Whose Problem of Evil?
Ok, I’ll admit it…the problem of evil is a real problem for Christians. However, my point here isn’t to try to give an answer to it. I think that has been done well enough by others. (See especially Alvin Plantinga - The Free Will Defense). Rather, I want to point you to the fact that the problem of evil is a problem for everyone. And the thing is, if you don’t believe in a transcendent, all-good God, you shouldn’t have a problem. Without such a God, moral values can have no objective basis. They simply become cultural norms. But they aren’t just norms that vary from context to context. The holocaust was wrong. And I mean it was truly, objectively wrong. It would have been wrong even if the Nazis won WWII and convinced everyone on earth that it was right. The problem of evil isn’t that evil exists. The problem of evil is that we know it exists, and we know it’s not supposed to. We feel upset at evil and we all long for a day when there will be no more. The Christian view of evil matches all our deepest feelings. Evil is unnatural, but all will be made right someday when Jesus comes again and rules the whole earth with righteousness. Other views just leave man with a contradiction between what he knows and what he claims to know. And this is something that I think all apologists should stress when confronted with the problem of evil (in addition to trying to reconcile evil with theistic belief).
Here is an extended quote by C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity that shows the atheist’s problem of evil:
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent raction against it?…Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies…Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning; just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.