Abstract
A crucial part of William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil implies that God, like a loving parent, would ensure that every suffering person would be aware of his comforting presence. Rowe’s use of the “loving parent” analogy however fails to survive scrutiny as it implies that God maximally loves all persons. It is the argument of this paper that no one could maximally love every person; and whatever variation there is in the divine love undercuts the claim that every suffering person would be aware of the divine presence.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Rowe (2006); reprinted in William L. Rowe on Philosophy of Religion, pp. 207–220.
For additional employments of the LPA, see Rowe (1996); reprinted in William L. Rowe on Philosophy of Religion, pp. 163–186. And see Rowe (2001); reprinted in William L. Rowe on Philosophy of Religion, pp. 241–247. And see Rowe’s (2009); reprinted in William L. Rowe on Philosophy of Religion, pp. 193–206.
Presumably, the LPA is intended for human sufferers, like the “little girl” case (the “Sue case”) found in Rowe’s (1988); reprinted in William L. Rowe on Philosophy of Religion, pp. 91–132.
See “Friendly Atheism, Skeptical Theism, and the Problem of Evil” p. 89. In a 2004 interview conducted by Nick Trakakis, professor Rowe said:
God is to us, then, as loving parents are to their children. It is a pleasing analogy for sceptical theists, but it is an analogy that leads into a black hole. For what happens when children come down with serious illnesses, suffer from them, and are sometimes taken from their homes and confined to hospitals. Do their loving parents use it as an occasion to take a holiday in Bermuda? No. They make every effort to be consciously present to their suffering children, giving them special assurances of their love and concern. But countless numbers of human beings go through periods of horrendous suffering without any awareness at all of God’s being consciously present to them, loving them, and enfolding them in his everlasting arms. It is as though God has been on holiday for centuries. Indeed, this problem, ‘the hiddenness of God’, shores up whatever weaknesses may attend the evidential argument from evil. For while the limitations of human reason concerning goods that might justify a divine being in permitting the horrendous evils he obviously permits, if he exists, may leave an opening for a sceptical defence of theism, it doesn’t make much sense to think that God would take a long holiday while his creatures undergo extensive suffering and painful deaths.
See Trakakis (2004).
For deployments of the LPA as an offensive weapon against theism, see Wielenberg (2015). And see the key role the LPA plays in John Schellenberg’s Argument from Divine Hiddenness. See his book, The Hiddenness Argument: Philosophy’s new challenge to belief in God, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 39, 42, 44, 99, 103, 109.
Summa Theologica, Iae, Q 20, A. 1. See also, Summa Theologica, Iae, Q. 20, A.3.
This characterization of love is influenced by the analysis of love found in Frankfurt (2004).
One might wonder if humans can love God if identifying with the interests of the beloved are required for love. That is, how could a human know the interests of the divine? One answer to this question reminds us of the importance of revelation, or divine self-disclosure. Arguably, one way a human could learn of divine interests is via a self-disclosure by the divine.
See “The Evidential Argument from Evil: A Second Look” in The Evidential Argument from Evil, ed. D. Howard-Snyder (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 275–277; reprinted in William L. Rowe on Philosophy of Religion, pp. 176–177; where Rowe says that God “cares infinitely about the totality of each creature’s life…” and that the parental loving concern for one’s children are infinite in God. It may be that Professor Rowe asserted more here than is necessary for his argument.
On Liberty, ed. H.B. Acton (1859; London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1972), p. 125.
Does intensity of the identification play a role more critical than mere identification—wholeheartedly taking as one’s own as opposed to just taking as one’s own? It is far from clear that identifying with an interest is a degreed concept. One either identifies with an interest or does not. In any case, I set aside this worry.
Could there be interests a person should care about even though they are not among her best interests? If there could be, then understanding best interests as interests one should care about would be a necessary but not sufficient property.
Could a person be fully rational and fully informed and yet have warped or skewed desires? If so, then one’s best interests are those one would have if one’s desires were as they should be.
The problem being developed here differs from the “fungibility” objection to appraisal accounts of love (Concisely put: an appraisal account holds that love is an appreciation of the valuable qualities exemplified by one’s beloved—which seems to suggest that others could exemplify those qualities to the same or even greater degree). On the fungibility objection to appraisal accounts, see Helm (2010).
This objection is of course a variant on the problem of evil. My brief response is, well, too brief, but the limitations of space and resources confine me to a brief response.
This observation casts serious doubt on Erik Wielenberg’s premise (2) that, “if the Christian God exists, then the God-human relationship is relevantly like the parent–child relationship.” See Wielenberg (2015).
