Evil is a perfectly straightforward concept. It may have many definitions but it's easy to conceive of one, e.g.: willingly making others suffer unjustly.
The concept of evil is quite different from what is being argued in the source material. There, we are questioning whether the environment created by a proposed god systematically leads to situations that indicates that the creator is not benign.
It's pretty simple. If you have no choice but to commit murder because your fate is predetermined, the court is also predestined to put you in jail.
When all actions are an outcome of environment(inherited or cultural), the non-trivial issue is to make a clear demarcation in different kinds of influence on a person who commits a crime.
A natural process which flows through conscious reasoning and motivation is different from a uncontrollable malfunction in the mind.
I’m not sure I understand the contradiction there. Are you saying that a court doesn’t care enough about any mental disorder which may have led one to commit a crime to completely absolve them? That’s does indeed seem to be the case in many areas, and for good reason: one important function of our legal system is to prevent future harm.
Again, this doesn't explain at all why there is suffering caused by natural forces like hurricanes, earthquakes, and diseases.. and such sources of suffering are (along with human-caused ones) central to the Problem of Evil.[1]
But even were we to only focus on human beings, and even were we to grant for the sake of argument that we have no free will, then there's still the question of why we are the way we are.. if the answer is evolution and the physical laws of the universe and the history of the universe, then why is it all the way it is?
To theists the answer is "god". But why did god (a perfectly good, all-powerful, and all-knowing god) choose to make it that way... a way that entailed a lot of (or even any) suffering?
That's The Problem of Evil.
It's really a theological and philosophical question having to do with why the world is imperfect and yet supposedly the product of a perfectly god.
Leaving aside the religious matter of a higher power, I think it’s safe to say that evil in the general context means something more than merely undesirable; perhaps intrinsically wrong from all possible rational observers or something like that.
Finding that biological systems have desirable or undesirable situations and that they having higher order communication systems can agree on a set of shared undesirable outcomes still doesn’t quite get to that concept of evil does it? If not, then I think we can agree that hurricanes are bad for us in general, but not exactly evil unless there is some unobservable force acting upon us which sounds a bit like magic to me.
It can be reduced to the general question "if god is perfect, why is the world imperfect?"
Or, to narrow the question a bit while still avoiding the use of the word "evil", we can ask "if god is omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent, why does suffering exist?"
We can agree that hurricanes, earthquakes, other natural disasters and diseases cause suffering, without getting in to the question of whether they're "evil" per se.
Such non-human causes of suffering don't seem to be necessary in a world created by an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly benevolent god.. yet they still exist. Why?
Couldn't such a perfect god have created a world without all this suffering?
If you understand the physics of a ball rolling down a hill, the concept of motion doesn’t become truly odd to believe. The concept is still there and still matters, you just understand it in more detail.
Evil is another such emergent abstraction. The meaning is there regardless of the details of what lower level details it emerges from.
You could argue that the laws of physics are the tools that the angels use to do their pushing, but you'd then be entering the realm of absurdity. Angels are unnecessary to understand motion.
Same goes for evil. After you understand the basics of human psychology, and you accept the largely deterministic nature of everything, insisting that evil is the driver for certain acts is as absurd as a belief in physics angels.
Evil is not an emergent abstraction. It's a fiction and a religiously-tied social tool used to demonize opposing tribes, justifying destroying them, as well as to control a group's behavior/identity (it's evil to worship false idols, etc.).
Unpacking what we call “free will” in this way is a really sobering experience, leading to automatic compassion for everyone.
How can we observe causality?
We can observe a sequence of events, but that one event causes another is not something we can observe.
See Hume's critique of causality for more on this.
“I shouldn’t have rushed my nephew in the store.”
The inquiry goes something like this: what emotions did I have at the moment? Did I choose those or were they caused by something? What thoughts did I have? Did I choose them or did they spontaneously appear or were they caused by something like conditioning, habits, traumatic patterns? Were we on our way to a concert? Is my nature patient or not so patient and chill and when did I get a say in my preference in how my neuropathways will get organized? Was my nephew fascinated by those books? Did I choose him to be? Did he choose to have interest in some things and not others? Did he choose to have a bit of difficulty when transitioning away from interesting activities? Did I choose how I was treated when I was a child in his situation?
Given all of these, including feeling overwhelmed and out of options, and having only the tools I had at the moment, my existing genetic makeup, thoughts, beliefs and environment, can I find a force independent of all of these that made me raise my voice at the child?
