IT_CONTRADICTS_THE_WAY_WE_THINK_OF_EVIL_
GOOD_THAT_IS_IN_THE_WRONG_PLACE_
UNHAPPINESS_THE_MERE_ABSENCE_OF_HAPPINESS_
CREATION_OUT_OF_NOTHING_AND_THE_THEODICY_
DEATH_THE_MERE_ABSENCE_OF_LIFE
EVIL_IS_TRYING_TO_MAKE_EVIL_POWER_
RENUNCIATION_OF_EVIL_REFUTES_THEODICY_
A_GOD_WHO_WONT_USE_HIS_POWER_TO_HEAL_
Here is the argument that evil is compatible with the existence of an all-powerful and all-good God for it is not a thing but a lack:
Evil is useless though God may bring good out of it. Evil is the definition of waste and uselessness. God brings good out of evil but that is only trying to make the best of a situation that should not be. There should be no evil.
God is all good and all powerful and has made all things. There is evil in the world. How can an all-good God create evil? The answer is that he didn't. Evil is not a thing. Evil exists but it is simply the absence of good so it does not exist in the sense that it is not a real thing. God is right to allow it to happen for it is a negation and nothing more. Strictly speaking, there is no evil - just misused good. God is not to blame for evil for evil isn’t real. If there was a power called evil, God would be at least partly evil for he makes that power. But there is no such power. When you are evil, you make absent the ability to be good. You do not use a force that is evil. Everything God has made is good (Genesis 1). Evil is really a good that exists in absence of the good that should be there. Because evil is warped good, God can use the good in it to overcome the badness. But if evil was a power he couldn't do that. An artist makes a beautiful painting . It has faults for he is only human. But the faults have a good side and so they do not affect the beauty of the painting. But if the faults are powers, they are like spots of pizza that the artist vomited when sick and they spoil the painting. See the difference? If God makes evil powers, it follows that he does it to fight an evil greater evil power than they, one that he didn't create or has any control over. This would deny that God is the sole origin of all that exists and would in effect imply a good God and a bad one. There is one God who is love and who lets suffering happen for it is the mere absence of evil and his creation despite the evil in it is all good for the evil is not a thing or power but a nothing.
The notion that we do wrong or do evil because we abuse our free will which is not meant to be exploited that way supports the view that evil is an absence of good not a reality. The free will defence exonerates God from being to blame for the wrong we do and blames us instead saying he gave us the gift of free will which we abused. The defence defends and expresses the fact that evil is an absence not a reality. If one falls so does the other. If the free will defence fails there is no point in bothering trying to defend the idea of an all-good God. He is pulling the strings when we do evil. If evil is a power, then he made it and is not all-good.
God is not evil for allowing evil to happen for evil is a non-thing. It is a failure.
IT CONTRADICTS THE WAY WE THINK OF EVIL
The suggestion that evil is just a falling short of good and not a power or force is used to deny that God creates evil. This is a theodicy - attempt to make the goodness of God fit with the existence of evil. It seeks to miss the point. The point is not what evil is. The point is that evil is.
Astonishing, truly astonishing, that anybody could accept the suggestion as a theodicy or an excuse for divine evil! It is very hurtful to tell people that their suffering is nothing but the absence of good. It is very hurtful to say to earthquake victims, "What happened in the earthquake was good for evil is just lesser good. The earthquake was sent by God and he didn't do wrong for the earthquake is simply the absence of stable ground." And we do treat and think of evil as real when we try to avoid it and we don’t excuse anybody for doing it on the grounds that it isn’t real! You don't argue for example that Jack the Ripper was an entirely good man who just happened to have a lower level of good when he murdered. You don't say his murders were just the absence of an inclination to preserve life and not true evil.
