Problem of Evil (again): Logic [intro]

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Neithan

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Very briefly before my confirmation as a Catholic I had a crisis of faith. There were several reasons for this, but my faith soon restored and I entered the church. For whatever reason, of all the online atheist, anti-Christian and anti-Catholic writing and arguing I read at that time (some of it very erudite) one blog, written in a popular style and obviously for a wide audience, stuck in my mind. I even posted about it here on CAF all those years ago.

Behold: Essays - Daylight Atheism Daylight Atheism!

It may not look like much to you, and to be honest I’m not sure why it made such an impression on me (this was during the rise of the famous four “New Atheists”), but something about how this little blog was organized, the self-assured style of writing and the breadth of topics, complete with reviews of apologetics and even testimonials by enthusiastic atheists, made me truly doubt not only whether Christianity is true, but whether it is good.

Anyway, to the point. I’d like to explore this blog here on the CAF. I think there are a lot of potentially good topics to discuss, and for whatever reason (too many flags cough) skeptics, freethinkers and atheists who visit here, or even regulars, seem reluctant to make new threads.

The first essay on the blog is, of course, the Problem of Evil. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/all-possible-worlds/

The writer formulates the argument:
Assumption (1): God exists.
Assumption (1a): God is all-knowing.
Assumption (1b): God is all-powerful.
Assumption (1c): God is perfectly loving.
Assumption (1d): Any being that did not possess all three of the above properties would not be God.
Premise (2): Evil exists.
Premise (3): An all-knowing being would be aware of the existence of evil.
Premise (4): An all-powerful being would be able to eliminate evil.
Premise (5): A perfectly loving being would desire to eliminate evil.
Conclusion (6): Evil does not exist. (from (1),(3),(4),(5))
Contradiction: But evil does exist. (from (2))
Conclusion (7): There is no being that is all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly loving. (from (2),(3),(4),(5))
Conclusion (8): God does not exist. (from (7),(1d))

First of all I’d like to discuss whether anyone has any objections to this logic, and then move on to discuss the proposed theodicies one at a time, each in their own thread.

Thoughts?
 
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Neithan said:
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Evil has no being, and evil is moral evil and is the result of free will choice of angels and humans, not created by the Holy Trinity.

The Holy Trinity could not logically eliminate moral evil and also allow for sharing in the divine nature, because to do that requires the ability to make a free will choice of charity.
 
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Yes, One objection with #2 and consequently 3,4,5, etc. Evil doesn’t exist in and of itself. It is the result of the good quality of free will in beings who are not God with imperfect knowledge of God/goodness/etc.

God creates things that are good. In order for these beings to truly be individually motivated to do good they must have free will (else they would be robots essentially, no matter how complex you want to make them). Free will allows for the possibility to go against what is good, namely God (all knowing, all powerful, all and perfectly loving, and perfectly good).

In short, Evil isn’t created because evil is the absence of doing what is good. God doesn’t desire to eliminate evil because that is not the source of the problem, the source of the problem is choosing to not do good. Either because you have imperfect knowledge of the circumstances and consequences of an action or because you have ulterior motives (selfishness, etc.).
 
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Evil is the absence of good, so it was not created but permitted, in that sense. According to St Augustine.
 
Neithan said:
It may not look like much to you, and to be honest I’m not sure why it made such an impression on me (this was during the rise of the famous four “New Atheists”), but something about how this little blog was organized, the self-assured style of writing and the breadth of topics, complete with reviews of apologetics and even testimonials by enthusiastic atheists, made me truly doubt not only whether Christianity is true, but whether it is good.
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Well, that’s how Atheism often spreads: by unjustified confident assertions that are not timely contradicted…
Neithan said:
The writer formulates the argument:
Assumption (1): God exists.
Assumption (1a): God is all-knowing.
Assumption (1b): God is all-powerful.
Assumption (1c): God is perfectly loving.
Assumption (1d): Any being that did not possess all three of the above properties would not be God.
Premise (2): Evil exists.
Premise (3): An all-knowing being would be aware of the existence of evil.
Premise (4): An all-powerful being would be able to eliminate evil.
Premise (5): A perfectly loving being would desire to eliminate evil.
Conclusion (6): Evil does not exist. (from (1),(3),(4),(5))
Contradiction: But evil does exist. (from (2))
Conclusion (7): There is no being that is all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly loving. (from (2),(3),(4),(5))
Conclusion (8): God does not exist. (from (7),(1d))
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Well, for starters, that writer does not point out which assumptions are temporary and which are not. Also, he does not point out where the temporary assumptions apply.

And “from (1),(3),(4),(5)” (where no statement had three “slots”) shows that some premises have been left out.

