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243 c h a p t e r 1 1 The Argument from Horrors In this chapter I turn from the much-neglected and little-explored territory I have labeled the problem of Divine hiddenness to the muchtraveled (one might say trampled) neighboring territory of the problem of evil. Superhighways crisscross this philosophical province. Sophisticated infrastructure supports the many cosmopolitan centers that dot its terrain. But though the problem of evil is well known and much discussed, it is a larger and more complex problem, more multifaceted, than is commonly recognized: there remain sizable tracts of this territory that are underinvestigated and pathways of discussion that no one has developed. I want us to work on some of these. And what we will see if we do, I suggest, is that Epicurus and Hume and Mackie were right in supposing that a very formidable disproof of the existence of God may be lurking here (even if the pathways they followed in pursuit of it turned out to be dead ends or were successfully co-opted by theistic highway builders). 1. Developing the Argument There are several important signposts along the way—several neglected considerations to which I shall appeal in developing my version of the argument from evil—and I want to begin by briefly identifying them. The first neglected consideration is that a God both perfect and personal, being necessarily omniscient, would necessarily have maximally full knowledge by acquaintance of each possible occasion of horrific suffering. (And let us follow Marilyn Adams and think of horrific suffering—or horrendous suffering , as it is sometimes called—as that most awe-full form of suffering that 244 The Modes Illustrated and Vindicated gives the victim and/or the perpetrator a prima facie reason to think that his life is not worth living.)1 Every aspect of what it is like to experience horri fic suffering in every moment of its occurrence in every possible world in which it occurs must be present in complete detail to the awareness of God. This knowledge, taken together with the infinite compassion we are independently required to ascribe to the Divine, yields what I call the unsurpassable empathy of God. The second neglected consideration to which I want to draw attention concerns the relation between the following: (i) outweighing goods and (ii) the deepest good of personal creatures. These seem conceptually distinct . In particular, it seems that someone’s horrific suffering might serve what is by some reliable calculation an outweighing good without being required for her deepest good (or for that matter, for anyone else’s). Thus is permitted to arise the question whether God would allow horrific suffering for just any outweighing good, or only for an outweighing good that was also the deepest good of creatures. The third neglected consideration I want to bring into focus—and here we borrow from Chapter 9—is that the deepest good of finite personal beings in any world created by God is known to us: it is quite evidently an ever-increasing knowledge by acquaintance of God. If indeed God is to be construed as perfection personified, then what could be better for finite creatures than to enter ever more fully into the maximally great richness and beauty and glory of God? Of course, theists are already committed to this. But even nontheists should be able to agree that such would be the nature of the good for finite personal creatures, if there were a God. The fourth neglected consideration to which I will be helping myself is that there appears to be nothing to prevent finite created persons who do not experience horrific suffering from realizing a relationship with God of the sort just mentioned. Take persons in the actual world, for example. Clearly not all of us experience horrific suffering. Are we to suppose that those who don’t are for that reason debarred from experiencing relationship with God? Surely not. Again, this follows from what most theists believe. But there is plenty of other support too. We may point out, for example, that if God is unsurpassably deep and rich, then even where no horrors are experienced there must be an infinite number of ways of developing a relationship with God—an infinite number of possible journeys into self, the world, and God that realize the ultimate in meaning and goodness for finite created persons. 1 See Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous...

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