this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus
~~Ackshually~~ it was probably not Epicurus, but Sextus Empiricus. From the surviving writings it seems Epicurus was really not fond of Atheists.
(Doesn’t change that it’s a great argument, I just hate that we don’t have a definite source for it)
As an atheist I take issue with Epicurus statement, which gets floated around a lot. I think it's because in Epicurus's framing of the universe evil has agency, whereas christian apologetics will respond with evil representative of a lack of goodness. Then there's the issue of free will to contend with.
I'm not sure I follow. If you see evil as "a lack of goodness", the argument stand. If he's benevolent, why is goodness not everywhere?
I mean, the answer I've heard from apologetics is the benevolence is a paternal type of benevolence. Kind of like a parent who will let their child touch a hot stove so as to not deprive them of free will. I'm probably doing a terrible steel man of the position because I don't quite buy it
I love the mental gymnastics of that argument, you start asking what do they mean by that statement, and they start spewing bullshit like some parrot.
If goodness supposedly has agency because of God, when why evilness wouldn't have it? Supposedly it also does, because of the devil. If good and evil don't have agency, then it's just karma and there is no God or devil.
Well yes ok. But the way I've heard I described is evil is a lack of goodness the same way darkness is the absence of light. There is no "non-light", there is less or more light.