If a woman went out and got pregnant knowing she would pass on a cruel and terminal and incurable sickness to her baby we would condemn her action. We would not be arguing that she only created the good and the evil is just a falling short of good and not her making. Religion may answer that God can make babies that are sick for he is not obligated to make babies at all and he is not our equal and we should be grateful for the goods that the babies have. This says that God can make as much good or as little as he wants - he doesn't owe anybody anything. Even if it is true that God can make sick babies it is a different story when the baby is made. Then he must look after it and provide for its healing. Kittens are not our equal and even if we make them in a lab we must not treat them like objects and make them suffer by making them as blind or whisker-less or whatever. Equality or inequality has nothing to do with it. To bring in such issues is simply insulting to people. To teach the excuse is simply to take the side of evil! If you have self-esteem and if you esteem yourself, you will not like the suggestion that God has the right to prevent you liking yourself if he wants to. For example, some people have genetic instructions to produce and develop depression. The claim that God can give us as little good as he likes means that if you are screaming out in agony for death you should be kept alive at all costs for it is good to be alive no matter how much you are suffering!
Some religionists say that God is not a moral agent if you mean by moral agent a being that can do wrong but doesn't and which behaves well. God cannot argue with himself like a moral agent would for he knows right away what to do. But they still say that God cannot make what is evil in itself or condone it. So we still have a God who must do the right thing. Yet some use the God not being a moral agent type of thinking to deal with God allowing evil to happen and making sick babies and keeping them sick and making some babies have a stronger genetic predisposition to evil than others. These people say that God is different from us and so much higher and bigger that we can't expect him to have moral obligations towards us. They say he makes us but owes us nothing. But they say we are moral agents though we have no moral obligations to ants. So it follows that if God owes us nothing and if he can refuse us benefits for that reason then he is still being a moral agent. Not owing us anything does not mean he isn't a moral agent but means he is and just owes us nothing. The argument from moral agency has nothing to do with it at all unless you want to teach that God not being a moral agent means he doesn't care about goodness or is both good and evil.
If God is not a moral agent, then surely a God that is a moral agent would be a better God to believe in? Surely if God claims to be perfect he would only be perfect if he were a moral agent?
The existence of germs and bacteria that are good for nothing but making sickness is a plain proof that the argument that God can make them for he owes us nothing and isn't a moral agent is nonsense. When I do something that I make fall short of what it ought to be its called a sin by those religionists. Yet they say God can do this and when he does it, it is not a sin for he makes only the good not the bad for the bad is not real but just good in the wrong place! So a sin is not a sin when God does wrong. This is plainly accusing humans of evil for doing what God does. It is as ridiculous as saying that murder is not evil when God does it and evil when a human being does it! If murder is evil then no matter who does it it is still evil!
To say evil is the absence of a good that ought to be present is to say that evil is good in the wrong place. Before it was known that bacteria were causing many human diseases, people believed that God was causing the illness directly. He was putting the rot into a limb scheduled for a cruel painful amputation. God was putting the gangrene in. To believers, being upset about your sins and going to get forgiveness means that evil of being upset is good in that case. So the gangrene must be good for some reason. To cut off the limb is to defy God. It is trying to correct God. The theodicy does nothing to discourage the causing of suffering but encourages letting it happen. If God makes only good and evil is merely good in the wrong place, God is still good despite putting gangrene in a person. He is still good for doing this for gangrene has a good side - for example it is being a good disease by doing destruction. In that case then he might not mind us doing nothing about suffering or even causing it. He can delegate the authority to us to cause suffering on the basis that we are making only good and not causing the failings in that goodness for the failings are not real things.
To say God should allow evil to happen for it is just good falling short of better good and has no real existence solves nothing because somebody had to make the power for created things to fall short. Even free will cannot cause the falling short unless God creates forces within the person that fall short of real good that free will can draw upon to do evil. We never do anything without a reason and without feeling which proves that if free will goes astray it was impulses that went astray that led to this. If God is right to do such evil and make evil for evil is just non-good and not a real thing as the theodicy says then how can doing evil be evil if God is all-good?
