Throughout history and the study of religion, it has been believed that there was a god who was all good, benevolent and self-sacrificing towards his followers. This god, in this critique, will be called the “good-god”. Amongst others, Stephen Law has questioned the existence and actions of this good-god and has tried to come up with an explanation for the existence of evil in our world. Through the use of reverse theodicies, the symmetry thesis, and the scales analogy, Law argues that there could possibly be an all-evil god rather than a good-god. These arguments helped Law develop what is called the “Evil-God Challenge”. The evil- god challenge is defined simply as a question by Law: “why [should] the hypothesis that there exists and omnipotent,…show more content… Stephen Law’s evil-god challenge is a good and valid argument because he provided numerous arguments such as the scales analogy, reverse theism, moral arguments, laws of nature theodicy, etc. Finally, the evil-god challenge is a sound argument because Law was able to play the devil’s advocate and could efficiently answer possible rebuttals to his argument. Before fully understanding the evil- god challenge, the problem of evil must first be evaluated. The problem of evil is summarized by philosophers as a question: if there is a god who is good, why would he allow so much evil on earth? William Rowe was the main contributor to the problem of evil. He wrote articles and novels such as “the cosmological argument (1998) and “God and the Problem of Evil” which outline very similar views as Law’s on the problem of evil. Much like Law, Rowe believes that there…show more content… The scales analogy is exactly what it sounds like—when arguments towards the good-god are on one side, most of those exact arguments can be reversed and placed on the evil-god side of the scale (Law, 359). The scales remain relatively balanced despite what theists and most others believe. Law is able to relate back to the scales analogy throughout his argument and finds only one spot where the scales are unbalanced. The scales become unbalanced when the topic of miracles and religious experience is discussed. Many theists would argue that there is no possible way that an evil-god would perform miracles on earth. Law disagrees. He argues that an evil god is capable of performing miracles and would do so in different parts of the world, leaving different instructions at each miracle site. This would cause an uproar, war, and arguments between the people who have experienced miracles or religious experiences. The evil god will then be able to watch as our free will allows us to produce more evil now that miracles have been performed. Since this tends to be the pattern in most religious experiences, the scales now shift in favour of the evil-god challenge. By using the scales analogy, Law is able to provide a continuous basis for the readers to refer back to and realize that when the scales are balanced, there is no reason that the
