Talk:Problem of evil/Archive 1

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Are there any earlier explanations of the problem of evil than that of Epicurus, BCE 341/270: ?Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God???

Interesting article, Larry. I too believe that God is much more interested in our character than our comfort. However, I do find your concept of Natural Evil a bit puzzling. A tornado may be disasterous and horrible, but calling it evil seems a bit strange to me. And where do you draw the line? Does a tornado have to take a life to be evil, or can it simply destroy some property? What if it never touches down - is it still evil? I dunno, I just don't think I buy into this.

Terrible things happen to good people, and these events you call evil. But often these people can overcome these events and eventually become a much better person than they ever would have if the event had never happened. I've seen it happen dozens of times. So was the event really evil, can a thing that is evil result in something that is good? Can it do so if God does not really exist?

The small little community I live in just recently was devistated when three high-school aged girls were killed when the mini-van they were riding swerved off the road and rolled over. There was no alcohol involved, it appears they hit a pothole and lost control of the vehicle. All three girls were very active in their respective churches, we know that they were all Christians. I do not wish to diminish in the least the amount of grief that their families and indeed our entire community went through. But I will say this, that our community pulled together around these families, and absolutely outpoured our love onto them. Hundreds of families got involved in bringing whatever comfort we could to the grieving families, and as a result of their testimonies many kids who were making bad choices for themselves have decided to start making better ones. I'm sorry, but I simply cannot see the pothole as evil.

The premises of the argument seem to have the bent that if God truly existed we would live in a environment where nothing ever went wrong. No one would ever get hurt regardless of the circumstances, and everyone would have enough to eat and drink. Why that does sound a lot like the Garden of Eden, doesn't it? It also sounds a lot like we would have very little freedom there - all of our choices would be between things that were already pre-ordained to be good for us. God never promised us smooth sailing, it simply isn't how the world works anymore. He did, however, promise us comfort in our times of sorrow and I can tell you from personal experience that he does deliver.

--RaviDesai.

Ravi - One of Webster's definitions of the noun "evil" is something that brings sorrow, distress or calamity. That leaves plenty of room for Larry's natural evils. If you read the next to last paragraph of his essay/lecture, you see the outline of your own argument above. You will also see that his conclusion is that the argument claiming that the existence of evil disproves God, fails. A conclusion which you obviously share. In very dry and "clinical" terms, he has actually made the same argument to which you bring a wonderfully huma perspective, above. I think you'll agree his article is not in itself defective, and deserves a careful reading to the end.

AyeSpy, I did read his article carefully, I don't disagree with the result all. It is quite clear to me that we share quite similar views. What I disagreed with is calling a natural phenomenon "evil". However, by your Webster's definition, perhaps I need to recant that. But for me, evil was not the result, but the intent. In other words, you could do evil by intent, even if the result was "good". The reverse also true. Since a tornado cannot show intent, I have a difficult time labelling it evil.

At the beginning of my post I indicated that I agreed with Larry that God is more interested in our Character than in our Comfort. I said I agreed with him because, while he did not use those exact words, that is essentially what the result of his argument is. That which does not kill us outright makes us stronger, and gives us more moral character. In general, this is quite true, as the example I gave indicated as well.

However, I don't think we need to view everything bad that happens to us as something evil that God passed our way in order to grow our moral character.

Just so. One needs to take care to distiguish the moral concept of evil, which implies intent, from the generic evil as a noun, which is basically "something bad." When you look at evil in the dictionary as an adjective, all the value judgement stuff is included.

There are gobs and gobs of different conceptions of even the one Christian God, from person to person and sect to sect. Some will tell you that an anthropomorhic God, possessed of human-style motivations while being omniscient and omnipotent, has the time, attention and resources and what's more the will, to attend to each and every one of His children on earth, map out a specific plan for them, and then watch and judge each individually moment-to-moment as to whether that individual accepts and follows God's plan for his life, or rejects it and strays. Theoretically, those disposed to go along with the program get to heaven. In such a scenario, literally everything which happens to one is directly and literally part of God's plan, and how one responds to the various tests presented help determine his worth as a potential heaven-dweller. For the sake of economy, God could test hundreds or thousands at a time by smiting them with a tornado or a tsunami.

Larry's comments would fall right in line with that conception of God, or a very similar one.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there is a Christian theory that God is not matter but spirit, and when he created man in his own image, that was a siritual image and man is therefore a soul like unto God. This same God, omniscient and omnipotent, set up a universe full of traps once his children rebelled against him (ate of the fruit of the tree of knowlege of good and evil) and cast them out into it, knowing all the while that only those with a pure soul and loving heart would be able to escape it. Those who valued matter over spirit would be lost forever. His "plan" for salvation was general, not specific to this or that individual. When Man in his conceit strayed too far, He tried wiping them out and starting over with Noah, but material man was still too in love with the world. So, He sent His son (reduntant as all all men are his literal children, born of his will) to remind everyone, "Hey - love one another, and follow the path I set out, or you ain't never gettin' home. There's only one road back to the Father, and you're not on it." Then He went about His divine business, whatever that may be, checking in now and again to see how the kids are doing.

(These are not theories I made up, but I've had both of them preached to me)

Under the second theory, God is "more concerned about our character than our comfort," and has set out signposts to be followed. Those who follow the road get to come home and dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This would be a God who would neither cause nor prevent tornadoes or eathquakes, but whose children would have an infinite variety of opportunities to learn from their lives and either move closer to Him or farther away. In either case he would love them all, and mourn the lost. Larry's argument still works under this scenario, but the literalness with which this or that person is "tested" would no longer apply.

However you believe is up to you, but you can look at Larry's article on its bare merits and then suggest or make changes which retain the arguments but perhaps open the way for a wider range of interpretation of the same Omniscient, Omnipotent, and All-loving God. No?

Hi, Ravi! Thanks for the thoughtful comments! You wrote:

However, I do find your concept of Natural Evil a bit puzzling. A tornado may be disasterous and horrible, but calling it evil seems a bit strange to me. And where do you draw the line? Does a tornado have to take a life to be evil, or can it simply destroy some property?

This isn't my concept; it's the way that natural misfortunes are referred to when philosophers and theologians discuss The Problem of Evil. Nothing hangs on our using that word, either. The so-called Problem of Evil is just as bad if you refer to "natural evils" (notice, this can take a plural) as "disasters," "misfortunes," or whatever. If you like, we can call it the Problem of Really Bad Things.

But often these people can overcome these events and eventually become a much better person than they ever would have if the event had never happened. I've seen it happen dozens of times. So was the event really evil, can a thing that is evil result in something that is good? Can it do so if God does not really exist?

This is one of the options you have in replying to the argument: you are free to deny that natural evil (misfortune, disaster) really is a bad thing. Maybe it's all a good thing and therefore perfectly consistent with God's being all-loving. Regardless of that, I don't see how God's existence would be required to have something good result from pain and suffering.

AyeSpy wrote:

If you read the next to last paragraph of his essay/lecture, you see the outline of your own argument above. You will also see that his conclusion is that the argument claiming that the existence of evil disproves God, fails.

Did I really say that? I shouldn't have, if so.

Ravi replied:

At the beginning of my post I indicated that I agreed with Larry that God is more interested in our Character than in our Comfort. I said I agreed with him because, while he did not use those exact words, that is essentially what the result of his argument is.

Again, did I really say that (so that you can agree with me)? I thought I was just explaining one point of view, not necessarily expressing my own.

Then AyeSpy:

However you believe is up to you, but you can look at Larry's article on its bare merits and then suggest or make changes which retain the arguments but perhaps open the way for a wider range of interpretation of the same Omniscient, Omnipotent, and All-loving God. No?

