Alexa Kovachevich DePauw University Value & Virtue in a Godless Universe 29 February 2012 Gods Megaphone, Our Ears:

the Psychological Problem of Evil Jack Marshall July 25, 2005 October 13, 2011, Maddie Lanway January 30, 2006 September 21, 2011 Caleb Alexander Roberts June 25, 2009 June 10, 2011 Esther Luna Chekroun December 31, 2007 May 6, 2011 (Wall of Memory) Pediatric cancer is something you hope never touches your life or the lives of those around you. It is so difficult to accept because it is impossible to explain. It leaves us with unanswered questions like those of the parents of Alexander Horwin: After our loving, bright, happy and handsome son passed away, we wanted to know why, (Horwin). Alexander died at the age of two from pediatric brain tumors. According to theists such as William Lane Craig and C. S. Lewis, Alexanders death and the why question asked by his parents serve a greater purpose: to lead people to find God. In The Problem of Pain C. S. Lewis describes the theistic belief that God uses pain as a tool to lead people to have a relationship with Him because this relationship is the greatest good a human can obtain. While moral evil that occurs between moral agents is explained as a byproduct of free will, natural evil, such as Alexanders death and other suffering caused from natural disasters or diseases cannot be explained by appealing to free will. Natural evil appears unexplainable, or gratuitous, but Lewis believes it is actually necessary for humans to obtain true happiness because it pushes us to have a relationship with God. For Lewis and other theists, pain is Gods megaphone, His way of communicating with us

2 and nudging us into freely entering a union with Him (Lewis 91). However, pain does not always function as theists propose. The psychological hardship of pain often makes it difficult or impossible to enter into a union with God. Theoretical discussions of Gods megaphone can only go so far. It is necessary to examine real lived-experiences with pain in order to assess how it works in reality1. Through examining real experiences, I show the idea of pain as a tool is flawed because it is not the mere existence of the pain that enables it to function as a tool, but rather other factors, which allow it to be thought of in the proper way, that make it a tool.

I. The Christian Conception of Suffering as a Tool While humans may desire an explanation for the evil and suffering with which they are presented, Lewis believes much of the questioning stems from an inaccurate conception of God and happiness. True human happiness, which God understands, although we always do not, is not living an enjoyable life, but stems from a freely chosen union with God. In order to motivate humans to turn to God, God uses pain as a form of communication to push us toward true happiness. As a tool, pain works in three ways: 1. To lead us to recognize our moral shortcomings 2. To ruin our False Happiness, nudging us to turn toward God 3. To enable us to know that we are choosing to obey God2 As Lewis describes it, pain is a wake up call, a motivator, and a sign we are on the right track. The human reaction to pain will either be rebellion with the future possibility to find God, or the cultivation of a relationship with God: Once pain has roused himhe either rebelsor else makes some attempt at an adjustment, which, if pursued will lead him to religion, (Lewis 93). Thus as Lewis believes, suffering is a necessary part of the

3 process God uses to allow us to find true happiness. Rather than being incompatible with God, pain and suffering are evidence of a great God because pain helps humans engage in an incommensurable good, a union with God. Contemporary theist William Lane Craig shares Lewiss sentiments arguing that evil may help human beings acquire knowledge of God, which will bring everlasting human fulfillment(Craig 120). Craig argues that evil may appear inexplicable, but that it only appears that way on the surface: Many evils occur in life that are utterly gratuitous with respect to the goal of producing human happiness; but they might not be gratuitous with respect to producing a deeper knowledge of God, (120). As Lewis describes, Craig also notes that the human conception of happiness is at odds with true happiness, and that human suffering must be seen in light of Gods goal to draw people into His Kingdom, (121). Under the Christian view that Craig believes, evil acts like a tool, and thus it is more likely to appear gratuitous even though it is not.

