J
JDaniel
Guest
That’s the proverbial conundrum, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”
Just my opinion, but, I think evil and free will occured simultaneously.
JD
- Status
Just my opinion, but, I think evil and free will occured simultaneously.
JD
J
JDaniel
Guest
From a Catholic point of view, your view is impoverished. Your view discounts that babies are clothed in invincible ignorance and therefore go directly to Heaven, bypassing Purgatory. You, a worldly man, believe that being here on earth is the better of the two. I would say that you are suffering from the delusion of the beneficent slave owner - only you know what’s best for your slaves, and being slaves on your grounds is what is best.
A fabulous rationale for the intricacies of slave ownership.
JD
J
JDaniel
Guest
F
Fran65
Guest
You say invented, I say created.
Invented, created, evil, good. Lets call the whole thing off.
(with apologies to Louis Armstrong)
Invented, created, evil, good. Lets call the whole thing off.
(with apologies to Louis Armstrong)
C
crowonsnow
Guest
So the babies that this god drowned in the Noah flood were evil but only because of invincible ignorance, and so they went to heaven. This means heaven will be filled with persons who never heard about the Christian religion. Hell will be the Christian place.
Twain was right after all.
J
JDaniel
Guest
Why, yes, you are somewhat correct.
The first sentence hereinabove must be a translation from some other language as it doesn’t follow normal English language juxtaposition protocol. Could you elaborate?
And, your second sentence seems to present some sort of conclusion, but, I’m not sure what it is. Could you elaborate?
And, you third sentence is another conclusion of some sort. Could you elaborate?
Overall. I’d say from the tone of it that you’re upset about something?
JD
C
crowonsnow
Guest
Consider it all tongue in cheek. We need that hand waving icon.
F
Fred_Costello
Guest
Here is my take on evil and suffering:
To an atheist, suffering is an unpleasant aspect of biochemistry. Because life itself has no rhyme or reason, suffering is just something that happens, just as our very existence is just something that happened. Humans are just intelligent mosquitoes, animated rocks. Human life has no purpose so there is no reason to stay alive. Human life is pointless so suffering is pointless.
To a Protestant, suffering is a mystery when it happens to good people. Bad people may deserve it; good people don’t. Most Protestants think that faith alone assures them of salvation, no actions or attitudes of their own have any bearing on their life after death; therefore, suffering is useless, an inexplicable mystery of God’s creation.
To a Catholic, suffering can be beneficial. In the Gospel, Jesus reminds us that the towers that fell on some apparently innocent people could fall on bad people. Both good and bad suffer. St. Paul wrote that he made up in his own suffering what was lacking in Christ’s; namely, St. Paul’s participation. Just as Christ suffered to atone for sins, so can we, by offering our suffering in union with Christ’s suffering on the cross. We atone not just for our sins but also for the sins of others, just as a mother suffers in childbirth for the sake of her child. The suffering of a child, too young to know about Christ, can be borne by his parents in this same spirit of atonement.
Our understanding of suffering clearly depends on our understanding of human life, here and after death; however, there are secondary benefits from suffering that all can appreciate:
To an atheist, suffering is an unpleasant aspect of biochemistry. Because life itself has no rhyme or reason, suffering is just something that happens, just as our very existence is just something that happened. Humans are just intelligent mosquitoes, animated rocks. Human life has no purpose so there is no reason to stay alive. Human life is pointless so suffering is pointless.
To a Protestant, suffering is a mystery when it happens to good people. Bad people may deserve it; good people don’t. Most Protestants think that faith alone assures them of salvation, no actions or attitudes of their own have any bearing on their life after death; therefore, suffering is useless, an inexplicable mystery of God’s creation.
To a Catholic, suffering can be beneficial. In the Gospel, Jesus reminds us that the towers that fell on some apparently innocent people could fall on bad people. Both good and bad suffer. St. Paul wrote that he made up in his own suffering what was lacking in Christ’s; namely, St. Paul’s participation. Just as Christ suffered to atone for sins, so can we, by offering our suffering in union with Christ’s suffering on the cross. We atone not just for our sins but also for the sins of others, just as a mother suffers in childbirth for the sake of her child. The suffering of a child, too young to know about Christ, can be borne by his parents in this same spirit of atonement.
Our understanding of suffering clearly depends on our understanding of human life, here and after death; however, there are secondary benefits from suffering that all can appreciate:
-
Code:
Suffering reminds us of our vulnerability and our dependence on others – especially on God. -
Code:
Suffering reminds us to have a concern for our neighbors, thereby drawing us out of ourselves. In our imperfect state on earth, we would all become selfish if suffering wasn’t present. -
Code:
Suffering associated with our own behavior reminds us to correct our behavior.
