The Problem of Evil and Suffering

In this article, I just want to present a summary of both Tim Keller and Greg Bahnsen’s responses to the problem of evil and suffering as an objection against Christianity. I want to share first Tim Keller’s response taken from the 2nd chapter of The Reason for God.

Tim Keller’s Response

Keller’s response to the problem of evil and suffering can be divided into four sections. First, his introduction of the problem by citing the statements of a couple. Second, by sharing his experience as to the response of his listeners in preaching from the life of Joseph. Third, by giving a more philosophical response relying on the studies of both C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga. And finally, by directing our thoughts to Christianity as observed in Peter Kreeft’s study. Here, Keller gave us a more elaborate explanation of the character of Jesus’ suffering and a brief explanation of the importance of the doctrine of resurrection.

Introducing the Problem and Preaching from the Life of Joseph

Keller introduced his topic by citing two statements from a couple arguing against the existence of an all-good and all-powerful God taught by the Bible. For the lady, these two attributes of God cannot be maintained at the same for they are contradictory. For the man, the existence of suffering is not philosophical, but personal to him. He cannot trust such a God that allows human suffering. Many would identify with this couple. For them, the problem with Christianity is not its exclusivity, but the reality of evil and human suffering.

After introducing the objection of the mentioned couple, Keller shares the reactions of many of his listeners the time he preached on the life of Joseph. He said that these people would identify their life stories with the biblical narrative claiming that something good came out “through their most difficult and painful experiences” (p. 30).

A More Philosophical Response

And then Keller turns to C. S. Lewis saying that the problem of evil is a common problem both for believers and unbelievers. In fact, “it is perhaps an even greater problem for nonbelievers” (ibid.). C. S. Lewis “realized that suffering provided a better argument for God’s existence than one against it” (ibid.). So we see that the problem of evil does not go away when someone embraces atheism. Keller agrees with C. S. Lewis that the problem of human suffering will become more complicated if you abandon theism because the idea of justice can only be accounted not in an atheistic, but in a theistic worldview.

For C. S. Lewis, the idea of a “just” and “unjust” suffering in a non-theist world cannot be accounted. In a non-theist world, one cannot account the difference between a just and an unjust suffering. It will only make sense in a world where there is an idea of justice and such idea only exists in a theist world. If one would say that people does not necessarily need to accept theism to have an idea of justice and such idea can be deduced from a purely naturalist world, then the non-theist must explain how did he arrive with that idea of justice. If he explains that such idea of justice emerged from human observation of the world and is a product either of an intellectual or a collective, still this explanation is not enough for the question of the basis of that observation remains unanswered. If in the non-theist world, people cannot provide the rational basis for their idea of justice, how can they throw the objection of unjust suffering against theism?

The above question can only arise in a theist world. Keller gives a more precise elaboration of Lewis’ idea:

“But the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak —these things are all perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair, and unjust? The nonbeliever in God doesn’t have a good basis for being outraged at injustice, which, as Lewis points out, was the reason for objecting to God in the first place. If you are sure that this natural world is unjust and filled with evil, you are assuming the reality of some extra-natural (or supernatural) standard by which to make your judgment” (p. 31).

And then Keller quotes Alvin Plantinga confirming the same conclusion:

“Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don’t see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live…. A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort…and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (…and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful…argument for the reality of God]” (ibid.).

By quoting Plantinga, Keller strengthens Lewis’ case that one cannot escape the problem of evil and human suffering by abandoning theism. And then Keller gives us a summary of Lewis’ argument:

“In short, the problem of tragedy, suffering, and injustice is a problem for everyone. It is at least as big a problem for nonbelief in God as for belief. It is therefore a mistake, though an understandable one, to think that if you abandon belief in God it somehow makes the problem of evil easier to handle” (ibid.).

