My thoughts on logical problem of evil as sufficient to disprove God as an atheist
When discussing the problem of evil, this brief presentation of thoughts splits it into the typical two categories: natural (carried out by non human agencies) and moral (as a result of misuse of human free will).
When discussing natural evil, in the same line of reasoning as William Lane Craig, it isn’t necessarily true that evil and God are logical contradictions. There are no explicit contradictions, only implicit contradictions as a result of hidden premises. No philosopher has been successful in revealing these. Hence, God and evil aren’t explicitly contradictory. Additionally, if there is any possibility that God has sufficient moral reasoning for the existence of evil, then the problem of it being illogical collapses.
Following from Apothatic theologian Pseudo Dionysius’ teachings on God, it is impossible to conceive the nature of God, for we have no possible way of understanding the infinite traits and hence the reason why God does certain things. This also raises meta ethical questions on what evil is, and if it is in fact contradictory with any actions as a result of God, those being what are described by us as natural evils.
It can be said God’s actions in the Bible can be described as evil, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gemara (regardless of their sin, it is subversive of the Ten Commandments). However taking a J. Fletcher’s situational approach the telos of this action was the removal of further sin. This would then support Craig’s idea of morally sufficient reasoning for any evils created by God. This isn’t to say that I personally agree with Craig, as forms of evidential evil like childhood cancer cannot be said to have morally sufficient reasoning or purpose from my viewpoint.
However, I find moral evil to be particularly a damming point for the existence of God, mainly as a result of God’s capability for interference. Proponents such as Plantinga tend to frame God’s non-intervention as a necessary condition for preserving human freedom, the same freedom that allows for the enacting of moral evil . However, we see in Exodus the parting of the Red Sea by God in order to allow Moses and the Jewish nation to cross the sea to avoid suffering and evil at the hands of the Egyptian army. This is a clear display of God interfering to prevent evil as a result of human free will being enacted.
Is this not God subverting the free will he has given humans to commit evil? Why he is unable to do this for wider scale destruction of innocent lives? If he can part a sea to prevent suffering, where was this same interference in cases of rape and murder? Or genocide? It is difficult to see any sufficient moral reasoning for this, as it suggests an almost two-tiered approach to those who are worthy of such intervention to prevent their suffering, which isn’t a particularly just or loving approach, undermining the trait of omni benevolence.
Ultimately, whilst I find the logical a priori deductive argument on evil to not be sufficient reason to disprove God, I find stronger argument in the dismantling of aspects of the free will argument with Biblical evidence of divine intervention which subverts the free will of humans to commit atrocities.
