Trent Horn is wrong to say evil is merely the absence of good

[tzor]

Can you vindicate Trent’s argument?

I believe the argument was proposed by Einstein as a student. It is a very hard question to answer because it is based on a lot of complex notions especially the notion of what is good in the first place.

Before we can get there we need to consider the notion of a zero bottom. What else is the opposite the lack of the value? Well heat can be considered such a concept. There is no such thing as “anti-heat.” Cold is merely the absence of any heat.

Never the less, if an object which has a given amount of heat is exposed to an object which has a lower amount of heat, heat will actively transfer from the hotter to the colder. It appears that the colder object has had an effect on the warmer; the colder object exerting some sort of “force” upon the warmer object.

If you put your hand on a hot stove you are going to get burns. If you put your hand on a block of dry ice you are going to get burns.

In the scale of love, what is “absolute zero?” The complete lack of love leaves only the self and nothing but the self. Now the process by which goodness flows into an out of a person is far more complex than thermodynamics (a wonderful field of study, by the way) but there is an odd coincidence in describing someone who is loosing his goodness as having a “cold heart.”

One last point: good and evil has nothing whatsoever to do with beneficial and baneful. Germs are neither evil nor good. Lightning is neither evil nor good. Cancer is neither evil nor good. Self sacrifice is good. Abusing others for personal gain is evil. In short, good is placing others before self while evil is placing self above all others.

 

[goout]

For example, Satan is the deceiver. Deception is the warping of the truth. All deceptions take something that is true and pervert it.

For instance, it is good to protect the rights of every person, and on that basis erroneous claims are made for rights not proper to a person.

 

[ethereality]

I get the argument that evil is the experience of missing something one ought to have and thus not actually a “thing” that God made. I implied as much in my OP.

The only remaining question in this thread is whether Trent in fact misspoke.

Mr. Horn says that God doesn’t make evil, and he implies that rust is an example of evil. Rust is a coating of iron oxide. Hence Trent is implying that God doesn’t make iron oxide.

…]

So I guess the point we’ve arrived at is that Trent was speaking off-the-cuff on live radio, made a mistake in speaking, and that he didn’t mean for his words to be taken literally. Apparently he meant to use rust corrupting metal as an analogy for evil corrupting good; he did not mean that rust was an example of evil.

Yet looking at what he says, he does seem to be speaking as if rust is an example of evil …

Furthermore, what he says appears self-contradictory; to quote:

1. *]Evil is good that is corrupted in a certain way.
   *]It’s a lack of good.
   
   “good that is corrupted in a certain way” = something that exists
   “It’s a lack of good” = something that doesn’t exist (he appears to be reiterating his earlier statement, “Evil is not a thing that God made.”)
   
   So if we take Trent literally here, he is saying that evil exists (it is a corrupted good) and doesn’t exist (it is a lack of being).
   
   …] what does Trent Horn mean in saying that evil “is good that is corrupted”? Doesn’t this mean a corrupted good, i.e. something that actually exists?

1. 
   It seems when he said “Evil is good that is corrupted” he meant evil is perceived in the experience of a corrupted good (‘corrupted’ meaning ‘missing something’). In other words, evil is a euphemism for a scenario we shouldn’t be experiencing.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Trent Horn was not expressing his own opinion, but rather the traditional teaching of the Church, going back to Saint Augustine, Saint Aquinas, and a work called The Divine Names. Evil is an absence of good, just as darkness is an absence of light.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I get the argument that evil is the experience of missing something one ought to have and thus not actually a “thing” that God made. I implied as much in my OP.

The only remaining question in this thread is whether Trent in fact misspoke.

It seems when he said “Evil is good that is corrupted” he meant evil is perceived in the experience of a corrupted good (‘corrupted’ meaning ‘missing something’). In other words, evil is a euphemism for a scenario we shouldn’t be experiencing.

Well, no, actually. Evil is NOT “the experience of missing something one ought to have,” it is the absence of what ought to be whether one “experiences” or recognizes the absence or not. You may be totally oblivious to what is missing – in fact, sin makes us oblivious – and the mere fact that it is missing, whether you recognize it or not, is the evil. Evil is deprivation, not the experience of deprivation.

Trent didn’t misspeak, you misunderstood.

 

[ethereality]

Evil is deprivation, not the experience of deprivation.

Trent didn’t misspeak, you misunderstood.

I appreciate the distinction in your post, but your final statement here is a bare assertion and non sequitur: I don’t understand why you’ve refused to actually present an argument. Again:

“good that is corrupted in a certain way” = something that exists

Something good exists. Trent said that evil is a corrupted good, not that evil accompanies a corrupted good. Semantically, this is still something that exists.

