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    Premise (4)—that if God is morally perfect, then God has ... — Carmelics
    Home/Problem of Evil
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Premise (4)—that if God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil—is questionable.

    Problem of Evil
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.A morally perfect being optimizes for the best achievable world, not the elimination of every local bad, as Leibniz argues in Theodicy.
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    • 2.Moral perfection requires acting on the all-things-considered best outcome, which may require permitting evils that constitute necessary conditions for greater goods.
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    • 3.Therefore, desiring to eliminate all evil would itself be a moral imperfection if doing so would destroy outweighing goods.
      ?

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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aquinas holds that God's goodness is expressed through the ordered whole of creation, not through maximizing the welfare of each individual part.
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    • 2.An agent whose desires track only part-level elimination of harm, rather than whole-system flourishing, exhibits a deficient rather than perfect moral will.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.It seems possible that there might be evils that are logically necessary for goods that outweigh them.
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    • 2.If some evils are logically necessary for greater goods, a morally perfect God would not necessarily desire to eliminate all evil.
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    Problem of Evil

    Related

    A morally perfect being optimizes for the best achievable world, not the elimina...An agent whose desires track only part-level elimination of harm, rather than wh...Aquinas holds that God's goodness is expressed through the ordered whole of crea...If some evils are logically necessary for greater goods, a morally perfect God w...
    +3 moreShow less
    It seems possible that there might be evils that are logically necessary for goo...Moral perfection requires acting on the all-things-considered best outcome, whic...Therefore, desiring to eliminate all evil would itself be a moral imperfection i...

    Similar

    If some evils are logically necessary for greater goods, a morally per...89%It is not true that a perfectly good being would want to eliminate all...83%This, together with (2), (3), and (4), entails that God has the power ...81%Given the existence of evil, an omnipotent and omniscient person would...81%

    Source

    AI-extracted3/3 agreementValid
    SEP: evil
    View source passageHide passage
    It seems possible, then, that there might be evils that are logically necessary for goods that outweigh them, and this possibility provides a reason, accordingly, for questioning one of the premises in the argument set out earlier—namely, premise (4), where it is claimed that if God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: The extracted argument faithfully captures the passage's reasoning: the possibility of evils logically necessary for outweighing goods undermines the claim that a morally perfect God would desire to eliminate all evil, thereby attacking premise (4).

    Confidence: High confidence. The text explicitly presents this as a reason for questioning premise (4).

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit