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Handling scriptural arguments on philosophy of religion topics (e.g. problem of evil)?

In our January “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:

Pedagogy question: I teach a fairly straightforward version of the problem of evil from the Stich and Donaldson text in 101. The longer I teach it, the less sure I am in terms of how to respond to students who raise specific questions about scripture and events in the Bible in terms of challenging the POE without sounding dismissive.

Its a real pedagogical challenge for me as I am not and do not pretend to be literate about much of the Bible other than what my basic Catholic upbringing taught me.
I had a student basically accuse me of misinformation today in class.

This is how I might describe it in a discussion post to students:

‘Many theists will respond with Biblical scripture or passages to respond to various versions of the problem of evil. For example, they may respond with ‘the flood’ caused God in the Old Testament. Theists might also invoke ‘the devil’ as an evil force in the universe that causes evil and suffering in the world. Atheists might find these kinds of arguments unconvincing because they depend upon belief and faith in the very things they deny exist. What do you make of this kind of back and forth? Is this ultimately just an ‘agree to disagree’ scenario or is there more to it?’

What do readers think?

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16 responses to “Handling scriptural arguments on philosophy of religion topics (e.g. problem of evil)?”

  1. Anonymous

    It seems like this presentation accepts the atheist worldview as the controlling worldview — i.e. the theist has to prove something within the atheist worldview. The first natural question would be: why?

    There are several other questions that would open up the discussion and move away from specifically scriptural arguments while destabilizing both the theist and atheist positions. Off the top of my head, someone could open a dialogue with questions like:

    1. What type of argument in the POE? If it’s saying there’s an inconsistency in the *theist* worldview, is it fair to deny the theist their worldview as explanation? Can an atheist say, “The POE shows your worldview is inconsistent. Also, you can’t use any concept from your worldview that I find objectionable.” That would be a great discussion, I think. Is that, in effect, what the atheist is saying? If so, is that fair?

    2. Why does the atheist get to set her worldview as the one that decides if something will be accepted or not accepted?

    3. At the end of the day, is the POE simply a way of the atheist saying she doesn’t accept the theist’s worldview and the theist worldview doesn’t make sense if one accepts the atheist priors as facts? The interesting question there is: if this is the case, is the POE even a problem for the theist at that point?

    4. Given the “squishy,” multiple definitions now between what atheist means, as opposed to anti-theist or agnostic, does that undermine the POE as a philosophic argument?

    Since you have students raising scriptural objections to the POE, #1 strikes me as a very interesting question, because it moves away from requiring biblical literacy and focuses more on the POE qua argument and the Bible as worldview instead of as text.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    I think this is an opportunity to highlight the differences between (1) giving an argument for a philosophical view, and (2) defending a view from an argument against it. And in this context, (ii) may be subdivided into (2a) defending it using only ‘philosophical’ resources which parties on all sides can admit, and (2b) defending it using the resources of the position being attacked (in this case, using what a certain theist will regard as divine revelation from their sacred texts).

    Many beginning students need to master the distinction between (1) and (2), because they tend not to discern the separate tasks of arguing for a view from merely defending a view against objections (sometimes a sports analogy can help here: there is a usually a clear difference between the distinct tasks of playing offense, and (merely) playing defense). Examining this is also useful because for (2a/b), there is a dicey question here, namely: defend it adequately to *whose* satisfaction? To those who hold the view (e.g. other theists)? To the objectors (usually atheists) who don’t hold it? To some ‘neutral’ third observer or agnostic?

    (This is a more advanced point, but wrt (2a/b), I am reminded of important work by Marilyn McCord Adams when discussing the problem of horrendous evils, that once you consider how best to respond to the evidential (as opposed to the logical) problem of evil, and once you start to worry about horrific evils, it is all the more appropriate for the theist, in their defense, to reach for resources *internal* to their systematic worldview… after all, it is the coherence of their view that is being attacked. And it would be an absurd standard which demands that they answer such an attack but be expected not to use resources of the view being attacked.

    Of course, a student appealing to Biblical texts leads directly to the question of why a theist should regard their scripture as revealed or good evidence for God, etc. (which is a very good question for them to wrestle with, and notice here that appealing to scripture opens them up to other sorts of objections to their tradition’s sources of authority). But if the arguments shift to that, notice that suddenly it is no longer about defending generic theism against the PoE, nor about using only ‘philosophical’ resources, and so on. In this sense at least, it’s an obvious move of the goalposts.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    You don’t need to know the Bible to have a philosophical discussion about the problem of evil. The philosophical discussion is about what makes sense, not about interpretating and analyzing what the Bible says.

    There is no need to appeal to the Bible to make a case for either side of the debate. If someone does, the appeal to the Bible is of no relevance, only whatever philosophicsl claims they intend to make.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    I tell my students that in philosophy we ask what reason alone can tell us. We try no to rely on any purported divine revelation. This is for a couple of reasons: (i) an easy reply to any claim of divine revelation is “But I don’t accept that book/prophet/etc. as divinely inspired”; and (ii) we can all at least agree that reason and logic work. So, it gives us common ground to work from.

