A New Argument from Evil

[Matthew78]

I have been working on a new logical argument from evil. However, in this post, I am substituting "injustice" for evil since it can be argued that evil is subjective and hard to define. However, this argument that I am proposing is just meant to be a logically valid argument; whether it's sound or can be made sound is open to debate. So I am inviting feedback and criticism on this argument. My new proposal for a logical argument from evil can be stated as follows:

1.) If any divine being is omnipotent ("omnipotence" meaning that there are no nonlogical limits to this being's power), then such a divine being has the requisite power to prevent acts of injustice from occurring.

2.) If any divine being is omniscient ("omniscience" meaning that there are no nonlogical limits to this being's knowledge), then such a divine being has the requisite knowldge to prevent acts of injustice from occurring.

3.) If any divine being is transcendent ("transcendence" meaning that there are no limits imposed on any entity by space, time, matter, or energy; such a being would exist outside of the phyiscal cosmos), then such a divine being is not constrained from anything in the physical cosmos that would prevent such a divine being from preventing acts of injustice from occurring; any transcendent divine being is totally free to act.

4.) If any divine being is necessary just, then such a divine being can only act justly; it is impossible for any divine being to act injustly if such a divine being is necessarily just.

5.) Acts of injustices have occurred and continue to occur: sexual assualt, human trafficking, theft, premeditated murder, genocide, acts of torture and terrorism-just to name some.

6.) According to the Generalized Principle of Command Responsibility, any conscious and moral agent who has the requisite power and requisite knowledge to prevent acts of injustice from occurring has a duty to prevent acts of injustice from occurring. A failure to act on this duty is to be guilty of willful criminal negligence.

7.) If any divine being is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just, then such a divine being has the requisite power, requisite knowledge, total freedom, and duty to prevent acts of injustice.

8.) If any divine being exists that is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just, then no acts of injustice have ever occurred and will not occur.

9.) There does not exist any divine being that is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just.

The biggest problem with this argument, granted, is that "justice" is not defined or explained. I am still studying jurisprudence and theories of justice. However, if any other problems or even flaws in this argument can be detected, I would appreciate it if readers would mind pointing them out to me so I can either amend my argument, or if need be, abandon it.

 

[Super Universe]

Unless those acts of injustice are for a greater good.

Is it an injustice to poke a terrified child with a needle?

What if that needle is full of vaccine?

 

[Super Universe]

You can't figure it out. The reason you can't figure it out is because you're thinking about God from the viewpoint of a selfish human who thinks God, if He exists, should serve you and give you a better life.

Try and think of God from a more universal point of view.

 

[Matthew78]

Unless those acts of injustice are for a greater good.

Is it an injustice to poke a terrified child with a needle?

What if that needle is full of vaccine?

You're assuming that a divine being is limited to mere means to achieve its ends rather than directly causing those ends. Do you seriously mean to tell me a divine being is incapable of choosing means that avoid criminal neglience?

As for your bad analogy here-no loving doctor pokes a terrified child with a needle full of vaccine as a way of being cruel. There is nothing unjust about it. It would only be unjust if the doctor was poking the child with a needle just to be cruel so that the child would feel pain.

Matthew

 

[Matthew78]

You can't figure it out. The reason you can't figure it out is because you're thinking about God from the viewpoint of a selfish human who thinks God, if He exists, should serve you and give you a better life.

Try and think of God from a more universal point of view.

So, I am selfish? I am selfish and you're a more evolved and selfless being?

How does this lame attempt at armchair psychology show what is wrong with my argument?

And where did I say I am thinking that God should serve me and give me a better life? Can you quote me?

If you can detect any problems with my argument, other than your bad analogy in your previous post, please do so. Otherwise, try to do something more productive. If I want to be psychoanalyzed, I can find a qualified therapist for that.

Matthew

 

[Siddhartha Plotinus]

Why is only the typical Judaic, Christian, and Islamic God mentioned here? What is the argument for or against?

