Within Reason - #21 Trent Horn, Cameron Bertuzzi & Joe Schmid - The Problem of Evil

Episode Date: March 12, 2023

In this episode of the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast, Alex is joined by Joe Schmid, an agnostic, Cameron Bertuzzi, a (then) protestant, and Trent Horn, a catholic, to discuss the problem in detail, and analyse various responses to it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. A Catholic, a Protestant, an atheist and an agnostic all walk into a house in the Bible Belt. This sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it is, in fact, the beginning of today's episode of the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast, because in a rather ambitious attempt to expand the podcast and make it reach new heights, I've invited three other guests onto the podcast with me today. I am joined by Cameron Bertucci, our resident Protestant.

I'm joined by Joe Schmidt, our agnostic. Trent Horn, our Catholic, and I am, as always, Alex O'Connor, your atheist. And we decided it would be fun, since we're all here together in Houston, in order to do an event, the Captcha in Christianity Exchange, at this point will be in the past, so the videos of the interactions that we're all going to be having in our public event, I'll put the links down in the description. We thought while we're here it would be cool to sit down as a fore and talk about something which is important to all of us from our different perspectives. It comes up regardless of how

you're talking about the subject of religion, which is the problem of evil and what better company to talk about the problem of evil with than people who come at it from completely different approaches. So, I don't I don't really know how we should best begin this, but I guess for myself, the problem of evil is easily the greatest argument against the existence of a God. Would we all agree that that is the case? You mean for people in general or for us? In your view, I mean, like what in terms of arguments that would seek to establish kind of strong A atheism that God doesn't exist? I would, yeah, I would say historically the problem of evil or unjustifiable suffering is a strong one.

I mean, Aquinas basically dealing with the arguments for God really dealt with two arguments against God. One's a problem of evil and one is the problem of essentially scientific explanation apart from God. So I would say historically, yes. Though, I mean, it's not, I have other concerns more so than the problem of evil. For me personally, it was never as big a hurdle to get over as maybe for other people. What do you guys? Do you think it's a... I think it's the, like, the biggest challenge to perfect being theism is the way that I would put it.

So Joe and I were talking about this in our interview is that, like, how, what is the real breadth of the problem of evil? What do, like, of all the different types of theisms that might be out there, which one does it really target? And I think that it targets primarily perfect being theism where you've got these triomneys, the omnibene benevolent God, the omnipotent God. Does it really like so there's a there's a philosopher who I interviewed recently in my channel his name is Philip Gough Is he a philosopher I think he's a philosopher? Yeah, and he's got this concept of God that he's sort of toying around with at the at the moment Where he says that God is all good, but he's not all powerful And what he argues is that the problem of evil doesn't really even like say anything about that type of God if that God exists Yeah, that's a view there was a rabbi who I forget his name right off top of my head, but his

14-year-old son I think died of a degenerative disease and that was essentially the conclusion that that's been around for all that the conclusion he came to how do I understand it's horrible death of my son and being a rabbi yeah he said well god loves us and he wants to help us but he just can't yeah I love there is a book uh by an old book by this guy bc johnson called the atheist debaters handbook it's like this little book i found the library once and it was funny he was dealing with the problem easily said the theist may say well maybe God just isn't all powerful. And he said in the book, that may be the case, but such a ghost of a God is hardly different from atheism or worth believing in. So I thought that was an interesting

reply from him that like, I think for a lot of atheists, I don't know, it's like perfect being theism or bust. Yeah. I don't know. Because the idea that maybe God is all loving, but not all powerful, it seems to me a difference without distinction to most theodices that is in their practical effect. If you have a theodicy, which for anyone listening who doesn't know, is an attempt to, what's the word, reconcile, the existence of a loving God with the existence of evil in the world, or at least suffering in the world. Well, not just a loving God. Well, unless you're trying to make an extinguery. Yeah, a God, a God and any attempts. That is both all loving and all powerful.

It does depend. Traditionally speaking, to reconcile God and evil would be a defense to give a reason to explain why God allows evil and the goods he's achieving would be theodic. Yeah, that's right. That's a helpful distinction. I think in terms of trying to justify, let's say, the existence of a God in the face of evil and suffering, people have given lots of famous examples. They talk about the fact that God wants us to have free will. He talks about the fact that God allows evil and suffering to bring about higher order goods. But to me this translates as saying something like, well, God has this end which he desires to bring about and potentially needs to bring about if he's a maximally great being,

if he's by nature good, he might need to bring about the best outcomes, or at least have a duty to bring about particular outcomes. I'm skeptical of that, but you can keep going, but I frown my nose. Yeah, a lot of people frowned that too, and I'm not sure I can even agree with it. just because I'm not sure what it would mean to bring about like the maximum amount of good or the idea that God has to do that yes like like for example like imagine God made a world a universe like ours but it only possessed inorganic matter and it actually had a lot of beauty like it had waterfalls and

rocky crags and meteors and volcanoes and all kinds of cool stuff wouldn't be I mean it would be bad for God to make that kind of world I don't It would have no suffering in it whatsoever. So I doubt you would think that God was bad for making a world just inorganic matter. But I think a lot of us would think you could make that better with people, conscious beings.

But I don't know if God is obliged to make it better. So I don't know. Yeah, sure. Whether he needs to or not, the... But it's something to expect from him, not to drop the ball. The justifications are kind of a given that take a form.

of saying that God has some other purpose, which he seeks to fulfill, such as free will. And the idea is that there's some kind of metaphysical or logical impossibility with God bringing about, say, a world of free creatures and there being no suffering or something like this. And so, in a sense, something like a free will defense that says, well, there's just no way to bring about free will without suffering. It's like a way of saying, well, God is all loving, but because he's got this thing free will, that he wants to bring about, he's just incapable of preventing this kind of suffering,

because if he were, we wouldn't have free will. So a kind of response that makes sense of a God that allows suffering that says, well, maybe God's just not all powerful, it seems to me the same kind of thought as many other kinds of theodices, because they're essentially saying, well, kind of God, it's not like God's happy about this suffering taking place, but he just doesn't have the power to take it away,

either because there's some kind of thing that he needs to bring about that or just because there's something he wants to bring about that still makes it impossible for him to not have suffering. It seems like a similar kind of approach. I guess it depends on what you mean by all-powerful. That's the key. Yeah, I mean, if it's metaphysically impossible, like if there's no way that reality could be such that God could bring about these goods without allowing certain sorts of

evils to transpire, then it's no mark against God's omnipotence to be bound in this way. After all, it's impossible for God to do it done otherwise than. He couldn't have had the power to do that because it's an impossible power, especially. So I don't really see that as compromising God's omnipotence. It just depends on how you cash it out. Yeah, well, neither do I, but I mean, in terms of how people might make sense of this, when somebody says something like, well, I've gone through a horrible experience, and so the only way I can make sense of this is to think that maybe God just isn't all powerful.

They could be equally captivated by a view that says, you're so nearly right. You're right that the suffering exists because God somehow has to allow it, but it's not because he's not omnipotent. It's just because there are things that an omnipotent being can't do. It doesn't mean he's not an omnipotent God. Joe's kind of on the path. It's like God is saying, well, God has allowed this suffering, and it could be the case that there is a particular good

that would not be accessible without it. So if you think about like omnipotence is like powers the ability to do something, There are just some things no amount of power could do because they're impossible for whatever reasons. I think what you're getting on the free will issue, there's kind of two different ways to go about, well, although I don't want to derail from the point that you were making. I'll put it out there and you can tell me if I'm derailing.

