The Optimist Argument Against the Problem of Evil

[TheTrueCentrist]

TheTrueCentrist writes:

You are asking for a justification for why the Good (God) is the Good? God’s nature defines the good. This is a plausible end to the otherwise infinite regression of justifications of the good, which those who define good as “minimization of suffering” are left to wallow in. Why is the “minimization of suffering” good? Because we desire minimization of suffering? How does the fact of what we desire lead to the value statement of what we ought to desire? Etc., etc., etc.

You haven’t answered the question. If I say: “Mother Teresa was a good woman” what am I saying about Mother Teresa if I use good as defined by Gods nature?"

Let’s say God chooses a world wherein there is no suffering at all. Can this world be made better still? Sure it can. It can include one more person who is happy, satisfied, and experiencing no suffering at all, but only a blissful rapture of permanent happiness. No matter how great the world is, it can always be greater, better, etc. The fact that God cannot create the “best of all possible worlds” is, therefore, true; not because He is not omnipotent, but because He is omnipotent, i.e., because the “best of all possible worlds” is self-referentially incoherent.

Does having more happy people make the world better? Perhaps, but in a finite world you can only fit so many people. This does not address the possibility of a sinless world.

And, once again, God’s picking and choosing a world wherein there would be no free choice of evil is functionally equivalent to eliminating free will from creation altogether.

He does not have to eliminate the potential for evil or our ability to choose evil in order to create a world without evil. Either it is possible to have an entirely good world with free will, or free will always cause sin. One of those two propositions must be true, there is no acceptable third option (e.g. no worlds have free will.)

Also, consider that the catholic doctrine of heaven states that in heaven it will be impossible for humans to sin, yet they will retain free will.

If we are going to talk seriously about the reality of free will, then we must acknowledge the necessary potential for evil. There is nothing immoral, and there is nothing we cannot apprehend, in the fact that a perfect God created this world in perfection, and that, in consequence of free will, human beings fell into sin. The only morally objectionable action suggested on this thread would be for God to choose the “best of all possible worlds,” only after consulting His truth-table.

Do you suppose God was surprised when mankind fell into sin? Perhaps he thought to himself “didn’t see that coming?” No, such a position is risible, God created our world in its entirety all at once. “To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy.” (CCC 600)

How then do you suppose God should chose which possible world to make? Is it random? Is this the best possible world?

Again, God did not create an evil world. The world became evil through the wrong use of free will in God’s creatures.

Moreover, God’s ability to take an evil and turn it into good (for instance, the crucifixion of Christ) does not in any way equate evil with good; the evil is evil and the good is good. Yet, good triumphs over evil. This is the eschatological argument against the problem of evil, namely, that God will heal the world of every evil on the Last Day, i.e., that God created a world without evil, and that, despite our fall into sin, He will return heaven and earth to this pre-fallen state for all eternity.

But why go through all that trouble? God in this scenario sounds like a careless homeowner who chose a roofing company at random and they did a bad job. He had to address the problem with stop-gap measures before finally redoing the whole thing.

Sure, a healed world will be great, but there are still going to be a bunch of souls in hell that didn’t have to be there.

Is there a possible world in which God (a good, holy, loving, and perfect God, i.e., the God of Jesus Christ) and evil exist?

If God defines good, then God could create any arbitrary world, including one with completely opposite values to our own, and still be “good.”

 

[tonyrey]

We don’t know what the limits of possible knowledge are because we are not omniscient. We don’t know, for example, whether God knows how He exists. His existence may be an absolute truth beyond which it is impossible to proceed. Only God knows the answer to that question - and possibly those to whom He has revealed the answer.

We don’t! I specified that I may be mistaken…

Second, you are erroneously turning omniscience into a modal property (are you an open theist?), when omniscience is simply a factual statement, namely, that God knows all true propositions (p) and no false propositions (not p).

False! God knows all true** knowable** propositions and all** knowable** false propositions. Let me repeat: you have to be omniscient to know everything that is knowable and unknowable.

