How to argue against God's will = evil

[Peter_Plato]

Sorry, I am familiar with these links, but even Plantinga himself admitted that his argument is incorrect.

You will have to do more than make a claim like this. Can you cite precisely where he has withdrawn from the argument?

Logically incorrect sentence. God does not have to “cause” the free beings to choose the moral option. I will explain with a simple example. Suppose that God contemplates creating two people: Jim and Mike, and presents them with one moral problem. Being omnisicent, God knows before creating then that Jim will freely make the moral choice, while Mike will make the immoral one. At this point God simply decides not to create Mike. Jim is still free and makes the moral choice. As such there is nothing logically contradictory in creating only those people who always make “proper” choices, and there is no “force” involved.

This is based upon a “weak” understanding of free will and a false understanding of eternity. CS Lewis addressed different aspects of this argument in The Problem of Pain and in Mere Christianity. There is no ‘before’ or ‘after’ with God. God is not ‘in time,’ we are. Our actions are seen by God as we do them. Our freedom consists in unravelling our choices within the Eternal “NOW” of God. The time continuum of before, now and after is only a reality for us. Our choices are ‘real’ choices through which we determine our real destiny. Our choices matter and make us ‘who’ we are. God’s ‘foreknowledge’ is not prior to us in terms of time. He does not know what we will choose ‘before’ we choose it because there is no past, present and future with God. His knowledge and Being are in an eternal ‘Now’, so as free beings we make our characters and destiny by the choices we make in each moment of the present. God gives us the dignity as free beings to determine what we are by the choices we make. These are not ‘foreknown’ by God as you claim, but known by God in Eternity.

We are not talking about general terms here, rather a very specific scenario. The gist is that the creator is fully responsible for the acts of the created ones, IF the creator knows what the created one will do, and could freely choose not to create him. Just like in the analogy, if one gives a lethal weapon (a car can be a lethal weapon, or a hammer ) knowing fully well what the person will do with it AND the “giver” could refuse to give that weapon, THEN the giver must take responsibility for the actions (provided, of course, that without the object given the recipient could not carry out his intent).

As I explained above, God does not know what we will do ‘before’ we take action because there is no ’before’ with God. By giving us free will, along with it comes the reality of self-determination. He ‘waits on us’ to make important choices that matter. If our choices are really free then we determine them ‘as we go.’ This is not ‘foreknown’ by God outside of the actual choices and actions we take in reality. God does not ‘know’ what the created one will do until the created one has actually made the choice on the Eternal stage of the NOW of God. This is the dignity and awesome weight of free choice.

As I explained above, this is incorrect. God could create fully free agents who never commit evil acts. But I will go one step further. If you were right (and you are not), who says that “free will” is a desirable attribute? And what do you mean by “free will”? Is it the same as “freely acting out one’s will”?

Again as I pointed out in my previous post, our very identity is tied into free will. A person cannot have identity as a person without a will that can originate thoughts, choices and actions independently of the causal order. Free will is a desirable attribute because it makes each of us ‘who we are.’

As a creator myself (admittedly only a creator of computer programs) I would never dream of “granting” free will to my creations. When a program “misbehaves” and does not do what I intended it to do, it is called a “bug”, and it must be tracked down and fixed. Even if I would create intelligent cars, I would never give them freedom to run off the road or crash into a lamppost. I am sure some argument will come forth about “love”, and how wonderful it is and it needs to be freely given in order to be meaningful. You are welcome to go down that path, but if you do, please do us a favor, and make sure you qualify exactly and precisely what you mean by the term “love”.

This paradigm should make you pause and reflect on the difference between your creative power and God’s. God does not make machines, but creatures, like human beings, with incredible autonomy and complexity. In His wisdom, He does not micromanage every little action of every creature, but allows us to choose and find our identity through the choices we make and actions we take.

The way that you handle ‘misbehaviours’ gives me the impression that you have never had children. If you have, I hope you recognize the differences between your created machines and human beings. You don’t try to track down and fix every behaviour that your children exhibit, do you? Therein is a little taste of the difference between automatons and free beings. I for one am awed by the love that God must have for us to allow us the freedom to discover the reality of who we are through the choices we make.

Love is, for me, is harmonizing my will with Truth and Goodness - the will of God - because in God, who is ultimate Truth, Goodness and Beauty, is where ultimate freedom of Being is found.

 

[JDaniel]

Counter arguments have been formulated by CS Lewis and others. The definitive rebuttal was presented by Alvin Plantinga.

See this video and this one.