If it is an argument against such a god, the best defense would be that of free will. To intervene in most ways today would pretty much guarantee faith, and free will is like the harmony between justice and injustice.

But then again, for said god to be self aware in the very first place would make any creation at all whatsoever pointless, and nothing more than a movie in the making, where that god would be pulling the strings down to the very speck of dust moving from there to there. Even heaven and hell would be known, how the ones who were predestined to make it to heaven, actually live out their eternity in heaven, is already known to said god.

However if you simply remove the self awareness of God, then He can still be omnipotent, omniscient, and transcendent.

 

[arthra]

Matthew wrote:

"If any divine being exists that is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just, then no acts of injustice have ever occurred and will not occur..... There does not exist any divine being that is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just."

My view is that injustice can occur through us because we have freedom and responsibility.

We are free to commit acts such as : "sexual assualt, human trafficking, theft, premeditated murder, genocide, acts of torture and terrorism-just to name some"

We are also free to do all in our power to reduce misery, slavery, war, genocide, etc.

When we accomplish irradicating prejudices and reducing violence and so forth we will have achieved a great victory. We're free to do this or we can ignore injustice and go our way.

If we lived in a world without any pain or suffering and had our daily pablum fed to us.. we would in my view have no challenges before us and we would not grow spiritually.

The Divine Being has decreed that we are therefore free agents and are responsible for our actions.

 

[Matthew78]

Matthew wrote:

"If any divine being exists that is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just, then no acts of injustice have ever occurred and will not occur..... There does not exist any divine being that is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just."

My view is that injustice can occur through us because we have freedom and responsibility.

We are free to commit acts such as : "sexual assualt, human trafficking, theft, premeditated murder, genocide, acts of torture and terrorism-just to name some"

We are also free to do all in our power to reduce misery, slavery, war, genocide, etc.

But why would a divine being, given the attributes described in the premises of my argument, not try to prevent the acts of injustice I mentioned? Would a divine being with such attributes not be culpable for the injustices that human beings performed? We may be free, but wouldn't a divine being as described, be responsible for our abuse of freedom considering that it gave us freedom in the first place and knew how we would abuse it?

The Divine Being has decreed that we are therefore free agents and are responsible for our actions.

But then no one could ever be guilty of negligence. What this would mean is that war criminals throughout history and in the future cannot be held accountable for crimes against humanity because the subordinates carrying out the crimes are responsible, not the war criminals, even though the war criminals may have planned and ordered such crimes. The war criminals could be absolved of any responsibility for planning and executing crimes against humanity on grounds that the subordinates are free agents and so they are responsible, not their commanding superiors.

 

[Siddhartha Plotinus]

But why would a divine being, given the attributes described in the premises of my argument, not try to prevent the acts of injustice I mentioned? Would a divine being with such attributes not be culpable for the injustices that human beings performed? We may be free, but wouldn't a divine being as described, be responsible for our abuse of freedom considering that it gave us freedom in the first place and knew how we would abuse it?



But then no one could ever be guilty of negligence. What this would mean is that war criminals throughout history and in the future cannot be held accountable for crimes against humanity because the subordinates carrying out the crimes are responsible, not the war criminals, even though the war criminals may have planned and ordered such crimes. The war criminals could be absolved of any responsibility for planning and executing crimes against humanity on grounds that the subordinates are free agents and so they are responsible, not their commanding superiors.

What? Yes they are, that makes no sense. The commanding superiors still gave the command, they are as responsible as the ones who obeyed it.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

9.) There does not exist any divine being that is omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent, and necessarily just.

I'm not sure what to say other than:

OK ... therefore?​

I suspect that applying terms such as 'just' to preternatural agency is doomed anthropomorphism.

 

[McBell]

...
However, in this post, I am substituting "injustice" for evil since it can be argued that evil is subjective and hard to define.
...

So you are replacing one subjective term with another subjective term thinking it will help eliminate the subjectivity?

 

[McBell]

So, I am selfish? I am selfish and you're a more evolved and selfless being?

How does this lame attempt at armchair psychology show what is wrong with my argument?

And where did I say I am thinking that God should serve me and give me a better life? Can you quote me?

If you can detect any problems with my argument, other than your bad analogy in your previous post, please do so. Otherwise, try to do something more productive. If I want to be psychoanalyzed, I can find a qualified therapist for that.

Matthew

Way to completely miss the point.

 

[Introvert]

Not a bad argument, although theists will tend to use these blanket arguments like "free will" as if it absolves god of any guilt or responsibility of anything that ever has or will happen. Just like they use "you're taking it literally" to excuse every single immoral thing god does in the bible.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Not a bad argument, although theists will tend to use these blanket arguments like "free will" as if it absolves god of any guilt or responsibility of anything that ever has or will happen. Just like they use "you're taking it literally" to excuse every single immoral thing god does in the bible.

What works have you read on the Problem of Evil?

 

[arthra]

Matthew wrote:

But why would a divine being, given the attributes described in the premises of my argument, not try to prevent the acts of injustice I mentioned? Would a divine being with such attributes not be culpable for the injustices that human beings performed? We may be free, but wouldn't a divine being as described, be responsible for our abuse of freedom considering that it gave us freedom in the first place and knew how we would abuse it?

My reply:

That's just it ...WE are responsible as human beings for what we do..blaming God or a devil doesn't cut it anymore.

Matthew:

But then no one could ever be guilty of negligence. What this would mean is that war criminals throughout history and in the future cannot be held accountable for crimes against humanity because the subordinates carrying out the crimes are responsible, not the war criminals, even though the war criminals may have planned and ordered such crimes. The war criminals could be absolved of any responsibility for planning and executing crimes against humanity on grounds that the subordinates are free agents and so they are responsible, not their commanding superiors.

My reply:

I never mentioned war criminals...Yes they are responsible and should be held accountable.

 

[Koldo]

So you are replacing one subjective term with another subjective term thinking it will help eliminate the subjectivity?

With this, I must agree.

Plus, the OP pretty much gives up on the natural evil by making this move.

 

[Koldo]

Way to completely miss the point.

Although he missed the point, nothing of value was lost by missing it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Unless those acts of injustice are for a greater good.

Is it an injustice to poke a terrified child with a needle?

What if that needle is full of vaccine?

If you're capable of delivering the vaccine painlessly, then yes, it's an injustice to poke a terrified child with a needle.

We use needles for vaccines because we're not able to accomplish the same goal by less painful means... but for an omnipotent being, there's no such thing as "not able".

 

[Super Universe]

You're assuming that a divine being is limited to mere means to achieve its ends rather than directly causing those ends. Do you seriously mean to tell me a divine being is incapable of choosing means that avoid criminal neglience?

As for your bad analogy here-no loving doctor pokes a terrified child with a needle full of vaccine as a way of being cruel. There is nothing unjust about it. It would only be unjust if the doctor was poking the child with a needle just to be cruel so that the child would feel pain.

Matthew

Who says what God does is criminal?

If a raging river is about to overflow it's levees and there is a town on one side and farms on the other, is it criminal to blow the levee on the farmland side if it means that some people will die?

So it's okay for the doctor to poke a child with a needle as long as the doctor intends no harm?

Then it's okay for you and other humans to experience pain and suffering if you learn a valuable lesson from it.

What if the child had no pain sensory and the child had recently undergone an experimental procedure to fix repair the pain sensory ability and the doctor WAS actually trying to cause the child pain to see if it workd? Unjust?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Who says what God does is criminal?

If a raging river is about to overflow it's levees and there is a town on one side and farms on the other, is it criminal to blow the levee on the farmland side if it means that some people will die?

Sounds like the levee designer either foresaw the maximum water level but failed to properly design for it, or didn't properly foresee how high the water would get.

... or both.

Either way, if the levee was a deliberate creation, then the levee designer failed in some respect.