Problem of Evil Variation

[Randy_Carson]

In another forum, I’m chatting with an atheist who has posed an argument which appears to be a variation of the classic Problem of Evil, and it can be expressed like this:

1. God wants everyone to come to know him in this life.
2. God knows how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.
3. God could create a such a world.
4. But not everyone comes to know God in this life.
5. Therefore, either God does not want everyone to know him or He does not know how to create such a world or He cannot create such a world.

I think the problem is in the second premise where he wrote, “he didn’t know how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.”

How would you respond to this argument?

Has this variation been addressed somewhere that I can read about online?

Thanks.

 

[Solmyr]

It is impossible to refute that analysis.

God knows if any particular individual will choose him or not - even before that person is created.
God is under no obligation to create any individual.
There are people who chose God, and had free will, at the very least the saints.
There is no logical reason why the number of such people would be limited.
Therefore God could decide only to create only those people who will freely choose him.

That is all.

 

[KnowtheSilence]

In another forum, I’m chatting with an atheist who has posed an argument which appears to be a variation of the classic Problem of Evil, and it can be expressed like this:

1. God wants everyone to come to know him in this life.
2. God knows how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.
3. God could create a such a world.
4. But not everyone comes to know God in this life.
5. Therefore, either God does not want everyone to know him or He does not know how to create such a world or He cannot create such a world.

I think the problem is in the second premise where he wrote, “he didn’t know how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.”

How would you respond to this argument?

Has this variation been addressed somewhere that I can read about online?

Thanks.

This is more of a variation on the divine hiddeness argument, not the problem of evil. You’d probably have more success searching online if you look for that.

I can think of some ways that someone might object to one or more of the premises, but I’m not sure how compatible they would be with Catholic theology.

 

[tonyrey]

It is impossible to refute that analysis.

God knows if any particular individual will choose him or not - even before that person is created.
God is under no obligation to create any individual.
There are people who chose God, and had free will, at the very least the saints.
There is no logical reason why the number of such people would be limited.
Therefore God could decide only to create only those people who will freely choose him.

That is all.

If God created only those people who will freely choose him His Love would be imperfect because it would be selfish.

 

[tonyrey]

In another forum, I’m chatting with an atheist who has posed an argument which appears to be a variation of the classic Problem of Evil, and it can be expressed like this:

1. God wants everyone to come to know him in this life.
2. God knows how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.
3. God could create a such a world.
4. But not everyone comes to know God in this life.
5. Therefore, either God does not want everyone to know him or He does not know how to create such a world or He cannot create such a world.

I think the problem is in the second premise where he wrote, “he didn’t know how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.”

How would you respond to this argument?

Has this variation been addressed somewhere that I can read about online?

Thanks.

If our free will is authentic it is not affected by the way in which God creates the world…

 

[ProdglArchitect]

If God created only those people who will freely choose him His Love would be imperfect because it would be selfish.

Furthermore, if He only created those people who accepted him, there would be an uncountable number of people who have accepted him who would not have existed in the first place. The children of those who accept God do not automatically accept God, and the children of those who do not accept God do not automatically reject God. I know several very devout individuals who’s parent’s reject God. Why should those people have not been allowed to exist because of their parent’s choice?

This is the problem with this sort of argument, it only looks at the one individual, and not any descendants of that individual, or any of the people that individual will influence in their life, or the people their children will influence, or the people their children’s children will influence; etc. it may seem like a single individual now, but within two or three generation that person’s existence may have allowed for a couple dozen other people to exist. Within five or six generations, that one non-believer may have allowed a hundred more people to come into being. Each of them, in turn, can be responsible for countless generations, and so on. Why should one individual’s decision to reject God deny them the right to exist?

 

[KnowtheSilence]

If God created only those people who will freely choose him His Love would be imperfect because it would be selfish.

Why?

 

[Aloysium]

If free will is real, God cannot create only people who will choose Him.
He knows what we choose when we choose it. He has foreknowledge because God in all time is one.
Reality is what it is. Once created, whether (s)he chooses God or not, that person cannot be uncreated since (s)he is now a part of eternity.

This is all about love. God is Love. To know Him is to give all one is to all that is, to commune eternally with He who is the Source of all this wonder. Everyone will know Him. Some in bitterness, the gnashing of teeth over what could have been. This one life, the seed of eternal life.

 

[Solmyr]

Why should one individual’s decision to reject God deny them the right to exist?

What is this “right to exist”? Who grants that right? And who “enforces” it?

But the real problem with your post is that you ASSUME that it is logically necessary for someone (Mr. White) to “reject” God, in order to make someone else’s (Ms. Jones) “acceptance” of God to be meaningful. You seem to think that Ms. Jones’s “love” for God is only meaningful if Mr. White does NOT love God. And that would make your beloved “free will” nonsensical.

Why should anyone care if the descendants of someone will never get created? By the way, God’s alleged omnipotence would allow those descendants to be created from different set parents. Inheritance of some genes cannot thwart God’s ability to create whomever he wants to.

 

[tonyrey]

What is this “right to exist”? Who grants that right? And who “enforces” it?

But the real problem with your post is that you ASSUME that it is logically necessary for someone (Mr. White) to “reject” God, in order to make someone else’s (Ms. Jones) “acceptance” of God to be meaningful. You seem to think that Ms. Jones’s “love” for God is only meaningful if Mr. White does NOT love God. And that would make your beloved “free will” nonsensical.

Why should anyone care if the descendants of someone will never get created? By the way, God’s alleged omnipotence would allow those descendants to be created from different set parents. Inheritance of some genes cannot thwart God’s ability to create whomever he wants to.

Why should anyone care if anyone is alive or dead?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

In another forum, I’m chatting with an atheist who has posed an argument which appears to be a variation of the classic Problem of Evil, and it can be expressed like this:

1. God wants everyone to come to know him in this life.
2. God knows how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.
3. God could create a such a world.
4. But not everyone comes to know God in this life.
   5. Therefore, either God does not want everyone to know him or He does not know how to create such a world or He cannot create such a world.
   I think the problem is in the second premise where he wrote, “he didn’t know how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.”

How would you respond to this argument?

Has this variation been addressed somewhere that I can read about online?

Thanks.

It is typical of atheists to assert that they must be smarter than any Christian God could be.

 

[KnowtheSilence]

It is typical of atheists to assert that they must be smarter than any Christian God could be.

That’s not necessarily what’s going on in arguments like this one. If I present an argument like this, I’m not saying ‘I’m smarter than God because it isn’t running things the way I would.’ Rather, I’m saying that there is some tension between what I see in the world and what I would expect if the world was made and ordered by a being with whatever list of properties the theist has given in their definition of God. That decreases my likelihood of thinking that particular God exists. Hopefully the theist can respond and show me where they think I’ve gone wrong. None of this has any implication that I consider myself smarter than God.

 

[Bahman]

In another forum, I’m chatting with an atheist who has posed an argument which appears to be a variation of the classic Problem of Evil, and it can be expressed like this:

1. God wants everyone to come to know him in this life.
2. God knows how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.
3. God could create a such a world.
4. But not everyone comes to know God in this life.
5. Therefore, either God does not want everyone to know him or He does not know how to create such a world or He cannot create such a world.

I think the problem is in the second premise where he wrote, “he didn’t know how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.”

How would you respond to this argument?

Has this variation been addressed somewhere that I can read about online?

Thanks.

The flaw is at the first premises. God want those who freely love to want to know God. That is a good Catholic answer. I am not.

 

[inocente]

In another forum, I’m chatting with an atheist who has posed an argument which appears to be a variation of the classic Problem of Evil, and it can be expressed like this:

1. God wants everyone to come to know him in this life.
2. God knows how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.
3. God could create a such a world.
4. But not everyone comes to know God in this life.
5. Therefore, either God does not want everyone to know him or He does not know how to create such a world or He cannot create such a world.

I think the problem is in the second premise where he wrote, “he didn’t know how to create the world in such a way that all people would come to choose this of their own free will.”

How would you respond to this argument?

Has this variation been addressed somewhere that I can read about online?

Thanks.

There are different views on who are the predestined elect, but it’s not about who chooses God, it’s about who God chooses - “For many are invited, but few are chosen” (Matt 22).

And His choice isn’t really about who comes to know God, but about conduct, as the guest in that parable found out.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . I’m saying that there is some tension between what I see in the world and what I would expect if the world was made and ordered by a being with whatever list of properties the theist has given in their definition of God. That decreases my likelihood of thinking that particular God exists. Hopefully the theist can respond and show me where they think I’ve gone wrong. None of this has any implication that I consider myself smarter than God.

