I just finished reading a surprisingly persuasive disproof of God's existence.
It is very strange for me to write the previous sentence. I have always been skeptical of so-called internal inconsistency arguments, such as J.N. Findlay's argument that God is impossible (because necessary existence is implicitly contradictory and one of God's essential attributes is necessary existence), which attempt to show that one or more divine attributes is (or are) incoherent. Why? I've always assumed that, in response to such arguments, theologians can endlessly redefine divine attributes and/or jettison certain attributes as "not essential." Likewise, I've always been skeptical of external inconsistency arguments, such as J.L. Mackie's famous argument from evil, which attempt to show that God's existence is inconsistent with some "external" fact (such as the fact that evil exists). Why? I've always assumed that it would be impossible to identify a known external fact that is logically inconsistent with God's existence: there may be at least one "possible world" in which God exists and the known external fact obtains.
In his exceptionally well-written and easy-to-read Ph.D. dissertation, Carl Brownson fuses Findlay's internal inconsistency argument with Mackie's external inconsistency argument to produce a novel argument against God's existence, which he calls the "Ontological Problem of Evil." The argument is as follows.
(1) If God exists, then God exists necessarily.
(2) If God exists necessarily, then nothing incompatible with God’s existence is metaphysically possible.
(3) Evil incompatible with the existence of God is metaphysically possible.
Therefore:
(4) God does not exist.
Unlike Findlay's ontological disproof, Brownson's ontological argument from evil does not make (or depend upon) the claim that necessary existence is impossible. Unlike Mackie's argument from evil, Brownson's argument does not make (or depend upon) the claim that a known fact about evil in the actual world is inconsistent with God's existence. Instead, the argument claims that God's existence is inconsistent with a fact about evil in some metaphysically possible world. Unlike the traditional problem of evil (which appeals only to the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and moral perfection), the ontological argument from evil appeals to those three attributes plus God's necessary existence. This seemingly simple move -- appealing to just one more divine attribute -- does a huge amount of work. It seems to render existing responses to arguments from evil (e.g., defenses, theodicies, skeptical theism, etc.) as fundamentally irrelevant. As Brownson (p. 52) points out, it is one thing to argue that <known facts about evil in this world are compatible with the goodness of God>; it is quite another to argue that <all possible evils in all possible worlds are compatible with the goodness of God>.
Later in his dissertation, Brownson uses the insights of his ontological problem of evil to develop what he calls a cosmological disproof of God's existence.
(5) If there is a God, then God must exist in worlds with unjustified evil, as he must be the ultimate metaphysical explanation of why this world exists rather than any other.
(6) If there is a God, then God must not exist in worlds with unjustified evil, as he must be perfect in all possible worlds.
Therefore:
(7) God does not exist.
A few pages later (pp. 132-33), Brownson next illustrates how the ontological problem of evil and the contingency argument come together to create yet another disproof of God's existence. What follows is my attempt at reconstructing the dilemma he presents.
(8) Necessarily, if God exists, then God exists in all metaphysically possible worlds. [Premise]
(9) Necessarily, if God exists, then God is a good being, i.e., God is essentially good. [Premise]
(10) Either God exists in all possible worlds (including the bad ones) or God does not exist in all possible worlds. [Law of Excluded Middle]
(11) If God exists in all possible worlds, including the bad ones, then God is not essentially good. [From 8 and the definition of essential goodness]
(12) If God is essentially good, then God does not exist in metaphysically possible worlds which are incompatible with his essential goodness. [From 9 and the definition of essential goodness]
(13) If God does not exist in metaphysically possible worlds which are incompatible with his essential goodness, then God does not exist in all metaphysically possible worlds. [From 12]
Therefore:
(14) If God exists, it would be true that God exists in all metaphysically possible worlds and it would be false that God exists in all metaphysically possible worlds. [From 8 and 13]
Therefore:
(15) It is impossible for God to exist. [From 14 by the LNC]
As Brownson concludes, "The world cannot be explained in two fundamental philosophical respects, metaphysically and morally, by appeal to one necessary being. A necessary being could exist, or an essentially good being could exist, but not both." N.B. I am not entirely confident my reconstruction in (8)-(15) is correct, so I encourage interested readers to read his dilemma and not rely upon my attempted reconstruction.
To sum up, I am very surprised where I have landed. Despite my skepticism about these kinds of arguments, I think Brownson's ingenious argument is decisive against any God concept which includes the essential attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, goodness / moral perfection, and (metaphysically) necessary existence. This much is clear: the only realistic way to defeat the argument is to defeat premise (3). I am unable to imagine a good defeater against his argument. I could be wrong, of course. In any case, Brownson's disproof deserves to be widely read, analyzed, considered, and promoted. In my opinion, it is "required reading" in the philosophy of religion.
Update (10-July-2023):
I was just informed or reminded of three earlier, related papers or books which make a similar argument (albeit nowhere near as developed or as sophisticated). Whereas Brownson calls his argument the "ontological problem of evil," Guleserian and Bass call their (similar) arguments the "modal problem of of evil."
Theodore Guleserian, "God and possible worlds: The modal problem of evil," Noûs 17:2(1983): 221-238. H/T: ExApologist
Richard M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 228-229. H/T: RealAtheology. Here is an excerpt from p. 229:
A theist who does not impute a necessary existence to God can accept 87 [which is roughly equivalent to Brownson's premise (3)] and then go on to construct a defense or theodicy for different types of moral and natural evil, depending on whether it is the deductive or inductive argument from evil that is being rebutted. But the problem of evil for the theist who either accepts an ontological argument or imputes necessary existence of God takes a far more acute form. It is the modal problem of evil, concerning the very possibility of there being a morally unjustified evil, the theistic response to which must take the form of an argument for the impossibility of there being an evil for which God does not have a morally exonerating excuse. It is not enough to give a FWD [free will defense], since this still leaves open the possibility of a morally unjustified natural evil, such as the example of the supernova. What these theists must establish is that it is more likely that it is possible that having unsurpassable greatness is instantiated than that being a morally unjustified evil is. At a minimum, they can challenge the intuitions underlying 87 with their own counterintuitions favoring 76-3.
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