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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Attributing world badness directly to God undermines God's goodness

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.God is essentially good
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Accidents, natural catastrophes, and disorder are bad
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.A wholly good being cannot be the ultimate cause of bad things
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Plato's Timaeus establishes that a perfectly good Demiurge cannot be the source of evil, making goodness and evil-causation logically incompatible in a divine being.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.If God is the direct cause of natural evils like earthquakes and disease, God's goodness becomes indistinguishable from malevolence, collapsing the concept of divine goodness entirely.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 3.Plutarch's dualist theology demonstrates that positing a separate principle for world badness is more coherent than attributing contradictory causal powers to a single good deity.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aquinas's privation theory holds that evil is an absence of good, meaning a perfectly good God can only produce being and goodness, never directly instantiate privation.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

    • 2.Direct divine causation of catastrophic natural evil would require God to intend privation, which contradicts the Anselmian conception of God as that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
      ?

      Think about whether this reason is strong or weak

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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.