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title: "Daniel Dennett on The problem of evil"
description: "Dennett argued that the distribution of suffering in the world is exactly what we would expect on naturalism and nothing like what we would expect from a benevolent designer."
canonical: https://opendoubt.com/people/daniel-dennett/on/problem-of-evil
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# Daniel Dennett on The problem of evil

> Dennett argued that the distribution of suffering in the world is exactly what we would expect on naturalism and nothing like what we would expect from a benevolent designer.

Position

# Daniel Dennett on _The problem of evil_

Argues againstPhilosopher and cognitive scientist

Dennett argued that the distribution of suffering in the world is exactly what we would expect on naturalism and nothing like what we would expect from a benevolent designer.

Dennett treated the problem of evil as straightforward evidence for naturalism rather than as a philosophical puzzle to be solved. The distribution of suffering in the world — random, indifferent, falling on the innocent and guilty alike — is precisely what we would expect if the world is governed by natural processes. It is nothing like what we would expect if it were governed by a benevolent, omnipotent being.

He was particularly critical of theodicies — attempts to explain why God permits suffering. Dennett argued that theodicies are exercises in motivated reasoning: they start with the conclusion that God is good and work backward to explain away the evidence that he is not. The 'soul-making' theodicy, the free will defence, and the 'mysterious ways' response all fail, in Dennett's view, because they are designed to protect a theory from disconfirmation rather than to follow the evidence.

Dennett connected the problem of evil to his broader argument that religion is a natural phenomenon. The existence of theodicy itself — the elaborate intellectual industry devoted to explaining why a good God permits evil — is evidence that the problem is genuinely devastating to theism. If the answer were obvious, no one would have spent two millennia searching for it.

Key quotes

> “If the word 'God' is to have any meaning, it must be possible to discover something that would count against God's existence. And the existence of gratuitous suffering is exactly such a discovery.”

Continue exploring

[

Daniel Dennett

Full profile — positions, quotes, and key moments.

](/people/daniel-dennett)[

The problem of evil

The full argument — stated fairly, then answered.

](/arguments/problem-of-evil)

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