The Logical Problem of Evil: Mackie's World

[Chany]

Here, I will try to clearly articulate a common argument against the existence of God, the free will defense, and a reply to said defense. I will then argue that if you accept the premises of the argument relating to the nature of God, then you must follow the conclusion that God cannot exist. You will notice that put the word "logical" in the thread title. This simply means the version of the problem of evil being discussed tries to show God is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. In other words, the definition of God cannot coexist with the current (and present) existence of evil because their mutual existence logically contradict each other, much like a square-circle cannot exist.

To start:

1) Evil and suffering exists. (Justificaiton: prima facie true.)

2) God exist, a being who is: (Justification: Assumption)
a)omnipotent (able to do all things logically possible),
b)omniscient (knows all true and false propositions), and
c)omnibelevolent (wills the highest good of the other agent. For example, this
highest good can be achieving a relationship with God and getting into heaven).

3) The good agent wants to avoid as much evil and suffering as possible; the good agent wants avoid all unnecessary evil. For example, if the agent wants to teach someone something important, he strive for the path that causes the least amount of unnecessary suffering. If the agent can either teach me through non-painful tutoring or painful torture, the agent will always choose non-painful tutoring. (Jusitifcation: prima facie true)

4) God wants to avoid all unnecessary evil and suffering in achieving just ends; any unnecessary evil will be stopped by God. (Justification: 2c)

5) There exists no necessary evils in our world. (Jusitifcation: 2a and 2b. God can always teach us through non-painful ways, for example. There is no just end being served in allowing the torture of innocent people)

6) Therefore, God is incompatible with the existence of evil. Because evil clearly exists, God cannot exist. (Justification: All)

The obvious response is to reject Premise 5 and claim that God must respect the free will of agents as a necessary evil to achieve the just end of freedom. Here, I will respond to this claim.

1) God has divine-foreknowledge of the actions of free creatures. In other words, God knows what an agent with free will ultimately chooses before that agent even actually exists. God knows if I will freely rob the bank or refrain from do so, for example. (Justification: God's omniscience).

2) Mackie's world is possible. Mackie's world is a possible world where all free agents choose to do the morally good action with every choice. In other words, no one does anything evil, so evil does not exist. (Justification: prima facie true. Though it seems improbable and odd, it is logically conceivable, so it is, therefore, logically possible. There is no reason to believe such a world is not possible.)

3) God can actualize Mackie's world. (Justification: Premise 1, God's omnipotence and omniscience. God is aware of Mackie's world and create said world, as God can create all logically possible worlds).

4) Therefore, the free will defense does not stand, as the existence of free will does not necessitate evil existing. God could have created a possible world with both free will and no evil.

I admit that Premise 1 of the second argument is questionable. If you believe God cannot know actions that result from free will before they happen, then the argument does not apply to you. However, if you accept this premise, please explain where this Argument from Evil fails.

 

[Chesterton]

Before getting to the body of the argument, I may not be willing to concede your words "omnipotent" and "omniscient". My bible in English says things like "Almighty" and "knows the beginning from the end". If I remember right there is one occurrence in the book of Revelations which can be translated "omniscience" but one instance of one word doesn't really amount to a philosophical treatise.

 

[Chriliman]

Here, I will try to clearly articulate a common argument against the existence of God, the free will defense, and a reply to said defense. I will then argue that if you accept the premises of the argument relating to the nature of God, then you must follow the conclusion that God cannot exist. You will notice that put the word "logical" in the thread title. This simply means the version of the problem of evil being discussed tries to show God is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. In other words, the definition of God cannot coexist with the current (and present) existence of evil because their mutual existence logically contradict each other, much like a square-circle cannot exist.

To start:

1) Evil and suffering exists. (Justificaiton: prima facie true.)

2) God exist, a being who is: (Justification: Assumption)
a)omnipotent (able to all things logically possible),
b)omniscient (knows all true and false propositions), and
c)omnibelevolent (wills the highest good of the other agent. For example, this
highest good can be achieving a relationship with God and getting into heaven).

