Can God be evil?

[anEvilAtheist]

How is that evil? He created those lives, He can end them when and how He pleases. It’s like if I build something, and then the next day decide to tear it down. I built it, I can do with it as I please.

I think this is a very dangerous argument. Michael Vick bred the dogs he had fight to the death, but I don’t think that him having them fight to the death was perfectly benevolent. And if a slave master forced two of his slaves to breed, would he be benevolent if he sadistically tortured their offspring?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

It is not evil for God to take someones life, since He is the sole giver AND taker of life. Everyone who has ever died was at God’s command.
It is anthropomorphic to say that it is wrong for God to take life since it is wrong for man.

Just because we all die at some point does not mean that it is benevolent for God to end our life early. If life here on earth has value to us, then God would be more benevolent if he let us live our full life. And if what is “good” for God is something that we would not see as good, then in what sense does it make sense to call God’s actions good, instead of just saying they are God’s will?

 

[scameter]

I myself have had problems with this issue before. Based on the OT, and the NT is not as different as people think from the OT (remember Jesus lived as a model for humans, not as God Himself necessarily is), God is beyond good and evil. He does what he wishes, has a plan that will be followed regardless the cost, and yet is called all-good, all-loving, all-forgiving, etc. To say that human attributes cannot be attributed to God because he is not human is difficult, seeing as in the Bible God is given many descriptives that are human, such as thinking, talking, loving, being forgiving, honest, merciful, just, etc. All of which are human actions and traits.

 

[DonLeon]

Just because we all die at some point does not mean that it is benevolent for God to end our life early. If life here on earth has value to us, then God would be more benevolent if he let us live our full life. And if what is “good” for God is something that we would not see as good, then in what sense does it make sense to call God’s actions good, instead of just saying they are God’s will?

Since we were created to live for eternity but disobeyed our creator and from our actions in the garden of Eden we, in effect, told Him “hands off, we can do just as good a job at controlling our lives”, therfore He gave us and nature “free will” to show us and prove to us what an awful mess we’ve made and are making. So far we’ve not learned any lessons. He intervenes only when He deems it necessary. So…why should we complain and blame Him for our mistakes?

 

[Michaeljc4]

I find a stark difference between the actions of God in the OT, and the God of the NT. It’s like they are two different beings. I wonder if the understanding of God changed with time (culminating with Jesus) or if God Himself changed? When I read about God in the OT, I don’t get the sense that “God is love,” you know?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Since we were created to live for eternity but disobeyed our creator and from our actions in the garden of Eden we, in effect, told Him “hands off, we can do just as good a job at controlling our lives”, therfore He gave us and nature “free will” to show us and prove to us what an awful mess we’ve made and are making. So far we’ve not learned any lessons. He intervenes only when He deems it necessary. So…why should we complain and blame Him for our mistakes?

Well I think that an omnibenevolent being would not punish one generation for the sins of a previous generation. It seems like the only way that God could be omnibenevolent is if we are better off because of the fall of man.

 

[GraceDK]

Several months ago, I watched a powerful film on PBS called God On Trial. The movie is set during the Holocaust, and a group of Jewish men hold a trial to see if God is guilty of breaking his covenant with the Jewish people. This is an incredible story about ‘the problem of evil,’ the nature of God, atheism, faith, etc., and I have been unable to stop thinking about it for six months now. Here is why:

During the trial, one of the Rabbis lists all of the evil things God has done in the Torah. Genocide, cruelty, killing the innocent, etc. He then says that “[God] is not good, He is not good…He has just been on our side.”

This has, quite literally, troubled my sleep. What if God isn’t good? I mean, in His own book, in the Old Testament, He does some pretty horrific stuff. If God is not good, or not all good, a lot of what’s wrong with our world become explicable. So…how do we know that God is good when He Himself has done things that are not good?

Eli Wiesel, the author of Night, says that the trial actually took place when he was a child in Auschwitz. After God was found guilty, the Rabbis all went off to pray. Talk about faith, huh?

