The Argument from Suffering II

Abstract

Most theists hold that God is the ground of morality, in the sense that God’s pro and con attitudes are constitutive of moral goodness and moral reprehensibility. So the theist holds that if God does not exist, then no one is morally reprehensible, no matter what he does. But the atheistic argument from the suffering of the innocent requires that it be the case that when human beings fail to prevent innocent suffering which they can easily prevent, then they are morally reprehensible. And, since the argument’s conclusion is that God does not exist, that conclusion is at odds with the envisaged premise; and so it may appear that the argument from suffering is self-undermining.