How to respond to Deist philosophy professor on problem of evil

[namax91]

My college philosophy professor seems to have a Deist sort of understanding of the nature of God. He says that if God exists that there is no reason to believe He is all-loving. I was wondering if anybody has good responses to his objections against the idea of free will in the problem of evil/suffering. I will try to paraphrase his main objections.

1. How do you explain evils that are not caused by humans, such as natural disasters and incurable diseases with which one may be born?
2. The perpetrator of an act of evil may have the choice to perform this action, but where is the choice of the victim? Maybe sometimes the victim is partially at fault, but what about cases where the victim is completely innocent? Children who are abused don’t have a choice. People born with incurable diseases similarly have no choice in the matter.
3. ( I don’t know the best way to phrase this objection.) Why does the world have options of such extreme evil? Would we really have any less freedom if we lived in a world without the possibility of building nuclear weapons, for example?

 

[tonyrey]

My college philosophy professor seems to have a Deist sort of understanding of the nature of God. He says that if God exists that there is no reason to believe He is all-loving. I was wondering if anybody has good responses to his objections against the idea of free will in the problem of evil/suffering. I will try to paraphrase his main objections.

1. How do you explain evils that are not caused by humans, such as natural disasters and incurable diseases with which one may be born?

Natural causes! This topic is being discussed on another thread.

1. The perpetrator of an act of evil may have the choice to perform this action, but where is the choice of the victim? Maybe sometimes the victim is partially at fault, but what about cases where the victim is completely innocent? Children who are abused don’t have a choice. People born with incurable diseases similarly have no choice in the matter.

How could a victim-free world be created? Jesus suffered and died to show us that sacrifice is at the heart of life - and love.

1. ( I don’t know the best way to phrase this objection.) Why does the world have options of such extreme evil? Would we really have any less freedom if we lived in a world without the possibility of building nuclear weapons, for example?

How would such possibilities be prevented without defeating the purpose of giving us free will?

 

[mikekle]

Ive wondered about this myself, especially in todays world, when there are news stories everyday about young kids being kidnapped, raped, killed, by adults, they obviously have no choice in this happening to them, as they cannot fight off an adult, so they are being denied their free will in these cases…My guess is Satan allows this to happen because he knows they cannot fight back, and knows taking away their free will during this time will upset God. Im welcome to any other theories though, this is best explanation I could come up with.

Im not sure about natural disasters, the college prof. has a point here, just look at Haiti!!! It does seem they are being punished by God. Ive seen alot of interviews following Katrina in New Orleans and many of those victims called the event EVIL. I do not know if Satan has authority over the weather, If I had to guess, I would say he probably does have to some degree, but why God would not step in and intervene is still up for debate.

God did not step in when the Jewish holocaust was occurring either, and he even said he would not allow any harm to come to his people, it is surprising to me he allowed this to go on as long as it did.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

My guess is Satan allows this to happen because he knows they cannot fight back, and knows taking away their free will during this time will upset God. Im welcome to any other theories though, this is best explanation I could come up with.
.

Satan doesn’t 'allow" anything to happen; has has no control. He tempts us, whispers in our ear, as it was; but he has absolutely no authority over us; and he certainly cannot take away our free will.

To the OP:

All of those problems you cited are one of the potential outcomes of God’s decision to give us free will. The fact that he gave us free will is a sign of his love, because it indicates that he wants us to freely chose to love him. Unfortunately, with the ability to chose to love God also comes the ability to reject him, which is the root cause of all the moral evils in our world.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

**namax

1. How do you explain evils that are not caused by humans, such as natural disasters and incurable diseases with which one may be born? **

When I think of the mystery of evil, this is what I think of. Natural disasters or being born with an incurable disease is not an evil we bring upon ourselves, so why should we fall victims to such things?

I do not know. But the bottom line is that we must all die sooner or later. Suffering and dying ahead of the natural schedule of life (dying of old age) should be compared with suffering and dying of old age. Both conditions might be called evil by the Deists. Why does he not then complain of dying from illness and old age, from a cause we are not responsible for (old age itself)? Is it not as tragic to die gradually of sickness in old age as it is tragic to die in a flood or an earthquake or a fatal childhood disease? The Deist seems to want to blame God for being a Father indifferent to the fate of his children. But because the Deist has rejected Christ, he see the Father not as a lover of his creation, but as indifferent to his creatures. If he had accepted Christ, he would see the Father as one who so loved the world he accepted the sacrifice of his own Son to save it from perdition. The real tragedy is not to die at any age or for any reason, but to die rejecting Christ.

