I'm going to quote and comment on this essay: N. N. Trakakis, "Anti-Theodicy", The Problem of Evil: Eight Views in Dialogue (Cambridge 2018), chap 4. Trakakis is a protégé of atheist philosopher Graham Oppy, and they often collaborate. In the essay Trakakis indicates that at one point the problem of evil pushed him into the atheist camp, but he now has an alternative position: anti-theodicy.
I first encountered the anti-theodicy position in Cornelius Berkouwer. David Bentley Hart is another exponent of anti-theodicy:
It may not be coincidental that Trakakis and Hart both have a Greek Orthodox frame of reference.
The problem of evil often strikes people as irresolvable. No adequate or convincing solution to the problem seems forthcoming, and this despite numerous and often sophisticated attempts over the centuries and from highly trained and gifted philosophers and theologians. As John Cottingham recognizes, "The opponents of theism may devise ever more dramatic presentations of the problem of evil, and its defenders construct ever more ingenious rebuttals, but one has the sense that neither side in the argument has any real expectation of changing their opponent's mind, and that in the end they are succeeding in doing little more than upsetting each other".
But, of course, that's hardly unique to debates over theodicy. That holds true for the whole range of philosophy. Typically, opposing positions in philosophy are constantly retooled rather than eliminated.
It is also sometimes held that the theodicist's position of rejecting even the possibility of gratuitous evil–of holding, in other words, that every evil is always connected to a greater good and that we ought to believe (or can come to know) this to be so–has the objectionable consequence of reducing us to an attitude of passivity and fatalism in the face of evil. For why fight to eradicate evil if evil is a necessary or unavoidable part or byproduct of God's providential plan for the world.
But that's dumb, for the second-order goods include the defeat of evil. Goods that derive from the struggle against evil. It's like saying that because challenges are built into sports and games, that reduces players to an attitude of passivity and fatalism in the face of challenges. But the obstacles exist to be overcome. They don't exist for their own sake.
The teleological or instrumentalist conception of evil presupposed in theodicies, where evil is permitted by God for the sake of some higher end, is also open to the Kantian criticism that it negates the inherent world and dignity of persons by treating them as mere means to some end, rather than as ends in themselves.
i) But Kantian strictures are not an unquestionable given. The onus lies on the Kantian deontologist to argue for his scruples. That's not something he can simply foist on others.
ii) While, moreover, there's a floor to human rights, below which we shouldn't go, that doesn't mean everyone is entitled to the same treatment regardless of their behavior. People can forfeit their presumptive right not to be treated in certain ways. If a suicide bomber has designs on a kindergarten, he ought be stopped by any means necessary.
I arrived at the conclusion that various recent theistic attempts to resolve the problem–including the skeptical theist response, and freewill and soul-making theodicies–fail to provide a satisfactory answer (at least with respect to certain types of evil). Absent any countervailing evidence in support of theistic belief, or without any good reason for continuing to uphold theism, "the only rational course of action left for the theist to take is to abandon theism and convert to atheism."
i) But there's enormous countervailing evidence.
ii) Evil is only a meaningful category within a Christian paradigm.
iii) Even if some theodicies fail to provide a satisfactory answer to certain types of evil, that hardly means they should be discounted for the types of evil they do explain. And what if a combination of theodicies suffices to cover all bases?
iv) Most philosophical positions face some recalcitrant objections. That's not unique to the problem of evil. If we jettison every philosophical position that has loose ends, there'd little left to believe. Although it's a bad sign when someone must introduce ad hoc loopholes to salvage his position, if you have good evidence that your position basically true, you should keep refining it.
[Rowe] In the light of our own experience and knowledge of the variety and scale of human and animal suffering in our world, the idea that none of this suffering could have been prevented by an omnipotent being without thereby losing a greater good or permitting an evil at least as bad seems an extraordinary, absurd idea, quite beyond belief.
Rowe's plausibility structure isn't something he can impose on everyone else. If he find it absurd, beyond belief, that's his opinion, but not everyone shares his impression.
It may not be coincidental that Rowe was an apostate. Ironically, Christian idealism leads some professing Christians to abandon their faith, yet they wouldn't have that idealism were it not for the faith they abandoned. Their conclusion negates their premise. So many apostates are like time-travelers in the Grandfather paradox, who wouldn't exist in the first place because they erase the future in which they originate.
Rowe's almost instinctive reaction of incredulity about the claims of theodicists are wont to make (we might dub it, after Harry Frankfurt, a "bullshit detector") has proven to be an invaluable resource in my journey through the thickets of evil. What Rowe is contesting, and I with him still, is the strategy of reconciling God with evil by making appeal to greater goods, whether known or known, said to be yoked some necessary but unfortunate way to the myriad evils of the world. Even if some evils can be accounted for, what almost always gets placed in the mystery category are the "hard cases"...
I, for one, don't think the hard cases must be relegated to the mystery box.
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