The problem with those that bring up "the problem with evil"

[Trevor_Stamm]

On the contrary, he proved that this is NOT the best of the possible worlds - since it is DYNAMIC, it is constantly changing. Only a static world (without changes) could be described as “best”.

If you could briefly explain why the unchangeable world is the best possible world, would much appreciate it.

 

[Spock]

If you could briefly explain why the unchangeable world is the best possible world, would much appreciate it.

I said that only a static would COULD be the best one. Something that is changing cannot be the “best one”, because its quality is fluctuating. Our world is constantly changing. An illness which was uncurable yesterday is curable today - which enhances the quality of the world. Even the poor people today live much better than the kings did 500 years ago.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Is that this epistemic question presupposes the ontology of evil, and thus acknowledges it as a reality. If so, then the antithesis is also true. How does this argument “disprove” the existence of God for some, yet requires to ontologically prove evil first? Yet the same people that use this argument, later disregard the reality of good and evil.

Thoughts?

Unless I’m mistaking your question, the problem of evil is an internal critique, not an external one. It’s denying the logical consistency within a given system.

Why is that problematic?

 

[antunesaa]

1. Evil is not an entity, it is the description of a certain behavior. As such your first sentence is already false.
2. An evil behavior is intentionally allowing or causing unnecessary, gratuitous harm to a being with a nervous system.
3. Harm is disrupting the working of biological functions and exciting certain nerve endings of the being.
4. As such it is a perfectly secular concept, unlike the presupposition of an “ontological evil”, whatever that might be.
5. It does not disprove the existence of God.
6. It does disprove the assumption that God is both omnipotent, omniscient and good. (Euthyphro dilemma)
7. Since the existence of unnecessary harm is obvious, the believers must come up with all sorts of “lame excuses” for God.
8. An excellent summary of those excuses can be found here: read them and weep

So yours is a uber-utilitarian definition of evil. It seems that a massive and universal supply of pain-killers to molify the nervous endings of afflicted humans, coupled with a generous provision of sedatives and tranquilizers for the offenders, would suffice to eliminate all evil in the world, at least as far as humans are concerned. In a godless universe all you can say is that evil occurs, as there are no culprits. In fact, if you say so, you cannot even be trusted because the utterly sophisticated electrochemical machinery in your brain directed to say just that the blob of cells we were led to call “you”. You ascribe no incompleteness to physical reality; therefore, things just happen and true decisions are impossible. This leads me to think (if I can call it thinking) that in your godless universe talk of evil is a little bit irrelevant; it just happens; we can somehow direct ourselves to help those in need and administer them a pain-killer; and we end up neurotic and a tad nihilist. I’m not saying this is impossible; it’s just logically inconsistent with notions involving choices by a will, and this goes against mine and most people’s intuition.

I think the notion that the physical world is incomplete is much more flexible and intuitive. By incompleteness I mean the assumption that different states of the physical world are compatible with the same historical path of matter-energy and the laws of the natural world, and that a will (not a law) can act upon the physical world to chose among different possible states. The problem with this notion for an atheist like you is that it requires the abandonement of the materialist’s belief that all that exists is physical and explains itself. In other words, you have to admit the real existence of supernatural objects such as a will. As a corollary, you have to admit that a supernatural God may exist. My take is that such God exists because, under incompleteness, the physical world cannot explain itself, therefore forcing us to admit that something outside the natural world made some choices. We call God to the entity who made the very first choices.

I know that this God sounds like a postulate; and it is one. But, just like in physics postulates such as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle or the Pauli’s Exclusion Principle are needed to underpin very successful and complex theories of matter, so a postulate like this is needed to make sense of the world. I should add that I have to conclude that human wills are also objects outside the natural world.