 

[Fransmith]

I struggled with all these questions as well. Here are some thoughts that I find help me to understand these perplexing questions and not ask why God allows or Satan causes.

1. We get hung up because we believe in the Bible literally. The stories of creation are told in a story narrative to explain the unknown, how was the world created? Satan is a very Jewish idea. This is where Satan being blamed for all the evil in the world started. It’s easier to say Satan made me do it then take the responsibility of our own choices.

When evil happens it is not because there is a Satan tempting us, it is our own bad choices the results of our natural survival instinct. The world is imperfect; God’s plan, idea if you will, for what we are to become is still unfolding. The world is like a new infant still learning what is right and wrong.

We know what we are but we do not know what we are to become.

Jesus, the Christ, came to be the example of God’s perfect creation. Now here i’m going out on a limb. I think there is too much emphasis on Jesus death and not enough on the resurrection and what it meant for all of us the believer and the non believer. This is what I believe Jesus meant when he said come follow me, love one another as I have loved you. Because of Jesus Christ, we all have the seed of Christ within us, the atheist, the Muslim, Christians, all people.

Just on a daily basis we all find our selves with feelings of anger,irritability, fear, etc. all of which have the potential for doing evil. I think this also explains all natural disasters. Natural disasters have a renewing aspect. These fires, earthquakes etc. all in the end contribute to bettering our planet. We just need to use our God given intelligence not live in areas where these disasters occur.

Frances

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I’m not going to pretend to give an adequate answer, but maybe these thoughts can help:

1. Natural disasters and diseases are only “evil” because we’re susceptible to death. We count death as an evil because it is a loss of something we consider good, i.e. life. If we were immortal, then the germs that cause horrific diseases would just be microscopic creatures of no concern to us. If we were immortal and whole as we were originally created by God, mutations in our DNA wouldn’t cause fatal or debilitating diseases. If we couldn’t drown, bleed to death, or starve, a hurricane might be a fun time for a weekend. Basically, any “natural” evil is only so from our perspective as broken, fallen human beings. Although I have no idea what Adam and Eve were like before the fall, as a consequence of sin, nature has become our enemy in some ways.
2. I’m not exactly sure what your professor is looking for here. You aren’t obligated to show that both perpetrators and victims freely choose evil, just perpetrators. Although the victim retains the intrinsic ability to freely choose at all times, the actual ability of a victim to execute his or her will may be compromised in one way or another. This is a consequence of having finite power, and in the case of the victim, of having less power than the perpetrator. You don’t have to show that everyone must freely choose evil for themselves for this defense to work, just merely that some people freely choose evil for themselves or others.
3. We do live in a world with the potential for radical, excessive evil. We also live in a world where seemingly pointless suffering and evil occur on a daily basis. (e.g. animals burning to death in forest fires, children getting AIDS, entire churches being blown up by terrorists, etc). But, I’m not so sure the extent of this radical evil has to do with will so much as power. In other words, it might make more sense to ask: “why didn’t God create us as weaker, less powerful creatures?” What if we were too dumb to figure out how to make nuclear weapons? Wouldn’t that be great? Or, conversely, what if we were much, much more powerful? What if human beings could rape or kill each other just by thinking about it? What if we were telekinetic and could drown each other or burn each other via a thought? My point is, the excessive, radical evil you object to is not so much a function of will, but of power. Cavemen beat each other to death with sticks because of ill will, and modern people use chemical weapons and unmanned drones. Same will, different power. (For the record, cavemen treated illnesses with shamanistic nonsense rituals, and modern people use…chemicals. So, our increase in power can be used for good as well). A world without nuclear weapons would not result because of a lessening of our will, but rather our power. I’d venture a guess this world wouldn’t have modern transportation, nuclear power, or any of the devices we are using to discuss this problem right now either!

 

[tonyrey]

I struggled with all these questions as well. Here are some thoughts that I find help me to understand these perplexing questions and not ask why God allows or Satan causes.

1. We get hung up because we believe in the Bible literally. The stories of creation are told in a story narrative to explain the unknown, how was the world created? Satan is a very Jewish idea. This is where Satan being blamed for all the evil in the world started. It’s easier to say Satan made me do it then take the responsibility of our own choices.

When evil happens it is not because there is a Satan tempting us, it is our own bad choices the results of our natural survival instinct. The world is imperfect; God’s plan, idea if you will, for what we are to become is still unfolding. The world is like a new infant still learning what is right and wrong.

We know what we are but we do not know what we are to become.