-
Code:
Suffering reminds us of the temporary aspects of worldly life and the permanent aspects of eternal life. -
Code:
Suffering enkindles hope, especially the hope for heaven, for life after death. This hope overcomes the dismal existence of a pointless life. God is good. He permits suffering and evil only when a greater good will result, just as persecutions have always led to increased faith. Good people might die if God foresees that they would later turn evil and lose their souls if they live.
F
Fran65
Guest
Amen!
R
RubyT
Guest
Strictly philosophical…
How can their be good without evil. To give a definition of good, one must use the word evil as the oppossing opposite. We can only know what Good is by comparison with evil. How would we know what good actually is if evil did not exist?
If we lived in a world which was purely good; how would we discern it, how would we know it?
For example: can an atom exist without both protons and electrons ie. the positive and the negative?
This good and evil is just part of how the universe is made. God is all good but he needed the opposing theories in order to create the universe. As atoms would not exist without both the positive and the negative. Such as Good can not exist in the physical universe without evil.
Ok so thats my philosphy about it and I could keep rambling but I will spare you. Now thats a good thing.
How can their be good without evil. To give a definition of good, one must use the word evil as the oppossing opposite. We can only know what Good is by comparison with evil. How would we know what good actually is if evil did not exist?
If we lived in a world which was purely good; how would we discern it, how would we know it?
For example: can an atom exist without both protons and electrons ie. the positive and the negative?
This good and evil is just part of how the universe is made. God is all good but he needed the opposing theories in order to create the universe. As atoms would not exist without both the positive and the negative. Such as Good can not exist in the physical universe without evil.
Ok so thats my philosphy about it and I could keep rambling but I will spare you. Now thats a good thing.
M
mjperri88
Guest
Hello!
This is a topic which needs hardcore studying. First of all how can a topic like this begin without defining our terms. Evil in the Judeo-Christian way of life, which we are talking about, is defined as the absence of a good which should be present. Therefore we have physical and moral evils. Physical being missing an arm or leg; this type of evil God can and does will in order to save us or others. Example: If having the gift of sight would cause me to lust and eventually damnation he may will me to be blind. (this forces us to remember that everything is a gift). Then, we have moral evils in which God does not will (active will and permissive will) actively because of the principle of non-contradiction. It is ilogical for God to actively will moral evil and He is complete logic. But he can permissively allow it in His infinite wisdom to occur for a greater good, which we don’t always perceive because we are finite and He is infinite. There is mystery and to deny that is to deny the true poverty of spirit in which it is to be human. We can’t prove the existence of the trinity or the Eucharist but we can show that it is rational and logical to believe in it. Thanks and God Bless.
This is a topic which needs hardcore studying. First of all how can a topic like this begin without defining our terms. Evil in the Judeo-Christian way of life, which we are talking about, is defined as the absence of a good which should be present. Therefore we have physical and moral evils. Physical being missing an arm or leg; this type of evil God can and does will in order to save us or others. Example: If having the gift of sight would cause me to lust and eventually damnation he may will me to be blind. (this forces us to remember that everything is a gift). Then, we have moral evils in which God does not will (active will and permissive will) actively because of the principle of non-contradiction. It is ilogical for God to actively will moral evil and He is complete logic. But he can permissively allow it in His infinite wisdom to occur for a greater good, which we don’t always perceive because we are finite and He is infinite. There is mystery and to deny that is to deny the true poverty of spirit in which it is to be human. We can’t prove the existence of the trinity or the Eucharist but we can show that it is rational and logical to believe in it. Thanks and God Bless.
F
frankblahnik
Guest
I copied this over from a “Does hell exist?” thread. It seemed pertinent to this thread. Thank you kms123 for your post.
And thank you joandarc2008 for this thread.
J
joandarc2008
Guest
If you remember the WHOLE biblical story - after God made a covenant with man. He promised that there would never again be another flood to cause that destruction and sealed this promise with a rainbow (Gee- not just a gay pride symbol). So you could say that much good came out of it because later in the Bible we are given the gift that allow all of us to reach salvation: Jesus. So my friend all I have to say is: Update!
God bless,
S
SeanTom
Guest
Perhaps the greatest trial for faith is the puzzle of why evil and suffering exists. If God is all-powerful and loves mankind, as the Bible teaches, why does He permit the good to suffer and the evil to prosper, as so often happens? Why does He permit poverty and illness and war, which destroys innocent and guilty alike?