Succinctly put, omnipotence does not mean God can do the impossible. God could not, for example, create creatures with the freedom to make morally relevant choices but then cause these creatures to always make good choices. God’s “allowance” is most certainly relevant because God is not ultimately responsible for everything. God cannot do the logically impossible. He cannot make creatures with free will and then always determine their choices. Causation is not the operational principle where the realm of moral agency is involved. There is a morally important difference between willing, carrying out an action and allowing it to happen. God may in fact allow many things, because the alternative of intervention could very quickly entail a complete cessation of the possibility of free will.

I strongly suspect that each of our personal identities is founded upon our freedom as agents having the power to initiate action independent of the causal order. We are who we are because the locus of creativity that gives each of us a unique identity lies within the power of our will. Our consciousness as unique individuals depends upon our distinctness from the causal chain of events going on around us.

Therefore, God must allow continual free choice on our parts in order not to take personal identity away from us. Our choices must be freely made in order to even have an awareness of personal identity.

I find this a ridiculous claim. How can you be fully responsible for the actions of another person? This assumes the other person bears absolutely no responsibility for their own actions. You are in fact denying the “free will” of the person committing the act and placing full responsibility on the “giver” for the other’s actions. This is why you can so blithely dismiss the free will defense, you are merely offloading all responsibility onto the instrumental precursor rather than placing blame on the responsible moral agent. My giving someone anything, even where I know what they might do with the object does not relieve the other person of full responsibility for their own actions. I might be complicit or bear instrumental responsibility, but certainly not carry responsibility for the act itself as you claim.

In the case of God, his allowance of evil and the instrumental responsibility he carries may have been morally determined by God (in his omniscience and omnibenevolence) to have been worth the trade-off of having morally free agents with individual identities.

Of course there is a solution. God allows evil choices because he has given us as moral agents the power and responsibility to make morally important choices. Being able to initiate actions freely is precisely what gives us our identities as conscious individuals. To take away the possibility of making bad or evil choices would in effect turn us into automatons without consciousness or mere inactive observers with no power to create or act.

PeterPlato:

That is a very interesting argument. I have not seen it brought up before. If God were to take away our individualities, we would not be human beings, in the fullest sense of those words - we would be 7 billion giant worker ants. That would not resemble this world in any way. I must say that I rather like our world.

Imagine: if by the removal of our freedoms we no longer had “the power to initiate action independent of the causal order”, our individualities would be ultimately compromised. The world would be much worse off.

Now, there are those that would argue that God would not have to go that far to accomplish the goal of more extant goodness. My question would be, “What would you consider the limit?” It would be interesting to look at each limitation one by one as regards the entire frame of reference for individuality. Thank you. I think this was excellent (name removed by moderator)ut.

God bless,
jd

 

[Peter_Plato]

PeterPlato:

That is a very interesting argument. I have not seen it brought up before. If God were to take away our individualities, we would not be human beings, in the fullest sense of those words - we would be 7 billion giant worker ants. That would not resemble this world in any way. I must say that I rather like our world.

Imagine: if by the removal of our freedoms we no longer had “the power to initiate action independent of the causal order”, our individualities would be ultimately compromised. The world would be much worse off.

Now, there are those that would argue that God would not have to go that far to accomplish the goal of more extant goodness. My question would be, “What would you consider the limit?” It would be interesting to look at each limitation one by one as regards the entire frame of reference for individuality. Thank you. I think this was excellent (name removed by moderator)ut.

God bless,
jd

JD, most of this is based upon the thoughts of Augustine, CS Lewis, Peter Kreeft and, in particular, Jesus.

Having free will does not mean merely “doing what we want” because our wills have been deformed by sin. Our “choices,” in and of themselves and apart from the grace of God, are mostly compulsive or addictive responses to external forces. However, our awareness or consciousness is the gate to freedom. Our consciousness is the “light” that streams into our beings, the light of Christ the Logos that can show us the Truth to guide our choices towards freedom. That freedom comes from the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to be free - free from our addictions and compulsions. Our identities (who we are) are forged by the possibility of the choices we make and ironically, we become more real and more free, and thus more a “self” when we are freed from the compulsive and addictive responses to wants and appetites to make grace powered choices that form a true “self” that has **“the power to initiate action independent of the causal order.”
**

Like Augustine, I believe we have always, in front of us a fundamental option, the choice between living by the power and freedom of God (grace) or not (sin). We become ontologically more free when we act in harmony with grace and ontologically less free or addicted when we do not. Identity is the thin edge of the sword between these two ways of being. The choice to be free and live by grace is ours. If we choose not to we necessarily become enslaved or addicted to our appetites and desires.

