THE WILL TO DISBELIEVE:

A Critical Review of the Loftus-Wood Debate

Atheism’s strongest argument is the so called “problem of evil.” Briefly stated, if an all-powerful, wholly good Being exists, why is there so much suffering in the world? The atheist’s response to this question is that God does not exist. The theist, on the other hand, attempts to reconcile suffering with belief in God. So who is right? As I will argue later in this essay, our answer to this question will depend largely on what type of people we are. Some individuals possess an attitude of trust and acceptance that is practically unbreakable, while others dogmatically declare that the problem of evil effectively refutes theism. Many people fall somewhere in between these extremes. Intense suffering, however, reveals where we stand.

On October 7^th, 2006, I debated Christian-turned-atheist John Loftus at Old Dominion University. The debate arose when my wife and I challenged John and his wife to a two-on-two billiards tournament. Having learned of our skills, the atheists declined our challenge, and recommended a debate instead. (Just kidding about the pool tournament, John.) The topic of the debate was “Does the Extent of Suffering in Our World Make the Existence of God Implausible?” In his excellent review of the debate, John noted that, regardless of who won the debate, he learned a great deal about the problem of evil. Perhaps the most important thing that became clear to me in the course of the debate was that our response to evil isn’t primarily an intellectual response. The human will is involved, and our reaction to the problem is an outward indication of an inward disposition. If a person—whether theist or non-theist—clings to an argument in spite of problems with the argument, it is clear that the person is motivated by something other than rational reflection. An analysis of my debate with John will bear out this point.

The Purpose of the Debate

Debates between theists and non-theists have what we could call general purposes and specific purposes. The general purpose of a debate will be for the theist to defend belief in God and for the non-theist to defend his lack of belief in God. The specific purpose will be either to affirm or to deny the proposition of the debate. Thus, in a debate, say, on intelligent design, a theist will defend intelligent design (specific purpose), because this is an important element of his belief in God (general purpose).

Now consider the following possible debate propositions:

(1)  The extent of suffering in our world poses an interesting problem for theists, since God is said to be all-powerful and wholly good.

(2)  The extent of suffering in our world is at least some evidence against theism.

(3)  The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God improbable.

(4)  The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God implausible.

(5)  The extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God impossible.

While the first claim is an extremely weak proposition, the last claim is extraordinarily strong. As such, the first claim will be easy to defend, while the last will be quite difficult to defend. A person who simply argues that evil poses an interesting difficulty for theism won’t raise many eyebrows, and quite a few theists would grant this claim. In the second proposition, however, someone is claiming that suffering provides us with at least some evidence against theism. Although this claim is stronger than the first, it is still fairly weak, and some theists may grant this claim as well. The third proposition is different. Here the claim is that, given the extent of evil in the world, the probability of God’s existence is less than .5. A theist would be unlikely to grant such a claim. The fourth claim is even stronger. Whereas a person could hold that the existence of God is improbable yet still plausible, to say that the existence of God is implausible means that we shouldn’t even take God’s existence seriously. The final proposition is the strongest of all, and it could only be defended by showing that there is a logical contradiction between the claims “God exists” and “Evil exists.” Because this claim is incredibly difficult to defend, it has largely been abandoned by atheist philosophers.

Now let us briefly consider what would be needed to prove each of the above propositions. For (1), the proponent would simply need to show that there is some apparent tension between the attributes of God and the extent of evil in the world. For (2), he would need to show that this tension is strong enough to qualify as a certain amount of evidence against the existence of God. For (3), the proponent would have to show that the problem is so great that it outweighs all evidence in favor of theism. For (4), the skeptic needs to show that the evidence drawn from the problem of evil not only outweighs the evidence for God’s existence, but that one side of the scale almost drops to the floor. Finally, for (5), the skeptic must show that the claim “God exists and evil exists” is similar to the claim “a married bachelor exists.”

But how would the opposition refute these claims? Suffice it to say, it would be difficult to refute the first claim, for to do so the opposition would have to show that there is no tension at all between the statements “an all-powerful, wholly good Being exists” and “tremendous suffering exists.” The final claim, however, would be quite easy to refute, for the opposition merely needs to show that there is some logically possible state of affairs in which God permits suffering. Note that this state of affairs could be completely ridiculous. But if it’s logically possible, claim (5) has been refuted.

