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belorg
Guest
It is true that some things are pleasing to me and others are not.
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tonyrey
Guest
If evil doesn’t exist there is no problem of Evil for anyone. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!
Discipline is not usually pleasing because it involves inconvenience but it is good for a person.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Virtually everything anyone does will involve an inconvenience for someone.
When I drive to work and pass through a green light, the red light in the other direction inconveniences all those who must stop there.
Every right involves responsibility (and therefore inconvenience) on the part of others to respect that right or to positively act to support it. Feeding an infant child does inconvenience the parents. Are you saying it is immoral for the child to be fed since keeping him/her alive does involve inconvenience for someone? Or are you arguing that feeding the child is only moral when it does not involve inconvenience to the parents, but at the point it becomes inconvenient, then feeding the child is immoral? Or are you (merely) arguing that while being fed is pleasing to the child and therefore morally permissible, as soon a parents are inconvenienced the child has no right to expect to be fed since it would be immoral to inconvenience others?
I would argue, just the opposite, that moral acts are those which justify inconveniencing others precisely because a moral good owed must be upheld by all including anyone inconvenienced. It is the nature of the good itself, not the feature of “pleasantness” that justifies inconvenience precisely because emotive states are at the whim of individuals and are inherently unstable and frequently unpredictable.
Having forgotten my wallet at home, I would be greatly spared inconvenience and eminently pleased if I could simply lift $50 out of the wallet of a millionaire passerby (who would certainly not miss $50 - based upon the principle of diminishing marginal utility - and would not be inconvenienced, since I am an adept pick-pocket, by my helping myself to the cash.) My action would be morally acceptable based on your definition of pleasing to someone (me) and not inconveniencing anyone (the millionaire would not be inconvenienced by a marginal loss of $50.).
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davidv
Guest
Which provides no insight into whether what is pleasing to you is moral, or not. Meaning in the context of the OP, it is no help in furthering the understanding of evil.
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Semangelof
Guest
Could you explain this some more?
My question isn’t easy and you are currently engaged with a lot of people so if you don’t have time for it just ignore me.
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miodrag1963
Guest
I hope you are not an apologetic.
I am talking about the topic - the problem of evil. You are talking about the difference between always and sometimes. My message was clearly not that Church does not know anything, because I never diverted from the topic. I was always talking only about Church not having a clue about theodicy. I hope it is clear now.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
As opposed to apoplectic?
I hope you are not an apologetic.
Here we have another problem. Admitting that lack of certainty exists concerning a complete theodicy is not the same thing as “not having a clue.”
I am talking about the topic - the problem of evil. You are talking about the difference between always and sometimes. My message was clearly not that Church does not know anything, because I never diverted from the topic. I was always talking only about Church not having a clue about theodicy. I hope it is clear now.
I suggest you read Michael J. Murray’s Nature Red in Tooth and Claw for a clear explication how a multiplicity of “clues” could exist regarding a range of theodicies but still leave room for uncertainty.
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Abu
Guest
Not having a clue is what this poster shows.
There is no other institution that has explained, or can explain, God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil (theodicy) as has the Catholic Church established by Christ.
As created with free-will, it is mankind’s sin which is the root of all evil. Evil is a great marvel which shows the incredible reverence God has for the human nature He created. His permission of evil does not belittle His goodness.
As the revered Fr John A. Hardon, S.J., points out:
“God does not change the nature of things. He respects them. We may say that the perfection of the universe requires that some things should be indefectible, while others be allowed to change consistent with their nature. If evil were entirely swept away, Providence could ot regenerate and restore the integrity of things, and this would be a greater evil than the particular evils they suffer.” (St Thomas Aquinas, Compendium Theologiae, 142).
“On a broader scale, we may say that God permits evils in order that He may bring good out of them. Take away all evil and much good would go with it – e.g., the patience of the just supposes persecution from the unjust; and the charity of those who have, presumes there are others in need.”
The Catholic Catechism, Doubleday, 1975, p 81].
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polytropos
Guest
I agree. So often those who advance the argument from evil reject Catholic ideas like “evil as privation” without realizing that in doing so, they are begging the question and assuming the contradiction that they claim to be demonstrating. Indeed, if a materialist makes the argument from evil using his own definition, he would be saying that there is a contradiction between “conventional evil” (which could have no ontological character) and God’s existence.
The main problem that the problem of evil runs into is that there is no necessary contradiction between the Catholic conception of evil and God’s existence, since the atheist would have to demonstrate that it is impossible for God to have sufficient reason for allowing evil (all the while assuming that all Christian beliefs, metaphysics, etc. are true). Not only is that an absurd burden of proof that the atheist has taken on, but I find it hard to believe that it could be established without begging the question against other Catholic doctrines like the eternal soul and the beatific vision.
