Hello, jorndoe! I want to address the first couple of points you make before I get to the main thrust of your argument. You say the Biblical YHWH is only known from manmade scriptures. This is not necessarily disproof for the existence of YHWH. Firstly, the written record of YHWH was originally passed down as an oral history by the Jews, and this was based on what was believed to be the real, historical experiences of their ancestors (several story beats of which are proven to correspond and are corroborated by third-party histories). No one today was alive to know Abraham Lincoln, and I only know of him by either a) the written historical record/monuments or b) oral history passed to me by teachers trained to pass this knowledge down. There are several stories about Lincoln that have been passed down over the years that may or may not be true that have been incorporated into the narrative of his life because, let’s be honest, most of us like a little flair in our history textbooks, but that does not make Lincoln’s existence any more or less likely. Incorporate the fact that verses like 2 Timothy 3:16-17 claim that the Bible is directly inspired by God (some translations read “God-breathed”), and the fact that human hands got the Bible down on paper does not immediately cause a problem (and more argument is needed for it to do so). As for your second point, this seems outright false. In the Hebrew Bible, there are many, many individuals who are authorized by God to speak on God’s behalf. Moses, the judges, pick-a-prophet: you have lots of choices. In the Greek Bible, Jesus himself (if one believes him to have the authority of God, which I do) says in Matthew 28:19-20 to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” which is a direct call for Christians to speak on God’s behalf to others.

The second point more closely ties into the main thrust of your argument, which appears to be a rather novel usage of the divine hiddenness argument, albeit tangentially. I have not included your added statements about the possibility of YHWH being fictional since I think that goes to the traditional divine hiddenness argument, and I am more interested in addressing the implication you draw from that argument. I think your argument has this form:

1. Either YHWH wants everyone to know the truth of Him, or YHWH has chosen that remaining hidden is the right thing to do.
2. If YHWH wants everyone to know the truth of Him, then everyone would.
3. Not everyone knows the truth of YHWH.
4. YHWH does not want everyone to know the truth of Him. (2, 3 MT)
5. YHWH has chosen that remaining hidden is the right thing to do. (1, 4 DS)
6. If YHWH has chosen that remaining hidden is the right thing to do, then YHWH wants to remain hidden.
7. YHWH wants to remain hidden. (5, 6 MP)
8. If YHWH wants to remain hidden, then proselytizers are violating YHWH’s will.
9. Proselytizers are violating YHWH’s will. (7, 8 MP)

This is an interesting implication to draw from the divine hiddenness argument, but I disagree with your argument. I have several objections, but I realize this post has already gotten quite long so I will address my most promising object and then leave this thread to further discussion before chiming in again. I object to premise 1 as a false dichotomy. It is quite possible that YHWH wants everyone to know the truth of Him but has very good reasons for remaining hidden. Michael J. Murray provides just one of the many responses to the divine hiddenness argument by making a soul-making defense for hiddenness, wherein humans would be unable to develop significant moral characters if they knew the truth of God for certain because the fear of Hell and promise of Heaven would be confirmed and therefore coerce most people into obeying God’s commands, effectively robbing them of free will (which is a great good, many theists will argue). It is very possible for a being to have a certain want and yet still chose the best course of action as something else. A parent may WANT to make a child happy by giving them a cupcake whenever the child asks, but the parent may (hopefully) choose to make the child abstain from cupcakes altogether because the sugar would be extremely bad for them. YHWH may want us to know Him, but He can choose another alternative if it is what would be best for us in the long run. Premise 1 is a false choice. YHWH can do both.

Hello, ModernPA S! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic. The Problem of Evil is certainly a… problem, haha. About your objection to iii: I think your response is just another way of putting the Hume argument, so it is slightly question-begging. You seem to assume the truth of premise 2 in your response to the objection to premise 2.