By all means, Ravi, if you wish to expand any particular point that I've made in the article, go for it. While you do it, however, please be sure to attribute your views to the person or people who hold them, rather than asserting straightforwardly that the views are correct. We want to retain a semblance of lack of bias here. :-)

-- Larry Sanger

"AyeSpy wrote:

If you read the next to last paragraph of his essay/lecture, you see the outline of your own argument above. You will also see that his conclusion is that the argument claiming that the existence of evil disproves God, fails.

Did I really say that? I shouldn't have, if so." -- Larry Sanger

I should put this differently: If you are persuaded, as I am, that premise (5) does not logically fit any known data, then the combination of an all.../all.../all... God is not disproven by the ProblemOfEvil argument, as one of its necessary premises fails. This, in combination with the second-to-last paragraph seem compatible with Ravi's stance, just not as emotionally so.

Obviously, if you believe an all-loving God cannot permit evil, then you must bow to the force of the original argument. But then you would also have to believe that a loving mother could not visit unpleasantness and therefore discipline upon her child, since the child obviously would not find discipline pleasant. A Christian believer already believes, likely, that scripture supports discipline as essential to love. For this reason, It would appear futile for an atheist to attemt to pursuade a Christian with the ProblemOfEvil. He might pursuade non-believers, but then what would be the point? He'd be "preaching to the choir." Heh heh ;^)

In addition to discipline, loving parents sometimes allow their children to make their own choices and suffer the consequences in order to learn. A young child may be allowed to touch a hot stove to learn what "hot" means. A teenager may be allowed to sign up for too many activities to learn what "overcommitted" means. Or in another scenario, a manager with the best interests of the company may allow an employee to exercise some judgment and make decisions, even if some of them wind up causing some limited harm to the company. If the manager were to veto every single bad decision, the employee would quickly feel powerless and lose any sense of creativity or innovation. I don't see how giving people free will to think about choices, but physically preventing some choices, still amounts to freedom. It would be like telling someone they can travel anywhere in the forest they want to... then sending them on a hike through the forest with 20' high plexiglass walls on either side of the approved trail. They could see the whole forest, and think about wandering off the trail all they wanted, but wouldn't be able to. Or suppose the plexiglass walls were only at the edges of cliffs and waterfalls. Would that still be free will? Wesley

Ed, I see your recent edit. Whilst this is interesting information, wouldn't this be a case of the possibility raised under presmise 2 c) - that "God does not want to eliminate evil", the consequences of which are examined under premise 5? IANAPOT (I Am Not A Philosopher Or Theologian :) ), so my interpretation might be horribly wrong. --Robert Merkel

This is a hard question and thus a good question, Robert. As someone who believes a priori that God exists, I see the problem of evil as a struggle to understand why God has permitted it to go on so long. Perhaps I am a bit off-topic, if the article is primarily an argument against the possibility of God's existence.

Anyway, what I meant was: God wants to eliminate evil but is "tolerating" it (as liberals nowadays always request). Meanwhile, He is encouraging us to take responsibility for eliminating it.

Evil, defined (in the UC) as "taking advantage of another person for one's own benefit", may be seen as a kind of immaturity rather than as a force equal and opposite to God. Why do human parents let their children do all sorts of zany and inappropriate things, rather than strictly enforce standards? To answer my own question, it's because excessive strictness restricts human growth. Parents must tolerate their children's immature behavior because that aids their growth to maturity. (Hmm, that sounds paradoxical.)

God, as our Heavenly Parent, likewise tolerates our immaturity.

Now, this may be more a statement of faith than an answer to a philosophical question, but it's the best I can do. Unless you want me to pray about it, then maybe I'll be able to do better! -- User:Ed Poor

The problem of evil can, IMHO, be viewed from both perspectives (as an argument against the existence of God, or, for a theist, why God allows evil to exist). My point was for the perspective of the argument against God's existence, I don't see how the information provides any insight supporting or refuting the argument. Therefore, I would suggest that the information be shifted into more general discussion rather than inline with the argument itself. --Robert Merkel

my background is in mormonism, which I have always found to deal with classical theological arguments quite differently than other churches. I say this, and make the following comments, not to go off about a (my) specific religion, but to point out several more arguments and counter-arguments and loopholes to "the argument from evil"...

>First, some people, including some Christians, believe that the occurrence of natural evil is a direct result of moral evil. If everyone were to turn from evil, disease, famine, and natural disasters would end. The problem with this proposal is that natural evils often befall virtuous people and leave evildoers unharmed; the entire scene appears distributively unjust.

but at least it moves these "natural evils" into the realm of "moral evils" since they technically would be caused by the bad people; hurting the innocent the same as if the bad people directly harmed the innocent.

>The Unification Church believes that God wants human beings to get rid of evil themselves. According to this premise, then, God does not allow evil so much as He allows us to allow it. When we determine to get rid of it, this will make Him very happy. I'm not sure if any other churches have a similar belief.

mormons believe similarly. human beings cannot progress without real experience. "give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach him how to fish..."

>Some may say that death in and of itself is not evil, since we all must die. The manner in which we die is mostly irrelevant, whether it is by natural disaster or by disease.

this is especially true if one also believes that this earth life is infinitesimally short and that we will literally live again.

>Furthermore, an effective argument can be made against free will forcing humanity to contend with "moral evil".
and >The obvious objection to this is why are we tested? Why are we brought into the world through no choice of our own, only to be put through tests?

this approach completely ignores the mormon and early christian notion that we chose to come here. we in fact sat in council and the details of this life and what we would gain from it were explained to us and we accepted it... such a believe also makes John Rawls' thought experiment, Original Position aka Veil of Ignorance, irrelevant.

>God could have made us perfect and saved us the effort of all these tests. In the end, all the testing proves unnecessary.

again, the mormons believe that the testing is not for god's benefit, but for our own. so that we may know ourselves... even the word test is in fact the wrong word since it implies failure and punishment (similar to suffering, of course we brought it on ourselves...) but that is only one way to look at it. one way that mormons look at it is that this whole process is a sorting process so that we essentially are choosing where we want to go, and that we would not be happy somewhere else (some people would not be happy in heaven...) so this is ultimately just and fair.

>At the very least, one can have free will but physically be prevented from performing the evil, so that the intentions can be noted but not the act which would cause pain to others.

this assumes that there is no significant difference between thought and action. many people believe that that is the critical line that one must not cross. for example, we have no control over many of the thoughts that pop into our minds or are flashed on us by surprise (for which a just god could not condemn us), but it is what we chose to do with those thoughts that matters...

it also assumes that god and man are fundamentally different and that for god to be omnipotent he must not be subjected to any laws, except maybe his own. this is such a strong point of disagreement that some christians feel it defines a border for the christian concept of God. nevertheless, mormons, who basically believe in the judaeo-christian god believe that there is some reason that god cannot just fill our heads with knowledge (that it is by definition, not knowledge if it comes that way -- or in other words, relating to an earlier comment, perfection cannot be attained that way), and that reason is somehow related to that fact that we are like god in some ways. in other words, that some part of our aspect is not created by him and we therefore are not just his "pawns", and that there is some quality of actual material existence that must be experienced in order to be appreciated.

in fact this is a clear mormon teaching: the wicked must be allowed to do their wickedness, to condemn themselves by their actions... (http://scriptures.lds.org/alma/14/8, esp vs. 9-11 a story of an atrocity)

again, my point here is to show that there are a lot of details of doctrine which easily bypass the argument from evil by a wide berth...

from the discussion: >One of Webster's definitions of the noun "evil" is something that brings sorrow, distress or calamity.

but is that the sense in which we should be discussing it. after all, evil can also refer to bad smells, and is that really relevant just because the philosophers chose to use that word? perhaps we should be talking about suffering, not evil. when you look at it that way, a quick look at the buddhist approach to suffering (which millions accept) makes "natural evil" look a lot less "eeeeevil". evil being a very subjective term to begin with can seem to be derived from peoples' reaction to it, which is why i point out the buddhist reaction...

my personal opinion is that the whole argument from evil is superficial and obsolete as an argument against the existence of a judaeo-christian God. Plasticlax (I'm new here, feel free to educate me on proper wikipedia ettiquette...)