John and I debated the fourth proposition—that the extent of suffering in our world makes the existence of God implausible. Since this is a strong claim, and since John is the one making this claim, it must be noted that the burden of proof is on him. Dr. Hatab, the moderator, objected to the idea that the atheist bears the burden of proof, but I don’t see how this can be avoided. John is claiming that a certain argument has the power to effectively refute theism. But he must show that his argument does what he says it does, and he must defend his proposition against any serious objections. That is, if an inconsistency, or an unproven assumption, or a false premise is found somewhere in his argument, then he must show that his argument can be modified so that it avoids this problem. Otherwise, he has not proven that we should answer the topic question in the affirmative. Thus, while atheists usually try their best to avoid bearing any burden of proof (though I haven’t seen John do this yet), to refuse this burden is to say, “We have an argument X, and X proves Y beyond any reasonable doubt, but we’re under no obligation to show that X does anything.”

So what did I need to show during the debate? Well, my job certainly wasn’t to show that there is no tension between the existence of God and the extent of evil. Nor was my purpose to explain all suffering in terms of greater goods. Rather, given the topic, my specific purpose was to show that the evidence gained from suffering isn’t so utterly strong that it removes all plausibility from the claim that God exists. I think this can be done rather easily. Indeed, in light of certain difficulties with the argument from evil, I don’t see how John could possibly demonstrate so lofty a conclusion. To see why this is so, let us turn to my response to John’s assertion, which can be outlined in seven points.

Summary of My Response

First, the problem of evil as it is argued by atheists depends on a certain conception of God. Here we may distinguish between “classical theism” and “theistic personalism.” For a theistic personalist, God is a person like us; he’s just far more powerful. But for classical theists, God is not a person, nor does he have emotions like humans. God isn’t like us at all. A classical theist would reject a concept of God which views him as the sort of being who would come to our rescue when we’re in danger, for this wouldn’t be a changeless, eternal being (and, according to the classical theist, sheer anthropomorphism). A theistic personalist, on the other hand, would reject the idea that God lacks a personality: God has emotions and can rush to our aid whenever he so chooses. My own position lies somewhere in between these two views; however, I lean towards theistic personalism. Thus, if God allows some particular evil, I would argue that he has reasons for allowing it. A classical theist, however, would say that I’ve got the wrong view of God. Both camps believe in a God who is all-powerful and wholly good. They disagree about what it means for God to be changeless. My point here is that most of the arguments used by atheists would not affect classical theists at all, so we need to understand that these arguments, at best, only affect a particular conception of God.

Second, in my “Venus de Milo” analogy, I showed that there is a fundamental problem with the atheist approach. The Venus de Milo was found in an underground cavern nearly two centuries ago, and everyone who looks upon it immediately understands that it is a statue. But suppose we were to employ a little skepticism borrowed from the argument from evil. We might argue as follows:

(1)  If the Venus de Milo is a statue, then it must have had a sculptor.

(2)  If it had a sculptor, surely this sculptor would have added some arms.

(3)  But there are no arms on the Venus de Milo.

(4)  Therefore, it didn’t have a sculptor.

(5)  Hence, it must not be a statue.

Here we could use our skepticism to conclude that the Venus de Milo is a natural rock formation. Rocks form all the time, in all sorts of shapes and sizes, so it’s possible that a rock could form in the shape of an armless woman. The problem is that none of us would ever believe that the Venus de Milo formed by natural processes. We could, perhaps, with a great deal of effort and quite a bit of self-indoctrination, convince ourselves that statues form by natural means. But when we consider this soberly and without bias, we must agree that the Venus de Milo had a sculptor.

My point should be obvious. John is an atheist. But he isn’t simply arguing that the evidence points to atheism. He’s arguing that the presence of suffering in our world, taken by itself, is so overwhelming that it makes the existence of God implausible. But why doesn’t the armlessness of the Venus de Milo make the existence of a sculptor implausible? In his review of the debate, John argued that, to make the analogy more realistic, we would have to imagine that the Venus de Milo actually experiences pain. While I agree that this would help the analogy, I don’t think it would help John’s case. For if we add suffering to the picture, and we want to argue that suffering rules out a good sculptor, we just added three things to the problem: (1) a nervous system, (2) a mind, and (3) a moral law which we must use in order to say what a good being may and may not allow. But if we were unwilling to believe that a woman-shaped piece of stone could have arisen by natural means, how much less should we believe that a woman-shaped piece of stone with a nervous system and a mind (not to mention an absolute moral law) had a purely natural origin?

