The problem of evil

[warpspeedpetey]

…The solution is simple: …

This argument is a logical contradiction. Freewill=Restrictedwill. A=notA.

…Simple and elegant solution.

This argument misstates the consequence of the Omnimax Attributes. G-d is the act of existence. Therefore G-d is equally present at every point. This means that for G-d every moment is now. The moment you were created and the moment you chose to do an evil act are the same moment. There is no past/future dichotomy from His perspective.

 

[Keeler]

Mmmmh this whole scenario begins to remind me of a great film called “The Ninth Configuration” Stacy Keach. If you haven’t seen it you’d like it

No, I have not seen it, but the recommendations are most encouraging. I loved the Shawshank Redemption, which is mentioned by the reviewer.

there are 2 types of faith blind faith which you can’t have now and experiental Faith which you could have provided you can have enough experience to convince you.

Blind faith in not my cup of tea. Evidence is the way to go. But let me tell you, hearsay evidence is very low on my scale of believability.

 

[kepha1]

If I may interject:
**"**The problem of evil is the most serious problem in the world. It is also the one serious objection to the existence of God. No sane person wants hell to exist."

“More people have abandoned their faith because of the problem of evil than for any other reason. It is certainly the greatest test of faith, the greatest temptation to unbelief. And it’s not just an intellectual objection. We feel it. We live it. That’s why the Book of Job is so arresting.”

The Problem of Evil
PETER KREEFT

 

[EricFilmer]

You don’t understand me. Picking up a gun and killing someone is also an “act of will”. Is it “love”? The phrase “love is an act of will” has two errors: one is that it assumes that “agape” is only meaning of “love”, and two, that it lacks the qualifiers, and thus it means two things: 1) “every act of love is an act of will” and 2) “every act of will is an act of love”. It puts an “equal sign” between “love” and “acts of will”. Sheer baloney.

Of course it is sheer baloney. Whoever came to any of these conclusions you just made? I certainly didn’t. I was quite clear earlier that when I said that love is an act of the will, I meant it in the context of entering or rejecting a loving relationship. I clearly acknowledged in past posts the existence of the emotional aspects of love. I never stated or even implied that “every act of love is an act of will” or “every act of will is an act of love.”

At best one could say that “some acts of love are an act of will” and “some acts of will are an act of love” - which would be true but so vague that it would be meaningless.

I agree. Some acts of love are volitional, but not every volitional act is one of love.

But the lack of qualifier indicates the first one. An act of murder is an act of will and it is not love. Emotional love is not an act of will. A shy person can feel head-over-heels in love with someone else, and never expresses that emotion in actions. Yet he is very much in love - and no volition is involved. Moreover, for agape the volition is not needed. More on that later.

Here you are completely ignoring the entire context of my past statements on love. The context is a loving relationship. To enter into or reject a relationship is a willful act. As I stated before, if a man and woman happen to have loving feelings for one another, this does not automatically make them boyfriend and girlfriend, or husband and wife. You completely cherry picked around that.

Of course I do. That is the point of this exercise. If you don’t even see that, then I am really wasting my time here. You wanted to show that free will is the necessary and sufficient reason for having evil acts. That requires a logical necessity.

First of all, I never used the term “free will is the necessary and sufficient reason for having evil acts.” You got that somewhere else, and I am not sure how applicable it is to my material. Therefore, if you are going to continue using this term then I would like you to clearly explain how it equates to what I have actually stated.

Secondly, the problem with your concept of logical necessity is that you have tried to refute some of my points by saying that they are not logically necessary. My stance is that our creation resulted out of God’s desire (not need) to be in a loving relationship with us. Because loving relationships do not focus on only what is logically necessary, it does you no good to try to refute my position along those lines.

(Continued in my next post)

 

[EricFilmer]

(Continued…)

This is one scenario:

1. A doctor performs a helping act.
2. It is an act of will.

But the presence of the “will” in not logically necessary! An extremely sophisticated “robotic” doctor can perform the same acts, without any volition involved. What is the “valuable” part? The “helping”, or the “volition” behind it? The helping act is just as good, useful and appreciated if a robot performs it. The volition is simply not logically necessary. In other words, the definition of “agape” is simply to “act on behalf of someone else” and NOT “volitionally act on behalf of someone else”. Whether the being is acting volitionally or “preprogrammed” is not relevant.

Are you seriously suggesting that a robot is capable of loving someone, even if limited to the context of agape? That’s a pretty hard sell, to say the least.

But let us look at this in more detail. Let us say that the specific “agape act” is the robot treating a wound with disinfectant and then applying a bandage to stop the bleeding. Has the disinfectant performed an act of agape? After all, killing germs was beneficial to the patient (although the germs probably feel less than loved). So did the robot do this act of agape or did the disinfectant? Or possibly both? And what about the bandage? Has the bandage performed an act of agape in stopping the bleeding? The answer is that neither the bandage, the disinfectant, nor the robot actually performed an act of agape. All of these things are tools by which agape can be performed. The one who actually performed agape is the person who turned on the robot and programed it to do a medical procedure.

Also, your definition of agape is deficient because it does not take into account the motive of the person doing the act. For example, let’s say that there is a person on the street begging for food, and I decide to give him a granola bar. Is this agape? Well, consider the following different scenarios:

1. I feel for his plight, and so I freely give him a granola bar.
2. I give him the granola bar because he threatens me with a gun.
3. I give him the granola bar because his friend threatens me with a gun.
4. I give him the granola bar because I predict that in the future I will ask him some favor, and I want him to feel that he is in my debt.
5. I give him the granola bar because I was hypnotized or brain washed to do it (i.e., “programed”).
6. I give him the granola bar but I really don’t care if he was hungry. There is, however, a cute girl watching and I want to impress her.
7. I give him the granola bar because someone said it is a cursed granola bar and I have some reason to believe that this may be true. According to the legend, the only way I can avoid being targeted by the curse is to freely give the granola bar to some unsuspecting person.
8. I just shoplifted the granola bar and suddenly a cop is on my tail. I come around the corner of a building and spot the beggar. Noticing that we are both wearing similar clothes, I hand him the granola bar with the appearance of a friendly gesture. Then I take off running hoping that the cop will mistake him for me.

In each of these eight examples, the action is the same: I hand the beggar a granola bar. This action fulfills your definition of agape: “An act on behalf of someone else.” But can it be said that each case was actually an example of agape? I would say that example #1 is, but the others aren’t.

In terms of more accurate definitions of agape, consider the following:

www.freedictionary.com/agape

1. Christianity Love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and selfless and a model for humanity.
2. Love that is spiritual, not sexual, in its nature.

dictionary.com
unselfish love of one person for another without sexual implications; brotherly love.

About.com
Agape is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, the highest of the four types of love in the Bible.

Webster’s Online Dictionary
Selfless love of one person for another without sexual implications (especially love that is spiritual in nature).

None of these definitions encompass the limitations that you placed on your own definition of agape. In each of these cases, the act of agape is qualified as being selfless or spiritual, or both. A robot, incidentally, is capable of being neither.

(Continued in my next post)

 

[EricFilmer]

(Continued…)

No, it implies nothing of the kind. I was talking ONLY about agape there - not love in general. Observe, what you just did. Either you did not understand what I said, or you deliberately twisted it. I merely said that our love toward God can never be “agape”, because we cannot act in God’s best interest. God does not need anything - at least that is the assumption.

I never twist anything. Can I be mistaken? Certainly, but maybe at this point you should clarify exactly what you are getting at here. I agree that God does not need anything from us. So what? The point I was trying to make is that a loving relationship can satisfy wants as well as needs. God did not create us out of necessity, but out of desire, and in that sense we are in a position to fulfill this desire.

“I ask you to determine what freedoms are ‘logically necessary’ for the loving relationship between a husband and wife. I imagine that once we narrow down the field as to what a husband and wife should do for one another in terms of what is ‘logically necessary’ it won’t be a relationship really worth having. The same could be said of a relationship between God and people.”

