[size=125]IF GOD EXISTS, YOU MUST GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT TYPE OF GOD CO-EXISTS WITH AND ALLOWS NATURAL AND DELIBERATE EVILS—[/size]
[size=200]YOUR LIFE COULD DEPEND ON IT![/size]
[size=150]IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT (IF GOD EXISTS) TO KNOW JUST WHAT TYPE OF GOD YOU’RE DEALING WITH—OR WHAT TYPE OF GOD ULTIMATELY CONTROLS YOUR DESTINY!!![/size]
[size=150][b]YOUR FORTUNE OR MISFORTUNE, YOUR LIFE, AND YOUR AFTERLIFE SURVIVAL DEPENDS UPON THIS KNOWLEDGE!!! IF GOD EXISTS–GIVEN HIS CO-EXISTENCE WITH NATURAL AND DELIBERATE EVILS—COMPREHENSION OF YOUR FINAL AND ULTIMATE FATE BECOMES A MATTER OF UNDERSTANDING WHAT TYPE OF GOD TOLERATES SUCH CO-EXISTENCE!!!
THIS UNDERSTANDING CAN BE ACHIEVED BY CRITICALLY ANALYZING AND SOLVING THE “RIDDLE” OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL: WHY DOES EVIL EXIST—IF GOD IS ALL-GOOD AND POSSESSES THE TYPE OF “ALL-GOODNESS” THAT IS ABSOLUTELY INTOLERANT OF THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL??? [/size][/b]
[size=150]A WORD OF WARNING BEFORE READING THIS POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE ARTICLE!!![/size]
Please remember the words of Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) in the Mel Brooks film: Young Frankenstein b:[/b]
“Please! Remain in your seats, I beg you! We are not children here…we are scientists! I assure you there is nothing to fear!”
[b]INTRODUCTION
David Hume (and Epicurus before him), in one fell stroke, laid out the premise and the arguably tentative yet sensible conclusion of what is called: “The Problem of Evil”—a problem of reconciling the existence of a simultaneously omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient God with the evidence of natural and deliberate evil:[/b]
"God’s power we allow is infinite: Whatever he wills is executed: But neither man nor any other animal are happy. Therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom is infinite: He is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end: But the course of nature tends not to human or animal felicity: Therefore it is not established for that purpose. Through the whole compass of human knowledge, there are no inferences more certain and infallible than these. In what respect, then, do his benevolence and mercy resemble the benevolence and mercy of men?"
-David Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm
Hume’s query is an expansion of the “riddle” of Epicurus:
In the philosophy of religion and theology, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the existence of God, a force for infinite good. The problem is most often discussed in the context of the personal god of the Abrahamic religions, but is also relevant to polytheistic traditions involving many gods. A proposed solution to this dilemma is called a theodicy.
Epicurus is generally credited with first expounding the problem of evil, and it is sometimes called “the Epicurean paradox” or “the riddle of Epicurus.” In this form, the argument is not really a paradox or a riddle, but is considered by some critics as being a reductio ad absurdum of the premises.
“Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?” — Epicurus, as quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief
(Wikipedia: The Problem of Evil, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil)
Atheist classicalist James H. Dee also presents the problem in stunning detail:
"In it’s most simplified form, the problem arises when one makes three simultaneous assertions in a firmly monotheistic context: ‘God is all-knowing’, ‘God is all-powerful’, and ‘God is absolutely good.’ But the world we see around us, both now and in the past, does not conform to the expectations that might be created by those three statements.
Instead, we find horrors and miseries at all times and places, some caused by blind natural forces, but many inflicted deliberately by humans upon each other, often with a staggering level of violence and cruelty.
It is simply self-contradictory to contemplate the horrifying spectacle of human misery, especially the first 95,000 years of our species, and then use the word “good” in it’s ordinary-language meaning to describe an entity which, by definition, must have the power to eliminate evil totally and forever."
(Dee, James H.: “Good God” Is A Virtual Contradiction In Terms, Editorial, Austin-American Statesman-June 23, 2001)
NEWS REPORT: PARIS — [b]A train slammed into a bus carrying schoolchildren at a railroad crossing in the French Alps on Monday, killing seven children and injuring 24 people, regional officials said.
The bus was carrying 50 middle-school students, five adults and a driver on a field trip to a historic village on the shores of Lake Geneva, according to the gendarmes service in the Haute-Savoie region. The collision ripped off part of the bus’ rear and caused its roof to cave in.
The seven dead were all children on the bus, according to the regional administration. Three of the injured bus passengers were in serious condition. Several passengers on the train, on a route between Evian in France and Geneva, Switzerland, also had light injuries. Authorities had originally said 30 people were injured.[/b]
(FoxNews.com: 7 Children Dead When Train Crashes Into School Bus in Eastern France,Monday, June 02, 2008)
[size=150][b]IF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD, YOU SHOULD ASK YOURSELF THESE VITAL QUESTIONS (YOU’RE SMART IF YOU DO!):
• Can God be trusted to protect YOU and the people you love?
• Does God adhere to the Golden Rule, or does he “pull rank”, and rules only in a “do as I say and not as I do” manner (when it comes to adherence to the Golden Rule)?
• Does “goodness” to God even remotely resemble “goodness” as generally understood by human beings?
• If not, then are human responses to “God’s will” ultimately a matter of “mine-field navigation”–followed for the sake of pre-afterlife and afterlife survival, in order to avoid the wrath of a being that possesses an incomprehensible and alien perception of morality?[/b][/size]
[size=150]Atheistic Invulnerability To the Problem[/size]
If God does not exist, then one has nothing to worry about. The “problem” is trivial and explicable only to natural laws and Bertrand Russell’s notion that all human endeavor and passion is nothing but “the accidental collocations of atoms”:
More generally, no paradox or problem exists for those who do not accept the premises, in particular the existence of a benevolent god or gods.
