-1

The Argument from Evil is a class of arguments which purport that the existence of evil is incompatible with the existence of God.

But this presupposes what evil means. And usually, the proponents of the argument already have a definition for evil. But why should their definition of evil matter?

For example, if some person is tortured until death but ends up going to heaven, perhaps that is not evil according to God or someone else. Even if every single person on earth thought that was evil, it would beg the question: why does their definition of evil matter?

It seems that you can’t validate anything in this argument without presupposing that God wouldn’t do what you consider evil. But I fail to see how one could define good and evil objectively hence this seems like a weak argument. Why is this argument even taken seriously?

  • The argument survives because people are human. Generally people have a sense of right and wrong even if they can't logically support it. So an argument that illogically caters to feelings is still persuasive. – Matthias Jan 07 '23 at 02:35

1 Answers1

1

I suppose the argument would have been developed in the days in which Christians believed in an all powerful god and considered that evil was defined not by man but by the word of god. Given that, the argument would effectively say that there was something illogical in the idea of an almighty god who condemned evil but did not use their almighty powers to eradicate it or prevent it from existing in the first place. I would be surprised if anyone took it seriously nowadays.

Marco Ocram
  • 20,914
  • 1
  • 12
  • 64
  • It should be noted that people still take it very seriously. Well known scholar Bart Ehrman claims that that's his primary reason for deconversion. – TKoL Dec 12 '23 at 13:29