God and Evil

ittarter said:

I agree. However, a further question would be to ask, if evil has no objective or metaphysical existence, if this is then also necessarily true of good. Therefore, would it be right to say that good and evil are conceptual categories in our minds, and apart from the power of the human mind to split the universe into binary opposites, good and evil do not exist?

And if that is the case, do we not place ourselves above the ethical system(s) meant to rule us, becoming its master? And does not religion begin to unravel?

Forgive me, I am advancing in leaps and bounds, but I wanted to present the ultimate destination of my train of thought, and see if perhaps there was somewhere to stop along the way.

Click to expand...

Good question, ittarter. I would say that good does, in a manner of speaking, have ontological existence, although I would not separate it from the ontology of God, as if it were something "other than" God (in the same way that the creation is "other than" God).

My reason for arguing about "evil" in the way that I do is that our doctrine of God must be such that we are able to maintain the eternality and self-sufficiency of God at all times. If evil is the "opposite" of good, which good is eternally essential with the nature and existence of God, then we must conclude that evil--as an opposite--is somehow on an equal ontological playing field. In such a scenario, we wind up with either 1.) two eternally existing Gods (which violates the "God is One" principle) or 2.) two eternally self-negating principles, resulting in a classic Adamsian "Poof!"

However, if we understand evil not as something which "exists" (and is therefore "opposite" of and existentially equivalent with good), but rather as something which is only conceptually understood as the diminution of good, we are free of the logical malady which the acknowledgment of the existence of evil would afford. We still, of course, are left with the limitation of language; nonetheless, I think the distinction is critical.