Evidential problem of evil
As argued by Paul Draper in a seminal article in Nous (1989), the evidential problem of evil goes as follows:
(1) Gratuitous evils exist.
(2) The hypothesis of indifference (HI), i.e., that if there are supernatural beings they are indifferent to gratuitous evils, is a better explanation for (1) than theism.
(3)Therefore, evidence prefers that no god, as commonly understood by theists, exists.
Argument from evil natural laws and processes
(1) A god is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-benevolent.
(2) If a god exists, then there exist no instances of ultimately evil natural laws or processes.
(3) The laws of predation are ultimately evil.
(4) There are instances of the laws of predation.
(5) Therefore, no god exists.
The “argument from evil natural laws and processes” is expressed even in fiction, as it is vehemently proposed during a tense, dramatic exchange between Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) and his rescuer and companion, Anna Montez (Alice Braga) in the 2007 film adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel: I Am Legend:
Anna: The world is quieter now. We just have to listen. If we listen, we can hear God’s plan.
Neville: God’s plan. You mean THE God, right? (Neville’s demeanor changes. He becomes tense; his voice becomes angry and derisive in tone.)
Anna: Yeah.
Neville: All right, let me tell you about your “God’s plan”. Six billion people on Earth when the infection hit. KV (The “Krippin Virus”, which turns the infected into ravenous blood-hungry vampires) had a ninety-percent kill rate, that’s five point four billion people dead. Crashed and bled out. Dead. Less than one-percent immunity. That left twelve million healthy people, like you, me, and Ethan. The other five hundred and eighty-eight million turned into your dark seekers, and then they got hungry and they killed and fed on everybody…EVERYBODY!
Every single person that you or I had ever known is dead! DEAD!..THERE IS NO GOD!
Inductive argument from evil
(1) All evil in the kinds of created entities are the result of the fallibility of one or more of its creators. (Premise)
(2) The universe is a created entity. (Premise)
(3) The universe contains evil. (Premise)
(4) Evil is the result of the actions of a fallible creator(s) or is not the result of any creator(s). (From 1, 2 and 3 by predictive inference)
(5) If god created the universe, then he is fallible. (From 4)
(6) Therefore, god did not create the universe, is imperfect, or does not exist. (From 5)
(Wikipedia: The Problem of Evil, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil)
[Note: One can argue that the terms: “fallible” and “imperfect” sensibly apply only to the concept of “imperfect goodness”: anything other than this would seem nebulous and meaningless (e.g. what is meant when it is said that God is “perfect”—beyond being perfect in goodness?). A disambiguating definition of “imperfect goodness” then, might be one that states that imperfect goodness is a lack of “good treatment all the time to everyone without exception” rather than (or as well as) to state that it is a “lack of the absence of malice or lust” (despite the fact that the latter may function as the causal determinant of the former). Thus, God is rationally “fallible” and “imperfect” (according to the inductive argument above) due to an inability (or unwillingness) to treat everyone favorably at all times.]
However, if God exists and is concerned about and controls human destiny----then it is vital to understand the type of God that controls one’s destiny, if only for the existential satisfaction of knowing whether or not one’s feelings, experiences, and life/afterlife fate is in the hands of either a (a) malevolent, (b) indifferent, or (c) all-good universal governor.
[Make no mistake! Despite all the “God grants free will” propaganda common to Fundamentalist Christian proposition of free will, God eventually seizes the reins of human destiny in the afterlife–by constraining human beings to forever exist within only two domains, and by consigning beings who exercise their “God-given free will” in a direction that does not involve love and obedience of God and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Personal Savior to eternal torment in everlasting supernatural flames.]
[size=150]Making The Problem Of Evil As Simple As Possible: A Disambiguation Of Terms[/size]
[size=120]TO UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON HERE[/size] it is necessary to present the premise of the “Problem of Evil” in a manner that (hopefully) does not allow meaningless tangential argument over the possible alternative connotations and meanings of the terms involved. To this end, it is necessary to disambiguate the term: omnibenevolence in order to derive a mutually comprehensible type of "omnibenevolence"that is transparently implied within the reductio ad absurdum of Hume and Epicurus–as well as a type of omnipotence (in terms of it’s potential influence over the existence of evil) that binds the relevant type of “omnibenevolence” to the inconsistency of it’s co-existence with natural and deliberate evil.
[size=150]A ONCE-AND-FOR-ALL DISAMBIGUATION OF THE TERM:[/size] [size=150]OMNIBENEVOLENCE[/size]
[b]One can make the conceptual observation that the term: “benevolent” connotes a behavior, in terms of how an individual tends to treat others, as opposed to psychological nature or personal moral character. Thus, “omni(all)-benevolence” seems to imply a “good behavior toward or well-treatment of all without exception”.
Unfortunately, it is taken for granted that the term contains the psychological/moral nature of “absolute goodness” (which can be made less abstract by defining psychological “goodness” as the absence of malice, the desire to be malicious or to practice malice, and/or the inability to perceive or imagine malice)–as well as constant well-treatment of others without exception.
This article will not attempt to correct or re-define the term, but will seek to use the inclusion of psychological goodness within the term: “benevolent” to definitive advantage by decomposing “omnibenevolence” into three types, delineated by whether or not the “omnibenevolence” in question is either behavioral, psychological, or both.
