Reply to a (Sunni) Islamic Theodicy for the Argument from Pain and Pleasure

In reply to Paul Draper's evidential argument from pain and pleasure, a self-identified Sunni Muslim proposed the following theodicy:

T*: God exists, and God uses human pain to purify the soul.

As he explained it to me:

"In even a prick of the finger, the Muslim has sins wiped away from him and in such pain as if he is made anew if he has actually taken the Hadith of the Prophet any further than his own lips. So while it may not fully fulfill the purpose of detection of threats or illnesses, it does its job in relation to the Islamic framework assuming its truth."

In order to evaluate this theodicy, we should apply Draper's Weighted Average Principle (WAP). I will assume that readers are already familiar with this principle; readers who need an introduction may consult my explanation in section 3.3.2 here. I will argue that this Islamic theodicy does not significantly raise Pr(O | theism) for two reasons. First, I will argue that Pr(T* | T) is not high. Second, I will argue that Pr(O | T*) is not high. 

First, the antecedent probability of T* on theism, Pr(T* | T), is not high. Independent of the reasons for thinking that Islamic theism is true, it is far from obvious that there is any reason on theism to predict that pain purifies the soul. (I will call this sort of pain "purification pain.") On the assumption that T* is true, one would expect that God would allow a human to experience purification pain if and only if the purification pain occurs reasonably soon after the human sins, creating the need for soul purification, and the amount or intensity of the purification pain is proportional to the degree of wrongdoing committed by the sinner. But T* conflicts with these expectations. It does not require that the purification pain occur reasonably soon after the sin is committed. Nor is the amount or intensity of purification pain proportional to the degree of wrongdoing. 

Furthermore, if a person were to rob a bank and then, a week later, get run over by a car (and survive), the pain that person experiences from their injuries would not somehow remove their guilt before God for robbing the bank, nor would it necessarily result in that person's moral growth, especially if the person isn't aware of a connection between their (purported) purification pain and the sin(s) which necessitated it.

Thus, for both reasons, Pr(T* | T), is low. 

Second, the antecedent probability of O on T*, Pr(O | T*), is not high. We may expand upon the previous paragraph's description of T*'s expectations as follows. On the assumption that T* is true, one would expect that God would allow a human to experience pain only under the following circumstances:

• (a) the humans experiences purification pain, which occurs reasonably soon after the human sins, creating the need for soul purification, and the amount or intensity of the purification pain is proportional to the degree of wrongdoing committed by the sinner; or 
• (b) the human experiences non-purification pain which is biologically appropriate but not biologically gratuitous. 

But O conflicts with all these expectations. This can be seen by considering O1, O2, and O3 individually. Regarding O1, T* is not obviously relevant to biologically useful pain and pleasure reported in O1: the whole point of T* is to explain biologically gratuitous pain. As for O2, T* is by definition irrelevant to the pain and pleasure experienced by moral patients reported in O2. This leaves O3. O3 includes biologically gratuitous human pain and pleasure. T* is arguably relevant to that portion of O3. I will make three comments. First, there is no discernable pattern between the amount of pain experienced by a person and their prior wrongdoing. Second, nor is there any independent reason--independent of T*--to think that all moral agents who experience biologically gratuitous pain "deserved it," such that their biologically gratuitous pain was an appropriate amount of purification pain. Indeed, Sam tells me that the degree of pain plays no role in Sunni theology regarding soul purification: even a mere "prick of the finger" is sufficient to purify the soul. Third, while T* might provide the Sunni Muslim with reason to expect some cases of biologically gratuitous pain, it would not provide the Sunni Muslim with reason to expect pain that is both "biologically gratuitous" and horrific, such as the pain suffered by a person as they burn to death. If any pain, even a prick of the finger will do, then why do some people endure overwhelming pain? T* provides no reason to expect this.

Therefore, Pr(O | T*) is not greater, much less significantly greater, than Pr(P | theism & ~T*), and hence this Sunni Islamic theodicy fails to significantly raise Pr(O | theism).