I propose to make the following edit as an addition after the last paragraph in the discussion of premise (2) Darist:

Some Christians believe that premise (2) of the argument from evil contains an appeal to arrogance. The arrogance takes two forms. Accordingly, we twice show the argument is fallacious, once for denying necessary attributes of God and once for attributing near omniscience to humans.

If the God described by the Bible exists, then his actions cannot be judged by humans. (The context suggests to Christians that it is the God of the Bible that is being discussed. So, to see why they say God must be above the judgement of humans, see Job 38, Isaiah 55:8-9, Mt 7:1 (if humans cannot judge humans, how much more can they not judge God), Rom 9:14,20, 1 Cor 2:16.)

But, because the premise (2) assumes that God?s actions can be judged by humans, it merely assumes that God does not exist. This is what it is supposed to prove. (A valid argument does not assume what it is supposed to prove.)

So, the evils in the ?argument from evil? are arrogance and circular reasoning. (?Eliminate! Eliminate!?)

Further, there is an unstated assumption in premise (2).

As originally written, premise (2) begins, ?If evil exists in the world, then??

Let?s rewrite the premise to show what was left unstated: ?We humans are smart enough to know what an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving God should do about every evil, and we have decided that God should immediately eliminate all evil. Therefore, if evil exists in the world, then??

We submit that this restatement explicitly states what is implicitly required by the original. (The original implicitly asserts that immediate elimination is the right way to handle all evil. But, the argument doesn?t pretend to hear that from God, (also, for counter examples to that possibility, see Exodus 34:6-7 and 2 Peter 3:9-10). So the argument must assume that we know this from a human source. That source has to be sufficiently smart to be able to make that decision.)

Now that we have noticed this previously unstated part of premise (2), we need proof that it is correct before we can accept premise (2). If premise (2) cannot be accepted, the argument does not prove that God does not exist.

So, looking at the previously unstated part, it should be apparent that the real problem with the supposed ?problem of evil? is arrogance. If this is not apparent to you, prove that you are smart enough to know what an omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving God should do about every evil.

---

I have no problem with you adding those paragraphs, but in my opinion it is not really an argument. What you are saying is that our rules of logic may not apply . You are not attacking the idea that evil exists, or that logically if God wanted to remove evil and was omnipotent then he could, you are simply saying "We can't even discuss the issue of God's actions, its too much for us".

While you are entitled to hold this type of belief, In my opinion there is not much point in using it to counter a logical argument. If I believe that if I have two "holy apples" and get two more "holy apples" then I would have five, and nobody could presume to understand the action of their holiness, then that's up to me, but I am not sure that it would do any good to mention it in an argument about arithmetic. -- Chris Q 08:58 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

Thinking about it, maybe we should add a sentence at the beginning, saying:

some people believe that human logic is insufficient to understand God. They see any attempt to argue logically about religion as arrogant. Obviously they see no value or interest in arguments such as this.

-- Chris Q 09:17 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

Actually, I have no problem with arguing logically about religion. However, I think that the rules of logic should be applied properly when we do. I do not think that untested assumptions or circular reasoning should be ignored when they happen, even in logical arguments about religion.

Perhaps, instead, I would say that presuming to understand God to the point of being able to criticize his actions is arrogant.

-- Darist 2/4/3

Hmm... I (Beoran) think the mormon ideas interesting, but they seem to reduce life to a "great 100% immersive Role Playing Game". Anyway, perhaps they could be included in the pages on Theodicity? Or those of Mormonism?

Another point I want to raise is that the comparison between a "loving god" and a loving parent that Wesly makes does not work always. In several religions and denominations, god is supposed to inflict or at least allow eternal suffering, or spiritual death upon those of his "children" who "fail". If we apply the metaphor in this case, we would have to conclude that a loving parent doesn't need to shield their children from lethal dangers, and that parents may even impose needlessly prolonged, cruel, or even lethal punishments to their children. The case of loving parent being unable to cure the suffering of there child canot be maden, since an omnipotent god /is/ able to remove all suffering.

I think that one who believes in a loving god and in the theodicity of "life as a learning school" must also include some provisions for the "failiures". Reincarnation of the wicked, or a "purification through fire" as seen in Zoroarstrianism are the most viable options here.

I agree with the header text that the article requires further development. But for now I have a comment restricted to part of the 2nd last paragraph, which I feel somewhat misunderstands the Christian viewpoint on natural evil. It currently reads:

First, some people, including some Christians, believe that the occurrence of natural evil is a direct result of moral evil. If everyone were to turn from evil, disease, famine, and natural disasters would end. The problem with this proposal is that natural evils often befall virtuous people and leave evildoers unharmed; the entire scene appears distributively unjust.

True, the Christian viewpoint is that natural evil results from moral evil ("Cursed is the ground because of you" - Genesis 3:17), but never claims that this will be such as to effect distributive justice in this world (e.g. Luke 13:4-5), but rather that creation in general is currently in a state of "groaning" (Romans 8:22), and that justice will be perfected when Jesus comes to judge (e.g. Revelation 22:12).

Will change accordingly.

--Trainspotter 12:46, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

To turn the argument around:

If God exists, then he must be perfectly good.
If God does NOT exist, then he is NOT perfectly good.
If God is not perfectly good, then neither is anything else. (Otherwise, it would be God.)
If nothing is perfectly good, then there exists no standard of reference for "goodness". It is impossible to tell if one thing is "better" than something else. For example, if there were no such thing as the color red, then it would be meaningless to say one thing was "redder" than another.
If there is no standard of reference for "goodness", than there is by the same token no standard of reference for evil, assuming that we define "evil" as "not good" or "anti-good". To use my earlier example, if you can't say one thing is "redder" than another, then you can't say it is "less red" or even "not red", because the word "red" has no meaning.
If there is no standard of reference for good or evil, then there can be no such thing as good or evil. All things simply exist, and have no moral goodness or evilness.
If there is no evil, then by Larry's argument, God must exist.

To Mr Blah

Hi.....Mr blah you are taking on the opinion of St. Augustine who believes that Suffering is the consequence of free will.

I am a protest atheist and cannot believe that a god would give us a free will knowing the consequences.

Blah

God did not create evil, and therefore is not responsible for it. What God did create was man, with free will. It was man, armed with his free will that created evil, and it is man that is responsible for it.

Yeah, yeah. Please add new comments at the bottom, and sign your comments with ~~~~ -- infinity0 19:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Also if you believe in God you believe in Satan/the devilwhich means that good and evil balance out —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.184.32 (talk • contribs)

You can negate God's fault/input in inventing the concept of evil by making an evil diety, but that doesn't solve the problem of evil -- why does an omnibenevolent God allow this? The answer seems to lie in free will, and how it thus justifies evil by giving us the freedom to choose, rather than a universe where everything is ordered and thus (less) meaningful. Something like that. I will need to think about this some more because it has been some time since I read anything on theodicy. Piepants 16:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Piepants

If god is omnipent and good he can eliminate evil since he created freewill wich in turn created "evil". But since he doesnt eliminate it he is logicly responsible for it. If i have the omnipent power to do what ever i want i am responsible for everything since i can effect everything the way i want and if i let evil be i am evil. Or atleast not omnipent

Content issues

Mel -

You are very unclear as to why you are making so many edits, especially deletions. Could we get some substantial justification? Infinity0 and I are trying to compromise and work together to make some good articles. Why not join the effort of construction rather than destruction?

