Someone who believes God created even evil

[rossum]

God did not reveal Himself to Buddha …

You would do well to stick to things that you know, not things that you are ignorant of. Here is one of the gods in the Brahmajala sutta describing himself:

“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.”

– Brahmajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1.

I have highlighted a few words in the description.

To claim that our Creator is a murderer is a contradiction in terms.

Why? We observe that the world contains both good and evil. If the creator made the world, then the creator contains both good and evil also.

God is either perfect, or He doesn’t exist. It’s that simple.

Then He doesn’t exist, since He made a world that includes imperfection, and even from the beginning contained the potential for imperfection.

Abortion is unjust, for the lives of the victims don’t belong to us or their parents, but to God who created them.

Please indicate any examples of God creating a human embryo without involving the embryo’s parents. I am not aware of any. The parents are involved.

Moreover, these infants are being directly targeted.

As were the Midianite embryos, directly targeted on God’s orders to kill all the non-virgin women.

They are not merely implicated in anyone else’s deeds …

So, they are exactly the same as all the unborn children and newborns that God killed and ordered to be killed. How could an unborn child have been implicated in the deeds of the pregnant mother that was drowned in the flood? Why did not God miraculously intervene to allow the mother to breathe water until her baby was born, and only then let her drown? Your omnipotent God was certainly capable of doing that, yet He chose not to.

I suppose now you’ll argue that God’s killing was unjust, since His existence wasn’t being threatened by the children who had perished in the flood.

Correct. The self-defence argument does not apply to God.

You’ll have to do better than comparing God with human creatures.

I am comparing God to His own rules: “You shall not kill”. Your God seems to be a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of God. Hardly a recommendation.

God kills a lot of people, we both agree. We cannot agree on what crime those some of those people committed to deserve death. So far you have not shown me any crime, just that your God has a “might makes right” excuse for killing them. This God of yours is not a good Buddhist.

rossum

 

[meltzerboy]

You would do well to stick to things that you know, not things that you are ignorant of. Here is one of the gods in the Brahmajala sutta describing himself:

“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.”

– Brahmajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1.

I have highlighted a few words in the description.

Why? We observe that the world contains both good and evil. If the creator made the world, then the creator contains both good and evil also.

Then He doesn’t exist, since He made a world that includes imperfection, and even from the beginning contained the potential for imperfection.

Please indicate any examples of God creating a human embryo without involving the embryo’s parents. I am not aware of any. The parents are involved.

As were the Midianite embryos, directly targeted on God’s orders to kill all the non-virgin women.

So, they are exactly the same as all the unborn children and newborns that God killed and ordered to be killed. How could an unborn child have been implicated in the deeds of the pregnant mother that was drowned in the flood? Why did not God miraculously intervene to allow the mother to breathe water until her baby was born, and only then let her drown? Your omnipotent God was certainly capable of doing that, yet He chose not to.

Correct. The self-defence argument does not apply to God.

I am comparing God to His own rules: “You shall not kill”. Your God seems to be a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of God. Hardly a recommendation.

God kills a lot of people, we both agree. We cannot agree on what crime those some of those people committed to deserve death. So far you have not shown me any crime, just that your God has a “might makes right” excuse for killing them. This God of yours is not a good Buddhist.

rossum

What is the reasoning behind your statement that G-d does not exist because He created a world that includes imperfection or has the potential for imperfection? Does a perfect Being have to create a perfect world according to the HUMAN sense of perfection?

 

[meltzerboy]

We Catholics concur that we should follow the law because God has commanded us. To obey God’s law is to love Him. Love of God is our primary spiritual motive for observing the law. And if we are concerned about getting to Heaven, it’s ultimately for the joy of being with God. I just wanted to explain what we mean by the curse of the law according to our theology. Thanks for sharing. You can’t imagine how much I admire the beauty of your faith which I feel very much part of in spirit.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
Psalm 51, 16-17

It is in the same spirit that we Catholics should approach the altar at Holy Mass.

Shalom
:heaven:

Thanks for your charitable responses, Good Fella.

 

[rossum]

What is the reasoning behind your statement that G-d does not exist because He created a world that includes imperfection or has the potential for imperfection?

Good Fella posted, “God is either perfect, or He doesn’t exist. It’s that simple.”

If we accept that premise, then any less-than-perfect God does not exist. My point was to show the incorrectness of that premise. We know, all too well, that imperfect beings can exist. From a Buddhist point of view the gods are also (mostly) imperfect, along with everyone else.

Does a perfect Being have to create a perfect world according to the HUMAN sense of perfection?

“have to”? Possibly not, but demonstrably, the world we are in is imperfect by human senses. If imperfection did not originate with G-d then how did it originate? This is the same as with evil. If G-d created everything, then G-d created both evil and imperfection. If G-d did not create everything, then who or what created evil and imperfection?

rossum

 

[JoeT777]

When the Argentine junta wanted to kill a pregnant woman, they held her in hospital until after she had given birth and only then killed the mother. Is your God less merciful that the Argentine Generals?

If there is “punishment” we inflict it on ourselves. If you throw a rock straight up in the air, whose fault is it when that rock hits you on the head?