Jesus, the Christ, came to be the example of God’s perfect creation. Now here i’m going out on a limb. I think there is too much emphasis on Jesus death and not enough on the resurrection and what it meant for all of us the believer and the non believer. This is what I believe Jesus meant when he said come follow me, love one another as I have loved you. Because of Jesus Christ, we all have the seed of Christ within us, the atheist, the Muslim, Christians, all people.

Just on a daily basis we all find our selves with feelings of anger,irritability, fear, etc. all of which have the potential for doing evil. I think this also explains all natural disasters. Natural disasters have a renewing aspect. These fires, earthquakes etc. all in the end contribute to bettering our planet. We just need to use our God given intelligence not live in areas where these disasters occur.

Frances

Welcome to the form, Frances.
An excellent post!

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Re suffering caused by “natural” forces, I would hesitate to suggest that any country, such as Haiti, “deserved” a natural disaster. Although God can and has punished a nation (such as Sodom) through the acts of nature or through the acts of people, I don’t think it is our place in modern times to judge. Jesus addressed this quite clearly, addressing suffering caused by both humans and natural disasters, in Luke 13:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Jesus seems to be saying that we all fall short, so we shouldn’t point a finger at others when we (and our nations) have our own failings.

I would suggest the following:

1. Most natural disasters have an element of human failure within them as well - the substandard, shoddy housing of landlords contributed to the suffering of those in Haiti, just as the corruption of building authorities who were paid to look the other way when the Yakuza cut costs on lucrative building contracts added to the damage in the Japanese earthquake. Profiteering, looting, rape, lack of charity, all combine to make a natural disaster worse.
2. The answer Jesus gives to the problem of suffering, either from human or natural sources, is twofold: join your suffering to His and join in His salvific mission, and alleviate the suffering of others through loving the other as you love yourself.

It’s only my opinion, but I think the answer to why God permits suffering to happen is that He does not - rather, He commands us to act to reduce it. We are moral agents under God’s command, even as the angels are. He has clearly commanded us to aid the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the poor, the sick, the downtrodden. If there is suffering, it is because we are not doing enough. This is the only real answer to the problem of suffering. As we have the prospect of eternal life with Christ which will be greater in fulfillment that life on earth, Christianity has a coherent answer to the question of why people suffer which a materialist viewpoint does not - their only answer is that life’s a b**** and then you die.

1. Death is a natural part of life - it makes room for others to be born, otherwise there would be no room for anyone else, and sad to say, many people die early. But the processes that cause suffering also make life possible. The cycles that cause movement of the tectonic plates that create earthquakes and tsunami also regulate the earth’s temperature and make life on earth possible. The cosmic radiation that can trigger birth defects and cancer also (to hear the Darwinists tell us) allow for the positive mutations that allow species to adapt to changes in environment. The world which we can see and experience, as opposed to any hypothetical world created in the mind of an atheist (or deist), is all we can judge. It seems to operate on a system of balances, a death for a life.

 

[fred_conty]

My college philosophy professor seems to have a Deist sort of understanding of the nature of God. He says that if God exists that there is no reason to believe He is all-loving. I was wondering if anybody has good responses to his objections against the idea of free will in the problem of evil/suffering. I will try to paraphrase his main objections.

1. How do you explain evils that are not caused by humans, such as natural disasters and incurable diseases with which one may be born?
2. The perpetrator of an act of evil may have the choice to perform this action, but where is the choice of the victim? Maybe sometimes the victim is partially at fault, but what about cases where the victim is completely innocent? Children who are abused don’t have a choice. People born with incurable diseases similarly have no choice in the matter.
3. ( I don’t know the best way to phrase this objection.) Why does the world have options of such extreme evil? Would we really have any less freedom if we lived in a world without the possibility of building nuclear weapons, for example?

This is nothing but the same question packaged in different ways…evil.

Why evil if there is a God…especially a loving God.
Evil then proves that there is no God or an indifferent God.

It is almost the same as atheists present against God.

The answer is that we live in a wounded world of sin. Sin is the root of suffering which is what is wrong with the world. And God has been good enough to explain all of this to us in the book of Genesis if we would only listen. But then what does God know?

Everything was broken from the beginning and won’t be fixed until Christ’s second coming when all of creation will be renewed, when sin and suffering will be a thing of the past.

But then as St. Paul said in so many words, the worldlings will not believe us and think that we are crazy and talking against reason. So it is all foolishness to them.

We have answers…but who listens? Especially when we put the blame where it belongs…on us.

Humbug?

It’s wonderful to know Christ. May he be blessed now and always.

