Could God Be Evil? Crushing the "Evil-God Challenge" 

Lewis makes the similar observation in Mere Christianity. He notes that the natures of good and evil are not actually equal and opposite so something like Zoroastrianism, which is in some ways what the argument is an off shoot, is plausibly unlikely. I think there is a very similar argument to make here. I do think the observation that this is just a form of the gap problem is actually very smart though. It does seem to work at least in my initial thoughts about it.

@@android4754 I didn't read that book, if you recommend it though I'll gladly read it!

Great comment. For me I think "evil God" arguments are usually critiques on understandings of God which posit his goodness as axioms, a goodness without any substance. So it's good because God did it. This sort of goodness, since it's sort of an empty box that other associations can be made around, I think it is vulnerable to evil God arguments.

I think if you were right about evil being only a "form of corruption, destruction, or perversion" then this *would* answer the evil god objection. I disagree with the premise though. Flourishing and suffering are two categories. If someone feels suffering, the suffering actually exists as suffering. Yes, sometimes we may be a bit sloppy with language and call some situation evil just because it is not as good as we might like it to be, but that doesn't negate the fact that active suffering does exist.

I agree with most of what you said. For whatever reason the “evil as the privation of good” theory has fallen out of favor with modern day philosophers. This in combination with the simplicity point made in this video via Swinburne, I think makes a knock down argument against this evil God challenge. You can have red without yellow but you can’t have yellow without red. Red is fundamental, yellow is not. You can have good without evil but you can’t have evil without good. Good is fundamental, evil is not. Right off the bat then, we can see a good God is simpler than an evil God just as red is simpler than yellow. Based on that fact alone, the evil God challenge fails because they are not symmetrical regarding simplicity which is a primary factor in any hypothesis. One of the commenters above said “Flourishing and suffering are two categories. If someone feels suffering, the suffering actually exists as suffering.” I think we can replace terms and make the same argument. Flourishing is more fundamental than suffering because suffering is in essence a lacking of something, namely flourishing. The mental experience of flourishing is essentially a form of homeostasis whereas suffering is the lack of homeostasis.

Well, that comment was so bad…

The only people who seriously take this position are militant athiest that I have encountered personally. Besides that most people intuitively know God equals good. Personally when I wasn't a Christian I never entertained God could be evil I just didn't realize how evil I was. I think by making God evil they make themselves look good. Its delusional but that's what I see.

Philosophical questions need philosophical answers

@@jacobgingerhoffman7816what the hell is a militant atheist lol? That’s not a thing. There aren’t like, gun wielding atheists running around the streets.

@@giftedtheosI think the point he is making is that ordinary people would still use free will etc to explain this problem and that it is factually false that no one uses those. also, no ordinary person comes up with these atheist thoughts of greatest possible evil.

@@markusvanhusen8600 Ordinary Christian people, including atheists, have all kinds of unsophisticated views either from lack of knowledge or deliberation. I'm not seeing what the issue is

So, disagreement about which theodicies work usually comes down to disagreement about (i) how valuable the relevant good is or (ii) whether this good, if it is valuable, justifies all suffering. Neither of these disagreements has anything to do with theism as a hypothesis. Nor does disagreement about theodicies reflect badly on theism or mean that it’s “flexible” or “poorly defined.”

May be a Evil God is using you to bring about some greater evil that we dont understand. We are finite Human's and a Evil God is infinite, you would not be in a position to judge his goals / intention.

Well, I think if this being just wanted everyone globally to suffer maximally, then again he’d be doing a lousy job. I think he would need to have more complex intentions than that, and it’s not clear what those would be for an evil being.

​​@@ebobingI think we can apply that logic to God because we have some concrete examples where a greater good comes from evil such as bravery from war, patience from disease, and forgiveness from conflict. If we extrapolate, it's possible that any evil experience can produce a good even if we don't understand it. Could you provide some examples where a greater evil can come from good things? The OP provided an example of false hope, but even false hope can produce patience and perseverance which are good things which would be difficult for an evil being to prevent people learning.

​@@ebobingan evil God wouldn't have the patience for that on account of him being evil.

@@coryharasha let me give a example. I have a desire to find a wife and have a kid to create a family. This desire brings about goods like: meaning, companionship, a loving relationship and may inspire others to obtain these goods. But without these goods the greater evils that obtain like betrayal from a cheating partner, the devastation if the child dies or has some type of disease that causes the family suffering can never obtain.

Unfortunately he gets twice more views on those videos... Which tells a lot about his viewers...

I agree, @Friction, I would love more videos like this.

Who cares what y'all want. It's Capturing Christianity..not Capturing Generic Theism lol.