No, I cannot. It happened and I kind of witnessed it but that’s it. What I call a choice or a free will, when unpacked, is a combination of infinite causality chains which happen to express themselves through me in this moment.
https://m-g-h.medium.com/free-will-a-rich-fairy-tale-4fecf80...
Note: Evil exists and has a purpose though
Tackles this problem from a christian apologista perspective. Its about as intellectual an analysis as you are going to get on this subject matter. I personally don't agree with 100% of it, but Lewis always presents arguments I never would have considered otherwise. Worth a read.
Also, listening to scientists and engineers discuss issues of morality (e.g. this comments section) is always a painful experience. The analytical mind is not often applied appropriately to matters of philosophy. At least thats my impression.
Here is an example of what C.S. Lewis has to say in his book: "If the universe is so bad… how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps, but hardly so foolish as that."
Perhaps I am a small-minded engineer, but that seems like an incredibly weak argument. The linked article, on the other hand, presents the best of the counter-arguments; I don't think C.S. Lewis adds anything of value.
On the other hand, fanaticism where the fanatic believes they're good and their (political, racial/ethnic or religious) opponents are evil seems like approximately one billion times more of a problem in modern human society. These are the people who hold actual positions of power at every level, in every country
It's about why there is suffering (or imperfection even) in a world created by an ostensibly omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent god.
Terrorism would qualify as being one of the causes of suffering, as would completely impersonal forces such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and diseases.
If god exists and really is omnipotent (ie. of limitless power), omniscient (knows everything), and perfectly good, why does he/she/it allow suffering?
That's the problem of evil.
Then why did god create humans such that they could sin (and would sin, as an omniscient god knew full well they would) and then punish them for it?
It seems sadistic and perverse, and yes, it leads one to question whether god is really benevolent after all (which, if he/she/it is not would likewise shatter most major religions).
Of course religion has answers for all of these questions... mainly having to do with humans having free will or evil being a "privation of good" (ie. there's no such thing as evil, but only a lack of good), etc.. but that's where the arguments start.
The problem of evil; is logically caused by the existence of life that strives and competes within an environment of finite resources.
Give us a universe where all the beings are powered by an infinite source of energy so they don't need to chase, catch, kill and eat each other.
Problem solved; would have expected God could figure this out.
Not at the subatomic level.. and the subatomic level may well have some significant impact on (or even be responsible for) consciousness.
"consciousness is probably an illusion"
This is an extremely controversial claim which is far from settled. We can't even settle on a definition of consciousness.
"The problem of evil; is logically caused by the existence of life that strives and competes within an environment of finite resources. Give us a universe where all the beings are powered by an infinite source of energy so they don't need to chase, catch, kill and eat each other."
Again, this explanation doesn't even attempt to account for sources of suffering that have nothing to do with human agency, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and disease.
But even were we to focus only on humans it doesn't explain why some people actually enjoy making others suffer or hate one anohter. No amount of resources would be sufficient to fix this.
Finally, even were this a perfectly deterministic universe with no free will (which is contrary to the core beliefs of many of the major religions) in which there is suffering, then there's still the question of why a perfectly good, all-powerful, and all-knowing god made it that way.
If you actually think the universe is deterministic, then cross the street without looking both ways. If you were "meant" to get hit by a car, looking won't matter anyway; if you are not meant to, you'll be safe. Or perhaps play golf during a thunderstorm?
> Give us a universe where all the beings are powered by an infinite source of energy so they don't need to chase, catch, kill and eat each other.
"Man does not live by bread alone." There are needs besides beyond mere sustenance that people have:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
Your idea doesn't solve problems like jealousy and envy and a whole host of other problems people have between each other. In a performance of Swan Lake only one person can play Odette, the Swan Princess: you don't think that's not going to cause issues of jealousy?
> Problem solved; would have expected God could figure this out.
Why not go further? A universe that's entirely static populated by entities frozen in some joyous state has no evil. Hell, a universe that doesn't exist doesn't have evil either.
It's often pretty easy to optimize for one quality.
Everyone thinks they're doing good when they before an action; no need to be a "fanatic".
Speeding? I need to get there on time. Lying? Don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. Stealing? I need this more than the rightful owner, and they won't miss it / insurance. Cheating? I have needs that aren't being met. Etc.
If God's conception of morality is not equivalent to the human conception of morality, then what does it mean to claim that God is good?