    I also make clear that they are free to believe whatever they want for whatever reason -that in our class we are not assuming that any religion is right or wrong. We just leave it to the side to ask what reason alone can tell us about these questions.

    It is harder when a student turns in a paper that is all scriptural references, since the student’s grade is on the line. So, they might react more negatively. Still, I say the same basic thing, “This is just not what we do in philosophy.”

    Doing this allows me to leave their religious beliefs untouched.

    I also try to avoid this issue by just not considering objections or arguments that strike me as clearly grounded in theological claims. For example, when we discuss the problem of evil, I do not feel the need to discuss angels or original sin as potential theodicies. These are replies that will only seem acceptable to those who already accept specific theological claims.

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Yes, my approach is similar, in Intro and in Philosophy of Religion: different kinds of arguments accept different sources of authority; in this class we’re looking at what we can figure out with reasoning that’s not ground in a specific religious tradition (i.e., we’re doing philosophy, not theology); but this class simply has nothing to say about theological or other religious arguments, which are very appropriate in other contexts.

      Reply
  5. Michel

    Historically, wasn’t the problem of evil a major point of theological debate _for theists_, notably saints like Augustine and Anselm, and many others?

    It seems to me like it may be a mistake to retreat immediately to why it might concern atheists (plus, really, I’m not sure most atheists worry about it at all, because we don’t believe in any gods in the first place, and I doubt it was the problem of evil that convinced most of us). It has been and remains a concern for theists, and some answers are more plausible than others. One source of plausibility is coherence with the text of whatever book of the Bible. Another is our intuitions about morality, and there are others. Our job in the classroom is to sort out these different arguments and motivations, and find what makes the most sense.

    Reply
  6. Anonymous

    I think than a blanket ban on citing the Bible would be a mistake, in part because–as others have noted–the POE is an objection against the theistic world view, so pulling in resources from that world-view without having proven them all correct isn’t necessarily a problem. I’ve taught phl of religion a lot, and the real problem I’ve sometimes encountered here is that students mistake citing the Bible alone as proving their point. What we need to make clear is that citing the Bible (if you do it at all) is just the first step in giving your own argument on a topic and defending it from objections. You think verse {x} gives an adequate response to the POE? Great. Then you need to explain what you take the verse to state, explain how it makes an adequate response to the POE, and then raise and rebut plausible objections.

    For instance: let’s say that somebody wants to explain natural evil as a result of the Fall of Adam and Eve, and cites Genesis. OK. But look–don’t you have to account for the apparent fact that there wasn’t a single historical couple Adam and Eve that were the first humans and ancestors to us all? (A student cannot simply assume some literalist reading of Genesis without at least saying something about the masses of evidence against that.) Leaving that aside, we have excellent evidence that the origins of natural evil far predate any humans being around. (Thinking of plate tectonics as the cause of earthquakes etc.) And leaving even that aside, how would this theodicy really exonerate God? For instance: why would he set things up so that, if Adam and Eve disobey him, all hell breaks loose in the natural world, with earthquakes, disease, etc.? He’s supposed to be omnipotent, so he didn’t have to make it work like that, it seems. If the reply is that the natural evil is a punishment for their disobedience, this raises the obvious problem that innocent people who didn’t disobey god are being punished for their ancestors’ disobedience, which seems obviously unjust. Etc., etc.

    These sorts of questions might get some students’ hackles up, but it’s important for them to understand that, in a philosophy class, it’s legitimate to raise all of these sorts of questions when somebody raises an argument, even–or maybe especially–arguments that take as their starting point a religious text. As long as they’re willing to shoulder that sort of argumentative burden, though, I don’t ban people from citing the Bible.

    Reply
  7. AnAnon

    The question the POE presents to religious students (or at least the religious students I assume frequenters of the blog most often encounter) is “Is the fact of suffering consistent with my religious worldview?” Surely it makes sense for them to address that question with reference to the entire content of that worldview, including the parts of it inspired by their reading of Scripture? You may not find whatever biblically-inspired theodicy they come up with plausible, but why should they lose a moment’s sleep over that? (Unless they’re losing sleep over the state of your soul?) Of course you can and should press them on whether, say, eternal bliss in Heaven for those who suffer is an *adequate* theodicy, but the fact that we don’t have neutral non-biblical reasons to believe in Heaven doesn’t seem relevant to me.

