Why doesn't God take free will away from Bad people?

[HarryStotle]

I merely point out the contradiction between God’s alleged loving nature and the obviously unnecessary and gratuitous pain and suffering. If you wish to contend that the pain and suffering is NOT unnecessary, go ahead and bring up arguments for it. But you have your work cut out for you. You need to bring up evidence that ALL the pains and sufferings are actually “good” in disguise. Start with the Holocaust. And continue with the pains and sufferings coming from the process of teething. How can you explain those AWAY?

Well, no actually, the onus is on you to prove definitively that unnecessary and gratuitous pain does exist. You are making the claim that some pains are “obviously” unnecessary and gratuitous.

It isn’t even a requirement to prove that all pains and sufferings are “actually ‘good’ in disguise,” but merely that there is good reason to believe they might be necessary.

Teething pain is clearly intended to stop the child from biting down too hard and causing injury to the gum and growing tooth. It may also be necessary to develop a threshold for pain tolerance.

The problem, for you, is that your claim is based upon a “for all we know” type of grounding. Presumably, God, having infallible access and knowledge with regard to all consequences of every act or event from the beginning to the end of time, he would be in a far better position than you or I with regard to whether any particular event is unnecessary or gratuitous. We may have our opinions on the matter, but our opinions are not fully warranted because we do not have access to all repercussions related to that event.

In principle, then, we cannot make infallible proclamations regarding the gratuitous quality of certain events, nor whether they are necessary towards some future outcome which may, in fact, warrant the event as far as God is concerned.

 

[HarryStotle]

It certainly does. Love is acting in the best interest of another. Someone, who does NOT act in the best interest of others cannot claim any kind of “love”.

Here, the problem for you lies in explicating precisely what “the best interests” of anyone actually are. This is distinct from what you as the purported “lover” think those “best interests” are and distinct from what the beloved individual believes their “best interests” are, but in what those interests actually turn out to be.

Now if God exists as the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent Creator of all that exists, then no one – not you, nor I, nor any other created being – could possibly be in a better position to determine what “best interests” actually consist in than God would be. God would, then, in principle and by logical necessity, be a superlatively better judge regarding the nature of “best interests,” than anyone else could possibly be.

This would be a logical constraint on your argument, so you cannot consistently claim that we – limited as we are – could possibly be justified in claiming that our determinations of “best interests” would outweigh God’s. Ergo, you cannot use this as an argument against God’s activity, as the omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent agent, without serious circular reasoning.

Basically, you would be saddled with the position that human determinations regarding “best interests” outweigh, IN PRINCIPLE, every other determination, including those by the omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God – i.e., we would know better than God what our best interests actually are. I doubt that position can be credibly defended.

 

[HarryStotle]

Since there are several good possible decisions that can be made, you are not converted into some “robot” if all your available choices are good ones. What is the point to make “bad” decisions? Can you give any reasons for “making bad decisions”?

The problem here is that you are the one defining “several good possible decisions” by your standard of “good.” For all you know, morally speaking from God’s perspective, these “good possible decisions” might, in fact, be bad or even awful decisions. So a morally perfect being may have a completely other set of options regarding “good possible decisions.”

So the quandary, I suppose, for God who is concerned with forming good and autonomous moral agents is to insure that decisions are, after all, chosen autonomously by the agent, rather than programmed into them. They wouldn’t after all be YOUR decisions if YOU wouldn’t have chosen them. So how could God make those “good possible decisions” YOUR decisions without them arising from YOUR autonomy, YOUR creativity, YOUR character, and YOUR moral state? Such “decisions” would have nothing to do with you or your agency.

 

[Theo520]

Since there are several good possible decisions that can be made, you are not converted into some “robot” if all your available choices are good ones. What is the point to make “bad” decisions? Can you give any reasons for “making bad decisions”?

Bad decisions are very instructive. I’ve learned from both my mistakes and the error of others.

I also don’t trust another person to always know what are the acceptable ‘good’ decisions.

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

No… the teacher has left plenty of material for his students.

Enumerate them, please.

