This is an unpublished paper explaining how to solve the problem of evil and exploring consequences of that solution. I think it is a good example of secular theology. I’m happy to know what anyone thinks.
The Free Will Defense and the Afterlife
Abstract: I first provide a clear, persuasive version of the free will defense. I then explain how this defense requires us to reject belief in Heaven in favor of reincarnation. I consider objections to the rejection of Heaven, and explain why Heaven is morally and prudentially inferior to reincarnation as an afterlife for God to provide us with. I conclude with some thoughts on the limits religious commitments have placed on making progress in philosophical theology.
The best response to The Problem of Evil is a version of the free will defense that explains why a reality that includes the possibility of even severe suffering is justified. This response requires accepting a stance about the relative value of Heaven and Earth that is incompatible with most traditional religious views about the afterlife. If free will makes a world like ours better than a world without suffering, then an afterlife of eternal happiness would be worse than returning to this world in reincarnation. Advocates of the free will defense should therefore endorse a view of the afterlife where beings like us are endlessly reincarnated. I defend this view of the afterlife against objections that endorse a retributive view of Heaven and Hell, and against views that claim Heaven is better than reincarnation because Heaven permits a unique form of happiness through direct communion with God.
Heaven, Earth, and the Experience Machine
Robert Nozick asked us to consider the following situation. Scientists have built a machine. If you enter the machine, you will experience nothing but pleasure for every moment of your life. They can vary the experiences to make sure you don’t get bored, and if you get into the machine, you will live the same length of time as you would have if you hadn’t gone into it. However, once you enter the machine, you can never leave it. You have been offered the choice of being put into this machine tomorrow morning. Do you accept?
If you’re like most people, you don’t want to enter the machine. Most people prefer to continue to live their lives than to enter into a lifetime of pleasure. One major reason for this is that in the experience machine, although you get pleasure, you don’t get the other things that life has to offer. You don’t get real relationships, you don’t get achievement or growth, and nothing you do really matters. For beings like us, satisfaction and happiness require facing situations where we have to make choices that matter, and where there is a possibility of failure and heartache.
One important lesson to learn from this is that suffering isn’t an accidental feature of an important life. If suffering were not possible, most of the things we think of as the highest of achievements humans are capable of could not happen. Compassion cannot exist in the absence of suffering. Kindness is unnecessary. Relationships lose the need for loyalty, or a willingness to sacrifice, that draw us together. What would be the point of long-term connection in a world where we never had to depend on one another for anything? And having these things matters more to us than having pleasure does. Genuine connection and meaningful interaction and achievement are essential to a good human life, so depriving us of the conditions that render them possible would not be right.
The Problem of Evil is powerful because for any bad thing that happens, it is reasonable to wonder how a loving God could stand by and let it happen. Seeing extreme suffering and doing nothing to alleviate it when we easily could is typically a deeply immoral act. But if you keep applying this initially reasonable complaint to each bad thing that happens, you end up asking why God didn’t put us all into an experience machine. Since that has a good answer, one cannot so quickly deduce God’s non-existence from God’s failure to intervene. That said, one may still reasonably wonder why God allows so much suffering. Maybe God has to allow certain bad things to happen, but the number of them he allows could reasonably be thought to be excessive.
What would happen if God prevented at least certain really bad things from happening? On the one hand, the physical limits we face do limit some harms we can inflict. We can’t simply will others into suffering harm, or instantly destroy the galaxy. These physical limits don’t seem to negate our ability to make important choices, so some limits are compatible with morally significant human lives. So the question is, where do you draw the line?
While it’s true that physical limits don’t prevent significant choices, I don’t think the same would hold for regular acts of divine intervention. Limits created by in-the-moment intervention produce a very different psychological response than physical limits do. Physical limits are accepted as background constraints on all choices. Intervention involves thwarting the efforts we make. It is unclear what limits, beyond physical ones, we could experience while still retaining our sense that our choices matter. Any limit is likely to be taken as a sign that what is left to us isn’t really all that bad, because if it was, God would stop it. And this would make us lazier and less concerned with the outcomes of our decisions. Morally significant choices require more than the possibility of suffering, they require a belief that there isn’t a net to catch you or a parent to make sure no one goes too far. Routine interference with our choices would make any choice we make feel safe enough not to worry about, and make us feel less concerned about the suffering others experience. A policy of non-interference is required to avoid diminishing that concern, and thereby limiting the sorts of goods in life that we value.
Should God have Made Beings Like Us?