Third, how do you justify your position in light of Scripture and the teaching of the Church? For instance, how can God say that He knows those who are His (namely, His elect), and that their names are written in the Book of Life? How can God say that His Church will be preserved until the end of days, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it? How can Christ tell Peter that he will deny Him three times before the rooster crows? How can Christ tell Paul that he is God’s chosen vessel to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles?

Don’t you realize that, according to your view–which, by the way, is not that of traditional Christian theology–you turn God into a liar?

Dramatic but false! There is a vast difference between knowing everything that is knowable and knowing** specific events** related to Christ’s mission and “the end of days”…

Traditional Christian theology has never stated that God knows everything that is unknowable. Do you know everything about God? Obviously not! So you cannot know what is intrinsically unknowable about God.

You seem to be assuming knowledge is a more fundamental reality than love… Pascal’s dictum “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know” suggests otherwise…

 

[tonyrey]

Evil
I think Aquinas’ argument goes a bit like this…
If the complaint was:
God is the creator of everything
Evil is a thing
Therefore, God is the creator of Evil
Then he - as I mentioned before - argues evil is not a thing and so this does not necessitate God as its creator. It is not a substance but a lacking of what should be, it deprives something of its potential, like blindness stopping a person seeing. So what causes the evil? There maybe a slight sidestep here, in that evil is caused by a secondary cause (unlike the primary, being God) a good is intended but an evil may be a necessary by-product, for example a punishment because the act of punishing is evil but it serves a higher purpose of justice - a good. So why allow evil? Well there is no logical reason to not do so, He has freedom and evil cannot be attributed to Him so then He is still All Good and still All Powerful.
It is much more complex than I have stated here of course, but its the gist

This analogy is false - Answers the OP’s question?
The analogy we seem to be going down is one where we link a wise person to God, He being All Wise. Two possible outcomes arise and so the wise man would choose the good one and so in creating one of two outcomes God would choose the good one, being more wise. However this analogy does not hold since the object of choice in each case is different. For God, creation is good because he has willed to create it, while for the wise man, the choice is good before he chooses, and it is his wisdom that allows him to see this fact. Since there choices are so vastly different then there is no analogy between human deliberation and Divine Wisdom. Specifically, the analogy fails because in the case of the wise man, there is some one best choice for him to see clearly, which doesn’t apply to God. God does not Will necessarily he doesn’t have to! unlike the Wise man. The only thing necessary is God’s Being. Some of the things that he wills are defective (in the sense of evil above), but that belonging to the nature of the thing willed not God’s Will. Since a creature is lesser being then it must be defective as all created good.

An excellent analysis!

 

[tonyrey]

Sure, a healed world will be great, but there are still going to be a bunch of souls in hell that didn’t have to be there.

Those who are in hell choose to exist for themselves rather than others…

If God defines good, then God could create any arbitrary world, including one with completely opposite values to our own, and still be “good.”

God is Love and creates only that which is for the benefit of His creatures.

 

[FCCopleston]

We don’t! I specified that I may be mistaken…
False! God knows all true** knowable** propositions and all** knowable** false propositions. Let me repeat: you have to be omniscient to know everything that is knowable and unknowable.
Dramatic but false! There is a vast difference between knowing everything that is knowable and knowing** specific events** related to Christ’s mission and “the end of days”…

Traditional Christian theology has never stated that God knows everything that is unknowable. Do you know everything about God? Obviously not! So you cannot know what is intrinsically unknowable about God.

You seem to be assuming knowledge is a more fundamental reality than love… Pascal’s dictum “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know” suggests otherwise…

I see there is no point in carrying on this conversation with you, seeing that you apparently do not understand what modal logic is, and why omniscience is not a modal property.

