Why does God allow evil to exist? Possibly evil is necessarily connected to goodness. Maybe in order for us to have goodness, we must have evil as well. Or, maybe we need to have evil in order to understand what good is and to appreciate it.
NOTES
The Problem of Evil
- 1. If God exists, He could prevent evil
- S1: all-powerful & all-knowing
- 2. If God exists, He would prevent evil
- S1: all-good
- So, 3. If God exists, evil doesn’t exist
- 4. Evil exists
- So, 5. God doesn’t exist
The Manichaean Defense
- 1. Evil is necessarily tied to goodness such that, in order for good to exist, evil must exist
- 2. It is good for there to be goodness
- So, 3. Possibly, God allows evil for there to be goodness
- O1: false ex hypothesi
- God is all good and exists before anything else, so good is possible without evil
- O2: counterexample
- A world with one good thing and nothing else
- O3: ontological link is questionable
- 1. Manichaean View posits a necessary connection between the existence of good and the existence of evil
- 2. There is no good reason to think such a link exists
The Epistemological Manichaean Defense
- 1. Propositional knowledge can at best yield theoretic understanding of the good
- 2. Experiential knowledge yields appreciation and enjoyment of the good
- So, 3. Experiential knowledge is ceteris paribus better than propositional knowledge
- So, 4. Possibly, God allows evil so we can appreciate and truly enjoy the good, whereas without it we wouldn’t be able to
- O1: entails that sin is good
- R1: we can experience evil w/o committing evil
- Though it would still be the case that your experiential knowledge is good, the deed would still be bad overall
- R1: we can experience evil w/o committing evil
- O2: I would rather just trust God about goodness rather than get experiential knowledge of evil
- R1: even if it’s not what you prefer, it could still be good and therefore something God would allow
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