Something I just wrote on evil at another site. I have written over the years on this topic and the following is a quick summary.
-----------
I personally argue that the concept of evil may not be as significant as it is often portrayed.
This article focuses specifically on moral evil, not natural evil. The question arises: what exactly is evil? Despite its frequent use, I have yet to come across a definition that withstands scrutiny. Many people deem something evil if it is deemed unwanted. In instances of natural evil, they often blame God when no human action is involved.
Consider a finger bruise. It is certainly unwanted, but should it be labeled as evil? It results from my finger being in a wrong position, not from anyone’s intention. Should I then attribute this to God, who could have intervened?
While a finger bruise seems trivial, a life-ending tumor in a four-year-old is a completely different matter. If we reject labeling the bruise as evil, how do we delineate the point on the spectrum between minor injuries and catastrophic illnesses where evil begins?
Moreover, could it be that some unwanted things serve a greater purpose, allowing for the existence of something desirable? Perhaps removing these unwanted elements could create a more profound issue.
In the new film “Red One,” there’s an ambitious attempt to eradicate every unwanted act. Wouldn’t such an objective itself be classified as unwanted?
If we believe in God, we must accept that this world aligns with His greater objectives. Shouldn’t we strive to understand those purposes instead of simply labeling experiences as evil?
Take Hitler, for instance; he is often mentioned as the epitome of evil. But why is that? He is responsible for countless deaths, yet would the German people’s perspective change if they had emerged victorious in World War II? It’s noteworthy that a statue of Tamerlane—history’s greatest mass murderer—still stands in Tashkent. Is this a matter of irony or a testament to human nature?
Ultimately, the Christian God guarantees something far greater that diminishes our concerns over what we call “evil.”
I would look for a simple explanation for so called "divine hiddenness" and evil.
For the first, I would ask whether there could be a meaningful life with QED knowledge of God? I doubt it because our existence would be meaningless if there were. I do not believe having a meaningless life is an objective of God. I offer this cartoon as obvious proof of this.
Second, the word "evil" is probably the most misused word in the English language. (I would offer "love" as the second most misused word) I suggest that all who use evil, define it first before they use it. The most common use is unwanted circumstances and as such anything in this world of imperfect circumstances would then be evil. For example, a paper cut would be evil no matter how slight it is. Certainly not a life threatening cancer but both are unwanted.
So anything less than a perfect world would be evil. That eliminates everything in our existence.
The other concept explored in connection with these two concepts is something called "non resistant atheism" which implies that those who don't believe would willingly believe if only they were presented with the logic and evidence. This is an absurdity as my contact with atheists is that they are strident in their beliefs even if they cannot support them. But this concept mainly indicts believers who are apparently so stupid that they cannot explain why they believe. It actually makes believers the ignorant ones, not the so called non-resistant atheist.
The reasoning is such that an 8-year-old can fully understand it. It concerns the most fundamental assumption of logic, namely that something is either A or is not A.
For this discussion, the topic is existence and why anything exists, which is the oldest known question. The "A" is either “existence had a beginning,” and the "not A" is “existence had no beginning.” Any fact, called “Brute” or “mysterious “ or something else, has to exist in one of these two domains. Let me know if there is a third possibility because the 8-year-old and I cannot imagine any.
So, our existence has a beginning, or it has existed forever.
Now, in the latter, what must have existed? The answer is everything physically possible. If something didn’t exist and was physically possible, explain why it didn’t exist. It’s not for lack of time. So, any fact called brute “must” have existed in this infinite past. If some are evident to us now, like our current universe, they are just examples of inevitability given enough time. Was Bertrand Russell just stupid? Or more likely, intractable?
So now we are left with imagining anything possible. The 8-year-old says that there must have been unicorns. His dad says they are imaginary, but he says why is it not possible for them to have existed at one time? I agree.
And there is the time I missed the foul shot that would have meant our team would have gone to the playoffs. Was there a time in the past when I made this shot? Of course, I also became an All-American, too.
So, infinite regress leads to the above, and an infinite number of other absurdities come up. We must dismiss infinite regress as absurd, but this means that existence had a beginning.
To make existence have a beginning or option "A" above, seem silly we can say that existence just popped into being. Poof, here comes existence. Hey, but let's look more closely at this poofing.
It cannot come from nothing or we have nothing creating something let alone amazingly coherent complexity. So something must have existed. What is this something?
We are now at the beginning but what does this beginning imply? A lot of people are intractable when it comes to thinking about this beginning or the something that caused it.
It exists, and it caused our existence. Then, we examine what kind of essence this entity must have to exist and the power to create other existences. This is step 1.
