Simple Solutions to the Problem of Evil

[CatholicIllini]

Athiests pose the questions:

1. Why would a perfectly good God would allow evil?
2. If God knew mankind was going to fall, why didn’t he create humans that were less vulnerable to sin?
3. Why do innocents (children) suffer?
4. Why does God allow natural disasters, which are unrelated to human sin?

Answer to 1: Is there true love without free will? Can you truly love an entity in which you have no choice but to love it? God allowed evil to come into the world because he wanted men to love him freely and truthfully. Without the existence of evil, there would be no real choice. Evil is obviously the worse choice, but it is still a choice. Without knowing and experiencing what is evil, one cannot truly understand the good that is God. It’s like all the unsuccessful relationships you have before you marry your spouse. Without those bad relationships, you wouldn’t know how truly lucky you are to be married to your spouse, and therefore wouldn’t feel nearly as happy and content. What if you were in an arranged marriage from birth? Even if your arranged spouse was beautiful and kind, would you be more content with him/her over someone you chose yourself?

Answer to 2: God alone is perfect. It is His very essence. Since we are not God, we cannot be perfect. Also, our imperfection and sin only makes us love God more. Jesus explains this perfectly in the Parable of the Two Debtors and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Who loves the lender more: The one who has the smaller debt forgiven or the one who has the larger debt forgiven? Who loves their father more: the righteous son, or the prodigal son? If man had never been separated from God through Original Sin, we would never know the unending joy and gratitude of being redeemed through His Son. As the saying goes, “Separation makes the heart grow fonder.”

Answer to 3: It truly is a tragedy when children suffer and die. But considering that there is evil in this world, maybe God is actually sparing them from the suffering and temptation that they would face later in life. Maybe if the children had lived longer, they would have been worn down and depressed by the evils of this world, as so many are, and eventually rejected God and not achieved salvation. Maybe God decided they could skip all that hardship and come straight to Heaven to enjoy eternity with Him.

Answer to 4: God makes it rain on the good and the bad. If more and more people are going to be born into this world, some people are going to have to die to make room and let others enjoy the gift of life. Everyone has to die sometime, whether it be by illness or natural disaster. When an earthquake happens and thousands die, the good go to Heaven and the bad go to Hell. It’s no different than if they had died individually.

 

[Hokomai]

Athiests pose the questions:

1. Why would a perfectly good God would allow evil?
2. If God knew mankind was going to fall, why didn’t he create humans that were less vulnerable to sin?
3. Why do innocents (children) suffer?
4. Why does God allow natural disasters, which are unrelated to human sin?

Answer to 1: Is there true love without free will? Can you truly love an entity in which you have no choice but to love it? God allowed evil to come into the world because he wanted men to love him freely and truthfully. Without the existence of evil, there would be no real choice. Evil is obviously the worse choice, but it is still a choice. Without knowing and experiencing what is evil, one cannot truly understand the good that is God. It’s like all the unsuccessful relationships you have before you marry your spouse. Without those bad relationships, you wouldn’t know how truly lucky you are to be married to your spouse, and therefore wouldn’t feel nearly as happy and content. What if you were in an arranged marriage from birth? Even if your arranged spouse was beautiful and kind, would you be more content with him/her over someone you chose yourself?

Answer to 2: God alone is perfect. It is His very essence. Since we are not God, we cannot be perfect. Also, our imperfection and sin only makes us love God more. Jesus explains this perfectly in the Parable of the Two Debtors and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Who loves the lender more: The one who has the smaller debt forgiven or the one who has the larger debt forgiven? Who loves their father more: the righteous son, or the prodigal son? If man had never been separated from God through Original Sin, we would never know the unending joy and gratitude of being redeemed through His Son. As the saying goes, “Separation makes the heart grow fonder.”

Answer to 3: It truly is a tragedy when children suffer and die. But considering that there is evil in this world, maybe God is actually sparing them from the suffering and temptation that they would face later in life. Maybe if the children had lived longer, they would have been worn down and depressed by the evils of this world, as so many are, and eventually rejected God and not achieved salvation. Maybe God decided they could skip all that hardship and come straight to Heaven to enjoy eternity with Him.

Answer to 4: God makes it rain on the good and the bad. If more and more people are going to be born into this world, some people are going to have to die to make room and let others enjoy the gift of life. Everyone has to die sometime, whether it be by illness or natural disaster. When an earthquake happens and thousands die, the good go to Heaven and the bad go to Hell. It’s no different than if they had died individually.

Which one of these explains why animals, birds, fish, insects and other beings capable of experiencing pain do so, and in their hundreds of millions, day after day after day?

 

[You]

Which one of these explains why animals, birds, fish, insects and other beings capable of experiencing pain do so, and in their hundreds of millions, day after day after day?

Difficult to know to what extent animals experience pain. Fish are cold-blooded and are said not to experience pain. Some Jesuits used to argue that a crab might be feeding while another crab is eating it. Higher order animals like lions prefer to suffocate their prey, putting their mouth over the prey animals nose and mouth completely. Suffocation is as pain free a death for an animal in the wild as it gets. We also know humans have powerful natural painkillers released in the brain, animals may have likewise. Its difficult to say.

 

[CatholicIllini]

1. Insects lack a consciousness, so they definitely don’t feel pain.
2. Even higher order animals don’t have souls, so when they die, that’s it. The fact that they suffer and die is just part of the natural process. One animal inevitably eats the other. It’s called the food chain. God realized that there had to be some sort of population control of the animal species or else they would reproduce like crazy and inundate the world.
3. Before you say I’m cruel, I own a dog and I love him very much. But my dog is not equal to a human.

 

[paduard]

Difficult to know to what extent animals experience pain. Fish are cold-blooded and are said not to experience pain. Some Jesuits used to argue that a crab might be feeding while another crab is eating it. Higher order animals like lions prefer to suffocate their prey, putting their mouth over the prey animals nose and mouth completely. Suffocation is as pain free a death for an animal in the wild as it gets. We also know humans have powerful natural painkillers released in the brain, animals may have likewise. Its difficult to say.

Yes (I suppose we will never know unless they can speak - and they can’t really)

 

[tonyrey]

Which one of these explains why animals, birds, fish, insects and other beings capable of experiencing pain do so, and in their hundreds of millions, day after day after day?

Pain is a defence mechanism without which animals would soon perish due to one of “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”…

 

[Hokomai]

No one who studies pain believes animals do not experience pain. Pain is obviously adaptive, and you can see how in the absence of a guiding hand of a loving God it could have evolved as something which allowed species to survive while some individuals sufferred. What I think is hard to explain is why an all-knowing, all-loving, omnipotent God was unable, or worse, unwilling, to guide creation in such a way that the suffering of innocent life was avoided.

 

[vz71]

Which one of these explains why animals, birds, fish, insects and other beings capable of experiencing pain do so, and in their hundreds of millions, day after day after day?

What relevence is pain toward the question of evil?

 

[Perplexity]

Answer to 1: Is there true love without free will? Can you truly love an entity in which you have no choice but to love it? God allowed evil to come into the world because he wanted men to love him freely and truthfully. Without the existence of evil, there would be no real choice. Evil is obviously the worse choice, but it is still a choice. Without knowing and experiencing what is evil, one cannot truly understand the good that is God. It’s like all the unsuccessful relationships you have before you marry your spouse. Without those bad relationships, you wouldn’t know how truly lucky you are to be married to your spouse, and therefore wouldn’t feel nearly as happy and content. What if you were in an arranged marriage from birth? Even if your arranged spouse was beautiful and kind, would you be more content with him/her over someone you chose yourself?

This argument has devastating effects for the Trinity. It doesn’t seem like the persons of the Trinity could choose to not love each other. Further, the possibility of choosing evil is not a necessary aspect of free will as Leo XIII, Aquinas, Augustine (et al) point out. Finally, alternative possibilities isn’t required for free will. Cf. Frankfurt cases.