Suffering is due to our own unskilful actions.

I do not think that your OT God is merciful, judging by His actions.

Does evil exist? Yes or no. Did God create everything (except Himself)? Yes or no.

Are you positing two separate creators? God who created most things, and a separate creator to create evil? That does not seem to match what I have heard of Christian theology.

rossum

As I’ve indicated before before, evil “is nothing else than corruption, either of the measure, or the form, or the order, that belong to nature.” What is good are all things created by God that have a certain quality nearing the perfection of the intent and purpose for which they were made. Only those can exist through their creation by God, the first cause of ‘good’. The measure of their good is the nearer they are to the perfection of ‘good’ for which they were created. “It follows that no nature can exist save from the most high and true God: because all things even not in the highest degree good, but related to the highest good, and again, because all good things, even those of most recent origin, which are far from the highest good, can have their existence only from the highest good.”

Thus it is that every evil must proceed from a ‘good’. The effect caused by an intrinsic thing has a purpose; something additional to the intended cause is accidental and unintended. Since ‘good’ has the nature of being desirable then to desire evil is contrary as it was never desired. An example is provided by St. Thomas;

It seems good to the adulterer that he enjoy sense pleasure, and he commits adultery for that reason. And so we conclude that evil does not have an intrinsic cause.
[Aquinas, Thomas (2003-02-20). On Evil (p. 70). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.]

We can say then that every natural cause is ordained, and to suggest that God ordain evil is contrary to God’s good. The cause of evil is the privation of part or all of the ordained ‘good’. This is evident in Genesis where creation is created and declared ‘good’ [Genesis 1]. Then we find that Adam and Eve fall in pleasure of ‘knowing’ good and evil thereby elevating themselves above that of servant to God. The punishment meant to bring about their is a privation of original justice.

Just as I’ve alluded to before, if evil is an intrinsic part of human nature then for humans cannot be evil. As an example it is not evil for humans to be unable to fly as their physical nature does not permit it. So, we see not having the ability to fly is not evil but for a person to ‘fly’ off a cliff is indeed an evil thing in its conclusion - usually a severe headache if not death.

Only good has an intrinsic cause as it was ordained by God that what he created was ‘good.’ Evil is something deficient ‘good’ or an accident of nature such as the natures of fire and an accelerant coming together to cause an explosion. Such accidents can are evil in that they tend to disrupt the natural order but are only sin when there is a willful act to unleash their evil effects.

It seems to me therefore, that you not only conflate guilt and punishment but also ‘good’, ‘evil’ and sin. The evil deeds of the Argentine junta are willful and immoral acts and the harm to the woman was not God’s punishment.

JoeT

 

[rossum]

As I’ve indicated before before, evil “is nothing else than corruption, either of the measure, or the form, or the order, that belong to nature.”

Then the nature that God made was not perfect, but was actually corruptible. A perfect, uncorruptible, nature cannot be corrupted. Only an imperfect, corruptible, nature can be corrupted.

What does the imperfect, corruptible nature of creation say about the God who created it?

It seems to me therefore, that you not only conflate guilt and punishment but also ‘good’, ‘evil’ and sin.

Concepts of ‘guilt’, ‘punishment’ and ‘sin’ do not appear in Buddhism. In Buddhism there are actions and the consequences of actions:

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with an evil mind then suffering will follow you,
as the wheel follows the draught ox.

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with a pure mind then happiness will follow you,
as a shadow that never leaves.

– Dhammapada 1:1-2

The evil deeds of the Argentine junta are willful and immoral acts and the harm to the woman was not God’s punishment.

But the harm to the pregnant women drowned in the flood was God’s punishment. The Junta’s Generals acted to save the lives of the unborn children; God did not act to save the lives of the unborn children.

rossum

 

[Good_Fella]

Good Fella posted, “God is either perfect, or He doesn’t exist. It’s that simple.”

If we accept that premise, then any less-than-perfect God does not exist. My point was to show the incorrectness of that premise. We know, all too well, that imperfect beings can exist. From a Buddhist point of view the gods are also (mostly) imperfect, along with everyone else.

I understand that it’s the Buddhist’s goal in life to strive for and reach human perfection (Dhammapadha). If perfection doesn’t exist, there can’t be anything imperfect or less than perfect to overcome towards the attainment of perfection. Imperfection is the privation of perfection, just as evil is the privation of good.

Hence, there is no such being as a “less-than-perfect God”. Ontologically absolute perfection or immutability is an attribute of God as a composition of His divine essence which binds all His other attributes together. God’s faithfulness and justice, for instance, stem from His attribute of immutability which presuppose God cannot do any wrong like commit murder. So God can never be better or worse than He essentially is. Perfection cannot be improved upon. His righteousness and justice are immutable; in His essence God cannot ever be less righteous and just or unrighteous and unjust as we human beings can be. By nature, in comparison with His creatures, God is perfect. In His essence, God is absolute perfection, just as He is absolute love, righteousness, and justice. There is no such thing as less-than-perfect perfection or a less-than-perfect God. Such a postulation is a contradiction in terms. If we are imperfect beings lacking in perfection, since there is such a thing as imperfection inherent in us, which we ourselves experience in our daily lives, then there must be an absolutely perfect Being for all other beings to be like as far as they are able in their finite human nature. This absolutely perfect Being who sets a moral standard for us is God made visible in Christ. He embodies that perfection which we ourselves must try to attain in our imperfection that must be overcome.

