God created evil

[Amandil]

Let’s be clear – I’m repeating what you said. So is it not logical? How is what you have said not logical? And how does my repeating it…

You’re conveniently leaving out important distinctions and going by vague and hasty generalizations of what you distort.

So, no, you’re not “repeating” what I said.

Look, I’m not arguing that God made us do this or that. That’s what free will is for. He didn’t want a bunch of pre-programmed robots. So He let us choose. But it seems very difficult indeed to get anyone to agree that He knew that what we would choose.

And by knowing what we would choose, He is complicent in the outcome because all of it is of His making.

Read this very carefully instead of according to how you think it is to be understood:

There is no dispute that He knows what we choose.

But He neither cannot be nor is He culpable for His knowledge does not dictate our free acts.

(See what I did, there?)

You give away your argument when you insist upon using terms which are past-tense or are future-tense(knew, would know, would choose).

When you say:

Bradski:

He knew they were going to freely choose it?

You are in fact misrepresenting what I said:

Amandil:

God’s foreknowledge includes the fact that Adam and Eve freely chose to eat the forbidden fruit.

Where you get “knew” from that sentence has to be form something other than what was said, because I didn’t say “knew”.

Now, it may be partly my fault because I’m using the term “foreknowledge”, but at the same time I have continued to insist that the term refers to a temporal perception and have taken pains to explain that there is no past known or future anticipated in God’s eternity, so “foreknowledge” while not wholly accurate from an eternal perspective, is the best from our temporal experience.

While we see things as “knew”, “would know”, would choose", He does not. God knows, God sees, in an ever-present now.

 

[Bradski]

Now, it may be partly my fault because I’m using the term “foreknowledge”, but at the same time I have continued to insist that the term refers to a temporal perception and have taken pains to explain that there is no past known or future anticipated in God’s eternity, so “foreknowledge” while not wholly accurate from an eternal perspective, is the best from our temporal experience.

While we see things as “knew”, “would know”, would choose", He does not. God knows, God sees, in an ever-present now.

OK, I’ll go with that. God knows/knew, sees/saw, has/had knowledge of, a temporal perception of, an understanding that Adam would eat the apple. You can use the preterit, the past conditional, the future perfect or whatever tense floats your boat.

Or to put it as simply as we possibly can (whilst not wholly accurate from an eternal perspective), He had foreknowledge of what was going to happen.

I’m happy with that…

 

[oldcelt]

Only if He caused the evil.

He did not.

He created knowing it would commit evil. He knew if He didn’t create it the evil would not occur. He created evil…perhaps millions of times…simultaneously if you like.

 

[oldcelt]

Apparently you never had Logic 101 because your argument is by definition fallacious:

A) God created humans and angels ontologically good
B)Angels fell from grace through disobedience to God and thus brought evil to creation
C)A particular angel, Satan, tempted and coerced the first humans into committing evil
D) Thus God created evil.

So not only **is not NOT “Christian philosophy” **, and thus YOU perpetrating a strawman, it is by definition a post hoc fallacy because you are ignoring other factors which rule out your conclusion.

Guilty.

My argument is by Your definition fallacious, but not by those who set up the rules of discussion. There is a gigantic difference between merely preceding something and creating that something and if you understood philosophy, you would know that.
Sincerely, I think more than just myself would appreciate it if you restricted yourself to terms you understand.

Strawman -a sham argument set up to be defeated. Since my argument is no sham, it is not a strawman.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

That you are still comparing humans to dogs says everything about your rationale.

And that you still don’t fully understand and continue to misrepresent the Christian position as well.

Good Morning Amandil: I think you are missing the point made by the Atheists. This is not a matter of comparing humans to dogs. It’s a matter of absolving a supposed higher intelligence from the consequences of what a lower intelligence whose proclivities and operational parameters He himself created does. The assumption we put forth is that God knows all things and created all things, however, if you both create and know all things, then you know what all the outcomes will be, and if you don’t know the outcomes then you don’t know all things. And even if you don’t know the outcomes, a halfway decent designer at least knows the probable outcomes. The point here is that if I design a boat that won’t float, the solution is not to curse the boat. I think this is the point they are making.

