Index: The Evidential Argument from the Holocaust against Theism

This article will serve as a hub for organizing past and future responses to my evidential argument from the Holocaust against theism. 

1: Logical Form of the Argument

The first five steps are a cumulative case based on independent facts about the badness of the Holocaust. Step 1 is an application of Draper's argument from pain and pleasure to the Holocaust; it is defended in the original article.

(1) Naturalism has much more predictive power than Theism does with respect to the biologically gratuitous physical pain experienced by many, if not most, Holocaust victims, i.e., 
Pr(E1 | N) >! Pr(E1 |T).

The next step appeals to the horrendous nature of the Holocaust. I think horrendous evils are much more probable on naturalism than on theism, but that is not the claim I am making here. Because I am making a cumulative case argument, I have to show that each additional item of evidence is more probable on naturalism than on theism, while in effect adding the previous item(s) of evidence into the background information. In probability notation, I need to show Pr(E2 | E1 & N) >! Pr(E2 | E1 & T), not Pr(E2 | N) >! Pr(E2 | T). I defend the former inequality in the original article. 

(2) Naturalism has much more predictive power than Theism does with respect to Holocaust victims who experienced and/or witnessed events so horrific that the events constituted prima facie reasons for each victim to doubt whether the victim's life (given their inclusion in the Holocaust) was a great good to the victim on the whole, i.e.,

Pr(E2 | E1 & N) >! Pr(E2 | E1 & T).

The third step appeals to a specific aspect of the problem of divine hiddenness, the problem of divine silence during suffering, as it relates to Holocaust victims who experienced biologically gratuitous suffering and horrendous evil. Again,  I defend the premise in the original article, but it may be restated in plain English as follows.

(3) Naturalism has much more predictive power than Theism does with respect to the fact that so many victims of the Holocaust did not report feeling God's comforting presence, i.e.,
Pr(E3 | E1 & E2 & N) > Pr(E3 | E1 & E2 & T). 

The fourth step appeals to another aspect of the problem of divine hiddenness, this time focusing on what John Schellenberg calls "former believers" and applying it to Holocaust survivors. Again,  I defend the premise in the original article, but it may be restated in plain English as follows.

(4) Naturalism has much more predictive power than Theism does with respect to the fact that so many devout Jewish survivors of the Holocaust became nonbelievers, i.e.,

Pr(E3 | E1 & E2 & E3 & N) > Pr(E3 | E1 & E2 & E3& T).

From steps 1-4, it follows that:

(5) Naturalism has much more predictive power than Theism does with respect to the Holocaust, i.e., Pr(E | N) >! Pr(E | T).

The next step of the argument is based upon Paul Draper's theory of intrinsic probability, which says that intrinsic probability is determined by modesty, coherence, and nothing else. Because naturalism is both more modest and more coherent than theism, it follows that the intrinsic probability of naturalism is greater than the intrinsic probability of theism. This premise is not defended in my article, but instead may be found in Draper's defense of the second premise in what he calls the "low priors argument." 

Using the word "simplicity" as a more concise way to say "has greater intrinsic probability," we get:

(6) Naturalism is much simpler than Theism. 

The next step of the argument is designed to preempt objections that other items of evidence (such as the finite age of the universe, the life-permitting conditions of the universe, the contingency of the universe, objective moral values, etc.) favor theism and such items of evidence outweigh the evidence represented by E1-E4. The basic strategy is to show that known facts about good and evil, such as E1-E4, decisively outweigh the theistic evidence. This premise is not defended in my article, but instead may be found in Draper's defense of what he calls the "decisive evidence argument." So the seventh step of the argument is:

(7) Any epistemic advantages that Theism has over Naturalism (i.e., any factors that raise the ratio of the probability of Theism to the probability of Naturalism) do not, even when combined, suffice to offset the epistemic advantages that Naturalism has over Theism if premises 5 and 6 are true. 

From steps 5-7, it follows from Bayes' Theorem that:

(8) Theism is probably false. 

The two inferences in this argument--the first from 1-4 to 5 and the second from 5-7 to 8--are deductively correct. Therefore, if there is something wrong with this argument, then there must be something with at least if not more of the six premises (1-4, 6-7).

2: Non-Objections

I classify a reply as a "non-objection" if it does not constitute a defeater to one or more premises of the argument; and if does not challenge the inference of the argument. What follows is a list of some of the non-objections I have seen.

2.1: Dismissive Replies

• "Why bad thing happen if God real?"

2.2: Confused Replies

• "You don't really have an argument. You made a statement. Actually just a subjective inference."
• "No. It's merely evidence."

2.2: Irrelevant Replies

2.2.1. The Concept of "God" 

• Objection: "All this can show is an inconsistency between a particular concept of “God” and that “God” creating the world as you have conceived it."
• Objection: "The argument is presupposed on a false attribution error, i.e., that God's existence is dependent on the absence of suffering. This premise presupposes that God is contingent, rather than necessary; therefore, God is not actually God; because, necessary (i.e., self caused) is an attribute of God. The absence of this attribute, reduces God to the caused, rather than the uncaused causer.  Therefore, the argument does not refute the existence of God; instead, it refutes a subjective idea of God predicated on a different set of attributes to those present in God Himself. Argument rejected on the grounds of false attribution error."

2.2.2. Other Replies

• "If God didn’t exist we wouldn’t know the difference between good and evil."
• "Why single out the Holocaust? The "holocaust" could also describe the 10 million murdered under Stalin, or the 170 million murdered under Mao Tse-tung. Nazism was just one of the atrocities of man against man."

3: Objections

3.1: Objections to Multiple Premises

3.2.1: Flip Objections 

In interscholastic and intercollegiate debate, to "flip" or "turn" argument is to take one of your opponent's arguments and to use it as an argument for your position and/or against theirs. 

Objection: The Holocaust argument presupposes objective (moral) good and evil, but objective (moral) good and evil require God.

Reply: LINK

Objection: The Holocaust argument includes several items in our background information, such as the existence of the universe, conscious beings capable of experiencing pain, and so forth. These things are evidence favoring theism over naturalism.

Reply: First, some items alleged to be theistic evidence, such as the existence of the universe, do not favor theism over naturalism. Second, I agree that at least one fact in our background information, consciousness, favors theism over naturalism. The fact that it favors theism over naturalism does not, by itself, negate the claim that the specific facts identified in the Holocaust argument favor naturalism. 

3.2: Objections to Individual Premises

3.2.1: Objections to (1)
3.2.2: Objections to (2)
3.2.3: Objections to (3)
3.2.4: Objections to (4)
3.2.5: Objections to (5)
3.2.6: Objections to (6)
3.2.7: Objections to (7)

Draft Essay: Naturalism, Theism, Badness, and Moral Law: A Critique of Ravi Zacharias

 

Overview:

1: Introduction

2: Logical Arguments from Evil

(a) Historical Context 

(b) Zacharias's Framing of the Problem of Evil

3: Zacharias's "Work of God" Theodicy

4: Changing the Subject: Morality Without God

(a) Do Atheists Who Run An Argument from 'Evil' Contradict Themselves?

(b) Quote-Mining Atheists Who Reject Objective Morality

(c) Bogus Appeals to Authority Aside, Do Russell, Mackie, and Dawkins Have Good Arguments?

LINK

Empathy and Apathy: An Evidential Problem for Theists

Serial killer Ted Bundy

Image Source: Florida Memory Project; License: Public Domain

1. Definitions

Following Paul Draper, I'm going to define my terms as follows.[1]

By "naturalism," I mean the view that the physical exists and, if the mental exists, the physical explains why the mental exists.  If naturalism is true, then there are no purely mental beings which can exist apart from a physical body and so there is no God or any person or being much like God.

By "supernaturalism," I mean the view that the mental exists and, if the physical exists, the mental explains why anything physical exists.  If supernaturalism is true, then there is no purely physical matter which can exist without some sort of ultimate mental creator. "Personal supernaturalism" is a type of supernaturalism; it adds on the claims that one or more personal mental entities exist and, if a physical world exists, it or they produced the physical world for a purpose. "Theism" is a type of personal supernaturalism; it adds on the claim that there is just one mental entity, God, who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect. 

"Otherism" is a catch-all category. It says that both naturalism and supernaturalism are false. 

Swinburne's Free Will Theodicy for the Holocaust

In this post, I want to critically assess Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne's theodicy for the Holocaust. I think his theodicy is of philosophical interest, for three reasons. First, I think Swinburne is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, natural theologians of the 20th-century. Second, Swinburne is an evidentialist and Bayesian; he shares the same general epistemological framework used by Paul Draper, who is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, atheist philosophers of religion. Third, Swinburne has not only written a book-length defense of Christian theism against the argument from evil, but has explicitly offered his theistic explanation for the Holocaust. For these three reasons, then, Swinburne makes a perfect foil for my evidential argument from the Holocaust. 

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. 

