Sufficient Evidence Archive

Rosenberg makes clear that the God that he has in mind is the traditional God of theism—omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (all-present), and benevolent (all- loving). It is this traditional view of God, the Judeo-Christian concept of God, that he claims is inconsistent with the existence of suffering. Rosenberg says that suffering is unpleasant and nobody wants it; he then gives examples of suffering, such as the Holocaust, starving children, natural disasters, and other terrible diseases. Not only do humans suffer, but there is great animal suffering as well—Rosenberg references examples from the size of mass extinction events down to the stepping on a dog’s tail. The core of Rosenberg’s argument is essentially the classical argument from evil.