Thus when one states that God is “omnibenevolent”, one is claiming that God is either psychologically/personally “omnibenevolent”, behaviorally “omnibenevolent”, or both. The manner in which God is “all-good” can be reduced (primarily) to the following choices:[/b]
b Blind Omnibenevolence (psychological/personal) aka Type-1 Omnibenevolence or 1-Omnibenevolence
(2) Knowledgeable (of Evil) Yet Tolerant Omnibenevolence (psychological/personal/potentially behavioral) aka Type-2 Omnibenevolence or 2-Omnibenevolence
(3) Knowledgeable (of Evil) Yet Intolerant Omnibenevolence (psychological and behavioral) aka Type-3 Omnibenevolence or 3-Omnibenevolence[/b]
1. BLIND OMNIBENEVOLENCE
[b]Blind Omnibenevolence is an inability to perceive or to conceive of evil, and this perceptual inability creates the further inability to allow (or to deliberately cause) evil to exist. Type-1 Omnibenevolence is a psychological condition rather than behavioral habit (with behavioral “omnibenevolence” entailing an “all-goodness” manifest in the all-inclusive well-treatment of others).
A blindly omnibenevolent God is lost within a euphoric world deep within the mind, unable to possess even a rudimentary knowledge of the concept of “evil”. This God is further unable to possess an omniscient prevision containing the concept—and is thus unable to “declare the end from the beginning” in the sense of declaring the future existence of a world containing misery and suffering.
A God “suffering” from Type-1 Omnibenevolence is blind to human existence and the natural and deliberate evils common to the human condition, which in the absence of that God’s interference arises from the operation of blind natural laws and processes. God also fails to possess the capacity to punish evil or to compensate victims of evil, being eternally trapped within a cosmic catatonia.[/b]
(Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons: For The Man Who Has Everything, Superman Annual #11, DC Comics 1985)
2. KNOWLEDGEABLE YET TOLERANT (OF EVIL) OMNIBENEVOLENCE
[b]This psychological and personal type of “omnibenevolence” entails an absolute absence of malice (save toward the wicked, which is considered a form of “goodness”), an absence of materialistic and sexual lust, and absence of the desire to experience lust and malice (toward the non-sociopathic).
The free will argument employed for explanation of why a good God allows the existence of natural and deliberate evil probably implies the existence of a God that is 2-omnibenevolent, with God’s allowance of “bad things to happen to good people” becoming explicable to:[/b]
(a) The positive psychological results from suffering (patience, courage, newfound moral insight, etc.)
(b) Free will and the ethicality of allowing the existence of free will (thus an aspect of this type of “all-goodness” involves a “moral uprightness” in the granting of freedom of will)
(c) A “Super-Logic”, in which no inconsistency and logical contradiction discerned by human logic and reason truly exists, due to God’s possession of a “wisdom” that makes the illogical logical, the irrational rational, and the indefensible defensible.
Type-2 Omnibenevolence, then, requires only a complete absence of malice toward the non-sociopathic (and an absence of materialistic and sexual lust), while nevertheless allowing the non-sociopathic to suffer natural and deliberate evils for the reasons given above. However, one can propose (and it is proposed) that a 2-Omnibenevolent God will compensate the non-sociopath for all suffering and misery in the afterlife with eternal happiness and safety (The Compensation Hypothesis).
3. KNOWLEDGEABLE YET INTOLERANT (OF EVIL) OMNIBENEVOLENCE
[b]A God possessing Type-3 Omnibenevolence (aka God The Moral Policeman or God The Moral Tyrant) cheats evil from the very beginning (the evil contained within his omniscient prevision of all logically possible worlds), preventing evil from ever being realized by forcing all conscious beings forseen within his previsioned foreknowledge to be good all the time.
Type-3 Omnibenevolence is a behavioral “all-goodness” as opposed to the pure psychological innocence of Type-1 Omnibenevolence. In his role as the Moral Policeman, God conceives of evil and comprehends the mental dispositions and behaviors constituting it’s existence, yet hates the phenomenon enough to impose an all-good world inhabited by all-good subjects (or to simply choose to forego the creation of life in the first place)—rather than to risk the existence of natural and deliberate evil.
Once an all-good world is created and infallibly operates according to a causal web (controlled by God’s inexorable power), a Type-3 Omnibenevolent God then feels “safe” to effect a lobotomy upon himself in order to force himself to forget the preconceived evil.
Creating only all-good subjects within a contrived and God-mechanized omnibenevolent world, God is free to make himself behaviorally and psychologically omnibenevolent, independent of catatonia (God continues to meaningfully interact with an all-good human world, without disconnection from perception of an external reality).
A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God can be schematically described as follows:[/b]
-
A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God is omnipotent and omniscient. (premise — or true by definition of the word “God”)
-
Type-3 Omnibenevolence is synonymous with the term: Type-3 All-benevolence. (premise — or true by definition)
-
Type-3 All-benevolent beings are opposed to all evil. (premise — or true by definition)
-
All Type-3 All-benevolent beings who can eliminate evil will do so immediately when they become aware of it. (premise)
-
A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God is immediately opposed to and intolerant of evil even for a millisecond. (conclusion from 3 and 4)
-
A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God that is omnipotent can eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 1)
(6a) Whatever the positive end result of suffering is, A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God can bring it about by ways that do not include suffering. (conclusion from 1 [omniscience])
(6b) A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God has no reason not to eliminate evil. (conclusion from 5)
(6c) A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God has no reason not to act immediately. (conclusion from 5)
- A Type-3 Omnibenevolent God would/would have/will eliminate evil completely and immediately. (conclusion from 3, 4, 5, 6, and 6a-6c)
[size=150]MAKING THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE (PART TWO): A DISAMBIGUATION OF THE TERM:[/size] [size=150]OMNIPOTENCE[/size]
The term: omnipotence, for the purposes of this article (in terms of it’s conceivable influence over the existence of evil) can be defined as: the ability to immediately remove evil from the universe at a whim.
