This post appeared on Bart Ehrman's blog in October 2022 and led to a whole lot of discussion. Bart and some other participants in the blog became agnostic or atheist in response to the problem of suffering, so I thought I'd try to contribute to the discussion.
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Suffering, Evil, and the Range Effect
Dennis J. Folds, Ph.D.
The problem of suffering has plagued theologians for centuries, and continues to haunt thinkers today, including the prodigious progenitor of this blog. Its cousin, the problem of evil, similarly challenges religious scholars to explain how a just and loving God (JLG) could create a world in which people experience extreme suffering, especially when caused by the intentional (evil) actions of other people. Many conclude that JLG doesn’t exist, and if there is a God, it doesn’t have the attributes we wish it had. In this post I’ll argue that the experience of suffering and the perception of evil are inevitable consequences of biological consciousness, because of a psychological phenomenon called the range effect. As such, suffering and evil are insufficient reasons to reject all notions of a God. I’ll offer my own view for your consideration.
Suffering spans two categories: physical pain and emotional pain such as grief and distress. Evil also spans two categories, certain intentional actions of people, and acts of nature.
The range effect refers to the psychological tendency to perceive extremes based on the range of stimuli under consideration. A simple example: I give you a pile of 100 colored tiles to sort: you are to put only blue tiles in one bin and all other tiles in a second bin. If the starting pile has tiles across the full range of colors humans perceive, you’ll tend to include some blue-greenish tiles in the blue bin. But if the starting pile has a restricted range, with Navy blues and Carolina blues and cyan and aquamarine, and some greens, but no yellows, oranges, or reds, you’ll tend to exclude some of those blue-greenish tiles from the blue bin. The same thing happens if I ask you to judge which sounds are loud, which lights are bright, or which peppers are hot. In everyday life, we judge extremes based on the range of values experienced across our lifespan. But we do make adjustments for current and recent experiences. You may have had a Carolina reaper 25 years ago, but you can still experience a habanero as extremely hot today.
What’s the point? As biological creatures capable of experiencing physical pain, we will inevitably judge the more intense experiences of pain as “suffering”. The man who has the bad toothache while his wife is giving birth still experiences agony. It is his experiential range that shapes his judgment of extremes, no matter how much he is ridiculed by her friends.
Emotional pain follows a similar pattern, though more complex. I can’t expose you to a range of emotions in one hour the way I can give you piles of colored tiles to sort, or peppers to taste. Life experiences create a range of emotions, and some early experiences lead to extreme suffering that moderates with time. Consider the anguish of a toddler deprived of a toy, of a 14 year old girl whose haircut didn’t turn out as planned, of the 17 year old boy rejected by the prettiest girl in the world. These anguishes become less extreme in future episodes. Life continues to give us novel sources of grief: death of a parent, loss of a job, infidelity of a spouse. As we build our repertoire of experiences of emotional pain, our perception of “extreme” suffering adapts. Perhaps that’s why many senior adults can persist in the face of so much apparent loss. As the Black Knight said, “I’ve had worse!”
The capacity to experience physical pain has an obvious survival benefit: it is the primary mechanism by which we learn to avoid things that cause physical injury. We learn to try to avoid the hot stove or the sharp point or the too-heavy lift because we experience physical pain. Emotional pain, too, has survival benefit: we have social bonds with our family, our tribe, and in a sense, our possessions. The aggregation of people and their possessions into a community gives a survival edge to its members compared to a loner. When the social bonds are strained or broken, we feel emotional pain. We grieve when a community member dies, or when trust is broken, or possessions destroyed. The capacity to experience emotional pain helps us learn to try to avoid those events.
Evil is the more complex topic. I’ll summarily dismiss the so-called “evil” inferred from acts of nature. We live in a natural environment that works the way it works – there are earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and rattlesnakes. There are diseases, poisons, and accidents. Sure, if we think some sort of sentient being is scripting those things, we might judge those things as evil when visited upon us (and just, when upon our enemies). I’m more concerned with the intentional acts of people – acts that cause considerable pain and loss to other people. (I’ll ignore the mass destruction of other life forms, such as mosquitoes, as a candidate for evil.) But when one person intentionally kills, or maims, or otherwise harms another person, with no acceptable justification (such as self defense), this is evil. It results in pain and loss, and sometimes the manifestation of that pain gives pleasure to the perpetrator. How could a JLG permit such things to happen?
