[This article is forthcoming in the Trinity Journal of Natural & Philosophical Theology, Vol. 2, Issue 2 (Fall 2024) in collaboration with the Trinity Graduate School of Apologetics and Theology. The version presented here is slightly different in formatting from the print version. Used with permission.]
I’m pleased Don McIntosh honestly acknowledges the force of horrendous suffering. He says: “I fully agree with Loftus that the reality of horrendous suffering is stomach-turning. No amount of theologizing, philosophizing, or apologizing can soften the hard reality of the evil that is horrendous suffering” (p. 37). That’s more than most apologists would say, so it’s a pleasure discussing these issues with him! Regardless, he goes on to defend his God[1] even though his God could defend himself.[2]
To refresh, consider the Black Death plague (1346-1350 CE). It was one of the most devastating pandemics in history. Spread by parasites like fleas and lice, it killed 100 million people, 50% of them European Christians. God didn’t help them as they drowned in their own blood. Most all of them believed their sins caused it. A group called the Flagellants went from town to town whipping themselves as an act of public repentance. This only spread the disease. Some of them blamed the Jews and killed them for supposing they contaminated their water.[3] But God didn’t have the goodness needed to create us with better immune systems. Nor did God have the power to secretly stop the pandemic before it took place. God didn’t even have the foresight to unequivocally inform Christians that sins don’t bring on pandemics.
To narrow our focus, consider Deangelo Hill, a severely disabled 5-year-old boy who suffered “critical, life-threatening burns” in an apartment fire.[4] If an omniscient God couldn’t have kept him away from that apartment fire, then an omnipotent God should’ve secretly extinguished it as soon as it started. Otherwise, a perfectly good God should’ve created us with a gland that injects morphine to deaden severe pain when needed, which would supersede our discovery of anesthesia, no thanks to God. Additionally, if God had created us with self-regenerating bodies, our scars would heal in just a few weeks. If we never experienced anything else we wouldn’t know any different, and God could stay hidden for some hidden reason.
If theists object, then at a fundamental level they don’t think much of God’s infinite love. For surely God would place his infinite knowledge and power into the service of his infinite love. Instead, believers discard a God of infinite love, choosing to defend the God they have experienced, the one who doesn’t alleviate horrendous suffering.
Concrete examples like these go on to show God doesn’t do any miracles to alleviate suffering. For if God doesn’t stop the most horrific instances of suffering, there’s no reason to think he stops any lesser instances of suffering. If nothing else, the more instances of horrendous suffering, then the less likely God exists. Now do the math.
If God couldn’t create better human bodies, then he could miraculously heal them afterward. God could heal them, should heal them, yet refuses to heal them. Unlike loving parents who would never allow their children to suffer in horrific ways, an infinite loving God refuses to help us. It’s additionally painful that we are asked—no commanded—to love and praise a God who refuses to help us.
God is said to infinitely care for every single individual, enough to die for us all.[5] So it follows that the sufferings of individual people cannot be justified by hindsight lessons learned from their sufferings, from, say, the Holocaust. Otherwise we would be mere pawns used by God to teach lessons to later generations. If God were to exploit us like that, the ends justify the means, and we wouldn’t have any intrinsic value. We would only have instrumental value. But if we lack intrinsic value, then God would never send his son Jesus to die for us.
McIntosh credits me with “a novel argument” that combines “a more rhetorically powerful version” of the one William Rowe initially offered (p. 26). He says that while I present the evidential argument of horrendous suffering, I do it with a logical format. This is a “double whammy,” he writes. But he goes on to criticize that which I didn’t do. Unlike J. L. Mackie, who formulated the “logical problem of evil,” I’m not arguing there is “a contradiction” between the three attributes of God’s alleged omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. So I’m not arguing it’s impossible for God to exist. I’m just arguing it’s extremely improbable, which is enough.
McIntosh asks what horrendous suffering adds to the original “problem of evil.” To which he answers “not much.” He claims: “It should be noted that in the traditional argument from evil, ‘evil’ has always been meant to encompass extreme (horrendous) suffering, just as extreme suffering has always been associated with evil” (pp. 28-29).
This is technically true, but unless we focus on the kind of suffering that is absolutely inexplicable (i.e., horrendous suffering), we’ll fail to see the problem for what it is. Instead of focusing on bruises, sprained ankles, slaps on the cheek, a clump of hair being pulled out, or sicknesses like colds and the flu, the real problem for Christian theism kicks in when we consider people who have been burned alive, boiled alive, buried alive, or slowly eaten by bugs and animals after being stripped, then staked down to die in the scorching July sun of Death Valley, California.
God may well have good reasons to allow for a modest amount of pain since we have physical bodies and we will all die. So we can set aside that kind of suffering as largely uninteresting in this discussion. Horrendous suffering, by contrast, should be the focus. My perspective is a “minimal facts” approach to the problem of suffering. I’m arguing that God should not allow a specific kind of suffering, horrendous suffering. Failing to focus on it is a failure to honestly search for the truth, for when horrendous suffering is our focus, the standard theodicies don’t work.