Plantinga’s iii states, “Possibly, creating creatures with free will is so good that it outweighs any evil they do.” This responds to Hume’s premise 2, “Necessarily, if there is a being that has the power, knowledge, and desire to eliminate evil, then evil cannot exist,” by arguing that an omnibenevolent being would create a world with the maximal good there can be, and this world includes free will. Creating creatures with free will is SO good, that any evil that results is worth it. God WANTS to eliminate all evil on iii, but God would be limiting the good in the world by creating creatures without free will. Your response is question-begging because you assume premise 2, that if a being with the qualities that Hume describes exists, then necessarily no evil can follow from that being. However, if the being is seeking to make a creation from which can come the greatest possible good for the creations that live in it and knows that the greatest possible good comes with an amount of evil the good greatly outweighs, the being would make that good world. You briefly mentioned some concept of balancing not being possible because of God’s good nature, but I am not entirely sure how this responds to Plantinga iii because you seem to just assert the negative with on the same grounds of Hume. It is not necessary that a perfect being only create perfect things or perfectly good things.. The omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God can do as God pleases. It just so happens that God wants the greatest good for us, which is free will, and God knows that free will comes with a setback of evil for imperfect creatures.

Now there are many other arguments that can be made about whether God could have made us perfectly good or made us with free will but in a world where we only make good choices, but those are outside the scope of what you presented here. It seems you just had a slightly different reading of the Hume argument that yielded much the same results to the Plantinga objection.

In short, it appears that you use Hume’s argument to respond to an objection to Hume’s argument, which begs the question.

Hello chromechris! Welcome to the forum! I’ve not been here long myself, but I wanted to lend my thoughts to your question. You pose an issue that in various ways reflects big problems in the philosophy of religion, so I don’t think I can solve the problem in a reasonable-length post, but maybe I can provide some food for thought? That’s the goal at least.

I find it useful to put arguments in their argument form. I don’t know if you’re new to the just the forum or new to philosophy in general, so if you are unfamiliar with the argument forms, here is a link to a source that will help you: http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e10b.htm

It seems to me that your argument by analogy takes this form:

1. Either a parent has authority over their child by the fact they are the one who created the child, or a parent only has authority over their child when they care for the emotional/physical wellbeing when the child is too young to do so.
2. If a parent has authority over their child by the fact they are the one who created the child, that authority would extend over that child’s whole life.
3. A parent’s authority over their child does not extend over the child’s whole life.
4. A parent does not have authority over their child by the fact they are the one who created the child. (2, 3 MT)
5. A parent only has authority over their child when they care for the emotional/physical wellbeing when the child is too young to do so. (1, 4 DS)
6. If a parent only has authority over their child when they care for the emotional/physical wellbeing when the child is too young to do so, then for the parent to exercise that authority over the child once the child can take care of their own emotional/physical wellbeing is immoral.
7. For the parent to exercise that authority over the child once the child can take care of their own emotional/physical wellbeing is immoral. (5, 6 MP)

You said this case is analogous to the God-and-humans (specifically you) relationship, but I am not so sure it is. Yes, I agree that a parents authority over their child (authority being their legitimate right to control their child’s actions) does not extend over their child’s whole life, and I might even agree that the parent has that authority as a matter of their caregiving/teaching role rather than any biological mandate. However, I would argue that another “wellbeing” that a parent often (and I hope we would agree is obligated to) look after is moral wellbeing. Parents often teach their children right and wrong, at least in the most basic of ways. I would argue that if any of the three “wellbeings” are insufficient in the child, meaning the child cannot look after them on their own, then the parent continues to have authority over the “wellbeing.” (We assume that the parents in these scenarios are doing a decent enough job at caretaking, i.e. trying their best to do write by the child. They won’t be perfect like God, but for the sake of your analogy, let’s assume the best of the parents.) If a child has a horrible accident that permanently paralyzes them from the neck down, I argue that the parent as authority over that child’s body in the sense that they can control its movement. Now child might be of sound mind and be able to vocalize their wants/needs, but the control still lies in the caregiver (who, again, we are assuming the best of for this case). In the God-human relationship, God serves over us as the moral authority because God looks after our moral/spiritual wellbeing. Humanity is not perfectly moral; we will always have our stumbling blocks. No purely human individual will be fully capable of looking out for their moral/spiritual wellbeing because of our imperfections (darn that free will!). Since we will never be able to adequately look after ourselves in this manner, God controls what is morally acceptable/unacceptable and provides us guidelines to help us out. God is not a slave owner because God asks us to abide by God’s creeds; God is simply a concerned parent looking out for the wellbeing of God’s children and trying to help them do what’s best for themselves. In short, I think your argument is missing a “wellbeing,” specifically moral/spiritual throughout, and when that “wellbeing” is taken into consideration, then God has “moral authority” (which I assumed you meant legitimate) authority over our lives. God’s existence is not immoral.