This theodicy is vicious for it has people who oppose evil embracing it by lying to themselves that it isn’t real. How can we insult sick people with such an attitude? Evil is what you can condemn a person for committing and if this theodicy works you cannot do that.
They say evil is not a power but a misused good
power. But if it is a misused power then it is a power. Evil must be a power for misuse exists so it must be something
real. What is misused is evil.
If evil is not a power but just an absence of
good then
the idea of a good purpose for evil wouldn’t work. How could God have a use for the misuse of
good? A misuse is necessarily useless.
The Church says that God has to encourage the increase of evil to create some good that makes the evil worthwhile - for example when he allows and creates temptation and weakness. When evil is being used to destroy evil then evil shouldn’t exist in the first place. In other words, there is no purpose for it that justifies it. We know that people aren’t entirely to blame for the evil they do. God could make us nicer if he tried. That is why attempts to save God’s reputation which is beyond salvation are so offensive.
Evil is not justified if it is the nothing that this theodicy says it is. Murder is as real as life-saving. No matter what evil is, it should not exist.
I have a painful tooth that is rotting. According to the God botherers, the tooth is good. The rotting is just good that is in the wrong place for it is good at making teeth rot. The pain is good for it is warning that something is in the wrong place and it is being good pain the more it hurts me. If you think like that, and you know there should be a tooth there is it not worse to get it removed than to leave it in? The tooth coming out would be a worse evil than the tooth being left in to rot.
No normal parent would think that a God who won't unite with the soul of their baby and be present in it until it is baptised is a really good God. Catholics say that the baby has an absence of God and there is no positive evil in God not being there. God being absent from the baby is called original sin for sin means the break or loss of fellowship with God. The doctrine says that God is not to blame for original sin for it is merely the absence of the good of being united with God and being indwelt by him. It teaches the theodicy that God is not to blame for evil for it is distorted good and so is not real. Original sin is supposed to be an absence. If it is a positive evil, for example, as real as oxygen or gravity or heat, then it follows that God is evil for he puts this evil into and makes it for babies. Christianity is distracting us from the point, God is still responsible for not being in babies and nobody says original sin is good. Its bad. God is bad.
The theodicy is wrong because God made evil when he made thistles and poisonous snakes and disease-causing viruses and no pretending that evil is nothing can make that right. The idea that evil is nothing isn't even relevant. If the theodicy is wrong and God exists then we can whatever evil we like. God does not agree with the defence himself if he has any sanity.
We know a person can have a totally evil intention. The power to intend may be good but the direction the intention is put in is a separate thing. It is not the same as the power to intend. You can use a good thing such as knife to do harm. But using a good thing does not mean that that the harming is totally vile and totally evil. When you can't make something evil enough the fact remains that trying to is totally evil. That is because it is not your fault that you are unable to make it evil enough. It is not your fault that you are unable to make a good thing such as a knife totally evil. The evil is a negation thing definitely implies that evil people are not so bad!
If this idea that evil doesn’t exist for its
only the absence of good could be true then good could be the absence of evil
and as unreal! 2+2=5 is a real sum
despite being the absence of correctness - its real despite giving wrong
information.
It is as real a statement as, "This statement is false. Is it true or
false?"
2+2=4 is the absence of non-correctness.
Some will say that 2+2=5 is meaningless for 2 and 2 cannot be 5. So it is only an equation on paper but is
really just nothing at all. But if we
were programmed to perceive 2+2=5, like a computer might be, then the equation
would be real in the only way that matters to us. Despite 2+2=4 in reality, 2+2=5 is true for
us. We say that 2+2=4 is a real equation
for us for we perceive it to be right so 2+2=5 can be like that too and be as
real to us. Correctness is another word
for good. This takes us to the next
point.
Evil is getting your sums wrong eg, it is working out that good + evil = good so it is as real as the incorrect sum and is as real as the correct sum too. If sin is falling short of goodness then it follows that you don’t have free will for you would not be committing sin unless there were something wrong with you. The will is meant to be good but it falls short which makes sin to be an accident that appears to be our own fault but is still an accident. When God is supposed to be perfect he cannot sin on this definition of evil for he cannot fall short. We should have been made that way too. He is evil for we are not. He didn't make us healthy but made us sinners or so he says.