Hence, freedom is not a right, but a capacity granted by God through grace to those who live in harmony with his will.

Here are some passages from Scripture that support the idea.

*John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Romans 8:2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.*

An analogy might be helpful. Think of a sailing ship. Your will is the navigator with a hand on the rudder. Grace is the power (the wind in the sails) that can move the ship forward to discover the vast universe of good that God has created and ultimately God Himself. Christ is the light ( the sunlight in our consciousness) that allows us to navigate and see where we are going. Just moving the rudder (making choices) is not going to get us anywhere because the power to move the ship is not in the navigator (will) but in the wind (will of God). So our fundamental choice is comprised of two actions. 1) Raising the sails to harness the power of the wind (having right order in our choices to do the will of God, i.e., what is good and right) and 2) moving the rudder in coordination with the wind (grace) to navigate through perilous waters (making grace-filled immediate choices each day regarding specific options that come our way.)

The fact that we can make choices is what gives us identity as individuals but the power to follow through comes from grace (the power of the wind that moves us) Recall Jesus’ words about the Holy Spirit. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

 

[JDaniel]

JD, most of this is based upon the thoughts of Augustine, CS Lewis, Peter Kreeft and, in particular, Jesus.

Having free will does not mean merely “doing what we want” because our wills have been deformed by sin. Our “choices,” in and of themselves and apart from the grace of God, are mostly compulsive or addictive responses to external forces. However, our awareness or consciousness is the gate to freedom. Our consciousness is the “light” that streams into our beings, the light of Christ the Logos that can show us the Truth to guide our choices towards freedom. That freedom comes from the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to be free - free from our addictions and compulsions. Our identities (who we are) are forged by the possibility of the choices we make and ironically, we become more real and more free, and thus more a “self” when we are freed from the compulsive and addictive responses to wants and appetites to make grace powered choices that form a true “self” that has **“the power to initiate action independent of the causal order.”
**

Like Augustine, I believe we have always, in front of us a fundamental option, the choice between living by the power and freedom of God (grace) or not (sin). We become ontologically more free when we act in harmony with grace and ontologically less free or addicted when we do not. Identity is the thin edge of the sword between these two ways of being. The choice to be free and live by grace is ours. If we choose not to we necessarily become enslaved or addicted to our appetites and desires.

Hence, freedom is not a right, but a capacity granted by God through grace to those who live in harmony with his will.

Here are some passages from Scripture that support the idea.

*John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Romans 8:2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.*

An analogy might be helpful. Think of a sailing ship. Your will is the navigator with a hand on the rudder. Grace is the power (the wind in the sails) that can move the ship forward to discover the vast universe of good that God has created and ultimately God Himself. Christ is the light ( the sunlight in our consciousness) that allows us to navigate and see where we are going. Just moving the rudder (making choices) is not going to get us anywhere because the power to move the ship is not in the navigator (will) but in the wind (will of God). So our fundamental choice is comprised of two actions. 1) Raising the sails to harness the power of the wind (having right order in our choices to do the will of God, i.e., what is good and right) and 2) moving the rudder in coordination with the wind (grace) to navigate through perilous waters (making grace-filled immediate choices each day regarding specific options that come our way.)

The fact that we can make choices is what gives us identity as individuals but the power to follow through comes from grace (the power of the wind that moves us) Recall Jesus’ words about the Holy Spirit. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

Peter:

Well said, and I like your analogy.

Question: God, it would seem, could have created a world where humans had plenty of freedom, but were incapable of committing sin. Now, I view this as irrelevant. Since God controls everything except sin (our intentions), then we would be effectively emasculated from freewill, if such a world is where we found ourselves. What are your thoughts on this?

Secondarily, you are saying that our very self-identies are inextricably tied to Free Will, which is choosing between good and sin. I am still considering this, by pondering the individualities of people I know and know of.

God bless,
jd

 

[celluloid]

Again as I pointed out in my previous post, our very identity is tied into free will. A person cannot have identity as a person without a will that can originate thoughts, choices and actions independently of the causal order. Free will is a desirable attribute because it makes each of us ‘who we are.’

I’m trying to understand your understanding of free will in relation to identity. Do you mean that free will allows expression of an underlying, existing identity, or is free will necessary to form identity, or is it something else?

 

[Trurl]

Peter Plato:

You will have to do more than make a claim like this. Can you cite precisely where he has withdrawn from the argument?