The whole issue on this thread arises from the idea that both the Atheists and Christians who take part in such debates as these are doing so on the premise that God is some sort of “Sky Daddy” who is engaged in a war with a rogue lieutenant over the souls of a failed endeavor to create something in it’s own image. This is a matter of having a debate based on the lore of an iron age culture and it’s ideas on the nature of God rather than starting to think about God in the ways that God are plainly visible to a 21st century human. I am a Catholic and I believe in God, Jesus and all the trimmings, but I do not believe in the angry and jealous Sky Daddy of lore, and therefore, I plainly see the point that the Atheists are making. But I think both sides are missing the point, because they are debating a character from an ancient mythology. God is none of these things, or at least that is my position.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Bradski]

Sincerely, I think more than just myself would appreciate it if you restricted yourself to terms you understand.

I’ve read that before somewhere…

 

[oldcelt]

Good Morning Amandil: I think you are missing the point made by the Atheists. This is not a matter of comparing humans to dogs. It’s a matter of absolving a supposed higher intelligence from the consequences of what a lower intelligence whose proclivities and operational parameters He himself created does. The assumption we put forth is that God knows all things and created all things, however, if you both create and know all things, then you know what all the outcomes will be, and if you don’t know the outcomes then you don’t know all things. And even if you don’t know the outcomes, a halfway decent designer at least knows the probable outcomes. The point here is that if I design a boat that won’t float, the solution is not to curse the boat. I think this is the point they are making.

The whole issue on this thread arises from the idea that both the Atheists and Christians who take part in such debates as these are doing so on the premise that God is some sort of “Sky Daddy” who is engaged in a war with a rogue lieutenant over the souls of a failed endeavor to create something in it’s own image. This is a matter of having a debate based on the lore of an iron age culture and it’s ideas on the nature of God rather than starting to think about God in the ways that God are plainly visible to a 21st century human. I am a Catholic and I believe in God, Jesus and all the trimmings, but I do not believe in the angry and jealous Sky Daddy of lore, and therefore, I plainly see the point that the Atheists are making. But I think both sides are missing the point, because they are debating a character from an ancient mythology. ** God is none of these things, or at least that is my position. **

Thank you,
Gary

Agreed, that is why I am neither Christian or Atheist. God is a creator, not a Sky Daddy, as you aptly put it.

 

[Bradski]

God is none of these things, or at least that is my position.

Your position is one worth listening to.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Your position is one worth listening to.

Thank you Bradski and Oldcelt, but alas I have to go to work. I would like to join back on this discussion later if I can, because the ides in it are very interesting and bring up some interesting dilemmas about our thinking (my own thinking included).

Thank you,
Gary

 

[Oreoracle]

If sin was “natural”, then you can have no reason to call anything evil, such as murder, rape, theft, etc. because such acts would have to be accepted as “natural”.

I don’t make the same assumptions about morality that you do.

Naturally? No, not “naturally”. They were deceived into sin. And it is only because of that deception that Salvation is offered as a possibility.

“Natural” literally means “occurring in nature”. Thus to say that something is natural is to say that it happens. It’s a pretty pointless word really, and I often joke with my friends about scrapping it from the English language.

Any alternative conception of “natural” always devolves into “I don’t like this action, so I’ll characterize it as ‘unnatural’, rationalize that actions have a purpose that I do like, and argue that the action counters this purpose.” The problem is that none of this is falsifiable. There is no way to prove what the purpose of something is without proving a god to begin with. And even if you did that, it has no obvious moral implications. “God wants us to behave in a certain way!” Well, so what? If my parents created me so that I would become a doctor, am I therefore obligated to become a doctor? Why are the creator’s wishes paramount?

God’s foreknowledge includes all of your freely chosen acts. You dictated your acts and in the same instant He sees all of your free acts as you make them.

Look, even if we scrap all of the chronology of my position, your argument still doesn’t hold. My existence is contingent upon God’s, right? He has to will my existence for it to continue. Thus my sins are his fault; he is willing me, the offender, to continue existing as an offender. This is a metaphysical truth of your theology, independent of time.