This is a very thoughtful reflection. One quick note about our argument form: I am not completely sure what 2.3 adds to the argument or what I am supposed to glean from it. This does not significantly impact my response, though. I object to premise 2.2, along similar lines to commenter philorelkook.

When thinking about God’s qualities, I like to think about all qualities, not just omnipotence. All of God’s qualities are said to be perfect. “God is omnibenevolent, so God cannot commit evil” is an example of a “God cannot” statement that I am perfectly at peace with. I view these kinds of cannots as preventions of failure. God cannot commit an action that would necessitate his failure to act with one or more of God’s perfect qualities. The argument goes something like this:

1. If God has perfect qualities, God does not fail.
2. If God does not fail, God’s actions necessarily do not cause God’s failure.
3. If God has perfect qualities, God’s actions necessarily do not cause God’s failure. (1,2 HS)
4. God has perfect qualities.
5. God’s actions necessarily do not cause God’s failure. (3, 4 MP)

If you accept this argument, you accept that God’s actions do not cause God to fail. This is significant as you posit that God can do all things, even logically impossible things. However, if God could create a boulder so heavy God could not lift it, then God’s action would necessitate God’s failure (a failure of omnipotence). Your squaring the circle example is a little harder to parse, but I think that would go against either omniscience as that thing would be impossible to perceive/know or against omniscience as God would not be able to draw that illustration in reality. The idea here is that acting out logical impossibilities would cause God to fail in some way, which is the truly impossible thing. The extension of my argument goes like this:

1. God’s actions necessarily do not cause God’s failure. (3,4 MP)
2. If God could act out the logically impossible, God’s actions would cause God to fail in one of God’s perfect qualities.
3. God cannot do the logically impossible. (1,2 MT)

I believe it is reasonable to posit that God cannot do logically impossible things. I don’t think this makes God limited by God’s own laws, that would imply that God’s omnipotence extended beyond this perceived limitation. It is not a limitation because God’s perfection necessitates God’s inability to fail. It is as much a quality in God as omnipotence, this inability to fail. It is just a perfect quality in a negative sense. We think of perfect qualities as positive things, things that God is or can do, but I believe that if we expand our notion of perfect to include things God cannot do (including evil and the logically impossible), we sacrifice little to nothing in the debate.

Interesting thoughts! I see how this can easily be applied to debated in the philosophy of religion. Simply replace secular governmental laws with religious laws from God and jail/other punishments with Hell and such. I often hear of this argument referred to as something of an “offer no one could refuse.” If one truly believes in God and Heaven/Hell, then how is their moral behavior free will? Aren’t they just terrified of Hell (or annihilation, or whatever alternative) and enticed by Heaven? How could they possibly choose anything else? How is their choice to follow God’s laws meaningful/free? Since you kept your terminology in the secular realm, I will as well. I just wanted to point out how this applies regardless of where you believe your moral obligations (mandatory/prohibitory) come from.

Briefly, I think what you mean by “true” morality is meaningful morality, or morality for morality’s sake, morality good in itself. When I use the word “true” in the upcoming discussion, this is what I am taking it to mean. We aren’t in an epistemology forum here, haha.

It seems like your argument goes something along these lines:

1. If punishable moral obligations/prohibitions exist, then true morality does not exist. (a, b HS)
1.a. If punishable moral obligations/prohibitions exist, then choosing moral behavior is not really a choice of free will (it is an offer no one can refuse).
1.b. If choosing moral behavior is not a choice of free will, then true (meaningful) morality does not exist.
2. Punishable moral obligations/prohibitions exist.
3. True morality does not exist.

I think my best objection would be to premise 1a. I assert that 1a is false and that even if punishable moral obligations/prohibitions exist, then choosing moral behavior is still a choice of free will. One thing to quickly point out (as you mention in your post things like murder and rape) is that while there are strict punishments for violating the legal prohibitions against murder and rape, people still commit these crimes in spades. Some people seem to not be afraid of these laws, or at least not as afraid of them as they are attracted by the potential reward for their actions. However, I mainly want to discuss 1a in terms of the rest of us, those that generally live pretty banal moral lives (as you seem to be living as well). Are we only doing it out of fear?

