Could God Be Evil? Crushing the "Evil-God Challenge"

That "well" joke was so bad that maybe there Is some merit to the problem of evil

This whole debate rests on an unanswered implicit question, that is: "what is evil?". Usually we think as "evil" as a form of corruption, destruction, or perversion of something that "is", and therefore it is a positum, a "good". To destroy/corrupt/pervert something it implies that that something previously "is". This "challenge", at least seems to me, posits that for the sake of theodicies "good" and "evil" are interchangeable words, whereas they're different in essence, and evil is a parassitary concept in regards to good. That is the augustinan ponerology (from the greek "poneros": a polysemantic word that meant evil, bad, useless, vile...). A God that is "evil" should be constantly destructing/corrupting/perverting, and that would be impossible without a previous act of creation. That should require a God that changes, so it is not immutable, so it should be inside the stream of time and change, and therefore not the ultimate God, but "a" god, more akin to the demiurge of the gnostic traditions (the origin of the whole "creation is an act of evil" approach). Following this line of reasoning, it seems to me that this "evil God challenge" would violate the principle of divine simplicity too (but I admit I should think more about this argument).

Good stuff! It'd be nice to have more videos like this and fewer videos about demon-hunting and whatnot.

I’m speaking as a Christian, but I feel as though the guests are talking from a higher philosophical/theological perspective when the average Christian is not. When they say, “Who is defending these viewpoints? People say they’re common, but I’ve never heard people actually say that,” they seem to not be thinking about the little guy. I believe some of the things they are saying they’ve never met people who believe. This, of course, does not mean I’m right and they’re wrong, or that the higher understanding of philosophy is better or worse or whatever. But it seems like they are only reading the higher stuff and are not as in touch with those who are at a lower level

I wonder if anyone has tried to make an argument that the theodicy project itself is paradigmatic of theism’s flexibility as a hypothesis. There are so many different theodicies, all of them seem compatible with theism, theists disagree on which ones work and which don’t. Definitely an issue if your hypothesis isn’t well defined enough to spit out expectations about this

I got jumpscared by beardless Cosmic Skeptic

When I was younger (“moody teen” sort of age), I pondered whether God hated me and wanted me to suffer. (Good times would obviously be to raise my hopes, so he could dash them later, or give me something to make my bad moments seem worse.) Looking back much later, I decided that an omnipotent being who simply wanted me to suffer, would have to be really incompetent to give me such a “mediocre” life.

1:01:26 "On all of them theism is favored over maltheism" It's really disappointing guys. Because this is the claim that he needs to defend to address the evil god challenge right ? And this is precisely the claim that he never defends ! Why does he think that theism is favored over maltheism with regards to limits ? Why does he think that theism is favored over maltheism with regards to simplicity ? Why does he think that theism is favored over maltheism with regards to homogeneity ?

Always thought this was such a cool question, although I highly doubt that God could be evil. I take the option of God maybe being evil as an actual possibility (I think that good arguments can be given for the impossibility of an evil God, however I'm not quite convinced that it's necessary to show that, in order for us to reasonably rule out God maybe being evil) Basically, for me, it came down to what I would expect if God were evil and how that would impact what I thought was worthwhile. I think that things like charity, love, self sacrifice, etc. are things that one should want and recognize as something desirable. If someone doesn't see that, then there seems to be something in me that just intuitively senses that something is off with that person (I feel like the vast majority of people feel the same way). This is exactly what I would expect if God were good. I would expect an inclination to see those things as worthwhile in and of themselves and something that should be sought after. If however, God were evil, I'd expect just the opposite. I'd expect myself to see things, say something like cruelty, as something worthwhile in and of itself, and something that one should find desirable. I would also expect to find in myself an inclination of something being off with someone who desires to be kind, compassionate, charitable ect. As far as I can tell this doesn't fall prey to the counter arguments that I've heard people give. Now I wouldn't say this is like indisputable or something like that, but I do think it's more easy to see than giving an argument for why there's some contradiction with God being evil (at least for me it is😂)