By the way everyone, Mel Etitis is doing this same thing to other articles, including the Philosophy of Religion article on Wikipedia.

68.6.99.244 04:42, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Mel Etitis, what exactly do you not understand about the current revision?? Everything is on there which was on the version YOU understand, plus a little extra which describes the format of the argument, and a few reworked arguments. Infinity0 20:04, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Just wanted to thank Infinity0 for defending improvement rather than mass deletion of article content additions. Mel Etitis has been doing some massive, pompous deletion without sufficient justification. Be advised.

68.6.99.244 06:15, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Why are there separate articles on the "The Problem of evil", "Theodicy", and "Free Will and the Problem of Evil"? Maybe these sections of the encyclopedia should be written with some kind of coherent article structure, instead of everybody's little, overlapping, essays on various topics.

Off you go, then. Be my guest. -- The Anome 12:40, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Would anyone seriously object if this article were gutted completely? It's a rambling, badly-written Intro to Philosophy essay right now, not a Wikipedia article on the problem of evil. Graft 13:18, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Ooh, someone did it! And beautifully... Graft

It is well written and accurate AFAIK, but nowhere near as comprehensive as the older version. I hope it gets expanded to an appropriate level of detail. --Robert Merkel 14:19, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Would anyone mind if I simply folded this material into the fuller article, Free will and the problem of evil ? This page then could b turned into a redirect. The two articles are essentially the same topic. RK 19:44, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The entire article is silly since "evil" is a religious term for a variety of things more appropriately described by other terms. "Moral evil" is worse, since the person engaged in it often (if not always) perceives the same action as "good." Then it degenerates into assuming free will exists in the absolute sense, not just the obfuscatory sense used by "compatibilists", which is equivalent to "freedom" and is not relevant to discussions of ultimate choice. The example of rape represents a violation of freedom, not of free will; if free will existed, it could not be violated. Fairandbalanced 23:41, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If a merge was to be done at all, I think I'd prefer it to go in the opposite direction - include other stuff here rather than making this a redirect... free will isn't the only issue related to the PoE. Evercat 19:52, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I concur. Graft

The article on free will and the problem of evil, while well-written and valuable deals with one particular strand of argument about the problem of evil, This is the more general article, and you should merge the contents of the other article with this one, and redirect it here. Since you are in a merging mood, don't forget the articles on theodicy, and the logical and evidential arguments from evil, which are also on the same topic as this article. Finally, after all the merges, you might consider bringing back some of the material from this article that I removed because it was so long-winded. By the way, I was intending to do all this myself, so if you don't get around to it in the next week or so, I will probably do it, unless somebody puts forward a good argument why not.

I agree. RK

I merged the theodicy article in. This reduced the coherence of the article, but at least we have started to consolidate this material. 66.82.112.10 16:53, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Great! Maybe we should turn the Theodicy article into a link to this page. They are now covering the precise same set of topics. Also, I have finally merged all the text from Free will and the problem of evil into this article, and turned that entry into a Redirect to here. RK 17:50, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This argument is weak:

"But there is another, similar problem. Some instances of moral evil already involve violations of free will -- e.g., rape. For God to step in and deny the violator his freedom would also be to protect the victim's freedom. In such cases, it all comes down to whose free will is more valuable -- which instance of coercion would be worse? And it is morally implausible that the best thing to do is to respect a rapist's freedom to rape unhindered rather than protecting the victim's freedom. So, for a large category of moral evil -- all moral evil involving coercion -- it's automatically implausible that the value of free will can justify God's inaction. We must then narrow the domain of admissible evil yet again."

Why? The writer seems to missuse the term "will" to mean "destiny". Despite the freedom the victim has to not wanting to be raped, he can suffer from it against her will.

An opposing viewpoint here would state that God has already intervened in the world: he has told us that rape and similar acts are wrong.

This rather misses the point. When we ask why on earth God allows all this evil, it's rather unsatisfactory to say "well, he's politely asked us all to be good - what more do you want him to do?" --Evercat 22:36, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I am deleting that since it is irrelevant to this section. Also clarifying that free will is an unverified assertion. Attempted to tighten up some other parts without significantly changing the meaning. Fairandbalanced 03:54, 5 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Moved to talk since I have absolutely no idea what this means:

But that argument fails because it assumes an identity between the beings in this world and God. For God to be indicted on this charge He would have had to have been capable of making a world with Himself identically reproduced in it. But He is one and indivisible, so per Plantiga's reasoning, He can't do that. His omnipotence is not impugned and the argument falls.

Huh? Why does the argument assume God has to create a clone of himself? Evercat 21:32, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

What's the context in this? It seems like the person is stating that God needs to create a second universe (including a second God), and thus cannot do so since God is individsible. Why does God need to make a second universe? Is it to create a universe which is orderly and has no sin? Piepants 17:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Piepants

what?

"Karma's not a normal response from religions that are vulnerable to the PoE. Moving it to a less prominent position." (user:evercat, edit note) I'd like some explanation of what you mean by this. Are you saying that believers in karma are "invulnerable" to the problem of evil argument? If so, I think the deserves a particularly prominant place in this article :) Jack 19:41, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

My understanding is that the PoE is usually applied to Christianity, Judaism and Islam - the religions that believe in a single all-powerful fully-merciful God. These don't, to my knowledge, believe in karma. So karma is not a typical response to the PoE. Are there any religions that believe in an omnipotent omnibenevolent God and karma? Evercat 21:02, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Sanathana Dharma / Brahman Hinduism? Also, Karma is perfectly compatable w all faiths, Christianity included. I know of may christians who interpret "as you sow, so shall you reap" as karma. I agree it is not a "typical response" but it is a valid one. It appears that you agree w me that karma is a solid answer to PoE? If so, this deserves alot more attention, not a cover up. Jack 02:32, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I just moved it down. That's not a cover up. Is karma an answer? Well, if one only believes in a single life and not reincarnation (as the 3 religions that I named do, to the best of my knowledge) then it doesn't explain relatively sinless lives that are nevertheless awful. Karma only works to solve the PoE if one believes in reincarnation. So perhaps it can work for Hinduism, if indeed Hinduism really portrays an omnipotent omniscient omnibenevolent God (I don't have the knowledge of Hinduism). But you agreed with me above that it's not a typical response. That's why I moved it down. Evercat 13:49, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I direct you to [1]. I'm sorry if the word "cover up" came across harshly, but I feel this is an area which has been covered up (not necessarilly by you! :) and is consistantly glossed over. Reincarnation is probably necessary in order for karma to be an answer to the PoE, but reincarnation is generally seen as a byproduct of Karma. Its not easy to understand how Karma could work w/o it. Anyways, I plan to write more on this subject, and I do not agree that it must be relagated to a lower position due it's unconventional nature in western debate of this concept. You may want to look into Brahman if you have any confusion about the Hindu God. Jack 04:27, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I object to this

"Some atheists believe that the problem of evil can be used to prove that God does not exist by the method of reductio ad absurdum. "

I was about to remove it, but I figured I should hear any evidence for, or explanation of this. It seems absurd to me ;) Sam Spade 05:50, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think it is just historical fact that thi8s has been used by some atheists as a profe that God does not exist. In my opinion not a very good proof, but see http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/evil.html and http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/evil.html. The paragraph should therefore stay. -- Chris Q 07:37, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wow, that really wasn't ment to stand up to scrutiny, was it? Ok, I accept your evidence. I put in a disclaimer about lack of imagination. Sam Spade 08:12, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Sam, I changed your sentence from "Others see the as a better example of argument from lack of imagination." to "Others see the atheists argument as an example of argument from lack of imagination.". This is what I think you were saying, but you left some words out!