 

[PRmerger]

We have a nice garden. I go out and buy a couple of dogs. The dogs are happy in the garden and well behaved. I leave a bone in the garden but I tell them not to touch it. I go out and when I come back with my mate, one of the dogs has taken the bone and is digging a big hole in the petunias.

I’m not happy and tell them they can no longer stay in the garden. But my wife goes ballistic. ‘Look at it, you idiot. It’s ruined. Look what you did!’

‘Hey’, says my mate. ‘It’s not Bradski’s fault. He didn’t dig the hole’.

‘What? But what did he expect the dog to do? He knew perfectly well that one of them would take the bone and dig a hole for it!’

‘Well, yeah…but I still say it’s not his fault. You can’t blame him. And in any case, it’s not a hole – it’s just an absence of dirt.’

Could you explain why you leave a bone out in the yard but tell the dogs not to touch it?

If you can offer an adequate explanation for this, that is analogous to God’s reasoning for telling A and E not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then we can continue with this analogy…

 

[PRmerger]

He knew they were going to freely choose it? Badda bing!

Yes, of course He knew. He knows. He will know.

It’s all in the Eternal Now.

 

[PRmerger]

But I think both sides are missing the point, because they are debating a character from an ancient mythology. God is none of these things, or at least that is my position.

Thank you,
Gary

Egg-zactly!

 

[Bradski]

Thank you Bradski and Oldcelt, but alas I have to go to work. I would like to join back on this discussion later if I can, because the ides in it are very interesting and bring up some interesting dilemmas about our thinking (my own thinking included).

Look forward to it Gaz. I’m sure we won’t agree on some things, but that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

 

[Bradski]

Could you explain why you leave a bone out in the yard but tell the dogs not to touch it?

If you can offer an adequate explanation for this, that is analogous to God’s reasoning for telling A and E not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then we can continue with this analogy…

I don’t think my shaggy dog analogy is going to stretch too far. It was a light hearted look at the position as I see it. If you don’t accept it as analogous, then that’s fine.

But if you have a disagreement with Amandil’s belief that God knew (or whatever term you feel is applicable) that it was/had/would happen, then take it up with him.

 

[Amandil]

Good Morning Amandil: I think you are missing the point made by the Atheists. This is not a matter of comparing humans to dogs. It’s a matter of absolving a supposed higher intelligence from the consequences of what a lower intelligence whose proclivities and operational parameters He himself created does. The assumption we put forth is that God knows all things and created all things, however, if you both create and know all things, then you know what all the outcomes will be, and if you don’t know the outcomes then you don’t know all things. And even if you don’t know the outcomes, a halfway decent designer at least knows the probable outcomes. The point here is that if I design a boat that won’t float, the solution is not to curse the boat. I think this is the point they are making.

I’m not missing the point at all.

If you design a boat that won’t float, then it’s the fault of the designer, agreed.

If you design a boat that does float and the boat decides floating is not what it wants and throws itself upon a bunch of rocks and sinks itself. Then it’s not the fault of the designer.

That’s the problem with these analogies is that they are incomplete and inaccurate. They’re not taking ALL the data into account.
GarySheldrake:

The whole issue on this thread arises from the idea that both the Atheists and Christians who take part in such debates as these are doing so on the premise that God is some sort of “Sky Daddy” who is engaged in a war with a rogue lieutenant over the souls of a failed endeavor to create something in it’s own image. This is a matter of having a debate based on the lore of an iron age culture and it’s ideas on the nature of God rather than starting to think about God in the ways that God are plainly visible to a 21st century human.

Yes I’m quite aware of your Hegelian “truth is told by a clock or calendar” approach and I find it incredibly lacking.
GarySheldrake:

I am a Catholic and I believe in God, Jesus and all the trimmings, but I do not believe in the angry and jealous Sky Daddy of lore, and therefore, I plainly see the point that the Atheists are making. But I think both sides are missing the point, because they are debating a character from an ancient mythology. God is none of these things, or at least that is my position.

Thank you,
Gary

Marcionism has been emphatically rejected the Church.

“Sky Daddy lore” says just about everything that needs to be known in regards to your faith in God.

 

[Amandil]

I don’t make the same assumptions about morality that you do.

You don’t? So you’re telling me that you aren’t assuming the philosophy of Descartes?

“Natural” literally means “occurring in nature”. Thus to say that something is natural is to say that it happens. It’s a pretty pointless word really, and I often joke with my friends about scrapping it from the English language.

“Natural” means “pertaining to the nature of the object and its ends and purposes” or “the primary composition of a thing”, not merely “occurring in nature”.

So when philosophers speak of “natural” they are saying “that which is according to the object in question.”

So when you speak of Adam and Eve representing the whole human race, who were created “good” ontologically and in original justice, no, sin neither “occurred in nature” nor is it according to the composition of humanity.

Any alternative conception of “natural” always devolves into “I don’t like this action, so I’ll characterize it as ‘unnatural’, rationalize that actions have a purpose that I do like, and argue that the action counters this purpose.” The problem is that none of this is falsifiable. There is no way to prove what the purpose of something is without proving a god to begin with.

So there is no way to “prove” that a hammer is designed to hammer nails? I guess if you are such a radically absurd skeptic and raise the bar on the definition of “proof” to such an extent that even human senses are no longer generally reliable but instead baseless assumptions, then yes, maybe your point is valid.

Although the soundness of your reasoning is something else entirely.

And even if you did that, it has no obvious moral implications. “God wants us to behave in a certain way!” Well, so what? If my parents created me so that I would become a doctor, am I therefore obligated to become a doctor? Why are the creator’s wishes paramount?

Morality is not merely an “occupation”. If you can’t understand how we have the responsibility to do the good that ought to be done and avoid the evil that ought not to be done, and how this principle is essential to our natural purposes and ends, then there’s nothing to discuss because there’s no common ground with someone who insists that black is white and white is black and/or that “black” and “white” are merely constructs of our own individual preferences.

Look, even if we scrap all of the chronology of my position, your argument still doesn’t hold. My existence is contingent upon God’s, right? He has to will my existence for it to continue. Thus my sins are his fault; he is willing me, the offender, to continue existing as an offender. This is a metaphysical truth of your theology, independent of time.

His will continues your existence but there is no identity between His will and yours. That you continue to exist despite the fact that you are spiritually dead is only a testimony to God’s love and your ontological good. It’s God’s will that you exist, it is not His will that you continue to sin.

IOW you’re merely passing the buck. Mature people take responsibility for their acts, immature people blame their acts on others.

 

[Amandil]

My argument is by Your definition fallacious, but not by those who set up the rules of discussion. There is a gigantic difference between merely preceding something and creating that something and if you understood philosophy, you would know that.
Sincerely, I think more than just myself would appreciate it if you restricted yourself to terms you understand.

Strawman -a sham argument set up to be defeated. Since my argument is no sham, it is not a strawman.

Of course its not a “sham”.

That’s a convenient opinion to have. Whether its intellectually honest is another issue entirely.

 

[Oreoracle]

You don’t? So you’re telling me that you aren’t assuming the philosophy of Descartes?

I’m not sure where Descartes came into this. I’m saying that I don’t make the assumption that what is natural is good (hint: doing so is the naturalistic fallacy). In fact, as I’ve said, I don’t find “natural” to be a very useful concept at all.

“Natural” means “pertaining to the nature of the object and its ends and purposes” or “the primary composition of a thing”, not merely “occurring in nature”.

Right, but then you have to define what an object’s “nature” is, and that is nothing more than the description of what it is/how it exists. So to say that something is naturally X is to say that something is X, or that it exists as X. Again, not very useful.

There is another definition of “natural” that would probably better serve your purposes, as seen in statements like “it is natural to be nervous on a date”. In this sense, “natural” just refers to behaviors and qualities we expect of the average human in most cases. But this still isn’t very useful since “typical” is less ambiguous.

There is also “natural” in the sense of “essential”. However, abstinence from sin is clearly not essential to humanity, since I can be human even when I sin. Contrast that with a claim like “It is essential that a man have an XY chromosome”. That one really is essential for manhood.

So when you speak of Adam and Eve representing the whole human race, who were created “good” ontologically and in original justice, no, sin neither “occurred in nature” nor is it according to the composition of humanity.

How did we ever sin if it wasn’t part of our composition? Can we “create” aspects of our own compositions?

