Problem of Evil [3]: Testing and the Afterlife

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Freddy said:
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goout:
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Freddy:
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goout:
(yes I know, animals eat each other, right? go figure…nature must be in a state of journeying to something…transcendent? Your question isn’t really about the material processes of nature, is it…your question is calling God into question period. So reducing the questions to “animals tearing each other apart” is a silly diversion)
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No, my question isn’t about anything other than an interest to see how people answer the problem.

Your answer is that nature is maybe ‘journeying into something transcendent’. I think I’ll put that down as a ‘don’t know’.
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Well, you don’t have any good answers either, all you have is an objection without a basis. Right?
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No, I do have an answer. For some people, and I think this includes you, it’s a mystery. I’m interested in finding out what people think if they believe there is an answer.
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You don’t understand Christian mystery, but go ahead and make assumptions if you wish.

It’s good you have answers. But wait, here you are hours every day looking for God, talking about God. If you have the answers, and we are fools…then?

Is it fair to say that God is giving your life meaning and purpose? If you are going to deny that, you ought to account for wasting the major part of your life here talking about God.
(right? since we are calling others into the dock for contradictory behavior? How do you explain the giant contradiction: you an avowed God-denier, spending hours…talking about the God who doesn’t exist)
 
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goout said:
It’s good you have answers. But wait, here you are hours every day looking for God, talking about God. If you have the answers, and we are fools…then?

Is it fair to say that God is giving your life meaning and purpose? If you are going to deny that, you ought to account for wasting the major part of your life here talking about God.
(right? since we are calling others into the dock for contradictory behavior? How do you explain the giant contradiction: you an avowed God-denier, spending hours…talking about the God who doesn’t exist)
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If you think it’s a mystery that some people enjoy discussing theology and religion then there’s not much I can do about that.
 
Neithan said:
God allows evil — suffering — to test us, so that we can show the strength of our faith in adversity.
  • If God is all-knowing, he should already know who will remain faithful when tested. If he doesn’t know, then he is not all-knowing; but if he does, then he is inflicting unnecessary suffering and is not perfectly loving.
Does the Testing Defense contradict God’s omniscience or perfect love?
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You have not been paying attention to words but playing.
Evil means “defect”; it does not mean “suffering”.
“Suffering” is the condition of all material being, whether something desirable is done to the material being or something undesirable is experienced. My dog is “suffering” my hand whether I pet her or slap her; she is suffering nutrition whether I feed her or forget to feed her.

Testing - we are tested (tempted) in order for us to ask God to provide for us rather than trying not to suffer his kindness and trying to self satisfy our hunger rather than suffer his gracious provision. We are tested to be trained to turn to him and ask for what we lack, then realize the goodness of suffering from a gracious provider.
We are servants of the LORD, with our doings meant to be activities God wants done in the world. Our doings are not meant to look after ourselves to protect ourselves from “bad happening”. We work for Him, and only eat, only suffer good, when he sends his “angels” to us to minister to us, saying, “Take and Eat; you will need it for your journey.” (Elijah under the broom tree, and Jesus in the desert, and us every day).

We have nothing we have not received - we suffer everything, which is Good, not Defect of us nor of God.
 
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Constructor said:
But omniscience - knowledge of EVERYTHING - includes the knowledge of “nothing”, too. According to the Molinist idea, it is called “middle knowledge”.
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There’s no such thing as ‘knowledge of nothing’
 
Constructor said:
Twisting words can be fun for frivolous purposes (consider “puns”) but they can not allowed in a serious, philosophical conversation.
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Since you quoted Biblical text, I’m assuming you’re discussing Biblical philosophy. If so then words like evil, suffering and many more do have different meanings. This what studying the Bible, not just reading it is all about. This is allowed. Reading the Bible laterally is not allowed.
 
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There is equivocation of the two but it generally seems evil if there is unnecessary pain and anquish. The “unnecessary” part especially. Of course, creation on the whole is entirely unnecessary, so we really can simply ask: why any pain at all, ever? It’s always unnecessary.
 
Constructor said:
As long as there is no officially approved “Catholic Annotated Bible”, everyone can read it as they wish.
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Wrong again.
American Standard Bible committee.
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
 
Constructor said:
Middle knowledge is about “knowing” something that does not exist, but could have existed if circumstances would have been different. Or simply, “knowing” something that does not exist.
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Why do insist on complicating things that really shouldn’t be complicated?

Middle knowledge is what “would” happen if a condition is met. SIMPLE.
Where does “knowing something that does not exist” come from?
 
Constructor said:
These are the same, with slightly different wordings.
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Sometimes slightly different wordings is the difference between understanding something and not understanding something.
Knowing something that does not exist is unintelligible and puts confusion where confusion shouldn’t exist. So WORDING MATTERS.
 
You claim your parents directly created you? The willed you into being?

When your parents “created” you, did they know you would die, or were they under the illusion you would live a pain free eternal life without death?
Assuming that had at least a little “niscience”, they are by your definition cruel.

You are in the right place if you want to solve your contradictory philosophies.
Keep looking for God. Patience is key,
 
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Constructor said:
Twisting words can be fun for frivolous purposes (consider “puns”) but they can not allowed in a serious, philosophical conversation.
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Constructor said:
As long as there is no officially approved “Catholic Annotated Bible”, everyone can read it as they wish.
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You like to have your cake and eat it, too.

I suspect you are frivolous, because you ignore long accepted and serious philosophical definitions of the terms evil and suffering, and you ignore authoritative interpretations and translations of Scripture, declaring that you are going to interpret it any way you wish: frivolity.
 
Dude you’re on a Catholic forum. At least try to be respectful.
 
Constructor said:
The church is a human institution, nothing more.
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Yes, a very truly, human, rather than defective (evil), institution; the instituting human being Jesus, therefore the church’s “opinion” is actually revealed understanding or orthodoxy, and your “assertions of reality” are actually private opinion or a synonym of “opinion”, “heresy”.

Of many grammatically possible understandings, the Church’s is the One to go with.
 
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Constructor said:
The church is a human institution, nothing more.
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The least the Church of Constructor’s founder could do is raise himself from the dead. Until then we must dismiss your irrational musings as merely personal fantasies.
 
“literally accurate”.
Good demonstration of the fact that Atheists and fundamentalists are strange bedfellows.
 
Right now the world is full of demonic oppression.
To combat this:
Live a sacramental life
Go to confession ( which is a form of excorsism)
Pray to Our Lady. Demons fear Her.
 
Atheists refer to fundamentalist conceptions of God constantly, as if it were the whole and true thing. Especially in the way fundamentalism reads the Old Testament.
Fundamentalism is the firewood for the atheist bonfire.

The conclusions are different, but It’s the same simplistic and superficial conceptions of God. This can also be called “building a straw man”.
 
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