I know I am not, but I think my intuition regarding this is directed differently than yours. You claim humans to be basically selfish, but I disagree. Altruism is found in nature and thus can be very natural. I feel good when I give to charity whether or not I give enough to get a tax incentive. Plenty of people do good without any sort of concept of reward besides making the world better. I would say that many people don’t commit crimes for similar reasons; wronging others just feels wrong.

In this way, it seems like laws regarding obligations/prohibitions simply encourage behaviors that are natural to making our relationships with each other better. The punishments for violating these laws are like any other punishment. Some people risk it or welcome it because they care more about their immediate desires than the wellbeing of others. We can still freely choose to steal or cheat or even murder, we just know there will be consequences. Those of us that don’t do not necessarily restrict ourselves from doing wrong out of fear. Many of us feel guilt, our own sort of internal punishment, when we harm others. Maybe in a way the religious moral laws of God guide humans to live lives of less guilt or internal strife, or at least try too.

I don’t steal from my local grocery store because I am afraid of jail; I don’t steal because I would feel bad for the manager held accountable for the missing stock. I don’t lie to my roommate because I am scared of Hell; I know that I would feel guilty after for betraying her trust. Perhaps these things are just a me personally thing. I don’t really understand the notion that I am an “upstanding citizen” out of fear, but perhaps I have just been trained positive/negative reinforcement style to feel as I do.

To begin, as other commenters have pointed out, in the story of Job God is not the one directly acting and causing all of Job’s intense suffering. God is, however, sitting passively by while the suffering occurs. At the end of the suffering, when Job has lost everything, doubted, but nonetheless maintained his faith, God restores everything Job lost and then some. Theologically, this story can be taken as a small-scale recreation of life. God allows Satan to work evil in our lives, but those who remain faithful despite doubt will be rewarded greatly in the end. All this aside, you bring up a very potent problem for theism, the Problem of Evil, wherein God, omnibenevolent, omnipotent being allows evil to occur. Simply, the argument goes (sourced from my philosophy of religion professor):

1. Necessarily, if God exists, then
1.a. God has the power to eliminate evil,
1.b. God knows how to eliminate evil, and
1.c. God has the desire to eliminate evil.
2. Necessarily, if anyone has the power/knowledge/desire to eliminate all evil, then evil does not exist.
3. Therefore, necessarily, if God exists, then evil does not exist. (1,2 HS).
4. Evil exists.
5. Therefore, God doesn’t exist. (3,4 MT)

Now, it seems like you do not necessarily oppose God’s existence; you seem to question something along the line of 1c, that God desires to eliminate evil. I have to agree with you, this does look like a problem for theists. If we assert that God exists, we must attack some premise along the argument above. 2 follows naturally from 1, 3 from 1 and 2, 4 seems obvious, so all that is left is 1 itself with its three subpoints. Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence: it seems your intuition points you toward rejecting omnibenevolence. I, too, feel the need to reject 1c, though I think your argument for doing so is the best as you sacrifice omnibenevolence. Here is what I think your argument is:

1. God is omniscient.
2. If God is omniscient, God knows the past, present, and future details of our lives.
3. God knows the past, present, and future details of our lives. (1,2 MP)
4. God knew the past, present and future details of Job’s life. (Drawn from 3)
5. God knew Job would choose to remain faithful regardless of suffering. (Inferred from 4)
6. If God knew Job would choose to remain faithful regardless of suffering, God is not omnibenevolent (a-c HS)
6.a. If God knew Job would choose to remain faithful regardless of suffering, the intermediating suffering God allowed was unnecessary.
6.b. If Job’s intermediating suffering was unnecessary, God allowed Job to suffer unjustly.
6.c. If God allowed Job to suffer unjustly, God is not omnibenevolent.
7. God is not omnibenevolent. (4, 8 MP)

If this is indeed the core of your argument (and I am not positive it is, since I don’t fully understand what your free will point is), then I would object chiefly at premise 6a. If we took this argument to be applicable to our lives, then since God knows who will be faithful and who will not, our lives (including the intermediate suffering in them) are unnecessary. However, most think our lives have some sort of purpose. Why not suffering as well? Under the soul-making theodicy, we suffer evil for the purpose of growing in spiritual maturity, growing closer to God. God allows us to choose God, and to do so requires an understanding of the depth and breadth of God’s love regardless of our suffering. One could think God is benevolent simply in the act of allowing us to live our lives at all, as he could just create us at the end of it all at the place of our final development. But the suffering and life itself is worth it because living is worth it, it develops us for the life to come.