No, it cannot be said. The analogy of husband-wife is totally inapplicable to human-God. There is no need to waste more time on an irrelevant topic. A short summary is sufficient. It is not logically necessary for the relationship to be meaningful that the husband could strangle his wife or the wife could poison the husband. Their love toward each other would still be meaningful and the relationship would be worth having even if they would not be free to slaughter each other. To claim that the meaningful aspect of the relationship is logically contingent upon their ability to cause harm to each other is just another complete BS.

The whole context of my question goes back to what I stated above: a loving relationship can satisfy wants as well as needs. If a loving relationship is supposed to be limited to what is logically necessary, then the whole concept of satisfying wants is eliminated, and the relationship suffers as a result. After all, it has just lost a lot of its capacity to satisfy and fulfill, because a person’s wants would not be addressed. In this sense, the topic is applicable to the human-God relationship.

Moreover, I have never used the term “meaningful”. You tried to apply that to me way back in Post #45. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. The fact remains is that a husband cannot be credited with being a great husband unless there was the possibility of being a terrible husband instead. Trying to discuss this in terms of whether or not it is more “meaningful” is a fruitless endeavor based upon the fact that the term is both vague and subjective.

Mythology again.

Reality again.

When I give to a homeless, I do nothing for Jesus. I do not “love” the homeless, I feel pity for him. Pity is not love. And Jesus gives nothing to the homeless. So in case of Jesus there is no act expressing that “love” he allegedly feels for the homeless.

It is quite obvious that for some time you have been itching to turn this thread into a job evaluation of the Christian God. That is off-topic, so start a new thread. To keep this part of the conversation on-topic, I will simply point out that a person may elect to help a friend of mine because he is, indeed, my friend. Even though the action was not done for my benefit, I appreciate it all the same. If this is true for me, it is true for Jesus who taught that he identifies with the poor.

And this is the point. The doctor’s mindset (volition) is not important. In a very good sense the doctor abandoned his claim of “free will” when he took the Hippocratic oath. In the oath to doctor swears that he will treat anyone and everyone. The doctor - as long as he keeps his oath - has no choice any more. He must treat everyone. If you actually understand this, you should stop bringing up “volition”.

First of all, that is not the Hippocratic Oath. But for the sake of the example, let us say that a doctor has, indeed, taken an oath to treat everyone. Are you seriously suggesting that when this doctor treats someone that he “has no choice any more”? Objectively speaking, there still is a choice because he has the freedom and the ability to turn around and walk out of the examination room. The definition of volition is: “the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; exercise of willing.” The oath means that the doctor promises that when presented with the choice to either treat or not treat a patient, he will consistently chose to do the former. It does not mean that he no longer has the free will to do something else with his time. Therefore, there is still a choice and a corresponding action, which means that this is an example of volition.

(Continued in my next post)

 

[EricFilmer]

(Continued…)

It should be obvious. Being helpful, being considerate toward others, really loving my family and enjoying the company of my friends are under the category of “doing good”. Avoiding “evil” means that I do not take advantage of others, do not kill or maim or torture.

Why should it be obvious? And exactly what does being helpful and considerate to others involve? In terms of your definition of evil, let us say that a man and a married woman decide to have an adulterous affair. Have they committed evil by your definition?

No, you did nor “explain”, you stated your view, or opinion, and I flatly reject your opinion - even if you quote the scripture or the cathecism or the pope. An illogical statement will stay illogical, no matter who says it.

I live my life as if God did not exist, but that does not mean that I am sociopath.

Ok, so you admit that you live your life as if God does not exist. I’ll keep that in mind for possible future reference. As a side note, I never said that atheism equates being a sociopath, so I’m not sure how relevant this part of your disclosure is.

I respect other humans, and I actually love quite a few of them - and God possible existence plays absolutely no part in this.

God is the source of love, whether you believe it or not. You are only able to love people because God empowered you to do so.

The truth is that your usage of “rejecting God” is just a meaningless utterance. An atheist, who does not believe in God’s existence is LOGICALLY incapable of accepting or rejecting God. There are three options here (not two): “accepting God” - which means worshipping or loving God, “rejecting God” - which means despising or hating God and finally “being indifferent to God”.

Rejecting God can include despising or hating him, but it is not limited to that. It can also mean turning down the invitation to be in a relationship with him, or deciding to end a relationship with him. A woman may say “no” to a marriage proposal but this does not necessarily mean that she hates or despises the man.

An atheist who does not believe in God specifically rejects God’s existence, and consequently the notion of having a relationship with God. There need be no emotional component involved.

You said, if I live my life as if no God existed, then I “reject” God. You also said, if I feed the hungry, then I “accept” God. So which one will it be? I do both.

It is called “conversion by redefinition”. No, I do not desire “baptism by desire” since I have been baptized. My way of conducting my life has nothing to do with a desire to get closer to God. I base my behavior on secular grounds, basically on the direct and inverse “golden rule”. There are some issues where I agree with what the Church says. But I do not follow the Church’s teachings on many (so-called) moral issues. So your “baptism by desire” is inapplicable.

I already understand that it is inapplicable to you, which is why my statement started with the term, “Generally speaking…”, and ended with, “an implicit acceptance of certain aspects of God (such as virtue and moral living) probably does not over rule an explicit rejection of a relationship with God.”

No matter how many times you repeat it, I will not agree. The third option is there, being indifferent to God. If God wants a relationship with me, he needs to show his face. Once I learn that God really exists, and not just a figment of your imagination, then and only then can we start to build a relationship.

You once were in a relationship with God, and you decided to end it. Now you are saying that you are open to being in a relationship with God, but it has to be on your terms. I leave the rest of that up to you and God.

On this we agree, 100 percent.

No we don’t. My point was that people reject one another by thought, word and deed, and deeds (actions) speak louder than words. Therefore, rejection of God, whether it be in terms of rejecting a relationship with him, or in terms of rejecting the notion of his existence, does not have to be confined to a verbal declaration. This is contrary to what you said in Post #126: “One accepts or rejects God by declaring this fact.”

That is why I say that God does not “love” us, because there are no deeds, no actions indicating that he does.

I think it is more accurate for you to say that God does not love us because you don’t think he exists in the first place. And apparently you believe that if God does, indeed, exist then he would live up to your personal expectations. For example, he did not create the world you think he should have created, therefore you think he does not truly exist.

(Continued in my next post)

 

[EricFilmer]

(Continued…)

There is not one example of God feeding the hungry, healing the sick, protecting the victims, preventing genocides. Not one.

And yet there are countless people who say that God has answered their prayers in terms of both their wants and needs. The basis of your criticism is the proposition that a benevolent God would prevent all hunger, sickness and killing, and anything else that is harmful or uncomfortable. Apparently, you want the world to be a padded playpen for humanity. And it would be all well and good until someone gets hit in the head with a rattler, in which case you would be on the internet complaining that a benevolent God must not exist because there was a rattler to in the playpen.

And out of curiosity, if God has prevented specific acts of evil from happening in the first place (and here I am thinking of the “slap them down” proposal you made later in your recent material), how would we be able to cite them as examples?

So, where are the actions?

Jesus died for the sins of humanity, gives us his body and blood as food for eternal life, and opens the gates of heaven for us to enter.

Simple. Because when it comes to other humans, we are 100% aware of their existence! I have said a few times now that the first and fundamental necessity of building a relationship, of accepting or rejecting someone is that we MUST know that the other party exists.

God set things up in terms of faith, and faith can only be exercised if there is a realistic ability to doubt. In the middle of the day a person does not have faith that the sun is up, because it is readily obvious that it is. But God wants us to love him in this life primarily through faith. In light of all this, he can be as distant as a person wants him to be, or as close.

By not worshipping God. What are the consequences? God would take a “hint” and leave him alone. “Leben und leben lassen.”

But what are the consequences for the person? God is the source of life and all virtue (peace, joy, love, justice, truth, etc.). In light of this, what are the ramifications for him if God leaves him alone?

That is another weird assertion on the theists’ part, that “distancing” ourselves from God somehow has “disastrous” consequences. Guess what, buddy. In this existence we are totally separated of God’s presence. We are “distanced” from God. If hell is the total and complete separation from God, then this existence is “hell”, and it ain’t too bad.

You are not totally separated from God. You still have a conscience don’t you? You are still capable of loving your friends and family, aren’t you? You still have the time and capability of being in a relationship with God, don’t you? As long as you are in this life, you are in the presence of God, so there is no total separation yet.

(Of course, this is just the new, politically correct concept of hell. The “good” old hell was eternal, physical torture. How very indicative to a “loving” and “caring” God.

Whatever hell is, it represents a total separation from God, and ultimately people are the ones who send themselves there.

In this existence God does not come to our aid, God does not care about us (in any way we can discern).

Speak for yourself.

The first thing that is required for any relationship is the knowledge that the other party actually exists. This is not a given. God’s existence is very much in doubt.

Faith is a virtue and, like all virtues, is to be exercised in order to grow stronger. Faith is exercised in the presence of doubt. If God’s existence truly is “very much in doubt” then it is all the more possible to be a champion of the virtue of faith.

So if God wants a relationship, he should make certain that his existence is KNOWN - not just believed. He needs to come out from the closet.

Maybe you need to go into the closet.

The second thing that is needed for a positive relationship is some actions. If God wishes to be worshipped and loved, he needs to do something to deserve it. He cannot force us to love him, but can “bribe” us, he can “buy” our love and gratitude. There is nothing pejorative in the usage of “bribe” here. That is what we do to each other. We give and receieve. We treat each other properly and we receive similar treatment. If one party only wishes to receive and not give, he or she will be surpirsed very soon. God definitely does not participate. We are left totally alone.

God took on flesh and dwelt among us. He died for our sins and provides eternal life. He will do something about all the suffering and evil we have to endure.

Based upon that God does a “lousy” job of winning our gratitude.

Is there anybody else out there who died for your sins and offers you heaven?

(Continued in my next post)

 

[EricFilmer]

(Continued…)

Let’s look at our world as it is. The majority of the people would never dream of hurting others. A small minority of psychopaths and sociopaths does. When they do, we separate them from the society and do everything we can to take away their freedom to hurt others again! Unfortunately we lack the ability to PREVENT such actions. We must wait until they happen.

As I have repeatedly stated, God intended that in this world we be champions of virtue. Due to restricted freedom, a person in prison can be a “model inmate”, but he cannot be a “model citizen” (because he lacks the range of freedom and choices that a person in society has). As I have said before, it is not possible to be a great saint unless it was possible to have otherwise been a great sinner.

But that does not apply to God. (You guys painted yourselves into a tight corner with these omnimax attributes.

No we haven’t. And if you seriously claim otherwise then start a thread on this topic in the philosophy section of CAF and demonstrate how that is the case.

You guys keep on bringing up the wrong question. You ask me: “People do all sorts of evil acts, and you want God to interfere and fix our errors?”. Hell, no. I say that God could do perfectly what we can do imperfectly: “prevent” the occurrence of evil acts. There is nothing wrong is curtailing someone’s freedom preemptively - if that freedom leads to evil acts. (Of course I use the word “evil” in the correct sense, senselessly hurting others. Not the Catholic sense, which would declare the love between humans “evil” if it does not conform the Church’s standards.)

And therefore people would be robbed of their ability to be champions of virtue, which is what God intended this world to allow.

So, summing up: all those people who do not wish to commit evil actions can be left alone. They can have all the freedom of the world, since they use their freedom properly. Those people, who sometimes want to perform evil acts, can be “slapped” down by God in those cases. Of course even these people are not “evil” all the time. Whenever they do not want to commit evil acts, they can be left alone.

The solution is simple: God can prevent those acts which would be “evil” - which is probably just a miniscule precentage of the cases. In the overwhelming majority of the cases God can leave our freedom alone. If even a temporary prevention of free will is somehow not not palatable for you (we engage in this practice all the time with criminals), then God has one more option. Since he allegedly “knows” the future, and “knows” who will commit evil acts, he can decide not to create those people. If these people would not even be born, they would have no “will” at all, so there would be no need to interfere with it. Simple and elegant solution.

Let me go back to the adultery example. A man and a married woman decide to have an adulterous affair. It is consensual. No one is being senselessly hurt, and adultery is not even illegal in the criminal law system in the U.S. But if the husband finds out, he will be seriously hurt on an emotional level, and the family would get broken up (seriously emotionally hurting the kids as well). In the world you envision, should God intervene to prevent this affair from happening? Should he “slap them down”?

And now I have a question that I am curious about. You have stated that you want our discussion to be more in the lines of a philosophical examination rather than a Christian one. Of course, I have steadfastly said that I will ground my responses in Catholic teaching. But it occurs to me that warpspeedpetey has directly addressed you four times in this thread, and although I can’t speak for him, the nature of his posts seems to suggest that he is willing to dialog with you from a philosophical standpoint. For example:

warpspeedpetey’s Post #26
warpspeedpetey’s Post #53
warpspeedpetey’s Post #118
warpspeedpetey’s Post#140

As you know, I don’t approach this from a purely philosophical standpoint, but this does not mean I would not be interested in seeing it done. So I am curious why you have yet to respond to him.

 

[EricFilmer]

If I may interject…

As far as I am concerned, kepha, you can always interject, especially if you are making Peter Kreeft references. He rocks!

 

[thirddec]

No, I have not seen it, but the recommendations are most encouraging. I loved the Shawshank Redemption, which is mentioned by the reviewer.

Blind faith in not my cup of tea. Evidence is the way to go. But let me tell you, hearsay evidence is very low on my scale of believability.

Yep I see that and seeing through your eyes ; I would put hearsay evidence there too. What I was saying was that in your case you have painted yourself into a corner where only personal experience can work. The question is how to obtain that personal experience. The problem I have is of course I am not God and I not a saint with a direct and clear line to God so I can’t prophesy how God can give you this experience but I can discuss how you can open yourself to these experiences. Not the knock of your horse Pauline types but the smaller but personally significant little signs that taken as a pattern are difficult to ignore but also as they are personal are difficult to convince others with. But to do this you need to be open to the experience; honest in your approach and be able to at least for a while suspend your disbelief and make some steps toward the great Cloud of Unknowing to see if you begin to start to experience something real to you. I know thats asking a lot and I don’t know if you are ready yet.

Of course we here in the forum could and should pray for you too but even then you have to do something yourself even if it is to stop rationalising away every sign given to you.

I like the story of the old man and the flood whose neighbours dropped by to tell him to evacuate and he replied no God will save me, then the water was upto the driveway and a boat from the police came by and asked him to come and he said no ; God will save me.
Then while on his roof as the water was that high a helicopter came and of course he said no God will save me and he died. In heaven he went upto God and complained big time about why God hadn’t saved him. God replied I sent the neighbour you ignored; I sent the police boat you ignored ; I sent the Helicopter you ignored so I decided to bring you here for a chat

You could be the same in reverse

If you are seriously interested in opening your self and giving God a chance to talk to you then just say so and I can try some suggetions for you.

 

[tonyrey]

Blind faith in not my cup of tea. Evidence is the way to go. But let me tell you, hearsay evidence is very low on my scale of believability.

You seem to have blind faith in the power of inanimate matter to produce everything without exception!

 

[nemmark]

Can it not suffice to just say we don’t know why evil things happen, but we generally know, (especially from the parable of the weeds in the garden), that evil occurrences are often used by God to better the (non-weed) plants in the garden? Must we delve into and fully comprehend the mysteries of love and free will to believe in God? This may make me sound really simple minded, but then again, who, even among the greatest of minds, and the greatest of the angels, can understand such mysteries?

Personally, I’m a college student who is studying computer science. I like to understand things A LOT. I find it hard to accept things if they do not sound right or seem illogical (at least to me). Although I am cautious about what I put my trust in, I recognize that I will hardly be able to trust in anything if I must comprehend everything to do so. Even though people are constantly hurt in today’s world for giving others the benefit of the doubt, I still find some reason to trust something; for if I can’t trust anything, then what life will I have, and what love will I ever share?

Evil is very blinding. It sucks out all life, faith, hope, and love from an individual. It’s like a bottomless void that cannot be filled by anything. It only looks to consume. Love (or rather goodness) seems to be quite the opposite. It is an infinite spring that gushes fourth which only wishes to fill and replenish all that it touches. To obtain such love and goodness, one’s soul must not be like an evil void that sucks in everything and is never satisfied. It must be one of love which, when it receives, is constantly willing to give and propagate what it has received. I think this willingness to love is a prerequisite to receiving and truly having love. I cannot prove this, nor will I try. I don’t understand love; for I have not generated it. I only know that it is not meant to be harnessed by the human mind, because it is so infinite and mysterious; for even God can be called love! We are simply the humble receptors of love. We aren’t able to comprehend it and generate it like we do a computer program, but rather, we are to admire it and cherish it like we would a family member, pet, or even something as insignificant as a video game.

If anyone is having trouble with the evil that is so present around us, I’d suggest they simply recall Padre Pio’s sermon about the mother knitting the embroidery cloth. The child who is too low to see the beautiful designs that the mother is crafting on the other side of the cloth only sees the ugly stitches on its bottom side. The child asks the mother why she’s doing such with the cloth, and the mother answers that in the end the seemingly pointless and terrible design that the child sees will have been used to create something very beautiful. We always say, with our limited human knowledge, that God could logically create such goodness and give us such love without allowing the possibility of there being any evil. We also often reason that if God can see all outcomes because He resides outside of time, then he could simply have created beings that he knew would choose to do only good. Honestly, do we fully comprehend the nature of God or His omniscience? Can we surely say that He could do this and should do that? I believe that the obvious answers to the past two questions are no. I find it reasonable to say that one should not have to explain why evil exists in this world to justify God; for if God does exist and He is what He says He is, then this is completely ‘impossible’. It is only human to want to know things and be in control of things before one submits to them. It was ‘human’ to eat the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. The only problem is that only God can understand good and evil. Genesis is a mockery of this whole dilemma. The solution is to recognize that we are human, we are finite, and we should not need to understand everything about something or someone to love it or them. Simply trust and love. Knowledge is great. We should try to know all we can about good and evil, but we should not lust over such knowledge or we will succumb to an overwhelming fear of our inadequacy and will isolate ourselves from God just as our first parents did.

 

[grannymh]

First of all, I want to preface this by saying that I am a cradle Catholic. I have really been struggling with my faith for the last couple years. I came to this forum once before and got a bit involved in a discussion that was helpful to me, but I’m still looking for some answers. Please be gentle and know that this is coming from a place of honest searching for deeper meaning in my religious life. Thank you in advance.

I have searched the forum, but didn’t find another thread on the problem of evil. If I missed it, please point me in the right direction.

So my basic question is why is their evil. I would ask a bit more, though. I have gotten the free will answer, but I guess it doesn’t satisfy me. Neither does the “we don’t know what good consequences come from bad actions” line of reasoning.

I’m not sure exactly where I’m going with this, but the classic “if God is all good, all knowing and all powerful, then why is there evil?” is a good place to start.

Actually, the best place for learning about the problem of evil is to learn absolutely all the Catholic doctrines involving all the aspects of Original Sin beginning with the first, real, true human person biblically known as Adam.