If Evil Exists, God Does Not Exist

A Logical Problem of Evil Most philosophers who engage in this issue today focus on evidential problems of evil, while many believe that arguments like Plantinga’s Free-Will defense does away with logical problems of evil. As Christian Philosopher William Lane Craig states: "The logical problem of evil is just not defended anymore in the philosophical community." - William Lane Craig[1] However, there are still plenty of philosophers who simply aren’t satisfied with the evidential argument from evil, and still smell something fishy with the idea of a perfectly good being allowing evil. I think that a sound argument can be made to show that there is a contradiction between these two propositions, despite common notions to the contrary. (i)There is evil (ii)An Omnibenevolent, Omniscient, and Omnipotent God exists There is a simple problem with all theodicies and arguments against any problem of evil. They start with the evil we see then try to explain it in terms of God. However, they fail to realize that we can deduce evil cannot exist due to the very nature of such a being itself. Thus, neither free-will or any other type of morally sufficient reasons are sufficient to explain away logical problems of evil. If God exists, then he has certain inherent modal properties. The most perfectly good God possible must have one of these two properties, but not both: 1. (i) The property of necessarily being the necessary condition for only good 2. (ii) The property of possibly being the necessary condition for evil In order to make God compatible with evil, the Theist must say that the most perfectly good being possible has the property of possibly being the necessary condition for evil, while not having the property of necessarily being the necessary condition for only good. If that is not absurd; I don’t know what is. It seems self-evident that a truly perfectly good being would certainly have 1 without question. Some people may not be satisfied with that answer. Therefore, I will present more justification. To Accept That We Can Do Evil If God Exists, Is To Accept That We Can Cough Up Round Squares If God Exists What stems from God would just be a reflection of his nature. To say that God could create beings that can do evil, is on the same level as saying that God could create beings who can cough up round squares. If we cannot do one thing that goes against his nature (cough up round squares), why can we do something that violates his nature (do evil)? To expand on this, we have God’s nature grounding two things if he exists in this scenario according to standard Theism: PG: Perfect goodness LL: The laws of logic Now we cannot say that the laws of logic are more necessary than perfect goodness if God exists, as it is the exact same thing making them necessary in the first place in this scenario (God’s nature). Thus, since we know it is true that if God creates someone, they cannot violates the laws of logic by painting a red house that is all blue, it follows that: Principle: If God creates creature C, creature C cannot do any action which goes against PG or LL However, according to this principle, no creature God creates can commit evil, as that would be the equivalent to this creature having a friend who is a perfectly clean shaven man with a beard. A married bachelor and evil are two things which are just necessarily impossible under Theism, as it is the exact same thing which makes PG and LL necessary; the character of God himself. If we can create evil situations even though evil goes against God's nature, then it becomes inexplicable as to why we cannot create contradictory objects even though God's nature is perfectly logical. It would be absurd to say that part of God's nature can be contradicted, but not another as the entire nature of God would be necessary if God exists. Why The Free-Will Defense Specifically Fails The theist might still not be satisfied as free-will is an intrinsic good to them; not being able to commit evil undermines it. This objection fails for a number of reasons, but most importantly it fails because we could still have free-will and commit evil. Around a decade ago, philosopher Quentin Smith outlines a sound argument from evil in his paper called, well, "A Sound Logical Argument From Evil[2]. He outlines 3 types of freedom: "A person is externally free with respect to an action A if and only if nothing other than (external to) herself determines either that she perform A or refrain from performing A. A person is internally free with respect to an action A if and only if it is false that his past physical and psychological states, in conjunction with causal laws, determine either that he perform A or refrain from performing A. A person is logically free with respect to an action A if and only if there is some possible world in which he performs A and there is another possible world in which he does not perform A. A person is logically free with respect to a wholly good life (a life in which every morally relevant action performed by the person is a good action) if and only if there is some possible world in which he lives this life and another possible world in which he does not."[2] We could be internally and externally free to commit evil, but be logically determined to do good (sort of like how we are internally and externally free to create a round square, but we are not logically free to do so). We know that this type of free-will is actually more intrinsically good than the type of free-will that allows us to do evil if God exists! Why? Because if God exists, then he is externally and internally free to commit evil, but is logically determined to do good (in his case it is because of omnibenevolence). If having internal and external freedom to do evil, but not logical freedom to do evil was intrinsically worse; then God wouldn’t have that property! Since God has the property of being logically determined to lead a good life even though he has internal and external freedom not to, we know that this is the type of free-will that is intrinsically better to have. Thus, if the theist believes free-will is intrinsically good and necessary for us, that harms my argument none. I have just shown that the type of free-will that would entail we never committed evil is actually intrinsically more valuable if God exists. Possible Objection To The Above Argument Against The Free-Will Defense The only philosopher I know in the literature who has challenged Quentin Smith's Argument is Alexander Pruss. His argument goes something like: "The initial form of my argument is very simple. If Patricia is a creature who lacks logical freedom with respect to a wholly good life, then by Smith's definition either it is a necessary truth that if Patricia exists, Patricia leads a wholly good life, or it is a necessary truth that if Patricia exists, Patricia does not lead a wholly good life. For concreteness, take the first case: that Patricia exists entails that Patricia leads a wholly good life.... Then, that God creates Patricia entails that Patricia exists. Therefore, that God creates Patricia entails that Patricia leads a wholly good life. But surely that means that Patricia is determined to lead a wholly good life by something external to her, namely by God's creating her. Hence, she is not externally free with respect to leading a wholly good life" - Alexander Pruss However, as Philosopher Luke Tracy points out: "The free will defense is usually explained by distinguishing between strong and weak actualization. To strongly actualize a state of affairs is to be the cause of that state, whereas to weakly actualize a state of affairs is to strongly actualize (cause) a subset of some state of affairs containing free beings. Those beings complete that state with the free acts described by their counterfactuals of freedom. The point the distinction is to allow us to conceptually separate entailment (which both kinds of actualization imply) from causal responsibility (which only strong actualization implies). But for the distinction to work it must be the case that, though God's bringing about C would counterfactually entail some person-essence's action A, this entailment is not sufficient for God himself to be causally responsible for A." - Luke Tracy[4] Conclusion I have shown a sound argument from evil based on a simple self-evidently true property that God would have if he exists. Any theodicy or defense of Theism in this regards implies that "possibly being the necessary condition for evil" is a good making property, but "necessarily being the necessary condition for only good" is a bad making property; which anybody can see is self-evidently absurd. Just in case the claim of being “self-evident” isn’t satisfying; I closed all possible logical ties (I even closed the Free-Will defense tie). By default, any theodicy cannot work because it is logically necessary that if God exists, evil does not exist due to my argument. Therefore, God cannot exist if evil exists. Sources [1] http://www.reasonablefaith.org... [2] http://commonsenseatheism.com... [3] Pruss, pp. 435-436 [4] http://www.infidels.org...