Of course, the atheist can argue against those various Christian beliefs, but then he has ceased making the argument from evil, and any appeals he makes to the problem of evil are red herrings.
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Portofino
Guest
I think I agree; you’ve helped me – through the other thread about “purposeless philosophy” – to see this
What I do think, though, is that this explanation of God having a reason is – in principle – completely open-ended. The world could have even indefinitely more suffering than it does, and we still couldn’t prove that God didn’t have a reason for it. An asteroid could have destroyed the earth – or still could destroy the earth – and we would never be able to prove that God did not have valid reasons (even though, somewhat paradoxically, we take the things that please us in this life – such as the asteroid averting earth – as evidence that God loves us; yet we can’t really say this, because the asteroid colliding with earth could not be adduced as proof that God doesn’t love us).
The mention of Deism – on the other thread – also reminded me of how open-ended this professed ignorance of God’s reasons can be; if the Incarnation had never happened; if miracles never occurred; if God never intervened in human affairs, we couldn’t say for sure that God didn’t love us, because God could have had perfectly valid reasons why complete non-intervention was necessary. Again, I’m bumping up a bit on the fact that nice, comforting things – all that is good in life – is taken as evidence that God does love us – that, we claim to understand with our ordinary, human understanding (as if, for once, human beings could understand God’s ways). It’s when things are bad or unpleasant, that we claim not to understand God’s ways (in a nightmare universe – or, in fact, in life as it is – things can be pleasant and we can see it as proof that someone loves us, yet that ascribing of love could be the misunderstanding; for all we know, they are manipulating us or torturing us…slowly, imperceptibly; just as we are capable of misunderstanding what causes us pain as not loving us, so we could – in principle – be capable of misunderstanding that which gives us pleasure as loving Us). The pessimist simply reverses this order – it’s when bad things happen that we understand God’s ways with our ordinary, human understanding; obviously, God doesn’t love us or does not exist.
But where I think Christians struggle with the problem of evil is that – as I think you grant – it is not simply an intellectual matter of knowing that God must have his reasons. If you don’t understand it - - if you don’t feel it – then it becomes a struggle to believe it. It’s easy to feel God’s love when the disease is cured – say, with the intercession of John Paul II – and the pain goes away. It’s harder to feel God’s love – not in principle, but in actuality – if the pain doesn’t relent, the condition worsens, and there is the very strong illusion that one’s prayers have fallen on deaf ears.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Ultimately, perhaps, it comes down to not ascribing to God purposes and motives which are necessarily those in concordance with human purposes and motives. It is a matter of continually seeking from God answers that he can and will provide in his time. Allowing God to “speak or act for himself,” so to speak, without presuming or holding him accountable to a particular course that we find satisfactory. In a very real sense, faith is trusting in God, not trusting in our preconceptions about what God should or should not do.I think I agree; you’ve helped me – through the other thread about “purposeless philosophy” – to see this
What I do think, though, is that this explanation of God having a reason is – in principle – completely open-ended. The world could have even indefinitely more suffering than it does, and we still couldn’t prove that God didn’t have a reason for it. An asteroid could have destroyed the earth – or still could destroy the earth – and we would never be able to prove that God did not have valid reasons (even though, somewhat paradoxically, we take the things that please us in this life – such as the asteroid averting earth – as evidence that God loves us; yet we can’t really say this, because the asteroid colliding with earth could not be adduced as proof that God doesn’t love us).
The mention of Deism – on the other thread – also reminded me of how open-ended this professed ignorance of God’s reasons can be; if the Incarnation had never happened; if miracles never occurred; if God never intervened in human affairs, we couldn’t say for sure that God didn’t love us, because God could have had perfectly valid reasons why complete non-intervention was necessary. Again, I’m bumping up a bit on the fact that nice, comforting things – all that is good in life – is taken as evidence that God does love us – that, we claim to understand with our ordinary, human understanding (as if, for once, human beings could understand God’s ways). It’s when things are bad or unpleasant, that we claim not to understand God’s ways (in a nightmare universe – or, in fact, in life as it is – things can be pleasant and we can see it as proof that someone loves us, yet that ascribing of love could be the misunderstanding; for all we know, they are manipulating us or torturing us…slowly, imperceptibly; just as we are capable of misunderstanding what causes us pain as not loving us, so we could – in principle – be capable of misunderstanding that which gives us pleasure as loving Us). The pessimist simply reverses this order – it’s when bad things happen that we understand God’s ways with our ordinary, human understanding; obviously, God doesn’t love us or does not exist.