One approach is kind of like planting his view. It could be the case. God can't make a world where all free creatures choose good because we have these counterfactuals of freedom like you make Cameron you put Cameron in a world whatever he's going to use me in this example by the way Cameron will always choose the wrong in some possible world I'm not sure I'm really inclined to that I think God can make a world where only free creatures choose things but it would also lack certain goods and so it may be the case God has reasons for allowing certain good like I I I

I would agree, I think there are certain goods you can't have them without a concomitant evil, like compassion or courage. Yeah. You might have things that look like them, but aren't there. Of course, we spoke before, I mean, we had a debate on Matt Fraud's channel a while ago, and we spoke a little bit about this. I can't remember if we spoke specifically about, about this topic, but the idea of there being these goods like bravery that can't come about unless they're parasitic on some suffering or evil.

Right. To me, something like bravery is only good. And insofar as it overcome some form of suffering or evil, like, it seems to me if you could have a world without the suffering and without the bravery, without the fear and without the bravery, this would be more desirable because, sure, you wouldn't have bravery, but if you don't need bravery, it doesn't just seem to me to be like a good thing intrinsically. It seems only good relative to the existence of some form of fear and suffering. without the fear and suffering, it wouldn't be intrinsically good.

In fact, if you removed the fear and suffering and somebody was still acting in the way that a brave person would act, you'd say they were just being immodest. You'd think it was a bad thing. See, here, let me jump in real quick. I don't know that we can actually advance the conversation when you make that kind of move. Because to me, I think the problem of evil, I don't want to say that it collapses into axiology, but that's very central to the problem of evil is this notion of like, what is most valuable? Because God is going to instantiate the world that is most valuable.

And what you're saying is that a world that doesn't have these goods, but also doesn't have the suffering, is more valuable than a world that does have those goods with the evils that sort of come along with it. So, and like, how do you go, like, how do you advance when you kind of put your foot on the, what's the right term, put your foot down? And you're like, I just don't think that that's as valuable. Like, I think what's most valuable is. a world that doesn't have that. And then what can we say? We can say, well, we think that a world that has those, that has those higher order goods and the accompanying evils, like we think that's more valuable. And it's like, how do you actually progress there? That's,

that's kind of, I think we may actually run into like a stalemate. Because I think that there are different intuitions on different goods that are supposedly served by suffering. For example, the example of bravery, I think is maybe a bit of a poor one because it seems intuitively to me that we'd rather have no need for bravery and no bravery in the same way that... See, but that's just you... Like, I don't think that. I don't think that courage is... Or like bravery of courage

is very valuable. Compare it, for example, though, to something like the free will defense, which I think is, it's a bit easier to argue that something like free will is just of a different category of things. You could pick something else. You could pick compassion, for example. Or forgiveness. Yeah, like, let's say

somebody is... Like, let's say someone experiences compassion for the suffering of a fictional character and even that i don't think is like i agree with you like courage where there's no real danger is very like don quixote very like okay but like but but to watch a film and to have to feel an emotional compassion towards the sufferings of a person that doesn't exist you know they're fictional i i don't think that that's a a bad i think that i think I think the existence of the compassion itself, it is a good thing. Yeah, it may be.

And maybe for that reason it's a better example. I think that to answer your point, Cameron, I think that this isn't kind of equally obviously true with all of these higher-order goods. I just think that it was something like bravery, it seems to be fairly intuitive. I mean, you said you prefer to live in a world where there is fear and suffering so that we can have the good of bravery. An example I've sometimes given is the example of someone like Martin Luther King being a great man, right? Because he overcomes this great evil. Surely we'd rather be living in a world

where there were no racism and no need for Martin Luther King. It sounds to me that in a lot of cases when somebody says... I just disagree. I mean... So you think it's better to actualize a world in which that is racist. I think it's more valuable. I think a world that has that and has the accompanying evils is more valuable. And that's why I say that I think we may be at a stalemate. Like if you, when you make that move, we're just disagreeing about like our baseline axiological assumptions that we bring to the table. We're all bringing our own axiological assumptions. And if that's the one that you bring and that's the one that I bring, it's like, how do we, how do we advance from there? I haven't seen an answer, like I don't, I don't really see a way out.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on. Yeah, I mean, what I'm trying to convey here. I mean, that bottom, I mean, it might just be a clash of intuitions. I mean, I tend to think that lots of philosophy is based, lots of actually reasoning in general, including scientific reasoning, bottoms out and kind of seemings, things like that, like things seem to be the case, where things appear to you to be the case. And sometimes those can come in conflict when you're in these sorts of dialectical contexts. And it's really difficult to know how to progress from there

when do people kind of disagree with respect to their basic teamings. Can we go back a little bit, Alex, so the formulation and the problem of evil you find most pressing, is it to you that it is a logical contradiction between God's existence and the world or that it just makes God's existence highly improbable? I think it's more the latter. Improval.

I'm a little suspicious of the distinction here. When people try to distinguish between the logical and evidential problem of evil, they'll say if you have a logical problem of evil that says something like, you know, if there is a God there would be no suffering, there is suffering, therefore there is no God. People say this argument is dead in the water because as long as it's logically possible that God has some reason, like morally sufficient reason to bring about evil, the argument fails. In other words, if one of the premises is not, it's logically possible for one of the premises to be false, then it's not really a logical argument you're putting forward, but an evidential

one. But imagine if someone put forward the Kalam cosmological argument and said, this is a logical argument, a valid syllogism, everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause. And I said, but that's not really a logical argument, because as long as it's logically possible that the universe didn't have a beginning, as long as it's logically possible that something can begin without a cause. then, you know, the argument's dead in the water.

So you shouldn't really be advocating a logical calum, but rather an evidential calum. But that just seems like a weird distinction to make. And I feel like people do it unfairly with the problem of evil, but not with any other deductive argument that exists. I don't know if it goes exactly like that, because it seems to me, like I've encountered, when I've heard your discussions about the problem of evil,

it sounds like you've said things like, I understand how people could see where free will would be a reason and God would tolerate evil among humans or something like that. But then why do animals suffer in such and such way? Yes. And that seems to insinuate that you could have some evils that there's not a logical contradiction there

as opposed to God, well, there's a lot of different logical arguments trying to say that God doesn't exist. They'd be incompatible properties, things like that. But it seems like you're saying, it's just like, well, yeah, I could see a world where there's evil at this threshold But not at this threshold and that's more that the evidential it seems like to me. I'm not sure because you could just you could just pull out a logical version You could say for instance that the existence of suffering does not there's no kind of logical Syllogism I would use just from the existence of suffering alone to rule out God's existence, but maybe I could formulate if I said well God would tolerate human evil for free will, but not animal suffering, then I could just formulate a logical

problem of evil that specifically focuses on animal suffering. It would still be a valid argument. It would still be a formal logical syllogism. The fact that it's kind of more specified or allows for the existence of other forms of unrelated suffering, it seems irrelevant to me as to whether it's... So Trent Zowardy, he's got a, his view is basically he doesn't like the distinction either and he's like one of the most premier philosophers that's working on the problem of evil he's a catholic so uh it's i'll let you explain but is so he thinks so he thinks that so basically

there's there's two premises to the argument he's he does have that he does have that view but that's not what i'm talking about now go ahead yeah what i'm what i'm talking about now is that the logical version and the evidential version he thinks both are basically very similar so the first one The first premise is basically a theological claim about what exists, if God exists. And then the second one is the evidential claim about whether or not there's this type of suffering in the world. So like evil exists or animal suffering exists. And in the logical version, the evidential version, it involves both the theological claim and then the evidential claim. So he thinks that the distinction collapses too.