I did not bookmark it, sorry. But it is obvious, since it never accounts for the existence of the so-called “natural evil”. Here is a good link to the problem: link…. Check out the part where Plantinga accepts that the world “W4” is a possible world (without contradictions). Since God can actualize any possible world (a possible world is the one which does not contain a contradiction) therefore “W4” could have been actualized. There is no need to go into details about Plantinga’s argument, it is enough to look at his basic premise:

A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all.

First, this is just an unfounded and subjective opinion not an unquestionable metaphysical “axiom”. Second, it is incoherent, since it does not specify for whom it is more valuable. There is no “value” without someone who is able to “value” something.
Peter Plato:

This is based upon a “weak” understanding of free will and a false understanding of eternity.

Free will is usually incorrectly defined; to go into detail it needs to defined properly. I wonder, what is your understanding: do you realize that free will is insepararable from freedom of action? And our freedom of action is always curtailed by the physical world?

Eternity and “outside” time are metaphysical nonsense. The concept of “action” cannot be separated from the concept of “change”. An action without change is simply an oxymoron. And the concept of change cannot be separated from the idea of “time”, which means “before” and “after”. This is so elementary, that I can hardly believe that there are still some apologists who keep postulating such an irrational concept. God is supposed to be “actus purus”, pure act. Therefore God lives in some kind of time, with past, present and future. This time is not the same as ours, of course, but it is still a “time”. This follows logically from the idea that God is “pure action”. By the way, there is a huge theological problem with asserting that God’s knowledge is logically contingent upon our action, but that would lead to a different topic.
Peter Plato:

This paradigm should make you pause and reflect on the difference between your creative power and God’s. God does not make machines, but creatures, like human beings, with incredible autonomy and complexity. In His wisdom, He does not micromanage every little action of every creature, but allows us to choose and find our identity through the choices we make and actions we take.

Actually we are about 99% biological “machines”. Very little of what we do is actually under volitional control. Even most of our reasoning process is unreachable to our volition, it happens in the subconscious.
Peter Plato:

The way that you handle ‘misbehaviours’ gives me the impression that you have never had children.

You are wrong. A good example that “common sense” can lead you astray.
Peter Plato:

If you have, I hope you recognize the differences between your created machines and human beings.

The difference is enormous, as of today, due to technological limitations but it is only a difference in degree, not in “kind”. If you look at Deep Blue (beat the world’s chess champion) or Watson (wiped the floor with the best of the best in Jeopardy, you can see what the future may bring us. But again, this is not important. I will give you one simple example: “suppose you were involved in a car accident, and ‘someone’ stops to help you (this would be an example of “agape”). Would you care if that ‘someone’ is a human being, who stopped because he wanted to help, or that it was just a ‘something’, a properly programmed machine, ‘who’ (or what?) has no say-so in the matter, ‘who’ had to stop and help you?”. As far as I am concerned, I would not care one bit, I would only care to get the necessary help. Whether that human would help out of genuine desire to help, or merely wanted to feel good about himself, is not relevant. If you happen to be familiar with Asimov and his famous 3 laws of robotics, you will realize that those “robots” are the idealized humans, they are what humans “should be”. So, I don’t care one iota for the “freedom” of flying into the World Trade Center. And when my child was young, I did what I had to do to curtail his freedom and did not allow him to do something that would have harmed him or maybe others.
Peter Plato:

Love is, for me, is harmonizing my will with Truth and Goodness - the will of God - because in God, who is ultimate Truth, Goodness and Beauty, is where ultimate freedom of Being is found.

SIGH… that does not bode well for our future discussion. If you cannot define the fully secular concept of love without referring to your deity, then I doubt that there is a good reason to continue.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Peter:

Well said, and I like your analogy.

Question: God, it would seem, could have created a world where humans had plenty of freedom, but were incapable of committing sin. Now, I view this as irrelevant. Since God controls everything except sin (our intentions), then we would be effectively emasculated from freewill, if such a world is where we found ourselves. What are your thoughts on this?

Secondarily, you are saying that our very self-identies are inextricably tied to Free Will, which is choosing between good and sin. I am still considering this, by pondering the individualities of people I know and know of.

God bless,
jd

I’ve been typing for an hour trying to reduce my thinking to a form that would answer your questions but I am not satisfied with the results as yet. I’ll post when ready. In the meantime try listening to this talk by Peter Kreeft on Identity. It may add some insight.

peterkreeft.com/audio/30_lotr_identity.htm

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’m trying to understand your understanding of free will in relation to identity. Do you mean that free will allows expression of an underlying, existing identity, or is free will necessary to form identity, or is it something else?

