God is not benevolent

The argument

In Theism, God is an all-powerful, knowing and good deity. Within the human condition, which God dictates, evil is present and prevalent. The existence of evil is contradictory to God’s benevolence, so God cannot be benevolent. This argument takes from 'modus tollens,' a logical proof that implies where a benevolent God exists, evil cannot. Because evil exists in the world, God is not benevolent and cannot exist. The presence of evil makes the existence of an all-good God improbable, given that the principles of good and evil are diametrically opposed. This contradiction between the presence of evil and the presence of an all-good God renders the existence of a benevolent God impossible. An oppositional argument comes from Theism, which argues that evil can exist in the presence of God because God allows evil in carrying out the greater good or lesser evil. In response to the Theist approach, one can introduce a line of inductive reasoning. An all-powerful God can prevent natural evils in their entirety. Based on the evidence that evil exists, God either cannot prevent evil or cannot perform good without sacrifice. As such, the probability of the existence all-good God is unlikely.

Context

God is characterised by omnipotence, omnibenevolence and omniscience, terms that imply an all powerful, all good and all knowing depiction of God, coexistent with humans who believe God to be as such.

Premises

Counter-arguments

To assess the nature of God by removing it from a theist context, such as the use of logical or evidential methodology, is to argue for the case of God with non-believers. There can be no satisfactory answer to the question of God’s benevolence if one does not believe in the fundamental nature of God, whether it exists or not. By definition, God is the absolute in all facets of power, virtue and knowledge. Those who believe in its existence would thereby categorise it with these qualities, whether evidence or logic suggests against or for it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The two claims conflict only given a further premise the argument never defends: that an all-good and all-powerful being would permit no evil for any reason whatever. That is exactly what theodicies dispute, so the premise assumes the conclusion of the debate it is entering. [Rejecting P2] Modus tollens is invoked but not carried out, since the conditional it requires is asserted rather than established, and the argument then shifts to a probabilistic claim, which is a different and weaker form. The dilemma it poses also omits the standard third option — that some goods may be unavailable without the possibility of evil — leaving the free-will and soul-making replies named in the sibling positions unanswered.