The "Problem of Good"

[PumpkinCookie]

The following is a thought experiment for the sake of discussion. I do not believe any of this nonsense, the point of this is to provoke an interesting dialogue. Please do not engage if you are easily offended.

Imagine you interact with a preacher who says the following:

“Repent and believe in the bad news! The creator of the universe is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-evil! The point of life is to embrace malevolence and become purely evil so we can spend eternity in hell with god!”

To this you reply:

But, the universe seems to be filled with so much good. How could an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent god exist, with such a good universe?

“Is god willing to prevent good, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is not omnimalevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then why is there good?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?”

In response, the preacher says:

"Well, you see, goodness isn’t really a thing, per se. Goodness has no essence, it is merely the privation of evil. God gave us free will and so sometimes we do good things by failing to be evil. Originally, god created the universe as a place of maximum suffering and evil, but our first parents abused their free will and did something good. As their descendants, we just can’t stop ourselves from doing good things occasionally (due to original virtue), so we need god’s help to become 100% purely evil. Good also appears in nature sometimes due to the “limitations proper to creatures.” The bad news is that god has opened the door to hell for us if we will but accept his grace to become utterly evil. If we choose to refuse his grace however, we will never be evil enough for hell and will wind up in heaven, a place of endless and relentless bliss perish the thought!

Has the preacher satisfied the objection here? Why or why not? Can you think of follow-up objections to the preacher’s message?

 

[goout]

The following is a thought experiment for the sake of discussion. I do not believe any of this nonsense, the point of this is to provoke an interesting dialogue. Please do not engage if you are easily offended.

Imagine you interact with a preacher who says the following:

“Repent and believe in the bad news! The creator of the universe is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-evil! The point of life is to embrace malevolence and become purely evil so we can spend eternity in hell with god!”

To this you reply:

But, the universe seems to be filled with so much good. How could an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent god exist, with such a good universe?

“Is god willing to prevent good, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is not omnimalevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then why is there good?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?”

In response, the preacher says:

"Well, you see, goodness isn’t really a thing, per se. Goodness has no essence, it is merely the privation of evil. God gave us free will and so sometimes we do good things by failing to be evil. Originally, god created the universe as a place of maximum suffering and evil, but our first parents abused their free will and did something good. As their descendants, we just can’t stop ourselves from doing good things occasionally (due to original virtue), so we need god’s help to become 100% purely evil. Good also appears in nature sometimes due to the “limitations proper to creatures.” The bad news is that god has opened the door to hell for us if we will but accept his grace to become utterly evil. If we choose to refuse his grace however, we will never be evil enough for hell and will wind up in heaven, a place of endless and relentless bliss perish the thought!

Has the preacher satisfied the objection here? Why or why not? Can you think of follow-up objections to the preacher’s message?

You confuse good and evil as two comparable and coequal opposites when they cannot be either comparable or coequal.

For a thing (person) to have being itself, it must be good. All being flows from the source of being. We call that good because it is creative or causative. A lack of being is simply nothing.

Evil creates nothing. It does not go out from itself but rather sucks things into itself and destroys. By saying “evil” we mean a negation or privation of good.

This is easily observable in nature.

Good and evil are not two comparable and coequal things

 

[PumpkinCookie]

You confuse good and evil as two comparable and coequal opposites when they cannot be either comparable or coequal.

If they are not comparable, how can they be distinguished? What does it mean to be co-equal?

For a thing (person) to have being itself, it must be good. All being flows from the source of being. We call that good because it is creative or causative. A lack of being is simply nothing.

So many large assertions and assumptions! You’re going to have to flesh this out…

Evil creates nothing. It does not go out from itself but rather sucks things into itself and destroys. By saying “evil” we mean a negation or privation of good.

Sounds like eating is evil. Possibly metabolism in general is evil, since it necessarily requires “sucking things into itself and destroying.” Metabolism is necessary condition for life, so is life itself evil?

This is easily observable in nature.

Good and evil are not two comparable and coequal things

Yes you’ve asserted that. Would you mind taking a stab at answering the question? Has the preacher satisfied the objections above? Why or why not?

 

[goout]

Just to address the word “omni”:
Omni implies a wholeness or totality, or a completeness, or the unity of all things.

It’s an issue to claim that anything can be a complete whole other than good.
That word “omni-bad” cannot be applied to anything that exists. Because it exists, it has some essential good.
For instance Satan has being. Satan is a created being. So Satan could not be said to be “omni” anything.

 

[Leifler]

If God is all, and made all and he wanted all to be as we percieve “evil” then to be evil would be to be good.

So your wordplay fails in this regard.

