Is the "problem of evil" a real problem? I don't think it is, and Glenn Miller has noted here (sub-essay one, notably) that several prominent philosophers, including atheists, have come to agree. Since Miller's essay covers much of what we might say to Jacobsen here, our own response to what he says of comments by Peter Kreeft will be substantively reduced. Kreeft's chapter of course is a highly condensed response. Jacobsen I am sure is not the sort who would refuse to admit that more detailed, coherent, and substantive defenses are available elsewhere.

To begin, Jacobsen responds to Kreeft's analogy of a bear in a trap who does not realize that the person freeing him (and therefore causing greater pain the process) is in fact trying to help. The bear's knowledge and understanding is limited; likewise, human knowledge and understanding is limited, or as I might say, we lack a "long view" to see that present suffering is for the greater and later good. To this Jacobsen replies:

• "...why would God have made us so inferior to him such that, from His perspective, we are like the bear?" I find this response a little peculiar. Presumably Jacobsen is not suggesting that God could make us as omniscient as He is, by nature. But either way this is not so much as a rebuttal to Kreeft's analogy or argument as it is a complaint that we are in the position at all! In essence it is not rebutting the reason for the suffering, but objecting that we don't know the reason. I see no reason why it is a problem that we have been made without omniscience or sufficient knowledge (it is a rather subjective complaint); beyond that, we have the rational faculties to form reasonable hypotheses as to why any particular episode of suffering might be beneficial to us, or else, to be able to make use of any such experiences to improve ourselves. There is no reason to object that we are "inferior" or to ask for "more understanding" other than one's own subjective satisfaction.
• "It sounds like we are like 'pets' to God," it is also said. I wonder if Jacobsen would say the same of ancient imagery in which the king was compared to a shepherd (see here) and the people to sheep. Jacobsen says, "you'd think God would want more of a peer-level relationship." I don't "think" that at all, actually; if anything, I would think that God would want a variety of relationships of varying levels, with the lower-level relationships giving Him a greater opportunity to share His love with those who need it most. Analogous to pets? Perhaps so. I own a little dog I love a great deal. He follows me everywhere in the house, responds immediately to my commands, and is totally dependent on me. I also take delight when he learns new things on his own and responds to the care I give him. If one takes offense to being compared to a "pet" of God then perhaps one needs to turn it around: God's relationship with us is not like that of pets, but rather, our care for pets is a microcosmic reflection of God's relationship with us.
• Jacobsen says that if we are like the bear, "then God can hardly blame us if we come to conclusions consistent with our level of comprehension any more than we can blame the bear for coming to conclusions consistent with its level of comprehension." He can't? This is where Jacobsen takes Kreeft's analogy farther than it was intended. The bear obviously had no prior experience with the hunter, as we would with God. Here Kreeft's case would be developed with a positive case for the broad and positive influence of God on the lives of people, and the truth of Christianity. Of course this chapter would have been no place to re-invent that wheel, but it is enough in context to point out that Jacobsen's reply breaks down upon his attempt to take the analogy further than intended. I would also note that when Jacobsen says, "God seems to blame us for not understanding," he needs to provide more depth to substantiate this point. I know of no evidence that God "blames" anyone for any such thing, and certainly not universally; but perhaps Jacobsen can provide examples, and if he does, they should involve persons a) whose prior experience of God was not such that they should have known by reputation what God's purposes were; b) who received a direct condemnation from God for having such misdirected thoughts. His one example hearkens back to Templeton's illustration of a starving child, and Jacobsen asking why he himself must be "blamed" for concluding that God was working to the benefit of the people in question, but I presume God has not spoken to Jacobsen lately for otherwise he would not be writing Case Against Faith. Furthermore, Kreeft's bear analogy is more directed towards a general principle of toleration of suffering than it does to the specific example offered by Templeton.

Jacobsen then jumps over several pages (from 32 to 46) and restarts here:

Kreeft further discusses the issue of the mother's suffering and says, "Why doesn't he send the rain? God's answer is the Incarnation. He himself entered into all that agony, he himself bore all of the pain of this world, and that's unimaginable and shattering and even more impressive than the divine power of creating the world in the first place." Um, that's all fine and good Dr. Kreeft, but why didn't God send the rain? I'm aware of the fact that Christians believe that Jesus carried the weight of all of man's sins to the cross, and Jesus suffered in hell to pay for our sins. But why didn't God send the rain? The point I'm trying to make, obviously, is that Dr. Kreeft didn't answer the question. If God cares so much for our pain that He is willing to take on our pain Himself, why does God not simply decrease our pain?

