Why does God let people suffer - Essay Example

Why Does God Let People Suffer The existence of a powerful and benevolent deity responsible for the design and creation of the world as well exercising power over the laws of nature has been debated by both skeptics and believers for millennia. Skeptics have often enquired; If God is all knowing all powerful and all good as most religions tend to believe, then it translates there should be no evil in the world because he would be able and willing to prevent its occurrence. Conversely, believers claim that despite his possession of the above attributes, he has given humanity freedom of choice, which would be moot, if he were to exercise these powers over them. David Hume’s articles attempts an explanation of the compatibility of God’s nature with the imperfection and evil that characterizes the world. Hume takes it for granted that God exists, his focus in the article is to determine if evidence of an infinitely good powerful and perfect God can be derived from the imperfect nature of the world. With inference form Hume’s work this paper will defend this claim that the nature and existence of a benevolent God cannot be deduced by humans from the natural and imperfect condition of the universe. In support of this claim, Hume puts forward several arguments to demonstrate the nature of Gods workmanship of the universe and the many flaws, which in the eyes of human intellect cannot logically be used as inference of benevolent God. The fact that pain exists and animals are doomed to suffer it is the first contrivance of evil in Gods supposed creation, through pain and pleasure animals are forced to become vigilant as they engage in the never ending routine of self-preservation. Hume posits that pain in unnecessary and should not rationally be used as the extreme opposite of pleasure. When an animal is hungry or thirsty for instance, instead of just feeling a reduction of the pleasure it briefly experienced should why should it feel the pain of this deficiency (Clark 82)? If the world was created by a benevolent and all-powerful God, should he not simply eliminate the pain that courses so much suffering and substitute it with absence of pleasures? The unpredictable and sometimes punitive character of our natural environment also makes it difficult for the human faculty to understand or accept that a benevolent creator could have been behind the universe’s design (Hume). The world is fraught with disasters many, which man can neither predict nor prevent and it would be logical to assume that God in his goodness would mitigate to either end them or turn them to the advantage of humanity. However, nature seems to follow no moral code and to some extent, it can be seen as evil, even immoral in its action and inactions. When adults die through accidents of disease, there is always an allowance from religious perspective that they could have died in penance for their sins, in most communities this is universally recognized if not accepted. However, illness also strikes innocent children who are incapable of doing wrong and therefore, why them would they suffer the same as those who knowingly commit sins. If the concept behind the belief in God and religion is that we should lead righteous and moral lives and those who do not will be punished, indeed it is said that the wages of sin are death. Ironically, hurricanes, tornados, and pestilence do not select their victims and therefore one is forced to question whether there is any merit in the natural laws that coincides with religious moral expectations. What is the point of leading moral lives if the good and evil are treated with the same lethal indifference by nature and why would God make it so? Another example of what makes the universe so irrationally constructed is the frugality with which abilities are distributed with each animal having so little control over its own pleasure. Elephants are bestowed with great strength but lack speed, humans have great intellect (Compared to beasts) yet they would be helpless without the artificial accouterments such as clothing and accommodation and so on. This arbitrary distribution of power means that each animal will survive but just barely, life is therefore a vicious cycle in which each animal lives in violent competition with the others with no guarantee of any reasonable comfort or lasting wellbeing. Opponent of the assertion that nature does not speak of Gods wisdom and benevolence will undoubtedly try to prove that even in the universe’s perceived imperfection, God’s perfection can be found and that everything that happens is for reason deliberately sanctioned by God for ultimate goodness of mankind. For instance in responses to why God would let innocent children suffer in disaster and hurricanes which should ideally only be visited upon the evil and unjust they would conjecture that since the children are innocent God rewards them by taking them to eternal happiness after they die. Their deaths serve a greater good by making the living more pious and nudge them towards choosing better lives for themselves in the wake of their realization of their mortality. In essence, they imply that God could be acquiescing to the existence of evil to make the world a better place in the end (Schnall 51). If this were true however, would it not then translate that God is not all-powerful after all? Besides can one morally justify taking a life in order to “educate” another, in essence this is trivializing the value of human life (Wielenberg 51). In addition, at the end of the day, such thinking, if followed to a logical conclusion will only serve to alienate further the idea that Gods existence is deductible from the universe. These same skeptics are also likely to disavow the argument presented previously that Gods existence cannot be reconciled with the brutal arbitrariness of nature and the fact that the good and evil seem to perish and suffer together. For instance, Hume questions why God allowed certain individuals who later caused great destruction and suffering such as Ceaser to live when he could have eliminated them with the same silent anonymity, he eliminates thousands of innocents in storms as wars (Hume). The answer would be that God give us freedom of choice and he cannot use his power to interfere with the course of nature in favor of humans since he would be especially enslaving us to his will. This argument flies in the face of logic, while God may have given humanity freedom of choice, many individual have these take away especially by powerful and evil despots who exercise a God like authority and control over their subjects. This ultimately implies the only way the millions enslaved in body, mind to such tyrants have been denied their freedom, and the only logical way for God to give it to them is to interfere with the course of nature and restore order that it is apparent he cannot or does not wish to do. One powerful argument in support of the idea that the existence of God cannot be derived from his presence in the universal order of things interrogates his very nature in comparison to universal realities. If he is all knowing, all-powerful and all good, then it falls to reason that evil would not exist, however of all the three attributes, the only one we can empirically confirm is that evil does exist and under that premise at east one of the other two cannot logically stand. Hume provides a way out of this moral quandary that would force one to logically assume that God is either not all knowing or all powerful by suggesting that he is morally neutral that is why he lets evil exist despite being aware having power to eliminate it (Birmingham). Nevertheless, this is all a matter of conjecture and no consistent inference can be derived from it, therefore at the end of the day, we can only conclude that while God can be assumed to exist. The condition of the universe does not provide sufficient evidence to unequivocally prove the fact or that he is all knowing all powerful and inherently benevolent. Works Cited Birmingham, Paul . “Why does God allow natural disasters?” BBC News Magazine. 19 January 2010. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. Clark, Samuel. "No Abiding City: Hume, Naturalism, and Toleration." Philosophy 84.1 (2009): 75-94.  Wielenberg, Erik J. God and the Reach of Reason: C.S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print. Hume, David. “Why does God let people suffer?” Online Guide to ethics and moral philosophy. 1996. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. Schnall, Ira M. "Sceptical Theism and Moral Scepticism." Religious Studies 43.1 (2007): 49-69.  Read More