Could the divine love be equal and universal yet avoid the fungibility problem? Perhaps. Think of it like this: let the integers, 1–8, represent interests had by humans; with 1 and 2 representing best interests shared by all, and any integer above two representing an interest unique to an individual. And finally, let any odd prime represent an interest incompatible with some interest had by another. Suppose there are three individuals, X, Y & Z:
X
Y
Z
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Does this provide a model in which equality and universality are possible which avoids fungibility? One could identify with the best interests had by each individual; and one could identify with the same number of different but compatible mere interests of the three individuals, so one could identify in total with three interests of each of X and Y and Z. So, it seems that fungibility may be avoided. Notice however that this model does not allow a maximal love of any, and assumes that the best interests of each are the best interests of all.
For an extended argument on this point, see Jordan (2012).
Even with the doctrine of incarnation, there would be a time at which there are no humans. So, one might object that there is a time at which God would not maximally love any human, even given the doctrine of incarnation. This objection assumes, first, that it is appropriate to talk as if God is in time. Second, this objection may illicitly assume that one may maximally love another only if the other exists. Aquinas suggests in response to this sort of concern that "although creatures have not yet existed from eternity, except in God, yet because they have been in him from eternity, God has known them eternally in their proper natures; and for that reason has loved them…" ST, Iae, Q20, A.2.
Recall that the sense of love relevant for the LPA involved the lover having a disinterested concern to advance or promote the interests of his beloved. Could one however have a disinterested concern to advance one’s own interests? It is hard to see that one could, which suggests that a self-love is not the sense of love relevant for the LPA. On the other hand, see Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love, p. 82.
Recall the “second greatest commandment” to love one’s neighbor as yourself. This suggests that self-love is not, as such, narcissistic or otherwise problematic.
In an interesting sense, if one were to love another, completely and wholly, such that one thereby identified completely with the beloved’s interests, it might seem that this most selfless love has become a self-centered love as the interests of the beloved have become also the interests of the lover. By taking as one’s own the interests of the beloved, one is seeking to advance his own interests as well as his beloved’s. But, of course, this kind of self-love flows out of the love of another. It is not a self-love whose orbit is contained wholly within the self. And, moreover, it would not be a narcissistic love because the lover would not love himself more than he loves all others.
Frankfurt suggests that self-love may imply the love of another. See his insightful discussion of self-love on pp. 71–100 of his Reasons of Love.
While I assume that every human suffers—although the kinds, frequencies, intensities and durations of suffering greatly vary—this assumption is not necessary for the argument.
There is an interesting asymmetry regarding the LPA between skeptical theists and proponents of Rowe-style arguments: it is clear enough that the former do not need the LPA to bolster their case. As one prominent proponent of Skeptical Theism advised regarding the LPA—“you may adjust the ages and species to fit your own estimate of how close our knowledge is to omniscience.” See Wykstra (1984). So, although some skeptical theists may blanch at the example, William James’ canine vivisection case in his 1895 essay, “Is Life Worth Living?”, rather than the LPA, may provide a sufficient analogy. But it is far from clear that proponents of Rowe-style arguments have any alternative analogies or ways, other than the LPA, for blunting the challenge raised by skeptical theists.
Early versions of this paper were presented at the 2016 William L. Rowe Memorial Conference at Purdue University; and at the 2017 meeting of the Society for the Philosophy of Religion. I thank the following for their gracious comments and suggestions: Scott Coley, Scott Davison, Douglas Stalker, and Abdulkadir Tanis.
References
Frankfurt, H. G. (2004). The reasons of love (pp. 79–80). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Helm, B. W. (2010). Love, friendship, and the self (pp. 24–34). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jordan, J. (2012). The topography of divine love. Faith and Philosophy, 29(1), 53–69.
Mill, J. S. (1859). On liberty. Ed. H.B. Acton. London: J.M. Dent & Sons.
Rowe, W. (1979). The problem of evil and some varieties of atheism. American Philosophical Quarterly, 16, 335–341.
Rowe, W. (1988). Evil and theodicy. Philosophical Topics, 16, 119–132.
Rowe, W. (1996). The evidential argument from evil: A second look. In D. Howard-Snyder (Ed.), The evidential argument from evil (pp. 275–277). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Rowe, W. (2001). Skeptical theism: A response to Bergmann. Noûs, 35, 299–302.
Rowe, W. (2006). Friendly atheism, skeptical theism, and the problem of evil. International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, 59, 89.
Rowe, W. (2009). Grounds for belief aside, does evil make atheism more reasonable than theism? In W. L. Rowe (Ed.), God and the problem of evil (pp. 132–134). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Schellenberg, J. (2015). The hiddenness argument: Philosophy’s new challenge to belief in God. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Trakakis, N. (2004). Interview with William Rowe. Philosophy Now, 47, 16–18.
Trakakis, N. (Ed.). (2007). Rowe on philosophy of religion (pp. 61–67). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co.
Wielenberg, E. J. (2015). The parent–child analogy and the limits of skeptical theism. International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, 78, 301–314.
Wykstra, S. (1984). The human obstacle to evidential arguments from suffering: Avoiding the evils of ‘appearance’. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 16, 73–93.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jordan, J. The “Loving Parent” analogy. Int J Philos Relig 82, 15–28 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-017-9623-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-017-9623-4