The Problem of Suffering

               I have previously written on this blog about the vast amount of suffering that exists in the world. If you haven’t read that post yet, please do. I consider it to be the most important thing I’ve ever written. In addition to being a powerful motivator to improve the state of the world, the existence of such an enormous amount of suffering is also a compelling reason to reject Christianity (and other religions too, but I’ll focus on Christianity). The problem of suffering (or problem of evil, as it is often called) presents a serious challenge to those who believe in the Christian God, and despite numerous attempts by Christian apologists to answer it, I believe the problem remains unsolved.

               Christians are keen to admire the work of God whenever it suits them. God is praised for having created such wonderful things as sunsets, flowers, stars, mountains, and love. Even life itself is considered to be a great gift from the almighty. But if God is the creator of the entire universe and everything in it, then he is also responsible for disease, natural disasters, depression, and pain. Any human who unleashed these horrors upon the world would be sent straight to The Hague for crimes against humanity. If God deserves the credit for all the good things in the world, then he also deserves the blame for the bad things. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

               The plain truth is that the world we live in is totally inconsistent with God as he is described by Christians. It is much more consistent with a god who is afflicted with split personality disorder, given that both happiness and suffering abound. Ironically, God’s sudden change in behavior between the Old and New Testaments seems to support that hypothesis. But of course Christians would never admit to such blasphemy. God, they insist, is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient being. The problem is that any god with these qualities simply could not have created our universe, for if God is omnipotent, then he has the power to prevent suffering, and if he is omnibenevolent, then he wants to. Moreover, if he is omniscient, then he is aware of what suffering is and knows exactly how to prevent it. If such a being exists, we should expect to live in a perfect world. God should have just created everyone already in heaven. But clearly we do not find ourselves in such a world. Anyone who has read a newspaper knows that there is something seriously wrong with this place. The tough question that Christians must answer is: why?

               The Christian’s first response is usually that God wanted to give us free will. This view is supported by the vast majority of Christians, though I should note that certain sects such as Calvinists dissent. I should also note that whether free will actually exists is a bit of a contentious issue among philosophers and scientists, but that’s a topic for another post. For now, let’s just assume for the sake of argument that we do have free will. Christians argue that having free will is so important that God would never interfere with our choices no matter how heinous they may be. So when the Nazis sent the Jews to concentration camps and murdered them by the millions, God had to allow them to do so. Their reasoning is that God does not want us to be merely robots mindlessly obeying a computer program. Rather, he wants us to freely choose to do what is right. So whatever amount of suffering people cause is simply the price we have to pay for having free will.

               Many atheists are willing to concede this point to Christians and proceed to challenge them on other issues related to the problem of suffering. I’ll get to those in a moment, but I actually don’t think the free will defense is at all a good justification. Let me explain.

               Nobody thinks that free will entails having the option to do anything we want. For example, we can’t jump 100 meters into the air, walk through solid objects, or travel faster than the speed of light, but none of these limitations suggest a lack of free will. So if God can impose certain restrictions on our behavior without infringing on our free will, then why can’t he impose other restrictions which would greatly reduce suffering? God could make it physically impossible to commit genocide, for example, while still allowing us to have free will in other respects. We could still choose who to marry, which career to pursue, whether to eat an apple or a banana, etc. because these decisions do not include options to commit evil. So in fact God could have prevented the Holocaust without interfering with anyone’s free will. Now, I’m sure Christians will object that having the option to commit evil is simply an essential component of free will, and if that’s not included, then it’s not really free will. Okay, fine, but if that’s your position, then you must admit that there is no free will in heaven since nobody can ever commit evil there.

               Another way God could prevent human-caused suffering without even slightly restricting free will is by molding human nature so that we are more inclined to behave ethically. There is no doubt that the human brain is equipped with certain traits that are not conducive to good behavior, and this is not our fault. We are simply wired for violence. We instinctively seek revenge, dominance, and power. Studies have shown that even the most tolerant multiculturalists among us are inherently racist. Why did God make us the way we are? Why couldn’t God have given us more empathy, for example, or less selfishness, or perhaps an enhanced ability to learn so that we could better understand morality? Too often, we make impulse decisions based on emotion that lead to terrible consequences, so why couldn’t God have made it easier for us to act based on reason instead? If God doesn’t want us to sin, then why did he create us with the desire to sin?