Going back to the beginning: the problem of evil makes full sense in a world with God; in a godless world, evil inflicted upon “sentient beings” is just a prompt for some kind of action aimed at reducing pain. Somehow it is a minor problem because it can be solved by science, human evolution and the inevitable action of humans endowed with brains sensitive to particular experiences of fellow humans. But, of course, the problem cannot be solved at all. As the importance of the problem of evil increases, so the need to confront God (and hence admitting His existence) to the problem arises. Between these two extremes, I always thought that the “lame excuses” were better than the irrelevancy of the problem.

 

[Spock]

So yours is a uber-utilitarian definition of evil. It seems that a massive and universal supply of pain-killers to molify the nervous endings of afflicted humans, coupled with a generous provision of sedatives and tranquilizers for the offenders, would suffice to eliminate all evil in the world, at least as far as humans are concerned.

Not even close. No amount of pain-killers would alleviate the pain and suffering of someone who has been mutilated and raped by a psychopath. The offender’s problem could be solved if we had more information. If we could know in advance about the desires and plans of those psychopaths, we could prevent their actions. I can already hear the nonsense of “but what about their free wiill?”. Who cares? We put the offenders into jails to prevent the repeated actions - which is interfering with their “free will”. Are you arguing that we should let them go free - in the name of their “precious” free will?

In a godless universe all you can say is that evil occurs, as there are no culprits.

Of course there are culprits, the offenders themselves.

In fact, if you say so, you cannot even be trusted because the utterly sophisticated electrochemical machinery in your brain directed to say just that the blob of cells we were led to call “you”. You ascribe no incompleteness to physical reality; therefore, things just happen and true decisions are impossible.

This is so dumb, that it leaves me speechless. It seems that you have no idea of the concept of emergent attributes, and that you think that materialism equates simple reductionism. You need to learn about it, before you can make a valid comment along those lines.

Going back to the beginning: the problem of evil makes full sense in a world with God; in a godless world, evil inflicted upon “sentient beings” is just a prompt for some kind of action aimed at reducing pain.

Reducing and preferably preventing pain and suffering. Every living being with a nervous system tries to prevent and eliminate the negative effects inflicted on their nervous system. (You too!).

Somehow it is a minor problem because it can be solved by science, human evolution and the inevitable action of humans endowed with brains sensitive to particular experiences of fellow humans.

Hopefully… as soon as possible.

But, of course, the problem cannot be solved at all. As the importance of the problem of evil increases, so the need to confront God (and hence admitting His existence) to the problem arises. Between these two extremes, I always thought that the “lame excuses” were better than the irrelevancy of the problem.

That is your decison to make. The point is that an “infinitely loving and caring being” cannot be reconciled with the existence of “gratuitous pain and suffering”. Just read the link provided at the end of the previous post and see just how ridiculous and lame those excuses are…

 

[SGWessells]

You don’t understand that God couldn’t intervene because if you limit free will in any way, it won’t be free will. If I were to knock a gun out of a murderer’s hands, I would be taking away his free will.

But if you don’t, you’re taking away the victim’s free will, by allowing him or her to be murdered. Either way, somebody’s free will is denied, so that shouldn’t be a factor in whether God should intervene, or absolve him from inaction.

 

[jochoa]

Humanity cannot be either free or not free. Only individuals can be. We would be better off if God would not have created the people who turn out to be evil. And specifically, the victims certainly would be better off. And, please none of the nonsense that “suffering is good for you”.

I think…if individuals of a species are free, then the species as a whole is free. However, that is adiscussion for another thread.

How do you define evil?

I interpret True Evil as Always being Impatient and Mean with all the body, mind, will and spirit towards others and the self.
Therefore, evil must be any action or thought or feeling of impatience or meanness.
Given that, if He did not create people who turned out to do some evil, He would not have created Adam and Eve, and out the door goes the rest of Humanity.

Thoughts?

 

[SGWessells]

Spock wrote: "Amazing line of thought. If you say that “goodness” is compatible with allowing rape, torture, genocide et al. - then what does then “goodness” mean? With your definition of “good”, who needs “evil”? "

This brings to my mind the question of the purpose of revelation. Assuming for the sake of argument that

A) God so moved the human authors of the Bible to write what God wished without error, and

B) God did this with the express intent that said writing would make his character intelligible to us, as far as our capacities permit.
Then what follows?

