An Epicurean Argument

Epicurus is probably best known as the Greek that gave us the root for "epicurean", someone who loves food, and is into its delights. He is also known for the following argument against the likelihood of, well, any god:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
Because we do know that there is evil, we can conclude with certainty that there is no God.

Although interesting as it shows that there were atheists at a time when pretty everyone was assumed to venerate some deity or another, the problem is that the argument makes some basic assumptions. The first assumption is that one can know the mind of a deity. One cannot; the problem is that we simply do not have the same scope of thought as an immortal being. Consider that even a difference of a few years causes a change in opinion, even a subtle one; a nine-year-old has a much different opinion on things than a teenager does, and then someone in his twenties has a much different opinion than either of them.

Not only does our opinion become much grayer as he age, but so does our belief in what constitutes Good and Evil. A child is going to see doctors as evil; they cause him pain, anything that causes him pain is evil, ergo doctors are evil. As a child matures he sees that not everything that causes him pain is evil, and as he sees that sometimes a little pain is necessary to prevent a bigger disease, he actually begins to respect what doctors do. As the child grows up he even begins to fight disease on his own. From this it can be argued that by allowing some evil in the world, a deity could allow us to see its effects, making us more interested in fighting it.

The other problem is that it assumes that Man as a whole does not have free will, that we are merely programmed for specific tasks by some theoretical deity, and set upon our way to do those specific tasks. If that is true, then there is no evil; our actions, regardless of our intent, can never be good nor evil. We simply act as our programming decrees, and therefore our acts lack intent, or volition behind it. This makes saving lives just as equal in value as rape; neither act has intent, they are simply done. This is an ironically comforting thought, as it means that we are not guilty of our actions, but it is just as emasculating; we abdicate any control over our actions to that programming.

In order for there to be Evil, there has to be intent. The person has to be able to make a choice between two or more actions, and then choose the one that is more evil, or at least less good. This presumes the existence of Free Will, the ability to choose something beyond one's supposed programming. Without that intent the argument is invalid; there simply cannot be Evil if one cannot choose it. Ultimately, that makes Epicurus' argument essentially moot: If we have no choice, if our intent is based on programming, there is no Evil, and therefore the existence of a god doesn't matter if he can only exist in the absence of Evil. We can simply say that we are programmed to believe in some deity or another , or not. On the other hand, it can be argued that Evil exists regardless of whether or not there is a deity of some sort; it can be argued the deity allows Evil to exist for however it fits the plan of the deity.