Your metaphysics obviously differs from ours, but allow me to say a few more words on a final note. The term essence in Western philosophy and theology is derived from the Greek noun fu sij phusis, meaning “substance” and “nature”. This term denotes the totality of the innate properties and abilities by which one person or species differs from another and their distinct natural characteristics. Like God, having been created in His image, we possess moral and non-moral attributes. We differ from lower animals in that we may be righteous and can exercise free will. Our ability to morally reason and freely choose between right and wrong are powers which define who we essentially and substantially are as opposed to other creatures. Essence implies being and existence, and so it refers to our particular attributes and qualities: a righteous human being is a good human being; an unrighteous human being is a bad human being. However, we can say this only of God: an immutable divine being is a perfect divine being; a mutable divine being is an imperfect divine being, as you make our God out to be in His deeds. :tsktsk:

But the point I’m trying to make here is that perfection and imperfection are attributes of being. Experience tells us that we humans are imperfect by nature. No matter what you want to believe, we can never ever be absolutely perfect. Since perfection must exist logically prior to imperfection, and imperfection is an attribute of human nature in our fallen state, it follows that the attribute of perfection as a thing in itself must exist inherently in a supreme Being other than ourselves. Perfection is absolute. There is no such thing as less than perfect perfection. And since it’s an attribute, it must inhere in an absolute Being which is God. Perfection and imperfection are distinct attributes possessed by two different kinds of beings: God and His human creatures. If the attribute of perfection does not exist, then God does not exist. And if God does not exist, we could not exist. There can be no imperfection without the existence of perfection, no imperfect being without a perfect Being. But we do exist, don’t we, always trying to be better and improve our lives in some way. It’s that simple!

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
*Matthew 5, 48 *

PAX
:heaven:

 

[rossum]

I understand that it’s the Buddhist’s goal in life to strive for and reach human perfection (Dhammapadha). If perfection doesn’t exist, there can’t be anything imperfect or less than perfect to overcome towards the attainment of perfection. Imperfection is the privation of perfection, just as evil is the privation of good.

The goal is nirvana. Any description of nirvana is, at best, a finger pointing at the moon.

Hence, there is no such being as a “less-than-perfect God”.

However, we live in a less than perfect world. What is the origin of that “less-than-perfection”? Essentially, the same question as in this thread, what is the origin of evil? The God who made this world either made a less-than-perfect world, or He made a non-perfect world, which appeared perfect at first (Eden) but contained the seeds of its own fall from perfection. In either case the ultimate source of the non-perfect world is God.

Ontologically absolute perfection or immutability is an attribute of God

Then you have no real explanation for the origin of evil. An absolutely perfect God cannot create evil. Since evil exists, then God is not the creator, but merely a creator. There has to be at least one other creator – the creator of evil/imperfection.

The term essence in Western philosophy and theology is …

… not recognised in Buddhist philosophy. It is merely one example of the error of reification. See Nagarjuna’s analysis for a more detailed treatment.

rossum

 

[Good_Fella]

The goal is nirvana. Any description of nirvana is, at best, a finger pointing at the moon.

If I understand correctly, Nirvana is the Buddhist’s final goal in life. The intervening goal is the attainment of perfection that ultimately leads to the realization of perfect peace by following the Eightfold Path of perfection to eradicate the internal causes of our interior suffering generally brought about by how we think, speak, feel, and conduct our lives in an unwholesome way. Nirvana is the highest state of spiritual perfection and is marked by the end of suffering brought about by internal causes within the self that give rise to inner turmoil. However, that perfect bliss, the final end to all suffering, cannot be reached in this lifetime unless all of the perfections have been permanently instilled in the fabric of our being and all our faults and weaknesses have been finally uprooted together with desire through a diligent discipline of the mind and abstention from unwholesome thoughts, words, and deeds.

However, we live in a less than perfect world. What is the origin of that “less-than-perfection”? Essentially, the same question as in this thread, what is the origin of evil? The God who made this world either made a less-than-perfect world, or He made a non-perfect world, which appeared perfect at first (Eden) but contained the seeds of its own fall from perfection. In either case the ultimate source of the non-perfect world is God.

God would have been imperfect if He had created an imperfect world by mistake rather than had permitted an imperfect world to be in His omniscience.

Then you have no real explanation for the origin of evil. An absolutely perfect God cannot create evil. Since evil exists, then God is not the creator, but merely a creator. There has to be at least one other creator – the creator of evil/imperfection.

Let’s not discuss this topic in a circle. It’s been pointed out to you already, not only by me, that everything God created was good and still is despite the imperfections and evil in this world. Evil is not a positive force which exists in its own right but is rather the privation of good, just as imperfection is the privation of perfection. Evil is not something that was created, but arose by its own free accord in opposition to good. And God allowed this to happen for a reason, chiefly to allow us to see for ourselves whether we truly love God and want to be with Him in a better state of existence than even the original terrestrial paradise. Nothing in creation even before the fall can compare with the Beatific Vision. If Adam and Eve had possessed the Beatific Vision, then they couldn’t have fallen from God’s grace and see for themselves whether they could love anything or anyone else more than Him. We were put here to be tested, as I have said.