If rewritten properly (as if natural deduction was used; I still simplified things a little), it would look like this:
  1. [Premise (2)] (premise)
  2. [Assumption (1a), but conditional] (premise)
  3. [Assumption (1b), but conditional] (premise)
  4. [Assumption (1c), but conditional] (premise)
  5. [Premise (3)] (premise)
  6. [Premise (4)] (premise)
  7. [Premise (5)] (premise)
  8. Whatever would be aware of the existence of evil, would be able to eliminate evil and would desire to eliminate evil would have eliminated evil. (premise, originally hidden)
  9. If evil was eliminated, it would not exist. (premise, originally hidden)
    — begin of block with temporary assumptions
  10. [Assumption (1)] (temporary assumption)
  11. [Assumption (1a)] (from 10, 2)
  12. [Assumption (1b)] (from 10, 3)
  13. [Assumption (1c)] (from 10, 4)
  14. Evil has been eliminated. (from 8, 11, 12, 13)
  15. [Conclusion (6)] (from 9, 14)
  16. Contradiction (from 15, 1)
    — end of block with temporary assumptions
  17. [Conclusion 8] (from 16, 10)
Now, why was premise 8 hidden originally? Because, when actually written down, it looks very suspicious, and makes other premises look suspicious.

After all, why would “now” be a deadline for elimination of evil?

And once we ask that, it is easy to see that original premises 4, 5 need at least “other things being equal”.

And the argument falls apart. Even before we get to probe further.
 
God is all powerful and He could eliminate all evil, but that would mean there would be no humans to begin with! - and no atheists to propound such faulty reasoning. 🙂
 
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As a Thomist, I have a qualm with 1C. God’s love needs to be contextualized with his Perfect Goodness and a study of “what is goodness”. Omnibenevolence is not a term the Catholic Church really uses. My own view is that the metaphysics of goodness is where people often go wrong, and Perfect Goodness is the attribute that is more properly assigned in a technical way.

But if you want to tackle it with the idea of love, please do.
 
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I agree Evil doesn’t exist in itself. It’s an absence. And that’s part of a Thomist theodicy. But also be careful with playing semantics, because God does permit and allow those absences and defects. There is evil in the world, the same way there is blindness (lack of sight that should be there).
 
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I think the problem of evil is a bad argument against the existence of God. Not the lest of which, is it doesn’t answer the problem of good. IF you didn’t know what evil is, would you know what good is?
 
Ugh, I just read the “refutation” of the unmoved mover argument.
 
@MPat thanks for that breakdown! What if we swap out the word “evil” for “suffering” (which is what the author does for most of the theodicies) — does that change anything essential about the argument?
adamhovey1988 said:
IF you didn’t know what evil is, would you know what good is?
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Yeah, and some atheists (Richard Dawkins, notably) don’t think it’s a good argument. Most do, though. I think it only makes sense as an attempt to try and make the Christian God look self-contradictory.

@Wesrock lol yeah he’s not well versed in Thomism, and neither was I (still working on it); but many people aren’t and are swayed by that kind of treatment of the classical arguments, I think.
 
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Substitute “suffering” for “evil” and the argument is probably the best atheist argument.

However, premise 5 is incomplete:
Neithan said:
Premise (5): A perfectly loving being would desire to eliminate evil.
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Premise 5a: A perfectly loving being would desire to unite with all creation.
Premise 5b: A perfectly loving being would create beings who could freely choose to unite or not.
Premise 5c: A perfectly loving being would not destroy those beings who choose not to unite.
Premise 5d: Beings who choose not to unite are the cause of all suffering.
Conclusion: God exists.
 
My question about that is, are “suffering” and “evil” interchangeable?

Physical pain is often a symptom of a loss of bodily integrity/functions but the two don’t always go together. And during exercise it can be a helpful sign that your body is being pushed to its limits (even if nothing in your body has lost its ability to function properly)
 
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That’s the kind of thing that would make a great thread. Care to do the honours? I understand you’re a bit gun shy now, but, give it a shot anyway. That’s what these forums are for. I won’t post up anything redundant if it’s covered better there than on this particular blog in the OP.

Edit: It does look like a false analogy fallacy. Twelve times.
 
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Dobereiner said:
My question about that is, are “suffering” and “evil” interchangeable?

Physical pain is often a symptom of a loss of bodily integrity/functions but the two don’t always go together. And during exercise it can be a helpful sign that your body is being pushed to its limits (even if nothing in your body is losing its ability to function properly)
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They are not.

Edit: I’ll add that suffering is not irrelevant to the question, but it’s not interchangeable with “evil” or “badness.”
 
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So if we take @MPat’s version of it, but use “suffering” in place of “evil” is it a stronger argument?
 
Dobereiner said:
Physical pain is often a symptom of a loss of bodily integrity/functions but the two don’t always go together. And during exercise it can be a helpful sign that your body is being pushed to its limits (even if nothing in your body has lost its ability to function properly)
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That is a good point. We could try to distinguish pain from suffering, which involves some kind of anguish or torment beyond the strictly physical requirements to maintain health.
 
A theodicy hinges, in my view, on a proper view of good and evil. Types of pain/suffering involve a specific case of evil, and its use can be nebulous. It needs to be explained and responded to, but in my view it’s best to focus on evil/badness in general, then, once that’s established, specific examples of suffering can be looked at in context.
 
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