Evil Exists! Therefore, God Does Not Exist = Very Bad Logic!!
Published by Stephen Michael Leininger in Stephen Michael Leininger · Monday 16 Oct 2017 · 25 minutes
Tags: evil, exists, so, God, doesn't, why, does, God, allow, evil, to, exist
Tags: evil, exists, so, God, doesn't, why, does, God, allow, evil, to, exist
Evil Exists! Therefore, God Does Not Exist=Very Bad Logic!!
This Blog written by Stephen Michael Leininger
STOSS Books
Posted: 10/16/2017
Updated: 08/07/2026
Down the Yellow-Brick Road of False Logic
The title of this blog points to an argument very often used
by atheists and agnostics to try and prove that a good God does not exist. It
is also a question many God-loving people struggle to answer. How can a good
God allow evil to bring so much misery and suffering into the lives of those he
supposedly loves? Another variation of this logical fallacy is this: If there
is a good and all-powerful God, then he would be powerful enough to remove evil
and suffering from the world. Since he doesn’t, he is not good and
all-powerful. Therefore, there is no God.
What’s the bad logic I refer to? To begin with, it is impossible to prove universal
or absolute non-existence, unless the one making the argument against the
existence of God was God, which would be a contradiction. Such an endeavor
would be classified as a futile exercise of fallacious logic. Those who employ
it are trying to sneak the argument in under the radar of right reason.
Atheists who invoke this argument are trying to use a variation of the
straw-man tactic.
The proponents of this tactic present us with a false,
fictional, and non-existent man (or any other entity) instead of the real man
(or any other entity). Then they attack the straw-man, hoping that we will
interpret the straw-man as being the real man (entity). The above debate uses,
shall we say, the straw-god tactic. They present a God to us who creates evil
as well as good, does not really love those he creates, and is not powerful enough
to “uncreate” the evil. This is a god that does not exist, nor does any
Christian believe it exists.
The premise can only be entertained by those whose knowledge
of a Triune God is seriously lacking. Let’s begin to rectify that now. Much of
the following is an excerpt from The Science & Theology of Salt in
Scripture, Vol. I.
God is a Trinity That Always Expresses
Now we’ll talk about the real God
instead of the straw-god. God is a Trinity of three Persons which are in an eternal and
unceasing relationship. In other words, it is essentially a relationship that
is alive. Better yet, it is a relationship that IS life. Let’s say that I walk
up to a street corner and stand by another person who is also waiting for the
light to change. If neither of us communicates with the other in some way
(e.g., looking at each other, making a facial expression, talking to each
other, etc.), then we are related because we are both part of the human family,
but we are not in relationship—there is no living relationship. Aquinas writes,
“The very nature of God is goodness . . . Hence, what belongs to the essence of
goodness befits God. But it belongs to the essence of goodness to communicate
itself to others.”[1]
Fr. Martin von Cochem writes:
From all eternity, before anything was made, God magnified Himself, and the three divine Persons rejoiced in Their majesty and grandeur.. . . This is shown in the revelations of St. Mechtilde, to whom Christ said: ‘If thou desirest to honor Me, praise and magnify Me in union with that most excellent glory wherewith the Father in His almighty power and the Holy Spirit in His loving-kindness have glorified Me from all eternity, in union with that supreme glory wherewith I in My unsearchable wisdom have glorified the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity, and wherewith the Holy Spirit in His ineffable goodness has magnified the Father and Me from all eternity.’[2]
Notice that Christ, speaking through St. Mechtilde, is
employing verbs to describe the Trinity. God is eternally expressing, doing,
and communicating. St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (circa 1274) develops an
understanding of the Trinity that revolves around four themes. They are: 1) the
theme of beatitude, goodness, charity, and joy. He tells us that these cannot
be achieved in a God who does not pour himself out completely; 2) the theme of
perfection, which entails the begetting of a Person of the same nature, i.e. Divine fruitfulness;[3] 3)
the theme of simplicity; and 4) the theme of primacy, which, from a
metaphysical standpoint, indicates the fullness of the source. This primacy
designates the fruitfulness and the “wellspringness” of primordial
reality.[4]God is pure act. There is nothing of Him that is potential.