 

[BertBlyleven]

My college philosophy professor seems to have a Deist sort of understanding of the nature of God. He says that if God exists that there is no reason to believe He is all-loving. I was wondering if anybody has good responses to his objections against the idea of free will in the problem of evil/suffering. I will try to paraphrase his main objections.

1. How do you explain evils that are not caused by humans, such as natural disasters and incurable diseases with which one may be born?
2. The perpetrator of an act of evil may have the choice to perform this action, but where is the choice of the victim? Maybe sometimes the victim is partially at fault, but what about cases where the victim is completely innocent? Children who are abused don’t have a choice. People born with incurable diseases similarly have no choice in the matter.
3. ( I don’t know the best way to phrase this objection.) Why does the world have options of such extreme evil? Would we really have any less freedom if we lived in a world without the possibility of building nuclear weapons, for example?

1. We all die at some point.
2. Children have a choice to fight back…being small, this just avails nothing. Does an abuser not have free will to choose whom he or she abuses? People born with incurable diseases have no choice in the matter, and they also have no choice in their eye and hair color. So since we can’t choose our bodily makeup, there is no such thing as free will? I’m not sure any philosopher considered these things as essential to free will.
3. Sin. Nuclear weapons are far from the worst evil in the world.

It’s all about perspective. It is very silly for me to think of these questions and see how they violate/disprove free will. Why? Because I believe a mortal sin is the greatest evil in the world, not a disease or war or AIDS or pattern baldness. If I get killed by a hurricane or a disease, but make it to heaven, will I really care? No. Old age is simply the next type of evil proving God does not exist…I cannot choose to remain young, therefore there is no free will. A single mortal sin is infinitely greater than any natural evil in the world, including the Holocaust, nuclear war, etc, yet how frequent they are. It comes down to what is his perception of all loving? Does a “sin” against a human being “committed” by God make God evil? Absolutely not. If I spend eternity in Purgatory, is God still all-loving? Absolutely. Like spoon-fed teens, any natural evil is now a proof that Good is not all-loving, and therefore does not exist. God would only be God and would only be all-loving if He existed to pamper my every desire…this is nonsense, but is not far from the conclusions that are drawn from his arguments. Sin is a crucial reality for the Church, yet so many who do not believe cannot perceive a deity that allows any sin…the irony.

 

[tonyrey]

Re suffering caused by “natural” forces, I would hesitate to suggest that any country, such as Haiti, “deserved” a natural disaster. Although God can and has punished a nation (such as Sodom) through the acts of nature or through the acts of people, I don’t think it is our place in modern times to judge. Jesus addressed this quite clearly, addressing suffering caused by both humans and natural disasters, in Luke 13:

Jesus seems to be saying that we all fall short, so we shouldn’t point a finger at others when we (and our nations) have our own failings.

I would suggest the following:

1. Most natural disasters have an element of human failure within them as well - the substandard, shoddy housing of landlords contributed to the suffering of those in Haiti, just as the corruption of building authorities who were paid to look the other way when the Yakuza cut costs on lucrative building contracts added to the damage in the Japanese earthquake. Profiteering, looting, rape, lack of charity, all combine to make a natural disaster worse.
2. The answer Jesus gives to the problem of suffering, either from human or natural sources, is twofold: join your suffering to His and join in His salvific mission, and alleviate the suffering of others through loving the other as you love yourself.

It’s only my opinion, but I think the answer to why God permits suffering to happen is that He does not - rather, He commands us to act to reduce it. We are moral agents under God’s command, even as the angels are. He has clearly commanded us to aid the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the poor, the sick, the downtrodden. If there is suffering, it is because we are not doing enough. This is the only real answer to the problem of suffering. As we have the prospect of eternal life with Christ which will be greater in fulfillment that life on earth, Christianity has a coherent answer to the question of why people suffer which a materialist viewpoint does not - their only answer is that life’s a b**** and then you die.

1. Death is a natural part of life - it makes room for others to be born, otherwise there would be no room for anyone else, and sad to say, many people die early. But the processes that cause suffering also make life possible. The cycles that cause movement of the tectonic plates that create earthquakes and tsunami also regulate the earth’s temperature and make life on earth possible. The cosmic radiation that can trigger birth defects and cancer also (to hear the Darwinists tell us) allow for the positive mutations that allow species to adapt to changes in environment. The world which we can see and experience, as opposed to any hypothetical world created in the mind of an atheist (or deist), is all we can judge. It seems to operate on a system of balances, a death for a life.

Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage. We cannot expect to have everything for nothing.

 

[Gospel_of_Chaos]

Subbing because I am very interested in this topic.

Also, does anyone know where that “Natural Causes” thread would be located at?