There
have been one or two responses to Stephen Fry's viral video from prominent
atheists (such as from Larry Moran and from PZ Myers), claiming that to give
any attention to the theodicy problem is to give Christianity too much
intellectual consideration. I wrote a
Blog post in response to Stephen Fry's video, which received a widely
positive reception, although one commentator was disappointed that I didn't, in
his view, actually attempt to respond to the theodicy problem (the problem of
evil and suffering).
It's true, I didn't, but for good reason - and the reason is, when it
comes to Christianity's truth or falsehood, there is no theodicy problem in the
first place, because propositions about theodicy depart from the central claims
of Christianity, so cannot be used as a tool against its efficacy. For example,
suppose I made the following three claims:
1) Hinduism is false because India
2) Islam is false because it hasn't rained in Mecca
3) Astrology is false because the moon isn't made of cheese.
Now there are plenty of good arguments for why Hinduism, Islam and
Astrology are false, but the ones I gave above are not good examples, they are
extreme and irrelevant. I've picked extreme cases to make the point obvious:
they are not good arguments against Hinduism, Islam and Astrology because those
claims are not claims made by Hindus, Muslims and Astrologers, so have no
bearing on their truth or falsity.
For example, astrology is false because the position of the sun and the
constellation configurations at the time of a baby's birth bears no relevant
relation to the personality or future endeavours of that baby - it is not false
because of the moon's lack of cheesiness, for the simple reason that astrology
makes no claims about the moon's cheesiness. Similarly, Hinduism is false
because the gods the founders made up don't actually exist; it has nothing to
do with India
Now notice how those extreme examples are brought to bear on the issue
of Christianity. Stephen Fry rejects Christianity on the basis that suffering
occurs in the world, but just like the above examples, Christianity
doesn't make any claims of a suffering-free world - quite the contrary, we are
told that this temporary state of affairs comes with tremendous amounts of
evil, pain, injustice and general misery. This is the affliction - the tragedy
of being human - from which the cross offers us eventual escape and
emancipation, as the book of Revelation tells us.
The only rational basis on which Christianity can be dismissed is by
counterclaims to what the faith intrinsically says about itself. It cannot be
rationally dismissed with an argument (like the existence of evil and suffering) that
Christianity doesn't even claim to be true of itself. So although Mr Fry
may feel like there is too much evil and suffering in the world to justify
belief in a perfect Divine Creator, if we are being faithful to solid, rational
enquiry, it should be made known that philosophically the issue of evil and
suffering is not a sound objection to Christianity - it is, like most
objections to Christianity, an objection to a made-up alternative version of
Christianity to which most Christians don't actually subscribe.
* Photo courtesy of virtueonline.org
