ADAM, JESUS, AND NATURAL EVIL: AN ARGUMENT FOR RELATIVE ATHEISM
The problem of evil is perhaps the most pressing problem for believers in an omnipotent and all-loving God. It was one of my own reasons for leaving Christianity (number 6 on my list). There are many versions of it, and there are also lots of responses to those versions. But in my view, there is a version of the argument that I have not heard anyone put forward as of yet and which I think has some cogent force against certain schools of Christian thought. Allow me to explain.
Christianity holds that God created the world as "very good" (Genesis 1:31). This is often taken to mean that the world was in as perfect a state as God could have made it. In addition, it is often taken to mean that what we would call natural evil was not a part of God's original creation. There was no suffering or pain, and the suffering in the world came in later as a consequence of sin. Adam (I'll use this name as a collective term for Adam and Eve) sinned and brought death into the world (Romans 5:12), and this was not only spiritual but also physical death, pain, suffering, and evil.
Adam, we are often told, caused there to be a separation between man and God because of his sinful action (Romans 5:12). He brought about spiritual death—a state in which the spirit (or soul) of a man is separate and distant from God, who is Life. But he also brought about physical or natural death, including pain, suffering, and evil. So Adam is the origin of both spiritual death and natural evil (i.e., natural disasters, disease, death). Adam's sin brought two effects—spiritual death and natural evil. This means that, effectively, neither spiritual death nor natural evil is God's plan or fault. It's man's fault.
However, God came in the flesh as Jesus and, through his atonement for sin, reconciled man to God. Jesus came to fix what Adam caused, to destroy the effects of sin (1 John 3:8). Sin and death entered by Adam; righteousness and eternal life entered by Jesus (Romans 5:18-19, 1 Corinthians 15:21-22). Through his sacrifice for sin, there is no longer a divide between man and God. Jesus has mended that gap (Ephesians 2:13-18, 1 Timothy 2:5). In other words, Jesus has fixed spiritual death, at least for all those who believe in him.
But the problem is, natural evil persists!
So here's my question—why did Jesus's work not fix natural evil as well? It seems that Adam's sin caused two effects (spiritual and natural deaths), but Jesus's act of righteousness caused only one effect (spiritual death). In discussing with Christians and reading some Christian literature, I see that the belief is that the life Jesus brought was spiritual, eternal life (John 3:16). But it is very evident that Jesus's death and resurrection did not fix natural evil. We still have diseases, earthquakes, and other such undesirable natural evils.
If the reason why Jesus fixed spiritual death alone is that God is not concerned with natural death in the meantime and has some divine plan in the future, a goal he wants to achieve with the current disaster in the world, then it would be unintelligible to claim that Adam's sin, which brought about natural evil, was not somehow a part of God's grand plan. God is all-knowing (Hebrews 4:13) and possesses foreknowledge of events in time (Isaiah 42:9). He foreknew that Adam would sin. He also foreknew that Jesus would come and deal with the effects of Adam's sin. It seems to me that an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good God could have eliminated the natural evil in the world, since such evil was clearly unnecessary for the existence of this world. (Otherwise, God would not have been able to make the "very good" world that he made in the first place.)
So here are the big questions: Was natural evil a part of God's plan from the beginning? If yes, then God is the origin (or planner, if you prefer to call it that) of natural evil. If no, why did Jesus's righteousness leave natural evil unfixed (which is evident from the fact that natural evil still exists)? Is it because God is not powerful enough to remove natural evil, or God does not know how to remove natural evil, or God does not care sufficiently enough to remove natural evil, or God has some grand purpose that we are unaware of? If the latter is the correct answer, does it not lead us back to the answer that natural evil was not humanity's fault, since it was always part of God's eternal plan?
Either way, any answer you give to those questions will lead to one of these options:
1. God is not omnipotent.
2. God is not omniscient.
3. God is not omnibenevolent.
4. Adam is not the origin of natural evil, as God's plan to use and keep on using natural evil existed before Adam.
I summarise this argument in the following premises:
P1: If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
P2: God created the world to be very good. By implication, the world God created, in the beginning, had no natural evil which causes suffering to sentient free beings.
P3: God told Adam that if he sinned he would die. ([Some] Christians take this sin to be both the start of spiritual death and the origin of all natural evil.)
P4: Adam sinned, thus causing mankind's spiritual death and originating all natural evil.