The fact is that a lot of people worship God in great part because they do think that God is good in the ordinary human sense: that he loves humanity, cares for them, wants only the best for them, and -- crucially -- wants to ease their suffering.
The vast majority of believers pray to God to ease them of their pain and suffering.
Many of them would be completely outraged if they thought that, far from easing their suffering, God was actually the cause of their suffering (though some religions do believe that God is the cause of not only all good but also all evil).
So that's where the problem lies, and why so many theists are so concerned with theodicy (ie. the defense of the concept of a perfectly good god against charges like these).
Saying that God is good in some unknowable and incomprehensible way that would allow for human suffering to exist just isn't a very satisfactory answer for a lot of believers, who continue to believe in a benevolent God who's good in a very human way.
Nothing I would describe as meaningful, but from what I recall of what (admittedly little) I've read of it, theological philosophy that's concerned about proving that God must be good comes disturbingly close to unironically destroying the concept of goodness. Because when you try to derive it from first principles like "something is good if it fills its intended purpose" or "something is good if it brings something closer to its ideal essence" you end up making it vague enough that the black plague might actually be good, you know.
> Saying that God is good in some unknowable and incomprehensible way that would allow for human suffering to exist just isn't a very satisfactory answer for a lot of believers, who continue to believe in a benevolent God who's good in a very human way.
You're absolutely right, this is a non-starter for believers, because their faith is marred with self-interest.
On the other hand, from a purely intellectual standpoint, it has to be a consideration. If the only options are atheism or belief in a conventionally moral supreme deity, that sort of suggests that the only reason to believe that God exists is if God rewards us, which is suspect, because reality doesn't care about our self-interest. This kind of blind spot can corrupt our reasoning.
For instance, a lot of theistic arguments, like fine tuning, the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, regardless of their intrinsic merits, basically say nothing about God's character. They couldn't. They don't operate at that level. But if you work under the assumption that a morally indifferent God is not an option, these arguments appear to imply far more than they actually do.
Having twisted people judge whether God is morally straight is... problematic. Instead, humans insist that we are straight, and therefore that God must be twisted.
Have you ever heard an amoral or immoral person insist that everyone else is just as dishonest (e.g.) as they are? That's what humans do with God.
(I am aware that Christianity is not the only monotheistic belief system. I don't know enough about the others to speak to them.)
Unless the god is playing games with their creation, maybe studying them to see how they would respond. But even then, this would tell us something about the nature of a god. That they are not worth worshiping from a moral standpoint, since they aren't benevolent.
Plus, there is no real evidence that God rewards followers. A conventionally moral human, perhaps, would do so. But if you were omniscient, isn't it possible that you wouldn't? Instead, perhaps you would see that it is in fact best to reward sufferers and punish those who lived happy lives, regardless of their moral character. Or perhaps you would see that afterlives are entirely pointless. But it is difficult to take these considerations seriously without degrading one's motivation to worship, so they generally aren't.
Which is the underlying problem here. That article is about the Abrahamic model of a god, even though it doesn't say so. Omnipotent and perfect - that's the Abrahamic model, underlying Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions.
The Graeco-Roman pantheon was a better fit with reality - a group of morally mediocre gods with their own agendas, mostly indifferent to what the mortals were up to. The transition to the Abrahamic religions resulted in a lot of cruft - devils, angels, prophets, etc. A legacy code problem, in other words.
It is a better fit in terms of The Problem of Evil, but it raises a different problem: What happened to them?
They seem to have been conquered by the other major religions and pretty much disappeared.
So the world's not really a good fit for them either.
Much better model. Gods don't care about your mortal life, gods are just selfish powers that you can cajole into helping you.
Have you ever looked at the Book Of Job [1]?
If they aren't, god is not worth worshiping. If they are, at least god is consistent, and may be worth worshiping if he exists.
Or, to be a little pantheist about it, the world is literally God pondering a possible world (but, being God, pondering something makes it real in a sense); and that God literally experiences all the suffering present in it.
That's a good argument for atheism. Because if such a god is real, we're in a waking nightmare we'd best bury our collective heads about, for our psychological wellbeing.
It is entirely pointless to worship such a God, but I wouldn't say it's a nightmare that it exists.
Then, in some theologies, God withdraws.
One could question what kind of God is one that would let the universe run like this and not interfere to, say, save the innocent from harm? Or what kind of God would withdraw from the world? There's a lot of theological hand-wrining about such questions.