I’m reminded of the traditional Japanese tea bowls, the wabi sabi, which are deliberately made to be imperfect (a small chip on the rim, or a fine crack even) so that we can learn moral lessons concerning our natural selves by looking at these tea bowls which are supposed to remind us of our own imperfections. In the same way, God did not make any mistake when He allowed the fall to happen, but not deliberately. He did not create Adam and Eve with chips and cracks, but made them so that they had the ability to chip and crack themselves by their own volition in disobedience to God. The reason must have been that by falling we learn something about ourselves in our relationship with Him, just as the tea bowl holders can learn something about themselves in their relationship with other human beings by contemplating on their own moral imperfections. Meanwhile, the tea bowls are still good despite the chips and the cracks in them. And it is through the cracks that the light gets in as Buddhists see it. This light in Christianity is the light of Christ which can touch all human beings of all faiths and serves to bring us back to God by loving and appreciating Him as we should if we do in fact want to be with Him.

PAX
:heaven:

 

[Good_Fella]

You would do well to stick to things that you know, not things that you are ignorant of. **Here is one of the gods **in the Brahmajala sutta describing himself:

“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be. I have created these other beings.”

– Brahmajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1.

I have highlighted a few words in the description.

I never said one of the gods. One of the gods never manifested himself to Abraham and Moses, but the One true God had.The only other gods are the lifeless idols we create for ourselves.

*For I know that the Lord is great,
and that our Lord is above all gods.
Whatever the Lord pleases he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps.
He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,
who makes lightnings for the rain
and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of men’s hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not,
they have eyes, but they see not
they have ears, but they hear not,
nor is there any breath in their mouths.
Like them be those who make them!—
yea, every one who trusts in them!
Psalm 135, 5-7, 15-18 *

Why? We observe that the world contains both good and evil. If the creator made the world, then the creator contains both good and evil also.

Evil only exists because everything in creation was good at the start.

Then He doesn’t exist, since He made a world that includes imperfection, and even from the beginning contained the potential for imperfection.

Evil and sin are not things in and of themselves which exist autonomously. They are the absence of perfection. God is directly responsible for the perfections we can attain in this life, but not for their absence. Take the natural world for example. Degrees of cold temperature are the privation of amounts of energy which produce heat. To make a room less warm and uncomfortable in the winter, we have to turn down the heat to perfect the room temperature. By doing so, we don’t put cold in but rather take heat out. The less heat, the more perfect the room temperature is. It is because of natural conditions that a room might become uncomfortably hotter for us. Perhaps by chance (God has provided room for chance in His universe) the temperature outside rose considerably. Are we to say that God determined to make the room uncomfortable for us? Of course not! But what God did determine was that the room temperature could be perfected to our satisfaction; since He is a perfect God.

There is a Buddhist axiom which you might not be familiar with: “You are perfect just as you are imperfect.” Since we are imperfect, we must strive for perfection, by removing whatever darkness is inside of us. If we lack generosity, we must strive for being generous and thus perfect ourselves in this quality of being human. Because of certain conditions or circumstances in this life, we have to make adjustments to ourselves no less than with our living room. To become generous, we must remove all those internal causes that make us ungenerous. We don’t put generosity in, but we allow it to return. After all, in Buddhism we are born in a state of innocence. Somewhere along the road we lost our original state of generosity in some measure. Since a perfect God does exist, according to our belief, we can make our lives comfortable again internally by trying to be more generous with the help of His consoling and sanctifying grace and reverse our personal fall. Our beliefs are not that much different in some aspects.

Please indicate any examples of God creating a human embryo without involving the embryo’s parents. I am not aware of any. The parents are involved.

Didn’t God create the parents? What the parents don’t create by having been created themselves is the soul that makes us human. But you don’t believe in the soul, do you?

I am comparing God to His own rules: “You shall not kill”. Your God seems to be a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of God. Hardly a recommendation.

I’ve already explained to you how it is that God cannot commit murder. Or have you forgotten?

God kills a lot of people, we both agree. We cannot agree on what crime those some of those people committed to deserve death. So far you have not shown me any crime, just that your God has a “might makes right” excuse for killing them.

Again, justified killing doesn’t necessarily involve only crime and punishment. By the way, we’re all doomed to die eventually, most of us either by natural causes or accidents, because we are all under the dominion of death for our sins.

This God of yours is not a good Buddhist.

He’s not a bad one either.

शान्ति
:heaven:

 

[rossum]

everything God created was good and still is despite the imperfections and evil in this world.

The world is good, and evil is found in the world. Can you see why I am having some difficulties with this? Better to say that the world is imperfect, containing both good and evil. That is a more obvious way to express it. The problem of evil goes back a very long way in theological discussion.

Evil is not something that was created, but arose by its own free accord in opposition to good.

So, evil created itself? Hence, God is demoted from the creator to a creator, sharing creatorship with evil. This looks more like dualism than what I understand normative Christianity teaches.

