Approximately 75 million killed in the two world wars. Six million Jews slaughtered in Nazi Germany. One million brutally killed in Pol Pot's Cambodia. multiple hundreds of thousands slain horrifically in the Rwanda Massacre. Where was the all-powerful, all-loving God in all of this?

Unknown to many, it is not the supposed scientific evidence against religion or the alleged overwhelming data supporting evolution which cause most atheists to reject God. It is the problem of evil. Or what is more properly called the evidential problem of evil; that is, the world is filled with evil, suffering and pain and a good and all-powerful God would certainly do something about it - if He really exists.

Exactly 30 years ago, philosopher William Rowe, one of the most brilliant atheists alive, published his seminal paper, "The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism". It was a tour de force in the field of philosophy of religion. Today it is not possible to have a serious academic discussion on the problem of evil without mentioning William Rowe. He posed some of the toughest questions to Christian philosophers, with which they are still grappling.

too much suffering

"A mother and her child suffering from malnutrition wait at the Kalemie hospital in Katanga province, the Democratic Republic of Congo, are shown in this September 21, 2006 file photo. Some atheists have questioned the reality of a God who would allow such suffering to take place.

Rowe says there is not only the problem of evil and suffering, but the extent and magnitude of the evil which exists. It is way beyond what a good God would need to bring about some desired good such as courage, resilience faith character, etc. There is too much gratuitous suffering - utterly senseless, utterly meaningless suffering.

Rowe's thesis in that 1979 paper was as follows: "An omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse". Rowe gives two classic cases which have been endlessly debated in the philosophical literature over the last 30 years. One is the hypothetical case of the fawn, Bambi, caught in a forest fire and dying an agonising death over several days.

The other case is the actual case of a five-year-old child, Sue, who was severely beaten, raped and strangled by her mother's live-in boyfriend.

unfortunate animal

Some say Bambi's case is particularly troubling to Christian theology. That poor unfortunate animal - which can feel pain - caught in a forest fire and roasting in bitter death - what was that for? Rowe brought that example to counter the usual Christian response to the problem of evil. That there is always some redeeming lesson, virtue and good, which comes from instances of suffering. But what about animal suffering? Rowe asks.

Does God not care about animals? Two other issues: Why make animals whose lives are dependent on killing other animals? Why build violence into nature? All that came because of the Fall, Christians retort. The very nature of animals was changed, the Christian shoots back. Indeed, Christians will go on to say that because of free will, innocent children like Sue are killed brutally. It is not God's fault. It's the fault of Adam and Eve who sinned. But the atheists have a serious question: Is it just to make people pay for the sins of others when they had nothing to do with their sinning? Is that fair? How is it fair to Sue to cause her to suffer gut-wrenchingly just to teach some lesson or to build character in others?

It is one thing for you to suffer horribly and as a result to come to a deeper dependence on God and to take away some crucial life lessons from that suffering. But for you to suffer miserably and pathetically for me to draw faith and courage, the atheists argue, is fundamentally unjust. There are many persons who suffer grievously and to no apparent benefit to them. Reacting to the adage that "whatever does not kill you make you stronger", former fundamentalist-pastor-turned-atheist scholar Bart Ehrman says in his book, God's problem: How the Bible fails to Answer out Most Important Question - Why we Suffer, "A lot of times what does not kill you completely incapacitates you, mars you for life, ruins your mental and physical well-being permanently."

Should that be just seen as God's version of collateral damage? There is so much everyday tragedy that tugs at our emotions. One pastor recently told me that 10 people, including one sister who had become a Christian that year, died in a crash while going to his ordination to the Christian ministry. Many groups of Christians have died going to conventions. Christians have been killed in churches and Christians are not exempt from everyday tragedy which afflicts ordinary sinners.

But when we hear that babies are burnt to a crisp in fires, of 80-year-old women raped, chopped up and killed, or of children being run over by massive tractors and people dying tragically on their wedding day, even many Christians experience doubt.

Centuries ago, the philosopher Epicurus posed a disturbing set of questions: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? When thence evil?" So philosophers say that if we look at the properties commonly ascribed to God in theistic philosophy, we find some contradictions. For if God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving, then why have a world with so much evil or with any at all?

The classic response, of course, has been free will. God, by not making us robots and by giving humans free, will automatically and necessarily allows for evil. In other words, you could not have free will-freedom - without the possibility of evil. If I am genuinely free, it means I am free to kill, rape and torture.

blasphemous question

If God intervenes every time an evil person is going to carry out an evil action, then this would not be a free world. The atheistic philosophers have fired back with a a number of questions: First, is it not possible to have a world with freedom, but less evil than our world actually has? In other words, is this the best possible world that God has created? (The very question is blasphemous to non-intellectual Christians.) There could be free will and evil, but there is a lot of evil which is not necessary to fulfil any good and some which is gratuitous, atheists like William Rowe maintain.

Then also what about natural evil, evil that occurs not because some human was expressing his free will, but evil caused by earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and other natural events? Why couldn't God prevent those without affecting the issue of free will?

The debate has been quite vigorous. Those who take the Bible literally about "the fool says in his heart there is no God", and assumes that atheists are necessarily fools are simply not well read. Some atheists are, no doubt, fools in our modern sense, but not all. (Of course, when the Bible uses the word, "fool", it means something much broader than being idiotic or lacking in intellectual competence. Proper interpretative tools and the Book of proverbs itself establish that.)

There is another important question: Is free will so important as to justify the enormity of suffering which has been inflected upon mankind? Another intellectually rigorous atheistic philosopher, Wes Morriston, has an incisive essay titled, 'What is So Good about Moral Freedom?: God"s Essential Goodness and the Free Will Defense', in the July 2000 issue of The Philosophical Quarterly.

A very good compendium of perspectives on this matter if evil is found in Daniel Howard-Synder's book, The Evidential Arguments from Evil. So persistent is this problem of evil that it dominates the essay count in such philosophical journals as Religious Studies and The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, two of the finest.

challenging responses

In this area of the problem of evil, the atheists have not been without serious challenge. Christian philosophers have produced some rather challenging responses. Among the most promising is what is known as sceptical theism pioneered by a first-rate Christian philosopher Stephen Wykstra. He and Christian philosophers like Peter Van Inwagen, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston and Eleanor Stump have produced some fascinating critiques of the atheists' work on the problem of evil.

The sceptical theism hypothesis basically says this: Human beings are cognitively limited and cannot know all the possible reasons why God would permit evils. There are some evils which might seem unjustifiable and absolutely irredeemable from a finite mind's point of view, but in light of our limitations, epistemic humility is advised. Some things are simply beyond our ken. Some excellent arguments have been put forward by these sceptical theists. (Wykstra has just published a lengthy paper pronouncing the requiem for Rowe's 1979 paper.)

Another first-rate atheistic mind, Theodore Drange, In his book, Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for the Non-existence of God, admits that the problem of evil apologetic against religion is not as airtight as some atheists think. This is a significant admission.

The debate rages on, as do evil and suffering.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com