A evil God would want humans to desire things like charity, love, self sacrifice, etc. As when they fail to obtain it will cause more torment to us, then if we desired them and they obtained.

@@ebobing Maybe... I guess it would depend on what one thinks the ultimate goal of an all evil god would be. If it's just to cause the worst kind of torment possible then I think it's far worse for things like love, charity, self sacrifice, etc. to never obtain yet we long for it to happen. Or for us to experience it once and then never again. Almost like being stranded in the desert with only the memory of a drink of water. You could argue that to give us partial relief only for it to be taken away is worse, but that just doesn't seem quite right to me. I find what I mentioned before to be far worse than the latter. There's also a specific video of Alex's that I had in mind where he was giving these similar theodices for an evil god that people often give for a good god. My thought was that there are a lot of theodicies that depend specifically on the fact that we recognize love, charity, self sacrifice, ect as things that should be desired and that for a successful counter to work you have to invert those desires and argue that people should desire that which is cruel or self serving as the highest thing one could or should want. I should also make a slight amendment to what I said before. I don't see what I said before as a stand alone argument, rather it's what pushed me over the edge because it seemed to be easier for me to grasp and see work out in my own life. I do believe there are good arguments for why an evil god couldn't be real, or at least is far less likely. They just seemed so abstract that I felt like I couldn't really grasp them.

@@charlesbrown8117 Thanks for the interesting reply. I would think a evil God would want to bring about the most evil possible. Some times that may require bringing about a good for a greater evil. I read your first comment differently: We could infer the moral character of God based on human desires. A good God would give humans a desire for good things. that was what my reply was aimed at. Now i could see that never obtaining something good like a loving relationship would be tormenting. but you could argue that obtaining a loving relationship (a good) then it getting taking away by cheating or your partner passing a way, will bring about more evil or. Or a evil never that could never obtain if you never actualised the relationship. I have not seen the video you had in mind, so my reply may seem off to you or uninformed. I would be interested if you could spell out that argument from desire in more detail. I think a evil God could still be compatible with creatures that have desires for goods. I understand your first comment in light of your reply, its part of a cumulative case for a good God. It does not stand alone. Would be interesting to hear some of your other arguments. Cheers