If God wants us to know that he is good, he will reveal the goodness of his character in ways we can understand as good (B). That means that his goodness must parallel ours, and adhere to the same standards. Therefore, hiding behind the incomprehensibility argument (God may have purposes we know nothing about which justify doing or permitting things we would characterize as evil if a human did or permitted them) would imply that God failed in his purpose B, which tells against his wisdom. If God is a competent writer, we must be able to judge the actions he commits, or commands others to commit, according to our human moral standards, since God presumably shaped his revelation so that we could understand it according to our human morality. I see no reason why an omnipotent being who specifically designed our character and intellect would not be able to do this. If he did not do this, his revelation fails to reveal him accurately, and we have no reason to trust it. If he did do this, then calling God good has no meaning to us.

Thus, if a human dictator did the things God does in the OT, he would be condemned as a monster on the level of Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin. Why does God get a blank check? Because we define him as good? How do we justify such a definition if his actions are evil? Judge the tree by its fruit, we are told.
In short, if God is good even though his actions seem evil to us, and would be evil id a man did them, then the word “good” as applied to God has no meaning. If God is good in some mysterious sense we cannot by nature understand, then his infinite wisdom is unable to give us a revelation of his character which we can understand, which makes it hard to attribute infinite wisdom to him.
Either way, it seems that at least one of God’s traditional attributes is questionable, or the Bible is an uninspired, solely human document. Either way, the Church is mistaken in one of its teachings.

 

[danserr]

Spock wrote: "Amazing line of thought. If you say that “goodness” is compatible with allowing rape, torture, genocide et al. - then what does then “goodness” mean? With your definition of “good”, who needs “evil”? "

This brings to my mind the question of the purpose of revelation. Assuming for the sake of argument that

A) God so moved the human authors of the Bible to write what God wished without error, and

B) God did this with the express intent that said writing would make his character intelligible to us, as far as our capacities permit.
Then what follows?

If God wants us to know that he is good, he will reveal the goodness of his character in ways we can understand as good (B). That means that his goodness must parallel ours, and adhere to the same standards. Therefore, hiding behind the incomprehensibility argument (God may have purposes we know nothing about which justify doing or permitting things we would characterize as evil if a human did or permitted them) would imply that God failed in his purpose B, which tells against his wisdom. If God is a competent writer, we must be able to judge the actions he commits, or commands others to commit, according to our human moral standards, since God presumably shaped his revelation so that we could understand it according to our human morality. I see no reason why an omnipotent being who specifically designed our character and intellect would not be able to do this. If he did not do this, his revelation fails to reveal him accurately, and we have no reason to trust it. If he did do this, then calling God good has no meaning to us.

Thus, if a human dictator did the things God does in the OT, he would be condemned as a monster on the level of Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin. Why does God get a blank check? Because we define him as good? How do we justify such a definition if his actions are evil? Judge the tree by its fruit, we are told.
In short, if God is good even though his actions seem evil to us, and would be evil id a man did them, then the word “good” as applied to God has no meaning. If God is good in some mysterious sense we cannot by nature understand, then his infinite wisdom is unable to give us a revelation of his character which we can understand, which makes it hard to attribute infinite wisdom to him.
Either way, it seems that at least one of God’s traditional attributes is questionable, or the Bible is an uninspired, solely human document. Either way, the Church is mistaken in one of its teachings.

Even, though B is the case, it does not follow that God does so all at once. It is a basic principle of most OT hermeneutics that God gradually reveals his character to mankind. He may have done commanded (really allowed) some of those OT israelite actions because he knew that they were not at a point where they could make further sense of God’s full character. That may have been the best they could do at the time.