Please note, God is the literal point of reference for that which is good. Therefore if He wanted what you call evil. Such would be inherently “good” because then only your “evil” would be in occordance with the will of God which is the yard stick to righteousness.

So whether you do what you think is “good” or “evil” what is proper is only what is God’s will. Therefore no matter His will, if He wills above all that you have free choice, He must allow an option to occur that is in essence against His will, since His higher will for lack of a better explanation, is that you be free.

Like the saying "if you love something set it free, you might have a will for it, but your ultimate will is that it may choose not to.

 

[goout]

If they are not comparable, how can they be distinguished? What does it mean to be co-equal?

When the sun goes down tonight, look out the window and report back what you see. Is the light gone?
You might say “yes it is now dark”.
Question: does the light still exist? Are dark and light comparable, when the source of light objectively is?
The only thing you can compare is your perceptions. If you posit your perceptions as the omni-frame-of-reference then then you have a discussion, athough an absurd one.
The light exists. Dark is a deprivation of light and it only makes sense in relation to it.

So many large assertions and assumptions! You’re going to have to flesh this out…

This is what I said:

Originally Posted by goout View Post
For a thing (person) to have being itself, it must be good. All being flows from the source of being. We call that good because it is creative or causative. A lack of being is simply nothing.

Can you simply address what I said?
If you want your being “fleshed out”, pinch yourself in the arm.
If you want to see good as creative and evil as destructive, take a look around you.

 

[PraiseChrist]

Pardon my slow learning…
How does this preacher define “evil” and “good”?

 

[GLam8833]

I’d say “No, he did not properly refute the argument raised”
I’d say that “god” IS NOT Omnipotent, Omnimalevolent and
did NOT open the door to hell, he might have CAUSED it,
but he did not create hell.Matt. 25:14 He was willing to do
evil… b/c of his pride, but he is NOT able to make people
go to hell, he can only tempt them and let them use their
free will to fall into sin(s) and therefore cut themselves off
from the GOOD GOD and His grace. The concept of giving
100% of oneself to such a “god” is not right, it is “god’s”
desire to swallow up people like a devouring lion. 1 Pet. 5:8

 

[John_Martin]

Imagine you interact with a preacher who says the following:

“Repent and believe in the bad news! The creator of the universe is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-evil! The point of life is to embrace malevolence and become purely evil so we can spend eternity in hell with god!”

Good is equivalent to “desirable”.
If the exhortation is meant to evoke a “desire” for this evil “god”, then the person exhorted is somehow supposed to consider this “evil god” to be desirable, or in other words “all good” in order to “embrace this malevolence”, which is what the will does when it desires union with what is recognized to be “good” or “desirable”.

So, somehow the preacher has to convince the hearers that this “god” is “all good” in order to engender an ultimate or final movement of love and desire in the will to unite to this “god” as “good to be united to for all eternity”.

The preacher’s dilemma is not with the news of this “god”, but with the listener, whose being is fixed to will what it desires and to understand what is desirable and to recognize what is real or true.

Of course an all evil god would (if such a thing were possible) create creatures like itself rather than in love as our God does, and there would be no need for exhortation.

 

[Richca]

The following is a thought experiment for the sake of discussion. I do not believe any of this nonsense, the point of this is to provoke an interesting dialogue. Please do not engage if you are easily offended.

Imagine you interact with a preacher who says the following:

“Repent and believe in the bad news! The creator of the universe is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-evil! The point of life is to embrace malevolence and become purely evil so we can spend eternity in hell with god!”

To this you reply:

But, the universe seems to be filled with so much good. How could an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent god exist, with such a good universe?

“Is god willing to prevent good, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is not omnimalevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then why is there good?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?”

In response, the preacher says:

"Well, you see, goodness isn’t really a thing, per se. Goodness has no essence, it is merely the privation of evil. God gave us free will and so sometimes we do good things by failing to be evil. Originally, god created the universe as a place of maximum suffering and evil, but our first parents abused their free will and did something good. As their descendants, we just can’t stop ourselves from doing good things occasionally (due to original virtue), so we need god’s help to become 100% purely evil. Good also appears in nature sometimes due to the “limitations proper to creatures.” The bad news is that god has opened the door to hell for us if we will but accept his grace to become utterly evil. If we choose to refuse his grace however, we will never be evil enough for hell and will wind up in heaven, a place of endless and relentless bliss perish the thought!

Has the preacher satisfied the objection here? Why or why not? Can you think of follow-up objections to the preacher’s message?

“Goodness has no essence, it is merely the privation of evil.” In this reckoning, sight is evil and blindness is good. Further, being is evil and non-being is good. Philosophically, being and good are convertible terms. Evil is a privation of good. I think the statement “Goodness has no essence, it is merely the privation of evil,” is out of touch with reality to say the least.

