Edit to add: If you’re interested in the concept of an evil God in the context of Christian beliefs I recommend reading “Answer to Job” by Carl Jung. He doesn’t exactly make the Christian God evil but ascribes moral failings to God and frames Jesus as the redemption of God instead of the redemption of man.
Neither of those are necessarily true. For an Abrahamic god, sure, but one can certainly conceive of a god that doesn’t define good and evil, and a god that defines good and evil and doesn’t define itself as good.
These things aren’t well-defined, so you’re certainly welcome to, but I think most people would consider an omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe to be a god and not a spirit.
Somewhat off-topic, but there’s this line of thought, which multiple Christian thinkers have come up with throughout the centuries, called the Ontological Argument. It basically tries to prove the existence of the Christian God with only pure logic, no axioms involved.
Proofs without axioms don’t exist elsewhere, so take the following with a massive grain of salt, but basically it goes:
God is a maximally good being. Existence of a maximally good being is itself good. Therefore, God must exist.
Aside from this being circular reasoning, it also involves a massive axiom: The existence and definition of good vs. bad.
But with your point, we can advance the argument even further:
Defining what’s good is good.
That way, we get twice the circular reasoning, but no axioms anymore. 🙃
Philosophical, not logical. The actual axiom is still 'god exists."
Defining what god must be, rather than defining what would qualify as a god, assumes there is such a thing as god.
Example: The cat god is a being that is a better cat than any other imaginable cat.
Compared to: A god would be all-powerful. This being, x, is all-powerful. Therefore, x is a god.
Compared to: There exists a cat better than any other cat. This cat, being greater than all others must be the god of cats. (Does this qualify as an omnipotent ‘god’? No, but at least the cat is provable.
Defining what’s good is good.
Adam and Eve were canonically cast from heaven for being able to define good and evil.
Philosophy needs to be logical, in my opinion. Otherwise, you’re just making up bullshit with no connection to reality.
Which, yeah, not wanting to have any axioms, does lead to that. It’s just reasoning around in a circle, but there’s no logical path to get into that circle.
Adam and Eve were canonically cast from heaven for being able to define good and evil.
I mean, sure, but then we just need to give a slightly different wonk to our circular argument:
As a maximally good being, only you know what's good, so defining what's good is in itself a good deed.
But yeah, obviously this is just nonsense. I just find it hilarious, how much argumentation you can layer on top of itself, without actually providing a logical statement.
There is no reason to believe that a higher power cares about the concepts of good and evil to begin with. Taking a walk through the woods seems like a morally neutral activity, but all of the insects you crush along the way might view you as evil for what you do to them.
Isn’t the god supposed to define what good and evil even is, and wouldn’t therefore any monotheistic god be “good” by definition?!
Socrates answered this. If morality is objective or has an objective basis then it is necessarily independent from any God or god’s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma
Edit to add: If you’re interested in the concept of an evil God in the context of Christian beliefs I recommend reading “Answer to Job” by Carl Jung. He doesn’t exactly make the Christian God evil but ascribes moral failings to God and frames Jesus as the redemption of God instead of the redemption of man.
That’s what people say, but in practice people have their own ideas and just project them on to god.
Neither of those are necessarily true. For an Abrahamic god, sure, but one can certainly conceive of a god that doesn’t define good and evil, and a god that defines good and evil and doesn’t define itself as good.
I don’t think I would even call a being like that “god”, more like “evil spirit” or something.
These things aren’t well-defined, so you’re certainly welcome to, but I think most people would consider an omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe to be a god and not a spirit.
That’s only one (narrow) definition of a god.
To take a well known example, is Loki “good”?
It’s the definition monotheism employs though, and Loki is from a polytheistic pantheon.
All good, The comment I replied to has been edited to specify monotheism after I wrote my reply.
Yea sorry for that, I had the same thought as you right after I posted my comment.
Somewhat off-topic, but there’s this line of thought, which multiple Christian thinkers have come up with throughout the centuries, called the Ontological Argument. It basically tries to prove the existence of the Christian God with only pure logic, no axioms involved.
Proofs without axioms don’t exist elsewhere, so take the following with a massive grain of salt, but basically it goes:
Aside from this being circular reasoning, it also involves a massive axiom: The existence and definition of good vs. bad.
But with your point, we can advance the argument even further:
That way, we get twice the circular reasoning, but no axioms anymore. 🙃
Philosophical, not logical. The actual axiom is still 'god exists."
Defining what god must be, rather than defining what would qualify as a god, assumes there is such a thing as god.
Example: The cat god is a being that is a better cat than any other imaginable cat.
Compared to: A god would be all-powerful. This being, x, is all-powerful. Therefore, x is a god.
Compared to: There exists a cat better than any other cat. This cat, being greater than all others must be the god of cats. (Does this qualify as an omnipotent ‘god’? No, but at least the cat is provable.
Adam and Eve were canonically cast from heaven for being able to define good and evil.
Philosophy needs to be logical, in my opinion. Otherwise, you’re just making up bullshit with no connection to reality.
Which, yeah, not wanting to have any axioms, does lead to that. It’s just reasoning around in a circle, but there’s no logical path to get into that circle.
I mean, sure, but then we just need to give a slightly different wonk to our circular argument:
As a maximally good being, only you know what's good, so defining what's good is in itself a good deed.But yeah, obviously this is just nonsense. I just find it hilarious, how much argumentation you can layer on top of itself, without actually providing a logical statement.
There is no reason to believe that a higher power cares about the concepts of good and evil to begin with. Taking a walk through the woods seems like a morally neutral activity, but all of the insects you crush along the way might view you as evil for what you do to them.