3) The good agent wants to avoid as much evil and suffering as possible; the good agent wants avoid all unnecessary evil. For example, if the agent wants to teach someone something important, he strive for the path that causes the least amount of unnecessary suffering. If the agent can either teach me through non-painful tutoring or painful torture, the agent will always choose non-painful tutoring. (Jusitifcation: prima facie true)

4) God wants to avoid all unnecessary evil and suffering in achieving just ends; any unnecessary evil will be stopped by God. (Justification: 2c)

5) There exists no necessary evils in our world. (Jusitifcation: 2a and 2b. God can always teach us through non-painful ways, for example. There is no just end being served in allowing the torture of innocent people)

6) Therefore, God is incompatible with the existence of evil. Because evil clearly exists, God cannot exist. (Justification: All)

The obvious response is to reject premise 6 and claim that God must respect the free will of agents as a necessary evil to achieve the just end of freedom. Here, I will respond to this claim.

1) God has divine-foreknowledge of the actions of free creatures. In other words, God knows what an agent with free will ultimately chooses before that agent even actually exists. God knows if I will freely rob the bank or refrain from do so, for example. (Justification: God's omniscience).

2) Mackie's world is possible. Mackie's world is a possible world where all free agents choose to do the morally good action with every choice. In other words, no one does anything evil, so evil does not exist. (Justification: prima facie true. Though it seems improbable and odd, it is logically conceivable, so it is, therefore, logically possible. There is no reason to believe such a world is not possible.)

3) God can actualize Mackie's world. (Justification: Premise 1, God's omnipotence and omniscience. God is aware of Mackie's world and create said world, as God can create all logically possible worlds).

4) Therefore, the free will defense does not stand, as the existence of free will does not necessitate evil existing. God could have created a possible world with both free will and no evil.

I admit that Premise 1 of the second argument is questionable. If you believe God cannot know actions that result from free will before they happen, then the argument does not apply to you. However, if you accept this premise, please explain where this Argument from Evil fails.

The word "foreknowledge" is innacurate for describing God's knowledge of everyone's choices. It would be better to say God's knowledge is eternal, in that He knows what you'll do as you do it. You're confined to time, but God is not limited to time because He's eternal, therefore everything that happens in time is known to Him and it doesn't matter when it's known to Him.

With this new frame of understanding we can say God eternally knows the worst evil that will be committed by anyone within His creation and he has and is and will overcome the worst evil in order to achieve His will of eternal life and love for all creation.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

The word "foreknowledge" is innacurate for describing God's knowledge of everyone's choices. It would be better to say God's knowledge is eternal, in that He knows what you'll do as you do it. You're confined to time, but God is not limited to time because He's eternal, therefore everything that happens in time is known to Him and it doesn't matter when it's known to Him.

With this new frame of understanding we can say God eternally knows the worst evil that will be committed by anyone within His creation and he has and is and will overcome the worst evil in order to achieve His will of eternal life and love for all creation.

The point is that any god that is omnipotent can create a world in which its inhabitants eschew actions that cause suffering with every choice they make. This does not effect our free will.

 

[Chriliman]

The point is that any god that is omnipotent can create a world in which its inhabitants eschew actions that cause suffering with every choice they make. This does not effect our free will.

For one that is not our reality. Secondly, how would the inhabitants know to eschew actions that cause suffering if the God didn't teach them this is a good thing to do?

It could be that in the process of creating perfect beings that only do good things, God has to put them through a refining process that purges the evil desires from them, this process would provide the beings with greater understanding of God and His purpose for creating them.

 

[Chany]

Before getting to the body of the argument, I may not be willing to concede your words "omnipotent" and "omniscient". My bible in English says things like "Almighty" and "knows the beginning from the end". If I remember right there is one occurrence in the book of Revelations which can be translated "omniscience" but one instance of one word doesn't really amount to a philosophical treatise.

The traditional philosophical notion of God includes a maximally great being. God is such that no being, even theoretically, can outperform God. There cannot be a being more powerful than God, or being smarter than God, or being more morally perfect than God. For example, either God is all-powerful (whatever that entails) or God is not all-powerful. If God is not all-powerful, that means that a) there is easily a conceivable and possible being who is greater than God (something theists would not want to say) and b) the Abrahamic God is not, in theory, any better than the gods of the pagans. It appears to lower God to a status of a regular person, albeit one who is more powerful and intelligent than others. The god Christians believe seems to be something more than just this.

 

[Chany]

For one that is not our reality. Secondly, how would the inhabitants know to eschew actions that cause suffering if the God didn't teach them this is a good thing to do?

