Good, Evil and (?)Indifferent God Challanges

post by Szymon Kucharski · 2021-03-02T13:57:50.908Z · LW · GW · 3 comments

This is a question post.

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Let's assume for the sake of discussion, that some form of the omniscient, omnipotent, personal creator of the universe(s) exists. (I do not hold that assumption, I am curious about some logical implications and correlations of what I am going to describe, everything here is a thought experiment)

Many people have wondered about the problem of evil. Why evil, and suffering is probably the most obvious example, exists in the world created by an Omnibenevolent God. You can find some theodicy trying to "justify" the existence of a benevolent God. Relatively recently, dr. Stephen Law popularized the conception of a perfectly evil God, an entirely malevolent being. You could read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_God_Challenge
There are also a few videos made by Alex O'Connor on his YouTube channel CosmicSkeptic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLnsY5io964
Both Good and Evil God challenges seem to be symmetric.

 Line of argumentation we can use trying to make one of the reasonings more probable can be as well used to do so with the second one. 

Translation results It may follow from this that we should attribute equal probability to the Concepts of a Perfectly Good and Evil God, assuming that he is at the end of the spectrum of classically understood good or evil. This could mean that we are living in either the best or the worst possible world, with a 50% probability.

I would want to ask is there a 3rd logical possibility,  the indifferent God "hypothesis". In such a world, God would not care about the suffering and well-being of sentient creatures at all. I think it could be a logical option. In that case, our certainty of God being good would be about 33,3%, which doesn't look impressive to me. 

I would tend to assume that suffering and well-being do not have to even be something God (understood as a personal creator of the universe, with omnipotence and omniscience) would think about as important. We could assume that for God minimizing suffering and/or maximizing well-being is no, and never was a priority. Actually, that option is believed by Christians, where suffering is not intrinsically bad, and the highest good is not hedonistic well-being, but God's Love and His Will. In our imagination, we can make that will be (probably) whatever we want so that God's goal is neither to reduce suffering (and/or maximize well-being) nor the salvation of faithful or most loving ones, but for example courage, rationality, egoism, cruelty, stoicism, love for animals, ecocentrism, caring for the future, consumerism or delight with the cosmos. Of course, they have much in common (some are more compatible with good God, some with Evil one), but the world where one of the features would be an absolute priority for God would be very different (like an extremely dangerous world in which courage could blossom). We can also imagine a mind that would attribute more value to the diversity of the universe (or universes), for example, diversity of experiences in that universe(s).

We can also imagine a very abstract (or maybe not so abstract, just not anthropocentric) being, caring for example for amount of neutrinos, bacteria, or of creating more black holes or fewer spiral galaxies, rather than creating fewer neuronal circuits to feel pain or more brains that are altruistic, or "love" its creator. 

Thinking that way, maybe it would be more rational to assume that the Good God "hypothesis" is of a very small probability.

As an atheist, It is not personally important to me,  but I see that as a potentially valid way of reasoning and maybe arguing, and also an interesting intellectual gymnastic. In the margin, I apologize for my English.

Let me know what do You think of that topic.

Comment: I defined God as an omniscient, omnipotent, personal creator of the Universe(s). I think the "Chaotic God" hypothesis could be an option, yet most theists assume God is unchanging. We can also imagine God does not want to create the best or worst world, but maybe "a bit good world" or "a slightly net negative world", or the world of perfect net harmony. There is also an option God cares about much more than one feature, for example, he wants to maximize both well-being and the number of brave minds, so our world is the best world for both those options together, but not the best for any of them alone. The number of God's priorities can be huge, and I think one should not assume there is only one God's goal in that sense. We can imagine we are created by other beings than God described above, by many gods or we are a simulation, yet this is not my point here to argue about the potential goals of that other beings.  

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