God is perfect and eternal.[5] Bonaventure concludes, “In God,
this fecundity [fruitfulness] relative to God can only exist in
act [emphasis added].”[6]
Referring to John 1:18, Benedict XVI tells us, “Only the one
who is God sees God—Jesus. He truly speaks from his vision of the Father,
from unceasing dialogue [all emphasis added] with the Father,
a dialogue that is his life.”[7] St. Hildegard writes, “For
this life is God, who is always in motion and constantly in action [emphasis
added].”[8]
Is Creation Itself an Expression of God?
Scripture gives us the answer. In Genesis, we read, “Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26, cf. 3:22-23). There is
much that can be gleaned from these ten words. This is not simply an idle
conversation between the Three Persons of the Trinity. First, they are in
dialogue about creating and the design of that creation. They are ‘dialoguing’
about how man is to be created. Second, they are telling us that all three,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are involved in creation. The unity of the
Trinity is such that absolutely everything God does is accomplished through the
actions of all Three Persons.[9] Third and last, because all Three are
involved, we can conclude that all creation is an expression proceeding from
the Trinitarian dialogue.[10] Simply put, God speaks
creation into existence.[11] The ramifications of this will become clearer when
we talk about the consequences of the fall of man.
The psalmist wrote, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he
commanded, and it stood forth” (Ps 33:9; cf. Ps 33:6, 104:30). In the Book of
Judith we read, “Let all thy creatures serve thee: because thou hast spoken,
and they were made: thou didst send forth thy spirit, and they were created,
and there is no one that can resist thy voice” (Jdth 16:17 DRA). This verse is
like the previous, but it adds another component. God sends the
Holy Spirit, and the creatures were made. Furthermore, a “voice” is something
that only occurs when an expression is sent out. A voice is not involved in a
thought that is not sent out. All sending/sending outs are
expressions. All ‘works’ are an expression, whether it be of God or of
man. In Ps 8: 3-4, 6, the heavens are the work of God’s fingers, and all God’s
works are under the power of man.
Since all creation is an expression of a good God, it
follows that creation reflects the knowledge that God has of Himself. The
result of the Father’s knowing Himself is the generation /begetting of the Son.
This knowledge had to be of infinite goodness; otherwise, the Holy Spirit could
not have proceeded from the Two. This is why God tells us that all of creation
was very good (Gen 1:31). In other words, creation was made perfectly ordered,
reflecting all the perfections of that same God (cf. Ps 19:1) whom the Father
created through the Word sent/expressed in the Holy Spirit.[12]
Hildegard writes, “And why is he called the Word? Because he
has awakened all creation by the resonance of God’s voice and because he has
called creation to himself! For whatever God expressed in a verbal way was
ordered by the Word with his resonance, and whatever the Word ordered [not
as in commanded, but as in making harmonious, coherent, ordered, etc.[emphasis
added] was spoken by God once again in the Word.”[13] The book of Wisdom
tells us, “But thou hast arranged all things by measure and number and weight”
(Wis 11:20).
Since the Son is begotten from all eternity (see Scripture
passage below), then creation would, necessarily, have been expressed through
the Word by God continually and unceasingly throughout all of created time.
After all, it would be impossible for there to be a point in history that is
not within the eternal ‘now’ in which the Son is begotten. Also, take special
note of the phrase, “whatever God expressed in a verbal way” in direct relation
to creation. Let us look at a couple of examples in Scripture that help us to
understand God as eternally expressing.
1) “He said to me, ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you’ ” (Ps 2:7). That this passage directly points to the Son of God can be seen in Acts 13:30-33. In the eternal ‘now’ of God, the Father is eternally and fruitfully begetting the Son, which would necessarily encompass all of creation . . . within ‘time’. Does the term “today” suggest that two years ago, or two days ago, the Son had not been begotten?2) “Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working’” (Jn 5:16). This can be understood further by Genesis 2:2, where it is written, “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.” As I said earlier, working is also ‘Doing’, and all doings are expressions—all creation is an expression of God;3) “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing’” (Jn 5:19-20). Hmm. There’s a lot of doing/expressing going on in this verse;4) “I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 5:30). How would the Son know what the Father’s will was, unless the Father communicated it to him? Also, being ‘sent’ is an “expression” of the sender, and;5) “No longer do I call you servants . . . I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn 15:15). Again, doing, hearing, and befriending are all forms of expression.