Third, as I discussed my Venus de Milo analogy in my opening statement, I mentioned the fall of man, but only to say that I wouldn’t be defending any particular theistic view. In his rebuttal, however, John responded to the fall as if it were part of my case. (I told John prior to the debate that I’m perfectly happy siding with Muslims and Jews on this issue, but Ed Babinski convinced him to focus his attack on Christian theism in particular.) Thus, in my rebuttal I offered a short outline of how the fall would fit into my view of evil: God creates a world, and he upholds us and sustains us. Yet we decide that we would rather not listen to God. Instead, we would prefer to do things our way. God says, in effect, “If you’d like to do things on your own, that’s up to you, but now I have to be separate from you.” God withdraws some of his sustaining power, and things start wearing down. Notice that my view of the curse here is at odds with the view of atheists. Skeptics interpret the curse as something that God added to the world. In other words, we had a perfect world, and then God added pain, death, and disease. On my view, however, the curse is the result of subtraction. God separates from the world, and the result is a world where things no longer go the way we want them to go. Atheists think it’s silly to believe in something like the fall, but we should keep three things in mind: (1) that man has a sinful nature is one of the most empirically verifiable facts in the universe (it’s also central to John’s complaint that God shouldn’t have created us); (2) the fall isn’t an isolated doctrine, but a piece of a coherent religious system grounded by the resurrection of Jesus; and (3) to say that man rebelled against God is certainly no more absurd than saying, for instance, that the universe exploded out of nowhere for no reason. So, even though I didn’t set out to defend the fall of man, I don’t think Christianity or other Abrahamic faiths are worse off if we bring the fall into the debate.

Fourth, I offered three examples of theodicies in the debate. I mentioned free will theodicies, according to which God allows moral evil because of the importance of free will. John doesn’t think that God should have created free will, but we simply have to disagree on this point. I also put forward what I call the “Wizard of Oz theodicy.” Here I pointed out that, in the movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her friends went searching for a wizard because of two factors: (1) they were in a place of wonder and magic, and (2) they had problems. I argued that we, like our friends in Oz, live in a world of wonder and problems, and that these two factors work together to produce a proper attitude towards God—an attitude of dependence and awe. (This doesn’t mean that everyone develops this attitude, however.) Finally, I talked briefly about soul-building theodicies. Briefly stated, God is not our “divine thermostat in the sky,” whose purpose is to keep things just the way we like them. Atheists tend to think that, if God exists, his single greatest purpose must be our comfort. But if God has other things in mind—such as our growth as moral beings—then suffering may play a role in our lives.

I must note that these three theodicies were by no means intended to be a comprehensive account of why God allows evil. Indeed, I didn’t even use my two favorite theodicies, because I thought they would consume too much time for a short debate. My goal in presenting three theodicies was to offer a broad picture of some of the reasons various thinkers have posited for God’s allowance of natural and moral evil. However, my presentation was problematic because John and I had quite different views of my role in the debate. John seems to have thought that my purpose in the debate was to explain all natural and moral evil, and that if I didn’t, he would win the debate and God doesn’t exist. My view of my role, however, was that I was there to challenge John’s contention that suffering, all by itself, makes the existence of God implausible. If I’m right (and given the topic, I certainly am right), then my job was to poke holes in John’s case, since the burden of proof was on him. His case hinges on the idea that the world is filled with pointless evil. If I can show that there are plausible reasons why God would allow evil, then it’s plausible that God exists. If it’s plausible that God exists, then evil obviously doesn’t make the existence of God implausible, and John’s argument fails. Hence I offered some theodicies.

