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Law’s “evil-god challenge”

by Edward Feser

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Is the existence of a supremely malevolent god really no less likely than the existence of the supremely good God of classical theism? A response to atheist philosopher Stephen Law.

Posted by Edward Feser on October 19, 2010 4:09 AM | Del.icio.us |

Comments (9)

Very helpful piece, Ed.

Was wondering what you thought of D.B. Hart's take on the POE presented in his book The Doors of the Sea? I realize that the book is more of a precis or prolegomenon than a full-blown philosophical or theology treatise, but I found its basic argument quite compelling.

Posted by Rob G | October 19, 2010 7:39 AM

Very interesting.

With an academic background consisting of nothing more than an undergraduate 4-semester series on the history of philosophy and two other philosophy courses, I took course in medical ethics. I was very surprised and rather outraged that the textbook was so humorously lousy and the instructor didn't know what he was talking about. Now I'm embarrassed that I was so naive, but it still seems very surprising to me. Maybe it is better to see graduate school as a test of endurance rather than a means of educating people.

Posted by Steve P. | October 19, 2010 11:21 AM

Doesn't a malevolent god scenario lack impetus to creation?

Posted by Patrick | October 19, 2010 3:50 PM

Patrick,

Not necessarily. Perhaps it would be more evil to create a world in which everyone was tortured eternally than to create no world at all.

Posted by Bobcat | October 19, 2010 4:31 PM

Wouldn't a real malevolent god annihilate himself, as the most complete act of evil? I think he would have to. And, of course, he would have to do it right away, naturally. Waiting around for some sort of "later" would be just too, too silly. If he's a god, he's too big for "later." Now's the time. Seize the moment!

What's that, he can't annihilate himself? Why-ever not? He's all-powerful, ain't he? Come on, let's not be silly, anyone as powerful as god can do anything he wants.

You say: he's not the sort of being that can want to annihilate himself, that would be contrary to his nature? Oh, so you think EvilGod has a nature, yes? And so you buy into all that claptrap about natures, essences & being, act & potency, fulfillment and privation, good and evil? And after all that, you have the infernal GALL to suggest a malevolent god? That's no longer bad philosophy, it's blasphemy.

Posted by Tony | October 19, 2010 9:41 PM

Although I can't find much agreement with Professor Law, I'm not sure your criticism is really on point, Tony. (If I understand it.)

"You say: he's not the sort of being that can want to annihilate himself, that would be contrary to his nature? Oh, so you think EvilGod has a nature, yes? And so you buy into all that claptrap about natures, essences & being, act & potency, fulfillment and privation, good and evil?"

Well, no. Why would you have to buy into Thomstic philosophy to posit a malevolent God who doesn't annihilate himself? Clearly one can posit a benevolent God who does not give every person immediate, eternal bliss, because doing so would close off certain avenues of goodness; and similarly, a malevolent God may not annihilate himself immediately because doing so would bring about less aggregate evil.

(Clearly someone who posits a malevolent God is thinking about a personalistic God -- a God like a silent movie villain, curling His mustache, tying a helpless Universe up to some train tracks. To say that such a conception entails natures/essences/etc. isn't going to be very convincing.)

I mean, maybe you want to argue that the evil-yet-not-suicidal God hypothesis implies certain positions. But it's not going to be immediately obvious, and I'm not sure what self-annihilation has to do with it.

Posted by James Cunningham | October 20, 2010 8:06 AM

Well, no. Why would you have to buy into Thomstic philosophy to posit a malevolent God who doesn't annihilate himself? Clearly one can posit a benevolent God who does not give every person immediate, eternal bliss, because doing so would close off certain avenues of goodness;

Hmmm. A benevolent God is not required to provide the best of all possible worlds, because there ISN'T any such thing, there can't be any such thing, there is always infinitely more good than ANY created order. So it would be nonsensical for a good God to be "required" to create the best possible.

But there is a worst possible: take all the good of any actual situation away, and you have the worst possible result out of that situation. The worst possible isn't infinite, it is finite. Therefore, a truly malevolent god, who wants the worst possible, has a possible goal that is "conceivable." If he is truly malevolent without limit, then he will act on that, immediately.

I can't help it if a personalist god involves himself in all sorts of internal contradictions. That isn't my doing.

Posted by Tony | October 20, 2010 8:52 PM

I am not a Thomist, yet I have often been attracted by something like the following argument: If we posit a malevolent super-being (which is really very much like simply positing the Christian Satan and granting him a lot of power), by judging him to be evil, we appear to be invoking a notion of "the Good" which is of higher authority than this super-being. He may _say_, "Evil, be thou my good," but he cannot in fact re-define goodness. This seems to be an argument at least for some sort of Platonic standard of goodness outside of the super-being, which Christians would locate in the nature of God.

It's also rather interesting to me at least that, psychologically, while I can imagine talking about "the Good" in this way I cannot similarly find it meaningful to talk about "the Evil." When I talk about "something" that is "completely evil," I always think of it in terms of a will that is trying as hard as it can to act against what is good. This seems to be some sort of argument for the conclusion that evil is inherently a privation.

Posted by Lydia | October 21, 2010 11:32 AM

Lydia, I think that you are exactly right.

As a try-to-be Thomist, I think that the reason for your experience is the convertibility between goodness and being. I suppose a Kantian would say that this is just a happenstance that humans are built so as to be constrained to think this way, but WE ARE constrained to think this way because this is how we perceive the good: good is not to be defined as "that which the super being wills" unless there is, also, an identity between the super-being and goodness itself. So, a malevolent super-being is up against it no matter what. If he wills evil utterly, he must somehow will something contrary to his being.

Posted by Tony | October 21, 2010 7:18 PM

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