Answer to 2: God alone is perfect. It is His very essence. Since we are not God, we cannot be perfect. Also, our imperfection and sin only makes us love God more. Jesus explains this perfectly in the Parable of the Two Debtors and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Who loves the lender more: The one who has the smaller debt forgiven or the one who has the larger debt forgiven? Who loves their father more: the righteous son, or the prodigal son? If man had never been separated from God through Original Sin, we would never know the unending joy and gratitude of being redeemed through His Son. As the saying goes, “Separation makes the heart grow fonder.”

This argument has devastating effects for the Immaculate Conception.

Answer to 3: It truly is a tragedy when children suffer and die. But considering that there is evil in this world, maybe God is actually sparing them from the suffering and temptation that they would face later in life. Maybe if the children had lived longer, they would have been worn down and depressed by the evils of this world, as so many are, and eventually rejected God and not achieved salvation. Maybe God decided they could skip all that hardship and come straight to Heaven to enjoy eternity with Him.

First, we generally says ‘the ends don’t justify the means’ yet here you say the ends (some greater good) justifies the means (some evil/suffering). Second, God could prevent these children from encountering these greater evils without having to allow them to suffer at all.

Answer to 4: God makes it rain on the good and the bad. If more and more people are going to be born into this world, some people are going to have to die to make room and let others enjoy the gift of life. Everyone has to die sometime, whether it be by illness or natural disaster. When an earthquake happens and thousands die, the good go to Heaven and the bad go to Hell. It’s no different than if they had died individually.

I don’t see how this is a defense at all.

 

[vz71]

What I think is hard to explain is why an all-knowing, all-loving, omnipotent God was unable, or worse, unwilling, to guide creation in such a way that the suffering of innocent life was avoided.

The question is borne out of a hubris that the created being knows better then the creator how things should be.

In this case, the belief that suffering is not an essential part.

 

[CatholicIllini]

Hey Hokomai,

1. Whether or not animals can feel pain isn’t the topic of this thread, it is the problem of evil, which is quite different.
2. No one is arguing that animals can’t feel pain. They need to feel pain, or else they wouldn’t react to their environment in a way that would prevent them from getting injured or dying. Take this hypothetical situation: If you touched a hot stove and did not feel pain, you might leave your hand there for a second or two and it would get badly burned. Or even better: Lets say you had a tumor in your brain and you could not feel any pain. How would you know the tumor is there? You wouldn’t until it was too late. Pain is a natural defense mechanism that God gave us. The only other option God would have had is to make our bodies invincible.
3. Without pain, you can’t experience how good it feels to not be in pain. Without being sick, you don’t know how great it feels to be healthy.
4. Simply put: No pain, no gain. Maybe you never competed in a sport, but I swam for a number of years. People don’t really understand how grueling of a sport swimming is. I once swam 10,000 yards in less than 3 hours. That is 2 laps (down and back twice) every 1 minute and 10 seconds 100 consecutive times. Midway through it, my stomach was cramped, my shoulders were sore, and I could barely catch my breath. But I pushed through the pain and finished. Without that pain and adversity, I would not have felt anywhere near the amount of accomplishment I did at the end of that race. Pain builds character.

 

[Samuel_Maynes]

Dear Readers,

I was asked by Lisa, over on the “Questions about Trinity” page, to say something about the “problem of evil.” When I looked at your recent posts, I see you have the answers in an abstract way.

To be more specific (and provocative), don’t you sometimes think that Hitler was the devil incarnate, and humankind may have already survived the 1000-year reign of Satan on earth? After all, the Master once said, If those days be not shortened, no one will survive. Now we may stand in a new world, with the devil off our backs, by the grace of the Son, and the power of the people.

One of the first things on the new agenda is to finish the battle against religious racism, and hopefully, we may be “pushing on an open door.” If the existential threat has been excised from the equation, the powerful concepts of universal moral duty and pure practical reason are bound to start shining through (see below) - finding common ground, and growing strong and good.

In a recent Documentary, I saw a German Captain of the army, still looking formidable at 70. He said, When I met Hitler, in 1933, I knew right away that he was a God, and afterwards, I didn’t have time for anybody who couldn’t see that. Later on, near the middle of 1944, I realized Hitler was an evil genius, who had misled Germany to catastrope. But by then it was too late.

I think, for the rest of us, it is not too late. The time for closer economic unity of the world is ripe. However, the legacy of racism is still with us in the form of religious racism, which is still the curse of the earth. This pernicious belief in “only” one way, blocks the way forward to world unity, under the representations of multi-dimensional God in a United Nations and World Council of Churches, or something very much like them.

These institutions, in some form or other, simply must be made to work. There is no credible alternative to building on what we’ve got - short of violent revolution - and there is no excuse.

The Papacy has pointed to the answer in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue. Please checkout my new book, now previewing at www.trinityabsolute.com "The Trinity Absolute: a Constructive Interpretation of World Religions and a Metaphysical Blueprint for Peace.

Samuel Stuart Maynes
www.trinityabsolute.com

P.S. Here is page 43 from my book outlining the “moral duty and reason” mentioned above.

1.4 THE MORAL DUTY ARGUMENT FROM THE CONCEPTION OF A CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

This proof is from the conception of one absolute categorical imperative, as identified by Kant, and the understanding that the absolute idea is of God, as recognized by Hegel.

Immanuel Kant makes the case that space/time, cause/effect, mathematics, logic, and moral duty are part of the structure of pure theoretical reason and constitute certain knowledge. There is an absolute moral law discovered by pure a priori reason. The universal moral principle is: “Act as though the maxim of your action were, by your will, to become a universal law of nature” – the one categorical imperative. Kant then made the argument that ‘ought implies can’, and there would be no practical point in following any so-called absolute moral law unless the soul can achieve perfection, and this can only happen if the soul is free and immortal. God also gives the moral law divine sanction, and without Him moral duty exists only in disconnected theoretical terms relative to practical utility and the overwhelming human life concerns of self-advantage.

Kant argued that there is no absolute subjection to moral duty unless we assume something the existence of which in itself has objective value… something which as an end in itself could be the ground of determinate laws… something having its source outside all causal chains. But, that “end in itself,” which is the ground of all laws based on the one categorical imperative, is part of the moral spirit of the Absolute, which we commonly call God. And all human souls have a divine spark of that moral spirit, which they commonly call conscience.

Pure practical moral wisdom combines the universal principle of pure reason and the greatest utility principle of practical reason. This provides the basis for all law between and among individuals. The highest morality is a righteous combination of duty and universal utility, truth and goodness, but without God duty cannot be absolute. Without God, the social principle of “one for all, and all for one,” is a political choice and not a moral duty. And without God, we cannot ascend to the higher morality of the positive expression of the Golden Rule, and the rarefied atmosphere of the challenge to “love your neighbour as yourself,” and even “love your enemy and forgive.”

If there is no God, then the only motivation to be good is the abstract satisfaction of the pursuit of perfection. But without God, perfection becomes an empty slogan, because there is no absolute perfection, and all morality is relative. And in the end, such rationalization is merely a form of cynical stoicism, which is a rather melancholy and unreliable substitute for real moral conviction. (p.43)

 

[CatholicIllini]

Perplexity,

Do you even know what the Immaculate Conception is? Please explain how it relates to the second argument.

 

[Perplexity]

Perplexity,

Do you even know what the Immaculate Conception is? Please explain how it relates to the second argument.

The fact that you asked this question suggests to me you’re either unfamiliar with the Immaculate Conception or you didn’t read the second argument carefully.

The second argument says, “If man had never been separated from God through Original Sin, we would never know the unending joy and gratitude of being redeemed through His Son.”

Mary was never separated from God through original sin. Yet Catholics (like Louis de Montfort, a doctor of the Church no less!) go on and on about how Mary was the perfect human.

Further, Jesus was born without original sin etc.

