The Human Suffering Argument

One of the most persuasive arguments against the existence of an omniscient, omnibenevolent God is the level of pain and suffering in this world. Dostoevsky brings the full force of this argument home in The Brothers Karamazov. However, it's interesting to note that it is in the very instant that this argument succeeds that it must necessarily fail. For if we are, indeed, merely animals, where do we ground our moral objections to these events? If Hitler's and Pol Pot's and Stalin's and Chairman Mao's actions are morally indefensible, in what sense are they immoral? If we agree that genocide is objectively wrong, on what basis do we believe this?

A few weeks ago, Richard Dawkins publicly refused to debate William Lane Craig when the latter visited London. Among Dawkins' many excuses, he stated, "Would you shake hands with a man who could write stuff like that [a defense of Yahweh's commands with respect to the Canaanites in the Old Testament]? Would you share a platform with him? I wouldn't, and I won't. Even if I were not engaged to be in London on the day in question, I would be proud to leave that chair in Oxford eloquently empty."

The problem is that Dawkins himself has claimed in his published work, "Nature is not cruel, pitiless, indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering,  lacking all purpose." If Dawkins were right, then genocide itself, committed as it would then be by mere animals, would be "neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind," and therefore, he would have no reason to criticize either Craig or God.

I certainly agree with those who say that inconsistent behaviour of Christians is the main reason many reject Christianity. But I think it's particularly fascinating to note that, while someone like Dawkins pretends to hold the moral high ground in his complaints about Yahweh and Craig, he has publicly stated that pedophilia is not necessarily grievously wrong, that there should be provisions for parents to kill their disabled children up to two years of age, and that rape is not necessarily objectively wrong.

Interestingly, the commission of terrible crimes against children by religious in the Roman Catholic and other churches made public in the media in recent years has not served in any way to lessen the objective wrongness of those actions. Indeed, if possible, these actions seem all the more wrong for having been committed by people who represent the faith in such a prominent way. However much damage these priests and ministers have done to individuals within the church, however much damage they have done to the Church itself, they have strengthened, not weakened, the opinion of the objective moral depravity of their actions.