II. The Psychological Problem of Evil The Christian conception of evil as a tool God uses to allow humans to find true happiness is logically plausible, but cannot be separated from its deeply troubling emotional effects. As Kenneth Surin notes, the practical experience of pain differs greatly from the theoretical experience. Surin argues that we must contend with the practical experience because theists imagine the real experience of evil will motivate people to find God. A witness from Auschwitz that Surin quotes, explains how children were thrown into crematorium furnaces alive without being gassed first perhaps, as the witness explains, to save gas or because there was not enough room in the chambers (343). Surin

4 explains that no theoretical explanation will be sufficient to account for a case such as this: No attempted justification of God on the part of human beings can aspire to meet this test that it is possible for someone to saythat God is justified, is a blasphemy, (344). Asking someone to be satisfied with a purely theoretical explanation of such an event is inconceivable to Surin. The theoretical explanation cannot account for such horrors; thus Surin shows there is a gap between the theoretical effects of the tool and the actual experience of pain. Pain does not work as a tool in the purely theoretical way Craig and Lewis propose. Instead of motivating us to find God pain often alienates us from Him. The fact that the way evil works in Christianity entails a higher chance that suffering will appear gratuitous even though it is not, poses a real problem for theists. Craig and Lewis account for apparently gratuitous evil by appealing to the unsearchable omnipotence of God, or skeptical theism (Lewis 104). They believe we must trust that the pain God inflicts on us has a purpose. However skeptical theism in the face of suffering is as Richard Gale argues, a response to evil that makes communication with God impossible: We can hardly love someone who intentionally hurts us and keeps his reasons a secretthere is good reason to think that if God did have a reason for permitting evilwe would be the fist to know, (Gale 211). Gale reasons that if God wants us to engage in a relationship with Him, concealing the reason for our suffering prevents us from having such a relationship. Gale realizes that the response of skeptical theists will be that the psychological problem is not a challenge to theistic belief, because the psychological issue that prevents the relationship is an illogical move from apparently gratuitous evil to presuming that

5 actual gratuitous evil exists (Gale 214). Gale however does not see how the psychological problem can be separated from the epistemic problem: Defensive skepticism is an ivory tower invention of the detached epistemologist of religion that is completely out of touch with the grimy realities of everyday religious faith and experience, (214). While the skeptical theist may reason that it is illogical to go from apparently to actual gratuitous evil, the experience of pain is not entirely rational. The suffering we feel does not diminish because of the notion that we should be thinking of it rationally, accepting the explanation that God has a reason that we just cannot know. The theoretical concept of pain as a tool is flawed because the experience of pain often works directly opposite of its supposed purpose, alienating us from God rather than pushing us to Him. Thus pain does not always work as a tool in the simple way Craig and Lewis propose. Theoretical theistic accounts of pain as a tool depend on an emotional experience being had in the individual experiencing it, but this emotional experience must be specific and coupled with other factors that get the subject to think of pain in the right way. The path does not go: Pain ---> God Experiencing suffering does not simply lead one to God. The subject must have a certain type of experience with pain in order to develop a relationship with God: Pain + the ability to think about pain in the right way ---> God (including access to religion, psychological acceptance) It is necessary to have the ability to think of pain in the correct way if pain is to lead to knowledge of God3. One aspect that must accompany the tool of pain is access to Christian religion. Without knowledge of Christianity a person may never make the connection between

6 pain and God. Suffering, and specifically natural evil, exists in some form in the life of every person, whether that be individual experience or extended family. The opportunity to look to Christianity to explain pain, on the other hand, is surely not available to everyone that experiences natural evil. Its not the whole story that someone gets cancer and then finds God, for if such a person lived in a native tribe in the Amazon she may have no opportunity to understand that suffering is Gods way of pointing us toward true happiness. Thus the explanation of a pain as a tool to turn us to God only works if the ability to access religion is part of the subjects situation. The second aspect that must accompany pain if it is to function as a tool is the ability to accept supernatural explanations. For some it is inconceivable to account for anything by means of the supernatural. Lewis may see doubt as rebellion, but nevertheless it is clear that it is not just the suffering that will lead to knowledge of God. This suffering must go hand in hand with the ability to understand it properly. While Craig and Lewis argue that pain is a tool that leads to God, it takes more than just the existence of pain to ensure that the tool works.