[size=150]Getting To The Crux Of The Truth: Which Type Of “Omnibenevolence” Is Implied Within The Reductio Ad Absurdum Of Hume And Epicurus?[/size]
Out of the three types of “omnibenevolence” described above, which type is implied within the reductio ad absurdum of Hume and Epicurus?
[b]Blind omnibenevolence (Type-1 Omnibenevolence) can be ruled out, as God is absolved from responsibility for the existence of evil due to being trapped within a state of euphoric catatonia.
Knowledgeable Yet Tolerant Omnibenevolence (Type-2 Omnibenevolence) is ruled out, as a God that possesses Type-2 Omnibenevolence while not being maliciously evil, is nevertheless consequentially and inexplicably evil (i.e. harmful). This type of God, then, is evil in the sense that the God is consequentially (through contrived moral consequence, given that the evil that this God punishes need not exist in the first place) and inexplicably harmful to others, while being “all-good” only in the sense that the God considers itself to be “good” due to an alien perception of right and wrong that diverges in certain respects from human notions of right and wrong, and by it’s inability to experience malice.
A God that is 2-omnibenevolent is harmful in the sense that the God may allow certain evils to exist because the God believes that they are “good for us”, while other evils inexplicably and inevitably exist despite that God’s omnipotence (disambiguously described as containing the ability to immediately remove evil from the universe at a whim). A 2-omnibenevolent God simply “makes up for” the existence of inexplicable evil (i.e the inexplicableness of the rape and murder of a child or entire family) by compensating the victims for their suffering in the afterlife.[/b]
QUESTIONING TYPE-2 OMNIBENEVOLENCE AND IT’S ALLOWANCE OF FREE WILL
Some theists would complain that true free will necessitates the ability to choose to do and mentally experience evil. Yet if evil never existed within the mind of God in the first place (as an aspect of God’s omniscience), would not the paradigm of free will and what would be considered necessary in order for God to allow man to “truly” have free will be quite different?
If God chose to hide the existence of evil from man, such that we are never in a position to know just what it is that we can’t freely choose to enact, is such “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” reservation of the full extent of free will evil?
For those who accept the the existence of evil is somehow “necessary” in order for free will to be completely and truly expressed, one must accept that the “goodness” of God requires that allowing beings to think, feel, and act beyond his direct control is somehow more “right” and morally significant than the feelings, rights, and survival of innocent victims.
Sorry lady! No use asking God for help! The ethicality of allowing the free will of the guy to suffocate you is more important and necessary than your safety, survival, or happiness!
QUESTIONING TYPE-2 OMNIBENEVOLENCE AND THE CONCEPT OF “NECESSARY EVIL” FOR THE SAKE OF “TESTING” HUMAN NATURE (CHARACTER-BUILDING)
“An angel killed my mom so that I could learn to be nicer to people at work.”
(Joke told by guest female comedianne on the morning radio talk show: The Dudley And Bob Show, KLBJ-FM Austin, Texas)
- A 2-Omnibenevolent God may be entailed to perceive that certain evils are necessary to serve as an evolutionary moral pressure that helps to instill positive qualities in humans such as bravery, patience, kindness, and grave insightful wisdom.
These are very powerful and wonderful qualities (that arise due to suffering), but are they meant to be possessed during an afterlife in heaven? Are there situations in heaven that require bravery, fortitutude, and grave insightful wisdom?
Second, must these “positive results or qualitites arising from suffering” exist as an a priori necessity for the existence of “goodness”? Might these qualities possess “alternative-universe” forms within non-predatory, non-depriving, and non-jeopardizing environments that do not require the existence of suffering for their derivation?
Analogous to the ethical preference of free will over universal safety and happiness, one can argue that postive psychological qualities resulting from suffering, if seen as more preferable than constant safety and happiness (accompanied by wisdom that does not require suffering), is a matter, again, of an alien moral perception to God that views suffering as a necessary aspect of existence. Yet did God suffer to gain his wisdom? Would he suffer to gain wisdom? (One could question whether or not God would choose to have the same experiences as his human subjects if the shoe were on the other foot) Is the situational suffering itself the only “magic spell” that works to produce the resulting positive moral and psychological quality?
If, as David Hume ponders, the “benevolence and mercy of God resembles the benevolence and mercy of men”, then if there exists a resemblance God would be opposed to all evil and suffering, and being omniscient (defined here as the possession of full knowledge of all logical possibilities that contribute to the solution of every problem as well as knowledge of all logically possible worlds), would have devised “legal tender” positive psychologies, quasi-“positive results from suffering” that are as valid and meaningful without the existence of deprivation and misery.
Given this, it is obvious that the reductio ad absurdum of Hume and Epicurus does not imply a God that possesses Type-2 Omnibenevolence, as that God is consequentially and inexplicably evil (in the sense of being harmful to others in the way that it is “good” or for what it allows—rather than malicious) despite the fact that it and it’s worshipers perceive that God to be “all-good”.
[size=200]THE SHOCKING TRUTH![/size]
This leaves Type-3 Omnibenevolence b as the undisputed winner, and it is the existence of this type of omnibenevolence that is questioned. Thus the reductio ad absurdum of Hume and Epicurus attempts to reconcile the existence of natural and deliberate evil with the proposed existence of a Type-3 Omnibenevolent God.
