A Short Response to William Rowe’s “The Problem of Evil”

by Max Andrews





Here are Rowe’s arguments:

The Logical Problem of Evil

  1. God exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good.
  2. Evil exists
  3. An omnipotent, omniscient, good being will prevent the occurrence of any evil whatever.
  4. A good, omnipotent, omniscient being prevents the occurrence of any evil that is not logically necessary for the occurrence of a good, which outweighs it.
  5. There are occurrences of evil that is not logically necessary for the occurrence of a good, which outweighs it.
  6. Therefore, God does not exist.

The Evidential Problem of Evil

  1. Probably, there are pointless evils.
  2. If God exists, there are no pointless evils.
  3. Therefore, probably, God does not exist.

One of the problems I found with Rowe’s argument is that he requires God, by definition, to want to prevent certain evils.  This has the idea that we are akin to divine pets.  I don’t think that is necessarily the case.  If it’s even possible then it removes the problem in the logical form.  Also, the evidential, or probabilistic, argument from evil must be taken into consideration with background information.  What is the background information? It must include other arguments for the existence of God because of the use of a theological premise.  Thus, you have the problem of good as well.  Given the total background knowledge it’s still highly probable that God exist.

I still had a few questions remaining. How could you quantify instances of evil?  Does an instance count as the total result, persons involved, or immediate effects? Shouldn’t the problem of animal suffering be expressed probabilistically?  In other words, since we don’t know if animals consciously suffer, as in first order suffering, the animals knowing, “I am suffering right now,” shouldn’t that inference that they are being, at best, a probability claim? Why assume that God, necessarily, would prevent pointless evils? Especially if evil is quantifiable, why think that these instances outweigh the probability that God does exist given the total background information?

If you've read the chapter or Rowe on the problem of evil you'll get why there's a picture of a deer here.

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