It could be that in the process of creating perfect beings that only do good things, God has to put them through a refining process that purges the evil desires from them, this process would provide the beings with greater understanding of God and His purpose for creating them.

The fact that this is not our reality is the entire point of the argument.

There is nothing logically incoherent about God creating beings without evil desires, or an innate ability to understand right from wrong, or God possessing the ability to teach people right from wrong without hurting them. Even if some innate understanding of good and evil is required for moral perfection and that involves some level of pain i.e. the being has to understand what pain can feel like or what suffering is, this does not help your case. There is a possible world in which these beings never commit any actual evil or inflict any actual suffering on each other. The argument still stands. Clearly, the current world is not ideal. The fact that there exists a possible world without any actual evil that God could have created, knows about, and has a drive to make is a strike against God, as it is clearly not the world we live in.

 

[TreasureHunter12]

What value is there in a choice if it is logical, comfortable, clear, and certain, with no possible repercussions and no risk? If you create a reality with one of the purposes being to have its inhabitants make a choice through free-will, how could it be done without negative motivators?

 

[Chany]

What value is there in a choice if it is logical, comfortable, clear, and certain, with no possible repercussions and no risk? If you create a reality with one of the purposes being to have its inhabitants make a choice through free-will, how could it be done without negative motivators?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "negative motivators".

Mackie's world is a world where agents have the possibility to do either wrong or right. For example, in both Mackie's world and our world, someone can either freely choose to steal something or refrain from doing so. The difference between the two is that, in Mackie's world, all agents always pick the morally good option. Their free will is never questioned nor diminished. It's just that they always happen to exercise their free will to do the right thing.

 

[TreasureHunter12]

I propose that one of the purposes of existence is to make a specific type of choice and I propose that this purpose opposes the following assumption you've made:

5) There exists no necessary evils in our world. (Jusitifcation: 2a and 2b. God can always teach us through non-painful ways, for example. There is no just end being served in allowing the torture of innocent people)

 

[Chesterton]

If God is not all-powerful, that means that a) there is easily a conceivable and possible being who is greater than God (something theists would not want to say);

I'm a theist, a traditional Christian, and I don't mind saying it.

and b) the Abrahamic God is not, in theory, any better than the gods of the pagans.

Obviously, a thing can be better than another thing without needing to be omni-thing.

Anyway a big problem with the argument is the impossibility of knowing whether or not there is unnecessary evil.

 

[quatona]

What value is there in a choice if it is logical, comfortable, clear, and certain, with no possible repercussions and no risk?

That´s meant to be a rhethorical question (i.e. assumes that everyone answers "obviously no value"), correct?
Personally, I think these choices are quite fine. I don´t see how they have no value. I don´t see that great a value in choices that are illogical, uncomfortable, unclear, uncertain, with possible repercussion and risks.

If you create a reality with one of the purposes being to have its inhabitants make a choice through free-will, how could it be done without negative motivators?

Well, it can easily be done - it just wouldn´t fulfill your requirement for there being "negative motivators".
But I suspect 1. I might not even understand what you mean by "negative motivators", and 2. I don´t understand why their existence is so important to you (or a hypothetical creator God).

 

[Chriliman]

The fact that this is not our reality is the entire point of the argument.

I understand, but the fact that we can imagine something better could easily be part of an almighty God's design. He's given us imagination so we can imagine a perfect reality where there is no death or evil and He's the one who makes this reality possible.

There is nothing logically incoherent about God creating beings without evil desires, or an innate ability to understand right from wrong, or God possessing the ability to teach people right from wrong without hurting them. Even if some innate understanding of good and evil is required for moral perfection and that involves some level of pain i.e. the being has to understand what pain can feel like or what suffering is, this does not help your case. There is a possible world in which these beings never commit any actual evil or inflict any actual suffering on each other. The argument still stands. Clearly, the current world is not ideal. The fact that there exists a possible world without any actual evil that God could have created, knows about, and has a drive to make is a strike against God, as it is clearly not the world we live in.

Interesting points and of course a perfect almighty God would have no trouble creating beings who have the capability to imagine any possible reality on their own, as you've done here.

 

[TreasureHunter12]

That´s meant to be a rhethorical question (i.e. assumes that everyone answers "obviously no value"), correct?
Personally, I think these choices are quite fine. I don´t see how they have no value. I don´t see that great a value in choices that are illogical, uncomfortable, unclear, uncertain, with possible repercussion and risks.

