Suffering and evil;

And underlying assumption of the problem of natural evil is that suffering is evil. But do we have any good reason to think this is the case? Surely suffering cannot be evil in the sense of identity, nor can suffering be a subset of evil, for there are many sufferings one might consider good, enduring the pain of training to run a marathon, or simply the mental stress of staying up all night studying for finals. These sufferings would seem to be beneficial. Therefore, if suffering has any correlation to evil it is in the form of some S are E where S equals suffering and E equals evil. This is assuming, of course, the fundamental presupposition upon which this particular form of the problem of evil is based, that those things which do harm are evil, and those which benefit are good. But it seems to me that if the problem of natural evil, is to do irreparable damage to the Christian religion, it must operate on the premise that natural evil is inconsistent with Christian views of the nature God, goodness, and man. This naturally brings up the question; must Christianity operate under the presupposition that what harms is evil and what benefits is good?

Lets assume for a moment that Christianity must operate on said principle, what would this mean for the problem of natural evil? First of all, one must consider what would be considered harmful and beneficial on Christianity. Obviously, one would have to place spiritual concerns above physical concerns as any damage to one soul would be permanent and much more weighty (leading one to either the destinations of heaven or hell), barring intervention from God, whereas physical harm would be temporal and much more reparable (through medicine, surgery etc...). Because of this physical sufferings which bring about spiritual benefit would be reasonably considered good under a Christian worldview. Even with these considerations alone, we see a theodicy forming in response to the natural problem of evil. It could be supposed that all natural suffering preforms some function which benefits the spirit of an individual, and thus would be considered good. Granted significant objections could be raised against such a theodicy. For example, what about those who become embittered because of there suffering and grow to despise all that is good? Given such objections, it seems reasonable only to regard such a theodicy as a partial theodicy and not a complete theodicy against the natural problem of evil.

But what considerations should we take into account in regards to the principle that whatever harms is evil and whatever benefits is good? One more basic consideration would certainly be that given a Christian worldview, such a principle would, at the very least, be incomplete. For one thing, such a principle would not, by itself, allow for the concept of justice. Justice would require punishing harm with harm and benefit with benefit. Justice, being essential to Christian ethics, must be taken into consideration when discussing the problem of natural evil from a Christian perspective. Indeed, given justice, at least some forms of suffering may be due to God justly punishing those who have committed wrongs. Again this would only be a partial theodicy as making it a complete theodicy would lead to the conclusion that innocent children and even the unborn are deserving of suffering, and furthermore, that every suffering we do endure is an indication of some sin we've committed. Nevertheless, some suffering does seem to come about as a consequence of our actions (global warming may be one such example). 

There are perhaps dozens more considerations to take into account when analyzing the problem of natural evil within a Christian worldview, but this at least gives a brief introduction into how I have dealt with such a challenge to the Christian worldview.

Is doubt a bad thing?

Many Christians think that doubting is a sin. That to question scripture is to be unfaithful. But this is to oversimplify the matter. Merely Questioning scripture is not the issue, in fact questioning scripture is necessary for growing in faith. Allow me to explain what I mean; imagine a Christian studying scripture and coming across a contradiction. What should the Christian do? Simply ignore the contradiction? Certainly not, the Biblical way to approach the issue would be to research the issue while being open to there being an answer. This includes meditation, prayer, and researching scholarly commentaries. This is Biblical doubt. Damaging doubt would be to say something along the lines of, "How could God confuse me in this way? Surely God is cruel to have done this!" See the difference? One has hope that God will allow us to find an answer, the other is without hope in Christ. Oddly enough such worldly doubt can and most often is brought about by blind faith. When we think that we must not ask questions for the sake of our faith we block ourselves off from the understanding such inquiries would bring. Thus in doing so we damage our faith instead of preserving it.

Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?

This is an objection which has always fascinated me, as there is more than one argument behind it. For example one line of reasoning would be this; If God answers prayers, why has He never, in recorded history healed an amputee? I mean if you would think that God would find it appropriate to do at least once right?

