C.S. Lewis on the self-defeating nature of the "problem of evil"

   All  arguments against the existence of God from evil flounders on the
   fact  that without God there is no objective and universal standard of
   good  and  evil.  And  if  what  we  perceive  to  be "evil" is only a
   subjective  judgment on our part, then what we perceive to be evil has
   no  objective bearing on whether God exists or not. Hence, the age-old
   problem  of  evil presupposes the existence of God, instead of being a
   refutation of it. The atheist's modus ponens,

   If evil exists, God doesn't exist
   Evil exists
   God doesn't exist,

   is countered by the theist's modus tollens,

   If God doesn't exist, evil doesn't exist
   Evil exists
   God exists

   C.S.  Lewis  expresses  this point with simplicity and clarity that is
   seldom matched:

     My  argument  against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and
     unjust.  But  how  had  I  got  this idea of just and unjust? A man
     doesn't  call  a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight
     line.  What  was  I  comparing  this universe with when I called it
     unjust?  If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to
     speak,  why  did  I,  who was supposed to be part of the show, find
     myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he
     falls into water, because man isn't a water animal: a fish wouldn't
     feel  wet.  Of  course  I could have given up my idea of justice by
     saying  it  was  nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did
     that  then  my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument
     depended  on  saying  that the world was really unjust, not that it
     just  didn't  happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very
     act  of trying to prove that God didn't exist--in other words, that
     the  whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume
     that  one  part  of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of
     sense.  Consequently  atheism  turns  out  to be too simple. If the
     whole  universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that
     it  has  no meaning: just as if there were no light in the universe
     and  therefore  no  creatures with eyes we should never know it was
     dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.

   The   preceding  quote  was  taken  from  Lewis'  book  The  Case  for
   Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 34-35.

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