So there is no way to “prove” that a hammer is designed to hammer nails?

For someone who is so critical of others’ analogies, your own are pretty lackluster. Obviously we can ascertain the purpose of hammers because we can ask the people who made the hammers. We can’t ask God what our purpose is without proving God’s existence first, which is what I said in the last post.

Morality is not merely an “occupation”. If you can’t understand how we have the responsibility to do the good that ought to be done and avoid the evil that ought not to be done, and how this principle is essential to our natural purposes and ends, then there’s nothing to discuss because there’s no common ground with someone who insists that black is white and white is black and/or that “black” and “white” are merely constructs of our own individual preferences.

The irony in your rebuttal is that color actually is subjective. If you aren’t convinced, ask two different women about the color of the same dress.

You can rigorously define color in an objective way in terms of wavelengths of reflected light, but there will always be people who contest exactly where the lines are drawn between each color, very similar to morality.

His will continues your existence but there is no identity between His will and yours.

But God would be willing me to will something. How is my will not then his?

 

[Amandil]

I’m not sure where Descartes came into this. I’m saying that I don’t make the assumption that what is natural is good (hint: doing so is the naturalistic fallacy). In fact, as I’ve said, I don’t find “natural” to be a very useful concept at all.

You’re beginning with the assumption that we cannot know anything. Or you’re at least assuming the Kantian idea that ends and purposes cannot be known.

In either case they’re self-refuting.

Oreoracle:

Right, but then you have to define what an object’s “nature” is, and that is nothing more than the description of what it is/how it exists. So to say that something is naturally X is to say that something is X, or that it exists as X. Again, not very useful.

I’m not saying that “something is X” but Y is natural to X and that Z is not natural to X because Z is necessarily a deprivation of X’s nature.

See the difference?

Oreoracle:

There is another definition of “natural” that would probably better serve your purposes, as seen in statements like “it is natural to be nervous on a date”. In this sense, “natural” just refers to behaviors and qualities we expect of the average human in most cases. But this still isn’t very useful since “typical” is less ambiguous.

No, all you’re saying is that your definition is more useful than mine because it serves your presuppositions.

I’m sticking with my definition, thank you.

Oreoracle:

There is also “natural” in the sense of “essential”. However, abstinence from sin is clearly not essential to humanity, since I can be human even when I sin.

No that’s not begging the question at all.

So it’s your contention that murder is humane? No one in their right mind woukd insist that one human murdering another is in any way a natural human act. It is in fact mire often said that someone who murders other humans robs himself of his own humanity; he is less human, not more.

Again, your assertion is based upon a woefully inadequate view of anthropology.

Oreoracle:

Contrast that with a claim like “It is essential that a man have an XY chromosome”. That one really is essential for manhood.

Which again presupposes your views. Humanity is not reducable to genetics.

Oreoracle:

How did we ever sin if it wasn’t part of our composition? Can we “create” aspects of our own compositions?

Free will is part of our composition. Sin is not. Sin is the abuse of free will, not the actualization of it.

Oreoracle:

For someone who is so critical of others’ analogies, your own are pretty lackluster. Obviously we can ascertain the purpose of hammers because we can ask the people who made the hammers. We can’t ask God what our purpose is without proving God’s existence first, which is what I said in the last post.

That because my analogy was clear and unambiguous you call it “lackluster”. What a reasonable response.

God communicates our nature to us constantly. You apparently just don’t have the eyes to see.

Plenty of more intelligent men than you or I have come to the realization of man’s nature apart from explicit proof of God’s existence. I no more than need to ask the maker of hammers what hammers are for to know based upon my own reason that hammers are for driving nails and not for bashing people’s skulls in.

Oreoracle:

The irony in your rebuttal is that color actually is subjective. If you aren’t convinced, ask two different women about the color of the same dress.

You can rigorously define color in an objective way in terms of wavelengths of reflected light, but there will always be people who contest exactly where the lines are drawn between each color, very similar to morality.

More of the absurd notion that things aren’t objective without some knower to know them.

Of course this, like all forms of subjectivism, are self-refuting.

Oreoracle:

But God would be willing me to will something. How is my will not then his?

There is still a distinction between you and Him.