# Do God and evil co-exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 15, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496 "2004-03-15T20:13:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/61 "2004-03-21T22:23:29Z")
Gah. No premise is ever proved. That’s why they call them premises. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2004, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/62 "2004-03-21T22:29:17Z")
> [@Faldage](#): > > Something that makes sense would work for me. ‘Things aren’t what they are and are what they aren’t’ doesn’t hack it. So, failing anything sensible coming, I’ll just take my hat in my hands and back slowly out of the tent. Y’all keep buying those philosophers their Metaxas. I don’t think you should be so fast to blame the great thinkers. Hegel, for example, didn’t say what you just paraphrased. He was merely saying that existence is not noumenal. ---
**Author:** ![zwaldd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a9adbd/32.png) [@zwaldd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwaldd)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/63 "2004-03-22T00:28:14Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > No premise is ever proved. That’s why I asked if they were all ‘givens’ or if there was a debate point. You said we could debate that particular premise. If you had no intention of proving it, then what’s the point of debate? But no matter…as you said, “if [the premise] is true, then the rest has to be true”. Well the premise ain’t necessarily true! What you have there is what they call ‘faith’. There’s no shame in acknowledging it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/64 "2004-03-22T11:08:59Z")
Well, the premise in what you quoted was that God values goodness above all else. I made my case explaining why that seems reasonable to me in the OP. Once again, since the debate is about whether God is o-ben or o-mal, then the first aspect of God that should be examined is morality. Since goodness edifies and evil destroys, it must be the case that God values goodness. Otherwise, He would already be destroyed. But Ludovic gave us that He exists. Therefore, it must be the case that He values goodness. ---
**Author:** ![zwaldd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a9adbd/32.png) [@zwaldd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwaldd)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/65 "2004-03-22T14:27:07Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > Since goodness edifies and evil destroys Are your definitions of good and evil givens? If so, I’ll allow your entire argument as one big given, and that’ll be that. Otherwise, rebutted (most recently) 03-22-2004 09:12 AM Central. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/66 "2004-03-22T20:29:23Z")
All that is given is (1) what we mean by goodness, and (2) a premise (or axiom) that the goodness, as defined, is the aesthetic most valued by God. After that, all the inferences are deduced. And the final inference is that evil does not exist, but is merely essential. Which of those two givens have you rebutted? (1) To rebut 1, you must define goodness in some other way. If for whatever reason you believe that goodness cannot be defined as moral edification, then you should state why. (2) If you accept the definition as reasonable, then you must reconcile the contradiction between edification and destruction. Any moral imperative assigned to God (as defined by Ludovic) must necessarily be categorical. ---
**Author:** ![zwaldd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a9adbd/32.png) [@zwaldd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwaldd)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2004, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/67 "2004-03-22T23:04:00Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > All that is given is (1) what we mean by goodness, and (2) a premise (or axiom) that the goodness, as defined, is the aesthetic most valued by God. After that, all the inferences are deduced. And the final inference is that evil does not exist, but is merely essential. > > Which of those two givens have you rebutted? I rebutted #2, but only because you said we could debate it. If it’s a given, then we simply assume it for the discussion, the same way God’s existence is assumed for this discussion. Regarding the definition “moral edification”. There’s nothing about this definition of ‘good’ or Ludovic’s definition of ‘God’ that rules out the possibility of a God that doesn’t value man’s concept of moral rightness. And there’s no contradiction between moral edification and physical destruction. You can have immoral edification and continue to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/68 "2004-03-23T11:08:08Z")
You’re negating the modality and not the free variable. You’re claiming to have rebutted the premise but have inserted an equivocation between morality and physicality. You’re not even trying. ---
**Author:** ![mrsam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5ac83/32.png) [@mrsam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrsam)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/69 "2004-03-23T11:43:57Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > Well, the premise in what you quoted was that God values goodness above all else. I made my case explaining why that seems reasonable to me in the OP. Once again, since the debate is about whether God is o-ben or o-mal, then the first aspect of God that should be examined is morality. Since goodness edifies and evil destroys, it must be the case that God values goodness. Otherwise, He would already be destroyed. But Ludovic gave us that He exists. Therefore, it must be the case that He values goodness. Perhaps a stupid question, but why does a god have to be o-ben or o-mal? What if God’s most valued aesthetic were a good pizza? Then some things we consider “evil” could be morally neutral, because if you look at things from a consequentialist perspective third-world people might have no impact on global good pizza production. After all, if god could be either o-ben or o-mal isn’t god’s morality ultimately arbitrary? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/70 "2004-03-23T12:00:06Z")
Absolutely. And in fact, that’s quite critical. God’s moral choice of goodness as His favored aesthetic is the choice of a completely free moral agent. As to why He must be o-ben or o-mal, it depends on the context. Interestingly, some people were chomping at the bit that the MOP did not imply o-ben or o-mal or o-something, and they felt dissatisfied, hoping to force something out of the ontological commitment that just wasn’t there. But here in a context of existentialism versus essentialism, there is an inexplicable haggling over whether goodness edifies and evil destroys. […shrug…] I gotta go have my MRI done. Later. ---
