My Dissertation Prospectus

This morning I had the pleasure to send off the final copy of my dissertation prospectus to my advisory committee. It took me much longer to write than I thought it would, but considering there were some major changes in the dissertation’s aim, that isn’t too unexpected. 

For now, the title of dissertation is “A Rational Problem of Evil: The Coherence of Christian Doctrine and the Free Will Defense.” If you’d like to read a bit more about the project, I’ve posted a copy of the prospectus on the “Research” page of this blog.

A Problem of Hell?

I was talking with a good friend (his website) last night about the problem of evil and how it relates to Christian theology. I’m starting to think that an adequate answer (solution?) to the problem of evil has to rely on specific Christian resources. For those unfamiliar with the problem, I’ll briefly state it. It seems that the following are inconsistent (either logically, or at least probably inconsistent):

1. God is omnipotent
2. God is wholly good
3. Evil exists

If God is wholly good he would want to eliminate evil and if he is omnipotent he could eliminate evil, but yet we experience (or hear of) evil all the time. I think this poses the greatest challenge to Christian theism, but also think there are good responses to the problem.

In the philosophical discussions it is often tempting to try to resolve this problem without appealing to specific Christian doctrines, but I think that is a mistake. There aren’t many who believe in a God that is just omnipotent and wholly good and know nothing else of him or his plan for this world. So, it seems that the problem is directed toward Christian theists and so it should be acceptable to appeal to certain Christian understandings of justice and eschatology in giving an answer to the problem.

During our discussion last night my friend pointed out that many people are glad they exist even if they have experienced a great amount of evil. I think that is a really important thing to keep in mind. Sure, person X may have experienced a lot of evil, but if X thinks it is better for him to have existed than not, is the problem of evil still as pressing? I wonder how many people would say they really wish they were never born. (On a side note, it would be interesting to study the psychology of a suicidal person. Do they wish they were never born, or just that they don’t want to go on living? I think an answer to that will play a role.) As I was reflecting about last night’s conversation I began to wonder how this would fit into the Christian’s understanding of hell.

I guess if I’m willing to appeal to Christian theology to respond to the problem of evil I also need to deal with difficult parts of that same Christian theology. I’m not exactly sure what the orthodox understanding of hell is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not literally fire & brimstone. Either way, it’s not a place that anyone would want to be (regardless of their jokes about it). No matter how much evil a person inflicts on earth, eternal punishment for that temporal evil seems to be a bit of an overkill. At some point, would it actually have been better for the person in hell to not have existed? Even if people experiencing evil on earth still are glad they exist, would the person in hell feel the same way? Is the fact that they are in hell because they rejected God and not because they committed evils relevant? My intuitions lead me to think they would not want to have existed at all instead of spending eternity in hell, but that’s just my intuitions talking. This, of course, leads to the discussion about whether a wholly good being could annihilate his creation and still be wholly good. The two questions are closely connected, but I just don’t know what to say about either at this point.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Maybe a better understanding of what hell is (and not just what it isn’t) would help resolve the problem, but I’m not sure.

The Problem of Evil

Every Christian should realize that the problem(s) of evil are difficult to deal with and can stand as legitimate obstacles to someone’s belief in the existence of God. For those that are not familiar with this problem, I will give you a very quick version:

1. If God exists, he is omnipotent and omnibenevolent
2. Evil exists.

So, it seems that:

1. God wanted to prevent evil, but couldn’t and so is not omnipotent, or
2. God could have prevented evil but didn’t want to and so is not omnibenevolent.

It seems that there is an inconsistency within the first two premises, so they both cannot be true at the same time. The non-theist says we have good reasons for believing evil exists, so we should reject (1). The theist, however, doesn’t want to reject either so must figure out a way to make (1) and (2) consistent. This version of the problem of evil is one of many, but gets the general idea across.What I hope is that Christians understand the force of this problem and do not just chalk it up to the lack of faith in God in the non-believer. That probably plays a role, but even many Christians are troubled by this as well. I feel that we have good responses to this type of problem in the ‘free will’ defense, but it isn’t likely to answer the non-theists questions on the first pass. I recently had the opportunity to lecture for two introduction to philosophy classes at the University of Oklahoma on the problem of evil and had some really good discussions with many of the students. If you would like more information on this type of objection, let me know and I’d love to direct you to some great resources.Grace and peace,