Your revision of the traditional Christian theology’s definition of omniscience is absurd. If you want to define omniscience this way, then it will lead you into some severe difficulties. For example, how do you separate an “event” which results from free will, and the “act” of free will? Did God know that the Adam would freely fall into sin? Is the fall an event or an act? Did God know that Christ would be freely be crucified on the cross? Is the crucifixion an event or an act? Did Christ know that Peter would freely deny Him three before the rooster crowed? Is this an event or an act? Obviously, all of these are both events and acts. If God knows the event, it is essentially the same as knowing the act.

In Christ,
FCCopleston

 

[FCCopleston]

You haven’t answered the question. If I say: “Mother Teresa was a good woman” what am I saying about Mother Teresa if I use good as defined by Gods nature?"
No, you are not understanding the answer: GOD’S NATURE IS THE GOOD. IT IS MEANINGLESS TO ASK FURTHER WHAT THIS GOOD IS.

Does having more happy people make the world better? Perhaps, but in a finite world you can only fit so many people. This does not address the possibility of a sinless world.

 

[FCCopleston]

Let me rephrase that last question:

Is there a possible world in which both God and evil exist?

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Let me rephrase that last question:

Is there a possible world in which both God and evil exist?

Certainly, unless you are suggesting that this world either does not exist or is impossible.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Those who are in hell choose to exist for themselves rather than others…

God is Love and creates only that which is for the benefit of His creatures.

Regardless of the reasons people are in hell, the are eternally suffering and separate from God. Is that what is best for them? Wouldn’t they be better off if God had made a world in which they chose differently? What about a world in which they never existed?

You can’t constructively address the problem of evil just by contradicting it. You state that God creates only beneficial things. However, people who sin are God’s creatures. Why did God create the world in which they chose to sin rather than a world where they did not? Is the sin beneficial?

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

GOD’S NATURE IS THE GOOD. IT IS MEANINGLESS TO ASK FURTHER WHAT THIS GOOD IS.

So if I say “Mother Teresa was a good woman” I am saying "Mother Teresa was a woman defined by God’s nature?
I can accept that, but now I ask: what real world attributes do we understand Mother Teresa to have when we understand she is good.
I think that if you consider this carefully, you will see that either goodness is a collection of God’s other attributes that are readily understood (e.g. love) or that we do not really have an understanding of what good is.

If your view of a perfect world is one which maximizes happiness, then more happy people means, well, more happiness. Or, you could always improve upon a person’s quality of happiness, etc. The best possible world is an incoherent mess.

I don’t recall defining the best possible world in such a way. I think when I gave it a shot I said: minimum evil and maximum per capita joy. Certainly people might argue about exactly what metrics might be used to determine the best world, but God would know exactly the best possible metrics to use.

There certainly is a third option: God creates a perfect world wherein evil is potential in free will, and where it is not necessary for evil to exist because of free will. There is nothing logically inconsistent about this. There is a possible world in which it could be true.

That is exactly the first case. It is not necessary for evil to exist, we have the potential for evil, we never commit evil. That is, as I put it, “an entirely good world with free will.”

Of course, this is a paradox, and we cannot hope to understand it fully. However, it may be said that such free will exists as a consequence to our having been redeemed by God, having freely chosen Him.

Then why are you both confidant that heaven exists and confidant that a perfect world does not? A perfect world could be identical to the world after the 2nd coming, just without all the problems that came before.

Did I suggest that God was surprised?
God created a perfect world with the potential for sin. God did not create sin. He also knew that we would fall into sin. He did not force our choice, or bring our choice about in knowing it. You are confusing several things here.

He created the creators of sin. He created the creators of sin knowing that they would sin. God is therefore at least complicit in our sins. It would be like selling a gun to someone who you know is going to use it to murder people. Sure it was that person’s decision alone to shoot people, but you also have some culpability for enabling them with the gun.

I thought we already established that the best possible world is nonsense. Or at least, that I do not believe it is coherent. Secondly, I do not make it my business to tell God how to create the world. I am simply arguing that God and evil are not inconsistent.