First of all, how do we know God hasn’t? Second of all if you are going to be consistent in your objection you have to take into account Jesus healing the roman soldier by re-attaching his ear. Thirdly, how could we know that there would be an appropriate time in which God would want to answer such a prayer? Fourthly, the whole premise this argument is based upon is flawed, why should we believe that there would be an appropriate time for God to answer this kind of prayer? There are many different things people have asked for which God has not granted as far as we know. For example; that we may live to be 200 years old, or that our deadly food allergy to peanuts would go away, or that people with dwarfism would become taller. Note that all of these examples are around the same degree of urgency as an amputation, which is not that much.

Ok so as an issue to the effectiveness of prayer this isn’t a useful objection, but what about the problem of evil? Why does God allow amputees to go through all this suffering?

The answer to this relates to my last point above, if you have a peanut allergy, you stay away from peanuts, if you have dwarfism you have to learn to adapt, and if you have an amputated leg or arm, you have to learn to adapt. I mean to expect God to get rid of these issues for you is extremely self-centered and small-minded. Imagine if God did do such things, would we have made the advances in medicine that we have? Doubtful, we would have no reason to. Now of course, I’m not saying that amputees shouldn’t pray to God for strength to get through their predicament, we all need that strength and mercy, but we should ask what we can learn from our mistakes, and from our suffering, how we can gain from it, before we go complaining about it.

I’m sure there are more ways this question is used, but these two cover the main objections drawn from this question. But, what do you think about this issue? Is this question problematic for theists, or is it just simply based upon flawed assumptions?

Interesting vid on evolution;

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/spain.htm

Talks about the extremely similar chromosomes of humans and chimpanzees, as well as a fusion of two chimp chromosomes in human D.N.A. confirming that we did, in fact, come from apes.

A question of knowledge

According to Justified True Belief or JTB, a proposition is known when someone believes it is true, and it is in fact true. One thing I find odd about this view is that it makes it possible to know something, without actually knowing that you know it. Take the example of someone trying to fix a computer. They believe that the issue is a particular virus, but they aren’t certain. As it turns out, they were correct, and so according to JTB they had knowledge without certainty. Is this possible?

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

Opinions?

Its funny how much I hear internet atheists say; opinions are like penises, everyones got one, but we would all appreciate it if you would stop shoving it in our faces. The irony is how many atheists abuse the internet in sharing their opinions, I can understand having your own blogs, websites and forums, but atheist will often comment on Christian videos that have nothing to do with apologetics and mock Christian beliefs. And yes many if not most of said atheists would agree that Christians should stfu about their religious beliefs. This is just one of the major dialectical tensions in the New Atheist movement, they seem to want people to be more cautious about voicing their opinions, but at the same time they call for atheists to ridicule religious beliefs and be more and more outspoken. I’m not sure how these two desires can be reconciled without completely discrediting the N.A. movement. But then again, to a large extent the movement already has been discredited.

Presuppositional calamity

Presuppositional apologetics makes many claims. But some of the more humorous of these claims is made on carm.org. Specifically this article; http://carm.org/presuppositional-apologetics

Now CARM aka Christian Apologetics Research ministry has made many many fallacious claims in virtually all of its articles. The article above is no exception, as we shall soon see.

The Author of this article, Matt Slick, starts out by explaining his view of Total Depravity. Matt argues that because of our fallen nature those who are regenerate cannot convince the unregenerate that God exists and died for our sins with evidence. Not only is this demonstrably false (many people have converted to Christianity because of the evidence for it) the passage he uses, Romans 1:18-22 doesn’t even support his view all that well.

"18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,”

While this passage no doubt is consistent with total depravity, it does not imply at all that people cannot be convinced by evidence. Indeed verse 19 seems to indicate the opposite, that everyone has been convinced from the evidence around them (if you want to use Matt’s own sloppy interpretation of course). Thus to use these verses in support of Matt’s view seems to be no less than foolish. 

