This is a reasonable question, and what answers can be given are complex and partial. The starting point for any answer has to be that it is better for God to create a world in which suffering is possible than one in which it is not. In a world in which suffering is possible there are goods that could not otherwise exist: for example, our actions have consequences and so our choices have moral significance, and we become interdependent, forming communities instead of living in isolation. A world without suffering can only be desolate. A world with the possibility of suffering can sometimes be cold and lonely, but it can sometimes be so much more.

Making some people dependent upon others is a risk, and a risk that can have innocent victims. If you rely on me for shelter, and I don’t answer the door, then through no fault of your own you will be exposed to the elements. If you rely on me for food, and I consume it myself, then through no fault of your own you will go hungry. There can be (though there needn’t be) a price to be paid for interdependence, and it can fall upon any one of us to pay it.

Who should we blame in such cases? Should we blame God for creating a world in which suffering is possible, in which each of us depends upon others? Or should we blame the person who didn’t answer the door, who consumed the food themselves? In creating a world in which suffering is possible, God chose the best option. In causing suffering, a person who lets down their dependant doesn’t.

In the aftermath of Haiti, people have asked, “Didn’t God know that this was going to happen?” But we knew that this was going to happen, or at least something very much like it. We understand how earthquakes work, and what happens when they occur. We were given fair warning. We should have expected this.

People have also asked, “Couldn’t God have prevented this from happening?” But we could have prevented this from happening. The extent of the suffering in Haiti is a consequence of the extent of the poverty there. Had we distributed the world’s wealth more equally, had we invested in stronger buildings, better roads, and larger airports, the effects of the earthquake would have been far less severe. Not only should we have expected this, we should have done something about it.

To those who say that because God knew what was going to happen in Haiti and could have prevented it he is therefore responsible for it, I say this: We  must get out of the habit of blaming God for our own failures. God provided for the people of Haiti, and he provided for them through us. We knew what was going to happen. We could have prevented it. We cannot just write off the suffering in Haiti as an act of God, but must recognise that our choices could have made Haiti safe.

There are many other Haitis happening or waiting to happen, areas exposed to earthquakes, hurricanes, famine, or flood. If we abhor suffering as much as we claim to, then we must show it in our actions.

Freke and Gandy argue this on the basis of the similarities between Jesus’ biography and those of many of the gods of the ancient pagan religions. Jesus’ biography, they suggest, is so similar to the myths told of these other gods that it cannot be anything but a copy of them. If Jesus’ biography is a copy of the biographies of these other gods, though, then there is no more reason to think that there existed a historical Jesus than there is to think that there existed a historical Mithra or a historical Dionysus.

Some of the parallels drawn by Freke and Gandy, however, are not between Jesus’ biography and the biographies of the pagan gods, but between Jesus’ biography and the biographies of the pagan sages. One such parallel concerns Socrates and Jesus’ third-day resurrection. They write:

Socrates was fearless before his death for he had been told in a dream that three days after his death he would be reborn. Jesus, likewise, goes to his death with confidence and foretells that after three days he will be resurrected.
[The Jesus Mysteries, p57]

The endnote appended to the claim about Socrates reads:

Plato, Crito, 44b. Socrates quotes from the Iliad, 9.363, to imply that three days after his death he will return to his true home.

In the Crito, Socrates describes his dream like this:

I dreamed that a beautiful, fair woman, clothed in white raiment, came to me and called me and said, ‘Socrates, on the third day thou wouldst come to fertile Phthia’.

Socrates’ comment is indeed an allusion to a line in the Iliad where Phthia stands for home, and Socrates does indeed expect to be in the metaphorical Phthia on the third day.

In reading this as talk of a third-day resurrection, however, Freke and Gandy have imposed their own agenda on the text. As will be seen, Socrates’ interpretation of the dream is not at all that claimed by Freke and Gandy.

The relevant passage of the Crito runs as follows:

SOCRATES: … Has the ship come from Delos, at the arrival of which I am to die?
CRITO: It has not exactly come, but I think it will come today from the reports of some men who have come from Sunium and left it there. Now it is clear from what they say that it will come today, and so tomorrow, Socrates, your life must end.
SOCRATES: Well, Crito, good luck be with us! If this is the will of the gods, so be it. However, I do not think it will come today.
CRITO: What is your reason for not thinking so?
SOCRATES: I will tell you. I must die on the day after the ship comes in, must I not?
CRITO: So those say who have charge of these matters.
SOCRATES: Well, I think it will not come in today, but tomorrow. And my reason for this is a dream which I had a little while ago in the course of this night. And perhaps you let me sleep just at the right time.
CRITO: What was the dream?
SOCRATES: I dreamed that a beautiful, fair woman, clothed in white raiment, came to me and called me and said, ‘Socrates, on the third day thou wouldst come to fertile Phthia.’
CRITO: A strange dream, Socrates.
SOCRATES: No, a clear one, at any rate, I think, Crito.
[Plato, Crito, 43c-44b, Heinemann Harvard (1914), pp153-155]

Socrates’ inference from his dream, then, is that the ship from Delos will arrive not today, but tomorrow, ‘on the second day’. He draws this inference because he is due to die the day after the ship arrives, and the dream implies that he will die on the third day. Three minus one is two; the day before the third day (on which the says he’ll die) is the second day (so that’s when the ship will arrive). This is not one of Socrates’ more complicated arguments.

Freke and Gandy, however, understand Socrates’ dream as signifying that three days after his death Socrates will be resurrected. If this were correct, though, then it wouldn’t provide Socrates with any information regarding the timing of the arrival of the ship. Socrates’ inferences, then, would be incoherent ramblings, which doesn’t sound like him at all.

Dawkins is, no doubt, a good evolutionary biologist, and he’s certainly a very good communicator of science to the masses. But that doesn’t mean that he knows anything about theology.

And as a scientist, Dawkins must know a bit about logic; interpreting evidence requires an ability to think carefully about what conclusions can be drawn from it, and with what degree of certainty. But that doesn’t mean that Dawkins knows anything about philosophy.

Yet Dawkins does, for some reason, feel qualified to write about philosophical theology. Why?

The most natural explanation is that he is more than just a scientist. There’s no reason why someone with a background in science shouldn’t also know theology and philosophy. Perhaps Dawkins has spent sufficient time studying religion to be an expert in that too.

And yet he clearly hasn’t. Dawkins occasionally expresses doubt about whether philosophy and theology are subjects in which one can possess or lack expertise. He then answers these doubts by demonstrating his ignorance of each.

When it comes to theological doctrines and philosophical arguments, Dawkins isn’t an expert. So why does he pick up his pen?