3 A Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy William Patterson S uffering has been a problem for god since the beginning. The Adam and Eve story is essentially a theodicy, a defense of god in the face of suffering. It places the blame for suffering on man, or, more accurately, woman, and her free will. God warned them not to eat the apple, so s/he is absolved of all responsibility. As the biblical scholar Bart Ehrman points out in his comprehensive examination of the subject in his book God’s Problem, different books of the Bible sometimes react to the existence of suffering in divergent ways. The Book of Job’s answer to this question—which is basically, “shut up and don’t ask questions”—differs markedly from that of other books, such as Deuteronomy which defends evil as a punishment for sin. These various answers in the Bible are mirrored in the history of the philosophy of religion. As philosophers, beginning with Epicurus in the ancient world, posed the problem of evil in continually challenging ways, theologians devised ever-evolving theodicies to demonstrate that god’s existence is not incompatible with the evil we experience in the world. Nonreligious philosophers in turn made sport of poking holes in those theodicies and demonstrating their inadequacies. In this essay, I plan to expand the size of the gaping hole that already exists in the midst of traditional theodicies by looking at the problem in a novel way, through the philosophy of John Rawls, and particularly his ideas of the original position and the veil of ignorance. The essential element of my argument is that suffering and injustice are distributed unevenly across time, gender, and ethnicity/race, which is itself unjust. These elements are all beyond the control of the sufferer and are essentially matters of chance. I did not decide to be born in the late twentieth century rather than the early sixteenth century, for example. Nor did I choose my race or gender. These things are beyond our control and are therefore morally irrelevant. Despite their moral irrelevance, these factors do play a major role in the amount of suffering one is likely to be exposed to in one’s lifetime. This is also unjust. In a just world, women would not suffer more than men simply because they are women. Nor would people suffer due to their ethnicity or generation of birth. But people do suffer more for those reasons. This fact is 64 God and Horrendous Suffering destructive to all manner of theodicies, even above and beyond whatever problems they already have (and they all have debilitating problems). In the first section of this essay, I will provide an overview of John Rawls’ philosophy of justice and his thought experiments known as the veil of ignorance and the original position. This discussion will clearly illustrate why it is unjust for morally irrelevant factors to affect the distribution of suffering. I will then move on to brief sections demonstrating that morally irrelevant factors do lead to differential experiences of suffering. Finally, I will examine several of the most prominent theodicies from the vantage point of the original position. These include the free-will theodicy, the greater good theodicy, the soul-making theodicy, and skeptical theism. Before moving on, however, we must first make clear a few definitional matters. When I use the phrase “the problem of evil,” I will be referring to the assertion that the existence of unwarranted and/or horrendous suffering is inconsistent with the existence of god. This is so because by her/his very nature, god would exclude the existence of such suffering, for the simple reason that it would be the right thing to do. By the term “evil,” I use the definition provided in the Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil: “The general concept of evil covers a wide domain and can include everything that is harmful and destructive in the world. It thus connotes all bad or nefarious actions, states of affairs, and character traits.” 1 For shorthand, I will boil this down to “suffering.” When speaking of god, I mean the Anselmian God. Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033‒1109) is credited with devising the ontological argument for the existence of god, which postulates that since god is the most perfect of all beings, s/he must exist, since existence is more perfect than non-existence. Immanuel Kant disposed of this argument in his famous Critique of Pure Reason, but Anselm’s definition of god has stood the test of time and debate. Anselm argued that god necessarily must be that which none greater can be conceived. This is so because if another being were greater than god in some way, then god would be inferior. But it is absurd to claim that there is a being superior to god. An inferior god is no god at all—the superior being would more rightly deserve that title. In order to truly be worthy of the appellation god, such an entity must be perfect. This leads to the necessary conclusion that god has at least three properties: omnipotence (all-powerful), omniscience (all-knowing), and omnibenevolence (perfect goodness). According to philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646‒1716), “The perfections of God are those of our souls, but he possesses them in boundless measure; he is an Ocean, whereof to us only drops have been granted; there is in us some power, some knowledge, some 1 64 Meister and Moser, “Introduction,” 1. Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 65 goodness, but in God they are all in their entirety.” 2 When I refer to god, I refer to a being with at least those characteristics. John Rawls, the Original Position, and the Veil of Ignorance John Rawls was a twentieth century (1921‒2002) political and ethical philosopher. He was primarily concerned with establishing the philosophical foundations of a just political order and the ethical justification of government and its policies. He updated and advanced the social contract theory that was most famously associated with Thomas Hobbes (1588‒1679) and JeanJacques Rousseau (1712‒1778). His works may then seem an odd base upon which to frame an argument from evil. I will demonstrate, however, that two key concepts from Rawls’ work equally apply to determining the justice of the world itself as they do the justice of any particular government. Looking at the distribution of suffering in the world from the original position, and through the veil of ignorance, allows us to clearly see its many injustices from an objective position—injustices that are not consistent with god’s existence. According to Rawls, “The primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation.” 3 In other words, the starting point, the point at which the ground rules are set, is the key to establishing justice. This is because “its effects are so profound and present from the start.” 4 What he calls the basic structure of society, we can call the basic structure of the world when applying this concept to the problem of evil. If god exists, how would we suppose that s/he would create the basic structure of the world? Given god’s qualities of supreme goodness, power, and knowledge, we have every reason to believe that s/he would generate those starting parameters that establish the strongest foundation for justice. God would seek to create a perfect world. And since s/he has unlimited power, s/he would be able to do so. Given our understanding that if god exists, the basic structure of the world should provide the best possible framework for good, the question becomes, how do we know the good? How do we know what to expect from the best basic structure? Rawls offers us two related solutions, the original position and the veil of ignorance. The original position is a thought experiment in which we imagine ourselves to be outside the world, prior to the laying down of the basic structure. From this position, we must negotiate with our fellow global citizens to determine what that structure should be. The 2 Leibniz, Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, 22. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 6. 4 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 7. 