III. The Effect of Natural Evil in Real Experience Looking at how suffering actually works in real experiences from two ethnographic studies supports my idea that pain must be accompanied by the ability to think about pain in the right way in order for it to work as a tool. In these two sources I examine the effect natural evil has on the religious beliefs in peoples lives through firsthand interview accounts of their lived-experiences. While these ethnographies only speak to the specific experience of researchers at a distinct time and place, with a unique group

7 of people, they are useful as they provide insight into how the experience of suffering plays out in real life. The examples are not meant to represent how pain works in general. What I endeavor to do is provide support for the idea that it is not merely the existence of natural evil that motivates people to seek religion. Penned by two American researchers, Patti Lather and Chris Smithies, Troubling the Angles examines women in the United States who are living with HIV/AIDS4. It is a common stereotype that HIV/AIDS patients are bad people, and thus this disease may not be considered to some a natural evil, but rather the consequence of other morally incorrect choices. However, many of the women living with HIV and eventually with AIDS in the book were unknowingly infected by spouses and trusted partners. One woman unknowingly gave the disease to her newborn baby, and another woman was misdiagnosed, and was treated for HIV for years damaging her physically and emotionally. These circumstances speak more to the obvious natural evils that go along with HIV/AIDS that these women deal with, and thus provide a place to examine the affect of natural evil on religious belief. Furthermore the suffering these women face is sustained over time and even progressively worsens through their life as the virus causes continued deterioration of their health. Interestingly these women face and must attend to conscious knowledge of their impending death in their everyday lives. Thus the evil they deal with is great and sustained, and if evil is meant to work as a tool it has a substantial opportunity to work on these women. While the interviews were not collected for the purpose of studying religion, the suffering these women face causes religious questions to come up, specifically in how they deal with their diagnosis and how they deal with death. The womens dialogue about

8 the situation suggest the reaction to natural evil relies more on previous belief and personal convictions gained prior to the suffering, rather than the presence of the natural evil itself. While the evil motivates the women to live full lives, it does not cause them to radically change their beliefs or to seek God. How the women deal with the shock of their diagnosis reveals how they experience and cope with natural evil. In the end they often decide it is no ones fault that they got AIDS, for example twenty-six year old Barb explains: I dont feel that anyone is to blame for it. I dont really blame myself either. I dont blame anyone, (Lather 4). There is a lack of responses in the book that take into account God or religious belief. Some of the women cite a strong conviction that everything happens for a reason, but do not tie it to religious belief. One woman, Lisa, who found out she was HIV positive a few weeks after giving birth accidently infected her newborn baby. The baby died before he was two from HIV complications. Although Lisa does not mention religious belief, she does call her son an angel and describe her experience of seeing her son running around the house in angel-form for the first few days after he died. Thus there is some sense that spirituality and religion are a part of their lives, although not specifically Christianity. Instead the women talk about coping with the disease through time and forced acceptance. Because the diagnosis puts an immediate limit on the amount of time they have left, many women talk about how they are in some sense forced to accept the fact they were given HIV and live their lives to the fullest: I certainly stopped hitting the snooze button, one of the women proclaimed (25). While the women learn to cope with their illness few talk about using religion to cope. It is clear the suffering motivates these women, but not to seek out God.

9 However, forty-seven year old Linda B., who was infected by her husband, does speak about how God has played a role in her life. After diagnosis she retained a religious belief in God, as she says: I dont think that God is punishing meI believe in God and a positive attitude, (Lather 98-99). Before diagnosis Linda believed in God, and now she retains her belief without anger toward Him. Her sense of religion also helps her to cope with the evils she faces, as she believes she was given AIDS for a reason. The same is not true for all religious believers in the book. Lori, thirty-seven year old women who was also infected by her husband, explains how her experience has had the opposite effect of weakening her relationship with God: I was always a very religious person, but Ive kind of turned against religion with thisI know a lot of people who are a lot more deserving of having this illness than any of us in this room, if there really is justice up there in the sky. Its making me really question why, why me, why you, why any of us? (Lather 123) This passage shows that in this case, the natural evil she faced had the opposite effect of turning her away from God. In Troubling the Angels the dual effect of evil is present. In some cases it strengthens belief in God, while in others the seemingly unexplainable evil turns people away from God. While it is not surprising to see evil working in this way, it is interesting to note the lack of responses to such evil that included religion at all. As I previously stated, this sample of women is not representative of the entire population, but out of the forty or so women studied less than five mention anything religious in their interviews. In this specific case evil is not working to turn people to God. Troubling the Angels reveals that evil does not seem to fundamentally change peoples belief in God in any important way. The people that mention religious belief were believers prior to diagnosis. There