If God is an eternal dialogue among the three Persons of the
Trinity, then we can ask the question: are all three Persons necessary for God
to be God and for God to be Love? God tells St. Hildegard (one of only four
women declared a Doctor of the Church), if any one of the three Persons were
missing, then God would not be God.[14] Ergo, God could not be Love. This is
because the three Persons of the Trinity are one indivisible unity that cannot
be separated. She writes, “In the Father is the Son, in both the Holy Spirit,
and They are one, and work inseparably with each other . . . They are undivided
unity.”[15] They are—together—Love.
The Consequences of the Fall of Man
What happened to creation when Adam and Eve sinned? The very
first consequence was the immediate death about which God had warned them (Gen
2:17). It was not an immediate bodily death (that would come to all later in
their biological life), but the death of the spiritual
soul. The spirit did not cease to exist, but it no longer received the life
that is of God. When they sinned, they lost supernatural grace. They lost their
ordered and harmonious nature and became disordered, unharmonious, and
incoherent in both body and spirit. To understand what death is, we must
understand what life is. As we said earlier, the Life of God is the eternal,
fruitful, and unceasing family dialogue occurring between the Three Persons of
the Trinity, which is the Life of God. To sum it up, mankind could no longer be
described by God as “good/very good.” Therefore, we could no longer be an
expression of God, since God knows no evil.
Remember, the Son is eternally and unceasingly begotten by
the Father. Therefore, creation, too, was intended to be unceasingly expressed
by the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. One thing God cannot do
is contradict Himself. The God who is
unchangeable Truth, cannot send out an untruth. If God were able to
unceasingly express an evil/bad creation, then we would be forced to conclude
that God, too, was substantially/essentially evil. No being can truthfully
express or love what they do not know. If you ask me to give a one-hour class
on calculus, the only truthful thing I could say is: I know nothing about
calculus, nor can I tell you whether I love or hate calculus—because I know
nothing about it.
Since no person (including the Three Persons of the Trinity) could express what they do not know, it must,
therefore, follow that if God were capable of expressing evil, then God himself
must be evil. Would anyone want to live in a world created by an evil God? If
we think things are bad now, we have no idea how bad it would be with an evil
God as our creator. All of us, being created in the image and likeness of this
evil God, would ourselves be essentially evil. That sounds like hell to me.
All too often I hear the question, why did God create evil?
Let’s set the record straight. Since all of creation described in Genesis as
being good was the result of a creative expression of an infinitely Good God,
evil could not be a part of that creative act. God, who alone IS being, is the
only giver of being. That means that evil is not being; it is, in fact,
non-being.[16] It is nothingness,[17] and death (Gen 2:17, Rom 5:12). It is
somewhat analogous to a vacuum (e.g. in outer space). A vacuum is not something;
it is an absence of something, i.e., oxygen.
St. Paul writes, “Creation itself
will be set free from its bondage to decay . . . We know that the whole
creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the
creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan
inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies (Rom
8:21-23). This decay of all creation, including man, is a result of man’s death
(death results in decay). Because God could no longer eternally express anew a
creation which had become bad, Truth and Life could no longer be “sent” into
creation—so all creation died, and is thus subject to decay.
God’s Dilemma (so to speak)
Understanding this dilemma is something few people really
contemplate deeply enough. When creation turned bad through the sin of our
first parents, God was left with a couple of options. He could have just
stopped willing our existence. In which case, all of creation would cease to
exist. Nobody, no matter how good you believe yourself to be, would be spared
this fate of non-existence (cf. Mk 10:18; Lk 18:19). God could force people to
be good, but that would take away free will, which is an essential element of
being in the image and likeness of God. If we knew what was in store (after our
bodily death) for those of us who truly seek God, that option would not even
come close to a desirable choice. Remember what St. Paul wrote, “No eye has
seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for
those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).
Some would say, why doesn’t God get rid of only the bad
people? The answer is, God’s plan is perfect. God would not be God if there
existed the possibility of a more perfect plan. God’s perfect plan incorporates
the option God would choose to use after man chose to sin. The “bad” people
were part of his plan to redeem and purify us, by teaching us to love
unconditionally, even our enemies, even when it hurts (see also the parable of
the weeds, Mt 13:24-30). This can also be seen by the words of St. Hildegard.
She writes:
Of all the strengths of God’s creation, Man’s is most profound, made in a wondrous way with great glory from the dust of the earth and so entangled with the strengths of the rest of creation that he can never be separated from them [emphasis added].[18]
Does God Annihilate What He Creates?