3 66 God and Horrendous Suffering catch is that we are behind a veil of ignorance. This veil prevents us from knowing anything about ourselves in the world. Once the basic structure has been laid down, we do not know how we will find ourselves in it. Our race, gender, nationality, social class, natural abilities and characteristics are all a mystery. The power of the conjunction of these two concepts is that it puts us in a position of equality from which to judge how we would expect the world to run if we could impose a structure of justice. From this position, the matter can be looked at from a rational, self-interested point-of-view, without the need to assume altruism or beneficence, while still resulting in an outcome that prioritizes the well-being of the least well-off and that places great emphasis on equality. As Rawls points out, “The purpose of these conditions is to represent equality between human beings as moral persons, as creatures having a conception of their good and capable of a sense of justice.” 5 Given that we do not know anything about our future position in the world, we are forced to consider the strong possibility that we may end up being among the most disadvantaged. If that were the case, in our own self-interest we would want to ensure that the basic structure limits the harms such a position would entail. Distributing advantage unevenly or unequally would be to put oneself at considerable risk and would therefore be irrational. This is especially true when it comes to aspects about ourselves which we cannot control. Again, from behind the veil of ignorance, we do not know even the most basic things about our future selves, including when or in which part of the world we will be born, or what our basic physical and social characteristics will be. From such a position, we would not choose to give such arbitrary characteristics and circumstances which are beyond our control significant influence over our lives. Nor would we desire that such characteristics should result in greater or lesser degrees of suffering for one such arbitrary group over another. As Rawls put it, “They affect men’s initial chances in life; yet they cannot possibly be justified by an appeal to the notions of merit or desert.” 6 None of these factors are morally relevant and should therefore not impact any individual’s life prospects. It should be noted that the rationality of those in the original position is an underlying assumption. This assumption is warranted, however, for several reasons. One is that any conclusions based upon irrational judgements would be irrational and, therefore, inherently lacking in grounds. A second reason is that irrational judgments about justice would lack force and could not be binding upon anyone other than the person making that judgment. Moral judgments without a rational basis cannot provide a convincing foundation for agreement or obligation. There would simply be no reason for anyone to adhere to the irrational moral judgements, whether from the original 5 6 66 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 17. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 7. Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 67 position or not. Finally, rationality is at the base of all intellectual inquiry and discovery of truth. Without a grounding in reason, any moral conclusion derived could never rise beyond the status of an arbitrary moral proclamation. Rationality is required for uncovering and demonstrating valid moral truths rather than mere moral dogmas. Though the nuances of the likely outcomes of rationally negotiating a basic structure from the original position and behind a veil of ignorance are complex, and there are likely to be disputes, especially around the margins, there are certain principles that seem clear. One such principle would be that morally arbitrary characteristics beyond our control—gender, ethnicity, nationality, time of birth, location of birth, and social class—should not materially affect our life opportunities. If one does not know in advance, for example, what gender or race one will be, it would be irrational to will that genders or ethnicities be treated differently or have better or worse life chances dependent, or even merely influenced, by those factors. People in the original position and behind a veil of ignorance would, [H]ave no incentive to suggest pointless or arbitrary principles. For example, none would urge that special privileges be given to those exactly six feet tall or born on a sunny day. Nor would anyone put forward the principle that basic rights should depend on the color of one’s skin or the texture of one’s hair. No one can tell whether such principles would be to his advantage. 7 A basic principal that emerges from this thought experiment is that each person should start off from an equal position, with equal opportunity and not be unfairly burdened or disadvantaged by any morally arbitrary and unchosen physical characteristic or circumstance. Planning a society from the original position and behind the veil leads inexorably to the principles of equal liberty and opportunity. Rawls directly addresses the issues of racism and sexism on his model: Inevitably, then, racial and sexual discrimination presupposes that some hold a favored place in the social system which they are willing to exploit to their advantage. From the standpoint of persons similarly situated in an initial situation which is fair, the principles of explicit racist doctrines are not only unjust. They are irrational. For this reason we could say that they are not moral conceptions at all, but simply means of suppression. They have no place on a reasonable list of traditional conceptions of justice. 8 7 8 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 129. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 120‒130. 68 God and Horrendous Suffering Racism and sexism are simply ruled out under any valid system of justice, and this can be clearly seen by viewing the issue from the original position and the veil of ignorance. Rawls contends that those in the original position will be most interested in securing primary goods. These are “things which it is supposed a rational man wants whatever else he wants. Regardless of what an individual’s rational plans are in detail, it is assumed that there are various things which he would prefer more of rather than less. With more of these goods men can generally be assured of greater success in carrying out their intentions and in advancing their ends, whatever these ends may be.” 9 He offers a partial list of primary goods as rights, liberties, opportunities, and wealth. “The main idea is that a person’s good is determined by what is for him the most rational long-term plan of life given reasonably favorable circumstances. A man is happy when he is more or less successfully in the way of carrying out this plan. To put it briefly, the good is the satisfaction of rational desires.” 10 Though Rawls applies his principles to a just society, it is equally applicable to the world itself. In the case of the world, however, we must start off by looking at a much broader primary good—the avoidance of suffering. Whatever life goals we may have avoiding unnecessary suffering (of any sort, but especially of the horrendous variety) is surely to be among the most important. Suffering is intrinsically something which human beings, and all living organisms with a central nervous system, seek to avoid. Therefore, the avoidance of suffering should be seen as a primary good. When judging what a just world, one created and run by god, would look like, the original position and the veil of ignorance are powerful tools. If the avoidance or minimization of suffering is a primary good, and primary goods would be distributed equitably, then in a just world these principles indicate that suffering, if for some reason not avoidable altogether, would at least be distributed equally. At the very least, they would not be distributed in correlation with morally irrelevant factors such as race, gender, or time period. A world in which suffering is not equitably distributed—like the world we find ourselves living in—would not be a just world, and therefore not one consistent with the existence of god. Inequitably distributed suffering based upon morally arbitrary characteristics strengthens the argument from evil and definitively undermines theistic belief. Unequal Suffering In this short section, I will discuss the inequality of suffering that derives from the morally irrelevant factors of ethnicity/race, gender, and time. I assume a general knowledge of history and current events which obviates the need to 9 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 79. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 79. 10 68 Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 69 exhaustively demonstrate or prove—rather than simply state—the suffering caused by racism and misogyny throughout history. I will therefore only touch on these elements very briefly before moving on to the section detailing the problems this past and continuing suffering causes for even the strongest theodicies. Ethnicity/Race: It should be obvious to anyone with the most basic knowledge of world history—and of current circumstances—that ethnicity (meaning a group of people who share a similar historical background, religion, culture, etc.) and race have played major roles in the distribution of suffering in the world. Jewish people have been persecuted throughout the history of Western civilization, most systematically by the Catholic Inquisition and the Holocaust inflicted by Nazi-ruled Germany. Native Americans were nearly exterminated in North and South America, and people of African descent were enslaved and colonialized. Surely members of these ethnic and racial groups have suffered inordinately. Even in today’s most modern societies, racial disparities persist. For example, in the United States large disparities continue to exist between whites and other racial minority groups. In a report compiled by the United States Census Bureau for the years 2004‒2006, Blacks experienced a chronic poverty rate of 8.4%, Hispanics 4.5%, and non-Hispanic whites only 1.4%. 11 The same report also found differing levels of episodic poverty: non-Hispanic whites 22.6%, Hispanics 45.8%, and Blacks 45.5%. 12 In addition to wealth disparities, American Blacks are also more likely to be victims of serious crime. Statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicate that in 2007 nearly half of homicide victims were Black, despite being only 13% of the overall population. 13 These disparities result in a reduced life expectancy for Blacks, who on average can expect six fewer years of life and more years living with chronic health problems. 14 Such statistics, in a variety of aspects of life, could fill the remainder of this chapter, and indeed entire books. Similar, and far worse, statistics can be offered for various ethnic and racial minority groups around the world. The Uighur and Tibetan communities in China, the Rohingya community in Myanmar, the Hazara community of Afghanistan, and the Tamil community in Sri Lanka all serve as sad examples of ethnically-based suffering. The existence, and indeed prevalence, of ethnic and racial suffering is too wellattested in the historical annals, and in plain view today, to be rationally disputed. 11 Anderson, Dynamics of Economic Well-being: Poverty, 2004-2006, 3. Anderson, Dynamics, 6. 13 Harrell, “Black Victims of Violent Crime,” 1. 14 Johnson, "The Place of Race in Health Disparities," 19. 12 70 God and Horrendous Suffering William Jones articulates the problem of ethnic suffering, specifically as it pertains to Black people, but also more generally, in his book Is God a White Racist? By accenting the ethnic factor I wish to call attention to that suffering which is maldistributed; it is not spread, as it were, more or less randomly and impartially over the total human race. Rather, it is concentrated in a particular ethnic group. My concern in utilizing the concept of ethnic suffering is to accentuate the fact that black suffering is balanced by white non-suffering instead of white suffering. Consequently, black suffering in particular and ethnic suffering in general raise the issue of the scandal of particularity. 15 This scandal of particularity is brought into clearer focus by analysis from the point of view of the original position and the veil of ignorance. Having no idea which ethnic group one would belong to upon being thrust into the world, it would be irrational for anyone in that position to will a society in which the distribution of suffering was based upon ethnic or racial identity. Such distribution of suffering, being arbitrary and beyond personal control, must be considered unjust. Gender: As with racial and ethnic suffering, inequitable genderbased suffering is too obvious to be doubted. Even in basic biological terms, women suffer inordinately. The suffering involved in childbirth had to be justified in the Bible by Eve’s crime of convincing Adam to take a bite of fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In many human societies throughout history, women were, and in many cases still are, viewed as the property of their husbands. They were, and are, prevented from owning property, denied educational opportunities, discriminated against in employment, disenfranchised from political power, and victimized by domestic violence. In almost all modern societies, women suffer from the effects of various forms of discrimination. A 2019 study, for example, found that in the United States, “Sizable fractions of women experience discrimination and harassment, including discrimination in health care (18 percent), equal pay/promotions (41 percent), and higher education (20 percent).” 16 In addition to economic harms, women are regularly subjected to physical and sexual violence. According to the United Nations (UN), “Worldwide, 35 per cent of women have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.” 17 One of the most horrendous 15 Jones, Is God a White Racist?, 21. SteelFisher, "Gender Discrimination in the United States,” 1442. 17 United Nations, “UN Women.” 16 70 Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 71 examples of gender-based violence is that of female infanticide. According to social scientists S. Sudha and S. Irudaya Rajan: Studies have long pointed to the unfavourable life chances of females versus males in parts of East and South Asia. This female disadvantage is particularly concentrated in infancy and childhood years, and is rooted in long-standing social patterns of preference for male children. Practices regulating the numbers of female children in a family traditionally included the post-natal methods of female infanticide, abandonment or out-adoption of girls, under-reporting of female births, and selective neglect of daughters leading to higher death rates. Lately in China and South Korea, prenatal sex determination and selective abortion of female fetuses have been increasingly implicated. 18 The UN goes on to list a host of other inequalities to which women around the world are subjected. A partial list taken from a UN website includes the facts that statistically women are less likely to participate in the labor market, have higher levels of unemployment, are paid less than men, and women farmers have less control over and ownership of their land than do men. 19 As with race and ethnicity, the evidence of gender-based suffering is overwhelming. Females, for no other reason than being females, suffer a variety of harms that are either not inflicted on males or from which males suffer to a lesser degree. This is an obvious example of inequitable suffering derived from a morally irrelevant factor. Such suffering is not what one would expect, from the original position and behind the veil of ignorance, if god— an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being—exists. It therefore adds to the already profuse evidence that god does not in fact exist. Time: During a debate with the Christian apologist Douglas Wilson, Christopher Hitchens articulated the suffering experienced by human beings in prehistoric times. Hitchens pointed out that, “In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years.” 20 One has no control over which generation of history one is born. Yet this makes a tremendous difference in one’s life chances and the degree of suffering one is likely to face. After all, human beings have been in existence for about 100,000 years but air conditioning for only about the last 75. I, for 18 Sudha and Rajan, “Female Demographic Disadvantage,” 585‒618. United Nations, “UN Women.” 20 Hitchens and Wilson, “Christopher Hitchens vs Douglas Wilson – Is Christianity Good for the World?” 