So far we are
Ignorant of what good means (or alternatively what God’s nature is)

Ignorant of how heaven can be perfect and sinless with free will

Ignorant of how God came to chose this world over some other (better) world

All of these points lead to my conclusion:
We do not understand God or the goodness he defines, as far as we know his actions are random

Love (you are–perhaps purposefully–isolating this attribute from God).

But if he loved us, he would give us what is best for us. If there exists a world that is better for us (e.g. a sinless one), then he did not give us what is best for us, unless it is better for us to experience sin.

That is not evil. It is justice (not all suffering is evil).

I didn’t say it was evil. What is important is that there are a bunch of souls suffering eternal torment because God created a world in which they created evil. Is being in hell what is best for them, or would never having existed be better? Don’t you remember Jesus’ proclamation “It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”"

You are trying to reintroduce the Euthyphro dilemma. I thought we already went over this? God’s nature defines the good. God cannot will to create evil because this would contradict God’s nature. His nature desires and wills the good because His nature is the good, i.e., it defines and determines it. You might then ask: why is His nature good? To which I will respond: your question is meaningless.

I’m not asking why the nature is good, we could arbitrarily decide that good is synonymous with muffins. I’m asking what God’s nature tells us about “good.” I could say that xaphod defines gymbiler, but unless we know something about xaphod, we don’t know anything about gymbiler.

 

[tonyrey]

We don’t! I specified that I may be mistaken…
False! God knows all true* knowable***

 

[FCCopleston]

TheTrueCentrist writes:

So if I say “Mother Teresa was a good woman” I am saying "Mother Teresa was a woman defined by God’s nature?

When we say that a person is good, we say that such a person is virtuous. Such virtues include courage, temperance, fortitude, justice, faith, hope, love, charity, etc.

I don’t recall defining the best possible world in such a way…

So, in other words, you have no specific criteria by which to determine what a “best of all possible worlds” would be?

That is exactly the first case. It is not necessary for evil to exist, we have the potential for evil, we never commit evil. That is, as I put it, “an entirely good world with free will.”

No, it is not exactly like the first case. In this first case there is a potential, but not the necessity for evil to exist, and we never choose evil.
I am saying that there is nothing inconsistent in there existing a world wherein there is the potential, but not the necessity that evil exist, and we choose evil. Evil is not somehow necessary simply because the potential was made actual via free will.

Then why are you both confidant that heaven exists and confidant that a perfect world does not? A perfect world could be identical to the world after the 2nd coming, just without all the problems that came before.

I never said that I do not believe in the possibility of a perfect world (I have continually stated that God created a perfect world, and that God will bring it back to perfection). I said I do not believe in the possibility of a best of all possible worlds. They are not one and the same thing.

He created the creators of sin. He created the creators of sin knowing that they would sin. God is therefore at least complicit in our sins…

This is a horrendously arrogant shirking of personal responsibility. God is neither an implicit nor complicit causal agent in our sinfulness. This is ultimately a matter revelation, which tells us the true heart and desire of God for His creation. Reason will only show us God’s “back” (natural knowledge), but never His “face” (revealed knowledge). Christ has shown us the Father. Do you believe Him?

Furthermore, I am not arguing here that God could not have created a world wherein there was not a fall. I am arguing that a perfect and good God created a perfect and good world that was made evil by His creatures. I am arguing that there is no inconsistency in the existence of God and evil in the world. That is the only thing one needs to show to defeat the logical problem of evil.

So far we are
Ignorant of…]

Are we ignorant of what good means? Goodness is the necessary expression of God’s essential nature, i.e., goodness is defined by and determined by God’s nature.

Are we ignorant of how heaven can be perfect and sinless with free will? Perhaps we are. But is this a surprise? Even revelation tells us that what awaits us is beyond our comprehension (no eye has seen…). Is it possible, considering that we are dealing with an infinite God, that our finite and sinful existence may limit our capacity for such knowledge?