I have to say in response that Kreeft DID answer the question -- the matter is simply that Jacobsen did not get the response he wanted: "God is intimately involved in the act of creating a world of suffering. He didn't do it -- we did it -- yet he did say, 'Let this world be.'" In other words, as I have said to Templeton in my own reply: God did do something about this situation, and He did it long ago. He gave us the sense and the ability to grow more than enough food to feed people when drought strikes. But when it gets down to tacks, most of us are just too stupid or involved in our own sinful, petty concerns to get off our duffs and take the needed steps. There's plenty of food aid coming to people like this -- but it's being used by corrupt leaders to buy limousines and air conditioned offices. Beyond this, drought and fires play a vital role in maintaining the ecological balance of our biosphere. They are also not new phenomena to us. The problems emerge not because of the drought itself, but because we don't manage our appointed stewardship correctly. It is absurd to blame God for our house burning down when we don't practice proper land management (i.e., controlled fires), especially after we have repeatedly seen other houses burn down. It is ridiculous to blame God for not stopping the drought when we know that drought regularly reoccurs as part of the ecological process, and that it is wise to prepare for such eventualities. Indeed we don't even need any particular prior experience to practice responsible stewardship. To ask God to "decrease our pain" is unwarranted -- God gave us all that was needed to keep our pain at a minimal level; what we need to do is get off our duffs and put it to use. Finally I would note that if we all followed the pattern of the early church -- collective reinforcement and provision -- no more such problems as starving persons would exist.

Now Jacobsen is aware of this sort of point, but merely waves it off later on: "...the people starving in Africa are completely unable to provide for themselves. They are completely dependant on aid or they die. But God could solve the problem, or at least mitigate it a great deal, by sending more rain. Is this really too much to ask of a compassionate, miracle-working God?" Yes, it is, quite frankly, and it is little more than childish stamping of the feet. I would seriously question whether such persons are completely dependent (no man is an island, as is often said; we are far more interdependent than we realize) and if God sends more rain, and the corrupt leaders merely steal the crops grown to feed their armies, will Jacobsen next ask why God didn't step in and stop the armies from taking the crops? Then why should God stop there? Why not demand God's touch in every level of order? God is capable of this; it is not as though He would set priorities and not be able to do one thing and not the other. And that is where the "free will" issue enters with a resounding crack. Does Jacobsen wants God constantly looking over his shoulder and stopping him before he commits some sinful act? As with Templeton's objection, this is a response that takes a too-narrow focus, presumes self-omniscience to question omniscience, and seeking only immediate release from the immediate problem with no conception of working out matters in the long term, and demanding that God only selectively interfere where His hand is desired. I know that Jacobsen and others are intelligent enough to think these things through -- they are not like the bear in this respect, but ironically they seem content to remain "bears" in their contemplative exertions!

Jacobsen asks, "...what about the child? What value did the child get out of his/her suffering? Did he/she ever have a chance to learn from it? Will it do him/her any good in heaven? Seems unlikely." That "seems" passes by with incredible speed, for one not gifted with omniscience, but let's pause for a moment rather than nestling like bears in our caves. We have said no man is an island, and what happens to woman and child does not occur in isolation. What would Jacobsen say if he were told that the child's death by starvation served as the one and only possible impetus for five other persons to not starve, or to save dozens of other people from starvation and death at a later date? What if a descendant of one of those persons went on in the year 2030 to make a stunning scientific discovery that benefited millions? What if he were told that had the child lived, it would have gone on to become the next Idi Amin, taking pointless revenge on its countrymen? A bear who wants to remain a bear in his cave is the only one who settles for saying, "[i]t seems to be just pointless suffering." Unless Jacobsen has devised a Turtledove time machine and has worked out the implications of all possible worlds, sitting at his computer second-guessing theoretical omniscience is the province of emotional, reactive outrage lacking rational basis. He has no rational argument against these points to make; emotional rhetoric like, "this really too much to ask of a compassionate, miracle-working God?" are not an answer, but a way to obfuscate the lack of an answer by appeal to the emotions. Jacobsen may call these points "ad hoc" but if they are, so likewise is his argument that any suffering was ultimately pointless.