Also, I changed "Atheists" to "Some atheists", because I think many atheists see this as a rather limited and week argument. -- Chris Q 12:18, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I should hope anyone would (esp. the author!), if they had bothered to give it much thought. Good eye catching my earlier edit blunder :S I have since made a couple of changes, but I don't think I've changed the meaning at all, just made the wikilink work, and improved the sentance I added (reduced it mainly). Sam Spade 12:33, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What's all the fuss about Good and Evil.

What is the problem with evil? God is God. Is it so hard to accept that his existence is beyond good and evil, beyond our understanding of certain issues ie: if evil exist then God doesn't because God is supposed to be all good?

Good and evil are attributes of human nature/understanding of what they mean in relationship to one another (to good and evil) and to our existence. They are nothing more than experiences for our understanding of life. How we choose to apply, understand or experience it is up to us.

Certainly good or evil can not be used to validate or invalidate God's existence. It is not a mean for us to use individually or in conjunction with any other thing to prove or disprove God's existence. God's existence is unlimited and without bound in any and every direction. "Good and evil" have already limited God to within our scope of understanding or what we want God to be. God would not and could not be God if his existence requires our validation or understanding.

It is by choice not by logic that one will begin to understand God or know God exist. It is a given, that God exist, whether we choose to accept this or not.

Say Yang

You are right of course. Would you like to form a user account? Sam [Spade] 06:14, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Surely the discussion is about the existence of evil, not particularly the existence of God. The mention of using evil to invalidate the existence of God is a tangential reference. Moreover, the way you describe God, Say, is to describe anything which is "beyond," such that God could be something else equally beyond our understanding yet influences the world (Consciousness? Satan? 12th dimensional hyperspace?). Apparently, God made mortals so inept at understanding (even those who "choose" to understand him) that your approach so far has not succeeded in ridding the problem of evil from the world - thus we have this Wikipedia article.

Nice try, though. I honestly admire your effort.--Psients 13:39, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

People arn't enept, were busy suffering/learning. Progress is good. Sam [Spade] 00:32, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The only philosophical "problem of evil" would be if, 1.) there actually is moral "evil" -- not just subjective, personal dislikes, and 2.) the being ultimately in control of that "evil" intends it for an "evil" purpose and / or directly causes it. Without one (1), the events and thoughts designated as "evil" are simply more amoral facts of the universe, such as the fact of fingers or toes (some are disturbed by them, some have a fetish for them). Without (2), there is no "problem" insofar as the being in control of the "evil" does not have an "evil" motive and does not directly engage in the "evil" (which implies nothing about that being's ability to prevent the "evil").

One might note the problem of Adam and Eve eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and thus their loss of innocence leading to the fall. That might be one point of analysis for the user beginning this particular subject.

Yes, it's a very touchy subject. But I just reason: Parents can influence a child greatly, perhaps for the better. Parents can keep children from doing bad things. (Just bear with me :)) But some decide not to so that they can learn for themselves that doing bad things is... bad. I think it's just the same as with God. We're the children, he's the parent. He doesn't want to be such a control freak that we try to kill ourselves because our lives are being controlled. Of course, he could make us fail, but then we would just be more depressed. So he just hopes we'll figure it out on our own. 1337 r0XX0r 14:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The point of the problem of evil isn't to say no god exists just that an all loving, all knowing , all powerful god doesn't exist. The problem of evil allows for an all loving god, as long as 'he' is not all powerful or all knowing. It allows for an all knowing god as long as 'he' is not all powerful or all loving. Finally it allows for an all powerful god as long as 'he' is not all knowing or all loving.Your god as parent could be seen as all loving, but without the power or the knowledge to help us. -- SamuellusSoccus 19:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

One point

"But Plantinga reminds us that there are always trivial limits on omnipotence -- God can't make 2+2=5 or create a married bachelor."

This means God is not omnipotent. If the evil demon of Descartes can deceive us about logic in such a way, making married bachelors possible, why can't God do it? It seems absurd that some demon is more powerful than God...

Plantinga is a Christian-Theist of the Reformed camp. Most Christians through-out history, including the Reformed Christians, have defined Omnipotence along of the lines of 'being able to do all that is not contrary to your nature, having no external power exerted on your being or will, your own self the source and original of all power'. Thus, when Plantinga speaks about God not being able to make '2+2=5' a true proposition, he is really making two statements: God's own thinking (part of His nature) is logical and coherent, and God is Omnipotent. Also, what Descartes' "Evil Genius" hypothesis referred to was the reliability of sense perception, i.e., the metaphysics of knowledge, viz., epistemology; what Plantinga was referring to was the actual state of affairs about the world, viz., ontological facts. I'm fairly certain that Plantinga would have no problem granting that God would have the raw capacity to deceive people about propositions like '2+2=5', so that they would hold to false beliefs, though I'm equally certain that he would argue that God's nature is such as to rule out that kind of behavior.

But surely there is a false argument here: the definition of bachelor is someone who is not married.

Yes, a bachelor is only a word that humans have given its meaning, so that part of the argument doesn't make sense.

I don't think that's a valid objectoin. Every word is merely a term to which human beings have given meaning. Without these meanings, there can be no rational discourse. The point is that the term "bachelor" does have meaning (i.e. an unmarried man); hence, it makes perfect sense to say that God cannot create a married bachelor.

The 'married bachelor' error (not a paradox) proof against God's omnipotence (if it can even be called a proof) isn't very strong. It assumes some premises: that a bachelor is an unmarried man, and that God can make premise 1) false, thus making the premise 'a bachelar is a married man' true.

Either one or the other is true, but as they are contradictory statements, they can't both be true. That's the silent assumption.

A better claim might be that God can't turn back time (err..maybe falsifiable) or that God can't make 2 = 3. Piepants 17:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)Piepants

There's more than one definition of omnipotence, and the married bachelor style of paradox only poses a problem using the least refined definition. Take a look at the page on the omnipotence paradox here - it's got a fantastic overview of the problem. 195.97.248.74 11:06, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Epistemological Problem of Evil?

Shouldn't the article list both forms of the "problem of evil" -- ontological and epistemological? Right now there is only the ontological problem listed under the definition: God is all good / powerful, evil exists, therefore God is either not all good / powerful, or evil doesn't exist. But there is also an epistemological form of the problem: the existence of evil would make it impossible to know that God is all good (on the basis of experience alone), evil exists, therefore one cannot know that God is all good. The epistemological form of the problem is not very strong against 'revealed' religions, which claim to have knowledge of God's Omnibenevolence by direct revelation rather than by an inductive survey of human experience, but it is still a distinct form of the problem and probably merits some mention.