 

[e_c]

Goodness, truth, and being are convertible.

Truth is being as apprehended by the intellect.

Goodness is being as apprehended by the will.

There’s no problem here.

 

[Wesrock]

As has been stated, your scenario seems to assume that the convertibility of goodness and being are merely convenient wordplay on the part of classical theists. As if goodness defined as being is a mere stipulative definition. On the contrary, the classical theist holds that this convertibility is a metaphysical truth/reality about the universe we live in. The theist’s definition is not stipulative, but a real statement about reality. Simply switching the words good and evil in the classical theist argument, therefore, create an absurdity. I mean, from a stipulative definition standpoint, perhaps the preacher’s explanation is logically sound. However, the preacher’s definition and explanation is not in line with actual reality, and is therefore unsound.

Also, while the preacher keeps the being/deprivation language (we’ll ignore that the reversal is merely stipulative and not real), the underlying premise to you actually making this post seems to be that good and evil have no being/deprivation relationship and are actually co-equal opposites and are therefore reversible in this way.

Also, making doing evil to be right creates a weird paradox, in which doing evil is the right thing to do, which means you’re doing evil because you’re seeking to do the right thing. This entire scenario is subverted because, while everyone holds evil as a higher goal, the motivation for pursuing this higher goal has to do with it being the “right thing to do”, and therefore, ultimately, people seek to do evil because they are driven to do the good. The movement to do the good/right is prior to any actual action that is evil. Either this is a paradox, or good is still superior to evil.

Perhaps I should have stopped at the first paragraph. I’m more sure about that one. The second and especially the third are just things that occurred to me and not fully vetted.

 

[fhansen]

And as Augustine said, “The only possible source of evil, is good”. Everything is essentially good to begin with. Evil only becomes* known*-and distinguishable from the good it detracted from-once innocence is lost, once evil is parcticpated in, once a lesser good is chosen.

 

[Gorgias]

Perhaps I should have stopped at the first paragraph. I’m more sure about that one. The second and especially the third are just things that occurred to me and not fully vetted.

No, I think you hit all the right notes.

The “co-equal opposites” objection is spot-on: if we’re dealing in ‘privation’ relationships, then we can’t simply swap one out for the other and expect to end up with a coherent statement.

The ‘weird paradox’ is what results when we attempt to take the relation ‘X is-privation-of Y’ and then assert ‘Y is-privation-of X’. The only way to make it work is by abandoning the ‘good’/‘evil’ dichotomy, and attempting to identify ‘evil’ as ‘good’. But, by doing so, you lose the ability to hold onto the ‘evilness’ of ‘evil’, which is what the thought experiment is attempting to do…

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Yes, the point of the thought experiment was to merely swap out “good” for “evil” to see what happens.

It seems the consensus here is that “good” is equivalent to “being” in a way that “evil” cannot be.

The problem here is that people don’t typically mean “being” when they say “good.” The statement “God is good” is rendered empty if we equate “being” with “good.” The statement doesn’t tell us anything at all, it’s just an assertion of existence.

Is that what people mean when they say “God is good?”

 

[Wesrock]

Yes, the point of the thought experiment was to merely swap out “good” for “evil” to see what happens.

It seems the consensus here is that “good” is equivalent to “being” in a way that “evil” cannot be.

The problem here is that people don’t typically mean “being” when they say “good.” The statement “God is good” is rendered empty if we equate “being” with “good.” The statement doesn’t tell us anything at all, it’s just an assertion of existence.

Is that what people mean when they say “God is good?”

Yes… mostly. Don’t want to stop there. Scholastics, or at least Thomist’s, view ALL good and evil in this being/deprivation relationship, though, not just God. This includes natural evils and moral evils, and certainly that warrants its own discussion. But when Thomist’s mean God is good, they mean God is the fullness of being, and being is itself what good ultimately is. They are not saying God is a human moral agent. Moral goodness, though, isn’t derived outside of this being/deprivation relationship, but has to do with choosing to live up to the fullness of the human essence and its ends. A good triangle better instantiates triangularity. A good dog better instantiates dogginess. A good human better instantiates a rational soul (though all humans are, well, humans, and deserve that dignity, and we only speak on morality when it comes to human choices). All of these examples of goodness derive from how well something instantiates that which it is. A failure to instantiate what something is is a deprivation in its being, and therefore an “evil,” and in creatures like us, can apply to our pursuits and ends. (Not exactly a moral isssue, but in a behavioral sense, a squirrel that stores rocks for winter instead of acorns is not the best squirrel and probably won’t fare well come winter.)