The answer to this question applies not only to the topic of
this blog, but also to the theologically problematic stance some use to propose
that Adam and/or Eve were born from hominin humans. To accomplish what Kenneth Kemp and Nicanor Austriaco, two prominent proponents of this belief, are proposing, the
animal nature of animal Adam & Eve would have had to be annihilated, reduced
to nothingness, uncreated. After all, it would be impossible for Adam & Eve
to each have two completely separate natures simultaneously. Unfortunately, for
those hypotheses, annihilation creates a whole new level of very serious
theological problems.
1). The sensitive (animal) soul is non-subsistent (Aquinas, Summa, I, q. 118, a. 1). Therefore, it is likely that the annihilation of it would have also resulted in the annihilation of the genetic material as well. It is not the same as a rational human, where the body dies, but the intellectual spiritual soul lives forever. Even if the genetic material of animal Adam were not annihilated, it would simply be a collection of dead cells with no substantial form. So, now we are absent both an irrational soul and an irrational body, within which to breathe a rational soul.Hmm! I see a problem here. Don’t forget, the image of God lies in the whole man—body and soul.2). There is no mention in Scripture, or in any Magisterial writing, that demonstrates the annihilation of one nature, after which it is replaced by a different higher or lower nature. In fact, there is Magisterial evidence contradicting it.3). Scripture and the Summa tell us that God does not annihilate anything. From the Summa we read, “Now the nature of creatures shows that none of them is annihilated. . . . Moreover, the annihilation of things does not pertain to the manifestation of grace; since rather the power and goodness of God are manifested by the preservation of things in existence, [therefore annihilation of a nature would be contrary to God’s perfect goodness]. Wherefore we must conclude by denying absolutely that anything at all will be annihilated . . . That things are brought into existence from a state of non-existence, clearly shows the power of Him Who made them; but that they should be reduced to nothing would hinder that manifestation, since the power of God is conspicuously shown in His preserving all things in existence, according to the Apostle: ‘Upholding all things by the word of His power’ (Hebrews 1:3) . . . and ‘I have learned that all the works that God hath made continue forever [Eccl 3:14].’ ”[Summa, I, q. 104, a. 4, co.]
To put it another way, all of creation is the expression of
the goodness and the perfections of God. God says in Genesis that all of his
creation is good. In God, good means absolutely perfect … cannot be made more
or less perfect. To annihilate one of his creatures (which a good God created
as perfectly good) in order to replace it with something better is to imply
that God needed an eraser; that his “original” creation was not good enough, so
it needed to be re-made better. That would be an additional heresy.
Even though God could no longer eternally express fallen
creation (at least until the accomplishment of Jesus’ mission), he chose to
keep all creation in existence by His omnipotent Power. The first part of
his plan was to gradually purify us from the outside in, via Actual grace. Then, in the fullness of time, His Son would
come into the world and redeem man. Having done so, we could begin our journey
to purity of the heart by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, given to us via
our becoming members of the Mystical Body of Christ in Baptism. As a result, we
are now purified from the inside out. By doing this, we become again newly and
everlastingly expressed by God.
As the first creation took place in six “days,” the six
stone jars at the wedding feast of Cana symbolize the new creation that
will become reality with the culmination of Jesus’ mission—when all things are
made new (newly created). St. Paul writes, “For neither circumcision counts for
anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” [through the Sacrament of
Baptism] (Gal 6:15). St. Leo the Great writes, “Let God’s people then
recognize that they are a new creation in Christ.”[19]
According to Pope Leo, not only people but also “things”
have been newly created. In other words, all of creation has been made new by
Jesus.[20] Why? Because we are now part of the eternal begetting /
generating by the Father of the entire Person of Jesus, the incarnate Son of
God, through whom all things are made. If we are now a new creation, why is
there still evil? Even though Jesus obtained forgiveness for our sins, our
disordered nature, a consequence of the sin of our First parents, remains. Our
hearts and bodies are not purified. Unfortunately for us, the redemption of the
body will not be fully accomplished “in time” until the resurrection of the
dead.
To sum up: the original creation of the world occurred as a
result of an expression of the thoughts of an infinitely good God; the death of
creation occurred when God stopped expressing creation because man, through
disobedience, caused it to no longer be good/very good; the last creation
occurred when, as a result of our union with Jesus, creation was again
eternally expressed anew by God. Let’s ask ourselves the following question.
Who among us would choose to have those we love most dearly simply disappear
into non-existence, and ourselves with them? Would you desire them to no longer
exist, or rather, for them to be given the opportunity to make the free-will
choices necessary for them to partake in the Divine Nature of an infinitely
loving God for all eternity?
If the answer to those questions is yes, then
maybe you are not, yourself, very much of a loving person. Maybe you are
confusing biologically/hormonally induced false compassion with the love of
an inner heart in which the Holy Spirit
dwells? That same false compassion that Satan employs to induce us to
believe that death is better than suffering, as is the case in the “culture of
death” in which our society has become enveloped. I thank God there is evil in
the world. It shows me God loves me, even after death entered into the world,
even after I was born into that death. Through a nuptial
union with Jesus, I now have a chance
at eternal joy and happiness.
Endnotes:
[1]. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 1, a. 1.
[2]. Fr. Martin von Cochem, The Incredible Catholic Mass (Benziger
Brothers, 1896; Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1997), 167-168. Used with
permission from Tan Books.
[3]. Giles Emery OP, “The Threeness and Oneness of God in
Twelfth-To-Fourteenth Century Scholasticism,” Nova Et Vetera, English
Edition 1, 1 (2003), p. 62-63. Cited by Giles: Bonaventure, 1 Sent. D. 7, a.1,
q. 2, concl.,;d. 27, 1, a. 1,q. 2, ad 3 (Opera Omnia, vol. 1, 139, 470).
[4]. Giles Emery OP, “The Threeness and Oneness of God in
Twelfth-To-Fourteenth Century Scholasticism,” Nova Et Vetera, English
Edition 1, 1 (2003), p. 62-63. Cited by Giles: Bonaventure, 1 Sent. D. 7, a.1,
q. 2, concl.,;d. 27, 1, a. 1,q. 2, ad 3 (Opera Omnia, vol. 1, 139, 470).
[5]. Giles Emery OP, “The Threeness and Oneness of God in
Twelfth-To-Fourteenth Century Scholasticism,” Nova Et Vetera, English
Edition 1, 1 (2003), p. 62-63. Cited by Giles: Bonaventure, 1 Sent. D. 7, a.1,
q. 2, concl.,;d. 27, 1, a. 1,q. 2, ad 3 (Opera Omnia, vol. 1, 139, 470).
[6]. Bonaventure, 1 Sent. d. 2, a. 1, q. 2, fund. 4 (Opera Omnia),
vol. 1, 53, cited in Giles Emery OP, “The Threeness and Oneness of God
in Twelfth-To-Fourteenth Century Scholasticism,” Nova Et Vetera,
English Edition 1, 1 (2003), p. 62-63.
[7]. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth Part
One, translated by Adrian J. Walker (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2007), Kindle
Edition, p. 265-266.
[8]. Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine Works: With Letters and
Songs, Translated by Robert Cunningham,
Jerry Dybdal, and Ron Miller. Edited by Matthew Fox. (Santa Fe, NM: Inner
Traditions International/Bear & Company, 1987) All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission of publisher. Kindle Locations 533-535.
[9]. Hildegard, Scivias, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1990),
419 (Paulist Press; all rights reserved; all quotations from Hildegard’s
book, Scivias, are used with permission of Paulist Press).
[10]. Joyce A. Little, “Creation,” in Our Sunday
Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine, 152-155. Ed. Russell
Shaw, Huntington, IN.: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 1997.
[11]. Little, “Creation,” in Our Sunday Visitor's
Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine, 152-155.
[12]. Little, “Creation,” in Our Sunday Visitor's
Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine, 152-155.
[13]. Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine Works: With Letters
and Songs. All rights reserved, Reprinted with
permission of publisher. Kindle Locations 2316-2318.
[14]. Hildegard, Scivias, 418.
[15]. St. Hildegard, Scivias, 419 (Paulist Press; all rights
reserved; all quotations from Hildegard’s book, Scivias, are used with
permission of Paulist Press).
[16]. St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne
Noffke, O.P (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980), 56, 73, 76, 142.
[17]. St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, trans.
Suzanne Noffke, O.P (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980), 76.
[18]. St. Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias, (Paulist Press; all
rights reserved; all quotations from Hildegard’s book, Scivias, are used with
permission of Paulist Press), 98.
[19]. Pope St. Leo the Great, Sermon 71, (Third Millennium
Media L.L.C., The Faith Database L.L.C., 2008).
[20]. Pope St. Leo the Great, Sermon
71, (Third Millennium Media L.L.C., The Faith Database L.L.C., 2008).
