Argument against God’s existence refuted

I saw this meme arguing for God’s non-existence on Facebook and decided to respond below:

At first glance it may seem like an air-tight argument that would be tough for the theist to refute. But in reality it’s nothing new and has numerous problems.

I have no qualms with saying God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect. Therefore I don’t have qualms with anything that necessarily follows from God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and perfection.

But the argument falls apart when it is asserted that “evil exists.” I can already hear the objections: “You’re saying evil doesn’t exist? Haven’t you ever studied history, read the news, or even stepped outside your front door before? Of course evil exists!” I have done and continue to do all of those things, but hear me out.

It is clear that people can commit and suffer evil acts such as killing, lying, stealing, committing adultery, and so on. Those are examples of moral evils. It is also clear that people suffer from evils such as hearing or vision loss, viral infections, diseases and illnesses of all sorts, and so on. Those are examples of natural evils.

What moral evils and natural evils have in common is the deficiency or lack of something good. When we kill or steal from someone, we fail to treat that person as they ought to be treated, namely as beings with the right to life and property or, more generally speaking, as ends in themselves. And when someone is afflicted by a terrible disease like ALS, they lose inherently good things such as muscle strength, basic motor functions, and eventually life itself.

Now, by virtue of the fact that we can only define evil in terms of a lack of something, namely something good, it is therefore rendered impossible for evil to exist as such, that is, as a substance. This is why nothing can be “pure evil.” In all acts of evil there is a modicum of good perceived by the evildoer, and thus no one commits evil for its own sake. Even serial killers or mass murderers don’t serially kill because it’s evil, but because they get some sort of good out of it, whether it’s feelings of pleasure or power or justice. Pleasure, power, and justice are all objectively good things, but a) the ends don’t justify the means and b) the desire for as well as the perception of these goods is disordered. Just because there are some perceived goods that the killer is trying to obtain, doesn’t make killing someone good. I’m merely using this example to show that one can never define or describe evil without reference to good. Good exists per se, but evil does not exist per se. It’s like order and chaos. One cannot understand chaos without reference to order. Order exists per se, but chaos does not. Does that all make sense? I hope so.

I’m not quite done yet, however. As I’ve shown, the proposition “evil exists” is not true, and therefore the rest of the argument cannot work. Let’s still take a look at it anyway because our atheist meme maker can easily substitute “moral and natural evils” for “evil” into his argument.

So, with that being said, the final premise before the conclusion asserts that if God were actually omnipotent and morally perfect, He would have the desire and capability to eliminate moral and natural evils from the world, but because people still commit and suffer from moral and natural evils, God is either not omnipotent or morally perfect and, either way, cannot exist.

This is still wrong because it attributes moral and natural evils to an all-good God. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfect, God necessarily has to be good. But if God is the source of moral and natural evils, He would not be pure goodness, which would render Christianity and theism in general incoherent and downright false. So from whence does moral evil come? The free will of human beings. And what about natural evil? I would stay consistent with the Christian tradition and attribute the existence of natural evil to the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden, though this is a doctrine of revelation and not of natural reason. So because that is the case, I shall set it aside at this time.

Now I could provide a defense of free will, for I imagine most atheists deny its existence and would still not remain fully convinced that my argument works and their argument doesn’t. Perhaps I will do it at some point as a follow-up post, but I will definitely do it if someone asks me to. For now, though, all I will say concerning free will is that it necessarily absolves God of any responsibility for the existence of moral evil. One objection could be that since God created human beings with free will, He created human beings that could sin and therefore commit acts of moral evil, which would still implicate God in moral evil’s existence. It is true that God created human beings this way, though He is still not implicated because He created human beings with an intellect and a will, that is, the necessary conditions for moral agency or responsibility. Thus when human beings act in a morally evil manner, they are fully responsible for that action.

And lastly, God has a permissive will and an active will. God’s permissive will allows moral and natural evils, while His active will does not will these evils. God can allow evil because a) He is not the primary cause of evil and b) because He is all-good, He will always make good out of evil. That’s why Christians believe in the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and the Beatific Vision—when the new creation will bask in the glory of God, unimpeded by the limitations of sin and evil, which God will put an end to once and for all.