Evil God Challenge: What if an evil god is just trolling humanity and that explains why there's good in the world?

Question

I've been reading up on the idea of there being an evil god. There's a lot of interesting arguments but I haven't come across anyone mentioning this argument: that all the goodness in the world is just an evil god trolling humanity collectively into a false sense of security about the nature of the world (either that there's an afterlife if you believe in that or that we vanish into nothingness when we die). But when we die the evil god will reveal it's trolling, thus pulling the rug from under our feet, and then torment/afflict torture upon us forever.

I've heard arguments made that "If God is all-powerful, why would He create you, and this world with all its beauty, and your mind, and your soul, just to torture you?" But the answer could be that it's just fun to an evil god to do that.

I've also heard "If there is such a powerful being, they'd be really petty and immature to be mean to some particular humans among billions on this big rock, orbiting one of hundreds of billions of stars in our gigantic galaxy, which is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in our colossal universe." But an evil god could be that petty and immature.

How I see it, I can't think of a hypothetical argument that refutes the idea of an evil god that is just trolling humanity. Any argument you make could just be answered as the evil god is just fucking with you but when you die, you'll finally know the truth about the world.

Truth be told, this is a frightening idea to me and I'd love if someone could refute this idea of a "trolling" evil god.

Answer 1

Have you ever read the Bible? If you’re looking for evidense of a deity with a rather questionable sense of morality, you don’t need to concoct elaborate scenarios involving divine trolling. Just crack open that good book and prepare for a litany of divine misadventares that would make any evil god blush with envy.

Consider the following greatest hits from the Holy Scriptures - The Great Flood. Our benevolent deity gets so peeved with humanity that he decides to drown every living creature, save for a select few. Talk about overkill! Why not just a divine timeout or a stern letter of reprimand? Then Abraham and Isaac. God plays a sadistic game of “Gotcha!” with Abraham, commanding him to sacrifice his son, only to pull the plug at the last second. It’s like a cosmic prank show, but with much higher stakes.

Job’s Trials. Poor Job. He’s the subject of a wager between God and Satan. God allows Satan to ruin Job’s life, just to test his faith. Because nothing says love like turning someone’s existence into a celestial bet. Also if you ever doubted God’s flair for the dramatic, look no further than the ten plagues. Rivers of blood, swarms of locusts, and death of the firstborns—an extravagant display of divine wrath that would make any evil deity proud.

Canaanite Genocide. God commands the Israelites to commit genocide, wiping out entire populations, including women and children. That’s not just trolling—that’s a full-on massacre endorsed by the Almighty. And of course Hell. Eternal torment for finite crimes? Oh, how quaint. An evil god couldn’t devise a more diabolical punishment system. Eternal fire and brimstone for the slightest infraction? A masterpiece of malevolent creativity.

So, you see, the idea that an evil god might be trolling us with intermittent goodness is almost redundant. The deity described in the Bible seems to have a penchant for actions that any self-respecting evil god would applaud. The real challenge isn’t imagining an evil god—it’s reconciling the one we already have in the scriptures with any notion of benevolence.

Answer 2

The simple answer is Occam's razor. It is, of course, also the answer to religion in general as opposed to simply taking things as they are.

Your idea — like any religion — is essentially paranoid: You invent a story that's impossible to refute; it has built-in mechanisms to ad-hoc counter any argument brought against it: "Oh, that? that's just another devilishly mean way to fuck with us!", which is your equivalent to the Christians' "His ways are ineffable."

If things could be the way they are without the story, leave it out.

Answer 3

Actually from a deistic point of view, when someone says that God is good, it is not meant a qualifier, but rather a definition. Like when we say a triangle is a geometric shape which has 3 sides. God, as the creator of everything, he is the one who sets up the rules, not only the physical laws but also for morality. He is the definition of good. Saying "an evil God" is like saying "a triangle with 4 sides". It's contradiction.

If you would want to morally judge God, you would need some kind of ethical codex by which you would judge him. But where would such a moral code come from? You cannot judge by your opinion, you need some universal, objective measure, which, in a world created by God, is God. If you measure God with his own measure, of course you'll get he is good.