The Response of Christianity to the Problem of Evil and Suffering

For those who are not satisfied with such a philosophical answer, Keller shifts to Peter Kreeft’s insight that for the latter, in Christianity, we find God coming “to earth to deliberately put himself on the hook of human suffering” and this is exactly what Jesus did. In Him, “God experienced the greatest depths of pain” (p. 32). And then Keller concludes that “though Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, it provides deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair” (ibid.).

Keller then goes on to describe the nature of Jesus’ suffering. He compared him to martyrs. We find that in the gospel narratives, we don’t see Jesus facing his death without fear, which describes the heroic character of martyrs at that time. Instead, we see Jesus’ attitude as struggling and at the same time submitting to the will of the Father. For Keller, such struggle is explained by an inner agony on the part of Jesus in experiencing separation from “a relationship of absolute intimacy and love” with the Father. And then Keller attempts to relate such experience to human relationship:

“If a mild acquaintance turns on you, condemns and criticizes you, and says she never wants to see you again, it is painful. If someone you’re dating does the same thing, it is qualitatively more painful. But if your spouse does this to you, or if one of your parents does this to you when you’re still a child, the psychological damage is infinitely worse” (ibid.).

And then Keller concluded that it is difficult for us to completely understand the suffering of Jesus for in his case it is not just losing a “spousal love or parental love that has lasted several years, but the infinite love of the Father that Jesus had from all eternity” (p. 33). That kind of suffering “would have been eternally unbearable” (ibid.).

Imagine the pain and suffering in the mind and heart of a faithful husband betrayed by his wife with numberless adulteries. How painful was that! It would take years or even decades if such a wound could be healed. Or perhaps, the husband could bring such wound down to his grave. Yet, no matter how painful that suffering is, still it cannot be compared to the suffering of Jesus for experiencing the withdrawal of the Father’s presence on the very moment of his death on the cross.

This shows that the suffering and death of Jesus were “qualitatively different from any other death,” says Keller. “The physical pain was nothing compared to the spiritual experience of cosmic abandonment” (ibid.). This makes Christianity unique among world religions for it alone “claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and imprisonment” (ibid.). The fact of the cross though does not give us a clear answer to the problem of evil and suffering, yet this provides us “deep consolation and strength to face the brutal realities of life on earth” (ibid.). Though the fact of the cross does not give us the complete answer to the problem of evil and suffering, yet as we look at it, we know that the answer to that question isn’t that God doesn’t love us. “It can’t be that he is indifferent” to our sufferings (ibid.). “God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself” (ibid.).

Finally, Keller answered this problem of evil and suffering by directing us to the fact of resurrection. Both secularism and Eastern religions lack this view of the restoration of all things. Secularism “sees no future restoration after death or history” (p. 34). The same thing with Eastern religions. They teach that people lose their individuality and they will return to the One. Our material lives here on earth will disappear forever. In the resurrection of all things, our future will include a restoration of the life that we always wanted. For Keller, this would mean “that every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy even greater” (ibid.).

Greg Bahnsen’s Response

Let us now turn our attention to Greg Bahnsen’s response to the same problem. In responding to this problem of evil and suffering, Bahnsen’s goal is to provide us a sample how presuppositional apologetics would answer this type of argument against Christianity. Typical response of presuppositionalists to objections like this would expose the logical incoherence of the unbelieving worldview; would remind the Christian apologists about their real tasks; and would identify the real nature of the unbeliever’s argument.

The Seriousness of the Problem

At the outset, Bahnsen recognized that many apologists consider the problem of evil and suffering as the most difficult of all problems both because of its seeming philosophical challenge against Christianity and people’s personal response when confronted by the ugly reality and misery in this world. And so for Bahnsen, confronting this problem is not just a matter of intellectual exercise but should be seriously considered. And then he adds that the problem does not negate Christianity, but actually confirms it.

