A person with a background in philosophy ought to be able to make a good faith (hehe) argument that God is not benevolent in any capacity and is doing the same as a toddler in a sandbox.
I had a professor make that exact argument… or perhaps he was quoting an argument of one of the greats. Anyway, the argument goes like this:
- if there is evil, and god has the power to stop it, but he doesnt due to his knowledge, then he is not omnicient
- if there is evil, and god has the power to stop it, but he doesnt and he has all knowledge, then he is evil
- if there is evil, and god does not have the power to stop it, then he is impotent
The first person then smugly smiles that they put God into a box and waits to hear the mental gymnastics from the Christian Philosopher.
The christian philosopher then brings up a few points that were straw manned:
- incomplete understanding of whether what we are seeing is “evil”
- the illusion of choice - are we simply clocks that were preprogrammed back when the big bang occured? Can a clock have “evil” within it?
- moral agents with ability to make meaningful choices - The actions of the omnipotent being (God) are tied by pesky rules regarding choice because the being (God) could eliminate choice: the being could choose the perfect stimuli to create an exact copy of an ideal AI in a bio-mechanical body instead of moral agents who choose to be a dick or not. Therefore, if this fact pattern is reality, then there must be “something special” about being a moral agent and having a relationship albeit distant with an Omnipotent being.
The philosophers then keep asking questions to reduce the opponents argument until they conclude with the following question: “What is?” then they leave as friends.