Proof God Must Be Good

Proof God Must Be Good

In this article I will be presenting an argument I have put together for the goodness of God. You can find more info by searching the "Privation Theory of Evil" as it dives deeper into the topic, but I have not seen such a topic used to prove the nature of God. Perhaps it has been done before, but I haven't found any examples worth citing. The argument goes as such:

P1. God exists.
P2. God is pure actuality.
P3. Evil is a privation of good.
P4. If God is pure actuality, He can't contain any potentialities.
P5. A privation is a potentiality.
C1. Therefore, God must be all good.

This argument was made in conjunction with the "Brain in a Vat Argument", which is made clear by P1-P2. I ultimately thought of putting this together because of theists who believed in a God, but didn't believe this God was "good". However, because this argument was assembled by me, a foolish 17 year old, it's only likely it completely fails in its goal. Regardless, here it is.

P1. God exists

As said above, this argument is best made if done right after the Brain in a Vat argument for God's existence. That argument establishes well a few core tenants when talking about God (his infinitude, immutability, actuality, etc) When talking about God's nature, it's easy to simply assume that He exists and there are few other attributes we can know about Him. This is a  mistake.

P2. God is pure actuality.

As stated by James Kidd,

"Potentiality is a privation of actuality. That is, it is not a thing in itself but the absence of something. In the same way, darkness is not a substance itself but the absence (or privation) of light.

Now a thing considered in itself contains nothing but its fullness. The nature (or essence) of light consists of nothing but light itself; it does not contain darkness. Therefore, the essence of esse contains nothing but its fullness, actuality. There is no potentiality in the nature of esse. Thus, the essence of esse is pure actuality, just as the essence of light is pure light.

Thomas argues that all entities participate in esse insofar as they are actual. Therefore, that in which they participate—esse—must be actual. In fact, it cannot admit of any potentiality."
(https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/a-proof-of-the-existence-of-god)

Because God is esse (the act of being), He must therefore be pure act. This is one of the essential premises of the argument, but also the easiest to prove.

P3. Evil is a privation of good.

Augustine goes in depth on this matter in his two works: Confessions and Enchiridion:

"And in the universe, even that which is called evil, when it is regulated and put in its own place, only enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and value the good more when we compare it with the evil. For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil. For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present—namely, the diseases and wounds—go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance,—the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is, privations of the good which we call health—are accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not transferred elsewhere: when they cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else." (Augustine, NPNF1-03. On the Holy Trinity; Doctrinal Treatises; Moral Treatises, Chapter 11)

Aquinas makes similar statements in his Summa Theologica when discussing the nature of sorrow,

"Accordingly, supposing the presence of something saddening or painful, it is a sign of goodness if a man is in sorrow or pain on account of this present evil. For if he were not to be in sorrow or pain, this could only be either because he feels it not, or because he does not reckon it as something unbecoming, both of which are manifest evils. Consequently it is a condition of goodness, that, supposing an evil to be present, sorrow or pain should ensue. Wherefore Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. viii, 14): 'It is also a good thing that he sorrows for the good he has lost: for had not some good remained in his nature, he could not be punished by the loss of good.' Because, however, in the science of Morals, we consider things individually—for actions are concerned about individuals—that which is good on some supposition, should be considered as good: just as that which is voluntary on some supposition, is judged to be voluntary, as stated in Ethic. iii, 1, and likewise above (I-II:6:6)." (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Prima Secundæ Partis, Q. 39, Art. 1)

To Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, evil was merely a privation of good. While goodness in itself exists fundamentally, evil would be the lack of. Aquinas makes even clearer remarks in the Summa Theologica when discussing God's knowledge of evil,

"I answer that, Whoever knows a thing perfectly, must know all that can be accidental to it. Now there are some good things to which corruption by evil may be accidental. Hence God would not know good things perfectly, unless He also knew evil things. Now a thing is knowable in the degree in which it is; hence since this is the essence of evil that it is the privation of good, by the fact that God knows good things, He knows evil things also; as by light is known darkness. Hence Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii): "God through Himself receives the vision of darkness, not otherwise seeing darkness except through light." (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 14, Art. 10)

We must then conclude that just as darkness is simply the absence of light, evil is the absence of good. All evils have some good in them: For example, evil might be the pursuit of some good in a disordered fashion (revenge [evil] is a disordered seeking of justice [good]) or if evil is done out of ignorance (a young child not knowing that stealing [evil] is wrong is in pursuit of the joy [good] that object he steals brings). Aquinas further stated,

"But evil deprives a thing of some sort of being, as blindness deprives us of that being which is sight; yet it does not destroy every mode, species and order, but only such as follow upon the being of sight." (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 5, Art. 5).

P4. If God is pure actuality, He can't contain any potentialities.

This premise needs not to be explained. If God is pure actuality (P2) He can't contain any potentialities. He is pure act.

P5. A privation is a potentiality.

As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states,

"A dunamis in this sense is not a thing’s power to produce a change but rather its capacity to be in a different and more completed state. Aristotle thinks that potentiality so understood is indefinable, claiming that the general idea can be grasped from a consideration of cases. Activity is to potentiality, Aristotle tells us, as 'what is awake is in relation to what is asleep, and what is seeing is in relation to what has its eyes closed but has sight, and what has been shaped out of the matter is in relation to the matter'." (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/#ActuPote)

Since potentialities are a thing's "... capacity to be in a different and more completed state." we can rightly deduct a privation is a potentiality. Because all privations are a part of a negation of a thing's completed state, it causes that thing to be in a potentiality of not having such a privation. Thus, all privations are potentialities.

C1. Therefore, God must be all good.

As it follows, God must be good because he is infinite and purely actual. To contain an evil would be to undermine His infinite nature. Another way of viewing this is by looking at the definition of infinity. As stated by F.J. Sheed,

"Thus we must not let imagination deceive us about the vastness of space. Let our universe be never so vast, it occupies space only because it has the prior limitation of having its being broken up into parts. The occupation of space is a limitation, because it is grounded in a limitation. Scientists may argue whether there is any external boundary of the material universe, whether one can conceive a point in any direction beyond which the material universe does not extend. This is a pleasant argument, but it has no bearing on the question whether the material universe is infinite. It may extend in all directions without ever coming to an outer boundary; but it has the myriad boundaries within itself which arise from its being composed of parts. It is incurably finite." (F.J. Sheed, Theology and Sanity, Ch. 4, Art. 1, pg. 42)

Thus, because infinity is not just an object extending in space forever, but rather the lack of parts, God could not have any privations within Himself. It would undermine His nature as infinite and purely actual. In other words, infinity is not just external (infinite height, length, and width), but also internal (the lack of any divisions). We are then led to conclude that because evils are privations of good, they could not exist in God.

Conclusion

I'm fully prepared to acknowledge this argument fails; many philosophers have lived before me and I'm sure had this argument worked it would have been thought up. Regardless, if it teaches somebody anything I'll keep it up. I plan to keep exploring this topic and if I find any better phrasings of this argument I will present them.