Ateista, it seems to me that if you fully accept the antecedent premises, then in these particular cases, the events were in fact morally permissible.
- God is all-knowing, infinitely-good and all-powerful.
- To be all-knowing, He must have taken into account all the relevant factors.
- To be infinitely-good, He must have had the will to make the “best” possible decision and act on it.
- To be infinitely powerful means nothing in existence could possibly stop Him from bringing about His infinitely well-considered option.
Therefore, under the conditions specified, God’s actions were “okay” given that He is all-knowing, infinitely good and infinitely powerful.
Well, I accept that is the believers’
hypothesis, which needs substantiation.
When one has a hypothesis, it is incumbent upon the holder of the belief to bring up supporting evidence. The honest way is to examine
all the available evidence, and then let the chips fall where they may. If
all the evidence supports the hypothesis, all is well and good. If
even one piece of evidence contradicts the hypothesis, the hypothesis must be discarded or modified.
That is the way how one must act when confronted with a hypothesis, any hypothesis. What is not permissible is to collect data which seems to support the assumption, and sweep the rest under the rug - pretending that it does not exist.
It is intellectually incorrect to say: “I see this
seeming piece of evidence, which
looks like as if it were contradicting my hypothesis, therefore, I will disregard this evidence”. After all, my hypothesis says otherwise - I will declare it a “measurement error”.
And this is precisely what the believers do. If there is an event, which “seems” to
support God’s alleged goodness, they will hold it up for everyone to examine it. (Not that I am aware of even one such instance.) If there is an event which “seemes” to
contradict God’s goodness, they will call it “Mother Nature”. This is called selective data gathering or “cherry-picking”.
The problem here it seems to me, is that you wish to use your limited knowledge, limited goodness and limited power to make a judgement about infinite goodness, knowledge and will.
…about the
alleged infinite goodness, knowledge and will.
After all the alleged infinite knowledge, power and goodness is but a
human hypothesis. And I am well qualified to examine a human concept or hypothesis and make a decision based upon the available evidence.
A similar case might be a child who watches his father kill a man and based solely on that observation condemns his father as ruthless, cruel and evil. However, the child may not have full access to all factors that led to the father’s action. Perhaps the father was protecting his family from attack. What if the father had access to information about the victim that no one else was privy to and knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man needed to be stopped because of some heinous act he intended to commit? In that case, the father may even have been found guilty of murder and condemned by common ethical standards when in fact he did the “right thing” morally.
If the father can explain in court what his motivations were, they will be taken into consideration. If the father
does not say a word, and his lawyer merely says: “But you don’t have
full access to all his thoughts and motivations, therefore you cannot rightfully bring a verdict” - the lawyer will be laughed out of court.
And God is silent. He does not bring up any arguments to “explain” his reasons. The lawyers (the apologists) have no explanation either. All they can say: “but you don’t have the whole picture” and “there
may be mitigating circumstances”, or “
perhaps there is a perfectly good reason, we are just not privy to it”.
Since God could explain us the “missing” pieces, and does not care to do so, he obviously allows us to reach our conclusion based upon the available evidence. And that evidence does not support the original hypothesis.
These examples you bring up are only problematic if you treat God as you would any “human” person. The problem is that would be unfair because God is not a human “person.”
No, it is not problematic at all. If there is “morality”, it should be applicable to God just as it is applicable to us. To say: "whatever God does, allows or orders is ‘moral’ everything else is ‘evil’… " is a blatant contradiction to the concept that there is an “objective morality”, and God simply enforces it.
The old question: “is something ordered by God, because it is “good”, or is something “good” because God orders it”?
God has characteristics which place Him and his ability to act far beyond our scopes of judgement. There are many mitigating possibilities that we cannot hope to fathom, that only He would have access to. That means your “trial” and condemnation of God can only be recessed until “full” access to and disclosure of the facts occurs.
As a matter of fact, the Jews did put Yahweh on trial after the Holocaust for breaking his covenant with them. And the verdict was:
guilty! The funny thing was that they went on and continued worshipping him.
Do you feel confident enough in your own assessment of the situation that your analysis will, with 100% certainty, trump an all-knowing, all-loving, infinitely good and all-powerful God.
As for the available evidence, the answer is YES. If there are mitigating circumstances, I am here to listen. Either God or you (his advocates) are most welcome to give explanation why my assessment is incorrect. I promise that I will change my “verdict” if and when new explanations are presented.