Another perspective: If you think about God as an omnipotent being, then, if he was truly evil, he would optimize for the maximum suffering, without any happiness or peace for anyone. So the fact that there are some people who are able to be happy, even if for a limited amount of time, shows that either God is not omnipotent (so basically he's not God), or that he is not evil. If you would say that happy people are allowed to be happy just to make matters worse for everyone else, again, an omnipotent evil God would make sure everyone suffers equally, maximally.

EDIT: Also, if God is a perfect being in himself, meaning he is self-sufficient, he doesn't need anything, so he wouldn't benefit from torturing anyone.

Answer 4

I think that you are coming at this from a good attempt but the wrong angle. Your title asks the more apt question than your post, and they need to be addressed separately. Let me first satisfy the mistaken angle and then I can address the important issue. The problem is trying to solve large fundamental questions the same tools you use to address smaller, oversimplified questions. I do like your thought experiment, though, and personally, I use something somewhat similar in my own philosophical approach.

The oversimplified question

Can we refute any type of god? Can we refute any non-self contradictory thing? Not without unnecessary assumptions and begging the question. Descartes says that the only thing we can know undeniably is the Cogito. Every other possible state of reality, even complete control by malevolent demons, or by extrapolation, deities, or even no deities at all, is within the realm of potentially true. So, the simple answer is "No", but that's saying less about the nature of a potential god as it is about our ability to handle things by deduction through pure reason alone.

Asking a better question

Most of the time, when we explore beliefs, we actually start from a fairly large set of presumptions. This is probably slightly different for everybody, but often includes things like assumptions about how our minds and reason work, what the meaning of life is, and all sorts of other things. We then compare new information to these fundamentals, so most of the time we're skipping a lot of steps. This is fine for the small questions, but not for the big ones. When we attempt to ask questions that challenge these core beliefs, we find that the tools we were using themselves were based upon presumptions which we now question. Therefore, this method is not useful for this larger task. We need to start from first principles like Descartes, but we need to add something more to pass beyond Solipsism, or really to narrow our goal in some way.

The better question is the "What if...?" I think that your question hints at the other necessary component, which I believe to be "impetus". Why should we or should we not believe a thing? We can believe a thing. We can believe many strange things, and reason cannot by itself refute them. The box of unrefutable things is simply too large. However, if we narrow that list down to unrefutable practical things, then now we have a useful classification. It could be possible that I do not have the ability to reason. It could be possible that the time is instantaneous. It could be possible that regardless what I believe, the outcome would be the same for me. However, it is not practical to believe any of those things, and several others, and once I can establish their inverse, I can start to build a system which can be useful.

What should we believe

So, starting with reason and impetus, what can we say about such a trickster god? I think that we can say that we should not believe in such a thing. The reason is that we have nothing to gain by believing in such a thing. If our minds or nature were controlled or influenced in a way such that we could not come to true conclusions by using our minds and reason, then we couldn't trust the conclusions at which our minds arrived. Therefore, if such a scenario were true, then we would suffer no loss from believing the "false" thing (in that case) that there were no such god.

This same sort of logic can go much further, and I am oversimplifying here. I think that we can likewise rule out, not as refuted but as impractical, many other types of potential deities as well, including apathetic ones. In fact, we may be able to establish some necessary features of an existing deity which much exist in any case that the question and answer are even important. I personally suspect that followed through, this might even narrow possible belief systems down to a single system, so I find it very useful.

Conclusion

So, no, you cannot refute the existence of such a thing. Also, no, you should not believe that such a thing exists.

Answer 5

"What if an evil god is deceiving humanity by allowing good things to exist, only to reveal its true nature and torture us after we die? This idea scares me, and I'm looking for arguments to refute it." (paraphrased)

In order, we would need to at least suppose there is a god, god cares, god has intentions, and good and evil exist.

Assuming all of these are true, and given you are happy to make so many assumptions, why not just make one more assumption about God, and assume a benevolent nature instead of going an extra step and making it more complicated?

We could forever build on your question with further qualifiers and ask if god is deceiving humanity while wearing a pink T-shirt, or while wearing a pink T-shirt and red shoes...