Next Jacobsen considers Kreeft's point that "the complete elimination of evil would require the elimination of free will and the chance for true love" and that "a world without suffering appears more like hell than heaven." Here he actually goes backwards in the book (to page 42) and Kreeft's illustration of a criminal who romps about a heaven-like place where he is free to indulge his unsavory habits, and becomes bored because no one stops him from indulging himself. It is later revealed that he is actually in hell, not heaven. Jacobsen responds:

If Kreeft believes that an Earth without pain and suffering would be like hell, what exactly does Kreeft believe heaven is like? Is there evil in heaven, or no free will and no love? Do Satan, Hitler, Stalin, etc. run around heaven causing random acts of pain and suffering in heaven so that we aren't bored all the time?

Jacobsen has missed the point of Kreeft's illustration. The point is rather that the criminal (or Satan, or Hitler, or Stalin) is not stopped from what he is doing, and that is because all suffering has been withdrawn from him. Kreeft's illustration points out that suffering is often an instrument limiting our own impulses and in refining character; without it, as he says, we become "impossibly spoiled little brats". It is as I have said elsewhere in a similar vein: "If the nature of plants was changed to keep men busy and to keep his idle hands out of the devil's workshop, as the popular proverb goes, and if it is obvious that God takes steps to restrain our evil preventatively, then it is within the paradigm to understand 'natural evil' likewise as a restraining influence. It is a way to keep us busy helping each other rather than having the leisure to be depraved and as evil as we can be."

Jacobsen next turns to Kreeft's argument that without God, there is no absolute definition of what is evil or not evil. On this Jacobsen admits, "It is true that if there is no God, there is no ultimate definition of what is 'good' and what is 'evil'." But he replies:

But the fact that we have concepts "good" and "evil" does not necessarily prove there is God making such definitions. For example, there is no absolute definition of "hot". And yet, from our biological perspective, we can judge what is "hot" and what is not "hot". Similarly, "pain", if there is no God, then there is no ultimate meaning as to whether "pain" is "good" or "bad". Yet we are biologically wired to interpret "pain" as "bad".

Where Jacobsen's reply fails is in that determining "hot" and "pain" in these ways is not a means of personal interaction as it is when determining "good" or "evil". It may indeed be subjective to an extent (i.e., some may be more heat-tolerant than others) but the hot object does not know or care if it is hot; and you cannot argue with it and tell it to stop being hot and tell it why it ought not be hot. If Jacobsen takes this analogy too far, he will make good and evil merely biological and reduce accepted behavior down to a matter of "survival of the fittest" -- which in fact is what he goes on to do, saying that "our concepts of 'good' and 'evil'" are "simply conceptualizations" of certain "biological functions." What then to say to a murderer whose "biological functions" govern his "concepts" of good and evil? What to the dictator who decides that self-indulgence is "right" for him and that if he can make it with might, he is right? If his kind becomes biologically prominent, their might becomes "right". (To credit, Jacobsen pleads, "Please do not think that I'm comfortable with my assessment" and professes that he'd prefer a universal concept of good and evil. However, he claims that "if God really has defined a universal concept of 'good' and 'evil', He hasn't done a good job of communicating it to us," and refers the matter to Chapter 7. I did not find much there on this, but we will address such as we do find.)

Turning away from the suffering issue now, Jacobsen turns to a matter of free will and why God does not reveal Himself to a greater extent. Jacobsen tells us that the answer of such extended revelation violating free will "doesn't make sense to [him]" and replies:

Christians often say that if we had absolute proof of God's existence, then we really would not be free to choose or not choose Him. But I've got absolute proof that my wife exists, and this isn't a problem. I can still choose whether I want her or not. So, why is necessary for us to not have absolute proof of God's existence? And what about Satan? Satan, when he chose to rebel against God, had absolute proof of God's existence. And yet he was still free to choose to not follow God. So, again, why is it necessary for humans to not have absolute proof of God's existence?