As a philosophical problem, many Christian apologists have not properly understood it, says Bahnsen. And then he cites one example of such improper interpretation taking the problem of evil as “a matter of weighing the positive evidence over against the negative evidence for goodness in God's world or in God's plan (say, for redemption, etc.)” (p. 5). For Bahnsen, the problem of evil is far more difficult than that.

And then Bahnsen quoted two names to show the nature of such difficulty. He first mentioned David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher. Bahnsen mentioned Hume to describe the difficulty of the problem of evil and suffering:

"‘Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?’"

For Bahnsen, Hume was arguing “that the Christian cannot logically accept these three premises: God is all-powerful, God is all-good, and nevertheless evil exists in the world” (p. 8). And then he adds, “If God is all-powerful, then He must be able to prevent or remove evil, if He wishes. If God is all-good, then certainly He wishes to prevent or remove evil. Yet it is undeniable that evil exists.”

And then Bahnsen quotes George Smith stating the same problem differently:

“‘Briefly, the problem of evil is this: . . . If God knows there is evil but cannot prevent it, he is not omnipotent. If God knows there is evil and can prevent it but desires not to, he is not omnibenevolent’" (ibid.). In the mind of Bahnsen, “Smith thinks that Christians logically cannot have it both ways: God is completely good, as well as completely powerful” (ibid.).

Introducing the Third Premise: Existence of Evil is the Problem for the Unbelievers

For Bahnsen, the mentioned “two premises do not in themselves create any contradiction. The problem arises only when we add the premise,” “evil exists or happens” (pp. 9-10).

For Bahnsen, the existence of evil must be proven first before the case of the unbeliever against Christianity can stand. But the problem is the unbeliever cannot account for the existence of evil based on his naturalistic worldview. To consider something as evil, someone is making a moral judgment and this leads to the question of the use of standard in determining what is evil and what is good. And then Bahnsen grants that the unbeliever can resort “to an instrumental or consequential understanding of what constitutes objective goodness (or evil)” such as an action or trait achieves “a certain end, like the greatest happiness of the greatest number” (p. 11). So for Bahnsen, “philosophically speaking, the problem of evil” is “a problem for the unbeliever himself” in such a way that in order for him “to use the argument from evil against the Christian worldview, he must first be able to show that his judgments about the existence of evil are meaningful -- which is precisely what his unbelieving worldview is unable to do” (pp. 11-12).

In the eyes of Bahnsen, since the unbeliever cannot account for the existence of evil, “the moral indignation” which he expressed when he encounters evil and suffering does not have a basis in his theories of ethics, “theories which prove to be arbitrary or subjective or merely utilitarian or relativistic in character” (p. 15).

Bahnsen is happy to see an unbeliever getting angry with evil and suffering for such anger presupposes “the absolute, unchanging, and good character of God in order to make philosophical sense” (ibid.).

The Task of a Christian Apologist

And so the task of a Christian apologist is to identify such “logical incoherence within the unbeliever’s set of belief” (ibid.). Such outrage against evil and suffering cannot be logically maintained in a world without an absolute standard of what is evil and what is good. If “people ethical values for themselves the unbeliever implicitly holds that those who commit evil are not really doing anything evil, given the values which they have chosen for themselves. In this way, the unbeliever who is indignant over wickedness supplies the very premises which philosophically condone and permit such behavior, even though at the same time the unbeliever wishes to insist that such behavior is not permitted -- is ‘evil’" (ibid.).

At this point, we find one of the favorite ideas of pressupositional apologists and that is the unbelievers’ use of “borrowed capital” from the Christian worldview. By this, we understand “that the unbeliever must secretly rely upon the Christian worldview in order to make sense of his argument from the existence of evil which is urged against the Christian worldview!” (ibid.).