How come nobody commented on this? (And who wrote it in the first place?) Maybe because it makes too much sense? The problem is that humanity is trying to define the undefinable — God. (The God in the Old Testament wasn't exactly benevolent.) If God is the be all and end all, then who are we to say that what we define as "good" is "God", and what we define as "evil" is not "God"? Who are we to define and completely understand God? Who created Lucifer? Who created the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Who put said tree into the Garden of Eden? God created the temptation (the fruit). God created the temptor (the serpent). God created the naïve sinners (Adam and Eve). Sounds like entrapment to me ;) We have a deviant shape-changing angel who became the first traveling salesman, "here... try this tasty apple, guaranteed to make you as wise as a god". We have the woman whom God created to be susceptible to ploys from traveling salesmen and we have man whom God created to be susceptible to ploys from beautiful women. Not only that... Eve ate the apple first, and then tempted Adam by showing off her newly acquired mental prowess. Adam didn't stand a chance. --Thoric 16:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

A wise man once said, "I think therefore I am". Simply put, "I exist because I am aware that I exist". Logic also dictates that, "If something can exist, then it does exist". The existence of that "something" in a physical or imaginary state is irrelevant. Existence is existence. For example, a fantasy exists in dreams in the mind. They are not physical, but they are still in existence; and are happening. Existence is a state of awareness. Yet at the same time, it is possible to be unaware that you exist and still be in existence. For example, a baby exists but doesn't perceive their own existence due to a lack of maturity. Omnipotence is (1.)the ability to do anything. (2.)The state of being all powerful. This ability is generally attributed to deities. "If it is possible to do anything, then it is possible to create anything; including a reality where absolutely everything can exist. Even creations who could resist their creator". One of the most asked questions by many is, "If an omnipotent being could make another being with the ability to resist their control, would they"? "And if so, why"? Many Gods of many faiths and fictions have varying rationales behind their actions. The God of the Christian faith gave his creations the freedom to choose not to serve his commands. Abstract arguments abound as to why this was done. The most accepted explanation is that God is a deity who has chosen to take on the attributes of good and love as defining characteristics of his nature. So much so in fact, that he can become the physical manifestion of these attributes. It would be logical that a God with such a character would prefer to have servants that obey because they have made a conscience choice to do so. It is also Logical that their would be creations that would choose just the opposite. The bible teaches that God has chosen to exist in a constant state of self denial towards anything that is of a negative state. It also teaches that his creations can exist in this same state of being when they are with him. If God is good incarnate and hince pleasurable to be around, then to exist in a state without him is to exist in evil and suffering. The next question is, "Why give these servants free will"? One logical explanation is that an omnipotent and omniscient being knows that just because you can be evil doesn't mean you will be. That being said, it is then logical that a reality in which good and evil co-existing in the same state with a God of such a nature can indeed exist. It is also logical that for an omnipotent being, a reality can be created where all its inhabitants exist in an infinite positive state. "If God is a creator of everything, did he create the Devil?" According to the logic above the answer could be considered an affirmative. God created beings that eventually chose to challenge him. But because these being had a choice to co-exist with him, it can then be argued that they were self made creations; hince God's involvement in their creation is an indirect result of his nature. "If a Good God can exist, then an Evil God can as also". Christanity calls this God "Lucifer, the evil one". The co-existence of a good diety and evil diety is logical in a world where all things can exist. An omnipotent being though can create realites where there exists only good and only evil. According to the bible, this will be the end result for the current conjoined reality will be replaced with the two separated forms of existence. The current will only exist as a memory in the minds of the inhabitants of the afermentioned. Cross reference Alternate Reality, Omniscience, Omnipresence and Parallel Dimension. References to these topics can also be found in such pop culture media as the Matrix Trilogy. I suggest cross referencing with other religions and their idealogies on Good and Evil; as well as thier thoughts on Heaven and Hell.

What's with the crappy presentation of the core peice?

I've seen some crappy presentations but that takes the cake. It's like 1 line. There's a whole nice logical presentation that only takes a few lines.

God is all-good.
God is all-powerful.
God is all-knowing.
All-good beings would seek to destroy evil.
All-powerful beings could destroy evil.
All-knowing beings would know evil would be created.
If an all-good, all-powerful all-knowing being existed, evil would not.
Evil exists.
An all-good, all-powerful all-knowing does not exist.

Responses.

Middle-knowledge. No free will/fideism.
Limited Omniscience. God didn't know Satan would go bad and create evil.
Fatalism. God created evil? And... he's still God!
Contradiction. Sure, it is contradictory but its all still true.
Additional response from LukeH 18:11, 30 May 2005 (UTC): There is a flaw in the logic is at point "4.": All-good beings would seek to destroy evil. That is not necessarily true, particularly in the light of the justice of God (which is one of the things that makes Him perfect), and man's agency. The fact that He could destroy evil (point "5.") does not necessarily mean that He would destroy evil; and the fact that God is all-good does not necessarily mean that He would destroy evil either, if there is a higher purpose in the existence of evil. (For example, perhaps opposition is crucial to our development, so evil may exist for the "higher good".)
It is also arguable that good would not exist without the existence of evil as a comparative. LukeH 18:11, 30 May 2005 (UTC).

Seen some better presentations, for the formal logic argument. This one here is off the top of my head and I'm sleepy. So it's kinda weak. Tatarize 13:10, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You are assuming that things can be created and destroyed. This violates the laws of thermodynamics. Also, you assume that God isn't good and evil combined (God = All), and that evil isn't necessary. I would say that without evil, good would have alot less meaning, that evil is the lack of, or distance from, God. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 18:50, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

First off, you don't understand the laws of Thermodynamics. That's the only explanation for your first comment. They have nothing to do with creation or destruction. Conservation of matter and conservation of energy perhaps, thermodynamics does involve conservation of entropy. But you still lack a leg to stand on there. Thermodynamics is heat exchange, not a magical law that says God exists.
Yes, the problem of evil includes the assumption that God is omnibenevolent. If you reject that assumption the argument holds no weight. However all-good is often a qualifier of God.
Your final point is one of the critics of the of the argument: Dualism. And should be added to the list.
Your responce seems a little too directed at me. The argument is the argument is the argument. That's the formal presentation of it. I'll either sharpen it up personally or look for a public domain source for the formal but probably just the former for the write up. Tatarize 03:05, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I dare say it is you who fails to comprehend the ramifications of the laws of thermodynamics, and I never suggested that they are magical or prove God exists, but thats off topic. Lets just simplify to state that your argument presupposes that things can be created or destroyed, which is by no means a given.

As to me speaking directly to you, it is your particular presentation of the argument which I am speaking to. As far as Dualism, I wasn't refering to dualism at all, quite to the contrary I was invoking Summum bonum, but a mention of dualism would of course be helpful in the article as well. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 12:15, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't know where you guys are going off on this...I think you can also assume that God -could- have created the world with no evil. And suddenly thermodynamics can represent an abstract and intangible object like "evil"? I doubt it applies...but off the topic.

You've entirely forgotten to directly mention the convention of "Free will". God chose to give us free will (according to believers, of which I am one), so therefore he cannot interfere with that.

Even Taoists believe that "all can know good as good only because there is evil." I wish I could credit that quote - it's in the Tao te ching somewhere. 206.114.20.121

bunch of articles

apart from this article, we have

I know this was already discussed above. But it seems to have gotten worse instead of better. These articles are all about the same topic, and there shouldn't be so many of them...

Also, into which of them would I include the observation that mention of the problem is probably first attested (and not resolved) in Psalm 14,1

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

dab (ᛏ) 17:34, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, now that I have an id, I'll point out that I'm the anon who made this point at the beginning of the Talk page, way back in summer 2003. I also tried in August 2003 to rewrite this page and merge Theodicy, although some time after I wandered off, this seems to have been undone. It seems to have only gotten worse since then, and someone has then merged stuff the other way into Theodicy. Or maybe it was already worse only I didn't realize it. Why don't we plan how to merge all these articles? Does anyone think there is a good reason for them to be separate? --BM 20:39, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This afternoon, I made a start on merging. Logical and evidential arguments from evil was redirected to theodicy, and its content appended to the theodicy article. This is not ideal, but I didn't want to lose the content. I shortened this article (that is, The problem of evil) somewhat to make it an overview, and appended the content of Epicurean paradox here, after redirecting that article. Also, I renamed Eutheism and dystheism to Eutheism, dystheism, and maltheism, and merged the Maltheism in as a (too long) final section. For the moment, it is a separate article, but my feeling is that it should also eventually be discussed in the one article on this general topic, and that the eutheism, dystheism, and maltheism material should be much reduced.