Are we ignorant of how God came to choose this world over some other (“better”) world? Perhaps we are ignorant here too as well. Yet, I do not see how this ought to trouble us either. If it can be shown that God and evil and not incompatible with one another, then they are…well…not incompatible with one another.

But if he loved us, he would give us what is best for us. If there exists a world that is better for us (e.g. a sinless one), then he did not give us what is best for us, unless it is better for us to experience sin.

I doubt that you know what is “best” for yourself, least of all the whole of creation! If you are looking for a picture of God’s personal disposition toward the world, I suggest you look elsewhere than in a logical analysis of whether or not God created the best of all possible worlds, and then deriving an answer from your particular conclusion. The logical problem of evil claims an inconsistency between an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God and evil. This is all that needs to be answered. If you are looking for God’s disposition toward the world, you must seek His revelation of Himself. Do you believe that Christ has shown us the heart of the Father?

I didn’t say it was evil. What is important is that there are a bunch of souls suffering eternal torment because God created a world in which they created evil. Is being in hell what is best for them, or would never having existed be better? Don’t you remember Jesus’ proclamation “It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”"
I’m asking what God’s nature tells us about “good.”

If it is not evil, then what is your objection? I do not believe that you are really capable of grappling with the problem of evil because 1) you do not take the consequences of sin seriously, and 2) you do not take your role–as well as the role of others (Judas)–of responsibility in the reality of sin.

You are looking to *comprehend *God. Anything less than this you call “ignorance.” We can apprehend God and His nature, namely, by both our natural–and limited–knowledge of the Law (our conscience testifying to it), and by our revealed–yet still partial–knowledge of God’s will through His Word (Jesus Christ and the Church that is His body). It seems that you are arguing that, unless we can exhaustively comprehend why God did not create a “better” world, then we cannot know what good means or the true disposition of God toward creation. It is all a bit dramatic, really.

In Christ,
FCCopleston

 

[FCCopleston]

tonyrey writes:

I am quite aware of modal logic…

Fooled me

…and you have not answered my question:

1. Do you know everything about God?
   To which I can add:
2. Do you know what is knowable and what is unknowable?
3. Do you **know **whether a free choice is knowable?
4. Do you** know** what is unknowable about God?

Wow…very profound questions. Let me try to answer as best as I can…

1. No, I do not know everything about God.
2. Both reason and Scripture tells us that it is possible for an infinite, omnipotent, omniscient being (God) to know all future events and acts (why else was Christ slain before the foundation of the world?)
3. Both reason and Scripture tells us that it is possible for an infinite, omnipotent, omniscient God to know acts free choice ("…He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" [Ephesians 1:4]; “This same [Christ] being delivered up, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain” [Acts 2:23]; etc.).
4. Do I know what is unknowable about God? Hmmm…Yes–wait!..NO! I don’t know what cannot be known, and, therefore, I cannot know what I don’t know because I cannot know it. In other words, I cannot possibly know what is by definition unknowable, for by knowing it it would cease to be unknowable and become knowable, and thereby be possibly known. But we know very well that what is unknowable is impossible to know and what is knowable is possible to know, and therefore I can know for certain that I cannot possibly know the former of these–though the latter may be actually known. But it must be stringently stressed that the sort of unknowableness that we are speaking of is not of the latter kind! Rather we can know with the most certain knowledge that such unknowable knowledge presents itself to us with a complete unknowable unknowableness…

No problem. An “act of free will” is a choice or decision made solely by a person and not caused by any other factor. The mental event which results from the** exercise** of free will is a choice or decision. The physical event (if there is one) is what is implemented by that choice or decision.

So, God had foreknowledge that Peter would deny Him three times (the event), but did not have any foreknowledge (even a predictive knowledge) that Peter would choose to deny Him? In your view, God seems to be fairly clueless, huh? Even open theists concede to God having the ability to at least predict free acts. You don’t even give God that much credit though. He doesn’t even have the ability to know a free act.