GOOD THAT IS IN THE WRONG PLACE?
The God botherers say you cannot have good unless evil is possible. If evil is just a falling short of good it follows that evil is just good in the wrong place. When evil is good, how can these people say there could be good if there can be no evil? They really deny that they believe in such a thing as good at all.
They say the knife that cuts your finger is good but just in the wrong place ie your finger. However, the knife is bad only when it cuts you.
Does it make any sense to say that the knife that cuts you by accident is good but is just in the wrong place and that that shows that evil is just a negation? No for the wrong place bit shows that evil exists and is real. That’s where the evil is. It is madness to hold that evil is not real by considering it to be good that is just in the wrong place for the wrongness is still there is real. To distract people from evil in this way by saying it is not real and ignoring the wrongness is simply a conjuring trick. 2+2=5 is as real an equation as 2+2=4. It is more than just a falling short of correctness.
They say that existence is always good for it
is better to be real than unreal. They
say the evil thing that cuts or hurts you is not evil for existing but for being in the
wrong place at the wrong time. Evil by
definition should not exist. Then
evil should not exist in that place and time so its existence there in that time
and place is
evil at least when it hurts you. Existence then is not always
good. The theodicy says that evil is not
just a falling short of good but a form of good. It condones evil.
The existence of things then is a part of
goodness. Yet if something could exist
but does not you do not say that is evil for it not to exist for there is
nothing there to get a raw deal by not being created. There is a sense in which it is evil but we
are on about the sense in which it is not.
If the sharpness of a blade is only bad when
it is in the wrong place at the wrong time and cuts you what is it when nobody
is using it or nobody needs it or even sees it?
Is it good, is it evil or is it neither?
Cutting a carrot with the blade is evil in a way. It causes damage to the carrot and
destruction to a living thing for the carrot is alive. The blade is evil even when it is just lying
there because it is meant to be used and is not being used. The same could be said about anything. The theodicy implies that creation is nearly
wholly evil unless you want to believe that things disappear and cease to exist
when nobody is looking at them. The
whole point of the theodicy is to explain how God allows evil that has a
purpose for it presupposes that God cannot fall short of his own perfection and
that is why evil needs explaining. He
would fall short if he did needless evil.
The theodicy would imply that a work of art that you deliberately make ugly because it is art, is intended to fall short of goodness. But it is not for it is meant to fit a particular standard of goodness. It is good for the art to be ugly. If it is bad then it is bad that we have the freedom do make ugly things or to say ugly things. It would be bad to make crucifixes – everything almost would be bad. What use is a theodicy that does not know what it means by goodness? Is it not a conjuring trick and a waste of breath?
The theodicy is nonsense. To say God can let evil happen for evil is merely good that is in the wrong place and not real, forgets that wrong has still happened and it is real wrong. It is insulting and cruel. It implies that God is evil and we should be blind to that evil and welcome it.
UNHAPPINESS THE MERE ABSENCE OF HAPPINESS?
I have never seen this
ever admitted in any religious book but the fact is that the theodicy denies the
doctrine that goodness is real happiness, the happiness that comes from being
caring. If evil does not exist for it is
just an absence of good then it follows that happiness is not goodness because
unhappiness is a bad feeling a real thing and not merely the absence of
happiness. You can be neither unhappy or happy
which proves the point. The theodicy says that that
goodness is independent of pleasure, and happiness is a pleasure, which is just
a way of saying that pleasure is really evil and the theodicy can be very cruel. A cruel and unwarranted and cold-blooded
murder and murderer can be good in this view. It is
safe to insist that belief in God forbids happiness. The good this theodicy seeks to defend is
pure evil or make-believe.
The theodicy or defence cannot admit that pain
is the absence of pleasure for pain is a power.
