The Problem Of Pain (Part 1)

The most emotionally serious argument for the nonexistence of God is the existence of suffering.  Some call this the problem of pain, the alleged problem being that a good deity cannot coexist with the pain in his creation, especially when that pain is morally unjust or seemingly gratuitous.  Although I do not mean to trivialize human suffering in any way, our feelings do not change reality.  And yet the problem of pain must receive answers.  I hope to address specific aspects of suffering in this series, starting with the logical nature of the problem of pain--what follows and doesn't follow from the brute reality of suffering?

What follows from the existence of suffering if God does not exist?  If God does not exist, then it is impossible for there to be any redemptive quality to our suffering; there can be nothing meaningful about persisting in it.  There is no cosmic significance to any personal growth that suffering results in, no ultimate reward for endurance, and no point in not committing suicide rather than confronting difficulty.  It follows from atheism that an amoral and meaningless existence is the one invaded by suffering (this, of course, does not in any way refute atheism in itself).

There is no such thing as a sound and valid argument against God's existence on the basis of human suffering, as there can be nothing morally objectionable about the existence of human suffering unless evil exists, and no such thing as evil unless good exists, and no such thing as good unless God exists.  To use suffering or evil as a premise for atheism is intrinsically illogical, for the argument relies on a moral component, and only certain forms of theism can metaphysically ground moral obligations.

Another error in the problem of pain goes beyond the fact that there is nothing morally problematic about anything, including suffering of any kind, in a world without God--we also have no way of knowing right or wrong left to ourselves.  When a non-theist claims that something is good or evil, he or she is inevitably using as a standard one of the following: 1) conscience, 2) preference, 3) human consensus, or 4) a religious text.  The first standard is an appeal to subjective emotion, the second standard is arbitrary and has no effect on reality, the third is likewise fallacious, and only the fourth can provide actual moral knowledge.  Moral epistemology remains an enormous problem for many worldviews, and even if atheism was logically compatible with moral realism it would still face a chasm separating humans from awareness of moral truths.

Only in a theistic universe is it possible for our suffering to have or produce any meaning.  This truth is often overlooked, yet it is a significant truth indeed.  Any moral argument against the existence of all deities is unsound, fallacious, and rejected by reality itself.  It must rely on things contingent on theism in order to succeed as an argument, making such an argument self-defeating.  Just as atheism is incompatible with suffering of any kind being immoral, so too it is incompatible with suffering resulting in anything meaningful.  Suffering can reveal or lead to meaning in a theistic universe alone.