SYLLOGISM
Premise 1: God is defined as a being of supreme authority and ultimate goodness.
Premise 2: Any moral judgment of God (what is good, evil, or desirable) is inherently interpreted through human understanding, which is limited and self-referential.
Premise 3: Human moral understanding is partial and often biased, projecting our own desires and values onto God.
Premise 4: Therefore, what humans claim God intends or permits, including evil, reflects human projection rather than objective divine intention.
Premise 5: To judge something as “evil” requires sufficient understanding and authority over moral law.
Premise 6: Humans, being limited and subjective, cannot possess such ultimate authority or understanding.
Conclusion 1: Humans cannot reliably declare what God intends or label events as “evil” in relation to God.
Conclusion 2: Therefore, God cannot reasonably ask humans to recognize evil as a “problem” in the divine context, because humans lack the perspective and authority to make that determination.
Conclusion 3: Any attempt to frame evil in the context of divine love is a projection of human values onto God.
SYLLOGISM Premise 1: Human nature tends to favor those who allow evil to happen over those who directly commit it, often because of self-deception, moral distancing, or social approval.
Premise 2: Allowing evil to happen when one could intervene is morally worse than directly committing it, because it entails consent to harm without control or accountability.
Premise 3: Believers who claim that God allows evil to happen are often projecting their own moral distancing onto God, justifying indirect harm through a belief in divine authority.
Premise 4: To claim that God is right to allow evil is to tacitly condone the same moral failing that human nature exhibits—allowing harm when one could prevent it.
Conclusion 1: Therefore, when humans are in the state of moral distancing or self-deception, they cannot legitimately claim that they agree with God allowing evil and suffering, because such agreement is based on projection and moral error.
Conclusion 2: Claiming agreement with a God who allows evil under these circumstances is a reflection of human weakness and complicity, not divine morality.
Believers recognize that they cannot control all the consequences of their actions, and that outcomes can be unpredictable. This uncertainty creates a tendency to psychologically distance themselves from harm that occurs indirectly, attributing responsibility to God, nature, or other people. This distancing can give a placebo for how horrible it is that people suffer. It gives a false sense of moral safety, as if the harm is less connected to their own choices. When people worship a God they consider good simply because God does not directly commit evil, they are projecting their own moral assumptions onto the divine, rather than engaging with the reality of moral responsibility. In fact, someone who deliberately plans an act of evil exercises more control over it than someone who passively allows harm to occur when they could intervene. The passive allowance of harm, despite the opportunity to prevent it, can thus represent a more morally significant failure than the direct act itself.