Due to this focus McIntosh is left with just three strategies in defense of his God-concept, the first of which is irrelevant. His first strategy goes on the offensive by arguing the naturalist has a bigger problem than the believing theist (p. 30). He takes aim at the naturalist who thinks nature is ultimate (which describes most atheists). He claims “to the extent that horrendous suffering is a form of evil,” the naturalist cannot say it is evil, since according to the naturalist nothing is objectively evil about nature.
My response is threefold. First, my whole argument is expressed in terms of “suffering,” not evil. I am describing horrendous suffering. This kind of suffering exists. Everyone knows it exists. There is no debate about what I’m referring to.
Second, as a matter of logic, I’m forcing theists to explain how two claims can be made consistent—and this doesn’t depend on what I think. If an infinitely good, all-powerful omni-God exists (which is something I do not accept), then there shouldn’t be any horrendous suffering. The conclusion doesn’t even lead to atheism, or naturalism for that matter, since a God who lacks one or more of these three divine attributes might still exist.
Third, McIntosh challenged me to say what evil is. No problem. Horrendous suffering is evil. Causing it or allowing it when we can stop it, is evil. It’s the same moral standard for God.
As human beings who share our lives with others, we don’t have a choice but to be concerned for people. We cannot do otherwise if we want a good life free of poverty, misery, and the loss of freedom. I’ve previously suggested a thought experiment where ten people are locked up in a house for an indefinite period of time. How would you behave? I suggested: “It’s up to us to occupy our time with meaningful work and meaningful relationships. There is no other alternative. We must create meaning and purpose.”[6] Furthermore, we cannot turn our concern for others on and off like a faucet without it adversely affecting who we are. So we must be good or be miserable.
The horrible ethic of the kill or be killed law of predation in the animal kingdom is advantageous for evolving species, yes. But such an ethic is disadvantageous in the hands of human beings. For one, we depend on one another for our basic needs, so we must at least be kind enough to the people close to us. For another, with such an ethic there are a number of ways we could destroy all life on planet Earth.[7] If I’m asked why I should care about life on the Earth, I’ll ask why we should care about a God who allows horrendous suffering.
McIntosh suggests: “God may have in mind outweighing goods for all the instances of horrendous suffering in the world” (p. 34). I’ve suggested several concrete examples of what God could do to eliminate horrendous suffering without being detected, or producing a chaotic world, or inhibiting our character development—all of which would help draw us to him, are easy to conceive, and are found within the animal kingdom. I argued the burden of proof is upon apologists to show why any of my suggested changes to the world are improbable for an omnipotent miracle-working God. McIntosh did not suggest any. If he cannot do so, horrendous suffering is acceptable to God, which means God is evil.[8]
It seems we should see God’s reasons for allowing horrendous suffering. We’re told God created us in his image (Genesis 1:26-27), that he wants to reason with us (Isaiah 1:18), and that he wants everyone to believe and be saved (I Timothy 2:4; II Peter 3:9). So why would God create us in his image as reasonable people, yet not give reasonable people the reasons to believe and be saved? Since we have good ideas on how God could’ve created the world, and since God could eliminate horrendous suffering, the reasonable conclusion is that an omni-God doesn’t exist.
When it comes to naturalism, it doesn’t need a separate supporting argument. People can adopt it as the end result of the process of eliminating deities and religions one after another. My book The Outsider Test for Faith challenges believers to doubt their own culturally indoctrinated childhood faith as if they had never heard of it before. It calls on them to require of their own religious faith what they already require of the religious faiths they reject. It forces them to rigorously demand logical consistency with their own doctrines, along with sufficient evidence for their faith, just as they already demand of the religions they reject. This test is especially tough on faiths that require believing in miracle reports in the ancient past, which cannot be fact-checked by personally questioning those involved. It’s equally tough on faiths that have a horrific afterlife for the intellectual sin of unbelief. As believers critically evaluate one religion after another and find them lacking, it’s a small step to conclude naturalism best describes reality because supernaturalism lacks sufficient evidence.
McIntosh’s second strategy is to argue that horrendous suffering “is best explained by Christian theism” (p. 27). He says: “A biblical-historical view of Christian theology thus entails the compatibility of God and horrendous, or even gratuitous, suffering” (p. 35). However, McIntosh fails to consider the larger worldwide millennia-long picture. He’s focused instead on an occidental, patriarchal, time-stamped, sect-specific religion and fails to consider how other religions solve their own problems of suffering. But they do, just as imperfectly as McIntosh does.
Suffering and religion go hand in glove since the one helps produce the other. Religions are invented of necessity to address perplexing problems and unsolved mysteries. They explain why we exist, and why pain and suffering exist, seen in stillbirths, crop failures, droughts, famines, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, pandemics, wildfires, and so on. They address morality, meaning, love, guilt, and the mystery of death and hope for immortality. They are invented due to signs, visions, and dreams that need interpretation by seers, shamans, gurus, priests, imams, prophets, soothsayers, and diviners. They’re even invented by fictional writers like L. Ron Hubbard and plagiarists like Joseph Smith. Those who invent religions gain control over their followers with their demands of obedience, donations, eating habits, appropriate dress, hair length, and even sexual favors. So when McIntosh says Christianity is compatible with suffering, this is what every religion is imperfectly doing.