What I said above holds for beings like us. But, of course, God wasn’t limited in options for creation to beings like us or nothing. Responses to The Problem of Evil that presuppose that it is good for beings like us to exist seem, at first glance, to be cheating. A world with beings like us may permit the existence of certain types of goods that otherwise couldn’t exist. But couldn’t there be better ones with better creatures more deserving of creation?
The idea that this is the best of all possible worlds is hard to accept. It seems so easy to think of clearly better ones. If it is possible for there to be better worlds than ones where beings like us exist, then God should have made those ones instead. So, answers to The Problem of Evil that appeal to the goods that are only possible for beings like us in the presence of suffering face an obligation to explain why God chose to make a reality that includes beings like us instead of a different one.
On its face, this looks like a reasonable complaint. However, it seems that way from a rather limited conception of God’s options. If God had to choose between making our universe or making a different one, there are almost certainly other ones that could have been better. But an omnipotent being isn’t limited to creating one universe. Not only is there no reason to believe that God only created one universe, there are positive reasons to believe that God made more than one. For any possible type of universe, God has a choice of making it or not. Good universes seem to be ones God has more reason to make than not to make. So, for any given universe that actually exists, the proper question would be, would God have a reason to create a universe like this? The complaint that God should have done things differently only holds if God didn’t also do things differently. Since there is no reason to believe God is limited to a certain number of universes, there is every reason to believe God would in fact make any universe worth making.
We don’t know what the totality of creation is like. It seems, though, that an omnipotent being has a reason to make those universes that are worth making. Criticizing Him for creating this one therefore requires good reason to believe that a world like ours doesn’t meet the standard of being good enough to make. Given that certain types of beings (ones like us) prefer to live in the world than not to, and that rational beings like us prefer a life like this to empty bliss, it is unlikely that a universe filled with beings like us would be undeserving of creation. The burden of proof for advocates of The Problem of Evil is therefore much higher than they have traditionally thought. The fact that so many people value this existence is evidence that the burden is likely to be too high for them to meet.
From Free Will to Reincarnation
The concept of God as a single, omnipotent creator has traditionally been tied to Western religions. Along with this has often come a view of the afterlife where certain people are rewarded with an eternity in Heaven, and others are punished with an eternity in Hell. However, the version of the free will defense we have presented here is hard to square with such a view of the afterlife. The concept of Heaven entails that there is a way of existing that is vastly superior to the way we actually exist. The response to The Problem of Evil I offer entails that suffering is essential to the best existence humans can live. If there is regular suffering in Heaven, it certainly isn’t as people have traditionally envisioned it. If there isn’t, then it isn’t the place for us. Either way, accepting the above response to The Problem of Evil requires the rejection of Heaven.
Ending our existence, though, seems needlessly limiting to the value our existence could have. If lives like ours are worth having, then living many of them would be better than living just one. Since there is no obvious reason to limit people’s lives to one incarnation, and since incarnations in worlds with suffering and meaning are the best lives for beings like us, a loving God should create a reality where we are endlessly reincarnated. If lives are worth having, then once one has finished a life, they should be allowed to live another one. So, we have reason to think that endless reincarnation is the best possible existence for the types of beings we are.
It is worth pointing out that there are no obvious limits to reincarnation for us. God would not be limited to Earth, or even to one universe for reincarnation. Our souls don’t seem bound to locations in ways that would make world-bound reincarnation necessary. Nor would there be any obvious reason to limit experiences to those of one world over and over. In all likelihood, if reincarnation happens, we can live a vastly different life in a totally different part of creation in the next life. And there is no reason to think we didn’t exist a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Earth-bound limits of traditional views of reincarnation seem to be a product of the limits of views of those who initially created those religions, not limits of the concept of reincarnation itself.
Heaven and Retributive Justice
One reason people often believe in Heaven and Hell is that it provides a means to secure retributive justice to those who failed to get it in life. If God is concerned with justice, then He might be interested in ensuring that those who lived lives that had moral value or disvalue face consequences for their choices in life. While many views of reincarnation claim that the next life does this, there is a reasonable complaint from the perspective of retribution to such views. If we have lived more than one life, then we know that we don’t remember that life. If we are suffering because of a bad past life, this fact won’t be at all obvious to us, and so the suffering will appear unjust, and won’t really be affecting us in a way that is tied to those who we harmed or helped. In the afterlife in Heaven or Hell, it is typically assumed that one remembers their lives, and understands that their situation is a reflection of their choices in that life. This seems to be a better form of retribution, since one has a sense that what is happening to them is deserved.
