Refuting “The Problem of Altered Ideas”

This post will be focused on refuting an article about an argument against God. You can read the original article here. Let’s take a look at what he marked as the “strongest” version.

(Premise i): God Created All Things

(Premise ii): An Idea is a Thing

(Conclusion i): Therefore God Created all Ideas

(Premise iii): An Evil Idea is an Idea

(Conclusion ii): Therefore God Created all Evil Ideas

(Premise iv): If God is all Good and All-Powerful then he cannot create evil without reason.

(Premise v): God is all Good and All-Powerful and did not have a reason.

(Conclusion iii): Therefore God CAN NOT Create Anything Evil

(Premise vi): [Insert Evil Person/Demon] had the idea of [Insert Evil Idea]

(Conclusion iv): Therefore, God either does not exist, is not all-good, or is not all-powerful.

Now, I take issue with essentially all of the major premises of this argument. Let’s go through them one by one.

Premise 1 — God created all things:

I think I need to make a distinction here. While Jake (the author) is technically correct in his analysis of premise 1, it’s an oversimplification I’d like to clarify.

God has created all things, but those things can be divided into two sets, things that God directly created, and things that he indirectly created. God has directly created the universe, but God has indirectly created you, me, or anyone else you can think of. These things are a product of what God produced. Just as the grandchildren of someone are not directly the product of the grandparents, everything we do is not directly the product of God’s creation, despite the fact that he is responsible for our existence.

Premise two is correct, but premise three is not.

Conclusion 1 — Therefore God created all ideas:

Again, let’s make that distinction. God indirectly created all ideas (the ones that are had by humans, obviously God had ideas/beliefs prior to our conception).

So this premise is weak. It fails to recognize the differences between the kinds of things that God creates. It seems to me that God creates humans with free will, leading to ideas that are the product of contingent processes, not God creating ideas in our mind, though that may happen.

Premise three is correct.

Conclusion 2 — Therefore God created all evil ideas:

This is incorrect. As I already pointed out, God does not create these ideas by direct action. They are the product of human free will. Even if God did create them, we could employ theodicy (which we will discuss later) to explain why God would create such an idea.

Premise 4 — If God is all Good and All-Powerful then he cannot create evil without reason.

This premise is correct. What I want to point out is that the theist will always say that the evil in our world has a purpose. There are also other ways to address specific forms of evil, such as animal pain or seemingly gratuitous suffering. I will address specific theodicies later on that give us a good reason (or at least, a reason) to believe that God would allow such evil.

You can probably see where Jake is going with this. He’s going to say God did not have a reason to allow this suffering. So he will say that God can’t be all good or all powerful. This is the standard conclusion of the problem of evil.

Let’s move into refuting some of Jake’s defenses that he presents later in the argument.

Here is his argument against my indirect cause objection:

We know this to be false in virtue of the definition of “indirect”. “indirect” means “that which is unintended”. However, God did intend for these ideas to occur as he could’ve:

[a] Stopped the idea from taking place. We know this because God is all-powerful. [b] Never have created the idea and only have allowed for Good ideas. We also know this because God is all-powerful. [c] God foresaw the future and didn’t act to prevent said future. We know this because God is all-knowing, meaning he knows all things and the future is a thing.

Now you may be surprised to learn that I partially agree with Jake here. God did know that these evil ideas would start existing. But I think that Jake is just incorrect in saying that God should do [b]. For one Jake already assumes what he is trying to prove, by restating that God directly created the idea, but I also think that God can have morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil ideas.

Let’s examine two theodicies that give God reason to allow evil ideas.

Theodicy 1 — Soul Building:

This theodicy receives much attention from John Hicks, and while it doesn’t perfectly answer every type of evil, I think it can serve as a good answer to this one. In this theodicy, humans are recognized as incomplete creatures, whether it be some moral deficiency or otherwise. That means that God is going to work to solve these imperfections, and the evil in our world is actually the way we grow and mature. With no evil, no character growth would be possible. Character growth is a good thing that God would want, so he permits the existence of evil things, like ideas. Maybe some idea leads a person to better their life for some odd reason! This theodicy shows that God can have a good reason for allowing the existence of evil ideas.

Theodicy 2 — The Non-Identity Theodicy:

The Non-Identity theodicy is a underappreciated theodicy that has been developed really well by writer Vince Vitale. This identity starts by recognizing two parts of what makes you unique. Your substance and your accidents. Substance is something unique about you. Think of a movie character like Harry Potter. There are unique things about Potter that make him who he is. But Harry also has accidents. This isn’t an accident like we would generally use the word. An accident is a trait that someone may or may not have. So if Harry shaved his head, he would still be Harry. But there are things that seem fundamental to Harry, one of which we will examine.

Here is a question: is your origin a part of your substance or accidents? Well, it seems like your origin needs to be a part of your substance, considering that your upbringing is a very specific part of what makes you, you. So in order to create you specifically, God would need to have a super specific origin point, one that is only possible through a specific series of events. These events can involve evil, but they result in the production of creatures that God values. Thus God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing this evil. To get these specific creatures, he needs to have specific timelines! Some of this evil can include ideas, so this Theodicy serves to vindicate God.

In conclusion, the problem of altered ideas is not a serious problem for theists. God can have morally sufficient reasons for allowing the existence of these evil ideas. Also, due to the fact that God didn’t directly create these ideas, this argument is weakened to a probabilistic one, where it just seems improbable that God would allow these ideas. But the theodicies I presented defuse this. So we still have good reason to believe this theodicy.