The normatively relativised logical argument from evil

Abstract

It is widely agreed that the 'Logical' Argument from Evil (LAFE) is bankrupt. We aim to rehabilitate the LAFE, in the form of what we call the Normatively Relativised Logical Argument from Evil (NRLAFE). There are many different versions of a NRLAFE. We aim to show that one version, what we call the 'right relationship' NRLAFE, poses a significant threat to personal-omniGod-theism-understood as requiring the belief that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good person who has created our world-because it appeals to value commitments theists themselves are likely to endorse. The ultimate success of this NRLAFE will rest on developing a theological ethics of right relationship that rejects as morally flawed the exercise of omnipotence first to sustain horrors and then to redeem them. Yet a vindicated NRLAFE of this sort need not require atheism, but only rejection of the standard conception of God as a personal omniGod.

Understanding the atheism phenomenon through the lived experiences of Muslims: An overview of Malaysian atheists

“…was the most frequently asked question (Elshinawy 2019). In line with these arguments, Bishop and Perszyk (2011) and Blackburn (2018) argue that it is logically inconsistent to believe both God and evil exist. If God is omnipotent, God can avoid any evil he intends to avoid, and if he is morally perfect, he wants to avoid any evil possible.…”

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“…We first proposed this kind of argument in Bishop and Perszyk (2011), and revisited it in Bishop and Perszyk (2016).…”

On the Significance of Assumptions about Divine Goodness and Divine Ontology for ‘Logical’ Arguments from Evil

“…When such deep disagreement does ensue, we will get what Ken Perszyk and I have called a 'normatively relativized logical argument from evil' (NRLAfE) (Bishop and Perszyk 2011). That is to say, it may be evident that, if one endorses such-and-such an ethical principle as essential to divine goodness, then certain actual evils logically could not have occurred had the world's creator been an all-powerful and morally perfectly good intentional agent, yet no such incompatibility obtains if that principle is held not to be entailed by divine goodness.…”

“…If all those concerns could be met, a further question to which Perszyk and I have drawn attention still needs considering: could a God who first allows people to suffer horrors and then ultimately brings them into eternal relationship with him have acted so as to form the best kind of overall inter-personal relationship with those persons? We have envisaged a NRALfE according to which, granted a certain stance in relationship ethics, an omnipotent person who presides over the whole suffering-and-redemption scenario as described by Adams would fall short of perfect goodness in relationship with others (Bishop and Perszyk 2011). Adams would reject our intuition that God would not be placing himself in right relationship with created persons if he acted in relation to participants in horrors as she thinks he does-after all, this is a 'logical' argument from evil which is relativized to moral assumptions about which deep disagreement is possible.…”