Divine Hiddenness & the Problem of Evil

When presented with the problem of evil – whether natural or moral – the theist can present several responses. One common response is the appeal to Divine Reasons. If atheist A says to believer B, ‘hey, if God is so good, then why is there so much evil in the world?’ B could reply, ‘well, God could have His reasons that us, as mere mortals, cannot fathom.’ This reply dates back to at least the Book of Job when Job reaps his whirlwind and God rebukes Job’s cries for a justification for his profound suffering. In that story God states, ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?’ – thereby contrasting human ignorance and weakness to Divine wisdom and omnipotence.

So, the problem is this: we experience and witness seemingly unjustified evils. A traditional example is a faun being caught in a naturally occurring forest fire, getting horribly burned, suffering agonisingly for days only to die alone the woods (E1), or a 15-year old girl in Pakistan getting shot in the head just because she went to school (E2).

Now, E1 and E2 both seem unjustified if anything is and so either E1 and E2 i) count as evidence against the existence of God, or ii) they do not.

A committed theist wouldn't easily accept (i), and thus (ii) is more likely to be accepted.

If (ii) is accepted, then it's because either because a) they are not unjustified, or b) they are not evil.

Starting with (b) first: that is a fairly unbiteable bullet. There are numerous reasons why we try to prevent such things from occurring precisely because we think them evil. If one states that killing an innocent child is not evil, then one must provide a reason for it, which is precisely what the theist is supposed to do in this case.

For a), it is presumably because God would not allow an unjustified evil and so there must be a justifying reason for it. But what reason could there be for allowing E1, E2 …. En? We have searched and not found. In fact, with regards to natural evils (like earth quakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and forest fires) we find that they are caused by the very mechanics of the world we live in. So, even if there is no Divine plan, the evils are an inevitable result of the workings of the world. 

Now, the belieber B can say, ‘hey, just because we haven’t found any does not mean that they don’t exist’. True, and this takes us to the issue of Divine Hiddenness. Perhaps God has reasons that we cannot detect or know, and to my mind, the real issue is that such undetectability would render our moral judgement completely moot.

For instance, on this position, I cannot conclude that the 2004 Indian Tsunami was evil because maybe God had reasons for allowing it. Ditto for the Holocaust or Rwandan genocide because God could have a reason that I cannot know for allowing it in the service of some greater good. Pick any evil thing and perhaps there is a reason out there that God has that we can never know about. This really is just stating (b): that these evils are not really evil. It also seems like special pleading because this is not how we act in our lives.

Weapons of the Woke

There has been a spate of robberies in Winnipeg Liquor Marts.  Winnipeg Police say there are 10-20 liquor store robberies per day.

Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries, the provincial purveyor and distributor of alcohol in Manitoba, said that despite efforts implemented in March to curb the crimes, the rate of thefts and robberies at liquor stores in Winnipeg is 'as high as it's ever been.'

People are obviously concerned. Theft and violence ought not be tolerated, and the increasing rate of the two has led to some serious discussions about public safety. This has also led some to accuse those of engaging in such discussion of.... yes. Bigotry.

Enter magazine called Canadian Dimension, 'the longest-standing voice of the left in Canada', with an article rife with tactical moral excoriation regarding the increase in liquor store robberies.

At the outset the reader is treated with a dire picture:

Winnipeg’s media outlets are salivating at the chance to create a moral panic over alleged liquor store thefts. Nearly non-stop headlines regale readers with seemingly horrific stories of brutal crimes: an old man has his hand slashed while trying to prevent a robbery, guns and pepper spray are wielded, and businesses face the 'darkest time in Winnipeg history.'

The situation is troublesome; escalating to a degree that has prompted people take photos and videos of thefts to be posted on social media. There have even been shoppers who have engaged in citizen's arrests: apprehending thieves through physical force until the police arrive.

