Meeting the Evil God Challenge

Abstract

The evil God challenge is an argumentative strategy that has been pursued by a number of philosophers in recent years. It is apt to be understood as a parody argument: a wholly evil, omnipotent and omniscient God is absurd, as both theists and atheists will agree. But according to the challenge, belief in evil God is about as reasonable as belief in a wholly good, omnipotent and omniscient God; the two hypotheses are roughly epistemically symmetrical. Given this symmetry, thesis belief in an evil God and belief in a good God are taken to be similarly preposterous. In this paper, we argue that the challenge can be met, suggesting why the three symmetries that need to hold between evil God and good God – intrinsic, natural theology and theodicy symmetries – can all be broken. As such, we take it that the evil God challenge can be met.

The proper basicality of belief in God and the evil-god challenge

“…1.For defences of this version of the evil-god challenge, see Collins (2019), Lancaster-Thomas (2018a), (2018b), and (2020), and Law (2010). For responses to this version of the challenge, see Lougheed (2020), Wilson (2021), Page and Baker-Hytch (2020). …”

The Evil God Challenge: Two Significant Asymmetries

“…As Ben Page & Max Baker-Hytch note, 'belief in an evil god and belief in a good god are taken to be similarly preposterous.' 4 In fact, it is important to note that the EG challenge is fundamentally an argument for atheism. To my knowledge, no challenger has ever professed to be a devout maltheist.…”