 

[e_c]

I appreciate the distinction in your post, but your final statement here is a bare assertion and non sequitur: I don’t understand why you’ve refused to actually present an argument. Again:

Something good exists. Trent said that evil is a corrupted good, not that evil accompanies a corrupted good. Semantically, this is still something that exists.

“Being is said in many ways,” as Aristotle put it. Evil exists in the way that negations exist. Language is for leading us to the reality - it is not the reality itself.

 

[Good_Fella]

Something good exists. Trent said that evil is a corrupted good, not that evil accompanies a corrupted good. Semantically, this is still something that exists.

Love of self is good, isn’t it? But an inordinate (corrupt) love of self is not good. Here what exists is selfishness, which is a corrupted and disordered love of self. By being selfish, one places their self-interest above that of others with complete indifference to the harm or destruction they might cause them. As a result, something objectively evil and wicked (murder/adultery) could arise. Evil seems to be a positive force that exists in its own right and co-exists with the good, often imposing itself on the latter, but it actually is the negation of goodness. Similarly, being full of nonsense is making no sense. Semantically nonsense does exist objectively, but only when no sense is being made. Nonsense is defined as “having no intelligible meaning.” There couldn’t be any nonsense unless we lived in an intelligible and ordered world that makes sense, albeit all the accidents that happen to arise by chance and make no sense to us other than they are accidents. Intelligibility exists of necessity, not unlike self-love, since it’s indispensable to our humanity. Nonsense, on the other hand, exists by chance, despite our intentions to make any sense, and we’re better off without it. Thus evil couldn’t exist unless the world was good, which it is of necessity, while something evil arises by chance.

PAX
:heaven:

 

[Good_Fella]

Well, no, actually. Evil is NOT “the experience of missing something one ought to have,” it is the absence of what ought to be whether one “experiences” or recognizes the absence or not. You may be totally oblivious to what is missing – in fact, sin makes us oblivious – and the mere fact that it is missing, whether you recognize it or not, is the evil. Evil is deprivation, not the experience of deprivation.

True. People sometimes commit what objectively are sins without realizing it or by failing to appreciate the gravity of their misdeeds… This often results from having an uninformed or desensitized conscience.

PAX
:heaven:

 

[Peter_Plato]

I appreciate the distinction in your post, but your final statement here is a bare assertion and non sequitur: I don’t understand why you’ve refused to actually present an argument. Again:

Something good exists. Trent said that evil is a corrupted good, not that evil accompanies a corrupted good. Semantically, this is still something that exists.

Because the good itself has been corrupted? There is nothing added that “accompanies” the good.

The good isn’t “accompanied by” evil, like some kind of demented or hysterical groupie that clings to a rock star. It is the rock star that is himself lessened by being corrupted. There is no additional thing called “evil” that accompanies the good.

Is a hole in the ground something that exists, or is it the mere absence of something?

Take away all the earth that surrounds the hole and you have nothing – no longer any “hole.”
The hole is defined by something else, which means it itself has no substantive existence. No, it isn’t “something that exists.”

 

[goout]

Pardon if this is already used.
Nature reflects this reality.

Light is a force of radiation. Photons etc…radiation, illumination, warmth, etc…
Dark is simply the absence of it. But just like evil, this lack is not benign. It has bad consequences.
In the absence of light, nothing grows, it is cold, you cannot see, etc…
(yes there are exceptions to this in nature’s adaptations, but hopefully the analogy works)

 

[Good_Fella]

Pardon if this is already used.
Nature reflects this reality.

Light is a force of radiation. Photons etc…radiation, illumination, warmth, etc…
Dark is simply the absence of it. But just like evil, this lack is not benign. It has bad consequences.
In the absence of light, nothing grows, it is cold, you cannot see, etc…
(yes there are exceptions to this in nature’s adaptations, but hopefully the analogy works)

We do live in a fluctuating and cyclical world. A Buddhist might say that light is the absence of darkness, or heat is the absence of cold. If it’s a hot day, we might turn on the air-conditioner, and when it’s time to go to bed, we normally turn off the light. In winter, we turn up the heat to warm the house; when we get up at 7 am, we turn on the light, since the sun hasn’t risen yet. But on all these occasions, we are restoring the good that is lacking. Goodness exists of necessity; it’s indispensable for our well-being and happiness. All that isn’t good doesn’t exist of necessity. It’s something we can do without if we hope to be happy and comfortable or even survive.

PAX
:heaven: