The Problem of Omni-Terms and Ecological Evil ( written by an anonymous author) The traditional notion of the Christian God

is a proverbial three legged stool; the Christian God (henceforth referred to as the Omni-God) is believed to be omnipotent, omni-benevolent, and omniscient. The idea of the Omni-God must be looked at from a logical perspective and examined through reason; this is to say that accepting Omni-God on faith is not enough for a reasonable belief system. In this essay, I will argue that the existence of an Omni-God is incompatible with ecological suffering in addition to addressing several potential responses to my argument. When we examine the attributes of the Omni-God, it becomes quite clear that Omni-God has very limited room for failure. The term omnipotent means all-powerful; there is nothing Omni-God cannot do. The term omniscient means that Omni-God is all knowing; there is nothing that Omni-God does not know. If someone were to claim that Omni-God knows all present information but does not know the future, Omni-God could not properly be said to be omniscient. Omni-God is subject to the laws of logic including, for example, the law of non-contradiction; Omni-God cannot be both allknowing and not all-knowing. Omni-God is also omni-benevolent; Omni-God is all good. Additionally, Omni-God created the laws that we live by that he could very easily have created different laws that we live by and put them into place because he is omnipotent and omniscient. The idea of the Omni-God sounds plausible: that is to say that this Omni-God could exist in a complete vacuum away from evidential factors. Once evidential factors are considered in light of Omni-God, problems immediately follow. For millions of years, animals, in order to survive, have been forced to cause grievous amounts of pain and suffering upon other animals. Animals, because of their basic instincts, have been pitted against each in order to compete and survive. The world in which we live contains the death, agony and suffering of millions of animals each day. Can we contend that this is the work of an Omni-God? One response to the problem of ecological evil is that the suffering and death of animals is a natural form of population control because ecosystems are balanced and flourish because of animal

suffering. If there were too many animals, a person may respond, ecosystems would not flourish. I believe this argument is the best in a long line of bad arguments against my problem. This argument fails on the premise that it accepts the natural order of the world and then applies that order to OmniGod. The idea is not that Omni-God could have done more with what he had to work with (the laws of physics, nature, etc), but rather that Omni-God made those laws to begin with. Could one really contend that the best way of going about population control is wide scale slaughter and death? OmniGod, for example, could have created a different type of ecosystem. The population control argument only works if you accept the premise that God could not have made the laws that govern the universe in a different way. The argument is also implying that the creatures that God put on earth could not have been made in a different way to better suit a peaceful cohabitation of the world. Once you realize what premises that the population control argument is actually implying, you also realize that it does not work at all when talking about an Omni-God. The second defense that should be considered to try to conquer my notion that the problem of ecological evil serves as a defeater to belief in the an Omni-God is the 'mystery response.' Could it possibly be that I just cant understand the mind of an Omni-God who may have some hidden undetectable reason(s) that humans can not imagine for creating a world like this? When we look at evidential factors in the world concerning ecological suffering, we can justifiably assume that a creator god would not be all-loving and hardly could be considered all-knowing or all-powerful. Why, after viewing the available evidence of suffering, should we assume that there must be a reason for the suffering rather that admitting that the concept of an Omni-God is untenable considering the evidence of suffering? Perhaps Omni-God permits evil in order to build moral character1? This response fails to show that Omni-God is omni-benevolent; an omni-benevolent being would not design a world with such an egregious amount of suffering so that humans could build up character. Such 'character
1

This is the idea of John Hick's 'Soul-building' theodicy

building' can be had in other ways absent of egregious suffering. A contention which will undoubtedly surface is that evil proves God. This is a point of contention that once again, completely misses the mark. For a person to claim that suffering is 'evil,' a person may argue, there must be an objective moral giver [Omni-God], therefore the existence of evil proves that Omni-God exists. There is a chess expression: The best way to refute a gambit is to accept it and see how good it really is and this is exactly one technique to deal with this. Even if I accept this claim, that 'evil proves God,' all it does is try to get us to God. This does not contend that God is somehow omni-benevolent in any way; we can not infer the moral properties of a being because of the existence of 'evil.' Further, if evil were to demonstrate an all-good God, why wouldnt good demonstrate an all-evil god? The problem that most Christians dont see when offering the evil proves God response is that they are equivocating; the problem is that evil when used in the context of the problem of evil is not a moral judgment, but rather is a synonym for suffering they are using the term 'evil' in two contexts. When persons try to argue that there needs to be a moral law-giver for there to be evil, persons are unfortunately missing the point of the argument. A moral nihilist could argue the problem of evil and still be perfectly justified in making the claim, as the problem of evil does not necessarily have anything to do with objective morality or any moral standards; the notion of suffering is of concern and suffering is a problem for the person who believes in an Omni-God. Considering the egregious amount of animal suffering in the world, we can conclude that the concept of an Omni-God is untenable. The various given responses to account for the problem of ecological evil -- ranging from the current ecosystem being balanced and population control, the mystery response, soul-building, and the evil proves God contention -- that attempt to make sense of animal suffering in light of an Omni-God fail. The attributes of an Omni-God omnipotence, omniscience, and omni-benevolence do not accord with the evidence of animal suffering in the world and thus belief in an Omni-God is unsubstantiated.