DIVINE MORAL AGENCY AND ARGUMENT THAT EVIL IS NOT REAL
To say evil is unreal in that it is the absence of a good that ought to be
present is to say that evil is good in the wrong place. It makes no sense to say
that good ought to be there and if God does not put it there he is still a
perfect God!
Some religionists say that God is not a moral agent if you mean by moral agent a
being that can do wrong but doesn't and which behaves well. God cannot argue
with himself like a moral agent would for he knows right away what to do. But
they still say that God cannot make what is evil in itself or condone it. So we
still have a God who must do the right thing. Yet some use the God not being a
moral agent type of thinking to deal with God allowing evil to happen and making
sick babies and keeping them sick and making some babies have a stronger genetic
predisposition to evil than others. These people say that God is different from
us and so much higher and bigger that we can't expect him to have moral
obligations towards us. They say he makes us but owes us nothing. But they say
we are moral agents though we have no moral obligations to ants. So it follows
that if God owes us nothing and if he can refuse us benefits for that reason
then he is still being a moral agent. Not owing us anything does not mean he
isn't a moral agent but means he is and just owes us nothing. The argument from
moral agency has nothing to do with it at all unless you want to teach that God
not being a moral agent means he doesn't care about goodness or is both good and
evil.
The existence of germs and bacteria that are good for nothing but making
sickness is a plain proof that the argument that God can make them for he owes
us nothing and isn't a moral agent is nonsense. When I do something that I make
fall short of what it ought to be, it's called a sin by those religionists. Yet
they say God can do what falls short of goodness. They add that when it is him
who does is not a sin for he makes only the good not the bad for the bad is not
real but just good in the wrong place! So a sin is not a sin when God does
wrong. This is plainly accusing humans of evil for doing what God does while he
is worshipped for it! It is as ridiculous as saying that murder is not evil when
God does it and evil when a human being does it! If murder is evil then no
matter who does it, it is still evil! Is it any wonder that many people feel
religion is vindictive?
If God is not a moral agent, then surely a God that is a moral agent would be a
better God to believe in? Surely if God claims to be perfect he would only be
perfect if he were a moral agent? We need role models and a God who is not a
moral agent cannot function as our role model. The God of the Christians is
something they pretend to revere or they try to force themselves to love
something above all things that is not really relevant to their hopes of
becoming a truly good person. It would be strange to argue that belief in God
honours goodness so much that it rejects the abuse of goodness that is evil and
then promote a God who is a futile role model.