It is a power that God made. This
insinuates that suffering is not bad but a great thing!
Augustine assumes that we should not be perfectly happy in this world and that God is right not to bestow perfect happiness on us. How can we say this? For he sees suffering and evil and misery in the world and agrees that God is right to look down on it and refuse to eradicate it.
This is the assumption that lies behind his assertion that evil is a privation of a good that should be there. But this is philosophy-time not speculation time. An assumption is not good enough and will not do. We have asked can a good God allow evil and he has answered it with an assumption about evil but what use is that? Assumptions in such serious matters are terribly wrong. The theodicy itself is evil. It makes it evil to believe in God. End of story.
Suppose it makes sense to ask the question is evil a mere falling short of good and or is good a mere falling short of evil?
It is true that evil falls short of good but it is wrong to say that that is all it is and does. Good falls short of evil too. It is a real thing just as good is the absence of evil and is real. If there is a God and we suffer and do evil then God must think there is no good without evil but this cannot be the case if evil does not exist and is just a falling short of the mark.
Cold is the natural state. Heat is parasitic on cold. It reverses cold. Cold fights heat and heat fights cold. Is cold the mere absence of heat? That makes no sense. Cold corresponds to evil in the sense that heat has to counteract cold to allow life to take place. When the right amount of heat exists we have life. Heat corresponds to good. Evil is the natural state not good. Therefore good is falling short of evil.
CREATION OUT OF NOTHING AND THE THEODICY
This chapter is about how God and the creations existence is evil not good. In that case, it is meaningless to try and defend God by saying that when he lets evil happen he is still all good for evil is merely misplaced good.
We will learn that existence is evil so it is totally meaningless to say that there is any point in believing that evil is the mere absence of good.
There should be nothing at all for it is
easier for there to be nothing than for anything to exist. Yet against what should be, things
exist. It follows then that existence is
evil in the sense that it shouldn’t be.
If God exists he is evil for he is the reason for his own existence and brings
things into existence from nothing. To
adore God is really to adore Satan.
Philosophers assume that there are entities such as God that necessarily exist -
in other words, it was impossible for beings that necessarily exist not to exist.
But all
that can necessarily exist is nothing.
Yet there is something.
Everything else including God cannot then necessarily exist. They are not necessary beings, none of them
is the ground of all being, the entity that cannot not exist or not have
existed
If all things including God came from nothing
then nothing is the best thing and nothing should exist but nothing so it is
unintelligible to say that God’s existence is good so God is not entitled to be
defended.
If evil is just a falling short and not a real thing then God cannot sin because God is perfect and too powerful to miss the mark. It follows then that it is better for God to exist than not to exist for if nothing existed there would not be as much good. But this contradicts the fact that if nothing is so good that a God can come from it then nothing doesn't need to make a God to be so good.
Even if God never had a beginning, he makes himself from nothing just like the Church says he holds himself in existence and makes himself from nothing for to exist a thing must be caused by something else or it causes itself and God is its own cause. If God makes himself from nothing then nothing is what God made himself from. Some in the Church will object that God made himself from nothing but it was his own power that made him out of nothing but that is no reply for nothing gave him that power so he still came out of nothing. Nothing then must have the power to produce God. Nothing must be better than God when it can do that for there is said to be no existing thing greater than he. To say that nothing created God but that he creates himself is to say that nothing is what made God or caused him. If I make a wig from my hair then the hair creates the wig in a sense for it is the existence of the hair that makes the wig. The same thing as with God. To say that God causes his own existence or is the reason for his own existence is to say he is made of "something" and that this "something" is nothing. This nothing is better than God when it can make such a wonderful being and it follows that the inferior, God, is evil.
