F
Flopfoot
Guest
Warning: this post won’t help you with your faith. But I’m not here to convince you of my ideas (so I won’t be back to debate any answers, though I might post to thank people for good answers). What I want to do is express my line of thought and see how you would answer it.
Can God be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent when cancer exists? Well, why does cancer exist? There are several causes but one possibility is that ionising radiation hits the DNA inside your cells, causing the programming of the cell to go haywire and replicate without limit. For the universe to not have the possibility of people getting cancer, you would either have to change the way electromagnetic radiation works, or you would have to change the way DNA works.
That universe sounds very different to the one we have now. But that’s a man’s perspective - when we design things, we are used to having to make sacrifices in some areas to get benefits in other areas. We can’t make a perfect bridge (for example). But God can make a perfect bridge. Further, God can make a universe that is almost identical to this one except it’s not possible for people to get cancer.
To say that he couldn’t do that would be to say he is not omnipotent.
To say that he didn’t know about the possibility of people getting cancer when he designed the universe this way would be to say he is not omniscient.
To say that he wanted people to get cancer would be to say he’s not omnibenevolent.
Seriously, how could you justify it? As Catholics we believe “the ends don’t justify the means” so even if God knew that some good would come from the existence of cancer, it wouldn’t be worth the harm it does. It is indiscriminate, harming innocent children and old folk alike. It is a very slow and painful death (death by crucifixion doesn’t take nearly as long…)
Then we must have to find an explanation that says that God didn’t originally intend for the universe to have cancer and that it was introduced by someone else. But who could do that? Anyone who could change a universe to make radiation or DNA work significantly differently without breaking everything else in the process could create their own universe. Or if we blame the sin of Adam and Eve, it’s still God who is deciding what changes to make in the universe, therefore it’s still him who is choosing to make a universe with cancer instead of one without.
Can God be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent when cancer exists? Well, why does cancer exist? There are several causes but one possibility is that ionising radiation hits the DNA inside your cells, causing the programming of the cell to go haywire and replicate without limit. For the universe to not have the possibility of people getting cancer, you would either have to change the way electromagnetic radiation works, or you would have to change the way DNA works.
That universe sounds very different to the one we have now. But that’s a man’s perspective - when we design things, we are used to having to make sacrifices in some areas to get benefits in other areas. We can’t make a perfect bridge (for example). But God can make a perfect bridge. Further, God can make a universe that is almost identical to this one except it’s not possible for people to get cancer.
To say that he couldn’t do that would be to say he is not omnipotent.
To say that he didn’t know about the possibility of people getting cancer when he designed the universe this way would be to say he is not omniscient.
To say that he wanted people to get cancer would be to say he’s not omnibenevolent.
Seriously, how could you justify it? As Catholics we believe “the ends don’t justify the means” so even if God knew that some good would come from the existence of cancer, it wouldn’t be worth the harm it does. It is indiscriminate, harming innocent children and old folk alike. It is a very slow and painful death (death by crucifixion doesn’t take nearly as long…)
Then we must have to find an explanation that says that God didn’t originally intend for the universe to have cancer and that it was introduced by someone else. But who could do that? Anyone who could change a universe to make radiation or DNA work significantly differently without breaking everything else in the process could create their own universe. Or if we blame the sin of Adam and Eve, it’s still God who is deciding what changes to make in the universe, therefore it’s still him who is choosing to make a universe with cancer instead of one without.