This happens to be crucially and critically important—as it lends understanding through sheer reason of just what type of world[/b] [size=120]YOU[/size] happen to inhabit! If one accepts the premise and the conclusion of the “problem of evil”, which, as Hume states:
“…there are no inferences more certain and infallible than these…”
…One can logically conclude that the very existence of natural and deliberate evil proves [size=160]that a God that possesses Type-3 Omnibenevolence DOES NOT EXIST![/size]
As stated by Paul Draper:
“Therefore, evidence prefers that no god, as commonly understood by theists (if God is commonly understood to possess 3-Omnibenevolence), exists.”
Or, if a God possessing Type-3 Omnibenevolence existed, evil would not exist.
[size=200]The Aftermath: Alternative Gods[/size]
Does the finding above definitively prove that God does not exist? Of course not. The existence of evil only proves that a God with Type-3 Omnibenevolence does not exist. However, this is not to say that a 3-Omnibenevolent God cannot exist in the future, or that a God that is less than 3-Omnibenevolent now cannot evolve into Type-3 Omnibenevolence in the future, removing evil from the universe at once upon transformation.
Given this, if one believes that God exists, there yet remain four possible types of God(s), with each type differing in terms of their moral nature, intention, and behavior toward subordinate creatures. Each type continues to possess omnipotence that could immediately remove evil from the universe at a whim–yet in the absence of Type- 3 Omnibenevolence the most obvious induction is that any God that is not 3-Omnibenevolent is necessarily an evil God.
Marcion, the 2nd century sect leader, is presented by Tertullian in his Adversus Marcionem as presenting this puzzle: “Why does God, who is all powerful and has foreknowledge of the future, allow evil?” Marcion’s answer is that god is in part evil himself.
(Wikipedia: The Problem of Evil, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil)
[b]If any non-3-Omnibenevolent God is necessarily evil, then it simply comes to down to just how evil the remaining Gods are, given the primary assumption that some Gods are necessarily less evil than others.
Given this, the four possible types of (evil) God ruling the real world (if God exists and controls the world) are:[/b]
[b]1. A Blindly-Omnibenevolent God (Type-1 Omnibenevolence)
-
A Knowledgeable Yet Tolerant (Of Evil) Omnibenevolent God (Type-2 Omnibenevolence)
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An Omni-Malevolent God (A Deceptively Malevolent God)
4.[/b] A Fractionally-2-Omnibenevolent/Quasi-Malevolent/Partially-3-Omnibenevolent God(!)
Type-1 and Type-2 Omnibenevolence is defined above. The two remaining (evil) Gods that (if one or the other exists) governs and controls human experience and afterlife destiny are described below.
3. The Omni-Malevolent God (Deceptive Malevolence)
[b]An Omni-Malevolent God is simply one who is maliciously harmful, all the time, to everyone. This malice may be either latent (expressed through a cosmic “set-up”—allowing one’s subjects to have positive experiences before finally lowering the boom) or directly and continuously expressed.
The existence of goodness in the world, if this type of God is running the show, suggests the existence of a malevolent deus deceptor or “deceiving God” who invents “goodness”* in order to deceive it’s victims into the belief in a good God and just world—a world in which good eventually conquers evil and upright moral nature is eventually rewarded. This malevolent deus deceptor, however, viciously tears the blindfold from the eyes of the deceived in the afterlife, imposing upon it’s victims a state in which eternal life is a curse rather than a blessing. If the world is controlled by an Omni-Malevolent God, those who profit from this God’s existence in the long run are only those who do not exist in the first place.[/b]
Sinner: Scream For Your God! (Jack Chick parody), weirdcrap.com/chick/archive.html
And last (but by no means least), this article formally introduces the final type of evil God that may possibly exist in the absence of Type-3 Omnibenevolence:
[size=150]Introduction Of A Final Type Of Evil God That Is Not Type-3 Omni-benevolent, But Is Arguably Close Enough:[/size] [size=150]The Best Of All Possible Evil Gods Creating The Best Of All Possible Evil Worlds[/size]
“It is, after all, the best of all possible worlds…”
-Bart Dawes, suicidal protagonist of Richard Bachman(Stephen King)'s short story: Roadwork
[b]A Fractionally-2-Omnibenevolent/Quasi-Malevolent/Partially-3-Omnibenevolent God cheats the subjective consequences of his omniscient pre-universe foreknowledge of the existence of evil–by ingeniously altering the “rules of the game” to replicate the evil world—while omitting the most significant factor in that world—the conscious experience of victims, which would validate and vindicate the sense of power and aggrandized self-perception of evil beings.
This God allows for the existence of human and animal suffering, yet mitigates and lessens the emotional and physical pain of non-sociopathic humans (while refusing to do the same for sociopaths) while simultaneously abducting the consciousness from non-sociopaths if they are destined to suffer extreme physical pain and violent, painful death (regardless of whether or not the cause of death is homicide, suicide, natural cause from aging, natural disaster, etc.). The God leaves behind (in moments of extreme physical pain and violent death) zombies or “bots” that behave as if they were conscious, creating the belief in third person observers that the “victims” experience trauma.
This view, called the Heroic Override, holds that God “heroically overrides” the suffering of certain humans foreseen within his pre-universe calculations of the events of all logically possible worlds, by creating a partial zombie world, populated by human beings with real subjective consciousness and human bodies lacking conscious experience that appear and behave in such a manner (giving verbal reports to their conscious counterparts that they are indeed conscious and are having experiences though they are not) as to give rise to the belief within their conscious counterparts that they are conscious beings.
Thus the Fractionally-2-Omnibenevolent/Quasi-Malevolent/Partially-3-Omnibenevolent God utilizes zombies to portray and substitute for non-sociopathic victims of natural and deliberate evil.[/b]
“It is conceivable that there be a system that is physically identical to a conscious being, but that lacks at least some of that being’s conscious states. Such a system might be a zombie: a system that is physically identical to a conscious being but that lacks consciousness entirely. It might also be an invert, with some of the original being’s experiences replaced by different experiences, or a partial zombie, with some experiences absent, or a combination thereof.