19 72 God and Horrendous Suffering one, would not have wanted to live in the era before air conditioning. Of course, this is a trivial example. But many more significant examples abound: the discovery of the germ theory of disease, the advent of vaccines and antibacterial therapeutics, anesthesia, and the widespread use of sewage systems, to name a few. Someone born in the 18th century, for instance, was likely to have been subject to a variety of sufferings that have been completely eliminated in the 21st century. In fact, lengthy periods of time are not required to point to measurable differences. According to research by Janet Currie, even a span of little more than 35 years can be significant. For example, “In 1900, 39.3 percent of deaths [in the United States] were due to infectious diseases such as typhoid, while by 1936, this percentage had fallen to 17.9.” 21 Similarly, in less than two hundred years, the average life span of human beings has risen tremendously. As of 2019, Japanese women have the longest average life span in the world at 87 years. In 1840, Swedish women held that honor—but at only 46 years. 22 In addition to medical advances, and the elimination of various sufferings associated with diseases and their treatment, levels of violence have reduced considerably over time. Steven Pinker reminds us that “it is easy to forget how dangerous life used to be, how deeply brutality was once woven into the fabric of daily existence.” 23 Philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588‒ 1679) famously described life as “nasty, brutish, and short.” 24 Hobbes argued that adherence to a social contract offered at least partial amelioration of those conditions, and Pinker points to several major periods of transition in human civilization that led to substantial reductions in violence. The first was the evolution from a transitory hunting and gathering existence to an agricultural lifestyle, about five thousand years ago. This reduced raiding and feuding and resulted in about a fivefold reduction in violent death. Another major period of transition occurred between the late Middle Ages and the 20th century, during which the homicide rate in Europe dropped by between another ten and fiftyfold. 25 These statistics show that the time in which one is born undoubtedly plays a major role in the length of one’s life and the quantity and varieties of suffering to which it was likely subjected. This, like race and gender, raises a major question of equity. Imagine yourself in the original position and behind the veil of ignorance. You don’t know when in time you will enter into history. You could be born in 10,000 BCE or 2015 CE, or any other time. From this position, would you desire that there be vast differences in the distribution of 21 Currie, "Health and Residential Location," 5. Aburto, "Dynamics of Life Expectancy and Life Span Equality," 5250‒5259. 23 Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, 1. 24 Hobbes, Leviathan. 25 Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature, xxiv. 22 72 Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 73 suffering depending on when you happened to be birthed? The more rational choice would be to distribute that suffering evenly, so as to avoid the worst case scenario of being born into a time when there was a strong possibility of “dying of your teeth” before the age of 35. From a Rawlsian perspective, in a world in which god exists there is no reason to expect that someone born in 1840 should live a shorter, more suffering-infused life than someone born in 2010. The Defenseless God: How the Unequal Distribution of Suffering Undermines Theodicies God needs defending. It has been recognized for thousands of years, at least since the writing of the Bible, that the amount of suffering experienced in the world demands an explanation. For most of human history, the problem of evil has stood as a powerful challenge to theism. Left without some kind of explanation, the only rational conclusion in the face of such evils is that there is no god. The world is devoid of an overseer, and there is no such thing as cosmic justice. In a desperate and prolonged attempt to avoid these unwelcome conclusions, theists throughout the centuries have taken up their pens and set their minds to justifying, or at least explaining away, the all too apparent evil and horrendous suffering in the world. Their defenses, called theodicies, have taken many forms. Though there are enough such theodicies to fill many books, there are a handful that have been most influential and of which the others are variations of one sort or another. Here I will discuss the most prominent and widely discussed theodicies: the free-will theodicy, the greater good theodicy, the soul-making theodicy, and skeptical theism. Each of these theodicies has already been severely undermined by critics, yet each still retains supporters. I will demonstrate here that the inequitable distribution of suffering, as viewed from the Rawlsian original position and through the veil of ignorance, definitively refutes each of these positions. It must be kept in mind before we delve into specific defenses that god’s only limitations are logical contradictions. God is, by definition, allpowerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. S/he therefore does not have any limitations, other than logical ones, on the actions s/he could take to prevent evil. As long as an option is logically possible, it is open to god. For example, using the excuse that pain is a necessary stimulus to warn organisms of some harmful occurrence to their body will not do. One cannot say, for instance, that it is necessary that human beings feel pain when they put their hand in a fire in order that they will quickly learn to remove it. This is true for at least two reasons. First, because it is logically possible that some other mechanism could be devised by an all-knowing and all-powerful god to have this effect, 74 God and Horrendous Suffering such as an intuitive understanding, a non-painful mental alert, or a natural reaction. Secondly, it is logically possible that fire not be harmful to the human body at all. God could have created bodies that are impervious to fire. In order for this defense to be successful, it would have to be demonstrated that pain is logically necessary, not simply necessary under the conditions that actually obtain due to the evolutionary history of biological organisms. The Free Will Defense The free will defense boasts a long and respected pedigree and is probably the most well-known of all theodicies. The basic idea is that human choice is responsible for the evil in the world, not god. Freedom of choice is of the highest value for human beings, and such freedom is necessary for human self-fulfillment. It would itself be an evil if god were to strip people of their free will in order to prevent them from behaving badly. And so, since god cannot commit an evil, s/he is helpless before the evil willed and committed by humankind. A common analogy presented for this argument is that of a parent and child. Parents must give their children freedom to develop and cannot step in to prevent their every mistake. Just as parents must respect the autonomy of their children, so too must god respect the autonomy of humankind. Though many still cling to this theodicy as effective, its numerous defects have been pointed out by those less impressed. Its most obvious deficiency is that it does not account for natural evils, those instances of suffering that arise outside of human action. Humans, after all, are not responsible for all suffering and evil. There are diseases, natural disasters, animal predation, accidents, misfortunes, and any number of other causes of suffering. Another issue is that this argument assumes that the value of free will is so overriding that it outweighs all other evils. One must hold to the position that the free will of the murderer is of greater value than the life of his victim. This seems dubious, and evil. A third objection arises from the parent/child analogy. It is true that parents must respect the autonomy of their children to allow for their learning and growth—but only to a degree. Any parent that did not intervene when their child was about to stab a playmate in the eye with a steak knife would certainly be considered remiss. Parents have a duty and responsibility to prevent their children from causing excessive harm to themselves and others. Freedom can be both respected and limited. God could give us the freedom to do most things, but not all things. S/He could, for example, draw