It's just like whatever you, whatever specific theological claim you happen to be focusing on at this time. Yes. So I, and I'm kind of like, I kind of agree with that. I kind of think that the distinction between the logical and the evidential version... You know what? It seems to me, if I can be frank, is it seems to me that somebody will kind of present a logical problem of evil. And in the context of a discussion or a debate where somebody is trying to argue against an atheist, they try to kind of, they say like, well, are you making a logical version or an evidential version? And they kind of get them on the back foot thinking, well, I guess.

I guess it's logically, well, yes, logically possible that God could have morally sufficient reason. And they're like, well, then you're not making as strong a claim as you thought you were. It seems like kind of a useful rhetorical tool for the theist, but if you actually, like, pay close attention to the conversation that's taking place, as you say, Cameron, I think the distinction is actually just, it collapses. It's not really a, it's not a helpful one. It's only helpful instrumentally to winning a conversation, you know. Now I want to like play moderator and be like, Trent, is that what you were trying to do? No. Well, I don't think that's what you were trying to do.

I don't think that's what you're trying to do. I'm trying to wrap my head around because I do believe there's there is this distinction between one claim that any amount of evil whatsoever would show God does not exist versus particular kinds of quantity or quality of evil would make it unlikely. I do think there's a legitimate difference between those. of those could be called logical... No, then, I mean, there's semantics, and that's fine. It's not semantics.

It's the difference between a logical argument and, like, to say something's not a logical argument is kind of an evidential problem. It's not logical because it's logically possible that one of the premises is false, seeks to undermine the logical validity of the argument. Where I would, the reason I ask for the distinction is because I believe that if the problem is a certain quality or quantity of evil, then that is subject to a criticism that can't be leveled against an argument that says any amount of evil would disprove God

because the criticism would be this that if an atheist says, yes, I could see how this amount of evil could be justifiable, but not this amount, one wonders why can't the defenses for this amount be applied to the other amount? Whereas if you have someone who says,

hey, it's all or none, that reply won't really work. Well, it might kind of be like, if the government came along and just flooded everybody's houses by just pouring water into their front gardens and just absolutely flooding and destroying their property and you said that like this is ridiculous obviously the government is trying somehow to cause riots or something and somebody said well now hold on like I mean if the government were to install a sprinkler system that like watered your garden you think this was fine right and it's like yes and you say well look so so now your argument isn't so much that it's like some some real like absolute incompatibility between a good government and flooding your house. Because you're saying, you know, you're allowing the government to put a little bit of water onto your garden, but if it's this much, then that's too... But like, it just seems like a weird line to take.

Do you see what I'm saying? No, I mean, there's robust versions of the evidential problem. That I agree with you that if somebody basically says the logical problem of evil doesn't work, and then they kind of ignore the other arguments for an evidential problem. then that's then that's problematic but then it'll come back down to though in different intuitions when certain things are allowable what can we foresee and I think it's a bit more than that when we because yeah I would love to get to drill down a little bit especially your concern seem to be because you and you've

seemed to have reaffirm this previously I don't want to talk too much I want to hear Joe says too and Cam that I would think that if the concern is primarily about non-human suffering, I wonder if there is a way to apply the justifications for human suffering in these different ways. I guess that's what I would look at to be most promising. But if you think human suffering is also pointless, then we're kind of back at square one. I think that would be good to discuss. I think one thing to say is that I think we would all agree, I'm not sure, but that an argument, a problem of evil argument that said something like any amount of evil and suffering whatsoever is logically

incompatible with God is just a bad argument it's not gonna work it's not super popular but there's I mean there's people there are people who say that but I think everybody here would probably think that that's that would that would be a bad argument I mean I for myself I think when I say like a logical problem of evil I think maybe that there's a confusion here because you seem to be defining the logical problem of evil as the view that any amount of evil and suffering is incompatible with God. I think that's pretty traditional. I have a, maybe, maybe I guess it's, if that's what people are calling it, maybe I should,

I should change my terminology here because when I talk about the difference between a logical and an evidential problem, I mean to say that there are kind of versions of an argument that don't say any amount of evil and suffering is incompatible, but there's, I get what you're saying, it's still like a logical argument. Some versions of the problem of evil just focus on a particular range of facts or, a particular range of kinds of evil and then you can go on to say of those that that is incompatible with God's existence so not and that you could probably classify that as a logical argument from evil but instead of getting bogged

down with the terminology we might just want to lay out a particular version of the argument from evil and then just discuss that so I figured I could probably start with that I could offer maybe just a pretty intuitive kind of Bayesian argument from evolution of animal suffering so we're not going to get into the fancy base machine goes burr we're not going to do that but let's just think I mean, under a perfect being hypothesis, at least by my lights, it just seems really surprising that God would use in his very creative act this process which is just rife with suffering and languishing in death and predation and parasitism.

You know, nature, run and tooth and claw, organisms are ripping each other to shreds, and this is just like built in the natural selection. This is built into the very process, just this death and destruction and suffering and so on, is built into the very, means, the very fabric of creation, it seems, from the get-go, it seems. And that just seems like a really surprising way. We wouldn't predict that. Just a priori, from the armchair,

would we predict a perfect being to bring about, let's say, humans and other sentient creatures by means of a process, which is fraught with this kind of suffering, this almost horrendous evil. And not just any horrendous evil, but hundreds of millions of years

of this kind of evil. I mean, I remember, just to make this point in, last note, it was 2020, there were these fibers in Australia, and tens of thousands, of koalas were burned alive. Now that's just Australia, that's koalas. These koalas are suffering being burned alive. That's just Australia, just a few weeks of forest fires. Think about the whole world now, not just Australia. Don't now just think

about a few weeks, think about a few years. Now think about tens of thousands of years. Now tens of millions of years. Now how about hundreds of millions of years? It's just, it's mind-boggling. And so that would, that is by my lines. It just seems surprising on theism, whereas on a view where I guess would you just say natural reality, is indifferent to the flourishing and languishing of sentient creatures, that's not as surprising. Nature's red tooth and cloth. There's nothing down there that cares about the flourishing of sentient creatures. So given that it's surprising on one hypothesis and nowhere nearer surprising on another, we would have some reason, we have some evidence for

the hypothesis on which it isn't surprising. So that's an argument that we could consider. And I think it's worth, I mean, it's worth talking about human suffering, but this argument works if we're just talking about non-humans. And you say kind of, natural selection, it involves so much suffering, it relies upon it, as you say, it's the very machinery. Survival of the fittest entails death and destruction and suffering of the unfit. This is how it works. To me, I find this a compelling argument. I think it works. I think there are some complications when you talk about human beings because there seems to be something else that could be said to be going on there. Certainly just from a kind

coherent Christian picture that humans are special, they're insoled, whatever it may be. But even on that account, humans evolved like, what, a few million years ago? I mean, homo sapiens have been around for a few hundred thousand years, so you've still got millions, hundreds of millions of years, as Joe says, of the suffering. To me, this is probably the strongest version of the problem of evil. I have so many thoughts. I have so many thoughts. I don't even, I, it's so difficult to know even.

even where to begin. Yeah. And like, so one thought is that I, like this formulation of the problem of evil has made me want to take Trent Doherty's approach to the problem of evil so serious, excuse me, so seriously. Like I think that we do, we may need like have to look at other resources in order to explain the data. So it's not just perfect being theism.