The Holocaust is Strong Evidence Against Theism

(Revised 27 April 2022)

(Revised 1 March 2022)

(Revised 14 February 2022)

(Revised 7 February 2022)

The following tweet recently appeared on my Twitter feed: 

Primo Levi Auschwitz survivor
"The notions that our world comes from God and is governed by God are hard to sustain if one looks seriously at evil. What egocentric presumption to think that God listens for our repentance and acts accordingly!" pic.twitter.com/J2gNxTEdNt

— Dave of Letters (@liverational22) August 6, 2021

In this blog post, I intend to defend a weaker version of Primo Levi's claim. I do not claim that Auschwitz makes God's existence impossible. Rather, I intend to argue that the Holocaust is extremely strong evidence against theism and, other evidence held equal, makes God's existence improbable.

Baggett and Walls on 'The' Moral Argument vs. 'The' Argument from Evil

David Baggett	Jerry Walls

The idea that there is some sort of connection between moral arguments for theism, on the one hand and arguments from evil against theism, on the other hand, is not new. In this blog post, I want to comment on a very cryptic statement made by Baggett and Walls about this connection. In their book God and Cosmos, they write:

... Second, it should be said in such a case that the probability of theism has increased (by much or a little) relative to morality; in theory the probability of atheism could increase or decrease relative to other phenomena. (However, the success of the moral argument would decisively undercut the problem of evil, which tends to be counted as the best evidence against theism.) (20, boldface mine)

Is Evil Evidence for God?

(Another backlog item)
 
Over at The Secular Outpost, I recently blogged about a 'turnaround' argument used by some critics of the argument from evil (AE). According to this turnaround argument, not only is evil not evidence against God's existence, but evil is evidence for God's existence. In this post, I want to examine one specific attempt to use this strategy, by Melinda Penner at Stand to Reason.

My basic plan will be as follows:

1. Provide an overview of a specific version of the argument from evil.
2. Provide an overview of Melinda's use of the turnaround strategy.
3. Assess the evidential value of Melinda's turnaround strategy against the argument from evil.

Victor Reppert on the Argument from Evil as a Reductio

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on June 12, 2012 and then republished on February 22, 2016. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. The link was also updated to its current location.]

(Redated post originally published on 12 June 2012)

Can atheist who rejects moral realism press the argument from evil? Many theists, including William Lane Craig and Ravi Zacharias, have argued that the answer is "no." In my old critique of one of Zacharias's books, I wrote the following.

Zacharias presents two objections to AE. First, he suggests that it is incoherent for atheists to appeal to evil as evidence of the nonexistence of God since objective moral evil could not exist if there is no God (p. 48). Yet, as I argued above, objective moral values are logically possible even if there is no God. And the atheist need not postulate the existence of objective moral values in order to use evil as evidence for atheism. An argument from evil might not contain any normative premises; the atheist could appeal to God's loving nature rather than God's moral nature.[13] For example:

(1) If a perfectly loving God were to exist, then he would not permit the occurrence of any unjustifiable suffering.
(2) But unjustifiable suffering does occur.
(3) Therefore, a perfectly loving God does not exist.

To emphasize the point (though I consider this unnecessary), the atheist might even change the name of the argument from "the Argument from Evil" to "the Argument from Unjustifiable Suffering."[14]

Most importantly, AE may be understood as a challenge to the internal coherence of a theistic worldview. An AE can be understood as saying something like the following:

Look. You theists believe that X, Y, and Z are evil. You theists believe that God is good. You theists believe that good persons are opposed to evil. So you theists need to explain why a god who is good (in your sense of 'good') would allow so much apparently pointless evil (in your sense of 'evil'). If you can't explain it, then that is a problem for the internal coherence of your worldview.[15]

When AE is understood in this way, it doesn't presuppose that there are objective moral values.

In an old post, Victor Reppert says that he is aware of running the argument from evil as a reductio ad absurdum argument, but he is unconvinced. He writes:

I still maintain that important phenomena that give rise to the problem of evil are themselves deeply problematic for naturalism, including consciousness, objective moral values (and yes I know all about running it as a reductio without presupposing objective moral values--I still think subjectivism undercuts the argument).

Here's my question to Reppert: why? How does subjectivism undercut the argument? For example, how does subjectivism undercut Draper's version of the evidential argument from evil (summarized here)?

Biological Evolution as Evidence against Theism

Many conservative Christians and lay atheists alike claim that if biological evolution is true, then God does not exist. Ironically, while many conservative Christians have attacked evolution because it supposedly entails atheism, no contemporary atheist philosopher has used evolution as evidence for atheism. Indeed, the only philosopher who has formulated an argument for the claim that evolution is evidence against theism and for metaphysical naturalism is agnostic philosopher Paul Draper.