Fifth, I asked John why the problem of evil outweighs all the arguments in favor of God’s existence. A theist, I argued, could grant that suffering provides some evidence against God’s existence but still maintain that this evidence is outweighed by all the positive evidence in favor of God’s existence. In other words, we know that there is a great deal of suffering in our world, but this isn’t all we know about our world. Until atheists can offer a good reason for focusing on suffering as the most significant feature pertaining to the question of God’s existence, one might reasonably regard them as cosmic pessimists. John’s response in the debate was that there aren’t any good arguments for God’s existence. In his review, he went further and criticized me for not presenting any arguments for God’s existence in the course of the debate. But there are a number of problems with these responses. (1) Our debate topic wasn’t the existence of God. The topic was whether suffering makes the existence of God implausible. If I were to present a positive case for God’s existence, and John were to respond to my arguments, we would be debating the topic “Does God Exist?” (2) The point of my question was not to show that the evidence for God’s existence outweighs the evidence against God’s existence (although it does). Rather, I was asking John why the argument from evil is so much better than other arguments. That is, the argument from evil, like all other arguments, is made up of premises and a conclusion. But why is this argument so powerful when compared to arguments that favor theism? Why should a person look at the argument from evil and say, “Now there’s a good argument!” yet turn to all other arguments and say, “What a bunch of nonsense!”? If we remember that John’s claim is a very strong one and that the burden is on him to prove it, he must give us some reason for thinking that his argument outstrips all others. But he never did this. Instead, he simply made an argument and trusted listeners to assume that it is better than anything theism has to offer. (3) If John says that there are no good arguments for theism (as he said in the debate), we must recognize what his position really is. John is actually saying, “The extent of suffering in our world, together with the poor quality of theistic arguments, make the existence of God implausible.” But if this is his position, then he is admitting that suffering, taken by itself, doesn’t make the existence of God implausible. It is only when theistic arguments have been shown to be flawed that the existence of God becomes implausible. Hence, suffering can’t do what John says it can do, and he should now admit this.

Sixth, in the course of the debate, I pointed out three inconsistencies in John’s argument. The gist of his position is that there is probably pointless suffering in the world, and that God therefore probably doesn’t exist, since an all-good, all-powerful being wouldn’t permit pointless suffering. But this is completely inconsistent with his claim that arguments for God’s existence fail. Think about it. Theists argue that life could not have arisen by chance, since the probabilities are overwhelmingly against it. Similarly, it is extremely improbable that the universe that formed would have all the characteristics necessary for life, and this implies a designer. How do atheists respond? They argue that, even though it is horribly improbable that life formed on its own, and that a life-permitting universe formed by chance, they are going to believe these things happened anyway. Thus, atheists happily go against the probabilities. But if they’re happy to go against the probabilities when it comes to the origin of life or the fine-tuning of the cosmos, they are inconsistent when they turn to the theist and say, “It’s improbable that there could be reasons for suffering, and you should never believe things that are improbable.” To put the matter differently, a theist could say, “I have no clue why God allows evil, but I’m going to believe that he has his reasons anyway,” and he would be no worse off than the atheist when the latter says, “I have no clue how life could have formed on its own, but I’m going to believe it anyway.” Nevertheless, since theists can offer at least some plausible reasons for God to allow suffering, they are on much better ground than atheists.

Another inconsistency related to John’s position is that he seemed to be arguing (1) that humans are so bad that God shouldn’t have created us, and (2) that we’re so good that God shouldn’t let us suffer. I think he needs to pick one or the other and stick with it. If humans are so awful that God shouldn’t have created us, atheists shouldn’t be shocked when God allows us to suffer. After all, we’re really, really bad. Alternatively, if we’re so good that God should never allow us to suffer, atheists shouldn’t be surprised that God created us. Part of John’s argument needs to be jettisoned.

Yet another inconsistency that emerged in the debate and in John’s review is that John demands that theists account for all the intense suffering in the world, and all of the various kinds of evil in the world. But would an atheist ever accept such a high burden of proof for his own position? Of course not. I could say, “Until atheists explain the origin of life and give us a detailed description of how each species arose, atheism is implausible!” I could also say, “Until atheists give me a complete account of how a universe came from nothing, atheism is false!” But atheists would reply that I’m being unreasonable in my demands.