Free will allows the expression of the ultimate creative freedom of the omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God. Our identity is given to us by God ( we are not self-made in a simplistic sense) but can only be achieved when we allow the creative freedom of God to live in and through our being. Our deepest self is the self created in God’s image that forms the ground of who we are. The extent of our freedom in making choices is the root of our identity.

When we sin, we separate ourselves from the power of God and become determined in our actions by external factors. We lose freedom of will and become addicted in our choices.

Our humanness and fact of consciousness (locus of identity) is a given, but our personality and free will is not. I believe both of these are forged as the result of the interplay of our choices, our environment and our cooperation with the grace of God. Bad choices can, over time, make us reprehensible, even inhuman, definitely delimit will and result in a loss of personal identity - we lose a sense of who we are.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Actually we are about 99% biological “machines”. Very little of what we do is actually under volitional control. Even most of our reasoning process is unreachable to our volition, it happens in the subconscious.

Speak for yourself. Just because you are in such dire straits does not mean the rest of us are. :hammering:

 

[jochoa]

I need better philosopher to help me logically unravel this broken view.
( I don’t agree with it).

Since evil happens, and our all powerful God allows it to happen, it is His will that evil occurs; therefore His will is evil.
And even if it is not His will that event ‘x’ occurs (free choice rebutal), He still allows it to occur ( the 2nd degree murder argument).
Analogy: I bought a gun.
I gave the gun to the murderer.
I witness the murderer commit the evil act of murder.
I did not stop the murderer.

I did not pull the trigger, but I did not exercise any effort to stop the crime.

With God, He allows evil, and does not stop it. Therefore it is His evil will that the evil occurs.

How can I argue against this broken view.
( I could not find an argument in search )

Blessings,
Luke2220

Excellent challenge, my friend! Please consider the following concepts:

Clarifying through definition of God’s Will
In order to reveal how God’s Will is purely good, one must propose a definition to the nature of God’s Will, which can then be evaluated as whether it is evil or not.

The Nature of God’s Will is the Greatest Commandments: which from further interpretation is always freely being and spreading the means to freely be perfectly patient, kind, and motivated with all the body, spirit, thoughts, and will equally towards others and the self for the experience of limitless happiness with unbreakable peace for all, including the self.
The questions become: Do you perceive any evil within this nature? Given this nature, is providing a gun and allowing the free-willed misuse of the gun in alignment?

The Error in the Conclusion of God’s Will = Evil
If one comes to the conclusion that God’s Will is evil, then one has misinterpreted the Purpose for Creation.
To demonstrate this, simply ask the question: In the scenario (murder), what purpose has been ascribed to God for creating each person in the scenario? If no purpose is ascribed, it is impossible to determine if God’s Will is or isn’t evil. If the purpose is limited to God creating us so that His Creations can enjoy life or any other limited purpose, then the limited purpose will conclude falsely that God’s Will is evil. When one discovers the complete purpose, one will be humbled in awe of the Perfect and Amazing Goodness of God’s Will.

To support the idea of the goodness of allowing free-will and to shed light on a more complete purpose for Creation, please consider the following:
The Purpose God creates each and every person is for the ever-lasting experience of limitless happiness with unbreakable peace for all, including His Self.
In order to fulfill this purpose, God has to give each and every person the free will to choose to live in oneness with the means to fulfill this experience.

Thanks for the fun food for thought! I look forward to further discussion!

 

[Viewscreen]

If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good and does not stop the evil in the world, then there are only two possible conclusions (that I see at least). Either God allows evil for a greater good, or God is indifferent to human good. The former proposition makes no sense, as there is such senseless evil as to admit no reason for its existence. Some things are just too wrong, and have no redeeming quality, no silver lining. At least I think so.

The latter proposition makes God impersonal in the sense that he just doesn’t care. His love isn’t impotent, but it is shortened, and doesn’t cover the bulk of humanity, it seems.

I see only one other option, actually. God is benign, but he is insane. Only an insane or evil God could create a world such as this.

 

[AnthonySorensen]

Only an insane or evil God could create a world such as this.

Or someone with a limited intellect and a fair amount of arrogance is speculating about a being with a perfect intellect.

 

[Viewscreen]

Or someone with a limited intellect and a fair amount of arrogance is speculating about a being with a perfect intellect.