Don’t need to – you’ve already admitted to their existence:

Scowler:

You have three “fonts” for your arguments, that you try to use to establish your credibility:

1. The Bible.
2. The Sacred Tradition.
3. The Magisterium (the teaching authority of the church).

See? You claim there is nothing, but you admit that you know what they are. In other words, your claim is a lie.

Oh, you don’t agree that they’re valid, but that wasn’t your claim: your claim was that none exist. Thanks for making it easy for me to demonstrate the falsity of your claims. It’s always a cakewalk when my interlocutor disproves his own claims.

Where does the teacher claim it? In the Bible? But you already denied that the Bible can be read literally.

No I didn’t. My claim was that there are parts of the Bible that aren’t literal historical descriptions. Not all, but parts. Go ahead and re-read my claim.

What arguments? Would you provide some? Are there any arguments to explain the silence of God? The problem of evil?

Of course there are. And you’re well aware of them.

1. there is nothing to listen to.
2. The actual teacher never communicated anything

You’ve already admitted that you know that there’s no silence. Don’t demean yourself by continuing to suggest otherwise.

1. Only the student is qualified to decide if the “teaching” was adequate.

No. The student can agree that he failed to learn. Whether the “teaching was adequate” isn’t in the scope of a student’s competence.

It is not unreasonable to ask for an explanation which is given in the language that the student hears and understands.

When other students hear and understand, and they have no greater competency than the student who claims not to hear, then we have to consider whether the student’s claim to be listening is a claim in good faith.

1. The Bible is a human collection of stories made by unknown human authors - selected by the substitute teacher.

The teacher gave the substitute the authority to set the canon of the Bible.

And even the substitute teacher is unable to separate the factual from the allegorical.

Huh? Says who?

Besides you, yourself already discarded its veracity.

Nope. It’s always true, even in those places where it’s not historical narrative.

1. The Sacred Tradition is merely the assertion made by the substitute teacher.

Again, only by the authority given by the teacher.

1. The Magisterium is just another claim that the “real teacher” gave the sufficient authority to the “substitute teacher”.

OK… on what basis would you concede “sufficient authority”, then? If there’s no possibility for that conclusion, then you’re setting up a premise that – a priori – can never be fulfilled. That’s just unreasonable.

 

[Victorygirl]

It seems really obvious to me Why evil is not stopped. It’s ying/yang is I can use that expression. In order to have acts of heroism, coursge, compassion, sacrifice, martyrdom, etc., there has to be the exact opposite or those things would be meaningless.

 

[Scowler]

It isn’t even a requirement to prove that all pains and sufferings are “actually ‘good’ in disguise,” but merely that there is good reason to believe they might be necessary.

You gotta be kidding. There is no good reason to believe that all sufferings “might be” necessary. This type “reasoning” leads to idea, that this is the best possible world, which is - again - sheer nonsense. As a matter of fact there is a very good reason to present the argument that there are NO necessary sufferings at all. The alleged omnipotence of God could circumvent any and all sufferings, except the ones that are logically necessary to achieve some “greater” good, and even God’s alleged omnipotence cannot remove or lessen the suffering without jeopardizing that “greater” good. Good luck with trying to present such a “greater good”.

Teething pain is clearly intended to stop the child from biting down too hard and causing injury to the gum and growing tooth.

This is baloney. The pain comes from the teeth forcing their way through the soft gums. And there is no reason why that process should be painful. The toddler cannot “learn from it”, is unable to “offer up” his suffering. The suffering come from the inferior “design”. A perfect example of gratuitous suffering.

Presumably, God, having infallible access and knowledge with regard to all consequences of every act or event from the beginning to the end of time, he would be in a far better position than you or I with regard to whether any particular event is unnecessary or gratuitous.

That is the quintessential “blind faith”. There is no a-priori acceptance of “presumably”. If you wish to argue that the Holocaust or any other instances are genocide was “necessary” and preventing them would entail some even worse result, go ahead… make my day.

 

[Scowler]

It seems really obvious to me Why evil is not stopped. It’s ying/yang is I can use that expression. In order to have acts of heroism, coursge, compassion, sacrifice, martyrdom, etc., there has to be the exact opposite or those things would be meaningless.