So, we are down to a three articles at present. Now, does anyone have any thoughts on which article should be the final target of merges, theodicy or The problem of evil. I lean somewhat towards theodicy, with the the problem of evil becoming a redirect. --BM 23:17, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Passage on hell

Franc28: the passage, originally placed in the article by an anon, that you've replaced is original research, with no citations or reference, and is both poorly written and poorly argued. Why do you think that it should remain? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:11, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

After further consideration, I agree that the paragraph in question is disjointed. But an extended reference to the Problem of Hell should still be maintained on the page. Franc28 23:18, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps that could be a separate article? As a topic, it's rarely found in philosophy of religion, though theologians talk about it. That's because it involves a problem internal to certain religious beliefs (a discrepancy between claims about the existence and nature of god and the existence and nature of hell); the problem of evil, on the other hand, involves a problem external to religious belief (the existence and nature of god and facts about the world independent of religious belief). Do you have any citations? A look through my books, including monographs and collections specifically on the problem of evil, failed to produce any (except for mediæval philosopher/theologians like Julian of Norwich). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:04, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Whoa, wait up a second here, I thought that God created *everything*. How can any problem be external to religious concerns ? Franc28 17:41, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

But that's not the point — there's a difference between a contradiction internal to religious belief and a contradiction between religious belief and the independent, objective facts. Philosophy is interested in the latter, but not so much in the former, which is the province of theology. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:51, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I know what the difference is supposed to be, I'm just saying it makes no sense.If religious belief is correct, then there is no such thing as an independent, objective fact (see the TANG). Franc28 20:20, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

But that's hardly a standard or widespread view among non-believers or believers (the TANG reference doesn't really back it up, either). The fact remains that, whether one is a religious believer or not, one is faced with moral and natural, physical and metaphysical evil; one isn't faced with the reality of hell even if one is a believer — at most one believes that it exists. That is, belief in hell – and thus the problem of hell – is internal to and depends upon religious belief, while belief in evil – and thus the the problem of evil – isn't. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:25, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear, Mel, the proposition that the "belief in evil" does not "depend upon religious belief" is just as arguable as your other premises. Many Christians would argue that evil is only coherent from the Christian perspective, and TANG proponents like me would argue the exact opposite. Franc28 23:18, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Well, first, the interpretation of evil and being faced with are two very different things. Secondly, you're still ignoring the central distinction. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:31, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

First off, are you speaking of religious evil such as sin, or of moral evil? I believe Mel Etitis is referring to moral evil, and thus is referencing something which is not bound by religious views. Religious evil would only be comprehensible from a religious perspective, but moral evil is bound in such a manner. Second, religious belief is specific to one religion, and thus belief in hell is specific to one religion - namely, Christianity, as I believe the Judaic concept of hell differs from the Christian (correct me if I am wrong). The concept of evil, however, appears in almost every religion and in non-religious systems and thus is not specific to the Christian religion in the same way that hell is, thus making the problem of hell specific to Christianity and the problem of evil much more general. Anria 11:46, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, moral evil is NOT bound in such a manner. Anria 05:48, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Move

Shouldn't this page be moved?? This has been suggested already for a related page The problem of Hell, and so it would follow that it should be done for this page too if it applies to the other page.

So:

It has been proposed below that Problem of evil/Archive 1 be renamed and moved to Problem of Evil.

The proposed move has been noted at Wikipedia:Requested moves. If a clear consensus for the page move has been reached, please move the article and remove this notice, or request further assistance (if necessary).

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

Support move - "The" should only be used if it is an unmovable part of the title (so The Beatles, The Guardian; but Netherlands, National Football League etc... ). Mathmo 07:56, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Oppose According to the template it's not a question of the definite article, but of the capitalisation of "evil" (for which there's no ground). I went to check at Wikipedia:Requested moves, but couldn't find any mention of this article. Was it ever actually placed there? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:53, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

removed essay for consideration

I've just removed this extended personal essay from this article and Theodicy, but copied it to the Talk pages because some of it could be incorporated into the articles:

One Solution in Modern Philosophy

One solution to the conclusion that evil provides a basis for the rejection of the existence of a theistic God that can be found in modern philosophy runs as follows. Nelson Pike in his essay entitled Hume on Evil makes an extremely incisive observation, namely that the ‘Problem of Evil’, as it is normally posited, is a poorly formulated. He asserts that in fact the Epicurian statement is not in fact logically inconsistent; and therefore that it is not inconceivable that evil could exist alongside the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent deity. Pike gives the example of a parents giving a child a bitter medicine in order to better the health as an instance where it could be conceived that the child’s suffering (and therefore by analogy ‘evil’) could be understood as morally justifiable. Therefore rendering the ‘evil’ itself viable for a benevolent God on account of the fact that this benevolence is in fact maintained in the long run, if it could be asserted that there was a morally sufficient reason for this evil to have come about. The Epicurian formulation (or in Pike’s case, Hume’s restatement of it) thus needs to have a further premise added to it in order for it to be set of logically inconsistent. This Pike concludes is that a being who is omnipotent and omniscient would have no morally sufficient reason for allowing instances of evil. The newly understood problem would thus read.

(I) The world is a creation of a God who is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good.

(II) The world contains evil.

(III) A Being who is omnipotent and omniscient would have no morally sufficient reason for allowing instances of evil.

These three statements, when held together, Pike concludes are logically inconsistent. Furthermore if one of the premises is removed then the other to can be held to be true. Pike therefore importantly asserts that in order for the problem of evil to really pose a threat to the theist (who presumably accepts (I) and (II)) then it will be necessary to prove the veracity of (III). Pike attests, however, that since (III) is seemingly impossible to prove for certain (given the limitations of our understanding of moral sufficiency at a cosmic level) so the problem of evil therefore ceases to become a real problem for the theist, who accepts on principle the first two statements. The problem of evil is therefore handed over to the atheist who is conscripted to prove the validity of (III) in order to attack the theistic position.

Although this is only one answer to this problem, and it has found its own critics, it is seemingly quite a robust solution which is at least able to allow for an agnostic verification. In order to understand the question entirely it is therefore necessary to take account of the numerous so-called 'solutions' to this problem. For there exists a great number of variants of the problem of evil, including inductive variants, logical variants, evidential variants, soteriological variants, arguments from natural law, pain and pleasure, and so on. Many of these are discussed in the Wikipedia article on Theodicy.

Other Extended Perspectives

A Course In Miracles tackles the issue of evil as one of the central ideas in its' teachings. It states that god is love, and that the opposite of love is fear. It goes on to state that god is all-encompassing, and what is all encompassing can have no opposite. It denies the true existence of evil and considers the universe and all the 'evil' in it to simply be an illusion or self-deception, much like a dream is not real. A Course in Miracles is largely based around explaining this as one of its' major concepts, suggesting that to understand the idea fully is to draw closer to enlightment.

What do other editors think? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:21, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Revert

I've just reverted a very large-scale edit by LukeH. Some of it might go back, but much is, I think, not really salvageable. For example, he seems to miss the reductio nature of the argument in many of its forms, and so thinks that it fails because it starts with the premise that god is omnipotent, omniscient, etc., and then concludes that there is no such being.

It wasn't just a matter of adding a chunk of text — if it had been, I'd have brought it here instead of revrting it, but editors can find it in the history easily enough. Any comments? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:15, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Comment on previous revert

LukeH 05:21, 30 May 2005 (UTC):

Either I misrepresented the point I was trying to make, or what I wrote was somehow misread by Mel Etitis. My comments did not "conclude that there is no such being". All my changes were intended to put the rebuttals under one heading (separating the argument from the rebuttal, which is why I moved one of the original paragraphs up), and I then added several further points. It is possible there were inconsistencies between what I added and the original points of the arguments -- but this is the point of a rebuttal. I did not conclude anything about the existence of God, I merely showed that the current arguments in this article are incomplete to prove the inexistence of God. This is an important point, and I feel the article is not complete without it.

