The Problem of Evil and the Tale of the Twelve Officers

The Problem of Evil was never a problem for me in my believing days. I always thought it was a pretty weak argument. So bad things happen to good people. It’s too bad, but why should god come running in to save us from every bad thing that might happen? How would we have free will if we couldn’t suffer the consequences of our actions? Don’t murderers have free will too? How would we have good if we didn’t have evil? And god’s intervention would ironically prove he existed, so how would we have faith in him? Besides, life isn’t so very long when we compare it to an eternity in god’s presence. It was all a case of putting unrealistic expectations on god, who after all probably had good reasons to allow kittens to drown, children to be abused, neglected, and murdered, bombs to fall, hurricanes to destroy, viruses to kill and maim, and all the other wonderful things that work towards god’s greater glory.

And so I would walk away from the Problem of Evil, dusting off my hands and whistling, thinking the matter settled. Well done, me. What I see now was that I accepted those answers not because they were all that great, but because they allowed me to put my cognitive dissonance back to sleep so I could stay in The Bubble and keep believing for yet another week.

Of course, the temptation to accept bad ideas because you like them still holds whether you’re a theist or an atheist. So I’ve been wary of throwing myself into the PoE because, until recently, I still thought it was a weak argument. This document changed my mind: The Tale of the Twelve Officers, by Mark I. Vuletic.

It was, of course, sad to hear that Ms. K had been slowly raped and murdered by a common thug over the course of one hour and fifty-five minutes; but when I found out that the ordeal had taken place in plain sight of twelve fully-armed off-duty police officers, who ignored her terrified cries for help, and instead just watched until the act was carried to its gruesome end, I found myself facing a personal crisis. You see, the officers had all been very close friends of mine, but now I found my trust in them shaken to its core. Fortunately, I was able to talk with them afterwards, and ask them how they could have stood by and done nothing when they could so easily have saved Ms. K.

Each officer has a rationalisation for their failure to act, and what do you know — all my old friends are here! Wonderful ways to explain why an all-good and omniscient god would fail to do what any normal, compassionate, sinful human being would do in the same situation.

How do their answers sit with you, whether theist or non?