Another attempt is that of the Gnostics, who thought that the ultimate, perfect God did not create the world. Instead there were a great number of intermediate beings or gods that emanated from the ultimate God, each lesser and more imperfect than the last, and it was the lowest and most imperfect of these (the demiurge) which created the world, in ignorance, madness, or stupidity. Thus the blame for suffering is shifted on to this ignorant/mad/stupid god instead of the ultimate, perfect God.
Despite such efforts, of course, there remains the question why any imperfection would or even could come from the ultimate, perfect God in the first place.
Without a god, we control our own destiny. A lot of things are currently awful, but with enough human ingenuity, we can overcome them.
On the other hand, if our fate is determined by a god driven by its own motives, we have lost control of our destinies to something that evidently doesn't care about us.
We would be ants on the back of a whale that might decide to dive at any moment, doomed perhaps to see our loved ones swirl away screaming into the watery void, on whale's whim, pointless.
Gods can't make a square circle, even if they're omnipotent? They could rewrite our brains to just make the words mean the same. Logic problem solved.
The more complex a situation, the more opportunity for this supposed omnipotent being.
I'm not really seeing what this has to do with what you quoted about the existence of suffering.
Still, to go on that tangent about God being unable to make a square circle...
God's omnipotence (ie. being all-powerful) means they can do anything... even things that might appear contradictory to the puny human intellect.
And what seems contradictory to the puny human intellect and the entire universe being such that squares aren't circles are themselves supposedly due to God's will.. which could be otherwise.
So we could very well live in a world of square circles if God wished it so.
It might not make sense to us, but God is not limited to only doing what makes sense to us.
I can make up whatever words I want and put them in a syntactically correct structure, but that doesn't mean the sentence means anything.
"Can God tell a true lie?"
No, of course not, not because God isn't omnipotent, but because it's a nonsense question. There can no more be true lies than four-sided triangles or objects that are immovable in the face of an irresistible force.
The flaw is in the question.
Such questions are meaningful to the people that ask them. Someone who asks "can God make a square circle?" is unlikely to consider it to be equivalent to asking "gjqrio jtioajfs dklfjl?" (ie. a sentence made of words which really are meaningless)
You can claim that these questions are meaningless, but then you have to prove why.. and there's been no such proof, just an assertion.
Maybe you intended a proof by definition? That is to say that you want to maintain that any question that involves a contradiction is meaningless by definition? Well, that's an assumption, and the person you're speaking with doesn't have to grant that assumption or agree to that definition.
If any of those conditions is not true, the existence of evil is a lot easier to explain: - omniscient and omnipotent, but not 100% morally good - omniscient and omnibenevolent, but has limited power to change the bad things - omipotent and omnibenevolent, but isn't aware that evil exists
It's only when someone's making the claim that all three are true at the same time that it starts to get interesting, because some of the arguments get really hokey.
So to address your observation that there's an implicit assumption that one god exists, I would wager a guess that it's because polytheistic religions don't wade into the waters of theodicy much (if at all), as they don't deal in "omni-'s" to the same extent as monotheistic religions tend to.
The Problem of Evil is an argument explicitly against a loving, omniscient, omnipotent god. The god that appears in various monotheistic religions. We're not discussing religion at large.
So with that the problem of evil comes up and I gotta give it up to the late great Epicurus. And I quote:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
The other stance you can have are God’s plan is unknowable to us. His mystical plan is not for us to know and grasp. Which is a huge leap of faith and so wishy washy I can’t bring myself to adopt it.
But if God created the world then what created God? If you're ok with the answer that God always existed, why wouldn't you be ok with the universe always existing (thereby having no need for a creator God)?
I'm not saying it's right, it's just more convincing than saying that matter has always been here that doesn't make any sense at all. Example: Something coming from nothing. Everything has a primary mover.
The only way to reconcile it to me is there is some supreme thing that can transcend our time and physics and everything else.
Why is it more convincing to you? They seem equally preposterous to me.
What difference does it make if one is physical and the other not? Saying that one or the other of them always existed seems equivalent to me.
It's little more than a reification of "just because" as an actual being, but I mean, why not.
This was my position as I was leaving Christianity. Now though I think it's more likely that matter and the laws of physics have just always existed, possibly an infinite amount or to an infinitely small scale. While that may seem difficult to comprehend I think it's much simpler than omnipotent turtles all the way down.
Choosing to believe the turtles are impersonal doesn't alleviate the problem of the turtles.
Mass and physics aren't sentient or acting with purpose.
