Wittgenstein and the Pseudo-Problem of Evil

Abstract

Theists believe that our world was created by an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. If God with such traits creates a world, we would expect that the world to have certain features. Such features should be compatible with God’s traits. We do not expect a God who is omnipotent and omniscient to create a poorly-designed world. If we believe that our world is created by God with the aforementioned traits and yet our world is poorly designed, we would either abandon our belief that our world was created by God or we would preserve our belief. If we wish to preserve our belief we would either revise the traits we attribute to him, or we would find a way to justify the co-existence of God with such traits as the creator and a poorly-designed world. In the history of philosophy one feature of our world has been subject to a great many debates, namely ‘evil’. By evil we have all the pain and sufferings that sentient beings go through. God is said to be omnibenevolent, as a result he would not want us to go through pain and suffering. He is also omniscient and omnipotent and therefore he has the knowledge and power to do so. Yet we are facing pain and suffering in this world. For the theists reconciling the existing evil in this world with God is a great challenge and atheists try to argue from evil and prove the non-existence of God. The debate between theists and atheists surrounding the problem of evil presupposes a certain conception of God. The presupposition is that God is a person who possesses a mind, will power and has a moral character. For Wittgenstein attributing personhood to God is a confusion. As a result, for Wittgenstein there can be no ‘problem of evil’ and the debates between the theists and atheists is not engaging with a real problem but a pseudo-problem. The problem of evil does not need a solution and smart arguments and counter-arguments, rather it needs therapy.