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Zatzat
Guest
Exactly…God could have created an Evil free universe, but God obviously wanted Evil in the universe…hence there is evil.
If God didn’t want Evil to exist, evil wouldn’t exist.
God can do anything.
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If God didn’t want Evil to exist, evil wouldn’t exist.
God can do anything.
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buffalo
Guest
Then the universe would be God.
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JohnDamian
Guest
You mistake desire for acceptance;
God must accept evil in the universe as it is a potential byproduct of free will;
The only way to circumvent this is to not provide free will, which entails a contradiction to God’s generous and loving nature; thus - we have free will, and consequently evil is an accidental property of that.
One could make ones children never able to defy you, but to do so they must live under your thumbs as an extension of yourself, this is not what God wants;
John 15:15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
God does not desire mindless servants, if he wanted such he could deny us our free will, but by his very generous provision and gift of freedom, he nessecarily opens the door to potential evil; in the same way that a parent who lets their child play outside takes a risk, so God does, for it would be cruel to deny them that freedom.
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Zatzat
Guest
Is heaven God? Last I heard, heaven wassn’t God, but a place to go and be with God.
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buffalo
Guest
Of course not and that was my point. They are distinct.
That is the answer - God permits evil as a consequence of free will.
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lemondiesel
Guest
so is this “heaven” located outside the laws of physics??
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JohnDamian
Guest
Unless I am mistaken Lemondiesel, the implication of “oneness” is found in Hermeticism is similar to the christian concept of Heaven, in that it is not a physically based thing per se; and to be with God in the Christian concept is quite similar to the oneness.
That said, as we ourselves have not been to heaven, we do not know. What we can know with certainty in a Logical sense is the immortal soul; the exposition I am aware of is in De Spiritualitate Et Immortalitate Animae Humanae from the Opus Oxoniense IV of Bl Duns Scotus - which I probably shouldn’t type out here, as this chapter is pretty technical and quite long
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Zatzat
Guest
I still assert that an all knowing God could have thought of a way to have created a universe absent of evil…that still gave people free will…
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JohnDamian
Guest
If people cannot choose to be evil, how can we say they have a choice at all?
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buffalo
Guest
A universe that people can only make good decisions? How does that work?
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DysonSphere
Guest
Consider what some Christians believe about the “new heavens” and the “new earth”.
It would be possible, at least in the imagination, for God to have created all human souls at once, educated them on His nature, and offered them all the choice of following Him or rejecting Him. Those who chose to follow Him would have made an eternal choice, and would only make good decisions after, yet still would retain a free will (a perfectly free will, as Christ’s will and Mary’s will is free). Those who chose otherwise would be condemned to eternal torment. This system would remove all the physical suffering, as well as psychological and moral anguish, and the problem of guilt imputed over many generations.
This of course is not the way things have happened, obviously. But the question could be asked (for whatever it’s worth): why not?
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tjm190
Guest
Remember that many people also consider things like hurricanes/earthquakes to a source of ‘natural evil’. These thing of course are not evil, but rather nature flowing naturally- we just happen to get in the way. (e.g. the mega hurricane on Jupiter, though it has far more destructive capability then anything ever to happen on Earth, would not be branded ‘evil.’) THe only possible universe ‘free of all evil’ natural evil included, would be one where we are somehow inhibited from putting ourselves in nature’s path.
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buffalo
Guest
Pretty close - The prototypical human (Adam) and his mate (Eve) were created with preternatural gifts.
Your idea is pretty much what happened. The difference is that redemptive suffering increases the capacity for God. Relative to eternity, the human suffering we endure here is but a blink of the eye and merely a pin prick, although it seems much more when we are actually going through it. Our earthly life is preparation for our life with God. What price are we willing to pay for such a reward?
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DysonSphere
Guest
Two important differences:
The suffering now may be short in the long view, but it matters to me.
The situation is different in that Adam and Eve supposedly got a say while in an immaculate state. I didn’t.
I’m also not sure how much worth these hypothetical questions actually have. The point is that it would be possible for God to have created a world in which there would be no physical suffering for any who would end up in heaven, while still allowing for free will, and that this seems, to some, a better way to have done it.
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lemondiesel
Guest
Ya but we believe in reincarnation of soul. It takes many many lives to achieve this “oneness.”
Without trying to stray from topic to much
is the Christian “oneness” a place where you will feel no emotions that you feel here on earth?
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RobNY
Guest
There are two broad sorts of answer to this question, an Aristotelian and an Anselmian one.
The Aristotelian one will say that ‘omnipotence’ ranges over all powers, and that for this reason, any task which is a ‘contradiction’ is in reality only a pseudo-task. If “God creating a stone too heavy for Himself to lift” is a contradictory thing, then God does not “lack” anything by failing to be able to do it. Indeed, he is still “omnipotent” in that He literally can do all things.
This is a good response, but there is a response which is a bit more subtle from the Anselmian tradition.
St. Anselm defines God’s omnipotence as absolute power without defect. Consider what this might mean. There are presumably powers which imply a defect on the part of the actor. For instance, finite knowers only know things in accord with their finite natures-- they undergo change in order to come to know things. God does know all things but God does not know things in the mode of a finite knower. God cannot know in the mode of a finite knower, because to do so would imply an imperfection in His nature (it would imply that He was patient, i.e., that He suffered change). This Anselmian response does not quite say that such things are impossible absolutely, but by defining omnipotence as “power without defect” it quite clearly excludes powers which imply finite limitations. Thus it is quite successful as a defense.
Now, the atheist might object that we are merely rigging the debate by defining things as we wish. R Daneel in post #13 seems to suggest as much. Aren’t we just jerry-rigging the word to mean what we want?
Well, this unfortunately is a bad objection for the athiest. A priori atheism-- arguments which exclude God’s existence using reason alone, and without reference to truths of sense perception, memory, and so only-- cannot insist on a definition of omnipotence to use in his argument. Only by insisting on his definition of omnipotence can he ensure that his argument is sound. But this is simply arbitrary, and so it seems that the atheist simply cannot establish his argument as a demonstration. It is merely an expression of his prejudices (i.e., his prejudice as to what the term ought to mean, arbitrarily).
God bless,
-Rob
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buffalo
Guest
From the other thread (Is science grounded on faith?) we were speaking of desire. You do not like suffering, you seek a world without pain. Can we agree there is a state without pain?
God did - The account of the angels is one where there is no physical pain, yet they have free will. But they are not physical. I do not have the answer as to why we are not angels, but corporeal.
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DysonSphere
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I don’t know much about philosophy but I know that Schopenhauer thought pleasure was simply a lack of suffering. A state without suffering might be Nirvana, or Heaven, or it simply may be attained upon our death and the possible total cessation of our consciousness.
I agree with you at the end in that I think these sorts of hypothetical questions (why didn’t God do this?) are pretty-much useless no matter what you believe about God.
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Zatzat
Guest
Nature is indifferent, not evil.
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Leela
Guest
According to Luke 1 nothing is impossible for God:
34“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be calledc the Son of God. 36Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. 37For nothing is impossible with God.”
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