IMPORTANT POINTS
Evidentialist Argument Against God
1. Evidentialist Epistemic Principle
A belief is epistemically justified only if it is supported by adequate evidence.
This does not assume evidence must be scientific; only that it must be sufficiently strong, reliable, and proportionate to the claim.
2. Proportionality of Evidence for Huge Important Claims
The more metaphysically significant a claim is (e.g., the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good deity), the stronger the evidence required to rationally affirm it. This avoids fallacies such as special pleading or double standards.
3. Assessment of Currently Available Evidence
Observing the actual body of available evidence (testimony, religious experiences, philosophical arguments, historical texts, etc.), evidentialists argue that none of it meets the required evidential standard.
This is an evaluative claim, not an assertion of impossibility or a dismissal of all evidence a priori.
4. Asymmetry Between Positive and Negative Evidence
If a claim lacks sufficient positive evidence, one is justified in withholding belief. This is not the same as asserting the claim is false; it is simply adopting a doxastic attitude consistent with evidential standards. This avoids the argument from ignorance fallacy.
5. Problem of Divine Hiddenness (Optional Evidentialist Support)
If a perfect God existed and wanted humans to know Him, then clear, universally accessible evidence of such a God would reasonably be expected. The absence of such evidence is prima facie evidence against that God’s existence. This premise does not assume that God must act in a specific way; it relies on the definition of a perfectly loving, truth-desiring deity.
6. Problem of Evil (Optional Evidentialist Support)
The presence of apparently unjustified suffering counts as evidentially disconfirming data for a perfectly good, omnipotent God. The argument does not assume that all suffering is gratuitous; it only points to cases that appear physiologically, morally, or logically unnecessary.
7. Rational Conclusion Under Evidentialism
Given (a) the high evidential demand of the God-claim, and
(b) the currently insufficient evidence to meet that demand,
it is epistemically rational for an evidentialist to either:
Withhold belief (suspension of judgment), or
Disbelieve the claim (weak atheism), depending on the strength and direction of disconfirming evidence.
8. Clarification: No Universal Negative Claim
Evidentialism does not claim to have disproved God.
It states only that, based on the evidence currently available, belief in God is not epistemically justified. This avoids the fallacy of claiming to "prove a negative."
9. Commitment to Revisability
Evidentialism maintains that if new, strong evidence for God emerged, belief would become justified. This ensures the position is not dogmatic and avoids the fallacy of closed-mindedness.
MICHAEL TOOLEY
The philosopher Michael Tooley has argued that an all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing God is extremely unlikely to exist given the character and distribution of suffering in the world. His position is known as an evidential argument from evil: it does not claim that the existence of evil logically contradicts the existence of God, but that the types of suffering we observe make such a God improbable. This contrasts with the logical problem of evil, which holds that evil and a morally perfect, omnipotent, omniscient God cannot possibly co-exist. The evidential argument instead concludes that even if coexistence is logically possible, it is not supported by what we actually observe.
Suffering—especially suffering that is extreme, purposeless, or resistant to any morally adequate explanation—functions as evidence against a loving deity. Even if it is not decisive proof, it counts strongly against the hypothesis that reality is governed by a morally perfect being. Cases of intense, prolonged, or developmentally useless suffering make disbelief reasonable, and atheism appears compassionate insofar as it acknowledges the full weight of such suffering without minimizing it.
Tooley emphasises that some sufferings are particularly damaging to the theistic hypothesis. A person who is harmless, mentally ill, and perpetually tormented by terrifying hallucinations does not grow morally from that experience and is incapable of benefiting others through it. The suffering is not educational, transformative, or redemptive. The theist may reply that God has unknown purposes, but this appeal to mystery cannot be extended indefinitely. If it is used to justify any and every horror, it becomes ethically empty: it removes all moral constraints on what may be attributed to divine love and benevolence.
Many Christians argue that humans perceive only a tiny fraction of the total picture and therefore cannot judge whether suffering is justified. They propose that demanding an explanation is premature, like a child trying to assess a surgeon’s complex medical decisions. The difficulty with this response is that it places blame on the moral judgment of those who find suffering incompatible with divine goodness. If these people are mistaken, their error arises precisely because the world appears to them as if a loving God is unlikely. A perfectly loving God would not reasonably allow the world to appear this way to sincere and morally serious observers.
Tooley also notes that the absence of a clear divine explanation for extreme suffering is itself morally troubling. If God exists and is perfectly loving, human beings—who bear the full burden of pain—have a reasonable right to understand why such suffering is allowed. Religious traditions propose that God permits evil to improve human character or to cultivate virtues such as compassion, endurance, or humility. Yet if these virtues are genuinely good, then the uncomplicated elimination of suffering—such as eradicating cancer—would itself be a moral good, whether achieved by nature or intentional action. If it is good for natural processes to destroy cancer, it should also be good for God to do so.
Tooley further argues that the supposed “soul-making” purpose of suffering is implausible. Human moral development is fragile, inconsistent, and vulnerable to corruption. If God’s plan depends on suffering making us better people, it is a plan with a high likelihood of failure. A perfectly good and wise God could design a world in which moral truths are clearer and where the path to virtue is not so easily derailed by ignorance, trauma, or psychological limitation. The actual world, however, is extraordinarily complicated, often obscuring moral clarity rather than illuminating it.
The result, Tooley concludes, is that the existence of a perfectly good God is highly improbable. It is not necessarily contradictory, but it is hard to reconcile with the scale and variety of suffering in the world. Worshipping such a God becomes morally questionable: it is ethically troubling to revere a being whose reasons for allowing severe, innocent suffering are unknown and whose alleged purposes cannot be independently tested or confirmed.
A further issue arises: even if a God exists, the God worshipped by religions is a human construct. Believers worship the God as they conceive Him, not necessarily as such a being would truly be. There is no reliable way to determine whether a person’s conception matches the actual nature of God, if God exists at all. Thus many religious affirmations about God's will in cases of extreme suffering—for example, claiming that a child’s agony is part of God’s loving plan—are not only epistemically unwarranted but morally inappropriate.
Some religious thinkers reply that if God does not exist, then moral concepts like justice and goodness lose their foundation, and therefore we cannot use suffering as evidence against God. But this argument is flawed. Many people behave morally without referencing divine command, and moral reasoning does not collapse simply because God is not assumed. Moreover, the argument implies that even a universe filled exclusively with extreme, unending suffering would not count against God’s existence. This view effectively renders suffering morally irrelevant in the assessment of God’s reality, which is ethically unacceptable.
While religion attempts to reconcile God’s goodness with the existence of evil, such accounts are speculative. Unless one has full knowledge of reality—including the unseen consequences of every instance of suffering—one cannot justifiably claim that God is right to allow it. These are evidential questions, not matters to be settled by theological speculation. Theoretical possibilities do not license confident belief in a perfectly good God, especially when the observable evidence points strongly in the opposite direction.
In the end, the evidential argument holds that suffering probably indicates the absence of a loving God. Suffering functions as a witness against divine benevolence, even if not conclusive disproof. Just as empirical evidence can justify a verdict even when strict logical proof is impossible, the evidence of suffering justifies rejecting the claim that God loves humankind. Unless one can overturn this evidence with stronger evidence to the contrary—which has not been done—its force must be taken seriously.
Thus, while suffering may not logically contradict the existence of a perfectly good God, it remains strong, undefeated evidence against that claim. And when evidence overwhelmingly points one way, it is rational—and morally responsible—to accept what it indicates.