I believe what you are really asking is how many assumptions can you logically make about something, and that answer would have to be none.

Answer 6

Believing in evil God leads to nihilism. If all the good work and sacrifices one makes results in suffering then there is no point in doing them. Anything that leads to Nihilism is wrong in my opinion because it contradicts the ends of belief itself. Therefore the idea of an evil God is wrong is because if making sacrifices for humanity and doing good works brings rewards, the goal of belief itself, then that is a sign that any God is good, rather than bad.

Billions believe in good God because it brings them fruits which they can cherish. What purpose would there be to believe in an evil and trickster God?

Instead of saying that there is an evil God it is more logical to believe in God and a Devil, with the former being able to reward you for good.

However faith in God and Devil are unscientific because no one has given direct evidence of God or Devil in modern times.

Answer 7

God as God the (seemingly) irrational punisher does not sit well with many people. At the gates of hell, Dante has us read that divine Love created hell.

Through me the way into the suffering city, Through me the way to the eternal pain, Through me the way that runs among the lost. Justice urged on my high artificer; My Maker was Divine authority, The highest Wisdom, and the primal Love. Before me nothing but eternal things Were made, and I endure eternally. Abandon every hope, who enter here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gates_of_Hell

Our present society makes more sense when we attribute damnation to hatred, not justice and love, and it would swimming against some tides to suggest that anything beyond privation is fitting for those who hope to do evil.

Answer 8

Socrates thought that virtue and knowledge coincide; Kant, in his Religion, says:

Man (even the most wicked) does not, under any maxim whatsoever, repudiate the moral law in the manner of a rebel (renouncing obedience to it). ... We are not, then, to call the depravity of human nature wickedness [] to adopt evil as evil into our maxim as our incentives (for that is diabolical)...

So would an all-knowing being be able to will so much evil? Per the above, no. But is it logically possible to imagine being subjected to evil forever? I suppose I can "visualize" it, like I can visualize myself (as I often do) submerged in a lake of fire, and I can stipulate, "And it goes on forever..." and that "forever" doesn't seem to logically contradict anything per se, does it? So to say:

1. X created the world.
2. X created the world to torment it.^P

Again, (2) doesn't seem "self-contradictory" compared to (1) (assuming that creating-a-world is a meaningful enough notion, of course), unless we think that having the power to create worlds requires a certain moral disposition beforehand. For example, if in an old way of thinking there is something "intrinsically good" about existence in general, then the will-to-create must participate in this intrinsic goodness, or so an evil being will not have the power of such creation.^F So though, "An evil being created the world," is not "directly self-contradictory," it is indirectly self-defeating, in a sense.

Perhaps that is far as this philosophical therapy could take you (accepting the abstract possibility of the world being created for an evil reason,_L but concluding also that you have no way of making the concepts involved precise enough to know if this apparent possibility is more than just 'logical' or if it also metaphysical/epistemic, etc.).

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^POne might reason: "It is not possible to create a being in order for that being to be subject to eternal pain, because to create pain itself is to create pain as something that a being is to avoid if that being exists and is able to feel it, and so to create a being to feel pain would be to create a being to be unable to do what 'conceptually fits' to pain, i.e. to conflict with the inner purpose of creating a being as a being." (This is the kind of reasoning we find in scholasticism, for example, if not necessarily per my case as stated.)

^FSuppose, towards a possible contradiction, that it was possible for there to be a Form of Evil, in a roughly Platonic sense. Now if evil-in-itself can't be "willed" (if no one can deliberately act under the description, "What I'm doing is evil in general, and that's why I'm doing it!"), then either a Form of Evil is an exception to this rule, or conforms also hereto. It's more interesting, in my eyes, to see where the latter option leads us. If even a Form of Evil can't will contrary to the Form of the Good per se nota, what can it will for? Perhaps not even directly its own victory.

But so we assume that there must not be a lone ultimate Form of Evil, and this is not even just in counterpoint to the Form of the Good being "first among equals." It is of the essence of evil to be in a state of conflict, of aggression, and so there would be, if there be any, multiple evil Forms, vying against each other in various ways. And that is something they could very well will: each imagining, in its hostility towards the others, that its hatred is good, for it is hatred of something gravely evil, "isn't it"?

While "ignoring" their own malice, then. But is that possible? Even the Forms of Evil participate in the Form of the Good, to be Forms at all. And so they are caught up in the manner of the Form's influence on the possibility of knowledge (e.g. as by the power of the Forms of Knowledge and Power). How could a Form of Evil "not know" that it was doing something wrong by trying to destroy other Forms of Evil? Or by doing anything at all? If there are Forms of Good and Evil, then do the Evil ones not project their essence into the world of exemplars, through (or not through) a demiurge, but are "stationary" instead?

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Addendum: TV Tropes reference: although philosophical content (and the alleged value of that content) can vary greatly from book to book, movie to movie, etc., and so we might not think to glean much, if anything, of philosophy per se, from fiction, yet with respect to ethics—for which fictionalism, relativism, subjectivism, non-cognitivism, quasi-realism, and error theories are all "live options"—it does not seem amiss to work out a sort of methodological fictionalism, i.e. an appeal to the distribution of moral concepts and attitudes throughout literature and other narrative media. So the litany of texts and other examples of imagined evil Gods seems extensive enough to support (in an "experimental philosophy" way) the claim that, "God is evil," is not absolutely self-contradictory (or, even if it is, then so much the worse for the traditional claim that we cannot truly think through the absolutely self-contradictory?).

Answer 9

As @bauerdavid mentioned

"If you would want to morally judge God, you would need some kind of ethical codex by which you would judge him."

He then follows with God being ultimate source of this morality. Lets follow different path.

Let's follow this though experiment by Trent Horn in debate with CosmicSkeptic

All humans left Earth to colonize different planet. You are on the last ship from earth. You are given antimatter device that will instantly destroy Earth with animals. Would you destroy the earth to prevent all future suffering of animals left on Earth?

If your answer is "No I would not destroy Earth", then that basically mean that you believe mere temporal existence of these beings is good (despite all the suffering they experience), non-existence being bad/evil.

You could argue that animals in the experiment above are not only tortured but perceive also some good and that is reason why their existence is good. But we would perceive good we had before even while being tormented for eternity (by definition of this trolling god).

So "Evil god" tormenting us for eternity can be considered good simply because god preserves our existence - it is not "Evil God" but "God the Preserver of Existence".

Now how does "Evil god" torment us for eternity? By thought experiment above, he could torment us simply by ending our existence (and as a troll, he would tell us this just before ending our existence). Then it comes to whether temporal existence was worth eternal non-existence.

As an amateur in philosophy and someone believing in existence = good, I find this strong argument against such god, but I am sure many arguments could be made (against this position) by Philosophical pessimism

Answer 10

In it's purest form, evil is destructive, so if a god was evil, he would destroy everything he possibly could. If he were absolutely powerful, then there would be nothing left.

If a god is just messing with us, sometimes being evil and sometimes being kind for no reason, I would argue that this god is not totally evil. He is only partially evil, since by our definition above, total evil necessitates total destruction.

So I would argue that a god who is trolling humanity is not totally evil, but also contains some good.

I think you would argue that a god who does bad 90% of the time and happens to do good 10% of the time is by definition evil. I would argue that he is 90% evil.

So in this case, we could pose the question: Where does the good in this mostly-evil god come from? Some higher power? And where does the evil come from? Some other higher power? Any god that is caught between good and evil is mostly likely being manipulated by other, higher, purer forms of good and evil. So he is not the highest power; there are higher all-good and all-evil beings above him.

Answer 11

Does the poultry or steer farmer do his job from malice to the 'beings' he 'creates' ie breeds? We do not ask whether the calamity of a tsunami or earthquake is malicious even if it is traumatic/deadly for a million humans.

While tsunamis and such are large-scale catastrophes by the human scale, the creation of the world — assuming such an event or process has any meaning — must clearly be a cosmic event or process of vastly more...

Gigantic proportions

To even begin to grok these effectively infinite proportions, consider the following sequence of catastrophes made with assistance from chatGPT.