This is the commonest objection to belief in God and there is no slick answer to it. It is a question which religious thinkers in every age have grappled with and no-one has yet come up with a satisfactory explanation. All we can do here is offer a few strands of thought which might point in the direction of a solution.
This puzzle is the theme of the anonymous Book of Job, one of the great masterpieces of ancient literature. God allows Satan to test Job’s faith by taking away this good man’s wealth, his children, and finally his health. Most of the Book consists of Job’s poetic agonies, for the philosophical problem proved to be more painful than pain itself. His friends were no help. They simply concluded that he was being punished for some great sins he had committed. But the simplistic view that virtue is always rewarded would never square with the undeserved suffering of Jesus, the only sinless man that ever lived.
What sort of world would it be in which suffering or unexpected deaths were totally eliminated? Clearly it would be a very different world from the one we live in now. First of all, the physical environment would have to be different. A world in which, for example, there could be no earthquakes, no droughts, no flood, no hurricanes, no disease, would have to be a physically different world from the one we live in. Is such a physically different world possible? Modern science seems to suggest that it isn’t. The basic laws of physics are so finely turned that even a minute change in them would reduce the universe to chaos. If this is the case then it looks as though the laws which make it possible for us to exist at all are the same laws which create the conditions in which suffering is possible.
But even if the physical world could be changed so as to eliminate the possibility of diseases and natural disasters, that would not solve the problem. There still remains the suffering which human beings inflict on themselves and on each other. To change that would mean changing people. Their freedom of choice would have to be destroyed, for people cannot have true freedom unless the possibility of misusing it is there. Would it be a better world if we had no free choice; if we were all programmed automations? Would such an existence, with all suffering eliminated, be worth having?
Jesus Himself offered a key to part of the riddle when He said that our heavenly Father “makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” Reason, free will, and a bounteous environment are gifts from God to all men, good and bad alike, to use as they wish. But man is sinful; and, in consequence, the society he creates includes many injustices. The poor, the underprivileged, the war victims, and the criminals all arise out of this imperfect society. But they are man’s doing, not God’s.
There are glimpses of a loving purpose even in the ills and misfortunes of life. Pain, a common mode of suffering, is needed to warn us when we touch a hot stove or when we have appendicitis. Gravity, which causes a disabled plane to crash, is necessary to hold us on our planet and to keep the elements of the universe in balance. Unhappiness is simply the dark side of our capacity to feel happiness. The need to work for a living enables us to fulfill our abilities and saves us from becoming a race of jellyfish.
Suffering, then, seems to be a consequence of the way things are. But it would be a mistake to think that God is indifferent to suffering, or worse—that He deliberately inflicts it.
Christians believe that God has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. And in Jesus Christ God has subjected Himself to the consequences of the universe He has created. When Jesus died in terrible agony on the cross, He showed himself to be at one with a suffering humanity. He also showed that suffering can be transformed into life; that evil can be overcome by love.
This does not fully explain why there is suffering in the world, but it does perhaps help us to glimpse the meaning of suffering; that it is not all a futile waste.
The Apostle Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”?
Although we can not fully understand why God permits suffering or why He permits some of us to die at an early age, we do know that He has a plan. We know that His son Jesus also suffered and died at an early age. We have no doubt that God also suffered when His son was crucified and died on the cross. We have no doubt that God feels a hurt when we suffer and/or die of unnatural causes. Jesus did not tell us why these events happen, BUT we do know that He is always with us and that He leaves us hope. He made us a promise: He ASSURED us that if we follow Him, we WILL enter His Kingdom where there will be no suffering and where will live in peace and happiness forever.
The Devil was given rule, or reign, over the evil in the world today. Unfortunately, evil people can and will hurt good people. This is where the evil people use the choice that God has given them and they opt to hurt the good people of the earth., The good will suffer, but as God has promised, the good will spend an eternity in the peace of God’s Kingdom. Jesus went through this all through His lifetime.
This is the commonest objection to belief in God and there is no slick answer to it. It is a question which religious thinkers in every age have grappled with and no-one has yet come up with a satisfactory explanation. All we can do here is offer a few strands of thought which might point in the direction of a solution.
This puzzle is the theme of the anonymous Book of Job, one of the great masterpieces of ancient literature. God allows Satan to test Job’s faith by taking away this good man’s wealth, his children, and finally his health. Most of the Book consists of Job’s poetic agonies, for the philosophical problem proved to be more painful than pain itself. His friends were no help. They simply concluded that he was being punished for some great sins he had committed. But the simplistic view that virtue is always rewarded would never square with the undeserved suffering of Jesus, the only sinless man that ever lived.
What sort of world would it be in which suffering or unexpected deaths were totally eliminated? Clearly it would be a very different world from the one we live in now. First of all, the physical environment would have to be different. A world in which, for example, there could be no earthquakes, no droughts, no flood, no hurricanes, no disease, would have to be a physically different world from the one we live in. Is such a physically different world possible? Modern science seems to suggest that it isn’t. The basic laws of physics are so finely turned that even a minute change in them would reduce the universe to chaos. If this is the case then it looks as though the laws which make it possible for us to exist at all are the same laws which create the conditions in which suffering is possible.
But even if the physical world could be changed so as to eliminate the possibility of diseases and natural disasters, that would not solve the problem. There still remains the suffering which human beings inflict on themselves and on each other. To change that would mean changing people. Their freedom of choice would have to be destroyed, for people cannot have true freedom unless the possibility of misusing it is there. Would it be a better world if we had no free choice; if we were all programmed automations? Would such an existence, with all suffering eliminated, be worth having?
Jesus Himself offered a key to part of the riddle when He said that our heavenly Father “makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” Reason, free will, and a bounteous environment are gifts from God to all men, good and bad alike, to use as they wish. But man is sinful; and, in consequence, the society he creates includes many injustices. The poor, the underprivileged, the war victims, and the criminals all arise out of this imperfect society. But they are man’s doing, not God’s.
There are glimpses of a loving purpose even in the ills and misfortunes of life. Pain, a common mode of suffering, is needed to warn us when we touch a hot stove or when we have appendicitis. Gravity, which causes a disabled plane to crash, is necessary to hold us on our planet and to keep the elements of the universe in balance. Unhappiness is simply the dark side of our capacity to feel happiness. The need to work for a living enables us to fulfill our abilities and saves us from becoming a race of jellyfish.
Suffering, then, seems to be a consequence of the way things are. But it would be a mistake to think that God is indifferent to suffering, or worse—that He deliberately inflicts it.
Christians believe that God has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. And in Jesus Christ God has subjected Himself to the consequences of the universe He has created. When Jesus died in terrible agony on the cross, He showed himself to be at one with a suffering humanity. He also showed that suffering can be transformed into life; that evil can be overcome by love.
This does not fully explain why there is suffering in the world, but it does perhaps help us to glimpse the meaning of suffering; that it is not all a futile waste.
The Apostle Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”?
Although we can not fully understand why God permits suffering or why He permits some of us to die at an early age, we do know that He has a plan. We know that His son Jesus also suffered and died at an early age. We have no doubt that God also suffered when His son was crucified and died on the cross. We have no doubt that God feels a hurt when we suffer and/or die of unnatural causes. Jesus did not tell us why these events happen, BUT we do know that He is always with us and that He leaves us hope. He made us a promise: He ASSURED us that if we follow Him, we WILL enter His Kingdom where there will be no suffering and where will live in peace and happiness forever.
The Devil was given rule, or reign, over the evil in the world today. Unfortunately, evil people can and will hurt good people. This is where the evil people use the choice that God has given them and they opt to hurt the good people of the earth., The good will suffer, but as God has promised, the good will spend an eternity in the peace of God’s Kingdom. Jesus went through this all through His lifetime.
F
Fred_Costello
Guest
My guess is that, if Adam and Eve had not sinned, we would still have earthquakes and tsunamis but that nobody would suffer from them.
M
Michael_David
Guest
Sean, when mentioning Job and his loss of wealth, family and personal health… but, what was it he did not loose?
Job lost a lot in this “temporal” world, but in the “spiritual” realm, nothing was lost, and even a gain was made.
So, here I come back to what is evil (really)? Does one only see the physical realities and call them evil? Does one see the emotional and mental suffering and call them evil? Or does one see the spiritual (soul) and what is going on there while the outer realities are viewed and taken for what is happening at the spiritual level?
So too, what is the worst evil that can befall a person?
I have talked with terminally ill people, and believe it or not, they have lifted my spirits (like why should I feel so down, I am not facing what they are). Is it evil that has befell them? Or a blessing of the soul… they seem to say a blessing… like Job.
It would appear that our eye’s see on one plane of existence; our hearts on another plane of existence; and our soul on another… while we live in all these plane’s of being at once. Which is the greatest loss to loose?
What was it that Christ could do no miracles in His own hometown? What was that town looking at when they saw Him? Did it change ‘who’ Christ was? No! It seems to boil down to the thing called Faith… and on what plane does that exist?
So the real evil would be on the spiritual plane (where satan is). But by the same token, on the physical and (lack of) emotions on the planes that one sees, things look good and prosperous (to be envied sorta)… not suffering or in pain. But looking at the spiritual plane, what does one see? Is it so dark that one needs a flash-light to see what’s there? Here, the ‘where one’s treasure is, there their heart will be’ becomes helpful.
Does evil always relate to pain/suffering? Depends on what level we are discussing, and what it would take to cause that pain or suffering on that level. Why is one given this (earthly) life?
Job lost a lot in this “temporal” world, but in the “spiritual” realm, nothing was lost, and even a gain was made.
So, here I come back to what is evil (really)? Does one only see the physical realities and call them evil? Does one see the emotional and mental suffering and call them evil? Or does one see the spiritual (soul) and what is going on there while the outer realities are viewed and taken for what is happening at the spiritual level?
So too, what is the worst evil that can befall a person?
I have talked with terminally ill people, and believe it or not, they have lifted my spirits (like why should I feel so down, I am not facing what they are). Is it evil that has befell them? Or a blessing of the soul… they seem to say a blessing… like Job.
It would appear that our eye’s see on one plane of existence; our hearts on another plane of existence; and our soul on another… while we live in all these plane’s of being at once. Which is the greatest loss to loose?
What was it that Christ could do no miracles in His own hometown? What was that town looking at when they saw Him? Did it change ‘who’ Christ was? No! It seems to boil down to the thing called Faith… and on what plane does that exist?
So the real evil would be on the spiritual plane (where satan is). But by the same token, on the physical and (lack of) emotions on the planes that one sees, things look good and prosperous (to be envied sorta)… not suffering or in pain. But looking at the spiritual plane, what does one see? Is it so dark that one needs a flash-light to see what’s there? Here, the ‘where one’s treasure is, there their heart will be’ becomes helpful.
Does evil always relate to pain/suffering? Depends on what level we are discussing, and what it would take to cause that pain or suffering on that level. Why is one given this (earthly) life?
S
SeanTom
Guest
Michael David,
Good posting. Gets one to think what evil really is and how it effects each one of us. You might say there is good evil (evil that promotes a stronger faith in the recipient) and bad evil, which is self explanatory. Interesting concept.
Good posting. Gets one to think what evil really is and how it effects each one of us. You might say there is good evil (evil that promotes a stronger faith in the recipient) and bad evil, which is self explanatory. Interesting concept.
W
wcknight
Guest
Folks who lament the existence of evil and suffering forget that this is EARTH not Heaven. In Heaven no evil exists and no suffering exists.
So many folks complain that these things exist. We all want the rewards but no one is willing to pay the price to get it. IF you truly want to be rid of evil and suffering THEN do everything that you can to get into Heaven because that is where suffering and evil can no longer touch you. Pain and suffering are part of the price of admission, the other part is love.
IF Adam and Eve did not sin, then there would be no suffering. But as it stands suffering exists and one of the reasons for its existence is for reparation for our sins. It is the one way that God could prove to us how much He loves us.
From Christ’s suffering and death, our sins are forgiven. It’s one thing to say you love someone, but it is much more convincing when they have to suffer and die for you.
So many folks complain that these things exist. We all want the rewards but no one is willing to pay the price to get it. IF you truly want to be rid of evil and suffering THEN do everything that you can to get into Heaven because that is where suffering and evil can no longer touch you. Pain and suffering are part of the price of admission, the other part is love.
IF Adam and Eve did not sin, then there would be no suffering. But as it stands suffering exists and one of the reasons for its existence is for reparation for our sins. It is the one way that God could prove to us how much He loves us.
From Christ’s suffering and death, our sins are forgiven. It’s one thing to say you love someone, but it is much more convincing when they have to suffer and die for you.
H
Harri_Laaksonen
Guest
The Vatican Information Service has a post of today’s message from the Pope that deals with this very question. Not too long and certainly deals with some of the mystery while declaring that we humans probably will never understand it fully, God is in charge and Evil is subordinate to the good.
M
Michael_David
Guest
Yes Harri, it is mysterious to the mind-intellect… but seems perfectly understandable to the spirit.
However, I wish to ponder your last part “God is in charge and Evil is subordinate…”
Christ did cast out demons… one even preferred to get put into a pig as I remember it told. Since this is the way it is here on earth,it would seem that evil is an aid for our spiritual gain and getting closer to God through it. For lack of putting it in different terms, it seems the world is the stage for our Salvation through Christ, as He led the Way. It wasn’t all ‘peaches and cream’ for Him either, from what could be seen from this vantage point on earth… until 3 days later.
I do like your postscript, Spiritual Beings on a Human Journey.
You know how hard it is to keep that on the top of the mind while on that journey? Ah, the challenge!
- Status