Evil only exists because everything in creation was good at the start.

Then what is the basis for evil? What is its origin?

Evil and sin are not things in and of themselves which exist autonomously. They are the absence of perfection.

How can perfection be absent anywhere in a perfect universe created initially perfect by a perfect God? How can evil get a toehold if God did not provide a toehold?

There is a Buddhist axiom which you might not be familiar with: “You are perfect just as you are imperfect.” Since we are imperfect, we must strive for perfection, by removing whatever darkness is inside of us.

The difference in Buddhism is that we start imperfect. Merely by being born we know that we are imperfect. The perfect are not reborn.

Buddhism starts with an imperfect world – suffering. Christianity starts with a perfect God. There is no difficulty explaining the presence of imperfection in an originally imperfect world.

Didn’t God create the parents?

But God didn’t create the child without the intervention of the parents. Even with Adam and Eve, God did not create from nothing. Adam came from God and clay. Eve came from God and a rib. In no case does God create humans directly from nothing.

But you don’t believe in the soul, do you?

No. It is a reification, and like most reifications is a false imagining.

I’ve already explained to you how it is that God cannot commit murder. Or have you forgotten?

I have not been talking about murder, I have been talking about killing. The OT God kills far too many living things, many of them innocent of any crime.

rossum

 

[Good_Fella]

The world is good, and evil is found in the world. Can you see why I am having some difficulties with this? Better to say that the world is imperfect, containing both good and evil. That is a more obvious way to express it.

I haven’t denied that the world is imperfect containing both good and evil. But that doesn’t mean the world is intrinsically both good and evil. Human beings, for instance, possess a sinful nature and are imperfect; yet they are still essentially good having been created in God’s image. It is because of our wounded sinful nature that we are inclined to evil. Further, this evil, as I pointed out, arises within a vacuum on account of a combination of conditions and circumstances. Evil is the privation of good which comes from God. So if all human beings were evil, they couldn’t possibly direct their wills to what is good. Our inclination to good does not emerge from a vacuum, but by God’s sufficient grace which is good in and of itself. We have all received this grace so that we may begin our journey back towards the original state of human perfection - that is the original state of sanctity and justice. Finally, if God were evil, which the evil in the world might imply, then He wouldn’t grant us this grace so that we may be reconciled with Him through the merits of Christ. He wouldn’t have granted humankind the intellectual capability of finding cures for diseases. In fact, there would be no fall in creation wrought by our own autonomous freedom and the circumstantial conflicts in the natural world which occur through the free but constrained elements of chance.

Then what is the basis for evil? What is its origin?

As I have said, it’s the negation of what is good. Charity is good, but once we abuse this virtue by acting by a selfish ulterior motive evil emerges. Are we to hold charity morally responsible for a wicked act masked behind its veil? Of course not! The wickedness of our motive originates from within our self, but wouldn’t have unless charity wasn’t initially a moral attribute of ours as love and compassion are attributes of the Divine essence. Likewise, God - who is love - is not the moral cause of evil. If evil exists in this world, it is because of an inordinate self-love and self-interest inherent in created beings since they are imperfect because of their wounded nature. No living being or creature or created thing possess absolutely good moral and non-moral attributes and qualities, since immutability isn’t a moral attribute inherent in any creature or created thing. So we mustn’t expect anyone or anything that is part of the natural world to be perfect as God is in His essence.

Perfection is more or less absent because the universe itself is imperfect in its natural freedom. Imperfection isn’t an absolute positive trait or condition unlike perfection, but rather a relative negative one measured by degrees. It isn’t synonymous with immutability or something we should strive for as a standard to go by as perfection is, for we would then be heading in a negative direction or downward movement. If the universe hadn’t been perfect before the fall - that first instant when creation was set in motion along with chance and when what was simple began to become ever more complex - there could be no positive upward movement back in the natural world towards retrieving what had been lost. In order for perfection to be absent in some measure - it is not entirely absent - it would first have to be or else it couldn’t exist as a standard to go by. Imperfection is mutable and relative, for it can be measured as more or less meeting the objective standard of perfection.

The same principle applies to goodness in its relation to evil. A perfect world is an immutable absolutely good world with no potential to incline towards evil. An imperfect world is a relatively more or less good world whose objective standard is more or less attained according to the measure of good. Evil is not our standard of pursuit and attainment - but being good or what is good for us is. A man who commits murder so that he can marry his neighbor’s wife is acting wickedly and selfishly in pursuit of what he feels is good for himself. But what we think might be good for us isn’t necessarily good and could even be evil. Goodness or being good cannot rightly be called that, and in this context has no relation to God who is absolutely and immutably perfect and good.

To be continued.

:harp:

 

[Good_Fella]

How can perfection be absent anywhere in a perfect universe created initially perfect by a perfect God? How can evil get a toehold if God did not provide a toehold?

How can perfection be absent anywhere in a perfect universe created initially perfect by a perfect God? How can evil get a toehold if God did not provide a toehold?

