Facing the Epicurean Trilemma
Theodicy and Finding God in a World of Evil
Anyone who has spent any significant amount of time addressing the philosophical implications of theism is going to be familiar with the paradox or trilemma attributed to Epicurus. It is often presented as a rock-solid and irrefutable argument for positive atheism. While we do not have any original text for Epicurus’ thoughts on the matter, the idea has been related to us through intermediaries, and it basically comes down to the following statements:
If God is willing to rid the world of evil but unable, God is impotent and therefore not worthy of being termed “God”.
If God is able to rid the world of evil but unwilling, God is either malicious or negligent and therefore not worthy of being termed “God”.
If God is both willing and able to rid the world of evil, there should not be any evil in the world.
Restated in other words, one could say:
- God and evil are conceptually irreconcilable.
- We know that evil exists.
- We do not know that God exists, though some believe it.
- Since we know that evil is irreconcilable with God, and since we know that evil exists, God cannot exist.
For centuries, this question of theodicy has troubled theists and given a feeling of satisfaction and superiority to atheists. However, it is not at all as watertight as atheists like to believe. In fact, my argument is exactly the opposite: my argument is that the existence of evil strongly implies the existence of God, and I will propose an even more fundamental trilemma that shows the essential problems with the atheistic approach.
The Epistemology of Evil
We begin to see the problems with the trilemma of Epicurus when we ask a simple question:
Do we really know that evil exists?
Atheists reading this will likely scoff and say: “Of course we know that evil exists! Everyone knows that evil exists!” However, “everyone knows” was never evidence of anything, so I would encourage atheists to refrain from being the ones who posit answers that cannot be questioned, as that kind of behavior is generally something that they claim to abhor.
So I ask again: Do we really know that evil exists?
This of course becomes a matter of epistemology. How do we know things? Of course, the atheist will likely respond: “Science!” But what is science?
In his article “The Limitless Power of Science”, Peter W. Atkins described science as “the system of belief founded securely on publicly shared reproducible knowledge”. So if it cannot be publicly shared and readily reproduced for others to view, it is not science. Now, when we talk about this thing called “evil”, can it be distinguished and defined according to this standard?
No. It cannot.
When we say that something is “evil”, regardless of our background, what we typically mean is “that which should not be”. We are making a prescriptive statement about the universe: we are saying that something exists or happens when it should not. This is inherently problematic for the scientific mind, because science as we know it is not prescriptive, but merely descriptive. That is, science is very good at telling us what was, what is, and what likely will be, based on the parameters that we can collectively observe…but it cannot tell us what should be. That lies beyond the function of science.
It does not have to be this way. We could take a scientific approach to “evil” if we had some objective idea of what our purpose is as humans. Evil, then, would be anything that we do or anything done to us that distances us from that purpose. However, so far, no amount of scientific inquiry has ever given us a clear sense of what the purpose of human life is.
Whenever I challenge atheists to give me a standard for defining this thing that they call “evil”, they tend to define it in one of the following ways:
- Naturalistic evil. The purpose of human existence is for humans to exist. Therefore, anything that jeopardizes the survival of our species is evil.
- Personal evil. The purpose of your life is whatever you declare it to be. Whatever you value, that is what matters because you say that it matters. Therefore, anything that jeopardizes what you say matters is evil.
- Social evil. We are a social species. We create constructs with our communal beliefs. If we come together and collectively declare that something is evil — usually based on its relationship with other concepts that we have made up, such as “rights” — then it is evil. Our collective belief in good and evil brings these concepts into existence simply because we believe in it, in the same way that the value of fiat currency comes into existence.
- Implicit evil. We know that evil exists because we can just feel it. Everyone knows that it is real because everyone knows. We don’t need to talk about evidence.
There are serious problems with each of these definitions of evil, however.
The biggest problem with the definition given for naturalistic evil is that, when it comes to the question of purpose, it doesn’t really give an answer. In this case, the atheist says that the purpose of human existence is for humans to exist. That is circular reasoning. It reminds me of the many times that Protestants have told me that we know that the Bible is true because it says so in the Bible. The naturalistic approach to defining evil pretends that there is an objective purpose or value for human life when it cannot show that to be true at all.
The “personal evil” approach is appealing to the postmodern liberal mind in that it focuses so much upon the individual and creates such a sense of freedom. However, applied to the real world, this wide-open definition of evil immediately breaks down as humans start to interact with each other and, lo and behold, find their values to be in conflict. The reality is that, according to this standard, no human ever has any basis for ever telling another human that he or she is doing anything wrong. That being the case, it makes the entire concept of “evil” practically useless, and not even really a concept at all. It also makes the atheist look juvenile and trite, as in this case, the atheist is essentially saying: “There are things that I don’t like, so this means that God can’t exist.” An objective argument is being made based on a completely subjective standard.