While this is a point in favor of traditional views of the afterlife, there are also significant problems with these views. Most obviously, Heaven and Hell are wildly disproportionate punishments and rewards for the conduct of a single life. A life where someone sins a bit more often than they benefit others doesn’t seem to justify burning in hellfire forever. A life where you did lots that hurt people but a little more where you helped people hardly seems to show that justice to those you harmed has been satisfied by your eternal happiness. Few, if any, lives have been so good or so bad that there is not some act of sin or some act of kindness, giving an onion to one in need for example, that doesn’t offset the justification for such dramatic and ceaseless consequences.
Rather than merely suggesting that there could be a better alternative to either view of retribution that has been widely endorsed in popular religions, I will describe one here. I don’t know if this is true, but it does show that retribution does not require Heaven or Hell to satisfy the demands of justice. There are methods for dealing out justice that are far more likely to be chosen by a just God. One natural, merit-based option is viewing the impact of your life throughout the future for everyone who ever thinks of you. Suppose that, upon death, you were faced with hearing every word and every thought anyone ever did or will have about you. You see your impact on everyone in its totality. This would not be eternal. Those who make a lasting impact get a longer afterlife filled with seeing the consequences of their lives for potentially decades or even millenia. Such is the cost or reward of trying to live a life that affects so many others. Hitler may not stop facing thoughts of condemnation as long as humans exist, which seems right. But eventually, it would end when the human race does. This would cause suffering or pleasure in a measure that fits your life. The pain of seeing the times you hurt others, or missed chances, or failed to matter like you thought you did would be an appropriate cost of one’s choices that affect others. The joy you see from learning and seeing exactly how you helped others, or the good thoughts you never knew they had of you would as well. It serves the demands of justice as a natural consequence of what one has done. It is also compatible with reincarnation that doesn’t include memory of past lives, and therefore that affords you more chances to live meaningful lives, and then to see once again how those lives mattered.
Heaven and Divine Happiness:
Limbo is commonly misunderstood. It is not a halfway state of endless boredom between Heaven and Hell. It is a state of perfect natural happiness. The Catholic Church long held that unbaptized babies went there, finding Augustine’s view that they went to Hell unpalatable. The Church recently changed its mind and said they go to Heaven, but unbaptized adults who fail to be Christian could still end up there. The reason Heaven is supposed to be better than Limbo is that while Limbo is perfect natural happiness, it is not divine happiness. Those unbaptized babies get an afterlife kind of like the experience machine, but they don’t get the sheer, incomparable joy of being in the presence of God. This view of life poses another possible reason for believing in Heaven, namely that Heaven is superior to the life we would get in reincarnation because it offers a type of happiness that is fundamentally better than any other type of pleasure.
Whether or not certain pleasures could be categorically superior is an interesting question. Mill thought intellectual pleasures were categorically better than physical ones. The pleasures of reading Mill are great. There are many times I would rationally trade them for a great meal and a long massage, though. But I have two kids. As a result, I now know that some pleasures are better than others merely because of the type they are. The pleasures of parenthood are different from all the other pleasures of life. And they are of a superior quality. So, I no longer doubt that some pleasures could be of a better type than others. Mill, though, thought that comparing pleasures required knowing both completely. Since we don’t have anyone who knows what divine happiness of eternity in God’s presence is like to ask, we have to speculate.
Existence with God sounds like it could be wonderful in a way mere pleasure isn’t. That it would be better is far from obvious. If the argument defending the creation of this universe is sound, then we should think that Heaven would be ultimately dissatisfying to beings like us. What would communion with God actually be like? God would have no need of us, and Heaven would permit no suffering. But many of the greatest parts of relationships grow from our needs for one another. It could, therefore, turn out to be a rather unsatisfying situation for us to spend forever longing for a connection with a being that has no needs, and that we can do nothing for. An omnipotent being wouldn’t long for us to be with Him. A morally perfect being, though, would long for us to live good lives. The lives we live where we run into one another, help one another, cling to one another, and get to affect one another seem to me to be the ones worth experiencing most. An eternity of those would be full of things we know to be preferable to mere pleasure. An eternity with God sounds like it could be nice, but it isn’t obvious at all that it would be a better existence. Heaven would be a place where beings like us could never find fulfillment, and therefore shouldn’t want.