Aquinas argued that perfection in this world amounts to someone or something achieving its purpose. Human perfection lies in us achieving our proper end, viz. our intellectual capacities of understanding God and directing our will towards God by conforming it with His will. As I see it, Adam and Eve were created perfect in this way, but they were not created absolutely perfect. It’s a dogma of the Catholic Church that only God is absolutely perfect. Only a Pantheist would dare to claim that created human nature has an equal share in God’s divine nature. Aquinas would have argued that such an assumption would have compromised God’s actuality. According to the angelic Doctor of the Church, God is absolutely perfect because He is entirely actual with no potential. All beings and things are perfect in proportion to their actuality. Adam and Eve were created perfect, but not absolutely, since they had the potential to freely fall short of achieving their purpose.

With regard to natural phenomena, such as an earthquake, all creation originally existed in a perfect state, but not absolutely. The reason for the existence of earthquakes is that the earth’s continental crusts are floating on the earth’s molten mantel. And since the continents are floating, the plates that make up the continents tend to collide with one another. As they slip past one another, the grinding of the plates results in the release of a large amount of energy which causes the plates to shake. Not unlike human beings, earthquakes are perfect in that they have a good purpose to achieve in proportion to the will of God. But since they possess potential to act in a way contrary to God’s desire, they are not absolutely perfect as the Creator is. God did not create earthquakes to destroy human life, although they occasionally happen to by chance. God would be an evil and imperfect god if He actually had created earthquakes with the intention of destroying human life. But everything God has created is originally good and perfect, since God is absolutely good and perfect.

Despite the accidental loss of life (chaos) earthquakes are designed to carry out a good purpose for the sake of our entire planet’s survival (order). In an early stage of the earth’s formation tectonic activity resulted in the formation of huge earthquakes and volcanos that formed land masses all over our planet. Before then, the earth was entirely a water world unfit for human habitation. Without continuing tectonic activity, the continents would eventually return to the ocean by gradual erosion resulting in the extinction of all human life and mammals. This is only if radiation doesn’t destroy us first. Tectonic activity also shields the earth from lethal and destructive amounts of solar and stellar radiation. Earthquakes are designed by God to achieve a good purpose - that is preserving the human race and all other forms of life and organisms, which an evil and imperfect god certainly wouldn’t desire. If individual people happen to lose their lives because of earthquakes, it’s only by chance and not from original design. Moreover, they haven’t died in vain. Despite what appears to be evil, a greater good has come out of it, since everything that exists does so within the providence of an absolutely good and perfect God who foresees all He has made. Chaos is not entirely random because only a good God exists.

Thus these tragedies arise out of a vacuum consisting of circumstances which do not originate directly from God but from the earth’s conditions. If God is the cause of fatal earthquakes and floods, as depicted in the Bible, He is only the physical cause by having created the world. God is not the moral cause of the loss of human life, and so mustn’t be indicted. Accidental deaths in and of themselves have nothing to do with morality insofar criminal negligence isn’t a factor. But if God were indeed negligent, He might decide to remove the earth’s mantel and place all the continents in a fixed position to eradicate earthquakes altogether so that some people won’t have to suffer or lose their lives. But by doing this, God would inadvertently obliterate the magnetic dynamo that is needed to create the magnetosphere around the earth which acts as the shield against the harmful and lethal doses of solar and stellar radiation which can destroy all forms of life on our planet. Since we all have been barred from partaking of the tree of life and banished from the original paradise, which would not have required tectonic activity to serve as our terrestrial habitat, we mustn’t expect God to transform the world right now. A new heaven and a new earth will be made when Christ returns in glory to redeem our bodies at the appointed time.

***For the whole creation hopes for and expects the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation has been subjected to futility, not by its choice, but because of him who subjected it upon hope. that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. For we know that all created things groan and are in labor until today. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8, 19-23

“God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.”
1 Corinthians 14, 33***

To be continued.
:harp:

 

[rossum]

I haven’t denied that the world is imperfect containing both good and evil.

We are agreed.

But that doesn’t mean the world is intrinsically both good and evil.

I disagree with your “intrinsically”. You appear to be setting up a reified Platonic Ideal world, with only good. That is merely a mental construct. It is not the real world in which we live. The actual world in which we are living contains both good and evil.

Human beings, for instance, possess a sinful nature …

Sin is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one. The closest Buddhism get is “unwise actions”. The idea of a “nature” in the sense you are using it, is also probably just another reification, and hence mistaken.

yet they are still essentially good having been created in God’s image.

Words like “nature” and “essentially” signify to me that you are reifying. Reification is always an error. It is an attempt to project the model we carry inside our brain onto the external world. Our model is not the external world. Mistaking one for the other causes suffering. We need to learn what is the real world, and what we are projecting onto that real world from our internal model.

There is no real water in a mirage. The water we “see” in a mirage is merely a projection from our internal model. We need to avoid living in a mirage, so we need to keep our internal models separate from reality.

rossum

 

[Good_Fella]

So, evil created itself? Hence, God is demoted from the creator to a creator, sharing creatorship with evil. This looks more like dualism than what I understand normative Christianity teaches.