Sometimes the perception of evil is quite dependent on one’s perspective. A teenager may view parental restrictions on certain activities as irredeemably evil, but others may judge the infliction of such pain as justifiable. Still, though, there are acts that are so heinous that no one offers a plausible justification for them. Or, justifications accepted in the past are no longer judged valid in retrospect. Ethnic groups once lumped in with mosquitoes as legitimate targets of extermination may come to be seen as fellow human beings, and past attempts to purge them may become seen as some of history’s greatest evils.
The perception of evil, then, also has some survival benefits. It allows us to categorize some behaviors in our communities as utterly unacceptable, and to justify sanctions against those who commit them.
The range effect seems to apply to the perception of evil. If all women are covered to their ankles, displaying the lower calf may be scandalous. If most all men beat their wives, only the most extreme instances may be judged inappropriate. If all sheriffs take bribes, only those who extort extreme sums are judged evil. Perhaps the capacity to commit acts perceived as evil is an inevitable consequence of our behavioral complexity.
The fact that people suffer, some in prolonged, extreme agony caused by evil actions of others, leads some observers to conclude that God – or at least a JLG – doesn’t exist. How could a JLG create a world in which people suffer so, especially at the hands of their fellow man? I’ll stipulate that I don’t believe in the fabled JLG of our childhood, either. My core assertion, however, is that the problem of suffering and the problem of evil are insufficient grounds for atheism.
So here’s a thought experiment: our hero (let’s call him Bart) has a prolonged discussion with three of his friends about the problem of suffering and of evil. Suddenly, God appears in a whirlwind and tells Bart to put his britches on, and to prepare to answer some questions. Bart says, “So, you really do exist?”. God says, “Yes Bart, I am. I’ve been listening to your discussion and reading your work. You make some mighty good points. I tell you what – make me a list of things that occur in the world that ought not to be allowed, so that people will believe in me. Then we’ll give it a try.” So Bart and his friends draft the list, argue about it some, and finally agree. They present it to God. He looks it over, corrects some spelling errors (being a perfect being), and agrees to it. He presents Bart with a giant RESET button and allows him to press it. Voila! A new universe is spawned, a new heaven and earth appear, and humanity evolves. None of the things on Bart’s list occur. No one experiences the conditions of suffering that Bart found objectionable. But people still die. They can die from drowning, from falling off a cliff, from chronic diseases and acute conditions. Eventually a new hero appears – let’s call him Bart Prime. He and his friends conclude that a JLG cannot exist, and reluctantly embrace agnosticism or atheism. No JLG could create a world in which people suffer so, and in which they are capable of so much evil. The range effect has triumphed.
My perspective? There are two fundamental possibilities. A: This is all random fluctuations in a vacuum (real or simulated), and nothing matters. B: There is something behind this, and some things matter. As biological creatures, we are predisposed to perceive hidden causes, because they are usually there. That bush that’s shaking: probably a predator hiding behind it. That strange sound: probably something dangerous. So maybe A is true but humanity as a whole has perceived an ultimate hidden cause, whether one divine being or a pantheon of them. But B seems to be true, to me and to billions of others.
I’m a hard-core, card-carrying scientist, so I recognize two sources of authority: empirical data (human experience) and logic (human reasoning). I think the JLG is purely the product of wishful human reasoning, and is not supported by human experience (see: Job). But it seems to me that something creative is expressing itself in the world (real or simulated) in which we live. I’m content to call that creative something “God”, although other names will suffice. This God seems to drive life to emerge from non-life, multi-cellular organisms from single-cell organisms, and intelligent life from non-intelligent life. The pinnacle, so far, is intelligent life that can create and manipulate symbols (ideas, words, mathematics), and in doing so, can reason about whether God exists and what its properties might be. This capability gives rise to values, that some outcomes are better than others. Living in freedom is better than being enslaved. Allowing Jews to live with freedom and dignity is better than exterminating them in gas chambers. Girls developing normally and being educated is better than girls having their genitals mutilated and not allowed to go to school. These values are illusions if this is all random fluctuations in a vacuum.
If I examine a colored tile, I could be mistaken when I say the tile is blue. But I cannot be mistaken that it seems to me to be blue. And it seems to me that outcomes matter, that some things are better than others. And it seems to be good to debate which outcomes are better, and what actions lead to the better outcomes. I call myself a Christian humanist: it is the outcome for humanity, writ large, that is most important. We seek to reduce suffering and suppress evil experienced by people. We seek to improve physical and mental health, to promote longevity and thriving. This quest emerged from Christianity, and is largely achieved through science. Neither institution is perfect, but their combination has led to a vast improvement in the human experience. That creative force is driving us upward. It does not seek to be worshiped or appeased. Resist it if you must; I recommend embracing it.
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