The argument sounds convincing, but I can’t reconcile this with Christ’s temptation. If Christ lacked the ability to do evil, then the temptation to do evil must also be lacking, thus rendering Christ’s temptation meaningless.
If you read Philippians 2:6-7 (NIV), you will see the following:
Yes, the only way to in fact refute the Problem of Evil is to deny that eviol exists.
Christ lacks the ability to do evil because He is motivated entirely by love - and evil stems from the absence of love.
Evil poses a theoretical and a practical problem.
The highest good purpose is Love - which entails creativity, enjoyment and fulfilment.
A stick is an instrument without self-control.
Holes and shadows are not created. They are consequences of finitude.
As we are discussing transcendental concepts, requesting “facts” is a non-sequitur. To say evil is “created” is also somewhat inaccurate. If a wall is constructed with a hole, you are not creating a hole but a wall, which has a hole. A hole is simply an absence of a part of wall. You cannot create a hole on it’s own. The word hole is used to describe conceptually the condition or state of the object as it pertains to an absence of material or substance. It’s alway used in reference to something, implicitly or explicitly but it is not a ‘thing’ on its own.
God created a wall with a hole and He could have created a wall without any holes. So He cretaed the holes. Whether this hole can exist on its own is irrelevant.
Holes are created and so are shadows. There are walls without holes. So, if God did not want holes, he would have created walls without them. Ergo, He is responsible for the hole.
Holes are not created nor are shadows. They result from the absence of some material or the absence of light rays. God permits them and is responsible for them but they are negative aspects of reality which are an inevitable consequence of a physical universe. To demand light without shadows is unreasonable. It is doubtful if there could be life in the universe without light but even it if were possible it would lack all advantages of sight and the beauty of shapes and colours. In effect you are assuming you know how to create a better universe than the one we are in - which is rather presumptuous to put it mildly…
The argument from outrage? No, it’s merely the argument from common sense.
Well, it’s easy. There’s no evidence for the existence of God, let alone for any reasoning he might employ to allow millions of innocent people to suffer. Therefore, any reasoning an apologist might come out with as to why reality doesn’t correlate with the alleged characteristics of omnipotence and benevolence, can be nothing but speculation.
I simply mean that the excuses invented to defend God’s evil make all sorts of unnecessary assumptions and rely upon the apologist pretending to know what this undetectable supernatural ghost is thinking.
No, I can’t, and I don’t have to. I’m not the one making the claim that he is both of those things. I’m just pointing out that basic observation of world events does not support such a claim. And without good evidence to the contrary, the simplest, most efficient conclusion is that he is not both benevolent and omnipotent. (Actually, the most sensible conclusion is that he doesn’t exist, but I’m pretending that he does for the purpose of discussion.)
I don’t need to use philosophical constructs to point out the bleedin’ obvious. Why do theists keep trying to hide behind philsophy? The amount of times I’ve seen posts claiming that unless one is trained in philosophy one can’t understand the arguments. It’s ridiculous. The arguments aren’t complicated, they’re just dumb.
Because He is benevolent He does not stop this. His omnipotence could end evil in the sense of disordered wills, He simply would have to do away with free will in creatures.
You have still only posted emotional objections. Post a logical objection or admit that this is simply your opinion. I debated with you on the problem of evil before and you called my emotional objection to the problem “illogical”. I’m reversing it on you. Give me a logical deductible argument or all this is is the opinion of an angry atheist.
How are we (and Thomas Aquinas) defining evil? What I mean is, does evil include the subjective suffering of those who are the recipients (from others’ actions, disease, mental anguish, war, poverty, natural catastrophes), or only the behavior of the actors who inflict pain on others? If evil includes both the actor’s behavior and the consequences felt by the recipient, how does this argument explain the recipient’s suffering?
Rabbi Harold Kushner, a follower of Conservative Judaism (midway in orthodoxy between Orthodox and Reform Judaism), would agree with you. In his book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” (not “Why”), he presents all the customary arguments that attempt to explain the “problem of evil and suffering” and discounts all of them. He concludes that G-d is benevolent (NOT evil) but, at the same time, NOT omnipotent. This conclusion is very un-Jewish, and, I would imagine, very un-Christian as well. Judaism believes that suffering is allowed in view of the faith that it has a purpose: it is not regarded as random or meaningless. We may not see the purpose and we may believe that G-d is unsympathetic or sinful in allowing it to happen, but our lack of understanding of its purpose reveals that G-d is of a nature that is incomprehensible to our human reason, and hence requires faith. We have only a glimpse of the “features” of G-d as revealed by Scripture and Tradition. The mere fact that He is a spiritual, non-materialistic, unique Entity makes Him unfathomable, according to our conception of what constitutes life. And yet He is revealed in our world through our own behaviors and interactions–even while His essence is different from ours–since we are created in His image and thus share to a lesser degree His internal attributes. Finally, there is a Jewish story of a Rabbi (I forget whom) who on the eve of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), on which Jews are required to repent of their sins toward G-d and toward their fellow man (the latter sins must be addressed directly toward others), admits of his sins but calls them small in comparison to the great sins that G-d has committed through disease, suffering, and natural disaster. This is followed by the Rabbi’s prayer for forgiveness. I think the moral of the story is that though we may struggle with G-d, plead with Him, reason with Him, it is ultimately only through faith that we can truly understand Him.
Wanstronian:
Unfortunately, the idea that evil is illusionary is not the same as evil being a privation of good. These are two different concepts and you are confusing the position of Catholics. We are not denying the existence of evil but are defining what it is. To say that darkness is a lack of light does not deny there is a concept darkness or that is has effects. I’ll use another example and see if it clarifies the issue.