Well, it can easily be done - it just wouldn´t fulfill your requirement for there being "negative motivators".
But I suspect 1. I might not even understand what you mean by "negative motivators", and 2. I don´t understand why their existence is so important to you (or a hypothetical creator God).

I should clarify. I didn't mean the obstacles and circumstances make the choice more valuable but the end result becomes more valuable that the choice leads to.

If you have to struggle, sacrifice, and endure to choose the good, then it is more valuable than if there was no cost; not philosophically, but experientially.

I'm just telling you how it is. This isn't my belief system or something I thought made the most sense intellectually. This is what I discovered in pursuit of the good. It all makes more sense and becomes more clear as we progress.

 

[TreasureHunter12]

Also,

Positive motivators: inspiration, love, connection, etc

Negative motivators: pain, dissatisfaction, disconnection, etc

The treasure is hidden in darkness, making it more valuable. Complacency is the biggest obstacle to finding it. Positive motivators might get you moving but won't take you into the darkness. Negative motivators get you moving and make it possible to wander into the darkness. Do you ever wonder why pain is often associated with spiritual growth?

 

[Dre Khipov]

Problem of evil is secondary to the question of existence.

If God indeed exists, then there may be other explanations as to why evil exists. I really wouldn't see it as a problem, because evil is a contextual in any perception. Even in Christian premise you have the idea of sacrifice, which is a fusion of greatest evil and greatest good concept.

If God doesn't exist, then it's not really a problem.

But, to say that God doesn't exist, because there's evil in the world is a poor premise IMO. I'm not defending God's existence in this case, but the logic that implies certain necessity seems to be false in his case.

 

[timewerx]

Here, I will try to clearly articulate a common argument against the existence of God, the free will defense, and a reply to said defense. I will then argue that if you accept the premises of the argument relating to the nature of God, then you must follow the conclusion that God cannot exist. You will notice that put the word "logical" in the thread title. This simply means the version of the problem of evil being discussed tries to show God is logically incompatible with the existence of evil. In other words, the definition of God cannot coexist with the current (and present) existence of evil because their mutual existence logically contradict each other, much like a square-circle cannot exist.

Maybe because we don't live in a real world....

All these could be simulated reality where God is testing humanity with evil so that only the purest comes out of it and so that no evil exists in the real world??


I believe the biggest assurance against evil is NOT to shelter one against evil because we will never know how will they response when presented with evil.

But to ensure that one will remain pure in the face of pure evil. Perhaps, God is training humanity to resist evil instead of being blind to evil.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It's a good argument, and I note the lack of responses that directly address its logic.

A problem I see is that even in Mackie's world, where every agent makes the morally best choice and takes the morally best action, the problem of evil still arises. Firstly there is evil that does not originate from the choices and actions of moral agents, such as natural evils - disasters, diseases, accidents, etc. If we choose to exclude those from our definition of evil, there is still evil that can arise even from the best moral choices and actions; for example, where the best moral choice is to act to save many lives, but in doing so a few lives are lost or blighted.

So I guess I'm querying the definition of evil in this example, because I don't see how it goes away even in Mackie's world.

 

[FireDragon76]

Do you really think hurricanes and viruses are "evil"? Doesn't evil imply intentionaliy in the traditional sense? How can things that result from natural processes themelves be evil without existence itself being evil?

 

[Chany]

It's a good argument, and I note the lack of responses that directly address its logic.

A problem I see is that even in Mackie's world, where every agent makes the morally best choice and takes the morally best action, the problem of evil still arises. Firstly there is evil that does not originate from the choices and actions of moral agents, such as natural evils - disasters, diseases, accidents, etc. If we choose to exclude those from our definition of evil, there is still evil that can arise even from the best moral choices and actions; for example, where the best moral choice is to act to save many lives, but in doing so a few lives are lost or blighted.

So I guess I'm querying the definition of evil in this example, because I don't see how it goes away even in Mackie's world.

The only intention of Mackie's world is to show that having agents with free will does not necessarily mean they will choose to perform evil. It is to show that the free will defense against the problem of evil does not show evil is a necessary but unfortunate consequence of agents with free will. The other sources of evil found through natural evil and such do not occur, per the original argument, as they are unnecessary evils God can eliminate (and wants to, per omnibenevolence).