Like it or not, our knowledge is quite limited. In the debate, I talked about an incident in which my oldest son, then a year old, needed four shots. I had to hold him down while the doctor stabbed him repeatedly with a needle. Could my son comprehend why I was apparently helping a person stab him? No. My reasons were beyond his comprehension. Now if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and wholly good, the difference between him and us is much greater than the difference between me and my son. Does it make sense, then, to demand that theists know all of God’s reasons for suffering? As I said in my opening statement, I believe that we can come to some understanding of suffering. But when atheists start demanding omniscience in their opponents, all I can do is point out the inconsistency.

Seventh, although John said that I didn’t present any arguments for the existence of God, I did present one—the moral argument for theism. But even here I wasn’t arguing for God’s existence. I was merely pointing out an important difficulty with the argument from evil, namely, that it self-destructs by granting the crucial premise in one of the arguments for theism. Consider the moral argument:

(1)  If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist.

(2)  Objective moral values do exist.

(3)  Therefore, God exists.

Many atheists and theists alike grant the first premise. That is, it makes sense to think that, apart from God, moral values do not transcend humanity. If God does not exist, moral values are a product of evolution and culture. They don’t refer to anything beyond our species. So the moral argument really comes down to the second premise. If we grant that objective moral values exist, the conclusion follows—God exists. The problem for theists is that it’s incredibly difficult to prove that there are objective moral values. Moral values aren’t something we can point to or put under a microscope. But if we catch atheists appealing to objective moral values, then we’ve got something.

As it turns out, atheists who use the argument from evil do indeed appeal to objective moral values, and they do so on two different levels. One, by arguing that suffering is bad or evil, they’re appealing to some objective standard of good and evil. If the atheist replies here that suffering isn’t really evil, then how does what is not evil conflict with God’s goodness? Two, by saying what God must and must not do, atheists are claiming that there are moral laws that even God would have to follow. Hence, in both cases the atheist must appeal, directly or indirectly, to moral values that transcend humanity. Dr. Hatab, the moderator, objected to my argument. It is important to note, however, that his objection was to the premise that God is the only source of objective moral values. I responded that even if, say, utilitarianism is in some way objective for humans, this certainly isn’t something that would be objective for God. In his review, John maintained that he’s only pointing out an internal consistency within theism. But here he is dodging the facts. For unless he has some idea of which moral values are absolute, how can he say which moral values are binding on God? And what if I said, “You know, suffering is good. I think the goodness of suffering proves that God exists, since there’s so much good in the world”? If John sincerely believes that he’s only arguing from within my perspective, he should have nothing to say here. The reality, of course, is that John knows something about absolute right and wrong. He just isn’t comfortable with the implications of his knowledge. Hence, until atheists offer some plausible source of objective moral values, theists are amply justified in concluding that atheism’s strongest argument actually helps support theism.

Assessment

Putting all of this together, we find:

(1)  The argument from evil, at best, poses a significant problem for only one version of theism—theistic personalism (which happens to be my position).

(2)  Just as missing arms on the Venus de Milo do not entail that it formed without a sculptor, so also problems with the world do not automatically entail that the universe formed without a creator.

(3)  If there was an actual fall of man, in which we decided to live apart from God, we can hardly expect God to rush to our aid every time something goes wrong.

(4)  There are a number of theodicies, which, when taken together, account for a great deal of the world’s evil.

(5)  Even if evil provides some evidence against the existence of God, it’s not the only evidence that bears on this question.

(6)  John’s argument contains at least three inconsistencies: he dismisses theistic arguments using principles that would also allow us to dismiss the problem of evil; he maintains simultaneously that humans are so bad that we shouldn’t have been created and that we’re so good that God shouldn’t allow us to suffer; and he places a burden of proof on theists that he himself would never accept.

(7)  By appealing to objective moral values, atheists grant the crucial premise in the moral argument for God’s existence.

Now let’s be honest here. Atheists may still hold that the problem of evil is a difficulty for theism. But that’s not what we’re discussing. Given the numerous valid objections to John’s claim, can we honestly say that he has shown that suffering makes the existence of God implausible? I’m sure some atheists will say yes. And this is really the point of my essay.

