Did God Create the Best Possible Universe?

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Cimachol said:
(Answering the question, “What is the greatest thing God could create?”)

I’m not so sure I agree. First of all, God is not created, so any copy of Himself would, by definition, not be identical, because it would be a created thing. God is the source of all things. This other creature could not also be the source of all things, as it would not be the source of itself, much less God, nor would it be the source of everything else God had created.
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Copies are not identical. That’s fine. God could create something that was in all respects the same as himself except that the other thing was created.
Also, there are schools of thought which hold that omnipotent beings are not bound by logical contradictions and can do anything regardless if they seem somehow self-contradictory.

In either case, our speculation is irrelevant until Eric Hyom tells us how to distinguish correct answers to his questions from incorrect answers.
 
JapaneseKappa said:
Copies are not identical. That’s fine. God could create something that was in all respects the same as himself except that the other thing was created.
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That’s a huge difference. The copy would still have to obey the original. No?

So what kind of a God is this that has to obey another God?:rolleyes:
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Are you a Catholic?

God is love. 👍
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Nominally Catholic.

A man has a child with his wife. Turns out the woman is prone to depression, mental unstability etc. The man meets a perfect match for him at his workplace a couple of years down the road. Decides to leave his 1st family and start over. The children that he will have with this woman are his pride and joy, meanwhile the other kid is left behind, stuck with a depressed woman, with no father figure or anyone to call "daddy"a round. Is this man a good father? But I know how Catholics think: since Adam messed up, and God, unjustly, condemned the whole of humanity not yet born, and God the Father sent his Son to lift the condemnation, that was unjust to begin with, then God is said to be love. If God had been reasonable, I would have been born with all the preternatural gifts that Adam enjoyed, and if during the course of my life I had come to lose these gifts, I’d have no one but myself to blame. So, in a nutshell, i don’t doubt that God, just like the father in my story, is good at least some of the time. It’s interesting to note that God has a free pass when it comes to his attribute “love”. If he leaves me alone, he loves me, if he heals me of whatever afflicts me, then he loves me, if he refuses to heal me, then, surely, he must love me beyond my wildest imagination, if I have despair, very easy for him to lift it, if he chooses not to, then that’s because he loves me. If he strikes me down because of my sins, that means he loves me, if he lets me live to be 120, then that’s a clear indication that he is madly in love with me. Where in hell can I purchase a free-pass like that, you literally can do no wrong? How awesome is that?
 
soulfree said:
A man has a child with a wife. Turns out the woman is prone to depression, mental unstability etc. The man meets a perfect match for him at his workplace a couple of years down the road.
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I thought that marriage was for better or for worse. He got the worst end, but because of the vow that he took, he has no choice except to make the best of a bad situation.
 
Tomdstone said:
I thought that marriage was for better or for worse. He got the worst end, but because of the vow that he took, he has no choice except to make the best of a bad situation.
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I’m pointing to a forest, don’t worry about one particular tree. Could’ve been a civil marriage. The point is, the children from the 2nd family gets the benfit of a loving dad, the child from the 1st family is fatherless as it were and is raised by a depressed mom.
 
soulfree said:
Nominally Catholic.

A man has a child with his wife. Turns out the woman is prone to depression, mental unstability etc. The man meets a perfect match for him at his workplace a couple of years down the road. Decides to leave his 1st family and start over. The children that he will have with this woman are his pride and joy, meanwhile the other kid is left behind, stuck with a depressed woman, with no father figure or anyone to call "daddy"a round. Is this man a good father? But I know how Catholics think: since Adam messed up, and God, unjustly, condemned the whole of humanity not yet born, and God the Father sent his Son to lift the condemnation, that was unjust to begin with, then God is said to be love. If God had been reasonable, I would have been born with all the preternatural gifts that Adam enjoyed, and if during the course of my life I had come to lose these gifts, I’d have no one but myself to blame. So, in a nutshell, i don’t doubt that God, just like the father in my story, is good at least some of the time. It’s interesting to note that God has a free pass when it comes to his attribute “love”. If he leaves me alone, he loves me, if he heals me of whatever afflicts me, then he loves me, if he refuses to heal me, then, surely, he must love me beyond my wildest imagination, if I have despair, very easy for him to lift it, if he chooses not to, then that’s because he loves me. If he strikes me down because of my sins, that means he loves me, if he lets me live to be 120, then that’s a clear indication that he is madly in love with me. Where in hell can I purchase a free-pass like that, you literally can do no wrong? How awesome is that?
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Are you unhappy with your nominal god? Maybe that’s the problem. 🤷

Your god is not the real God, just another nominal god? :confused:
 
davidv said:
Maybe there is no possible world where everyone choose good over evil - every time.
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Well, there certainly is one where most choose good over evil every time, since 2/3 of the angels in heaven are God’s angels.
Charlemagne_III said:
Might as well ask the alternate question.