For a Catholic perspective (staying with the Old Testament in respect for the Jewish audience) try Pope Francis’s address at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum, May 26, 2014, two years ago tomorrow:

“Adam, where are you?” (cf. Gen 3:9). Where are you, o man? What have you come to? In this place, this memorial of the Shoah, we hear God’s question echo once more: “Adam, where are you?” This question is charged with all the sorrow of a Father who has lost his child. The Father knew the risk of freedom; he knew that his children could be lost… yet perhaps not even the Father could imagine so great a fall, so profound an abyss! Here, before the boundless tragedy of the Holocaust, That cry – “Where are you?” – echoes like a faint voice in an unfathomable abyss…

Adam, who are you? I no longer recognize you. Who are you, o man? What have you become? Of what horror have you been capable? What made you fall to such depths?

Certainly it is not the dust of the earth from which you were made. The dust of the earth is something good, the work of my hands. Certainly it is not the breath of life which I breathed into you. That breath comes from me, and it is something good (cf. Gen 2:7).

No, this abyss is not merely the work of your own hands, your own heart… Who corrupted you? Who disfigured you? Who led you to presume that you are the master of good and evil? Who convinced you that you were god? Not only did you torture and kill your brothers and sisters, but you sacrificed them to yourself, because you made yourself a god.

Today, in this place, we hear once more the voice of God: “Adam, where are you?”

From the ground there rises up a soft cry: “Have mercy on us, O Lord!” To you, O Lord our God, belongs righteousness; but to us confusion of face and shame (cf. Bar 1:15).

A great evil has befallen us, such as never happened under the heavens (cf. Bar 2:2). Now, Lord, hear our prayer, hear our plea, save us in your mercy. Save us from this horror.

Almighty Lord, a soul in anguish cries out to you. Hear, Lord, and have mercy! We have sinned against you. You reign for ever (cf. Bar 3:1-2). Remember us in your mercy. Grant us the grace to be ashamed of what we men have done, to be ashamed of this massive idolatry, of having despised and destroyed our own flesh which you formed from the earth, to which you gave life with your own breath of life. Never again, Lord, never again!

“Adam, where are you?” Here we are, Lord, shamed by what man, created in your own image and likeness, was capable of doing.

Remember us in your mercy.

 

[KnowtheSilence]

For a Catholic perspective (staying with the Old Testament in respect for the Jewish audience) try Pope Francis’s address at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum, May 26, 2014, two years ago tomorrow:

So, the free will defense. I’m sure you know the stock responses to that.

 

[ffg]

Why?

Doesn’t look like anyone answered this for you.

Because of the definition of love.

By definition it includes freedom for the beloved.

I wouldn’t even call God doing such a thing as ‘picking his team’ an ‘imperfect love’.

Just call it what it is, something other than love.

We can’t bend the definition and bend how love works.

Take care,

Mike

 

[KnowtheSilence]

Doesn’t look like anyone answered this for you.

Because of the definition of love.

By definition it includes freedom for the beloved.

Sure, but their freedom is still a part of this. That’s premise 2.

 

[Aloysium]

So, the free will defense. I’m sure you know the stock responses to that.

You seemed to be searching and I pointed in a direction that might have meaning for you.
I assumed wrongly it seems. Whatever. Love your neighbour and you will not go wrong.

 

[ffg]

Sure, but their freedom is still a part of this. That’s premise 2.

I’ll lay in what I was following, which caused my entry -

Someone pointed out an ‘imperfect love’ due to a selfish move, if God was to ‘pick his team’ due to the knowledge God possesses.

You asked why, which I guess could be a couple items -

Why selfish?

Why not perfect love?

I pointed out that that love is love, what is not love, is not love.

Either God loves, or He does not, we determine love by what we see, since love is action.

Thus, we interpret existence as a loving act by God, He wants what He makes passionately, so much so that he loves what he makes, which requires response and includes freedom to respond (or not).

If God loves, he of all things, will love perfectly.

In doing so, will not be selfish.

Premise 2 doesn’t work because the writer assumes opposites, freedom and pre-determined response. We can’t label creation as loved, if God is cherry picking. If creation is not loved, there is not the freedom that comes with love. Thus premise 2 dies.

Same with Premise 3 (excluding a loving God - God can create such a world, but that wouldn’t be a proper definition of God, from observation of existence through the freedom we seem to have, as explained above)

So if God does love, then you won’t have cherry picking, back to not selfish, and a crash to the premise.

And 5 - the conclusion is faulty because the context is missing from the earlier steps - that ‘why’ that you noticed.

I hope that helps.

Take care,

Mike