**Author:** ![zwaldd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a9adbd/32.png) [@zwaldd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwaldd)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/71 "2004-03-23T18:01:07Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > there is an inexplicable haggling over whether goodness edifies and evil destroys. There’s nothing inexplicable about it. You’re trying to establish some kind of link between morals and existence where there is none, except that which comes from your own personal faith. What’s inexplicable is the extent to which you go to deny your faith. ---
**Author:** ![zwaldd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a9adbd/32.png) [@zwaldd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwaldd)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/72 "2004-03-23T18:13:20Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > You’re not even trying. The day I have to put in effort to trump a pseudo-logical rationalization of faith is the day I start believing in God. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2004, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/73 "2004-03-23T22:48:12Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > Since goodness edifies and evil destroys, it must be the case that God values goodness. Otherwise, He would already be destroyed. But Ludovic gave us that He exists. Therefore, it must be the case that He values goodness. I posit that “good” and “evil” are functions, which you can plug in relevant data into(even **Lib** ’s criteria of edifying a free moral agent) and get a result for it. Even given a boolean goodness function, in which everything is either “good” or “evil”, I see no reason why this evilness and goodness must be absolute. For instance, the goodness function could return “good” for a score above 80 and “evil” for a score less than that. For instance, you may believe that a God that would allow rampant destruction to exist in many worlds (but not in other possible worlds) would warrant an “evil” rating from the goodness function, even though it is not an “absolute” evil. Then again, you may think that this still warrants a relative “good” result. The way I see it, you have only two ways out of this pickle. One, and this appears to be the road **Lib** chooses, is to state that, since God created the possible worlds, and only creates that which is edifying to Him, that all possible worlds are good. Since I see no reason to remove hell-worlds from the realms of possibility, the obvious conclusion is that hell-worlds are good. To me, this basically makes this extension of the proof just as meaningless, to me, as the MOPoG. In other words, this redefinition of good and evil is far beyond what I would accept, when translating from the proof into English (less academic translation: if the eternal torture of the innocent ain’t evil, what _is_?) The other way out is to state that hell-worlds are not possible. To me, it seems fundamental that they are possible, even more possible than to posit moral qualities and intellect to NE. ---
**Author:** ![Inoshiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a9adbd/32.png) [@Inoshiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inoshiro)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/74 "2004-03-24T04:39:43Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > Well, the premise in what you quoted was that God values goodness above all else. I made my case explaining why that seems reasonable to me in the OP. Once again, since the debate is about whether God is o-ben or o-mal, then the first aspect of God that should be examined is morality. Since goodness edifies and evil destroys, it must be the case that God values goodness. Otherwise, He would already be destroyed. But Ludovic gave us that He exists. Therefore, it must be the case that He values goodness. No, I don’t see any of this. The only thing **Ludovic** has given you for the sake of argument is the existence of NE and a set of inferences to show it as “evil”. The idea of evil as pure destruction is dubious, especially your seeming belief that an evil god would have destroyed _himself_! I can easily imagine an evil god who makes an infinite universe and fills it with infinite suffering for his own amusement. As a matter of fact we don’t even necessarily have sentience in this “evil god”. It is still possible for it to be an unaware machine or computer program. It can still be “evil” because _we_, as humans, can still see its actions as being evil and define evil for ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![test1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@test1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/test1)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2004, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/75 "2004-04-02T16:36:32Z")
Two points mainly: While light and darkness would express the analogy quite well of what is proposed by you, Augustine and some others, why should we abide by this principle. Why should we think that merely one exists, and the other is a privation? For example, theories like Theological Dualism suggest that there are two powers - one evil and one good, and their “battlefield” is earth. What is there that stops us from saying that they are not both substances? On another note, the premise is that goodness morally edifies, and that it is the aesthetic most valued by God. If we were to say that evilness morally edifies, what is there to stop a radical from making the supposition that the Earth is, in reality, evil, and humans are placed on the earth as a cruel torture. The evilgod wouldn’t necessarily seek destruction. Overall, a well written first post which you have clearly thought about; I look forward to a favourable reply. ---
**Author:** ![test1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@test1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/test1)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496/76 "2004-04-03T23:48:58Z")
Oh, and just one more thing. This is truly out of interest, but does the MOP (or OP) imply any type of personal, conscious being? Why should we not hold it to be anything else? I’m sorry if this has been covered before, but it would be most appreciated if someone might provide me with a link where it has been. Thanks for reading. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-god-and-evil-co-exist/234496.md?page=3)