M
Matthias123
Guest
The argument that God could not be omnipotent and omnibenevolent takes on the following form:
The following scripture passage describes our idea of omnibenevolence:
“As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.” Psalms 18:30
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Psalm 19:7
The following statement comes from the first Vatican council:
“The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church believes and acknowledges that there is one true and living God, Creator and Lord of Heaven and earth, almighty, eternal, immeasurable, incomprehensible, infinite in will, understanding and every perfection. Since He is one, singular, completely simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, He must be declared to be in reality and in essence, distinct from the world, supremely happy in Himself and from Himself, and inexpressibly loftier than anything besides Himself which either exists or can be imagined”
Now through the fall of man, human agony and suffering and death entered the world. God did not create human suffering, but he did create potential for it when he gave man free will. It was man’s disobedience that actualized this. Therefore one cannot blame any human suffering on God, it is to be blamed on our first parents and all those who still possess the guilt of original sin.
Metaphysical evil does not exist –put in another way, nothing does not exist; it is just a relational concept because if “nothing” existed, then something would exist. What does exist is the idea of nothingness to which being is contrasted to. Therefore everything that exists is by nature good, and what we call “evil” is a deficiency of good. Just as darkness is a deficiency of light, and cold is a deficiency of heat. Now not only does metaphysical evil not actually exist, but it cannot potentially exist. We can’t even imagine something that would be metaphysically evil
I answer that there is no potential for the one true God to be evil. One cannot even imagine an evil God. Even existing in perpetual suffering is still possesses the goodness of being. Suffering itself is metaphysically good even though we would rather not suffer this goodness.
Now if by saying God is not omni-benevolent, are we saying that he is morally evil for causing suffering? Richard Dawkins makes this claim in the “God delusion” and it reeks with pride. Morality itself is of universal transcendent quality. Moral truths are derived from observing one’s place in the natural order, and then not violating this “Natural Law”. What God has ordered in nature, is ordered through His will. Now we are rational creatures with free will, therefore we are able to disregard this Natural Law if we please. For example humans have a natural inclination to eat in order to sustain one’s body, but to eat so much as to damage the body is a breach of natural law and thus an offence to God. We have the natural inclination for sexual relations, but to indulge in this inclination at the expense of one’s offspring is disordered. The natural law is just the rational creature’s participation in the Eternal Law, which is the way that God has ordered His creation. What God has set man must not break. Brutes ie, not human animals act according to this law by design. However Humans have free will and therefore can freely act against this law. Now different people, ever among Catholic Christians know different quantities of truths of this law. The different moral truths in different societies is based off the reasoning of the populace and the individual. In some cases they may only have few moral truths and rest falsities – this is due to errors in reason. However truth cannot be in the same context false as the philosopher says, so therefore contradictory moral truths cannot be both true.
Now I know someone somewhere is screaming that I am defining ethics for my own purpose. I answer that there is such a thing as moral absolutes, and subjective morality is a philosophy created by the philosophers of secular society to rationalize their deficient morality. In those systems of morality there is nothing real in them – it is the path to moral nilism. I also acknowledge that motivation to believe is not reason to believe, however subjective morality is not how we live our life. We do not live saying that moral terms are defined by social norm, or relative emotional experience. We might pretend to, but as soon as someone offends us, we are screaming that what that person has done is wrong. How wrong was he really? All he did was act against the social norm. What about the defendants in the Nuremburg trail? Were they immoral? Because surely the social norm in Germany is that the persecution and destruction of the Jewish race was not immoral. Was it wrong to convict these men of a crime? There is a solution with the Thomistic/Aristotelian idea of ethics.
It is completely and unimaginably prideful to attempt to turn the law on the Lawgiver. A murderer cannot blame His murderer on His judge – likewise we cannot blame our sins, and the state of agony that humanity is in on God, because it is our doing. Furthermore God did not sign some cosmic Magna Carta that states he has to follow His own laws. God can do what he wants and every action he does will be good because he is Goodness by definition.
- If God is omnipotent then he has the potential to stop suffering.
- It is not fitting for an Omni-benevolent God to have beings suffer.
