I just listened to the中国伊朗亚洲杯比赛直播episode with Father Andrew Pinsent,Good, Evil, and the Divine Plan. In that show, John and Ken push Father Andrew on the Problem of Evil. What are the implications of the existence of evil for the question of God’s existence?

Ken’s favorite formulation of the problem comes from Epicurus, but I’m partial to Hume’s, which comes out through the character Philo in Hume’s brilliantDialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Importantly, Hume (and Philo) credit Epicurus with the problem.

Philo reasons as follows. If God is powerful enough to prevent evil—and justdoesn’t—then God is not benevolent. If God knows about evil and is benevolent, then God’s failure to prevent it shows a lack of power. On either option, one of God’s defining properties is violated (omnipotence, omnibenevolence). Since those aredefiningproperties, the existence of evil—both natural and caused by humans—provides an argument that God does not exist. (Or at least the God portrayed in traditional Christian theology doesn’t exist.)

我认为这个论点是完全有说服力的，它应该说服任何理性思考的人。菲罗说，“没有什么能动摇这种推理的可靠性。”我很清楚神学家，比如安德鲁神父，做了很多花哨的脚法来绕过这个问题。但在我看来，在发展中国家，这种花哨的步法总是会绊倒那些即将死于痢疾的幼儿。Attempting to preserve the notion that God is all powerful, all knowing, andbenevolentin the face of such suffering simply robs the word “benevolent” of its intended meaning.

我的问题是这样的。

Why aren’tmorepeople moved by the Problem of Evil?

John claims on the show that evil and suffering are “big barriers” to faith. That may be true for rational thinkers like John. Butpsychologicallyspeaking, most people are more likely to find evil and suffering causing them to “turn to” God. Far from bringing about doubt, which would be rational, “existential crises,” as anthropologists Scott Atran and Ara Norenzayan put it, bring about stronger levels of devotion.

In other words, more people are like Sister Madeleine from Caitlin Esch’s roving philosophical report than like John. Sister Madeleine found the suffering, rape, and murder during El Salvador’s civil war to be reasons to believe, rather than the contrary.

So we really have two puzzles. First, why are so few people moved by the Problem of Evil in the direction of disbelief in God (note that the majority of the world’s population is theist)? Second, why are people moved by suffering and evilmorein the direction of belief?

The second question will have to wait, but I’ll tackle the first.

My answer is that most people’s conception of God shifts its shape from context to context.

The Problem of Evil rests on a conception of God that makes God out to have the “omni” (“all”) properties: omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent. This conception of God appears in traditional Christian theologies (among other theologies), which has roots in medieval Scholasticism, with its metaphysical arguments for the existence of God. Of course, as we would expect, the conception of God that emerged from such an intellectual context was a logically clean one; this God has all perfections and has them entirely. In Anselm’s words, God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” (“id quo nihil maius cogitary potest”).

But is this how most ordinary people think of God all or even most of the time? No. Even if peoplesaythey believe God has the “omni” properties, they don’t usuallythink上帝的信仰。更确切地说，大多数人，大多数时候，认为上帝是某种神圣的超级英雄，他不会同时出现在每个地方，他分配资源，就好像它们是有限的。

Psychologists Frank Keil and Justin Barrett explain how people aretheologically correct. They verbally assent to the picture of God from official church doctrines, but they reason about God with an intuitive conception that makes God out to be a powerful but limitedagent. Ask people official questions, you’ll get official answers. But probe them in a different context, in which they have to recall a story, and it appears they think of God in a different way. (I’ve discussed thishereandhere.)

Recall what Sister Madeleine said. Evil is not part of God’s plan, but “evil has the upper hand.” This utterance betrays an image of God who isnot所有的强大。如果上帝是全能且仁慈的，那么邪恶占上风的想法就毫无意义了。但如果上帝是一个有限的主体，这个观点是有道理的。我们必须与邪恶战斗，而战斗是资源有限的特工必须做的事情。

那么，为什么没有更多的人被《邪恶的问题》所打动呢?我的回答是，他们中的大多数人并没有以上帝的概念来思考，因为这个问题根本就不是问题。即使是马德琳修女，一个受过训练的修女，也感到有必要以一种更有力量的观念来看待上帝，而不是一种“无所不在”的观念。她当时甚至没有意识到，她想到的是一个与官方教会教义中所描绘的上帝的本性不一致的神。

And ifshedoesn’t notice this, only a small percentage of the population ever will.

Furthermore, even people who do see the problem from a reflective standpoint, may just not feel its pull, because their intuitive conception of God is untouched.

So the notion of God is a divine shape shifter. In point of fact, it is not sophisticated theology—from Augustine to Father Andrew—that allows God to escape the Problem of Evil. It is the average person’s resiliently flexibleconception神。上帝的直观概念并不是万能的。但当涉及到智力问题时，“上帝”似乎都在逃避。