Why did God not choose to create a heaven where none of the angels would freely choose to rebel?
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Interesting question. He did choose to create a heaven where most of the angels freely choose to obey his commands. Could he not have done the same thing with the human race?
Cimachol said:
No, I would not agree with that. God could not create a universe in which Adam and Eve had a choice and at the same time guarantee that they would choose His will. By definition, giving someone a choice means giving up control of that that decision.
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I agree God couldn’t control anyone, but he could certainly foresee their choices. My point is this: In the beginning, God has an enormous amount of possible worlds and possible creatures that he can create. Isn’t there one possible world where those creatures freely choose to refrain from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good/evil? If so, why didn’t God create that world?
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Are you unhappy with your nominal god? Maybe that’s the problem. 🤷

Your god is not the real God, just another nominal god? :confused:
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If I can be blunt, there are two things I’m unhappy with: God’s immortality and God’s existence. Make it three: his wonderful capacity to tolerate suffering, human suffering that is. For a man like me, nothing could be more freeing than the prospect of eternal sleep. Forgetting that there was once me and forgetting there was once a God who claimed to have a universal love, waking up everyday to realize he lies more than he loves. I wish God would have spared me the incredible pain of having him as a Creator, the pain of having a human heart with so little in the way of potential to be fufilled and vibrant. I’d be an awesome and credible voice for the Pro-life movement, wouldn’t I?😉 😛
 
soulfree said:
Best according to whom? God is said to be good, what is good? God is said to be love, what is love?
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There are some very bright people that say things like this above. This is much as Pontius Pilate thought. He tried to wax philosophical with Jesus and ended at the same place, but said it, “What is truth”? As a politician he had little experience in valuing truth. One must learn to live goodness, love, and truth before one can grasp what it is and the value that it has. Its not something that we can put to you in a paragraph.
 
soulfree said:
If I can be blunt, there are two things I’m unhappy with: God’s immortality and God’s existence. Make it three: his wonderful capacity to tolerate suffering, human suffering that is. For a man like me, nothing could be more freeing than the prospect of eternal sleep. Forgetting that there was once me and forgetting there was once a God who claimed to have a universal love, waking up everyday to realize he lies more than he loves. I wish God would have spared me the incredible pain of having him as a Creator, the pain of having a human heart with so little in the way of potential to be fufilled and vibrant. I’d be an awesome and credible voice for the Pro-life movement, wouldn’t I?😉 😛
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It is easy to criticise and despise but to create and appreciate is rather more difficult…
 
wmw said:
There are some very bright people that say things like this above. This is much as Pontius Pilate thought. He tried to wax philosophical with Jesus and ended at the same place, but said it, “What is truth”? As a politician he had little experience in valuing truth. One must learn to live goodness, love, and truth before one can grasp what it is and the value that it has. Its not something that we can put to you in a paragraph.
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:thumbsup:A derogatory description of God reveals far more about the renegade than reality…
 
Originally Posted by Charlemagne III View Post
Might as well ask the alternate question.
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Why did God not choose to create a heaven where none of the angels would freely choose to rebel?
Interesting question. He did choose to create a heaven where most of the angels freely choose to obey his commands. Could he not have done the same thing with the human race?
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1/3 of the Angels became Demons and the Devil. They also had a free choice and many choose against Him even given a fully developed intellect and all the necessary information to make a free choice. It’s not ever a matter of knowledge it’s a matter of trust and love.
 
wmw said:
1/3 of the Angels became Demons and the Devil. They also had a free choice and many choose against Him even given a fully developed intellect and all the necessary information to make a free choice. It’s not ever a matter of knowledge it’s a matter of trust and love.
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All evil is due to ignorance. It is never in our interest to ignore, despise, harm or neglect others and live for ourselves.
 
wmw said:
1/3 of the Angels became Demons and the Devil. They also had a free choice and many choose against Him even given a fully developed intellect and all the necessary information to make a free choice. It’s not ever a matter of knowledge it’s a matter of trust and love.
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I wonder though how is love manifested? Did Adam and Eve truly loved just because they had been created? How does one know of love? Humans are vastly different than the angels in that any human will not truly understand until they come to experience what was taught to them. It was interesting that Jesus had told St. Maria Faustina the reason why the angels were punished immediately after they had sinned was their profound knowledge of God. Angels it seems follow a different route than men and women. Angels do not need experiences. We are not given profound knowledge for it needs to be acquired in time and if men and women were given profound knowledge it would not have serve them because they would not have understood this knowledge until they come to seek experiences which will reveal to them what this knowledge was all about. Mark Twain had written that man is not made of atoms but of stories. Our “profound” knowledge must be acquired within those experiences which stories have become the largest contributor to our acquisition. Did God create the best possible Universe? It seems to be a very interesting Universe with this story we have written for Him and He seemingly wants to contribute to this story to help us to acquire more of His knowledge. I think men and women are a very interesting species that God has created which is vastly different than the angels. We can create interesting stories that perhaps even the angels cannot and the angels I believe are also learning more about us because of these incredible stories. We learn best not from direct knowledge but by experiencing what we can relate to. I believe that is how love is manifested in us to be able to express that same love. We need those experiences to teach us.
 
Achilles6129 said:
Interesting question. He did choose to create a heaven where most of the angels freely choose to obey his commands. Could he not have done the same thing with the human race?
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Perhaps he did. Perhaps most human beings who have lived and died are in heaven or on their way to heaven. We cannot know for a certainty either way.
 
tonyrey said:
It is easy to criticise and despise but to create and appreciate is rather more difficult…
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👍

There are some people who think they would make a better God than God has proven himself to be. But it’s a very dangerous business to judge God when God will be judging us.
 
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