My anthology God and Horrendous Suffering (2026) is my last book. To get a copy of it click here. Other important links you can follow include a written debate I had on this issue with Dr. Don McIntosh at The Secular Web, plus a video on YouTube by Michael Maletin, as narrated by Seth Andrews. It has gained some fantastic blurbs!
With this anthology I have written, co-written, edited, and co-edited enough books on enough topics that, taken as a whole, they can be compared to a small encyclopedia, addressing all of the crucially important issues Christians must face when honestly considering the truth of their faith.
I’m very grateful for the authors who have written chapters for my books, along with those who wrote the forewords and blurbs. I’m also very grateful to my readers for their encouragement over the years, and their recommendations of my books to others.
There are even translations of my books. The one on the left is an Arabic translation of The Case against Miracles--translated as Essays on Miracles. Arabic is a Semitic language (related to Hebrew). The other one is a Persian translation of Why I Became an Atheist, which is an Indo-European language (related to English and French). A Korean translation of a third book is pictured in the comments.
The first edition of God and Horrendous Suffering was published in 2021 by the Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR), which was headed up by Darren Slade. We were finalizing a 2nd edition when he abruptly put a halt to it, defaulting on his contracts with his authors, and releasing them back to us. [If you're a published author with GRCC you too are released from your book contract!]
I don't know the facts of his case except to say his first parole hearing is set for November 2027, and I wish him well.
On April 21st, of 2024 Slade wrote this on his Facebook wall:
At least 1 in 4 men are the victims of domestic violence. Oftentimes all a woman has to do is claim abuse and both the police and society will believe her. It is has long been expected that women will scream, yell, throw things, punch walls, slap, claw, and taunt their partners. Men are expected just to take it because they’re men. I speak up for men because I'm the victim of everything I just listed above ... and nobody spoke up for me.
Note to self: Lesson
learned. Don't get into a fight with an ex-wife who is a police officer
over custody/visitation rights. Seriously, I know what it's like to be
with a verbally abusive woman who unsuccessfully provokes me to hit her, so I can empathize.
Now back to the book. Having
the same publisher put out a 2nd edition of a book is difficult. I got
lucky one time. My first book “Why I Became an Atheist”, first published
by Prometheus Books in 2008, was revised by that same publisher in
2012. It’s a book James Sterba describes as “unsurpassable.” Eddie
Tabash, who debated Richard Swinburne, and chairs the Board of Directors
for the Center for Inquiry, buys up copies just to hand them out!
[Sorry, I’m just informing readers about them. Don’t shoot me I’m just the
messenger! ;-)] But trying to get a book published that was previously
published by a different publisher has proven to be insurmountable.
Unfortunately, four of my previous publishers didn’t show an interest.
This book contains a few new chapters. Dr. James Sterba published an argument from horrendous suffering that logically proves the theistic God cannot exist! Another fine addition is a chapter by Dr. David Madison on World War I. I published Don McIntosh's chapter on the problem of evil, along with my response. I also wrote a chapter on The Emotional Problem of Evil. It's the only full length chapter on it I know.
I'm extremely happy with the authors of this anthology and their chapters! Together we've made a difference. I could not have done this without them. I am deeply in their debt.
As it stands, every remaining author was given the chance to update and revise their chapters. Their revisions make this book even better. I revised and updated all of my chapters. I also sought to use a more civil tone, with less harsh rhetoric, and better ways to say things.
Table of Contents:
Contents
Preface
Foreword by Stephen Law
Previous Praise
An Introduction by John W. Loftus
Part 1 A Debate on God and Horrendous Suffering
1. The Problem of Horrendous Suffering, by John W. Loftus
2. Horrendous Evil and Christian Theism, by Don McIntosh
3. McIntosh and Horrendous Suffering by John W. Loftus
Part 2 Two Kinds of Problems
4. The Emotional Problem of Evil, by John W. Loftus
5. The Return of the Logical Problem of Evil, by James Sterba
Part 3 Concrete Evidential Problems
6. The Problem of Animal Suffering, by John W. Loftus
7. The Problem of Childhood Torture, by Darren Slade
8. The Problem of World War I, by David Madison
9. The Problem of the Holocaust, by Vitaly Malkin
Part 4 The Abject Failure of Theodicies
10. On Making Excuses for God, by John W. Loftus
11. A Rawlsian Approach to Theodicy, by William Patterson
12. Swinburne vs Swinburne, by N.N. Trakakis
13. Refuting Skeptical Theism, by David Kyle Johnson
Part 5 Horrendous Suffering Among Religious Sects
14. The Terrible Calvinist God, by John W. Loftus
15. The Thomistic Solution to Evil Dissolved, by Gunther Laird
16. Falsifying Buddhism, Karma and Rebirth, by Mark Gura
17. Why Evil is a Minor Problem for Islam, by Taner Edis
Part 6 Horrendous Suffering in Theology and Practice
18. God: Incompetent, Ignorant, and Inept, by John W. Loftus
19. Supernatural Evil, by Dan Barker
20. Biblical Horror Tales, by David Madison
21. The Bible and Horrendous Suffering, by David Madison
22. Christian Nationalism is Criminogenic, by Elicka Sparks
23. The Rise and Reign of Christianity, by Michael Paulkovich
Epilogue: The Journey of a Christian Zealot, by Dale O’Neal
About the Contributors
Book Title: My original suggested title was The Incompatibility of God and Horrendous Suffering. Darren Slade convinced me to drop the first three words. As such, it leaves the potential reader wondering what we conclude, at least on first sight.
Authors & Chapters: It was a pleasant surprise that the first edition was accepted for publication before I had many authors and specific chapters. It was based on the quality of my earlier books, I was told. That was nice! I was offered the possibility for a call for papers, but I didn't need it.