I honestly don’t think that’s the case. Only a handful of valid conclusions may be reached, starting from a given set of premises. If you find an actual disagreement with my reasoning, let me know. Otherwise, you are the one speculating.

 

[AnthonySorensen]

Only a handful of valid conclusions may be reached, starting from a given set of premises. .

Because you have limited knowledge.

 

[Viewscreen]

Because you have limited knowledge.

Let me put it this way: if you’re playing baseball and the ball is hurtling towards you (and you’re the pitcher) there’s only a handful of things you can do to deflect it or otherwise remove its influence away from you. You can try hitting the ball with your bat, by either whacking it or punting it, whichever way you can. Or you can try getting out of its way by running, etc. There’s a bunch of things you can do. One thing you can’t do, however, is teleport yourself out of there. Or maybe you could, in some universe. The point is, there is a logical cap when it comes to how we can get out of any given situation. Just so, there’s an end-point when it comes to rationalizing yourself out of a philosophical problem.

"Oh, you just have limited knowledge: there must be SOME way we can get out of that baseball situation without appealing to either a) teleportation, b) hitting the ball to deflect it, c) running away, d) turning transparent, etc, etc. Once you see that all of these possible ways fails (and therefore is not open to you, so you try to find a “new” way) you rapidly start losing options. And before you know it, no other option, no matter how fancifully contrived, is open to you. All routes are closed because they all defeat themselves in some way or other. Hence, you can only come to a negative conclusion.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I honestly don’t think that’s the case. Only a handful of valid conclusions may be reached, starting from a given set of premises. If you find an actual disagreement with my reasoning, let me know. Otherwise, you are the one speculating.

I believe Anthony’s point is that your conclusions are based upon the limited premises that you begin with. The same is not true of God. He does not have the same constraints as you because his options are wide open due to omniscience and omnipotence. He can create options you have not even dreamed of. In your baseball analogy, God’s powers would open the field of options considerably because he is not constrained by physical laws or limited creativity.

 

[AnthonySorensen]

I believe Anthony’s point is that your conclusions are based upon the limited premises that you begin with. The same is not true of God.** He does not have the same constraints as you because his options are wide open due to omniscience and omnipotence**.** He can create options you have not even dreamed of.** In your baseball analogy, God’s powers would open the field of options considerably because he is not constrained by physical laws or limited creativity.

Thank you. Plus the fact that he wasn’t even aware of the bold portions helps to demonstrate his limited knowledge.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good and does not stop the evil in the world, then there are only two possible conclusions (that I see at least). Either God allows evil for a greater good, or God is indifferent to human good. The former proposition makes no sense, as there is such senseless evil as to admit no reason for its existence. Some things are just too wrong, and have no redeeming quality, no silver lining. At least I think so.

This goes to the point I made in the previous post. You cannot say the proposition that God allows evil to bring about a greater good is nonsense because you only have limited intellectual resources and potency. You cannot even fathom what an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenelovent being could do to bring good out of evil, so your claiming there are no possibilities that warrant God allowing evil is quite hasty and unfounded, except on what you know.

Some things are just “too wrong” compared to what? What would too good to be true look like? My guess is that there are unimaginable possibilities that would render your “too wrong” judgement a nonstarter.

 

[Viewscreen]

I believe Anthony’s point is that your conclusions are based upon the limited premises that you begin with. The same is not true of God. He does not have the same constraints as you because his options are wide open due to omniscience and omnipotence. He can create options you have not even dreamed of. In your baseball analogy, God’s powers would open the field of options considerably because he is not constrained by physical laws or limited creativity.

If we lowly humans are incapable of creatively ascertaining any more options, (and we have been on this earth theologizing and philosophizing for a long, long time) then that gives considerable doubt to the claim that God can effectively “find a way” which is, apparently in principle, impossible to be disclosed by reason. This isn’t like particle physics where the number of entities to take into account is huge: we are dealing here with roughly only a few relevant entities: moral evil, free will, suffering, purpose, and maybe a couple others. That no philosopher has as yet arrived at any conclusion which is even remotely airtight, in my opinion says something about the irresolvability of the problem.

If by reason we cannot find a way that doesn’t defeat itself, and leave it up to God, then two things may follow. Such a “way” then is literally above reason and logic, and so you arrive at the difficulty of allowing absurdities to flourish. Or, you commit yourself, by necessity, to a type of blind fideism which neglects humans’ contributions by dint of their own reason - and so you open the playing field to a lot more unsubstantiated claims and wishful thinking. I don’t think we want to do this, in all due respect.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Thank you.

You are most welcome! shaw: