God and Horrendous Suffering

by John W. Loftus

If God exists, then there are no gratuitous evils Gratuitous evil exists. Therefore, God does not exist.

unclalled for, lacking good reason, unwarrented

God sometimes deceives us (II Thessalonians 2:11 says God sends a “powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false”).

epistemology—that is, how can we know what we claim to know?

god. Horrendous suffering is therefore a good test case for the probability of theistic god belief. If believers cannot solve it except by punting to what might be possible rather than what’s probable (called a “defense”) or punting to ignorance rather than to that which is more probable (by saying “God’s ways are above ours”), then that god has allowed more suffering in the world than is reasonable for us to accept. Surely a god who created us as reasonable people should provide what reasonable people need if he wants us to believe. So if theistic believers cannot produce a reasonable theodicy for horrendous suffering, then theism is improbable to that same degree.

There is so much horrendous suffering that it is as clear of a refutation of that god as we can find. In legal terms, the theistic omni-god should easily be convicted of the crime of depraved indifference. 7

For protest theologians such as John Roth, god’s continual inaction must mean god is directly responsible for suffering in the world. Our response should be to protest the lack of divine action, in hopes that public shaming will goad god into doing good.

habitation. For misotheists like N.N. Trakakis and Darren Slade in this book, if god exists, then it would be our ethical duty to hate such a deity because god ends up being a moral monster (from the Greek word miseo “to hate”). While misotheists are typically atheists, misotheism is a moral position, not a theological one.

creation. Suppose a perfectly good, all-powerful, all-knowing deity exists, who didn’t need or want anything yet decided for some mysterious or egotistical reason to create a world to test free creatures. Okay? Then such a deity should have four moral concerns.

Only if theists expect very little from their divine being can they defend what their god has failed to do. Either their god is not smart enough to figure out how to create a good world, or god doesn’t have the power to create it, or god just doesn’t care. You pick. These are the options given this world. I’m told that a doubting minister once prayed in a poetic rhyme: “God please do with me as I would do with you, if you were me and I were you.” He pleads: “God please be at least as good as I am…please.” It doesn’t take perfect goodness at all. Just human kindness, the standard god himself supposedly gave us. The theistic god doesn’t even meet this standard.