Please let me know if this helps at all. I would appreciate the feedback as this is an issue I struggle with as well.

I can only respond to the arguments regarding Christianity because I lack the knowledge regarding the teachings of the Qur’an.

To break down your argument into two sub-arguments (with additions from the original post you say you agree with):

Christians worship an idol.
The Bible says “You shall have no other gods before me” and “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above.”
Christians worship Jesus before YHWH.
Jesus is a likeness of something that is in heaven above.
Christians violate two of God’s commandments (inferred from a-c).
Chrisitains bear false testimony.
God commands Christians to not bear false witness.
Christians did not witness the death or resurrection of Jesus.
When Christians profess faith and testify to the resurrection of Jesus, they are bearing witness to an event they did not see themselves.
Christians are bearing false testimony. (inferred from a-c)

To address the idol argument:

I have to object to both premise B and premise C. Christianity commonly teaches the Trinity, or the concept of God as Three in One comprised of God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is God the Son, one part in the Trinity. It is impossible for Christians to worship or put Jesus before YHWH because Jesus is a part of YHWY in the same way that YHWY is a part of Jesus. The are One. Jesus is not even a likeness of what is in heaven above. He IS what is in heaven above. There are much more thorough and clear explanations of this concept out there are on the Internet if one is interested in exploring this further.

To address the false testimony argument:

While it was in a short paragraph, this really gave me food for thought. I had not previously considered this concept of “false witness” as it relates to modern professions of faith. My initial intuition is to object to premise C by appealing to tradition. The Bible is the written record of those who did witness the events of Jesus’ life. We don’t tell a history teacher that they are bearing false witness regarding the Civil War when they teach from a textbook. Rather than attacking Christians at the physical experience level, this argument might be better directed at the validity of their text or the traditions that have been passed through church teaching. Saying that someone cannot believe something that they have not witness appears to also rule out a lot of beliefs regarding history, stories friends tell us about their lives, and so on.

My understanding of the “being unable to do the impossible” argument is a little different. I understand the argument as something like this:

If God has perfect qualities, God does not fail.
If God does not fail, God’s actions necessarily do not cause God’s failure.
If God has perfect qualities, God’s actions necessarily do not cause God’s failure. (1,2 MP)
God has perfect qualities.
God’s actions necessarily do not cause God’s failure. (3, 4 MP)

If we apply this argument to the boulder case (or the Jesus microwaving a burrito case as so many memes have been parodying recently), it implies that God cannot create a boulder that God cannot lift. It is impossible not simply on a logical basis, that being that an omnipotent being cannot create something it cannot lift. God cannot perform the action of creating the boulder because God’s actions cannot cause God to fail because that jeopardizes God’s other perfect qualities.

I do not have to conclude that God is not omnipotent; I have to shift my understanding of omnipotence. Omnipotence means God can do all things except the one thing that would jeopardize God’s perfection: fail. If God could do all impossible, it seems like argument would allow for God to do other impossible things. What other things might we initially consider impossible for God? Considering God’s perfect nature and qualities, we could imagine it is impossible for God to not know something. It is impossible for God to kill God’s self. It is impossible for God to sin. Are we okay with saying that God can be perfect, in the sense that God cannot sin, and still say God is entirely capable of sinning despite God’s perfectly good nature? That might imply that God is only arbitrarily good, which seems like a very unsatisfactory conclusion for theists. I am content to view God as incapable of imperfection, of failure. Here is a potential argument that may come from the “God can do the impossible” train of thought:
God is perfectly good (in the sense that all of God’s qualities necessitate perfect goodness).
If God is perfectly good, then it is impossible for God to commit evil.
It is impossible for God to commit evil. (1, 2 MP)
God can do the impossible.
God can commit evil. (inferred from 3, 4)

If someone wanted to object to say that that gives humanity an ability that God does not have, I would say “I sure hope so! I can envy and lie and cheat and all manner of evil things if I am not trying to live a good life.” All of those things lead to my failure to be a perfect being. God is a perfect being. God cannot fail. If God could do the impossible, God could do all manner of things that contradict his perfect qualities.