When atheists are confronted with arguments for God’s existence, they immediately look for a problem in the argument, no matter how insignificant this problem may be. “Prove to me that something cannot come from nothing,” says the atheist, ignoring the fact that he would gladly grant such a common-sensical premise if it weren’t being used in an argument for God’s existence. Atheists will go to any lengths to avoid the conclusion that God exists. But then, when we turn to the argument from evil, and we find unproven assumptions, inconsistencies, appeals to things that help prove theism, etc., the atheist is willing to overlook all of this and claim that his position has been conclusively proven. This sort of argument-favoritism shows that the atheist’s adherence to the problem of evil isn’t just a matter of the intellect. If it were, he would consider all arguments fairly, and he would acknowledge that the difficulties associated with the argument from evil make it far less adequate than some of the proofs for God’s existence. The atheist’s claim that evil proves his position is largely a matter of the will. He wants to hold to this argument, but not to arguments that conflict with his belief. Matters of the will are, of course, entirely up to the atheist. But we should acknowledge the role of the will and admit that suffering can’t do what atheists want it to do. It can’t make the existence of God implausible for a person whose will isn’t already set against God. We might even argue that the atheist’s shifting level of skepticism (along with the endless blaming of God) lends some support to the Christian doctrine of the fall of man.

APPENDIX: Additional Responses to John’s Arguments 

(1) John argued that giving us free will is like giving a razor blade to a child. No it’s not.  Nothing good is going to come from giving a razor blade to a child. But a great deal of good comes from giving free will to people. So giving us free will isn’t like distributing razors to toddlers. I would say, however, that it’s like giving birth to a child. That’s a better analogy. When a woman gives birth, she knows that she’s bringing into the world a person who is going to do wrong. But it’s still good to have children. So if John’s position is that, because children are going to do wrong, it would be better not to have them, we’re just going to have to disagree.

(2) John argued that God should have given us stronger inclinations to do what’s right. I’m not sure how this would differ from taking away our free will. For instance, if I could put a computer chip in my wife’s brain that would make her have a stronger inclination to say, “David, you’re mega-hot,” I wouldn’t do it. She’d be saying it because of the computer chip. And if God were to give us all very strong inclinations to do his will, it would seem to take away the value of doing his will. We’d be doing it because he inserted a certain inclination into us, not because we chose to do it.

(3) John noted that our free will is already limited. And I will note again that I don’t understand the objection. The theist argues that free will is important enough for God to allow us to misuse it. The atheist responds, “But there are already limits to our free will.” Right, though it would be more proper to say that our freedom of action is limited. But the theist never claimed that free will must be limitless. He simply said that we must have some real free will. Loftus quotes Andrea Weisberger, who says that if free will is so important, we should possess it perfectly. But what can she mean here? That God should have made us omnipotent so that we would be unlimited? I’m not sure that’s reasonable, and it reflects the atheist tendency to say, “Oh, X is important? Well, why not make X infinite?” (as when John says that if suffering helps build the soul, God should give us much more suffering). My position is not that we need omnipotence. We don’t. But we do need a good amount of free will. John says that since our free will is already limited, we shouldn’t object to God limiting it some more. (Cf. “The government is already taxing you, so you shouldn’t object to the government raising taxes.) What John has in mind is that God should limit our ability to, say, harm one another. But what would this look like? God takes away our ability to build knives, so we can no longer cut each other. But now we can’t cut anything at all. Or perhaps God takes away my fists so that I can’t hit my neighbor. It seems, however, that he would need to remove my hands. How could I type a letter?

We have the ability to harm one another because we have a number of other abilities that we misuse. When we misuse these abilities, I blame us. John blames God. Thus, John blames God for racism. If God had only created one race, John says, then there would be no racism. But let’s keep going. We also discriminate based on sex, so God should have created one sex. We can discriminate based on height, weight, eye color, and a number of other factors, so God should have made us all physically the same. We can even discriminate based on preferences, so God would even have to give us all identical minds. What does John’s view entail? A world without diversity, filled with men made by a single cookie-cutter. True, it would be a world without racism. But I’m not sure it would be a better world.

Returning to the matter of free will, suppose God had created the world such that the worst possible thing we could do to one another would be to annoy each other slightly. This just doesn’t seem like a world suitable for significant moral development. Is it a better world? Only if our sole criterion is how comfortable we are. Hence, I still don’t understand the atheist’s objection.

