We have previously seen that if it is plausible that God exists, then God, being maximally great, necessarily exists. This is known as Anselm’s ontological argument.
Theorem 1. God exists. Furthermore, this God possesses every positive attribute.
Intuitively, we would consider moral goodness as a positive attribute, and evil as a negative attribute. Furthermore, different persons can view different behaviors as morally good or not (e.g. talking loudly can be considered as morally good if used for meaningful connection, but morally evil if it disrupts others’ good night sleep).
Lemma 1. God is morally perfect. In particular, God is the perfect moral standard of good.
Proof. Since moral perfection is a positive attribute and God possesses all positive attributes, God is morally perfect.
This God—his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. [Psalm 18:30]
Nevertheless, many of us would consider some actions to be objectively morally evil, such as the unwarranted taking of another human being’s life (this is the definition of “murder”). Of course, the tricky qualifier behind this sentence is the word “unwarranted”—what constitutes as “unwarranted”? Granting this definition, various forms of violence are seen as universally moral evil, regardless of who commits them (e.g. school shootings, genocide, terrorism).
However, what makes these instances of evil, actually evil? If we characterise murder as the unwarranted taking of another human being’s life, then it is evil on the basis that it violates moral goodness—the innate worth of a human life. In this context, the innate worth of a human life is our standard of good, and any violation to that standard is evil.
Definition 1. An action is called good with respect to a given moral standard if it aligns with that moral standard, and evil if violates that moral standard. An action is called objectively good (resp. objectively evil) if it violates the perfect moral standard.
Axiom 1. Murder is objectively morally evil.
Lemma 2. Objective moral evil exists, and by Definition 1, refers to violation of the perfect moral standard as per Lemma 1.
Proof. Axiom 1.
…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… [Romans 3:23]
Remark 1. In Christian theology, objective moral evil is given the name ‘sin’.
Therefore, we have the following statements:
- Lemma 1: God is morally perfect.
- Lemma 2: Objective moral evil exists.
Lemma 3. There exists a moral standard such that evil exists with respect to that moral standard. To abbreviate, evil exists.
Proof. Lemma 2.
Any proposed argument that establishes the existence of God has its objections. While I don’t have the time nor expertise to address them all, and far more talented people than I are better suited for that cause, I would like to consider the age-old problem of evil. Many of us would intuitively believe the following implication:
- (God is morally perfect)
(Evil does not exist).
If Lemmas 1 and 2 are true, then Lemma 3 will be true, and our proposed implication reads True
(God is morally perfect)
must be False. In equivalent terms, Lemmas 1 and 2 are consistent propositions. The problem of evil is basically the question on accepting this consistency (or rather, reconciling the apparent inconsistency), and philosophers and theologians address this question via the study of theodicy. However, I’d like to present a slightly different variant of the connection in the two lemmas.
Theorem 2. If God does not exist, then objective evil does not exist.
Proof. If God does not exist, then objective moral standards do not exist. If objective moral standards do not exist, then no particular action can be defined as objectively good or objectively evil. Therefore, objective evil does not exist.
In more layperson terms, by the definition of evil, the existence of objective evil implies the existence of an objective moral standard that deems said action as genuinely objectively evil. By Theorem 1, God exists, and is this objective moral standard by which all other acts are deemed good or evil.
Corollary 1. If God does not exist, then murder is not objectively evil.
Proof. Apply Theorem 2 and Axiom 1.
Paradoxically then, rather than disproving the existence of God, the existence of an action deemed objective evil necessarily implies the existence of an objective moral standard that even defines the action as objectively evil in the first place!
Therefore, by assuming:
- the existence of truth,
- the existence of positive attributes,
- the plausibility of maximal greatness,
- and the existence of objective moral evil,
not only does God exist, but we even know some attributes that God possesses: all-existent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and morally perfect in every possible world—and in particular, the actual world. That’s quite a nontrivial deduction from very reasonable axioms!
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” [Revelation 4:11]
Now for some non-trivial caveats: Apart from the “based on the axioms” argument, we have not at all elaborated in much detail about the connection between the goodness of God and the existence of objective evil, other than that they are certainly not inconsistent. Furthermore, these arguments do not at all address the very, very complicated forms of evil and suffering that we experience in this world, and more crucially, how we can still believe that God is good when we suffer.
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. [Genesis 50:20]
Even worse: how do we make sense of people who commit objective moral evil and yet do not suffer the consequences of their actions? And even more poignantly: where is God in all of this?
There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. [Ecclesiastes 8:14]
I don’t believe that we will ever know God fully—we don’t even know about the natural numbers fully; how much more God! But I believe that we can know some things about God. And crucially—that God is completely loving, offering a partial insight into our previously raised concerns.
—Joel Kindiak, 26 Sept 25, 1658H
KindiakMath 
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