Problem of evil

[onetimeposter]

I have a similar thread and it boggles my mind the number of people who show up, don’t bother to read into the actual question and reply…

‘it’s free will, people make their own choices.’

They invariably always fail or refuse to comment on Gods omniscience and benevolence in creating a being that he has the foresight to know, that they will live a life of sin and end up in hell by their own choices.

If they claim that God doesn’t know the choices that people will make, they then fail to respond that if that is the case, then God is not omniscient or omnipotent, but is in fact a prisoner of time, just as we are.

Either they can’t be bothered to think beyond what they have been told or they are deliberately being difficult. They fail to see their painfully obvious contradiction in the power of God by limiting what he can and cannot do.

I admit, it is very frustrating.

 

[MindOverMatter]

They invariably always fail or refuse to comment on Gods omniscience and benevolence in creating a being that he has the foresight to know, that they will live a life of sin and end up in hell by their own choices.

I think that many people come to forums like this with preconcieved ideas about what Omniscience means, and they refuse to look at anybody elses interpretation of it, simply becuase they like pulling down the strawman that they themselves have invented.

You might say that God has limits, but those limits are produced by Gods own nature. In otherwords, if God is love, he cannot do evil. If God exists, he cannot not exist. If God is all powerful, he cannot then destroy himself, because that would mean that God is not all powerful.

God is love. Love demands the freedom of choice, regardless of the end to which you freely choose to turn.

The key issue here is about respecting people’s freedom to choose. And that is one of the Greatest Goods. Robbing people of existence and the freedom to choose just because they will choose against you, no matter how sympathetic it might seem to you, is not good. It is a selfish act; and therefore God will not choose it.

Secondly, God only knows that you went to hell because he “Eternally willed” you in to existence. If he had not willed you, he would not “know” your end, because you where never in Gods will to begin with; and my knowing your end, does not take away from the fact that you have every opportunity to be otherwise.

It is true that God knows all that exists, and all that is going to exist. But God will not divert from what will end in good, in God, even if the result of that good will end in losing some to selfishness. If evil is so intimately intertwine in human affairs, (which it evidently is) to the extent that the removal of such an evil will end in even greater evils, then for the benefit of those who chose him (The Elect), he would rather that some chose against him, rather then destroying all of creation.

In this, I see no contradiction, and simply asserting that God could have done it differently with out providing any legitimate evidence or reason for thinking so, does nothing except to tempt the soul against God.

The Bible Explains the problem of Evil

If people care to read scripture, God reveals his reasons for allowing evil. Through Jesus Christ’s parables, God explains that the Evil in humanity cannot be removed with out uprooting or destroying the Good within humanity, and therefore evil ought to remain within human affairs until the harvest is ripe. Which means that God will not come to judge humanity until all the good in humanity has come to an end. Things will get a whole lot worse before they will get better. Jesus also said that there will be some who will not understand this. In other words, people will refuse to accept it.

My having prior knowledge of your demise, doesn’t mean that I caused you to make bad choices or that you should not have the dignity to choose, since God knows that you will go to hell only because you chose it. You could say that I am not doing enough to help; I am just watching it happen. But if my direct interference with your freedom causes you to choose against me or destroys the existence of those who choose Gods existence, then I have chosen against the greater good. If I am to respect your freedom and others who have chosen God, I have to allow you into hell. This is what a good God would do.

What ever the case may be; we are not all knowing, all powerful, all loving perfect creatures, and so clearly, we are not in a reasonable position to judge God or comprehend his infinite will. Any one that is reasonable will be aware of that.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

Not at all. God wants to elevate us to a level worthy of his love. This requires respecting our decisions, so that our choices have consequences and mean something. Adam and Eve could have chosen to tell the serpent to go tie himself in a knot, but they also could have chosen to eat the pomegranate. God wanted the former, but he had a plan for the latter as well. That he happened to know how it would all turn out is beside the point.

First of all, there is an ontological difference between Adam and Eve and us: we have knowledge of good and evil, and the law is written on our hearts. Second, God did all he should have had to do to prevent them from sinning by telling them right-out not to eat the fruit. Third, there is a big difference between someone’s conscience from acting up and overruling them.

Non sequitur. “If God doesn’t rape us, he doesn’t care for us at all.” Every good action is in some small way an expression of love for God. That’s the point of having good actions: to give man an opportunity to show our love for God. However, in order for something to be an expression of love, there has to be the possibility that the person might have chosen differently, and the less the possibility, the greater the expression. Were God forcing us to do good works, it would be God doing the works, not us, and the works would become meaningless. It would be like a man recording “I love you” into a tape recorder and playing the recording over and over.