​@@ebobing Yeah, reading back over it I realize I wasn't that clear, so I'm sorry about the confusion on that (also this is going to be extremely long so I apologize for that as well😂) The video I had in mind of Alex's was where he gave three parodies of different theodices that people will usually give for an all good God (off the top of my head I don't remember what it's called). But one that he gave was a twist of the freewill theodicy. This is what he says almost verbatim: "For human beings to be truely good and love God, they need to do so freely...otherwise we'd be compelled into loving Him and doing good deeds. Which isn't true love or goodness at all. Loving someone because you're forced to isn't really love, it has to be given freely. So God thinks that a world in which there is freewill is far more valuable than one without it. He gives humans freedom to do as they please. Unfortunately in order for us to be truly free, we need to have the freedom to choose evil. Many humans do and that's why evil exits, it's the price we have to pay to be able to be genuinely freely good." He then flips the theodicy and says: "Good exists because God gave humans freewill. For human beings to be truly evil and to be able to harm eachother maliciously, they need to do so freely...otherwise we'd be compelled into doing bad deeds which doesn't truly make us bad at all. Since we wouldn't be responsible for the actions." He then quotes Stephen Law: " An evil god could have created a universe populated with puppet beings that he ensured always behaved unpleasantly. But the behaviour of such puppet beings lacks the dimension of moral responsibility that transforms such acts into actions of the most depraved and despicable kind. To maximize evil, an evil god will want us to perform cruel and selfish acts of our own volition." Both Alex and Stephen seem to believe that an Evil God would want us to perform Evil acts freely and of our own volition. Now for me there are two options of interpreting the Evil Gods desire for us: he wants evil acts to simply obtain, regardless of what the creatures may happen to feel about the acts themselves. Or the Evil God wants the creatures to freely come to desire the evil acts and then follow through on those desires. If it's the first option then I don't think a successful parody has been given of the Christian God, seeing as how we believe that God wants us to purge ourselves of evil and to never desire it (this includes things like selfiness, lust, lying, ect.). The evil God, in order to be a successful parody of the Christian God, has to want us to desire evil for its sake and to see good things as not worthwhile. God, for Christians, doesn't just want merely want good things to happen, he wants creatures that both recognize and desire good. If it's the second, then I don't have a reason to think that God, if He exists, would be evil. Seeing as how I don't think that evil is something one should desire. There are definitely other considerations like what Alexander Pruss wrote: 'Whether we can argue on inductive grounds that the First Cause is good is a particularly difficult question in light of all the evil in the world. If the First Cause is an agent, we have three options to choose from: he is a good agent, an evil agent, or an agent morally in the middle. I will argue that at least we can dismiss the worst of these options on inductive grounds. Here is one set of considerations. We might see evil as ontologically inferior to the good. For instance, we might see evil as a privation of the good. Or we might see evil as a twisting of the good: the good can stand on its own axiologically, but evil is metaphysically something parasitic. Seen from that point of view, evil can never be seen to be the victor. Whatever power evil has is a good power twisted to bad ends. Human cruelty is only an evil because human nature has a power of transcending cruelty. Evil can only mock the good but can never win. Suppose we do indeed see things this way. Then evil only makes sense against a background of goodness. And hence, the cause that the universe originates in, since that cause is the ultimate background, cannot but be perfectly good. If, further, perfect good is stable, then we might think that this cause still is perfectly good. This will be a metaphysical argument. Moreover, if we see evil as metaphysically inferior to the good, then the idea that the First Cause is an evil person makes the First Cause be rather stupid, and so we have an inductive argument against the worst of the three options under consideration. For whatever gets created, there will be more good than evil. Behind the twisting of human nature in a serial killer, there is the good of human nature - if it were not good, and if it were not in some way metaphysically superior to the evil so as to provide a standard against which that evil is to be measured, then the twisting would not be an evil. So by creating, the First Cause makes more good than evil come into existence, and if the First Cause is evil, then to do that is, well, stupid. But the fine-tuning of the universe suggests that the First Cause is highly intelligent. Furthermore, I think it is fair to say that there is much more good than evil in the human world. Consider the constant opportunities available for malice, opportunities that would result in no punishment at all. We can assume, with almost total certainty, that if we ask strangers for the time, they will not look at the time and subtract 10 minutes just to make sure we are late for whatever appointment we are rushing. ls it not wondrous that I regularly find myself around many omnivorous animals armed with teeth and guns (l am in Texas!), but I have not yet suffered serious harm from them? At least on the assumption that these omnivorous animals were created by an evil being, there would be some cause for surprise. When the rules of morality are transgressed, rarely are they transgressed wantonly. Granted, there have been genocides of massive proportions. But it is noteworthy that even there, there tends to be a background that makes the cruelty not be entirely wanton: a destructive ideology or a vengeful, and often mistaken, justice. The victims are demonized. This demonization is itself an evil, but it is an evil that underscores the fact that the victims need to be seen as demonic before most of us will be induced to be cruel to them. The hypothesis that the First Cause is evil is not a very plausible one, then. Whether the hypothesis that the First Cause is good is any more plausible will depend on how we evaluate the arguments of various theodicies. Some of the aforementioned considerations might possibly be the start of a theodicy, but that is not what I intended them for: I intended them merely as data against the hypothesis of an evil First Cause On the theodicy front, on the other hand, we might see in freely chosen virtue a goodness outweighing the evils of vice, and that might lead us to suppose the First Cause is good.'

@@charlesbrown8117 Thanks for a another thoughtfully reply. I can see your point given Alex and Stephens theodices, it would leave humans with a desire for the evil not the good. Thus a desire for good would be a defeater for the idea of a evil God. I would however disagree, a desire for the good would equally be probable given a evil God. For if Humans have the desire for the good then when those goods are lost or never actualised they create more torment or harm, then if the desire was not there. let me give a example. I have a desire to find a wife and have a kid to create a family. This desire brings about goods like: meaning, companionship, a loving relationship and may inspire others to obtain these goods. But without these goods the greater evils that obtain like betrayal from a cheating partner, the devastation if the child dies or has some type of disease that causes the family suffering can never obtain. I am not sure desire is doing the work you want it to do, please correct me if i have missed your point. I have not read or watched anything from Pruss so forgive the ignorance. Here are some quick thoughts about his arguments, there is a lot to reply so i have chosen what seems his most forceful arguments. First he assumes evil to be inferior to good so a evil God would be by definition inferior and not a God. That assumption would need to be defended maybe he does in his work. I think good is superior but that could fit with a evil God see my example above. He then says their is more good then evil in the human world. this is very much debatable, I don't think we could ever know the answer to that question. so it cant tip the balance in ether direction evil or good God. With the example of asking the stranger for the time. Constant opportunities for malice would never obtain if we did not trusted each other, there would be no trust in that world. So we would require trust to be mislead with regards to the time. I think animal suffering is hard to reconcile with a good God. The length of time animals have been suffering for and the degree to which they suffer is hard to reconcile. Something to think about, cheers.

@@MarkPatmos It's not really that more complex. If you there was a malevolent being who wanted others to suffer, they would have to exist in order to suffer.

Yeah, "I really wish he would have defended that." Also notice the time stamp. I get that some introduction to the topic is necessary but I would have preferred if they had cut to the chase more and actually defended the main contention of the video.

Actually there is. Because knowing the right thing and doing it is a more simple function than knowing the right than and imagining the opposite, finding a justification to pursue that opposite, than doing it. The function of will is to do what it finds good. Therefore doing the right thing can serve as it's own motivation. While doing evil cannot.

@@PiRobot314 "I want you to exist because I desire you to exist" is less complex than "I want you to exist because I want you to feel pain and you must exist in order to feel that pain".

@@marvalice3455 *-"Actually there is. Because I owing the right thing and doing it is a more simple function than knowing the right than and imagining the opposite, finding a justification to pursue that opposite, than doing it."* Can you rephrase ? (maybe you made a syntactic error, or a grammatical mistake, because I don't understand your sentence). *-"The function of will is to do what it finds good. Therefore doing the right thing can serve as it's own motivation. While doing evil cannot."* The function of will is to do what it finds evil. Therefore doing the wrong thing can serve as it's own motivation. While doing good cannot.

They can't even tell if their god is good or evil !

He can't interrupt, but He will? Our free will is curiously an obstacle only now... looks pretty convenient for a theology.

@@piano9433 It’s all over at the Second Coming my friend.

@@jonl.garton4616 Thanks for the feedback. I'm afraid, though, it doesn't address the point I made. Besides that, how do you handle the fact that the gospel writers and the author of revelation were wrong about the second coming being just around the corner? - which is why, btw, there are so much disagreement among christians on how to proper interpret the latter. Preterist, futurist etc... are all trying to save a failed prophecy...

​@@piano9433 trivially. Christ came in judgement at the fall of Jerusalem, and many other times throughout history. But all of those comings only foreshadow the true second coming at the end of days. You'll know it, because there won't be days afterwards

@@marvalice3455 That's how you accommodate the fact that it didn't come to pass. But, If the same kind of statements were found in the Quran, you probably would take it as conclusive evidence that It predicted something false. It's not hard to see, but you have to be willing to do so. It starts with Daniel, claiming that the greek empire would be the last. As it didn't happen, jews reinterpreted to mean the roman empire. Guess what. There is no more Roman empire. What did theologians do? Reinterpreted it again, of course. Each time it becomes more spiritualized and distant from our experience. Just like "the kingdom of God", that in Mark was supposed to be here in the earth, in Luke "is in you" and in John virtually vanishes and we get the idea of living in heaven. Again, it's not difficult to see. But one has to be willing.

In an alternate universe

It looks just like him. Wow!!!

The nose 😂😂😂😂

That scene when he throws his daughters across the roof to save them. No Escape! Good movie

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns I’ll check it out

Have you heard of the "Ice Man" Kuklinski? I will get to my point after you respond.

Now which of an evil God or a good God would create man with deceitful heart? Also.. “If God will totally eradicate evil right now with mercy! all of us will be saved”

@@TheMYGTheory that's to show you're ignorant of the biblical account of creation. Read the first and second chapters of Genesis if you care to know the truth of how man became sinners.

Morally neutral or simply amoral... It could be seen as simpler that god be as moral as a rock... But in that case maybe humans are the source of morality, which might be unacceptable for theists. Another possibility would be that god is the source of the moral axis (see : axiology) or the moral "dimension", and is neither good nor bad, because he would be the source of both good and bad (I think that is the muslim take for example, and it's Spinoza's take). That could be seen as simpler.

@@MrGustavier We could drop the word moral and just talk about benevolence and malevolence. Does God desire to benefit humans or to act contrary to humans.

@@PiRobot314 According to Spinoza, nothing can be conceived independently of god. So god is the source of both good and evil, god is the source of the very moral axis. According to Spinoza, god doesn't have any *"desires",* because if he had, he wouldn't be necessary (it would make god contingent).

Okay, my point is that if God doesn't have any desires, then it follows that God does not desire everyone to be saved. (I don't think we even need to go there though, we don't need to assume that the intelligent creator of the universe has no desires. I think even the act of creation would be a desire put in action)

@@PiRobot314 If you're going with simplicity, then a cause without a desire is simpler than a cause with a desire.

There are very simple theodicies that explain what is meant in Isaiah, specifically (Iraenaean theodicy)

You realize not all language is English right? It's not called "hell" in Latin Greek or Hebrew so your claim is baseless. Also there are so many possible responses to your argument.