If you’re still not quite understanding my point, consider a blatant example: psychopaths. Maybe God doesn’t literally force psychopaths to do any particular bad thing, but he does engineer their brains in such a way that they have a tendency to do bad things. God deliberately and inexplicably steers psychopaths in the wrong direction. It’s almost as if he is egging them on, like he wants them to fail. Now, would a psychopath have less free will if God hadn’t created him with psychopathy? I doubt any Christian would answer that question affirmatively.

               Even if Christians can come up with adequate responses to these challenges, the problem of suffering still will not be solved, for there is also an immensity of suffering that occurs which has nothing to do with free will. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and disease all cause death and destruction for millions of people each year. Since these are all natural phenomena, it cannot be said that they are merely the inevitable consequence of free agents choosing to commit evil. So Christians, please explain this to me. If God created everything in the universe, then he must have created malaria. So at some point, God must have consciously decided to add malaria to the world. He must have concluded that malaria was a good idea. I mean, seriously, imagine that: “Well, this universe is pretty good, but it’s missing something. Hmm…I’ve got it! Malaria!” This is the absurd situation that Christians must justify. (funny video)

Consider that more than 6 million children under the age of five die each year, mostly due to disease and starvation. That means that at this very instant, some poor child is in severe pain and is struggling to survive. Presumably, the parents of these children are praying for their recovery, but in most cases they will be disappointed. God could intervene by bringing rain to end the drought, for example, but he just doesn’t. Apparently he was too busy determining the outcome of the Super Bowl, as 22% of Americans believe he does. That so many of my fellow citizens, including the notable Christian apologist William Lane Craig, subscribe to a worldview in which the perfect creator of the universe cares more about the outcomes of sporting events than the well-being of millions of children is, quite frankly, obscene. (another funny video)

Okay, so how do Christians usually rationalize this problem away? Some of them invoke the doctrine of original sin as an explanation. According to this view, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden in direct defiance of God’s orders, they pretty much screwed everything up for all of humanity. From that moment on, human beings were considered “fallen”, meaning we are inherently sinful by nature and deserve to be punished for it. This is an utterly absurd justification. Think again about one of the small children who is starving to death. Are we really to believe that that child deserves what is happening to her because of the “sin” of her alleged ancestor? What a disgusting, monstrous doctrine! How could anyone worship a god who made a small child suffer miserably for that reason?! Under no other circumstances does anyone think it is acceptable to punish people for the actions of their ancestors.

But even if you somehow find that to be a convincing argument, you’ve still got to answer for the suffering of non-human animals. According to Christianity, only humans are subject to the doctrine of original sin, and yet animals also suffer in nature. The only response that Christians have given to this problem that even remotely answers the question was proposed by the French philosopher Rene Descartes. He said that animals don’t really suffer; they’re just complex machines that can respond to stimuli. In other words, animals don’t feel pain like humans do; their squeals and whimpers merely create the illusion that they feel pain. Given the striking similarities between all vertebrate nervous systems, we can now confidently disregard Descartes’ argument. The vast majority of neuroscientists today accept that animals are conscious beings that can feel pain. It therefore amazes me that William Lane Craig continues to push a modified version of Descartes’ argument as a solution to the problem of animal suffering (though strangely he admits his argument does not apply to the higher primates but just pretends this isn’t a problem). Clearly Craig is more interested in rationalizing his untenable worldview than in genuinely seeking the truth. A thorough refutation of Craig’s views on animal suffering can be found here.

 Another common response to the problem of suffering is that some amount of suffering is necessary because without it, we would not be able to appreciate happiness. Imagine if you ate your favorite meal at a fancy restaurant for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day. Even though it’s your favorite meal, you will eventually get bored with it. It helps to just have a peanut butter sandwich every once in a while so that when you do have your favorite meal, you will have something to compare it to and thus you will appreciate how delicious it is. Similarly, if someone never suffers, then happiness becomes meaningless. We require some degree of contrast otherwise the happiness just fades into content. Sam Harris puts it eloquently in The Moral Landscape: 

“Some people will go to bed tonight proud to have merely reduced their daily consumption of methamphetamine; others will be frustrated that their rank on the Forbes 400 list has slipped into the triple digits. Where one is satisfied to be in life often has a lot to do with where one has been.”