Another concern for the view that Heaven offers fundamentally superior types of pleasures is that if Heaven is better than Earth, then God should have simply created Heaven and let us all in there. Now, I mentioned that God has a reason to create universes worth making. So, one might think that one where people suffer for a while and live that sort of good life, and then get to go to Heaven and live a happier life, is a defensible universe to make. The big problem here is one of justice from the perspective of the individual. If a universe where beings like us could have lived better lives is possible, then any universe where beings like us needlessly suffered are ones we have good reason to complain about. God is limited to creating universes worth making. Ones where He is forced to commit universal injustice in the form of needless, life-long suffering when He could have provided a better life are not ones worth making, since they are ones that are incompatible with his responsibilities to those He creates.
Some people combine the notion of divine happiness with the concern about retribution to defend Heaven. On such a view, life is a test for determining whether or not you get to experience the highest form of happiness. If you satisfy the criteria for going to Heaven, then you get an eternity of happiness. If you don’t, then you miss out on it, or possibly experience an eternity in Hell. So, if one definitely lives a life that could be great in many ways, then one may get an even better afterlife if they did well in that life. The issue here is that the test itself seems immoral. If you are going to live forever either way, the test serves no obvious purpose. If God created us, then he should know if our nature is compatible with deserving Heaven. If it is, testing us is needless, or unfair. If our nature is compatible with deserving the highest experiences of joy, then denying them to us if we happen not to realize that potential during one life seems unjust, especially given the role of luck in our lives. So much of how people actually live is shaped by their biology and opportunities, that a failure to maximize one’s potential goodness could easily be explained away by circumstance. While, as a believer in free will, I think we could make better choices than we often do, one who gets eternal rewards for choices that were easier to make than those that others face would hardly deserve the benefit, nor would one who failed to make them, when the choices were all terrible, obviously deserve punishment, especially eternal punishment.
On the other hand, if our nature is incompatible with deserving the highest of goods, it’s not clear why God should have made us. Those who could not, or at least could not if presented with their actual lives, have earned a place in Heaven, would have a perfectly just complaint about being made. Punishing us for failing under conditions God knew would make failure all but inevitable is obviously unjust. While a general policy of non-interaction is compatible with God’s goodness, a strategy of eternal, unfixable denial of access to the greatest of all possible pleasures doesn’t seem just. If God’s non-intervention makes us able to live our best lives, then it is permissible. If it dooms many of us to never living those lives, then it doesn’t. We should think, therefore, that God permitting us to live lives incompatible with being in His presence are only defensible if being in God’s presence isn’t categorically better than living a life. If Heaven is a better existence, then God had no reason to preclude us all from existing initially and eternally in that state. And since if it was one, we would have grounds to think God treated us unjustly, we have reason to start from the assumption that a loving God wouldn’t have put us here if Heaven was better. Together, the uncertainty of the superiority of divine communion and the good reasons for believing the conditional statement that if divine communion were better, then we would have started in Heaven rather than here, should lead us to reject the superiority of Heaven.
Concluding Thoughts
When it comes to God, there is little reason to think that a history of speculation, or even of rigorous efforts to support doctrines grounded in speculation, is a better way to look at things than starting from first principles would be. Let’s start with what we know about human existence, and what a God who created a world like this for us, would have to be like. Most people who do this run into The Problem of Evil, and understandably reach the conclusion that a just God would not make a world like this one. They then give up, since they think they found the answer in atheism. Most who don’t give up are wedded to a specific religious understanding of God that already ties them to certain answers. Neither invites us to simply consider what version of theism makes the most sense.
I think one of the largest limits to plausible philosophical defenses of theism has been the restrictions philosophers have placed on themselves to ensure their philosophical view fits with their religious views. Since most theists are also advocates of specific religions, their efforts to defend theism tend to be motivated by efforts to rationally defend their religious beliefs more generally. Freedom to think through these issues in a completely unrestricted manner, though, allows one to simply put together a coherent view of God as a creator, taking into account widely recognized moral intuitions, combined with the requirement that God act justly. Such freedom is required, I believe, to restore theism as a rational position to hold. Early conceptions of God, and conceptions of God limited by insistence on sufficient fidelity to such notions, are almost certain to be wrong. Speculation is rarely reliable, and speculation about matters of this nature are far less likely to be reliable than most. We should move past these religious commitments and take seriously the possibility of a divine creator, seeking to understand what such a being could be like. Even without old confines, it’s almost certain early efforts to do so will maintain any number of errors, but at least it permits a version of theism fully grounded in a rational consideration of the evidence, rather than in the speculation of those who haven’t benefited from thousands of years of rational debate on the issue.
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