Dear Michael.
I commend your courage for walking into these difficult questions.
I too have read “The Night” and countless other books, I have been to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and I have pondered the question of evil so many times.
I always came to the conclusion that there is only one thing that can remedy the existence of an evil that is so dark and so perverted, and that is the existense of an inexplainable blizz awaiting the people who suffered thus.
A friend of mine compared the story of Israel with the life of Jesus… its wisdom in prophesy to see God so intimately linked with His people that they suffer apocalyptic horror, like God did too.
The Bible says: “He became sin”, so that we have peace by His wounds. He became sin… what does this mean? I am convinced that everything done to the least of the Jewish brothers in the ghettos and camps was done to the Messiah too. Whatever God allows, He allowed it also against Himself. This is something we cannot fathom on this side of eternity… but this is also a realisation that has carried many a Christian through the death camps.
As for your other question. About the Old Testament. If we only had that, our trial agaisnt God might also loose… I mean the personal individual one we go through sometimes. I have been discussing these things with the Muslims on CAF since they say: Your God is just as cruel as ours. To that I say:
The Bible is written by human hand.
The time until Christ is the time of justice. A consequence of a fall that God did not wish.
The time until Christ is a time of wrath.
It’s written in the New Testament that we were the children of wrath before Christ came. It also says that the wages of sin is death. The wages of original sin. Today we see that the world is full of horror… gang rape, genocides, phedophilia, torture, sex slavery… to name a few. What becomes of this unrepented sin? Does it not strike back on the earth and hit in catastrophes that cause even the death of children? From the apocalype we know, as Catholics, that there will be more disasters awaiting this world… and although we carry the seal of baptism we will suffer with the rest of human kind.
We have not seen our sins with the eyes of God… but from those who have, they cry: I deserve only to be cut in little pieces.
I sometimes wonder… did the Jews, Poles and Gypsies atone for the sins of mankind somehow. Jesus says: “Blessed are those who cry now, because they will rejoice…” This is a rather odd statement … maybe its broader than we thought.
God does not want us to feel pain… yet pain is intimately linked with joy… for in the deepest pain joy is present to us as expectation: I should not suffer this… its not natural… I should be happy… thats my right element. Thats what we were created for. A danish philosopher called this “the problem of joy”, as an answer to those who made the teodice: “the problem of evil”. The philosopher… if God does not exist, then from where comes the expectation of joy? Why is it that we feel that pain and suffering is an intruder ,… but joy is never felt like an intruder…

These are some thoughts to ponder. Its not easy to explain. But I too have thought about many of these questions and would not settle for a blind acceptance, since i came from a not-religious way of life…
Any religious must be someone who can understand the system of his own thinking… someone who has asked behind the apparent things… if not, he looks like a fool to the modern non-believing world.

 

[DonLeon]

Well I think that an omnibenevolent being would not punish one generation for the sins of a previous generation. It seems like the only way that God could be omnibenevolent is if we are better off because of the fall of man.

But don’t you understand? After God created us we told Him “leave us alone. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need you.” But, in His benevolence and compassion He has shown to us His willingness to help us, But we keep ignoring Him and rejecting Him and teilling Him to “go away and mind your own business!”. So since He does, all the evill that happens to us, which is our own fault, instead of blaming ourselves, we blame God !!

If only we would all admit that we were wrong and admit our mistakes and beg forgiveness
and atone for our errors, can you imagine what a glorious world this would be?

PAX DOMINI

Shalom Aleichem

 

[AHapka]

I think this is a very dangerous argument. Michael Vick bred the dogs he had fight to the death, but I don’t think that him having them fight to the death was perfectly benevolent. And if a slave master forced two of his slaves to breed, would he be benevolent if he sadistically tortured their offspring?

True, but Michael Vick didn’t give those dogs life. And the slave master didn’t give the slaves life.

 

[budgie2]

I don’t know if God can be evil or not. A priest once said that the Old Testament is like radio and the New Testament is like Television and we have less of a picture of God in the Old Testament. I don’t know if God is always the author of the events in the Old Testament or if that’s just the way the Jews retell their history. I saw this comedian Peter Kay who said if God created everything, why did he create the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve although to counteract this Jesus said: How can Satan drive out Satan. In order to plunder a strong man’s house you first of all have to tie up the strong man. I do not know if God would love us in the same way without Christ though. I do not know if God the Father could love us as an equal without Jesus but he always had the intention of sending down his son.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

True, but Michael Vick didn’t give those dogs life. And the slave master didn’t give the slaves life.

True. You can say that everything is really created by God. However, in that case, you can’t say that we have experience of it being moral for a creator to do whatever he wants with his creation. So this excuse for why he could do seemingly evil things and still be good does not work. Unless you think that quite a lot of what happened in the Old Testament is false, I think you have to say that divine morality is different than our morality. In that case, I think that it is no longer meaningful to say that God is good, instead of just saying that he does whatever he wills to do.

 

[AHapka]

True. You can say that everything is really created by God. However, in that case, you can’t say that we have experience of it being moral for a creator to do whatever he wants with his creation. So this excuse for why he could do seemingly evil things and still be good does not work. Unless you think that quite a lot of what happened in the Old Testament is false, I think you have to say that divine morality is different than our morality. In that case, I think that it is no longer meaningful to say that God is good, instead of just saying that he does whatever he wills to do.

First off, you give some wonderful arguments…so good job there.

I postulate that God is love, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Therefore, I can derive that God would desire nothing but the best for His creation. And that since He knows all things and is in all places, He has complete knowledge of what any particular actions repercussions will be. Therefore, He can take an action that we might not understand because we don’t see the big picture the way He does.

If my postulate that God is love is correct, then He would not want to do evil to his creation (allowing it is a totally different story). If He is love, then He is good.

Also, don’t forget that in the Old Testament, the Jews did not have a concept of the afterlife the way we (as Catholics) do. That is why they struggled with suffering and pain, too. If you do not believe in God and Heaven, it all falls apart. Without an afterlife, some of the evil that occurs in the life of man is really unfair.

And this also applies for even the killings of older people ordered. If you believe that the punishment in Hell is related to the evil done on Earth, then a person who goes to Hell with some sins is better off then a person who goes to Hell with more sins. Therefore it may have actually been merciful in a way to allow that person to go to Hell early then later on when they had more sins to answer for. And this is where you have to be omnipotent, because only an omnipotent being like God could know that the person would choose Hell no matter how long they lived.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

First off, you give some wonderful arguments…so good job there.

Thank you. That’s quite a compliment.

I postulate that God is love, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Therefore, I can derive that God would desire nothing but the best for His creation. And that since He knows all things and is in all places, He has complete knowledge of what any particular actions repercussions will be. Therefore, He can take an action that we might not understand because we don’t see the big picture the way He does.

If my postulate that God is love is correct, then He would not want to do evil to his creation (allowing it is a totally different story). If He is love, then He is good.

In many ways I agree with you. There are certain types of evil that are very problematic and could be seen as evidence against the existence of God. However, if you believe with certainty that an omnibenevolent God exists, then this does not present a problem to you because you would be more certain of God’s benevolence than that what you perceive as a contradiction is actually a contradiction. But I think it is dangerous to pick something to believe and stick with it in spite of evidence. For example, there were probably plenty of communists in Russia who maintained a steadfast “faith” in communism despite all the evidence that it was a complete failure. But even if you don’t ignore the evidence, as long as you feel that the evidence to believe is stronger than the evidence not to believe, it makes sense to believe. But I think that evil is certainly something to consider when trying to determine whether God exists.

Also, don’t forget that in the Old Testament, the Jews did not have a concept of the afterlife the way we (as Catholics) do. That is why they struggled with suffering and pain, too. If you do not believe in God and Heaven, it all falls apart. Without an afterlife, some of the evil that occurs in the life of man is really unfair.

The problem here is that it seems that a benevolent God could easily avoid this unnecessary evil by doing a better job of letting people know that he exists. For example, he could merely tell me that he exists and I would become Catholic (or whichever religion was correct). This would in no way interfere with my free will since I could still choose to reject God. There are definitely some people who still believe God exists but reject him because they are angry with him. Now it’s certainly possible that all atheists like me could undergo deathbed conversions, though I think it is extremely unlikely. So I think that the likelihood that there would be so many non-believers if God was omnibenevolent is another thing to consider.

And this also applies for even the killings of older people ordered. If you believe that the punishment in Hell is related to the evil done on Earth, then a person who goes to Hell with some sins is better off then a person who goes to Hell with more sins. Therefore it may have actually been merciful in a way to allow that person to go to Hell early then later on when they had more sins to answer for. And this is where you have to be omnipotent, because only an omnipotent being like God could know that the person would choose Hell no matter how long they lived.

From what I’ve heard, it seems that punishment has more to do with not believing in God than with any evils that were done. Even those who have done the most evil acts imaginable can confess their sins and be forgiven, while an atheist who led a moral life ends up in hell. Now I realize that some people question whether anyone at all ends up in hell, but if that’s the case then I don’t see how it is good for God to end someone’s life prematurely.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Evil is a privation of good. Existence is good and God exists, therefore God is not evil. If God were evil, he would have to be a privation of good; but since existence is good he would also have to lack existence. So an evil God cannot exist, and the God who does exist must be good.