Draper defends an evidential argument from evolution for naturalism. In other words, Draper's argument does not claim that evolution is logically inconsistent with the existence of God. Rather, it claims that known facts about evolution that are consistent with theism nevertheless provide evidence against it.

This argument is focused on God in general, not necessarily the Christian God. Draper argues that, all other things held equal, known facts about the origin of complex life are prima facie evidence against theism.

Silver's Defense of Draper's Argument from the Biological Role of Pain and Pleasure

(Another item from my drafts folder.)

David Silver has written this interesting paper on the problem of evil, "Religious Experience and the Evidential Argument from Evil," Religious Studies 38(3):339-353.

The Argument from the Biological Role of Pain and Pleasure

Informal Statement of the Argument

The naturalistic explanation for this is obvious. If animals are the products of evolution by natural selection, we would expect physical pain to aid survival. But not all physical pain and pleasure aids survival. For example, think of the horrible pain that inflicts many people with terminal illnesses. If naturalism is true, this is what we would expect: evolution by natural selection is not an intelligent process; there seems to be no way for creatures to have evolved so that they only feel pain when it will aid survival. In contrast, if theism were true, God could "fine tune" humans so that they experience pain only when it is necessary for some greater good. If God did exist, what possible reason could he have for allowing people with terminal illnesses have to endure such agonizing pain until they finally die? The chances that such a reason would intersect with the biological goal of survival is pretty slim. Thus, the biological role of pain and pleasure is more likely on naturalism than on theism.

Victor Reppert's Anti-Naturalistic Argument from Pain

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on November 25, 2006 and then republished on February 11, 2016. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. The link was also updated to its current location.]

There are a variety of approaches to formulating an argument from evil against theism. Two of the most influential versions of the evidential argument from evil were developed by atheist William Rowe and agnostic Paul Draper. Both involve appeals to pain. In a recent entry on his blog, Victor Reppert tries to turn the tables on proponents of arguments from evil (pain) by arguing that pain is a problem for atheists. Reppert formulates his argument against naturalism as follows.

1. If naturalism is true, then consciousness does not emerge.
2. If consciousness does not emerge, then pain does not exist.
3. Therefore, if naturalism is true, then pain does not exist.
4. Pain exists.
5. Therefore, naturalism is false.

Notice that premise (1) of the above argument entails that naturalism and consciousness are logically incompatible. Reppert's argument may be reasonably characterized, then, as a very specific example of a logical argument from consciousness against naturalism (as opposed to an evidential argument from consciousness as defended by Richard Swinburne). I believe this characterization is further supported by Reppert's statement, "the actual internally experienced state of pain is a huge, hard problem for atheistic naturalism, a problem that I personally consider to be logically impossible to solve."

Does Reppert literally mean what he says? As a so-called logical argument against naturalism, it isn't clear to me why this argument is in any way an improvement over logical arguments from evil against theism. In particular, Reppert has not yet presented a defense of (1) in its current form (i.e., lacking some sort of probabilistic hedge).

Perhaps, however, Reppert did not intend for his argument to be worded so strongly. Instead, he might say, we should understand his argument as an evidential argument against naturalism. If so, it seems to me that Reppert's argument from pain violates the Rule of Total Evidence. Allow me to explain. Let us assume, for the sake of argument that Reppert is correct that consciousness is antecedently more likely on theism than on naturalism. Furthermore, as Reppert points out, pain presupposes consciousness. It doesn't follow from these two assumptions, however, that the statement, "The kinds and distribution of pain we find in the world is epistemically more probable on naturalism than on theism," is false.

Here's why. Reppert has committed the fallacy of understated evidence. In general terms, we could say that Reppert has identified some general fact F (consciousness exists) about a topic X (consciousness) that is antecedently more likely on theism than on naturalism. It could still be the case that a more specific fact (S) about X is antecedently more likely on naturalism than on theism. As Paul Draper writes, "we know a lot more about phenomenal consciousness than just that it exists" ("Partisanship and Inquiry in the Philosophy of Religion," unpublished paper). Draper then gives an example of a more specific fact about consciousness, a fact that, given consciousness exists, is more probable on naturalism than on theism. As Draper explains, we also know from neuroscience that the mind is dependent upon the physical brain, a fact that is more likely on naturalism and consciousness than on theism and consciousness. Thus, as Draper concludes, "when the available evidence about consciousness is fully stated, it is far from clear that it significantly favors theism."