We are at step 1, and atheism, agnosticism, and materialism are now impossible. The real quest begins. But what is this entity? Answer: the only brute fact that exists and here are its characteristics. So one brute fact is not nonsense. Why, because it is necessary to explain existence and answer the question, "Why does anything exist?"
Aside: what does infinite mean? We use it in many different ways: time, power, knowledge, space are a few. But what does "infinite time" mean? It means there was alway a before when what exists was different, a little or a lot. But suppose there was an existence that never changed, what does that mean? It is a really perplexing question but to me it means that the entity that did not change does not exist in something we call time. It exists but does not change so time is meaningless. Is this what we call eternity?
Hi Pat, I hope you are having a blessed Sunday, thank you for sharing those videos. I will have to check out that Orthodox debate. I am not sure if they get into this, but can you explain to me the Thomistic understanding of how beings participate in God without becoming God's essence?
All of creation must participate in God in some way, given that apart from God there is simply nothingness, and it is impossible for something to participate in nothingness. In Thomism, the essence of God is being itself. Just by being a being, all beings necessarily participate in being itself. But then if being itself is the essence of God, it appears that you are saying all beings participate in God according to essence, which would mean all beings are some instantiation of the essence of God, which is to say they are God. And I assume you do not want to say that.
In the Thomistic/Aristotelian unactualized actualizer proof, we can infer that God is intelligent because He possesses the forms/ideas which we see instantiated in material things around us; God has the form of tree, of stone, etc given that what exists in the effect must exist in the cause in some way. Obviously you do not want to say God has the forms by being them, but nevertheless in Thomism you say God is what He has and that God also has all the forms which we observe in the created world.
All the forms we observe must exist in God. If there is nothing else to God besides the essence, then they must exist in God's essence. It is impossible to participate in merely "part" of God's essence because the essence has no parts. Thus to participate in the essence at all is just what it is to be God. So then it seems inescapable that you are saying any instantiated form is instantiating the essence of God.
The way to avoid this is the essence/energies distinction. God is being, but not merely being. Being is an energy of God, so to participate in it is not to participate in the essence of God. Similar to how fire is light but not merely light, and heat but not merely heat. Something can participate in fire's heat without being fire itself, and this is because heat is not the essence of fire. Yet heat and light are not "parts" of fire either, for each is wholly representative. It must be something similar with how we participate in God as beings.
Let me know if you do not like comments like this and I can stop, I don't mean to annoy you
Something I just wrote on evil at another site. I have written over the years on this topic and the following is a quick summary.
-----------
I personally argue that the concept of evil may not be as significant as it is often portrayed.
This article focuses specifically on moral evil, not natural evil. The question arises: what exactly is evil? Despite its frequent use, I have yet to come across a definition that withstands scrutiny. Many people deem something evil if it is deemed unwanted. In instances of natural evil, they often blame God when no human action is involved.
Consider a finger bruise. It is certainly unwanted, but should it be labeled as evil? It results from my finger being in a wrong position, not from anyone’s intention. Should I then attribute this to God, who could have intervened?
While a finger bruise seems trivial, a life-ending tumor in a four-year-old is a completely different matter. If we reject labeling the bruise as evil, how do we delineate the point on the spectrum between minor injuries and catastrophic illnesses where evil begins?
Moreover, could it be that some unwanted things serve a greater purpose, allowing for the existence of something desirable? Perhaps removing these unwanted elements could create a more profound issue.
In the new film “Red One,” there’s an ambitious attempt to eradicate every unwanted act. Wouldn’t such an objective itself be classified as unwanted?
If we believe in God, we must accept that this world aligns with His greater objectives. Shouldn’t we strive to understand those purposes instead of simply labeling experiences as evil?
Take Hitler, for instance; he is often mentioned as the epitome of evil. But why is that? He is responsible for countless deaths, yet would the German people’s perspective change if they had emerged victorious in World War II? It’s noteworthy that a statue of Tamerlane—history’s greatest mass murderer—still stands in Tashkent. Is this a matter of irony or a testament to human nature?
Ultimately, the Christian God guarantees something far greater that diminishes our concerns over what we call “evil.”
I would look for a simple explanation for so called "divine hiddenness" and evil.
For the first, I would ask whether there could be a meaningful life with QED knowledge of God? I doubt it because our existence would be meaningless if there were. I do not believe having a meaningless life is an objective of God. I offer this cartoon as obvious proof of this.
https://condenaststore.com/featured/new-yorker-april-11th-1977-george-booth.html
Second, the word "evil" is probably the most misused word in the English language. (I would offer "love" as the second most misused word) I suggest that all who use evil, define it first before they use it. The most common use is unwanted circumstances and as such anything in this world of imperfect circumstances would then be evil. For example, a paper cut would be evil no matter how slight it is. Certainly not a life threatening cancer but both are unwanted.
So anything less than a perfect world would be evil. That eliminates everything in our existence.
The other concept explored in connection with these two concepts is something called "non resistant atheism" which implies that those who don't believe would willingly believe if only they were presented with the logic and evidence. This is an absurdity as my contact with atheists is that they are strident in their beliefs even if they cannot support them. But this concept mainly indicts believers who are apparently so stupid that they cannot explain why they believe. It actually makes believers the ignorant ones, not the so called non-resistant atheist.
So this is another concept that is a non-starter.
I will post this again. Brute facts are nonsense!
The reasoning is such that an 8-year-old can fully understand it. It concerns the most fundamental assumption of logic, namely that something is either A or is not A.
For this discussion, the topic is existence and why anything exists, which is the oldest known question. The "A" is either “existence had a beginning,” and the "not A" is “existence had no beginning.” Any fact, called “Brute” or “mysterious “ or something else, has to exist in one of these two domains. Let me know if there is a third possibility because the 8-year-old and I cannot imagine any.
So, our existence has a beginning, or it has existed forever.
Now, in the latter, what must have existed? The answer is everything physically possible. If something didn’t exist and was physically possible, explain why it didn’t exist. It’s not for lack of time. So, any fact called brute “must” have existed in this infinite past. If some are evident to us now, like our current universe, they are just examples of inevitability given enough time. Was Bertrand Russell just stupid? Or more likely, intractable?
So now we are left with imagining anything possible. The 8-year-old says that there must have been unicorns. His dad says they are imaginary, but he says why is it not possible for them to have existed at one time? I agree.
And there is the time I missed the foul shot that would have meant our team would have gone to the playoffs. Was there a time in the past when I made this shot? Of course, I also became an All-American, too.
So, infinite regress leads to the above, and an infinite number of other absurdities come up. We must dismiss infinite regress as absurd, but this means that existence had a beginning.
To make existence have a beginning or option "A" above, seem silly we can say that existence just popped into being. Poof, here comes existence. Hey, but let's look more closely at this poofing.
It cannot come from nothing or we have nothing creating something let alone amazingly coherent complexity. So something must have existed. What is this something?
We are now at the beginning but what does this beginning imply? A lot of people are intractable when it comes to thinking about this beginning or the something that caused it.
It exists, and it caused our existence. Then, we examine what kind of essence this entity must have to exist and the power to create other existences. This is step 1.
We are at step 1, and atheism, agnosticism, and materialism are now impossible. The real quest begins. But what is this entity? Answer: the only brute fact that exists and here are its characteristics. So one brute fact is not nonsense. Why, because it is necessary to explain existence and answer the question, "Why does anything exist?"
Aside: what does infinite mean? We use it in many different ways: time, power, knowledge, space are a few. But what does "infinite time" mean? It means there was alway a before when what exists was different, a little or a lot. But suppose there was an existence that never changed, what does that mean? It is a really perplexing question but to me it means that the entity that did not change does not exist in something we call time. It exists but does not change so time is meaningless. Is this what we call eternity?
Hi Pat, I hope you are having a blessed Sunday, thank you for sharing those videos. I will have to check out that Orthodox debate. I am not sure if they get into this, but can you explain to me the Thomistic understanding of how beings participate in God without becoming God's essence?
All of creation must participate in God in some way, given that apart from God there is simply nothingness, and it is impossible for something to participate in nothingness. In Thomism, the essence of God is being itself. Just by being a being, all beings necessarily participate in being itself. But then if being itself is the essence of God, it appears that you are saying all beings participate in God according to essence, which would mean all beings are some instantiation of the essence of God, which is to say they are God. And I assume you do not want to say that.
In the Thomistic/Aristotelian unactualized actualizer proof, we can infer that God is intelligent because He possesses the forms/ideas which we see instantiated in material things around us; God has the form of tree, of stone, etc given that what exists in the effect must exist in the cause in some way. Obviously you do not want to say God has the forms by being them, but nevertheless in Thomism you say God is what He has and that God also has all the forms which we observe in the created world.
All the forms we observe must exist in God. If there is nothing else to God besides the essence, then they must exist in God's essence. It is impossible to participate in merely "part" of God's essence because the essence has no parts. Thus to participate in the essence at all is just what it is to be God. So then it seems inescapable that you are saying any instantiated form is instantiating the essence of God.
The way to avoid this is the essence/energies distinction. God is being, but not merely being. Being is an energy of God, so to participate in it is not to participate in the essence of God. Similar to how fire is light but not merely light, and heat but not merely heat. Something can participate in fire's heat without being fire itself, and this is because heat is not the essence of fire. Yet heat and light are not "parts" of fire either, for each is wholly representative. It must be something similar with how we participate in God as beings.
Let me know if you do not like comments like this and I can stop, I don't mean to annoy you