But God is pure existence itself. What God is is the same as that he is: Being. Fully actual, no potential. Therefore, since being and good are convertible, God is perfect good.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean what people are used to thinking in modern day though, when we judge everything on a human level, and as if the moral law is somehow out there existing separate from our nature.

 

[goout]

Yes… mostly. Don’t want to stop there. Scholastics, or at least Thomist’s, view ALL good and evil in this being/deprivation relationship, though, not just God. This includes natural evils and moral evils, and certainly that warrants its own discussion. But when Thomist’s mean God is good, they mean God is the fullness of being, and being is itself what good ultimately is. They are not saying God is a human moral agent. Moral goodness, though, isn’t derived outside of this being/deprivation relationship, but has to do with choosing to live up to the fullness of the human essence and its ends. A good triangle better instantiates triangularity. A good dog better instantiates dogginess. A good human better instantiates a rational soul (though all humans are, well, humans, and deserve that dignity, and we only speak on morality when it comes to human choices). All of these examples of goodness derive from how well something instantiates that which it is. A failure to instantiate what something is is a deprivation in its being, and therefore an “evil,” and in creatures like us, can apply to our pursuits and ends. (Not exactly a moral isssue, but in a behavioral sense, a squirrel that stores rocks for winter instead of acorns is not the best squirrel and probably won’t fare well come winter.)

But God is pure existence itself. What God is is the same as that he is: Being. Fully actual, no potential. Therefore, since being and good are convertible, God is perfect good.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean what people are used to thinking in modern day though, when we judge everything on a human level, and as if the moral law is somehow out there existing separate from our nature.

This is so good and so misunderstood, so often.

In regards to good: morality is the evaluation of human acts.
This does not mean that God cannot be looked at and pondered, and be comprehended as “good”. It’s just that judgment and evaluation, as it applies to human beings, is meaningless in regard to one who is meaning, and being.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Yes… mostly. Don’t want to stop there. Scholastics, or at least Thomist’s, view ALL good and evil in this being/deprivation relationship, though, not just God. This includes natural evils and moral evils, and certainly that warrants its own discussion. But when Thomist’s mean God is good, they mean God is the fullness of being, and being is itself what good ultimately is. They are not saying God is a human moral agent. Moral goodness, though, isn’t derived outside of this being/deprivation relationship, but has to do with choosing to live up to the fullness of the human essence and its ends. A good triangle better instantiates triangularity. A good dog better instantiates dogginess. A good human better instantiates a rational soul (though all humans are, well, humans, and deserve that dignity, and we only speak on morality when it comes to human choices). All of these examples of goodness derive from how well something instantiates that which it is. A failure to instantiate what something is is a deprivation in its being, and therefore an “evil,” and in creatures like us, can apply to our pursuits and ends. (Not exactly a moral isssue, but in a behavioral sense, a squirrel that stores rocks for winter instead of acorns is not the best squirrel and probably won’t fare well come winter.)

But God is pure existence itself. What God is is the same as that he is: Being. Fully actual, no potential. Therefore, since being and good are convertible, God is perfect good.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean what people are used to thinking in modern day though, when we judge everything on a human level, and as if the moral law is somehow out there existing separate from our nature.

So, a good cancer cell causes death more painfully and more quickly?
A good forest fire burns more animals and destroys larger areas?
A good hurricane drowns the maximum number of people and causes the most destruction?
A good nuclear bomb irradiates the widest area and maximizes casualties?
A good dictator suppresses dissent and murders his enemies most swiftly?

Am I doing this right?

 

[Wesrock]

When we say a person is good, it’s already implicitly qualified. He is good at doing this, or at being this. When food is good, it means that it creates pleasant senses.

When we say God is good, there isn’t a qualifier. It’s just “he is good,” full stop. Whereas in all finite things which have a mode of being any comment on goodness is ultimately related to that finite being. We participate in being, and that participation is qualified. Each finite thing has a participation in the goodness of Being in a certain way, depending on its mode if existence (what it is). It’s not so for God. He doesn’t participate in being or goodness. He is both being and good(ness), full stop. That is what good is, being, and God is simply unqualified Being, not a mode of being.

Is this difficult to wrap our minds around? Yes, of course. And probably much moreso if you’re not already familiar with this school of thought. But even so, it is quite comprehensive. There’s no special pleading or exemption.

 

[goout]

So, a good cancer cell causes death more painfully and more quickly?
A good forest fire burns more animals and destroys larger areas?
A good hurricane drowns the maximum number of people and causes the most destruction?
A good nuclear bomb irradiates the widest area and maximizes casualties?
A good dictator suppresses dissent and murders his enemies most swiftly?

Am I doing this right?

No.
Repeatedly, no.