the line at genocide, insisting that freedom was being taken just a bit too far in such instances. Just as intervention in a child’s behavior is a duty of the child’s parents, so too for god. 74 Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 75 Despite these common objections, however, some theists remain unaffected by them and continue to accept the validity of the free will theodicy. As I will demonstrate, the maldistribution of suffering makes their position even more untenable. First is the issue of naturally-caused suffering. This problem is worsened for theists by the fact that such suffering is unequally divided across races and gender. Persons of African descent, for example, are more likely to acquire sickle-cell anemia. Another example is the high prevalence of Tay Sachs disease in Ashkenazi Jews. 26 Similarly, women contract and die from breast cancer much more frequently than men. And if we don’t accept Eve’s perfidy as being the reason for the suffering that women experience in childbirth (Gen 3:16), then that disparity remains unexplained. Though women also tend to live longer than men in most societies, so it is men who ultimately get the short end of the longevity stick. From the standpoint of the original position, everybody’s stick should be at least roughly the same length when it comes to health and longevity. It certainly should not be affected by morally arbitrary distinctions such as race, ethnicity, or gender. Historical time must also be considered. Throughout much of human history, disease was prevalent everywhere and impossible to fight against, other than with magical amulets, the spells of medicine men, and prayers. It is only within the past two centuries that modern medicine has reduced the suffering attendant with many illnesses and greatly expanded the average lifespan, at least in Western countries. Not long ago, many people, especially children, who were stricken with polio either died or were crippled. Now the disease is largely eradicated. Similarly with smallpox. Previously one of the most prevalent killers in the world, it has now been tamed. The people unlucky enough to have been born during an outbreak of polio in the 1930s, a smallpox epidemic in the 1700s, or a bout of bubonic plague in the 1500s suffered and died from those diseases through no fault of their own. Certainly, the free will theodicy has nothing to offer them by way of justification. The unequal distribution of free will itself is another way in which viewing evil from the original position undermines this theodicy. If free will is the ultimate good, so important that not even god has the moral right to interfere with it, then it should be equally available to all—it is a primary good. But this is not what we find. One of the primary aspects of disproportionate racially-based suffering has to do with the oppression of the free will of various racial/ethnic groups. Slaves, by definition, have been stripped of such freedom. In 1860, there were nearly four million enslaved Black people in the United States of America. That is four million people who were deprived of their free will because of their race, and that in only one year 26 Cooper, "Genetic Factors in Ethnic Disparities in Health," 25. 76 God and Horrendous Suffering in one place. Millions and millions more had been enslaved throughout America’s prior history and in other places. Other examples abound. Jews imprisoned in concentration camps during Hitler’s Third Reich surely did not enjoy the full extent of their free will. Nor did Native Americans forced into reservations and stripped of their traditional ways of life. Nor Tibetans who have been subjected to Chinese tyranny. Nor any other of the multitudinous ethnic/racial groups to which one could point to as having suffered oppression. Consistent with the idea that freedom is of special value, Jones points out that “to be oppressed, in the final analysis, is to suffer, and to suffer in a way that differs radically from the suffering of those who have not known oppression.” 27 Such oppression and suffering has not been distributed evenly. Rather, it has all too often been correlated with race or ethnic background. This applies not only to race but also to gender. For much of human existence, or at least of human civilization and recorded history, women have been seen as the property of their husbands. Women’s life choices have been, and continue to be, limited and restricted in comparison to those of men. For much of history—and even today in many places—women have been restricted to their homes (in some Muslim countries, for example), could not own property, had few legal rights, were restricted in their ability to acquire education or employment, had little to no political power, could not choose their own spouses, and were subservient to the husbands chosen for them by their fathers. Fully one half of humanity has had their free will largely withheld from them for most of human existence, based solely on their gender. Finally, there is the matter of time. Today, thankfully, slavery is very rare (though sadly not completely eradicated). In many, but certainly not all, places women have substantially more rights and freedom than they have at any other time in human history. But for most of human history, slavery and the oppression of women were ubiquitous. If free will is of the utmost importance, why would god allow so many people—in so unjust a distribution—to have their freedom stripped from them by others? Was Hitler’s free will more important than the free will of his millions of Jewish victims? Was the free will of the overseer more important than that of the enslaved Africans whom he oversaw? Unless one answers yes to these questions, we are left wondering why god would allow such unequal subversion of the supreme good, that of free will. From the original position and behind the veil of ignorance, a rational being would reject the notion of allowing for the restriction of free will based upon race, gender, or historical period. Such restriction is manifestly unjust. There is no logical reason that god, if s/he existed, could not have prevented the race/gender/time-based restriction of people’s free will. Nor 27 76 Jones, Is God a White Racist?, xx. Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 77 would god have allowed for a racially or gender-based distribution of natural evils, such as disease. The best, and only, rational way to make sense of the lack of divine intervention in these injustices is the recognition that god does not exist. The Greater Good Defense After free will, the next most popular defense of god is the Greater Good theodicy. This strategy aims to demonstrate that everything is, when seen in the big picture, for the good. Whatever we may each be suffering now, the outcome will be worth the pain. Just as body-builders and long-distance runners suffer through brutal workouts to enhance the health and fitness of their bodies, so too will all other sufferings ultimately result in a greater good, even if that good cannot be seen immediately. As the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121‒180) put it, “Welcome everything which happens, even if it seems harsh, because it contributes to the health of the universe and the wellfaring and well-being of Zeus. For he would not have brought this on a man unless it had been advantageous to the whole.” 28 Leibniz put the case like this, “God, being altogether good and wise, has care for everything, even so far as not to neglect one hair of our head, our confidence in him ought to be entire. And thus we should see, if we were capable of understanding him, that it is not even possible to wish for anything better (as much in general as for ourselves) than what he does.” 29 Given the ever-declining number of hairs on my head, this argument is difficult to accept at face value. Voltaire famously lampooned this argument in his work Candide through a character, Dr. Pangloss, a professor of “metaphysicotheologico-cosmolo-nigology,” who it may fairly be inferred has a certain similarity to Leibniz. After a series of horrifying adventures involving a number of tortures and other misfortunes, the following conversation occurs between Candide, the main protagonist of the book, and Dr. Pangloss: ‘Now, my dear Pangloss,’ said Candide, ‘tell me this. When you had been hanged, dissected, and beaten unmercifully, and while you were rowing at your bench, did you still think that everything in this world is for the best?’ ‘I still hold my original views,’ replied Pangloss, ‘for I am still a philosopher. It would not be proper for me to recant, especially as Leibniz cannot be wrong.’ 30 28 In Long, 180. Leibniz, Theodicy, 24. 30 Voltaire, Candide, 136. 29 78 God and Horrendous Suffering The sufferings we experience in our own daily lives, or if we’re lucky enough, only hear of, may leave us wondering at the stubbornness of Dr. Pangloss and those who, like him, believe that this world, replete with its horrendous sufferings, is the best of all possible worlds. Is childhood cancer really all for the best? Are there goods that come from it that outweigh the sufferings of the children afflicted? Does the world really need birth defects? Are there certain goods that depend upon them? One of the motivations that pushed Voltaire to write Candide was the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. That earthquake—in conjunction with the fires it generated and a subsequent tsunami—destroyed essentially the entire city of Lisbon. Was that for the best? Was it strictly—logically—necessary? The answers to these questions are self-evidently—No! The theodicy’s advocates continue to seek ways around its deficiencies, however. The child with cancer, for example, may learn resiliency, serve as an example of strength to others, and deepen the relationships of the family. Of course, the only reason one need learn resiliency is because the world is so fraught with evils and suffering. It would not be so crucial in a world in which people did not get cancer. It also seems that there are less horrendous ways to learn this lesson. Many people who have not had cancer are quite resilient. Another obvious objection is the fact that many child cancer victims do not learn resiliency, either because it weakens their resolve or—kills them. Certainly, the dead children did not achieve a greater good from their suffering. In the aftermath of such travesties, many families disintegrate rather than get closer. Even in cases where one could point to lessons learned by others or the strengthening of other peoples’ relationships, such benefits to others can never justify the unwilling suffering experienced by the victim. As Rawls says, “To do this is not to take seriously the plurality and distinctness of individuals.” 31 The Greater Good Theodicy deserved the mocking it received from Voltaire. In the face of the horrendous sufferings experienced in our world, this theodicy falls prone. Moreover, it is shown to be even weaker when one considers the inequality of suffering. Take the example of slavery in America. To accept the greater good theodicy, one would have to accept that slavery resulted either in 1) a greater good for the slaves themselves, or 2) a greater good for the world as a whole. Both are patently false. The first is so obviously false that it would be insulting even to point out why. The argument that slavery was good for the slaves themselves is patronizing and must rest on a failure to recognize the humanity of the enslaved, a failure only possible from a perspective that presupposes racism. So, I will move on without further comment, other than to say that the issue of race makes this solution even more implausible. Even if one were to 31 78 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 26. Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 79 assume slavery was good for the slave, why was it overwhelmingly Black people that needed to experience this “goodness”? The falsity of the second proposition—that white-supremacy driven slavery led to greater goods for the world as a whole—is almost equally transparent. Slavery certainly has not provided any long-term benefit to African Americans, who still lag far behind the white majority in a host of indicators of social, health, and economic well-being. The best case that could be made would be that it enriched those who enslaved them and helped advance the overall economy. But this ended in a massive war and the near total destruction of the southern economy that was built on the backs of slaves, and it is certainly immoral for one group of people to prosper due to the forced sufferings of another. Even if the sum total of good brought about by slavery had somehow surpassed that of its evils (which again, it did not), that would not justify it. Rawls rightly reminds us that such utilitarian calculations can never provide moral justification for oppression. “Each person,” he says, “possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason, justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantage enjoyed by many.” 32 This is especially true when the suffering is borne by a group of people based upon a morally arbitrary characteristic—such as race. The same points can be made about gender. Women have not reaped a “greater good” by their subjection. This is obvious. But nor even have men. Philosopher J.S. Mill pointed out the pernicious effects of the subjection of women upon the character of men in the 19th century: All the selfish propensities, the self-worship, the unjust self-preference, which exist among mankind, have their source and root in, and derive their principal nourishment from, the present constitution of the relation between men and women. Think what it is to be a boy, to grow up to manhood in the belief that without any merit or any exertion of his own, though he may be the most frivolous and empty or the most ignorant and stolid of mankind, by the mere fact of being born a male he is by right the superior of all and every one of an entire half of the human race: including probably some whose real superiority to himself he has daily or hourly occasion to feel; but even if in his whole conduct he habitually follows a woman’s guidance, still, if he is a fool, he thinks that of course she is not, and cannot be, equal in ability and judgment to himself; and if he is not a fool, he does worse—he sees that she is superior to him, and believes that, 32 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 3. 80 God and Horrendous Suffering notwithstanding her superiority, he is entitled to command and she is bound to obey. What must be the effect on his character, of this lesson? 33 The history of the oppression of women and various racial groups is unjustifiable within the context of the greater good theodicy, or by any other means. From behind the veil of ignorance, no rational person would countenance such a situation. Nor should anyone accept the idea that god, if s/he existed, would allow such injustices to flourish for hundreds of years. The situation worsens even further for the theist when time is taken into account. If slavery and the oppression of women were for the greater good, why have they been stopped? Was it a mistake to end slavery and allow women to vote? Imagine being behind the veil of ignorance and knowing that you are going to be a black woman born in Alabama, but you do not know whether it will be in 1820 or 2020. In terms of justice, should it matter? Is the date of your birth a morally relevant factor? Of course not, yet the answer to which year you would choose to be born is obvious. A black child born in Alabama in 1820 would almost certainly have far fewer life prospects than one born in 2020. The greater good theodicy cannot explain why the girl born in 1820 deserved such sharply reduced life prospects in comparison to the girl born in 2020. One could similarly ask why the women born prior to the twentieth century deserved lesser life chances than those born later who, though still suffering from discrimination, enjoyed many more freedoms. The greater good theodicy cannot adequately explain the disparity between the lives of earlier generations of women and those of today. The perspective of time also allows us to see how faulty the greater good theodicy truly is because it is so apparent that people—both those directly (women and blacks) and indirectly (everyone else) affected—are better off now than they were then. The elimination of those social injustices has created a greater good for everyone; those conditions themselves were surely evils. Unjustifiable evils. The greater good theodicy fails to explain the race, gender, and timebased disparity of suffering that is apparent presently and in the historical record. Such conditions were and are manifestly unjust and mutually exclusive with the existence of god. Skeptical Theism Skeptical theism is a more radical version of the greater good theodicy and represents a push to its outer limits. According to this view, because human beings are not omniscient, there are certain goods of which we may be unaware but of which god is knowledgeable. This would preclude human 33 80 Mill, The Subjection of Women, 80. Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 81 beings from acquiring the requisite understanding to accurately calculate the moral worth of any particular action or occurrence as human beings may not have sufficient information on which to base such a judgment. Humans should be skeptical of their own ability to judge a divinity based upon moral calculations because we do not have all of the numbers that fit into that calculation. Like the other theodicies we have seen, this one has been rebutted on decisive grounds (as demonstrated in great detail in Chapter 8 of this book). William Hasker has pointed to its inherent implausibility: “The idea that there are major sorts of goods and harms that are possible for human beings, and figure prominently in God-justifying reasons, but that are completely unknown in all human history and experience—this I believe, is something that we might countenance as at most a bare speculative possibility, but have little reason to see as being in any way plausible.” 34 Human beings may not know everything there is to know about good and evil (even after having eaten the Forbidden Fruit), but it seems implausible that we know so little that we cannot judge the most horrendous evils to indeed be evils. It seems unlikely that facts so far unknown to us would suddenly cause us, if known, to delight in the existence of leprosy, for example. An even larger problem is the moral quandary in which accepting this view would leave us. If we are really so ignorant of good and evil, how can we make any moral decisions at all? We are left completely bereft of any moral decision-making capability. We might as well kick someone when they’re down as reach out a helping hand to lift them up. For all we know, one is just as moral as the other. If we cannot make a judgment regarding the morality of gratuitously torturing an old woman for the mere pleasure of it, and consider it just as likely to be a moral good as a moral evil, then there is no reason to refrain from such behavior if that is one’s desire. Who are we to pass judgment? If we are to truly accept this view, we are left in a state of radical moral ignorance. If we cannot judge the justice of god, we cannot judge our own justice either. As Jones put it, “Once appeal is made to a plane beyond human comprehension, we enter an area where X could be non-X; that is, what appears to be malicious and dehumanizing from the human perspective could be consummate justice and love from the divine outlook. And here the concept of a demonic deity or divine racism finds fertile soil.” 35 Jones recognizes here, with the mention of divine racism, that race is a particular problem for skeptical theism, beyond the other potent arguments against it. For now, not only do skeptical theists have to convince us that various evils and horrendous sufferings are plausibly justifiable from a divine perspective, but also that their maldistribution is also justifiable. The skeptical 34 35 Hasker, "All Too Skeptical Theism," 19. Jones, Is God a White Racist?, 52. 82 God and Horrendous Suffering theist must ask us not only to suspend our disbelief about the morality and justice of slavery, for example, but also that its disproportionate application to specific racial groups was also justified. In order to accept skeptical theism, we must believe that it was right for Black people in particular to be enslaved. We must believe not only that rape and domestic violence are justifiable, but also that it is justifiable that they are overwhelmingly suffered by women. We must believe that it is right for women in particular to be raped and to be beaten by their spouses. We must believe not only that smallpox and the bubonic plague were logically necessary goods, but also that their affliction of people living in certain periods of time rather than others was right and proper. We must believe that it was right for people in 1950 to suffer from smallpox and the people of the 14th century from the Black Death, but not for the people of the 21st century to so suffer. The already implausible position of skeptical theism falls completely apart in the face of the inequality of suffering based upon race, gender, and generation. Soul-Making The final theodicy that we will consider here is the soul-making theodicy, also known as the Irenean theodicy. This theodicy has been most prominently developed by the theologian John Hick, and it essentially argues that suffering and evil are necessary for the spiritual and character development of human beings. Hick argued that human beings, as natural products of the process of evolution, are involved in continual growth. 36 It is necessary that human beings encounter hardship in order to fully develop their own autonomous understanding of morality. “The development of human personality—moral, spiritual, and intellectual—is a product of challenge and response. It does not occur in a static situation demanding no exertion and no choices.” 37 It is pain and suffering to which we owe our moral progression and the development of superior character. Without facing such challenges, we would not be forced to make moral decisions. For Hick, “That the world is a challenging and even dangerous environment (i.e., that there is natural evil), are necessary aspects of the present stage of the process through which God is gradually creating perfected finite persons.” 38 This process is a logically necessary one, because virtues and character development cannot be implanted, even by god, but instead must be earned through the passage of moral trials. The existence of pain and suffering makes this possible. Without 36 Hick, “An Irenean Theodicy,” xvii. Hick, “An Irenean Theodicy,” xxv. 38 Hick, “An Irenean Theodicy,” xxvi‒xxvii. 37 82 Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 83 them, we would forever remain morally untested and undeveloped in character. The first thing that may strike one about this argument is that if goodness of character and moral development cannot be natural elements but must be earned, then it must also have been so with god. In order to have become morally perfect, god must have suffered tremendously. Most theists would reject this idea, however, given god’s omnipotence. Even more problematic for all but process theists, this would indicate that prior to god’s suffering, s/he was morally imperfect and underdeveloped. Another problem with this theodicy is that it is simply not true that everyone who suffers comes out the other end improved by that suffering. As Mesle points out, “Obviously … people are shattered by suffering as often as they are strengthened, and harmed far more than healed.” 39 Some people do not survive their suffering. Hardly anyone considers their own death to be a self-improvement. Many such deaths occur before development can take place at all, in the cases of babies and infants, for example. The perverse outcomes of tying together the notions of suffering and moral development should also be noted. If suffering is good for development—even horrendous suffering—then it becomes a moral duty to inflict it. By making people suffer, we would be aiding them in their developmental journey. Mesle asks: What kind of environment is best for raising emotionally healthy children? Are homes filled with abuse, violence and betrayal the homes in which children can best learn sympathy, trust, and caring love? It may be true that we admire and value those persons who can emerge from such environments and find the strength to help others escape. But surely those persons will be the very first to declare that they have been deeply damaged, and that children who experience love, sympathy, self-giving and trustworthiness in their parents and friends are the most likely to become adults who are loving, sympathetic, self-giving, trusting and trustworthy. 