The eternal moral law is nothing else but the Justice that is the very Nature of God. And so God cannot be evil, nor can He do evil, because He cannot contradict Himself.

St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas: “God is truly and absolutely simple.” Therefore, God cannot be both good and evil, nor can He do some evil and some good.

Since God exists, and He is absolutely simple, He must be only good and do only good.

 

[Ocarm]

The problem is that God is supposedly the creator of everything. He created everything on earth, the earth itself, and even the laws of nature. God is omnipotent, so he could have created a world that was the same except without natural catastrophes. The only way that such catastrophes are consistent with an infinitely good God is if every single disaster does more good than bad and there was no possible way that God could have done that much good with less bad.

Another possibility - which chaos theorists like to play with - is that natural catastrophes are not natural, but the result of non-divine agency. Like the proverbial butterfly flapping it’s wings and causing a hurricane halfway round the world.

Nah. Doesn’t work for me either.

I think there is a problem, however, with the idea that God could create a world that was risk-free. I would argue that much of our motivation in tackling life head-on comes from the fact that we are aware of risks that need to be managed or avoided or confronted. In a truly risk-free world, it would be very easy never to get out of bed. For me at least, that explains why life isn’t free of threats and the inevitability of suffering. Why suffering would take the form of natural disasters - or indeed, any particular form - is another matter.

The Book of Job was mentioned above, and I think it is a profound meditation on suffering, albeit one with a limited perspective on some aspects of same because it is an early Jewish writing and lacks a fully developed theology - there is no real sense of suffering as redemptive, and no consideration of divine justice outside what can occur in this world, becase the writers had no concept of an afterlife.

But for me one of the most interesting aspects of the book is God’s apparently affable relationship with Satan or the Adversary (I believe this is a quasi-legal term, a type of prosecutor). Our more modern usage of the term ‘Satan’ gives us a different (and obviously diabolical) sense of the name, but the implication of the opening verses would seem to be that the Adversary has a legitimate role to play in God’s plan for creation, and is by no means God’s enemy or a rogue force.

That says something to me about the nature of suffering in the world, albeit something that is hard to fully understand. I always feel that God’s final message to Job is not primarily one expressive of difference - my ways are not your ways - but of mystery. In other words, ‘Even if I wanted to explain myself to you, you wouldn’t understand’. In it’s own way, I find that quite satisfying.

But I dare say not everyone would.

 

[Ocarm]

How can a good God be evil? That is a contradiction to me. Besides, since a loving God always chastises those He loves couldn’t the Holocaust be His means of chastisement to bring His people to the realization of the salvific sacrifice of His Son?

No.

That would be monstrous, and God is not a monster.

I don’t really see that the mass shootings of His people (or burial alive when the bullets ran out) or the resultant industrialisation of genocide in the ovens when it was realised that this was cheaper than firing squads could logically be seen as loving chastisement. And I don’t make that comment in anger or dripping with sarcasm, I assure you. I mean it sincerely, and intend it to be taken at face value.

It is illogical in any event, because although the numbers were smaller, many thousands of Catholic religious were also killed in the camps, and hundreds of thousands of Polish Catholics. Not a few of the Christians who died were trying to save Jews from their fate - Titus Brandsma, from my own religious order, for instance.

It does not make sense to think that their deaths were collateral damage of a pedagogic gesture gone wrong which ended up taking down large numbers of believers in the system that the gesture was intended to promote - does it?

No smileys this time round.

 

[Ocarm]

I find a stark difference between the actions of God in the OT, and the God of the NT. It’s like they are two different beings.

Which was the observation of the Gnostics of the 2nd-3rd centuries, who came to the conclusion that they were indeed two different beings; and then they carried the idea to it’s logical conclusion, which was that a world in which such contradictory things occurred must be a lower plane of reality. An idea which, heresy though it is (!) often finds it’s way even into modern Christianity.

I wonder if the understanding of God changed with time (culminating with Jesus) or if God Himself changed? When I read about God in the OT, I don’t get the sense that “God is love,” you know?

Personally I believe that it was the latter - in fact, one of the great fascinations of reading Hebrew scripture is seeing the development of theology through the different books (best achieved if we have a sense of their order of composition or at least of the composition of their final redactions). But I think even when God is portrayed as an aggressive being who smites the enemy, one constant is His fidelity to the chosen people. They are not faithful, but God always is.

In that sense, even in the darkest moments of the OT, God is portrayed as forgiving - but only of the people of Israel, not of others. And all too often, Christians describe a God who hasn’t changed in that respect, favouring an elite but dismissive (or even callous) in regard to others.

I think that too is a kind of Gnosticism, where salvation is dependent on secret knowledge only. I don’t mean that salvation comes through works alone, because that would be Pelagianism (more heresy!) but I do think that we should be cautious about limiting God’s mercy to people who happen to be like us.

And since I have now outed myself as both an historical minimalist when it comes to scripture, and also fully accepting of Nostra Aetate, I will retire to a bunker and ride out any accusations of liberal modernism.

Now where were we? Oh yes - can God be evil?

No. But we seem keen to make Him so.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I think there is a problem, however, with the idea that God could create a world that was risk-free. I would argue that much of our motivation in tackling life head-on comes from the fact that we are aware of risks that need to be managed or avoided or confronted. In a truly risk-free world, it would be very easy never to get out of bed. For me at least, that explains why life isn’t free of threats and the inevitability of suffering. Why suffering would take the form of natural disasters - or indeed, any particular form - is another matter.

Yeah I agree with you that some degree of suffering may be good. But for me this doesn’t seem to adequately explain all suffering. I think I would still have plenty of motivation even if there was just the risk of moderate suffering and not the risk of extreme physical pain. I also think the suffering of those who are about to die is problematic.

I don’t really see that the mass shootings of His people (or burial alive when the bullets ran out) or the resultant industrialisation of genocide in the ovens when it was realised that this was cheaper than firing squads could logically be seen as loving chastisement. And I don’t make that comment in anger or dripping with sarcasm, I assure you. I mean it sincerely, and intend it to be taken at face value.

It is illogical in any event, because although the numbers were smaller, many thousands of Catholic religious were also killed in the camps, and hundreds of thousands of Polish Catholics. Not a few of the Christians who died were trying to save Jews from their fate - Titus Brandsma, from my own religious order, for instance.

It does not make sense to think that their deaths were collateral damage of a pedagogic gesture gone wrong which ended up taking down large numbers of believers in the system that the gesture was intended to promote - does it?

Yeah, I think when you start saying that things like the Holocaust were good, the word good loses all meaning. I know people like to use the free will defense to justify things like this, but I see a couple problems with it. For one thing, all of our free will is somewhat limited in scope. We cannot make new planets appear or teleport ourselves. Satan’s powers must also be limited or else God would be left powerless. Since God is omnipotent, it seems like he easily could have created humanity and the laws of nature so that we were physically incapable of killing or brutally injuring other humans. He could have merely limited the scope of our free will slightly more than he already does.

I also think that God could have intervened to protect people from the actions of others. Just as a police officer does not take away a bank robber’s free will by stopping him, God would not be taking away our free will by protecting those we tried to kill. Some may say that doing this would cause us to no longer doubt his existence and somehow take away our free will to reject God. I don’t really think it would take away free will, and I also think that there would still be people who would reject God (just like there are some people today who believe in God but are angry at him and therefore reject him).

 

[AdriannaJean]

Reading a lot of the posts on this thread by Catholics has me frustrated .

It seems like people just state “No, God is good not evil.” without explaining further and how it relates to the O.P.'s question regarding the children of Egypt.

ASSERTION DOES NOT MAKE TRUTH!!!

We, as Catholics, should know this. If I say I have a real unicorn in my closet, and offer no proof that I do, you would think that I was lying. Back up your statements with the logic and reason God gave you!

 

[GraceDK]

Reading a lot of the posts on this thread by Catholics has me frustrated .

It seems like people just state “No, God is good not evil.” without explaining further and how it relates to the O.P.'s question regarding the children of Egypt.

ASSERTION DOES NOT MAKE TRUTH!!!

We, as Catholics, should know this. If I say I have a real unicorn in my closet, and offer no proof that I do, you would think that I was lying. Back up your statements with the logic and reason God gave you!

I wrote post 27… and I gave it my best shot. Even more… I believe what I wrote, are the insights God has given me.
Let’s be clear… on this side of eternity we will never understand the full mystery of suffering and evil.
Our duty, you are right, is to ask questions and not just go along with the sleeping masses that live in the flesh without understanding that Evil exists and that they are in a battle.

One thing I wonder about, is that we havent seen the OP since he started the thread. I identified deeply with this brother and I hope he is alright.

Peace to you.