[For more on atheists’ ideas of what God should do, see “If Richard were God.”]

(4) John argued that God should show more involvement in the world. There are several ways God could do this, so I’ll offer a few responses. John could argue that God should stop us when we do wrong, but I’m not sure what kind of freedom this would be. Imagine saying to a teenager, “You’re free to go to the party if you want, but if you try to go, I’ll chain you to the bed.” If God stops us whenever we do something wrong, our freedom is an illusion.  Now I do understand when someone asks, “Well, why didn’t God stop Hitler?” Even if free will is important, we’d be inclined to draw a line somewhere. So why doesn’t God intervene more than he does? Well, if we follow this mode of thinking through to its logical conclusion, we find that this sort of interference by God would destroy morality.

I’m sure this sounds like a crazy claim, so I’ll defend it very quickly. Suppose you’re walking down the street, and you find a purse filled with money. Some people would return it to its owner, while others would keep it. Those who return it would be doing the right thing for the right reason. Those who keep it would be doing the wrong thing, and they’d be acting from a wrong motive. Now let’s change the situation. Suppose you’re walking down the street, and you find a purse full of money, but there’s a police officer standing there. Now all of us would do the right thing. We’d all return the purse. But we’d be returning it because there was a police officer standing there, not because it’s the moral thing to do.

Now what would happen if God started going around intervening whenever we did something wrong? Well, everyone would be convinced that God exists. That would be good, wouldn’t it? But at what cost? Everyone would know that we’re all being watched at all times. We’d all know that there’s a policeman everywhere we go—an all-knowing, all-seeing police man, ready to zap us whenever we mess up. Yes, our behavior would be much better than it is now. But our actions would have no moral worth at all. We wouldn’t be acting for the right reasons. We’d be acting out of fear—fear of getting zapped. That’s why I said that it would destroy morality if God did things the way atheists say he should do them.

Here John could argue that God should simply stop the bad effects of our actions. But there is already a world where there are no bad effects of our actions. Daffy Duck lives there. Elmer Fudd shoots him in the face, and Daffy’s bill spins around his head a bunch of times, and it’s backwards when it finally stops. But Daffy’s okay. It’s the same thing with Wile E. Coyote. He straps on his rocket pack, flies straight into a wall, and explodes, but he’s okay for the next episode. It might be fun to live in Toon Town for a weekend, but I’m not sure I’d want to live my life there. It seems that what atheists are asking for is a world without consequences for our actions. I know lots of people would love a world with no consequences for our actions, but I’m not sure that it would be a better world.

Perhaps John could regroup and suggest that God should act in the world without our knowing it. John thinks that God should be an assassin, giving heart attacks to really bad people like Hitler. So why doesn’t God assassinate the bad guys? I’ll say a few things in response. First, as a Christian, I believe that God often works through our free actions. In the Old Testament, Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery. That was evil. But Joseph becomes powerful and he’s able to save his brothers from starvation. In the end he says to his brothers, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” So even though Joseph’s brothers freely chose to commit an evil act, God was using it to bring about certain events in the world. And if God does that—if God brings things about through our free choices, without interfering, then God may allow horrible atrocities because they play an important role in future events. Think about the Holocaust. It was awful. But when it was over, the nation of Israel was reinstated in the Middle East. Hitler freely chose his actions. The nations who gave the Jews back their homeland freely chose to do it. Freedom wasn’t tampered with, and yet we can see that something very important came out of it. And so if God wants, say, a nation of Israel, but he doesn’t want to interfere with free will, it seems that he may need to permit things like the Holocaust. This doesn’t mean that the Holocaust was good. It was certainly evil. But we can see that a tremendous good came out of it, and apart from interfering with free will, there may have been no other route to this good.