Vitaly Malkin: Malkin gave me permission to choose an excerpt from his excellent book, Dangerous Illusions for his chapter, The Problem of the Jewish Holocaust. So I did, making a few edits along the way. But when it came to finding the references for his quotes from his bibliography he didn't help at all. I did my best on them, even if it meant quoting from Wikipedia (sorry).
Mark Gura: My friend Mark tried to cram way too much information into one chapter. He went through four different versions until he had it up to 12k words, and asked for more! I know that problem myself very well. What you'll find is filtered through my edits, as I selected from, re-arranged, and even re-wrote parts of his chapter for clarity, with his consent. It ended up at 7,775 words. I didn't add enough to be a co-author, but the time it took was the same as if I was. Together we made it into a wonderful piece! He has a book in him and I hope he writes it!
Gunther Laird: At the very last minute readers of this blog prodded me to have a chapter on the Thomistic solution to evil, with a critical eye on Catholic apologist Edward Feser's defense of it. Darren's knee-jerk reaction wasn't favorable in allowing it, but he turned right around and did so graciously. Gunther Laird obliged with his chapter. I'm happy about this, although it was surely the reason why the book came out about a month late.
Elicka Peterson Sparks didn't have the time to choose an excerpt out of her book, The Devil You Know: The Surprising Link between Conservative Christianity and Crime, for publication. So I summarized her book in an excerpt of 8,000 of her own words. See if you can do that with a book of her size! There are no footnotes in her chapter because one third of her book is in the footnotes! If I included the footnotes it would greatly enlarge her excerpt. You'll have to buy her book to get them, and I recommend you do. Later she copy-edited and approved my excerpt. As an aside, I found her an excellent opening quote from Thomas Paine: “Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
Mark Gura: My friend Mark tried to cram way too much information into one chapter. He went through four different versions until he had it up to 12k words, and asked for more! I know that problem myself very well. What you'll find is filtered through my edits, as I selected from, re-arranged, and even re-wrote parts of his chapter for clarity, with his consent. It ended up at 7,775 words. I didn't add enough to be a co-author, but the time it took was the same as if I was. Together we made it into a wonderful piece! He has a book in him and I hope he writes it!
Gunther Laird: At the very last minute readers of this blog prodded me to have a chapter on the Thomistic solution to evil, with a critical eye on Catholic apologist Edward Feser's defense of it. Darren's knee-jerk reaction wasn't favorable in allowing it, but he turned right around and did so graciously. Gunther Laird obliged with his chapter. I'm happy about this, although it was surely the reason why the book came out about a month late.
Elicka Peterson Sparks didn't have the time to choose an excerpt out of her book, The Devil You Know: The Surprising Link between Conservative Christianity and Crime, for publication. So I summarized her book in an excerpt of 8,000 of her own words. See if you can do that with a book of her size! There are no footnotes in her chapter because one third of her book is in the footnotes! If I included the footnotes it would greatly enlarge her excerpt. You'll have to buy her book to get them, and I recommend you do. Later she copy-edited and approved my excerpt. As an aside, I found her an excellent opening quote from Thomas Paine: “Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
Yes, folks, this is what it takes to be a good editor. I put this book together, dealt with the authors, the publisher, wrote the Introduction plus five chapters, and am promoting it. Doing an anthology of freshly written chapters is one of the most time consuming projects someone can do. This is the seventh time I did it! I've done enough for one person.
Finally, if you hear anyone saying, "if you read two or three of Loftus's books then you don't need to read any others", send them here to these thirteen posts, Tagged below. Each one of them has a different focus, with different content, and in the case of my anthologies, different authors. There's an encyclopedia in them thar pages!
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A Very Brief Introduction:
The issue this book addresses is as follows: If there’s a theistic God, who is perfectly good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then the issue of why there is so much horrendous suffering in the world requires an explanation. The reason is that a perfectly good God would be opposed to it, an all-powerful God would be capable of eliminating it, and an all-knowing God would know what to do about it. So the degree and amount of horrendous suffering in the world entails that either God is not powerful enough to eliminate it, or God does not care enough to eliminate it, or God is just not smart enough to know what to do about it. The stubborn fact of horrendous suffering in the world means that something is wrong with God’s ability, or his goodness, or his knowledge.
Just think of this problem in terms of who has the greatest moral obligation to help someone who is suffering. It’s the one who knows of the suffering, who cares the most to alleviate it, and who has the greatest ability to alleviate it. So the person who has the greatest obligation to alleviate horrendous suffering is a theistic God, if he exists. Any person who is wholly good would be morally obligated to prevent horrendous suffering, especially if all it took was a “snap” of his or her omnipotent fingers to do so.
Think also in terms of what good parents would never allow. They would never allow their children to experience horrendous suffering for any reason. While they’re not omniscient, they couldn’t possibly conceive of any extremely rare circumstances that might justify its use for a greater good. They would never allow it, ever, under any circumstances. Parents would protect their children from horrendous suffering regardless of any lessons they might learn from it. They would certainly want all predators, killers, and rapists locked in jails and prisons away from their children, because having a safe society is eminently more valuable than allowing really bad people to run amuck.
At a fundamental level I’ll be arguing that Christian theists don’t think much of God’s infinite love. For surely God would place his infinite knowledge and power into the service of his infinite love. Instead, believers discard a God of infinite love, choosing instead to defend the God they have experienced, the one who doesn’t alleviate horrendous suffering.
To read more, see A Minimal Facts Approach to the Problem of Evil.
John W. Loftus is a philosopher and counter-apologist credited with 13 highly acclaimed books.
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