10 was no example in this ethnography of any woman discovering God in dealing with this great evil. This evidence points to the idea that the reaction to evil is determined by previously established belief, and thus it is not merely the existence of the evil that causes it to affect people. In Society without God, Phil Zuckerman studies the highly irreligious populations of Denmark and Sweden to see how they deal with death and other big questions such as the meaning of life. Unlike Troubling the Angels, where suffering seemed to motivate the women to live life to the fullest but not to discover anything religious, a few of the Danes and Swedes interviewed in Zuckermans book did report looking to something higher to cope with suffering. Their conception of the higher power they found however was nothing like the Christian God. While suffering in Troubling the Angels did not to motivate the women in the way the Christian tool of pain would suppose, natural evil in Society Without God, sometimes did motivate people to look to God or a higher power, but none were able to enter into a relationship with Him. Zuckermans work suggests the accessibility of religion may deter pain from working as a tool in Denmark and Sweden since religious belief is rare and seen as socially odd. While most of the interviewees claimed no belief in God at all, five claimed belief in something higher due to suffering they experienced. One example is Rikke, a retired social worker who developed a different religious outlook after spending weeks ill in the hospital. She explained her belief in a distant dignity (Zuckerman 65). Another man Sonny explained wanting to believe in something higher, but holding back because his rational experience gave him no reason to believe. Sonny even talked about the effect of suffering on humans: But when you are in sorrow, I think you sort ofyou approach

11 God, but when youre not, you forget him, (84). Interestingly Sonnys description of pain aligns with C. S. Lewiss description of the misconception humans have of God. It seems that perhaps Sonny has not reached farther than the concept of using God for comfort in a time of need. Lewis describes this behavior as resulting from a misconception about God and the nature of true happiness. Although Sonny wants to believe in something higher, the depth of his search is shallow in comparison to the type of search proposed by the tool of pain. One chapter of Zuckermans book was solely devoted to the rare religious believers in Denmark and Sweden. The two Christians in the chapter were found not to be converts due to experiences of suffering, but were actually raised in Christian households. The five converts who sought higher powers did not form a relationship to God like that conceived of by Christianity. Instead they seemed to use God for comfort, and it was only the people raised in a Christian household that described the sort of knowledge of God intended by the tool of pain. Thus while it seems that suffering can motivate people to seek a higher power, the full realization of knowledge of God is rarely achieved in this way in Scandinavia. These examples suggest it is not just the suffering that is facilitating a relationship with God, but that access to the religion must also be a factor.

IV. Conclusion The idea of pain as a tool must be modified. God does not just yell at us through his megaphone of pain to have us immediately run to Him. The ethnographies show the effect of pain is lost if the ability to understand the pain in a religious context is not

12 available or accepted. Pain as a tool is only effective if paired with the ability to understand the pain in the proper way. Without these factors pain may do no work at all or have the opposite effect of alienating humans from God. Thus accounting for pain as a tool to turn people to God is not a strong explanation for the existence of suffering. Rather than a megaphone pain may be better thought of as headphones. If you already have something to listen to the headphones are useful but otherwise you can do nothing with what youve been given. Pain has some influence but it is not the encompassing tool Craig and Lewis propose.

Works Cited Craig, William Lane. Theism Undefeated. God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist. Ed. James P. Sterba. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print. Gale, Richard M. Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil. The Evidential Argument from Evil. Ed. Daniel Howard-Snyder. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. Print. Horwin, Raphaele & Michael Horwin. Our Alexander. Our Alexander Organization. 1999 2003. Web. 7 February 2012. Lather, Patti and Chris Smithies. Troubling the Angels. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997. Print. Lewis, Clive Staples. The Problem of Pain. New York: Harper Collins, 1940. Print. Surin, Kenneth. Taking Suffering Seriously. The Problem of Evil. Ed. Michael L. Peterson. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Print. Wall of Memory. Cancer Kids. 1997-2012. Web. 7 February 2012.

13 Zuckerman, Phil. Society Without God. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Print.
1

In The Problem of Pain Lewis includes a letter from his doctor friend named as R.

Harvard, MD. Thus it seems Lewis himself believed his view was subject to empirical examination.
2 3

From Lewis on Pain handout by Wielenberg, 2008. I have included two circumstances I believe must accompany pain in order for it to

work as a tool. However, I agree there could be additionally circumstances I have not included here. My main point that pain alone does not work as the tool Craig and Lewis propose.
4

Interviews were conducted in Ohio and New Mexico.