Second, it might be the case (as I said earlier in this thread) that the Isaelites were simply mistaken in attributing those commands to God. This would not prevent us from regarding the Bible as inspired, only prevent us from regarding it as literally inerrant in every detail. Nonetheless we could still regard it as inspired, and maybe even inerant when understood in proper context.

Finally, most people simply don’t understand those OT passages that you refer to. I advise Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster who actually puts those passages of the OT in historical, social, and ethical perspective.
amazon.com/God-Moral-Monster-Making-Testament/dp/0801072751/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318729849&sr=8-1

 

[SGWessells]

Dansser wrote: “Denying God on the basis of evil then would be like a child (or me) looking at a complicated mathematical equation drawn by an expert mathematician and concluding it is nonsense because I can’t understand it. I would be wrong, because I am not well placed to assess whether or not the equation is good or bad.”

The problem with this analogy proving your case is that you could not know whether it is right either. Only another expert mathematician could do so. Applied to God, all this could support would be agnosticism.

You can’t establish the attributes of God by simple decree. You can’t define God into existence. You can say “God is morally perfect,” but that doesn’t make him morally perfect. Nor does the GCB argument amount to anything more than establishing God’s existence by definition. You say the GCB is the classic, theist definition of God. If I say, I conceive of a different God and assert that he is greater, what can you say to disprove me? The whole argument rests on an assumed agreement on the meaning of the word “greatest.” But on what is that definition based? On the greatest being WE can conceive. But suppose someone conceives of something greater, for example, “there is a being greater than Yahweh.” That is a conceivable being, since I have just conceived it. By GCB logic, there must be a being greater than Yahweh (and a being greater than that being, and on ad infinitum). If you can do it, so can I.

 

[SGWessells]

Perplexity wrote: " Given that God exists necessarily and possesses certain attributes (include perfect goodness) essentially, the theist will be content to say God holds his moral beliefs necessarily. "

But how do we know God possesses the attribute of perfect goodness? We can say, “God is good because he commands X and forbids Y”. But how do we know it is good to command X and forbid Y rather than the reverse? If we say it is good for any reason other than “because God commands them,” then our morality is grounded on something other than God, and he happens to agree with us or it. If we say, “because God commands them,” we argue in a circle.

 

[SGWessells]

Trevor Stamm wrote: " it’s funny how we all, theists and atheists alike, condemn what he did because all he was doing was following an atheistic outline designed by Marx and Sir Francis Galton notion of eugenics."

Can we all stop blaming Hitler on Darwin? Here is what Hitler had to say about his motivation, and he was a better authority on that subject than any of us:

“The undermining of the existence of human culture by the destruction of its bearer seems in the eyes of the folkish philosophy the most execrable crime. Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.”

“Hence today I beleive that I amacting in accordance with the will of the AlmightyCreator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

" The task of preserving and advancing the highest humanity, given to this earth by the benevolence of the Almighty, seems a truly high mission." 1943. See Toland, Adolf Hitler, p. 398. Doesn’t sound very atheist to me.

The Nazis disapproved of evolution because it showed a common ancestry for Germans and Jews. Eugenics is based on a different and defective biology, and has nothing to do with evolution. Neither does Communism.

Also, that argument cuts both ways. If you can refute atheism by the evil actions of Communists, by the same logic you can refute Christianity by the persecutions, slavery, and the Inquisition perpetrated in the name of Christ.

There was a copy of Das Kapital in Darwin’s library, but at his death, the pages were uncut, showing that he never read it. I don’t know whether Galton was a Communist or not, but unless you have some evidence better than this, better lay off the polemics. To tar a philosophy, you need more tar on your brush than that.

 

[SGWessells]

Dansser wrote: "God’s commands are necessary expressions of his just, loving nature, so saying “what if God commanded child abuse” is like saying “if a square circle existed…”

“[Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.” 2 Ki 2: 23,24.

"for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me…"Ex. 20:5

“The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the ends of the earth…and they shall besiege you in all the towns throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you. And you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.” Dt. 28: 49a, 52b, 53.