I challenge Christians to examine their own imperfect solution as if they were outsiders. Let’s look at Job’s God.
God originally had sons like other ancient deities (Job 1:6; Genesis 1:26; 6:2), and he had a body (Genesis 3:8-10; 32:20-30; Exodus 33:21-22). God lived in the sky above, from which he looked down on the Earth below (Job 1:6-7, 12; Genesis 11:5-9).[9] No omnipresence here. God needed a servant, Satan, to find out whether his subjects were sincerely loyal to him. God subsequently allowed Satan to test Job two times. But there was no need to test Job if God already knew Job would pass the test, which he did (1:22; 2:22). No omniscience here. If Job was tested for a show, then God is an egomaniac only interested in being praised at the expense of others. What we see here is the only great-making quality God had in those early days, absolute power over his subjects, just like other Mesopotamian kings.[10] He had the power to destroy people at will (Isaiah 45:7), including Job’s children and servants. This is something we’re told his subjects should never question. It’s the main point of Job not to question God (chapters 38-42)! No omnibenevolence here.
This is the God who imputed an original sin in the Garden to people yet to be born. But that makes no sense. Theologians are still debating it. For if all of us would’ve sinned under the same test conditions in Eden, the test was a sham. If some of us wouldn’t have sinned, there are people who have been punished for something they wouldn’t have done. If God predestined it from all eternity, God is to blame.
If Satan incited a rebellion against an all-powerful God, he must’ve been suicidal and dumber than a box of rocks to try. As soon as God foresaw or discovered Satan caused suffering, he should’ve locked him away, preventing him from doing further harm, just as we do. Satan is depicted as pure evil, since that’s what it takes to knowingly reject pure goodness, a characteristic that only describes mythical creatures.
We are to believe God required the death of Jesus in order to forgive sins. But that makes no sense. Theologians are still debating it. We forgive people without punishment, much less a blood sacrifice, just as Allah forgives the penitent. A criminal can be justly punished and we still might not forgive him. Conversely, we might forgive someone who was never punished. Forgiveness is not linked to punishment except in barbaric codes. An eye for an eye anyone?
When it finally comes to the saints who are rewarded in Heaven, theologians say they’ll have their free will taken away, thus guaranteeing there won’t be another rebellion in Heaven! Theologians also say sinners in Hell will keep the free will that sent them there, thus guaranteeing they’ll stay put! This sounds exactly like an attempt to arbitrarily solve a hitherto unforeseen problem.
McIntosh’s third strategy is to argue that “God’s work of creation is not yet complete,” so there’s good reason to hope “that a fully satisfactory answer may have to await its completion” (p. 41).
If the past is any prediction of the future, horrendous suffering will always be with us. So there will never be a time we can conclude God is good and his promises will be fulfilled.
God is the person most responsible for alleviating horrendous suffering. He is the one who knows about it, who cares the most to fix it, and has the greatest power to fix it. If God abdicates his responsibly in our lifetimes, how can we trust he will eventually get around to it? McIntosh’s third response just reintroduces the problem as a solution. God promises to complete his creation in the future, he says, but where is the evidence he’s a good God now? That’s the problem requiring a theodicy now. It cannot wait since lives (and souls) are at stake.[11]
Notes
[1] I’ll use “God” or “omni-God” to describe a theistic deity.
[2] To see how God could defend himself, see chapter 1 in John Loftus, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing, 2015).
[3] On this sad episode in human history, see the last chapter in Loftus, How to Defend the Christian Faith: Advice from an Atheist (2015).
[4] Bailey O’Carroll, “5-Year-Old Disabled Boy Suffers Life-Threatening Burns in Santa Rosa Fire” (July 16, 2023). KTVU News website. <https://www.ktvu.com/news/boy-left-with-critical-life-threatening-burns-in-santa-rosa-fire>.
[5] Through Jesus, anyway. Many Calvinists believe God only cares for, and died for, his chosen ones, his elect. But this means God doesn’t even help his chosen ones in times of intense suffering, which is much worse. I wrote a chapter on Calvinism that discussed this in my God and Horrendous Suffering (Denver, CO: Global Center for Religious Research, 2021).
[6] See chapter 1 of my cowritten book God or Godless (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013), pp. 11-12.
[7] See Phil Torres, The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us about the Apocalypse (Durham, NC: Pitchstone Publishing, 2016).
[8] Dan Barker calls it like it is in “Supernatural Evil” in God and Horrendous Suffering (2021). See also “Does Morality Come from God?” in my Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012).
[9] See the chapter on biblical cosmology by Edward Babinski in The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010). On the biblical God, see my “Does God Exist? A Definitive Biblical Case” on the Secular Web.
[10] Except when it came to iron chariots (Judges 1:19).
[11] For essential reading, see my God and Horrendous Suffering (2021).