GGHS PHILOSOPHY 101 THE ARGUMENT FROM EVIL

FIRST VERSION (1)If God, were to exist then that being would be all-powerful, all knowing, and all loving (PKL for short) (2)If a PKL being existed, then there would be no evil. (3)There is evil Hence, there is no god.

Validity The argument is deductively valid. If God is all loving, he wants to prevent evil. If he is all knowing, he knows the difference between right and wrong and knows how to prevent evil from coming into existence. And if he is all powerful he can prevent evil should he wish to. Therefore he has both the inclination and ability to prevent evil from occurring

Thoughts? Can you pick any holes in this argument? What premise would you attack? Is evil necessary? Does evil exist?

Types of evil There are wrongs that are brought into existence by human actions, and there are the evils that exist because of natural events out of our control. The first category looks at the suffering we inflict on each other, the second includes suffering due to natural disasters etc.

refutations To reject the conclusion you must reject one or more of the premises Could reject 1 – merely stating that if god does exist he is just not the PKL one is stated as Premise 1 embodies only one theory about god. Not everyone follows that i.e. ancient Greeks denied gods were PKL

Refutations cont. Premise 2 – if you think god is PKL and that evil is a reality you need to show why there should be no evil in this world Premise 2 makes an extreme claim – that if a PKL god existed there wouldn’t be the smallest amount of evil.

Soul-building evils. Soul building evils make us better people, living through adversity strengthens our character. Torture worth it? – there are some strengths not worth having. Those who witness evil? – soul building observing the atrocities. Though some suffering done in private so no witnesses.

cont Is it enough that some evils are soul-building enough to refute premise 2? If it is desirable that we be strong of heart, why wouldn’t God have made us this way without suffering evil? Parent analogy. God wants us to be able to be proud of our own achievements. If we suffer we get credit for our strong souls that result. Why?

Conceding We generally have to concede that a PKL god would allow at least some evil to exist (soul building). Premise 2 is thus false What needs to be explained is not why there is some evil rather than none at all but why is there is so much evil rather than one ounce less.

Version 2 (1)If god were to exist, then that being would be PKL (4) If a PKL being existed, then the amount of evil would not exceed a soul-building minimum (5) The amount of evil does exceed a soul- building minimum Hence, there is no god.

Refutations? Any ideas how to refute this one? Theodicy claims that there is a reason for why the level of evil exceeds the limit for soul-building. Free Will On the premise we have free will. We assume free people must sometimes produce evil. If a sinner can have freewill why cant a saint? God is supposed to be a free being who never does evil things. This shows that being free and always doing what is right is not always compatible.

cont. For the sake of the argument, human freedom requires that people sometimes produce evil that exceeds the minimum for soul building. This means that premise 4 is mistaken Still does this explain the amount of evil that the world contains?

Evil When the sperm and egg came together to produce Hitler, why didn’t god prevent the fertilization event from happening? Suppose that Hitler never existed, the world would have been a much better place. Most theists (believers) would agree. So why didn’t god influence the course of human history for the better?

Soul-building and free will do not provide the answer. By stopping the fertilization god wouldn’t have been stopping their free will. Think about the plague, nothing to do with human action. Would our souls have been less strong if some smaller percentage had perished? This leads to a the third version

The third and final version. (1)If god exists, then that being would be PKL (6) If a PKL being existed, then there would be no more evil than the minimum required for soul-building and as a consequence of human freedom. (7) The quantity of evil found in human history exceeds the minimum required for soul-building and as a consequence of human freedom. Hence, there is no god.

Refutation Any guesses? The attack is on premise 6. we don’t have a good reason to think that it is true. It attempts to create a level of evil that god would allow to exist. Why think that we mere humans have the ability to figure it out? God, if he exists, is vastly more intelligent then we are. Does he have a greater plan?

Perhaps god allowed evils into the world to attain some greater good of which we are unaware? Cant assert that premise 6 is false, can just give reason for thinking that we do not know that it is true. To the degree that we lack knowledge of what God’s plan would be if he existed, we also lack the sort of knowledge that is needed for these arguments for atheism to succeed.