Theodicy #7 - Butterfly effect

Let’s say God allows the Holocaust to prevent an even greater Holocaust in the future. The problem with this is that God could intervene and prevent the first Holocaust and then intervene again to prevent the second one. If God allows someone to suffer third-degree burns so that 100 years later someone from a different country gets their dream job, God could prevent the burns and deliver the dream job. So if God allows an evil to achieve a greater good, the greater good must depend on that evil (or a worse or comparable evil) or else God could achieve the same good with less evil.

This unlocks a new kind of gratuitous evil not yet discussed. Comparative gratuitous evil:

God has a choice to either instantiate the column 1 scenario (An evil gives rise to a greater good) or the column 2 scenario (a good gives rise to the exact same greater good). Given that choice, God would choose column 2.

Note: the greater good in column 2 needn’t be the exact same greater good as in column 1. It could be a different greater good of comparable degree, a greater good of greater degree, or even a greater good of lesser degree depending on the balance between the good and evil giving rise to the corresponding greater goods. Also, the good in row 2 could be neutral or even evil, as long as it’s not as evil as the evil in column 1 and as long as its corresponding greater good retains the necessary superiority over the opposing greater good. Indeed, the good of column 2 could be a greater evil than the evil of column 1 as long as its greater good is that much greater than the greater good of column 1.

Comparative gratuitous evil = An evil that produces a net good, but replacing that evil with a good or a different evil would have produced a greater net good.

So this theodicy fails, revealing an additional, significant condition evils must meet to not be gratuitous. In all, when an evil E produces a good G, it must be the case, for E to not be gratuitous, that:

1) G is greater in magnitude than E.

2) It is not the case that God could prevent E and in its place instantiate a good, a lesser evil, or even a greater evil that produces an overall net good that is greater than the net good of G & E.