Philosophical Arguments on God, Evil, and Faith

Posted on Sep 29, 2025 in Philosophy and ethics

Pascal’s Wager: The Philosophical Argument

Pascal’s Wager is a philosophical argument presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, theologian, mathematician, and physicist, Blaise Pascal. It posits that human beings wager with their lives that God either exists or does not. Since we must make choices, we are essentially forced to make a bet regarding God’s existence.

Pascal's Wager — TOK RESOURCE.ORG

Objections to Pascal’s Wager

Several important objections have been raised against Pascal’s Wager and the Ontological Argument:

  1. The Wrong Motive for Belief: To believe in God simply for the payoff is considered the wrong motive for belief. Such self-seeking individuals might not properly serve the Deity.
  2. The Problem of Many Gods (The Many-Gods Objection): In order to be sure of a payoff, an individual would not know which God or gods to believe in to cover the conditions of the wager. Would the Wager also hold for Zeus, Odin, or Mithra? One would have to believe in all gods to be sure, but if there were only one God in fact, this strategy would defeat itself.
  3. Inability to Choose Belief: The Wager assumes that belief is a voluntary action that one can simply choose to perform.

Kierkegaard’s View on Rational Arguments for God

Søren Kierkegaard emphasized a personal relationship with God based on faith, arguing that one cannot truly “believe” in God in the same way one believes in empirical facts. We believe in things we can prove (like gravity, whose effects we constantly feel), but we can only have faith in things that are beyond our understanding. Faith requires uncertainty; thus, we can have faith in God because God is beyond logic, proof, and reason. The lack of rational evidence is precisely what allows people to have faith in him.

Why Rational Arguments Fail

Kierkegaard believed rational arguments for God’s existence are a waste of time for several reasons:

  • Lack of Persuasion: They are not persuasive; no one comes to faith in God because they were rationally convinced.
  • Lack of Certainty: Rational arguments are never going to be 100% convincing. For example, even in a relationship (like with a spouse), there is always room for doubt, preventing absolute certainty.
  • Faith Transcends Reason: When one acts purely on faith, the actions cannot be rationally explained (e.g., Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac).

Defining the Problem of Evil

The Problem of Evil refers to the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil with a God who is simultaneously omnibenevolent (all-good), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipotent (all-powerful). Arguments derived from evil attempt to show that the co-existence of evil and such a God is unlikely or impossible. Responses attempting to show the contrary are traditionally discussed under the heading of theodicy.

Forms of the Problem of Evil

The problem is often formulated in two forms:

  • The Logical Problem of Evil: Tries to show a logical impossibility in the coexistence of God and evil.
  • The Evidential Problem of Evil: Tries to show that, given the quantity and intensity of evil in the world, it is improbable that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God.

The scope of the problem has been extended to include non-human life forms, such as animals suffering from natural evils and human cruelty.

Major Responses to the Problem of Evil (Theodicy)

Several responses attempt to justify the existence of evil alongside an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God:

  1. The Free Will Defense:

    Human choices are the cause of moral evil. God grants humans free will, and the resulting good of free will outweighs the evil it introduces.

  2. Kierkegaard’s Response (Leap of Faith):

    Since God is beyond reason, we should simply believe and accept the existence of evil as part of the irrationality inherent in faith.

  3. The Contrast/Correlative Argument:

    Good cannot exist without evil. Concepts like “good” and “evil” are correlatives (like hot and cold); one concept would not exist without the other.

  4. The Greater Good Defense (Inscrutable Wisdom):

    There is a good reason why evil exists, but humans, being finite, have a hard time understanding this reason because God is infinite. Evil may be necessary for a greater, incomprehensible good.

Prior Beliefs and Interpreting Experience in A Serious Man

Prior beliefs significantly shape how individuals interpret ambiguous experiences. The film A Serious Man provides several examples:

  1. The Opening Scene (The Dybbuk):

    In the opening scene, the woman (Judith) had a prior belief that her guest was possessed by an evil demon (a dybbuk). When the man denies soup and claims someone saved him, Judith interprets this through her belief system, concluding he is possessed, leading her to stab him with an ice pick. The man, lacking this prior belief, interprets the event as a simple misunderstanding or attack.

  2. Larry’s Punishment or Chance:

    At the end of the movie, Larry Gopnik faces severe consequences after changing a student’s grade. He may interpret the subsequent bad events (the doctor’s call, the tornado) in two ways:

    • Interpretation 1 (Religious/Moral): He is being punished by God for his moral transgression.
    • Interpretation 2 (Secular/Chance): The events are merely random occurrences unrelated to his actions.