The “social evil” approach to defining evil is appealing in that, rather than being based on egocentrism and selfishness, it is based on lofty concepts such as community and democracy. However, again, when we apply it to real world, we quickly see that it just does not work. The easiest way to illustrate the problems here is by asking the question: What will you do when your moral belief turns out to be the minority view? According to this definition, the passionate activist fighting to change perceptions and thereby build a better future is always, always, always the evil one, because he or she is advocating views contrary to what society has declared to be true. Also, this standard for truth necessarily indicts atheism, as, for the entirety of human history, the majority view has been that deities of some sort exist. And so we see that the “social evil” approach ultimately amounts to nothing more than argumentum ad populum.
And so, we are left with the “implicit evil” approach. I actually have more sympathy for this one than you may realize. That is because I believe that we can know things to be true due to direct experience, even if we cannot demonstrate any evidence of those things to others. That is, in fact, why I believe in evil — and why I believe in God. On this point, while atheists may not be able to attest to the same experiences that I can, they apparently have some of the same kind of experiences, causing them to believe in things even when they cannot prove the existence of those things to others. If atheists argue that evil exists based on this standard, then they are expressing belief not in something “scientific”, but in what is essentially a religious principle based on religious experiences. The epistemology is the same as the epistemology that compels me to believe in God.
The Real Trilemma
As we have shown, assuming a deterministic materialist universe in which we have to dismiss all claims except those for which we can provide evidence based upon “the system of belief founded securely on publicly shared reproducible knowledge”, it is difficult for us to show that evil even exists. Atheists try to present the existence of evil as conclusive evidence against the existence of God when, in reality, they have not yet given a meaningful definition of evil or even shown that it exists in any real sense. Thus do they face their own trilemma that is even more fundamental than the one presented by Epicurus, in which they must define evil and demonstrate its existence before they can then proceed to the Epicurean Trilemma. In doing that, to explain the existence of evil, they must pick one of the following three possibilities.
Option 1: Evil Is Imaginary
When challenged on this point and asked to present evidence that evil exists, atheists will often say that they do not need to because evil is just a matter of ideology — that is, an imaginary construct. This is a motte-and-bailey fallacy, though, and we can see that in the way that they use the concept of evil in their argumentation. When the concept of evil is useful to make some sort of argument — such as to say that God does not exist if evil exists — they treat evil as a real thing that, being real, exists within a natural universe of consistent laws. Thus do they like to hang out in the bailey. However, when asked for evidence that this thing called “evil” exists, they retreat to the motte area by saying that they do not need to provide evidence for this non-real thing. In that way, they move to the much more defensible motte…until it becomes convenient to go back down into the bailey once more.
Either evil is real or it is not. If all that is real must abide by the observable laws of a materialist universe, then we should be able to detect, measure, and define evil according to consistent and meaningful principles, just as we can with gravity or light. If it does not abide by such principles, then, according to the materialist standards of such things, it is not real, but is as imaginary as any made-up deity or fairy. If that is the case, then evil cannot be used as evidence of anything in a philosophical debate.
If the atheist argues that evil is a real thing, then the onus is upon him to provide evidence of its existence that is of the same caliber as that which he demands to substantiate the existence of deity. If the atheist admits that evil is an imaginary concept, then what he is essentially saying is this: “Your god is obviously imaginary because the existence of such a being is antithetical to this imaginary concept of mine.” I hope that the problem there is obvious.
According to this representation of evil, the universal equation doesn’t balance, but that doesn’t matter, because the values you are working with aren’t even real or quantifiable anyway.
Option 2: Your “Evil” Is Actually Good
When I was serving as a missionary in Taiwan, I read a Buddhist book written for children in which our Buddhist friends attempted to answer some of the tough questions of life that all of us have. One of those questions went along these lines: “Why do people die in horrible disasters like fires, floods, and airplane crashes?”
The answer that was given in this book shocked me. It went something like this: “Those people who die in events like that are facing the karmic results of their own actions. Either in this life or in a previous life, they did terrible things such as boiling live lobsters. When people do terrible things, terrible things happen to them.” (That wasn’t the exact wording, as I am remembering this from over a decade ago, and it was written in Chinese, but that was essentially what the book said. It specifically used the lobster boiling example.)
The one belief that virtually all religions share is the idea that there is — or at least, there appears to be — something wrong with the world. People turn to religion to find explanations for what appears to be wrong. In this case, when we see the injustice of people’s lives being suddenly cut short due to catastrophe, we naturally feel that something is wrong with this…but the Buddhist response is to say that nothing is actually wrong. According to the Buddhist interpretation of things, what we assume to be wrong is actually right. When a child is born into impoverished conditions and slowly starves to death, that is actually fine because he probably let his elderly parents starve to death in a previous life. (That was another example from the book.) Thus, when we see seemingly terrible things happening in the world, we can take comfort with the knowledge that anyone suffering in such conditions actually deserved it because of something they did either in this life or in a previous life that they no longer remember.