@@marvalice3455 No, despite speaking English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic… I wasn’t aware any other languages existed. 🧠🫠 Hell is Norse Pagan in origin. In the Torah there’s Sheol, which isn’t the Hell fabricated by Christians in the late 14th-m - early 15th centuries. “Hell” hadn’t been invented yet, hence why Peter refers to Greek Pagan “Hades,” not “Hell.” Most Christian beliefs were created by Pagans/ex-pagans in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. Protestantism wasn’t invented until >1500 years after Jesus… the founder Martin Luther was a hyper antisemite who wrote “The Jews And Their Lies” in 1543… the book that caused the Holocaust. It was mandatory reading for most Nazis along with Mein Kampf, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Your mistranslated bible didn’t exist until the early 17th century.

​@@Tenebris_Sintfunny considering Christ has an extremely developed doctrine of hell. As for the sarcasm, if you are anonymous on the Internet, your credentials are fake until proven otherwise. I don't believe you speak any of those languages and there is no motive you can give to change my mind at this point

​@@Tenebris_Sint I'm Catholic so....

Imagine a man creating laws God has to follow. Let's judge you by your own measures: Do you step on ants? Better not breathe. You're killing so many things every day of your life. So much pain. How could you live with yourself? Is it not possible that maybe, just maybe, you're a bit more important than something else and have a right to it? XD

@@fatalheart7382 if a god exists then the reason why people step on ants and do everything else that they do is because of the way that god created everything. If everything was created then the way that everything was created is why everything is the way it is in every single way. If everything was created then the way that everything was created determines how everything will play out.

This is just determinism. Also concupiscence came after the fall.

@@johnnotrealname8168 I don't believe in a god or a fall, but if a god exists and if a fall did happen it happened because of the way that god created everything and the way that god created everything isn't our fault in any way. People and other life forms are just victims that are forced to go through all of this evil nonsense, but I'm doing my part to end it by not having kids. No kids, no more people suffering against their will.

@@AnonymousWon-uu5yn That makes no sense if God does not exist though. Also again, this presumes determinism and that this is exactly what God wanted instead of us being close to Him.

All those questions are easily answered with an interpretation of the texts that involves the context of the myths prior and the social movements of the people in the areas it was created. You could still be a deist and cultural christian while knowing the full context of the bible and it's lack of truly divine messages. I don't believe in either but still find the book and the way it was formed fascinating.

@@FentonMulley-cz8pv I hear ya. I believe Jesus embodied the exact character of the true God which in many ways contrasts with the character of the main deity of the OT. Jesus never attacked, killed, or lied about anything. Some can argue that the book of Revelation paints a darker picture of Jesus but that book _barely_ made it into the canon and didn’t do so till the late 300s, so I’d argue that it holds less weight than the rest of scripture.

@@NickSandt Why assume any of it is created by a real deity? It makes the whole thing a stressful puzzle instead of interesting literature.

@@FentonMulley-cz8pv I don’t believe any deity wrote it, but people wrote about different deities in it because that’s what they said. I believe in innocent till proven guilty.

Your view's biggest flaw is that it presupposes a great apostasy. The church is the pillar and bukwark or truth, and the gates of hadel shall not prevail against it. The question you must answer is "is the catholic church who she says she is?" Because if she really is that same church built upon Peter, the mystical body of Christ, then you must defer to her judgement.

Unfortunately this is very common among modern "experts" of all stripes. Credentialism creates pride.

Why would a lawful God establish the Old Covenant? Behaving correctly and doing some sacrifices in exchange for an *entire country* is not a fair trade. The country is worth much much more than what God asks from the israelites. Same thing with Nineveh's judgement in the book if Jonah, he allowed them to keep their country in exchange for repentance and a bit of fasting... Taking bad deals for the sake of helping others seems like a lawful good thing to do.

@@tafazziReadChannelDescription maybe god really wanted that sacrifices? If I'm god and I really value those sacrifices and repentance while a nation is not of great value the exchange is fair and logical. He would be chaotic if he tried to swindle them.

@@astrol4b the value of something is in relationship of demand and offer, not in relationship with how much one subjectively wants things. All peoples offered sacrifices and many nations had a system of rules that touched on the religious sphere, so religiosity was in high offer, and nations were in high demand, every small group would have liked to live in a fertile and bountiful country without having to pay tribute to an emperor or sink many resources into a military.

@@tafazziReadChannelDescription not really, the value of something is subjective, this is really number one rule of marginalist economy. Anyway I'm not willing to die on this hill, I classified ot god as lawful neutral because it seems to be full of seemingly arbitrary rules, but I haven't a strong opinion on that.

@@astrol4b fair. have a nice day.

That’s an interesting take. So obvious that I didn’t think about it haha… but in speaking of arguments based on “simplicity”- this would seem to be the most simple or most uniform in that most things aren’t hardline extremes, and have variation, yeah? So a “moderate” God would almost be the simplest explanation- regardless of truth, it’s not an unreasonable position.

