The Problem of Pain

Seems to me that the love of knowledge is the root of all evil, just based on this stuff. (Thanks to HC for getting me thinking.) This is kind of scary for a philosopher. Could it be that the pursuit of knowledge and intimacy with God are mutually exclusive? It certainly seems that way in my life.

On a related note: I've been thinking about suffering, and the problems it creates for my belief in God. Consider the following premises:

1. God is omnipotent (all-powerful)
2. God is omnibenevolent (totally good)
3. God is omniscient (all-knowing)
4. God is the sole creator
5. Gratuitous (unnecessary) suffering and evil exists

These premises seem to be inconsistent. This is probably the greatest problem for monotheists. How is it possible, given these attributes of God (#1-4) that there is gratuitous suffering in the world? We must try to solve this problem, either by modifying one of the above premises, or by reconciling them through some other argument. Christians generally attempt to reconcile these premises using the idea of free will. If you're familiar with Genesis, you know the story of "the fall", where Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and were cursed by God for their disobedience. The result of this disobedience is the beginning of serious human suffering - that would seem to follow from the content of the curses. This is how you account for the presence of gratuitous suffering in the creation of the perfect creator.

But...
Most of us disapprove of animal abuse, right? Most of us would frown on, say... Breaking an animals spine, hacking off a few chucks of meat, and then leaving it to bleed to death, right? Most of us would think that someone who would do that is a bit deranged, right? I think God would agree that cruelty towards animals is wrong. (eg. Balaam's donkey) But doesn't God routinely allow animals to die agonizing deaths? Why would God create a world in which animals are eaten alive?

I may be wrong, but I think most Christians would say that animal suffering is also a result of the fall. For some reason, before Adam sinned, lions used their big pointy teeth to munch straw. (As far as I can tell, this is an extrapolation of Is 11. If carnivors will eat grass in the future paradise, it follows that they ate grass in paradise past.) Somehow the fall of humanity resulted in the cursing of the whole earth and all the creatures therein. (Which can be inferred from God killing animals to make garments of skin (3:21), as well as his desire for animal sacrifice (4:3-5).) Suddenly there are tsunamis and plagues and animals eating each other.

Shift gears for a second. Why would a Christian take a non-literal view of the creation story? Because of science, right? Because archaeologists have dug up all kinds of dinosaur bones and studied layers of rock and measured the stars and they say the whole thing's zillions of years old. And because saying "God is speaking figuratively here" takes nothing away from the inerrancy/inspiration of the Bible. It just makes sense. At least, that's my understanding.

So never mind lions inexplicably being created with pointy teeth. What about Dinosaurs with pointy teeth? What do you suppose they used those for? Or what about mass-extinction being brought about by extreme climate change? It seems to me that there was suffering - I mean intense, unwarranted suffering - long before Adam and Eve. Free will cannot adequately explain the problem of pain. It can explain excessive human suffering, to a point. It cannot explain why God created a world brimming with suffering in the first place.

Are there other ways to explain the presence of pain before the fall? Sure. You could suggest that all suffering is necessary for the greater good, and therefore not gratuitous (i.e. alter premise 5). After all, if there were no predators, other animals would grow without control and cause bigger problems. But surely God could have created a system in which other, more humane means were used to control population. You could say that it's not possible to have good without bad, so pain is necessary in order to experience pleasure, but that doesn't really work for animals. You could blame Satan for pre-human suffering. But if God is the sole creator (premise 4), then Satan could not have influenced the creation of carnivors, diseases, or the geological mechanisms that cause natural disasters. You could fall back on a literal interpretation of the creation story, which compresses millions of years of prehistoric life into roughly 48 hours. But aside from the scientific gymnastics that such a view requires, you still have the problem of animals that are designed to be killing machines. Even if Lions (and apparently dinosaurs) in Eden ate straw, they were built for hunting and killing. Why?

Once again:
1. God is omnipotent
2. God is omnibenevolent
3. God is omniscient
4. God is the sole creator
5. Gratuitous suffering and evil exists

These cannot all be true, and they cannot all have been true before the fall. Either God is incapable of preventing his creatures from suffering, or God doesn't care about their suffering, or God cannot foresee suffering, or someone other than God created suffering, or there is no suffering. Take your pick. Personally, I lean towards #2 being false. From reading through the Old Testament, it seems to me that God has a thing for pain and death. He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and compassion on whom he will have compassion. The rest of us can go to hell.

Ok, there is one other option. I didn't want to bring this up, because some of you will think it solves the whole problem, and others will see it as a cop-out. (I see it as a cop-out.) But's it's kind of true. Basically, God's smarter than us. He knows stuff we not only don't know, but couldn't possibly understand. (See Dufflepud Theology.) So the question you have to ask yourself is this: if there was a God who has characteristics 1-4, and if he had a good reason to allow evil and suffering on the scale that it exists in our world, would we be likely to know or understand that reason? Is it possible that God has a very good reason to allow intense suffering right from day one (or rather, from day five) of his creation? Is it possible that God could look down on the animals he had created and see them suffering and in anguish and call it good? Is it possible that he has a reason for creating this brutal system that is utterly unfathomable to us? Yes, it's possible. Is it likely? Who knows? I'm not sure that you could make an educated guess at this, or even assign a rough probability. Maybe it's just a "are you the kind of person" type of question. Are you the kind of person who believes that there is a God who has his own incomprehensible reasons for allowing suffering (aside from the fall), or are you the kind of person who believes that there is no God? Or do you see another option?