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Originally Posted by asaris
Sure good can exist without evil. Consider the nature of the two -- evil is parasitic on good. No person ever commits an evil act for the sake of evil, but for the sake of some good. For example, someone might do something evil for the sake of money, or for the pleasure. But people do perform good deeds merely for the sake of good -- not because it gives them pleasure or otherwise benefits them. Or, looking at it another way, good is a prerequisite for evil. You can't commit an evil action without having some good thing. Power is the easiest example here. You have to have some power to do something evil, but power is itself a good. So we can see that evil cannot exist without good, but the relationship is asymmetrical. So good can exist without evil.
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actually, your logic here is supporting the opposite from what you conclude.
. If God were to exist without another being one could question his credibility of only functioning as completely good as evil exists and if God did create everything then he must have also created evil. One might say that Satan became evil. My response to that would be that God did create satan and if satan was created by God, then God created evil as he is supposed to be omnipotent (all knowing) and would have known of this evil. I believe that this leaves us with two choices. If God were all good then there must have been another completely evil being existing as long as God because we shouldn't pin the problem of evil on God. Another option is to state that God is not completely good and that he also has an evil side to him (I do not wish to believe this but there is a scripture out there for you Bible-beaters out there that states that God is a jealous God; I believe that jealously is not a good characteristic and alot of evil comes about from it). I dont want to offend anyone but this is where logic takes me. According to epistemeology we can't know anything so if you dont want to believe all this go for that argument. To reiterate, if good cannot exist without evil we have the problem (problem for christianity, don't know about islam) of God not creating all things and he not being a being that posesses Aseity (existing in and of itself, existing with no need for anything else, existing by no cause of another). If God did create all things then there is the problem of Evil and how Evil was created by God himself. One might argue that God could have created a being that turned evil. The problem here is that why would a perfect being with only good around him allow Evil to inflict pain on the good around him? Also, I hold the opinion (one of which I cannot think of a good argument to support this opinion at the moment) that something that is completely and perfectly good cannot have anything spawn from this completely and perfectly good thing to be maleovelent or bad. I hope all this makes sense. Tell me what you think.