Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
Atheism and Theism JJ Haldane - Common Sense Atheism
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Further Reflections on <strong>Theism</strong> 245<br />
Personally, I am in something of two minds about the possibility that we<br />
may not comprehend the place of evil. On the one h<strong>and</strong>, believing that, as<br />
rational beings, we are specially created in the image of God, I am inclined to<br />
think that it is within our power to underst<strong>and</strong> evil much better than we<br />
do at present. On the other h<strong>and</strong>, believing with Augustine that we carry the<br />
wounds of sin in our disturbed passions <strong>and</strong> darkened intellect, I think we<br />
cannot expect for much on our own accounts.<br />
The logical form of the problem maintains that there is a contradiction<br />
involved in asserting the existence of an all-powerful, all-good <strong>and</strong> all-knowing<br />
God <strong>and</strong> acknowledging the existence of natural <strong>and</strong>/or moral evil. No such<br />
formal contradiction is apparent <strong>and</strong> none has ever been demonstrated. In the<br />
particular argument scheme I considered (p. 137) a further premise additional<br />
to the theistic conception of God was introduced in order to derive the conclusion<br />
that there is no such being, namely that were there one, there would<br />
be no evil. This is not something that the theist need accept, <strong>and</strong> there has<br />
been no shortage of accounts of how it might be that a good God would permit<br />
evil. In general, these ‘defences’ envisage ways in which an evil is either<br />
a necessary concomitant of a more-than-compensating-good, or a necessary<br />
condition of the avoidance of an at-least-as-considerable-evil. Generalizing<br />
from these strategies the theist may invert the argument as follows:<br />
(1) God exists.<br />
(2) If God exists, then there is no intrinsically gratuitous evil.<br />
(3) Therefore there is no intrinsically gratuitous evil.<br />
Give its formal validity the atheist must challenge either (1) or (2) or both.<br />
Since he wants to argue from evil to the non-existence of God he will not<br />
want to challenge (2). Indeed, his strategy is to contrapose (2) <strong>and</strong> claim that<br />
there is intrinsically gratuitous evil, thereby deriving the conclusion that no<br />
God exists. To deny (1) by asserting that it is incompatible with the existence<br />
of such evils as we know of, just begs the question as to whether that evil is<br />
indeed intrinsically gratuitous. This dialectic points to the need to evaluate<br />
the case in favour of God’s existence, <strong>and</strong> that in favour of there being<br />
intrinsically gratuitous evils.<br />
So far as the latter is concerned, given that the fact of evil per se is not<br />
logically incompatible with theism, the claim must be that there is evidence<br />
of unnecessary evils: ones that are not accompanied by a more-thancompensating-good<br />
or which constitute blocks to an otherwise unavoidable<br />
at-least-as-considerable-evil. Here we reach the evidential argument typically<br />
supported by real examples of horrendous particular evils that are uncomfortable<br />
to contemplate but not hard to find. What I have to say about this can be<br />
said briefly, for it is a structural response which may be worked out further,