What happened could have happened differently, it just didn’t. It’s like in a story: just because you know that Faramir let Frodo go doesn’t mean he had to.

And it’s certainly possible that God knows all possible worlds, even if only one of them is actually what will happen.

I’m not sure I understand you. I’m not saying that God didn’t know how Adam and Eve would have chosen, only that events are not determined by knowledge of them.

God has to be there to be chosen, but we have to do the choosing. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be us choosing. It’s logically incoherent to claim that God forces us to choose freely.

:yup: :clapping: :tiphat: :yup: :clapping: :tiphat:

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

Hardly. God created the Adam-and-Eve who sinned, and not some otherwise identical Adam-and-Eve who did not sin. If there was no possible world in which Adam and Eve did not sin (if, in Plantinga’s terms, they suffered from “transworld depravity”), then that *really *denies free will. If they had free will, then some other beings otherwise identical to them might not have sinned. And the question arises: Why didn’t God (who knows all possibilities) create those beings instead? I see no way out of this except for something like “open theism”–the view that God does not in fact foreknow future free choices. I cannot accept that alternative.

Straw man on several grounds. The word “force” has not been mentioned; the Catholic Church teaches that when we do good works it is only because God is doing them in us (in other words, you’re creating a false dichotomy which the Catholic Church has rejected ever since the time of Augustine); and as I said above, if God knows all possibilities He could surely choose to actualize some rather than others.

Yes, and God wrote the story. When humans write stories with evil in it we can explain this because of the evil that the humans experience in the “real world.” But why is there evil in God’s story? You can’t say “because humans have free will” without violating the analogy. Faramir had free will too.

Edwin

He is not doing good works in us unless we surrender our will to Him. He calls us, and calls us, and calls us, and calls us. Every time someone prays for us, it causes Him to call us again. When we finally answer Him, we come to Him in surrender. We are asking Him to guide us through His Holy Spirit, that we may be all that He wants for us to be. We surrender our will to Him so that we may be a vessel that He can and will work through for the conversion of all mankind.
Calling us to surrender and love Him…to choose Him…is not the same as forcing us. Judas was called, yet Judas rejected. He was not forced.

 

[Camron]

He is not doing good works in us unless we surrender our will to Him.

But we cannot surrender our will to Him unless He is already workng within us.

This seems to bring us back to Circle-Square 101.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

I don’t see how. This distinction is a philosophical one.

Sed contra, I believe the problem is much worse than most see it, and certainly worse than seen by many apologists, who are easily refuted.

Think about it. Does has a soul in heaven have absolutely no perfection at all? The fact that a rational entity has an intellect and will; these are perfections.

Yes, but the Church has certainly not taught that man’s nature was always fallen and imperfect in the sense of “defective”.

Due to original sin only, and not due to any intrinsic defect at the time of creation.

Yes.

But why aren’t they created “perfectly”, with all the perfection demanded by their possession by a rational creature?

God could create rational beings with perfect wills and intellects; he could have “taken a mulligan”, so to speak, with regard to original sin, or done many other things. You seem to be regarding the present state of affairs as necessary whereas it is only contingent.

This is true.

You seem to be regarding moral evil as necessary, and a necessary consequence of free will. That won’t wash.

But if this is His intention, that why doesn’t it happen? If the answer is our resistance to Him, then why doesn’t He act to overcome that, if He is omnipotent?

That’s true. That’s why the “free will defense” doesn’t work. It denies the traditional concept of God’s omnipotence.

So let me get this straight. You are angry with God for not creating you perfectly? You are angry with God because He gave you a free will?
Let me ask you a question. Was anyone forcedto play with you as a child, or forced to be nice to you? If it ever happened to you, then you would know how utterly horrible it felt. You would have wanted to be accepted because you were wanted, not because you were forced upon them.
That is a very good reason why God gives us free will. He loves us so much that He wants nothing less than for us to choose Him of our own free will. He knows that there is no worth in us loving Him, or turning to Him if we are forced. He created us. Why should He not want us to love Him? He could have created slaves, but He chose to create us as His children. And He wants us, and calls us to Him. And He hurts when we reject Him. Have you ever seen an old person in a nursing home longing for his/her children…and the children never come? It is a sad sight…and I wonder that God our Father feels the same way about us sometimes…because He loves us. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to die for us that we might live with Him.
Our love is worth something to God. Force is not love. Asking for our love, and giving us the graces to achieve a love for Him that will endure to our physical death is not force, it is love. The way we love our children. Maybe it is easier to understand if you have children…but I understood a lot before then…so there is much hope for everyone.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

But we cannot surrender our will to Him unless He is already workng within us.