Kierkegaard: Faith as Irrationality and the Problem of Evil

Kierkegaard claimed that faith is irrational because faith and reason are fundamentally different domains. Rational arguments cannot prove faith because:

  • They are not persuasive; faith cannot be induced by logic.
  • They lack 100% certainty, which faith requires to be a true “leap.”
  • Faith involves actions that cannot be rationally explained.

Kierkegaard’s Response to Evil

Kierkegaard’s response to the Problem of Evil is that since God is beyond human logic, suffering and evil are simply part of the incomprehensible nature of existence that must be accepted through faith. We must trust God’s plan without demanding rational justification.

Example from A Serious Man: The Goy’s Teeth

The story of the Jewish dentist who finds a Hebrew message (“Help Me”) etched into the teeth of a non-Jewish patient (the “Goy”) exemplifies this viewpoint. The dentist tries to correlate the message with numbers and seeks meaning, but he never understands the meaning or what action he is supposed to take. This illustrates the Kierkegaardian idea that:

You will never rationally understand why certain things happen to you or why things happen. The universe presents signs that defy logical interpretation, demanding a response based on faith rather than reason.

The Free Will Defense and Weirob’s Critique

The Free Will Defense

The Free Will Defense argues that if God were to cancel out all evil, human beings would lose their free will. God chose to grant humans free will because the good introduced by genuine human choice outweighs the evil that results from bad choices. If God intervened constantly to prevent evil, humans would not truly be free, and the concept of moral evil would cease to exist.

The Picnic Example

This example illustrates how human choices cause evil:

  • A six-pack of soda has plastic rings that are harmful to the environment and animals.
  • The people at the picnic make the choice not to secure or chase down the rings when they blow away.
  • This exercise of free will (or lack of responsible choice) leads to harm for animals, resulting in evil and death.

Weirob’s Critique (from Perry’s Dialogue)

Gretchen Weirob raises two main objections to the Free Will Defense:

  1. Natural Evil: Not all suffering is a result of human choice. Examples include natural evils like cancer or natural disasters.
  2. God’s Responsibility for Creation: Since God is omnipotent, he could have created humans who were genuinely free but who always chose the good. If God created Gretchen to be lazy and not chase down the rings, then by extension, God is ultimately responsible for the resulting evil.

Miller’s Analogies and Weirob’s Counterarguments

Miller uses analogies to argue that evil is necessary for a greater good, a form of the Greater Good Defense.

The Painting Analogy

Miller’s Argument: We do not understand why evil is necessary because of our limited human perspective. A beautiful painting may contain a patch of color that, viewed in isolation, seems ugly. However, that “ugly smudge” is necessary because it contributes to the overall beauty and perfection of the whole painting.

Response to Evil: Evil, when viewed from God’s infinite perspective, is a necessary component that contributes to the ultimate perfection of the universe.

Weirob’s Critique: God is all-powerful. He should be able to create a beautiful painting (a perfect universe) that does not require any ugly or unpleasant parts whatsoever.

The Day of Fishing Example

Miller’s Argument: To describe a perfect day, such as a day out fishing on a lake, one must include minor “evils” that are necessary for the good things to happen (e.g., waking up early, dealing with minor discomforts). These small evils are necessary components of the overall good experience.

Weirob’s Critique: Since God is omnipotent, he has the power to change all things. He could simply eliminate the unpleasant parts (like the need to wake up early) while retaining the good parts (the fishing trip).

The Euthyphro Dilemma and Divine Command Theory

The Euthyphro dilemma, discussed by Louise Antony in “For the Love of Reason,” challenges the foundation of Divine Command Theory (the view that the right thing to do is whatever God commands). A dilemma presents two choices, neither of which seems satisfactory.

The dilemma, originally posed by Socrates, asks:

  1. Is an action right because God commands it? (The Divine Command makes it right.)
  2. Does God command an action because it is already right? (Morality exists independently of God.)

Analysis of the Two Horns

Horn 1: Right because God Commands It (Arbitrariness)

If an action is right simply because God commands it, morality becomes arbitrary. God could command cruelty, and cruelty would then be good. This makes morality feel like “flipping a coin,” and it raises the possibility that God might contradict himself.

Horn 2: God Commands It because It Is Right (Irrelevance)

If God commands an action because it is already inherently right, then morality exists outside of God’s will. The problem here is that it makes God seem irrelevant to ethics; we do not need his command because we can figure out whether things are right and wrong using reason alone.