Tell me, then, how does God even come to know of the free act? It seems you assume that after the free act occurs that God knows it? Doesn’t this demonstrate that it is possible for God to know a free act, albeit consequently? But if free acts cannot be known, then how can God ever know them?

What is uncertain is whether the ways in which a spiritual power (like free will) will be used are** knowable** if that person has not been created…

Why do you insist on making omniscience a modal property when it is not. God knows every true proposition (not every possible true proposition) and no false proposition (not every possible false proposition).

Again I ask the question, if free will is so elusive to God’s knowledge, even in the event itself, then how does God ever come to know the free act?

Let me repeat a relevant point you have overlooked:
You seem to be assuming knowledge is a more fundamental reality than love… Pascal’s dictum “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know” suggests otherwise…

The upshot of our discussion is that you reject the view that this is the best possible world because it is a meaningless concept. I accept it because God’s infinite power and love are revealed in what He has created. If this world could be better **at this very moment **we are faced with Hume’s dilemma:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?”

I believe that God created the world He wanted to create: a perfect and sinless world wherein free creatures had the potential to choose evil, but wherein the necessity of evil did not exist. Free creatures then chose to actualize the potential, and a perfect world fell into sin. But God has redeemed the world in Jesus Christ, and will bring it back to perfection on the Last Day, and for eternity–I have not forgotten love: God has demonstrated His love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

If you accept the meaningless notion of a best of all possible worlds, that’s fine (you can add it to your list of 1) a modal definition of omniscience and 2) a god who can know events which are the result of free will, but cannot know, or even predict, free acts until after they have been performed (even though the free act is bound to the event that results). I find no good reason to accept the idea because nowhere in Scripture am I promised that God created the best of all possible worlds. It does say, however, that what God created was “very good.” My views at least have Scriptural support; yours seem to be poorly worked out conclusions drawn entirely from your own cranium–without any consultation of Scripture or the Church Fathers.

And Hume’s formulation of the logical problem of evil is not a very difficult one to combat. All one need show is that the existence of God and evil is not incompatible. If it can be shown that they are not incompatible, then there is no logical problem.

FCCopleston

 

[FCCopleston]

Certainly, unless you are suggesting that this world either does not exist or is impossible.

If the existence of evil and God are possible, then they are not inconsistent.

This is all I have aimed to demonstrate.

Thanks,
FCCopleston

 

[veritas82]

An excellent analysis!

Thanks
Should you be correct then it has made me think why has this thread continued as it has?
I think the missing piece is,** is there such a thing as a perfect World?**
Aquinas referred to goodness as a transcendental because it is found in all quantities of being. Everything that exists inclines towards continuing its existence, so existence (being) is the object of its inclination. This is the most universal sense of goodness, that goodness is its being.
God’s essence is being and thus is good. He is perfection because He is being whereas created beings are deprived in some way and not perfect. As I have mentioned evil is a deprivation a lacking of something, namely a lacking of being because only when something’s essence is being (i.e. God) is it perfect being. Since being is convertible with good (i.e. they are the same) then we know no created things is absolute good because it is not absolute being. Since only God is absolute good due to His perfection of being then nothing created can be wholly good due to its imperfection of being. So nothing created is perfect by definition.
Leibniz’s argument then cannot be correct, even if one universe can be more good than another there cannot be a perfect universe (in an objective sense) by definition. Of course this is a Thomistic definition and I could not say if it was a Catholic one. However,** if Aquinas is no longer viewed as authoritative then what replaces him and why?**

 

[tonyrey]