Alex O’Connor is Right. In fact every Atheist objection to every Theodicy put foward thus far is Right, because they all(Theodicies) either directly attribute or at least imply that God is Evil. I put forward another challenge: present another Theodicy, one that doesn’t directly attribute evil to God either by design or omission and guess what I guarantee you a great reward, which is that all eyes and ears will turn to you in great number…

You should reference the debate you hosted which is on Alex's channel entitled "DEBATE: Could God be Evil | Alex O'Connor vs Max Baker-Hytch"

Thanks for your great work Cameron. God richly bless you

49:44 "Good god is simpler than evil god" ... What ?... I really wish he would have defended that because that seems obviously false. There is nothing "simpler" about a good god compared to an evil god...

30:17 "The gap problem" Isn't that funny how atheists talk about the "god of the gaps", only to discover that theologians actually have a "gap problem"... And behold ! It's actually the same problem : since theists use god to fill all the "gaps", and since the different gaps underdetermine any entity, there is no specific god that they can assert on purely metaphysical grounds... Which is why two millennia of theology couldn't create a single ounce of consensus among theists...

Capturing Christianity, awesome video it was really entertaining

Perry Hendricks and Justin Mooney, this is going to be cool.

We could take a philosophical step back and ask: Is evil a thing, or is evil a ghost? Meaning- is evil a created thing in itself or is it merely the absence of good? This kind of ties to “what is hell”— is it a place of pure evil or total absence of good? And is there even a practical difference? I can’t help but notice one curiosity in that we base everything on “if n, then !n” which is duplicity, the “binary”- applies to all things in existence except for existence itself. If there’s good there has to be evil, an inversion to the version. If there’s no cold then there’s no hot because without cold there is no such thing as hot. There is no dark without light because if the contrast doesn’t exist then there is just the one, and therefore no differentiation (in simplest, reductive consideration). This kind of thinking. The inverse must exist or the subject doesn’t. So why is it that like- we can say well for existence to exist, then non existence has to exist. Because if not existing wasn’t a thing then existence wouldn’t be a thing without a contrast. This is ages old, the yin and the yang. This seems to only apply to the internals of creation and not the creator or creation itself. There’s no life without death. And if there’s no death then how do we even define life other than “is”— that’s kind of how I interpret God saying I AM. There is no “not God” or lack of God- maybe this is a permutation of the first cause argument? At some point you have to stop the infinite iterations and recursion and hard stop: OK this is where the beginning is, or this is— and it escapes logic that snares everything within. So that all said this comes back around to the problem of good and evil. Is evil a thing, or is evil merely lack of good? Did God “create” evil, or is it merely a shadow, a void- God only created good, but in a universe that must have a compliment, we say that God created evil, but is this an artifact of the differential between inside and outside of creation? God created only good but there has to also be an absence of good, therefore there is evil, which is only a shadow and not a truly created thing? Let’s ask this. If I scream, did I create the scream? Yes. If I don’t scream- did I create the “no scream”, or is that just a product of existence? Is action the same as inaction? If I don’t save you, did I k-ll you? I’m quite positive I didn’t just create some new philosophical paradigm here but certainly this has been considered ?

I guess I am still wondering how a malicious God is simpler than a benevolent God. The argument cited from Swinburne is: "if you've got a being that's all-powerful and all-knowing... [Swinburne] thinks therefore that being will do the best thing in any situation unless there's some non-rational force that affects it -- that motivates it to do something else, and that could be like a desire." (As cited by Justin Moody) If we are supposing that God wouldn't be subject to desires, that would also include a desire to be benevolent towards humans as well as a desire to be malevolent to humans. If we are going with simplicity, I don't think their argument broke the symmetry of benevolence and malevolence in the first place, and I think that a morally neutral God would be simpler still. Could someone help break that symmetry in favor of a loving God?

Is that Owen Wilson?

‭Psalms 34:8 LSB‬ [8] O taste and see that Yahweh is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Jesus lives ♥️ and is God 🙏🏻 Christ ✝️ and King 👑