The main points I added were that:

There are inconsistencies in the arguments in several of the statements made at earlier points in the article (this is merely an illustration of logical inconsistency or incompleteness of the previous arguments, without actually making an attempt to remove the arguments (because they are commonly used), and without even approaching the question as to whether "the problem of evil" actually is a problem or not);
The logical incompleteness of extant arguments into the problem of evil leave this as an open problem (this point is made without drawing the conclusion that "the problem of evil" does not exist, simply that current arguments are logically incomplete); and
It may be that evil must exist for good to exist, and vice versa, otherwise good itself may not be definable relative to something else (I think this point really needs to be made).

I feel that both sides of the argument need to be fully represented. Suggestions describing reasonable changes to these arguments are welcome. Rebuttals existed in the article before, but were not explained in great depth. Any rational argument ought to stand up to scrutiny, and I simply added an analysis of the logical structure of the arguments that were previously presented, and attempted to illustrate internal inconsistencies in the arguments. The argument and rebuttal were clearly separated so that the two viewpoints would not be confused within the article.

I would like to respectfully un-revert the changes. Please add comments here as to suggested content changes. Thanks!

Further comments from LukeH 05:34, 30 May 2005 (UTC):

In order to be reasonable about the un-revert, I wanted to be sure I understood where you were coming from. I believe you read the phrase "If evil did not exist, would there be such a thing as good?" as "If evil did not exist, would there be such a thing as God?". That is not what I wrote and is not the intent. Undoing the revert.

No, I'm afraid that you've misunderstood both my own comments (I didn't, for example, say that you'd concluded that there's no god) and my reason for reverting. There is indeed room for more material in the article, and for more on responses to the problem (and responses to those responses, etc.) — it's just that what you added wasn't really up to scratch. Aside from the fact that you've not grasped the logical structure of the problem (as I explained in my first comment above), it reads like original research, and it fails to represent the main responses to the problems very clearly. I'd be happy to work with you on improvements to the article; I've held off partly because I've published on the topic, and am perhaps a bit too close to the material, but perhaps that's being too punctilious.

Perhaps I should add that much of what you feel is missing is covered in Theodicy. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:44, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

You're right, I misread your comments. Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for taking the time to clarify further.

I'd be happy with the article if it made one thing clear, which is the primary thing I take issue with, as it appears logically incomplete to me.

There is a gap in the line of reasoning that is presented in the argument that starts with God's perfection and concludes that there is no god. It shouldn't be "filled in" if the gap exists in the standing argument; it just needs to be addressed in the "Responses to the problem" section. It is simply that the unjustified assumption is made that if a perfect God exists and evil exists, and God could destroy evil, then "obviously" He would destroy evil, so therefore there can be no God. You cannot imply that God would destroy evil if He could -- there may be a higher purpose in the existence of evil, which is beyond our mortal capability to comprehend. Agency and justice factor into this. This is a point I tried to make in my commits.

Hardly original research, since it is commonly acknowledged (and almost certainly does not need sourcing) that mankind recognizes his non-omniscience, and that most beliefs of God attribute God with omniscience. If God is omniscient, how can we really know why He does anything that doesn't seem logical to us? (There are an awful lot of things attributed to God, even by prophets that claim to worship that God and communicate with Him, that simply don't make sense to the mortal mind.) The fact we do not fully comprehend God does not necessarily mean He does not exist; simply that we don't understand how or why He (or anything else that He created or apparently allowed to come into existence) exists.

One other comment -- at least according to various Christian (and some non-Christian) beliefs, God has said that He will destroy evil, just not yet :-) --LukeH 17:37, 30 May 2005 (UTC).

First, the relationship between goodness and being prepared to destroy evil is largely irrelevant to most versions of the argument, which asks why god would create an evil world, not why he wouldn't do anything about evil that he found. In so far as it is relevant, though, it's by no means clearly a gap, and the literature on it is reasonably extensive. It's not enough to claim that it's a problem as though that's simply a metter of fact.

Secondly, it's not original research to say that we're not omniscient and that many notions of god hold that he is — the problem comes when you infer that this creates a problem for the argument. One doesn't have to be omniscient to know that someone who does or permits evil isn't perfectly good. Of course, we can get it wrong with regard to other human beings, because other human beings are limited by causality, and sometimes have to choose between two evils (a surgeon cutting up a patient to save her life, etc.) — but as god is also supposed to be omnipotent, he isn't limited by causality, so the same doesn't apply. (see also Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov for a famous response to that sort of claim). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:19, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

"With the further premise that if a god exists, it must be perfectly good, omniscient, and omnipotent, one can conclude from the existence of evil that no god exists." I've never understood why this premise is made when trying to refute the existence of a deity. Why couldn't "God" be omniscient, omnipotent, but ammoral or immoral when "judged" against common human systems of morality? A hypothetical God could be downright perverse and wicked, while still being omniscient and omnipotent. Any thoughts? --Neural 23:18, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

It's an argument made under those assumptions, it doesn't apply to less stringent requirements of what constitutes a deity. It's only a worthwhile argument since some big name religions share that description of their god. It refutes only that very wistful belief system and wasn't meant to be used on the "more" intellectual kinds of theists. Since the former are much more numerous "the problem of evil" has become perhaps the most common argument despite its many faults. --TheBigD 23:38, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Hi, BigD. When it comes to refuting these deities, I find it simpler and more effective to bring up "the problem of suffering" rather than the problem of "evil" per se. Especially when it comes to diseases like cancer. IE "Why would an omnibenevolent god allow those who worship him to be afflicted with hideous random diseases?". For "evil" they turn to the unscientific but commonly-accepted Free Will model of human behaviour (or even moral relativism in some bizarre arguments). I haven't yet met a Christian or Muslim who has been able to convincingly address the problem of random suffering when believing in a perfectly compassionate god. They usually address this by not addressing it, and continue on with the belief system regardless. Thanks for input.--Neural 15:15, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Links

I've removed a couple of links (one repeated with two different descriptions) placed by an inveterate link-adding Christo-Creationist apologist. If there's anything important in the documents linked to, it should be placed in the article. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:21, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Recent changes to summary

I've just reverted a transformation of the summary into this:

In the philosophy of religion and theology, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent god.

The problem of evil can be summed up by the apparent contradiction among the following four propositions: 1) God exists 2) God is all good 3) God is all powerful 4) Evil exists.

-Atheism solves the problem by denying proposition one, that God exists.

-Pantheism, the belief that God is everything and that everything is God, denies proposition two and allows that God could be both good and evil.

-Polytheism, the belief in many gods, denies proposition three, and reduces God to just one of many gods.

-Idealism, the belief that reality is a product of the mind, rejects proposition four and states that evil is just an illusion.

Epicurus is credited with first expounding this problem, and it is sometimes called the Epicurean paradox or the riddle of Epicurus — although the argument is not really a paradox or a riddle, but rather a reductio ad absurdum of the premises. Epicurus drew the conclusion that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of the gods.

Some of the new material points to additions that certainly could be made to the article (though the summary isn't the right place), but there are two big problems. First, the format: text should be preferred to numbered or bulletted lists (even if formatted correctly). Secondly, the content: it's oversimplified, to say the least.

Any comments? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:33, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

There are still problems with the format - points referred to as a, b and c are now numbered 1, 2 and 3. Is it possible to have lists with 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 or similar? TheMadBaron 04:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)