This seems to bring us back to Circle-Square 101.

This is not true. You have it backward, or you are missing a major step.

1. He chooses to call us.
2. We choose to answer His call and surrender our will to Him.
3. He does what He wishes within us because we have consented.

He cannot work within us until we surrender to Him.
We cannot surrender to Him until He calls us…and that much is true. But He will never force us to allow Him to do His work within us.

 

[Camron]

This is not true. You have it backward, or you are missing a major step.

1. He chooses to call us.

True. And when He calls us this is by His grace.

1. We choose to answer His call and surrender our will to Him.

But wouldn’t that be a works-based salvation, linking our salvation with our ability to respond to God’s grace?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here, but it seems that when God calls us, this grace He offers infuses God the Holy Spirit within us.

But in order for us to respond to His grace we also need the motion of the Holy Spirit to do this, at least this is what I thought. I admit that I could be wrong about this but it seems as though God’s grace would need to be active within us in order to accept His grace to begin with.

Even “faith” is considered a “gift of the Holy Spirit”. So if this is true, then how are we able to have the faith to “surrender to God” if the Holy Spirit is not already active within us?

1. He does what He wishes within us because we have consented.

I think that some of the extreme experiences of several saints would sharply disagree with this. Many have most certainly resisted God’s call and have often felt nearly compelled to do God’s will (or perform miraculous things) totally against their will.

He cannot work within us until we surrender to Him.
We cannot surrender to Him until He calls us…and that much is true. But He will never force us to allow Him to do His work within us.

That’s simply not true. He can work within us regardless of whether we surrender to Him or not.

The exaltation of Saint Francis of Assisi and the ecstasy of Saint Theresa of Avila are two very powerful examples of this, especially the rapture experiences of Saint Theresa of Avila, where she many times admits that she fully resisted and even threw herself to the ground to avoid these experiences.

See the section on union and rapture here.

The fourth is the “devotion of ecstasy or rapture,” a passive state, in which the consciousness of being in the body disappears (2 Corinthians 12:2-3). Sense activity ceases; memory and imagination are also absorbed in God or intoxicated. Body and spirit are in the throes of a sweet, happy pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, a complete impotence and unconsciousness, and a spell of strangulation, intermitted sometimes by such an ecstatic flight that the body is literally lifted into space. This after half an hour is followed by a reactionary relaxation of a few hours in a swoon-like weakness, attended by a negation of all the faculties in the union with God. From this the subject awakens in tears; it is the climax of mystical experience, productive of the trance. (Indeed, St. Theresa herself was said to have been observed levitating during Mass on more than one occasion.)

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

you: "But wouldn’t that be a works-based salvation, linking our salvation with our ability to respond to God’s grace? "

me: It is not our ability to respond to God’s grace, it is our DECISION to respond to God’s grace…which is indeed Him calling us to respond.

you: "Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here, but it seems that when God calls us, this grace He offers infuses God the Holy Spirit within us.

me: His call is grace. The strength He gives us to answer His call is grace. But the decision of whether or not we will answer, attempt to answer (which we would need the grace of His strength to accomplish), or deny is totally ours…free will.
Therefore, our decision to say yes when He calls is not grace. It is our free will, and we have just done what He calls us to do. We surrender to Him, which allows Him to instill in us more of His grace and power to do through us still more. That is, indeed, a work.
Yet many are the times and people who reject His call. It isn’t about His grace being useless, it is about the free will of each human being making the decision to accept or deny His call.

He gives us the strength that we ask Him for when we answer His call. Or, and this is a big thing…He gives us the strength or grace that others pray to Him to give to us that we may expidite the answer to His call.
I can honestly tell you that sometimes I feel His call, but I am feeling totally boggled down…unable to move or answer. And sometimes it takes me a while…especially when I am far away from Him because of my sins, or when I am in pain. But then all of a sudden I have the strength to go along with my desire. And I am totally aware that others have been praying that God will give me the strength I need from Him to accomplish that which I have given Him the consent to do in my life.

you: “I think that some of the extreme experiences of several saints would sharply disagree with this. Many have most certainly resisted God’s call and have often felt nearly compelled to do God’s will (or perform miraculous things) totally against their will”

me: I have never heard of one saint whose free will was taken away from them by God. You would have to give some examples from sources that are truthful and not just anti-catholic.

you: “That’s simply not true. He can work within us regardless of whether we surrender to Him or not.
The exaltation of Saint Francis of Assisi and the ecstasy of Saint Theresa of Avila are two very powerful examples of this, especially the rapture experiences of Saint Theresa of Avila, where she many times admits that she fully resisted and even threw herself to the ground to avoid these experiences.”

me: Where is the proof? Ihave never heard anything of the sort of St. Francis. His prayer “Make me an instrument of Your peace” is something that proves that His will is not taken away. He is asking God in this powerful and well known prayer to form him into what God wants him to be, for that is what he wants and knows is best for him.