But while I recognize that there is some truth in this observation, it does not work as a solution to the problem of suffering. First of all, it fails to answer another crucial question: why is the distribution of suffering so unequal? Some people struggle their whole lives, living from paycheck to paycheck, and then die alone. Others just glide through life like it’s no big deal. They get the good genes, the high-paying career, and the hot wife. Sure, everybody suffers at least a little bit, but some clearly suffer more than others. This inequality in itself merits an explanation from Christians, for why would God dole out more suffering to certain people than he does to others? Does he just want these people to appreciate their happiness more intensely? Will these people enjoy their experience in heaven more than everyone else since they will have more bad experiences to compare it to? On the Christian worldview, the inequality of suffering (or at least natural suffering) is totally inexplicable.

               The second problem with this argument is that it neglects one of the major qualities ascribed to God: omnipotence. If God is all-powerful, then he can simply engineer our psychology in such a way that we are not subject to the law of diminishing returns and thus don’t require contrast in order to appreciate things. God is in charge, so he makes the rules. Creating a rule which requires us to suffer in order to be happy is simply unnecessary.

               The most sophisticated response to the problem of suffering is that suffering is necessary to build character or grow spiritually. Nobody could ever learn to be brave in a world where there are no difficult situations to overcome. Conquering challenging obstacles is what makes life worth living. Sometimes we fail in our attempts to accomplish great things, and that can hurt, but we still learn valuable life lessons from our failures. God allows us to suffer for the same reason that we allow our children to suffer by forcing them to do homework. In the long run, it will be good for us even if right now we don’t quite understand how.

               A major problem with this defense is that even if we admit that God is justified in allowing some natural suffering, he should only allow the right amount of suffering and no more. God should inflict only the bare minimum amount of suffering that will still allow us to build character and maximize our spiritual growth. Now, I think it is laudable when Christians do charity work, especially when they provide aid to impoverished people in developing nations. And whenever a natural disaster strikes, you can be sure that church groups and other Christian organizations will be there handing out supplies and helping to rebuild. However, the very fact that Christians do these things indicates that they believe there is too much natural suffering in the world. Why would they bother alleviating these peoples’ suffering if that suffering was necessary for spiritual growth? It is clear that if God is trying to teach us a valuable lesson by making us suffer, he is going way overboard with it. Christians may respond that I’m a fool for questioning God’s methods; he is after all infinitely wise. But the point I’m trying to make is that Christians themselves must believe this or else they wouldn’t participate in that kind of charity work. Despite what they may say, Christians’ actions suggest that they believe God allows more suffering than is necessary.

               Christians may refuse to accept their hypocrisy, but the fact remains that there are clear instances where an immense amount of suffering palpably does not result in character building or spiritual growth. For example, watch the following video of a group of hyenas eating a wildebeest alive.

               I wince when I watch this video. It honestly makes me angry that Christians think a perfect being would create a world where this happens. If nothing else, God could have killed the wildebeest himself instantly and painlessly before the hyenas even got the chance to sink their teeth into its skin. Or even better, he could have created a world without predation. But instead he chose to let the wildebeest lie there in misery for a while before finally dying. So Christians, answer me this: who grew spiritually from this incident? Did the wildebeest have the opportunity to build character as a result of its suffering? If anyone created this world, it certainly was not an omnibenevolent god, for this could only be the work of a sadist.

From an atheistic perspective, all of this suffering is easily explainable. The universe doesn’t care about our well-being. How could it? Richard Dawkins explains this wonderfully in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life:

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

The existence of suffering is a terrible thing, and we cannot count on God to save the day. We may pray to him, but no one will listen. He will not spare us of our misery because he isn’t there, and the sooner we realize this the better. There is no hint that help will come from elsewhere. The task is up to us.