Hello, interesting thoughts on the video. I think the reason they flipped the free will argument around is to help defend the Evil God idea. It would go like this: Person X: A evil god exist. Person Y: If a Evil god exist why is there so much good in the world? X: Well the Evil God wants people to freely chose to be Evil, if we could only chose to do Evil we would be like robots. in order to have humans that freely chose the Evil acts he must allow Good actions, or it would not be a free choice. Hope that helps. Also you could flip your argument for love around for hate, let me know what you think. You cant program some one to Hate some one they have to freely choose to Hate them or its not true Hate. "reliable historical document" is objectionable if your referencing the bible. A Evil God would want give out different Holy books to different people as he would want to create division and war. He would also make each book seem reliable to each other member of other religions and it would make them convinced the others were wrong.

Yeah, and get sidetracked into tangents that aren't relevant. I would rephrase it as: does God wish to be benevolent or malevolent towards humans? Does God care about our flourishing or our suffering?

They are defined in places like this that place them in unfathomable and, on a level of practicality, useless ways. All I see it doing is reducing the dissonance that can be felt over unavoidable existential issues (for some folks).

Yes it is a interesting response. Also a Evil God could want you to believe in true things. If knowing those true things could help bring about a greater Evil. So we would allow some true beliefs if they allow him to bring about a even greater evil. I would also reply to that and say there is a equivocation on the word good. Its "good" (epistemological) to believe something to be true or have reliable beliefs. I would say its good in regards to the goal for getting true beliefs. Its not good in the sense of morally good action or desire. that would be different sense of the word good. If i was in a race it would be good if i crossed the finish line first and won, but "good" here is not used in a moral sense. If i won the race a large amount of money would be donated to charity then it would be morally good that i crossed the finish line first. Would it not be better to try and defend the ontological argument? to get Gods goodness.

Not if you create the rules, it wouldn’t require suffering to become “wise”. Hope that helps.

​@@DM-dk7js it doesn't actually. It sounds like you expect God to do all the hard work for you, which is kinda the problem. He _did_ do all the hard work for you, and it's still not good enough for you.

@@marvalice3455no…im not 🤦🏻‍♂️ that’s not even close to what I said 🤦🏻‍♂️

Some suffering does help people turn a corner and improve their life. Some suffering does not cause any improvement. A kid born with a illness that slowly dies and has no chance of "wising up" in its life time.

@@ebobing death is not the end though, and this fact alone breaks your argument

Sounds more like medieval Jewish theology than Christian theology.

@@marvalice3455 Guess what.

​​@@davidm1149i know, I know, you are Jewish. It's not really a guess when you are just stating kabbalic theology

I have an issue with the concept of theodicies because I think it is ludicrous to imagine that something as hideous as the Holocaust had to happen so other, justifiable things could happen. An omniscient and omnipotent entity shouldn't be hogtied by such reasoning. To me, it is transparent that this kind of thing is just a way to help people cope with terrible events. It has zero practical value otherwise.

Meow

Cringe

What do you think click bait is?

@@CapturingChristianitythe evil god challenge was not crushed

Isaiah 45:7 KJV “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things".

You could have encountered the true Evil God, He deceived you into thinking he was good to bring about a greater Evil. He would be so powerful and all knowing that we could not understand his reasons for doing so, we are finite humans and the Evil God is infinite.

@@ebobing Yes, the Demiurge

@@ebobing If God is evil, then what you're saying is he's not God and evil is not the absence of good, rather good is the absence of evil. So, God would actually be called something like Evl and be the source of evil.

@@jyllianrainbow7371 evil god is just a thought experiment: that you can’t tell if god is good or evil. I’m not a believer in god let alone evil or good. Not sure about the last part of your reply. But that’s probably my fault.

Isaiah 45:7 KJV “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things".

@@Tenebris_Sint Hebrew word Ra used for evil means in this context disaster or calamity rather than moral evil. So yes God creates disasters to accomplish his will. Nothing new.

That’s another thing too. It’s based on your perception or cultural background of evil. Evil, like good, without an objective morality is largely dependent.

​@@Tenebris_Sint you still need to define evil.

Do you not own a dictionary or something dude 🤦🏻‍♂️ luckily they’re available for free on the internet. You guys are such silly post modernist nihilist weirdos about definitions. OPEN A DICTIONARY!

Then obviously you are confused: as God put the tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. I see your gods are powerless to do that and thus are only created by My God YHWH.

@davidjanbaz7728 that made zero sense as a response to my post. Plus, you're taking an allegorical tale and using it to make statements regarding reality. Like using the Easter Bunny to argue your case.

You literally don’t know what “reality”means.

@Tenebris_Sint oh, darn... I'm so ashamed.