 

[danserr]

Dansser wrote: "God’s commands are necessary expressions of his just, loving nature, so saying “what if God commanded child abuse” is like saying “if a square circle existed…”

“[Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.” 2 Ki 2: 23,24.

.

I have already answered this and you have ignored me, I will answer one more time, but not repeat myself again. Do you really think that I am totally unaware of those OT passages? I know even worse ones than that. If we are going to discuss such things though, we have to do it seriously, not simply go through the Old Testament, looking for such passages in a childish game of “gotcha.”

I have already told you that at most this would force the Christian to question literal biblical inerrancy. Perhaps the Israelites were simple mistaken in attributing such commands to God. This would make the bible still inspired, but perhaps not literally inerrant. There are other explanations as well. But more seriously, I am not sure we even have to to that. Hence the reason I recommend Paul Copan’s book, Is God a Moral Monster. It is inexpensive and designed for a popular audience, and easily available on Amazon. Unlike the atheist who simply goes through the Old Testament pulling out passages like you did in a childish game of “gotcha”, Copan, actually studies those passages in context looking at their social, historical, and ethical issues involved.

At most you are not attacking Christianity’s belief in God’s goodness, only a literal understanding of biblical inerrancy, but, as I say, I am not sure you are even doing that.

Dansser wrote: “Denying God on the basis of evil then would be like a child (or me) looking at a complicated mathematical equation drawn by an expert mathematician and concluding it is nonsense because I can’t understand it. I would be wrong, because I am not well placed to assess whether or not the equation is good or bad.”

The problem with this analogy proving your case is that you could not know whether it is right either. Only another expert mathematician could do so. Applied to God, all this could support would be agnosticism.

I don’t think you understood my argument. I am saying that you cognitive considerations alone do not warrant us in believing that God does not have morally sufficient reasons for allowing the existence of evil. The non-seum inference the atheist makes in support of this fails because we are not well placed to assess if such a being has a justifying reason. Just like the math example. My only point is to show that we are not justified in thinking that the existence of evil is a reason for doubting the existence of the Christian God. As to believing in God, obviously, I have other reasons, so am not stuck with agnosticism.

ou can’t establish the attributes of God by simple decree. You can’t define God into existence. You can say “God is morally perfect,” but that doesn’t make him morally perfect. Nor does the GCB argument amount to anything more than establishing God’s existence by definition. You say the GCB is the classic, theist definition of God. If I say, I conceive of a different God and assert that he is greater, what can you say to disprove me? The whole argument rests on an assumed agreement on the meaning of the word “greatest.” But on what is that definition based? On the greatest being WE can conceive. But suppose someone conceives of something greater, for example, “there is a being greater than Yahweh.” That is a conceivable being, since I have just conceived it. By GCB logic, there must be a being greater than Yahweh (and a being greater than that being, and on ad infinitum). If you can do it, so can I.

I think God is morally perfect based on the moral argument, not mere definition. The purpose of this thread is not to show this, however, only to show that the atheist does not have rational grounds for doubting Hid goodness based on the evil of the universe. By GCB, I do not mean the greatest being I can conceive, I mean the greatest being that is metaphysically conceivable. You have not given an example of someone conceiving a being greater than Yahweh, only imagining that they are imagining that they can. And no, you cannor go ad infinitum. A GCB is omniscent. This means he knows all truths. It is not possible to know more truths than this, so you cannot conceive of a being that know more. There are limits. On this see, reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8363

And as to Hitler, it is well known, that Hitler was not religiously motivated; he was not concerned with the Jews for religious reasons, but *racial *ones, hence his interest in the Aryan master race. And he simply found it convenient to try to use the Church as a cover, but this is no evidence that he was religiously motivated.

 

[antunesaa]

Are you arguing that we should let them go free - in the name of their “precious” free will?

Of course there are culprits, the offenders themselves.

This is so dumb, that it leaves me speechless. It seems that you have no idea of the concept of emergent attributes, and that you think that materialism equates simple reductionism. You need to learn about it, before you can make a valid comment along those lines.

