Chapter 5 – The Problem of Evil and Suffering | A Response to Mark Clark’s The Problem of God.
In the “Prom Mom” section of Chapter 5, Mark Clark leans heavily on a single, shocking anecdote—meant to jolt the reader into moral outrage—as a cornerstone of his argument that evil proves God’s existence. He presents the now-infamous story of a teenage girl who gave birth in a bathroom during her prom and discarded the newborn in a trash can, where the child died. The media dubbed her “Prom Mom.”
Clark’s point is clear: if you feel visceral disgust or horror upon reading this story, that means you recognize that real evil exists. And if real evil exists, so must real good. If there’s real good, there must be a transcendent standard—a moral law. And if there’s a moral law, Clark argues, there must be a moral lawgiver: God.
It’s a powerful emotional appeal. But is it persuasive?
The Gut Punch ≠ The Argument
Clark is banking on the reader’s emotional response to bypass critical examination. That’s understandable—stories like this one trigger immediate moral revulsion. But let’s pause.
Feeling horror at the death of a helpless infant is not proof of a cosmic moral law. It’s a deeply human response, shaped by millions of years of evolutionary development, social conditioning, and empathy. It’s precisely the kind of event natural selection would sensitize us to, given our species’ survival depends on protecting its young.
Clark briefly mentions Steven Pinker, who explains this through the lens of evolutionary psychology: “We love our children, feel their pain, and recoil at their suffering.” But rather than engaging with Pinker’s insight, Clark brushes it aside, as if merely pointing to our feelings were sufficient evidence of the divine.
This is a crucial omission. It’s not enough to feel that something is evil; the question is why we feel that way. If there is a natural explanation, then the need for a supernatural one collapses.
Why the Evolutionary Explanation Makes Sense
From an evolutionary standpoint, the protective instinct we feel toward infants is both biologically adaptive and neurologically reinforced. Across cultures, neglect or abuse of a child is among the most universally condemned actions. Not because of divine decree—but because our species wouldn’t survive without caring for our young.
That’s the uncomfortable truth: our moral impulses have natural origins. Our revulsion doesn’t require an invisible lawgiver in the sky. It requires empathy, bonding mechanisms, and group cooperation strategies—all of which evolution has selected for over thousands of generations.
Clark’s narrative assumes that because something feels like evil, it must be evil in some cosmic, objective sense. But moral psychology shows that our gut reactions—while powerful—are products of brain chemistry and social evolution. They’re not revelations of divine law.
Can Secular Morality Condemn Prom Mom?
Yes, unequivocally.
You don’t need the Ten Commandments to conclude that what happened in that bathroom was horrific. Secular ethics—based on empathy, reason, consequences, and shared values—has long condemned such actions. The harm is real. The suffering is real. The consequences are real.
And unlike divine command theory, secular ethics doesn’t have to ask whether God’s silence that night meant something. Or why prayers weren’t answered. Or whether the baby was predestined to die. It doesn’t make suffering into a mysterious test. It just calls it what it is: tragic.
The Real Problem Clark Ignores
Here’s what Clark avoids: If God exists and is all-loving, why didn’t he intervene?
If this moment is supposed to show us how evil points to God’s existence, it raises a harder question: where was God in that bathroom stall?
Theism has always had a problem explaining inaction in the face of suffering. A God who allows the Prom Mom story to unfold is a God who chooses not to stop evil. That’s a far greater problem than whether atheists can explain morality.
Final Thoughts
Clark’s story succeeds in stirring the reader’s emotions. But that’s not the same as offering a sound argument. His leap from “this feels wrong” to “there must be a God” bypasses the real question: Are there natural explanations for our moral instincts that don’t require supernatural causes?
The answer is yes—and they’re grounded in evidence, not emotion.
God or Delusion? 