These systems will look identical to a normal conscious being from the third-person perspective: in particular, their brain processes will be molecule-for-molecule identical with the original, and their behavior will be indistinguishable. But things will be different from what is is like to be the original being. And there is nothing it is like to be a zombie.
There is little reason to believe that zombies exist in the actual world. But many hold that they are at least conceivable: we can coherently imagine zombies, and there is no contradiction in the idea that reveals itself even on reflection. As an extension of the idea, many hold that the same goes for a zombie world: a universe physically identical to ours, but in which there is no consciousness.”
(Chalmers, David J.: Consciousness And It’s Place In Nature, consc.net/consc-papers.html)
The Heroic Override [b]conceptually justifies the Bible’s praise of the goodness of God toward the non-sociopathic (with God’s wrath and aggressive hostility toward the sociopathic–usually expressed in a “revenge is a dish best served cold” manner (such that God tends to allow the wicked to enjoy a period of “false security” before lowering the boom either during biological existence or the afterlife)–considered an alternate form of “goodness” for the sake of vengeful justice).
There are numerous verses in the Bible praising the goodness and trustworthiness of God, stressing his concern for the “poor and needy”, and a continuous protection of the righteous from the malice of the wicked. These verse are invisibly yet objectively verified—if the[/b] Heroic Override is true.
[b]However, for a believer in HO an ethical problem exists: can a believer in HO approach the rape victim, or the parents of a murdered child, and state that the rape victim and the child were only zombies or “bots”? Not only would such an explanation raise serious doubts concerning the sanity of the one making it, but such an explanation would belittle the seeming reality of the very real pain of (living) relatives of the victim and the victim itself—thus such explanation is practically unconscionable within certain social contexts and situations.
The believer in HO, however, can defend it by stating that the[/b] Heroic Override cannot be proven to be false, given what is known concern the nature of consciousness and it’s non-intersubjectivity and imperceptibleness, despite the impassioned remonstrances of the battery, rape, or burn victim. A zombie can, in principle, verbally and behaviorally produce the same complaints and bodily dispositions that would persuade a conscious observer that the zombie is indeed conscious and is having experiences—despite the objective matter of the fact that the zombie’s complaints are objectively false.
[b]The moral significance of the Fractionally-2-Omnibenevolent/Quasi-Malevolent/Partially-3-Omnibenevolent God (henceforth shortened to the: F2OQMP3O God when necessary) is the evil of this God when it comes to the notion of the absence of a priori necessity for a re-enactment of the negative aspects of that God’s omniscient prevision in the first place.
Why re-enact the nihilistic aspects of one’s pre-universe prescience, when one possesses the power to create an all-good world from the very start? Why go through with the zombie deception when one could create a world entirely absent of physical and emotional pain? The evil of the F2OQMP3O God, then,[/b] is expressed in the deliberate intention and action of creating subjectively experiencing beings to re-enact aspects of the foreknowledge of that God.
EXPLAINING THE EXACT NATURE OF THE EVIL OF THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE EVIL GODS
[b]There is something to be said for the very root of morality itself: that is, that which is (commonly understood by humans to be) a sense of responsibility for (or “blame-worthiness” or obligation to) the very creation of another being’s subjective experience–be it positive or negative—through one’s own deliberate and intentional action.
The arguable difference between the “morally good” and the “morally bad” is that individuals who are “good” are capable of experiencing special emotions (called: “social emotions”) that indicate to them that they are responsible for and have a careful obligation to the experiences of other beings, resulting in a powerful desire to mitigate or prevent the suffering of others.
These “Golden Rule” emotions are lacking in the “morally bad”, who due to their inability to experience the emotions of other-responsibility do not believe that such other-responsibility truly exists (that it is a psychological illusion conditioned in humans in order to create and maintain a social contract), or that if it truly exists in the metaphysical sense that it does not apply to oneself (given that one fails to experience the emotions indicative of such responsibility).
The Golden Rule requires that one not impose experiences upon others that one would not wish to experience for oneself “if the shoe were on the other foot”.
It’s odd, then, that God (if one believes that the biblical verse entailing the “Golden Rule” is God-inspired) would admonish humans to follow the GR while simultaneously violating it himself, in terms of the creation of subjectively experienicing beings fated for re-enactment of the negative aspects of his foreknowledge and the ethical seriousness inherent in such an act.
The ultimate question of the true moral nature of God (whether God is truly good or evil) only exists due to the human logic observing the absence of an a priori necessity for the existence of negative experience—regardless of whether or not negative experience is imposed for either good or malicious purpose! (The notion of the absence of an a priori necessity for the existence of evil presupposes that there exists no defensible or ethical reason for the existence of negative experience if one possesses the power to prevent it’s universal existence–nor does there exist a bizarre law of nature that ensures that negative experience will exist in the future, operating from a point in time in which negative experience does not yet exist)
Once again, the complaint of the “problem of evil” is that God could have possessed the intention to forbear the existence of negative experience altogether—but did not.[/b] Why?
“Forrest…why’d this happen?”
The dying words of Forrest’s (Tom Hanks) best friend, Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue (Mykelti Williamson) in the film: Forrest Gump (1994)
So what’s really happening? Why is this happening? If a universe-creating and human destiny-controlling God exists, then what is the true moral nature of this God—despite the constant litany of the propaganda that he is “good all the time”? Are we dealing with a God that will compensate humans for suffering in the end, or are we actually faced with a figurative “dark Mr. Mxyzptlk” of a God, one who secretly or overtly has never cared for human life and has never felt any obligation to compensate human suffering, as humans are nothing more than playthings whose sole purpose is to “give glory to God” by unwilling participation in the practice of his malevolent will.
(Alan Moore and Curt Swan: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?,(featuring the very last appearance of the Silver Age Superman), DC Comics, 1986)
At the end of the day, one can argue that the conclusion is inescapable: [b]God is evil only to the extent that he chose not to forego even the mitigating physical and emotional pain of his subjects, given his foreknowledge and the freedom (it is presumed)to forego creating a world in which evil exists and create an all-good, painless human and animal existence from the very start.
Remember, Jesus stated:[/b]
“With God, all things are possible……” (Matthew 19:26)
[b]Thus, an all-good world from the very start was not beyond the power of God.
However, the saving grace of a God that is fractionally-2/partially-3 Omnibenevolent is that the evil of this God is harmful rather than malicious in nature. That is, when one refers to this type of God as “evil” one is simply stating that this God is “harmful”, but the harm does not arise from predatory malice.
(The same thing can be said of a God who while taking no action to deliberately create evil, nevertheless allows evil to exist. Such passive non-interference is “harmful”, in the sense that the God in question took no direct measure to prevent the future suffering and misery of his subjects)
The hypothetical existence of the Heroic Override, the mitigation of pain (the quickening or lessening of physical/emotional pain forseen within the pre-universe calculation of all possible worlds) within non-sociopaths, the justice that claims sociopaths, and the apocatastasis that will claim everyone (including sociopaths) is theoretical proof that this God is not in it for eternal human suffering.
Thus, this evil God is the best of all possible evil Gods, by reason of the institution of harm only to create one of few logically possible re-enactments of the imaginary evil of his pre-universe calculations, such that from the starting point of a “real world containing real subjectively experiencing beings who experience harm” one can evolve such a world into “a harmless world containing subjectively experiencing beings who are no longer capable of the experience of pain.”[/b]
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
(Revelations 21: 4 NIV)
[b]Further, this God possesses a ghost of Type-2 Omnibenevolence (hence the term: fractional 2-Omnibenevolence) in that he utilizes God-contrived “positive psychological results from suffering” for plausible mortar that binds the bricks of pain mitigation, zombification, and the effects and punishment of the wicked.
The evil of this God, then,[/b] exists in the deliberate intention of creating the starting point and from wanting to transform an evil world that did not need to exist into a good world in the first place. [b]This psychomoral transformation proceeded despite it’s violation of the Golden Rule, because of a Type-2 Omnibenevolent perception of the “greater good” (i.e possessing greater emotional value and worth) of such a transformation (which, in practice, proves itself to be a correct judgment, if all of the relevant concepts are true), and despite the suffering, regardless of mitigation, such transformation bodes for the future subjective creatures under this God’s command.
There exists, in defense of this God, a logical practicality in wishing to convert the negative aspects of his foreknowledge into the type of world one would expect from a God possessing 3-Omnibenevolence. Considering the nature of the starting point itself, pain is a logically necessary ingredient if one wished to genuinely grow an all-good world from an evil world. Indeed, a world that contains some pain is the only logically possible world in which such a transformation can take place; the only other alternative is to create a complete zombie world—yet a world devoid of consciousness makes the transformative project unnecessary and meaningless.[/b]
[size=150]WHY THE “BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE EVIL GODS” IS TRULY “THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE EVIL GODS”:[/size] [size=150]THE CAPACITY TO EVOLVE[/size]
[b]Why would an evil God (a God who is evil only in choosing to create a replica of the negative aspect of his omniscient foreknowledge) choose to transform an evil world into an all-good world (as opposed to maintaining the evil world forever, meaninglessly destroying it in the future with no creation of worlds after, or simply creating no world at all from the start)?
Aside from sinister notions such as playful indulgence or further malevolent deceit (in which an all-good world is created for the purpose of later corroding it into an even greater evil world that that from which the all-good world was built), there exists the logical possibility that the F2OQMP3O God[/b] is evolving into true 3-Omnibenevolence.
Consider the theoretical speculation of late University of Texas Philosopher Charles Hartshorne:
[b]Hartshorne was one of the first philosophers to speculate that God, in terms of moral nature, is evolving—in the sense that God’s hatred of evil is greater than God’s allowance of the existence of evil for the sake of free will. This hatred governs the determination of God to abolish evil from the universe in the future (within Fundamentalist Christian contexts, this entails condemning the wicked to eternal distraction by never-ending pain in hellfire).
A unanswered question remains in the moral nature of those awarded with Heaven: if Christians are “saved sinners”, then is sin inadvertently admitted into Heaven in the form of fallible human souls who are saved simply because they have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Personal Savior before physical death? What protocol does God have in place to remove sin and the capacity for sin from the heavenly rewarded? The Bible does not fully explain the moral nature of the inhabitants of post-Judgment Day heaven, given that the inhabitants were not completely free of sin at the end of their biological lives.
However, the aforementioned biblical verse provides a clue:[/b]
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
(Revelations 21: 4 NIV)
It can be argued that in order for such a world (in which there exists no more “death, mourning, crying, or pain”) to exist, there must exist a universal lobotomy accompanied by a God-imposed pre-programmed environment, one that works to the opposite of David Hume’s observation that the current real-world environment:
“…tends not to human or animal felicity: Therefore it is not established for that purpose.”
[b]Thus, it may be that the “best of all possible evil Gods” is himself the subject of an existential natural selection, one in which the God is possessed of an “in-born” moral conscience combined with an intellectual curiosity and altruism. This intellectual curiosity explains the desire to create an all-good world from such a seemingly indefensible starting point (an evil world containing pain).