Reducing and preferably preventing pain and suffering. Every living being with a nervous system tries to prevent and eliminate the negative effects inflicted on their nervous system. (You too!).

That is your decison to make. The point is that an “infinitely loving and caring being” cannot be reconciled with the existence of “gratuitous pain and suffering”. Just read the link provided at the end of the previous post and see just how ridiculous and lame those excuses are…

About your first comments, let me just say that I’m well aware of the distinction between non-reductionists and reductionists, as well as the concept of emergence. The problem here is that free will is a concept that does not arise from parts of the physical world; true free will cannot exist in the physical world if all you admit is immanence. Why don’t you just admit there’s no free will? If I were an atheist (and actually I was one for a relatively brief period in my life) I would consider that question settled and live with it.

As for your last sentence, within an immanent framework you’re right. But for a theist matters are not settled in this world and there’s hope that justice, in the end, exists. In fact, that is the only hope justice is ever done towards the overwhelming majority of people. Is this so difficult to understand?

 

[Spock]

I think…if individuals of a species are free, then the species as a whole is free. However, that is adiscussion for another thread.

Not necessarily. If a floor is made up of identical tiles, and every tile is square, then it does not follow that the whole floor is square.

How do you define evil?

I interpret True Evil as Always being Impatient and Mean with all the body, mind, will and spirit towards others and the self.
Therefore, evil must be any action or thought or feeling of impatience or meanness.
Given that, if He did not create people who turned out to do some evil, He would not have created Adam and Eve, and out the door goes the rest of Humanity.

Here is the definition I use: Evil is intentionally causing or allowing gratuitous pain and suffering to a being with a nervous system. And I do not subscribe to “thought-crimes”, so thoughts cannot be “evil”, only actions can.

God could have created humans who would have only a certain amount of freedom, sufficient to separate the “goats from the sheep”. To be precise: allow us the freedom to worship or not to worship God. Then he could have had the “excuse” to torture eternally all the “non-worshippers” and reward all the worshippers with eternal bliss. (I don’t know which one is worse.) There is no need for the extra freedom to be able to kill, torture, rape etc… each other.

 

[Spock]

The problem here is that free will is a concept that does not arise from parts of the physical world; true free will cannot exist in the physical world if all you admit is immanence.

How would you know that? I would love to be omniscient myself…

Why don’t you just admit there’s no free will?

I don’t know if there is free will or not. NO ONE knows. We believe that there is, and behave accordingly.

As for your last sentence, within an immanent framework you’re right. But for a theist matters are not settled in this world and there’s hope that justice, in the end, exists.

And here you express a fundamental logical error. Even if there would be some “prefect” justice in the hereafter, it could not retroactively justify God’s “neglect” here. It is fine if you have a faith that it will be better “over there”, but to say that it can justify the misery in this life is simply nonsense.

In fact, that is the only hope justice is ever done towards the overwhelming majority of people. Is this so difficult to understand?

Well, that is just too bad. Who cares what some majority “hopes for”? I understand that people prefer faith to reality, when the reality is not palatable. I feel sorry for those people, but they need to lift themselves by their boorstaps. All I can provide is some help with these posts.

 

[Spock]

Spock wrote: "Amazing line of thought. If you say that “goodness” is compatible with allowing rape, torture, genocide et al. - then what does then “goodness” mean? With your definition of “good”, who needs “evil”? "

This brings to my mind the question of the purpose of revelation. Assuming for the sake of argument that

A) God so moved the human authors of the Bible to write what God wished without error, and

B) God did this with the express intent that said writing would make his character intelligible to us, as far as our capacities permit.
Then what follows?