As bleak as the Buddhist explanation seems to be, it is still somewhat comforting in that it tells us that we will get more chances at life and that all of that bad karma will burn off sooner or later. It also gives us a model for the universe that seems to abide by consistent laws and, at some level, makes sense.
Far bleaker than the Buddhist explanation is the explanation that I have heard some Christians give for human suffering. I once had a long discussion with a Calvinist, in which I asked him what he thought would happen to the billions of people who never even had the opportunity to hear of Christ while in mortality. He confidently gave a simple response: They will burn in hell for eternity. All of them. I asked him why God would create people and put them in a situation such that they would never have even the faintest hope for salvation. His response was that God does that because it pleases God to condemn and torment them. That is their purpose. According to him, I could not suggest that this makes God evil because the very concept of good is defined according to God. Thus, the endless suffering of these billions of people will actually be a good thing.
An atheist may find these explanations barbaric and clearly untrue (as I do), but the reality is that a materialist conception of the universe strongly suggests something along these lines, sans life after death. There cannot be something fundamentally wrong with the universe: one does not look at the gravitational constant and say, “It shouldn’t be that way! That’s wrong!” The universe is what it is, and the equation must balance. Any talk of evil as a real value in this sense will imply that the equation doesn’t balance and that something is wrong with everything. That would be a very anti-scientific approach to things. No, the equation must balance. According to some people, we can balance it by simply assuming that everything we perceive as “wrong” is actually very right, though we may not understand how.
Scientific inquiry assumes that a universal order exists, with consistent natural laws, and that we simply need to come to understand it. The concept of evil, on the other hand, implies that something is deeply wrong with the universe — which implies that no universal order exists. Thus, we can take the Epicurean Trilemma and restate it by substituting the universal order for God, and it is equally convincing.
- The universal order and evil are conceptually irreconcilable.
- We know that evil exists.
- We do not know that a universal order exists, though much of our observation strongly suggests that it does.
- Since we know that evil is irreconcilable with a universal order, and since we know that evil exists, no universal order can exist.
And so we see the weaknesses inherent to this line of reasoning.
From an atheistic and materialist perspective, we must pick either Option 1 or Option 2: either evil is a totally imaginary concept such that there is no good or evil or what we perceive as evil is actually good. To say otherwise is to believe in the “supernatural” — that is, it implies that evil is something that exists but that does not abide by natural laws.
Option 3: All Things Will Be Made Right
I suspect that many reading this do not like the first two options. That’s good: I don’t like them either. So here is the third option.
Are you ready?
Okay. Here goes:
The evil and the wrong that you see around you truly are evil and wrong…but they will be made right at some point, though perhaps in a way that you do not now understand.
The values are real, you are right to think that something is wrong, and somehow, the equation will be made to balance.
When Christ healed Lazarus, this was not done as an end in itself, as Lazarus still died later on. It was of course done because God had a specific will for Lazarus to live longer and accomplish certain things, but it was also done because Christ wanted to provide a powerful symbol for what He could and would do for our whole souls. You see, when Christ raised Lazarus, that man was dead. He had lain in the tomb for multiple days. He was gone. When Christ raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead, a cynic may have said that she had not actually died, but had simply been sleeping, making Christ’s resuscitation a little less miraculous. With Lazarus, though…that was different. Lazarus was quite dead. And yet, Christ raised him from the dead as if he had never died.
At the Second Coming, He will raise us all from the dead, giving us glorified bodies and empowering us to become immortal as He is immortal. That is not all, though. This will be not only a physical restoration, but a spiritual restoration as well. Those who have died in the spirit due to terrors that they have suffered in mortality will be made whole again as if it never happened.
He will lead them to springs filled with the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
He will be able to do this because of His infinite Atonement, which covers more than just sin and physical death. As the prophet Alma taught prior to Christ’s coming:
And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.
All injustices of this life will be wiped clean, and their effects will disappear from our souls forever. We will all be made whole, as if it never happened…like Lazarus rising from the tomb as if he had never died.
Obviously, atheists do not believe in any of this. They see no evidence that God exists or that Jesus Christ atoned for the sins and suffering of the world. However, the fact remains that they perceive evil in this world. Some atheists will inevitably try to present a fourth option, which will be to say that evil is real, but most of that evil will never be made right. To say that, though, is to assume that there is something wrong with the universe and that it does not abide by consistent natural laws. That is the inevitable reality of a materialist worldview. If evil is real, it must abide by natural laws. If it is not real, we have nothing to talk about on the matter.
So again, if atheists want to use the existence of evil as part of a philosophical argument, they must first show us what evil is and how it exists. That leaves them with three options:
- The evil that they perceive is imaginary and therefore not real and of no consequence.
- The evil that they perceive is actually good: it is good for the innocent to suffer, as that fits within a great universal order, though we may not now understand it.
- The evil that they perceive is quite real and very much not good, but it will all be set right at some point, down to the last fallen sparrow.
There are no other options.
This is the real trilemma.