If you deny that God could be inferior to nothing, that is if you say God is better than what nothing is, then if nothing did not make God, nothing would be falling short of good by not making God. But it is mistaken to say that nothing could fall short of good by not making God for nothing by definition cannot make anything and has nothing to do with it if something appears out of nowhere and if it could make then there was as much a chance of it doing nothing as making God. So nothing’s falling short of good would not make it deliberately evil for it cannot help it. But something doesn't have to do deliberate evil to be evil. If nothing falls short by not making God, if it could have not made him, then clearly the idea of evil being the mere absence of good is wrong for nothing knows nothing about good and evil. Nothing is nothing. Its absolutely nothing.
If you say nothing is evil in the sense that it is good for things to exist, you seem to contradict this by saying that nothing is good for it can produce God. But it may be good for God to exist and it may be good for us to exist. But it is only good for him and us and is not good in itself. It is good in the sense that it is good to feel good after doing something wrong. It is bad good, it is evil. The solution then is that as good as existence may be for us and God it is evil to exist and to maintain that existence. It is evil for the murderer to exist as he commits his crimes though it is good for him personally to exist. Its good one way and bad the other but the good is really bad.
If you say that nothing is the origin of God and nothing is both good for it lets things exist and evil for letting itself be defied then how could it be true to say that God is perfect and has no evil in him at all? His "raw material", nothing, is good and evil so he must be the same. This destroys the theodicy for it shows that even if evil is a falling short of good and nothing more it has no relevance to proving God could allow evil for it implies that everything must fall short of good in some aspects. Many philosophers say that if God is not perfect, he loses any entitlement to use the excuse that when he makes things less good than they could be he is entitled to do that for he owes nothing to anyone. It would seem he should fix his own imperfection or try to compensate by making creatures that are as perfect as possible. Believers say that God being perfect is entitled to make imperfect things but an imperfect father on earth has no right to deliberately father a sick baby say by passing on a disease to the child for the father is imperfect. But surely if you are imperfect you have more right to pass on imperfection than a perfect being that can stop imperfection but won't does?
If we reason that nothing is bad for making us and bad if it doesn't how do we solve the contradiction? If nothing hadn't made us it wouldn't be doing us any wrong. It has the right to make nothing to use analogical language. You don't owe a being that doesn't exist its existence. So nothing is bad for making us even if we like it being bad for we like existing.
When there is something when there could have been nothing it follows that it would be better if there were nothing for that is simpler. It follows then that if God exists then he is evil. If he is then there is no point in trying to explain away God letting evil happen though he has the power to stop it and not using it and still being good by saying that evil is the mere absence of good.
Is it really good for useless things that do harm to exist? We don't need the AIDS virus for example. The theodicy says it is good for the virus to exist which unmasks the malice in the idea that evil is a mere negation. There is a coldness in its supporters.
The free will defence alleges that God gave
us free will so that we could love for love is voluntary and we abused it so
evil is our fault not his. God himself falls
short of the good that the free will defence says is so valuable. He has not made himself what he is. He
didn't choose to be imperfect for he cannot fail for he is all-powerful and
all-knowing. The
free will defence says he is right to allow evil so that we will make ourselves
good of our own efforts. But he cannot
change from what he is and has never sacrificed to be good.
Some say that because there should be nothing as there is no need for anything to exist that in this sense existence is evil for it should not be happening. Does this view imply that good is a falling short of evil and that there is no good in anything existing and nothing we do is good? Evil would be more powerful than good for our existence is illogical and should not be. This would automatically destroy the doctrine of a good God at a stroke. If existence is evil then it is more appropriate to describe good as the absence of evil for the evil power of existence reigns supreme.
Is good merely the non-existence of evil and is evil merely the absence of good? Suppose the question makes sense. Then the only hope we would have of knowing which is the real thing and which is the unreal is by working out what is the supreme power. Evil is supreme so good is merely the absence of evil if there is any horse sense in the question. Also good cannot be just the absence of evil and evil cannot just be the absence of good for that would mean they were two absences but then we are saying there is nothing real to either. Evil cannot be the mere absence of good if good is not real so one of them is real and the other is not.