If God wants us to know that he is good, he will reveal the goodness of his character in ways we can understand as good (B). That means that his goodness must parallel ours, and adhere to the same standards. Therefore, hiding behind the incomprehensibility argument (God may have purposes we know nothing about which justify doing or permitting things we would characterize as evil if a human did or permitted them) would imply that God failed in his purpose B, which tells against his wisdom. If God is a competent writer, we must be able to judge the actions he commits, or commands others to commit, according to our human moral standards, since God presumably shaped his revelation so that we could understand it according to our human morality. I see no reason why an omnipotent being who specifically designed our character and intellect would not be able to do this. If he did not do this, his revelation fails to reveal him accurately, and we have no reason to trust it. If he did do this, then calling God good has no meaning to us.

Thus, if a human dictator did the things God does in the OT, he would be condemned as a monster on the level of Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin. Why does God get a blank check? Because we define him as good? How do we justify such a definition if his actions are evil? Judge the tree by its fruit, we are told.
In short, if God is good even though his actions seem evil to us, and would be evil id a man did them, then the word “good” as applied to God has no meaning. If God is good in some mysterious sense we cannot by nature understand, then his infinite wisdom is unable to give us a revelation of his character which we can understand, which makes it hard to attribute infinite wisdom to him.
Either way, it seems that at least one of God’s traditional attributes is questionable, or the Bible is an uninspired, solely human document. Either way, the Church is mistaken in one of its teachings.

Beautifully said !!! Congratulations!

 

[antunesaa]

I don’t know if there is free will or not. NO ONE knows. We believe that there is, and behave accordingly.

And here you express a fundamental logical error. Even if there would be some “prefect” justice in the hereafter, it could not retroactively justify God’s “neglect” here. It is fine if you have a faith that it will be better “over there”, but to say that it can justify the misery in this life is simply nonsense.

Well, that is just too bad. Who cares what some majority “hopes for”? I understand that people prefer faith to reality, when the reality is not palatable. I feel sorry for those people, but they need to lift themselves by their boorstaps. All I can provide is some help with these posts.

I don’t agree with any of your arguments. The first one basically tells me that you hope there exists free will; otherwise you would not act upon belief in its existence. Fine for me but insufficient from someone who wants to draw his moral code from a materialistic philosophy.

Where’s the logical error? One of the basic consequences of admitting the existence of God is the recognition of our own feebleness; I have no problem accepting that what seems wrong now - such as one of my friends having a lymphoma right now - perhaps makes sense in a wider perspective that I am incapable of having now. I think the biggest blunder of atheism is precisely the belief in almost supernatural capabilities for our species. Evidence shows that we’re still the same treacherous, envious and venal people our ancestors were thousand of years ago - including the peoples portrayed in the Bible.

Your final remark is just another instance of what I have just said. “Poor people, the believers!” “They have to be helped!” “Let us help them getting out of the pit history put them in!” This is of course unbelievably arrogant. Actually I never thought about the need for a belief in God as a weakness; I think it is in fact a very strong point in favor of adopting a philosophy of the transcendent. While my observations are anecdotal, religious families (and in particular the Catholic ones) have the rather paradoxical characteristic of being gay, noisy and generally lively, precisely when they are under the oppression of religious belief. Go figure. (It must be said that the scientific literature robustly shows that strong religious beliefs correlate positively with measures of well-being.)

 

[SGWessells]

Dansser wrote: "Now if God had made us incapable of doing evil. Then we would not do evil. But we would not do evil because he made us incapable of it. Therefore our not doing evil would not be a free choice.

On the other hand, no one made God, so this would not apply to him. He can be free to do good but not evil. If humans could not do evil, it would be because God made us so, hence our choice would not be free. This however does not apply to God because he was unmade.

The issue is that God is incapable of doing evil, not the reason why he is incapable.

Likewise with God, we know some goods, perhaps many, but from our finite limited viewpoint. we do not have sufficient information to assess if such a being has morally sufficient reasons to allow evil.

In that case, we equally lack sufficient information to assess whether such a being has morally justifiable reasons for permitting evil. That is just as gratuitous. The only reasonable conclusion to the whole ST position is agnosticism regarding God’s moral stature.