BY BRIAN HUFFLING
I WOULD LIKE TOTHANK GARYWHITTENBERGER FOR RESPONDING to my article from the previous issue of Skeptic. My article was a response to Michael Shermer who had argued in his piece that examples of evil in the world demonstrate God does not exist. His basic point was that if God exists, he would not allow evil. In short, my response was that we don’t have knowledge of what God is. We can’t assume that God is like humans. We cannot say a priori that God is a moral being. Thus, it would be wrong to say (without argument) that God is beholden to human standards of behavior. Thus, it would be presumptuous to say what God would or would not do.
Whittenberger affirms if God exists, then he would be a moral being. Before I respond to that I think it is pertinent to address two definitional issues. First, in defining evil, Whittenberger appears to think I reject Shermer’s definition for my “older concept.” If he is rejecting my position simply because it is older, that is an example of the fallacy of chronological snobbery. I do not reject Shermer’s definition, though. I simply think it is too narrow. I certainly agree that intentional harm (by humans) against sentient beings is evil. I also do not think that natural disasters in themselves constitute moral evil. However, they could cause evil by harming sentient creatures. Although this would be in the category of what philosophers call physical evil, not moral evil.