The concept of Dualism is the assumption that there are two separate gods or transcendent spirits which are either good or bad, but equally powerful. They exist co-eternally in a binary relationship; neither of these entities hold a greater right over the other. And both of these gods presumably think that what they will to execute to serve their purpose is good for themselves. Nor does a third entity exist which surpasses them in their might and possesses a greater prerogative and a standard for them to follow. The good god is responsible for the love and compassion in the world, while the bad god is the cause of the hate and cruelty in it, which Dualism asserts is the god of the Old Testament as opposed to the god revealed in the New Testament. The cruelty in the world might be bad for us from our point of view, but for the bad god it is the right thing for him to do according to his own standard of goodness. However, as we shall see, there is a serious flaw in this postulate which renders it incapable of providing a reasonable explanation for the good and evil in this world.

Returning to my previous analogy, let us imagine that now there are two people in a living room one winter afternoon. John finds the room to be unbearably too warm or hot, while Jane finds it too cold. The man who feels too warm or hot may suggest that the thermometer be turned down, while the woman may object that it be turned up instead. For the man who might prefer to lower the room temperature because it is too warm, turning down the thermometer would be a good thing to do, while for the woman who finds the room too cold as it is, turning up the thermometer would be the right thing to do. For John it would be wrong to raise the room temperature because it is warm enough as it is, while for Jane it would be wrong to lower the room temperature because it is already too cold for her. Here is where the problem arises for Dualism.

If neither of these opposing gods created each other nor had more rights than each other, and if either of them felt that what they willed was the good or right thing to do for their own sake, and that they were all powerful but equal in strength to each other and mightier than any other being than themselves, then they couldn’t have served each other’s interest. However, the bad god that willed the room to be too hot for John so that he should suffer would in fact be conforming his will to the will of the good god who willed that Jane mustn’t suffer because of the cold room temperature. The bad god would in fact be serving the interests of the good god by having “caused” the conditions which compelled John to raise the room temperature for his own comfort, which is a good thing. And vice versa. The concept of Dualism assumes that these two gods - one good and the other evil - are in opposition to each other. They try to thwart each others plans, not serve them, or else there could not be a good god and a bad god at total enmity with each other. These two gods are supposed to hate each other and strive to spoil each other’s works, not help complete them.

Moreover, neither of these gods could assume that their standard of good was the absolute one to go by for all living beings like themselves. The good god would have been morally responsible for Jane’s suffering if he caused the room temperature to be too warm so that the thermometer should be turned down to Jane’s discomfort. Either way, both gods would hold to a standard of good which was inherently flawed. And in that case they wouldn’t have any standard of good to go by so that they would not err. C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, brilliantly fathomed this greater problematic depth in the concept of Dualism. He logically concluded, that for the good god and the bad god to have a standard of good which was perfect, a perfect being superior to themselves should exist. This superior being, whose standard of goodness for all living beings regardless of the circumstances and whatever they might prefer for themelves, is the One Supreme God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. No living being can possibly err by His standard if it is followed in proper measure.

Evil does not create itself, nor is it caused by a bad god, since it isn’t a positive force which exists in and of itself. It only exists as a negative force, as a privation of what is good. The less good something is, the more evil it is. The person who commits an evil act does so thinking that it is a good thing for him to do. A man might kill another man so that he can marry his wife which for him is good. This personal good is the standard that he goes by even though what he does isn’t good. It results from pride, which caused Adam to fall. On the other hand, no man commits murder so that he can go to prison for the rest of his life, or better yet to be executed by lethal injection, unless he is mentally deranged and has lost his senses. Dostoyevsky points out in his book Crime and Punishment that people in general commit murder believing they won’t get caught, but once their conscience starts to prick them after the deed, many tend to subconsciously get themselves caught while procrastinating to confess to the police. So a man who ignores the voice of his conscience wouldn’t regard these forms of just punishment as things good for him. Morally evil is the abuse of what is good for our benefit in right relation to the will of God. Goodness, on the contrary, does not arise out of a vacuum.

To be continued.

:harp:

 

[Good_Fella]

But God didn’t create the child without the intervention of the parents. Even with Adam and Eve, God did not create from nothing. Adam came from God and clay. Eve came from God and a rib. In no case does God create humans directly from nothing.

Following the path of finite regression, all created things are created by God out of nothing including pure matter. But the soul is the formal principle of our actual individual existence which, therefore, cannot be created or produced by way of physical generation. Parents don’t create us, but rather serve to produce the material principle of our individual human existence. The soul is the formal principle of our actual individual existence which, therefore, cannot be created or produced by way of physical generation. It is the formal principle that makes us who we essentially are. And since this formal principle comes from God without any contribution from the parents, who don’t propagate their offspring’s soul, they have no right to abort the lives of their children in the mother’s womb. As I said, murder is the unjustified taking of a human life which doesn’t absolutely belong to us but to God.

No. It is a reification, and like most reifications is a false imagining.

So you prefer to believe.

It is not my soul that thinks and my body that eats, but I who think and eat. Even a Buddhist can’t escape not saying, no matter how hard he tries, ‘My mind must think this over’ instead of ‘I must think this over’ or ‘My body must have lunch’ instead of ‘I must have lunch.’

I have not been talking about murder, I have been talking about killing. The OT God kills far too many living things, many of them innocent of any crime.