P5: Just as Adam's sin led to spiritual death, Jesus's act of righteousness led to spiritual life (Romans 5:12-21).
P6: Jesus's act of righteousness fixed spiritual death but not natural evil as such.
P7: Either Jesus's act of righteousness could not fix natural evil or it could.
P8: If it could not, then God is not omnipotent (i.e., there is a contingent fact that God could not actualise).
P9: If it could, then God either is not omniscient, is not perfectly good, or has a reason unknown to us why he did not fix natural evil.
P10: But given P1 (i.e., given that God is omniscient and omnipotent and morally perfect), God's reason for not fixing natural evil would have been part of his original plan. (If it wasn't, then it implies that God changed his plan along the way, which means God's mind changed and he, therefore, cannot be omniscient.) Otherwise, Jesus would have fixed natural evil.
P11: But this plan of God's entails or maintains any amount of natural evil, and such proportions of natural evil cause unwarranted suffering to sentient beings.
P12: An omnipotent and morally perfect being would build a plan in which unwarranted suffering is not caused to sentient free beings.
P13: But unwarranted suffering is caused to sentient free beings (precisely because of God's unknown plan).
P14: God is either not omnipotent or not morally perfect.
Conclusion: By P1, P14, and modus tollens, God does not exist!
A simplified form of the argument.
P1: If God exists, then God is omnipotent and morally perfect.
P2: If God is omnipotent and morally perfect, then Jesus would have fixed natural evil.
P3: Jesus did not fix natural evil.
P4: God is either not omnipotent or not morally perfect.
C: God does not exist.
This argument does not work against all forms of Christianity, and it certainly does not affect theism as a whole. Indeed, it is an argument for atheism relative to one doctrine; hence, relative atheism. However, in my view, it works against any Christian system that holds to all of the following:
1. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. Adam, not God, is responsible for the natural evil in the world.
3. Jesus, God in the flesh, successfully fixed the effects of Adam's sin.
Comments and criticisms are highly welcome.
P3, God allowing evil to befall his son is enough to void P1. As a mere man, I will forgive this one time offense for my newly created son. Guess what? I am not that benevolent. Good argument BabaJ.
ReplyDeleteWow. This is good stuff.
ReplyDeleteWell.... It's very clear that you deliberately neglected that evil itself is not some sort of "non-living" object.
ReplyDeleteYou deal with evil as if it's was like God and Adam add an argument over a cup or a stone or such an object.
But, it's funny that super hero or magical good and evil movies night be one of your favorites.
You neglect that God is a just God who will punish every form of evil, including the men doing them. He's also very patient.
This shows your ignorance about the nature of God, and what evil actually is.
You've made conclusions so I'm not going to day much but some questions...
On what basis can a man like you judge the existence or nonexistence of evil ?
If God is not good, then, on what basis can you say something is good or bad?
What does it mean to be good or bad?
Where do you get your moral examination idea from?
Naturally... Living things don't exactly care about good and evil.... So, how on earth can you do that... On what basis except there is some sort of moral law, and a moral law giver?
Then, Have you found out the historical evidence for the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth?
Since there is a strong historical evidence for this.... What's your explanation about what Jesus did?
Let me stop here... I'll expect your "sincere" response.
The existence of a moral law doesn't neccesitate the existence of a moral law giver. Read more on the evolution of social contacts and other important topics like altruism
DeleteYou seriously mean what you say by "the existence of a moral law doesn't necessitate the existence of a moral lawgiver"?
DeleteSo I'd ask you, how can the "law" given ever be acknowledged as authoritative?
Depending on how you answer, I'd guess you either don't understand very well the implication of a "moral law" (I prefer to call it the "natural law of human nature"), or you consider humans (including yourself, I might add) an intrinsically competent moral legislator...
If the former situation is the case, I'd be glad to point out the implications of the moral law and offer some pointers as to the nature, character and purposes of the Moral Legislator Judeo-Christians refer to as Yahweh.
But if it is the latter situation, then I can tell you for free that morality ceases to have any meaning beyond the irrational fancies of a few (which they then attempt to foist on others).
But since by the tenor of the whole article (which I would respond to in a bit) and by your apparent endorsement of the ideas in it as well as your own novel contribution, I take it you do not consider morality to be such an irrational fancy, your position becomes untenable because your account of the origin of morality will not support the claims and strictures you make in its name.
So, I await your response...