Yes, they would be. And who would miss them? Who says that those alleged “positive” outcomes are worth the sufferings? I would say: “let those opposites disappear”. What you do here is a good example of “sour grapes”. Let all heroism, courage, sacrifice, martyrdom disappear. To bring them up as “desirable” actions is simply “rationalizing”.

You need to bring up some actual arguments that the sufferings are “valuable” on their own right. To say that some alleged “positive” events would not be possible without the obviously negative events needs to be proven. Just a very simple and maybe simplistic observation: if there would be no instance of tooth decay (a very few people have perfect dentition with perfect enamel protection) there would be no need for root canal - for example. Who needs the “goodness” of root canal, if one can have perfect dentition.

 

[FollowChrist34]

So he can send people to hell. duh…

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Seriously, it is an excellent question. I don’t think any of us really know, and that would include the Church. Allowing evil/the existence of evil is a mystery. If we are to be truly free, the argument runs, i.e., possess full human dignity, then we must truly be free, to reject God, good, to sin. I have argued more than once that giving us all this freedom is not unlike giving a two year a little key and setting him/her down in front of an electric plug outlet and a toy car. Good luck getting it right.

 

[HarryStotle]

Just as a general observation: your moniker is clearly an apt one.

I suppose that just asserting or declaring things to be “baloney” or “blind faith” might evoke a stimulating discussion among the smirking clown troupe you regularly hang out with, but unless you are going to try to understand and respond to what I actually wrote, your pontificating here will be a colossal waste of everyone’s time.

If you seriously want your bluster and verbal assaults to convey something approaching a meaningful perspective, you might make some serious effort reworking your overall approach. As it is, we are being left with the indelible impression that you are still supremely miffed about having failed that Turing Test last week. Besides, you are frightening the babies and old ladies.

Case in point:

Teething pain is clearly intended to stop the child from biting down too hard and causing injury to the gum and growing tooth.

This is baloney. The pain comes from the teeth forcing their way through the soft gums. And there is no reason why that process should be painful. The toddler cannot “learn from it”, is unable to “offer up” his suffering. The suffering come from the inferior “design”. A perfect example of gratuitous suffering.

So without God, would there be an evolutionary reason for teething pain? If not, then why shouldn’t, evolutionarily speaking, teething be as painless as, say, growing hair or nails? I mean, if as you say, “there is no reason why that process should be painful?”

Misreading my point as “unable to offer up,” or “cannot learn from it,” is to completely miss it. The fact that you left out “It may also be necessary to develop a threshold for pain tolerance” when quoting what I wrote, strikes me as somewhat disingenuous. Developing a threshold for pain has nothing to do with “offering up” suffering or “learning from” it. Pain threshold or tolerance is physiological in nature. The capacity to tolerate pain is embedded in physiology, not a lesson to be learned or a spiritual exercise. Someone unexposed to any pain whatsoever would have a difficult time dealing with even small doses of it. Kind of like being berated by you is something we all need to get used to in order to develop a tolerance for it – so we can shrug off your vituperation with the certainty that if you weren’t here posting on CAF you’d be out giving all those disagreeable and bossy signposts on the street a piece of your mind.

 

[Scowler]

Just as a general observation: your moniker is clearly an apt one.

Do you have any idea what it means and where does it come from? It has nothing to do with “scowling”. In Asimov’s Second Foundation, there are some Hamish farmers, who mispronounce the word “Scholar” and it became “Scowler”. I found this little pun very cute (I am a sucker for puns maybe even for a suckerpunch ). That is the origin of my screen name. Of course “I am a scholar” in real life; or using the Hamish vernacular “I be Scowler”. Oh, and the word Hamish has nothing to do with the hairy cows in Scotland.

Someone unexposed to any pain whatsoever would have a difficult time dealing with even small doses of it.

If one subscribes to the hypothesis, that pain can have some good “side effects”, as they can work as a warning sign, indicating that something is wrong, or should be avoided - that is also an inferior solution. Serious problems, like cancer are painless in the first stages, when it could be treated. So the alleged creator did a pretty bad job, when he designed it.