The point being, it would be far better to be born without original sin than to be born with it.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Evil is not a thing that competes against God. I think that is where this discussion already is headed the wrong way. We think of good and evil as two opposing forces, like Optimus Prime and Megatron. But in the reality of things, there is only light and darkness. Darkness does not overcome light. But there are darkness where the light cannot reach. There is no space of emptiness where darkness or light can choose to occupy at any time they so wish. A space either has light or no light (darkness).

Evil is such. When God is not there or should I say His goodness is not allowed to shine by someone’s will, then evil is there. Evil is not the opposite of good, but rather the lack of it.

That is why there is a sin we call as sin of omission. When we do nothing, then its a sin because we didn’t let good happen.

 

[tonyrey]

No one who studies pain believes animals do not experience pain. Pain is obviously adaptive, and you can see how in the absence of a guiding hand of a loving God it could have evolved as something which allowed species to survive while some individuals sufferred. What I think is hard to explain is why an all-knowing, all-loving, omnipotent God was unable, or worse, unwilling, to guide creation in such a way that the suffering of innocent life was avoided.

It is impossible to explain how nature could be arranged so that pain is unnecessary…

 

[Samuel_Maynes]

But in the reality of things, there is only light and darkness. Darkness does not overcome light. But there are darkness where the light cannot reach. There is no space of emptiness where darkness or light can choose to occupy at any time they so wish. A space either has light or no light (darkness).

Constantine,

What about the observation that light and dark are often combined in shadow?

I think I agree with much of what you say. However, I think that for every contradiction there exists a dialectical synthesis, and thus reality is triune, not just dualist, nor just monist. For example:

Father and Son unified in their Holy Spirit,
Existential and the experiential consummated in associative consciousness,
Transcendant and immanent integrated in the eternity of the ultimate,
Supernatural and natural fulfilled in their combined destiny,
Necessity and contingency co-related in sufficiency,
Infinite and the finite realized in the limitless,
Theology and cosmology harmonized in psychology,
Heaven and earth integrated in the divine kingdom of All That Is,
Determination and freewill resolved in universal morality.

That last one says that universal morality is the solution to the problem of determination and freewill, which is also the answer to the “problem of evil.”

Please checkout my previous posting on the proof from moral duty. What do you think?

Samuel Stuart Maynes
www.trinityabsolute.com

 

[ConstantineTG]

Constantine,

What about the observation that light and dark are often combined in shadow?

The area of a shadow is merely a place where there is less light. This analogy will be people in sin. Those who are in hell are those in total darkness, they can no longer see the light of God.

I think I agree with much of what you say. However, I think that for every contradiction there exists a dialectical synthesis, and thus reality is triune, not just dualist, nor just monist. For example:

Father and Son unified in their Holy Spirit,
Existential and the experiential consummated in associative consciousness,
Transcendant and immanent integrated in the eternity of the ultimate,
Supernatural and natural fulfilled in their combined destiny,
Necessity and contingency co-related in sufficiency,
Infinite and the finite realized in the limitless,
Theology and cosmology harmonized in psychology,
Heaven and earth integrated in the divine kingdom of All That Is,
Determination and freewill resolved in universal morality.

That last one says that universal morality is the solution to the problem of determination and freewill, which is also the answer to the “problem of evil.”

Please checkout my previous posting on the proof from moral duty. What do you think?

Samuel Stuart Maynes
www.trinityabsolute.com

I’m under the belief currently that morality is not Christian. I think its best that you read it from whom I read it and it explains why morality, as we know it, is not Christian and the problem with a legalistic moral system:

fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/why-morality-is-not-christian/

 

[Hokomai]

The question is borne out of a hubris that the created being knows better then the creator how things should be.

In this case, the belief that suffering is not an essential part.

Well, if there is a creator, and the creator made things so animals would suffer, then I think that was wrong. And if I am his creation, I guess he will not be pleased with that. But it is what I think,

 

[tonyrey]

What I think is hard to explain is why an all-knowing, all-loving, omnipotent God was unable, or worse, unwilling, to guide creation in such a way that the suffering of innocent life was avoided.

How?