It's also like these certain axiological assumptions like these love manifesting virtues being so strong or being so valuable, but then also maybe combine that with the fact that animals will be resurrected in the afterlife, or there's some sort of afterlife for animals. I don't know. I think that... Want them to be able to talk. Yes. Sing.

Exactly. Their suffering needs to be redeemed. I mean, I'm really, I mean, if I were a theist, I would definitely opt for probably Trondority's approach. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it's plausible. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say that, okay, I should probably, if people are listening, like, what we're doing

is called inside baseball when you sometimes drop a bunch of names or things and people are like what wait what are they referring to so the true and at least in the catholic worldview there's actually a variety of answers to the problem of animal suffering the traditional to mystic answer there's two ways you can look at it one is that animals uh do not suffer intensely or their suffering, allowing their suffering is not morally blameworthy. That's one view in the Timistic tradition or the Cartesian tradition. Michael Murray would advocate that view in his book. So one view is that animal suffering, we're not morally blameworthy for causing it. Or that it's not a significant moral, it's not a significant evil to be concerned with.

The other would be, it is significant, but just as human suffering is significant, but animals could be compensated. It's not the traditional Catholic view, but it is allowed within Catholic theology. And so one version of that would be that animals who have a sense of consciousness over time will experience happiness, fulfillment, endlessly in an afterlife. If an animal has a capacity for conscious suffering over time, it stands the reason they could have a capacity for conscious happiness over time. And so God could still give them. endless happiness and some Catholics take that view and then others like Trend Doherty add more that God could even add goods to them such as by

transformed like by giving them what my friend Jimmy Aiken calls a cognitive boost and so that they might talk and and I'm I did laugh I mean I found a little silly at first reserving it and I'm still I'm a bit warmer to the idea I could see that more with the fate of domestic animals versus necessarily wild animals. But so those are, those are two different approaches. And then one I think is worth considering though.

I think when the, and I think Joe, you laid it out really well in a, you know, robust way to get us with the heart and the head on it. I worry about some of the assumptions, we have to be careful of some of the assumptions built into the argument a bit. First, for the vast majority of evolutionary history,

I don't think animals were sentient. We have like invertebrates and things like that. But it's still millions of years. Yeah. Well, definitely it's hundreds of millions. So I was going to, I nearly said billions. It's definitely not me of years. But then I decided not to say that because the life has been on earth for billions of years.

But the kind of came being an explosion. The kind of suffering, yeah, it would have to be hundreds of millions. Suppose in those billions of years, what if we, the percentage in an animal's existence, its life is either pleasure. measurable, neutral, or painful, because certain billions of years there's going to be billions of years of pain, but there are also billions of years of pleasure and billions of years of neutral activity like sleeping. So one must be careful not to prejudice this description, and it's just one horrific gorefest. I think we also look at the realistic lives of animals and then ask, well, is their existence

themselves good? And I guess I gave you a thought experiment in our debate. Here's another one. That might be more realistic actually than the one I gave you in our debate. Would it be wrong for us to send a probe with amino acids to a planet like Earth to start an evolutionary process there that normally would not have begun? And we start this evolutionary chain that will entail a lot of suffering. Now one quick rejoinder to that is, well, Trent, like we can't make, you know, that's how

we don't know how to make life aside from that. But God could certainly, you know, snap his fingers and not use evolution. So that's the problem there. But I don't know if that's a great objection. Because if something is just really bad, even if there's no other way to do it, you should still refrain. It'd be like, let's say I could raise an animal with an artificial womb. But the only technology we have, the animal will just suffer horribly every minute of its existence. And I would say, but this is the only way I can grow animals in artificial wounds.

I'd say, well, then you just shouldn't do it at all. But if it wouldn't be bad for us to start an evolutionary history, maybe it's not so bad if God does it, even if he has other ways that he could do it. I don't know. Before you all come back on that, there's another analogy of like the Amazonian, what do you call it, ecosystem? No, the Amazonian ecosystem. If we had the technology of which we do,

we could just completely wipe out the Amazon right now and all of the animals that are currently suffering and going through horrible predation and everything else that's going on in the Amazon right now. But suppose that there was a button that you could just press and you could get rid of it all. Would you press the button? Well, that's what Trent asked in our debate because I was talking about why God would allow so much suffering. And we have to be careful here to notice that Joe made an argument from natural selection,

not so much just animal suffering, but specifically, that the process of natural selection, the machinery by which God brings about creation, involves and necessitates suffering. So when you ask, you know, would I press a button and kill every animal, or would I not, like, I actually don't really know, but this isn't the situation that God is in. God has a button that he can press that takes all of the animals living in the Amazon

and makes their life have 50% less suffering, 80% less suffering, and doesn't press it without having to press it, press it without having to kill them. That's the situation that God is. And so it's not an analogous situation. We're embedded in the rules of a chess game that's already been laid down, as it were, and we're kind of having to operate within those rules, but we're not the very author of the chess game itself and the rules by which it operates. If we were, I mean, I worry about the feasibility, though, because I see the objection, but even when you articulate, well, why wouldn't God decrease suffering by 50 or 80%? I'm not sure exactly what

that means. It's like you could get rid of half of all animals. That would decrease the suffering by 50%. You could dull their senses by 50 or 80%. But then could they function? Because I see your concern, Joe, like, well, God's making the rules of the game. But it could be the case that creating animal life has these necessary elements in it provided God does not excessively interfere with the system itself. So for example, I mean, suppose it was an evolution. Suppose God created all animals in their final forms like they are today and they existed for billions of years and never underwent evolutionary change. It seems like the problem would still remain.

You'd have predation, you'd have disease. You would still have all those bad things. There's just no evolutionary mechanism. It's just kind of always been. It seems like there's something more direct about animal life that is the problem here. we're thinking about. I mean, there are different things to disentangle here. Are we focusing on, is it the fact that God used this almost like as a means by which to bring about creatures? And, you know, it seems as though he's maybe intending, maybe forcing but not

intending, you know. But is that what we're focusing on? Or are we focusing on just the suffering inherent in the process? Is it God's directing of the process that's a problem? The way that I see it is just a matter of prediction. So like, yeah, okay, maybe there are these necessary connections, maybe, but, I mean, conceivably, epistemically, it definitely could have been otherwise. I mean, maybe they just have some sort of built-in anesthetic, such that when the zebra just gets the claw from, or whatever, it gets like the teeth from the lion, some sort of built-in anesthetic, like, I don't know, there's some sort of psychophysical law that just kicks in, and they don't feel any suffering, but, you know, that the lion can still

have its meal and someone. But here's where my problem comes. I notice I had the qualifier that God does not excessively interfere in the system. Well, these are psychophysical laws built in from the gecko. No, because then, because normally when an animal experience, any of us, we're animals, when we experience pain, it motivates us to act in an extremely aggressive way to promote our own survival. So what if in some circumstances when an animal is attacked, that immense amount of pain is what allows it to escape the attack and then to go on living. And so then you'd say, well, maybe there's a psychosocial law where the animal doesn't feel pain when there is no possibility for escape. It's like, but there's no real biological mechanism. It would seem like

