(August 21, 2023 at 7:57 am)Belacqua Wrote:(August 21, 2023 at 7:15 am)FrustratedFool Wrote: Isn't the idea of an omnimalevolent God as reasonable as an omnibenevolent God, and doesn't a reverse theodicy work just as well to justify the problem of good as the problem of evil?
And if so, isn't this a reductio ad absurdum argument against theism?
If you posit that God is omnimalevolent, I suppose you'd have to solve a reverse version of Epicurus's challenge:
Is God willing to prevent good, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able to prevent good, but not willing? Then he is not malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh good things?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
The same defeators of the logical problem of evil could be used for the problem of good (freewill defence; soul making; morally sufficient reason).
The evidential problem seems even easier to refute, since it seems good is less intuitively gratuitous than evil.
For my response, I'd just say that Evil-God is able to prevent good but prefers to allow it so that the sum total of suffering will be even greater in that people will know what they're missing, and have formed love connections to others, to make their eternal suffering all the worse.
