Abstract
In this chapter, I consider whether dropping the assumption that the God of traditional theism is a moral agent can avoid a logical argument from evil against the existence of God grounded in the fundamental requirements of our morality that are captured by the exceptionless minimal components of the Pauline Principle.
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Notes
- 1.
I will use “Davies” for “Davies interpreting Aquinas” unless otherwise indicated.
- 2.
- 3.
Still, metaphorical statements do purport to be true and informative. Think of our use of metaphor/simile in physics. We say the atom is like our solar system, claiming that its nucleus is like the sun and its electrons are like the planets orbiting around the sun.
- 4.
There are impure or modified forms of divine command which find the standard of morality in God’s nature such that even God could not go against that standard. One such theory, defended by Robert Adams, maintains that what is right is determined by the commands of a loving God. See Adams (1979, pp. 66–79). But the important question to ask here is whether God’s commands are to be understood not to conflict with the morality that God presumably imbedded in human nature. Only pure divine command theory would maintain that they would so conflict. So from now on I will use “divine command theory ” to refer to “pure divine command theory .”
- 5.
The problem of evil also cannot even get started on a subjectivist account of morality. This raises the question of what John Mackie , who was a moral subjectivist, thought he was doing when using the problem of evil to challenge the existence of God. See Mackie (1982). The answer seems to be that he saw himself as just arguing from the objectivist account of morality that theists accept.
- 6.
See, for example, Ockham (1979).
- 7.
Nor should he because as I have argued on pure divine theory the problem of evil is simply denied. Plantinga in his debate with Mackie knew he could not use this approach to solve the problem of evil.
- 8.
God could, of course, change our nature so that what was good for us would correspondingly change. For example, God could make us such that if you put a knife into my chest, I would immediately die and then spring back to life again with tremendous pleasure. Then the law of nature for us would be different, and God’s commands and action toward us would presumably change to reflect this difference in our nature.
- 9.
It might be objected that natural law only applies to beings in virtue of their belonging to a certain kind or kinds and God does not belong to any kind of being, and so natural law does not apply to him. Nevertheless, God is said to be rational and it is in virtue of his being rational that the same (moral) natural law applies to God as to ourselves.
- 10.
If God could easily prevent horrendous consequences of our wrongful actions without causing greater harm or failing to achieve a greater good, it could not simply be a matter of supererogation whether or not he does so. That would not be the case for us and it should not be the case for God.
- 11.
This is because God, if he exists, would have to be permitting all the significant and especially the horrendous consequences of immoral action of all the great villains in the world in addition to all other such consequences that occur in the world.
- 12.
For example, no scientist today thinks that rocks seek their own good.
- 13.
Here too we have to allow for exceptions. We, for example, are not seeking our own good when we act out of whim or act neurotically.
- 14.
This is a very troubling aspect of Davies’s view. In The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil and Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil, Davies repeatedly claims that in effect God cannot be held responsible for the evil in the world because he does not will evil as an end itself. But I argued in the text that it shows nothing of the sort since the same holds true of the worst of moral criminals throughout human history.
- 15.
The wolf ultimately would die by starvation and the deer would die more immediately and more violently. However, as species, the wolf and the deer can flourish together, with wolves pruning deer of their weakest members and deer pruning wolves of their most ineffective hunters. Yet as individuals, when they come into serious conflict, they are engaged in a deadly zero-sum game.
- 16.
There is no other possibility except that we could act in both ways with respect to different consequences of our action.
- 17.
Again, it is worth noting that the course of argument we are pursuing here is available only to a deontologist who thinks that there could be exceptions to the requirement never to do or permit evil that good may come of it or that sometimes the end will justify the means. An absolute deontologist would summarily reject this line of argument and therefore would immediately be led to the conclusion that God does not exist. Here I am assuming that the absolute deontologist is mistaken about this. Later, however, I will base my argument on specific moral requirements that are acceptable to both consequentialist and deontologists alike, including absolute deontologists .
- 18.
See Aquinas (1947, 1A 2.3 Ad. 1). We also have scriptural support for the view, “God works in all things for the good” (Romans 8:28).
- 19.
- 20.
First put forward by Thompson (1985, pp. 1395–1415).
- 21.
Now one might interpret preserving the life of the innocent would-be victim in this case as the “greater good,” but this would render the standard tautological. It would be preferable to say that pursuing the greater good is not morally justified in this case, or that in this case pursuing what would otherwise be a greater moral good is not morally justified. However, God, given the unlimited options available to him, could always meet such constraints without sacrificing any greater good.
- 22.
See the previous endnote.
- 23.
This will imply that someone who can easily make such a provision will have an obligation to provide the relevant goods.
- 24.
Again, this will imply that someone who can easily make such a provision will have an obligation to provide the relevant goods.
- 25.
As it should be, these moral requirements apply to us as well as to God, although our ability to prevent is obviously different.
- 26.
Note that consequentialists can accept the constraint of this minimal component of the Pauline Principle because it has a consequentialist as well as a nonconsequentialist justification.
- 27.
This is because they think that it may be logically impossible for God to prevent the evil consequences of both such actions.
- 28.
See the argument for this in the previous chapter.
- 29.
Consequentialists and nonconsequentialists would both accept this requirement at least as it applies to God for whom there would always be viable analogous goods he could provide that would not require permitting significant and especially horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions. See, for example, to discussion of Matthew Shepard in Chap. 2. Moreover, to claim that it may be logically impossible for God to provide analogous goods without permitting significant and especially horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions would make God impossibly less powerful than ourselves.
- 30.
Again, note that consequentialists can accept the constraint of this minimal component of the Pauline Principle because it has a consequentialist as well as a nonconsequentialist justification.
- 31.
This is because theists think that there may be no logically possible alternative way for God to provide for such goods that is morally unobjectionable.
- 32.
See the argument for this in the previous chapter.
- 33.
For further argument, see Chap. 2.
- 34.
Given the previous argument that God should eliminate the need for second-order goods of either type, there is no need to consider such goods here.
- 35.
Here the example focuses on global justice.
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———. 2011. Thomas Aquinas on Good and Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Sterba, J.P. (2019). What If God Is Not a Moral Agent?. In: Is a Good God Logically Possible?. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05469-4_6
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