- If God cannot stop suffering then he is not omnipotent.
- Since there is suffering in the world there cannot exist an omnipotent Omni-benevolent God.
- Therefore Christianity is false.
The following scripture passage describes our idea of omnibenevolence:
“As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.” Psalms 18:30
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Psalm 19:7
The following statement comes from the first Vatican council:
“The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church believes and acknowledges that there is one true and living God, Creator and Lord of Heaven and earth, almighty, eternal, immeasurable, incomprehensible, infinite in will, understanding and every perfection. Since He is one, singular, completely simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, He must be declared to be in reality and in essence, distinct from the world, supremely happy in Himself and from Himself, and inexpressibly loftier than anything besides Himself which either exists or can be imagined”
Now through the fall of man, human agony and suffering and death entered the world. God did not create human suffering, but he did create potential for it when he gave man free will. It was man’s disobedience that actualized this. Therefore one cannot blame any human suffering on God, it is to be blamed on our first parents and all those who still possess the guilt of original sin.
Metaphysical evil does not exist –put in another way, nothing does not exist; it is just a relational concept because if “nothing” existed, then something would exist. What does exist is the idea of nothingness to which being is contrasted to. Therefore everything that exists is by nature good, and what we call “evil” is a deficiency of good. Just as darkness is a deficiency of light, and cold is a deficiency of heat. Now not only does metaphysical evil not actually exist, but it cannot potentially exist. We can’t even imagine something that would be metaphysically evil
I answer that there is no potential for the one true God to be evil. One cannot even imagine an evil God. Even existing in perpetual suffering is still possesses the goodness of being. Suffering itself is metaphysically good even though we would rather not suffer this goodness.
Now if by saying God is not omni-benevolent, are we saying that he is morally evil for causing suffering? Richard Dawkins makes this claim in the “God delusion” and it reeks with pride. Morality itself is of universal transcendent quality. Moral truths are derived from observing one’s place in the natural order, and then not violating this “Natural Law”. What God has ordered in nature, is ordered through His will. Now we are rational creatures with free will, therefore we are able to disregard this Natural Law if we please. For example humans have a natural inclination to eat in order to sustain one’s body, but to eat so much as to damage the body is a breach of natural law and thus an offence to God. We have the natural inclination for sexual relations, but to indulge in this inclination at the expense of one’s offspring is disordered. The natural law is just the rational creature’s participation in the Eternal Law, which is the way that God has ordered His creation. What God has set man must not break. Brutes ie, not human animals act according to this law by design. However Humans have free will and therefore can freely act against this law. Now different people, ever among Catholic Christians know different quantities of truths of this law. The different moral truths in different societies is based off the reasoning of the populace and the individual. In some cases they may only have few moral truths and rest falsities – this is due to errors in reason. However truth cannot be in the same context false as the philosopher says, so therefore contradictory moral truths cannot be both true.
Now I know someone somewhere is screaming that I am defining ethics for my own purpose. I answer that there is such a thing as moral absolutes, and subjective morality is a philosophy created by the philosophers of secular society to rationalize their deficient morality. In those systems of morality there is nothing real in them – it is the path to moral nilism. I also acknowledge that motivation to believe is not reason to believe, however subjective morality is not how we live our life. We do not live saying that moral terms are defined by social norm, or relative emotional experience. We might pretend to, but as soon as someone offends us, we are screaming that what that person has done is wrong. How wrong was he really? All he did was act against the social norm. What about the defendants in the Nuremburg trail? Were they immoral? Because surely the social norm in Germany is that the persecution and destruction of the Jewish race was not immoral. Was it wrong to convict these men of a crime? There is a solution with the Thomistic/Aristotelian idea of ethics.
It is completely and unimaginably prideful to attempt to turn the law on the Lawgiver. A murderer cannot blame His murderer on His judge – likewise we cannot blame our sins, and the state of agony that humanity is in on God, because it is our doing. Furthermore God did not sign some cosmic Magna Carta that states he has to follow His own laws. God can do what he wants and every action he does will be good because he is Goodness by definition.
