THE ARGUMENT THAT EVIL IS GOOD WHEN GOD DOES IT OR PERMITS IT
Christians and others offer reasons why God might be justified in letting
terrible evil happen.
We hear of Christians and Muslims who say that if God could rape or commit child
abuse then it is good when he does it. This is the notion that evil is good when
God does it. Few accept that view for it amounts to saying that if God could
become man then that man has the right to rape and murder little girls for fun.
It is desperation when you would condone human suffering with an excuse like
that. What does it say about you? An excuse like that shows you have no moral
compass at all.
Some should go as far as to say that if God says you must not murder the
innocent then if you can do it that is a sign that he permits it and so if you
do it then you are exempt from the rule.
Those who say that God makes good good and who say that child rape would be good
if he commanded it give the impression they are telling us what God tells us to
do but not what he would do. But he is evil and worse than us if he gives such
commands in the first place. His not doing things personally means nothing for
he is doing something: giving bad commands and even promising to reward them if
they are obeyed.
Some say, “God’s goodness is infinite so his goodness is different to what
correct reason sees as goodness. Praised be the Lord!”
This is what religion has got to believe if it wants to believe in God in spite
of the injustice he has thrust upon the world and lets happen. Religion offers
us a God who makes doubt a sin though it cannot be, who took out our sins on
sinless Jesus and who punishes the unbaptised for a transgression they had
nothing to do with. In brief, it presents a being to whom the evil he performs
is good and who carps when anybody practices what he practices.
An infinite line is still a line so infinite goodness is not goodness so great
that it becomes evil.
God recognises some things as evil for they do pointless damage. If avoiding the
most harm is good then it is always good.
The argument that malice or harm is good when God does it is, in reality, a
repudiation of the real existence of good and evil. Good is reduced to a
meaningless term that includes some of that is good and what is evil and pure
black evil could be good in its estimation. Good is made out to be something
that exists solely in the demented mind of God.
The theory belittles those good souls who have suffered. And so is the
suggestion of some that we should suffer for we could suffer far more and ought
to be grateful we can suffer as much as we do. That things could be worse but
are not does not mean that they could not or should not be better.
The evil is good when we are talking about God excuse is sometimes disguised as
the doctrine that God is not a human being and does not have to follow our moral
rules or values. The booklet God and Evil says that since God is not part of the
world but the maker of the world he cannot be judged by our standards. It
actually says that if he could have made saints but didn’t he was right to even
though it would have been best to make saints (page 9). It quotes Romans 9:20
where God’s word says that the potter has the right to make some items for
menial use and others for honourable use in its favour. Believers in the excuse
say that scientists who could make babies in the lab are bad if they make blind
babies and should make perfectly healthy and physically well babies. But if they
are right that God is right to make blind babies for he owes the babies nothing
then an interesting question arises. How do they know that God isn’t inspiring
and requiring the scientists to make blind babies? The scientists cannot be
condemned. The excuse then destroys human morality and decency. It endangers
belief in right and wrong. Babies are persons not things and not even a God can
have the right to make sick babies. To make a baby blind, God has to make forces
to cause this blindness. Blindness is not just the absence of sight. God makes
evil.
So the excuse argues that parents have different duties from nurses and so God
has different duties from people. This is really saying that God has no duties
at all because the law is that the best must be done and this is saying he does
not have to keep it. And nurses and parents are doing what is best or hoped to
be best in different ways and if there were nurses but no parents or parents and
no nurses the world would be a worse place.
Karen Armstrong used to agree with the excuse. She said that God’s morals could
be different from ours so that God and his love could be terrifying (page 65,
The Case Against God). The Church should teach this more so that people would be
turned off religion for life and be seen for what it really is.
When religion says that God is beyond or above good and evil that is what it
means so when we call God good we do not know what it means (page 48, Arguing
with God; page 25, The Problem of Pain). This reduces prayer to God to prayer to
a Devil. It makes faith a curse.
The only excuse left is that evil is a mystery. The only real mystery is why
people fall for it. It is just a hidden way of saying that evil is not evil when
God is behind it. It is used even by those who say we can know what God should
do even if we cannot know how he has to work in particular situations.
The believers admit that they do not and cannot base their faith in God on the
evil they see in the world (page 32, Asking Them Questions). That is as faulty
as believing in the goodness of a sadist because a few people praise him and
excuse him to you while paying less heed to the awful things he does. To condone
the mercilessness of a God whose ways cannot be justified is no different to
condoning that of a tyrant on earth. Correction: it is worse because people have
different ideas and opinions which is why if you ask any number of people what
the right thing to do in a particular situation is they will give a wide range
of different answers. Despite this, the tyrant gets nothing but condemnation.
The pope gets praise while he murders women by banning contraception for they
are too afraid and too conditioned to disobey him – he may say that conscience
is the ultimate guide but adds that no conscience consistent with Catholic dogma
would disagree with him for the ban is in tradition. God gets an even more
dedicated torrent of praise which is a worry for no excuse for him works. Many
will rightly see this praise as offensive even if religion is right that God
does right because this cannot be proved meaning it is still unjustifiably
offensive. Priests and clergymen don’t worry much about that. You cannot condemn
the tyrant when life on earth is fraught with difficult decisions and good deeds
that look evil when one does not know all the facts while God gets applauded for
setting up worse evils without declaring your hatred for humankind.
It is evil to fail to take an intolerant attitude towards the malicious abuse of
another. Evil by definition is intolerant. We should not care about any good in
it or any good results that may come from it in time. Religion is based on the
evil of condoning God tolerating evil just because he say so. He does not allow
us to admit that we are condoning. Evil and what it means matters and God
matters not an iota in comparison. How can I say that? It is more important when
we see how people can be degraded by evil to define what evil is. It is bad so
it needs it and it is needed for the people suffering need a diagnosis of their
tormentor. And so do those who care for them.