Thank you Ben. Back to topic. There are many reasons to believe this world is not the best possible. Many people have already mentioned that God, as a sovereign entity, enjoys a great deal of freedom. He is not bound by anything but to be consistent with his own nature, which is self-giving, love, goodness, perfection, and justice. Those are the main attributes of God. Omnipotence also. God
could create the best possible universe, but I think it’s crystal clear he did not. The main problem with God’s system is that it is binary, you are either for or against him, one’s eternity is either “spent” in hell or heaven, absolute bliss and contentment, or absolute terror and agony. It sometimes seems like someone gives you a gun and asks you to either shoot your wife or one of your children. There are people who are not cut out for life, people who don’t want to be alive, people who spend much of their lives sharing Jeremiah’s state of mind when he had a particularly trying time. The mere existence of these people prove that something leaves to be desired in God’s system, because God having foreknowledge, knows who are going to cherish and value his gift and who will not. Giving life to those who don’t want it shows a hole in God’s claimed attributes: a gift which you know will make someone miserable, you either give because you are malevolent, at least partially, or you did not know the person was going to abhor it, which means you are not prescient, which means you are not perfect as your knowledge is not complete.
Code:
If the good of humanity had been a priority, means would have been employed to keep suffering to a minimum. Eternal existence would have been conditional on obeying God's rules and him finding every person worthy or not of an eternity with him. If you are found unworthy, you return to where you were before God snatched you to cram his gift down your throat or gracefully give a gift like no other, depending on how you view life. If you are happy with just one life, not interested in pursuing a relationship with God, you live life on your own terms, God judges you when your alloted days are over. No tragedy, no gnashing of teeth, no smoke of anyone's torment, the elect in heaven with their darling Creator, the others back to oblivion. God is impassible, no sin, however grievous can alter his happiness, his joy, therefore he would need to learn forgivenesss and to let go of his wrath and let the impenitent souls cease to exist. If he refuses and clings to his justice, then a temporary hell with sentences of up to a million or a billion years could be considered.
No matter how one looks at it, the fact of the matter is that w ehuman beings are placed in a situation where we are conceived with a sinful nature, and that we need to fight that sinful nature. Jesus did not have to bear the burden of having two natures at odds with each other. To avoid hell, organized by God to be a “place” of agony and great suffering, one must avoid sin, live a virtuous life devoid of sin, except that sin is,
as it were, written in our very DNA, concupiscence, the appetite for sin is an integral and inalienable part of our nature. Hell is God punishing man for living according to his nature. That sinful nature did not naturally flow form our first parents’ sin, God determined that as a result of our parents’ sin, all of humanity would be poisoned by the damned stain of Original Sin. Mary was spared the curse of the stain of Original sin, according to Mary of Agreda, so was John the Baptist, so God chose to stain all of humanity, but he could have chosen otherwise. God is not bound to give us the best possible universe, just like he was not bound to give me a life worth living, or to equip me with potential. He was free to take Bathsheba form David, or to let them enjoy an enjoyable sex life, even though Bathsheba’s husband’s days were cut short by David himself. So God enjoys a great deal of freedom, and is not bound by basic decency, as shown in David and Bathsheba’s marriage. Which goes to show God is overly lenient with some and overly harsh with others. An optimal world would be one with an impartial God, two men who are both adulterers, fornicators and murderes are treated with the same severity. David could also enjoy unlimited sex with mutliple women, wives and concubines, nowadays youn men with raging hormones wonder if they’ll go to hell for looking at a fully clothed attractive woman. David was born in the right period i guess, but God treating him like a rich man’s lustful brat son is perplexing. What one must do to be a man after God’s own heart, be rich, have a full-blown harem of beautiful ungodly women, dance in underwear while people cheer you on and be able to get away with murder, literally? I want that.
I’m no one special, there are lots of people like me, just some unknown human being not equipped to face life, and what happens when you’re forced to face life when you’re not emotionally, intellectually etc. etc. prepared to face it? It’s brutal. A messed-up beyond repair human being apparently not worthy or important, or interesting enough to get God’s attention when it mattered. The only real problem is eternity. If God did not love me so much and did not insist on keeping me alive for ever, I could keep despair at bay and take comfort in knowing I have at most 40-50 years of God’s gift to go through and then I’m done. Nothing is as oppressive as God. But I appreciate your reaching out to me, nonetheless.
It pays to be positive and creative rather than negative and destructive.
I see no other way to put it. A good parent would never give anything to his child, however good, if they know for a fact it will render their child miserable. Whether it’s the child’s fault or not is immaterial: bad things will happen if you give this seemingly good gift. Wisdom would tell that parent to not give it, to give it later on or to never give it. What could be the motive for God to create a soul when he has foreknowledge that hell will be its final destination?