Apologetics Lane: Evil God Challenge Revisited

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Evil God Challenge Revisited

I've addressed the Evil God Challenge BEFORE HERE. In a YouTube video thread, someone responded to me with the following:

yes, I have watched some debates over the "probabilistic or inductive version of the problem of evil".
And it seemed to me that there was no reason to favour the omnibenevolent god over the omnimalevolent god.
So the problem of evil is not "solved".
would you agree with that ?

With minor adjustments, the comments below was my response; with some added links to other of my blogs which couldn't be linked on YouTube.

I've watched those debates too. For example William Lane Craig's debate with Stephen Law, and Craig's debate [if I recall] with Peter Millican. I disagree with you for a number of reasons. I'll just list 5 off the top of my head which I should really organize and make more rigorous and less repetitive. Among my goals includes showing no parity of argument.
1. Evil is defined in various ways in the Christian tradition. A popular one is the one borrowed from Neo-Platonism. The concept later termed Privatio Boni. That evil is the privation/negation/twisting/corruption of the good. Evil has no positive ontological status. Analogous to how shadows are the lack/diminishment of light, or cold is of heat. There is no such THING as shadows or cold. A moth eaten dress with holes would be analogous to evil in creation. However, a perfectly evil "God" would result in no dress at all [no creation]. If taken to it's logical conclusion, then no God at all. Such a concept of a "perfectly" evil God is contradictory given perfect being theology [see below]. Contradictions, like a square circle, cannot exist. A perfectly evil God is conceptually incoherent. He would have to have some good and good intentions [see numbers 3, 4 and 5 below].

2. One would first need to define and metaphysically ground good/bad, right/wrong before one can launch the evil God challenge. Given Christianity, one can ground them. But it's unlikely that non-Christians can without borrowing from a Christian worldview [cf. presuppositional arguments], and therefore cannot do an *external* critique or alternative. If they launch an *internal* critique and alternative given Christian premises and presuppositions, then all we have to do is show that there is no internal inconsistency as well as show that employing such premises can't be used to launch the challenge.

3. The move W.L. Craig makes has some merit. Given perfect being theology, God by definition is good [the summum bonum and the ens perfectissimum], and therefore it makes no sense to posit an "Evil God" challenge, because by definition, such a being wouldn't be God. But, instead, a really powerful [or omnipotent] being, but not God. Though non-theists will think we theists will be cheating by defining God [to our advantage] in such a way that it precludes such a malevolent being from being God. Besides, whether you call it "God" or not, doesn't answer the logical possibility. True. So, one would have to say more than that.

Given perfect being theology, such a perfectly rational being would not choose to be evil. It makes no rational sense for such an intelligent, all-knowing [omniscient] and all-wise [omnisapient] being to choose to be and promote evil. Wisdom is knowing the best means to arrive at the best ends, and choosing it. In the Christian tradition, it makes perfect sense that an omni-God who has all perfections to their high degree seeks as His goals, 1. to glorify Himself & make His glory known to creation for His own joy [without denying He was all-sufficiently satisfied and happy/blessed SANS creation, pace the "full bucket paradox"], 2. out of the overflow of His goodness/joy/happiness/blessedness to share His goodness and perfection with/to/through His creation. That's why the famous catechism's answer to the question, "What is the chief end [i.e. goal, purpose] of man?" was "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever" [or as Piper famously suggested, BY enjoying Him forever]. What possible motive would an evil god have to promote evil? He's literally agent irrational in his goals and plans, and therefore not truly perfect or omnipotent. Destroying parity.

Since all of God's attributes are coupled with each other. God's omnipotence is coupled with wisdom. So, if the evil God is not all wise, then neither is he all powerful. This is especially true in versions of classical theism that affirm something like Thomistic divine simplicity whereby all God's attributes are one and the same thing, and not as we like to distinguish them into different attributes. Wiki says, //"In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. Characteristics such as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc., are identical to God's being, not qualities that make up that being, nor abstract entities inhering in God as in a substance; in other words we can say that in God both essence and existence are one and the same."// Though, I'm sympathetic to simplicity, I'm not toward Thomistic versions of ABSOLUTE divine simplicity [ADS].

4. Along with privatio boni, evil has also been defined in the Christian tradition as that which violates one of more of the following 3 senses of God's will. God's 1. revealed will and/or 2. dispositional [heart] will, and/or 3. will of design [not including God's 4. decretive will, that always happens]. Such distinctions don't exist, or may not be able to exist in the "Evil God" because all his intentions are only evil. Given privatio boni, perfect being theology etc. it's difficult to explain how an "evil god" can or would maximize or optimize evil conceptually and then by execution.
[For more, see my blog post here: Distinctions in God's Will from a Calvinist Perspective]

5. So, far all of the above need not require Calvinism [though all are compatible with it]. I'm a Calvinist. and Calvinism may have some moves which might help. Most Calvinists do not hold to divine voluntarism, though some do [though open, I'm inclined against it myself]. In fact, if any theological position would best fit with voluntarism [rather than say, divine essentialism etc.], Calvinism would be a prime candidate [despite John Calvin himself rejecting it]. Assuming NON-Christian divine voluntarism for the sake of argument, then there is no problem of the evil God challenge. God can arbitrarily choose, and then inform and command his creatures that things like rape, theft and murder as good. By such a voluntaristic conception of God, that God isn't evil. And so, there is no evil God by which to launch an "evil God challenge". But such an extreme form of voluntarism is contrary to the Christian conception of God, even a voluntaristic Christian version.

See voluntarist Calvinist Vincent Cheung's book that's freely online, "The Author of Sin" [downloadable HERE]. The point I'm having difficulty expressing is that in some versions of CHRISTIAN divine voluntarism [Calvinistic or not] the evil God of the "Evil God challenge" is virtually indistinguishable, or at least significantly similar enough that the differences would seem to boil down to how this God optimizes/maximizes what we would term "evil" [despite them not being actually evil given that paradigm]. Since evil is defined by his volition, we cannot logically argue against such a God's behavior as being objectively evil. The Christian voluntaristic conception need only adjust the features so as to affirm that God's commands to His creatures are to love God, love oneself and love one's neighbor as attenuated by Biblical revelation. That better solves the problem. Especially since it's in keeping with perfect being theology and agent rationality. For myself, I'm inclined to the mediating position between voluntarism and essentialism called Divine Command Essentialism. God is the good [Himself] and is the standard of goodness. Virtues are grounded in God's nature/essence [essentialism aspect] and God's commands for what's right and wrong to His creatures flow from His will/volition [voluntarism aspect] which are grounded in and reflect His good nature.