And so for Bahnsen, the problem of evil is “a logical problem for the unbeliever, rather than the believer.” (p. 16). Christians can make perfectly good sense when we get angry and condemn evil and suffering. However, this does not mean that we “can explain why God does whatever He does in planning misery and wickedness in this world” (ibid.). It only means that our “moral outrage is consistent with the Christian's worldview,” our “basic presuppositions about reality, knowledge, and ethics” (ibid.). For Bahnsen, “the non-Christian's worldview (of whatever variety) eventually cannot account for such moral outrage” for “it cannot explain the objective and unchanging nature of moral notions like good or evil” (ibid.). And so for Bahnsen, “the problem of evil is precisely a philosophical problem for” unbelievers for they “would be required to appeal to the very thing against which they argue (a divine, transcendent sense of ethics) in order for their argument to be warranted” (ibid.).

Adding the Fourth Premise to Resolve the Apparent Paradox

In the Christian worldview, “the apparent paradox created by the above three propositions is readily resolved by adding” the “fourth premise,” which is: “God has a morally sufficient reason for the evil which exists” (p. 20). For Bahnsen, there will be no logical contradiction if all these four premises will be maintained. Bahnsen even concludes that “it is precisely part of the Christian's walk of faith and growth in sanctification to draw proposition 4 as the conclusion of propositions 1 to 3” (p. 21).

And then Bahnsen enumerates many Biblical examples of such walk in faith:

“Think of Abraham when God ordered him to sacrifice his only son. Think of Job when he lost everything which gave his life happiness and pleasure. In each case God had a perfectly good reason for the human misery involved. It was a mark or achievement of faith for them not to waver in their conviction of God's goodness, despite not being able to see or understand why He was doing to them what He did. Indeed, even in the case of the greatest crime in all of history -- the crucifixion of the Lord of glory -- the Christian professes that God's goodness was not inconsistent with what the hands of lawless men performed. Was the killing of Christ evil? Surely. Did God have a morally sufficient reason for it? Just as surely” (ibid.).

The Nature of the Problem is not Logical but Psychological

For Bahnsen, the problem of evil is not a logical problem. The “only logical problem which arises in connection with discussions of evil is the unbeliever's philosophical inability to account for the objectivity of his moral judgments” (p. 22). Again, for Bahnsen, “the problem which men have with God when they come face to face with evil in the world is not a logical or philosophical one, but more a psychological one” (ibid.).

God Does not Answer Our Why?

After exposing the logical incoherence of the unbelieving worldview and identifying the real nature of the unbeliever’s argument, Bahnsen concludes by saying that in the end God “has not told us why misery and suffering and injustice are part of His plan for history and for our individual lives” (ibid.). What God expects from us is to trust Him that He “has a morally sufficient reason for the evil which can be found in this world, but it does not tell us what that sufficient reason is” (ibid.). Ultimately then, for Bahnsen, “the problem of evil comes down to the question of whether a person should have faith in God and His word or rather place faith in his own human thinking and values. It finally becomes a question of ultimate authority within a person's life” (ibid.).

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References:

Bahnsen, Greg. The Biblical Worldview (Part I-VII:10; Oct., 1991) (Available in the book: Always Ready PA600) © Covenant Media Foundation, www.cmfnow.com

Keller, Tim. 2008. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York: Penguin Books

Guide Questions for Discussion:

1. What similarities and differences did you see in the way both Tim Keller and Greg Bahnsen responded to the problem of evil and suffering?

2. What strength do you see in Tim Keller’s response? How about Greg Bahnsen’s?

3. How did Keller describe Jesus’ suffering at the cross?

4. Restate and analyze the way both David Hume and George Smith describe the problem of evil and suffering.

5. How do you understand the responses of both Keller and Bahnsen about the unaccountability of the existence of evil in a non-theist world?

6. What is the task of a Christian apologist according to Bahnsen?

7. What would resolve the apparent contradiction in the first three premises mentioned by Bahnsen? Briefly explain your answer.

8. What is the real nature of the problem when people face the reality of evil and suffering?

9. Did any of our authors give an ultimate answer to the problem of evil and suffering? Why?