@@monkkeygawd WOWZERS, amazing counter argument

Satan wasn't created to be evil, he chose to be evil through his free will.

​@@tafazziReadChannelDescriptiona baby born with down syndrome was also born that way because of free will then.

haSatan is the adversary not Created evil but does become evil durning his rebellion when Christ is born in Revelation 12.

So anyone who created a child who becomes a criminaI is eviI?

​@@Sahih_al-Bukhari_2658yes God created evil he also created Satan

Maybe I'm taking this too seriously, but about ultra violet or infared light?

@@PiRobot314 Natural light from the sun. Don’t overcomplicate things. If there’s a dark room, can you make it darker by adding light (opening the curtains)? Even adding UV or IR light would not make it darker. Light from the sun includes a range of various colors of light, as evidenced by a rainbow.

@@ochem123 Yeah, fair enough. I guess my point was that if there was a room with only infrared light then it would look dark for humans because they wouldn't be able to see the light so it wouldn't help them.

*-"Asking if God could be evil is like asking if the light could be dark. It’s a ridiculous question and is nonsensical."* No, not asking if *"the light could be dark",* simply asking if god could be dark. Asking : "What if the assertion that god is light were wrong ?"

@@MrGustavier Fair question: Is God real? Here’s the answer: Yes. God has revealed Himself as light. God is holy fire; God is light; God is love. God created the devil in order to test our love for God. Do we love God enough to suffer as He suffered for us? God cannot be evil because evil is the good not done. God always does the greatest good; it’s us who get in the way. If God intends a person to be great (like a king), but that person is prevented by a sinful human from doing the good that God intended. ♥️

That's so vague as to be meaningless

Can you be more specific?

"Since I'll apparently never know with perfect precision the position and velocity of an electron, I'll pretend electrons don't exist" What's the mistake here?

​@@tafazziReadChannelDescription 😂 based on his original comment, I wouldn't even try...

You know what would be a real waste of precious time? Trying to convince religious people not to be religious. There's zero utility in it even if you succeed. And it takes away time you could be doing other things. It only really makes sense if you don't actually care that much about the time you have

​@@marvalice3455 Unless they think religion is inherently harmful

Wow these are actually really good objections. That's a rare thing in RU-vid comments. Thank you stranger

*-"The first objection I had was that evil is a privation of good, and existing is a good, so a maximally evil being couldn't exist.* What makes you think existing is good ? Existing can be evil... *-"My next objection was that a maximally evil being cannot exist because many vices are mutually exclusive in ways virtues aren't. There are vices of excess and vices of privation. A being cannot be both maximally reckless and maximally cowardly. So again, a maximally evil being cannot exist."* Aren't there virtues that are contradictory in the same way ? Someone who is maximally forgiving cannot be maximally just at the same time, because being just requires punishing while the maximally forgiving would never punish. The evil god needs not be expressed in terms of *"vices"* and *"virtues"* (the vice and virtue theory of good can simply be false). Vices and virtues need not apply to god, and might only apply to human nature. *-"And my third objection is that a maximally evil being would be maximally foolish, and therefore wouldn't be capable of making sacrifices like allowing good to exist for a greater evil."* What makes you think an evil god would be foolish ? An evil god could be wise, couldn't it ?

@@MrGustavier if one takes the position that existing is evil, and that evil should be opposed, this leads to the conclusion that killing is actually good. This is not even an appeal to absurdity. That is the most obvious conclusion from that premise. The only way around it would be to reject the idea evil ought to be opposed, at which point are we even talking about evil anymore? What is evil, if not that which we are obligated to oppose?

@@MrGustavier I'm talking about the cardinal virtues, charity and their daughters. Not just any idea you make up which you feel I should consider a virtue. Each of the cardinal virtues and their daughters exist as a golden mean, so no. They don't controdict. Only the vices of excess and deficiency controdict.

@@MrGustavier because prudence is a good, and all deficiencies in it are vices. And vices are the foundation of moral evil. So a maximally evil God would have every possible deficiency in prudence to a maximal degree.

Eh no that’s not the point, if that’s the case the argument would actually be a lot weaker if anything. There would be way much easier symmetry breakers if we were just trying to show a relevant difference between an evil god and a good god. Maltheism wouldn’t be absurd as well given how many atheist find the problem of evil super convincing anyways. The argument is more relevant when it comes to theodicies and why maltheist can just posit anything the theist can.

Do you believe in objective good and evil?