40 Clearly there are already irredeemable problems with this theodicy. The morally arbitrary inequality of suffering that we witness in this world finalizes its rebuttal as a defense of god. As Jones argued, “Collapsing suffering into a form of spiritual pedagogy misses the impact of the maldistribution of ethnic suffering. Is this to suggest that those who suffer most in this world are somehow slower learners?” 41 Are Black people more needful of the lessons of suffering? Are women? People of the past more than 39 Mesle, John Hick’s Theodicy, 5. Mesle, John Hick’s Theodicy, 10. 41 Jones, Is God a White Racist?, 198. 40 84 God and Horrendous Suffering people of the present? This theodicy, when looked at from the perspective of the unequal distribution of suffering, becomes not only patronizing, but downright racist and sexist in its implications. The soul-making theodicy is consistent with the old imperial idea of the “great white burden,” which was the supposed duty of the Western world to “share” civilization with the rest of humankind, often justifying violent oppression and the infliction of severe suffering—all for the benefit of the sufferers, of course. Many slave owners deluded themselves into the belief that they were helping their slaves. They saw themselves as their benevolent teachers, the whip as a tool of development. This theodicy is similarly consistent with the patriarchal notion that women need direction and guidance from their husbands, sometimes by physical violence, a notion that still undergirds the prevalence of domestic abuse against women around the world. Already implausible, the soul-making theodicy is fatally undermined by the distribution of suffering. A person born in 1800 was no more inherently in need of the lessons of suffering than someone born in 2000, but was much more likely to suffer from a range of afflictions such as incurable disease, monstrous child mortality rates, and the ever-present threat of malnutrition. Nor is anyone inherently more needful of the lessons of suffering because of their race or gender. From the standpoint of the original position and from behind the veil of ignorance, the soul-making theodicy is a definitive failure. Conclusion John Rawls’ notions of the original position and veil of ignorance assist us in judging the suffering we see in the world from an objective standpoint. Much like John Loftus’s “outsider test of faith” 42 does with faith, it allows us to assess justice from an outside, objective, point of view. These thought experiments are useful in analyzing the problem of evil even if one does not accept Rawls’ larger contractarian theory. What they reveal in stark clarity is that the distribution of suffering is not what we should expect in a world designed with justice in mind. These ideas also help us to more clearly analyze the various defenses of god that seek to explain away the world’s evils. Though every theodicy proposed by theologians, both ancient and modern, has been thoroughly debunked through philosophical analysis, looking at them through the veil of ignorance and from the original position definitively undermines them. The retorts that god’s defenders levy against the critics of their theodicies are impotent when forced to explain the distribution of horrendous suffering across race, gender, and time as considered from a neutral position of analysis. 42 84 Loftus, The Outsider Test for Faith. Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 85 If William Jones is right, as he surely is, when he says that “black suffering is maldistributed, enormous, dehumanizing, and transgenerational,” 43 how can we explain this “surplus of black suffering”? 44 How can we explain the similar surplus of suffering experienced by females and by people of different generations? As we have seen in this chapter, this inequality in the affliction of evil is not consistent with the existence of god. The original position and veil of ignorance show us that considerations of justice demand an equal distribution of suffering if suffering must exist at all. The theodicies developed by apologetic theologians fail to adequately defend god even before taking the maldistribution of evil into account. But once that unjust distribution is brought into the picture, the verdict becomes even more definitive. The horrendous sufferings that plague the world, and their unjust distribution, are explicable only by the fact that we live in a natural universe that is indifferent to life and possesses no mechanisms for the imposition of justice. No one has designed the world, and certainly not an all-powerful, allknowing, and all-loving Being. The universe is without justice except that which is rendered by human beings. God does not exist. 45 43 Jones, Is God a White Racist?, 74. Jones, Is God a White Racist?, 141. 45 Thank you to my wife Jessica for her careful proof-reading and editing of this chapter. I love you Jess. 44 86 God and Horrendous Suffering Bibliography Aburto, José Manuel, Francisco Villavicencio, Ugofilippo Basellini, Søren Kjærgaard, and James W. Vaupel. “Dynamics of Life Expectancy and Life Span Equality.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 10 (2020): 5250‒5259. Anderson, Robin J., Dynamics of Economic Well-being: Poverty, 2004-2006. US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, US Census Bureau, 2011. Downloaded on 15 October 2020 from: www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-123.pdf. Cooper, Richard S. “Genetic Factors in Ethnic Disparities in Health.” Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Late Life 267 (2004). Downloaded on 14 November 2020 from: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25517/. Currie, Janet Marion. “Health and Residential Location.” In Neighborhood and Life Chances: How Place Matters in Modern America. University of Pennsylvania Press. (2011): 3‒17. Ehrman, Bart D. God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question, Why We Suffer. HarperOne. (2008). Harrell, Erika, “Black Victims of Violent Crime.” Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, August 2007. Downloaded on 15 October 2020 from: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf. Hasker, William. “All Too Skeptical Theism.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 68, no. 1‒3 (2010): 15‒29. Hick, John. “An Irenean Theodicy.” In John Hick’s Theodicy: A Process Humanist Critique. Springer. (1991). Hitchens, Christopher. “Christopher Hitchens vs Douglas Wilson – Is Christianity Good for the World?” Downloaded on 15 October 2020 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8k2pysJTXs. Johnson, Rucker C. “The Place of Race in Health Disparities: How Family Background and Neighborhood Conditions in Childhood Impact Later-Life Health.” Neighborhood and Life Chances: How Place Matters in Modern America. University of Pennsylvania Press. (2011): 18‒36. Jones, William R. Is God a White Racist? A Preamble to Black Theology. Kindle edition. Beacon Press. (1998). Leibniz, Gottfried. Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil. Kindle edition. Open Court Publishing. (1996). Loftus, John W. The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion is True. Prometheus Books. (2013). 86 Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy (Patterson) 87 Long, A.A. Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics. 2nd ed. University of California Press. (1986). Meister, Chad, and Paul K. Moser, “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Problem of Evil. Cambridge University Press. (2017). Mesle, C. Robert. John Hick’s Theodicy: A Process Humanist Critique. Springer. (1991). Mill, John Stuart. The Subjection of Women. Dover Publishing. (1997). Pinker, Steven. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Penguin Group USA. (2012). Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Revised edition. Harvard University Press. (1999). SteelFisher, Gillian K., Mary G. Findling, Sara N. Bleich, Logan S. Casey, Robert J. Blendon, John M. Benson, Justin M. Sayde, and Carolyn Miller. "Gender Discrimination in the United States: Experiences of Women." Health Services Research 54 (2019): 1442‒1453. Sudha, S. S. I. R., and S. Irudaya Rajan. "Female Demographic Disadvantage in India 1981–1991: Sex Selective Abortions and Female Infanticide." Development and Change 30, no. 3 (1999): 585‒618. United Nations. “UN Women.” Downloaded on 21 November 2020 from: https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/economicempowerment/facts-and-figures. Voltaire. Candide. John Butt (trans.). Penguin. (1947).