If evil is a falling short of good then that is to say that good is the norm and evil is parasitic on good so evil is abnormal. If evil is merely a falling short of good then it follows that good has to exist before evil can exist. Why? For if good does not exist before evil exists how can evil fall short of it? But suppose there was nothing. Good and evil would still exist. In many ways it is good for there to be nothing at all. In many ways this is bad as well. But how can this evil exist though if there is nothing then good cannot exist before evil? So there is no before for there is just nothing. Good cannot exist before evil for there is nothing and therefore no before. Does this suggest that good and evil are in your imagination? Yes if you believe that evil is not a power but a negative. If so then good and evil are not real. Or there is another suggestion. That is that because good needs to be there for evil to fall short of it, this good that exists when there is absolutely nothing is really evil for it doesn't let that happen. In such a case, evil would be the supreme power with good being the exception meaning that good was a falling short of evil. Evil would not be non-being or a non-power. It would not be mere misplaced good. It would be the standard. If evil is the dominant power then we must judge good people as being really bad people with ulterior motives. Also, our good deeds would ultimately result in evil.
DEATH THE MERE ABSENCE OF LIFE?
Death
is probably the best example we know of evil.
If evil is the absence of good and no more then death is the absence of
life and no more. But death is a power that
keeps the cells from living. When
electrical activity dies out in the body other forces with no visible kinetic
energy take over. These are the same
forces that make a stone a non-living entity.
God has to replace the power of life with a power that makes the body lifeless.
Lifelessness is a power. A piece of metal is full of power when it
is heated but when it cools another power takes over, cold. You can't say
that heat is the mere absence of cold or that cold is the mere absence of heat
for that makes no sense. They are powers.
To say that death is just the absence of life is irreverent to the thing
that matters most, life. If life is good
then it follows that God should have made everything alive for the absence of
life is evil. The defence fails totally
to defend God’s reputation for he makes the forces and uses the forces that are
death and which cause death. It slanders
him while boasting that it salvages his good name.
If evil is just the absence of good then when we intend evil the will is not evil but is just falling short of good. In other words, we are trying to be good but doing it wrong. In other words, we do evil for the good results it may have and don't do evil for its own sake. This is another perspective that shows that talk about sin and having the power to choose good or evil makes no sense. It shows that only the results of an action can be judged but not the action itself. One may as well scrap belief in free will altogether.
Even if you make a being that can do evil for
its own sake and who sees it as a real thing and not just as a negation of good
several fatal problems emerge. The evil
use of the being’s will is still good because it cannot do better and is doing
its best. It wants to be good at evil for
example. So no matter what you make you
cannot get away from the fact that we can only intend good even when we do evil
and the evil intention intends the good results of evil not the evil itself. If the being could choose to stop seeing evil
as good and start seeing evil as evil and doing evil for evil’s own sake then
the being would have to be able to become insane for doing evil because it is
evil would be more insane than anyone could imagine so it makes free will far
more impossible than the view that the evil we do is mistaken for good
does. If we only mean to be good there
is no point in God letting us do evil.
He would not be manipulating us if he made us do only good out of our
own nature.
EVIL IS TRYING TO MAKE EVIL POWER
They say evil is a negative. If I desire to create evil for its own sake that desire is a power and it is real. It is not just the absence of goodness. Even if I cannot create evil for its own sake, I am succeeding in the sense that I am going as far as I can though perhaps not successfully in creating it. Is not using good defectively far worse than creating what is evil in itself? Open evil is better than evil that looks good and distorts good. The theodicy that evil is nothing but the absence of good does not help at all. It only worsens the problem of evil and almighty God who can stop it but won't and puts it beyond any hope of a solution.
RENUNCIATION OF EVIL REFUTES THEODICY
The theodicy implies
that you should renounce evil for good is the best thing and is the real thing
not evil. But to renounce evil is to
become a slave to it indirectly and enter under its power for then you have to
commit the evil of taking on the suffering necessary to avoid doing evil and of
stopping yourself doing what you want.
