God Shoulda Created an All-Good Universe

An Absurd Atheist Remedy for the Problem of Evil

Many atheists argue that, if God has foreknowledge, He should have created a universe in which evil would not exist. The argument has multiple non sequiturs.

• Evil is not a thing that "exists." As darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good and therefore the rejection of God. 
  
  
• The argument assumes that preventing His rejection (i.e., creating a vacuum that constitutes “evil”) would have been better than what He did create. 
  
  
• Using the word “better” makes a moral judgment based on either the atheist's mere personal preferences, which have no authority, or a standard the atheist rejects, God's goodness. So the atheist has no foundation on which to say one thing would be "better" than another.
  
  
• The argument assumes that no higher purpose exists that justifies God's allowance of His rejection. For example, it ignores that, in an all-good-always universe, love, mercy, and grace would be meaningless, and no creature would, by nature, be worthwhile for God to have a relationship with.
  
  
• In an all-good-always universe, only one option exists: God's perfect will. Any other choice would be non-compliance and, therefore, evil. If non-compliance with the perfect were an option, evil would happen. But if evil cannot happen, only one option exists. Thus, choice would be non-existent. Love, mercy, grace, and any other good would be meaningless because they would be forced. In fact, love, mercy, and grace would not exist because they would not be needed.
  
  
• The argument assumes that temporary material existence, not an everlasting spiritual existence that takes into account things done during material existence, is the correct courtroom in which to judge God’s plans. 

The argument is often accompanied by a claim that God created imperfection or evil. That is like saying that if I build a house and my client rejects me by vandalizing the house, I made a vandalized house. Like the main argument, it’s logically absurd. 

Copyright 2021, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. For your own conscience's sake, please give credit where credit is due. (You do know what remunerated means, don't you?)

The Problem of Evil

I'd appreciate comments on this potential explanation of the problem of evil.

Atheists often ask how a good God could allow evil to exist. They usually toss out the rhetorical question as though it were a proof, indicating to me that the majority just parrot each other and don't think nearly as deeply as they think they do. A valid argument could be something like, If God is good, then evil must offend Him. God allows evil, so God must not exist.

Rather than point out the flaws in that, I'd like to show that evil is a necessity. The flash of insight that inspired this fit of writing was that free will requires randomness in the universe, and randomness inevitably causes evil. Since I'm currently reading William Lane Craig's Reasonable Response, I had to develop the idea in the style of a logical argument.

I'm not trained in philosophy, so please be charitable.

Starting assumption

Judeo-Christian teaching that God created man to have meaningful, loving relationship with God.

A. Free will was necessary

1. If actions such as love and praise are to have value, the agent giving them must have free will. 
2. The purposes for which God created man included man loving God.
3. Therefore, when God created man, man had free will.

B. At least some events are random

1. Free will cannot exist in a deterministic world.
2. Man had free will.
3. Probabilistic events occurred.
   

Note: By saying the world was probabilistic, I mean only that determinism was not total. That is, a probabilistic world has randomness, but physical laws or a Creator's part-time interference can influence events.

Lemma 1 -- The current age

Once probabilism is established, it is no longer necessary to use the past tense.

C. Non-preferred events must occur.

1. If events are probabilistic, then some will be disadvantageous to man.
2. Probabilistic events occur.
3. From man's perspective, disadvantageous events occur.

D. Extreme disadvantageous events must occur.

1. If events are probabilistic, some disadvantageous events will be extremely disadvantageous moral behaviors.
2. Events are probabilistic.
3. Extremely disadvantageous moral behaviors occur.

E. Evil must occur.

1. If extreme disadvantageous moral behaviors occur, then according to objective morality, evil occurs.
2. Extremely disadvantageous moral behaviors occur.
3. Objective morality exists.
4. Therefore, evil must occur.

Summary

For God and man to achieve meaningful, loving relationship, evil must occur.

Lemma 2 -- After Judgment Day

Once God has established meaningful, loving relationships with all the people whom He intends to save, the eventual elimination of probabilism and evil by transforming the world into a new heavens and a new earth becomes consonant with God's purpose.


Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler