Abstract
The Evil God (EG) challenge alleges that because arguments used to support belief in a Good God (GG) can be mirrored by the EG hypothesis, then belief in the former is no more reasonable than belief in the latter. Thus, there is an epistemic symmetry between both hypotheses. This paper argues that one of the EG’s secondary traits, specifically his maximal possessiveness, would render it very likely, if not certain, that the EG would not create anything at all. By contrast, the GG would very likely create. Consequently, the existence of anything non-divine would generate a significant asymmetry between the hypotheses—one that favors the GG hypothesis. Moreover, strategies to overcome this argument fail, and as such, the EG challenge is severely undermined.
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28 June 2022
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09836-z
Notes
Naturally, God has more traits than these, but these are sufficient to articulate for our purposes.
For example, Law (2010, p. 373) says: “While I acknowledge the possibility that the evil-god challenge might yet be met, I cannot myself see how.”
See Alvaro (Forthcoming) and Miller (Forthcoming).
Page and Baker-Hytch (2020, p. 504) add that when they “try to think about what such a wholly evil being’s psychology would be like,” they are “unsure that EG’s creating would be very likely.” This paper agrees, but for different reasons than Page and Baker-Hytch articulate.
Page and Baker-Hytch (2020, p. 504) and Miller (Forthcoming, p. 10).
In an earlier draft of this work, a reviewer worried that the term “possessiveness” was the wrong one for this definition, as one can only possess what is not oneself. Yet this seems wrong to me. For instance, I possess my consciousness, even though it is inescapably part of me and is internal to me. But even if the objection has merit, it is irrelevant to my argument if possessiveness is understood in my updated manner, meaning an unwillingness to share what one could share, whether it is something external or internal to one’s self. This is because (as will be argued) the EG possesses certain internal things, like being itself, that he could share, but which he never would because of his possessiveness.
And note that this is not merely a Western idea, for the principle of non-possessiveness (aparigraha) is incorporated in some way in the Vedic, Buddhist, and Jainist religious traditions and is regarded as “a common moral duty” to be “followed by all irrespective of their class, caste, gender, etc.” (Katarniker, 2018, p. 392). Philosopher Siddheshwar Rameshwar Bhatt (2021, pp. 47–48)—who defines possessiveness as “excessive passions and consequent attachment to objects, both internal and external”—writes that non-possessiveness “is the most important principle of Jain ethics and for that matter of entire Indian ethics.” He adds that possessiveness is “vice” and “a great hinderance in virtuous living” (ibid., p. 49). Thus, viewing possessiveness as a negative trait crosses cultural boundaries.
If someone wishes to argue that abstract objects—i.e., causally effete objects—might exist necessarily and thus possess being without creation by the EG, then the discussion can simply be focused on concrete objects, along with the understanding that the EG’s maximal possessiveness would make him unwilling to share being with any concrete objects that he could create.
As with possessiveness, if the maximally evil being did not hate and despise everything, then I could conceive of an even more evil being: namely, one that did. Thus, all other things being equal, any being that hated and despised everything—including, ironically, himself—would be more evil than one that did not, and so, plausibly, a maximally evil being—like the EG—would need to hate and despise everything.
Conceptually separating God’s will and power, Thomas D. Senor (2006, pp. 427–430) argues that a GG could be considered omnipotent even if His will prevents him from taking certain actions, liking committing a sin. This is because an intentional action requires both the will to do it and the power to carry it out, so the GG’s inability to sin stems from a lack of will, not a lack of power. A similar argument could be used for the EG, meaning that the EG (and the GG) might have the power to do certain things that he nevertheless would never do.
Page and Baker-Hytch (2020, p. 503) also argue that the GG’s loving nature, and the nature of love itself, would be a reason that the GG would likely create other beings.
O’Connor (2012, pp. 116–122), for instance, argues that a GG would create many universes, even an infinite number.
While this analogy may seem far-fetched, that is precisely because we know that human beings are not maximally possessive, and so John’s behavior seems ridiculous; however, if John was maximally possessive concerning money, then he really would not share any of it—not even a nickel—regardless of the personal cost, or lack thereof.
I say trillions because I include all the life-forms that exist or have existed in our world, as the EG would ultimately have been responsible for giving them both existence and various other traits if he created a world like ours.
For instance, Exodus 20:3–6 tells the Israelites not to bow down or worship idols because God is a jealous God. This suits the understanding that God’s jealousy is the type that arises because someone He loves, namely the Israelites, start “liking” (i.e., worshiping) something other than Him (namely idols).
Moreover, even if both the GG and the EG were jealous in this sense, there is a further distinction that could be made: namely, between “protective jealousy” and “possessive jealousy.” Someone who is protectively jealous is jealous out of a selfless sense of concern for someone else, whereas someone who is possessively jealous is jealous from a sense of selfishness and self-interest. Imagine, for instance, a mother who is very concerned about protecting and keeping her children away from “friends” who emotionally and psychologically abuse them. Such a mother is clearly jealous in our most recent sense of that term, but she is jealous for the sake of her children, not for herself. By contrast, a mother who protects and keeps her children away from their friends because she wants to keep all of her children’s affection and attention for herself is selfishly jealous; she is jealous of her children for her own sake, not theirs. Or think of a man who is very concerned about keeping and protecting a famous painting that he owns because he wants to share its beauty with as many people as possible over the coming generations; however, another man with a similar painting is also very concerned about keeping and protecting his painting, but he does so because he wants the maximal number of people to know that the painting is his and to shower praise on him. Clearly, the former man has a selfless and morally praiseworthy form of jealousy, whereas the latter’s jealousy is selfish and morally questionable. And the difference between such cases is obvious. Consequently, when applying this distinction to the GG and the EG, even if they were both jealous (in our current sense of that term), the GG would be protectively jealous without being possessively jealous, while the EG would be the opposite. Indeed, since the EG is maximally evil, he could never be selfless, and so he would never possess the protective jealousy that the GG would. And since both these beings are omniscient, they would both know the exact line between these different forms of jealousy, with the GG always maintaining protective jealousy without any possessive jealousy, and the EG always maintaining the converse. Thus, the attempted equivalence between the GG’s and the EG’s form of jealousy fails, while simultaneously doing nothing to undermine the argument from maximal possessiveness against the EG.
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Miksa, R. Maximal possessiveness: A serious flaw in the evil God challenge. Int J Philos Relig 92, 73–88 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09831-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09831-4