Perhaps unwittingly, Jacobsen has oversimplified the matter. Let us put it this way. Any worthwhile revelation of God will need to do more than show that God merely exists. A sign in the sky, "I, God, exist", says little. Which God, then? What are His attributes? Is it the God of the Jews minus the Christians, the Christians as well, the Muslims, the Hindus, the little man named Elmer from Timbuktu? The matter is not simply proof that God exists, but proof of who or what He is and what He has done. Thus the comparison to Jacobsen's wife would be, would he want her, or would she want him, to have forced affections upon the other when they first met? Would he have approved of a shotgun wedding where he was dragged off in chains? There is a chance that such a relationship might become profitable someday, but I know of very few people who would want their choices forced in that matter or who would not later resent being dragged in! Is that a free and loving relationship?

That leaves the matter of Satan. Since we have no available insights into Satan's personal psychology, it's hardly cricket to hoist that example and demand an explanation, but keep in mind that ours is a perspective of "born without, needing to get in" while Satan's was a case of "born within, and defiantly got out." And in that respect, we do argue that humans are just as capable of rejecting God at a later date (see here).

Jacobsen then objects with these questions:

• "If somebody's earthly father moved to another country and left no forwarding address, but left a few clues lying around as to where to find him, would we consider this earthly father worthy of going to find?" If that "somebody" had from the very beginning told the father to get lost, and not interfere with somebody's life ever, and flagrantly violated regulations the father left (which were, actually, quite clear to anyone willing to take a little time to read and in some cases understand), who is the one with a "worthiness" problem?
• "If this human father got mad because some of his children didn't dedicate their lives to finding this guy, would we not consider this human father rather off his proverbial rocker?" Perhaps, but it does not take one's whole life "dedicated" to find. It takes very little effort, in fact, to "find" (though more to "serve" and in that respect, one would be insane not to serve one who had given the tremendous gift of eternal life).
• "Is not the love of a child for a father that does not hide, and directly cares for the child actually more rational than loving the father that runs and hides and gets mad if you don't find him?" In all of this it is pretended that the child was as much as just sitting around playing tiddlywinks when Dad got up on his own accord and went deadbeat. That is not the case, and Jacobsen's analogy is therefore a flawed premise, much akin to Kreeft's example of the impossible spoiled brat.

On the point where Kreeft calls atheism "snobbish" and "elitist" because "more than 90% of all human beings that have ever lived believe in God," Jacobsen replies that "beliefs that were held as unquestionable by the majority have been proven false." While that is so, it would have been more relevant had Jacobsen then gone on to deal with Kreeft's other works where he adduced 20 positive arguments for God's existence. That Kreeft here casts lots with Buddhist, Hindus and pagans is of no relevance -- versus atheism, all of these stand together and Jacobsen should be more civil than to imply that Kreeft is somehow compromising when he joins forces with these others. (There are items where Jacobsen does apparently deal with some such arguments, but these do run out of our scope.)

In close, Jacobsen declares that he is "reticent to quote scripture. As soon as I do, someone will claim that I'm quoting out of context, or using a translation that doesn't accurately represent the original words, etc. And since I'm not an expert at biblical interpretation, I'm really not qualified to debate such a line of argument." This proves to be self-fulfilling. We are told that:

Kreeft insists that God is all-good, and only created the opportunity for evil. But there are at least a few Bible quotes that seem to say that God in fact does evil: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things (Isaiah 45:7 KJV) Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. (1 Samuel 16:14 NIV)

Yes, this is an old chestnut. In both verses the word "evil" is ra. While this word does indicate moral evil in some places, as Kreeft uses the word "evil," it also means "adversity" and words of similar nature. In Isaiah, note the antithesis in the first part of the verse from Isaiah: light/darkness. The second part of the verse must also be therefore reckoned as an antithesis. The word we translate "prosperity" is a familiar one: shalom. We commonly translate this word "peace" - but it is NEVER used to indicate moral goodness, the antithesis of moral evil! We must therefore translate ra in terms of its specified antithesis, and that is why it is thoroughly proper to give it the meaning of calamity/disaster/adversity here. The spirit against Saul is likewise an adversarial one -- in both cases, ra is implied to be a restraining influence, an adversarial influence, on someone's moral evil. If anything these verses illustrate Kreeft's point about the criminal in the heaven-like hell and the need for "natural evil" or suffering as a restraining influence.

In close, Jacobsen politely wonders why there was no discussion of Satan in the book or this chapter, but like any author Strobel had to pick and choose what would fit and what was in highest demand. Thus ends the comments.