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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Scott’s short treatment of the subject in his review of Malleus Maleficarum gives the most defensible explanation:

God isn’t trying to maximize a 21st century utilitarian view of the Good, He’s trying to maximize His own glory. Allowing some evil helps with this, because then He can justly punish it (and being just is glorious) or mercifully forgive it (and being merciful is also glorious). But, if God let the Devil kill everyone in the world, then there would be no one left to praise God’s glory, plus people might falsely think God couldn’t have stopped the Devil if He’d wanted to. So the glory-maximizing option is to give the Devil some power, but not too much.

This is the best they can come up with. I’m serious. I don’t believe in God, but conditional on there being a magic sky fairy, this is the most likely explanation.

Paul himself gestures in this direction. Read Romans 9 sometime, especially the metaphor about the potter and the clay.