Second, I don’t see how an atheist can sincerely say that God should go around killing people. Here’s the problem with that view. Suppose, hypothetically, that our definition of bad, and God’s definition of bad, don’t match up perfectly. We’re saying that God should kill Hitler, because he was extremely bad. But what about the rest of the Nazis? They were bad too. What about Stalin and Mao Tse Tung? What about all their followers? What about the settlers who killed the Native Americans? What about slave traders? What about porn-peddlers? Should God go on a killing spree? And where should God draw the line? Why should he only kill someone over the Holocaust? Why not kill anyone who’s going to do something wrong? Now John might say, “Well, God should draw the line exactly where I would draw it.” But if he says that, then he’s just saying that if God exists, he should be just like John Loftus, with John’s opinions and views.  And God simply isn’t like us. So if you say that God should go around killing people who do bad things, I hope you’re ready for everyone in the entire world to be killed, because an infinitely good, infinitely holy, infinitely just being is going to have different standards from us. So maybe we should be careful when we start demanding assassinations.

Third, we shouldn’t forget that God has given us the ability to deal with people like Hitler. People like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and others arise, and we can either fight them and fix the situation, or we can sit back and do nothing. But God hasn’t left us helpless. When evil prevails, it’s our fault for letting it prevail.

(5) John argued that suffering leads people away from God. He was responding to my Wizard of Oz theodicy. My main point there was that suffering and difficulties, combined with an amazing world, can actually help produce in us a proper attitude towards God. But it’s also true that suffering, on the whole, tends to lead people to God. True, in some instances, certain people have rejected God because of suffering. (I’m thinking of Elie Wiesel here.) But it’s a simple fact that these are the exceptions. Normally, when we experience pain, we run to God. And this isn’t idle speculation; this can be shown statistically. Christianity is spreading most rapidly in places where there has been tremendous suffering. Atheism typically gains ground in places like America, where we have comparatively less suffering. Atheism isn’t on the rise in Rwanda. People aren’t becoming atheists in Somalia or Lebanon. Too much suffering doesn’t generally lead us away from God. Too much pleasure is what leads us away from God, because we end up forgetting that we need Him.

(6) John says that soul-building is pointless, since virtue won’t play a role in heaven. I’m not sure that virtue won’t play a role in heaven, but even if it doesn’t, developing virtue certainly affects the soul, and this effect is positive. Moreover, we could argue that virtue plays a role in the spread of the Gospel, and in people’s acceptance of the Gospel. But besides all of this, it never occurs to John that some things are good in themselves. It is good to be patient, or courageous, or temperate, regardless of whether these things play a role in eternity.

(7) John said in his review that I never responded to the problem of animal suffering. I’ll admit that, given the extent of human suffering in the world, I’m far less concerned about animal suffering. However, I did give a brief response during the debate. Pain serves an important biological role. If the atheist thinks that God should take away an animal’s ability to feel pain, I hope he’s ready for the consequences. If cats didn’t feel pain, they would be extinct by now. When Fluffy jumps on a hot stove, pain tells her to get off the stove because the stove is harmful. As such, Fluffy should thank God for pain.

If I know John by now, I think he would respond that if animals must experience pain, then God shouldn’t have created them. This is one of the greatest differences between John and me. I think it’s better to exist, even if something is going to suffer. Humans could eliminate all suffering tomorrow if we wanted, by blowing up the entire world. But for whatever reason, we think that life is still worth living. So let’s examine our alternatives. God could either create animals or not create them. I say that it would be better to create them. Now God could either create them with the ability to experience pain or without it. I say it would be better if he creates them with the ability to experience pain. The atheist will respond here by arguing, “But why not create them perfect and invincible?” But this ignores the sort of world we live in. We are in a natural world governed by natural laws. It seems that God knew we would fall, and that he would have to separate from us, and that we would need a world that functions according to certain laws. The animals are a part of our world, so they must be a part of the natural order, which means they are subject to death, pain, etc. We can always ask, “Why didn’t God create a perfect world?” But this only brings us back to theodicies, the fall, and so on. As we have seen, atheists can’t get very far with these topics.

(8) John argued in his opening statement and in his review that arguments for God’s existence don’t point specifically to any religion. I have no clue what this has to do with whether or not suffering makes the existence of God implausible. If John could explain it to me, I would be happy to answer the objection. However, I will note that even though the design argument and the cosmological argument don’t point exclusively to Christianity, they do point away from atheism. Hence, if the arguments work (and I would say that they fare much better than John’s claim that suffering makes the existence of God implausible), atheism is out of the picture and we are left to decide which form of theism is strongest. Since Jesus rose from the dead, I’m siding with Christianity.