God would end up having it been omnipotent being. But that's what I think he would. Yeah, but then he be interfering. That's my point is, he could have said it up differently from the get go with different rules. What I'm saying is God creating a natural system will inevitably entail things that are more or less perfect in competition with each other. I worry that the concept of animal that the you know pain for example like god could create animals you know instead of having pain what if we just had a heads up display that told us hand is burning move hand a lot of us would ignore the head the heads up display and you know our hand will become useless you know

so this seems to be i what i worry the parallel here would be like well why can't god make people that are free but don't do evil we qualify humans so much they're not really human or free anymore. Why can't God make animals that don't suffer in a natural ecosystem? It gets changed and qualified so much. They're not really animals. They're more like furry robots that God's like sending around. That's my concern. Well, I just, to me, it seems almost like a limitation of imagination. I mean, we just, I mean, this is an epistemic argument. So I don't need to say that these are actually metaphysical possibilities. But so long as I can, there's, so long as they're epistemically open, so long as I can conceive of these various other ways that

reality could have been. We can factor that into our amazing analysis. And it just, it really seems as though God could have set up psychophysical laws that really are really highly finely tuned in this sort of way where they're, I mean, not as infallible foreknowledge of the various ways that things are going to go on. Surely he could have this precisely fine-tuned psychophysical laws that connect the suffering states that the organisms are in and their physical

states, where it is actually privy to whether or not they're going to survive and so on. And okay, even if that makes them different than the animals that we do in fact have my point then would just be why not create rather i won't put this as a question because questions aren't arguments my point is it's more surprising that god created animals as we see them rather than animal star like the ones that we are describing this other epistemically possible scenario that would be more expected under theism the animal star than we see animals would you be i'm curious if your eyes will roll or your response would be to a defense saying how do we know animal star doesn't exist right now because it's very difficult to determine the inner

lives of anything much less animals that is true that's true and there is some and i i like risk being taken the wrong way here yeah when i explain this but there are like when you've seen i i've seen videos of like animals being like ripped apart like on reddit and stuff and just randomly yeah like a nature channel and it's something like it's actually very strange like sometimes you'll look at the animal and they look peaceful like they're being ripped apart and they're just like sitting there like this just like getting their leg like ripped off and it's weird like so we i don't i don't know how other times though they definitely don't look peaceful yeah yeah yeah you can find videos on the dodger parts of the internet of human beings

doing exactly the same thing yeah i mean it is it is but it is a good point that we have to consider now a flossie of mind and how do we have access to the like mental states of others and so on I mean, it's a potentially problematic aspect that God doesn't clue us into this fact, that things suspiciously seem as though it's animals, not animal star. That might present problems of its own. So a different approach to this whole Bayesian argument from evil is, what about skeptical theism? I feel like we should at least discuss skeptical theism.

I mean, I'm not like the biggest fan of skeptical theism. I mean, I guess it depends on the day. But it's like one of the most popular responses to the problem. of evil is like we really don't know what that probability is of how likely you know the suffering in the world will be given theism we just don't know what that probability is given the fact that god's knowledge is so much greater than our own and there's you know we we have these epistemic limitations on us and so forth so what are y'all's thoughts on skeptical theism and how it relates to like Bayesian arguments for evil i think it's interesting it's it's you need to be careful

because it can turn into universal acid potentially, as you've pointed, well, not in response to skeptical thesis, but universal acid that you've talked about. Like, if we're so epistemically in the dark about God's reasons for action and so on, like, what's going to happen to the rest of natural theology? You know, in order to run certain fine-tuning arguments, you need to be able to make predictions about what God would do or might do, and you need to make these probable sense. I'm just going to name drop again, John DePoe. Yeah. His positive skeptical Theism is compatible with natural theology. We're using a lot of big terms.

Can I suggest, for the sake of people listening, can we just spell out what skeptical theism actually is? Yes. Because we've said it a few times. Yeah, there are different versions. I'll let you do it. There are different versions of skeptical theism. The most basic version is the one that your grandma gave.

God's ways are mysterious, basically. His ways are not our ways, so we shouldn't expect to be able to see all the reasons for which God acts. There are much more sophisticated ways, like, oh, the range of possible goods, evils, connections between obtaining states of affairs and so on, of which we are aware, is not representative of the total range of goods, evils, connections between goods and evils and so on that there are, such that we wouldn't be able to conclude from our inability. But we don't know if our sample is represented. Yeah, whether our samples represented, such that we can't justifiably conclude from our,

let's say, not being able to see a good coming about from an evil, that there, in fact, is no such good, or that probably there is no such good. because the range of goods and evils and necessary connections among them and so on that we are aware of it is that's not representative of the total range that there is so we wouldn't be justified in making that leap so that yeah there are different ways to put it and so more or less we have an idea that you know there is some reason or justification for the existence of suffering but even if there is such a reason or explanation we shouldn't expect to be able to see it doesn't follow that we must be able to know what that reason is or to be able to comprehend that that reason this seems to me a good understanding of what skeptical theism is. And what's difficult is that once you make that epistemic distance between us and God so large, you start to be able to, you tend to bleed into areas where you're not able to predict what God would do. I mean, will God suspend the laws of nature tomorrow? I mean, does he have a sufficiently, maybe he has a morally sufficient reason to do that.

I mean, after all, God's ways are infinitely greater than our ways. I mean, who are we? The range of reasons of which we are aware is not representative of the range of reasons that there are, and so on. As you pointed out, there are ways to... There's different versions of skeptical. I think there might be a bit, like, potentially the biggest problem for skeptical theism is that of a kind of moral paralysis that it might bring about. That is, if there is this suffering that exists, there are kind of deer getting caught under a fallen tree and starving to death and, you know, starvation and predation and this kind

of stuff. And we don't know what this reason is, but there is some reason that it's, that it's there. There is some good that it's serving. there is something about it that's justified. We run into a problem when it comes to trying to confront it or trying to change it. If we were given us, if we were in a situation where we have the opportunity to prevent an animal from suffering, if skeptical theorism is telling us that, or indeed even a person, if skeptical theorism tells us that, well, when you see some suffering, you should essentially

assume that there is some good justification, you just don't know what it is. When I see, it's more difficult with a person because I think scripture quite, like for a Christian, they could say, well, we have revelation to tell us that you should be helping people from suffering. I can have a morally sufficient reason of what you're unaware, to allow for certain Yeah, this is true. But so, of course, the problem that I'm getting at is that if when you are faced with evil, the skeptical theorist says, when faced with evil and suffering, assume that there

is a justification for why it's happening, you just don't know what it is, then when I see some form of suffering and I have. an opportunity to stop it step in and prevent it skeptical theism seems to say that I should actually refrain from helping the drowning child in the pool or something because well there's a justification so why that's taking place it's a greater good that it's serving and by stepping in if God wanted to allow that that child to drown he's got better understanding than I do of the situation so why should I not allow the child because given my cognitive limitations and that I don't know what God has a greater good for allowing certain evil

Given my limitations, I cannot rule out the greater good is me being heroic and stopping the evils. Given my limitation and skeptical thing, I could say, you're right, I don't know. There could be a lot of greater goods. There could be ones I do or don't know. But one I seem to be aware of at this moment is the good of me ameliorating suffering. And since I am aware of that good and operating on a previous moral command, then it would follow. So I'm not as concerned about skeptical theism being this kind of acid. I do think that in addressing the problem of evil,

people who put forward easy solutions probably haven't thought very hard about the problem. I think it's a multifaceted approach. But I do think, though, Alex, at most, like, if you're weighing like it makes God really implausible, that's got to be weighed against the reasons for God. Yeah. And then it gets really difficult, like, how we assign mathematical values and... But this is why I think, for instance, this is why I think it benefits you to press like an evidential logical distinction because if you say something like, well, what

you're presenting is really an evidential problem of evil, not a logical one, then if you present an argument for the existence of God that's logically valid, then you can say, as you said in our debate, that, well, like any amount of evidential evidence is not enough to overcome a logical argument on the other side. I'm sorry, so yeah, so even if you have a like a logically valid argument and you think it's like a demonstration, you still have to ask, well, what's the plausibility of each of the premises? And that's going to come in a kind of scale, right? Some of them are going to be more plausible than not, maybe only 60% plausible and so on. I mean, your justifications for that, that's going to vary. So almost everything is going to come down to an evidential, which I'm very sympathetic to Trent or at his point, but I'm going to think there is, I mean, like, I mean, even when you have these sorts of demonstrations, even in mathematics, you have to assess, well, how plausible is this premise? And at some point, you're just relying on intuition and seemings and so on.

But setting that aside, you did make a good point in response to the moral paralysis objection. But that actually might turn against itself when you come back to the skeptical-theist response to the problem of evil. I just want to briefly mention that Paul Draver points this out. Even in response to these sorts of Bayesian arguments, you could say, yeah, maybe God has a morally sufficient reason. Maybe there are goods of which we're unaware that are necessarily connected with these evil states of affairs. But it's also equally true that there might be goods of, or there might be further evils of which you're unaware that are connected with these sorts of things. Maybe, you know, you can add that, but it seems as though the epistemic reasons of which

we are unaware that are like good-making features that or that are goods that might come about from this evil, it seems as though that's kind of canceled out from further bad things that might even come about and just horrendous things of which we are unaware as well. And so once those cancel out, we're just left with the first-order reasons. And the forced-to-order reasons, even granted, seem by the skeptical theists favor like God not allowing these sorts of things, you know, because we know that this is such a bad state of affairs. So it seems to cut both ways. Well, let me get back a little because with your concern, I do feel like though, it's like if we weigh these different

arguments evidentially, they're trying to prove different things. And so many of the arguments for God are just showing there's a kind of necessary, sustaining, external, transcendent cause of the universe. And some of them purport to show the moral qualities of God. It would like saying you know two orphans are arguing they live in a horrible situation in their orphanage and like if if we had loving parents we wouldn't have ended up here like well there's this there's this possibility and this or that and then one of them just says no this clearly shows we don't have parents I'm sure the other orphan was they well we clearly have parents I mean where did we come

from you know now it seems like we're disputing whether they're loving or not so it seems like the concern about suffering it's really focused in on one particular either power or love, but not necessarily necessity, infinite, immutable. So one could even have your position, you know, that there is like Aristotle's God, an unmoved mover, essentially. Although then, I guess the theist strategy to move forward would be, do we have more compelling reasons to think God is good? maybe by definition or necessity, then what presence of evils might sway us another way. Yeah, I mean, you can even go further, as Stephen Law does,

I made a video on his evil God challenge where he imagines a God who is exactly opposite to the kind of God that we met with in traditional Theism, and we say we have a malicious God, an evil God, who basically seeks to bring about the worst possible outcome. Now, if I said that such a God existed, you would probably, rightly laugh at me in part because we're clearly not in the worst possible outcome like if there was an evil God he'd make things far worse for us than than the way that they are but of course this mirrors the way that somebody who

says that there's a good God surely like this isn't as good as things could be he could make things much better for us and so what people do is they say you have this problem of evil for a good God but the evil God hypothesis has a problem of good if there is an evil God then why are there good things? Why isn't everyone suffering all the time? And you can actually construct equal and opposite theodices. So you could say that, well, the reason why people are able to experience joy and happiness

is because it makes it worse for the people who are not experiencing joy and happiness. They experience a deeper level and different kind of suffering, such as the suffering of loneliness, that cannot exist unless there are other people who are existing happily. And so if somebody, and Stephen Law's point is to say that, because when you face with the evil God hypothesis, most people say that is just patently ridiculous because of the world we find ourselves in and how suffused with goods it is, that we should be fair in granting the alternative hypothesis that when someone says there's a good God, we should just be saying that's patently absurd because of the amount of suffering.

My quick rejoinder to the evil God objection is that it only succeeds. This will get us down, and unfortunately we don't have another few hours to talk, I wish. I'm sure Joe has a lot of thoughts on this. It will turn on one's metaphysical understanding of the concepts of good and evil, that if good and evil are just competing substances that only differ trivially like good is the red stuff and evil is the blue stuff, whatever, then the evil God objection might work. But if one had more of a privation view of evil, that good is more like metal and evil is more like rust, then the concept of an evil God, well, God who's completely evil would not be this, you know, nefarious being, it would just be non-existent. And of course, I understand

that there are controversial views about the privation theory of evil, but I think in a classical theistic model, that's a route that I would go in answering the objection to moving forward. But then isn't there a problem here? Because you said a moment ago that, well, I present a problem of evil and you say, well, you know, this doesn't remove the possibility. if there being some kind of God who's just like amoral or something, but it seems to me that your own view about the nature of God and the nature of good commits you to saying that that actually isn't a viable option because you can't think of a...

Well, yeah, but I think my view of the nature of God is superior to those that are incorrect. I don't know if that's arrogant to say or not. But doesn't this mean that for what you just said a moment ago that somebody could have a problem of evil and just say, at best this just shows that there's, you know, a not maximally moral God. Or they're agnostic about the deity's character. And we were talking about this in the context of having arguments for God's existence

and then you've got the problem of suffering and you say, well, you've got the arguments for God's existence and the problem of suffering. So the problem of suffering maybe makes you think that God isn't good, but you still got the arguments which show you that God is there. But the kind of arguments that you give, the kind of arguments that you support, do seek to establish that God is good by nature. And so you wouldn't be able to make that line as a theist. You wouldn't be able to say, well, yeah, you've got the problem of suffering,

but you're not ruling out God. You're just ruling out a good God. You surely can't do that. Of course not, but I don't think the existence of my, the route that I arrive, I agree that with law in that we cannot use empirical observation to determine whether God is essentially good or evil. I think that's a prior metaphysical question. based on your understanding of God.

I was going to say the response to the evil God hypothesis that I find plausible is that you just, you don't rule out an evil God by looking at good in the world. That's one of the premises of his argument. And so I just don't think that that's like the way to do it. You've got to do it other ways. I would quite like to slightly change course and go back to something that we were talking about earlier, which is this idea of if you have goods that are kind of parasitic on evils, Would we rather have no evil and no parasitic good, or would we rather have them both?

I gave the example of Martin Luther King, and you said that you'd rather have the world in which there's racism to require a Martin Luther King for the sake of having a Martin Luther King. I quite almost truly think that it would be preferable to have no racism and no need for a Martin Luther King. Because what it seems to me you're saying, if you say something like that you'd rather the former world, is saying something like we can be glad of the existence of Canada, because without the existence of cancer, we wouldn't have the good of people coming to develop chemotherapy and cancer research. And cancer research is a good thing, people giving to charity, people doing fundraising, this is a great thing. So isn't it great that we have cancer because it allows this higher order good of cancer research.

But clearly, we'd rather have no cancer and no need for the cancer research. In the same way, I'd rather have no racism and no need for Martin Luther King. I'd rather have no fear and suffering and no need for bravery. Well, I'll have a quick poetic rejoinder. My favorite kind. Of course. I, one of my favorite musicals is Le Miz, based on the novel like Victor Hugo, Le Miserob.

And most, many of the characters in there have quite miserable lies based on the revolution and poverty and death and very sad, sad scenes in there. But the play is, it's quite beautiful at the end when the main character, Jean Valchon dies and he is welcomed into heaven with those and everyone is is singing together that this has been overcome it's a one probably one of the best descriptions of the gospel I've ever seen in media and I feel like would we rather have evil be non-existent or evil be defeated and I think that many people see the importance there if there if there is compensation if we're all

brought through rather than just they're not being evil because this gets back to the question that if the only good we're trying to pursue is just the reduction of suffering then you know Thanos was 50% right you know you'd be amazed how often that specific example is given to me in these kinds of conversations yeah so i mean um yeah i i see what you're saying and maybe maybe jo's right this comes down to intuition a little bit that we have. But I guess another example might be like, let's say I told you,

it turns out this world is a simulation and you're a program and a computer and there's, all the universe is one guy with a supercomputer. It's like, would you rather have found out that this is a simulation or that this is real? Then you might be grateful

if the suffering is gone, but it might also be kind of horrifying to realize all that seemed to be good was not real either. So I don't know if it's as cut and dry. C.S. Lewis had an example of... Getting me into...

Sorry, the Matrix. I would say, no, reality is just different than what we thought of it. But is it... No, no, no. I agree, but is it a preferable kind of reality? That would go back to the philosopher Robert Nozick, put forward something called an experience machine. Yeah.

I just, I think it's a... I think there are a few things that are a little bit unfair about how Nozik treats the case. For example, he doesn't take into account something like status quo bias. He says, Would you jump into an experience machine that brings you nothing but pleasure, but it's actually just fake? And there are so many problems. The first is to say, this is different from if you were to wake up and it turns out you have been plugged into the experience machine. And the doctors say to you, listen, like your life sucks.

Like it's really bad. It's even worse than was in the machine. I mean the simulation. Yeah, like it's so much worse out here. But, you know, welcome back. But if you like, we'll plug you back in and you'll forget this ever happened. It's at least a lot more plausible that people in that situation would be like, yeah, put me back, right? So it might have a lot to do with kind of the situation already obtaining.

Jumping into the experience machine feels different. Also, of course, we have necessarily a kind of omniscience when thinking about the situation. We can talk about being outside of the experience machine, inside the experience machine, what obtains, what the differences are. But to jump into the experience machine requires that you forget that you had the possibility to not do so or to do so. so. And so when somebody says that in the experience machine, this would be a worse existence somehow, that intuition just doesn't land with me. Because once you're in the machine, it's the same thing. You're just living a life and you're just experiencing reality as we experience this reality. Even if it's a different, even if it's like a much worse life out there,

I mean, I think empirical philosophers, you know, people who go out and actually do these surveys of like folk intuitions and so on. Yeah, you do get a resounding, you get a resounding no to get a big experience machine if you're like hopping into it for the first time but you can actually turn the tables like you're describing and the situation is your whole life so far has been in an experience machine now you're faced with a choice to get out and you know you're just I think you're like I forget what it is but you're just like it's either it's not worse than your current position but it's not better you know maybe you're just like an artist in Kansas or something you know

whatever yeah even if it yeah even it's the same a lot of people they actually found like a lot of people wouldn't get out of it and it's like it's like really I forget the specific results but I think it's like I actually forget, but it's much more saying you'd stay. Because it's like the people that I know, like you guys, you know, like I'd be in a different... But then have, but then have they really reflected on it, like using phrases like, the people I know? Yeah, but this is the problem. But this is exactly what people do when they refuse to jump into the experience machine.

I feel like what they're thinking is at least partly influenced by kind of, I'd be giving up my life. I'd be giving up my friends and my family. I'd be adopting a whole new system. A whole new world. once you're in there, it just feels, you know, I was sometimes asked, my university was split up into like a bunch of different colleges. There's no like singular campus. And people are always talking about how they all, everybody seems to feel like they made the right choice of college. Everyone thinks that their college is the best college in the world. I, I wasn't such

a fan of mine. I thought it was like, okay, I thought there were better ones. And my friends once said to me, but like, they said, but if you went to a different college, you never would have met us and we'd never be friends. And I said, well, yeah, but I'd have met other friends and I'd value them just as equally as I value you right now. They thought that was a bit cold. But you get the point. Like, it seems like you wouldn't want to say that, right? In that situation, I might think, but if I went to a different college, I wouldn't have met the friends that I, that I had right now. And sure, that that's kind of bad, but if I were in that college, I'd be saying the same thing about those friends. And it's the same thing with

the experience machine. One other attack here. Like, let's say, what would we want God, how would we want God to treat us as creatures? Because one way we might say, well, I would like God to give me infinite happiness. That would seem fair if God gave me infinite happiness. If you could somehow numerically quantify happiness and it turned out to be infinite. Well then by that logic, even if you had an absolutely horrific

finite life, if you have infinite happiness in the afterlife, it would still turn out to be infinite happiness based on trans finite arithmetic, then suppose you might say, well, no, God should just spare me from just like the absolute worst evils, because I think many people would say they're willing to tolerate some evil, but not others. But then I worry maybe their intuitions are off, even in that, given how the entire system is set up in that regard. There's nothing worth considering, which is that I think a lot of the discussion around Theodicy, around the problem of evil kind of assumes a consequentialism.

This is something that a friend of mine, his name is Dan Wulner, he brought this to my attention. He said that when you say something like, well, God has this good that he wishes to bring about and so he'll allow all of this evil as if to say like this good is somehow better than this evil, like there's more good brought about by allowing some evil and that's why God allows it. But it may be that God, for instance, has a duty to bring about certain things. God has some kind of moral duty to bring about free will, let's say, then it's not just that, well, free will is much better than the suffering that it entails.

Even if the suffering is far worse, if you've got a duty to bring about free will, it would still function as a theodicy. If there's some kind of duty to bring about compassion or to bring about bravery even, then even if a world in which there's no bravery and no fear is much better, consequentially, from a kind of crude utilitarian perspective, that's a better world than one of the world. in which there is bravery, but there's also the fear and suffering. If there's something a bit more like deontological about this, that bravery is just something that must be brought about, then we don't need to debate whether that's a better world or

a worse world than where there's no bravery in suffering. Because the Theodicy doesn't work in saying that the evil is kind of worth the, or the good is worth the suffering on a kind of balance, but that the good requires that any amount of evil would still be allowed to obtain because it's a duty to bring something about. So it's weird how otherwise generally deontological religious thinkers when having this discussion are perfectly happy to just kind of adopt a consequence. I would say it's teleological, not necessarily consequential. It aims for a particular kind of end informed by goodness, but it's not strict kind of consequentialism.

