The Theodicy Seminar
A seminar is debating whether the existence of suffering counts against the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being. Student 1 argues: suffering exists; an all-good being would prevent it if able; an all-powerful being is able; therefore no such being exists. Student 2 replies that a good being might permit suffering for a greater good we cannot see, so the argument fails. Student 3 says that reply is unfalsifiable and therefore empty. The instructor notes that the argument's first premise is uncontested and asks the class to identify exactly where the disagreement lies.
1. Reconstruct Student 1's argument formally and identify which premise Student 2 must deny.
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The argument runs: suffering exists; if an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being existed, no suffering would exist that such a being could prevent without forfeiting a greater good; an all-powerful being could prevent any suffering; therefore no such being exists. The inference is valid only if we add the suppressed premise that an all-good being would not permit suffering for a greater good it knows of.
Student 2 must therefore deny that suppressed premise, not the existence of suffering or of divine power. The reply is that permission of suffering is compatible with goodness if it serves a good that outweighs it and cannot be obtained otherwise. That is a coherent move; whether it succeeds depends on whether such goods can be specified. Student 1's argument is only as strong as the suppressed premise, and that premise is exactly what is at issue.
2. Assess Student 3's charge that the reply is unfalsifiable and therefore empty.
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The charge has force but overreaches. If any amount and distribution of suffering can be explained by appeal to an unknown greater good, the reply loses predictive and explanatory content; it accommodates every observation and therefore discriminates nothing. That is a genuine epistemic cost.
But unfalsifiability is not automatically emptiness. Some claims are not empirically testable yet still do argumentative work, for example by showing that a premise is not known to be true rather than that it is false. Student 2's reply, read modestly, is a defensive move: it blocks Student 1's inference by showing the crucial premise is contestable. Read immodestly, as a full explanation of why this suffering exists, it is empty. The class should distinguish the defensive use, which is legitimate, from the explanatory use, which invites Student 3's objection.