Thanks
Should you be correct then it has made me think why has this thread continued as it has?
I think the missing piece is,** is there such a thing as a perfect World?**
Aquinas referred to goodness as a transcendental because it is found in all quantities of being. Everything that exists inclines towards continuing its existence, so existence (being) is the object of its inclination. This is the most universal sense of goodness, that goodness is its being.
God’s essence is being and thus is good. He is perfection because He is being whereas created beings are deprived in some way and not perfect. As I have mentioned evil is a deprivation a lacking of something, namely a lacking of being because only when something’s essence is being (i.e. God) is it perfect being. Since being is convertible with good (i.e. they are the same) then we know no created things is absolute good because it is not absolute being. Since only God is absolute good due to His perfection of being then nothing created can be wholly good due to its imperfection of being. So nothing created is perfect by definition.
Leibniz’s argument then cannot be correct, even if one universe can be more good than another there cannot be a perfect universe (in an objective sense) by definition. Of course this is a Thomistic definition and I could not say if it was a Catholic one. However,** if Aquinas is no longer viewed as authoritative then what replaces him and why?**

A formidable question to answer!

I believe it is true that there cannot be a universe perfect in every respect but its imperfection doesn’t prevent this imperfect world being the best of all possible worlds.
The criterion is whether there is any unnecessary physical evil. We can ignore moral evil because it is unnecessary by definition! If evil caused by a person is necessary it cannot be culpable…

 

[tonyrey]

Regardless of the reasons people are in hell, they are eternally suffering and separate from God. Is that what is best for them?

Yes because they are getting what they want - absolute freedom!

Wouldn’t they be better off if God had made a world in which they chose differently?

No! Their choice would be the same in any world they are in. Power is their main concern, not where they happen to be.

What about a world in which they never existed?

No sane person wants to cease to exist - and therefore, by implication, to lose the opportunity to exist. Not only that. If they hadn’t existed all their descendants wouldn’t have existed either. Why should they be penalised?

You can’t constructively address the problem of evil just by contradicting it. You state that God creates only beneficial things. However, people who sin are God’s creatures. Why did God create the world in which they chose to sin rather than a world where they did not? Is the sin beneficial?

Sin is not generally beneficial - except accidentally - but the freedom to sin is the greatest gift we have! Not because we can sin but because we can love. Sin is the failure to love - God, others and oneself.

 

[veritas82]

A formidable question to answer!

I believe it is true that there cannot be a universe perfect in every respect but its imperfection doesn’t prevent this imperfect world being the best of all possible worlds.
The criterion is whether there is any unnecessary physical evil. We can ignore moral evil because it is unnecessary by definition! If evil caused by a person is necessary it cannot be culpable…

True

These are interesting:

ST 1.25.5 Whence the divine wisdom is not so restricted to any particular order that no other course of events could happen. Wherefore we must simply say that God can do other things than those He has done.

ST 1.25.6 Whether God can do better than what He does?
It is said (Eph. 3:20): “God is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand.”
The goodness of anything is twofold; one, which is of the essence of it—thus, for instance, to be rational pertains to the essence of man. As regards this good, God cannot make a thing better than it is itself; although He can make another thing better than it; even as He cannot make the number four greater than it is; because if it were greater it would no longer be four, but another number. For the addition of a substantial difference in definitions is after the manner of the addition of unity of numbers (Metaph. viii, 10). Another kind of goodness is that which is over and above the essence; thus, the good of a man is to be virtuous or wise. As regards this kind of goodness, God can make better the things He has made. Absolutely speaking, however, God can make something else better than each thing made by Him.

I guess this ‘best possible world’ would have seemed absurd to Aquinas

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Sin is not generally beneficial - except accidentally - but the freedom to sin is the greatest gift we have! Not because we can sin but because we can love. Sin is the failure to love - God, others and oneself.

But we don’t need to actually choose sin in order to have the possibility of sin. It is possible for me to go snowboarding, but I have never chosen to. There could be a world in which sin is like snowboarding to me. Every time I was presented with a moral choice, I chose not to sin, just like every time I have gone to a mountain I have chosen to rent skis instead of a snowboard.

I was explaining to the other poster that there are two possibilities:
Either a sinless world with free will is possible or free will necessitates sin.

 

[FCCopleston]

…the freedom to sin is the greatest gift we have!

…that’s disturbing…