Isn’t abortion murder? You did argue earlier that if the Church condones the deaths of the innocent children in the flood, it may as well change its stance on abortion. You implied that the deaths of the children in the flood was as unjustifiable as abortion is… So you must be talking about murder.

PAX
:heaven:

 

[rossum]

Evil does not create itself

You do not appear to be consistent here. Earlier, you said:

Evil is not something that was created, but arose by its own free accord in opposition to good.

Did God create evil, or did evil “arise” by itself? My point about two creators arises from 1) evil exists and 2) God did not create evil. The semantic change from ‘create’ to ‘arise’ does not seem to me to be significant. How could evil ‘arise’ in a perfect world? At least the seed of evil must have been present for it to arise.

Following the path of {?in}finite regression, all created things are created by God out of nothing including pure matter.

The nothing is needed. God is not:

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

– Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Isn’t abortion murder?

It may, or may not be. Killing is wrong, but not all abortions are the killing of a human being. Buddhists see humans as having five components. Some of those components are not present in a very early zygote, they develop over time. The early zygote is a living thing, and it is wrong to kill it, but it is not yet a human living thing. To Buddhists, God’s drowning of animals in the Flood, and his orders to slaughter livestock, are also wrong. Killing is wrong, whether of humans or non-humans.

rossum

 

[ahs]

Did God create evil, or did evil “arise” by itself? My point about two creators arises from 1) evil exists and 2) God did not create evil. The semantic change from ‘create’ to ‘arise’ does not seem to me to be significant. How could evil ‘arise’ in a perfect world? At least the seed of evil must have been present for it to arise.

You are still describing “evil” as if it were some positive force or “thing”. It’s not. Evil is the “absence of good”.

 

[meltzerboy]

You are still describing “evil” as if it were some positive force or “thing”. It’s not. Evil is the “absence of good”.

I’ve heard this idea before. But don’t Christians believe that Satan is an actual being with a free will, who is himself the personification of evil? Or maybe not, because he was once a high-level, devoted angel.

 

[Good_Fella]

You do not appear to be consistent here.

Evil appears to be something positive in and of itself when as subject it is predicated in a proposition. The same can be said for nothingness: “Nothing you say makes much sense.” In other words, “There is no sense in what you say.” Not unlike evil, unintelligibility accidentally arises by its own accord when someone fails to convey an intended meaning to another person. The speaker might be the physical cause of the nonsense he managed to orally produce, but his intention was to convey an intelligible and reasonable message to his listener in spite of his failure. The intended meaning of his words, therefore, would not arise of its own accord - apart from the speaker’s will - in a vacuum if he had made sense in what he said. Similarly, evil accidentally arises of its own accord against God’s will and His good purpose. Both God and the speaker are physically responsible for what has arisen through their mental acts of intention. If you reconnect my quote with the rest of my posts, you’ll see there is no inconsistency there.

Did God create evil, or did evil “arise” by itself? My point about two creators arises from 1) evil exists and 2) God did not create evil. The semantic change from ‘create’ to ‘arise’ does not seem to me to be significant. How could evil ‘arise’ in a perfect world? At least the seed of evil must have been present for it to arise.

Again, evil arises from a vacuum in a world that is perfect, but not absolutely. Potentiality is a category of the actual natural world. An absolutely perfect world would hold no potentiality, since it would be an immutable world where nothing required is absent.

The nothing is needed. God is not:

“There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.”

• Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

According to the First Law of Thermodynamics, nothing in the universe can appear out of nothing. The law of conservation of energy rules that energy neither creates nor destroys itself , but simply changes form. Therefore, the energy in the universe must have come from somewhere other than where it is now and from a source other than itself.

Hawking refuses to believe that energy comes from God, so he assumes that there must have been zero energy existing in the universe before the Big Bang and then zero energy existing in the universe after the Big Bang, matter energy being regarded as positive and gravitational energy as negative. Zero energy results in these two amounts cancelling each other out. But as Dr.Jeff Miller has pointed out in his objections, “the question is not whether the energy balance before and after the big bang is zero. The important question in light of the First Law is whether or not there is energy in the universe today that was not there before the big bang. The answer would have to be yes. In fact, there are, by Hawking’s own admission, “negative” and “positive” energies in existence. According to the First Law of Thermodynamics, they couldn’t have created themselves. Therefore God must exist.” (cf. Zero Energy and Universes Popping into Existence).

It may, or may not be. Killing is wrong, but not all abortions are the killing of a human being. Buddhists see humans as having five components. Some of those components are not present in a very early zygote, they develop over time. The early zygote is a living thing, and it is wrong to kill it, but it is not yet a human living thing.

Of course you don’t subscribe to the Aristotelian idea of potentiality and actuality besides not believing in the human soul. You don’t, then, regard the acorn as the same oak tree, the mustard seed as the same mustard tree. If the zygote isn’t a human being, then what is it? A living organism which doesn’t belong to any species up to a certain point in time? And what about those components which begin to develop over time? Doesn’t their beginning to be developed depend on the course of development? Is a young child who is still developing physically, psychologically, and emotionally towards mature adulthood less human than a mature adult?

PAX
:heaven: