The incoherence of the philosophers

While logic can´t prove or disprove anything empirical, it can of course reveal that a certain worldview is incoherent. Here is a classical example:

- God is omnipotent. Therefore, he could eradicate evil.

- God is omniescent. Therefore, he knows that evil exists. 

- God is all-good. Therefore, he wants to eradicate evil.

- Yet, evil exist.

- Ergo: The God-concept of the Christian I´m arguing with is incoherent.

Note, however, that many atheists assume that the conclusion really is "God doesn´t exist", rather than just "this God-concept is incoherent". Let´s be blunt: God hasn´t been disproven by this logical line of argument. Perhaps our understanding of "all-good" (the usual point under discussion) is faulty. Perhaps God is all-good in a way we can´t fathom. Perhaps God really is incoherent. Why must he be coherent? By whose standards? The Biblical god doesn´t strike me as particularly "coherent" by the standards of human philosophy! It´s a tacit assumption of the argument above that God must be "good" in the same way as humans. Where does the Bible say that he is? Nowhere, as far as I can tell. 

The argument is also dependent on the Christian agreeing with the atheist definition of "good" and "all-good". Presumably, a good god should heal amputees. Or COVID patients. At the very least, he should give Third World evangelical converts an opportunity to work themselves up into the American middle class. If a Christian questions this definition of all-good (many don´t), they are immidiately attacked along the lines of "such-a-God-is-not-worth-worshipping", showing that the "logical" argument is really a form of rhetoric, nothing more. 

Remember: the point of the exercise supposedly isn´t to ascertain whether or not such a god is "worth worshipping", but whether or not *he exists at all* (or - even more narrowly - whether the god-concept of some boring Anglican theologian is logically coherent or not). So it turns out that the supposed logic is really a misotheistic scream against a god one ostensibly doesn´t believe in, a very different thing, surely one best analyzed by psychology. Or is it a scream against the Christians making all these God-claims? That´s sociology.

Here is a logical argument for the Christian god-concept:

- God is omnipotent, omniescent and all-good.

- The meaning of these statements must be derived from his unique revelation.

- The Bible is God´s unique revelation.

- God wants to eradicate evil. However, he doesn´t fight evil like a man.

- God fights supernatural evil in supernatural ways. 

- God has decreed that human governments should fight natural evil. This will never work completely, since natural man is fallen.

- God has promised to one day deliver the entire world from evil once and for all.

- We know that his words are true, since he resurrected Jesus. He has also given his saints supernatural powers. 

- Therefore, the atheist argument fails. There is no incoherence between calling God all-good and calling him omnipotent/omniescent.

There doesn´t seem to be any logical fallacies in the above. Yet, the argument nevertheless seems patently absurd. But ascertaining why is an *empirical* question, not a "logical" one. 

:-P 

Now, read this:

The Problem with Theodicy