Personally, I understand the motives of these citizens. I can see how they'd be pissed off at the idea that such belligerent and dangerous behaviour can be seen as the 'new normal' and wish to take matters into their own hands. It may not be the most prudent decision: after all, the thieves could be armed with knives or other weapons, and the risk of physical injury is real, but more often than not, the people who are engaging in the theft are half-in-the-bag themselves - as is evidenced by numerous videos.

The author of the article has a different take on the matter. According to him, 'camoed shoppers  [who] tackle suspects to the ground in a sort of bizarre and unprompted citizen’s arrests to protect bottles of liquor... [are] living out latent fantasies of racist conquest.'

To describe this as poor psychology and poor history would be an understatement. Painting these vigilantes as some illogical, quasi-militaristic, racist force whose goal is to protect liquor and carry on a resentful, vicious and 'unprompted' White Man's burden is altogether ridiculous and beneath contempt. Though, somehow, predictable.

You see, the thieves are Indigenous - not 100% of them, but enough are to warrant this racialised assessment by our author - and given this fact of the indigeneity of the culprits, the rubric for moral assessment gets all skewed since, as we're told by progressives, oppressed people cannot be held to the same standards as the rest of the moral community. To do so is to impose Western moral standards that overlook the centuries-long struggle of subaltern peoples in North America against white supremacist imperialism... or something.

Well, talk about projection. If camoed white men are persisting in racial conquest of bygone years, then what are the Indigenous thieves doing? Resisting white supremacy by engaging in low-scale, race-based class conflict? 'You steal our land, we steal your booze'? After all, violence of the under classes is often minimised or justified as responses to oppression and poverty.

What we require is a principled demarcation between acts of spontaneous defiance and political resistance, and we're not given one here. In fact, the author states that:

Staff will be best protected when these thefts are understood in the broader sociopolitical context of poverty, housing crises, and colonization, with responses geared to promoting empathy and reducing harms rather than escalating them with state violence. [italics added]

First off, no one is trying to protect the booze, per se. The employees cannot apprehend thieves for safety reasons, as well as legal ones, and thieves know this. Hence the targeting of these stores. I think that vigilantes are fed up with what they perceive as this 'new normal' and wish to intervene. This is theft, after all, and theft is a crime. As crime increases, the sense of public safety diminishes.

Secondly, what exactly does this author mean when he states that 'staff will be best protected when these thefts are understood in the broader sociopolitical context...'? Does this mean that staff would be better off if they were to interpret these thefts and robberies not as what they are - spontaneous acts of deviance - but as what this author wants them to be - permissible acts of political resistance?

I wonder what righteous cause these thieves have intended for the bottles of booze they steal once they get them to a safe place. Selling them on the black market, drinking them before going back for more, or perhaps sharing the spoils with family and friends? I don't know but I'm sure it will help the cause...

One point that stood out to me in this article was the argumentation presented in order to minimise the problem of theft.

We're treated to another gem:

What is completely ignored in all of this is basic facts. Journalists have sensationalized these robberies to the point of parody, systematically refusing to interview anyone with an evidence-based perspective on the situation. The public has been provided little information about whether the number of alleged robberies, totaling 10 to 20 per day according to the police, is particularly unusual for retail stores in general, or why it justifies the commitment of enormous financial resources to counter.

So what's 10-20 robberies? Is that really a problem or is it par for the course? C'mon guys. We need to put this into perspective. Not only do we need to keep things in perspective, we need to consider that lack of credible evidence for the cases, as well as the motivations for perpetuating inflated narratives.

OK. Let's see how they like this reasoning applied to some project they care about: campus sexual assault.

What is completely ignored in all of this is basic facts. Journalists have sensationalized these sexual assaults to the point of parody, systematically refusing to interview anyone with an evidence-based perspective on the situation. The public has been provided little information about whether the number of sexual assaults, totaling 1 in 5 women per year, according to the police, is particularly unusual for university campuses in general, or why it justifies the commitment of enormous financial resources to counter.

Doesn't sound too good. Does it?

There are obvious differences between the two examples, one being that the robberies are documented on camera, be the camera a liquor store CCTV camera feed or a cell phone video recording. A crucial issue regarding campus sexual assaults is ambiguity. It is often a 'he said, she said' scenario, or it is not reported, or it is reported much later after the event and often there is no evidence. Certainly there isn't video evidence.

There is also a similarity between the two: the concern is about safety. The problem with these thefts isn't that products are being stolen, it is the the very real threat to individual and public safety that they imply. In fact, there have been instances of pepper spray, and machetes, as well as guns or hammers, being wielded by would-be robbers.

Now, one can anticipate a response: 'most instances of theft/robbery, though threatening are not violent, and the likelihood of violence increases when bystanders try to intervene. Don't be a hero. Don't risk your life for a bottle of booze.'

This smacks of the charge of 'victim blaming' that we hear from people who decry the advice given to young women on college campuses: don't get drunk, stay with friends, do not accept drinks from strangers, don't go to a stranger's home/dorm room. In short, don't put yourself in a compromising or vulnerable position. This isn't bad advice, but it seems to be inconsistently applied.

The article also talks about entrenched racism towards Indigenous people and increased securitisation, as well as a need for increased harm reduction, education and ending austerity, but nowhere does it talk about the threat to safety that these thefts embody. 

This rhetoric is akin to the argumentation laid out against the recent implementation of security and screening at the Millennium Library in downtown Winnipeg. If you want to get in, you will be searched. This is seen as a discriminatory act that marginalises the already-marginalised members of the community, and subjects the vulnerable to dehumanising treatment.

I think it is a detriment to all who want to enter the library, but the need for safety is clear. We cannot have people shooting drugs and having sex in a public building where children read and play on the ground level floor. Are you advocates missing that point? What could the unintended consequences be? What cost are you willing to pay for the implementation of your recommendations for community outreach? What consequences are you willing to accept?

I think it necessary to extend an olive branch, though. The poor should not be demonised, or dehumanised, nor should they be romanticised. They certainly shouldn't be treated as though they are beyond moral evaluation which includes praise as well as condemnation. One should also be aware of the appropriateness of such evaluations and be aware of the self-congratulatory forms that exist on either end. 

That said, I understand what these advocates are saying. They have a position akin to the early post-9/11 arguments about how safety and security shouldn't trump individual liberty, and that we need to be a community and help each other without falling down the rabbit hole of endless suspicion, but I don't believe them. They are the same people who harp on about white supremacy, Nazism, racism, fascism, and the like. They foment discord, suspicion, and guilt. It is hard to tell if such people care about principles - they certainly don't apply them consistently. Their principles are situational: they'll wait to see the race and/or sex of those involved before they bestow judgement, and side with the member of the group deemed to be more inherently oppressed. Using their overly-educated verbiage to undermine peoples' common sense and concerns whilst twisting them to their own esoteric and abstract morality that is rooted in historical oppression, ressentiment, and utopianism. Such are the weapons of the woke. This breeds inconsistency, at best, and distrust, at worst.

In the article's final paragraph we're told: 

If journalists and politicians really care about dangers facing Winnipeggers, they would turn their attention to a lack of public housing, pedestrian deaths, and police violence itself. And if money is their primary concern, they could pay some mind to the province’s appalling low minimum wage, the fact a single family in Manitoba owns $6.6 billion in wealth, or the ever-increasing police budget that diverts funding away from public transit and community services. Until then, we can only conclude the media are consciously peddling in racist and classist fear mongering for clicks and votes.

Again we can see the big issues being found in the smaller contexts. The problem isn't theft: its poverty. The poverty comes from a lack of public housing, and wealth inequality. The pathologies expressed in belligerent acts of lower class deviance are but symptoms of larger structures that we, in some way, are responsible for.

In short, until the author's particular set of demands are met, in a way that he see fit, he'll continue to judge you to be racist and classist fear mongers. That is what this is about: demands. Not anything else.