Matt continues with a second verse to support his view 1 Corinthians 2:14 which states; 

"14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised."

It seems to me a more accurate interpretation of these is that what is known about God, or God’s general revelation, is obvious or intuitive from creation and natural men understand it, but that God’s special revelation, the things of the Spirit of God, are not understood by men and can only be understood by God’s grace. So these verses do not seem to be saying that men cannot be convinced that Christianity is true, but that spiritual truths cannot be understood by natural men, without the grace of God. Its also unclear why God could not use evidence to bring people to Christ. Could God not open peoples minds to perceive the evidence and understand it to be convincing? Here Matts claims are far too vague to be of any use, if he wants to show the Bible supports his view, he needs to do more than quote a few verses.

Matt then gives this fictitious conversation as an illustration of his thought process;

"Allen:  I am an atheist and evolutionist.  Prove to me there is a God.
Paul:   I do not think I can do that, because of your presuppositions.
Allen:  Why not?
Paul:  Because your presuppositions will not allow you to examine without bias the evidence that I present to you for God's existence. 
Allen: That is because there is no evidence for God's existence.
Paul:  See?  There you go.  You just confirmed what I was stating.
Allen:  How so?
Paul:  Your presupposition is that there is no God; therefore, no matter what I might present to you to show His existence, you must interpret it in a manner consistent with your presupposition: namely, that there is no God.  If I were to have a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you'd say it was a special effect.  If I had a thousand eye-witnesses saying they saw Him, you'd say it was mass-hysteria.  If I had Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament, you'd say they were forged, dated incorrectly, or not real prophecies.  So, I cannot prove anything to you since your presupposition won't allow it.  It is limited.
Allen: It is not limited.
Paul:  Yes it is.  Your presupposition cannot allow you to rightly determine God's existence from evidence -- providing that there were factual proofs of His existence.  Don't you see?  If I DID have incontrovertible proof, your presupposition would force you to interpret the facts consistently with your presupposition and you would not be able to see the proof.
Allen:  I see your point, but I am open to being persuaded, if you can.
Paul:  Then, I must ask you, what kind of evidence would you accept that would prove God's existence?  I must see what your presuppositions are and work either with them or against them.”


This conversation seems horribly contrived, and doesn’t make much sense when one takes a closer look. Matt seems to think that to hold to atheism means to hold that atheism is an axiom which governs all other reasoning. So if someone presents evidence of God’s existence, the atheist will merely reject it on the basis of his axiom, which of course is circular reasoning. Thus Matt here appears to be arguing that it is impossible not to argue in a circle, we all have presuppositions which we hold to without good reason. I’d recommend that Matt do some research in the area of epistemology and familiarize himself with properly basic beliefs. Properly basic beliefs are such that they are either self evident or incorrigible. An example would be the external world, because the external world is apparent to us but we cannot verify nor falsify its true nature, we are rational in believing it is the way we experience it without evidence.


Another interesting point occurs when the character Paul states, "If I were to have a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you'd say it was a special effect.  If I had a thousand eye-witnesses saying they saw Him, you'd say it was mass-hysteria.  If I had Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament, you'd say they were forged, dated incorrectly, or not real prophecies.  So, I cannot prove anything to you since your presupposition won't allow it.  It is limited.”


Whether Matt realizes it or not, he is making an entirely different point here. This doesn’t imply that the atheist views his atheism as axiomatic, but that he raises objections to various evidences for God’s existence, which is precisely what an atheist needs to do. Its astonishing to me that Matt Slick thinks this way, because raising objections and responding to them, is simply how reasoning works in any area of life, you cannot say its futile, otherwise you are saying that arguing over any issue is pointless, and thus it is inexplicable why Matt bothered to write this article.


Of course these are just a few bizarre things I’ve found with presuppositional apologetics, or at least its popular interpretations. More critiques of presuppositional apologetics, as well as what I think it gets right, coming soon.