​@@ryanbrown9833he cannot though. Because evil is not the same as good. This is a _maximally evil_ God, not a moderately evil God, or an evil enough God, but one who cannot be more evil. Things like Patience, self control, reason, and desire to create, these are all good things. So a maximally evil being cannot have any of them. Any theodicy which is based on God sticking to his word wouldn't apply to an evil God, because he's evil. Any theodicy that relies on God allowing something he doesn't want for something better in another time doesn't work for an evil God, because impatience and intemperance are evils. When you claim you can just turn all these around, you only reveal that your idea of evil is so weak that you don't even know what an evil God would look like

@@marvalice3455 Yeah I think you misunderstood my comment, I wasn’t advocating for the evil god challenge lmao. I was just saying how I don’t think they MISREPRESENTED the argument.

Did you watch the video?

And how would you justify such an asymmetry ?

@@MrGustavier justify? First of all, God is already to be assumed by saying this. Hopefully your question is not about whether God exists. Now about the asymmetry part. In saying this, you would think as to what good would allow that evil would not allow. Think of it this way. If you were the father of children, and your children were to grow up to oppose everything you believe in and stand for, what would your reaction be? If you were evil towards your children, you would neither have any patience, nor have any reason for long suffering towards their ways, nor would entertain the thought of being good to your enemies as your children have become, because you're evil. To do so, an evil father would have to be somewhat good to his children. A maximally good God and a maximally evil God is the epitome of the aspects of either good or evil. Good does good regardless of whether you are evil or good; evil does evil regardless of whether you are good or evil. Maximal good cannot do evil; likewise, maximal evil cannot do good. Because of this, evil would not suffer opposition, where good would suffer opposition

@@fernandoformeloza4107 I don't know what the father analogy has to do with anything. A father doesn't choose the nature of his descendance. If the father is human, then his descendance will be human. If the father is a bird, then his descendance will be birds... That is not the case of god. God can create something that is not of the same nature as him, precisely because his act of creation isn't an act of reproduction... I also don't know what *"being good to your enemies"* has to do with with your claim that *"If God is good, then good and evil could exist. If God is evil, only evil could exist"* *-"Good does good regardless of whether you are evil or good; evil does evil regardless of whether you are good or evil. Maximal good cannot do evil; likewise, maximal evil cannot do good. Because of this, evil would not suffer opposition, where good would suffer opposition"* The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises (non sequitur). In all your premises the symmetry between evil and good is maintained, and in your conclusion it is broken. What makes you think that an evil god *"would not suffer opposition"* (and what does that even mean ?), and that a good god *"would suffer opposition".* What makes you think that god (evil or good) can be *"opposed"* at all ?

​@@MrGustavier in reading the explanation, you would see that a maximally good God is explained as the antithesis of a maximally evil God, and what they would do given the circumstance. The analogy of the father and children serves as an example of what good and evil would do. The antithesis does continue even to the conclusion, and there is no inconsistency in the logic

​​@@MrGustavieralso, if God suffers opposition, good and evil could exist; if God does not suffer opposition, only evil could exist, depending on whether God is good or evil

Divine simplicity is not a thing outside of apologetics.

@@FentonMulley-cz8pv I agree with you. But Dr. Law's idea of an evil god is incompatible with classical theism. Since the classical theist's God is purely actual, he has no potential. Evil is a privation of the good, a lack of something that should be present. So, Law's evil god is potentially good or at least potentially less evil. By the classical theist's definition, Law's evil god wouldn't be God. St. Thomas Aquinas argues that since God is purely actual, he's the only God. After all, if there were two God, there would need to be a way to tell them apart. In that cause, one of the two would have a property the other lacked. So the one with the lack wouldn't be purely actual. He'd have potential. If classical theism is true, Dr. William Lane Craig's "God" concept is false because that concept implies that God went from being possibly temporal to being actually temporal. That's why Catholic theologians would say that WLC's "God" concept is heretical. There's another problem with Dr. Craig's theology. He believes Monothelitism, a heresy the Third Council of Constantinople condemned. Monothelites believe that Christ's only will is hi divine one. That causes two other problems for that professor's theology. First, Our Lord distinguishes between his will and God the Father's will in Matthew 26:39. Second, though Craig thinks Christ has a complete human nature, Monotheists say the Savior has no human will. But every other human being has a human will. How can a human being have no human will?

​@@FentonMulley-cz8pvkid named one billion catholics

​@@williammcenaney1331i'm a catholic, no need to put quotes on God. Dr Draig has mistajen ideas about God (yes in his case heretical), that doesn't mean he talks about someone else. If i think Washington had 6 fingers on each hand, I'd be mistaken about a property of Washington, but I'd not believe in a different Washington, we'd still be talking about the same guy.

@@tafazziReadChannelDescription do you ever look at what you write from the perspective of a random onlooker? Both of you sound like you are very confused. The structure of your sentences, and the way the statements don't connect is a red flag. Religion isn't a good thing for mental health.