 

[Camron]

you: "But wouldn’t that be a works-based salvation, linking our salvation with our ability to respond to God’s grace? "

me: It is not our ability to respond to God’s grace, it is our DECISION to respond to God’s grace…which is indeed Him calling us to respond.

But how did we have the ability to respond to God’s Grace in the first place if making this decision requires God’s Grace in the first place?

Indeed, God’s Grace is a participation in the divine life of God. So when He calls us how are we able to answer the call entirely of our own will without God’s grace allowing or causing the action to happen?

you: "Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here, but it seems that when God calls us, this grace He offers infuses God the Holy Spirit within us.

me: His call is grace. The strength He gives us to answer His call is grace. But the decision of whether or not we will answer, attempt to answer (which we would need the grace of His strength to accomplish), or deny is totally ours…free will.

So then it appears that it is really our own free-will which saves us. Please don’t misunderstand me: I know that we couldn’t even make the decision if God’s Grace were not offered. But, since God, according to how you have explained it, apparently does not force us to participate, this really does apparently mean that we are effectively saving ourselves by “choosing” to accept God’s grace. God’s Grace is still required (and without it we couldn’t be saved at all). But this really seems to be saying that our works (in this case, the decision toward God) are saving us.

I’m sorry but something doesn’t seem right about this formula in my opinion. It seems to be shifting the merit of our works into a salvific action that, in the end, results in our own salvation. In other words, it makes it sound like our actions are actually more important than God’s Grace.

Therefore, our decision to say yes when He calls is not grace. It is our free will, and we have just done what He calls us to do. We surrender to Him, which allows Him to instill in us more of His grace and power to do through us still more. That is, indeed, a work.

The Catechism says this…

Yet many are the times and people who reject His call. It isn’t about His Grace being useless, it is about the free will of each human being making the decision to accept or deny His call.

And if that’s the case then this appears to imply that our own free-will is actually more powerful than God’s Grace—and I don’t believe this to be true. Obviously God’s grace is not useless as you yourself have pointed out. But the way you’ve explained it seems to be placing our own free-will on too much of a theological pedestal, especially if it implies that God’s Grace can be so easily negated by our own free-will.

He gives us the strength that we ask Him for when we answer His call. Or, and this is a big thing…He gives us the strength or grace that others pray to Him to give to us that we may expedite the answer to His call.

See, but that’s just it: He gives us this Grace even when it is not us asking for it, but rather others praying on our behalf. Even you say so yourself in the words above.

How exactly does intercessory prayer work if the person being prayed for doesn’t believe?

I tend to picture God’s Grace acting on us much in the same way that electricity empowers a light bulb to illuminate.

Some Protestants would, using this analogy, picture the human soul without God’s Grace as being not much better than a pulverized light bulb crushed under the weight of 5 ton steam roller-- totally incapable of shedding any light

I think the Catholic view would simply picture the light bulb’s filament being broken, but still retaining the image, so that when the filament is repaired the light bulb can again shed the light that its creator intended it to shine-- when the electricity is going to it anyway.

In the same way that the light bulb cannot shine without electricity empowering it to do so, we too cannot believe without God’s Grace empowering us to do so.

So while it can be said that we indeed believe in God, at the same time it needs to also be admitted that God is empowering us to believe in Him.

That’s how I see it anyway. And I’m praying for God’s grace to indwell us all in Christ.

 

[Camron]

I can honestly tell you that sometimes I feel His call, but I am feeling totally boggled down…unable to move or answer. And sometimes it takes me a while…especially when I am far away from Him because of my sins, or when I am in pain. But then all of a sudden I have the strength to go along with my desire. And I am totally aware that others have been praying that God will give me the strength I need from Him to accomplish that which I have given Him the consent to do in my life.

I have felt the same way at times. And trust me when I say that I am not questioning your faith in God. I know that many have, at times, struggled with faith and I have no desire to hurt anyone’s faith in our Lord. I would rather people’s faith be strengthened in Christ.

But I am questioning the formula in which you’ve expressed the importance of free-will when it comes to our salvation. I think that, in some sense anyway, the importance of our free-will has been gravely exaggerated beyond what God Himself says is important. And I think the augmentation of the importance of our free-will (when it comes to these discussions) has superficially increased in proportion to how much humanity has come to virtually worship it’s own God-given intellect (even as it denies the very same God who gave them their intellect) since the introduction of humanism into theological discussions, especially since the Renaissance.

In this sense, at least as it appears to me, it seems to thrust the free-will of humanity as being the pinnacle of our human successes, primarily with the success of our decision for God. In other words, in my own opinion, humanism seems to have tainted our faith in some sense leading us to the man-centered conclusion that we have the potential to save ourselves, if only we would respond to God’s Grace.

My point of contention in saying this is that God’s Grace is able to work on us regardless of whether we believe in Him or not. It’s only, as far as I understand, when we believe in God, however, that this freely offered grace becomes salvific.

you: “I think that some of the extreme experiences of several saints would sharply disagree with this. Many have most certainly resisted God’s call and have often felt nearly compelled to do God’s will (or perform miraculous things) totally against their will”

me: I have never heard of one saint whose free will was taken away from them by God. You would have to give some examples from sources that are truthful and not just anti-catholic.

I have not provided any anti-catholic sources that I am aware of. Wikipedia may not be the most reliable source. But it isn’t especially anti-catholic either.

you: "That’s simply not true. He can work within us regardless of whether we surrender to Him or not.

The exaltation of Saint Francis of Assisi and the ecstasy of Saint Theresa of Avila are two very powerful examples of this, especially the rapture experiences of Saint Theresa of Avila, where she many times admits that she fully resisted and even threw herself to the ground to avoid these experiences."

me: Where is the proof? I have never heard anything of the sort of St. Francis. His prayer “Make me an instrument of Your peace” is something that proves that His will is not taken away. He is asking God in this powerful and well known prayer to form him into what God wants him to be, for that is what he wants and knows is best for him.

You see no contradiction in what you just claimed when you quoted Saint Francis saying, “Make me an instrument of Your peace”?

He’s basically asking God to do with him as God sees fit, relinquishing his own will so that God’s Will may prevail. Even the passage from the Bible in Luke 22:42 which says, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” clearly points to this same message. It’s the same message in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom Come…Thy Will be Done…” This same theme is found throughout the Bible many times.

This isn’t about our will. It’s about God’s Will.

And, no, we don’t choose God. God chooses us-- regardless of what we want or don’t want to do. We really don’t have a choice when it comes to God’s Will either.

I’ll discuss more about the saints tomorrow when I have more time, and I’ll provide reliable Catholic sources too.

And yes I think this does directly pertain to the problem of evil too. I’ve cover that later as well.

 

[Jesus_N_Cherie]

Cameron: "And if that’s the case then this appears to imply that our own free-will is actually more powerful than God’s Grace—and I don’t believe this to be true. Obviously God’s grace is not useless as you yourself have pointed out. But the way you’ve explained it seems to be placing our own free-will on too much of a theological pedestal, especially if it implies that God’s Grace can be so easily negated by our own free-will. end quote

Cherie: Cameron, we are not saved by our yes to God’s call. We need the salvation Jesus offers us from the Cross and Resurrection. Just because we say yes doesn’t mean that He is not important. He sets before us life and death. We have the opportunity to accept Salvation by accepting His sacrifice for us…and following Him, or we choose to reject Him…thereby choosing death.

God calls us. He doesn’t force Himself on us. If He did, there would have been no need for the Sacrifice of His Son. He would have forced Adam and Eve and every other person who has or ever will live into obedience. OBVIOUSLY He hasn’t done that. And why would He create 2 people and damn one of them while forcing the other to be with Him. God is a loving God. That would be the opposite of love. One would be eternal flames, and the other would be slavery. He calls Himself our Father. That is not what a father does. A father offers choices. If you behave, or do something special to show kindness or charity, you get a wonderful reward. If you misbehave, you are punished.

He calls us all, and He deigns to offers all graces to them who call upon His name for help or strength in overcoming temptation.

About the prayers of the saints…you and I included in that:
There is a woman on drugs. God is already calling her…she just can’t hear Him over the noise in her head. Her family prayes for her. That increases the volume of God’s voice, and also sends others…saints…to her to help her come out of the darkness and into the light. SHE STILL HAS THE ABILITY AND FREE WILL TO REJECT HIS CALL.
Have you never known this to happen?
I wish that they all said yes when God has sent His saints to them, but sometimes they say no. MANY times they say yes though.
Neither time has God ever enforced His will on them.
The only time He will ever do that is when “every knee shall bow and every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Angels, humans and demons will all proclaim the same.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

This thread is closed. Thank you all.