1. Personal Incident:
   Example: Car accident.
   Impact: Affects one or a few individuals, causing injury or death.

2. Localized Emergency:
   Example: House fire.
   Impact: Affects a single household or small group, leading to loss of property, injury, or death.

3. Community Disaster:
   Example: Industrial accident (e.g., factory explosion).
   Impact: Affects dozens to hundreds of people, causing injuries, fatalities, and environmental damage.

4. Citywide Crisis:
   Example: Terrorist attack (e.g., bombing in a major city).
   Impact: Affects thousands, causing widespread fear, significant casualties, and economic disruption.

5. Regional Catastrophe:
   Example: Major earthquake or tsunami.
   Impact: Affects tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, leading to large-scale destruction, significant loss of life, and displacement.

6. National Disaster:
   Example: Category 5 hurricane.
   Impact: Affects millions, causing extensive damage, long-term economic impact, and numerous casualties.

7. Continental Crisis:
   Example: Severe drought or pandemic outbreak.
   Impact: Affects tens of millions, leading to widespread health issues, economic downturns, and significant mortality.

8. Global Threat:
   Example: Large-scale war or nuclear conflict.
   Impact: Affects billions, causing massive casualties, widespread destruction, and global instability.

9. Intra-Planetary Catastrophe:
   Example: Ocean levels rising dramatically due to climate change.
   Impact: Affects entire populations worldwide, leading to mass displacement, economic collapse, and severe loss of life.

10. Extinction-Level Event:
    Example: Comet or asteroid impact.
    Impact: Potentially wipes out most or all life on Earth, leading to the end of human civilization and mass extinction of species.

11. Inter-Planetary Catastrophe:
    Example: Cataclysmic events leading to the formation of a new planet eg. planet theia colliding with the earth and producing the moon.
    Impact: Disrupts the structure and dynamics of an existing solar system, causing widespread destruction of pre-existing celestial bodies and potentially creating hazardous environments. These events can entirely obliterate existing forms of life while also laying the groundwork for new ones to emerge.

12. Stellar Explosion —Supernovae, GRB):
    Example: A star going supernova.
    Impact: Destroys nearby stars, and their solar systems and creating black holes or neutron stars.

13. Galactic Collision:
    Example: Collision and merging of galaxies.
    Impact: Massive restructuring of stars and planetary systems, potentially causing widespread destruction and the formation of new star systems.

14. Cosmic Events:
    Example: Big Bang or similar universe-creating events.
    Impact: Fundamental events that create entire universes, leading to the formation of all matter, energy, stars, galaxies, and potentially life.

I particularly recommend the comments below the link in 10. as answer to this question.

Religion-Philosophy : Contradictory or Complementary?

It's a strange phenomenon — people tend to project onto God the very first and last levels but not the ones in between which they ascribe "secularly" — science, politics, (human) nature etc. Such exceptionalism is neither...

Good science nor Good religion

A saner approach would be to say "all" or "none."
Generally speaking "all" is called "religion" — God is the all-doer, all-controller.
"None" is called "philosophy" — these are all processes. Pushing malice, "trolling", grace, good, evil, sin, redemption etc., — all may be termed subspecies of the process called "ignorance" (maya) + "suffering" (dukha).

Analogy

Can a cell in your brain, even one in the intellectual areas of the cortex, contemplate the cortex, Can it contemplate the brain? You and your identity? Sure it participates but it cannot really know in what it participates.

Changing the analogy slightly consider a muscle cell. Now consider you go to the gym, pump some iron, get red in the face and break some muscle fibres towards increasing your muscle mass. At your level its huffing panting and sweating. At the level of the muscle tissue its more calamitous. At the levels of the muscle cell its life and death. Does that make you cruel? "Trolling"?

Christianity is a bit strange in axiomatically defining God to be "omnibenevolent".

But Good-Evil is the fundamental defining axis of Christianity.

If you find it depressing/ claustrophobic/frightening there are other axes you might find more agreeable. Eastern religions are more balanced in this respect, eg. in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna broadly recommends bhakti (religion) and jnana (philosophy) to Arjuna and never allows Arjuna to fall entirely to one or other side.

You may find looking Eastwards — there's a wide palette — more relaxing than getting stuck between Christianity and atheism.