Church Voices

G. K. Chesterton was one of the first thinkers to put his finger on an argument against atheism known as the problem of pleasure. This of course contrasting the argument against theism: the problem of pain. Phillip Yancey briefly mentions this in the introduction he authored in a newer release of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. Yancey writes:

Why is sex fun? Reproduction surely doesn’t require pleasure: Some animals simply split in half to reproduce, and even humans use methods of artificial insemination that involve no pleasure. Why is eating enjoyable? Plants and the lower animals manage to obtain their quota of nutrients without the luxury of taste buds. Why are there colors? Some people get along fine without the ability to detect color. Why complicate vision for all the rest of us?

[. . .]

On the issue of pleasure, Christians can breathe easier. A good and loving God would naturally want his creatures to experience delight, joy, and personal fulfillment. We Christians start from that assumption and then look for ways to explain the origin of suffering. But should atheists not have an equal obligation to explain the origin of pleasure in a world or randomness and meaninglessness?

What I find most interesting is the claim that this argument has equal force against atheism as the problem of pain does against theism:

[The problem of pleasure] looms as huge a question—the philosophical equivelent, for atheists, to the problem of pain for Christians.

Obviously this argument hasn’t received nearly as much attention as the problem of pain, but do you think what Yancey is claiming is correct? Are the two arguments, the problem of pleasure and the problem of pain equally challenging to the alternate worldviews of theism and atheism in terms of logic? (Generally speaking, being aware of the many different forms each argument could take.)