Theodicy - Some Views, part 1

In my theology course I have chosen to write on the issue of Theodicy. Like the topic of Scripture, it seems that whatever view you hold to on God's justice and the existence of evil and suffering in this world, someone out there has written on it. I think to help me write this essay I might push out some different views on the idea. This might be a kind of public rough draft and a testing out of some ideas. (I may also stop with just this one post as I could get swamped with other things to do, we will see).

Atheism

One common reason for atheism is the existence of evil and suffering in the world. If God is so good or powerful why doesn't he stop it. As William L. Rowe puts the argument (here):

1. There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

3. There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

Row does see that it really is impossible to prove point 1, but does think you can trust it on reasonable grounds (p337). Row sees that the theist could argue against these points by swapping the flow of his argument:

not-3. There exists an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

2. An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse,

therefore,

not-1. It is not the case that there exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented with out thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

Stephen J. Wkystra disagreed with Row (here). He doesn't like his sentiment of suffering appearing to be pointless. Row doesn't know the mind of God so he cannot judge what is or isn't pointless suffering.

...if we think carefully about the sort of being theism proposes for our belief, it is entirely expectable - given what we know of our cognitive limits - that the goods by virtue of which this Being allows known suffering should very often be beyond our ken. Since this state of affairs is just what one should expect if theism were true, how can its obtaining be evidence against theism? (p91)

In the same journal edition Row was able to post his reply to the above (here), in which he asked "why should we think, as Wykstra does, that this is just how things would likely be, if [God] exists" (p98). If God's mind is above ours, how do we know what we should expect at all? Row also contends that Wkystra has changed the original question and already put in the hypothesis that God exits before arguing. Row also still maintains that the magnitude, intensity and disproportion of evil and suffering in the world "disconfirms theism" (p100).

Nearly 30 years after Row's paper was published, he wrote a follow up article (here) which touched on the debate with Wkystra which might also be worth a read.