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    Here is another way of thinking of this. Can’t one just include the replies about “the flood” and “the devil” within the discussion of God and the POE? I believe it is correct to note that “God created the Devil” according to the Bible. And God is All-Knowing. So God has some responsibility for the Evil that results. Similarly, God created the physical universe and its laws and “the flood” was brought about by that. Or one could say, as the Bible does, that “God caused the flood as punishment.” And God is All-Knowing. So again it looks like God has some responsibility for the Evil that results. At least in these sorts of cases, I would just try elaborating on the Biblical claims in relation to the properties of God and go from there, unless I’m misunderstanding something.

    Reply
  9. Anonymous

    The first two comments are basically the correct take(s) on this matter.

    As an aside, there has been a lot of discussion about what is (philosophically) appropriate to use as a response to evil, see e.g. Plantinga’s “O’ Felix Culpa” or Marylin Adams piece cited above, or Peter van Inwagen’s work on the problem of evil–especially his book, The Problem of Evil. These are important works that will help you think through how to proceed here.

    Reply
  10. Anonymous

    I used to teach medical ethics in a context where students could be expected to have religious reasons for some of their stances. I explicitly told them that it’s fine to have a religious motivation, but remember that students in the class come from a variety of religions and non-religion, so our goal in a philosophy class is to produce arguments for your stances that can be evaluated by everyone. I think this was helpful in assuring the students that I was not aiming to dismiss or refute their religious tradition, but at the same time the class was not the right context for internal theological or scripture interpretation discussions.

    That said, if you are teaching the problem of evil as an objection to theistic traditions, then it seems reasonable for students to bring up responses that stem from a theistic tradition. In this case I would (again) remind them that not everyone in the class may be familiar with their religious text, and ask them to please explain the argument in a way that is accessible to everyone. So basically, ask them to present the upshot of the Biblical story in a way that can be understood and evaluated by everyone, even if the person isn’t familiar with the Bible and/or might interpret the Bible differently.

    I did have some questions about the aims of the discussion prompt in quotations. First, it seems not right to say that “theists” may respond with Biblical scripture, since there are a lot of theistic traditions that use different scriptures. Even (especially?) if your class is majority Christian, it’s good to remind the students that there are other theistic religions out there that also have things to say about the problem of evil. Second, I’m not sure how the flood story is meant to respond to the problem of evil. It seems instead like a pretty dramatic instance of the problem of evil. Anyway, bringing up a specific event from one specific scripture seems to reinforce the kind of Christian-defaultism that it seems you would like your students to move beyond. (Plus, non-Christians in the class might have a hard time responding to the prompt if they aren’t familiar with the relevant stories.)

    Reply
    1. AnAnon

      To follow up on that point, and he term “Old Testament” does kind of presuppose the validity of the New one, so I believe “Hebrew Bible” is the preferred neutral term for that collection of texts.

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        As a Jew: I really prefer folks to use “Tanakh” (our term) to describe our bible. “Hebrew Bible” is preferable to “Old Testament,” but nobody is trying to call the Quran the “Isalmic Bible”–it’s referred to, as it should be, by the term in the language of choice for the folks whose scripture it is

      2. AnAnon

        Noted, but of course some people who regard it as scripture also call the Old Testament. As far as I know “Hebrew Bible” is only used in academic contexts, not religious ones, and it’s used to avoid picking sides on which religious term is more appropriate. (This issue does not arise with the Quran.) Do you have preferences between “Hebrew Bible” vs “Tanakh / Old Testament” or something like that? (One possible advantage of the later is that it encompasses the terminology students will probably be familiar with, while “Hebrew Bible” is kind of academic jargon.)

        I certainly am not interested in starting a rabbit hole about preferred terminology, but since OP seems concerned with how best to talk about these things with students they might find hearing from people on that useful.

      3. Anonymous

        AnAnon (previous commenter here): Thanks for this note. In contexts where a Christian argument is at play, I agree it’s quite appropriate to use the term “Old Testament.” The term is only objectionable, I think, when there’s no particular Christian context and the term “Old Testament” implies that these are *only* Christian texts. Of course, for the goal of not reinforcing Christian cultural hegemony, lots of other things matter more than this terminology…

  11. B

    I am a Christian and I teach philosophy of religion to Christians. When it comes to interacting with biblical passages, I think it’s helpful to distinguish between “local” and “global” theodicies. Local theodicies often found in the Bible justify God’s bringing punishment or allowing suffering in one particular situation, most often (but not always) in terms of humans’ deserving it. However, the problem of evil ultimately calls for a global theodicy: an account of why God would permit situations to come about in the first place which would then give him reason to inflict punishment or allow suffering.

    Another angle: the Bible often says that God did/allowed X for reason Y. But solving the PoE requires that the theist show that reason Y is a good enough reason for doing/allowing X, and that reason Y couldn’t have been realized without doing/allowing X (or something worse). This is rarely discussed in Scripture.

    In sum, I think there’s no reason to discourage interaction with the Bible in philosophy of religion classes; but people who bring it into the discussion should be pushed to show how biblical passages address specifically those points which concern philosophers of religion.

    Reply

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