Did God create evil?
This video is actually much theologically deeper than one might assume. When Christian theologians try to solve the problem of evil (), this is, I think one of the best (but no tonly) argument. God did not CREATE evil, because evil is not a thing, but the ABSENCE of something – that is, the absence of good.
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St. Augustine maintained that evil has no objective existence in itself, but is, rather, merely the absence of good. Sometimes I wonder about this. What does the boy above mean by "exist"? Does it mean something we can apprehend with our senses? In that case, then darkness and cold exist. Or does he mean something which can be measured with scientific instruments. In that case, they don't exist, but are merely baselines from which we measure light and heat. I wonder, however, can we apprehend light without the surrounding darkness, or heat without the cold it interrupts? If there were no contrasting darkness or cold, would we even know light or heat were present? Similarly, without evil would we have any coherent notion of goodness?
It's also hard to argue that cold or dark or, even, evil is merely an absence because they are so potent. After all, they may result in madness or death. Can anything with such potential be said to have no existence?
I think the professor in the video gave up too easily (and his argument about God and evil was too facile as well). He simply let the boy speak without questioning him. If, however, we grant the analogies as being valid, then we could also argue that we could not know good without also experiencing evil. As with Adam in the garden, we would be "innocent," that is, not fully human – like unto the animals. Perhaps an enviable state but not one we can ever hope to attain. Seen this way, evil may be an absence of good, but it is a necessary one, for without it we could never know goodness nor be attracted to it, never know God nor be attracted to Him, and never feel the obligation to fight evil, both in the outside world and within ourselves.
One of the things about evil I find interesting is that there isn't more of it. One of the best arguments for the existence of a good and just God is that there is any goodness or justice in the world at all, that evil isn't the norm. Having studied mankind all my life, I think it's a miracle that there is goodness at all, and that we have a notion of goodness, and feel indignant or repulsed when confronted by evil acts (most of us, anyway). Nature, red with tooth and claw, seems to have no notion of it. In my view, we only become fully human when we confront evil and seek to overcome it in ourselves. We cannot do this with something which has no existence.
>> LOUIS: In that case, then darkness and cold exist. Or does he mean something which can be measured with scientific instruments. In that case, they don't exist, but are merely baselines from which we measure light and heat.
I think we are measuring the presence of absence of ONE thing (light, goodness, heat). The absence of the positive thing is not the presence of the other. It is nothingness.
>> LOUIS: Can anything with such potential be said to have no existence?
Again, perhaps cold and evil have no potential, but that the potential of the background universe, that is, the pull towards nothingness, is merely what is there when God/life/light is not.
Maybe that's what hell is. Maybe God existed in cold nothingness for eternity past? In hell?
>> LOUIS: I think the professor in the video gave up too easily (and his argument about God and evil was too facile as well). He simply let the boy speak without questioning him.
True. The precocious child (and I hate them in sitcoms) is not real, nor is a professor who would take such a challenge. I'm sure such a prof who so boldly teaches his atheist view to kids would be much more vociferous in response to challenges.
>> LOUIS: If, however, we grant the analogies as being valid, then we could also argue that we could not know good without also experiencing evil.
I'm sure philosophers have argued around that tree. Makes you wonder, however, how heaven will be pleasurable if there is no pain. But then again, maybe the 'we wouldn't know pleasure without pain' argument is invalid – though I've heard many Christians use it as a defense against the problem of eevil.
>> LOUIS: One of the things about evil I find interesting is that there isn't more of it. One of the best arguments for the existence of a good and just God is that there is any goodness or justice in the world at all, that evil isn't the norm.
Yes, and this has been codified as the problem of good (the second link is youtube debate footage between D'Souza/Hitchens, and D'Souza pulls the 'problem of good' attack).
Interestingly, as ex-Christian now atheist evangelist John Lofton remarks, if the problem of good is bad for atheists, the problem of evil is bad for theists, and vice versa.
>> LOUIS: In my view, we only become fully human when we confront evil and seek to overcome it in ourselves. We cannot do this with something which has no existence.
I agree, evil does seem to have some reality in it's ability to infuse itself in our persons, and it may even be personified in demons and the Devil.
If God is good, and evil is the absence of good, then wherever there is evil, God isn't there. Just when you need God the most, too.
That was a good post. :)
I always liked that, too :)
:-)