What you should do is mix good and evil so that you become a nice
exciting person. Who likes people who
are all sweetness and light? Who would
want to be perfect as God is perfect though Jesus said we should want to be?
The
"evil is not made by God for it doesn't really exist for its just a negation" theodicy is so insulting to humanity that it is amusing to think that it could
possibly pay tribute to goodness and to God!
Some
deny that it is a theodicy and give a new slant on it.
Some modern philosophers
though believing in God reject theodicy.
The Reality of God and the Problem
of Evil is a book that explicates this approach. This book says that God is not a moral agent. That is, though God is good he is not
obligated to make everybody’s life perfect and to save people from
suffering. This thought comes from the
notion that evil is just an absence of good and not a thing. Evil is like good that is in the wrong
place. For example, a knife is good but
not good in your chest. God is not
obligated to create anything. He is not
bound to. Therefore God is not bound to
make anything perfect. As far as
something is not perfect that is not God’s doing or imperfection is not a
thing. God didn’t make imperfection he
only made the thing good as far as it is good.
This is not a theodicy for it simply denies that God allows evil for the
sake of some good. It says that theodicy
is nonsense for evil is totally useless.
At least in that sense, it is a noble theory and an improvement over the
theodicies.
But it still does not
save us the bother of trying to work out a theodicy.
Say you take the book as correct. But then what would you say about a person who believed that he didn’t need to get cured of a disease that he could pass on to his child as he attempts to become a father? He can’t say he is creating the good but not the evil. Even if he was, would he be right to father the child?
No matter what one does, the view that evil is a negative and not a reality like good is, fails to give the defender of religion anything to chew on. It isn’t going too far to say that it is better off left out of the attempt to solve the problem of evil. But religion has to dispute that. Why? Because then it has to admit that God does evil though for a greater good or at least to produce as much good as will balance the evil.
A GOD WHO WON'T USE HIS POWER TO HEAL
So we have looked at the view that evil is unreal and a negative and not a reality. Its a vicious view. The dentist who could heal your tooth by a miracle is a dentist who is wholly good in this act. The dentist who has this power but who chooses to pull your tooth out is a dentist who is using evil to do good. The view that God isn't evil for letting evil happen for its not real refuses to admit that God not helping my tooth with a miracle means God is evil. It tries to say that if God permits evil for a greater purpose that this evil is not a real thing so God is not partly evil for using evil to produce good. It tries to say that God is not making evil power to assist him in producing good for evil is just good that is in the wrong place. So God is wholly good in his purposes. So he is as perfect as the miracle dentist. But it doesn't work. No matter what evil is, it is still there. It is still used. God is still using good in the wrong place to make good. He is still using wrong to make good so he might as well make and use evil understood as a power not a negation to do it.
Is belief in God a positive thing? Is non-belief simply the absence of belief? Belief in God is actually disbelief in all other gods and magic. If belief in God alone is good then it follows that any other contrary belief is just the absence of belief in God. It sets the standard. In other words, it is evil not to believe in God and the stronger your faith in his existence and in him the better. Everybody who is not a believer in God then is evil. If God is perfect as Augustine says then it follows that all doubt or disbelief in relation to God is evil. It is the worst evil of all for it refuses to acknowledge and adore the supreme good which is God. Also ones belief needs to be as strong as possible for in so far as one's belief is not full there is doubt.
Unbelief is the
absence of faith but is a power of its own too.
Unbelief in yourself and your value is the root of all evil. For example, if you believe in your power to be happy
you will not be misguidedly trying to be happy through robbing banks and hurting
people. Unbelief in yourself is the essence of evil as well. Therefore it makes no sense to say that God
did not make evil for evil is just the absence of good.
Summary
Evil is not just the absence of good. To say that it is, is just an attempt to minimise how bad evil is and to desensitise those who are horrified by it and cannot see how God could be involved in it even indirectly for it is so horrendously vile. It destroys the value of miracles as evidence for the existence of God.
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