This argument is heavily debated all across the globe and has taken prominence since 1755 (November 1st- All Saints’ day), when the Lisbon Earthquake and tsunami struck, unfortunately taking between 10,000 to 100,000 lives. Up until that moment, Christianity was still the dominant religion in Europe. However, after the disaster, philosophers began to ask why God had allowed such a huge loss of life to happen and this led to an age of Enlightenment with the likes of atheism and agnosticism spreading across Western Europe. Before this point God was believed to be (and some still believe He is) omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient, meaning he is all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing. After the earthquake, the argument of ‘The problem of Evil’ was constructed. Originally developed by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, it argued that evil does exist and therefore God cannot be omnipotent and omnibenevolent. One philosopher in particular who played a major role in advancing this argument in the immediate aftermath of the Great Lisbon Earthquake was Voltaire.
Voltaire wrote a heart-felt poem on the Lisbon Earthquake, published in 1756, which heavily attacked the concept of an all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing God. In his poem,’ Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne. he excoriated both the Catholics, who claimed that the Lisbon tragedy was God’s wrath towards the sinful residents of Portugal, and the Protestants, who blamed it on the Portugese for being Catholic. It was Voltaire’s attacks on the prevailing religious views for the Lisbon tragedy that kickstarted the argument for a different kind of God.
The Lisbon earthquake established the idea of a potentially powerless or not all-knowing God. This in turn raised the subsequent question of a suffering God. Maybe He wants to protect us from all these disasters but, as He is powerless, He cannot stop them. He can see them coming as He is all-knowing and is therefore upset and is suffering because He is poweless to prevent them. There are two types of evil: Natural and Human imposed. Let us take the example of World War 2 where tens of millions of people were killed in a 6 year struggle for supremacy. An all-knowing and all-loving God who is powerless would of course not be able to stop the war. But, if He was all-powerful and all-loving but not all-knowing He should have still been able to stop the war. Think about it. It was a 6 year war -that is a very long time. If He loved us and was all-powerful, surely He would have interfered and stopped it. All the disgusting torture and painful suffering so many unfortunate humans had to experience could have been stopped but was not.
Theologians have naturally asked why an all-loving God does not prevent human-created evil. They have proposed four answers, but none are convincing. First, they argue that God respects the free will of human beings and lets them suffer the consequences of their actions. This is fine but it does not answer why God created such deeply flawed human beings in the first place and why He does not intervene even when their actions have horrendous consequences. Second, it is sometimes argued that evil so-called is only evil from our point of view, not from God’s. This argument is unacceptable because deaths of millions cannot be evil just for us and not for an all-loving God as well. Thirdly, theologians argue that evil and suffering are God’s ways of reminding human beings of their frailty and countering their natural tendency towards hubris. This argument again cannot explain why God’s reminder should take such brutal forms and result in deaths of millions. Finally, theologians justify evil and suffering as divine punishment for human sins. This argument also makes little sense because the evil is inflicted indiscriminately and extends to innocent people as well new born babies, who could not even have had a chance to sin.
Hence we can only assume that this God is only all-loving and neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. But how could he even create such a complicated universe with limited power and knowledge? It would take an extremely intelligent and powerful entity to create such a vast system like the universe with so many intricate and complex details. This questions the argument that God created evolution. A famous Indian, Rabindranath Tagore, used the analogy of God being an artist, a craftsman struggling to make the perfect table, and over time he is able to perfect it. This, in Tagore’s view, is evolution. I disagree with this. Over time, the table should be getting better, but the conflicts in the middle east now and the large-scale humanitarian suffering suggest the world is not being perfected as Tagore’ table analogy would imply.
This now brings me to the view that there cannot be a mere all-loving God and I have ruled out the other options that would make a good God. So, there can only be a God who is all-powerful and/or all-knowing but not all-loving. But could this type of God exist? Why would he create us if he was not all-loving? It would be pointless unless he took pleasure out of seeing suffering. Life is still full of pleasant surprises; there are loving and altruistic people and conflict is only in some parts of the world. Surely a God of limited power and limited knowledge still has limited love-otherwise he would not have created us at all. But how does he decide who to love and should we tie ourselves to a God of only limited powers? Therefore there are two possible conclusions: Either there is an all-powerful and/or all-knowing God exists but who is selective in his love. Or there is no such thing as God.
There are many arguments for the existence of God , and just as many for His non-existence. In this short essay, I have only been interested in that based on the existence of evil in the natural and especially the human world. From this standpoint God either does not exist, or is not all-loving, or has only limited power. All three are depressing conclusions and we would perhaps be better off not basing our relatively short lives on an immutable belief in God.
Frederick Parekh-Glitsch is a 14 year old boy from Magdalen College School, Oxford.
A young man, born to a biracial family, he has penned a thought-provoking article challenging the normal interpretation of faith. While several may or may not agree with his views, he surely is entitled to articulate his thoughts even in a news weekly where faith is respected and covered almost regularly. To us at ABPL, religion is a personal matter. We also believe in the Vedic philosophy of One Creator, One God, but different names. We wish our readers to read the article, and welcome responses in due course.