A good, loving creator would not allow any pain - since there is no logical reason for it. Plant life has no pain receptors, and it simply regrows lost parts. How much more loving to spare the pain and give the ability of regeneration instead. The lowly Planaria can regenerate itself, even if you cut it into pieces.

By the way, one does not need omnipotence and omniscience to discover “design” flaws or needless features. Maybe you could spend your time in pondering the “good reasons” for the Holocaust. The assertion, that God knows best, and we are not in the position to criticize is lame - it is called “blind faith”.

The problem with you guys - in general - that you are all unwilling to think outside the “box”, and when someone presents a valid problem, you try to “whitewash” God, or “explain away” the obvious design flaws, instead of actually contemplating that there was no design, the world is just what it is, without rhyme or reason. The problem of evil is the untreatable “thorn” in the side of Christianity. The idea of a good, loving creator is simply incompatible with the existing state of affairs.

By the way, I find your screen name pretty cool. A good composite name, and my guess is that you hold Aristotle in high regard. Which is merited, since he was a pure genius - of his time. Unfortunately in his day and age he was limited by the general ignorance of his environment. I am quite sure that if he lived today, he would quickly repudiate his old teaching.

 

[HarryStotle]

By the way, one does not need omnipotence and omniscience to discover “design” flaws or needless features. Maybe you could spend your time in pondering the “good reasons” for the Holocaust. The assertion, that God knows best, and we are not in the position to criticize is lame - it is called “blind faith”.

No actually, it isn’t “lame” nor is it “blind faith.” This is the point you seem unable to grasp. It actually follows logically from the concepts of omniscience and omnibenevolence. If those are true, then a number of conclusions follow, namely that anyone in possession of those two characteristics would be the undisputed moral authority. There is simply no logical way that lesser beings with limited knowledge and limited goodness could be in a better position to judge what is best or right in any given circumstance.

So you cannot use our limited position to rule out a posteriori the existence of the omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God on the basis of our moral judgements. You would be, essentially, begging the question since your claim would amount to no omniscient and omnibenevolent God could possibly exist because our limited moral judgements necessarily entail that God would have to see things our way and no other with regard to pain and suffering. That is a pretty bold move, tantamount to claiming our view is the de facto omniscient and omnibenevolent one.

The argument would be…

If the omniscient and omnibenevolent God exists then his moral judgements regarding pain and suffering are, by necessity, the most morally astute and reliable.

Human beings are not omniscient nor omnibenevolent.

Therefore, our moral judgements regarding pain and suffering are less astute and reliable than the judgements of the omniscient and omnibenevolent God, should God exist.

Since our moral judgements are, in principle, less reliable and astute than those of God, we cannot use our fallible and unreliable judgements to rule out the existence of God.

Therefore you need to demonstrate human moral judgements, specifically yours on pain and suffering are perfectly reliable and infallible in order to show that the omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent God could not exist if he allows the pain and suffering you decry.

The problem with you guys - in general - that you are all unwilling to think outside the “box”, and when someone presents a valid problem, you try to “whitewash” God, or “explain away” the obvious design flaws, instead of actually contemplating that there was no design, the world is just what it is, without rhyme or reason. The problem of evil is the untreatable “thorn” in the side of Christianity. The idea of a good, loving creator is simply incompatible with the existing state of affairs.

I’ve thought outside that box and remain unconvinced. The problem isn’t “valid” unless you prove your moral authority is inerrant and infallible.

 

[HarryStotle]

By the way, one does not need omnipotence and omniscience to discover “design” flaws or needless features. Maybe you could spend your time in pondering the “good reasons” for the Holocaust. The assertion, that God knows best, and we are not in the position to criticize is lame - it is called “blind faith”.