God treats creatures as having a particular kind of dignity and good to share in him. who is the ultimate goodness itself. I guess, yeah, it will come down maybe to intuitions about when we say like goodness, you know, it seems like there are these different kinds of goods if we imagine them. And I think you're right. Some of them are conjoined to evils. Is it really better to never have them at all? Maybe Joe's right.

Maybe that's just a very basic. When it comes to existence of God, some people find a principle, sufficient reason, implausible, others don't, and I think this might be one of those very, like, to me, it does seem, and I try to make an analogy. I know they're not perfect, but like to creating life, the revolution, or even begetting, having your own children. And it's like, well, I know, I mean, I could, you could take, actually this is something I saw, you should look this up. So Matt Dillahunty did a reply to, as people asked me about antinatalism. Why are you bringing up Matt Dillahunty? Right.

Why you bring him? Have you seen, you know when you debated him on the Resurrection? Yes. And you mentioned my name as an example. And he was like, why you bring up Alex O'Connor? At least from what I saw with your engagement with Alex O'Connor, you do not believe a person. What's wrong? What the hell does Alex O'Connor have to do with this?

You've mentioned him twice. He was so, Matt, and all I asked him was, Matt, are there beliefs that you disagree with but find to be reasonable? And you would like, no. No. He said no. He said no. He said there were no beliefs that if he says, well, I'm a reasonable person, that if someone disagrees, there must be, I was like, he said just as an example, he was like, so for example, Alex O'Connor's veganism, you think he's wrong, but maybe reasonable. He wouldn't do it. Why you bring him? Wouldn't, wouldn't do it. Sorry, Matt Delahunt. So Matt did a reply. People asked him about anti-Natalism. Yeah. The idea like, well, is it moral to have children, knowing that they could, they could suffer and you bring someone to. into existence and they're harmed and you didn't get their consent and all the while watch the video all the while I was watching the video you were saying well there are harms but there's also these

goods that come into play when you bring a child into existence and we balance that and I was like it sounds like a theist respond to the problem of evil yeah so I just found that so sometimes I like to bring up these other examples say oh well if it can make sense in one context I'll be it it's analogical and there's limits perhaps it can make sense in it another that there are some incredible similarities between the discussion about bringing children into existence and God bringing us human beings into existence and it's even kind of a useful analogy in the way it's you're talking about like a father and his children right and so that's why I so many similarities right and so I think

that if your partial say oh I could see that there's a benefit here even though there's costs that are involved I would push that towards oh maybe it could at least be more sensible yeah God would create and that he has more resources than human This is sometimes informed by the fact that people who kind of on balance, there are a lot of people who've lived a life that on balance has had more suffering than pleasure, maybe it's like 60, 40 or something, and yet at the end of their life will think it was worth having. And there are also ways that pleasures and pains kind of balance out in asymmetrical ways. For instance, I mean, David Benesha talks a lot about this and, of course, in bed and never to have been. For instance, a life that begins with a lot of suffering but then gets better over time versus a life that begins with a lot of pleasure and gets worse over time.

These don't seem to be equal. It can't just be like a crude balancing of pleasures and pains. There seems to be something about the worth of living through this experience that needs to be taken into it. I would love to ask Benatar if, let's say, Christian theism were true. Let's just hedge our bets with Christian universalism. Everybody goes to heaven.

I wonder if that would change his thesis. It surely has to. You would think. Yeah, no, must do. Must do. It has to. Well, why don't we send him an email and see if he should do things. Well, maybe I'll do then, and I'll, if he responds, I'll, I'll put something on the screen.

You can say atheism, they might qualify at universalism. Every, everyone goes to heaven. Yeah, well, let's ask him. And then, I don't know, this would be an interesting route to explore also for more discussions on problem people. Well, this has been quite a, quite the roundtable. I think we've covered a lot of ground and had some interesting discussions. And I hope that people find this useful, of course. It's great to have four people in a room, but it also makes it.

harder to you know hear everybody out on everything but I think we've we struck up a good balance I want is there anything like pressing that anybody else is like just dying to get out there before we wrap up no not pressing I have I have other things that I want to talk about but I think I may save it for dinner yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm building up his courage this is this is the problem of people I I think that we can at least all agree that the problem of evil is a very important topic and yeah It makes a lot of intuitive sense and it's something that's really worth considering.

I mean, my kind of final analysis of the situation is that it's often framed, the problem of evil is often seen as like the best response to theism. It's like you have this religion and in response you get the problem of evil. Why are people suffering? Why are people nihilists? Why is life so apparently meaningless? But to me I feel like this is actually the wrong way around. I feel like the best treatment of the nihilistic condition is not found.

in David Benatar. It's not found in like modern atheistic writers. It's found in Ecclesiastes, right? It's found in, it's found in Job. It's found in the Psalms. And it says to me that maybe it's not that the problem of suffering is like a response to religion, but rather religion itself was a response to the problem of suffering. Maybe that's the thing I would close with. Like for me, more of an intuitive end of this is there's also one practical reply to this. It's that if you get rid of God, you still have evil you still have just pure awfulness like I do wonder at what I would do if I were put to the test like if my family died in an accident I I went through Job's trial you know I said I cancer I was just brought to my lowest how you know how would I how would I respond to that and so well

my friend Jimmy Aiken for example I love what he says on problem people because he he's dealt with personal tragedy his wife died of an illness shortly after they were married he never remarried And the way he looked at it is, well, you know, Christianity is my one hope to be reunited with my wife and for evil to be conquered. It's the one hope for evil to be answered for there to be a solution. Why would I give that up without there being a good argument again? So I guess for me, like with evil, I am just so thrilled at the prospect of Christianity answering it. I refuse to give up Christianity unless there is another independent reason to show that it's false, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, of course I can sympathize with that. I guess I would just say, I mean, I equally would love it to be true, and if I believed it would never want to give it up. But as I say, I think that that may indeed be why these religious ideas exist in the first place rather than being the other way around. But that, maybe that's something we can discuss tomorrow because, of course, we're here in Houston to do the event that I mentioned earlier, which, as I say, will be in the past. So I'm sure that a lot of these threads will probably be continued at some point tomorrow.

So I'll make sure that everything's linked down in the description. But yeah, this has been edifying. So thank you all for... Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having us on your channel. This has been great. For everybody watching, a quick reminder that everything I do is supported by you on patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic.

A special thanks, as always, to my top-tier patrons for keeping the channel afloat. I really do appreciate the help that you've been given, not just to be able to produce content, but also to be able to justify traveling around the world and speaking to interesting people. So thanks to you in particular. I've been, Alex O'Connor, as always. I've been joined by Cameron Batutzi, Joe Schmidt,

and Trent Horn, and you've been watching the Cosmic Skeptic podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, nice, go to the bathroom. Ah, nice. You know, Oh, Oh,

Oh, Oh, Oh, Thank you.