Moral conscience explains the desire to mitigate emotional and physical suffering in the subjects of the transformation (allowing absence of mitigation in sociopaths for allowance of re-enactment of foreknowledge of the concept of justice and vengeance) and the institution of the “positive psychological results from suffering” in order to create an evil world that nevertheless gives rise to positive character, with such positive character derived beforehand from a special being connected to the God from the very beginning.
Altruistic intention explains the desire to create transitory emotional and physical pain within subjects, limitation of lifespan, and lobotomizing in the afterlife (to remove the ability to commit evil). The F2OQMP3O God is, however, absolved from deliberate imagination of evil itself: the evil in the world is a replication of an uncontrollable mental event within the mind of God (as an aspect of God’s omniscient foreknowledge(argued to have come unbidden into the mind of God).
The inherent goodness within this “best of all possible evil Gods”, at the end of the day, lies in the lack of interest in this God for evil to forever exist, manifest as the interest in the God to “weed out” created evil in order to create an all-good world. That is, the crux of the “problem of evil”, if the F2OQMP3O God exists (as opposed to the other types or no God at all), is the intention of this God to create x (the current subjectively experienced evil world)[/b] as that which he has resolved to transform.
To take creatures having subjective experience of x, and to transform them into beings possessing eternal experience of y, giving them subjective experience of an appreciation of the difference–within a world that obeys a plausible and logical progression (contrived by that God) from x to y. This, then, is the nature of the “crime” committed by this final type of evil God.
[b]Further, one can argue that there is an ipso facto absolution of this God by the conceptual observation that even God is a subject of the causal mechanics of Existence itself. The mind of God exists in such a way that the higher psychological mechanics of that mind causes God to choose a world containing subjectively experienced evil for the creation of an all-good eternal world.
(This is analogous to secular explanations for the existence of human evil, in terms of the manner in which the natural processes and laws of the physical universe just happened to play out, in the form of neurons firing in such a way as to give rise to the very existence of malice, conflict, and so on—when the universe could have blindly behaved to the opposite in order to cause neurons to fire to create all-good and non-predatory living organisms).
Yet, there exists the possibility that the causal mechanics of Existence itself produces a cosmic natural selection, one that fortuitously works toward the mechanical construction of an eternal all-good world and a future Type-3 Omnibenevolence growing within the mind of the Fractionally 2-Omnibenevolent/Quasi-Malevolent/ Partially Type-3 Omnibenevolent God himself—causing the God to impose a lobotomy upon himself once the external reality surrounding this God is constrained to an irremovable and indestructible omnibenevolent condition.[/b]
[size=150]Conclusion[/size]
[b]The problem of evil, as James H. Dee put it, has “bedeviled sensitive minds for centuries”. The existence of deplorable human misery and suffering, particularly that suffered by the non-sociopathic, is difficult to reconcile with conceivable notions of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God who supposedly cares for the “poor and needy”.
Careful weighing of the evidence, taking into account the proposition of the existence of a God who cannot tolerate the evil of existence even for a fraction of a second possessing an omnipotence that enables the God to completely and immediately remove all evil from the universe “with the snap of the fingers”, provokes the logical conclusion that such a God[/b] simply does not exist. [b]A second logical induction reveals that any God that exists that is not this God is necessarily an evil God.
However, there are two ways in which a God can be “evil”. The most obvious way is that a God is evil through the experience and practice of malice. Yet a God can also be “evil” by being indirectly harmful, or harmful for perceived good intention or for the greater good independent of malice. Though absent of malice, the second type of evil is indefensible due to it’s unfairness, for a God probably would not wish to wear the shoes of the subjects forced to suffer harm “for their own good”.
The best of all possible evil Gods, out of the bumper crop of evil Gods that may control our reality (in the absence of a God possessing Type-3 Omnibenevolence)—is one that is only evil in the choice of world it wishes to transform into an immutably all-good world (due to what such a choice bodes for the consciously experiencing subjects forced to participate in the transformation).
The evil in the choice itself is indefensible, yet it arguably pales in comparison to:
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The intention of this God to transmute it’s effects into an eternally positive existence.
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The logic that the very concept of a genuine bad-to-good transformation requires pain in some form to exist (allowing the God the freedom to mitigate the worst of pain through zombification combined with the lessening or quickening of non-fatal and emotional pain in non-sociopaths).
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The prospect of the God performing a lobotomy upon the self in order to ensure that the all-good world is free from future creative tampering.
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The proposition that the evil of the world was not deliberately and maliciously “cooked up” by this God but is a replication of an uncontrollable mental occurrence (an omniscient vision of a possible world) within the mind of this God.
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The notion that higher laws of existence governing even the mind of God naturally selected this particular pathway to an all-good world.
Given the last consideration, one can defend the “best of all possible evil Gods” by the argument that the causal flow of Existence itself bears ultimate responsibility for the presence of natural and deliberate evil—yet (if the relevant state of affairs is true) we exist in a rather fortuitous predicament: Existence naturally selects an indestructible and immutable all-good world in the end (through the God that it controls), even if that world must come by way of[/b] a contrived yet watered-down hell.
[size=150]END[/size]
Jay M. Brewer
blog.myspace.com/superchristianity
Austin, Texas
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Sure people go mad with the memories. I have horrible painful things that are/were hard to let go of. But, I don’t want to be maddened by the pain I have seen the results of that first hand. I deal with it so that I am not maddened. As do the vast majority of humans. See those that are maddened as lessons or examples to others. love Hate good and evil are all entwined in evolution , progress or movement.