Sure, if we are considering flaws or needless features only within the scope of the thing itself, but that doesn’t define the nature of the problem in its entirety. We aren’t speaking of suffering, pain, design flaws or limitations in isolation, we are speaking of relative to all of creation as the moral landscape fully understood and accounted for. A small or large pain here or there may appear innocuous or gratuitous at the moment in isolation, but it may, in fact, make a huge difference with regard to the near or far future consequences. History is rife with incidents where the shape of someone’s nose or a little tiff between friends or enemies led to a cascade of enormously significant fallout events. We cannot possibly account for all of those from our limited perspective within time and space. God, presumably, could. There is no way, not even in theory, that we could know better than omniscience and omnibenevolence which events are gratuitous and which are necessary in the full scheme of things.

Therefore, we cannot logically argue that we have sufficient knowledge and goodness to necessarily conclude that any events and actions are gratuitous or needless, though they may appear that way to us.

 

[Scowler]

This is the point you seem unable to grasp. It actually follows logically from the concepts of omniscience and omni-benevolence. If those are true, then a number of conclusions follow, namely that anyone in possession of those two characteristics would be the undisputed moral authority.

Let me emphasize your words “if those are true”. That is exactly what is being disputed!

You try the base your argument on “God knows best” and therefore this is the “best possible world”, and as such not subject to criticism. The “best possible world” concept introduced by Leibniz is easily refuted by the observation that the world is dynamic, not static. There are all sorts of changes happening every second. Either the state of affairs before the change or after the change is not “best”, since they contradict each other. So this world cannot be the “best possible world”.

Therefore, we cannot logically argue that we have sufficient knowledge and goodness to necessarily conclude that any events and actions are gratuitous or needless, though they may appear that way to us.

Sure we can. We do it all the time. That is the “duck-principle” that we use every instance of our life. We base our decisions upon what “seems” to be the reality and what “seems” to be good or bad. No sane person would stand aside and leave a kidnapping happen if he could prevent it. No sane person would look at a rape, and argue: “well, since God does not interfere, this must be the best solution. I would not wish to step in and thwart God’s ‘perfect’ plan. After all I am NOT omniscient, and as such I have no right to interfere”.

It is true that we might be mistaken, precisely because we lack those omni-attributes. But that is just a “might be”. If you wish to criticize, you need to bring up concrete arguments, why a specific instance is in error. Obviously you are unable to do it. God - presumably - could. But since he is silent, we can safely use the argument: “if God did not like it, he could have interfered. Since he did not, it looks like that he accepted it. Silence is acceptance”.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

This is the point you seem unable to grasp. It actually follows logically from the concepts of omniscience and omni-benevolence. If those are true, then a number of conclusions follow, namely that anyone in possession of those two characteristics would be the undisputed moral authority.

Let me emphasize your words “if those are true”. That is exactly what is being disputed!

Well yeah! That is what is being disputed.

Let me remind you that your supposed argument starts out with the exact same supposition:

“If God exists…” or “If it is true that God exists…” then he could and should remove all gratuitous and unnecessary suffering. This is precisely the supposition that your argument rests upon, so you cannot use the supposition to reach your conclusion, because the supposition itself (should it hold true) would disprove that your conclusion necessarily follows.

Therefore my reply: "If God (aka the omniscient and omnibenevolent Creator of all that is) exists, then God would have access to all possible consequences of evil acts involving pain and suffering and he alone would be in the position to determine if any suffering were indeed unnecessary or gratuitous. We, limited as we are, would not be in a position to determine over God that what appears to us to be gratuitous or unnecessary suffering actually is.

Thus, if God exists, then we could not, in principle, be able to use the gratuitous or unnecessary nature of suffering as an argument against the existence of God.

The upshot is that both of our arguments have the same “if is it true that” dependency, but mine logically demonstrates that your conclusion does not follow from “If it is true that God exists.”

Now you might take a step away from the conditional and just make a blanket statement that gratuitous and unnecessary evil do, in fact, exist and we know that with certainty.

But then, the counter point would be that we cannot possibly know that blanket statement is true absent a moral perspective that takes into account all events through to the conclusion of history – i.e., we would need to have access to God’s perspective to draw your conclusion. We simply do not have that kind of access to the moral landscape, so we cannot say with certainty that any particular suffering is, indeed, gratuitous or unnecessary in the larger scheme of things.