But where I think Christians struggle with the problem of evil is that – as I think you grant – it is not simply an intellectual matter of knowing that God must have his reasons. If you don’t understand it - - if you don’t feel it – then it becomes a struggle to believe it. It’s easy to feel God’s love when the disease is cured – say, with the intercession of John Paul II – and the pain goes away. It’s harder to feel God’s love – not in principle, but in actuality – if the pain doesn’t relent, the condition worsens, and there is the very strong illusion that one’s prayers have fallen on deaf ears.
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polytropos
Guest
I am glad.I think I agree; you’ve helped me – through the other thread about “purposeless philosophy” – to see this
I think there is a bit of complexity to the issue. On a philosophical basis we know that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and generous. We know that our existence at every moment is ultimately dependent on Him, and we know that we are uniquely rational in a way analogical to His intellect. So far there is really nothing to suggest a contradiction between God and evil; in fact, since we are not Pure Act or Goodness, evil in the respect of a failure to fulfill final causes is pretty inevitable (because we cannot instantiate our forms perfectly as a consequence of having potentiality) in any created thing.
So on the solely philosophical basis, there are some things we don’t know. We know that our souls survive death, so we might suspect that directing the intellect toward the Good during life is proper (since the body does not, on a strictly philosophical analysis, survive death), but we would not know about heaven, hell, or specific consequences (just that not directing the will toward the Good could only be worse). We could not distinguish between mortal and venial sins, we could not know of the necessity of sacramental confession, etc.
So I see the Incarnation as a revelation of some of those things that we don’t know: what happens after death, how to achieve eternal beatitude, etc. In that respect, the things I take as expressions of God’s love are His holding us in being at every moment, His creation of us in His image, and the Incarnation. Strictly “good” things in the world are instances of the Supreme Intellect’s will (as we find through the Fifth Way), but on a purely philosophical account, without knowing exactly what the consequences for good and evil are, I don’t know if we would conclude that they are expressions of His love for us. What we could conclude is that “good” actions (in the natural law sense) are right and just.
So I guess I see the revelation to give us the whole truth (and to avoid the inevitable “admixture of errors”), as well as our creation and sustained existence in general, as the main expression of God’s love for us. I would not dispute that God has His hand in the good things that happen to us, but I would add that He makes good come out of the bad as well, and ultimately everything comes back to his supreme generosity in creating us and giving us a shot at eternal beatitude.
Yes, I would agree. Although, I think the Christian tradition confirms faith in the face of evil as perhaps the noblest of all virtues.
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belorg
Guest
Of course denying the existence of evil would solve the PoE, but Catholics do not deny evil, so they cannot use this as a cop-out.
Discipline is not good under my definition of good and evil. It is, on average, more good than evil, though. So, in the absense of alternatives discipline may be the best available option, whihc does not make it objectively and absolutely good.
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belorg
Guest
Since that’s the way I define morality, it does provide insight.
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belorg
Guest
That’s why virtually nothing is completely good or completely evil.
I don’t go by black and white scenarios.
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belorg
Guest
Most people who believe in a an all-omni God also belive in th existence of objective evil or at least in what this God would regard as evil.
Whether this is actually true does not matter, because the PoE tries to show that IF an all-omni God exists and IF evil exists, those two are incompatible.
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belorg
Guest
You are talking about the logical problem of evil, to which Alvin Plantinga answered with his famous Free Will Defense, in which he came up with an extremely far-fetched scenario in which God and evil were compatible.
And I agree, if there is one possible sufficient reason for God to allow evil, then the logical PoE is defeated. However, this is like saying that the fact that there is a 1 in 10^10000000000000000000000000000000 chance that the constants of the universe are fine-tuned by chance alone defeats the fine-tuning argument and yet, technically, it does if the fine-tuning argument is posited as a logical argument.
But there is still the evidential problem of evil, which does not disappear in light of the beatific vision and the eternal soul, especially when at least some of those eternal souls run the risk of eternal torture (or unpleasantness)
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tonyrey
Guest
Your denial that evil exists prevents you from regarding it as a problem.
If evil doesn’t exist - as you claim - neither of those statements make sense. You’re trying to have it both ways…
“best” also implies that “good” - and “evil” - is a valid description.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
It would be without purpose if God created a universe incapable of producing evil. It would be as if he was just creating more of himself. Nonsense. So the problem of evil goes away when you see that God tolerates his opposite without having to love it.
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