God. Loftus suggested that Wood was “punting” to his worldview in order to explain suffering, which, to Loftus, meant that Wood had no real explanations. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole debate. Wood then reminds Loftus that the entire debate is centered on whether or not the theistic worldview can reconcile pain and suffering with the existence of God. Without discussing Wood’s worldview, there is no debate!

Nearing the end of the debate, Loftus and Finley agree that naturalism better explains immense suffering in the world. Wood responds by stating that naturalism cannot explain the standard by which the atheist views certain events as evil. Presupposed in the atheist argument is some sort of standard of goodness. Wood explains that though Loftus denies God’s existence, the morality he bases his argument on has as its foundation an absolute Moral Law Giver. Atheists may be able to say that naturalism explains suffering better than theism, but then they have to explain the concept of ‘right and wrong’ through naturalism as well. This is one area where atheism can be seen to lack the explanatory power of theism.

Throughout the debate, David Wood and John Loftus were approaching the problem of evil from two different aspects. Wood adhered to the formal argument and explained that an argument from animal and human suffering cannot negate the theistic worldview. Loftus, however, kept reverting back to examples of suffering, almost as if he expected Wood to give an explanation for each instance of suffering. However, the argument from evil, to be an argument, must include adherence to the formal argument: otherwise, the experiential side, which is subjective to each person, will just create a convoluted mess of argumentation. On several occasions, Loftus had to avert the original question just to continue to argue against Wood. He brought in the fall of man, the fall of Satan and his angels, the tsunami in Indonesia, Hitler, his mother, and all sorts of shrapnel, as if he were firing his argument from a sawed-off shotgun. It appears as though the formal argument is just not good enough for the atheist. At one point, Loftus was asking Wood to answer the question, “Was it good that God did not stop the earthquake which caused the Indonesian tsunami?” How would answering this one particular instance explain the universal problem of evil? It would not help. Wood is correct in consistently reminding Loftus that the argument itself needs to be dealt with in order to discern whether the argument is sound. Loftus can ask “why?” all day long, but as Wood has said, “why?” isn’t an argument.

In the end, Wood shows that the background information[ii] presupposed in the argument from evil itself points to theism. He also offers several theodicies to help account for why an all-good, omnipotent, omniscient being would allow suffering, with free will being the most prominent of the theodicies. Wood cites Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason in arguing that free will and theism require a two-world system. Loftus’s argument is that suffering provides enough evidence to lead us away from God. However, suffering itself is just not enough evidence in light of a comprehensive look at the world to move the theist away from a reasoned, evidenced belief in God. The theistic worldview explains the conditions assumed in the argument from evil far better than atheism does. In fact, atheism does not satisfactorily account for any of the conditions presupposed in the argument. When the atheist points to suffering as his reason for rejecting the existence of God, he assumes all of these conditions, which atheism simply cannot account for. Hence, theism has far more explanatory power than atheism, and the argument from evil therefore does not make the existence of God implausible.

Paul Copan. How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong? Responding to Objections that Leave Christians Speechless. Grand Rapids, Baker Books: 2005.

N.T. Wright. Evil and the Justice of God. Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 2006.

[i] Kreeft, Peter. Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensėes – Edited, Outlined and Explained (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), p. 248.

[ii] Wood’s questioning of the atheist’s explanation for the origins of the universe, the apparent design of the universe, the emergence of life on earth, the emergence of consciousness, and the explanation for the mind is the background information the atheist must presuppose an explanation for, before formulating the argument of evil.