Suffering may appear to us from our limited perspective as gratuitous or unnecessary, but we are in no position to know that with certainty. Therefore, you cannot use it as an argument against the existence of God who would presumably have access to that absolute perspective and would then be the only one who could decide the question. We could not.

Your argument would not have the force it needs to be irrefutable whether or not God does actually exist. Therefore it cannot be used to disprove the existence of God with or without the supposition.

 

[Scowler]

Let me remind you that your supposed argument starts out with the exact same supposition:

“If God exists…” or “If it is true that God exists…” then he could and should remove all gratuitous and unnecessary suffering.

Not exactly. It says: “If God exists AND IF God is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent, THEN he would remove all the pains as sufferings, since they do not serve any purpose.” God could exist despite the pain in the world, if he would be malevolent or indifferent. But the existence of lots of goods contradicts the hypothesis that God is (omni)-malevolent. The only rational response is that God is indifferent, or does not exist at all.

Now you might take a step away from the conditional and just make a blanket statement that gratuitous and unnecessary evil do, in fact, exist and we know that with certainty.

Yes, we know that with absolute, Cartesian certainty, because pain and suffering can always be avoided IF God is also omnipotent. After all omnipotence can deal with any state of affairs, EXCEPT logically inconsistent ones. Of course if you remove the hypothesis that God is omnipotent, then you have left nothing to “worship”. (As a matter of fact, the only intellectually honest book, which deals with the problem of evil was written by Rabbi Harry Kushner, and that is exactly the conclusion he reached. Of the three alleged characteristics, he kept the omniscience and the benevolence, and discarded the omnipotence. His conclusion was that God knows about all the evils, would like to fix them, but is unable to do it.)

The problem of evil rests on all these “legs”:

1. God is omnipotent
2. God is omniscient
3. God is omni-benevolent

which is contradicted by the fact that gratuitous pain and suffering exists.

Your argument is simple: “Since we are not omniscient, we cannot know that some pains and sufferings are really gratuitous, or merely seem to be”. But that is incorrect, since an omnipotent being can “deal” with every problem. There cannot be necessary pains and sufferings.

Moreover, every one of YOUR actions implicitly affirms that there are gratuitous sufferings. Every time you take a painkiller to alleviate some pain, you declare that the pain was unnecessary. Every time you (or anyone else) interferes with God’s “perfect” plan and tries to thwart it by removing / lessening / alleviating any pain and suffering you admit that the removal of the pain is the better option, better than allowing it.

Every time we make an improvement, every time we develop a better medication, our action (which speaks much louder than words) affirms that the prior state of affairs is inferior to the improved one. And that has nothing to do with “omniscience” and our alleged limited perspective. Of course I already explained it in the second paragraph of my previous post.

Furthermore, God implicitly agrees by NOT interfering with any of our improvement attempts.

 

[MonteRCMS]

God did not create us to be robots.

 

[HarryStotle]

Not exactly. It says: “If God exists AND IF God is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent, THEN he would remove all the pains as sufferings, since they do not serve any purpose.”

Let’s dissect this just a little bit more to see what underlies your “AND IF” qualifier. (Which, by the way, just seems redundant because God is defined as omnipotent, etc., So why add the second AND IF except as cover for a bit of sophistry regarding the first IF?)

My argument:

If God exists then no gratuitous suffering or unnecessary pain would exist.

God here being defined as "the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and eternal Creator of all. The consistently assumed “given” is the definition of God. I do not change that definition nor alter it in any way.

Your argument:

If “God” exists then no unnecessary pain or gratuitous suffering would exist.

The definition of “God” here being left open as a placeholder for whatever definition you wish to use in order to put to the match the straw “God” you wish to substitute given your “findings” regarding pain and suffering. In other words, you swap out the 3 Omni and eternal God of classical theism and replace him with a maleficent or hobbled “God” to show that such a “God” could be consistent with the current state of moral evil in the world, as you see it.

Well, okay, such a “God” (absent the second AND IF) could be consistent with the state of moral evil in the world, but that doesn’t prove the 3 Omni God of classical theism is NOT consistent with the state of moral evil in the world. You haven’t proven that.

You are equivocating on the word “God” with your second “IF” in order to play fast and loose with the nature of God. Any “God” will do when you present your case against this generic “God” for gratuitous suffering and unnecessary pain, but then you surreptitiously squirrel the 3 Omni God back in when you find only that God guilty and prosecute him for the crime.

The point being, you need to stick with the first premise. Given the God who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, certain things follow, like – for example, that he is omnibenevolent and omniscient – that he would have characteristics and abilities that we do not possess.

Your actual argument, starting as it does from the facts about the world, might point you towards a particular belief about the nature of some “God” or other who might have created it but that is an inductive argument at best. Your conclusion, at best, would be that the 3 Omni God, properly defined, likely did not create the world, although some other “God” may have. Fine.

My claim is that if the 3 Omni God actually does exist (and perhaps is proven in some other way to exist) then, by definition, no suffering or pain would be gratuitous or unnecessary since he, again by definition, would have access to reasons for allowing pain and suffering that we limited as we are within space and time would not have access to.

Continued…

 

[HarryStotle]

Put another way, you are arguing FOR some other version of “God” using the evidential problem of evil. In reality, however, you are not arguing against the 3 Omni God, since if such a God did exist in reality every suffering or pain he allowed could not be gratuitous or unnecessary, by definition. The problem, for you, is that you do not have the wherewithal to know with certainty that the 3 Omni God does not exist precisely because you do not have the wherewithal to conclude with certainty that any pains or sufferings are gratuitous and unnecessary from the point of view of the 3 Omni God.

Your argument is based upon a “for all we know” warrant, but that is insufficient to PROVE the 3 Omni God does NOT exist because if the 3 Omni God does exist he could fill in the “all we DON’T know” moral information, being omniscient and all.

 

[Scowler]

God here being defined as "the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and eternal Creator of all. The consistently assumed “given” is the definition of God. I do not change that definition nor alter it in any way.

That is fine, I do not quarrel with your definition. But you need to prove that your definition has an actual referent in reality. And that is missing. All you have is an empty definition. There are all sorts of definitions which have no referent in reality; which are just characters invented by some story-tellers.

Before we go any further, I have to point out the fact that you commit a logical error. You try to use your definition both as a starting point and as an argument.

Your argument:

1. God is by definition omnipotent and omni-benevolent (etc…).
2. If #1 is true then there cannot be unnecessary instances of pain and suffering, because an omnipotent and omni-benevolent being would not allow unnecessary suffering.
3. Yet, we see all sorts of instances of pain and suffering which SEEM to be unnecessary.
4. But from #1 and #2 we conclude that #3 is just a “measurement error”, what seems to be unnecessary pain and suffering is actually necessary - if only if we would be privy to the necessary information.

Your error is that you try to use your definition of #1 ALSO as an argument in #4. And that is not permitted.

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Now, let’s take your approach and use your definition - as a hypothesis. There is STILL a contradiction in it. You say that every instance of pain and suffering MUST be logically necessary IF your definition is correct. So if we can present at least ONE instance of pain, which is NOT logically necessary, then your hypothesis collapses.

Now, how can we prove this? Very easily. Any pain and suffering that CAN be cured or prevented cannot be logically necessary, since logically necessary “anything” cannot be removed, not even by an omnipotent being. And with the advancement of medical science more and more pains and sufferings are cured and prevented. So there are at least SOME instances of pains which can be removed and as such your hypothesis fails. There are existing pains which are cured by US, and as such they are not logically necessary. Remember, only ONE unnecessary pain is needed to refute the assumption that your definition HAS a referent.

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Then you commit another error. It is not permissible to say: “if only we were privy to the information, we would see, that the pain was necessary…” This is another logical fallacy, called “argumentum ad ignoratiam”. You need to argue upon what we know, not what we don’t know. From this it follows that you must argue based upon what we know (not hypothesize!) and show that every instance of pain is logically necessary, and removing any of those pains would create a much worse state of affairs.

Besides, even in the most serious cases, we do NOT demand absolute, Cartesian certainty (though in this case we actually HAVE it), all we demand that the case be proven beyond any reasonable doubt.